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imasimpforshanks · 4 years ago

Note

Hi there!

I hope you're doing great. Ehm... May I requests Law for either the romantic or the Angst alphabet? I just can't decide that and would like you to choose from it.

I'm really looking forward to your work. Other than that have a nice day/eve. ♡

Fluff Alphabet - Trafalgar Law

a/n: hi there!!! thank you for requesting and for your kind words 💓 I chose the fluff alphabet because our man has suffered enough and I couldn’t handle writing out angst for him 🙃 ANWAYSSSS pls enjoy x

A-Activities (what do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?)

During the little free time he has, Law loves to spend it with you doing anything lowkey. He’s usually pretty exhausted from everything going on, so taking some time to wind down and read a good book with you tucked him next to him reading you’re a book of your own is his ideal way to spend time with you.

That being said, if you are a person who prefers to do something active, Law won’t say no to that (so long as it’s not Luffy level active).

B-Beauty (what do they admire about their s/o? what do they think is beautiful about them?)

Law admires your way of thinking. You always seem to bring a fresh, unique perspective and now he can’t help but ask for your input on everything. This is also what he finds the most beautiful about you. He’s never been one to care that much about what is on the outside. To Law, it’s what is on the inside that counts (who knew law was so cliché;)). Your mind and the way it works is a wonder to behold and Law counts himself very lucky that he is the one that gets to see you in action the most.

C-Comfort (how would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?)

Law takes a very pragmatic approach when it comes to comforting his s/o. He’s a doctor, so its only natural for him to think in this way. He asks you directly what’s wrong and how he could help – it’s the most logical thing to do and the quickest way to ensure you are feeling comforted.

D-Dreams (how do they picture the future with their s/o?)

In the future Law wants to live a simple, quiet life with you. Somewhere secluded and far away from all the noise and chaos of the world. You’ll live in a nice house (nothing too fancy), with a child or two running around acting out their parents’ infamous pirate adventures.

E-Equal (are they the dominant one in the relationship or rather passive?)

He tends to take the more dominant role in the relationship. For the sake of your safety and his sanity, he prefers to be the one to take charge with you following his lead. But, he does still value your input in almost all decisions.

F-Fight (would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?)

Your fights tend to be pretty short lived resulting in forgiveness and apologies from both sides relatively quickly. He really doesn’t like to stay mad at you for too long – he’d much rather have you two on the same page.

Most fights are caused by stress and concerns of health and safety, so Law does a lot of eye rolling and using his title as a ‘doctor’ as justification that he knows what he’s doing so you just need to chill – but like I said these fights are very short lived.

G-Gratitude (how grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?)

Before he met you, Law’s life was very dull. Yes, he has his fair share of adventures and fun with his crew, but there was something missing from his life. But then you came along, bringing a little more colour into his life. Instead of being exhausted and tense from dealing with everything alone, you forced your way in and pried him open, allowing him to share his burdens. For that, Law is eternally grateful.

H-Honesty (do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?)

Initially, Law tried to hide quite a lot. He was very selective about the information he shared with you. It’s not that he didn’t trust you, he just struggled to share things with others – his past has made him very closed off. But, before he knew it you managed to weasel your way in, and soon he found himself confiding in you about everything. The only time he ever keeps a secret is if knowing it will jeopardize your safety.

I-Inspiration (did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?)

I touched on this a little bit before, but you were able to teach Law the relief and comfort that comes with trusting and relying on others. Because of you, he was able to learn that its important to not deal with everything on your own.

J-Jealousy (do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?).

It’s not often that Law gets jealous. It’s an ugly emotion, plus he feels no need to be jealous since he trust you with his whole heart. However, if he was to get jealous, he is definitely the quiet jealous type. His fists clench a little tighter, his frown deepens ever so slightly, and he just doesn’t speak. He doesn’t ignore you though, rather he chooses to curt replies until he eventually gets over it or if it’s really bothering him he may bring it up with you.

K-Kisses (are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?).

He is a very inexperienced kisser, not having (or wanting) many romantic relationships in his past. Even so, he’s surprisingly not horrible (but not great either) at kissing. Maybe it has something to do with his deep knowledge and understanding of the way the human body works. Unfortunately, during your first kiss he tried to rely a little too much on his ‘knowledge’ rather than melting in to it. It wasn’t a horrible first kiss, it just felt a little stiff. The desire was there, but it was as if he were afraid to give in to the emotions he was feeling and reading your signals. However, after a little communication and guidance he’s now an expert.

L-Love confession (how would they confess to their s/o?)

It was in the heat of the moment after you had done something completely and utterly stupid, that almost cost you your life. He wasn’t intending on doing it right then and there, in fact he actually had a whole plan of how and when he was going to tell you how he felt. But seeing you lying in the infirmary after having to operate on you was more than he could handle and before he knew it the words just slipped out.

M-Marriage (do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?)

Marriage is indeed something Law wants. You wouldn’t expect it but after you two officially got together, it wasn’t more than a month before Law started thinking about marriage. He knows now isn’t the time for marriage, but it’s definitely in his plans for the next few years or so.

His proposal is going to be low key. The two of you would have to be alone with no other people around – maybe while you two are lying in bed one night, he just pops the question. And as with the proposal, your wedding would also be low key. No big party or ceremony, just you two and the people closest to you (bepo definitely officiates).

N-Nicknames (what do they call their s/o?)

‘Babe’ or your name are his usual choices for when you are around other people. But occasionally when he’s on the verge of falling asleep he’ll let out a yawn followed by a sleepy “babyyyy”.

O-On cloud nine (what are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?)

When Law is in love he tends to keep his cool and collected façade. But on the inside he’s a babbling, nervous mess. He doesn’t do anything particularly out of the ordinary other than making a bit more of an attempt at conversing with you. He loves hearing you talk and rambling on about things you’re passionate about so he does try to find any excuse to talk to you.

P-PDA (are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?)

PDA is something Law isn’t the biggest fan of. He’ll stand next to you and be in close proximity while sharing a few glances, but other than that he won’t engage in PDA. Law considers that sort of thing to be private and intimate so he likes to keep it between the two of you. Occasionally, if you are feeling a little extra needy he may give in to a quick hug or forehead kiss.

Q-Quirk (some random ability they have that is beneficial in a relationship?)

It may not come as that much of a surprise but, Law can make one hell of a cup of coffee (actually any hot drink really). His perfect brew definitely comes in handy.

R-Romance (how romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?)

Oh boy, he is way more romantic than anyone would ever realize. He loves doing little things for you just to see that sweet smile on your face. It makes his heart swell with happiness.

S-Support (are they helping their s/o achieve their goals do they believe in them?)

Rather than being the consistently positive support, Law provides you with constructive criticism and things that can actively help you achieve your goals. He’s a realist, so doesn’t think only saying “you can do it” or “it’s only a minor setback” is the way to go. He still says those things because they are true – Law honestly believes you can do whatever you set your mind to, however, constructive criticism is needed in addition to this.

The key take away here is: YES. Law believes you can achieve all your hopes and dreams.

T-Thrill (do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship or do they prefer certain routine?)

Law needs routine, especially in your relationship. You have continued doing the same things in your relationship since you first got together because it works. Why would he want to change what works? It’s safe, it’s familiar, and it’s comfortable.

That being said, he’s not opposed to the idea of spicing things up. If you ever felt like trying something new (or even if he starts to feel bored about something), he would be open to the idea. Who knows, maybe the new thing you try could even become a part of your routine.

U-Understanding (how good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?)

It’s no surprise that he is very adept at reading people, he’s on to it and has exceptional observation skills. He uses these skills with you as well.

He knows what it’s like to be consumed by emotions (in fact he knows that too well), and while with most, he’s the type to keep his emotions hidden, when it comes to you he shares his emotions to help you realize that he also knows how it feels and that you are not alone.

V-Value (how important is the relationship to them? What is its worth in comparison to other things in their life?).

Your relationship is a top priority in his life. He’s lost everyone he ever cares about (other than his crew) and there is no way he is going to lose you too. The only thing that may potentially rival your relationship is his goal of taking revenge on Doflamingo.

W-Wild card (a random fluff headcanon?)

There’s nothing he loves more than you running your hands through his hair while his head is on your chest or stomach. He automatically leans into your hand every time. He feels the safest in this position.

X-XOXO (Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?)

Like I said before, he is affectionate but it’s mainly when the two of you are alone. Those displays of affection are for the two of you and no one else. But, when the two of you are alone he absolutely loves cuddles (especially lying with his head on your lap or chest).

Y- Yearning (how will they cope when they are missing their partner?)

He gets stressed when you’re not around for more than one reason. Firstly, you can’t help to calm him down and force him to take a breather. Secondly, he’s constantly worried about your safety and wellbeing.

Honestly, the only way he copes with it is by stressing (I know it’s not coping at all but I mean that’s Law for you LMAO).

Z-Zeal (are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind?)

Law would put his life on the line for your relationship. He doesn’t want to lose someone he cares about – not again. He can’t handle that sort of pain, so if it was required of him, he would gladly give his life.

#one piece #one piece x reader #one piece headcanons #one piece imagines #trafalgar law #trafalgar d law x reader #fluff alphabet #one piece alphabet

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baecvlt · 4 years ago

Note

hi um.. this might be an odd request and ofc you dont have to do it but uh can i get a byakuya togami x reader (smut oneshot) in which the reader has a degradation kink and well, its byakuya, you can decided on the rest

The Same Deep Water as You

in which the reader is degraded by Byakuya Togami

Byakuya Togami x Reader

smut

(as stated in follow up dm) fem reader

requested by anon: first tike working with this kind of thing

warnings: degradation and slightly masochist actions to be aware of (not too severe). good ending tho so..

enjoy !

She was a quiet girl, never really spoke to anyone but Makoto and Kyoko. They weren’t so awful. While others weren’t awful, she didn’t think of them as approachable. She could talk to them, but she couldn’t be too trusting. Especially of—

“What did I tell you about looking in my direction, you cretin”

Byakuya Togami.

Makoto and Kyoko looked back at Byakuya, staring. “I wasn’t staring,” she argued,“Honestly, I wasn’t”. He approached her,“So, I’m a liar now?”. She shook her head frantically, hoping he’d go away. “Give it up, Togami,” Kyoko said,“Leave the poor girl alone. She’s having a rough day”. She looked away and put her head down on the table. “Whatever,” he said,“I’m not even half interested to know why. Just keep your distance”.

She had no idea what was wrong with him, why his cruelty shone on her and no one else. He was a dick to everyone, but most of all towards her. It was kind of starting to hurt, but mostly because being in this situation of a killing game was rather stressful. Byakuya’s unnecessary cruelty didn’t help. Still, she tried to keep a smile, if not, at least a friendly face.

“Well, Makoto and I have business to attend to with that whole next blackened bullshit. See you later. By the way, just stay out of Togami’s way. He’s a prick, it won’t do u any good to be near him. Okay?”

She nodded, taking his advice a little too literal.

She did exactly as Kyoko told her as she tried keeping a routine. She went to her room, grabbing her very little laundry. She walked to the laundry room, pusbing open the door. When she got a view of the room, she immediately turned back, for Byakuya was sitting there doing his laundry. She went to her room, set her clothes down, and waited for Byakuya to leave.

Finally, he was gone. This allowed for her to wash her clothes. After drying and folding, she decided it’d be a good idea to relax and enjoy what the school had to offer, such as the sauna. What? Who cares if this is a killing game? It was far more luxurious than anything she had in her day to day life. She has the right enjoy things. Wearing her bathing suit underneath, she walked her way to the sauna, but before that, she stripped down and put her normal clothes in a locker. Then, she was off.

As she sat in the heat, she thought to herself. All these thoughts were regarding Byakuya. It was things like “Why is he such a dick?” and “Why me? What did I do?”. They were all valid thoughts. At this point, he was treating her worse than he treats Toko. It’s got to he something he has against her. Then again, she couldn’t act like she didn’t like it. The sheer degradation of it all gave her a thrill, but Byakuya wasn’t fucking her so really he had no reason to act that way. Just as she wrapped up her thoughts, she decided it was a good time to leave before the sauna burned her skin right off. She walked right out of there. When alone, she was pretty confident about herself, her body. Its when she’s around others that she gets quiet. Judgement is a fear of hers, so she’s learned that the more you say/do, the more susceptible to judgement you are.

...but she was alone, she didnt worry.

Confidently, she walked out of the sauna. Despite the heat, it was refreshing. She opened her locker, getting her clothes out. She began to get dressed, realizing no one was around, then straight up stopped giving a fuck. She got her normal underwear on without interruptions, sliding on her pantyhose then skirt. Now it was time for her top. She took off her bikini top and replaced it with her bra. That was when she heard footsteps approaching, but they faded, so she ignored it. Putting on her long sleeve button up, her torso faced the entrance as her eyes focused on her buttons.

“Christ, screw me”

Without thinking, she replied,“Give me a time and place?”. She very slowly realized who the voice belonged to as she stopped buttoning up her shirt. Byakuya stared, she covered her mouth. “Eager, aren’t you?,” he scoffed. She finished her buttons as she walked right past him, ignoring his snide remark. That perv. Surely, he could’ve said something. He was there for a while. Was he judging her or did he like what he saw? Who knows?

What we know now is that the Togami’s raised a weirdo.

This only gave her a better reason to avoid him. Everytime she went somewhere, if she saw him there, regardless if he had seen her or not she’d walk out. Like when she wanted a snack, he was there. “Hey,” he said to her, but she was gone. This also happened in the Rec Room, where she was playing with Celeste. He walked in, looking for Makoto. Even still, and mid-game, she dismissed herself. If only there was one place where she wouldn’t have to see him. Then, she remembers she overheard Byakuya say he was in no need of the library.

She figured it’d be a good opportunity for her to go there and read something, be in solitude. She’d been there once and it was so quiet. She walked her way there, peeking first to make sure the coast was clear. She picked up a random book of poetry. It didn’t matter what book it was really, she just wanted to read. She was glad the library was unoccupied. It was quite peaceful. Unlike the sauna, it took her mind off Byakuya. God, he’d be perfect if he wasn’t a prick. Why was he so cute? So attractive? If given the chance, she would show him how she cares, but what’s it worth if he despises her for no reason? Oh, well. She had read enough pages, deciding to leave an hour later. Suddenly, she got the feeling that she wasn’t alone. She had a pretty good instinct when it came to these things.

She didn’t want to be the next victim of anything, so she ran out and hurried to her room.

Bing-bong, Bing-Bong!

Nighttime, how great. Well at least that night ended on a rather okay note, despite everything else. Just as she was headed to her bed, there was a note slipped underneath her door. It startled her, picking it up.

“Come to my room at once. Togami”

Great.

So not only did she have to endure his verbal abuse during the day, it seems it could also branch out at night. She knew she didn’t have to go, but maybe if she did as he said, he’d back off. She walked to his room, only a few doors down the hall. She knew, this was disobidience of the bed time rule, but in that moment, it was the least of her concern. She put on her clothes from earlier today, heading out. She knocked on the door, waiting for him to open the door, and it did after a few seconds. Her heart was pounding as the door opened, his blue eyes shining in the dim light. “Y/N,” he greeted casually. She noticed he still wore his suit and in no way looked like he was at all getting ready for bed. “Good evening, Mr. Togami”. She wanted to be as respectful as possible. “Come in”. She cautiously stepped in. He closed his door, going to sit on his bed afterward.

“Sit”

She sat down on his chair, still nervous. “You look so tense,” he said in a softer tone, much softer than his usual demanding tone,“Relax”. She nodded. He looked at her and got up. Walking behind her, he ran his fingers through her soft hair. “How does it feel to be the object of my lust?,” he whispered. A chill ran down her spine as she muttered,“What?”. “Do you want it?,” he asked,“Me, treating you like a stray dog, I see how it excites you. I’d be more than willing to give it to you”. Her breath hitched and her face was hot. “Y-Yes”. He raised a brow. “Use you words, Y/N,” he said, placing a hand on her throat. “Fuck me, please,” she groaned, craving him. That was enough for him to start putting her on edge. He wanted her to beg, he loved to hear it. “How long has it been since you’ve been touched this way”.

“Too long”

His hands reached for her breasts, teasing them as he kissed her neck. “Oh my god!,” she cried. Her legs spread and he took note of this. “Go to bed,” he ordered,“I want you on your back”. She didn’t hesitate. She leapt to his bed and lay down. He immediately followed, hovering over her. He pinned her wrists down and began kissing her skillfully. She couldn’t help, but bite him and him flinching further increased her excitement. “What the hell?,” he cursed, she smirked. It angered him that she was having fun with this. He pulled off her skirt and ripped open her pantyhose, spreading her legs. “From now on, you are to call me master and nothing else,” he told her, moving her panties aside and licking her pussy. His tongue focused on her clit, but god, it felt good. She whined, reaching for his hair. While she was able to pull it a little, he grabbed her by the wrists and pinned her down again. His tongue began focusing on all other parts of her, rolling his thumb on her clit, softly. All she could do was squirm, but even that was hard to do. “Who’s pussy is this?,” he asked.

“Yours, master”

“That’s my girl”

She was cumming, practically dripping the more he touched her. He let go of her wrists, allowing her to finally tease her breasts and play with his hair as he ate her out. He loved her taste; she was sweet. Without moving his mouth away, he carefully worked two fingers into her, allowing him to taste her even more. “How’s that making my little slut feel?,” he asked. “Really, really good. Please, m-master,” she whined, but other than that, it was all incoherent babbling. She was frantic at that point.

“Look at you,” he whispered as his mouth was really going into it,“You’re making quite the mess, you know?”. “I know, master”. Her apologetic tone begged a question. “Come here,” he ordered. She sat on the balls of her feet, waiting for his next words. His hand was soft as he put it on her cheek, caressing her.

“Has my little slut had enough?”

She shook her head, muttering,“I want more”. Her lust-filled eyes stared into his as she went for his belt buckle. “Not like this,” he said, sitting down properly. “Okay,” he assured,“Come here, doll”. She went for his belt buckle and undid it. Carefully, she took his cock out, spitting. “Master, you’re aching”. He twitched as she stroked his sex with those words falling from her mouth. His stomach sank as feeling of her hands touching him this way dawned on him. He needed her, so bad.

“Bend over for me”

Her stomach lay flag on the bed as her ass was in the air, waiting for him to fuck her. “Shit,” he exclaimed, that was the first time she’d hear him cuss. “What’s wrong?”. He sighed.

“I don’t have any protection on me”

Thats when she reached into her shirt and bra, handing him a condom. “What the hell? How long did you have that in there?”. “No more questions,” she said softly,“Come on, baby”. Slowly, he teased her entrance, rubbing his cock slowly and making her shiver before grabbing her hips, slamming into her. Upon impact, her pussy spasmed around his cock as she reached for the pillow in front of her. He gasped, his fingers digging into her soft skin. “I’m gonna stretch you out”. She whined into the pillow as he repeated that, slowly at first. As much as he wanted to pound into her, he knew knew if he did that, he wouldn’t last long. “Ah! master, that feels really good,” she cried,“I need more.. please!”. He could barely speak. “I go at whatever pace I want, slut!,” he managed.

“M-Master, is it because you know you’ll cum fast if you do? Even thinking about pounding me makes you go slower than you already are, doesn’t it?”

“Shut the fuck up!”

His hand slammed onto her ass. She winced, gripping the sheets as he picked up the pace. Her eyes then rolled back. “Is this what you wanted?,” he said with gritted teeth. She let out a shaky cry and said,“Master, it’s what I needed”. A mirror was in front of them, Byakuya using it to check how she reacted to certain things. Letting him hit all around her walls drove her insane, but he still wasn’t going so hard. She also used the mirror to her advantage. She saw how he was struggling to fuck her hard without cumming. She wanted to mess around too. She smiled with lustful eyes, putting two fingers in her mouth and drooling over them. “What the hell”. Her playfulness left him flustered. He grabbed and held her up by her hair and slammed into her repeatedly.

“Oh, master, don’t ever stop! Please, don’t stop!”

He held her up with his hands on her breasts, kissing her neck. Her stomach went crazy, finding new ways to make her sick every time he hit her sweet spots. He had no problem finding them, he must have them memorized by now. There was about her, something so fucking intoxicating. She was like a drug and he was addicted. At first, he despised her for it, but soon enough, he started love her for it and that was scary. It all hit him when he saw how this woman devoted herself to him, even before fucking. She always respected him and saw him for other than money or looks. Immediately, guilt struck him.

That’s when he wanted to take things slower and actually look at her as they fucked. He sat up as she straddled his lap, riding his cock slowly, rhythmically almost as they kissed. Their kisses were much more passionate. His lips let her win, allowing her to kiss him sweetly. His hands held her back, hers wrapped around his neck while one played with his hair and it all felt right. Melting onto one another, he admired her eyes and how satisfied she appeared to be and how angelic her face was when he hit just the right spots. They spoke in between kisses. “Master-”. He shushed her, softly, rather than abruptly. “You don’t need to call me that now,” he whispered as he caressed her cheek.

“Byakuya, fuck, I love you”

“I love you too; all of you,” he muttered, maneuvering her hips in a way that made her groan. She rolled her hips down and tightened around him. That was when he realized that he could no longer continue. “I think I’m-”, he grunted and gasped, digging his head into her chest. “Did you cum?,” she asked, Byakuya nodding. His head suddenly peeked up. He was flustered and asked,“Did you really mean all that? You love me?”. He spat the word as if it sickened him. She nodded and played with his hair.

“I knew you’d mock me for it. Falling in love during the killing game? Pathetic”

“So... am I also pathetic?”

“No, what?”

“I said it too. Does that make me pathetic?”

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered,“Of course not”. There was a moment of silence between the two, where they just lay there and waited till someone said something. “I’m gonna head to my room,” she said. He nodded, although deep down, he protested and wanted to ask her to stay. He couldn’t do that, though. So there, he watched her get dress and leave the room with a funny walk.

The next morning, she got dressed and on her way to meet with the others. Upon opening her door, she was greeted by Byakuya. “Oh, good morning, Togami,” she said,“I didn’t expect to see you-”. He suddenly kissed her, taking her by surprise. “I love you and I want you to be mine,” he blurted. It shocked her even more since this was extremely out of character for him. “What?”. He held her hands. “Ever since we made love the other night, it’s been impossible for me to stop thinking of you”. People stopped at the door, staring because for some reason he heavily emphasized that fact. “You what?,” Kyoko asked. Byakuya stood in front of her to block her.

“Come on, Y/N”

There was a twinkle in his eyes as he asked for your hand (in a way). He loves you? It was hard to believe, but the more you thought about it, the more it felt right. What are you to say?

#danganronpa #trigger happy havoc #byakuya togami #byakuya togami smut #byakuya togami x reader #dr byakuya #x reader #smut

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ahgasecaratfromn-city · 4 years ago

Text

Ten Things I Hate About You

Pairing: Mark Lee x Reader ft. Haechan, Johnny and mention of Jeno

Words: 7.7k

Genre: Fluff, the tiniest bit of angst if you squint, college au

Warning: Tiniest bit of cursing, kissing, family issues, anxiety attack

Summary: You never had the luxury of selecting who you were going to tutor, so when you paired with the only person you disliked, Lee Mark, you couldn’t help but formulate a list of the ten things you hated about him.

A/N: Okay so, I will admit this is longer than I anticipated, my bad. Mark has been stuck in my head and this was my way of getting him out. Basically, each part is a snip bit/ scene from the day named in bold. *This is very very very minimally edited

“Who the hell is that?” was not the most flattering thing someone could say when being given a free tutor. Hell, it wasn’t a flattering thing to say under any circumstance. Yet, there you were, walking slowly towards your literature class’s resident idiot, Mark.

“Me, I’m Y/N,” he looked you up and down, frowning slightly before looking back at the professor. The boy seemed to always believe that his opinions mattered to anyone but himself. He was always screaming his misconstrued thoughts during class or more likely not showing up at all, and everything about him seemed to piss you off.

Maybe it was the way he spoke to people, always assuming he was in the right. Or, maybe it was the fact that he spoke period, always rambling about absolutely nothing while the class was engaged in relevant and important conversation. More likely, it was the permanent grin etched on his face, as if nothing could touch him, not even the failing grade he was receiving in this class.

“Mark, this is quite literally your last shot because there is seriously nothing else I can do for you,” you tuned out the rest of the conversation, only raising an eyebrow once you heard that Mark wouldn’t be able to pass without a certain score on the final.

“And you really should thank Y/N, there are other students she could be helping,” your eyes shot up at the mention of your name, blushing lightly as the men looked at you.

It wasn’t as if you had volunteered to tutor Mark specifically. You had been tutoring since high school and figured it was the perfect work-study job to take up. Except you didn’t choose who to tutor, only which subjects. Unfortunately, literature happened to be one of them, and Mark happened to suck at it.

“Now, both of you get out of here,” he pointed to the doorway with a slight smirk on his face as Mark trudged away clearly annoyed.

“We can work Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until the test. We can meet up at the library,” you offered, following after the boy who seemed to only quicken his pace. Jerk.

“Not Friday, that’s a busy day,” he shrugged, looking at everything but you.

“The test is three weeks from today and judging by your, uhm previous scores, you need all the time you can get,” the boy whipped around at that statement, raising his brow at you. You didn’t understand why he seemed so shocked, you were only telling the truth.

“Fine, catch you later,” His eyes were looking behind you, focused on something else before he finally walked away from you.

That was another thing that bothered you, he never made eye contact. It was like no one was worth the time of day to him.

“What are you looking at,” A familiar arm snaked its way around your shoulders, pulling you into his chest as you prepared to go home. You smelled the familiar scent of aftershave and light cologne that immediately brought a smile to your face.

“You’ll never guess who I have to tutor,” you looked up at your best friend, Haechan, grinning at his confused face. Haechan had been your best friend since you were kids in the sandbox and since then, wherever he was you were likely right beside him.

“Let’s go eat, and you can tell me all about it,” He spun you around, walking you towards the exit.

“Maybe you’re being too hard on him,” the boy suggested, playing with his food before taking a bite. That was his habit whenever you ate together, he would mull over his food as if building a masterpiece before devouring an entire plate in a few bites.

“What do you mean?” You furrowed your brows at the statement.

“I mean, I dunno, maybe don’t judge a book by its cover and stuff,” A slight blush rose to his cheeks as he realized how cringey what he had said was. His eyes met yours for a split second before you both let out a few synchronized chuckles.

“That was so bad, Chan,” you reached over to poke his cheek, laughing even harder as his cheeks became a deeper shade of red.

“I mean seriously, can you even name ten things you don’t like about him?” He asked, suddenly raising his brows in a challenging manner.

“Honestly, I could name ten things I hate about him,” you admitted, taking a bite of your food to punctuate your point. He only shook his head in disapproval as a response before continuing.

“Get back to me in a few weeks, I bet you’ll even end up friends. He seems nice from what I’ve heard” he sent a knowing wink your way before calling the waitress over.

As he began talking to the waitress, his question was still lingering in your mind. Ten things you hated about Mark. You already had certain attributes running around in your head, but you wondered how many more you were going to add to your list.

1. I hate that he is inconsiderate

[Monday]

It was only the first day of your study sessions with Mark, and of course he was late. You were sitting at your usual table in the corner of the library, checking your phone for the nth time. He was almost an hour late and you were anything but surprised. The boy didn’t strike you as the type to keep his word.

“Hey, tutor girl,” The voice struck you from your thoughts, coming from someone you didn’t think you’d see today.

“Mark,” You nodded towards the seat across from you, opening the textbook you had sat in front of you. The boy sat silently, a smug grin painted across his face as he looked at you, eyes focused above your head.

“I had something pop up, sorry about that man,” even his apologies were insincere and annoying. You almost wanted to toss the coffee drink in his hands into the trash, but you found it in yourself to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Whatever, let's just get started,” He nodded in response, glancing down at your textbook with a look of uncertainty, “Did you bring your textbook?” It was then that you realized that he hadn’t brought anything with him, not even a pencil. Of course he was unprepared.

“It’s fine, use mine,” You turned yours around towards him before pointing towards a specific chapter. He nodded in response before flicking his eyes back up in your general direction.

“Today, we’ll start with the basics of analyzing a text. We’ll do ethos, pathos, and logos. It’s pretty simple but it’s gonna help with the essay portion,” You rambled on for a few minutes about the basis of arguments and speeches. His eyes were in the book but you couldn't tell if he was understanding or not. Throughout your explanation, you could see his leg shaking and his fingers tapping on the table.

“Is there anything you want me to go over?” his eyes were still glued to the book as he looked back up at you. He was smiling, as usual, but something about the look in his eye told you that he was utterly confused.

“No, Uh, I think I understand,” His taps became a bit more intense until he realized you were watching him and stopped.

“It’s okay if you don't,” you said mindlessly, “I’m here to help,” as much as you weren’t a fan of Mark, you wanted him to do well. It was a part of the reason you liked tutoring. Seeing someone work hard for something, and helping them get there was one of the best feelings in the world.

“It’s fine,” he shrugged, smiling wider. You didn’t understand why he didn’t just say he needed help since it was literally your job, but you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable.

“Let’s go over it one more time, for my sake,” you went over the material again, using more examples, even some from popular music to explain the definitions he didn’t understand.

“I mean, I already understood, but I get it, more,” He said sheepishly, rubbing his face in his hand. You smiled a bit at the light pink color growing on his cheeks as you switched subjects.

“Okay, I believe you. We have some more material to cover though. Since you’re picking it up so quickly,” you smirked at the last statement, flipping the textbook in front of him to the correct page. You ignored his groan of despair, instead continuing the lesson you had planned.

You had believed after the first lesson, he might be easy to work with, but eventually, you were proved wrong. Mark was an absolute menace. His incessant taps on the table, glances around the room, random babbling, and absolute lack of interest in what you said, was pissing you off. Even the librarian had walked over to tell him to be quiet.

“Let’s take a break,” he suggested, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s been thirty minutes, Mark,” you rolled your eyes, pointing back at the sheet in front of you. He seemed to lose focus often, so you decided making him take notes might help.

“I know, but honestly my brain is full,” he whined, sending puppy dog eyes your way. Usually, you would have been able to say no, but his puckered lip and innocent eyes were beginning to sway you.

“Fine, ten minutes,” you gave in to a smiling mark, who shot his fist up in excitement. He leaned back in his chair, looking into space with a look you couldn’t decipher. He was visibly deep in thought and you were beginning to feel very awkward as time went on.

“Tutor girl, yeah she’s tutoring me

I wanna go home cause that’s the place to be,

Wherever I am, the vibe is nice,

Cause I’m cool like ice,” he went on and on rambling random rhymes with the biggest smile on his face. Nothing would have made you happier than saying that it sounded terrible, and while the rhymes themselves were ridiculous, his voice had a certain addictive vibe that made you want to keep listening.

He suddenly stopped, grinning at your lack of words “Shocked into silence, they say I have that effect on people,” he smirked nonchalantly eliciting a groan of annoyance from you.

“I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but your ten minutes are up,”

“What! It’s been like three at most,” he complained, dropping his head in annoyance.

“Well, at least stop being so loud,” you rolled your eyes at the boy, who lit up once again.

You sat in silence for a few seconds before he finally spoke, “Why are you so uptight, tutor girl?” The nickname was really beginning to bug you and so was the boy sitting across from you.

“I have a name you know,” you finally comment, ignoring his question. You were fiddling with your fingers under the table, doing anything to keep your mind off of the uncomfortable question he had asked.

“I know, Y/N,” Your eyes shot up at the mention of your name, almost giving you whiplash.

“So, why do you call me that?”

“It’s just a nickname,” he shrugged lightly before beginning to beatbox. He was like a child with the shortest attention span you had seen on anyone above the age of fifteen.

“It’s definitely been ten minutes now,” you pushed his paper towards him before beginning the next lesson.

2. I hate that he really is a mystery

[thursday]

“I’ve never been here,” You commented, looking up at your very tall friend, Johnny opening the door for you. He was a few years older than you but you ended up bonding through the tutoring center you both worked at.

The building was a typical cafe with a warm mocha toned interior. It had bookcases lining one wall with two big grandpa chairs watching over the small tables littered around the room. The place was relatively empty, with only a few people taking up two tables near the bookshelves. It was super cozy and inviting which made you question why you hadn’t been there sooner.

“Really? A lot of people from school come here,” you only nodded in response, following the boy towards the register.

Once inside, you immediately walked to the baked goods section, eyeing the various desserts.

You were glad Johnny called. You had been stressed out, from your mom riding you about job applications, classes reaching finals time, tutoring Mark, etc etc. It felt like as you got older the weight on your shoulders got heavier and heavier. Everyone in your life needed you to decide on your future and you just weren’t there yet. You couldn't even decide on a pastry let alone where you wanted to be in ten years.

“Are you ready to order?” Johnny tapped your shoulder, pulling you away from your thoughts.

“Sure,” you nodded, masking the sadness the thoughts had brought on.

You watched as the older boy tapped the service bell before peering over the counter. “Someone’s coming,” he said, leaning back.

“Hey Johnny, what can I get ya today,” the familiar voice caused your eyes to bulge as you looked up at the owner.

“Tutor girl?”

“Mark,” you mumbled quietly, nodding in his direction. It seemed as if your problems followed you everywhere.

“You two know each other?”Johnny asked with a grin.

Mark answered quickly “We take lit together,” you frowned at the lack of mentioning the fact that you were his tutor.

“Ah okay,”

“How do you two know each other?” you asked, only half caring.

“We’ve been friends since his freshman year,” The older boy explained.

“Anyway, what do you want bro?” Mark asked informally, smile bright as he got ready to punch the buttons on the screen in front of him.

“I’ll have an americano, give me like two extra shots,” Johnny looked at you, waiting for your order as Mark tapped on the screen.

“Can I get an americano and a chocolate croissant,”

“Sure,” the younger boy said absentmindedly.

Johnny reached into his wallet before you could even say anything, looking down at you with a “don’t argue” look. You were used to him paying whenever you went out together or even with other friends, even though you always put up a fight.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mark said, pushing Johnny’s card back at him, “on the house,” he explained.

“You sure?”

“Yeah don’t worry about it,”

“Thank you,” you smiled sincerely, surprised by the gesture.

“He never pays for me,” Johnny said, chuckling as if it were an inside joke before he began looking for a seat.

He finally selected a table in the corner with two chairs beside it, right next to a window. You sat down in the chair, giving the place a once over again. Something had caught your eye this time. You watched as the dark-haired boy darted around behind the register, preparing your drinks expertly.

“I didn’t know he worked here,” You mumbled absentmindedly, still watching the boy work.

“Yeah, he works at a restaurant too,” Johnny commented, smiling knowingly in your direction. You furrowed your brows as you looked back at him. You didn’t know he had one job, let alone two.

“Oh,” was all you said, leaving it at that. It seemed like Mark really was a mystery to you. You knew virtually nothing about him. Something about that fact gave you an unsettling feeling that you were too stubborn to think about any further.

3. I hate that he asks too many questions

[Friday]

“I don’t want to gooo,” you whined, fighting against Haechan who was currently pushing you towards the library.

“It’s only the third day. You’re such a baby,” You could practically hear his eyes roll as he stopped in front of the door. He had given you a ride to the library, as he always would if he had time.

“Am not,”

“Are too,”

“Am not,”

“Are too,”

“Am not,” Despite how childish it was, you literally stamped your foot, leading to a laughing fit from the two of you.

“I can’t believe you,” he sighed, lightly shoving you.

“I’m very mature though, on a serious-,” you suddenly stopped speaking as you noticed he wasn’t looking at you anymore, “what is it?” you turned on your heel only to be met with the infamous boy himself.

“Am I too early?” he looked down at his phone with furrowed brows before looking back at you.

“No, you’re actually on time,” you didn’t mean to come off as passive-aggressive but judging from Mark’s raised brows, you did.

You watched as Haechan reached out to shake Mark’s hand with a friendly smile and a quick mutter of his name. Mark responded by smiling awkwardly before finally reciprocating the gesture. “I’m Mark,” he introduced himself with his world-famous grin before flicking his gaze in your direction.

It was silent for a few moments before Haechan finally said something, “I’ll leave you guys to it,” he smiled one last time, sending you a mischievous look before leaving the two of you alone.

“You ready?” he asked, reaching up to grab the nape of his neck awkwardly. You quickly noticed the Jansport backpack he was sporting. It was a small thing but something about the fact that he came prepared made you feel weird.

“Uhh, yeah,” you opened the door to the library, walking quickly to the usual spot in the corner, Mark trudging quietly behind you.

“I made some flashcards for you,” You began, reaching into your bag and pulling out the index cards that you had put on a binder ring.

“Thanks,” he took the cards from your hand with a smile.

“So that guy’s your boyfriend?” he asked casually while shuffling through the cards.

You jaw all but dropped in shock as you fumbled to find the right words, “absolutely not,” you finally said, “he’s like a brother,” you clarified, waiting for his reaction.

The question made you feel uneasy coming from his mouth. It seemed random and very odd considering neither one of you had ever discussed anything personal.

“Oh, okay. You seem close,” he commented, continuing to look through the flashcards.

“We are, but uh, today lets just talk about your essay structure,” you changed the subject promptly, noticing the grin that was solidifying on his face.

Ten minutes later you could already tell he was distracted, judging by his taps on the table that were rapidly reaching a fever pitch.

He looked in your direction suddenly, “What do you want to do, tutor girl, like after graduation”

Mark asked you the question like it was the most casual thing to say, like it was comparable to “how was your day” or “what kind of coffee do you like.” No one had really asked you that before, what you wanted to do.

“uh, I’m not sure honestly,” you were unsure of why you were even entertaining the conversation. Had it been asked a few days ago you might have just rolled your eyes and answered with the generic response you had been trained to use.

“Really? You seem like the type to plan everything a hundred steps ahead,”

You quirked your eyebrow up in surprise “What’s that supposed to mean,”

A light blush found its way onto his cheeks as he stumbled over his words, “No, it’s just that you, like, seem put together, like you know what you want,” he clarified.

The notion confused you to an extent. You never knew what you wanted. You had spent so long doing what people told you that you should do, that you barely even thought about what you wanted. Honestly speaking, you had only started tutoring because your mother told you it would look good on college applications. You had just so happened to actually end up enjoying it. That was the real reason you always did everything the same way and were what Mark called ‘uptight’.

“I don’t,” you admitted, “I have a hard time knowing what I want,” you trailed off quietly before asking him the same question.

“I want to pursue music, but I’m not sure if it’s practical,” he said shrugging.

“It isn’t practical,” you agreed, smiling lightly at the shocked face Mark sent you, “but if it’s something you want to do, it’s worth trying,” you finished, watching as Mark let out a breath.

He sighed, “I wish it were that easy,” his table tapping picked up a slow pace. You nodded in agreement, realizing that you were in a similar predicament. “Well, what do you like to do?” he asked suddenly.

“You ask a lot of questions,” you replied simply, playing with the seam of your jeans.

4. I hate that he’s unbelievably stubborn

[Monday]

“Mark, honestly we can just reschedule,” You watched as the boy shook his head, jumping from his previous position.

“No, I’m fine,” he shook his head a few times before gesturing in your direction for you to continue.

The boy kept nodding off throughout your lesson and showing obvious signs that he was in no way capable of learning anything. His eyes were bloodshot as if he hadn’t slept all weekend, his eye bags were at least three shades darker than usual, and most importantly he wasn’t making any noises at all. Not even his usual incessant table taps.

“Mark, you did pretty well on the practice quiz, you can take the day off,” you tried to reason with the boy whose eyes were barely open. It looked like he was sleeping with his eyes open.

“No no, y/n,” him using your real name made you feel weird and told you that he was definitely not in the right mind. “You came all the way here, let’s just start,”

You chuckled lightly at his groggy and barely comprehensible voice as you closed your books.

“Why are you so tired anyway? Did you work over the weekend?” you found yourself actually curious about his answer, not just asking something random for the sake of it not being awkward.

He answered simply, trying his best to hide a yawn, “yep,”

You shook your head disapprovingly before finally speaking, “Alright this is what we’re going to do. One more practice test and then please go home and do us both a favor and go to sleep,”

“I don’t want to be an inconvenience,” he admitted, sitting upright.

“You’re more of an inconvenience this way because I can't tutor someone who can’t even spell their own name,” I tapped on the corner of his notes, where he had written his name as “mar” leaving the last letter off.

“Fine,” he said finally, lifting his hoodie off of his head.

“You’re so god damn stubborn,” you whispered mostly to yourself.

“I can hear you, y’know,” you smiled at his remark before setting a practice test in front of him.

5. I hate that he sees what no one else does

[Friday]

“Yes, mom,” you paused for a moment, waiting for your mother’s usual rant about how you never did anything right, and how at your age she was already starting her own business, yada yada, the usual.

“I know,” pause, “I sent them out last week, remember?” pause, “I will,”

“Hey, tutor girl,” Mark greeted, taking his usual seat in front of you. He had a concerned look on his face as he noticed you were on the phone having an unpleasant conversation.

You pulled the phone away from your face, “I’ll be right back,” you shot him a small generic smile before walking outside of the building.

“Y/N if you don’t get it together, I’m going to-” your mother’s voice could be heard despite the fact that you had pulled the phone away from your face.

“I’m in the middle of a tutoring session, I have to call you back later,” you interrupted, pressing the hang-up button soon after.

You took a few long breaths before plastering a smile onto your face and walking back inside the building. You could feel Mark’s eyes on you as you walked towards him trying your best to keep up a strong facade.

“Are you okay,” the concern in his voice as you looked at him almost wiped the smile off of your face.

“I’m fine, let’s get started,”

“It’s okay if you’re not. You can tell me about it,” he paused for a few moments, tapping on the table as he usually did, “I can tell you’re you aren’t,”

“It’s nothing, let’s just start,” you waved your hand in dismissal.

“If that’s what you want,” he phrased it more like a question than a statement.

“So, today let’s talk about how point of view affects the entire story,” you began your explanation, the fake smile long gone as you gave examples from the required reading. Mark seemed only half interested in what you were saying, which was usually normal, except today you could feel his eyes glued to your face while yours were in the book as you gestured to certain sentences.

You were not in the mood for his antics and as time passed he was truly starting to bug you. “What!? What are you looking at?” you whisper-yelled in his direction. You found yourself feeling immediately guilty as the boy looked at you in complete and utter shock. His lips had slightly parted into an ‘o’ shape and his brows were slightly raised. His cheeks had even begun turning into a deep red.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-” he mumbled, trailing off at the end.

You raised your hand to your head, feeling a headache coming on, “no, I’m sorry. Honestly, I’m a little stressed out,” you admitted.

“It’s okay, you can talk to me about it. Like, if you want,” he looked at you expectantly, with a concerned expression adorning his face.

“It’s just my mom. She has a lot of expectations for me. It’s stressful sometimes, y’know,” he nodded at your words, waiting for you to continue, “It’s overwhelming. I don’t really know what to do. It’s like she’s been controlling my life for so long that I don’t even know what I want to do without her telling me,” you finished.

It felt good letting it all out, and for some reason, you felt comfortable telling Mark about it. He seemed to really listen to you, like he actually cared.

“Have you ever talked to her about it?” he asked.

“No, she’s not the best listener,” he nodded again.

“Then I think right now all you can do is try to figure out what you actually want for yourself. Like what’s something you really want to do? Like bucket list stuff,” he asked with wide eyes.

“I dunno, maybe a road trip,” you said the first thing that came to mind, mentally slapping yourself at how lame the answer was. “I’ve never really been anywhere,” you explained simply. “Kind of lame,”

He shook his head, “It's not lame if it’s something you want.” You only nodded in response.

“What you want is important, Y/N. Even if you don't know exactly what that is yet.”

6. I hate that he is everywhere

[monday]

“It’s not my fault,” Haechan rolled his eyes at your shocked expression as he spoke.

“Haechan,” you said slowly, “I really shouldn’t have to explain it to you,” you shook your head in his direction.

You were walking down the main commons area in your school, killing time before your next class.

“If someone says to you, hey! Can I borrow your hanger, how am I supposed to guess that they’ll-” he stopped speaking suddenly, a smile breaking out on his face, “look there’s your boy,” he nodded slightly in the direction ahead of you.

You looked up, almost immediately spotting Mark. He was smiling brightly as he spoke to a girl beside him. She looked to be familiar, maybe from the year below you. You watched as they laughed together, heads falling back as if they were in a movie. You had to admit, they made a cute couple.

“He’s not my boy,” you shoved your friend with light force, ignoring the tight feeling in your chest.

“Don’t worry, pretty sure she’s dating Jeno. Actually no, I’m super sure, every time I see them, they’re sucking face,” he grimaces at the notion, furrowing his brows tightly as if remembering the image vividly.

You shrugged your shoulders nonchalantly, “Why would I worry?”

“Okay, y/n,” he matched your expression, shrugging in the same way you did.

7. I hate that his car smells just like him

[Tuesday]

“No it’s fine, I’ll just find a way home,” you glanced at Mark, whose eyes were on you already. “No, Haechan don’t worry about it. I’ll text you later,” you hung the phone up and looked up at the boy ahead of you.

After you opened up to Mark the previous week, he had begun taking a seat next to you in class. It seemed like you had become friends, or acquaintances at least. That felt weird to even think about. You and Mark were friends? No, acquaintances, you were just acquaintances.

“Everything okay?” he asked, gathering his belongings.

“Yea, I just have to walk home,” you answered absentmindedly before standing.

“I can, like, give you a ride,” he offered nonchalantly, standing in front of you.

“You drive?”

He smirked at the question, “just got a new car,”

“Okay then, if it’s no trouble,” you agreed, nodding at him. It was super weird how comfortable you were around him now. There were still things you very much disliked about him, but getting to know him had shown you that there were some things you hadn’t known at all.

“Alright,” he smiled in your general direction before leading the way. You had grown used to his quick pace, keeping up with ease now.

“It’s nice right,” he pats the old black car lightly, as if he was afraid something would fall off.

“Super nice,” you agreed with a grin.

You both walked to your respective sides and slid into your seats quietly. You were immediately hit with the smell of watermelon air freshener and the cologne Mark usually wore.

“You can put your address in,” he pointed to the GPS on the car and you promptly typed it in.

There was a lasting awkward silence after that, Mark focusing diligently on driving while you were focused on counting the red cars that went by. You wondered how long it would take for someone to say something. Eventually, Mark just put on the radio, hoping to fill the silence.

He winced slightly at the country song that began playing, “You wanna hear one of my songs,” he said suddenly, a small smile accompanying his words.

“Sure,” you were actually curious, seeing as you had never heard him rap seriously, only hearing his mumbles when he was bored.

“Press the acronym one,” he said, handing you his phone, eyes still trained on the road. It was almost comical how focused he was while driving whereas during tutoring sessions he was always distracted.

“Que-tay, uhm, qwe-ta,” you tried pronouncing the acronym, eliciting a laughing fit from Mark. His laugh was so innocent you couldn’t help but smile along even though you didn’t know what was so funny.

“Key-tah,” he finally said with a smile.

“Ah,” you nodded, turning the volume up.

The song started off subtly, with a chill beat that matched the atmosphere in the car. You could see Mark’s light blush peeking from your peripheral as the song went on. By the time the second verse began, Mark was humming along before finally fully rapping alongside himself. Again, you were reminded of how addictive his voice was.

He seemed so passionate at that moment, so confident. He was showing a side to himself that you hadn’t seen before. Someone so comfortable where he was. Someone truly in their element.

“I get why you want to do music,” you commented as the song ended.

“Why?”

“You love it. I can tell. It’s like more than just a career for you, it’s a part of you,” you said matter of factly. The statement confused you to some degree. You had never seen someone so comfortable in their element. You hated to admit it but you were even a little jealous.

He smiled at that notion, “It is a part of me. Ever since I was young, my dad taught me how to play guitar and that really just jump started my love for it.” You nodded in understanding before picking a random Frank Ocean song on his playlist.

“You should come to my showcase next week, I just got offered a spot today,” he said suddenly. You were completely shocked that he had asked you.

“You can bring your friend, I think our whole class is going. It’s supposed to be an end of finals celebration” ah, everyone was going.

“Okay,” you accepted simply, heat rushing to your cheeks for an unknown reason.

“just put your number in my phone, I’ll send the details later,”

The car ride from then on was more comfortable. What was once an awkward silence had become a relaxed atmosphere where you and Mark would chat about random things like the music on his playlist or the watermelon screensaver on his phone.

8. I hate that he thinks can pull one over on me

[wednesday]

“tutor girl, what’s up?” Mark crashed down into the seat in front of you, setting down a drink carrier from his cafe and a bag.

“Hi, Mark,” you greeted with a smile, shaking your head at his noisy entrance.

“Here you go,” he pushed an Iced Americano in your direction, following with the white bag.

“Oh, thank you, you didn’t have to get me anything,” you watched the smile on his face widen as he shook his head.

“It’s the least I could I could do for my favorite tutor,” your felt your cheeks get hot until you remembered one very important detail.

“I’m your only tutor, and you still have to take the full practice test,” you said sternly, putting the straw in the coffee quickly.

“Come on,” he whined out before starting a whole argumentative speech about how the practice tests were annoying.

9. I hate that he doubts himself

[thursday]

“I mean, and I say this with full respect,” Mark began, “I truly don’t think I’m going to do that well,” he admitted, toying with the drawstring of his hoodie.

“Mark, just because you say with full respect, doesn’t make it more respectful,” you said with a grin, “but seriously, you’ve been doing so well on your practice quizzes. Over 60% every time, which is way better than what we started with,” you admitted, wincing a bit at the last statement you let slip out.

“Still, that’s not a passing grade,” he shrugged, utterly defeated as he picked up the essay rubric from his desk. His usual brighter than the sun smile had disappeared, leaving you feeling uncomfortably cold.

“Honestly your lack of trust in my tutoring skills is beginning to annoy me,”

“No, dude, I trust you,” your eyes flew to him at that statement. He was still pondering over the paper in front of him as he continued, “I just feel like I suck at this stupid subject,” he threw the paper back onto the table at that statement.

You found yourself giving a pep talk without even a second thought “No, you don’t. You’re caught on quickly. You’re so smart but you need to stop second-guessing yourself. You’re going to do well. Even better than well because you have my help.”

“Thanks, tutor girl. I appreciate you,” you could tell he was sincere because he had met your eyes, even if just for a split second. It was the first time he had ever looked you in your eyes and it was making you feel things.

“I’m serious though, you are way smarter than you give yourself credit for, and you should know that you are no matter what score you get on this stupid test,” you finish, grinning as the smile returned on his face.

“Okay,” he nodded lightly as he stood waiting for you to join him.

You chuckled lightly at the boy as you looked up at him, “What is it, Mark?” he had a sheepish look on his face as if he was nervous about something other than the obvious.

“uhm well,” He was looking intently at you when you didn’t notice, waiting for any signs that he was annoying you.

“Actually, there’s something I was going to ask you,” a light blush found its way onto his cheeks as he spoke. You nodded in his direction waiting for whatever he had to say, looking up to find his eyes on you.

At that moment you noticed almost like for the first time how pretty his eyes were. They were so doe-like and innocent, you couldn’t stop staring.

To outsiders, you both would have seemed very odd as you stood just staring at each other.

“Well, I-”

“Y/N, hurry- oh shoot, sorry,” Haechan’s voice rang from the doorway, pulling you out of whatever trance you had been in.

“I’m almost done,” you widened your eyes in Haechan’s direction for emphasis, looking back at Mark who had already looked away. “What were you saying, Mark?”

He smiled lightly for a moment, “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing important,”

You furrowed your brows lightly, “You sure.”

“Yeah, we’ll talk later,”

10. I hate that I don’t hate him

[Friday]

“I told you so,” Haechan was grinning ear to ear as he joined you on your walk to class.

“I could name ten things I hate about him, yeah right,” He laughed to himself suddenly, mocking your old statement. “Imagine my shock seeing your face a few inches away from his. I should’ve taken a picture.”

“Shut up,” you pushed him lightly, finally reaching the door to the lit class.

“I’ll see you afterwards, good luck,” he said, sending you a final wave before walking away.

It was the test date and you were sure that Mark was nervous. As soon as you got into the room, you noticed his fingers tapping violently on the desk, his single mechanical pencil clattering as it jumped around. He was there early, earlier than you were and that was saying something. The room was empty except for the two of you, even despite you being only about fifteen minutes early.

“Mark,” you had to call his name a second time to get his attention. “Mark, relax,” you took the seat next to him and swiftly grabbed his chattering hand in your own. You watched as his leg began bouncing up and down as if it were mocking the pencil’s previous movement, “Mark, breathe,” his eyes were glued to something in the distance, his breath labored.

“Shit, I’m not prepared,” he muttered quietly, “I should have done another quiz,” he breathed out. “and I can’t fucking breathe,” he clenched his brows at the last statement, his breathing coming out as quick huffs.

“Look at me, Mark,” you reached up to turn his chin towards you. “I think you’re having an anxiety attack,” you said the words slowly, hoping to not make it any worse.

“You have to breathe, I’m right here and I’m not going to let go of you,” you squeezed lightly on his hand to emphasize your words.

“You’ve studied and studied. You’ve worked hard. You’re going to do well. All you have to do now is relax and breathe. In and out,” his eyes were glued to yours before he finally closed them altogether and began taking slow deep breaths.

“I’m here with you, and we’re both going to destroy this thing,” he nodded slowly at your words, opening them a few minutes later as his breathing reached a normal pace and his leg stopped bouncing.

You released his hand in the next second, sending him a small smile.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” was the last thing he said before people began filing into the room.

[Monday]

“I know what you’ve all been waiting for. I have your graded finals,” Your professor had waited until the end of the day to finally share the news, leaving everyone anxious.

It was utterly silent as he passed them around, only the sound of him saying a quick “see me after class,” to Mark, who immediately winced at the statement. You couldn’t help but furrow your brows in confusion, noticing that Mark hadn’t received his test back.

“Class is dismissed,” he pointed towards the doorway after delivering the final test, smiling lightly at the people whose arms were thrown up in celebration.

Your score wasn’t that big of a surprise, you had gotten what was expected of you. You were way more interested in Mark. So you decided to wait outside the door, watching as students filed out.

It seemed like hours had passed while you were waiting for him. You mindlessly scrolled through your phone, completely missing the sounds of someone walking up to you, that someone being Mark himself.

You yelped in surprise as you were lifted off of your feet and spun around in the air.

“What the hell,” was all you said as the boy set you down.

“Y/N, Look!” he exclaimed, handing you the test with a huge eighty-five percent scribbled in red on the top right corner of the sheet.

“Mark, I told you, you could do it,” you hugged the smiling boy, grinning brightly at him.

“I couldn’t have without you, Y/N,” the sincerity in his eyes as they bore into your own was making you melt on the spot.

“No more tutor girl?” you asked, grin never falling.

“You’ll always be tutor girl but, uh,” he paused as if deep in thought for a moment, “I really like spending time with you. I think it will be weird not seeing you all the time,” you nodded in agreement, realizing that the semester had ended, meaning it was summer break.

“Well, we’re friends now right. We can still hang out,” you offered, watching as the boy looked down with a look you couldn’t decipher.

“Um, I know we’re friends, but,” he stepped a little closer to you, “I was wondering like, y’know if it’s possible, if you maybe wanna,” he continued to stumble over his words. You couldn’t help but smile at his very awkward, very cute way of asking you what you already knew he was getting at.

“Mark, do you want to go out sometime,” you finally blurted, chuckling at his pink face.

“Yes, I would like that a lot,” he said nodding.

“I don’t know if you knew but uhm, I mean it was before, but basically um, I’m sorry I judged you before, Mark,” you apologized suddenly watching as he shook his head in dismissal. It had been on your mind for a while even despite him not knowing.

“I knew you felt that way before. That’s kind of why I was so like reluctant to have you as my tutor,” he grabbed your hand and squeezed lightly.

“That’s why you were so weird the day he told us,” you nodded in understanding remembering the look Mark gave you when you were first introduced, as if you spat in his drink. In his defense you deserved it.

“Honestly, yeah,” he confessed, “but in your defense, I am kind of an acquired taste,”

“That’s not an excuse. I was an idiot,” you admitted, “Mark, you’re amazing,” he smiled lightly at your last statement, taking the time to just look at you. His brown eyes were like a pool, drawing you in until you sank, unable to stop staring.

He reached out, cupping your cheek with his hand before speaking, “Can I kiss you?”

You only nodded in response, waiting patiently as he lowered his head towards your face until he was less than a centimeter away. It felt like hours had passed until his lips grazed yours, allowing a tingling sensation to move throughout your body.

In a flash, your arms were around his neck and he was holding onto you delicately, like you would break if he was too rough. He tasted like a mixture of mint and watermelon gum. His warm foresty and floral scent was filling your senses, actively intoxicating you as his lips moved against yours rhythmically. The kiss was greater than any apology you could have given him since it was full of the emotion you couldn’t fully articulate. Mark was fully focused on you in the moment, lips moving against yours like a magnet.

“I told you to become friends, not make out in public,” you heard Haechan’s voice interrupt, causing you to immediately pull away from the boy in front of you. You couldn’t help but laugh uncontrollably at Haechan's mortified face and Mark’s intense blush.

“Sorry,” Mark muttered quietly, smiling as he looked down at you.

Haechan walked towards the older boy, looping a hand around his shoulder as he spoke, “Y’know, I always saw this coming. She said she didn’t like you, but a best friend always knows,” you could only shake your head as Mark looked back at you as if asking for help. You could hear Haechan going on and on about his premonitions as you trailed behind the two boys, feeling a sense of happiness you hadn’t felt in a long time.

Mark was someone you could never see yourself with. He was loud, always distracted, obnoxious, stubborn, and mysterious. But he was also kind, deliberate, hard-working, smart, infectiously positive, and beautiful. You didn’t know when the thought struck you, but as you looked up at the brunette boy walking ahead you finally knew what you wanted. You wanted him by your side for as long as possible.

#nct #nct mark #nct mark imagines #nct imagines #nct dream #nct 127 #superm #nct fluff #mark scenarios #nct 127 fic #mark lee #mark lee fic #mark lee x reader #nct au #lee mark #pls enjoy

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bookandcranny · 4 years ago

Text

Shortwave Radio

Why he decided to leave behind a perfectly good astral cluster and go sight-seeing on a spinning ball of dirt in this great cosmic nothing of a solar system is a mystery to the entire family, but it’s been almost ten years now and so they’ve all had no choice but to conclude that he’s not coming back any time soon.

The right thing to do is to support him in it, so says tender-hearted big brother Hercules, and if that means jumping through a few hoops to attend some strange human ceremony in this hot and lifeless wasteland, then that’s simply what they’ll do.

summary: Five siblings from the stars come to earth by invitation of their estranged little brother, who’s only request to them is that they take a road trip across the American southwest and try to learn to see this planet the way he sees it.

content warnings: dysfunctional families, carsickness, strong language, fear of abandonment, and accidental misgendering of a nonbinary character

length: about 7k words

also, have a playlist!

🛸🛸🛸

On a particularly sticky day in late July, a black minivan rolls up outside Gruber’s Convenience somewhere in the vague liminal world of the i-110 out of El Paso. Shimmering like a mirage the vehicle comes to a stop and five figures shuffle into the station. Working the counter is a greasy-faced teenager who calls himself Benj, though according to his nametag he’s Benjamin until the end of his shift.

If he weren’t intentionally ignoring the group that just walked in, resenting the loss of quiet and the cool air that just escaped with the chime of the door, Benj would notice a few things about them. For one thing, while they all look quite different, all five of them are wearing the exact same clothes: pale blue t-shirt, gray jeans, plain white sneakers, not a toe scuffed or sullied by the dust they kicked up coming in. They’re perfectly inconspicuous outfits, but too new, too deliberate in their banality.

The people in the clothes have much the same effect. They’re collections of ordinary, aesthetically pleasing parts assembled as if at random, almost uncanny at the wrong angle. Not supermodel pretty, but perhaps stock photo passable. One of them keeps touching things. Just, touching them. He trails his fingers over snack cakes and little pouches of corn nuts with an unreadable expression. Three of them are clustered together in front of the drinks fridge speaking in hushed tones.

The last one of the bunch is hovering in the corner making eyes at the shop’s resident mascot, Garfield, an uncreatively named tabby cat who’s taken to sleeping on a box underneath the AC unit. The cashier does notice her (he thinks she’s a her) if only because she’s kind of cute, in a straight-laced camp counselor kinda way. He’s already building up an idea of her in his head, every atom of it more false than he realizes.

The Christine or Sydney or whoever reaches down and gives the cat a poke, which turns into an experimental stroke.

“Mrph?” says Garfield, like cats do.

“Mrph?” parrots the... Liz maybe? No, not quite, he thinks. Garfield blinks at her, yawns. She withdraws, looking half offended by his indifference.

“Don’t take it personal,” Benj says. “He’s not very social.”

She looks at him for the first time and he reevaluates his earlier assessment. Eyes too pale, too far apart-- not ugly per se but definitely not worth the possible write-up he’d get for flirting with a customer.

“He’s the owner’s cat,” he babbles, scratching his chin and looking anywhere but at her. “Or so they say. Honestly I think he just showed up here one day and no one could get him to leave.”

Before she can reply, one of her matching buddies comes up to the register and dumps an assortment of snacks onto the counter. It’s a baffling, eclectic pile, but like any good retail worker Benj has long since learned not to examine anything too closely.

“Road trip, huh? Where are you guys headed?”

The radio behind the counter has gone all staticky. He fiddles with the antenna.

“Visiting family,” says snacks guy. His voice is soft and monotonous, a stark contrast as the guy’s built like a US SEAL.

Benj looks from face to face. “All of you?” He’s having a hard time believing any two of them are related.

He nods, once. A stiff, decisive shake of the head. The crackling of the radio is getting worse. Benj turns it off.

“Will that be everything, sir?”

Another nod.

“Herc, wait!” One of the man’s supposed relatives comes up behind him and shakes him by the shoulders. “Hercules, look at this.”

He slams a book down on the counter, one of the cheap paperbacks Gruber’s pedals between the condoms and the first-aid kit stuffings. The cover reads, “The Chest from The West” and features a heavily airbrushed model in a cowboy hat and unbuttoned flannel shirt.

“What am I looking at?” Herc asks.

“Get this too. I want to read it.”

“Why?”

He opens his mouth but whatever he’s about to say, Benj doesn’t really want to be present for it. He quickly scans the book and throws it cover-side-down into the bag. Let them work this one out on their own, hopefully somewhere else.

“Your total’s $29.75” He spins around to shake the radio, which is somehow now back on and blaring louder. When he turns back, the register is telling him everything’s been bought and paid for. Guy must be lightning quick with a credit card, he thinks.

“Huh. Guess you’re all set, man-- sir.” He hands them their bags. “Have fun at your family thing.”

He flashes the big guy a thumbs up. He looks strangely staggered by the gesture and replies haltingly, “Thank you. You also, have fun.”

“Come on, sibs,” the more energetic one chirps. “Cass? Cass, come on.” He drags his sister away from the cat, who’s just starting to warm up to her. “That’s you, remember? Let’s go.”

They don’t get any gas from the pumps outside. Benj is pretty sure he saw the testy looking one with the ponytail shoplift a bottle of off-brand cola, but he isn’t paid nearly enough to care. At least after they’re gone the radio starts working normally again.

Hercules drives, though it’s not so much driving as sitting in the driver’s seat and telling the van to go. Earth machines are simplistic and easy to manipulate. Slow though. Cass is riding “shotgun”, as is apparently customary for the navigator. Andromeda, Zeta, and Camelopardalis share the backseat, where the formermost is rehashing the same tired debate with the latter.

“We need to work out a better earth name for you,” he insists. “Myself, I’ve been doing some research and I’m thinking about going by ‘Andy’ from now on.”

“I’m not calling you that,” says Zeta.

Camelopardalis asks, “What’s wrong with the name I have?”

“It is a bit long,” Cassiopeia agrees. “A shorter one would help you fit in better.”

“Speaking of fitting in, something else has been bothering me. What’s your gender supposed to be?”

“My what?”

“You know, your gender. We all picked one.”

“It’s almost like you didn’t read the brief,” Zeta says, instigator that she is.

“It’s almost like none of you read the brief, that I took the time to write specifically to help you all acclimate to earth culture.”

“Zeta, don’t upset Cass,” Herc scolds.

“I’m not upset.” She turns in her seat to stare pointedly out the window. There isn’t much to look at, just miles upon miles of rolling desert interrupted by the occasional billboard or truck stop, all crawling by at a snail’s pace compared to the sort of travel they’re used to. Not that she’d recognize the analogy. She misses the cat.

Camelopardalis fiddles with their seatbelt. “Which one are you again?”

“I’m a ‘man’,” Andromeda recites. “Earth men are known for their physical prowess and carnivorous diet, they live in cave environments, and often congregate in packs called ‘fraternities’.” He waves the gas-station novel in the air. “I’m going to research their habits and perfect my persona. By the time I’m done with this I’ll practically be a local.”

“I don’t know… Zeta, what made you decide to be the other one?”

“Flipped a coin.”

“Women,” Cass informs them. “Can be most commonly identified by their long hair, fastidious hygiene habits, the use of traditional face paints to accentuate the eyes and lips, and by fleshy protrusions of the upper torso. Any of these traits can indicate an earth woman, though none are necessarily required.”

They throw up their hands. “How is that helpful at all then! Zeta?”

“What do you want me to do about it? I didn’t invent them. Hercules, are you sure these ‘snacks’ are safe to eat? They have a strange texture.”

“If you don’t like it, don’t eat it.” He punctuates the point by reaching back and grabbing a cream-filled cupcake off the pile. He tears the plastic with his teeth and eats half of it in a single bite. He barely tastes the thing, but he’s hoping if his siblings follow his lead their mouths will be too full to whine at him.

“Yeah, Zeta, don’t be a bitch.” Andromeda opens a pack of mini donuts, albeit more gingerly, and pops one into his mouth.

Cass whips her head around. “Where did you learn that word?”

He holds open the paperback and points to a page.

Austin hesitated. “I’ve never ridden a horse before. What if I fall?”

Derek chuckled manfully. “Don’t be a bitch, city boy,” he teased. Then he placed his large, calloused hand upon the small of Austin’s back. He leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry, I won’t ever let you fall.”

The navigator leans over the center console and tries to snatch the book away but he dodges swiftly, clutching it to his chest.

“That’s foul language, Andromeda Alpheratz.”

“Earthers use this kind of speech with each other all the time. It’s a sign of familiarity and affection. You guys need to be less formal if you want to blend in.”

“If it’s meant to be an insult,” Camelopardalis wonders. “Why would they use it to convey affection.”

“Because they’re brutish, unevolved lifeforms,” Zeta sneers. “‘Blend in, blend in’. The rest of you can worry about blending in with the apes. I’m only doing this for Perseus.”

“We’re all doing this for Percy,” Hercules says in a chastising voice that makes even Zeta shrink down in her seat. “So can we please agree to be somewhat civil and not make this trip more painful than it needs to be?”

There’s a murmur of general agreement and peace is restored, however temporarily. Camelopardalis clears their throat.

“I still don’t really understand why we couldn’t land directly at Perseus Nine’s coordinates.”

Cass huffs, blowing a dark curl out of her face. “For the last time, Percy specifically requested we partake in the human ritual of the ‘road-trip’ for this last portion of our journey. It’s the same route he traveled the first time he came to earth, and apparently holds some sort of sentimental significance. It’s important to him we experience the same pilgrimage. For some reason.”

She adds the last part under her breath, knowing full well the others will still hear her. They can hear one another when separated by countless miles of empty space, their voices resonating from star to star, clear as a bell. Compared to that, the close proximity of a rented minivan is stifling. There’s an uncomfortable intimacy to it, these crudely assembled physical forms pressed together, bloated and heavy with all the trappings of humanity. Sweat and road dust and gravity cling to Cass like an over-warm coat and she longs for the cool estrangement that comes so easily in the void of space. It’s tough to be a star-dweller away from her star.

“The reasons don’t matter,” Herc declares, and his word is as good as law here. He is the eldest of them, though the concept of seniority is abstracted somewhat by the literal millennia they’ve all lived through.

Percy is the baby, as well as the black sheep of the family, so to speak. (His actual moniker among their kinfolk roughly translates to “the dissonant note”, a scathing insult for those who knew what it meant.) Why he decided to leave behind a perfectly good astral cluster and go sight-seeing on a spinning ball of dirt in this great cosmic nothing of a solar system is a mystery to the entire family, but it’s been almost ten years now and so they’ve all had no choice but to conclude that he’s not coming back any time soon.

“At least we can check one more stop off the list,” Zeta quips. “What’s next?”

Cass checks her itinerary. “We are to visit one national historic landmark, one ‘tourist trap’-- whatever that means-- followed by a stop at ‘Diane’s Diner’, home of the world’s best pie. After that, we can head straight to the meet-up location.” She glances at the clock on the dashboard. “We’re a little behind schedule but we should make it right on time as long as there are no unexpected delays.”

An hour and a half of driving later, Andromeda throws up corn chips and mini donuts all over the back of Herc’s seat.

They pull over on the side of the road. The desert sand is just beginning to give way to sparse yellow grass, brittle from the sun. Herc steadies Andromeda, looking viscerally displeased as he finishes emptying out his recently manifested stomach.

Camelopardalis frets through the whole episode. “We’ve all been eating the same food, except for Zeta. If it’s poisonous, one of us will be next.”

“It’s not poison, it’s carsickness,” Cass sighs. “Honestly, I’m starting to think none of you even looked at the brief.”

“Zeta, look in the back for something to clean up with.”

“Why me?”

“We’re going to lose so much time…”

“Would you rather hold him?”

Andromeda retches.

“Do you think Percy would care if we skipped a couple stops?”

“Cassiopeia Sigma,” Hercules begins sternly.

“Alright, alright. I’ll figure something out.”

Fortunately they’ve happened to stop within walking distance of something called The Trinity Site, according to the map. Camelopardalis and Cass go ahead to check another stop off the list while Zeta and Herc clean up the van and make sure Andromeda isn’t actually dying. (How embarrassing, to be a quasi-immortal astral being only to perish at the hands of a tainted twinkie.)

They wander from the roadside, following the map and occasional signposts, and shortly find themselves standing in front of an ominous looking stone obelisk with a bronze placard affixed to one side.

Trinity Site: Where the world’s first nuclear device was exploded on July 16th, 1945

There’s more but Cass stops reading. Camelopardalis asks her to explain what the plaque means by nuclear device-- they’re familiar with nuclear power as a concept, fission and fusion, ideas not far departed from the system of energy exchange that sustains their natural bodies in the heart of their stars-- but goes pale when she goes into the relevant applications of said devices.

“Wonderful,” she grumbles to herself as she snaps a few photos of the monument with a disposable camera. “I’m sure Percy will be thrilled.”

“Excuse me.”

The pair turn to see a man in a colorful button-up and khakis and a woman with a day-old sunburn peeling off beneath the straps of her tank top.

“Boy are we happy t’see the two of yous. Couldja take our picture real quick?”

The woman holds out a camera, a significantly more professional piece of equipment than the one Cass is holding.

“Oh, sure,” Cass replies. She’s nervous as she takes it from her hands. She’s never encountered this sub-species of human in her research before, and finds it difficult to parse the woman’s peculiar dialect. Both of them are smiling, but they’re also showing a lot more teeth (and a fair bit of gum) than she thinks is normal. A subtle threat?

Nevertheless, she fumbles with the camera for a moment before managing to take a decent snapshot. The man wraps an arm around his wife’s waist and she slots herself in against his side.

“Ope, wait, let’s do a silly one to send to Marsha and the kids. Were my eyes closed? No? Perfect, you’re a doll. We’ll leave you kids alone now.”

“Sure,” she says again, feeling out of pace.

“My nephew wears his hair like that,” the man says without segway. He’s talking to Camelopardalis, they realize. “It’s very… hip.”

They touch their hair. They hadn’t given it much thought before, might not ever have if he hadn’t pointed it out. It’s nice, they think.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

His expression flinches into a puzzled frown. Cass smacks their arm.

“Sir! Thank you, sir.”

After they’ve walked away Cass gives him another jab for good measure.

“His hair was longer than the other one’s,” they complain. “And the chest was sort of fleshy. How was I supposed to know?”

“We’re lucky you didn’t cause an incident. Earthers carry weapons in this part of the world.”

They rub their arm. “I don’t know, they seemed nice.”

Still they give a fleeting glance at the plaque behind them and argue no more.

They return to the van, now blessedly puke-free. Andromeda is looking better too. They all pile in and almost immediately Camelopardalis misses the freedom of being able to move without touching somebody. It may be their imagination, but the car seems to be moving slower than ever.

“How was it?” Zeta asks, despite her obvious disinterest.

“Uninspiring,” is Cass’ reply.

The other nods and doesn’t force her to elaborate. “I wish I knew what Perseus intended for us with this… chore list.”

“It’s not important, we just do it.”

Herc is always a steady presence, but even he is starting to sound annoyed with repeating himself. Zeta, of course, can’t leave well enough alone.

“If we just knew what he wanted us to do or say we could do it and go back to how we were before.”

Cass snaps. “Maybe you should stop complaining and make an effort for once.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The car erupts into a heated four-way argument. Only Hercules resolutely abstains from comment, though his hands tighten into fists on the steering wheel. The fight doesn’t end in resolution so much as exhaustion. Everyone’s too miserable to keep hurling accusations and insults for the next hundred miles, and at length they lapse back into tense silence.

Zeta rests her head against the window, taking the arythmic rattle into herself, breathing it out in silent, frenetic melodies. She dislikes fighting with her siblings, no matter what they might claim to the contrary. It doesn’t happen often, or didn’t, but things have been different since Percy left home. The littlest star-child had a natural soothing presence to him, one that she’d long taken for granted. Earth is so noisy, she thinks. She strains to listen but she can’t hear a trace of him anywhere.

She tries to imagine what he’d say, if he were here.

“What are we even doing?”

Probably not that, but she already has everyone’s attention now so she figures she might as well keep going.

“I mean, we’re still behind schedule, we can’t stop bickering, Andromeda can’t even eat right apparently, and I’m pretty sure half of us didn’t even look at Cassiopeia’s brief.”

“Are you getting to a point?” Cass asks irritably.

“I’m just saying we’re all… bitches.”

“Zeta!”

“Get comfortable with it! We’re all bad at this. Me, you, all of us. So can we just stop blaming each other and have a truce in the interest of getting this over with?”

Cass opens her mouth, then lets it fall shut, sinking back into her seat. For a moment it seems they’re heading for another long awkward silence, when Andromeda sits up and points out the window with a sudden urgency.

“Look!”

Herc slows down and they see a billboard lit up in eerie green neon light, directing them to the next off-ramp.

Must see attraction! Visit the one of a kind Ancient Aliens Exhibit!

The star-folk look at one another.

“Is this what they call a tourist trap?”

“It seems likely.”

Andromeda is glowing-- in a very literal sense-- with excitement. “It’s an exhibit about us.”

“‘Ancient’? Speak for yourself, I’m still only in my six-thousands.”

Needless to say, they do stop at the roadside museum. Cass takes pictures aplenty and, to her surprise, actually enjoys it. Andromeda is disappointed to find there isn’t actually a display dedicated to their kind. Instead there are a lot of grainy photos of some squat, bug-eyed species called “greys” and diagrams of the Egyptian pyramids for some reason. He gets over it by the time they get to the gift shop.

By unanimous decision, they do not buy anymore snacks, though Zeta’s eye does linger on a cooler in the corner advertising “the ice cream of the future!”. Herc does however buy a number of souvenirs. (Rather, he convinces the automated register to record a purchase that didn’t technically take place, and bumps up the number in the bank account of one very nice tour guide while he’s at it.)

They leave with a mood ring, a handful of polished stones in a small velvet bag, a “gravity defying” purple yo-yo shaped like a UFO, and Camelopardalis sheepishly lays claim to a friendly looking martian figurine with bendable limbs. Overall, spirits are much higher by the time they make it back to the van.

“Hercules,” his meek younger sibling ventures. “Could I try driving? I’ve been curious about it.”

Feeling generous and more than a little tired of staring out at the road for hours at a time, he agrees. He shows Camelopardalis the basics and makes sure they know how not to veer off the road or into other drivers and then he climbs into the middle backseat and stretches out his arms so the siblings on either side of him can tuck in against him and rest. Eventually even the diligent navigator Cassiopeia begins to doze. It’s been a long day and none of them are quite accustomed to the burden of having earthbound bodies.

When Andromeda wakes up the first thing he registers is that it’s getting dark, the day reduced to a slim red band sinking over the horizon. The second thing is the yelling.

“What do you mean you don’t know!”

“I thought I could read the map myself--”

“What about you, navigator? What were you doing?”

“--didn’t mean to--”

“As if you’re one to talk! I can’t believe--”

“--and you were the one who--”

“Shut up!”

Hercules’ normally subdued baritone booms through the van. The windshield wipers begin swinging as if in indignation, while the passengers wince and cover their ears. Andromeda can’t remember a time when his brother’s frequency had felt so violent. The shivering resonance it leaves behind makes his teeth ache.

There’s a pregnant pause, then Cass slams open the door and begins to pace.

“Shit!” she yells at the empty air. They’re parked in a field somewhere, no sign of life save for the buzzing of insects and the rumble of a train somewhere off in the distance. Cass kicks at the ground and screams again. “Shit fuck bitch hell! We are so fucking lost! And so fucking late!”

Andromeda winces again and gets out to try and calm her. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“It is not! We’re probably missing the ceremony right now. Percy will never forgive me for this.”

“It wasn’t your fault…”

“I’m supposed to be the navigator!”

“Well, yes, but…” The words come out strangled. He touches his chest and realizes he’s breathing rapidly. His eyes are beginning to water as well. “I should’ve… I didn’t…”

Zeta hurries over to him. “What’s wrong? Are you going to be sick again?”

Without warning he doubles over and begins bawling.

“Hercules, do something! Something’s wrong with him!”

“Don’t… don’t… don’t…” he gasps and stammers.

Herc clutches his brother. “Don’t what? Talk to me.”

“Don’t fight,” he finally chokes out. “I don’t want to lose anybody else.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Percy,” he sniffles miserably. “He doesn’t care about us anymore. He has earth now, and all his new earth friends, and we can’t even do this one thing for him. It’s my fault. I knew he hated when I called him a dissonant note and made fun of his earth music but I did it anyway. Now he probably hates me and all of us and this whole thing has been for nothing.”

The eldest braces his arms on Andromeda’s slumped shoulders. “Percy doesn’t hate us. He invited us here because he wanted to see us.”

“Herc’s right, Andromeda. Percy doesn’t have it in him to hate anyone.”

“It’s not easy, but he chose this. He chose earth. We have to respect that.”

Zeta grumbles, “And just what is so special about this stupid planet anyway?”

“It has cats,” Cassiopeia says quietly. Her sister glares but she stays firm. “Well it does. And… people.”

“Strange, silly earth people,” Camelopardalis adds, nervously fussing with their hair. “Confusing and contradictory and fascinating.”

“People who hurt each other for no good reason.”

“People who are kind for no good reason too.”

Andromeda wipes phosphorous tears from his eyes and takes out the rumpled gas-station paperback. “In this book Austin leaves his job as a big city lawyer to follow the cowboy he’s in love with.”

“You think Perseus traveled to earth for cowboy love?”

“It’s a possibility!”

Cass scoffs. “I honestly don’t think he was thinking that far ahead. You know Percy. He probably crash-landed without any plan whatsoever. Or, he probably thought he knew what he was doing, and then when he actually got there he was terrified. And then he probably didn’t want to say anything because he was afraid his siblings would think less of him once they realized he was actually just as clueless about earth stuff as they were. That would probably be really, really stressful for him.”

“Are we still talking about Percy?”

She makes a wordless noise of frustration and kicks up another patch of grass.

Andromeda puts an arm around her. “If… Percy was worried about that, I’d tell her-- him! I’d tell him that he shouldn’t be, because there’s nothing he could do that would make us stop believing in him.”

She exhales. “Thanks.”

“I was talking about you, Cass,” he whispers. “It’s you I believe in.”

“Thank you, I got that.”

“I just… miss him, I guess.”

Herc hums in agreement. “Barely a millennium old and he’s already grown up and gone completely terrestrial. This past century has been the longest of my existence.”

“Hercules, it’s only been ten years.”

That news causes him to make such a face that Zeta starts laughing. It’s the first time she’s so much as cracked a smile the entire trip.

“So… what do we do now?” Camelopardalis asks.

After a moment, Cass grabs the map off the dashboard and holds it open.

“A little more light please?”

They step up behind her and hold a glowing hand over the paper. Her brow creases in concentration.

“Alright, I think we’re somewhere around here,” She gestures. “And we need to be here. There’s no way we’re going to show up on time, but we can still show up. We owe him that much.”

They get in their seats, Herc back at the helm, and begin trying to reclaim the distance they lost with the unplanned detour. Cass breathes a sigh of relief when road signs start to reappear. A driver honks at them as they pick up speed and Herc steers closer and makes their radio start playing at top volume. Zeta opens the window and a cool night breeze tickles her skin. The stars are bright and beautiful above them, and looking up, suddenly home doesn’t feel so far away.

All at once they slow to a near stop.

“What’s going on? Why are we stopping?”

“Traffic,” Herc says like it’s a curse. “Looks like there was an accident.”

“Take this exit,” Cass commands. “We can cut through the next town and get ahead of it.”

So he does and soon they find themselves driving through the quiet streets of Kismet, Nevada. That is, quiet until Zeta catches sight of something out the window and yells, “Pull over!”

“What! What is it now!”

She points, and they see. The sign ahead reads, “Diane’s Diner: Home of the World’s Best Pie”. They pull in so fast they nearly end up colliding with a stout aproned woman who’s pushing a teetering hand cart across the lot.

“What do you maniacs think you’re doing?” she demands as they clambour out of the van.

“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” Cass says in a rush. “It is just very important to my siblings and I that we get to this establishment.”

The woman huffs. “You’re a mite late then, I’m afraid. We’re closing up early tonight. Got a big catering order I have to deliver.”

Herc asks, “Are you Diane, of the diner?”

She laughs. “Close. I’m Maddie Finkle of the diner. Diane’s my mother’s name. It’s a family business. But what brings you folks here looking for Diane at this time of night? I don’t think I’ve seen your faces around town before, and I always remember a customer.”

“Do you remember a customer named Percy? It would’ve been years ago, but this place was very important to him. He’s our brother.”

Maddie’s eyes light up. “Why didn’t you say so! Of course I know Percy. And if you rowdy lot are his siblings, then I’ve got a message for you.”

“A message?” Percy hadn’t said anything to them about a message. Maybe this was his way of ensuring they actually made it to the last stop on his list.

“Well, sort of. Come, come, help me load up all this grub and I’ll tell you everything.”

Herc and Zeta go to either side of her and help push the wobbly cart to a truck with the diner’s logo emblazoned on the side. As they load the boxes, Maddie speaks.

“I first met your Percy when I was just a waitress, mama still working the kitchen. One day this kid walks in, looking as lost as can be, comes straight up to the counter and tells me he’s just fallen from outer space and could use some assistance.” She barks a laugh. “I didn’t go for the whole alien thing but that second part was a lot more believable. He looked a mess. I asked if he needed something to eat but he just said he needed a safe place to rest for a moment. He’d been on his feet all day, walking and hitchhiking his way clear across the desert.

“Of course I wanted to know where he was going that was so important, but he said he didn’t know for sure yet. Said he was following a melody, a song he’d heard from very far away that had drawn him to this place. I told him I couldn’t help him there. The only music we had in the diner was this old stereo system mama had put in when she first opened the place and it was long broken. Mama was too sentimental to get rid of the old thing and the repairman couldn’t do anything for it so broken it stayed.

“He asked me to show him so I did, figuring it couldn’t hurt anything. Then that kid walked up to the busted speaker and just like that it started playing again like it was new. I told him, ‘For that, I owe you more than a place to rest your legs. Stay in town for a while, let us put you up and get you back on your feet, or at least let me drive you to the train station so you can get where you’re going.’ But he refused, and before long he was gone again.

“Then, not a couple days later, spaceboy comes back traveling with this other kid, heading in the opposite direction. I ask him what happened and he says he was going one way but he changed his mind and turned around. He leans in like he’s sharing a great big secret, like we’ve been friends all our lives, and says, ‘I found it, Maddie. I found the song.’ Weirdest kid I’ve ever met! But they make a cute couple, him and that boy, and they’re some of my best customers to this day.”

They finish packing up the truck, Maddie leaning leisurely against the fender as she reminisces. Herc frowns, confused.

“Was that the message?”

“Yup.” She pops the P. “He just told me to tell you the story. Not sure why. I mean, it’s a good story, I think. But you already know all about it, right? You’re his family after all.”

“No, he never told us,” he admits softly.

“Huh. Weird. But then, he’s kind of a weird kid, yeah? I always wondered, is it all you aliens who talk in riddles like that, or just him?”

“I thought you said you didn’t believe his claims.”

“I didn’t the first time, but if your Percy’s one thing it’s… Perc-istent.” When no one laughs, she pushes onward. “Well, that’s all of it. We’d better get a move on, huh?”

“‘We’?”

“Sure, aren’t you folks on your way to Percy’s place too? I figured you’d be staying over, and I gotta get everything set up for the wedding tomorrow.”

A palpable shock ripples through the star-folk. “Tomorrow?”

“‘Course, what did you think all this was for?” She pats the truck. “I wanted to get everything ready ahead of time so we’re good to go in the morning. It’s not easy being the caterer and providing my lovely self as a guest on the same day, but I couldn’t let those sweet boys down.”

Andromeda slumps over, leaning on Herc for support. “Percy told us the wedding was tonight.”

The chef raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like someone’s been having a little fun with you. Nah, they’re doing some sort of get-together tonight since neither one of the bachelors wanted a bachelor party, but the actual wedding ceremony’s definitely not until tomorrow.”

“I’m going to end him,” Cass mutters under her breath.

“Hurry up now,” she says. “I’m sure the groom-to-be’s expecting you.”

The five follow Maddie’s truck away from the main drags, away from the buildings, the scenery becoming gradually greener as the road turns from asphalt to gravel. At last they find themselves pulling up in front of the house that Percy has come to call home. It’s a raised ranch, flanked by evergreens and patchwork plots of small white and yellow flowers that Percy’s fiance must have planted, and a tower of plastic chairs and tables covered by a tarp.

It’s a nice place, large and somewhat secluded, set apart from the noise of traffic or threat of nosy human neighbors. Percy’s sensitive to loud noise and, after all, still an alien living in secret amongst humanity. Yet as they get out and follow the caterer where she’s cutting around back through the garden, they’re struck by the sounds of laughter and music and lively chatter.

A group of earthers are gathered on the patio, smiling faces lit by a string of twinkling lights. A man with a guitar strums along with the music coming from inside.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Andromeda whispers.

“You think there’s a second Perseus Nine about to be married in this town?” Cass shoots back.

Zeta hisses, “Quiet, I can hear him.”

To his surprise, Herc can too. Above the noise, laced into everything he touches, there is a resonance, his baby brother’s unique personal frequency. To describe it as sound alone would perhaps be inaccurate; it’s a vibration, an echo. Percy is everywhere in this place: his whispers and his shouts, his twinkling laugh, but also the part of him that no human being can detect, the part of him that is still, and will always be, of the stars.

He must sense them too, because in that moment he appears standing in the doorway, bathed in its yellow light. His face breaks out in a glowing grin and he runs to greet them, bolting like a comet being pulled into his siblings’ orbit.

“You made it!” he exclaims.

Zeta snorts and allows him to throw his arms around her. “No thanks to you and your list of demands.”

“You brat,” Cass accuses. “You told us the ceremony was tonight.”

Percy tilts his head to look at her, his expression not half as guilty as it should be. For a moment she reels at the sight of him; the body he’s constructed for himself has aged since the last time they crossed paths. It’s subtle, the way his dimples have deepened into true laugh lines, and his hair has grown ever longer, though it also isn’t as tangled as she remembers. He is still himself, underneath, the light of his true being faintly visible beneath the skin.

“I was worried if I told you the real date you wouldn’t make it in time. You’re not used to traveling the human way. It can be messy.”

She grimaces. “You’re not wrong.”

“You’re actually here way earlier than I thought you’d be.” His smile falters, only slightly. “This is… everyone?”

Herc swallows. “The others…” he begins, but quickly finds he doesn’t have the words that should follow.

“Well, it’s not like I had enough chairs for all two-hundred-ninety-seven of them anyway.” He reaches out and squeezes his brothers tightly. “Hercules, Andromeda, It’s so wonderful to see you. Camelopardalis, Cassiopeia, it means so much to me that you came. I know it probably wasn’t easy. Zeta…”

She scoffs. “The only hard part was putting up with these bitches.”

Hercules interjects, “We shouldn’t keep you from your party. Go on, I need to get some things from the van.”

“You didn’t bring presents, did you?”

“It’s customary for weddings, is it not?”

Percy grins. “You’re becoming a real expert on earth customs.”

He shrugs and looks at Cass. “I just read the brief.”

Percy invites his family in, along with Maddie, who is perfectly tickled by the siblings’ awkward affection. After helping her bring in the food, Percy beckons over the man with the guitar.

“Adam!”

The man looks up. He has a boyish, freckled face and a head of dark curls that spill over his brow. He sets down the instrument and comes to slot himself against Percy’s side, thoughtlessly, as if that was always where he was meant to be.

“I’d like to formally introduce you to my fiance, Adam. And Adam, this is my family.”

His smile broadens. “Hey, great to finally really meet you guys. Percy talks about you all the time. Did you have a long trip?”

They look at one another for a moment until finally Herc shrugs and says, “Only about twenty-five trillion miles, give or take.”

The happy couple linger for a moment longer, sharing stories and talking about honeymoon plans. Adam is especially thrilled when Andromeda and Zeta begin to co-narrate an embarrassing tale from Percy’s childhood in the Alpha Persei Cluster. Eventually though the pair wander off together, leaving the star-folk to their most harrowing challenge yet: mingling.

“Sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Camelopardalis.”

The guest, one of the couple’s mutual friends, goes a bit bug-eyed. “Wow, okay, that’s really cool. Kind of a mouthful though. Got a nickname?”

“Nick… name?”

“Like, something that your friends call you for short. My friends call me Dee, but my highschool nickname was Dent.” They point to a scar on the side of their head, just above their left ear. Their fair hair is buzzed short, making it easy to see. “Long story. What if for now I called you ‘Cam’?”

They consider it. “I think I’d like that.”

“Cool, nice to meet you, Cam.”

“Nice to meet you, Dee.” They hesitate. “Would you say you’re a man or a woman?”

Dee frowns.

“Nevermind! I’m so sorry, I just don’t understand the earth gender binary at all. Everything about it just seems so arbitrary and senseless.”

Oddly enough, their new friend perks back up at this.

“Honestly, same,” they laugh.

Andromeda joins shortly, having struck up a conversation with Dee’s partner who is deeply intrigued by his review of “The Chest from The West”. The three of them spend a while swapping book recommendations. Meanwhile, Zeta gets hit on by a slightly intoxicated young woman with an undercut and an eyebrow ring, although the star-dweller vastly misinterprets her none-too-subtle questioning about alien biology. Cass meets Adam and Percy’s pet dog, Chowder, and deems him as good a companion as the convenience store cat.

Herc catches Percy alone in the kitchen and the two have a long overdue talk. It’s clumsy but earnest, and when Herc mumbles something out about possible future family visits, Percy throws himself into his brother with such vigor that he momentarily forgets about gravity and starts to float off the ground.

“I’m sorry too, by the way, for the whole thing with the list,” he sighs. “It probably seems pretty stupid, I just kind of hoped I could get you to see this world the way I see it. Full of life and love and adventure.”

“And music,” he finishes, catching the way his gaze flits back to the patio. To Adam, singing softly and dancing with one of their friends.

He nods. “I thought maybe then you’d understand why this is so important to me.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see earth the way you do,” Hercules confesses. “But I don’t think it was stupid of you to try either, and I don’t think it was for nothing.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the mood ring. The friendly prismatic face of a cartoon alien glints up at him. Perseus takes the gift with an understanding chuckle and slips it onto his pinky finger.

“No, not for nothing.”

Tomorrow, there will be a wedding. Percy and Adam will stand in front of their friends and family and exchange their vows. Adam’s mother will complain about them not booking a proper venue for just short of an annoying amount of time, Maddie will bring out a ridiculously tall tier cake that will taste almost as good as one of her mother’s pies, and for once Percy will not be the worst one on the dance floor.

Tomorrow, there will be a bright silver band around Percy’s fourth finger, neighbored by a smaller ring in the shape of an inside joke, and with all the weight of a promise.

#aliens #original fiction #writeblr #short story #original writing #road trip #me? posting my writing again? its more likely than u think #lgbt #my writing

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lumen-adstrum · 4 years ago

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Hi! I read your works and I really really like them! So I would like to make a request! How about a felix × fem!reader pre-timeskip? Felix is so in love with her but he tries to deny it and he avoids her a little for this purpose. However, he gets really jealous when a suitor is pestering the reader non-stop so he pretends to be the reader's boyfriend to scare away the suitor? Thank you! And take care please!

A/N: Aww thank you so so much!! I’m so happy you like them! I’m sorry it took me a while to write, but I wanted to make this one a bit longer than my other works! I hope this is to your liking! Please stay safe and in good health! -Evelyn

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ABSENTION

Two months had gone by, the Verdant Rain Moon had settled in full with plenty of showers and rainbows making an appearance. [Y/N], like many other students, attended the monastery with intentions of growing not only in power but as a person too. Along the way, she met many new faces, some familiar ones too. Felix was among the many she had made acquaintances with.

He was prickly, blunt, and beyond harsh in the eyes of many, those same people constantly ridiculed how she could stand trying to talk to him. All he ever did was scoff and brush them off. Perhaps he did those same things to her as well, but she could tell he was listening even as he pretended not to. After all, Felix had a little quirk: nodding his head subtly to himself as he pondered her words. His stubborn facade of aloofness had always struck her as cute rather than hurtful.

However, she had noticed as time passed… he seemed more and more avoidant, and their conversations were more one-sided than ever, hardly even a nod to himself now. [Y/N] wouldn’t lie, it had begun to sting the longer the dynamic continued, having grown attached to him. She had extended the concern to his friends, Ingrid and Sylvain, but as far as they knew, he was the same Felix they had always known.

Even during lectures, he no longer sat in the same row as her, instead settling for a seat on the opposite side of the room in the very front. Any time the professor paired them together for an activity or job, Felix didn’t even bother to spare her a glance. It was disheartening in ways and in others it was utterly infuriating.

Today was no different. She watched with a silent glare as they both tended to the horses, her hand dragging the brush gently down the stallion’s mane. Felix made silent work of cleaning the saddles and reins, not once did he say anything! Not even a scoff! “Felix?” Her voice was borderline accusatory just saying his name and he paused in polishing the leather briefly, but still, he didn’t look at her or reply. She at least knew he had heard her.

“I thought you had gone deaf, glad to see that’s wrong. However, this outcome is irking me a lot more.” Open with her thoughts, Felix finally looked at her with a rather pointed expression on his face.

“Whatever are you talking about? Can we get this done?” His reply is curt, turning back to the saddle to continue with his work. The girl grits her teeth, knowing he wouldn’t budge. It was unheard of for Felix to avoid confrontation… but for the time being, she was exhausted constantly trying to corner him and pull an answer out. At this rate, perhaps it was time to just let Felix do his own thing, after all, plenty had warned her about how he treated people as if they were the plague themselves. Some truth certainly rang in it now.

With the stables looking sufficient, the horses cared for and the riding gear repaired and polished, [Y/N] was the first to turn and leave, unlike in the past where she would try to get some sort of response from Felix at least. The man remained behind for a moment, watching silently as she walked away before releasing a quiet sigh of his own.

He hated upsetting her, truly he did. However, the last thing he needed was a distraction or something he viewed as an unnecessary quality of life. Felix had always and continued to put logic first and his feelings behind him. This was no different. He would lie to himself, saying things like; “I can do without. She and I weren’t that close anyway. It will be easy to forget.”

Except, he couldn’t do without. They had been close and she had been on his mind at every waking moment of every single day that passed. He felt as if it would drive him mad, but Felix seemed adamant that time would erase his fickle feelings. Days went by where the girl no longer spared him a glance, and if their eyes would meet by chance, her face would turn stern before quickly looking away as if he now repulsed her.

Sylvain was quick to notice, blowing a long whistle as his cheek laid in his hand during a lecture. “Didn’t think she could make those kinds of faces at you…” His voice seemed surprised, but in reality, both he and Ingrid knew Felix had a talent for stepping on toes. “I guess you finally chased another one off.”

“Sylvain, shut up. I am trying to read.” The exasperation was clear in Felix’s voice, flipping his pages wildly before stopping at random. However, even with his face turned down at the book and his brows knitted in concentration, Sylvain picked up the key clue the man wasn’t reading just because his eyes didn’t move from their spot. Ever the observant student deep down, the man sighed and rolled his eyes.

“You call me stupid at every possible chance yet can’t even admit to yourself how you’re feeling. It’s kinda sad really.” Before Felix could even jump at the opportunity to start a fight over the exchange, Sylvain perked up a considerable amount with clear curiosity. Turning his head to try and spot what the other was looking at, Felix spotted the sight of interest. [Y/N] was accompanied by a student sitting in on their lecture, one from the house of the Black Eagles to be exact. The two were getting along well despite the house rivalries, and the man seemed to certainly be enjoying himself.

“I forgot about him, Callun Forge, I heard their fathers are good friends. Apparently [Y/N’s] pops is trying to marry her off. Guess it makes sense he’d be first in line, looks like he’s been waiting for an opportunity like this.” Sylvain’s words pulled again at Felix’s temper, slamming the book closed and standing to pardon himself from the room. The redhead faked shock, looking after the swordsman before snickering to himself with a shake of his head.

“You really shouldn’t rile Felix up like that Sylvain, you know how angry he gets.” Ingrid’s lecturing from behind fell upon deaf ears. The slam of the door caused [Y/N] to jump briefly, glaring at the spot Felix had been just before the noise. However, her ‘lovely’ company continued merrily chatting her head off.

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It went on for days, the man’s incessant talking. It never ceased! At the rate things were going, she could feel annoyance boiling just at the sight of him. She knew her father meant well, and that she couldn’t upset the suitor considering the bonds their fathers shared… but he was making it harder and harder every day. Even now, Callun was following her around the monastery as she went to have lunch. “-You should have seen it, [Y/N], I was a true hero that day. The Goddess herself would have been enamored.” She rolled her eyes in secret.

Felix sat with Sylvain and Ingrid, a typical arrangement, but hearing the babbling fool coming from a mile away, his eyes stared at the entrance of the dining hall with an intense glare. Soon enough, [Y/N] walked through with the same man attached to her hip. He’d had enough of seeing him. Callun showed up to every lecture, every job and even accompanied them on their latest mission. He’d heard rumors that he would be asking to join the Blue Lions soon. Over his dead body.

Every tale he spun had Felix scoffing, and today was no different, but the second his hand bravely took her’s, he was practically fuming. “Felix?” Ingrid’s voice was cautious, leaning into view. “Why do you look so upset?”

“I’m not.” His reply was venomous, enough to prevent her from asking further questions, but the second he watched the man lean in to whisper something into [Y/N’s] ear, a Cheshire like grin on his face, Felix snapped. The way he shot out of his seat, hands slamming on the table before he paced their direction caught the attention of a few students. The closer he got, the more he could tell that her companion’s advances weren’t appreciated. Possessively, one of his arms found it’s way around her waist as his other hand smacked the offender away with a pointed glare.

“Hey, what the hell is your problem man?” He had guts, that was sure. Perhaps he hadn’t understood the fact Felix was more than just bark. Even [Y/N] looked bewildered, but he didn’t miss that small glimpse of relief.

“Do you make a pastime out of courting ladies that are already committed?” Felix sneered out the words, and the man’s face contorted into confusion at first before a slight trace of fear hit his eyes. His glare hardened further as he pulled the girl closer to his chest as if to prove his story. “What are you standing around for? Scram.” On command, Callun turned tail and ran. It wasn’t long after he could feel [Y/N’s] head tilt up against his chest. When Felix looked down, he was met with a pointed stare, unreadable at first but it soon turned into a devilish smirk.

“I get it now!~” Her voice was sing-song, tauntingly sweet as her finger jab against his chest accusingly. “You don’t seem like the type to get jealous, Felix. Or the type who runs from his problems. I guess you’re full of surprises, huh?” She had every right to embarrass him right now, after all the unnecessary pain he put her through, she felt he deserved a little punishment. “You know, you could’ve just said you liked me.”

“I like you.” Her teasing quickly backfired. Felix admitted it, unwavering with an honest intensity in his eyes. “Let’s… talk about this somewhere more private… please?” His eyes strayed to peering eyes uncomfortably, and the girl was quick to take his hand and pull him outside and into the unoccupied greenhouse.

“Spill it Felix, you spend weeks not talking to me and acting like I’m a nuisance. Then all of a sudden Callun shows up and you’re quick to jump up and make a scene. I’m not here to be wanted just when there’s competition, you know?” Her voice is accusatory at first, but by the end, it softens almost sadly. It pulls at his heart and he finds himself regretting his choices in the past.

“I don’t want you just because another man does, I did like you before that. It’s the whole reason I avoided you. I don’t need that commitment. It’s a distraction.” His voice is laced with frustration before it also softens but in a defeated mannerism. “Or at least I tried to convince myself it was. [Y/N], you confuse me. I’ve never felt this way before. I don’t like not knowing what will happen or how I’m feeling.” He shows vulnerability, something he tries to never do.

It’s silent for a moment before she gives an exhausted sigh and then pouts. “You’re no fair. It’s hard to be mad at you, you know?” Her body leans against his, and hesitantly he wraps his arms around her before dropping his head gently atop of her’s.

“I mean it… I like you.” His repeated confession is met with a hint of a giggle before the girl nuzzles into the crook of his neck to sneak it a simple kiss.

“I like you too, but you’re the one who has to explain this to my father. After all, he’s going to be very confused about why I never mentioned you.”

“Don’t talk about that right now.” Felix’s lecture sounds stern, but there’s a hidden smile placed on his lips and an expression of fondness washed over his face. He was lucky to have someone who understood his irrational ways and would accept his flaws. He wanted to do better in the future, he’d promised to himself he wouldn’t neglect her. [Y/N] meant so much to him. He wanted to make sure he expressed that through his future actions.

#felix x reader #fe3h felix #felix fire emblem #fe3h #fire emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #x reader #x reader requests #fire emblem x reader #felix fraldarius #felix fraldarius x reader #fe3h x reader #fe x reader #requests #request #requests open

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dearchikkie · 5 years ago

Text

Blue Knight

MARICHAT MAY 2020

Day 7: Disguise

A/N: SORRY!! This is a day late, I know. But my wifi went out yesterday and only went back online, well, now! I'm so sorry about this: I will be posting a day late now, which will probably annoy most of you, but I hope you forgive me, enjoy :)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"Princess look! It's finally out!" on a warm Saturday morning, Marinette's peaceful routine of eating breakfast atop her rooftop was abruptly interrupted but Paris' own superhero, Chat Noir.

"Chat, I'm eating breakfast!"

"Just look!"

Marinette grumbled and placed her plate beside her. When she focused on the poster, she realized just why he was so excited, "Blue Knight is out? Are you sure?"

Chat nodded eagerly, "They have three showings today: one in an hour; another at 3 and a midnight showing!"

"We have to go!"

Chat nodded profusely, his eyes practically star-shaped as he grinned at Marinette. "I can get us good seats!"

"And then you can come back after and we'll read all the theories about it!"

"And you could bake snacks for us after!"

"And drinks!"

"Yes! This is perfect!"

The duo collapsed onto Marinette's beanbag, grinning at seemingly just the sky. Suddenly, Marinette stood up with a solemn look on her face. It seemed quite strange for a girl practically bursting with excitement five seconds ago was now suddenly looking so glum, "But we can't."

"What?" Chat stood up now, his smile replaced with on of concern, "What do you mean?"

"We can't go together,"

"Why not?"

"Because you're you!" Marinette waved her hands, gesturing towards Chat.

"I don't understand, me being a superhero never bothered you before,"

"It doesn't! I'm fine with it, but..." Marinette led Chat back to the beanbag, running her hands through his blonde waves, "Imagine what would happen if they saw Chat Noir watching a movie with a civilian? We'd get mobbed! My family would be put under scrutiny by the media and everyone I know would start asking about you. Alya doesn't even know how close we are!"

He didn't wanna admit it, but Marinette was right. When they went to the movies in his civilian form girls still flocked him. Adrien Agreste was a celebrity, reporters would swarm him for questioning, then leave if he didn't have any gossip to share.

With Chat Noir, ANYTHING was enough for them. He was a superhero! A protector! The only time he was out [to their knowledge] was when everyone was in danger, so there was barely any time to talk to him before he dipped.

If anyone got wind that Chat Noir was watching a movie with a civilian, the media would go wild. Marinette's family would be harassed daily, Chat couldn't do that to them.

"...I guess you're right,"

The pair sat back to back, weight pushing against each other. "Maybe I could go with you in my civilian form?"

"And reveal your identity?"

"Point taken."

The once exhilarating air surrounding them had turned sour. Chat wished he could just ask Marinette as Adrien to go, but he doubted she'd agree. She was so carefree with Chat or Alya, even with Nino!

But with Adrien, she always seemed on edge; stuttering, tripping over herself, sometimes she wouldn't even look him in the eye. She seemed more comfortable with him now, but still wasn't as close as he wished they were.

"You should just go with, Alya. I can watch it detransformed with someone else,"

"I know, but I don't think Alya likes this series, and I really wanted to watch it with y-" Marinette quieted. Her head now turned away as she covered her face, "It just makes more sense for us to watch it together."

"Then we should!"

"Chat!"

"There has to be a way for us to go! I don't want to go with anyone besides you!"

Marinette blushed at the revelation, but smiled none the less, "I want to go with you too, but how?"

Her words hung in the air as Chat mauled over them, his mind traced back to a similar scenario, "We could disguises!"

"Disguises?"

"Yeah! Thick glasses, heavy coats, face masks..."

"That could work..." Marinette paused in thought, then sighed, "It'll take the attention away from you as a person, but only attract attention to us both. If I saw two heavily dressed people going to the movies I'd pay more attention to them than some random teens walking around,"

Again, Marinette was right. As she always was. "There has to be some form of disguise we can use. Think back to the last Blue Knight opening, was there anyone dressed weirdly? Some kind of "Royal-League" jacket we could wear?"

The noirette thought back to the last opening; it was in winter so everyone was decked out in thicker clothing, a few girls in matching Royal-League dresses, one with a wig, normal attire, normal attire, normal attire... oh.

"There is something we can wear, but I don't know how you'll feel about it,"

"Really? What? I'll wear anything!"

"I made them a while ago, but mine still fits me and I can tailor the other to fit you-"

"I'm sure they're amazing, Princess. Now tell me what I'll be wearing tonight!"

"You promise not to think it's dumb?"

"Trust me, It's impossible to look dumb in anything you make,"

✧✬✧

"We look dumb."

"What?" Chat spun around and glared at Marinette, "No we don't. We look amazing!"

Marinette had been reluctant to tell Chat her plan, but it was the only thing she could think off. Now, standing in the middle of Paris' centre movie theatre was Chat Noir and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Only, they weren't. Marinette was dressed in an Egyptian blue medieval gown with faded white ruffles splitting down the middle. In a dress this beautiful, you'd assume the wearer would be overjoyed at the honour of wearing it. Marinette took to instead keeping her flushed face shoved into her hands as she scowled at Chat from his side.

Chat, on the other hand, was dressed in a linen black shirt with thick matching pants tucked into his navy boots. Marinette made sure to include the signature weapons belt, a matching cloak with its hood hanging over Chat's head and a black bandana that covered his nose and mouth, as well as his identity.

Now that Marinette saw him wearing it, he truly did look like a rogue thief, perfectly in line with his character.

Cosplay was something neither Marinette nor Chat [despite prancing around in a leather cat suit] had done before, but Chat had seemed delighted at the thought of it. He'd pulled the cloak and shirt on with no hesitation and didn't blink an eye when he was forced to tuck his pants into his boots.

No more was Chat Noir and Marinette. Today, they were Ash 'Shade' Carter; an on-the-run thief accidentally mixed up in royal business; and Cecilia North; a girl forced to marry royalty on her mother's wishes.

"We should go pick up our tickets, you got the link?" Marinette was pulled out of her trance at the sound of Chat's voice. When she looked up, it took a few seconds for her to realize that it was really Chat in front of her and not some friendly akuma.

"Yup! Let me get out my phone," the pair approached the front counter as Marinette fiddled around in her purse. Finally, she took out her phone and pulled up the online booking page.

The woman at the counter smiled warmly at the two, scanning the screens QR-code, "That'll be 24 euros. Want any snacks or drinks?"

"We'll have two soda's and one jumbo popcorn,"

"Gotcha, butter or caramel?"

"Uh..." Marinette looked back at Chat, "Which do you prefer?"

"Is Caramel ok?"

Marinette turned back towards the woman, who nodded and started shovelling popcorn into a large container. "You both look pretty great, Blue Knight I'm guessing?"

"Yes, we're Cecilia and Shade!" Chat excitedly answered, once again forming his star-shaped eyes, "Mari made these herself!"

"Chat!" hissed Marinette, eyes narrowing at the energized superhero. The woman stared at the to with a knowing look in her eyes, mouth upturned almost to say 'Ah. I understand completely!'

"She did an amazing job then, they look professional! And what affectionate nicknames you both have. 'Chat', got anything to do with the Chat Noir?"

The pair stilled at her words, Chat gulped rather loudly as he looked to Marinette for help, "No! No, no. It's related to, to uh..."

"His name is Chatwyn! Yes, that's it! His mother is English, very proper you know?"

If the woman was suspicious, she didn't show it, merely handing over their drinks and popcorn along with two tickets. "Your total is 42.60 euros,"

Chat reached into his pockets but Marinette pushed him aside, handing over an orange bill, "Here you go,"

"Marinette! I'm told you I'd pay for this,"

"No way am I letting you pay, I'm the one forcing you into a costume!"

"But I like being in this costume! I look good-- We both do! Now let me pay," Chat shoved another orange bill onto the counter while the woman grinned at them both. Marinette tried to push her bill forward, but the woman had already grabbed Chat's money and rung it up. Chat gave a smug grin, to which Marinette only scowled.

"You two go enjoy your movie, now."

The teens nodded in thanks then left towards their cinema, "I don't know how I'm going to last. My arms are so itchy," complained Marinette, extending her arms to show off the long velvet sleeves, "I should have added a softer inner material,"

"Princess, look at me," bandaged arms wiggled in front of Marinette's face as Chat pointed towards the many straps crossed over his chest, "You wrapped me up like a mummy, I can barely walk without feeling a strap pull me back!"

"I thought you liked your costume."

"Of course I do! But when I take them off and my skins turned red, you're the one that's gonna have to heal me back to health,"

Marinette laughed, "Whatever you say, Chaton."

✧✬✧

"Oh my god." Marinette stumbled out of the theatre, hazard rocking back and forth, a dazed expression coating her face.

Chat followed behind her, tripping over himself in a similar manner, "That was..."

"That was..."

"That was INCREDIBLE!" no longer was Chat alone in his star-struck grins. The pair smiled wider than anyone had ever seen before, cheeks flushed as they babbled on and on, "I can't believe they did that! Cecilia looked so amazing in the Red Knight armour!"

"I know!" gushed Chat, "her and Shade's fight scene is probably the best thing I've ever seen!"

"The cliffhanger though! What's gonna happen in the next movie?"

"They have to make Cecilia dump Matthew. I didn't think the wedding would actually go through!"

"Me neither!" giggled Marinette. The pair's heated conversation came to a halt when a boy their age blocked their path. Chat tried not to stare at the poorly died purple hair, but he could only resist so much, "Sorry, could you move over?"

"Ah! Of course, but do you mind if I as you a few questions first?"

A picture? Why would he- Oh! Marinette stared down at her and Chat's costumes, she had been so enthralled with the movie she had forgotten the over-the-top disguises they'd used to even get in.

"I'm fine with that, but it's really up to Mari," Chat glanced over at Marinette, unease settling over his face.

Thankfully, the noirette painted a small smile over her face, "Sure! We can answer a question or two,"

"Great!" the boy handed his camera to a girl behind them. She angled herself a few feet away then did a thumbs-up, "This is all live on my twitch, by the way, so don't answer anything... inappropriate."

They both tinged pink, "O-Of course not."

"Ok! So, I love your cosplays, where did you buy them?"

"Mari made them herself!"

"Really? That's really impressive, do you have any social media for my viewers to see you on?"

"Ah! I..." Marinette tried to think back to all accounts, but none of them were for her fashion, "Not at the moment, but maybe in the future!"

The boy seemed unsure, but soon after reapplied his smile and winked at Marinette, "I hope to see it when it's launched! Speaking of your cosplays, do you mind pulling down your hood? Why don't we see Shade without his entire face covered?"

The colour drained from Chat's face as he automatically moved back, "I, uh, would prefer to keep the hood on, if that's alright?" the boy stilled, his smile straightening out into a thing tense line.

"Ah." silence surrounded the trio, Marinette and Chat staring unsurely at each other as the boy narrowed his eyes at the blue hood. Eventually, the girl behind the camera snapped her fingers, gaining the boy's attention,

"Ok! We've gotta run soon, so get in tight for a picture with you all!" a sinister smile reappeared on the boys face as he threw his arms over Chat and Marinette's shoulders.

"Ok, Carrie! Make sure you get us all in," Chat and Marinette plastered wavy smiles across their face, then stared into the camera.

"Say cheese!"

"Cheese!"

Just as the words left Chat's lips, he could feel his hood ve ripped off the top of his head. Marinette turned just as Chat's ears were revealed and instantly clung to the fabric. Unfortunately, she grabbed too low and ripped off his bandana.

People around them gasped, Chat could feel his eyes widening as he wordlessly begged Marinette for help. She tried covering his face, but it was too late.

"Oh sh-"

"CHAT NOIR!" instantly, Marinette and Chat turned to each other mouths wording the same thing:

"Run!" Chat grabbed her hand and leapt into action, sprinting towards the nearest exit. A group of fans ran in front of them, phones out as they recorded the scene. Marinette pushed Chat to the side, side-stepping the group and reuniting with Chat on the other side.

When they escaped outside, they were greeted with an even bigger crowd of fans, all searching the area for them,

"There's nowhere to go- they're everywhere!" Marinette glanced down at her purse, where Tikki stared back up, her panicked face matching Marinette's own.

"Ok. You're not gonna like it, but there's only one way we can escape,"

"Chat, where would that be?"

"Trust me."

"What do you mean trust yo-" Chat grabbed Marinette and swung her legs up, holding her bridal position, "Chat?"

"Hold on tight!" Chat grabbed his baton and extended them both up. Marinette screamed as the ground rapidly got further and further. She'd been at heights much more dangerous than this as Ladybug of course, but without the safety of the suit and her yoyo, this suddenly become increasingly terrifying.

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut, arms gripping Chat's neck as tight as she could manage, "Princess, it's ok. Open your eyes,"

She desperately didn't want to. But she was Ladybug; a superhero who feared nothing, she could manage to muster up some bravery without the suit.

When she opened her eyes, she was met with thousands of lights all glowing in the night air. Windows shone with warm light, reflecting in the et streets. Chat led them towards the Seine river, the water glimmering under all the bright lights. Marinette reprimanded herself internally for not going out as Ladybug enough.

"Chat, it's beautiful,"

Chat glanced down at Marinette, eyes focusing in on her deep blue, then at the small smile now formed on her lips, "Beautiful is an understatement."

BONUS:

Alya sat alone in bed scrolling through Tumblr, occasionally reposting ladynoir fan art. Suddenly, a flash of blue caught her attention:

CHAT NOIR SPOTTED COSPLAYING AT BLUE KNIGHT PREMIER [LIVE]!

Wait, didn't Marinette like that series? If this movie is such a big deal she'll hopefully have gone today. Alya reminded herself to text Marinette about it later.

Despite her excitement, Alya knew clickbait when she saw it. There was no way Chat Noir was just casually hanging around a theatre in costume. Most likely, Chat Noir probably would be seen dropping from out a window, and maybe with all the blue around him, it would look like he was dressed up.

Alya clicked the link and was brought to a reupload of a Twitch streamer's latest stream. It started with a purple boy walking around the theatre, asking people questions about the movie.

Alya scanned the footage with reporter-trained eyes; if she was going to see Chat Noir she had to be focusing on the background. A flash of blonde outside a window, or even just shiny black leather somewhere.

The young reporter started skipping over the interview segments and nearer to the end where [approximately] Chat Noir would have been 'spotted'. But a flash of blue stopped her in her tracks.

Oh. My. God.

It was Marinette. No, it wasn't just Marinette. It was Marinette cosplaying! Cosplaying with some other guy! Who was he? It wasn't Nino, they'd been together all day. So who was this mystery man? Why hadn't Marinette told her about this?

Alya was thrilled Marinette was stepping out of her comfort zone; dressing up in her designs in a public place was something Alya never expected the noirette capable of, but she should have known better than to underestimate her best friend.

After bookmarking the page, Alya was about to skip forward again, when suddenly the masked figures hood was pulled down.

Two leather cat ears peeked out. A matching mask covering the male's face. Emerald eyes with slits instead of pupils.

"Holy sh-"

Alya was again silenced as she watched Chat grab MARINETTE'S ARM AND RUN AWAY TOGETHER.

What was going on? Marinette knew Chat Noir? Since when? Why didn't she tell Alya? And they were close enough to cosplay together?

Her mind buzzed as all the thoughts and confusions spiraled. She definitely was going to make Marinette tell her everything.

She clicked the 'Cosplay Noir' tag and scrolled down the feed. Most of it was just the same live video, clipped to show the exact part Chat was revealed, but then a certain picture showed up; Marinette being held bridal style as Chat leapt over Paris' rooftops, her dress billowing in the wind.

She looked just like a real princess.

She was going to kill Marinette.

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agentdagonet · 5 years ago

Text

Someday Surprise

read it here on AO3

‘Oi, Merlin!’

‘Yes, Eggsy?’ Merlin held his head in his hands, rubbed at his temples as he waited for whatever banal question Eggsy had decided was worth bothering him about now. Ten years had done nothing to break the boy’s (for he would always be a boy to him) ridiculousness.

‘When were you gonna tell me you ‘n Harry are immortal?’ Merlin’s head snapped up and his hands came down so quickly the keyboard was damaged from the impact. Eggsy was propped casually against a sofa, the door was closed and locked, and he raised an eyebrow in response to Merlin’s shock. ‘Well?’

‘I should probably ask what gave you that idea.’

‘Probably, but then I’d pull out,’ Eggsy drew from behind his back a photo album, a garishly coloured thing that hadn’t been touched in at least a decade, ‘this, and point out all the dates.’ Eggsy flipped it open to a random page, ‘America somewhere, 1808 (you couldn’t be arsed to remember where?); Australia, 1900; Belize, 1750- and, somehow, you don’ look any different. Except maybe your hair, but I figure that’s easy enough to fuck with...’

Each comment had Merlin sinking further into his chair. This is what happened when someone was allowed limitless access to their home- they found things that should have remained hidden. That had managed to be hidden for several hundred years, like collections of portraits and photographs that documented their travels.

‘And I assume you’ve come to a conclusion of your own?’

‘See, thing is, I thought I’d done, yeah? Thought I’d figured this shit out years ago,’ How long had Eggsy known about the book? ‘But it didn’t match up. So I’m here, askin’ you to make sense of it.’ Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and huffed a breath before he tapped the edge of his glasses several times and turned away.

‘Hamish, are you entirely aware of what time it is in Singapore-’ Harry complained through a yawn that was heard but unseen through the glasses.

‘He knows, Harry.’ It was typed out, utilising a feature that Merlin had only put into place for people outside of himself. He hated trying to focus at two layers of sight- to both see what he was doing in the real world and what he was typing into the glass barely a handful of centimetres from his face.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Eggsy knows. Found the book.’

‘Well, shit.’

‘I’m still here, bruv.’ Eggsy interrupted dryly, like Harry commenting on their target’s poor choice of interior design. Like Merlin had added on ‘with no parachute’ while he had been in training nearly ten years ago, now.

‘Give us a moment, lad- we’ve never had to tell this story before.’ That seemed to assuage him, and Eggsy allowed himself to slide from the arm of the sofa down to sit on it proper. The book was still open on his lap, and from the corner of his eye Merlin could see him turning pages idly.

‘Put your glasses on, Eggsy.’ Merlin sighed, and Harry couldn’t help but laugh at him. ‘Stop your laughing.’

‘I told you that book would bite us in the arse someday, but no you needed to have a record-’

‘There’s only so much space in the human brain, Harry, how else are we supposed to keep track-’

‘Boys, boys, ain’t no need to argue about shit- I just wanna know. I been with you ages, I fuckin’ live in your house, and you lot’ve got more makeup stashed about than one of them internet models. Wouldn’ it be easier not to have to lie all the fuckin’ time?’ Eggsy jumped in, having somehow managed to tap into their line- which would normally be something to worry about but at the moment was at the bottom of Merlin’s list of cares.

‘I don’t remember how long ago it was- a millenia, I think?- I stopped for a drink of water on the way back home. Brought as much as I could carry home- I’d often forget to get water from the well, while working. I’ve always been a man of science, though what I was interested in was called magic at the time, and I had a task ahead of me that many people of the time thought impossible.’ Merlin began, and Eggsy closed the book. ‘I managed it-’

‘Of course you did,’ Eggsy interrupted, grin on his face, and as irksome as the interruption was the grin set Merlin at ease. It, more than anything, let Merlin know that this wasn’t going to end poorly, with the loss of Eggsy from their lives- it would just be… complicated… for a time.

‘I managed it but it was a lot of trial and error. I’d been throwing things together at random, tested things on some animals I’d trapped in the forest, eventually tasting one thing before inhaling fumes from another- as much a mad scientist as you could imagine- before getting the combination right. I delivered my creation and some supplies to the person I thought most likely to succeed in the idea we lot had crafted together, and went home to wait.’

‘When I got back,’ Harry jumped in, ‘months later, I confronted Merlin in his chambers. Demanded to know what devil he’d sold his soul to to see our mission completed, shoved him into a wall with a blade-’

‘I think he gets it-’

‘And until I saw the absolute confusion in his face I’d no idea that he’d had no idea-’

‘It was entirely an accident-’

‘Easy t’see you’ve never told this story before cos I got no idea what’s going on. You’re usually better at givin’ the facts, Merlin.’

‘Well it’s not every day you have to tell someone that you accidentally made King Arthur immortal.’ He snapped, ears red in a strange mix of embarrassment and fury, accompanied by Harry’s howling laughter at Eggsy’s face. Eggsy’d jumped as if electrocuted, sending the book to the floor and accidentally kicking it with a twitching foot so hard that it slammed into the leg of a nearby table, which caused a mug to fall and shatter.

It was the sort of thing film sets contrived to make the audience laugh in an otherwise tense moment- and, in this, Harry was the audience of one. Eggsy’s jaw dropped and Merlin growled to himself and cleaned the mess before turning back to the computer screen he’d been focusing on before Eggsy’s intrusion. Not truly seeing it, just pretending while he tried to pull himself together.

‘You’re tryin’ to tell me that you,’ Eggsy pointed at Merlin, ‘made some shit that accidentally made King Arthur immortal and then fuck knows how much later ended up here where the whole place is themed for King bloody Arthur?’ Eggsy was laughing, having snapped from shock to acceptance in a fraction of a moment, obviously only half speaking to Merlin as Harry’s laughter renewed itself for a moment. Merlin pulled a flask from his desk and poured the contents into a glass before setting it on the table before Eggsy.

‘Not quite, Eggsy,’ Harry breathed, seeming to understand Merlin’s continued silence as a cue to take the story over. ‘You see, I can’t even remember what the elixir was that Merlin sent me off with that day, that journey, so long before there were any real consequences and all we had was a collection of ideas. But, I do remember the traveler’s flask he’d passed to me, filled with water that tasted of sunlight.’ Harry sent a message to Merlin’s lenses, a simply understood ?????, but Merlin ignored him.

‘Not sure I get what you’re saying, Haz.’

‘The water, Eggsy,’ Harry said softly, whether from lack of breath of an attempt to make the facts easier to swallow he couldn’t tell, ‘it wasn’t anything Merlin had concocted, it was the water he’d brought back from the spring. Neither of us had any idea until I lost my temper with him when I got back. I’d pulled a dagger to try and scare Merlin into explaining the devilry he’d managed, and miscalculated-’ I’m not even THERE you arsehole another chat bubble appeared, and Merlin ignored that one as well before feigning outrage.

‘Miscalculated?! You stabbed me in the neck because you tripped-’

‘And nothing happened when the blade pierced his flesh. There was no blood; in fact Merlin didn’t quite know what had happened at first and continued to babble on as if nothing was amiss. Meanwhile I was so frozen in terror I couldn’t breathe which I then discovered I had no need to. Which is an odd thing to adjust to-’

‘You don’t have to breathe?’

‘Let me finish, Eggsy- we’ve spent the years since trying to solve the mystery of the spring- luckily Kingsman has near limitless resources- and the pair of us have made it our business to be masters of illusion in whatever technology develops. Yes,’ Harry interrupted Eggsy’s attempt to speak, ‘that means makeup. And every other kind of theatrical illusion that can be translated to the modern day- manipulating clothing so that others’ gaze is where you intend it to be and nowhere else.’

‘That is sick.’

‘There’s more than one reason to make a covert agency’s cover a tailor’s shop- both historically an excellent place to obtain information surreptitiously and a useful skill to hone when one must be covert.’

‘Which brings me to my next point- how long ago did you find the book, Eggsy? You never let on that something wasn’t sitting right with you.’

‘When I moved in; you shits didn’t so much as make space for me as drag me in like a fuckin’ sarlacc and expect me to make myself at home. Which I did-’ Eggsy panicked to add, seeing the hurt bloom on Merlin’s face at his statement, ‘don’t get me wrong I love that you didn’ even think about it, that you thought I’d fit that seamlessly into your home, but I started explorin’ and you got loads of weird shit hidden about. I thought it was a gag gift at first but it was too good, y’get me? But figured you lot’d tell me when you felt ready- didn’ realise I’d have to prise it from you myself.’

‘We’ve never had someone we wanted to tell before, Eggsy, if this spectacular shitshow doesn’t make that clear.’ Merlin spoke up for the first time in a long while, having finally pulled himself and his decision together. ‘But we were always going to tell you, once we figured out how. We didn’t even have to tell each other, this is literally uncharted territory, but,’ Merlin shook his head and met Eggsy’s gaze evenly, ‘that doesn’t make it undesired.

‘For your average person, a moment like this would have a fancy dinner, some romantic shite and a ring,’ Eggsy didn’t look away from Merlin, didn’t dare to blink, but it was easy to see the moisture welling in his eyes. Even if he was being a bit misleading, the intent here was the same. You’re here, Arthur- here we are, and here he is Merlin sent back, and he could hear Harry’s huff of laughter.

‘What Merlin’s trying to tell you, Eggsy, is that we have no intention of letting you get away from us. We’d like nothing more than to spend the rest of our lives with you.’ Harry whispered, and Eggsy couldn’t stop a tear from escaping though he wiped it away quickly.

‘Don’t you mean the rest of my life?’ His jaw was clenched, and Merlin could see the sad smile pulling at the edge of his mouth. The heartbreak he was causing himself.

‘We do a lot for the world; we risk the things we know others can’t, and we have been glad to do it and are glad to keep doing so- but we’ve allowed ourselves to suffer. We’ve distanced ourselves and made shite choices and we hadn’t even noticed how far we’d fallen from the path until you.

‘So no, Eggsy, we don’t mean the rest of your life-’ Merlin leant forward and pushed the glass across the tabletop, ‘we mean the rest of ours.’

Eggsy looked down, seemingly noticing the glass on the tabletop for the first time, and gasped. One hand pressed to his lips while the other twitched in his lap, as if Eggsy was holding himself back from taking it, and Merlin forgot to breathe.

‘... Are you sure?’ Eggsy whispered, having finally pulled his hand from his face as he searched Merlin’s eyes imploringly. As if there was something else mysterious and unseen happening at this moment. As if the rug was going to be pulled from beneath him if he lifted the glass from the table.

‘I can’t claim it will be easy, lad- and there’s no way to undo it. In a few hundred years if we argue, if we break, you’ll have to continue on. Perhaps we’ll find each other again, but maybe not.’

‘You two broke before?’

‘A couple dozen times, easily, but we took a few years apart and came back stronger for it, in the end. But, Eggsy, you’ll have to grow used to seeing the things you care for disappear, or change beyond recognition. It could break you, even if we don’t fall apart.’ Harry whispered, and Merlin watched as Eggsy swallowed heavily, eyes still on the glass, before he reached past it and pulled one of Merlin’s hands forward.

‘You think we can make it, Merthur?’ Eggsy looked up at him from between his lashes, tongue poking out and a cheeky grin breaking through.

‘Who?’

‘Y’know, Merthur, one of them couple names. Merlin and Arthur. Shove a bit of his and a bit of yours in there to get somethin’ new. D’you really think we can make it? Me ‘n you?’

‘Have you ever known me to make a decision without being certain of the outcome?’

‘No, but I still got to ask, yeah? This is big, this ain’t like movin’ in together, or a marriage, even; this is big. And, yeah, it’s gonna be heartbreakin’ at first- havin’ to watch everything go on without me- but,’ Eggsy squeezed Merlin’s hand and rubbed a thumb across his knuckles before he pulled away, ‘I’ve never done shite cos it was easy.’ As if he’d never hesitated in the first place, Eggsy threw back the glass of water with a smile that outshone the full moon on a cloudless sky.

‘Y’know, never thought about it before but Harry- Arthur- was right.’ Eggsy said a moment after, staring at the now-empty glass as he licked his lips.

‘About what?’

‘It does taste like sunlight.’

#kingsman fic #fanfiction #merhartwin #tuck everlasting kind of?#actual arthur and merlin #Dagonet Writes #long post

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berriebun · 6 years ago

Text

Night Time Surprise

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia Pairing: Iida Tenya x Uraraka Ochako Rating: SFW Word count: 2,398

A/N: I don’t remember why I started writing this, but I was struck with a very cute idea (probably while I was talking in a server) about how cute it would be for these adorkable first-time parents experiencing their baby’s quirk finally developing.

ao3 link redirect

“Mommy! Mommy look!!” The bright squeals shouted over the other screaming children running around the daycare. Ochako had never really believed her mom when she would tell her that she could always pick her voice out of a crowd, but here was the evidence as the Hero smiled. “I’m super fast! Just like Daddy!! Pchooooo~” The delighted laughter was joined by other kids as the three-year-old ran around the open area of the room, imitating her dad’s movements to the joy of the others.

“Goodness! You sure are, huh!? Daddy will be so proud of you Yuzu!” Ochako laughed, crouching as the little girl with a full head of dark brown hair barreled her way through the other kids, who didn't seem to mind, and into her mother's arms. As it was tradition between mother and child, Ochako quickly activated her quirk and lightly tossed her daughter into the air who squealed happily before her mother bought her fingers together and ended the zero gravity, catching the laughing child in her arms.

The little girl went on to babble about what a fun day she had playing with the other kids as Ochako thanked the counselor in charge and signed her daughter out, leaving the building to head for the train station. Apparently, a lot had happened today during daycare, and while she hadn’t been paying attention to the first half of the story, Ochako gave her daughter her undivided attention as they made their way on to the train home. The little girl tried to pull her backpack off to show her mom all the art projects she had done during arts and crafts, but Ochako told her to wait, briefly explaining in a way she could understand that it was better to show her at home because she didn’t want her to lose all her amazing work.

The entire time that they were on the train, Yuzuki would talk to anyone and everyone who would listen to her. Like any little three-year-old, she was full of so much excitement and energy and none of what she said really made sense but she was still able to share simple thoughts. Ochako was vocally encouraging as her daughter bounced around between her legs while holding her mother's hands, babbling on about whatever came to her growing mind. She would have been worried about Yuzuki having this much energy in the afternoon, but Tensei had assured her that it was an Iida trait through and through, which was both daunting and reassuring to know. She was just grateful that her daughter would definitely use up all this energy before bedtime, knowing that it would help the little girl to go down for the night much more easily.

The house was quiet by the time they arrived home, meaning Tenya was likely still at the agency which was to be expected since he was the leading hero now. Regardless, the mother and child made their way inside and settled in for the evening, ending up in the kitchen after shoes and coats had been removed. Little Yuzuki was sitting at a small toddler table near the fridge with her little backpack upturned over the surface, messy craft supplies littering the floor where they had fallen over the edge.

As Ochako made dinner she listened and engaged her daughter in fumbled conversation over things that had happened that day, delighted that Yuzuki seemed to be making friends with the other children. She was also overly proud when her little girl presented her with a scribbled drawing labeled ‘family’ in wobbly letters, which Ochako promptly pinned to the fridge with a bright sun-shaped magnet.

The closer it came to be dinner time, the quieter the toddler became as her endless Iida energy finally seemed to have dwindled. Though, as the front door opened, a small spike of excitement seemed to charge through the little girl with a squeaky ‘Daddy!’ and little pattering feet fleeing the kitchen.

Ochako was just barely able to make out the gentle scolding of ‘no running in the house missy!’ before laughter and happy toddler babbling took over, while she carefully dropped the seared meat and veggies into the gently bubbling pot of thick gravy. She just placed the ventilated lid over the food so it could come all together when her husband entered the kitchen with their daughter clinging to his hip. They made a complete picture of exhaustion with both of their happy expressions being tugged at by tired smiles and crinkled eyes.

“Welcome home, hon.” Ochako smiled as Tenya approached, stepping over scattered art supplies to kiss her on the cheek.

“Good evening.” He smiled in return, shifting the clinging toddler in his arms. “I saw the report about your rescue mission this afternoon.”

“Yeah, things could have gone a lot smoother but there are just some things you can’t really control. Especially against a Rampage quirk like that.” She shrugs, smiling regardless of the highlighted difficulties she had faced during her stationed hours at Thirteens Rescue Agency. “We still were able to rescue the hostages while keeping the bystanders out of harm's way. We’re going to probably be billed for some structural damage repairs on the building but that shouldn’t be an issue.” She continued as she made quick work of cleaning up after herself and wiping down the counters.

In the meantime, Tenya had moved over to sit on the floor next to the toddler table as Yuzuki went through her show and tell with him this time, with a lot less energy. And with that, they lulled between conversations with Yuzuki about her day and also discussing what had happened on their respective hours at work. It wasn’t all talk though as eventually dinner came and went, and Ochako took their daughter upstairs to put her to bed. The little girl hardly made it through half of the bedtime story Ochako had started reading to her before Yuzuki was out like a light.

Ochako tucked her in, turned on the baby monitor just in case and the night light before leaning down to kiss her daughter on the forehead and leaving the room. She was met at the door by Tenya who seemed to have been watching the entire time and smiled softly at her and then towards their daughter.

“She’s growing up so quickly.” He mumbled as his arms found their way around her waist and shoulders.

“Yeah… Our parents did say that time would slip away from us after the first couple of months. Now look at her. Running around, drawing pictures, and talking. Soon she’ll have her quirk and before we know it, she’ll be off on her own.” Ochako sighed, leaning into her husband and resting her head back against his shoulder.

“If we’re not careful, we’re going to blink and miss it all.” He chuckles quietly, squeezing her closer before releasing his grip and leading her away from the room, closing the door quietly behind them. Together the couple made their way to their own room and contently started going about their nightly routines of getting ready for bed. If it wasn’t for the time, Ochako would have loved to have taken a bath before bed but alas, parenthood accompanied by career work robbed a person of past luxuries that they had taken for granted.

Eventually, both of them settled in under the covers as the room stayed partially lit by a side table lamp while Ochako settled into her pillow with a small novel, hoping to read a couple of pages before officially falling to sleep. There was some shifting as Tenya settled behind her, draping an arm over her stomach as idle finger-tips mindlessly caressed her stomach before falling still around her belly button. As the night slowly crept on, the two of them muttered random sleepy thoughts to each other as Ochako read and Tenya dozed into a combination of his pillow and her shoulder. After a time, she finally puts the book down and settles back into her little spoon position against Tenya’s chest.

It felt like she had only just closed her eyes when she was woken up by a loud crackling sound cry coming from the left.

The clock said it was nearly three in the morning, which meant she had fallen asleep properly, as both she and Tenya scrambled from the bed sleepily. The sound, she was able to figure out, was tear-jerking sobs from the baby monitor she had set up next to the lamp she had accidentally left on. Both of them made their way down the hall and rushed into Yuzuki’s room, Tenya making it to her side faster having a fair bit more energy than herself as she followed.

Whatever their daughter was trying to say to them was lost in the tears and wobbly cries as she reached out and clung to her dad’s pajamas. They only found the source when Tenya tried to rub her back as he normally would, to comfort her, and instead elicited more cries and squirming. Immediately, Ochako reached out and threaded her fingers through Yuzuki’s hair, cooing softly over her cries that everything was okay, and that mommy and daddy were there as Tenya shifted to carefully pull up the back of their daughter's pajama shirt.

From where they were sitting, in the dark, she could only glimpse a scattering of small circles that just barely reflected the nightlight poking through their daughter’s back in a group of four sets. A matching set of two on either of her sides and identical sets of four on either side of her spine on her lower back. Confused and worried, Ochako had Tenya bring their daughter into the hall bathroom and unfortunately had to flip the lights on so they could get a better look. The Iida three all flinched under the bright fluorescences but the parents recovered faster as their daughter opted to keep her face buried in her father's neck.

Thankfully her sobs had died down as Ochako kept brushing her fingers through her hair as she shared a look with Tenya. In the light, it was easier to recognize the holes that were forming in their daughter's back.

“Exhaust pipes.”

“Yeah… She’s got your quirk.” Ochako nodded, pulling her hands away from her daughter's hair just to check the holes properly. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong but Tenya understood what she was doing.

“She’ll be alright.” He assured her, and the sleepy Yuzuki against his shoulder. “It’s going to be mildly uncomfortable for about a week or so, depending on how long the engines take to fully develop. She was probably shocked awake by the sudden protrusion, which probably scared her.”

The set of two pipe engines on her sides sat up near her ribs, and the other set was positioned at her lower back above her hips, thankfully both sets completely avoided her spine. Ochako still wanted to make sure and made a mental note to contact her family-in-law and ask about recommendations for pediatricians who were capable of handling their specific mutation quirk.

With shared yawns, Ochako flipped the light back off and the parents carried her back to her room. This time it was Tenya’s turn to tuck her into bed, reassuring his sniffling daughter that everything would be okay and to sleep on her tummy tonight to avoid being uncomfortable. Ochako watched with a tired smile, listening to Tenya address their little girl so directly as he tucked her in and made sure she had her stuffed monkey toy. He had always told her to resist using a baby voice since it hardly helped with children’s vocal development, but of course, she sometimes gave in when he wasn’t around. A little baby talking wasn’t going to hurt, but she did try to make sure that Yuzuki could pronounce words to the best of her little three-year-old abilities.

With Yuzuki back in bed and thankfully falling back to sleep, the two returned to their own beds and feel into a jig-saw mess of covers and pillows. The following morning found Tenya waking up nuzzled into the curve of Ochako’s shoulder blades and his arm slung over the back of her thighs. The rude awakening had thrown off their positions so much and he could already feel the slight ache in his back in relation to the awkward angle.

Mornings were his forte, as he rolled out of bed and stretched. After yawning, he quietly left the room and went to scoop Yuzuki out of bed to brush their teeth together. She wasn’t too talkative as she squinted sleepily into the mirror and mimicked her dad’s actions with her Alien Queen themed toothbrush. Afterward, Tenya sat her on the bathroom counter and picked up a brush.

“How do you want your hair today, Yuzu?” He asks as he starts carefully running the brush through her hair. Her answer was delayed as she dozed off slightly and yawned again.

“Piggy-tails!” She chirps sleepily as she allows her dad to manipulate her positioning with an assured nod.

“Piggy-tails it is then.”

It’s not until later in the morning, as he’s cooking breakfast, that Ochako emerges from upstairs, dressed in some civilian clothes. Her own hair was loosely braided and tied off in a pink bow with minimal make-up.

“Morning Mommy!”

“Morning, Blossom. Did Daddy do your hair for you, huh?” She asks as she leans down to kiss her daughter's forehead while she carefully ate some eggs with a spoon.

“Mhmm!”

“Morning.” Another cheek smooch from Tenya. “Your oatmeal is warming in the microwave, and there is half a banana on the table already. I wrapped the other half and put it int for Yuzu’s snack.”

Ochako smiles through a smile as she gathers her own breakfast as Tenya finishes his own and joins his wife and daughter at the table.

Their morning goes on as usual, though Ochako tells him that she’s going to be calling his mom sometime around lunch to talk about booking a check-up with someone reliable for Yuzuki now that her quirk is coming through. And thus their lives went on as normal… As normal as they could be anyway! Boy were they going to have one hell of a time once Yuzuki entered her teens though, especially with those Engines.

#penned #iidaocha #iichako #tenchako #iida tenya #uraraka ochako #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #family fluff #fluffy emotions #good feelings #parents #children #fan child

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idratherstayslytherin · 6 years ago

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Feelings We Can’t Let Go ( A Drarry Fic) CHAPTER THREE

Summary: Harry needs to pass his NEWTs with a decent grade in Potions. The Ministry sends Harry to France so he can study for his exam with none other than Draco Malfoy, who has been blocked from Wizarding Society for almost a year now. It was supposed to be just a few months of tutoring, but it was so much more than that.

Read Chapter One HERE

Read Chapter Two HERE

Quick note: Posting re-edited chapter here and on ao3 again, because I want to improve my English and terrible writing. I hope you enjoy it!

This chapter was written partyly by me partly by my co-writer who isn’t helping me anymore, but still deserves the credit for huge part if it. You can find her AO3 HERE . I added a bit of the text and written some parts before, I also corrected grammar and some scenes that didn’t feel right or were ooc in my opinion.

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Harry found himself sitting in Draco’s kitchen, the Prophet open in his lap, and absentmindedly flipping through it, while watching as the blonde boy made dinner from the corner of his eye. A month had passed, and having dinner together every Thursday was something Harry insisted they should do, and even though Draco kept going on about how Harry should spend time with his proper friends, not him, he didn’t send Harry away when he apparated into his flat one week after their first conversation, but invited him in, smiling and looking a little flustered at the same time. Harry didn’t feel bad about inviting himself to someone else’s place for dinner. After a few uncomfortable silences and some slightly more comfortable, but short conversations, Draco didn’t seem to mind either. He poured them both a glass of firewhiskey, and lead the way into his kitchen. He let Harry rummage through the contents of his fridge, in hope of finding something useful (which he didn’t, so they ended up eating take-away, but from then on Draco always went shopping beforehand and carefully picked the nicest pieces of vegetables and bought the best meat so he could impress Harry with the meals he made, or just have fun with him cooking it together). At first it had been weird, neither of them wanting to do small talk and neither of them too keen on mentioning France, but then Draco started telling him about a potion he was working on with some colleagues, and Harry told him about going back to Hogwarts and taking his NEWTs there, and what it was like to be back there, and from then on the conversation carried on in a natural way, their talkativeness ensured by another glass of firewhiskey. The next week was a little less weird, but at the same time it was still pretty awkward. Being together and talking felt much less forced, neither of them trying to avoid certain topics and keeping quiet instead, they were just talking about whatever came to their minds. This time Draco was actually expecting Harry, hence why he spent an extra four hours tidying up and making sure everything was perfect, even though he couldn’t explain why he quite felt like this was necessary. He prepared a perfect dinner and was wearing spotless, freshly ironed dark grey trousers with a white button-down, making him look incredibly stiff and overdressed next to Harry, who just flopped down in one of the chairs next to the dinner table, wearing a pair of old jeans and a faded t-shirt, his hair the usual bird's nest compared to Draco’s slick locks. As the fourth week approached, Harry was acting as natural as ever. Draco didn’t feel like he needed to impress him in every way he could anymore, or at least he hid it very well. He allowed himself a little more comfort, wearing a simple black t-shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants, his hair tied back in a loose ponytail, some shorter strands escaping every so often, which he would tuck back behind his ear. Harry sat at the table, his gaze flicking up every time he caught Draco doing it, but quickly looking back down at the newspaper when he realised he was staring. By this time they were finally comfortable in each other’s company, Harry acting like he was at home, his feet propped up on another chair, laughing at the way Draco panicked when he dripped tomato sauce down his chest, ignoring the blonde boy telling him this was the exact reason why he needed an apron, which Harry naturally made fun of when he put it on. It felt good. Almost natural. Almost like they were friends (which Harry insisted they were, they just had to get to know each other better). “I’m gonna go take a piss” Harry announced, standing up, dropping the newspaper onto the table. “That’s a little bit more information than I needed, but go right ahead.” Harry just snorted at Draco’s response, leaving the kitchen. He surprised even himself by how he was used to being at Draco’s place, after all it had only been the fifth time, and he never arrived earlier than five or left later than eleven. He already felt uncomfortable thinking about explaining himself to Ginny, but he didn’t feel extraneous any more as he crossed the front room towards the bathroom, stopping to pick up a wooden carved model of a duck from the floor. He had no idea where did Draco get it from, however he knew it belonged on the mantelpiece. This was just one of those little things he’d do that would surprise Draco, along with knowing where to put the pot of tarragon leaves after making dinner, or fetching a random piece of cutlery they had forgotten before Draco even asked him to get it; and knowing exactly where to find it. It wasn’t just those kinds of little things, it was the little things in their conversations as well. Knowing what the other meant even before they could express themselves properly, or feeling when the topic they were talking about was becoming a little uncomfortable for the other, and changing it. It came as a bit of a shock to both of them, how quickly they became comfortable in each other’s company, but especially to Harry, who might have been the happiest he has been in a while. He still was unsure about his feelings towards Draco and this thing they had. The feeling of ambiguity always appeared as soon as he got home. He never lied, he always told Ginny he enjoyed himself, but as the words tumbled out of his mouth, he felt guilty, he felt uncertain whether he should enjoy himself with Draco, the Draco Malfoy they all knew. So usually he would just add something along the lines of ‘but I missed you and I’m happy to be home’ and he would capture his girlfriend’s lips in a kiss before she could say anything, afraid of hearing something he didn’t want to. “Soo, I was thinking-” Harry started as soon as he regained his footing after arriving in Draco’s living room by apparation. “Well that’s a surprise.” Draco butted in with a smirk. Harry shot him a glare, but couldn’t stop from feeling the corners of his mouth go up a little. “If you actually let me finish what I was about to say-” “No one’s stopping you.” Draco interrupted again. “Can’t you just shut up for a moment?” Harry huffed, flopping down on the sofa next to the blonde boy. “I probably can. If you ask me nicely enough.” Harry rolled his eyes at Draco’s words and the mischievous grin on his face, he picked up a book from the coffee table and opened it. He started reading said book and deliberately not looking at Draco. The book was actually really boring, he still couldn’t understand how things like paleobotany fascinated the other boy so much that he had a book about it. “I’m not talking to you.” he informed Draco, who didn’t seem too affected by the way Harry was pretending to ignore him, and was just sitting reading another book. “Yes, I noticed” he sniggered, turning the page. “Oh fuck it I’m not good at this.” Harry groaned, giving up, slamming the book on the couch. “How do you understand any of this? You know what? I don’t even want to know, I bet you would just start to go on about it in a Hermione-ish way, and I still wouldn’t understand why you find it interesting.” Draco just rolled his eyes. “Anyway, what I actually wanted to say, was that we could do something different next week, like go out or something.” “Getting bored of being stuck in a four room flat with me?” Draco raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what I meant. I just-” Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. I like this, but I just thought.... I thought it would be nice to go to a bar or shopping or something like that.” “Sure.” Draco smirked. “Oh forget it.” Harry sighed, and shook his head. “No, I’m serious. Let’s go.” “Really?” Harry raised his eyebrow. He wasn’t expecting Draco to agree so quickly, but he was pleased. “How about next week, Thursday as usual, 11 am?” “Sounds good to me. Don't be late.” Draco smiled.

"Am I ever late?" Harry faked being hurt. Draco just gave him a "how am i still hanging out with this idiot" look and shook his head. “Great, okay, it’s a date” Harry grinned. Quickly after that he realised what he have just said. His cheeks were turning warmer and warmer every second. “I mean, it’s not a date like a date date, but-” “I’m perfectly aware of what that expression means, Potter” Draco scoffed. Harry bit down on his tongue to stop himself from babbling, and looked away from Draco, who looked a bit angry, feeling embarrassed. A few more slightly uncomfortable minutes passed, but quickly they got back into their usual routine and enjoyed the evening before saying their goodbyes. The week rolled by, and it was Thursday again, and Harry found himself walking side by side with Draco in Muggle London towards their destination. After hours spent at the science museum both boys’ legs were hurting almost as much as if they had just finished a good two hour run, and their knees refused to cooperate with them. Harry and Draco ended up sitting down on a bench just outside the building, overlooking the surrounding garden, comfortably leaning back, but keeping a little distance between them. Harry felt like he was going to literally die from hunger, they had been walking around with no food and they took no breaks between looking at the different exhibitions, continuously walking through the countless halls of the museum. But it was great, Draco was a bit scared of being surrounded by muggles at first, but as soon as they started looking at the exhibits and chatting, he calmed down and loosened up, starting to comment on every little thing he found interesting about people passing by them. Sometimes he did this a bit too loud, so Harry had to hit him lightly on the arm with his elbow every so often, and look at him with his best “what the fuck are you doing?!” eyes. Draco didn’t seem too bothered by this, or concerned, he just brushed away few strands of his silver-blonde hair from his face and sighed deeply. “What? She looks like she fell into a birthday cake, then somehow managed to murder someone with cold blood.” Harry tried his best to keep his face straight, but the description was so accurate, that he had to cover his mouth to muffle an outburst of laughter. Draco was right, the thin lady who he was talking about was wearing a white latex dress that a design of clouds of different colours printed on it, the bottom decorated with dark red splashes that did look an awful lot like blood stains. She looked furious, following her supposed husband, looking at him as if she was going to murder him. The rest of their visit was full of Draco going “Merlin balls! How is this even possible.” or being left speechless. At some point he even left Harry alone just so he can read more on whatever that got his attention, while the other boy carried on, not as fascinated by the technology he grew up with as Draco, who had never before seen things like this. Harry panicked when he looked away from an old dress robes and noticed Draco wasn’t beside him anymore. He spent good fifteen minutes trying to find him, eventually discovering him in front of a display of various cell phones and reading the description below, his eyes were opening wider and wider with every word he read, shining with interest and rapture. It was a truly beautiful image, Harry thought, Draco looked his best when he was fascinated by something and a little smile appeared on his face. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Draco said when he finally noticed that Harry was standing next to him. “You never told me there were so many different types of those. It’s weird how they went from being a banana shaped thing to a brick that you can only type numbers to a smaller bricks with a screen” Harry had his arms crossed, but he was smiling at the blond. “I was looking for you.” He moved closer to Draco. “I thought you-” He wasn’t able to finish his sentence because Draco interrupted him with a cheeky grin on his face. “Died? Was murdered by all those muggles, well- that would actually be possible-, but no. As you can see I’m well, and there’s no need for you to act like my mom.” Harry just rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know where you were, that’s all.” He said, settling on a defensive tone. Draco just smirked, shaking his head, but he didn’t leave his side again. “For how long are you going to pretend that you’re not hungry?” Draco asked after sitting on the bench in silence for some time, which made Harry snap out of his thoughts, back to reality. “I’ve been listening your stomach screaming for food since we got to the last exposition.” He turned to Harry so that they were face to face, smoothing his white, velvet shirt with one hand. “Alright.” Harry groaned, and stood up. He knew he wouldn’t last much longer without the food. “Get up, I’m taking you to one of my favourite places here. It’s still in muggle London, but that’s even better, right?” Draco studied Harry’s face and bit the inside of his cheek. “Is it really that good?” He questioned. Harry nodded. “A quiet place without annoying kids screaming and throwing food everywhere?” “Yes, it’s quite a kid-less place, you’ll like it.” Harry promised. “It’s not such a well known place, so it won’t be crowded either.” At this, the corners of Draco’s mouth twitched, a smile of relief spreading on his face. He stood up, and suddenly he was really close to Harry, there was barely an inch or two separating them. It was too close, apparently personal space was a myth to Draco. Harry felt his cheeks getting warmer for no other reason than that he could feel Draco’s hot breath on him. It felt weird, he wasn’t sure if he could ever get used to being this close to him. Even his stomach seemed to forget about the hunger and felt more like it was being tied in ropes that were being pulled from one end to another. It must be his problem with being close to people, he didn’t like being in crowded rooms or small spaces where people were touching their bodies to his. Yeah, that must be it. The lack of personal space, right? Nothing more. It’s not like Draco is a girl that he likes, and he loses his breath every time they talk. Although, he is impossibly handsome, especially with his hair pulled back just by hand, no hair gel; and wearing those tight black trousers. Harry knew he was attracted to some men, or rather he thought they were fit and he appreciated their bodies, but that’s it. However, he couldn’t help but notice the fact that Draco was extremely fit and was looking at Harry with such passion. Sure, maybe when they first met after the war he was a little confused about liking him in more than a friendly way, but it was only because they were there alone and he missed Ginny, right? True, he was attractive, smart, had Harry’s sense of humour and the ability to calm Harry down without words, but he was still a boy. Or a man. Harry was attracted to girls, he have never looked at men the way he looked at women, Draco was the only exception. Harry couldn’t be gay if he thought he wanted to snog only one man, right? Maybe that was it, maybe he just liked Draco as a friend and thought he was attractive, and quite intimidating, and extremely hard to quit, like a drug. You get more addicted with every smell, touch and look. Every word sits in your memory for longer than you could remember whatever your girlfriend told you to do this morning. Right, maybe Harry had a problem. “So, are you going to side-along me or do we have to walk there on our feet, which are pretty much dead?” Harry shook his head in order to collect his thoughts, realising he had been standing, staring at Draco. “Yeah, I...errr, yes.” “Yes, we’re apparating or yes, we’re walking until we die on the street?” The smile was still there on the blonde boy’s face, cheeky as ever, eyes locked onto Harry’s. “You’re asking too many questions.” Harry stepped back, swallowing thickly, and exhaling after having held his breath without noticing. He didn’t have a chance to calm himself down, because within seconds he was being pulled by his wrist to an empty alley. “What the hell, Draco?!” He gasped when they came to a halt in the middle of the deserted street, away from the noise of people getting in or out of the museum. “I’m quite hungry and you wouldn’t stop staring at me like…” Draco trailed off. 'like I wanted to kiss you' Harry unconsciously finished the sentence and almost chocked on his own saliva. “Anyways, would you be so kind and show me the way to this amazing, kid-less restaurant?” Draco’s voice was annoyed, but surprisingly soft, which was almost a contradiction, but it was one of those Draco-things only he managed. They were standing close, again, so close, that their noses were almost touching, Harry’s back against the brick wall, meaning he couldn’t back away. He pushed himself away from the wall, taking Draco’s forearm, and without a word he apparated them to a small Italian restaurant in the suburbs of London. The restaurant was indeed quiet, no children and only a few couples having lunch, apart from the pair of boys. Harry ordered an extra sized pizza, with pretty much all possible toppings, while Draco chose a plate of smoked haddock Florentine, and a bottle of wine as he knew Harry had no idea what to choose from the endless list, settling with a bottle of the most expensive white wine, after reassuring Harry that he would pay for the dinner, which he grudgingly agreed to, but only because he payed for the coffee they had earlier and the postcards and booklets and souvenirs they bought at the museum shop. They ate in silence, Draco only stopping to comment on Harry’s terrible table manners, who just rolled his eyes, not bothering to take a pause in wolfing down his serving, only speaking again when he finished, remarking how he couldn’t understand how Draco still had half a plateful, but this time it was the blonde boy who answered merely with a roll of his eyes, but as Harry continued to watch him as he ate, the way he cut up everything in tiny pieces, wiping his mouth after every second mouthful, he wasn’t even surprised Draco was taking twice as long. Of course he had noticed this before, Draco was always a slow, but extremely tidy and nice eater, but now that they were in public, he seemed to care even more, stiffly sticking to what he thought was the polite and correct way, even though he was just as hungry as Harry, and no one was watching them. Deciding to spend the rest of the afternoon in muggle London as well, after sharing the bottle of wine, and staying to have coffee and desert as well, they left the restaurant happy and with a full stomach. Harry suddenly felt guilty for spending the whole day with Draco, but then he realised Ginny wouldn’t even be at home, but at Quidditch practice, but before he could start feeling guilty again, remembering he didn’t tell Ginny when he’d be home or anything, Draco asked him where they were actually headed, and Harry forgot about Ginny again, dragging the blonde boy with him as he made his way towards the closest underground stop, explaining why exactly they had to visit Piccadilly Circus and Bond Street, and Draco didn’t even complain, especially not after he bought himself a new suit with a matching tie in one of the shops they went to, in which Harry thought he looked incredibly attractive, even though he didn’t say so, simply nodded when the boy told him he was buying it. When the crowd was beginning to be too much for both of them, they found a small cafeteria in one of the backstreets, where they sat and talked until the sun went down, not even how dark and late it got before they stepped out onto the streets again. Neither of them felt like walking any more, the afternoon was more than enough, so after finding a peaceful spot away from the crowds and joining hands, they disapparated together, leaving muggle London behind, landing in front of Grimmauld Place 12. “So… um-” Harry started after the two of them standing in silence for what seemed like hours. He realised he was still clutching Draco’s hand, and quickly let go, feeling embarrassed, he tried avoiding Draco’s gaze, who was again, standing way too close to him. Not way too close in the way that he didn’t like it, way too close in the way that he liked it too much, which was confusing and it made him uncomfortable, so he stepped back, rocking back and forward on his heels. “So?” Draco asked with a small smile. Harry just shook his head, not knowing how he wanted to continue or if he even wanted to continue. Did Draco want him to do something? What was he waiting for? He couldn't possibly be wanting Harry to ... no. The blonde boy didn’t react, he just kept staring at Harry, his face unreadable, his eyes locked onto Harry’s, gaze somehow sharp and soft at the same time, which was another of those Draco-things, and Harry felt like he wanted to run away to someplace the grey eyes couldn’t follow him, but at the same time like he wanted to step closer, and surrender to Draco’s look and his own feelings. But then Draco suddenly said “Night, Scarhead”, turned around and disapparated without sparing him another glance, which Harry found more unnerving than Draco being close to him, even though he couldn’t tell why was that. But whatever it was, it made Harry incapable or just not wanting to move, or rather face Ginny for another few minutes, so he just stood on the pavement, watching the streetlight flickering and the odd leaf tumbling from the trees on the other side, before sighing, and entering his home. “There you are, mate!” Ron called as soon as he locked the door behind him, sticking his ginger head out from the kitchen. Harry immediately regretted leaving his peaceful spot in the street in the fresh air, without having to talk to anyone. He forced a smile, and walked over to the kitchen. “Are you hungry? Ginny, Hermione and I already ate, but there are some leftovers if you want something.” “Nah, I’m good” Harry shook his head. The smell from the kitchen was actually inviting, which meant Ron must have made it, because even though he was really lazy most of the times, he did take after Molly, and could make really delicious meals when Harry wasn’t home or couldn’t be bothered. Harry could still feel the satisfying weight of lunch and cake, and then the other cake he had with coffee in his stomach, accompanied by another, much less comfortable weight, which Harry was sure had nothing to do with the pizza or the cakes he ate. “Had a nice day?” Ron asked, moving around the kitchen, putting the dirty plates into the sink, casting a quick spell on them to clean them, before settling back onto his chair. “I guess. I did.” Harry still didn’t feel too comfortable talking about how he enjoyed Draco’s company, because he knew his friends had no idea what he was like now, and hadn’t forgiven him for his past yet. But he understood that, and didn’t want to push. “Is Gin already upstairs?” Ron nodded. “Well then I think I’ll just head up, talk to you tomorrow, g’night.” Harry mumbled, before leaving the kitchen and walking up the carpet-clad staircase to their bedroom. Ginny was there indeed, sitting in bed, but still wearing her outside clothes, pieces of paper filled with sketches of Quidditch strategies and attack formations spread out around her, only noticing Harry when he closed the door behind him. “Hey” Harry smiled, kicking off his shoes before sitting down beside her on the bed, pulling her in for a kiss. Oh, it felt so wrong, so wrong, but Harry wasn't keen of thinking about the reason why. “You were out late” Ginny remarked, resting her head on Harry’s shoulder. “Um, yeah” Harry felt himself tense up. “Sorry. I thought I’d be home earlier, but we went to this museum, and then…” he trailed off. He felt like he was making excuses, and he didn’t like it at all. He also didn't feel like sharing too much of his time with Draco. It was something just for him and the other boy. “It’s okay” his girlfriend said with a soft smile, reaching over and lacing her fingers through Harry’s. He wanted to say that it wasn’t okay, but instead he just nodded, closing his eyes, and pulling Ginny closer, burying his face into her neck, inhaling her fresh and flowery scent, trying to clear his mind of everything else. It seemed to work, and they chatted about Quidditch and other things for the rest of the evening before going to bed, and apart from a sudden urge to tell Ginny how happy he was that Draco enjoyed the muggle museum, and how lovely lunch was, and how nice it was to look around all those shops in Bond Street, when she asked him about his day, but he settled with telling her about the exhibitions and how London was overcrowded and about the ugly dress of the woman they saw and a nice car he saw, and everything else that didn’t involve mentioning Draco. And Ginny was happy with his reply, and told him about her practice, then switched off the lights and snuggled up to him, and Harry flung his arm around her, letting his tiredness take over as soon as they pulled the covers up, Ginny’s goodnight-kiss still lingering on his lips. And it felt nice, it felt like this was the way it should be, and he felt guilty for ever thinking that it wasn’t, but he pushed that back to his subconscious as he drifted off, the steady rise and fall of Ginny’s chest as she fell asleep calming him down. The next morning greeted them with warm sunshine that flooded the room, falling onto them, the light making Ginny’s ginger hair shine like the finest copper. Harry thought it was beautiful, and after rubbing his eyes, he started combing his fingers through the fine strands, but then suddenly he found himself thinking of what Draco’s hair felt like, and how it looked in the sun. He thought of Draco's smile and his laugh that Harry always wanted to be the the reason of. He thought of Draco's grey eyes that turned silver whenever he was joyous or whenever he was emotional; they would go deep, dark grey every time Draco was furious or hurt. Harry thought of his somewhat pointy features and face that some people may considered unattractive, but Harry always blushed when he got got staring at. No. This wasn't the time to think about Draco. He shook his head, and went back to playing with Ginny’s hair, smoothing it out of her face before leaning in and placing soft kisses all over her face, and down her neck. 'GET HIM OUT OF YOUR HEAD. GET HIM OUT. OUT.' Within moments Ginny woke up, but Harry didn’t stop, his kisses trailing lower and lower, and as Ginny didn’t object at all, they ended up making love, a sweet tangle of red hair and white sheets, and the feeling of body on body. And it felt good. It felt right. It wasn’t exciting, it wasn’t thrilling, but it felt like something he knew well, and that’s what Harry needed. He hated being lost and uncertain.

They sat in bed for another hour, just cuddling and mumbling sweet nothings to each other, content with being together, not wanting to go back into reality, which was getting ready for another day of training for both of them, curse-breaking for Harry and Quidditch for Ginny. But at the end when they heard that Hermione was leaving already, they knew they had to get up, so after a quick shower and breakfast and a goodbye-kiss they parted ways.

#feelings we can't let go #drarry #drarry squad #drarry fic #ao3 #my writing #my fic #draco malfoy #harry potter #harry potter x draco malfoy

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thatlongspringnight · 7 years ago

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I Made a Mistake (Ch. 5)

ITS BACK Y’ALL. Ieyasu/MC. College AU.

Okay, so I have a plot for this, I promise. I just needed some filler to get back in the game with my fave tsundere cupcake lord.

Hope yall enjoy.

fic under the cut!

“It’s not fair.” Inuchiyo frowned, tapping his pencil against the desk in the library.

“What’s not fair?” MC sat across from him, not bothering to look up from her book. She highlighted a paragraph, waiting for him to continue “Inuchiyo?”

“It’s not fair that you are suddenly the top of the class and won’t tell me why.”

“Aw, is the puppy having trouble coping with his studies?” MC smirked, tossing her head as she returned to her homework. “I said I’d be your study buddy, but you picked the fight club”

“Oh come on.”

“Look, puppy, I’m just trying to graduate, just like you.”

“You’ve developed an attitude problem.”

“No, I’m just sick of you going over this with me, I said I’d teach you the stuff, you still haven’t taken me up on it.”

“No way, not after all the hell you gave me about the club”

“Your loss”

“Yeah well, I’d rather be in debt to the them than to Tokugawa.”

“Hedge your bets however you like” MC shook her head, eyes never looking away from the page. “Or find a new tutor.”

“You’re top of the class.”

“Okay try our TA, then. She’s a grade above us. You know her, don’t you?” MC looked up, giving Inuchiyo a look. He looked away, pink gracing his cheeks. “Or is that not an option”

“U-ugh I guess. I just didn’t want to.”

“Didn’t wanna make her think less of you?” MC teased lightly, leaning across the table to pinch his cheek. “So cute.”

“The hell?” He yanked himself away. “Don’t start with me.”

“So, you should ask her, right?”

“I might have to.” He groaned. “She really does know what she is talking about.”

“But not as much as my tutor” The girl boasted easily. If it was one thing she had come to understand over the last month or so it was that her eccentric and rather rude roommate was a science genius...and a good kisser…

A blush dusted MC’s cheeks as she shook the thoughts from her head. They were not relevant, nope, not in the least.

“What is that dumb expression on your face for?” Mitsunari’s cold voice shook whatever was left of her daydreaming away. When had he showed up? MC looked away, focusing on the bookshelves.

“Mmmm nothing, studying for my abnormal psych midterm.”

“I wouldn’t classify that as nothing.”

“You’re right” MC sighed, biting the cap of her highlighter. “It’s really hard and I kind of hate it.”

Mitsunari leaned into the seat next to her, looking over shoulder at the book.

“Hm,” He paused, gesturing at a certain paragraph “Read that one again, it’ll help, and hand me your notes.”

“Yessir!”

Toramatsu watched the girl with no small measure of anxiety, fiddling with the bottom of his t-shirt. She stepped over to him, staring at him, almost touching him. He looked down at her, noting the serious expression on her face.

He tried to keep eye contact, but looked away.

“H-Hey, MC”

“Toramatsu.”

“So…uh…how’s it going?”

“It goes” She shrugged, and for a moment he calmed. She seemed fine, she seemed okay, right?

“Look, MC, I’m sorry about all this. Really I am, I know how hard this must be for you-“

“Toramatsu-“

“Seriously MC, if he is unbearable, you can just do what I did, find someone else. I know it is like living with a mob boss, but really-“

“Tora-“ She tried to save him, really MC did.

“Well, what do we have here?” a presence behind him, a terrible familiar presence.

“Tokugawa.” Toramatsu turned on his heels, doing his best to keep MC behind him. The blonde glanced at him with smile, that sickening smile that made Toramatsu grimace. Why had fate brought him to this so early in the morning/

“You know, Toramatsu, I seem to remember telling you multiple times that I don’t appreciate it when other people play with my things.” The smile fell from Ieyasu’s face, revealing something a little more dangerous. He strode right by him, taking a spot by MC. “You lost that privilege when you left our arrangement.” Ieyasu trailed a hand across MC’s cheek, and the intimate gesture had both her and Toramatsu blushing. “I’m sure I don’t have to explain it to you again, do I?”

“N-No.” Toramatsu found himself looking away for the second time. “No you don’t.” What had gotten into Tokugawa? He had never seen him quite so off-put or overt. Better yet, what had MC gotten herself into?

“What was that about Ieyasu?” MC’s blush had only heightened as she took him in, noting the anger rising high on his cheeks, a frown on his features.

He looked upset.

Oh dear.

He had all but dragged her into one of the library study rooms, ignoring the pointed look Mitsunari had shot the both of them.

Now there was a gulf of silence between them.

MC opened her mouth again to speak, but he beat her to the punch.

“I didn’t realize you were so close to that imbecile”

“I’m going to need you to explain yourself a little further, Tokugawa.” MC took a defensive stance, crossing her arms and taking a step back from him.

“I wouldn’t have pegged your type as being simpering and forward with random men. Although what should I expect, considering how quickly you agreed to our…our arrangement.” His voice was a hiss, painful in her ears.

Wait a moment, just a moment, MC sized him up quickly before continuing. She had a suspicion she knew exactly what this was about.

“Ieyasu, what are you talking about?” He seemed anxious, text book, and was doing his best to cover it with anger. His eyes darted away from her face, and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. MC saw through it easily, although his stinging barb of a tongue managed to hurt anyway. “Is this about Toramatsu?”

The red on his face seemed to dip a shade darker. She was right on the mark. “I’m...I’m not into Toramatsu.” She stepped closer to him, backing him into a corner. What could have given him that idea?

“Hard to believe, considering how you were practically on top of him” Tokugawa spat the words out and the situation finally fell into place.

Oh.

He was very jealous.

“Well, I’ll have you know, it’s not in my nature. Toramatsu was going to continue to apologize to me about making me live with you. Well, at least until you interrupted him.”

“Hmph.”

“I can prove it to you.” MC pressed further, hand reaching out to stroke his cheek, coaxing his eyes back to hers.

“And how would a senseless wench like you ever-“

She cut him off, lips pressing against his quickly, silencing his words.

MC kissed him with a startling want. She’d been trying to prove a point but honestly, she just missed the way his hands tugged at her hair, the freedom of a no strings attached affair.

Well, maybe the no feelings thing kind of sucked, But still.

She kissed him till her lips felt bruised, aching from his teeth and her lungs hurt for air. When she pulled away it was clear his face was read for a different reason.

“I wouldn’t kiss Toramatsu like that”

His lips were on hers again. Arms coming under her ass to hoist her up. She gasped and his tongue snaked into her mouth.

He set her down on the table, and she buried her fingers into his hair, tugging at his locks. He broke the kiss, a sound leaving his mouth that she wanted to hear again.

And everything was great

Until Mitsunari walked by, all but slamming the door open in righteous fury.

“This is a library! A sacred space. You bastard bred whoreson, take your business elsewhere!” He rounded on Ieyasu who had managed to separate himself from her, and was smoothing out his hair and frowning.

Cute.

Somehow Mitsunari’s anger was more directed at Ieyasu than MC, which she didn’t mind at all, hiding behind Ieyasu as the argument escalated.

Shit, where they about to fight?

MC quickly grabbed Ieyasu by the arm, dragging him from the building, yelling her apologies to the library staff.

Once a safe distance from the building he tugged his arm away from her, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

She shook her head, laughing softly.

He was still blushing.

This was still less embarrassing than Inuchiyo listening to porn in the library, right?

Right?

MC really hoped so.

Tagging: @frywen-babbles@singokumaiden @cottonballwithmustache @held-hostage-and-happy @sengoku-drifter @pasunny @mitsukaiyuki @faismusings @doodlebug5386 @ceka122 @slbp-owns-ayame

And a MASSIVE THANK YOU To all the anons and people who encouraged me till I was ready to get back to this fic, my original college au baby.

#tokugawa ieyasu #slbp #samurai love ballad party #college au #julie writes #and its back #heyooo #library make out #lets piss off poor mitsunari #fight fight fight #will there be plot?#will there be porn?#Lets wait and see~

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queenlua · 7 years ago

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i finished reading The Will to Battle!

thoughts under cut

i read the first two this past august.

this one felt a bit less rough than Seven Surrenders, in that, all the logical leaps that happened in SS (somehow World War I is the most destructive war ever? and length of time between wars was the main factor in that? what the hell says who??? also are you seriously telling me EVERY major world leader has a renaissance clothes fetish to the extent they can be manipulated by it???)...

...all those logical leaps had *already* happened, and thus i could just kinda suspend disbelief and go along with whatever was happening in the here & now.

however, while this novel had fewer glaring "are you kidding" moments, for the first time while reading these books, i felt my attention sagging halfway through. part of it was that i'd been hoping we'd get to the actual *war* in this one, true, but i think Palmer could've written a prewar intrigue novel that had held my attention the whole while. it probably would've had less MASON and less fucking JEDD, though.

it didn't help that the battle lines felt so hazy and abstract to me—maybe i missed something, since i was reading so fast? but like, okay, i assume most humanists are pro-Sniper, and i can actually imagine how a pro-Sniper side gets started on a war. but, while i get that JEDD is beloved by all the world leaders, *is he beloved by the people*, and if so, why? do the people even know him? (i think probably not, since iirc the saneer-weeksbooth bash was majorly confused when he showed up in book 1?). and if they *don't* know JEDD, then why in the world do they want to give unconditional power to some religious nutjob? (surely other people could stand up for the "fuck OS" cause?)

i love the dynamics between the world leaders dearly, but if we're doing a war, then at some point i need to see & understand what's getting the people jazzed up. it's telling that "issues i think we could actually go to war for" (mitsubishi land stuff, nuturism, etc) are well-illustrated, but "people who think JEDD is legit" is a thing we don't ever really see, and supposedly that's what's sparking our war.

which kinda points to another issue—i think having Sniper offscreen for basically the whole book was an error. Sniper is a wonderfully charismatic on the page; even though i was absolutely furious when they shot JEDD in SS, I found their speech about their love of Hive, and of Hives, uniquely stirring, and of course their getaway was just epic. all JEDD had to offer was a new strident insistence on surrender and i was longing for someone to represent what *i* love about this world, its glorious humanistic and sentimental undercurrents.

and also, pragmatically—i still don't know how exactly war works in a world where nations are so geographically dispersed, and i feel like the book has got to explain that to me. wars mostly start because someone tries to invade someone else's sovereign territory. presumably most fighting will happen outside of the Hive capitols, so what the hell does that look like? i've been wondering that since SS and expected we'd get an answer here, but, guess not.

...this is making me sound like i liked the book less than i did. hm. they're still fantastically inventive, awesome worldbuilding accomplishments. i liked a *lot* of the political intrigue (Ancelet telling Prospero that he'll be pleading terra ignota is just an amazing opening scene, Aesop Quarriman was a fun new addition, etc), and I'm still invested enough to see where this is all going.

it's perhaps telling that the part that stood out the *most* to me, was the bit where Mycroft freaks out, talking about how everyone "damned" him by asking him all the time when he was going to pick a Hive. i mean, in some ways it gels with stereotypical millennial fears about how to pick one's way in the world when you're young and scared—but it also felt like it was scraping bone, there, something deeper, about if there's some deeper flaw in Hive structures that's causing more than just Mycroft and OS to fall through the cracks. and i'd love to read about *that*.

other random stuff:

* i gasped aloud when that sensayer PULLED A FUCKING GUN ON JEDD, which alarmed the random chick sitting next to me on the airplane, which forced me to babble incoherently about how VERY INTENSE THIS BOOK IS until the random chick politely bowed out of the conversation to do Literally Anything Else, which was great because then i could read again

* (the other thing that made me gasp aloud was the Casmir Perry reveal at the end)

* am i the only one who REALLY WANTS to see what all those rando religious leaders discussed with JEDD? i mean i guess i can see why Palmer didn't include that, since the book was already stuffed full of complicated characters to keep track of, but, c'mon! what do the Dalai Lama / various Christian leaders / etc etc all say to a dude who literally came back to life and says he's a God? THE THEOLOGICAL BANTER WOULD BE SO FASCINATING)

* Hobbestown was great. almost made me want to be a Blacklaw. (i would do Extremely Poorly as a Blacklaw & am probs Brillist 4 Lyfe)

* i find thisbee saneer extremely irritating now. i do not know why. i actually found her really fun in book 1.

* i lol'd hard over the Osamu Tezuka shoutout; ada palmer you are such a weeb and i love it

* i freaked out SO BAD when they said mycroft was dead because HALF THE FUN OF READING THESE BOOKS IS MYCROFT'S ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY INSANE NARRATION, and though he's alive it's left ambiguous how much Mycroft we'll see in the future—the end seems to set us up for 9A taking over at least some of the reins, and also Mycroft's clearly increasingly losing it throughout this novel, so we'll see if he's still able to string sentences together next time 'round

* i sort of hate what they've done with Carlyle Foster. we go from one of the most affable, enduring, and honestly-Good characters i've found in fiction in Book 1, to like, a sobbing withering whipped mess in this book. because like, Pascal? seriously? i guess everyone has their thing but come on

* felix faust for best hive leader tbqh

#terra ignota #terra ignota spoilers

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9thbutterfly · 7 years ago

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butterfly thoughts: NaNoWriMo

(cross-posted from somewhere else, so I have posted bits of this on tumblr before, but there are also new things)

I was really nervous about starting NaNoWriMo this year – because it’s been so long since I’ve written fiction. Looking at my NaNo novels, the last time I’ve really written (part of) a novel was in 2012 – looking at the titles and half-hearted synopses of the others, I mostly don’t even remember what most of these stories were. (I do remember Rocks and Reeds, of which I ended up writing maybe two pages, before making the rest of my wordcount with something else, but what the hell were the others?) So 2013 to 2015 I muddled through with con reports and other stuff, and last year I tried with my thesis-like thing… so it’s been a long time since I’ve written a story, and I didn’t feel like I even remembered how. But once I pushed through those initial few days of fear and reluctance, it became fun again, and easy. It turns out you can indeed sit down with a vague idea of the beginning of a new scene, and start writing, and while you write, new ideas keep coming. And also that miracle of things fitting so well, as if they were always meant to be, even though I did not plan them that way at all. Like – I got the first idea for this story in the middle of a patch of stinging nettles, so I decided to call the village it starts in Nettle Patch. Then, a few minutes after telling my best friend I still didn’t have a title, I thought, “hm, I could call it Out of the Nettle Patch Into the… hm, what’s worse than nettles? … Into the Brambles.” So Out of the Nettle Patch, Into the Brambles it was. And because the magic in this story is connected to plants, I have a book of herbs and healing plants that also lists the magical properties of plants, and if I get stuck, I open the book on a random page and try to include that plant somehow. Two days ago, I found myself wondering, since brambles are in the title, what magical properties do they have? (I already looked up nettles before I started.) And lo and behold, “For spouses that don’t get along any more, there are suggestions from medieval plant lore that are supposed to help restore harmony.” And that literally describes two of my main characters, and their planned personal growth/development/whatever over the course of the plot! So this fits so fantastically well I could scream. So that is one thing I love, and and having a system of magic that I haven’t seen in a book yet is another (and no, I won’t talk about how it works, because this is one of the rare cases of me having an idea that feels like it could turn into a book to try to get published, so I feel quite protective of it. Maybe too much so, maybe the idea is not so great as to warrant such protectiveness, but I feel it anyway.) But then the other thing that I constantly have to stop myself from babbling on about… What I see quite a lot of on tumblr is discussions of diversity in fiction, and historical accuracy in fantasy, especially when it comes to things like misogyny and homophobia and (lack of) people of colour – both the aspect of “is that actually historically accurate?” and the aspect of “even if it was, do we need to be historically accurate, given that dragons and magic are not (nor are potatoes, in a pseudo-medieval-Europe fantasy world.) All of which has made me want to write a story that is distinctly not “everyone is white, and women only exist to be exploited and raped, and gay people do not exist at all, or if they do they must die”. And I can’t tell you how much I love my main characters. I recently realised that out of the five of them, not a single one is the classic straight white male main character, and I spent a few minutes cackling happily. (I get equal amounts of pleasure out of thinking of people who would be happy to read this story, and out of thinking of people who would be so pissed off about it.) And I was thinking today, writing the first scene with Denneb, the last of the five main characters, that he would be the closest thing to the typical main character, being a teenage boy. Except that he does absolutely not want to go on a quest and have adventures, because he’s extremely shy, and just wants to live with his grandfather and hide from people in the forest, and having to leave his home, with four complete strangers, is the absolute worst, and he would really like to burst into tears, but then everyone would stare at him and that would be even worse. But it’s also surprisingly difficult to write. I mean, feeling this way is a thing that is very familiar to me, but I never read it, and it’s like my brain can’t make sense of a character acting this way. Like real people get to feel this way, but characters don’t. I don’t know… it makes sense to me, but I can’t really explain it. And the other thing that is proving surprisingly difficult to write is a society without sexism. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to remind myself, “no, the person doing (task) does not need to be (gender). Somebody else can do it too.” or “no, there is no reason for only young men to volunteer to travel to that place, because given the religions and morals of this world, rape would be so unacceptable that it would not even occur to most people to worry about it, and nobody would worry about a woman’s chastity, so why the hell is there not a group of young women who also want to travel and have adventures?” So, yeah. Those were not the challenges I expected when I started this story, but they are much more fun to deal with than “not remembering how to write”. I just love this story. (And I hope so much that this feeling lasts, and that I’ll actually manage to finish it. And to get to the end, I should now finally get my characters on the road.)

#9thbutterfly thoughts #nanowrimo #writing #peasant plotbunny #aka Out of the Nettle Patch Into the Brambles #writing about writing #and I'm absolutely adding these words to my wordcount

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pippims · 8 years ago

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about a quarter to nine, 1/3

or, the one where Wylan is struggling to pay his rent and plays music on the streets, Jesper dances and has no restraint and may or may not dance along to a cute street musician, and everyone is embarrassed at what these dorks get up to. {ao3}

It was February, another snowstorm had just hit, Wylan Hendriks was behind on his rent again, and apparently no one on this street had ever learned the values of tipping.

For all intents and purposes, the day should have gone well. He’d set up near a museum that was usually filled with tourists, but today it was curiously empty. Wylan had also started off with playing the violin, which usually worked in more “cultured” areas, but there was hardly anyone around to even hear him. The most attention he’d gotten was a few vaguely dirty looks and a disapproving glance from a police officer. However, the worst part of the day was the man who had walked up when Wylan pulled out his guitar and started singing, seemingly enjoying his performance… and then walked away.

All in all, he made a whopping three dollars.

Cutting ties with your rich father is, unsurprisingly, costly.

Wylan trudged into his flat, tracking in mud and bits of snow from his boots. Kuwei, who was laying on the floor with a notebook in front of him, hardly looked up as the door creaked open. For a moment, Wylan worried he’d passed out until he heard him give a slight groan. Probably organic chemistry again.

Light footed, he walked around him to set down his cases and throw his satchel over a chair. Grabbing his laptop, Wylan sank into the torn yet overstuffed couch, pulled up the spreadsheet, and got to work. Maybe he just had to change up his routine? Guitar-and-voice was a classic; usually, he’d bring that out towards the end of the show and rake in some money. He only brought his flute out occasionally because, even though it was by far his strongest instrument, it was too quiet to effectively play. And as much as he enjoyed the violin, looking at the numbers…

“Shush. You’re thinking too loud.” Kuwei, at some point, had flipped himself and rolled over onto his back and was currently staring up at Wylan, hair blown over his face. “Just… relax. Enjoy the minimalistic scenery of our lovely flat.”

He’d definitely been working on organic chemistry. Nothing could send Kuwei into an apathetic, overly-calm mindset like stressing out over his worst subject. “Yesterday, you were stressing out about being able to make this month’s rent. I think you should take your own advice.”

Kuwei just pouted and rolled back over, tying his hair back and flipping through pages of organic molecules again. “I’ve given up on life. Money isn’t real, life isn’t real, time isn’t real, I’m not real…”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Wylan said, tapping absentmindedly on his keyboard. If only he’d decided to pursue a major that would actually make moneyinstead of going for music with a minor in chemistry, but there was no way he was going to listen to his father and do something practical like business. “We’ll figure it out.”

It was 11:46 in the evening on February 13 in the year 2017, and Jesper Fahey was drunk out of his mind. He wasn’t slightly tipsy and still coherent, just a bit looser with affection and words; he was full drunk with no control over his actions and absolutely no filter between his brain and his mouth.

“Inej, let’s…. let’s just get married. We can do it tomorrow! I know a priest, my uncle went to… to whatever pastor school is for like, a month, we could probably break into a church…. we could do our little solo as our first dance… we just need some musicians. And rings! But I have some old ring pops, I think that would work…”

Inej, to her credit, just laughed. She was also a little on the drunk side, but only enough that she was a bit less tightly-wound and her cheeks bore the slightest flush. “I don’t think we’re ready for that,” she said, breaking their dance just briefly to brush her hair out of her face. The tight bun she’d worn for the rehearsal before their big party had mostly fallen out, leaving strands of hair flying everywhere as they twirled. “We’re dance partners this year! How does that not imply marriage?”

“I don’t know, but we should at least go on a date first.”

“We’re dancing right now. How is this not a date?”

Jesper pulled her into another tight spin, making his head whirl in the process. Inej only seemed slightly dizzy afterwards, but she was famous for her ridiculous series of turns that left the whole room feeling dizzy just watching her. Even drunk, she was still in control of herself.

He became aware of a shadow approaching from the corner of his vision. Jesper was prepared to fight off some kind of demonic invader until the shadow was close enough for him to tell that it was tall, leaning on a cane, and very grumpy.

“Kaz! Kazoo! My best friend! My best man! How’s it going?”

“You’re drunk,” Kaz said, flat. He gave him the disappointed look that, at times, could give Matthias’s Dad Look a run for its money. Today, it didn’t work.

“I know! It’s fun! I’m having fun! That’s what you do at a party; you have fun . You don’t just hang out in the corner and drink apple juice while pretending it’s beer.”

“I don’t do that.” Kaz turned his attention on Inej for support, but she just covered her mouth with her hand and laughed. “Fine, maybe I’ve done that once. But still, you’re far too drunk and you’re going to embarrass yourself soon.”

Jesper pouted, pulling Inej closer. Kaz’s glare just intensified. “But Dad, I’m not going to embarrass myself-”

“He asked me to marry him,” Inej said. Jesper pushed her away. Traitor.

That seemed to appease Kaz. He grabbed Jesper’s arm and started to pull him away from the crowded dance floor (which, it was a miracle Kaz even got this far out , he usually didn’t leave the corners), saying, “Yeah, you’re done. Good night, Inej.”

“Night!” Inej called, turning around to dance by herself. Eventually she’d probably find Nina and they’d dance together, so Jesper didn’t feel too bad for leaving. Not that he wanted to leave, of course.

Drunk Jesper, apparently, had no sense of boundaries, because he wrapped himself around Kaz like a monkey that felt it was about to fall. Usually this kind of contact got you a punch (at best) or sent Kaz to a Bad Place, but tonight… he seemed looser, somehow; his posture more relaxed than usual and his grip on his cane not as blisteringly tight. Perhaps he had actually drank some alcohol tonight, or perhaps the mood of the room had absorbed into him somehow and left him feeling something close to happy, for once. Regardless, Jesper was proud of him.

Maybe too proud of him.

“Did I ever tell you how much I love you? I mean, you’re my roommate, but you’re so much more than that, oh my god, I love you and how Kaz you are, and you scare the hell out of me and you probably could- and would- murder me in my sleep, but.... I love you. You’re the bomb. The man .” Kaz, for the most part, ignored the endless stream of babble coming from Jesper’s mouth, which was a miracle considering he usually made some sort of sarcastic comment when this happened. (Jesper couldn’t help the fact that he was a clingy drunk and Kaz was his “designated walker”, because they were both too poor to afford a car and it was Amsterdam, you don’t need a car in Amsterdam anyway).

Jesper was in the middle of rambling about how even his dad loved Kaz when they suddenly stopped, and the moment he took a breath he knew that he was about to tell him to stop babbling, shut up and act normal for once and that no one cared, but instead Kaz pulled a wad of money out of his pocket. “I’m out of advil, and this place isn’t completely shady. Can you not die while I go and get some?” He nodded, which made his vision swim just a little bit. Maybe Jesper was a little too drunk. Just maybe.

While Kaz disappeared into the little store, Jesper leaned against a wall and tried to think about his marriage proposal to Inej. He just needed some flowers, maybe some backup music and- and yes, backup dancers , and he’d rip his shirt off and break into some-

Wait, backup music?

Jesper blinked out of his fantasy at the sound of music, old-fashioned jazz played on a violin that sounded just a hare out of tune, and he found himself stumbling towards it like a lost child. It felt- The music felt homey, for whatever reason; like the warmth of his mother and the nights where she’d sing along to the radio or she’d dance in the living room with Jesper standing on her toes, reaching up to her and following her fluid moves with chubby toddler stiffness.

“You’re not my mom,” he said when he found the source of the music. It was a kid- there was no way he was older than fifteen- sitting on a stood, violin under his chin, rapidly playing a swing tune. Based on his look of intense concentration, he was probably improvising.

Was was the keyword.

Once Jesper spoke, the song broke off suddenly before the kid held out a random note. “I’m sorry?” he said, looking up at him. His eyes were huge and impossibly blue, like every simile for blue eyes that ever been written.

“I thought you were my mom. You’re not.”

The kid raised an eyebrow, slinking back on his stool. He probably thought Jesper was some strange man trying to kidnap him, which, to be fair, was not a bad conclusion to make when someone says you thought they were your mother. “That’s… unfortunate,” he said, picking his violin back up.

Jesper stood there for a moment while the kid flipped through his book, brows again drawn in concentration. “Do you think if someone’s your dance partner you should marry them?”

This time, he wasn’t graced with a response. The kid just glared at him before starting another round of improv just as intense as the last one. He was being rejected, he knew that, but damnit Jesper was drunk, and he was clingy, and he was not going to let this kid win an imaginary argument.

So Jesper started dancing.

The street corner was crowded with people heading home after a long day/night and wasn’t very spacious to begin with, Jesper hadn’t taken a jazz class in years , and his limbs were heavy and uncoordinated, but he swayed with the music, spun when it called for it, clapped at times. Vaguely, he was aware of a crowd gathering to watch the child prodigy play while a very drunk man danced along, but it didn’t bother him. At one point the music lulled and Jesper saw the kid stare up at him, eyes wide, but instead of yelling at him the kid nodded and he resumed with renewed vigor, not bothering to worry about the amount of people he accidentally slapped.

And then a voice yelled, “JESPER LLEWYN FAHEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING,” and the mood died. Jesper froze in the middle of a spin, losing his balance and tumbling into the kid, who had once again suddenly stopped his song. Parting the crowd was, again, a tall, grumpy shadow holding a cane and a small plastic bag. “Jesper, I told you you were going to embarrass yourself. Let’s get home before you make out with a random stranger.” He started to turn to leave, but looked over his shoulder. “And apologize to that poor musician.”

Jesper turned his head to look at the kid, who was half-beneath him from when he fell. He pulled himself away, squatting in front of him. “Sorry about that, I’m really drunk and I guess I have no inhibition-”

“Look at my tip bag.”

“- it was wrong of me, I probably embarrassed you, God I’m so sorry, you were just minding your business and playing your amazing music and I ruined it for you, also you’re like twelve and-”

“Jesper Llewyn Fahey, I’m nineteen years old, and look at my tip bag.”

Jesper finally looked away from the kid’s eyes (well, not kid, even though he looked like a kid) and at the little sac that sat in front of his violin case. It was overflowing with money, a few coins sprinkled around the outside.

“I’ve never made this much money before. You don’t even know how much I needed that.”

Jesper was about to respond when Kaz yelled his name again and shot him a glare that meant he definitely wanted to kill him a little bit, and so he pulled himself away from the kid and walked the rest of the way home in silence.

#six of crows #crooked kingdom #wesper #jesper/wylan #mathiashevlr #(once again i blame libby for this bc i'm pretty sure it was her idea?)#but this was meant to be very short but alas here we are #also this is by far the fluffiest thing i've ever written?#so yeah #**#fic tag #there's a bonus to this but it's only on ao3 because the formatting wouldn't work on here #¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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jiji-infires · 8 years ago

Text

APRICITY (pt.3)

OC X JUNGKOOK

GENRE: FLUFF, ANGST

WORD COUNT: 1.9K

SYNOPSIS: When his roommate moves out to live with his girlfriend, Jungkook is faced with a new reality, one that includes a 5′3′’ sac of bones that is too nerdy and curious for his liking.

CHAPTER 3

Jisoo wakes up disoriented, her left eye half open and the right one glued shut. She throws herself on her bed again in a huge and loud yawn when her hand lands on something soft and furry. She turns to see Juno nuzzling her palm.

“Hey there little guy” she smiles and turns on her tummy to stand up, hair flying in different directions looking like a bird nest.

She sighs and heads to the bathroom, barely holding herself. The doorknob is stuck, or more like someone is occupying it.

“Open up!” She yells while pounding her fist on the wooden door. “Open up dude I need to get in!”

“What the fuck?!” She hears muffled cussing with the sound of the faucet running. He’s showering. But she doesn’t care; it’s either her bladder blows or she does her things, either inside or on the door mat, just like Juno.

She hears muttering and loud wrestling before the door is swung open, revealing a gloriously naked young man with only a towel hanging down his hips.

That’s what you call a toned body. Not overly muscular but it had it where it matters, and the sheen of water from the shower is the cherry on top. In her mind, she has already kicked herself at least a thousand times.

“Why the hell are you naked?” Her tone is appalled, unconscious of the redness creeping up her face. Well damn, there goes my innocence.

“What do you mean? I just came out the shower! Why are you trying to break the freaking door?!”

She ignores his words and pushes past him, locking him outside as she hurries before she lets everything go.

Let it go, let it go, can’t hold it back anymore.

His body is a sin. She shakes her head and goes to the sink. What a mess !

After cleaning up, she hurries to her room, putting on a pair of denim ankle pants with a white sweatshirt and a pair of puma. Throwing a beige scarf around her neck, she grabs her overcoat and keys and storms out, ignoring Jungkook’s call from the kitchen.

“What a moron” she says to herself as she reaches her locker, setting books she’ll need at the end of the day and taking those she has to use in her next lecture. Even she can’t understand why she’s still mad at him; people like him don’t affect her in the slightest, but something about him makes her blood boil. Just when she whirls around, she is faced with the sight of a scowling Jungkook walking majestically with his black leather jacket, ripped jeans, timberlands and a red beanie. The guy is annoying as hell, but equally good-looking.

She doesn’t realise how she’s glaring at him until a random girl gives her a look.

“If only looks could kill…” a tall blonde trails off and Jisoo looks at her bluntly. She can’t help but imagine herself ripping his head off and watch him run around headless like an injured chicken.

“Yeah”

“I didn’t see you at the initiation class” the girl remarks

“I wasn’t here for the first ten days” she replies sheepishly and the girl grins at her.

“I’m Hanbyul! Let’s be friends” Jisoo forces a smile at Hanbyul’s somewhat fake cheerfulness and she lets her drag her to class, the blond one telling her how she’ll give her notes of what she has missed.

Not even half an hour into the lecture and Jisoo is already half asleep, only Hanbyul’s constant babbling keeping her barely awake. Philosophy is not her most enjoyable class; in fact, she barely remembers last years’ doctrines, let alone their authors.

The professor turns around suddenly, repositioning his glasses over the ridge of his hooked nose, looking like Lord Farquaad with his big head centered atop his short physic.

“Students, we have a surprise test today” he says in mock interest, passing through rows and distributing the quiz amongst us. Jisoo sighs quietly and takes out her pencils just when Hanbyul nudges her.

“Check this out” the blond one passes her phone over to Jisoo, displaying a Instagram video of three pugs helping each other up and then tumbling down the stairs. Jisoo covers her mouth as snickers quietly and that’s when she notices a polished leather shoe tapping on the floor next to her desk. She looks up to find the professor staring at her with a brow raised suspiciously.

“Trying to cheat before the test has even started? This isn’t even an official exam and you’re already displaying intolerable practices!”

Jisoo looks at him and then at Hanbyul who’s now acting as f she doesn’t even know her. “But the phone isn’t mine! It doesn’t have anything to do with the test” she protests, her tone unbelievable.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s yours or not. This is a high profile university, you can’t ruin it–”

“I didn’t do anything wrong! It’s her phone” she points at the girl who’s looking at her like she doesn’t even know what she’s talking about. It’s not about the test anymore, her dignity is at stake for something trivial she has no hands in and someone she barely knows.

“Save it, whatever your name is. You may leave my class” he says, his voice final, allowing no room for discussion. Her head spins at his words as her heartbeat is getting irregular and she has an overwhelming urge to stomp over and drag that bitch by her hair. From the side on her eye she can see a male stand up. It’s Jungkook with his poker face.

“Although it’s not my place to step in, I’m gonna let myself speak just for the sake of my own peace of mind and how badly I want this test to be over” he says, all eyes on him now. What are you doing? “The other girl is the one who pushed her phone over this girl’s desk, who clearly wasn’t interested in its content, whatever it was.”

The professor seems to be listening carefully to what Jungkook is saying as he nodded in agreement.

“But I didn’t-” Hanbyul’s failed attempt to defend herself is stopped by a simple hand hovering in the air, signaling her to stop talking.

“After what Jungkook said, I think that if I’m going to kick someone out of my class, it’s going to be both of you. But for the sake of your future academic records I’m going to let this one pass” he says, eyeing both girls; Hanbyul’s mouth forming in an ugly scowl while Jisoo is fighting back the tears that brimmed at her eyes. She casts a final glance at the boy who has regained his position and is now facing away from her. What kind of power does he hold on the teacher?!

The class continues with heaviness in the air as Jisoo’s mind is elsewhere; why would she do this to her when she barely knows her? It’s not high school for god’s sake. And why the hell would someone like Jung Jungkook stand up for her? She makes a mental note of thanking him properly later, whatever was his motive.

She steals a quick glance at him; he’s led back in his seat, hand ceaselessly scribbling down as he looks concentrated. After a few minutes, he stands and hands his copy before leaving her in awe. Well that was fast.

She doesn’t take much time either; while philosophy isn’t something she thoroughly takes pleasure in, she has enough knowledge about some references, enabling her to pass her quiz as easily as she used to in high school.

As soon as she’s out, she tries to find him, but there’s no trace of him, it’s like he has vanished. With a sigh, she heads to library, wrapping her arms around herself as if they could shield her from the cold, although she’s pretty much sure it’s coming from her heart condition.

The moment she sets foot in the fantasy section, she can’t help but remember those compelling onyx eyes. She sighs and walks to retrieve the book she wanted to get the first time, Beautiful Creatures.

A piece of folded parchment paper falls from between the pages and she bends to pick it up.

‘The soul that can speak through the eyes can also kiss with a gaze.’

Her heart palpitates and a faint dust of rose colours her cheeks. Yes, she’s a helpless romantic and easily falls for words, or let’s just say old fashioned romance with sweet notes and hand-written love letters. Her lips break into a face splitting grin as she tucks the note in her pocket and heads home under the soft drizzle of the rain.

Jungkook is finally on his bed, texting his friend and swiping away the incoming call from his mom that has been bothering him for the past few minutes. His relationship with his parents isn’t very pleasant, one that is full of violent arguments that often end up with him saying something cruel; he regrets none of his words.

Moments pass and his mother doesn’t call him, but he is bothered with a soft knocking on his door. It must be her. With a huff, he stands and yanks the door open, revealing a dump Jisoo with her hair stuck to her face and red nose and cheeks from the bite of cold.

“Um…” she trails off, lightly bouncing on her heels and looking at the floor, “Thank you, for what you did earlier”

He looks at her for a long minute, her eyes looking everywhere but never meeting his. She’s somehow unusual and something about her puts him out of character; the fact that he can’t put his hand on it is what makes annoyed, not her directly. He’s on the verge of sending her away with ‘It’s not for you, I did it for myself’ phrase, but she decides to look up out of the blue, her eyes meeting his for a moment, making him swallow back whatever he was going to say.

Her eyes are so familiar to him, giving him a feeling of nostalgia, or more like a déjà vu.

“It’s nothing… she was clearly targeting you for some reason” he doesn’t know why he’s explaining himself; a simple ‘you’re welcome’ would’ve been sufficient. What are you doing you fool?!

The silence is extended and the atmosphere is getting awkward. Jisoo gives a tight smile with quick bow before retreating to her room, thanking him once again before closing her door.

“Yeah…” he murmurs, closing his door and shaking unnecessary thoughts from his head. His mind goes back to what he did earlier this morning when he went to library. What a silly idea! The girl won’t probably come back there and there’s a very small chance that she’d pick the same book upon which both of them stumbled. He imagined himself to be Cyrano de Bergerac this morning but romance is dead. He’s silently hoping that whoever she is will eventually read that note he wrote in a very Harry Potter way.

Call it cliché, but behind that cold façade of his there’s a young romantic who just waits for the right one, he just doesn’t know that only a wall separates them.

#bts #jungkook #jungkook x oc #bts jungkook #bts scenarios #kpop scenarios #bts fanfic #fanfic

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chiauve · 8 years ago

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ficlet: Quiet

Fandom: Cyborg 009 Characters: Joe Shimamura, Jet Link

Summary: Joe’s life lately has been a progression of things getting quieter. aka Why Jet isn’t as chill as he used to be.

Notes: Takes place between re:Cyborg and Call of Justice. Vaguely related to the Gehenna fic verse.

This is another piece that just meanders about and goes nowhere. I tried to do drama but Joe and Jet didn’t want to. Unbeta’d

Joe’s life lately had been a progression of things getting quieter. He’d been living in Tokyo for the last several years, and all the expected city noises that came with that. Then he’d been in Venice as he and the team kept their heads down and tried to figure out what just happened.

Jet was specifically not talking to Joe about the fact they’d both been dead but now were not.

Venice was still a city, but it was not Tokyo and the ambience not so chaotic and pervasive. Then they all decided to retreat from the world for a while and so relocated to central Texas. They would not split up this time but spend their existence quietly in their own exile.

It was so quiet out in that vast openness, and Joe couldn’t sleep in it for a while. Sometimes Francoise would slide into bed next to him and ease him into sleep, other times Albert or Chang would shove a glass of various alcoholic drinks into his hand and wish him luck.

And he’d finally doze off and then Jet would hit him in the face with a pillow for reasons of his own that once again he wasn’t talking about.

Jet really didn’t talk about much these days, and that was what made it so quiet. As long as Joe had known him, which was a very long time, Jet had two modes of talking. He either wouldn’t talk much, just sit and relax and listen as the others talked, or he’d never shut up about some random thing or another. Sports, a nice place to eat, that weird thing he found in a motel bathroom once, Nazi penguins, or the most complete rundown of available hair gel products currently on the market Joe had ever heard from a man. Or anyone.

Jet hadn’t gone into one of his bouts of Never Shut Up since Joe got his memories back. The closest he’d gotten was when Jet kept pestering him about the fact he’d had sex with Francoise.

Upon their arrival to their newly purchased land in Texas and the old rundown house that was on it, they’d immediately begun work on building the lab and command center beneath even before repairing the house. They needed the work so they didn’t think too hard on the lives they’d spent the last several decades building being left behind. Not that that life was still available for some of them even if they had gone back.

The Gilmore Foundation headquarters in Istanbul was abandoned and would remain so. Innocent employees had been killed in the raid and in Gilmore’s guilt he could not bear to start again. Much of the profit made from his patents was sent to their families, the rest would be for his cyborgs to ensure their comfort and maintenance.

Those who had gone to work for their country’s governments would most likely not find much welcome after the His Voice incident, even if they wanted to return. Pyunma hadn’t found the answers he’d sought in archaeology and would rather forget that angel skeleton if he could. Chang’s restaurant had become a popular chain long ago and he was more than happy to let it run its course for now, though he’d stated loudly that if he found out that the reputation of his restaurant became anything less than stellar he was going to go back and give them a piece of his mind.

Joe couldn’t sleep in the quiet, but quiet was what they needed right now. It was quiet when he entered the main room; they were taking a break from construction today and everyone was off relaxing in their own way. Francoise had taken Chang and Albert out for groceries, Pyunma was exploring the lake that was the whole reason they’d bought this land, Geronimo and GB went out to mark the boundaries of their estate. Joe expected them to take Jet along but he was sitting on the couch reading.

“You didn’t go with Geronimo and GB?” Joe asked.

Jet’s eyes flicked up from his book but then went right back to the pages, though he didn’t continue to read. “We’re not working today. I don’t care how relaxing Geronimo says it would be, it’s work. Not working means sitting my ass on this couch reading Francoise’s creepy chick books until we get a TV out here.”

“You’ll just end up watching Francoise’s creepy chick flicks. Or worse, her collection of old musicals.”

Jet glared at him. “I gave her that collection for her birthday.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“’Cause you were playing high school. Some of us still had to deal with our lives.”

“How long are you going to hold my amnesia cycles against me?” Joe sighed. Jet had practically exploded at him about that in Venice, and while Joe didn’t regret that, it aired out a lot of their problems, he wished the American would just let it go already.

“Eh, until next century, if you’re nice to me.”

With a shake of his head Joe dropped onto the couch. He plucked the paperback from Jet’s hands and looked it over. “What even is this?”

“Trash, even by my standards. The writing’s flat but trying to be prosey and the sex is boring. I guess Francoise agrees with me ‘cause I found that book wedged under the wonky leg of Gilmore’s temporary work table.”

Joe wrinkled his nose in disgust and tossed the book away.

“I was reading that.”

“Now you’re not, I’m saving you from it. Are we even now?”

“That doesn’t count,” Jet snapped, “That’s twice you owe me.”

“No, just the once. Vietnam, remember?”

“No. No no no, carrying me back for Gilmore to fix is nothing on flying into space to get your dumb ass and blowing up for it. Twice.”

“Fine then, how about this,” and Joe lunged and grabbed Jet’s head, ruffling his hair and mangling his carefully slicked back hair.

“The hell, Joe!”

“I’ve saved you from whatever the hell that was.”

“That’s called looking professional, you turd! I worked for the government.”

“Now you don’t.”

“And whose fault is that!” Jet shouted with such vehemence Joe almost recoiled from him. Okay, 180 degree mood change there. “Not mine, nor anyone here,” Joe said slowly, unable to help the slight edge lining his voice. They’d put up with Jet’s moods in Venice because they’d all suffered and lost, but they were starting over now. They were going to live that peaceful life Joe had been reaching for for years. “Stop blaming people for things out of our control that have already happened and focus on what we have now.”

Jet regarded him a long moment before his eyes slid away. He muttered something.

“What?”

“I said ‘sorry’. I haven’t had a cigarette in ages and it’s making me edgy.”

Joe relaxed and sank back on the couch. “You don’t need cigarettes, you’re a cyborg.”

“My brain’s human, and it demands nicotine.”

“If you had a cigarette would you stop being an ass?”

Jet shrugged. “Probably, but who knows I come from a long line of democrats.”

“What?”

“’Cause democrats are donkeys and… Nevermind. I forget how much humor is lost among us all sometimes.”

Joe let it go. “Accelerated I could get to the store and back in less than a half hour, I could go grab you a pack.”

“Nah, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does if the rest of us have to put up with you.”

“Forget it.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Jet swung his legs up as Joe tried to stand and dropped them on his lap. Had Joe been human, it would have hurt, Jet’s leg were very heavy when fueled up, which was always. Even as a cyborg, they were heavy enough to pin Joe back on the couch.

“I said forget it,” Jet said, “I should quit, at least for a while.”

Jet never quit smoking for good, he’d start up again next time things got stressful or he got bored. He smoked on and off in the sixties and more so in the seventies, though he’d quit by the later half of the decade and didn’t start up again until right before they’d all gone their separate ways after the end of the Cold War. He was going through nearly a pack a day in Venice and didn’t slow down until Francoise complained about how he smelled.

“Y’know, this is the most you’ve talked since we got here,” Joe began before he really thought about it, half-heartedly shoving Jet’s legs off of him.

“What’s that mean?” Jet shifted his legs back onto Joe’s lap and reclined against the arm of the couch.

“You’ve been quiet and broody lately. Lately being the last, what, six months?”

“Says the guy who’ll go stare off somewhere dramatically on his own.”

“I’m not that bad.”

“You really are.”

“Why don’t you talk anymore? It used to be we couldn’t shut you up sometimes.”

“What is there to talk about? If I got something to say I say it, you know that. Maybe you just want me to say something.”

Joe paused and thought that over. “It… It’s just so quiet out here,” he said, his voice low.

“Oh.” Jet swung his feet back to the floor and sat up. “Joe, we’ve all just made a big change in our lives after a pretty traumatic experience. We’re not talking ‘cause we don’t know what to say yet. Things’ll settle, but in the meantime you’ll get used to the quiet. I did. New York, remember?”

“Right.”

Jet didn’t look convinced and shifted until they were shoulder to shoulder. He was a very tactile person and initially it made Joe uncomfortable with how easily the other man would pat his shoulder or grab his arm. Now he’d come to welcome it and couldn’t help but lean into his friend.

“Wanna know a secret, Joe? All those times I used to get really chatty? I was high.”

Joe’s mouth opened and closed a few times before he said, “That… Really?”

“Yeah. Did it all the time if we weren’t gonna go fight, but then Gilmore caught on and took all my weed. Pretty sure he smoked it himself too, that would explain some of those… weird points of his.”

“I miss your drugged babbling,” Joe said, almost to himself.

“You know what? I do too. You wanna go get high?”

“Can we get marijuana around here?”

“They got drive-through beer stores in town so I don’t see why not. You can get it anywhere if you know where to look. Hell, as isolated as we are we could probably grow our own.”

Jet stood and pulled Joe after him before heading for the front door.

“I think I’m going to like it here,” Joe said.

“I tried to get you to come to America with me when we were splitting up but no, you wanted to go play high school student.”

“Shut up,” Joe groaned, and shoved Jet out the door.

#cyborg 009 #fic #re: cyborg #call of justice

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