#fingers crossed i actually draw the comics i was planning too now where i got a ds to work with sdnhfbsd

[0egs0]

started playing cult of the lamb with @harielmc ! goat hariel ...gariel

[parmelde]

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday NWarrior! 

I was so happy to write a little TOL fanfic for your birthday! Thank you for sharing your lovely comics and being an awesome person!  

If you haven’t read Temperature of Love go and do that!  It’s so gay and wonderful.  Fic is under the cut. General spoilers for the comic as a whole.  

Summary: Tamara’s birthday is coming up and the boys need to find her a present.  They break some rules, meet someone awesome, and know that they have the best friends in the world!  

“Hey boys,” Inga said, coming over and sitting down next to Brian and Demian at the lunch table.

“Hi Inga!” they chorused.  

“So Tamara’s birthday is coming up and I want to do something really special for her.  I need your help though.” Inga told them.

“Of course!” Demian said, grinning.

“What do you need us to do?” Brian asked.  

Inga grinned and told them of her plan. The boys were on board and couldn’t wait to celebrate Tamara’s birthday.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Okay, I’m not saying we should panic, I’m just saying Tamara’s birthday is coming up and we have no gift for her.” Demian said as they cuddled in bed that night after Inga talked to them.

“Maybe we can make her something?” Brian suggested.

“Except I’m horrible at making things, you know this.” Demian reminded him.

“I could make something from both of us?” Brian suggested again.

“Thank you for the offer honey, but I really feel like I need to get her something as well. Not just piggy back off of you and Igna.  I mean she’s one of my best friends and always helping me out.  I just want to do something for her for once that will make her happy.” Demian explained with a sigh.

“We’ll think of something!” Brian said.  “What does Tamara like?”

“Inga,” Demian laughed.  

“What about those cat shirts she always wears?” Brian suggested.  “You could get her one of those?”

“How though? We’re here at the academy.  The shirts are out in the world at the mall.” Demian hung his head in defeat.  

“Too bad we don’t have teleportation like Tamara, we could just sneak out and buy one and then come back.” Brian agreed.

“We might not have teleportation, but we can still sneak out.” Demian said, lifting his head and waving his phone that was lit up with a call from his mom.  Brian looked at him in confusion, but before he could ask Demian had answered the phone. “Hi mom!  I’m good. Brian and I are just hanging out. Actually, I have a favor to ask.”

********

“I cannot believe that you had your mom break us out of the academy!” Brian whispered as they snuck through the halls.  

“Shhh.” Demian said, bringing a finger in front of his lips to remind Brian they needed to be quiet as they were sneaking out of the academy.  Demian looked around the corner, the coast was clear. He hurried to a back door that he knew wasn’t locked and alarmed.  He quietly opened it and then slid outside, Brian close behind him. He made sure to leave the door partly opened so they could sneak back in.  There was a black car waiting across the street from them.  They quickly ran across the street and slid into the back seat of the car.  

“Hi mom!” Demian said as the car smoothly pulled away from the curb and down the street.  

“Hi boys! How are you doing?” Demian’s mom asked, grinning at them in the rearview mirror.  

“My heart is racing!” Brian admitted, holding tight to Demian’s hand.  

“Don’t worry Brian, we won’t get caught.” Demian reassured him, wrapping an arm around Brian. His heart was indeed racing. Demian usually enjoyed when Brian’s heart raced, at night when they were in bed, but not in this situation.  

“It will be okay Brian.” Demian’s mom said from the front seat.  “Breaking out of the academy is partly a tradition.  All though not as much of one anymore as it used to be.  My girlfriends could tell you stories of the things they got up to!” 

Brian took a steadying breath and snuggled more into Demian’s side.  It would be fine. Demian would be with him the whole time so his power would be fine. He was much better at it now.  Especially since he and Demian had talked and worked things out.  

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

By the time they got to the mall Brian’s heart had stopped racing at least a little bit.  Of course now they were going to be at the mall with a bunch of people, strangers.  Brian hadn’t been out in the “real world” in months now.  He took a deep breath as Demian’s mom parked the car and they got out and walked into the mall.  

“All right, let’s meet at the food court in an hour, sound good?” Demian’s mom asked. The boys nodded and waved goodbye as she went to do some shopping of her own.  

Brian smiled as Demian took his hand and led him to the tshirt store. They walked around looking at all the funny tshirts that were on the walls. There were a few that were okay, but none that really fit Tamara.  Sighing, they left not buying anything just yet.  

“I think there is another store on the other side of the mall that has some of the comics and things Tamara likes.” Demian said crossing over to look at the mall map.  “I just don’t remember what it’s called.”

“I don’t think the map will help us much then.” Brian said, titing his head to read the writing.  

“No, but I wanted to see where the bookstore was.  They have comics sometimes too.” Demian pointed to the map.  

“All right, then that’s where we should go!” Brian agreed.

They headed off in the direction of the bookstore weaving their way in between people and kiosk shops.  

“Brian look!” Demian said, coming to a sudden stop causing Brian to bump into him a little bit. Brian wrapped an arm around Demian and looked to where he was pointing. There was a kiosk with shirts and posters and an airbrush artist. They were painting a family that was sitting and posing. 

“Oh, do you want to get a painting?” Brian asked.

“No, well I mean at some point it would be fun, but look at the characters they have on some of the posters. That’s Tamara’s favorite game!” Demian walked over to the poster in question.  

“Oh you’re right!  That would be the perfect present!” Brian agreed. 

“I don’t remember these characters though, they look different.” Demian frowned in puzzlement.  

“That’s because they’re not from the game.” The artist said, coming over to talk to them. They had finished the family portrait. “I draw people in that style as though they were characters in the game.”  The artist explained.  

“Can you draw based on a picture, or do you need the people to be here in person?” Demian asked.

“A picture is fine.” the artist replied.  

Demian pulled out his phone and scrolled through his photos.  “This one?” he asked showing the artist the picture.  

“Oh, for sure, that is adorable! I’m NWarrior, they/them pronouns.” the artist introduced themselves.  

“I’m Demian, he/him, and this is my boyfriend Brian, he/him pronouns as well.”

“Nice to meet you boys!” NWarrior said.  “I have to say, Brian, I love your mascara.” 

“Oh! Thank you!” Brian blushed a little bit and Demian gave him a big smile and squeezed his hand.  

“Yes, he looks very good in mascara.” Demian gave Brian a small kiss on the cheek.

“Stop! You’re making me blush!” Brian gently pushed him away.  

“Oh my gosh, you two are just too adorable!” NWarrior grinned at them.  “So, who do you want me to draw?”

“This is our best friend, Tamara.” Demian said, showing them the picture again.  “It’s Tamara’s birthday coming up and she is always helping us and getting things for us and thinking of fun things for us to do. So we want to get her a present that she will love and thank her for all that she does as our friend.” Demain explained. 

“This is one of her favorite game series, so a picture of her as a character in that game will be the perfect gift!” Brian said.

“I love that! Do you want to watch me paint it?  If not, you can send the reference picture to my phone and pick up the painting in a few hours.” NWarrior offered.  

“That sounds good, we were also hoping to go to the bookstore and maybe get her a few comics too.” Demian said, opening his phone to get NWarrior’s number and send them the picture.  

They quickly exchanged numbers and made sure NWarrior had some good pictures for reference and then waved goodbye to continue on the way to the bookstore.  

They wandered through the shelves of books, looking for themselves as well as Tamara and Inga.  They were able to find some good books and checked out. 

“We need to go meet mom at the food court.” Demian said, checking the time.  

“Oh that’s good, because I’m hungry!” Brian laughed.

They made their way to the food court and found Demian’s mom. They got food and told his mom about the present they were getting Tamara and showed her some of the comics they had gotten as well. “This is all so sweet!  You boys are going to make Tamara’s day!” Demian’s mom said, smiling at them.

“We might even be better than Inga’s gift!” Demian joked.

“I don’t know, Inga’s got a pretty good one too.” Brian reminded him.  

“Well, I’m sure Tamara will appreciate and love all of them!” Demian’s mom said.  

“Oh, my phone!” Demian said as he felt it vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and looked at the message on the screen.  “Oh! NWarrior’s finished the painting!” 

“Let’s go pick it up!” Brian jumped up in excitement.  

The three quickly cleaned off their table and headed back across the mall to NWarrior’s kiosk.  

The boys waved and practically ran over to the kiosk once it was in sight.  NWarrior grinned at them.  “I’m glad you are so excited! Ready?” the boys nodded.  NWarrior turned around the poster they had painted.  The squeals and yells of excitement from the boys caused a few heads to turn.  

“It’s perfect!” They said. 

“I’m so glad that you like it!” NWarrior handed it over to Brian while Demian got his wallet out to pay.  

“We love it and Tamara will love it too.” Brian said.

“Yea, our screams will be nothing compared to hers.” Demian grinned, giving NWarrior a large tip for the wonderful painting.  

“Oh my, you all are so kind and generous.” NWarrior said as they received the payment and tip.  “I actually have a little something extra here for you two.” NWarrior handed over a small painting of Brian and Demian in a heart shape. “I had some extra time and you two were just too adorable to not draw!”  

Brian and Demian once again squealed and cheered very loudly.  “Can I give you a hug?” Demian asked. 

“Yes, please can we hug you?” Brian asked.

“Yes!” NWarrior replied and all three of them wrapped their arms around each other.  

“Okay, you are our artist from now on.  Anytime we want art done, we’re going to ask you.  Okay?” Demian asked.

“Repeat customers are a dream!” NWarrior replied.  

“Well we have your number so we will be in touch.” Demian waved his phone in the air. “Thank you so so much for all of your wonderful lovely work! You are truly amazing!”

Brian nodded in agreement.  “Yes, thank you for being so awesome!”

They said goodbye and made their way back to the car with Demian’s mom.  The whole car ride back they were both practically vibrating with excitement.  “I’m texting Inga to make sure she’s still distracting Tamara so we can sneak back in and hide the presents.” Demian said.

“Good idea, we also should probably try to calm down some.  I feel like I’m going to just blurt out everything the moment I see Tamara.” Brian said, trying to take a deep breath.  

Demian’s mom pulled over to the side of the road and parked the car.  They gave her quick hugs and thanked her for taking them to the mall and then quickly snuck back in through the door they had left propped open. They managed to not run into anyone and make it back to their room safe. They hid the presents and then collapsed onto the bed.  

“All of a sudden I’m exhausted.” Brian said, cuddling next to Demian.  

“Sneaking out and hiding things is tiring!” Demian agreed, yawning.  

In the next minute both of them were asleep.  

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Happy Birthday To You!” Demian, Brian, and Inga finished singing.  

Tamara grinned. “Thank you!” She took a deep breath and blew out the candles. Tamara got the first slice of cake and then Inga gave the boys each a piece before getting one for herself.  They all enjoyed the cake and ice cream.  

“All right, present time!” Demian said as they finished their last bites.  

“Yay! Presents!” Tamara clapped her hands in excitement.  

“Open these first.” Brian said, handing her a rectangular package.  

Tamara did so eagerly and grinned as she saw the comics.  “Ohhh!  These are the new series!  How did you get these?”

“We may have gone on a little adventure.” Demian winked at her.  

“Ohh! I want to hear that story!” Tamara exclaimed.

“There’s not much to tell, and we’re not as good as you and Inga at telling stories.” Brian shrugged. 

“Open this one next.” Demian said, handing over another rectangular package, this one a lot thinner.  

Tamara opened it and stared for a moment in silence to fully comprehend the picture, and then she screamed.  “OH MY GOD! AHHH!! OH MY GOD IT’S ME! AS A CHARACTER FROM MY FAVORITE GAME!  OH MY GOD! I’M A CAT!!!! A CAT FROM MY FAVORITE GAME! AHHHH OH MY GOD!!!” She continued to scream a combination of words and incoherent noises for the next five minutes before she finally calmed down enough to listen to Brian and Demian tell of how they snuck out of the mall and met a great artist and had them draw her for her birthday.  

“You are always doing so much for us, getting us things, taking us places, coming up with ideas of things for us to do, we wanted to let you know how much we love and appreciate you.” Demian explained.

“Yes, you are truly a wonderful friend Tamara and we wanted you to have a great birthday!” Brian added.

“Oh you guys!” Tamara said and pulled both of them into a hug.  Inga came around from behind and lifted them all up.  “I have the best friends in the world!” Tamara declared.  

Inga put them down and they let go of each other. Tamara’s smile was from ear to ear.  “Seriously, I love this so much.  I can’t wait to hang it up in my room!”  

“We also have the artists number so if we want other art we can ask them for future paintings. They’re very talented and nice and even drew an extra little picture of us.” Demian told Tamara.  

“Oh! Yay! I can’t wait to have them do another picture of Inga and I!” Tamara turned to find her girlfriend and got a second surprise of the day.  

Inga was standing in a field of flowers in a flowing robe.  “Holy buckets! How did you get all the flowers inside?!” Tamara asked. “Oh my god my girlfriend is so hot!” she said, somewhat quieter.  Tamara quickly made her way over to Inga.  

“Happy birthday my darling!” Inga said as she gave Tamara a hug and a kiss.  “You know my family runs a flower shop, so it just took a little work to have them set up a field of flowers for us to enjoy. You are always so kind and take us to so many wonderful places. I wanted to take you someplace this time.” 

“I know I said it before but I’ll say it again, best friends and girlfriends ever!” Tamara yelled and then kissed Inga.  

“And that’s our cue to leave!” Demian said heading towards the door with Brian.  

“Happy Birthday Tamara!” They said as they waved goodbye to the two kissing girls.

“Well, that was a very nice party and I’m glad Tamara was happy.” Demian said as they went back down the hall to their room.  

Brian nodded.  “It was worth it to see her face and reactions, I’m so glad we could make her feel happy and appreciated.” 

“We do have good friends, don’t we?” Demian said as they snuggled into bed.

“The best.” Brian agreed, giving him a kiss and smiling.  

They were great friends and he was so happy to have them in his life.

Fin

I hope you liked it! Thank you again for all of your lovely art and comics!  <3

[galahadwilder]

We Are Miraculous, Ch. 5: Allies

We Are Miraculous Archive

With thanks to @alexseanchai and @paganinpurple

*

Scraps of paper fall around Chloé’s legs, some of them onto her pants. She brushes them away with barely a glance, too focused on the newspaper she is currently attacking with the scissors in her right hand—paying special attention to the face of the man on the cover.

The scissors aren’t enough, and she slams them onto her vanity with a growl, tearing into the newspaper with her fingers. “Rip your stupid ridiculous face,” she growls at the picture of Edouard Carón as her fingernails cut into his paper cheeks, scattering bits of newspaper across her vanity.

She turns, glances at Sabrina behind her, and holds up a hand. “Another one,” she says, her fingers clutching at the scissors again.

Sabrina stands, newspapers held in crossed arms against her chest, chewing her lip. “Are you sure this is the best idea, Chloé?” she asks.

Chloé grimaces, turning in her chair, crossing her legs at the knee, fingertips brushing disdainfully at her capris. “You heard what Daddy said, right?” she snarls. She leans forward, jabbing her finger at Carón’s smug bastard face, causing Sabrina to stumble backwards. “Apparently Monsieur Ladybug-Hater ‘can’t be fired for having an opinion.’ Even if it’s a stupid one.” She flips her ponytail, turning back to her mirror and staring into the blue of her own eyes. “What’s the point of being Mayor of Paris if you can’t fire idiots who insult superheroes?”

Sabrina clears her throat. “Um, I’m—I’m not sure your dad could fire him anyway?”

Chloé groans, dropping her head onto the vanity on top of crossed arms. “I know,” she mumbles. “I just wish he could.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sabrina tentatively reach for her shoulder, then draw back, pressing the newspapers back to her chest.

”You don’t deserve this,” Chloé whispers to the Ladybug costume she can see reflected in the mirror, hanging in her closet. “They don’t deserve you.”

She sits for a minute in silence, silence only broken by Sabrina’s nervous shuffling, before the other girl finally clears her throat. “I thought—I thought we were still mad at Ladybug?” she says. “Since, you know...” Her eyes flick downward, looking at herself, and Chloé knows she means Miraculer, when Ladybug fired her.

Chloé straightens, slamming a fist on her vanity, and Sabrina jumps. Chloé’s eyes narrow. “Ladybug might not be able to see talent when she’s looking at it,” she snarls, “but she’s still doing a better job than anyone in Paris could except me.” She snatches one of the newspapers from Sabrina’s arms, uncaring that she’s caused the rest of them to scatter to the floor, and lifts the scissors, preparing to take the blade to Carón’s face again, when suddenly her phone rings.

Her eyes meet Sabrina’s—both of them confused, both of them lost—before she looks down at the phone. Blocked Number.

She picks it up, slides to answer, and puts it to her ear. “You shouldn’t have called this number, you piece—”

”Hi Queenie.”

Chloé’s breath catches, her stomach curling in on itself like a caterpillar. “Who—who is this?” she says. She’s fairly certain she recognizes that voice—are they planning to threaten her? Do they want a Miraculous? She’s told everyone who came after her that she’s been fired, that she’s not Queen Bee anymore, but all these losers keep getting her number, keep pestering her, and she’s thinking of changing her number just to make them stop.

Still, every one of them so far has called her “Madamoiselle Bourgeois” or “Queen Bee” or “Madamoiselle Bee.” Never Queenie. Only a few people have ever called her Queenie.

”It’s Rena Rouge,” the voice on the other end of the line says, and Chloé’s heart drops as she realizes she does know that voice, the voice of her old teammate, the voice of the true fox. A voice she wasn’t expecting to hear again outside of recordings. “Ladybug needs your help.”

Chloé scoffs, mentally pulling herself back together as Sabrina tilts her head questioningly. “Of course she does,” she says, glancing to the window. “Where’s the Akuma? Are you bringing my Miraculous?”

Rena snorts. “You sure haven’t changed,” she says. “No Akuma. Meet us on the roof of your school at 1700.”

Chloé blinks. “What’s going on?”

”Caron,” Rena says. “I’m planning to send a message.”

”What message?”

”We stand with Ladybug.”

The phone disconnects, and Chloé pulls it away, staring at it in confusion.

Alya taps the "disconnect call" button on her phone, then slumps against the brick wall at the edge of the park, letting her bones turn to jelly. Well, she thought. That call could have gone worse.

Trying to keep her cool around Chloé has always been... difficult, at best. From day one, Alya had been horrified by how the heiress treated Marinette; there were few things that could have redeemed her in Alya's eyes. And then she'd gone and made herself ground zero for Akuma attacks. Alya can't even get close to her without getting the urge to puke, and she can't tap her phone charm in front of Chloé without fear that Chloé is going to assume she's spying on her and get her suspended again.

And yet, against Miraculer and Mayura, Queen Bee had done something unprecedented... and fought off an Akuma after it had already infected her. She'd turned down an offer from Mayura that Alya was sure she'd have taken. Even though she'd been fired, her faith in Ladybug had been so strong that she'd overcome her self-obsession to save them all.

Alya closes her eyes, pressing her palm to her forehead. She hopes calling her was the right move. Marinette needs everyone in her corner that she can possibly get right now.

"Hey babe?"

Alya opens her eyes to see her boyfriend standing not quite in front of her—more a little off to the side, not intruding on her space. He's looking at her with the soft eyes he always wears when he's worried.

"Everything's fine, babe," she sighs. "Just... had to make a tough decision."

Nino leans his back against the wall. "You sure?" he says. "I saw you walk past the spot where Pixelator got hit and you didn't reach for your phone." He purses his lips. "It looked like you were clutching your chest, actually."

Alya swallows. "Ah," she says. "Yeah." She glances at Marinette and Adrien, who seem to be steadily reddening while they try desperately not to verbally trip over each other—oh man, no wonder Ladybug's never been receptive to Chat—and definitely aren't paying attention to her. She reaches into her shirt, fishing the chain around her neck and producing a familiar fox-tail necklace. "This is... a bit more effective."

Nino's eyes widen, then narrow. "You bought a replica?" he says. "If it works, I guess..."

Alya shakes her head. "Trixx?"

She feels tiny paws on her neck as the fox pokes his head out from Alya's thick russet mane. "Hello, Mari Tòti!"

Nino blinks. "What."

Alya grimaces. "Sorry I didn't say anything," she says, crossing her arms over her stomach. "Adrien was right there, and... well..."

"I getcha," Nino says, looking at their friends. The expression on his face is hard to read—she can't tell if he's actually hurt, if he understands, or if he just is having trouble caring. She can tell he's having a bad day—they all are.

She reaches into her pocket. "Got something for you," she says, holding up the familiar jade pendant.

Nino's eyebrows pop. "Is that what I think it is?" he says.

Alya grins. "Put it on and see," she says, pressing it into his palm.

*

(Notes: Mari Tòti is Hatian Creole for “Turtle Husband,” according to Google Translate.)

We Are Miraculous Archive

@not-a-welcome-matt @depressed–and–underdressed @peregrer @me4ml @bighgbrother @sparklyaxolotlstudent @mewwitch @tinyterror333 @themacbethslayer @callmequoteman @boopboopitydoop @adashofaroace @lexysama @tourettesservicedog @fandoms-are-for-always @valentine1604 @whimsicallyconfusedforlife @happymonster-pants @mysticsoulgirl @lunab00 @weirdflyingpotato @ariana-the-fangirl @unsung-knight @absolutelycoathangered @happymonster-pants @junipernight @miraculousl4dybug @not-a-welcome-matt @alyas-ladyblog @angelofthequeers @whatsdisshiz @random-blog-i-cant-delete @aerequets @yin-390 @zebrabaker @thecorruptedhuman @melicmusicmagic @happymonster-pants @imspectralboiii @gearstorm @tinkerbela @auninoelle @dani-ari @random-blog-i-cant-delete @alovvelyghost @lovebug5151 @miraculous-elcie-fanfics @miraculous-elcie-comics @stardustyx @gryffindorcls

[cherwd-pen]

double shot black coffee

✐ stamp: 1449 words

▸ cherry wood cafe order: double shot black coffee

▸ size: large

▸ customer: gn!reader

▸ a/n: can you tell im an aizawa stan? no? well i am

“I’ll take a black coffee, double shot.” you decided following the lady inside. Uppity jazz played from speakers all around. Not loud enough to be obnoxious but loud enough to be heard when it was silent, it only added to the peculiar atmosphere. 

The wooded floors were a beautiful ash wood and the walls were exposed brick that you doubted were actually part of the original building plan. So, you asked. “This looks nothing like a normal Japanese coffee shop.”

The lady leads you to a booth fit snug in along the left wall. It gave a beautiful view of the open floor plans where a long line stretched halfway to the door. You were shocked at how popular the place was actually, mostly among the younger generation and foreigners from what you could tell. You took a seat, sinking into the plush black leather seat and set your backpack down. It was worth trying to work on your newest art commission here.

Unknowns to you, the lady had caught on to the skeptic you had for her place. She brushed a strand of sandy brown hair out her face, “This is my own creation; did it with my inheritance and running it with a few friends. We took the liberty to add some excitement to Japan and make it a safe space for everyone.” she smiled. “You can request a song, too.”

“No, I need to finish this for work and I’ll be out your way.”

The lady nodded, “I’m Cherry so just shout if you need anything.” Cherry bid you a goodbye before yelling at someone behind the register. The boy flinched and seemed to coward away from the short female who looked ready to jump on him. Your eye twitched. “She’s insane.” you muttered, fishing out your drawing tablet and stylist. Propping the sleek sticker-obsessed device up, you pulled up your public appropriate folder and the newest commission: a comic book that would go for a good forty dollars, maybe even fifty given the size of it. You’ve been working on it for a week and today was the last day before finalizing it then printing copies.

Settling in you quickly popped a few joints then started to work on the last panel page. All you had left was outlining and base colors, maybe starting on details but nothing too big. Again, it was the last working day and tomorrow was fit for last minute details.

For what felt like hours you erased and redrew the fine lines of the customers character. You got a lot done in what really was twenty minutes. Somewhere around five in, Cherry had brought you your coffee and you in turn asked for the house specialty pastries: homemade cheese danishes. By then you finished other panels and when she brought the sweet treats it was ten minutes in and you had just this final character. A soft grunt fluttered out when, yet again, you got a hair line wrong. Wordlessly, you dropped the stylus only to grab at the cooling drink to the left. You brought it to your lips and almost groaned at its smell. It was rich and strong - possibly Ethiopian - and that just made your mouth water. So, you took a sip and instantly reached for the danish, taking a bite. You never thought homemade food could taste so good but today was an experience.

But while you were lost in the food and coffee, you missed how the stylus rolled off the table. You didn’t notice until pale hands caught your attention. Your eyes flickered up and you almost choked. Dark, sleepy eyes glanced down at you and you almost dropped the mug. Now, you aren’t one to find people attractive by just seeing them but, damn.

“You dropped this.” he voiced. The sound rose from his chest and rolled from his tongue with ease. His hand was outstretched, your styles held loosely between two fingers. Gingerly you set the coffee down, taking the pen back slowly. The man quirked an eyebrow. “You’re an artist.”

“I am. Self-employed,” you stammered out. The dark-haired man nodded, the hint of a smile gracing his face and making the stubble just a tad more attractive. You didn’t know what came over you but tearing away from his eyes you caught sight of a satchel. So, you did the least you thing: “Would you like to take a seat? It’s getting crowded and you might not have a seat if you wait for Cherry or someone-”

He slid into the seat cross from you, setting the bag beside him and taking a few papers out. He stuck a pen behind his ear, voice dragging along. “My friend will be here and he’s obnoxious.”

“That’s fine! I’m sure he’s alright-” you cut yourself off, cheeks warming at the realization you didn’t even know his name. Anxiously, you asked and he sighed. Clicking the pen, he went to work scribbling on the papers.

“Aizawa. Shouta Aizawa, and your coffee is strong. I’d take one of those.”

For some reason, your heart skipped, rendering you silent for a few seconds. Then, you told him your name and -

“Cherry! Can I get another double shot black?

[davidmann95]

Is that Solaris I see on the cover of Superman/WW Future State? He returns! I am suddenly interested in Future State.

Anonymous said: So, Future State? Not gonna lie, at the very least I'm liking the artist line up. Also, Idk about you, but the designs for Diana and Yara Flor (the Wonder Woman from the Amazon) are the only ones that I'm really liking so far.

Anonymous said: FUUUUUUTUUUUUUURRRRE. state

Anonymous said: Thoughts on DC Future State?

Anonymous said: Thoughts on Future State?

Anonymous said: You’ve probably been asked already but thoughts on Future State?

Anonymous said: So... Future State just kind of showed up and is very mixed.

Anonymous said: Future State Superman has a heroic cop battling a villainous anarchist. Topical.

Anonymous said: On Dc future state announcements???

Anonymous said:So. Future State's been officially revealed. Your thoughts?

‘Future State’ this, ‘Future State’ that! Look, what’re you gonna believe, Jim Lee or your lying eyes?

So this looks...pretty good? Infinitely better than their previous filler stuff like Zero Month/Villains Month/Future’s End/Convergence. And given Jo Mullein is part of this, Bendis isn’t doing these Superman issues, Steve Orlando mentioned on Twitter that he was told to set aspects of this up in Wonder Woman rather than it being allowed to appear apropos of nothing like most of these, and this isn’t built around a *single* all-encompassing tone or hook - along with getting Dan damn Mora to do your main promo images and a bunch of the character designs - I do believe the plan is that this is still going to lead into new ongoing series, just all the last couple of those crossovers I mentioned did. That’s probably where we’ll see Bendis doing Jon, the Zdarsky/Fraction thing, I expect more of Ridley Batman, and maybe one or two others. In any case, nice to see a bunch of fresh talent in the mix and a more diverse lineup both on and off the page, and a lot of these concepts are neat, even if there are as always some turds in the punch bowl. The anthology model being carried forward from the Walmart titles definitely heralds more of the same, whether in the main line or for a continuation of this. And as for the books themselves, I’m gonna take my reactions one by one.

The Next Batman: Obviously I’m down for this.

Dark Detective: Bruce having a specifically defined new role (as do most of the rest of the old guard) is a smart move for making this sustainable. Tamaki’s let me down recently, but Mora, and also if this follows up on Detective #1027 we might see the Black Casebook. Backups definitely look tepid though. I’m probably gonna hold off on making a call until there’s a preview.

Harley Quinn: Pass.

Robin Eternal: ehhhhhhhh

Catwoman: Oh hell yes, V/Schmidt doing a heist.

Nightwing: Nicola Scott doing Nightwing! Andrew Scott wrote a decent little Wonder Woman/Metal Men teamup story in one of the recent anthologies, so I’m up for this.

Batman/Superman: YES. This seems to be a bit of a prequel thing, but who cares, it’s Yang/Oliver doing World’s Finest.

Superman of Metropolis: I’ve only heard of Sean Lewis doing a few indie horror books, but of course I’m curious about the Jon-as-Superman book and the groundwork I expect it lays. His costume works for me, fitting that ‘sleek and futurey’ mandate without actually rocking the boat too much (and its differentiation is a lot more tolerable with Clark still rocking the cape and trunks), and the premise is really interesting - not surprising, as editor Jamie Rich says many of the ideas for the Superman books came from conversations with Grant Morrison. Which is probably why we’re seeing so much Seven Soldiers and DC One Million stuff in here, although bringing back Manhattan Guardian, given his background, and this premise, for this moment, is questionable at best.

Superman vs. Imperious Lex: This is probably going to be the best thing to come out of this whole shebang.

Superman: Worlds of War: Privately I called that Clark would be rocking the Kingdom Come getup in here (with the belt buckle from Man of Tomorrow for some reason?). I did NOT call that he would literally have the God of War sword. I’d be skeptical at best, but PKJ and Rich have both assured they’re not doing a Dark Superman thing with this, and hot damn, Midnighter backup by Becky Cloonan!

Superman/Wonder Woman: I think this is going to turn out to be one of the biggest gems of this entire enterprise. Dan Watters did an absolutely phenomenal short story for the last Batman: Secret Files, and it’s a big teamup against Solaris!

Kara Zor-El, Superwoman: The Bombshells team reunited! Here for it.

Justice League: God, this might be really good or it might be the biggest disappointment of the bunch. Just at the sight of that I want that to be the Justice League from now on, that is an all-timer iconic cover and set of designs to introduce a group of characters, the concept’s really good, and Flash being from another universe is so cool...and the actual book is Williamson/Rocha. Rocha’s a steady hand I trust well enough, but clearly this is where Mora should have been, and you’re really leaving this to Williamson? He has done good comics, but not many. I can only hope he’s basically a placeholder setting up the status quo for a Future State Justice League imprint book same as I think PKJ and Lewis are setting up whatever Bendis is going to do later. Still, I’m not writing this off entirely, Williamson has still done some good comics and this might well be as enjoyable a two-parter as it should be. And in any case, Ram V doing future stuff with the magic characters is a win.

Aquaman: I was going to say no thanks, but the premise is a little interesting, Daniel Sampere is a good hand, and I haven’t seen Brandon Thomas’s work before but at a glance he seems to have tried some ambitious sci-fi work at Image. I’ll call this a maybe.

The Flash: Hahaha, now we’re in the shit of it. Literally there is nothing about this that would indicate it was set in the future if not for the title, a flat regurgitation of the most tired old bullshit, and it’s by a Young Justice writer to boot. Glad to know even in the future the regular Flash book is going to suck.

Teen Titans: Speaking of books we can be assured will always suck

Shazam!: Who could possibly care

Green Lantern: This one I kinda don’t blame for being nothing, Far Sector is the big Green Lantern thing in this period and they’re not gonna fuck with that so they gotta work around the fringes. Hardly sympathetic enough to get me to buy it though.

Suicide Squad: Okay, alt-Earth Flash rules, but you come up with a disabled Flash with a heavily redesigned but still recognizable and extremely rad new look - looking every inch the “Far Sector but for Flash” premise I’ve been calling for - and you put her in this nonsense? And you waste Javier Fernandez here too? I guess Robbie Thompson is passable from what I’ve seen and maybe the whole Earth 3 thing will result in this turning out alright after all, but this feels like a waste, and that’s before you get to the one story here set in the 853rd century being about Black Adam.

Immortal Wonder Woman: Oh shit this one’s gonna rule though.

Legion of Superheroes: So’s this one!

Swamp Thing: This will be excellent too but I don’t care about Swamp Thing.

Wonder Woman: I’m seeing some immediate division on Wonder Woman - some like her new costume and some hate it (I think it’s really busy but like it a lot with the blues highlighted when Mora draws it), and I understand some have problems with a Brazilian Wonder Woman rooted entirely in Greek mythology rather than any sort of indigenous religion (which I am not remotely qualified to weigh in on). I’ll hope for the best, and obviously it’ll be very pretty, but I wasn’t blown away by Jones’ writing when I tried her Catwoman book, and I hope she won’t fall flat on her face regarding representation.

I’d divide this up into

* Basically no chance in hell: Harley Quinn, The Flash, Teen Titans, Shazam!, Green Lantern

* I’d need to hear good word of mouth: Dark Detective, Robins Eternal, Aquaman, Suicide Squad

* Fingers crossed, getting it but it could go either way: Superman of Metropolis, Justice League, Wonder Woman

* Yeah, I’ll grab this one, looks fun: Nightwing, Superman: Worlds of War, Kara Zor-El: Superwoman

* This is going to be really good: The Next Batman, Catwoman, Batman/Superman, Superman vs. Imperious Lex, Superman/Wonder Woman, Immortal Wonder Woman, Legion of Superheroes, and though I’m skipping it, Swamp Thing

A pretty incredible preliminary hit-miss ratio, and along with all I said before, big shoutout to Darran Robinson for across-the-board incredible logo design work. Like the Superman books mixing Morrison and Bendis, Batman is hyper-topical with a black Batman fighting super-cops who hate resistors in masks (whole Bruce can still be part of the fight but has to reckon with not being the guy in front throwing money around and setting terms anymore), Wonder Woman goes for the obvious pun, and JL feels appropriately iconic, while the rest is hit-or-miss as not central to further plans with this setting. I had zero expectations of this as anything other than Future’s End 2.0 with a couple leading into the not-5G imprint, but while I think that’s still the same basic endgame, for the most part it feels like they’re really trying with this one and I’ve got a good feeling about it.

[angelic-holland]

Familiar // th x fem!reader

Summary: you’re a famous youtuber invited to interview the Far From Home cast, what nobody outside you and people close to you know, you’re already dating one of them.

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: smut, fluff

A/N: this request was really fun to write! Some is written in Tom’s pov, some parts are flashbacks and some italics are youtube comments. Bold words are texts

“Hey what’s up folks! Today is the day of packing and moving! That’s right! I’m moving flats! And in my new place, drum roll please,” you say, hand not holding the camera hitting your thigh to imitate a drum roll, “I’ll have an actual filming room! No more filming at my bed or desk, I’ve got a real office where I’ll get to put in bookshelves and the works!”

You are sitting with your legs crossed on your bed, letting your subscribers in on a little life update of yours. 

Of course you wouldn’t tell them who you were moving in with, you and Tom were planning on going public soon, but you both wanted to wait until the hype from Far From Home died down, with a little less than a month from its release, you had some time before you revealed to your 8 million subscribers that your boyfriend was the one and only Tom Holland. 

“So yeah, I might not be as active while I’m moving this week but be on the look out for a video about everything right about Avengers Endgame tomorrow with a special announcement! Alright, I’ll see you all later!” You blow a kiss to the camera, ending the video.

You get to work uploading the quick video to your YouTube channel before packing away the rest of your clothes. Your books and comics all were packed away and waiting for Harrison who was bringing by his car to help you pack. Tom would be in London tomorrow but Harrison was around to help the start of your move since your lease ended tomorrow. Your bed was being sold tomorrow morning, the rest of your furniture already sold, everything you needed was at Tom and Harrison’s flat, Tom’s bed now your own, which sent an excited shiver down your spine. Tom wanted to buy you new bookshelves and a desk for your filming space, which you graciously accepted, excited to see what he was going to pick out while you were putting away your clothes.

The last of your clothes were packed away by later that day and you were sitting on your bed eating pizza while scrolling through your Instagram.

Tom had posted something on his Instagram story and you excitedly opened it, he was sitting on a plane, head lightly resting against the window while he spoke.

“Hey guys, I’m on my way to London right about now, very excited to see all my friends and family again, got some interviews but I’ll also be hanging out with friends, doing a little redecorating, so I probably won’t be online that much, but thank you for all your support and I can’t wait for you all to see Far From Home July 2nd in theatres!”

You smile at the sound of his voice before your phone rings, making you sit up and throw your pizza box out, answering the phone as you unlock your front door. 

“Hey, my cars parked out front, I’ll be up to your flat in a second okay?” Harrison says.

“Sounds good, I’ll start dragging boxes towards the elevator.”

You and Harrison figured out how to stop the elevator, it was late at night and most people were already home. You were able to stack a good portion of your books and comics into the first trip down, dragging them out to his car and piling them into the trunk and backseat.

“Next trip should just about get everything then,” you sigh as you sit in the front seat as Harrison drives away.

“Are you gonna miss this place?”

“Nah,” you shake your head, “just excited about the new place. Thanks for letting me move in.”

“I’m almost never there anyways, might as well put the rest of the flat to good use when I’m gone.”

“Thanks,” you sigh and the trip to Tom and Harrison’s flat, now yours as well, was quiet as you listened to music. 

He pulls into the parking lot of their building and slips on the hood of his sweatshirt, “don’t want anyone spotting us,” he laughs, “imagine Tom getting off the plane to rumors that famous YouTuber y/n y/l/n and Harrison Osterfield are dating?”

“He’d lose his god damn mind,” you laugh as you start hauling the boxes up the stairs.

“That’s the last thing he needs right now. Besides, it’ll look weird when you two are spotted in public after Tom’s movie is done in theatres.”

“True,” you giggle as you place your boxes in the empty office area, neither of the boys used it so it was the perfect space for everything you had for filming.

“Ready for the next trip?”

You nod and the two of you make your way back to your flat and you say goodbye to your home from the past four years, you started your YouTube channel here, you celebrated your million subscriber milestone here, you kissed Tom at your front door for the first time, you had sex for the first time on the bed you were selling, you sighed contently remembering all the good memories from this flat, excited to make new ones at your new home. 

As you settled into Tom’s bed later that night, correction, Tom and your bed, you send a quick text to him, so he would see it when he landed tomorrow morning.

All moved in, can’t wait to greet you at our flat tomorrow, love ya x

You plug your phone in, body curling up around his pillow, soft and it smelled just like him. You let the waves of sleep overcome you as you dreamed about reuniting with Tom.

You woke up a little confused, a strong pair of arms around your waist, head resting on your shoulder, “wh-, Tom,” you mumble as his lips trail along your skin.

“Missed you pretty girl,” he sighs, fingers running up and down your skin below your tank top.

“Missed you more,” you grin as he maneuvers the two of you so you’re straddling his hips.

“Show me,” he smiles sleepily and you nod, head meeting his as his fingers make quick work of pulling your panties to the side, swiping through your slick folds as you moaned into his mouth, his tongue mapping out your mouth. It’s been awhile, too long, since he’s been here, with you and you missed every single part of him.

Including this, his thumb rubbing your clit as your chests met, your hard nipples aching to be touched. Trying to be close in every way imaginable before he was whisked away again.

One of your hands trail down to his hard cock trapped beneath his sweatpants, your hands bump into each other as you both work on helping get the other off. In the beginning it would’ve awkward, you would’ve moved your hand and blushed because you felt like you were clunky. Now it was easy, each time the knuckles of his hand grazed your own you shivered into his mouth, grinning as your hand slipped into his sweatpants and grasped his hard cock, Tom grunting against you.

He had three fingers inside you, thumb rubbing your clit as you jerked him off, hand moving a little faster when you approached your high.

“Fuck, Tom, make me come,” you whine against his lips.

“Always,” He says, kissing you deeply as you come, catching your broken moans while he slips his fingers out of you, helping you sit up and rub his cock against your entrance.

“Fuck, missed this,” he groans as you seat yourself fully on his cock, “missed you.”

His strong hands hold your hip, thumb drawing circles on the skin between your tank top and panties, sending more shivers down your spine and goosebumps along your arms.

“Are you cold?” He laughs as you nod, your hips moving faster, positioning yourself so his cock is hitting your g-spot with each stroke.

“Fuck,” you grunt, legs shaking with exertion as his cock twitches inside of you.

“Missed your lips,” he mumbles against them before kissing along your jaw.

“Missed your neck,” he says before biting down softly and soothing the spot with his tongue, careful to make sure it doesn’t leave a mark.

“Missed these,” he mumbles as he pinches your nipples above your tank top sending yet another shiver down your spine. 

“Missed you the most though,” he kisses you as you come, sending him into a blissful orgasm, his cock twitching as he empties into you.

“Love you,” you whisper as you lay on his chest, both of you catching your breathes.

He starts to laugh, deep in the gut laugh that shakes both of you.

“What’s so funny?” You ask, you can’t help but laugh with him.

“We’re both still wearing clothes,” he helps the two of you sit up, his cock slipping out of you before helping you stand.

“Shower?”

“Yes, lemme get the all clear, make sure Harrison’s in his room.”

You nod and he kisses you quick before slipping out of his room, your room.

“Nope, nope, I absolutely do not want to hear the both of you having shower sex.”

“Harrison come on, we’re just going to shower mate,” Tom says and you peep your head out of the door.

“It’s true, the first and only time we ever attempted shower sex, I dislocated my shoulder and was in a sling for three weeks.”

“Thought you fell down the stairs?”

“Cover story, can’t really tell my subscribers that I slipped and fell while on my boyfriend’s dick and we both collapsed on the floor of the shower.”

“That’s a fun party story though,” Harrison laughed and you waited until he closed his door before meeting Tom in the hallway, his arms wrapping around your waist as he pulled you into him, kissing you as he walked backwards into the bathroom.

***

“Do we really need to wait until August to tell everyone?” Tom sighs as the water from the shower falls above you.

“Well, it would be a little weird if people saw the interview after we told everyone about us? They’d say I got it because I’m dating you, and I mean, I’m sure even when we eventually tell people we’re together, they say the same thing, but I’d like people to be kind for now.”

“Why’d they be anything but kind?”

“I dunno, I guess I’m afraid they’ll be mean, I get stupid hate and stuff now, but nowhere near the level I might get, you know when people find out about us.”

“I’m sure you’ll have some angry fans, mad they can’t be dating you,” Tom teases as his hands massage your shoulders, yours washing the shampoo out of your hair.

“I just, I love you and I know things will be different and I’d like things to stay the same, at least for a little while.”

“We can navigate it together, promise blackbird.”

The rest of the day you spend unpacking your clothes while Tom goes shopping. You tried to insist that you could get the bookshelves and desk, that he must’ve been exhausted from the flight and should relax.

“I’d want nothing more than to pick out those for your workspace, promise,” he smiled before kissing you like he’s never kissed you before and then kissing you for longer before you shoved him out the door.

You’re listening to music as you put away clothes, cleaning up Tom’s messy room while you do, organizing his clothes on one side of the closet as well as the dresser.

He gets home a few hours later, Harrison helping him bring the boxes up.

“Hey blackbird, I know your other bookshelves were small but they didn’t fit much of anything so I sort of got bigger ones, they’ll take a little longer to put together but I don’t mind.”

“Okay bubs, wanna get some takeaway and get started?”

“Thai?” He says, placing the last box in your office space. 

“Excellent, I’ll give them a call,” you pull out your phone as Tom opens up the first box, your desk, a sleek dark brown. He pulls out the pieces and instructions as you sink to the ground next to him. 

You give the takeout place you and Tom’s order before resting your chin on Tom’s shoulder as he attempts to read the directions.

“These look confusing.”

“We can figure them out,” you say, hands running down his arms as he squints at the directions, turning them over in his hands.

“Okay, I think this is the right side up.”

“The fact that it’s only pictures so be illegal,” you sigh as Tom’s hands put the directions down and reach for the big flat desk part, turning it upside down and grabbing the first set of screws.

“I should get a screwdriver,” he says, you sit back as he stands up and you unwrap the legs of the desk.

Tom comes back and you turn your phone on, letting music play softly as you both sit and get to work, Tom adding screws to the top of the desk while you get the legs ready.

Tom’s humming and singing to the Beatles playlist you’ve got on and you can’t help but smile at how pretty his voice is.

“You know, if you ever get bored of this whole acting thing, singing might not be a bad career choice.”

He laughs, head tilted back as he pushes the first leg into the desk as you stand up.

The first few chords of a familiar song played in the background. 

“C’mere blackbird, it’s our song,” he says, resting the top of the desk on the ground and holding out his hand.

You place yours on top of his and let him spin you around, coming back to rest your arms around his neck, his fitting perfectly around your waist as you swayed around the room, full of boxes with your favorite books and comics.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night,” Tom sings softly, forehead pressed against your own as you both reminisce on how the two of you met.

Tom was walking Tessa in the park, it was fairly empty so he let her off the leash, tossing the tennis ball around.

He noticed a girl in a T-shirt and jean skirt reading a book under a large oak tree. Tessa must’ve noticed her too because when he threw the tennis ball, Tessa picked it up with her mouth and sprinted over to the tree, tossing it in the lap of the girl who set her book down, head tossed back in a laugh as Tessa’s front legs stood on her lap, the girl’s hands petting Tessa as Tom ran over.

“Tess, what’re you doing?”

“She’s adorable,” the girl giggles while Tessa licks her face.

And you’re adorable, Tom thinks, head tilting to look at her T-shirt, some sketch of a bird on it. 

“Sorry about that,” Tom says, crouching down to attach Tessa’s leash again.

“No problem at all, I adore dogs,” she smiles and she’s absolutely stunning, the afternoon sunlight illuminating the freckles speckled across her cheeks.

“Well, uh, again, sorry,” Tom says, stumbling backwards over his own feet as he pulls Tessa away.

“No worries,” she smiles as Tom leaves, eyes watching as Tom walks away, laughing to herself quietly before picking up her book.

The next day Tom was grabbing coffee at a cafe with Harrison when he spotted the same hairstyle and freckles standing off to the side by a table covered with books, a laptop, and several notebooks.

He took a deep breath, hyping himself up as he thought of what to say to catch her attention in the busy cafe. 

“Hey! Blackbird!” 

What the fuck Tom?

That was the bird on her shirt from yesterday right?

A few people turned their heads to him, including her.

He sighed as she had a brief moment of recognition in her eyes.

“boy from the park,” she smiles as he crosses towards her.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again. Well since you’re here, maybe I could grab you some coffee? As an apology for Tess jumping on you?”

“I actually-,”

“Y/N!” One of the baristas called out and she tilted her head towards the drink on the counter.

“Already got one,” she picks up the drink, setting it on her table, “but maybe you could get the next one for me?”

“Huh?”

Oh, oh she understood what he was saying and was inviting him to ask her out. 

Smooth Tom, real smooth.

“You know? A coffee date?” She asked, cheeks red as she sat down.

“Oh! Yeah, yes, I’d love that,” he nods.

He stands there, hands shoved in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet for a few seconds, looking like an idiot while she stared at him expectedly.

“Oh, uh, do you want to give me your phone number or something?” He asks, pulling his phone out and opening it, setting up the ‘new contact’ page.

He sets the phone on top of one of her notebooks and she picks it up, quickly typing into it before handing it back.

“It was a mockingbird actually,” she says as he starts to back away, wanting to let her get whatever work she needed to do done.

“What?”

“My shirt, from yesterday, a mockingbird.”

“Oh, oh, I’m not exactly a bird connoisseur,” Tom laughs.

“It’s okay, I like blackbirds more anyways,” she giggles and Tom’s entranced.

“Well uh, just text me, lemme know the next time you’re free?”

He nods quickly, “Yeah, uh, see you again soon hopefully,” he trips over his feet as he walks back to Harrison.

“Okay Mr. smooth,” Harrison chuckles. Tom looks down at the new contact added into his phone.

‘Blackbird’

The song ends and Tom kisses your forehead before you both settle back and finish putting together the desk.

After a few cartons of Thai, an album or two of Beatles, and a few mishaps, the two bookshelves stood tall against the opposite wall to the desk.

“I’m so fucking tired,” Tom sighs and you look back at him, both of you shoving the cardboard into a single box to go out to the trash later.

“Babe, told you you should’ve rested, one of the only days you get off before you’re back doing press.”

“I’d want nothing than to spend today here with you. Speaking of press, you excited to interview your favorite MCU cast member tomorrow?”

“Jacob? Hell yeah, I’m pumped,” you joke as Tom scoffs in fake annoyance.

“But seriously, are your followers freaking out?”

“Oh fuck you’re right, forgot that my video announcement was queued for today. Lemme check,” you say excitedly, Tom following you out of the office to your bedroom. Every single time you thought of it being your bedroom, your heart fluttered in excitement.

You sit down on the bed with your laptop, patting the space next to you, where Tom proceeds to collapse on his back, fingers tapping along your leg as you open your laptop and check your video, released four hours ago.

A plethora of comments chimed in, mostly asking if you were excited to meet the cast, one comment made you laugh, so hard you hunched over and there were tears in your eyes.

she’s hot but she better stay the fuck away from Tom, he’s the internets boyfriend and the internets boyfriend only

Tom sat up and read the comment, chuckling as he kissed your shoulder, “whaddya think they’ll say when they find out that I’m not only the internet’s boyfriend but also yours?”

“Probably a lot of heart attacks, they can get over themselves though,” you sigh, scrolling past it to more excited and positive comments.

***

The next day, Tom had to leave early for a long day of interviews, yours right after lunch. You took an Uber to the building the interviews were held in. The night before Tom and you talked about being careful during the interview, making sure to act like you’ve just met, like you haven’t been dating for a year and a half. 

You’re thrown into hair and makeup by the press managers, you were wearing your jean skirt, the same skirt you wore the very first time you met Tom and Spiderman T-shirt, very on brand for your YouTube channel about books and comics.

You were given several index cards with questions, told to introduce yourself to the cast, shake their hands, sit down and get started asking questions. 

You weren’t nervous as you walked into the interview room, lights bright and shining on the three seats with Tom, Jacob, and Zendaya.

You’ve met both Jacob and Zendaya before when they were here to film Far From Home. They all smiled when they saw that it was you coming in for the interview. 

You walked over and shook their hands, Jacob first who gave you a cheeky smile, giving the obligatory, “what’s your name?” 

“Y/N,” you say as you move onto Tom next and fuck who allowed him to wear what he was wearing, striped shirt, patterned pants that made his thighs look so good you just wanted to throw everyone else out of the room and-

“Nice to meet you,” Tom interrupts your dirty thoughts as he sticks his hand out.

You shake it, “you too,” you manage to get out, cheeks reddening a little.

He laughed at your slightly flustered state and you couldn’t help but lightly roll your eyes at your boyfriend. 

You move onto Zendaya, she shakes your hand, a glint of humor in her eyes from watching you and Tom trying to interact like you didn’t know each other. 

You settle back into the chair directly opposite of Tom and cross your legs, looking down at the index cards. You’re about to start with the first question, all insanely generic and you wish you could have written your own questions when Tom cuts you off.

“Nice shirt, Spiderman your favorite superhero darling?” 

You watched as he bit his tongue and was internally kicking himself, which made you giggle slightly, “sure, he’s pretty okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Maybe this movie will make me fall in love with him,” you say and Tom fights the urge to taunt you back.

He bites his lip and nods, eyes roaming your body before you bring it back to the questions. 

“What was your favorite filming location?” You ask and look back up at the three people in front of you expectedly.

“I really loved Venice, the location was just gorgeous, would love to go back there someday,” Jacob responds.

“Can’t lie, I really loved going to each and every location but I think my favorite had to be London, you know? Not just cause we’re doing interviews here, but because it’s such a great location,” Zendaya adds.

“I’m gonna agree, I think London was my favorite filming location. One because it’s my home and I got to see so many of my friends and family there,” Tom answers smiling with a glimmer of reminisce of the times. You’d sneak onto the filming location to bring him a coffee or food that wasn’t from the set, he’d kiss you quickly whenever the coast was clear, both of your hearts racing and terrified that someone would see you. Nobody ever did, but the thought alone back then scared you. 

It did now as well, gauging from the reactions to your video, some people just would not be happy, but there wasn’t much you could do about it.

“London’s pretty nice, yeah,” you look at the next question and almost roll your eyes, so boring.

But you couldn’t go off script because Sony and Marvel invited you and they wanted the press and the fans that came with putting the video up on your channel. So they got to make the questions, got the free extra publicity from your channel, and you got a nice fat paycheck.

Everyone won.

“Who is your favorite superhero from the Marvel Cinematic Universe?”

You know all of them are going to say Iron Man so you weren’t surprised when Jacob said it and Zendaya and Tom nodded and murmured along in agreement.

“And who might your favorite superhero in the MCU be bl-,” Tom started but his eyes widened and you cut him off, blackbird, he was going to slip up and expose the two of you.

“Thought we already went through this Tom, it’s Spiderman,” you grin as he settles back into his seat, a wave of calm rushing over the both of you at your save. 

“Right, of course, who doesn’t love me,” he nods into a smirk as he sits back in his chair.

“Said I liked Spiderman, nothing about you pretty boy,” it easily slipped out of your mouth, teasing and flirting was second nature around Tom. 

Both of you get lost into each other’s eyes for a moment before you snap back into the reality, did you just blow everything up?

You pick up with the questions again, acting like nothing happened, “so, Far From Home picks up where Endgame left off, will we get to see the reactions of your characters at the aftermath of the snap and everyone coming back?”

“Spoilers!” Jacob jokes, all of you laughing.

“I mean yeah, we get to see firsthand what happens when you lose Earth’s best defender,” Zendaya responds.

“Yeah I think one of the coolest things in this movie is getting to see how everyone adjusts to losing Tony Stark, losing Iron Man, as well as seeing it from the perspective of high schoolers,” Tom finishes.

“Great, well that’s all the questions I have for you all, thank you so much for having me,” you say, smiling widely before turning to the camera angled behind them to address your subscribers when you eventually edit the video, “and go see Spiderman: Far From Home! In theatres July 2nd! Hope to see you there!”

“Cut, nice job, thank you y/n. Tom, Zendaya, Jacob, you’ve got five before the next interview. Tom immediately pulls his phone out as he gives you a look before you’re ushered away from the actors and into the dressing room where your phone and purse were sitting.

You grab your phone and smirk at the text from Tom.

Tom: don’t think we were too subtle

You: we’re idiots

You sigh as you slip out the door, grabbing another Uber to Tom’s place, your place you keep reminding yourself.

***

Tom slouches in his seat while texting her, 

Blackbird: it’ll put my editing skills to the test but i think i can manage it

Tom: we could just make that video as a way of sharing our love with the world

Tom: that was cheesy as fuck

Blackbird: i like my idea better

Tom: the q&a video one?

Blackbird: ya, what better way of putting the question i get every time i do a q&a to rest than to say ‘yep i’ve got a boyfriend’ and you just sitting down next to me

Tom: also cheesy

Tom: but I like it better

He’s interrupted by Jacob elbowing him, “almost blew it a few times huh?”

“I think we did our best.”

“I know, you only gave her heart eyes like a thousand times,” Zendaya pipes up and Tom rolls his eyes.

“Did not,” Tom argues, “what even are heart eyes?”

“You know,” Jacob says, eyes softening, mouth turning into a soft smile, “heart eyes.”

“Heart eyes,” Zendaya elbows Tom and gives her best heart eyes.

“Ugh you’re both insufferable sometimes,” Tom groans before the door opens and the next interviewer enters. 

*** You get home and lay on your bed, opening your laptop, you heard the ping! of the email and you see a secure email from Sony.

That was fast.

You open up the email with a video attachment.

Miss Y/L/N,

Attached is your interview with the cast from Far From Home. Please upload the video to your Youtube channel by the end of the day tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Sony Executives

You opened up the video and watched the footage, already cut to show your face when you were talking and Tom, Jacob and Zendaya when they were talking. It was a short clip, about five minutes, you were going to add an introduction of yourself at the beginning, as well as an outro.

You had set up your camera stand in the office yesterday and made your way over to film, standing in front of your desk with the camera in front of you.

“Hey everyone! As promised, I was lucky enough to interview the cast of Far From Home today! Here’s a few minutes of the fun time I had earlier!” You film your ending at the same time.

“So that was the interview! Drop a comment below on your favorite part of the interview! And, you might notice the space I’m filming in is a little different, that’s because I’m all moved in! Sort of,” you say, grabbing the camera from the stand and showing the video the room, your desk and bookshelves sat neatly in their respective places, you managed to unpack some of your stuff, the rest in boxes on the floor.

“So, if you would like to see a room tour of the filming space when I’m finished, let me know! Alright folks, keep reading and see you next time!”

You stop recording and bring the camera back to your room, sitting on the bed and uploading the video to your laptop. You open your editing software and begin to cut and edit the video into your interview. Your thumbnail comes next, one of Tom, Jacob and Zendaya looking as normal as possible, it was hard to choose an image from the video, most of the time Tom was just staring at you like he knew you, knew every piece of you. Which wasn’t really his fault, because he did know you. You added “Y/N meets FFH Cast!” in blue letters with a red outline onto the photo and went through the process of uploading the video.

You plugged your laptop in and let it upload, moving back to the office to start unloading more of your books.

“I’m home!” Tom’s voice echoes throughout the apartment and you perk up, jumping up from your seat on the ground and running down the hallway. 

“You know, I think that video is gonna send some people into a tailspin,” you laugh as he picks you off the ground and twirls you around.

“You called me pretty boy,” Tom laughs and you can’t help but sigh into his neck as he sets you down.

“I was just teasing,” you wiggle your eyebrows as he looks down at you.

“Teasing, teasing, you teased me alright, almost called you blackbird.”

“That would’ve done us in, Sony would’ve been thoroughly confused.” 

“Did you get the video uploaded?”

“It was loading a few hours ago, so I’m sure it’s uploaded now.” 

“Wanna go see the comments?” “You hate reading comments,” you point out as his arm wraps around your waist and you walk back to your room.

“I know but I also know you love reading them. And I can’t help but be curious, just this once.”

You nod as you get your laptop and situate yourself against the pillows, Tom’s head resting on your shoulder as you open the video and pause it, scrolling down to the comment section.

Oh my GOD they way she called him pretty boy to his face, embarrassing

“But Tom, you are my pretty boy,” you laugh as he kisses your neck.

“They’re just mad that I’m not their pretty boy.”

He called her darling, lit rally goals

Plz tell me they exchanged phone numbers

Zendaya giving her daggers like back off my mans lmfaoooo

“I think she gave you a look when you called me pretty boy, like ‘did she seriously just almost blow their cover like that’, Jacob and her got a good laugh out of it.”

Pleasee the balls on her to be flirting with him the entire time

Tom seriously dropped all the heart eyes for y/n and honestly same

Its called professionalism, you should look it up, it definitely doesn’t include flirting with the person you’re interviewing

“I can’t help flirting with you Tom, you’re just so cute,” you sigh as you shut your laptop, “that’s enough of the internet for today.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” he laughs as you set your laptop on the bedside table and Tom straddles your hips, “besides, I can definitely think of things I’d rather be doing, especially ones that don’t include anyone else,” his head ducks down to kiss up your neck, gently nibbling at your jaw as you both scoot down the bed so your back is flat.

His hand slips up your Spiderman T-shirt, groping your breast as you sigh, hands slipping into his hair to give it a light tug as he hastily unbuttons your skirt and unzips it, cold fingers running along the edge of your panties as you hear the front door slam.

“Tom! Y/N!” You hear Harrison shout as Tom groans into your neck.

“Get lost! We’re having grown up time!” Tom shouts, his voice vibrating against you.

“No, like you should seriously see something,” Harrison shouts and Tom grumbles as he sits up off of you and you fix your hair and zip up your skirt.

He rushes into the room, not even sighing or being annoyed at the two of you trying to get it on. He shoves his phone in Tom’s face and he pales, scrolling through what looks like a thread of tweets.

“What? What is it?” You ask, looking over his shoulder.

He finishes the phone and hands it to you, “think they’ve caught us.”

“Wh-,” your face also pales as your eyes widen reading through the tweets. 

It starts off innocent enough, two pictures, one of Tom, one of you, with the caption, ‘Tom Holland and Y/N Y/L/N’.

The next tweet is a picture of Tom at a Home Improvement store, grabbing your desk and bookshelf, it’s a close up of the boxes of stuff next to a picture of your office from your video, bookshelves and desk, titled ‘familiar?’

The next is a picture of you sprawled out on your bed during a livestream, Tom’s twitter sweatshirt on. Nobody could see the @tomholland1996 on the side, you were only showing your face, but a slip of it showed when you sat up, just the @to but it was enough for them to place it next to a picture of Tom at the airport wearing it, with the caption, ‘familiar?’

The next tweet in the thread was also titled ‘familiar?’ With a picture of you in one of your videos with the mockingbird T-shirt next to a photo of Tom at the pharmacy early one morning in the same shirt. It was actually your fault he went to the pharmacy, you got sick while he was spending the night, you were both naked after a long night of fun, so he threw on whatever shirt was closest and ran out, not thinking anything of it.

The next tweet was a video of you during a livestream, sitting on your bed, just talking when there’s a noise behind you, a slam of the door and a “hey blackbir-,” before the video cuts off. The caption reads, ‘voice familiar?’. 

The next was sort of silly, it was just a lot of screencaps from your video of you and Tom looking at each other with love in your eyes. The next was a video cut of your video, ‘ffh interview but just each time Tom and y/n flirt with each other’.

“Cats out of the bag?” Tom laughs as he hands Harrison back his phone.

“Honestly, if neither of us say anything, 10 bucks it’ll blow over in like a week,” you say, dropping back down to the bed as Harrison leans against the door.

Tom nods in agreement, “get lost Harrison, we’ve got some time to make up for.” 

Harrison rolls his eyes but slams your door shut as Tom jumps back on top of you, “sorry bout that, guess we really are bad at the art of subtlety.”

“Oh pretty boy, ain’t nothing subtle about us.” 

***

Taglist: @tom-hollands-blogs @spider-babes @unicornsyy @sunshinedolantwins @practicallylivesonline @tom-hollands-wife @quinjetboi @rageyoudamnednerd @sunnydays0803 @jackiehollanderr @khhbby @fancyxholland @thomasthetankson @lousimusician @amyalpha @musiclover1263 @peterbxrnes @relise-thefury @tessathedragon @rebeccamckirgan99 @starsholland @stucky-is-bae @fandomdarlings @sluttylokii @peteunderoos @saysomethingspiderman @therealcap @babygrootbabyjack @yamyam515 @dylanrauhl @spaceprintesa @mobbinholland @whisperingspace @desir-ae @cvrecem @legendsofwholock @christinaxolynn @particularmila @darktwistydiamond @i-guess-n0t

[ice-bjorn]

Winter Solstice

Elsa slapped the back of her hand against Anna’s bicep.

“Ow! What was that for?” she swiped a thumb over her lip, inspecting it for blood. She glanced from her clean thumb to Anna expectantly.

“What? I thought you liked biting.”

“Not that much biting, obviously,” Elsa said, still prodding her lip.

“Oh suddenly there’s such a thing as too much biting.”

“Now is not the time to start being a brat.”

“Maybe I’m making up for lost time,” Anna quipped, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

Elsa rolled her eyes heavenward, mouthing ‘oh my god’.

She looked back down at Anna, fighting a smile at the expression plastered on her face that was both guileless and smug.

“Have I ever told you how insufferable you can be?”

Anna scoffed. “Yeah right, you know you lov- ahh,” she trailed off in a gasp as Elsa pressed a thigh up strategically between her sister’s legs.

Elsa smirked and raised a delicate brow.

“That’s what I thought,” she murmured, leaning down to graze her teeth over the pulse in Anna’s neck. Her sister hummed in pleasure, lifting her chin and exposing her throat.

“Uh-huh, whatever you say.”

Elsa continued her way down Anna’s neck, sucking opened mouthed kisses into her skin. Her sister’s breath grew shallow, fists curling into the fabric of Elsa’s nightgown at her shoulders. She yelped when Elsa pressed against the sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder, jerking up and rolling them over.

Elsa blinked up at her, fluttering her lashes innocently.

“What, I thought you liked that spot?”

“Yeah, sure, the same way you like this spot-“ Anna’s fingers found the area just below her sister’s ribs where she was desperately ticklish. Elsa gave a satisfying shriek, trying to wiggle away from her hands. She shoved at Anna’s shoulders, flipping them once more, scrambling to grab her wrists and pin them to the bed, far out of reach from her sides.

Elsa panted, watching for any sudden movements. Anna let her hands go slack, capitulating.

“You win, you win. I surrender, your majesty.”

Elsa eyed her suspiciously. “Why don’t I believe you, your majesty?”

Anna gaped at her, comically scandalized. “What kind of queen would go back on her word?”

“The kind that wants to get the upper hand in bed.”

Anna’s eyes took on a mischievous glint. “You may be right about that,” she said, shifting under her sister, preparing to grapple herself on top once more.

Elsa’s eyes widened, suddenly realizing how close they were to the lip of the bed.

“Anna wait-“

Too late- her sister pushed and Elsa slipped over the edge of the bed with a feminine yelp and a floor shaking thud. A burst of ice shot out on impact, climbing halfway up the wall behind her in short spikes.

“Oops.”

Her sister let out an exasperated groan; Anna pressed her lips together, trying in vain to hold back her laughter before giving up and collapsing face first into a pillow, cackling.

“ANNA.”

She crept to the side of the bed, peering over the edge. Anna watched as her sister pinched the bridge of her nose- nothing damaged, save her pride. Elsa pushed herself up and straightened her shoulders, stalking regally towards the dressing screen in the corner. She yanked her robe off the chair with a violent flourish, disappearing behind the screen with an audible huff.

Anna started laughing again.

“Oh come on Elsa it wasn’t that bad! I’m sorry! Do you want me to kiss it and make it better-“ Elsa’s robe hit Anna square in the face, cutting off the rest of her proposal.

She grinned and tugged the garment away, discarding it behind her as she leapt off the bed. She made her way to the screen, ducking behind it- giving Elsa a start.

“Ann-AH,” she squealed as Anna lifted her up over her shoulder, carrying her back to the bed. She flopped them down onto the covers, Elsa’s head bouncing with a little squeak.

Anna planted her hands on the bed beside her shoulders, hovering over her.

“Now Elsa, you’re not allowed to be grumpy on your birthday.”

Elsa crossed her arms over her chest in mock petulance, eyes narrowing. “Actually I think that’s exactly when I’m allowed to be grumpy.”

“Don’t you want to have a nice time with your sister, after she’s made so many painstaking plans for your special day? After I’ve slaved for weeks getting everything just perfect?”

“Don’t play that card with me, I know Kristoff arranged most of it.”

“He did not!”

“Anna, you know Kristoff can’t keep a secret to save his life, and I’ve seen him slaving over “Super Secret Birthday Plans” for the past two weeks,” Elsa countered, her fingers drawing quotes in the air.

“Ugh fine. But it was all my idea, and I did help, just so you know.” Anna clucked her tongue, shaking her head, “It’s just a shame you don’t want to enjoy one of your few remaining birthdays out and about, before all your youthful vigor is gone.”

Elsa rolled her eyes.

“I’m thirty Anna, not a hundred.”

Anna nodded sadly. “Nearly at the end of your prime. Soon you’ll be hobbling around the castle, too old to do anything more strenuous than taking a brief walk in the gardens.”

Elsa covered her eyes with a hand, groaning.

“Too decrepit to ride across the ocean on your noble water steed.”

She pressed a hand to her heart, closing her eyes in sorrow. “Too feeble even to give your poor sister a kiss.”

“You’re terrible,” Elsa peered at her from between her fingers, on the verge of laughter despite herself.

“But at least I’m yours,” Anna smiled, drawing Elsa’s hand away from her eyes.

Her sister’s face softened, lips curling fondly. She traced her fingers down Anna’s cheek to the corner of her mouth. “Yes, you are.”

Anna leaned down, capturing Elsa’s mouth, smiling against her lips.

Bringing her other hand up to cradle Anna’s face, Elsa angled her head to run her tongue along her bottom lip. She inhaled as her sister parted for her, slipping inside Anna’s warm mouth languidly.

She felt Anna sag against her, and Elsa took the opportunity to flip them again, chasing her sister’s lips as she pressed her body into her. She skated her hands up the inside of Anna’s forearms, dipping her fingers into her palms before slipping them between Anna’s, clasping them beside her sister’s head.

She caught Anna’s bottom lip between her teeth, tugging gently as she leaned back.

“How’s that for feeble?” She murmured with a grin, eyebrows lifting.

“I think you’ve got a few good years left,” Anna smiled, dopey and a little breathless.

Elsa hummed.

“Let’s hope so,” she said, slapping a hand against Anna’s ass, freezing it to the bed. Elsa disentangled herself, grabbing her robe and flipping it over her shoulder with a smirk. She made her way back to the screen in the corner and disappeared behind it.

Anna sputtered, staring at the space her sister had just vacated, tugging at the bedspread now firmly stuck to her.

“ELSA!”

She yanked a little too hard and the covers came away from her nightclothes with an impressive RIP.

“Oh COME ON!”

Elsa’s full, unbridled laugh burst from behind the changing screen.

“Great, that was my second favorite nightgown,” Anna muttered, flopping back on the bed- though she couldn’t find it in herself to be bothered as she listened to her sister’s bright laughter.

—

It was a miracle they managed to be only a half hour late to meet Kristoff at the docks.

He chuckled to himself as he spotted them walking hand in hand down the cobbled avenue, stopping to acknowledge children and townsfolk alike who flocked eagerly to greet their queens.

He nudged Sven. “I win- it was under an hour. Pay up.”

The reindeer gave a loud grumble, dropping the carrot from his mouth into Kristoff’s hand. He tucked it away in the back of his waistband, giving a hearty wave as Anna and Elsa spotted him.

The gathered crowd followed them to the docks, getting in their own small vessels as Kristoff escorted the royal pair into their boat.

—

Night fell quickly on the shortest day of the year, and before long all the citizens of Arendelle and their monarchs were drifting to the mouth of the fjord, only the lights of the city behind them and the stars to break up the darkness. An air of hushed excitement pervaded; eager children and parents and friends murmuring to one another in anticipation.

On their boat, Anna looked to Kristoff, who nodded and whispered, “Show time.”

She brought two fingers to her mouth, whistling so loud and sharp, it seemed to echo off the surrounding hills. Anna reached for her sister’s hand, smiling at her bemused expression and countering with a look that said- you’ll see. The three of them (and Sven) stood at the side of the boat facing the open sea, waiting.

The night slowly grew brighter around them with faint, warm light. Elsa started- jerking her head as an unfamiliar glowing object drifted past them into the air. It was followed by another, and another, until large gleaming clusters were floating silently past them. She turned, watching as a bright trail flowed from each vessel, a multitude of lanterns being lit and set off into the sky.

Elsa followed their path into the night, mesmerized.

Anna had been watching her face, gauging every reaction anxiously. Seeing her sister’s face now, she knew she needn’t have worried.

She’d heard tell of the celebrations their Coronan neighbors held every year on the princess’- now queen’s- birthday, traveling merchants and dignitaries alike extolling the grandness of the lantern festival. Anna had endeavored to learn more- sending probing missives to Corona that she made sure Elsa would not discover. With Kristoff’s help, over the last few months they’d managed to make, and purchase, as many paper lanterns as they could, quietly alerting the citizens and swearing them to secrecy.

“Thirty thousand,” she whispered in Elsa’s ear.

Kristoff coughed-“Three thousand.”

“Oh right- three thousand.”

Elsa chuckled quietly.

Anna ducked behind her back, grabbing Kristoff by his collar and pulling him close.

“I thought you said we got thirty thousand!” She hissed. He shrugged helplessly.

“Anna I’m not magi- a miracle worker! There was no way we could get that many, I told you that,” he whispered.

“But it’s her thirtieth birthday, it’s supposed to be thirty thousand- three thousand doesn’t make sense!”

Elsa turned, her eyes bright with mirth. She looped an arm back through Kristoff’s and brought her other hand to intertwine with Anna’s, pulling them out of their huddle to stand with her.

“Whether it’s three thousand or thirty... it’s beautiful. Thank you both,” she smiled, leaning up to kiss Kristoff’s cheek, then turning to catch Anna’s forehead with her lips. “This is very special,” she said softly, gazing at the sky, now full of more lanterns than visible stars.

Both of them blushed, grinning bashfully as they joined her in admiring the fruition of their hard work.

Elsa leaned against the railing with a gasp, reaching out as some of the lanterns drifted closer. “Oh, look, they’ve been painted.” She caught one as it skated over the top of the water, holding it up to see the symbols of the spirits sketched on each side.

Anna and Kristoff certainly hadn’t painted all three thousand, but they’d gotten through a decent number- even recruiting children from town eager to help make a special birthday present for their winter queen.

Elsa leaned further over the side of the boat, pointing to the lanterns in childlike delight. “There’s my snowflake…and the crocus, and-“ she giggled, “Olaf and Sven.”

Some had the youthful scrawl of stick figures- illustrating everything from loved ones and friends, the sister queens, their favorite royal ice harvester- among countless others. It was life in Arendelle, illuminated around them.

Anna and Kristoff shared a look- ice harvester winking at the auburn queen, who beamed back at him.

Nailed it.

“Oh,” Elsa brought hand to her mouth, her breath catching with emotion.

Just around the edge of the inlet to the fjord more boats floated into the harbor; the Northuldra called out, whooping and waving at the gathered crowd- the citizens of Arendelle answering back enthusiastically.

Elsa spotted one among them with a peculiar shape; she gave a surprised laugh as she realized it was Marshmallow- with Olaf jumping excitedly at the helm.

She raised a hand high in greeting to all their extended family and friends. Anna and Kristoff joined her- stopping to point as they spotted Yelena, Honeymaren and Ryder among the tribe.

Elsa swallowed roughly around a suddenly tight throat. “This is…it’s…,” she struggled for words as she looked out at the gathering of love and overwhelming light. “It’s magical,” she laughed, dabbing at her eyes.

Anna and Kristoff each wrapped an arm around her, squeezing tight.

“Happy Birthday Elsa.”

—

They stayed in the harbor until the last of the lanterns drifted far off into the sky, and the few that remained settled on the calm waters like little beacons, shining the way back home. The Northuldra joined Arendelle’s townsfolk as they made their way back to the main square, decked for the holiday season - now featuring a large bonfire, along with a grand feast. Some from the crowd broke away, grabbing instruments and sparking a tune that encouraged dancing and gaiety. Singers from the northern tribe lent the harmony of their voices, bolstering the music until it seemed it must be heard far over the hills of Arendelle.

It was as much a celebration of their queen as it was the joyous end of the longest night.

Elsa and Anna found Honeymaren and Yelena; they traded the latest gossip and goings on, while Kristoff and Ryder gushed about new reindeer migration patterns.

Olaf was everywhere- dancing around the fire on Sven’s back one moment, chasing children around the square who had absconded with some of his parts the next. He offered cups of warm glögg to the royal sisters, joining them in toast, though the liquid went right through him, as it always did.

The festivities lasted long into the night; those who didn’t plan on staying until sunrise drifted back to their homes, and those from the north settled in town or found rooms in the castle.

—

Anna collapsed back on the bed, exhausted but satisfied. She scooched backwards, settling herself into the pillows with a sigh as Elsa continued getting ready for bed.

“That was…magnificent Anna,” Elsa said, sitting down at the vanity. “Thank you,” she looked at her sister with such unguarded affection and gratitude that Anna blushed and ducked her head.

“You’re welcome,” she mumbled through a grin, suddenly shy under Elsa’s adoring gaze.

Anna shook herself, rallying at the sight of her sister- luminous in the firelight and nightclothes that were more sheer than they weren’t, draped lovingly over every curve.  

“Well, now it’s time for your final present,” Anna pronounced, gesturing to herself with a flourish.

Elsa had already turned back to the mirror, brushing out her hair- her focus on a stubborn tangle. “Hmm-What? Anna you didn’t need to get me anything else- you’ve already given me more than enough,” she smiled to herself. “The best birthday I’ve ever had.”

Anna cleared her throat aggressively, waiting expectantly for her sister to look at her.

Elsa stopped, turning slowly in her seat to face the bed, eyebrows raised. “Yes Anna?”

“Your final present, if it please your majesty, is me,” Anna waved a hand over herself again grandly. “Any way you’d like.”

Elsa cocked her head as a sly, sultry smile curved her lips.

“Any way I’d like? Is that a challenge?”

Anna’s grin fell and she swallowed with an audible gulp.

“Uhhh...y-yea-no?” she stuttered.

“You know Anna, you can’t take back a gift once it’s given,” Elsa cautioned her, rising slowly and prowling with lithe grace towards the bed.

Anna held up her hands defensively. “N-no of course not! I just think maybe a f-few parameters should be put in place now that I think of it...,” she shrank back into the pillows as her sister leaned over her. Elsa got close, hovering near her mouth as Anna’s eyes shut and her face scrunched comically as if she were about to receive a blow.

Elsa let her breath drift over her sister’s lips for a moment, drawing out the tension, before kissing her cheek instead, laughing gaily. “Relax Anna, I won’t bite.”

She trailed her nose along her sister’s jaw up to her ear.

“Much.”

[bellemorte180]

I have a request!!! Modern day OG!KC after Caroline is turned with Klaus in the 11th century

Drabble number seven!

Year 1001 AD

The hut was dark as Caroline’s eyes fluttered opened. She was lying on the floor of Mikael and Esther’s home, staring at the dim ceiling. Her body ached and everything seemed hazy. Her gums burned and the back of her throat felt parched. She turned over, trying to remember how she got there and why she felt so wrong.

“Caroline.” She turned to see her husband crouching beside her. Klaus’s eyes were filled with sorrow and fear; but there was a hint of relief behind them. She reached up to touch his face; pushing a curl of his dirty blonde hair from his eyes. “I thought you were not going to wake. I thought that the magic did not work on you.”

“Magic?” The night before flashed before her blue eyes. She remembered arriving at her in-law’s hut with Klaus for an evening meal in remembrance of Henrik. She remembered the elaborate meal and how the wine tasted off; almost as though it was infused with a substance that Caroline had never had before. She remembered watching Mikael stab her husband with his sword as she cried and begged him to leave him be; Esther holding her back the entire time. She remembered the pain of the same sword being shoved through her abomined. “They killed us.”

“Yes.” Klaus whispered. Caroline sobbed lightly, the memories of their marriage flowing through her. After Klaus convinced her that his love for her was true and sincere, Caroline finally allowed herself to fully fall for him. They were supposed to grow old together and have children. In hindsight, she knew that Klaus kept his promise; he loved her till their dying day; it just came for sooner than either expected.

“How?”

“You need to drink.” Klaus said urgently, pulling a young girl towards them who was covered in bite marks and appeared to be near death. Caroline looked at the body of the girl; and the smell of her blood caused the pain in her gums to increase. “You need to drink, and I promise you that I will explain. Just. Drink. Please.”

Klaus’s words drowned out as the piercing in her gums became more painful and her thirst overtook her. The faint heartbeat of the girl pounded in her ears and Caroline felt the monster under skin appear for the first time. She bites down on the girl’s wrist and let the blood flow over her lips. The feeling was euphoric. She drained the girl of her remaining blood and Klaus ran his fingers through her light blonde curls. When she pulled away and the girl’s dead body crumpled to the floor; she realized that everything had changed.

A millennium later.

Mystic Falls, to which had been named centuries after they fled their small village, had changed since she had last been inside the town’s boarders. Gone where the huts, dirt paths and farms that she had loved only to be replaced with a small out of the way town overrun by vampires. It almost seemed fitting with it being the land where vampires where created.

She drove slowly through town and parked in front of the manor that Klaus was remolding for them; the address easy to find. Her heels clicked against the stone as she climbed the few stairs leading into the home. The manor was large, unfinished and would one day be grand. The manor reminded her of all the dreams Klaus and Caroline shared together over the centuries; and Caroline was not a fool to think that Klaus planned it otherwise. He built this place for her.

Klaus wanted her here; drawing her in with hopes that she will never leave again. It wasn’t that Caroline left often, only twice in their marriage, but when she did, it was for a long period of time. It had been about fifty years since she saw her husband and the rumors echoing throughout the supernatural world made her set down her own white flag and travel across the ocean. No longer were their rumors of the Curse of the Sun and the Moon flying around but instead, a tale that Klaus became something more. Caroline knew what it meant.

Her husband broke his curse.

Entering the manor that was still under construction, Caroline looked around and closed her eyes. She could feel him. He was there and it wouldn’t take long before he sensed her presence. A millennium of marriage forged a bond between them, even when they angered one another. A second later, Caroline felt Klaus flash over to her and she grabbed him by the throat; pinning him to the ground.

“Hello, Sweetheart.” Klaus’s smirk was infuriating, seeming all too comfortable under her grip. In response, she just squeezed harder and allowed the monster under her skin to come out and play. “Come now Caroline, you know I adore that monster of yours.”

“Show me. I want to know if it is true.” Caroline narrowed her eyes, watching every movement Klaus made. There was a shift and Klaus’s turned gold. His fangs where sharper, eyes fiercer and she saw it; she saw his wolf lingering in his eyes. “You did it. You really did it.”

“You should have seen it, Love. It was glorious.” Klaus replied, causing a small dig at Caroline. The argument they had in the sixties that caused Caroline to walk out, with the knowledge that she would eventually return, over the daggering of his siblings. The daggering was a sore spot for Caroline, devolving from the fact that he daggered Caroline in 1492 when he was trying to break his curse the first time. Despite that last time they spoke was in anger, the smirk he wore told Caroline that he was no longer angry with her. She too had gotten over their fight and simply missed him.

Caroline leaned down and kissed him passionately. She straddled his hips and ground down onto him covered member. Klaus wrapped his arms around her, weaving his fingers through her hair while Caroline kept her hand on his throat. A cough sounded from above them and Caroline pulled away from her husband.

“Um, am I interrupting?” A voice came from the other side of the room. Caroline snapped up and grabbed the vampire who interrupted them; slamming them against the wall. He fought her but he was so young that Caroline overpowered him easily. “Call off the guard dog Klaus!”

“Let him down, Love. I think the is here trying to make a deal on behalf of his traitorous brother.” Klaus replied and Caroline looked over her shoulder at him. On his request, Caroline dropped Damon to the ground. Klaus came up behind Caroline and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I think you’d like to get to know him, Caroline. He is Stefan’s brother. Remember him? That boy Rebekah loved?”

“This is Damon Salvatore? The brother Stefan pinned over during the twenties?” Klaus nodded, confirming Caroline’s question. “I thought he’d be more handsome.”

“Want to make the introduction, Satan?” Damon asked, narrowing his eyes at the two of them; rubbing his neck as he went. “What to let me know why I was just attacked by a barbie doll?

“Be careful Damon, I’ve seen her rip men twice your size in two” Klaus chuckled, kissing the side of Caroline’s head. “I’d like you to meet Caroline.” Klaus introduced her with a kiss on her head. “My wife.” The look on Damon’s face was comical. His eyes grew wide and they darted between Klaus and Caroline.

“Wait. What? Since when do you have a wife?!” Damon focused on Caroline, taking her in. He could admit that she was attractive. Tall, blonde and far older than him. The age rolled of Caroline like a bolder and Damon was unsure what to think. “Who would marry you? And where was she when you decided to drain the life out of Elena?”

“We had fight. I was over it, but she was being stubborn.” Klaus muttered, waving his hand as though he was dismissing the fight that kept them apart for decades. In truth, since they were vampires a few decades were nothing in the grand scheme of things.

“I was being stubborn? Seriously!? I was in Paris!” Klaus froze there for a second. His eyes snapping to her and the weight of what she just said hit him like a ton of bricks. Paris was their white flag. Whenever they had a fight and were ready to make up, they would go to Paris and make their presence known. The other would follow. “I made it obvious that I was there. I threw parties, had few massacres and hell, I even threw orgy hoping you would show. But nope, you never did.”

“Caroline-“

“But then I hear that you’re making waves in Mystic Falls after a century of silence. People were starting to forget that the Original vampires were more than just a fairy tale. When the rumors of a doppelgänger surface, I knew why you didn’t come. Why you didn’t even notice. I thought you no longer wanted me.”

“I vowed to love you for eternity, that hasn’t changed.” Klaus told her in a broken tone. His shoulders sagged and Caroline smiled brightly. She jumped into his arms and kissed him hard. Their lips molded together, and Caroline pressed her body against him. Klaus’s hands trailed over her curves; thrusting his hips into her as he went.  

“Well this is awkward.” Damon coughed, shamelessly watching the two of the with a bemused expression. They broke apart and gazed at him with annoyed expressions. “You summoned me here Klaus to discuss my brother, not to have me watch you dry hump your estranged wife.”

“Wait, what about Stefan?” Caroline asked. “What am I missing?”

“Stefan stole the coffins love. He wants me to leave town, leave the doppelgänger alone, see he is in love with her, so is that one over there actually, and promised to give them to me one every decade or so.” Caroline narrowed her eyes at Klaus and crossed her arms. “He has been killing my hybrids and threatening to drop the coffins in the ocean.”

“I see” Caroline narrowed her eyes at Klaus and cross her arms. “I guess I have to clean up another one of your messes.” This is what happens when they fight. She leaves for a short time and everything falls into chaos. She rolled her eyes and turned to Damon with her hand outstretched. “Dial your brother and give me your phone.”

“What? No.”

“Do it. Now.”

“I’d do it Damon. She can get a bit testy when she doesn’t get her way.” Caroline shot Klaus a very unamused look and turned back to Damon with narrowed eyes. The young vampire scowled and pulled out his phone; dialing Stefan’s number before placing the phone in the palm of her hand.

“Thanks.” Caroline pressed the phone to her ear and with her free hand, grasped Damon’s neck and snapped it; his body crumpling to the ground. She listened to the phone ring; waiting for Stefan to answer it. After a second, the line clicked on and Stefan answered.

“What do you want Damon?”

“Stefan! It’s Caroline.” The stillness on the other line told Caroline exactly what she wanted to know. He remembered her. She lifted her eyes upward to meet Klaus’s. He was watching her with a curious gaze, unsure of what she was going to do. “From what I understand you have my family held hostage.”

“I’ll give you the same deal as I gave Klaus. Leave town and I’ll give you a coffin every decade or so. If not, I’ll kill every hybrid your husband has sired to him and drop your family into the ocean.” Stefan told her in a cool tone.

“See this is where my husband and I differ. I don’t care about the hybrids. Kill them. String them up and torture them for all I care.” Klaus blanched to argue but Caroline held up her finger, silencing him. “But if you do not give me my family back by the end of the day, I’ll rip Damon’s heart out and send it to you along with his head. If you still don’t give me my family back. I will track down that doppelgänger you’re so fond of, turn her into a vampire and torture her for all of eternity.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Caroline chuckled in a pleased tone. “I will also burn this entire town to the ground for good measure; can’t have friends left behind who might want to avenge her after all.” Caroline watched as Klaus walked over to Damon’s body and lifted him up. He placed him into a chair and grabbed some rope to bind him with. “Oh, and one final thing. You even drop one of those coffins into the ocean, I will string you alongside the woman you love and make you watch as I rip her intestines out over and over again before I feed them to you. You have until sundown.”

Caroline ended the call and bit her lip; watching Klaus work. The two of them most likely were going to pass the day torturing this vampire until his brother brought the coffins in exchange for him. Klaus, despite being irritated at the fact that Caroline was more than happy to sacrifice his hybrids, would go along with the plan. He was never one afraid to argue his point with her but he just got her back.

“Did you really have to sacrifice the hybrids?”

“Oh, don’t pout.” Caroline snapped. “I’m home now so what on earth could you possibly need them for?” Klaus grunted but said nothing. “What if I make you a deal? If Stefan fails to bring us the coffins, we will kill Damon, kidnap the doppelganger and before I turn her, I will let you drain her of all her blood in order to make more hybrids.” Klaus eyed his wife and thought on her officer.

“Fine.”

“Perfect.” Caroline said cheerfully. She walked over to Klaus and kissed him lightly on the lips. “See, compromise. We are not completely awful at it!”

[nokomiss]

thank you for being a friend

for @jes-cher, who requested Steph+another member of the batfam doing a group costume?

“It’s a Halloween party, though, so we can just wear our uniforms and blend in.”

Steph stared. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No?” Tim said.

“You think that we can just all waltz in there in our stupid-expensive uniforms and people will just assume we got them at Party City? Have you seen a Party City costume?”

Jason snorted. “She’s got a point, Replacement.”

“I think that you’re overly complicating it,” Tim said.

Steph stared again, then turned to Jason. “You heard that, right? Tim just told me that I was overly complicating things?”

Tim sighed. “Jason, you don’t understand where this is leading.”

“Where do you think this is leading?” Steph asked, narrowing her eyes. Jason leaned back and watched the two of them, looking entirely too amused.

“You know that you love stupid group costumes,” Tim said.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure we all love stupid group costumes, we go out every night in them,” Steph said. She would not be shamed. She was among her own people here.

“I do not go out in a group costume with you losers every night,” Jason said.

“Do you or do you not have a giant bat-symbol on your shirt?” Steph crossed her arms over her chest.

Jason remained silent up until Tim snorted, at which point he jabbed a finger in Tim’s direction and said, “Not a word out of you until you’ve had a single original outfit ever.”

“Pants,” Tim sing-songed, unfazed by Jason’s threats. “I revolutionized Robin and you know it.”

“My point is, I refuse to go in the actual shitty version of my outfit, or the sexy version, so we absolutely need undercover costumes to wear,” Steph said loudly. “Besides, we all three know that my Robin uniform was the most revolutionary, not one of you fools added hair accessories. Do you have any idea how many weapons and lockpicks you can hide in a headband?”

She settled comfortably into her chair, pulling out her phone to find costume options, secure in the knowledge that she’d won the argument. 

The case was a relatively simple one -- there was word about a mysterious shipment coming through Gotham, a contact claiming the major players were going to be at a Halloween bash, and Batgirl, Red Robin, and Red Hood had all noticed the case, no one had wanted to give it up, and thus the team up had occurred.

“We’re not actually going undercover,” Jason tried to argue, but Steph just shushed him. 

“We’re doing this. Ooh! Group costume! So we can find each other!” Steph said, scrolling through different ideas. “What should we do? Rocky Horror? That meme of the lady yelling at the cat? Ghostbusters? Heathers?” 

“We are not going as the Heathers,” Tim said, rolling his eyes. “Wait, would we get croquet mallets? I can cause a lot of chaos with a croquet mallet.” Jason grinned at them.

“We’re aiming to blend in, not draw attention to ourselves,” Tim said.

Steph had to agree. “True. We get you two out there in miniskirts, and we’re gonna draw all sorts of attention.”

“Hell yeah,” Jason said, patting his own thigh proudly.

“I’ll order something low key,” Tim said.  

Steph and Jason looked at each other in dismay. “Low key?”

“You can’t go low key at a Gotham Halloween party,” Jason said seriously. “That’ll stand out even more than our shapely legs.”

“Honestly, Tim.” Steph shook her head.

Tim looked briefly heavenward, then said, “Okay, do you want to be in charge of costumes?”

“Yes,” Steph and Jason said simultaneously. They eyed each other. 

“Teamwork is a thing,” Steph said, doubtful, but she was far more doubtful in Jason’s ability to choose a group costume up to her standards.

Jason seemed to be having similar thoughts.

Tim looked between them, realized the chaos that was about to ensue, and said tactfully, “I’m going to go out, check on these sources, make sure the info’s good,” as though they hadn’t all already independently checked the sources.  

“Weak,” Jason crowed at him as he left.

That left Steph and Jason alone with all the costume ideas the internet had to offer.  It was more of a challenge that Steph would have thought. 

“You know those costumes where someone has to be the horse’s ass? I vote we pick that. Dibs on Tim being the ass.”  Jason propped his feet up on the table and looked smug, as though his idea was brilliant.

“Great,” Steph said. “Super easy to split up and find our mark dressed like that.”

“Oh yeah, the mark,” Jason said. “Well. There are plenty of options.”

They spent several minutes attempting to come up with one, but to no avail.  

Steph froze on one option, struck with the brilliance of it. “What do you think it would take to get Bruce and Damian to patrol as the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda?”

“Surely between the two of us we have enough blackmail and guilt tripping to make it happen,” Jason said, “especially since it would spawn so much more blackmail material.”

“A totally sound investment.” Steph offered up a high five, which Jason met enthusiastically.

Steph kept scrolling, hoping for a group costume inspiration that didn’t involve t-shirts and tutus, but ideas were far more elusive than she would have thought.

“You know, I’m really rethinking our stance on the Heathers outfits,” Jason said, just as Steph hit paydirt.

“I have a better idea,” Steph said, holding her phone out gleefully. 

Jason grinned.

*

“I’m sorry, Tim, you didn’t want to get recognized, right?”

Tim scowled, which made Steph frown at him and say, “You need to get into character.”

“I don’t know why you’re making me Rose,” he grumbled, adjusting his wig. 

“Because Jason is twelve feet tall, he has to be Dorothy,” Steph explained. “And you blush if you even hear a double entendre, there’s no way you could pull off Blanche.”

“I do not blush,” Tim protested.

Steph opened her mouth, and he immediately clapped his hand over it. “Stop, I regret saying that, whatever horrible thing you were just planning on announcing, just… don’t.”

“See? You, sir, are no Blanche.”

Jason laughed, adjusting the way his own dress fit over his shoulders. They had to forgo masks, but the dresses were loose enough to hide most of their costumes underneath for a quick change.  

The party was already in swing when they arrived, even though it was barely dark. The costumes were perfect-- amid all the bright spandex, colorful wigs, and knockoff superhero costumes, their grey wigs and floral old lady dresses were easy to spot. 

The mark showed up after just thirty minutes of dancing and mingling, watching and listening carefully. Steph danced up to Jason, who was nursing a drink with a comical amount of fruit skewered in it and scanning the crowd. “Got eyes on him,” she said. 

Jason tossed back the drink and set it down. Steph snagged the skewer of fruit, eating it as they danced their way back through the crowd towards the mark. Steph tapped Tim on the shoulder as they passed him, and together they followed the guy away from the dance floor and down a long dark hall. 

The guy noticed them as he was about to unlock a door, turning and saying, “Private hallway. Party’s back that way.”

“You sure?” Jason leaned heavily against the door and Steph stepped behind the mark, pressing the now-empty skewer into his back between his shoulder blades. 

“Open the door,” Tim said from the other side.

“Please tell me the goddamn Golden Girls aren’t trying to shake me down,” the guy said, clunking his head against the door. 

Steph glanced between Jason and Tim, then shrugged. “Yep. That’s what’s happening. Open the door or it happens here in the hallway, where anyone could wander by and put it on youtube.”

The guy stared at the door, presumably weighing his options, before deciding that defeat came before humiliation and opened the door.

One glance around showed that was a mistake; Steph could see multiple crates still marked with the code they’d all noticed associated with the shipments they were chasing after. Tim slid over to the desk, and stared down at the papers scattered there. Steph could tell from his flabbergasted expression that all the evidence they needed was just lying there in the open.

She pulled a taser out of her pocket and hit the guy with a jolt, sending him falling to the floor unconscious. 

“This was almost too easy, right?” Jason glanced at them.

“Shhh, don’t say that, you’ll curse us,” Steph said. “We’re going to accept that for once things are going smooth.”

Tim took photos of the evidence while Jason and Steph took samples of everything, which lined up with their assumptions about what was going on. It was easily the easiest take-down she’d had in months. Maybe there was something to be said for teamwork.

““Sophia!” Tim said suddenly, staring down at the unconscious drug runner. “I could have been  Sophia!”

“Do you really see yourself as a Sophia?” Jason said, doubt obvious in his tone.

“Do you really see me as a Rose?” Tim shot back.

Steph snickered, finding untold joy in how very seriously Tim was taking his role. “I guess we should go,” she said. They’d accomplished all the vigilantism they’d come here for. 

A pause. 

“Maybe,” Jason said, glancing back in the direction of the party, “we should stick around. Make sure nothing else nefarious is happening. The dude could have had contacts here, it was his party.”

“You just want some of those cupcakes,” Tim accused. 

“Jason has a point,” Steph said, zip-tying the mark and stepping back, admiring her handiwork. “We could call this in anonymously, and go back to the party. No one saw who took him down.”

“Plus, we all heard B mention he had a stakeout he needed someone to cover,” Jason said. “Gotta keep busy.”

Tim weighed his options, then said, “Well. I mean. You can’t just have two Golden Girls, no one would get the costumes.”

“Exactly,” Steph said, beaming. “Can’t waste a good costume.”

(Steph already had a plan for the next costume party stakeout, which given Gotham’s flair for the dramatic, would absolutely happen again -- Team Batgirl showing up as the Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus, Babs leading the way with her red hair piled up in a riot of curls on top of her head, Cass bedecked in her gown her hair tucked up into a pointy hat, and Steph laughing with her blonde hair flowing free. The Golden Girls had been fun, but a missed opportunity was a missed opportunity, and Steph was going to rectify that as soon as she could.)

[hisakata-resutomoshibi]

Please do more blackcat!Kuro!❤️ It’s like reading a fanfic I really want to know what happens next! How did he know Mahiru’s name? Are they still Servamp or full on regular vampires?

Hey anon! I don’t have any drawings for you this time but I did continue on a little from that last time! I’m glad you asked for more, I’m having a lot of fun adding to this AU!

Hope you enjoy~

(And thanks for the idea @thesilenceislost !♡)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While Mahiru was waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of the cave he found that sometime between his kidnapping and now he had acquired a fair amount of leaves and dust in his hair. Shaking it out, he was caught off guard by the hand that landed on his shoulder.

"What do you think?"

The voice was soft and lyrical, but still rough at the edges in a way that Mahiru couldn't quite describe, as though it were from a fantasy, something half remembered and more imaginary than physical. He glanced back to meet two glowing eyes, grinning happily at him through the shadows.

"Of what?" Rather than answer, Kuro flung his arms wide, indicating the small enclosure. Taking that as his only answer, Mahiru sighed. "Is this where you live?" It had been a sarcastic question, not meant seriously but only to annoy, and when Kuro nodded he felt his mouth drop open.

In the settling gloom, made all the more pervasive by the quarter moon, Mahiru began to worry he was having an episode; his new friend still had a wild mix of hair tones, strange, loosely buttoned pin striped suit, and questionable circles under his eyes, but here, shrouded in shadow and that ethereal feeling one always got from deep forests, Mahiru was forced to admit that he was seeing horns. Incorporeal and flickering, like cotton candy light, they were twisted, hovering somewhere above the jet black eyebrows that arched so playfully and ending in jaunty curls above his head.

Despite everything Mahiru found he had to stop himself from reaching out to try to touch them, so interested to see if they were real or not he was. Almost literally holding his arm back, he took a final, hasty look around them. His eyes having finally acclimated he could now see that the walls were lined in old style, dripping candles, some ensconced, others jammed into Victorian chandeliers, and most, just simply stuck to the rough rock with their own melted wax. There didn't seem to be much of anything else here and once again Mahiru was struck with the deja vu feeling of a bad prank.

"It's different." He finally said, too late, wondering if his lackluster answer would anger Kuro. He chanced a peek up and almost laughed when he saw Kuro's lips twisted into an ecstatic grin, eyes bright.

"Isn't it?" Kuro threw an appreciative glance around as well before leaning forward. "Now what?"

"N-now what?" Mahiru repeated in confusion, stumbling over his words in worry. "What do you mean?”

Kuro frowned momentarily before sighing. "I mean now what, now what! I've brought you here."

"Yes...." Mahiru agreed, trailing off. "But I'm not sure why."

"You aren't?" Kuro looked affronted and took a swift step forward but when Mahiru flinched back, a thought seemed to pass through his mind and he paused. "Ah, this isn't how you would normally do this, is it? I told you," He said flippantly, tossing a hand cavalierly around, "I don't quite understand, you're going to have to tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"What is 'appropriate'!" He exclaimed, smiling maniacally.

"You really have an obsession with that word, don't you." Mahiru muttered tiredly. 

When Kuro only continued to smile at him he felt his shoulders slump in defeat and fell to the ground, crossing his legs and leaning back on his hands. "Let me guess. I'm stuck here, aren't I?"

Kuro dropped down, mirroring his posture, and shrugged. "Depends on your definition of stuck, doesn't it?"

"Oh, now you know what words mean?" Mahiru demanded, glaring for a second before deflating. "Right, so. I guess first things first. That's simplest." He paused, eyeing the horns still wavering in and out of existence. "Are those real?"

Kuro quirked a brow before glancing up through the tangle of bangs over his forehead. "Of course."

"Mhm." Mahiru murmured neutrally. "And if I tried to touch them what would happen?"

The question seemed to stump Kuro for a moment and he stared off into middle space as he thought it through; Mahiru could almost see him rolling the words around in his head like bread dough. When his eyes finally focused again there was a touch of amusement lacing through them. "Why don't you try it?"

"Pass." Mahiru said flatly. He bit his lip, trying to decide what the best way to find out their actual location would be and was floored to realize he had somehow completely blocked out the trip here. The inhuman speed that had so frightened him had almost immediately filtered out of his conscious thoughts and now, trying to remember, he found that it was a blurry guess at best. "Did... how do you move so quickly?" He finally asked, coming to the conclusion that subterfuge just wasn't his style.

"Fast?" Kuro cocked his head, pupils reflecting the flickering mellow glow of the candles (that were.... suddenly lit??). "I just ran. You can run, can't you?"

Mahiru threw him a halfhearted glare. "Sure, but not like that. I did do track though." He paused, wondering why he had bothered with that last little detail; surely a man like this, so strange and inhuman would find knowledge of his life bori-

"What is track?" Kuro asked excitedly, leaning forward.

A small, fleeting grin flew over Mahiru's lips and he gave up; really, what else could he do right now? "It's a sport. Like in school?" At the only slightly less puzzled look he got in return he continued. "A bunch of people practice running as fast as they can and then there are meetings where you compete with other teams."

"I see." Kuro nodded once and then glanced over his shoulder, almost worriedly.

"So what is your plan exactly?"

"My plan?"

"Yes. Like, now what? Are we just going to stay in this cave forever? I have to get home at some point, you know."

Kuro smiled widely, leaning still farther forward, now almost in Mahiru's lap. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to! I can make sure of that!" He looked as though he had just won some argument and Mahiru almost laughed.

"But I want to go home."

"You do?" He stared at him blankly, frowning softly. "Are you sure? I can make anything a reality! I can give you anything you want~" He reached out, blindingly fast, and curled his fingers through Mahiru's hair, giving a gentle tug that had shivers racing down Mahiru's spine. "I have the power to do anything you want."

Trying to ignore the aftershocks still tickling his skin, Mahiru raised a brow. "What makes you think I want you to?"

"Everyone wants something." Kuro whispered before darting smoothly forward. He froze just an inch from Mahiru's neck, his lips resting softly against the quick, warm, pulse. "And all I need in exchange is a little something from you."

His voice was like melted caramel, leaking in and filling Mahiru's ears with images of rich luxury, power, and freedom, and beneath it all, a dark destruction. He shook himself, pulling back in fright and slapping a hand over his neck. "No! I don't want that."

"'That' what?" Kuro purred, unperturbed by Mahiru's denial. "What did you see?"

They stared at each other in silence as the moon rose ever higher and somewhere, far away, a small owl hooted it's displeasure. The sound was like a buzzer and Mahiru shot up, his legs numb from the crossed position. After a frantic look around, finding nothing to defend himself with, and no exit other than the one directly behind Kuro, he stepped back, farther into the deep recesses of the cave, feeling the cooler air from beneath the Earth wafting around his ankles.

He shook his head mutely, searching for his voice, finally finding it hidden below his lungs. "No." He croaked. Another step back. "I just want to go back home, finish school, get a good job. Help people."

Kuro smiled wickedly, flowing to his feet and advancing in time with Mahiru's retreat. "Help people? What's the use in that? Everyone just makes a mess of their life and then cries in the end. Why not just bring the end they wish for much sooner? Surprises are always better than slow anticipation. Like a present~" He was naught but a foot away now, reaching out again, and Mahiru panicked, flubbing his step and almost falling. Kuro's eyes, so crescent-ed in mean delight, widened comically and seemingly without thought he flew forward, catching Mahiru easily, holding his above the ground, clutched securely to his chest.

Glancing up warily, Mahiru found crystal sky eyes staring right back at him, still open in surprise. Manners reared their ugly head, strengthened by reflex and he breathed a windy laugh. "T-thanks...."

Kuro didn't react for a moment, still just watching. After a heart stopping pause he released his hold and Mahiru tumbled down to his feet, unsteady and tipping a second time. As he caught himself, Kuro put his hands on his hips, frowning. 

"Why did I do that?"

"Do what?" Mahiru blurted out, still too off kilter from his fright to think better of it.

Without answering Kuro just shot him one more strange, questioning look before turning and sauntering to the far wall where Mahiru could now see there was a small chest of drawers. Propped lopsidedly on top of it was what appeared to be a full skeleton and he cut his eyes away in surprise. At the rummaging sounds now emanating from the far side, he took a deep breath, willing his heart to calm.

"What are you doing?" He asked, mentally throwing his hands up. Fuck it, right? What else could he do but keep this strange man talking?

"Packing!" Kuro exclaimed happily, tossing several small, withered looking husks over his shoulder. "I can't just leave everything here while I'm away."

"Er, sorry... while you're away?" Mahiru watched the objects hit the floor only to skitter away of their own accord and swallowed loudly. "Where are you going?"

Kuro turned, looking at him in amused perplexity. "You wanted to go home, didn't you?" Before Mahiru could answer he had darted back to his side, placing both hands on either sides of Mahiru's head and forcing it to tilt awkwardly. "Like I said, anything you want. But in exchange for just one-" he leaned forward, "little-" he pressed those glistening pearlescent fangs to Mahiru's flesh, "thing-" and bit down.

As the pressure exploded, traveling up through his veins and into his mind, Mahiru watched stars of light bloom across his vision, marveling at the warmth now filling his chest. It was a heady sensation, like hot chocolate laced with morphine and he almost fell, held up now only by Kuro's arms which had wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him in. He couldn't even find it in himself to be worried about the amount of blood Kuro seemed to be taking, too entranced by the fire in his mind. After a few moments, or what may have been eternity, Kuro threw his head back, eyes melting to a heavy red, glazed and unfocused, and Mahiru let his tensed muscles go lax, forehead thumping roughly against Kuro's chest.

Voice syrupy thick and filled with shining marvel, Kuro tightened his hold, squeezing Mahiru too tightly for the barest second. "And with that, I'm yours."

[notaburgler]

Grocery Shopping

The grocery store. A place to gather the essentials, or if you were Soramitsu Tabe, a source of power. Normally, this was a solo job delegated to some subordinate. But Overhaul felt the need to go himself, the rest of his posse following behind. 

They gave him a list of what to get, but Overhaul and his short fuse snapped, ‘if you all want this so bad, just come with me!’ He was regretting that outburst already. 

It wasn’t that his men were unruly or loud; it was more so that Overhaul found solace in grocery shopping. It was a relaxing moment in time where he wasn’t the boss of the feared yakuza. He was just a simple civilian out getting the week’s food. 

With his own reusable basket over one arm and a quick adjustment of his gloves, he was off. He did his best to ignore the ramblings of the rest, but since he was the one with the credit card, it was only reasonable that they would be bothering him with questions of whether they could get something or not. 

He sighed. He did, in fact, ask for this. 

Rappa, the rebellious and hot-headed man he was, just tossed what he wanted in the cart Chrono had grabbed. Why ask? He needed it, even if it was the sugar-coated cereal Overhaul hated. 

But if he was trying to piss off the boss, he failed. Overhaul was actually happy he had just made the decision for himself. They were only down the first aisle and he was already getting irritated with the small group. Maybe offering to let them come along, even if it was out of anger, wasn’t the best call.  

****

Arms crossed and a scowl on his face, Shigaraki grumbled, “Why do I have to be here?”

The league of villains had needs, too. It wasn’t odd to consider that their fridge needed replenishing, and even with a moderate, but small budget, Kurogiri would manage to get what was needed.  

“Because Tomura Shigaraki, you are our leader and as our leader, you must make decisions for our little group.” Kurogiri stated, pushing the cart into the store. 

The rest followed the two. They loved this. Dabi intended to cause a scene. Toga wanted Lucky Charms and a body pillow so she could draw a picture of Deku on it to sleep with. Spinner was still searching for the perfect lotion to help with how hard his scales had gotten. Twice was trying to stick to a diet, but the other half of him felt eating instant noodles and cookies for dinner was perfectly acceptable. Mr. Compress had a new recipe he found on Pinterest he wanted to try. 

There was a fear that, since they were villains, they would be caught. But Kurogiri chose the store, and Costco couldn’t have been a better choice. It was huge and there were a lot of people swarming the isles. He insisted Shigaraki leave his hands at home and wear his hoodie. After a quick hissy fit, the hands remained behind and he tossed his hoodie up, ‘I’m not doing it because you told me to… I’m doing it because I want to.’ His stubbornness was endearing. 

“Chrono,” Shigaraki perked up at the overheard name and glanced through the aisles, “make sure Tabe doesn’t eat us out of house and home.” 

Overhaul. Shigaraki scowled at his voice. “Our funds are limited and we can’t use it all up here.” He continued on, Shigaraki following them as they walked down the aisle. “And make sure that Sakaki stays away from the liquor aisle,” Overhaul noted nodding. 

Shigaraki’s glare was joined by Dabi. Both glaring holes through the yakuza boss. “Tomura Shigaraki,” Kurogiri gained the attention of his leader again, “we need your input.”

Shigaraki, being the adult that he is, had a new plan, “Kurogiri, you do the shopping. I have something else I have to do.” He said with a devious smirk.

****

“Boss,” Mimic rode in the child’s seat of the cart going over the budget, “here is what we can afford. If we can spend less, that would be ideal.” He held out his calculator, “don’t forget, we have to get a few things for Eri.” 

Overhaul sighed, but he knew keeping the kid happy— or at least content— was important. A new doll house or a stuffed animal should suffice. Her daily food rations would come from what they gathered for all, but he did intend to get something a bit more fun for her as well. She was, after all, the reason he had gotten so far in his research. A nice gift would do the trick in maintaining her submission. 

Overhaul glanced at his list, then at the prices, then back at his list. It should be doable with the budget Mimic had placed, but it would be tight. He had to remember that toilet paper and laundry detergent weren’t cheap; and with the monstrosity that was that store, and the countless opportunities to go over budget, he’d have to keep a watchful eye on what they got. 

Overhaul scanned the men in front of him. “Get what you like, just don’t go too crazy.” 

Chrono pushed the cart, Mimic had hopped to the floor and grabbed the lower items so Overhaul didn’t have to bend over or touch anything. The reason Overhaul preferred to go alone was silence and space. The selections he made were precise. He’d always grab the item farthest to the back so the least amount of hands had touched it. Mimic knew this. He handed it to Chrono, who plopped it in the cart.

The trip was surprisingly relaxing. Overhaul would hate to admit that his subordinates were quite well-mannered in public, even if they all didn’t look the part. They were polite and kind. A few of them would gain a passing glance and a look of horror from the other patrons, but that was expected. So long as they minded their manners and didn’t cause a scene, they would be left to do their shopping in peace. 

With a half full cart, Overhaul stopped to examine their findings. Several extra bottles of wine gained Sakaki a glare. He quickly took a few out and returned them to the shelf. 

An overabundance of food was crammed to the side like a rat hoarding food for the winter. “Tabe…” Mimic sighed, “I said only get what is needed. If you plan to buy all of this, get your own cart and pay with your own money.”

Again, the men scattered with their designated items as Overhaul scanned the aisles. He placed a few things in his cart and moved on. Chrono stepped away and Mimic followed his boss talking about how many extras were tossed in that weren’t on the list.

****

Dabi chuckled watching them leave, “Now’s our chance,” he smirked.

Shigaraki slipped into the aisle and pulled the cart back, Dabi pushing another into its place, “This always drives me up the wall,” he laughed as he got back to his leader. 

Shigaraki went through their cart, checking it out and decaying anything he didn’t like. “Serves them right,” he huffed, placing all five fingers on a giant can of soup.

****

Rappa passed a free sample stand and stopped. He loved the store for this reason. Tabe would go nuts at these if it wasn’t for the looming threat of their boss scolding him— or worse. 

“Care to try a sample, good sir?” “Come on, you loser! What are you? Scared?” The sample vendor was an odd one.

“Have I seen you before?” 

“I don’t think so…” “Just try the food, you overgrown weasel!” 

Rappa, as confused as he was, gripped the small cup in his massive hands. His eyes never left the strange vendor. He felt like he must have seen him before. Taking away the comically large chef’s hat and the pink apron, he looked so… familiar.

With a wondering glance, Rappa scooped the yogurt sample onto the tiny spoon and shoveled the entire thing into his mouth. “Well that’s damn good!” he said, reaching for more.

“Please, take another.” “Save some for the rest of the people, fat ass!” 

Rappa left with a few more samples to share. He knew his comrades would enjoy them and there hadn’t been many other samples available that day. 

“Here.” He handed one to Tengai and another to Tetsuno. “Free samples,” he said, eating yet another.

****

Overhaul walked alongside Chronostasis as they gathered more items and put them in the cart. There seemed to be a bit more than Chrono remembered before they left.

Chrono hummed to himself, “Maybe Hojo put more in. He didn’t want to come here to begin with anyway.” He shrugged moving along having a harder time with the cart than before. 

It seemed that in the short time he had walked away, the back wheel to the cart had jammed up. He was using more strength to push the cart than before. And now the front wheel on the opposite side had a mind of its own too. If he did manage to get the cart moving, the front wheel would flip in the wrong direction and send the cart hurling into the aisle. He grit his teeth, bearing it with stoicism. Overhaul hated complainers.

It was a petty thing to be upset about, and his boss had no patience for the like. When they arrived, Chrono made well and sure that the cart he grabbed was perfect. He made an ordeal out of it holding the lot of them from even entering the store before he selected it. If Chrono had a major pet peeve: it was a faulty shopping cart. 

His pride, and dignity, prevented him from returning to the front of the store and getting a new one. He was a leader in this group after all; and after making a big deal out of which cart to grab, he couldn't turn around and claim his selection unworthy. No, Chrono would have to bite his tongue and press on, fighting the urge to admit defeat via a shopping cart.

“Everything alright?” Overhaul hummed. 

Chrono forced the words out as he powered through the stubborn cart’s resistance. “Yup. No problems here,” he said, breath strained.

He kicked the wheel hoping to knock it back into place so it would work properly again, but to no avail. It was as if this cart had been struck by his quirk. And now, Chronostasis would suffer for it. 

****

Shigaraki and Dabi chuckled at the sight. He hadn’t even noticed that their new cart was littered with junk food and frozen items. Dabi made sure that the frozen food was at the bottom and had been thoroughly thawed out before exchanging the carts. 

“Stupid yakuza.” Shigaraki snickered, sneaking away as they turned a corner, out of the other villains’ line of sight.

The two caught up to their own small group reassembling in the frozen food aisle. 

“Spinner…” Dabi pointed.

Shigaraki glanced at his reptilian ally and a wicked grin spread across his face. With a ‘borrowed’ can opener, Spinner opened some tuna.  

His eyes flicked to meet Shigaraki’s and he locked up in fear. Yet upon seeing that sickening smile, he proceeded with his plan knowing his leader approved.

With a short grunt, he tossed the can over the tall row of food. Shigaraki and Dabi, now hiding behind a stack of potato chips and pretzels, watched as the can landed just behind the group. The yakuza pressed on without noticing the splattered fish a few feet away from them. 

Shigaraki nodded to Spinner as he hastily opened another can and adjusted himself according to Dabi’s directions. 

A step to the left, then to the right. A small shuffle back to the left and he was in place. 

****

Overhaul glanced inside the freezer for his favorite meal and nodded to Mimic to grab a few. He graciously plucked the food from Mimics hand, paying close attention as to not touch him, and gently placed them in his basket.

“Boss,” Mimic scooted along the floor, “we come to Costco, the bulk capital of the food world, and you shop with a tiny basket?” 

As Overhaul began to answer, a can of tuna fell from above, landing between them, and splattering across the floor. 

Overhaul held back his urge to destroy everything in sight. This trip was turning into a nightmare. His men all stopped and stared, wondering what the boss would do. His arms held out in disgust and a rancid look on his face made them fearful of the outcome of this mess. 

Overhaul took a deep breath in and let it out slowly with closed eyes. He had a reputation to uphold and couldn't go killing random citizens because of this. If he was going to continue his experiments, he needed to keep a low profile; and murdering people in such a public and crowded place would not help him in the grand scheme of things.

“Well!” Mimic yelled, “get something for the boss to clean himself up!”

****

Kurogiri was enjoying the silence. On occasion, one of his comrades would pop by and toss something in the cart. They would leave as quickly as they came, off to grab another useless item. He would spend a moment looking it over and deciding if it was worth the money. Most of the stuff the League of Villains would throw at him was junk food and unhealthy. He had tried so hard to get them off of this instant noodles and chips diet, but Shigaraki was a tough cookie to crack. He was so stubborn and hard to convince that a healthy diet would help his work later. 

He tossed a few bags of chips back on the shelf and shook his head at the amount of soda and energy drinks piling up at the bottom of the cart. 

“You can have one or the other.” He said putting back the energy drinks and changing them out for coffee instead, “this will be much better for you anyway, Tomura Shigaraki.” 

Kurogiri really was the glue that held the League together. Without him, they would have already been caught by the heroes or starved. He took pride in his position, and made sure that at least once a week, a good hearty meal was on the menu. 

****

Overhaul cleaned up the best he could. His pure, unadulterated rage had calmed to a gentle frustration. Clorox wipes definitely helped. He could still smell the fish on his pants, but at least he got the majority of it up. Now he didn’t care about getting what was on the list; he just wanted to go home and take a properly scalding shower. 

The next aisle was his favorite though. A soft heat throbbed in his chest. His eyes sparkled with a ray of happiness. The once fuming aura of pure disgust was erased and replaced with a shimmering delight. He passed a wet floor sign and stepped around a large puddle of detergent on the floor and stopped to admire the beauty.

The soap aisle.

The bleach. The detergent. The smell of freshness. It made his heart, as black and emotionless as it was, flutter in his chest. This aisle was as dangerous to him as a liquor store was to Sakaki. If he didn’t have someone stopping him, he’d end up buying the entire aisle. Luckily, Tengai had come to his side seeing him alone. 

“Boss,” he piped up, catching Overhaul off guard. “Only get what you need.”

Overhaul hated being told what to do, especially by those he deemed expendable like Tengai. But he was right, they couldn’t afford to spend so much money on cleaning supplies. With a hopeless sigh, he placed the box of gloves in his basket and moved along to the detergent. 

“Got the coffee.” Rappa stated, rounding the corner. 

Tetsuno followed with the tea in hand. With all of this, they wouldn’t have to get more for quite some time. 

All three men suddenly stopped in their tracks as they moved along, Overhaul leaving them behind.

“Oh….” Tetsuno gripped his stomach.

“Oh man….” Rappa whined. 

Tengai remained silent, standing still. 

“What’s wrong with you three?” Overhaul looked back at them with raised brows. 

“Bathroom… now…” All three collectively turned and rushed as one toward the restrooms. 

Before they even managed to leave the aisle, they slipped on the puddle of detergent. All three tried so hard to use the others as a means to stay on both feet. They were sliding around, a moving pretzel of villains, before inevitably falling flat on their asses.

Overhaul ignored them, enjoying the sweet scent of the detergent. He took in a whiff of the fresh linen smell and smiled. Even through his mask, he could smell it; it was wonderful. But that scent was quickly destroyed by a truly awful smell. He glanced back at his men, all three of them looking ashamed and embarrassed. 

Rappa growled. “This is your fault.” He held Tengai by the shirt collar. 

“I don’t understand how this could possibly be my fault.” He rolled his eyes trying to hide that he too, had shit his pants.

“Who cares whose fault it is…. I need new pants now.” Tetsuno scanned the aisles until he saw the clothes.

He made a beeline for them hoping the smell wasn’t as bad as it felt.

****

Toga held back her laughter, clutching the wet floor sign to her chest in glee. All she wanted was to watch them fall. Watching the light leave their eyes as they voided their bowels was the delicious cherry on top she desperately needed. It was sweet, sweet payback for what they had done to poor Big Sis Magne.

Shigaraki had called a truce with them; but that didn’t mean messing with them was out of line with her leader’s orders. 

She chuckled, pinching her nose. “Nice job Twice. Laxatives in the yogurt samples… classic.”

****

Katsukame scanned the bulk dry foods section. They needed more rice and he was selected to get it. Normally, he would grab a large bag of it from another store, but being on a tight budget made him come here. 

He grimaced at the faint scent of feces and shook his head, “Damn kids.” He glared at a mother and baby.

The white rice was on sale too. This was a good thing. Any deal they could get would be a winner, and anything to get praise from the boss or Mimic was a good thing. 

He would never outwardly admit it, but he loved the praise he got for a job well done. He loved being the go-to guy. Getting the job done right the first time was his life’s motto. 

“Lucky me.” He said, hefting a 20-pound sack in his arms. 

He walked the store in a bit of awe— this was his first time in such a large establishment. The free samples, the huge variety, the giant TVs, even furniture! What didn’t this place have? 

He made note of a rice cooker he passed. The one at the hideout was getting beat up from its constant use. Once he got paid, he might come back and buy it for the group. They all had been working so hard lately and a nice treat like this would be appreciated.

****

Dabi followed Hojo around the store wondering what he would select. He’d scan a few items and pick them up to examine, but never bring them back with him. He seemed to be looking for something specific but couldn’t quite find what it was he was looking for in the vast array of gifts this store had to offer. 

He hummed, holding up a bundle of leeks. “This should do us well,” he said, placing them in his grocery bag and continuing on. 

He was looking for ingredients for a recipe. 

Dabi kept a close eye on him and his mission, each ingredient thoughtfully selected and put into his bag.

“Now for some sugar.” 

Dabi cackled lowly and slipped past him. Hojo’s attention was directed towards the commotion in the detergent aisle. He could only assume someone had told his boss he couldn’t buy it all. 

He shook his head, “Fools. Just let the man get what he wants.” He dropped the sugar in his bag and moved along.

****

“I don’t get it?” Shigaraki huffed at Dabi’s seemingly stupid move.

“His meal is gonna be great. But replacing salt with sugar is gonna make it even better.” 

Shigaraki grinned. This evil work was more fun than he had thought. 

Tormenting the Shie Hassaikai. This was a great stress relief that even he wouldn’t think would help. The undeniable desire to get even with the man that not only belittled him and destroyed his hideout, but also killed his comrade was fulfilling. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention.”

The loudspeaker cut off his next thought. That voice was familiar. “Toga…”

“The young man in the plague mask and green coat has had a horrible day. He’s in the detergent aisle. He loves getting tightly hugged and cuddled when he’s feeling down.” Shigaraki’s smile split his face. “If you see him, please, give him a big hug and tell him how important he is. Suicide is not an option and many people will miss him.”

“Thank you!” “Tell them he loves it when you touch his dick.”

“Shut up Twi-”

The crackle of the loudspeaker screeched before turning off. 

****

“Oh no…” Chrono left the cart in Nemoto and Mimic’s hands and dashed to his boss. 

With how busy the store was, there was already a small crowd surrounding him. This wasn’t good. If even one of them touched him he’d break out into hives and start disassembling each one of them. 

“Please, everyone.” Chrono announced making his way through the small gathering, “the boss is fine. There is no need to hug or touch him. We, his… friends, have made sure he won’t do anything drastic. Return to your shopping.” 

An old lady passed, “here’s a candy young man.” Her voice broke and sweet like a grandmother.

Her wrinkled smile flashed to the young boss. He wasn’t the least bit amused by her presence. He already felt his skin start to bubble just from the people looming around him so closely. 

**** 

“Clean up in the detergent section... and the clothing section…”

Twice snickered as he and Toga tiptoed off, seeing Sakaki stumble past them. They couldn't get caught yet. 

“Hey,” he reunited with Shigaraki and Dabi, “this is fun!” “Let’s make them cry!”

Dabi rolled his eyes. “Calm down. Where’s Spinner?”

“Right here.” The lizard man’s smile made them all giddy, “just had to take care of a…. rice situation.”

****

“Boss,” Hojo waved, “I got the rice like you asked.” He held up the bag by the cloth handle.

Half empty, rice trickled out of the hole in the bottom. Overhaul watched silently as it continued to drain out onto the floor in front of Hojo, a small pile of rice forming at his feet. 

Hojo kept his hand up, letting the last few grains fall before lifting his gaze to the boss. This was embarrassing. His one job, the only job he was given, was a complete and utter failure. 

He fell to his knees, “I’m so sorry boss!” He begged for forgiveness, “Please, let me try again!”

Overhaul was over this trip. He was frustrated and irritated— not to mention he still smelled like tuna. The store reeked of shit and half of his gang had somehow been hit with an illness. He’d have to correct that before getting into the same automobile as them. Maybe he’d just leave them behind and make them walk. A good brisk jog should do them well.

“We are leaving,” he sighed. “Gather the rest.”

Hojo took his orders seriously and rushed to get them together. Mimic and Chrono had made way to the checkout counter and waited as Overhaul grabbed a few more things he needed.  

He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes. This trip was bringing shame upon his group. A rice trail scattered along the floor showed exactly where Hojo had gone. An exceptionally large pile of rice sat in the lingerie section; what an embarrassment.

He still needed something for Eri. She hated the tea set he got last time. Refused to play with the doll house from the time before. She loathed the stuffed animals. Normally this task would be given to her caretaker, but an unfortunate ‘accident’ rendered him useless and disposed of immediately. 

Overhaul lifted a giant sucker up and examined it, “this should do.” He dropped it in his basket and headed to the checkout stand.

He passed Tetsuno, Rappa, and Tengai getting escorted to the back. For a moment he panicked, but seeing the clothing section a mess and covered in layers of runny shit made him turn a corner and go the longer way. Somehow, those three managed to get sick at the same time. It was disgusting. He had settled on it, those three would walk home. Either that, or they’d be sprayed with the hose outside before getting into the same vehicle as him. The thick stench of human excrement was filling the entire store.

“What an embarrassment…” he shook his head.

Once at the checkout line, he felt the calm return. It was almost over. 

Chrono and Mimic knew better than to place the groceries on the conveyor belt without him. He had a routine and a method and he wouldn’t allow anyone to mess it up. 

Frozen food first, then the fresh meats, a blockade of boxed or bagged items to keep the meats from touching anything, and the fresh veggies. Last was the cleaning supplies and his own basket of items. The checkout lady knew him from past visits and prepared to separate his basket from the rest. 

“Boss, I don’t think we wanted this…” Chrono held up a box of plus size tampons.  

“Or this…” Mimic showed the bulk extra strength deodorant.  

Chrono looked over all of it, “none of this is ours!” he stated furiously.  “Someone switched our god damn cart!” He gripped the handle to hold back his anger.  

Overhaul remained silent. He grabbed his basket and went to another line, “I’ll be in the car when you are done returning all of this to the proper place and getting what we need.”

****

It took forever, but with teamwork and cooperation, they all managed to get what they had come for and out of the store without any more incidents. Rappa, Tengai, and Tetsuno were given adult diapers to wear home after cleaning up in the employee locker room. 

The clothing section was closed off and was still getting cleaned as they checked out and left. “Finally!” Chrono groaned.

They quickly started to pack up the SUV. All they wanted was to get out of there as soon as possible.

****

The League of Villains excitedly packed the car. Shigaraki knew he could trust Kurogiri to get what was needed. He did throw a bit of a tantrum when Kurogiri didn’t buy the chips they all asked for, but they would get over it soon enough. 

“Compress,” Dabi got his attention. With a hum, Mr. Compress turned. “What exactly were you doing this entire time?”

The league rolled past Overhaul and his gang— windows down and sunglasses on. Dabi took it upon himself to blast some gangster rap to try to look cool. 

They smiled, waving at their rivals. Overhaul’s eyes widened as he finally caught on to why this particular trip was such a disaster. 

Mr. Compress smiled. He hung out the window as Twice slowed. With a snap of his fingers, their entire car practically exploded. Canoes, couches, TVs, bookshelves, refrigerators, all of them came bursting out of nowhere, effectively destroying the car and everything inside of it. His quirk had come in handy, dropping small marbles into their bags as they left.

Shigaraki, making eye contact with Overhaul, nodded and puckered his lips as he flashed the peace sign like the gangster he is. 

Twice sped away laughing. 

Shie Hassaikai would never forget: members of the League of Villains were petty and cruel.

[yamayamawrites]

Bake Sale - KageHina

Find this on AO3 here or read below!

Summary - Tobio and Shouyo are put in charge of baking cookies and cupcakes for the Karasuno bake sale.

They’re only two minutes in, and Shouyo’s shirt is already wonderfully dusted with flour. There’s some in his hair, too, Tobio thinks, and before he can deliberate whether he wants to reach out and muss up Shouyo’s hair to get it out or swat him upside the head for being a dumbass, his friend is hopping up on the counter, making himself at home there.

“What are you doing,” Tobio says, more as a command, a tell me what you’re doing before I kill you, or something. And Shouyo just giggles and kicks his feet like some sort of schoolgirl, and the entire thing is very cutesy and Tobio feels like this was a very, very bad idea.

“I’m sitting up here! Look, it’s like it was made for short people, Bakageyama!” Shouyo cries, pulls his phone from his pocket and turns on some sort of instrumental playlist of sorts.

“Quit calling me that!” Tobio barks in response, and he reaches to grip Shouyo’s hair at the top of his head and yank, and Shouyo dodges easily. He’s not even looking – how did he do that? And Shouyo laughs more, sets his phone aside on the counter. “The hell is this music?” Tobio asks, glares daggers at the phone even though it’s certainly not the culprit.

“Lo-fi beats to bake and chill to,” Shouyo recites with an index finger in the air. “Don’t tell me you’ve never listened to a ‘lo-fi beats’ station before.”

Tobio bites his tongue. The question resides there, being squished between his teeth – what the hell are ‘lo-fi beats’ – but he’s got the impression that asking that question will result in more idiocy from the boy on the counter, and he really doesn’t want to get into it. Instead, he pulls out his own phone and splays it out on the countertop, where a cookie recipe is loaded up.

They’re participating in this year’s bake sale, for reasons unbeknownst to Tobio. Normally the sports’ bake sale doesn’t extend past the female sports’ teams, from what Yuu mentioned of last year’s event, but Sawamura and Koushi insisted that they participate this year, and Tobio doesn’t quite know why. Still, he’s always been decent at baking – he and his mother bake Christmas cookies every year on his birthday, it’s sort of tradition. His only worry is that Shouyo – who looks like a walking hazard traffic cone with his orange hair – will screw this up for him. For the team.

He reminds himself that these cookies are for the team, and that he cannot eat the cookie dough.

“Oi, why do you look so serious all the sudden?” Shouyo asks from the counter, his words escaping around a smirk. “Don’t tell me you’re also the king of the kitchen? Ooh, that sounds like an American cooking show. King of the—”

“Hinata,” Tobio interrupts, his eyes glazed over that way they get when he’s ultra-focused on the court, “are you going to help me or not?”

“Well the thing is,” Shouyo nervously prattles his fingertips together, “I’m ah, no good at cooking. Or baking. I lit a toaster on fire once.”

“You lit a—how did you light a toaster on fire?”

“I mean, technically it started with a piece of paper towel and so I didn’t light the toaster on fire from the beginning.”

“Why did you put a piece of paper towel in the toaster?!” Tobio shrieks, like it’s some sort of heinous crime. Because, well, it is. His toaster has only ever seen bread and bagels and the occasional pop tart, and toasting a paper towel for breakfast seems, first and foremost, unfulfilling. He doesn’t know the nutrient value of paper towels, but he assumes it can’t be any better than a piece of toast. Second, it seems like it would be tough to digest, considering it’s made to absorb and that would probably…cause problems. (Tobio’s having a hard time working out the details here.)

“To clean it!” Shouyo cries back, exasperated. He swings himself off the counter now and prods a finger into Tobio’s chest. “What, does Gross-Yama never clean his toaster?!”

Tobio’s face pales. Ah, of course. Shouyo didn’t toast the paper towel to eat the paper towel.

“Why did you have it plugged in while you were cleaning it, stupid?!” Tobio barks, hopes that his cheeks aren’t too red from his embarrassment of only now coming to the understanding he did.

Shouyo wrings his hands again, looking anywhere but Tobio. “I mean, I dunno…I just wanted toast but it wasn’t clean so I thought I’d clean it really fast and…is it even important?” He demands this last part, prods Tobio in the chest again, gaining some confidence now realizing they’ve been side-tracked and for once it isn’t Shouyo’s fault.

“I mean,” Tobio defends, pokes a finger right back into Shouyo’s chest, “I want to make sure you’re not planning on lighting my kitchen on fire!”

Shouyo seems to take this as a fair enough excuse, because he huffs and turns his back to Tobio. “Whatever,” he grumbles finally, crosses his arms over his chest and leans over the counter to glare at Tobio’s phone screen. “What do you want me to do, Chef Kageyama?”

“If you’re a fire hazard, you should probably just mix ingredients,” Tobio glares.

“It’s not like I spontaneously combusted!” Shouyo shrieks, and cookies are forgotten as Shouyo once again leans into Tobio’s personal space, his little spindly fingers poking and prodding at Tobio’s chest in a way that is both extremely irritating and incredibly hot, and Tobio has to consciously remind himself that Shouyo has never once shown any romantic interest in him and if his resolve snaps now, while they’re baking cookies of all things, he will never be able to look Shouyo in the eye again. So he decides it best to turn around and ignore Shouyo altogether, crossing the kitchen to the cabinets and digging through for the proper ingredients.

Luckily enough for them, Koushi and Sawamura did all the shopping. The shelves are stocked with baking goods, a few boxed cake mixes for cupcakes later, and decorations. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi have probably already finished their baking, Tobio thinks stubbornly, staring at all the ingredients and reciting the list of tasks they have to complete in his head. They’re expected to make four dozen cookies and four dozen cupcakes, while Kei and Tadashi are in charge of making mochi balls. Tobio would have much rather made mochi balls, he thinks – he likes ice cream best – but they got first draw and Tobio’s still sour about it.

He comes back to the island with heaps of ingredients in his arms, and Shouyo’s standing on his counters to grab every single bowl that resides in the kitchen. “Dumbass,” Tobio barks at him, and the result is Shouyo dropping a silver mixing bowl in surprise and nearly falling off the counter he’s standing on. Instinctively, Tobio circles the island in case Shouyo decides to fall – he doesn’t need to clean up blood in his kitchen when he’s certain it’ll already be messy enough with Shouyo baking beside him.

And he’s not wrong. They’re halfway through the first batch of cookies – sugar cookies, arguably the easiest kind of cookie to make – when Shouyo spills the powdered sugar on the floor.

Tobio seethes, thinks for a moment that steam actually might be coming out of his ears with how comically angry he is. He’d told Shouyo not to sit on the counter, but Shouyo had stuck his tongue out and fuckin’ done it anyway like he owned the place, and while he was dancing to some instrumental garbage that Tobio still hasn’t gotten him to change, he managed to swing his knee up and knock into the large bag of powdered sugar.

“You dunce!” Tobio cries, and Shouyo’s yelping in surprise and jumping off the counter to clean it up, but it’s too late – nearly a quarter of the bag is lost to the kitchen floor. Tobio rubs his temple with the oncoming of a headache, quite likely caused by the pressure he’s applying to his forehead in the first place, but he’s too angry to care. “Sweep it up, idiot! Using a wet rag will only make it stick to the ground!”

The way Shouyo gasps out a “Yes, sir!” makes Tobio almost feel bad for yelling; Shouyo sounds a little scared. Then again, he should sound scared – he should be scared – because Tobio is intimidating and mean and most certainly not soft for his spiker. No way. Not soft for Shouyo.

But Shouyo’s so soft.

Tobio’s helpless, gooey, right-brain supplies this thought right as Shouyo clambers onto his knees with a hand broom to clean up the mound of powdered sugar littering the floor. His cheeks somehow have powdered sugar on them, and some clings to Shouyo’s nose and lips as he sweeps a little too hard and gets powdered sugar on his face. Tobio feels like he’s done it on purpose, because the way he grins sheepishly and upturns his head to face Tobio has his heart melting like glaze off a donut and he really can’t look for too long or he’ll dissolve.

“Sorry, Kageyama,” Shouyo lilts from the ground. “I made a little bit of a mess, huh?”

“Fuck kind of game are you playing?” Tobio grunts back. “You look like a Lolita, stupid.”

Shouyo tilts his head to the side, and the way he sits back on his heels so his thighs splay thick below him is really unfair, especially considering how toned those stupid thighs are and how many times Tobio has unfortunately thought about leaving marks on them aside from the natural bruises and bumps Shouyo gathers from volleyball practice. “Lolita?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know, as if he isn’t acting like one right now, and Tobio’s cheeks erupt bright red in a strange mixture of anger and embarrassment that he’s sure he’s felt before.

“Idiot!” he barks out. “Lolita, you know? Ugh, just clean the rest of it up. I’m going to put the dough in the fridge,” he grumbles as he rolls the sugar cookie dough out into a slab and wraps it in plastic wrap. He tucks it into the refrigerator as Shouyo finishes sweeping.

“I’m really sorry, Tobio,” Shouyo murmurs as he passes behind Tobio on the way to the trash can, and the sound of his first name on Shouyo’s lips makes Tobio’s body recoil enough that he throws out a hand instinctively.

And knocks the dustpan full of powdered sugar all over the goddamn kitchen.

“Hey, what the fuck was that for?” Shouyo whines, having taken a surprising amount of sugar to the face. And he’s coughing, ready to sneeze it looks like, with the amount of powdered sugar on his face.

“Why’d you call me that?!” Tobio yelps back, as if he can in any way construe this to be Shouyo’s fault and not entirely his for his limb’s awkward flailing. But he will sure as hell try to blame this on Shouyo.

“I dunno!” Shouyo cries defensively, and now he does sneeze, in a cutely stupidly adorable way that has Tobio recoiling like he’s just taken psychic damage. He nearly flings another arm out in the opposite direction and knocks over their bowl of half-mixed chocolate chip cookie dough. Luckily, he catches himself this time.

“Just – go clean yourself up,” Tobio grimaces, and his voice drops in decibels until it’s hardly audible over the sound of the stupid music playing in the background. Tobio vows to change it the second Shouyo leaves. “I’ve got extra shirts and stuff in my bedroom. Go change, you look like you were inside a baby powder factory that exploded.”

Shouyo sticks out his tongue, then licks his lips and giggles. He giggles. And Tobio thinks to any and all gods who live above, please save me from this stupid cute boy. I don’t want to be gay anymore if it means having to be attracted to such a dumbass. The gods don’t listen, because as Shouyo skips off down the hall, Tobio’s left watching his thighs as he goes.

His first course of action is to change the music. He knows Shouyo’s phone password – not because Shouyo has told him in case he forgets it, but because it’s his stupid birthday, which is a stupid password, and also his own passcode on his phone. He stops that heinous music and instead turns on a playlist of hits from the last decade, which he also quickly regrets, and decides to settle for no music, instead turning on a volleyball game in the living room that he can see from his spot at the island. He likes this much better, he decides.

Then, even though all of this took a good four minutes and twenty-two seconds (Tobio is keeping track for no reason whatsoever of how long Shouyo spends snooping in his room), Shouyo still hasn’t returned, so Tobio’s next course of action is to get as many cookies on baking sheets as he can before the monster returns. He manages three dozen, and he’s just getting the sugar cookie dough from the refrigerator as Shouyo returns.

And Tobio really shouldn’t have offered up his own clothes.

They hang off him like a blanket. Shouyo’s put on one of Tobio’s old middle school tee shirts, probably with the hope that it will be smaller (and it’s most certainly not). Tobio nearly can’t tell Shouyo’s even wearing pants – he’d worn super short shorts over here, claiming it was because of the heat but Tobio almost feels like he’s being teased. And, to top it off, Shouyo’s pulled his bangs into two high-sitting pigtails.

His jaw must have dropped because when Shouyo walks back into the kitchen the first thing he does is press his palm roughly into Tobio’s chin, sends his bottom jaw back upward into his top one. And what little mental cognition Tobio has left is dedicated to moving his tongue out of the way so he doesn’t bite it when Shouyo does this. He can’t even formulate an angry response – can’t even call Shouyo a dumbass – because his tongue feels swollen and heavy in his mouth and he wonders if he really did bite it and he just can’t feel it because he’s so distracted. “Shut up,” Shouyo huffs. “I know I look stupid but I thought this would help keep the flour out of my hair.”

“Maybe if you weren’t such a dumbass you wouldn’t get flour in your hair in the first place,” Tobio shoots back, and he doesn’t really remember wanting to say that but he just shrugs. Better than accidentally calling Shouyo a Lolita again.

But maybe not, because Shouyo had grabbed a half-cup of flour as Tobio said that, and he decided his next course of action would be to dump it on Tobio’s head.

Tobio blinks, shakes his head a little, and he can tell by Shouyo’s widening eyes that he knows he shouldn’t have done that, because now Tobio’s pissed, now he’s going to beat the shit out of Shouyo and it doesn’t matter how damn attractive those thighs and that face and that ass are, because he’s dead, and Tobio’s not into dead things. (Call that human decency.)

“Shouyo,” he says, voice quiet and dripping with malice. And Shouyo takes a step back, but he’s trapped between the counter and Tobio, and his lip is quivering like he’s either going to laugh or cry, and Tobio can’t tell which will be worse. He grabs hold of one of Shouyo’s stupid little pigtails, but he doesn’t tug yet; instead he watches the way Shouyo’s face contorts in preparation to have his nose broken. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

“Y-y-you said,” Shouyo’s stuttering, and god it’s cute, it’s so cute. “I-I mean! Now y-you’re a dumbass, too!”

“I’m a what?!” Tobio barks.

“Y’know, a dumbass,” Shouyo replies, as if Tobio doesn’t remember what a dumbass is. “Stupid. Himbo.” He waves his arms in vague gestures and that lip quivering is gone but his eyes are still blown wide, still trying to remember the phone number for ‘9-1-1’ probably in case this goes haywire.

Tobio moves his other hand to steady himself on the counter, effectively caging Shouyo in. “Is that what you think?” he seethes, and he can see that lip beginning to quiver again. “I can’t believe you spilled powdered sugar all over the floor and got shit all over your face and lit a goddamn toaster on fire, but I’m the idiot here.”

“To be fair, you knocked a dustpan full of powdered sugar all over the floor,” Shouyo comments feebly, lifts his index finger pointedly.

The hand clamped around his pigtail moves down and grabs the collar of Shouyo’s (his) shirt, and he leans closer to Shouyo, who really doesn’t look scared enough anymore. “I only did that because you called me—”

“What?” Shouyo shoots back, and now he looks more defiant than anything. “Tobio? I called you by your name and so you threw powdered sugar everywhere?”

Tobio scowls at him. “Fuck you, you’d do the same thing,” he glares.

“Actually, I wouldn’t.”

“Would too.”

“Would not.”

“Would too!”

“Would not times ten!”

“Would too times a thousand!”

Shouyo gasps, appalled by jumping from ten to a thousand, and Tobio smirks, victorious. “Shouyo,” he murmurs, low and intimidating like Shouyo did to him, and Tobio sees him shrink, sees him quiver a bit. Whether it’s under his gaze or his hands he can’t tell; both of his hands, now, have migrated to the shirt collar and hold him there. And their faces are close together – almost too close for comfort, but Tobio’s trying to prove a point right now – and Shouyo’s jaw has dropped now. Tobio almost wants to do the same to him, to but a palm to his chin and forced his mouth closed, but then that mouth is on his and he forgets literally everything that’s led up to this moment.

Shouyo tastes like powdered sugar. He tastes too sweet and yet it’s not enough, as if it’s not as sweet as Tobio’s expecting. And his lips move hungrily, like he’s desperately trying to find the same sweetness on Tobio’s lips, but Tobio isn’t a dumbass and hasn’t had his face covered in baking supplies (though he has been sneaking cookie dough when Shouyo isn’t looking). Tobio’s entire body tenses for a millisecond, trying to recall if he’s the one who instigated this but he doesn’t think so because his eyes are opened and Shouyo’s are closed. And so he wraps an arm underneath Shouyo’s legs and places him on the counter, and his fingers knot in Shouyo’s hair, desperate and hot in the warm kitchen, and their lips press against each other’s roughly, like this is all either of them have wanted.

Shouyo moves to pull away from the kiss but Tobio chases his lips, chases the feeling he’s been so desperate to learn since the end of their first game, since the first time he’s seen Shouyo really fly on the court. (He initially worried that maybe he was gay for birds, but he’s just gay for boys who can jump. It’s a relief, really.)

“Tobio,” Shouyo sighs out, and between each syllable is another peck of the lips, another moment where Tobio’s trying to memorize the imprint of Shouyo’s mouth on his own. “Cookies.” Tobio ignores him. Shouyo’s hands meet Tobio’s shoulders and give a weak shove. “Cookies,” he repeats, and that’s when Tobio hears it – the sound of the oven timer going off. He forces his lips away from Shouyo’s with more effort than he assumed it would take, and quickly he’s pulling out sheets of cookies and setting them on the counter to cool. And Shouyo’s waiting expectantly for him on the counter across the room, and this time it’s Tobio who initiates it, and Shouyo’s left following along.

When they finally force themselves away from each other for more than a half second to inhale a sharp suck of breath, they’re panting and red-faced and Shouyo’s hair is tangled and there’s flour dripping down Tobio’s hair to the back of his shirt. He shakes the rest of it out into Shouyo’s lap, and Shouyo squeals and squirms, laughing and trying to push Tobio away from him. “Stop it, stop it!” he’s wheezing, and Tobio’s laughing – he’s laughing at this – and he doesn’t know that he’s ever been happier than this.

“You dumped it on me!” Tobio replies, through laughs and gentle nudges and kisses, oh god Shouyo’s kissing him again and he nearly faints. He forgets all about the cookies, damn the cookies, damn the cupcakes they need to make later because Shouyo’s lips are the only sweet thing he ever wants to taste again, and he’s probably being a melodramatic horny teenager but damn it all if that’s not what he wants. To be a melodramatic horny teenager with a short boyfriend who can also fly and is just as stupid as him.

He sighs past Shouyo’s lips. Of all the people he could have been gay for, it had to be a stupid idiot jumping bean.

The baking process goes decently smoother in the afternoon, considering their rough start in the morning with spilled sugar and cups of flour and the subsequent cookie-dough fight that happened after they finally parted their lips for more than a minute and a half. Tobio surveys the damage – there are still globs of cookie dough sticking to various bits of cabinetry and a piece even managed to get stuck to the corner of the television – and he sighs. But Shouyo’s arms are around his waist, trying to grab the bowl of cake mix from his hands, and Tobio thinks that the efforts to clean will be completely worth it for the opportunity to kiss the boy clinging to him.

Once he finishes mixing, he holds the spoon over his shoulder for Shouyo to lick it, then licks the spoon himself. “Gross,” Shouyo whines. “I just licked that!”

“My tongue was literally in your mouth two minutes ago,” Tobio deadpans back, and Shouyo laughs.

And Tobio doesn’t have to refrain from swallowing that laugh with a kiss.

[hawkbucks]

Bucky and Steve’s entire friendship starts when Bucky spots Steve reading a Captain America comic on the playground, promptly sits down next to him, and goes: “You like Captain America? He’s cool, but I think Winter Soldier is better.” Steve, of course, is offended that this kid has the audacity to imply someone is better than his beloved Captain, so they argue about the finer points of the Captain and the Soldier, discussing their actions at such depth that you’d forget they’re just a couple of 3rd graders with scraped knees and wild hair. At the end, they agree to come to the conclusion that the Captain and the Soldier are equally as cool. Whenever they’re able–a.k.a when Bucky saves up enough of his allowance to afford a few issues for him and Steve (because, as much as Steve protests against Bucky buying him things, Bucky knows he wants that Falcon issue)–they head down to the comic store around the corner from their school run by a kindly man named Abraham. Abraham slips them snacks sometimes: bags of chips, candy bars, etc. If they prove they’re doing good at school, they also get free books. Tables and chairs are scattered around the store, usually reserved for the game nights that the store hosts, but Abraham allows them to do their schoolwork on those tables. They try to draw out their visits as long as they can, because they just love exploring the store, and Abraham is such a good guy, you know? One day, when Steve is over at Bucky’s house and they’re watching cartoons, Steve gets an idea. He turns to Bucky and proclaims that they should open up a store together. It’ll be the best store ever! Bucky sagely nods before he runs off to grab a notebook and pencils to plan it. Their store looks as follows: 3 stories at the minimum, and there’ll be a slide leading from each floor to the one below. They’ll have cool statues to put on display, a gigantic collection to sale, and a pyrotechnics display at the cash register at Bucky’s suggestion. And they’ll make a lot of money. It’ll be the best store ever.

Unfortunately, said best store ever ends up being pushed to the back burner once they realize that opening and managing a business isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially for a couple of kids. “We’ll just do it later, when we’re grown ups,” Steve says, and Bucky agrees. They grow older. Steve turns from the shortest kid on the playground to the guy that people have to crane their necks up to talk to (Bucky teases him and says that he’s become the real life Captain America. Steve retorts that that makes Bucky the Winter Soldier), and Bucky grows his hair out, looking more and more like a hipster everyday (which he vehemently denies. “Where’s your manbun?” “I will smack you.”). Interests come and go, but they still find themselves stepping into Abraham’s shop. Abraham’s older now, grayer, but he still slides them Snickers every once in a while.   Bucky ends up enlisting in the army to help pay for his tuition while Steve goes to art school to get a degree in illustration. An incident with an IED later, and Bucky comes home with an honorable discharge and an empty left sleeve. Steve visits him as often as he can, usually filling in the gaps when Bucky’s own family isn’t over. Sometimes Natasha (a girl they befriended in middle school after she came dressed as Black Widow for Halloween) and Sam (a boy they got to know during freshman year of high school when he complimented Bucky on his prime taste in superheroes because of the Falcon button pinned to his backpack) drop in, with Natasha keeping him company by watching trashy reality TV with him and Sam listening to him vent and offering a shoulder if he ever needs one. Hell, Abraham sends him a card through Steve when he heard about what happened. (He ends up getting all of them gift baskets as thanks for being there. Sam tries to decline his at first, but the lure of raspberry tarts was too strong.) One day, Steve comes over with Indian takeout and turns on some good ol’ History Channel. “Speaking of history,” Steve says in between bites of naan, “do you remember that store we wanted to open when we were younger?” Hit with that blast from the past, Bucky nods. He doesn’t have the notebook that they used when they first came up with the idea, but he stills remembers the basics of what they put down. Like the pyrotechnics display that he wanted. Steve asks if he’s still open to the idea, and Bucky replies, around a mouthful of rogan josh, that he is. It’s… been a while since he’s gotten out of his apartment to do something other than shop for groceries, pop into the Chinese restaurant right next to the building, or visit the doctor for those couple of appointments about him possibly getting a prosthetic, courtesy of some company that’s looking to do test runs of their new line. A whole bunch of Googling and Binging and Yahoo Answers-ing and they think they might have a slight idea of how to start a business. Slight is the operative word here. Like with many things, they end up going to Abraham for help. Abraham is a godsend, answering all of their questions and offering to point his customer base their way once he closes up shop for good (Steve may or may not have gotten a bit misty-eyed hearing about Abraham’s inevitable retirement). Fast forward, and their shop is open. Steve drew up the logo (gotta put that degree to use somehow), while Bucky was the one who came up with the interior design (and no pyrotechnics displays). Natasha and Sam are hired, with both of them helping to run their social media presence. They get a decent amount of people at their grand opening despite their location being slightly out of the way, and apparently those people liked their experience because they end up getting a handful of regulars, most notably some guy named Clint that Natasha claims to know, a pair of Norwegian brothers named Thor and Loki that Sam swears are actual gods, a timid PhD student named Bruce, and a woman named Carol and her girlfriend, Maria who are the biggest Captain Marvel fangirls that they’ve ever met. Their popularity grows–especially after Abraham closes–and they soon find themselves making a healthy bit of profit. Healthy enough that they’re able to decorate their shop more (Natasha insists that they place a life-sized statute of Black Widow near the front doors) and they tack-on other things, like shirts and posters and snacks to sell. Bucky gets his prosthetic somewhere around the first month that they’ve been open. It’s a wickedly shiny silver, and Steve suggested that he place a red star sticker on his wrist (because his shoulder isn’t visible 99.9% of the time) to represent Bucky’s favorite hero, and Bucky actually does that. Sometimes people ask to touch it. He lets them. Sometimes people ask what happened. He deflects them. At some point, a guy walks in with ruffled hair and glasses and Bucky nearly chokes on the soda that he’s drinking. Sure, they’ve had their fair share of cute customers, but that guy’s cute, and he’s gonna end up making a fool of himself. It’s not like he can ask Steve to talk instead because Steve just went out on his damn lunch break. He tries not to stare at the guy as he peruses the shelves and rifles through the boxes of back issues they have set out in the middle of the floor. He tries really, really hard, taking his phone out and scrolling through whatever social media website and liking the replies to their posts. Every once in a while, he glances at the door, half-expecting Steve to walk in at any time.

Then the guy (now dubbed Cutie in Bucky’s mind) comes up and he smiles at Bucky in greeting and Bucky would probably sob if that wouldn’t make him come off as a complete weirdo. Cutie hauls up a veritable stack and places it on the counter. Despair courses through Bucky’s veins when he sees the Captain America comic on top, because he could do so much better. “Mmm, I’m just getting those because my friend likes Captain America,” Cutie says and oh, shit, did he say that out loud? “I’m partial to Iron Man myself.” “Iron Man’s cool an’ all,” Bucky replies, somehow managing to keep himself from running out the front door and never looking back, “but he’s not my favorite.” Cutie’s eyes flick down to the red star sticker on his wrist. “Let me guess: Winter Soldier?” Bucky clicks his tongue. “Yup.” Cutie laughs, and it’s a really nice sound that Bucky wouldn’t mind hearing again. When he’s finished ringing Cutie up, he mentions the membership that they have going and how members have a pull list and would he like to sign up?  Mentally, he crosses his fingers that Cutie says yes because it would be a shame if he only got to see him once in his life. A damn, damn shame.

So, he should be thankful that Cutie says yes and he finds out that Cutie’s name is actually Tony and Tony just moved from Malibu and it was his friend James–whom he calls Rhodey–that recommended this place to him. (He goes through a list of James in his head, and figures that it most likely is James Rhodes, who also happens to be a member. He should send him a gift basket.)

Tony ends up leaving around the same time Steve comes back from his lunch break, and Steve must have this sort of sixth sense because he sends Bucky a knowing, amused look.

Tony drops by every 2nd and 4th Wednesday, and it’s always at 12:40 PM, give or take a few minutes. His pull list isn’t particularly long–or at least, it isn’t something that he needs to drop in twice a month for, but Bucky’s not going to complain, not when he’s able to see the way Tony’s eyes sparkle when the topic crosses over to a story arc that he’s passionate about or the way the tip of his tongue pokes out between his lips when he becomes engrossed in what he’s reading. They swap stories, with Bucky finding out that Tony used to be in the robotics club when he was in high school and how his father used to tell him that comics were all “bullshit,” so that threw him off of them for a bit. He always asks Bucky if he recommends something before he leaves, if he saw that episode of Game of Thrones, or if he’s simply feeling okay.

Tony’s visits last longer and longer and longer, until it’s basically just him and Bucky talking for hours on end, their topics ranging from comic cons to what they had for dinner last night. (Steve laments how he’s always the one stuck helping customers because he doesn’t have the heart to interrupt him and Tony when they look so concentrated on each other. He begs Bucky to just ask Tony out already because he can’t take it anymore.)

Bucky ends up asking Tony out on accident. Y’see, Tony was excitedly talking about the movie adaption of Iron Man that’s supposed to be coming out soon, and Bucky blurted out that he wouldn’t mind taking Tony out to see it, just the two of ‘em and some popcorn.

Tony says that he’d love to, and Bucky wonders if he should thank Steve for going out to lunch those few months ago.

[hyunjilicious]

Happy Birthday (College AU)

A/n: This isn’t edited but i’m so so happy i got this done!!!!

Summary: Yn and Shawn broke up 2 months ago, but her when her birthday come around, things changed.

I hope you’ll like this, feedback makes my day! Enjoy! Love ya!

-

Your ears buzzed heavily as you stared into the bartenders eyes, your mind, for whatever reason, now completely blank. Despite realizing you had been asked a question and that people were waiting for an answer, you just found yourself at a loss for words. Something was surely going on inside your mind, but you still couldn’t quite put your finger on it. “Just plain vodka” Danielle yelled, leaning across the bar. Her loud voice and the way she pushed you aside to talk to the bartender in order to hear him over the loud music at the party, brought you back to reality. “Shit” you groaned, rubbing your forehead, “I’m sorry” “That’s ok” she laughed, talking to you over her shoulder as she waited for the shots she just ordered, “You alright?” “Yeah, I’m fine” you answered, shaking your head. You obviously weren’t, but it was your birthday party, everyone canceled at the last minute and now it was just you and your best friend, so you didn’t want to let anything ruin your night. That whole attitude changed after taking what was probably the 5th shot in the last 2 hours, and at this point, it was very unlikely for thoughts to cross your mind without you vocalizing them, “Shawn didn’t text me” you said, without looking at anyone in particular. “What?” Danielle yelled, leaning closer to you so she could hear what you had to say. “Shawn didn’t text me happy birthday” you repeated, this time not looking at her either.

Her whole expression changed, not displaying curiosity anymore, but just disappointment - in you for caring, not in Shawn for forgetting. “Hun, you two broke up two months ago” she said, placing a hand on your lower back, “He doesn’t really have to do that anymore, does he?” “Of course he doesn’t” you scoffed, “But that’s not the point” “Then what is it?” she asked, even if you could tell she wasn’t too excited about this topic. “We ended things on good terms, I thought he would send me-” you mumbled, before shaking your head and blinking a few times, “Screw this, I don’t know if he forgot or if he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. So I won’t let it bother me” “That’s my girl” Danielle yelled, throwing herself around you for an honest hug. “Let’s find some cute guys to dance with” You nodded in response, allowing her to take your hand and guide you through the sea of people. Eventually,  the two of you stumbled across a group of people your age, who turned out to be close to decent. While Danielle found in less than 10 minutes a guy to cling to, you were far from letting anyone even approach your personal space. There was this dude called Finn, who talked to you about how wasted his friends had gotten mere hours before, and then proceeded to explain to you in the most cringe and poetic way just how beautiful you were, and to be fair, he was starting to get to you. He seemed like a decent guy. Despite rocking what was probably considered the appearance of a greek god, his cuteness what was ended up drawing you to him. Or maybe the alcohol you ingested had something to do with how much you all of a sudden liked him, but we’ll fail to mention that. “Come on” Finn pleaded, holding a hand out to you as he kept his glass close to his chest with the other, “I embarrassed myself enough, save me from having to dance to Hips Don’t Lie by myself!” Leaning your head to the side, you smiled at him, ready to take his hand when your phone buzzed. “I’ll save you in a minute” you giggled, grabbing your phone, and unlocking it only to have the contents of the screen wipe your smile away. You looked at the time, it was 11:43pm and here it was - late, in typical Shawn Mendes style - the text you had been waiting for all night. When you saw his name in the notification box, you actually wondered what the hell went through your head when you were sad he hadn’t texted. Now that he did, you felt lost. He sent the birthday message on WhatsApp. His last seen was immediately after sending the text, but your heart was still pounding, even if he wasn’t in the conversation anymore. Without bothering to leave the dance floor, you started reading it. “Hey, Y/n, I hope you didn’t think for a second that I forgot about your birthday. I’m pretty sure you’re silently judging me for being late tho, and I’m also pretty sure you cracked a smile reading this part, because it’s true. It is late. I’m sorry about that. I’m just gonna go straight to the point and tell you that I’m typing this on a day that’s very special. It marks yet another year that has passed where you, out of the pure kindness of your heart, worked on making everybody’s day a bit better. That’s just you, it’s the way you wear you heart on your sleeve, it’s the way you put people first and it is, simply, you. You’re a beautiful soul, and the day where I won’t be thankful for knowing you, will never come. I look at myself and I like what I see. Despite trying so hard to move on, every time I look in the mirror, I see a little bit of you, because you helped me grow, and even if it’s hard, I love it, because again, it’s you. One of the things that I admire the most about you is how you stop and put yourself in other people’s shoes, take their pain away and form your sentences in a way that even their deepest, darkest wounds start to heal. And the best part? You have no idea you have this power. I spent months by your side, admiring your courage, but what made me fall madly in love with you was just how oblivious you were to all the good you were going. It’s simply who you are and that’s why my feelings will never truly go away. I am thankful for you, and for who you are as a person, so I want to wish you the happiest of birthdays, because god knows, you deserve it.” “Thank you. You almost made me cry” you typed, and hurried to lock your phone. With a deep ache in the middle of your chest, you wrapped your arms around your middle, and took a deep breath as this was not something you knew how to deal with. Even if the party was still going strong around you, Shawn and everything he meant to you, took over your mind, and you only realized what was going on when droplets of tears fell against the skin of your forearms. “Nvm, I’m actually crying” you texted, then stuffed your phone back in your pocket and covered your face with your palms. Looking through your fingers, you saw Danielle making out with some random guy a few meters away from you, while Finn, who moments before actually seemed interested in you, now had his tongue down some chicks throat. You actually considered leaving, but it was your party and there was only one guest. There wasn’t much you could do. So, you sucked it up and pretended nothing happened. You didn’t even bother to hide your tears and swollen eyes, everyone was too drunk to care. The night ended much, much later; the sun had risen and Danielle was still feeling the music. A disappointingly long while later, you two found yourselves in a taxi, headed over to your place. When you made the plans for the party, you invited her to sleep over, so you couldn’t back out now and send her home. The next day, you woke up at around 4pm, and after a healthy round of gossip to nurture your hangovers, she finally headed home. Despite the throbbing head ache that was torturing your brain and against your better judgement, you picked up your phone and checked the conversation with Shawn, only to see a few unopened texts from him. He had started by asking how you were celebrating your birthday, and ended by assuming you were in the middle of the best night of you life, hence the lack of replies. You giggled at how off he was. Even if you probably shouldn’t have, you responded to him. It took a few seconds for him to text back, and the way your conversation started flowing was truly painful. You really missed him. “Any chance you’re in Toronto?” you asked, and cursed yourself the second you sent the text. “Summer job” “I work at that comic book store just outside campus. Not leaving the city anytime soon” “I’m so bad at this, my boss is probably gonna fire if I look at her the wrong way. No chance in hell I’m taking any time off” You bit your lip as you typed your response, “Shit, I just remembered I didn’t get the July issue of the TWD comic, any chance you guys have it?” “Only two copies left. Hurry” There was no doubt in your mind that this was probably the worst idea you’ve had in months, but as you brushed your hair and applied your mascara, you didn’t bother to think of any possible repercussions. You took an Uber and 20 minutes later you found yourself in front of that comic book store, amused with how many times you said you’d check it out and with the circumstances that now brought you here. You thought about what you were going to say to him the when you saw each other, but now that you were mere moments away from actually doing it, you really wanted to back out. Your phone buzzed, “Y/n, the windows are tinted, not painted. I can see you standing there like a weirdo lol” said Shawn’s text. ’Fuck’, now you had to walk inside. Saving you from any further embarrassment, Shawn opened the door, and greeted you with his arms open, “Hey, stranger” “Nice hat” you laughed, hugging him for what was probably the most nerve wracking second of you life. “It’s ruining my curls” Shawn sighed, walking you inside. “Oh no” you mocked, “Shawn Mendes without his curls…”. You trailed off, taken aback by the looks of the inside of the store, “I can see why you’re bad at this” you laughed, “There are more books here than I’ve heard of in my entire life” “Wait till some dude comes in, and goes like ‘I’m looking for that comic, with the dude with an eye patch, that’s always dressed in blue and who’s looking for his long lost twin’” he shook his head, walking behind the counter. “God” you laughed, “Is that even a thing?” “Probably not” Shawn chuckled, “But I wouldn’t know anyway. I always call my colleague, Mike, he knows everything.” “You like working here?” you asked, walking over to him, and leaning on the other side of the counter with your elbows pressed against its glass surface. Shawn placed his hand on the side of his face, and mouthed a truthful, ‘I hate it’, “The money’s ok though” “Wouldn’t have seen you make such sacrifices last semester” you giggled. “I’m a changed man” he shrugged with a devilish smirk. “For the better?” “You tell me!” “Only you can know that, Shawn” you smiled. “Listen” he said, “My shift ends in 20 minutes, maybe we can go grab something to drink and talk?” “About?” you asked, your heart starting to pound. Shawn took a deep breath, and after shaking his head, he took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair, “Maybe about how I started drinking at noon on your birthday and went to sleep to sober up before texting you” “Shawn, I-” “Or maybe talk about why you’re here, because honestly?” he sighed, “It’s giving me hopes, and I thought I wanted you to come, but now I think I’m just playing myself” “Shawn, stop” you sighed, grabbing his hat, and starting to play with it in your hands only to stop them from shaking, “You’re not playing yourself, it was my idea to come here, ok?” “And why did you?” he asked cautiously. “Because-” you started but were interrupted by a group of kids storming inside the store. As most of them ran through the isles looking for god knows what, one girl walked over to Shawn, “Hi, sorry, can you help me” “I can try” he smiled, tapping his back pocket, probably getting ready to call his friend and ask for help. You couldn’t help but giggle to yourself. “What are you looking for?” Shawn asked the little girl. “My boyfriend broke his arm yesterday, and my mom is taking me to see him, and he likes Batman, so I thought I’d buy him a figurine or something” Hearing her words, your head snapped towards Shawn, who was already looking at you, pure awe in his eyes. He went to the back of the store and started rummaging through the shelves, as you and the girl made small talk. “I only have 3 dollars and 50 cents” she said, “I hope you guys have cheap stuff here” When Shawn came back, he laid on the counter about 15 different figurines, all nicely shaped and beautifully painted. Finally deciding which one to get, the little girl picked the toy up, and asked how much it was. Seeing the price tag read $19, you hurried to answer her before Shawn did, “It’s your lucky day, it’s 2.99” “Sweet” she exclaimed, handing Shawn the money, and then heading out of the store along with her friends. As you fished the remaining $16 dollars out of your pockets, which by the way were surely going to leave a whole in your budget, Shawn spoke up, “I’m so in love with you” “Shut up” you rolled your eyes and chuckled as you handed him the money. “I’m not taking it” he shrugged. “Don’t make me fight you!” you threatened, starting to walk around the counter. “I’m so scared right now” he mocked you, taking ridiculously small steps back. “Come on, Shawn” you belted, “Take the money” “Nope” “So be it” you rolled your eyes, still giggling. You walked past him, which was suspiciously easy as he didn’t put up any kind of fight, and tried to open the cash register. “Fuck” you sighed, realizing you didn’t have the key to open it outside of a purchase. “Clearly you haven’t worked a day in your life, princess” Shawn taunted, grabbing your waist and pulling you with your back against his chest. Still laughing at your antics, he bend down and allowed his breath to fan over the skin of your ear, “I love you” Remaining in his hold, you looked up. You could still see him out of the corner of your eye, as he was looking at you with a wide smile on his lips. “I love you too, Shawn” you said eventually. “Fuck, yes” he exclaimed, leaning down to kiss you. He went in lewdly, his tongue brushing against your bottom lip as he squeezed you tighter in his arms. Not surprisingly, you proved to be just as eager, spinning around in his hold to grab his cheeks, as you finally allowed his tongue to meet yours in a battle of dominance, which you proudly and most likely, for the first time, won. “Shit” he sighed, after pulling away, “I missed this” “Me too” you agreed, and changed your whole attitude in a second, determined to make sure that if you were going to get back together, this time things were going to be different, “Better time management, ok?” “I promise, baby” Shawn nodded without hesitation. “You don’t push me away when shit gets difficult and I won’t get jealous that easily anymore, ok?” “Babe” he said, shaking his head, “I promise to bother you with all of my problems everyday for the rest of my life. And you  can be as jealous as you want, you didn’t even cross any lines, but I was too blind to see that” “That’s ok” you mumbled, knowing very well you crossed many lines during your relationship, every time out of pure insecurity as he never actually gave you any reasons to get jealous. “We’ll both work on things” “Ok, so…” he whispered, leaning down towards your lips again, “Does this mean I got my girl back?” “Always” you smiled, reaching on your tip toes to kiss him.

[w-k-smith]

Welcome to “Don’t Go to the Netherworld!” a Beetlejuice the Musical the Musical the Musical AU.

Beetlejuice - half-ghost, half-demon - has spent his entire afterlife in the Netherworld and works as the beleaguered assistant to Juno, his demonic bureaucrat mother. He thinks he’ll be stuck and miserable until doomsday, then a living girl breaks into the Netherworld in search of her dead mom. Beetlejuice promises to help Lydia Deetz, so long as she summons him to the living world once they’re done. Unfortunately, the best-laid plans of goths and ghosts often go downhill toward sandworms, dead boy bands, family drama, and worst of all, introspection.

It’s showtime!

Hey - feel free to check this out on AO3, where I’m w_k_smith. The original version of this post included links, but tumblr hides all my posts that have links in them, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Chapter One: “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” (6/19/20) Chapter Two: “Worm Welcome” (upcoming) Chapter Three: “Ghost to Ghost” (upcoming) Chapter Four: “To Beetle or not to Beetle?” (upcoming)

Warning: This story contains depictions of, references to, and discussion of topics like suicide, untimely death, abuse, and body horror - you know, like the musical does (though this probably has more). Know your boundaries, and stay safe.

First chapter under keep reading!

He was so relieved when the red alert exploded through the office, making every demon caseworker jump. He’d spent the past few hours cutting up the files Juno had given him into paper dolls, but even yards upon yards of multiheaded creatures got boring after a while. He magicked the dolls into running out of Juno’s office into the caseworker bullpen, and when that got no reaction, he’d made the dolls stand in crude positions and then cannibalize each other, but even that barely got a few snarls of “Get back to your own work, Beetlejuice.”

But red alerts were like fire alarms. Not only did they break up the day, but you also got to look at a fire.

“What asshole let the living person in?” he yelled, walking out of Juno’s office. He got his own too-small desk in a little reception area in front of her inner office. Officially, he was the Assistant to the Director of Netherworld Customs and Processing, but he was a glorified secretary. Most of his days were spent spinning his wheels or making the whiners who came to see Juno sit and wait until they gave up and went away.

He guessed his position as Juno’s half-demon assistant should have felt like a privilege, if he didn’t otherwise hate every aspect of the Netherworld. He got a desk and walls, while the full-demon caseworkers crammed their knife-fingers, pumpkin heads, flippers, and musty burlap bodies filled with bugs into an open-plan workspace. And the dead people who hung around had to make themselves busy wherever they found the space.

Right now everybody, demon and human alike, had scattered

“Out of the way, Beetlejuice!” the receptionist snapped, sprinting by in the high heels she’d died in, making them her only footwear from now until doomsday. She’d had another name once, but the MISS ARGENTINA sash across her torso had become a nametag a long time ago.

“Yeah, Miss A, better get to ’em before Juno does!” he said, yanking up his sagging pants.

“Care to help?” she snapped before rounding the corner.

He didn’t bother to respond. She’d asked knowing the answer would be “no.” Even if he thought it would make a difference, why should he? Sure, the living didn’t know crossing into the Netherworld meant they’d be chased down and probably killed by a screechy demon with a neck slit and horrible fashion sense. But hey. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

He didn’t see Juno around. Not yet, anyway. He was sure he’d hear her, once things went south for the trespasser.

Someone he didn’t recognize crept around the corner Miss Argentina hadn’t turned. The living girl stuck out like a raw steak at a vegan salad bar. Her face was flushed, and sweat glued her bangs to her forehead. Geez, he missed sweating. She walked without the weight of the underworld on her shoulders. And she was goth, with a dyed black bob, a black dress, and chunky black boots – very overdressed. Most of the recently deceased turned up in hospital gowns, sweatpants, Greek life t-shirts, or, best/worst, nothing at all. Few had the right combination of luck and irony to die in funeral garb.

He ducked behind a pillar in the bullpen before the living girl saw him. She licked her lips, looked left and right and left again, obviously no plan in mind…

And she ran into Juno’s office.

Oh. Oh oh oh this was just too good. Today was not going to be boring. Today might be his luckiest day of all.

He strode to Juno’s office door, walked through, and slammed it shut behind him.

“Do you have a death wish?” he asked the kid.

He was aware of the effect he had on living people…and a lot of dead people…and anyone and anything with even the memory of a digestive system. Today his hair was a dark green that verged on purple, his moss and stubble blended together nicely, and the caterpillar behind his right ear was busy spinning a cocoon.

The kid didn’t act freaked out or disgusted. She straightened her shoulders and said: “You have to hide me.”

He leaned against the door. “Do my ears deceive me?” He pulled his left ear out to arm’s length, and let it snap back like a rubber band. “Or is the girl running for her life making demands?”

“I came here for my mom. I can’t leave until I find her.”

“She isn’t here, Siouxsie Sioux. You’re the first living person who’s snuck in for the past decade.”

“My mom is dead. She died a few months ago. I have to find her, and bring her home. Well, to Connecticut, because my dad made us move to Connecticut, but then when he sees her, he’ll snap out of it, and we’ll go back to our actual home!” Desperation, denial. Maybe she was prepared to blend in with the newlydeads.

“Lemme get this straight – you, still alive and kicking, jumped into hell to find someone who has been dead for a while and bring them home with you? And you thought you could just do that? That this kind of violation of the natural order wasn’t going to rain down all kinds of shitfire and brimstone?”

“I knew there might be trouble.” She set her jaw. “I just didn’t care.”

He grinned. “Ah. Moxie. You’re pretty luck you decided to hide in my office.” He floated over his desk, crossed his legs, and pressed his fingers together. “I have a proposition. Quid pro quo, if you will.”

The kid gave him an extremely skeptical look. “You want me to make a deal with a demon?”

“Half demon, and what I’m asking for is a favor. Just a little, bitty thing.” He held his fingers a millimeter apart. “I’ll hide you. Keep the heat off. Distract the fuzz and frame your dog for eating your homework and tell the collection agents you aren’t home. And then, when you get back to the world of the living…you’ll say my name. Three times.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I’ll…what?”

“It’ll summon me. So I can be a part of the living world! At least for a while. And not be stuck in this trash fire.” He grimaced. “No, that’s not fair. Sometimes trash fires are fun. I should know; I’ve set a lot of them.”

Her frown deepened. “I don’t know…”

“Beetlejuice!” came a familiar roar. “Get out here right now!”

“Under the desk!” he told the kid, jumping to his feet.

“Don’t talk to me like –!”

“UNDER THE DESK!” he roared, drawing himself up a few extra feet, and opening his mouth to show multiple rows of teeth.

That did the trick. The kid dove under the desk, and he was glad her dress was black, because it blended in with the shadows and the dark stone of the floor.

Juno opened the door a second later, smoke and steam trickling from her neck slit. Her beehive quivered. Per usual, her red skirtsuit hung off her like loose skin, and she was pushing the walker she didn’t need ahead of her.

“Lawrence Beetlejuice Shoggoth, do you have anything to do with this?” she growled.

“To do with what?” he asked. “The red alert? It sure brightened up my total lack of morning. I won’t name names, but someone in the bullpen jumped out their skin. Literally, the scales are still on the floor.”

A bony finger was extended his way. “I know about your little obsession with the living world. Why do you think I watch you so closely? You are one more misstep from being banished between life and death, how do ya like that? Do you want to spend eternity watching your precious breathers without anyone able to hear or see you?”

Ah. That old chestnut. “No, Ma,” he said, settling onto the floor.

“If I hear that this was your handiwork…”

“…My entrails will decorate the lobby. Yeah, yeah, heard it all before.”

She flicked her wrist, and knocked him over the desk. He tumbled head over heels, and landed on his face. It goddam hurt, because his mother could always hurt him. He made sure he hit the ground with a comical splat sound so the kid wouldn’t panic and give the game away. When he looked up, the girl’s eyes were wide and fearful.

“How about this?” He stood up, and brushed his sleeves off. “That red alert was because some dumbass living human came into the Netherworld, right? And I can tell you didn’t catch them, because there’s more steam coming out of you than usual. I’ll go looking for the human. I’ll prove to you I didn’t do it.”

She crossed her arms, and drummed her fingers on her elbows. “Hmm…when you put it that way…this would be an excellent way for you to demonstrate the potential for more responsibility, and – I DON’T CARE. Just stay out of the way.”

Coming from Juno, that was a sappy “I love you.” She stormed out of the office, and he waited until the rattling of her heels faded out of earshot before he bent down to check on the kid.

“You have to get the hell out of here,” he told the goth girl curled up under his desk.

“That was your mother?” she asked.

“She’s my boss, too. She’s a demon; she doesn’t get me. I’d take my considerable skills elsewhere, but, y’know, it’s toe the line or get wedged between life and death forever. How did a living twelve-year-old wind up in the Netherworld, anyway?”

“I’m fifteen!” she said, standing up. “And that’s none of your business.”

“It is so my business, if we’re going to get you to the land of the living so you can take me with you. What did you do? Black magic? Séance?”

“I, um…” She gave him a hard look before continuing. “I found a book.”

“A book? Really? Which book?” Most living world books wouldn’t tell you jack about the Netherworld. Concepts like limbo or the bardo came close, but…

“Handbook for the Recently Deceased,” the kid said.

For several seconds, all he could do was stare at her. Her expression became grossly fascinated.

“Your eyeballs are falling out of their sockets,” she said.

He shoved them back in, and shook his head to clear it. “How did you get the Handbook, kid?”

She crossed her arms. “My name is Lydia. And I found it.”

“Found it where?”

“Your sister’s sock drawer.” She glared at him. “Look, it doesn’t matter where I found it, but I found it, and the first chapter said you could get to the land of the dead by drawing a door and knocking three times. So I did that, and I tried to blend in by joining this line of dead people, but we went through a metal detector or something, and all these alarms started going off, so I ran.”

Her story had a gaping hole in it in the shape of the fact that she couldn’t have opened the Handbook unless she was recently deceased, which she wasn’t. A ghost had to have shown her the book and let her through the door, which was a big no-no. Obviously, she wasn’t going to give up her source.

He didn’t care. In fact, he was delighted that they were still teaching living teenagers that snitches got stitches.

“Fine,” he said. “I can get you back, but when you do –”

“I have to say your name three times?”

“You have to say my name three times.”

She sat on his desk. “Which name? That Juno lady called you a lot of things.”

And Juno had cursed him so he couldn’t say it. For the same reason people on house arrest couldn’t unlock their ankle bracelets.

“I’ve got a card somewhere,” he muttered. He reached into his jacket, and handed her the little business card.

“ ‘2nd Street Dermatology – You’ve Got Us Under Your Skin’?” she read.

“Wrong card!” He grabbed it back, and plunged his hands deep in his pants pockets. There was so much junk in the way. “Hold this,” he said, handing Lydia a skull, a xylophone, a planchette – “Here!”

He took his stuff back, and she read the card. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?”

He nodded.

“If I say this in the living world, it’ll bring you there?”

“In two shakes.”

“So you’re like a demon.”

“Half demon, half ghost.”

“Have you been here a long time?”

He nodded.

“Then you know how to find my mom!” she said. “You can be my guide! And as soon as we’re back in the living world, I promise I’ll say your name. And you won’t have to deal with your terrible mother ever again!”

It was a nice thought.

“You can’t get your mom,” he said. “That’s just a no-go.”

Her expression soured. “No-go with you, you mean,” she said. “You don’t really want to help me? Fine. I’ll manage by myself, I guess. That’s all I’ve been doing since my mom died, anyway.” She went for the door.

He scurried after her. “Lydia, wait! We can make a deal!”

Juno would kill her. That death wouldn’t be clean or fast. And then Juno could spend as long as she wanted punishing the newlydead girl for breaking the rules.

It wasn’t pleasant to discover there were still ideas that could make him want to vomit. Besides, if she went out by herself, he’d be losing his ticket to the living world. Another few centuries slogging around the office until the next stupid, lucky teenager came by. There was no point in not seeing this through as long as he could.

He forced a grin. “OK. I’ll be your guide.”

“You’ll help me find my mom?” she asked. “That’s really possible?”

“It’s really possible.”

It really wasn’t. He could try to argue with her, and eventually, she might listen and just go home. But if he was the one who burst her bubble, she’d be less inclined to do him a favor.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll help you find your mom. And I know exactly where to head. But first – we have to make you blend in.”

*

He smuggled the tiny goth out the back way, into the empty, rocky fields where the newlydeads lined up to head into the infinite Abyss that awaited them. No poor, unfortunate souls were hanging around just then, though you had to figure that people died about every second in the living room. He had given up trying to figure out the Netherworld’s relationship with time.

He made the tiny goth sit on a crag so they’d be eye-to-eye, and started rooting around his jacket for supplies. She looked skeptical, and he couldn’t blame her.

“How do I blend in?” Lydia asked.

“You have to look dead,” he said. “If you don’t go through the sensors – nice job, by the way, hopping right in the nearest line, very subtle – no one will automatically be able to tell you’re alive. But! If anyone gets within arm’s length, you’ll get caught. You have to stop flaunting your beating heart and functioning liver.”

“So I have to look recently deceased…” she said, and chewed on her bottom lip. “Should I put fake blood all over my face? Pretend I got poisoned?” She made a choking sound. “Maybe a noose?” She yanked one hand over her shoulder and let her head loll forward.

He tried not to flinch. She didn’t know that she’d just punched below the belt. Especially since he was wearing suspenders.

“Only newlydeads carry their wounds around,” he said. “That’s a good way to tell someone’s inexperienced. Have you seen the receptionist? She acts like she knows everything, but she’s still got those slit wrists, and the carbon monoxide skin.” He snorted. “Suicides.”

“I was going to jump off the roof of our new house,” Lydia said, very quietly. “Just yesterday. I wrote a note and everything.”

“Well, then, congratulations,” he said.

“For what?”

“For outdoing yourself. Running into hell wasn’t the dumbest idea you had this week. Have some grave dirt.” He tossed a handful of mud in her face.

She coughed, and tried to brush the dirt away, but just ended up smearing it across her forehead and cheeks. “What the HELL?”

“You have to make people believe you’ve been in the ground a long time. Get some of that under your fingernails, there you go. Now slouch!” he ordered. Her shoulders sagged. “Lower! Everything in your previous life is gone! No one cried at your funeral! Stoners are making out behind your head stone!”

“I’m deeeeead,” she said, stretching out the word and adding some vocal fry. She slid off the crag, and raised her arms like a zombie. Her eyes were half-closed. “Woe is me. How I long for one more breath.”

“Very nice.” He considered, then reached out and messed up her hair. “There. Dial it back by 30% and you’re golden.”

Her eyes lit up with a fervor only living teenagers had. “Does that mean we can go?”

“Yes. But you have to follow my lead, capeesh?”

“Capeesh,” she said, and he didn’t believe her.

He snapped his suspenders. “It’s showtime! Let’s go to Saturn!”

[margoshansons]

The Killing Kind (2/?)

Summary: Y/N helps Spiderman after the hoard of reporters won’t leave him alone. Something seems familiar about him, yet she can’t quite put her finger on it. When the rally ends, she receives a surprise visitor. 

Warnings: Mentions of Panic Attacks, Small Violence, mild Tony Stark related angst

Notes: There really isn’t too much plot here, because, like the movie, it takes a while to get into everything, but everything always comes back, so pay attention.

“And Thank you Spiderman!” May called from the stage, gesturing to the webbed superhero, who gave a small thumbs up before disappearing behind the stage with May. 

(Y/n) didn’t know how May was able to contact the slinging superhero, but she was thankful she did, it helped give the shelter more credit. 

“Thank you so much for coming out” (Y/n) announced over the mic, “Spiderman will be out in a few moments for pictures and questions.”

She ignored the groans coming from the press and continued to answer as many questions as humanly possible. 

“(Y/N)!” A childish voice reached her ears as a small mass collided into her legs, arms wrapping around her hips.

“Hey, Liv,” (Y/N) responded, returning the eight-year old’s hug. “How’s Mom and Dad doing?”

The child’s face broke out into a smile, “Mommy’s great! She just got a new job, so I don’t really see her all that much, but daddy takes care of me all the time.”

A chuckle escaped (y/n)’s mouth as the little girl continued to ramble on about her new home life. 

“How about you?” Liv asked, blue eyes sparkling, “Have you found a place to live yet?”

(Y/N) froze at the question, looking around to make sure nobody was listening before leaning down. “Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

The girl’s eyes lit up at that prospect and she nodded her head vigorously. 

(Y/N) leaned closer to whisper, “I’ve found a home too,”

“Really?” The girl broke out into a wide smile, “Where? Where? Where?”

(Y/N) hesitated. She hated lying to the girl she’d come to know over the past five years, but she knew her dad was probably sneaking around her somewhere, tapping her phone to listen in on her conversation. “Um, It’s a secret right now.” (Y/N) lied guilt pooling in her stomach at the frown on the little girl’s face.

“Oh,” Liv replied, all the excitement gone.

“But!” (Y/N) continued, an idea sparking, “It’s only a secret because I’m helping spiderman, and he doesn’t want anyone knowing where he works.”

“That’s so cool!” Liv exclaimed, “I’m gonna go tell Daddy that you know spiderman!”

(Y/n) smiled as the curly hair bounced away from her, running toward a dark-haired pair conversing with several more reporters desperate to gain more knowledge of how the Blip had ruined people’s lives.  

She still couldn’t believe it had actually happened. That Tony Stark was dead. That MJ had disappeared. That the Avengers were gone. 

Well, not gone, but they certainly weren’t anywhere to be seen. Not that she could blame them. The Blip had caused so many people to doubt their own safety, to doubt what they had been exposed to. People kept crying out for help in places they didn’t need it. No wonder the Avengers wanted a break. She guessed that’s why they recruited Spiderman.  Someone to keep the neighborhood safe. 

“No-no- please, um I’m not--” a familiar voice rang through her thoughts, pulling her toward the stage. It was Spiderman. And the hounding reporters. 

“Hey!” (Y/N) called, anger rising at the crowd of reporters enclosing Spiderman. She tore through them seamlessly, breaking through them until she landed directly in front of the webbed superhero. “Spiderman will not be taking any more questions for the rest of the night. Thank you.”

She grasped his wrist, leading him away from the reporters back behind the stage once more. 

“Hey,” She asked, her anger melting into concern, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m uh, absolutely fine, why wouldn’t I be?” Spiderman’s voice sounded eerily familiar, but she shoved that thought out of her head as she grasped his other hand. 

“Don’t let them get to you” (Y/N) urged, reminded of her father’s dealings with the paparazzi, “Reporters only want one thing: a good story. And local superhero becomes next Iron Man is the only one they’re pursuing now.”

“I’m not..uh..I’m not the next Iron Man” The masked caper replied, hesitancy littering his voice. 

A small smile crossed (y/n)’s face. “That’s good to know, we need someone like you protecting our streets.”

A small chuckle left Spiderman’s mask, and (Y/N) smiled at the sound. Hardly anyone had laughed since the Blip, and it was nice to hear it from the mouth of a superhero. 

“Look,” She continued, “I gotta go, but I want you to do something for me okay?” 

Spiderman nodded. 

“Breathe in for five seconds, hold for six, and exhale for seven,” (Y/N) explained, recalling the tactic she had been using since she was eight. “I want you to do to that three times okay?”

Spiderman nodded, and she released her grip on his hands, grabbing her bag and slinging it around her shoulder. 

She turned to walk away when she recalled a long-ago conversation with her father, regarding the fate of Tony Stark and the plans he had put into place. 

“For the record!” She called back, watching him stiffen, “I think you’d make a great Iron Man.”

***

The bells had been dormant and the church empty for years before (Y/N) moved in. She knew it was the last place her father would look and the last place he expected her to be. 

After the unexpected drop in at the warehouse three months ago, she had spent the next few weeks trying to find a place her father would never think of. 

Dust flew from her feet as she landed on the ground, jumping from the scaffolding she always used to enter and exit the building. 

Grasping the duffel bag she had worn earlier, (Y/N) stuffed several shirts and jeans she was having trouble deciding upon. Since MJ wasn’t exactly the best person to ask for fashion advice, she hoped May would help make up for all those years her mother threw away when she dropped (Y/N) on her father’s doorstep. 

A chill ran through the church, sending the hairs on the back of her neck rising. She grit her teeth and set her jaw as the blue dagger manifested out of nothing. She grasped the bare handle and yelled, throwing it as hard as she could at the intruder, knowing exactly who had followed her here. 

“Well, that’s one way to greet your old man isn’t it?” Quentin Beck smirked, dodging the weapon, blue eyes gleaming. 

Part One Part Three

Hell Yes! We’ve got Beck so things are starting to heat up. Thank you guys so much for the amazing feedback and support! This is my first imagine and imagine series so this means the world to me! Don’t worry, things will start to pick up once I get these three chapters out of the way and we can start getting into the plot. Once again, Feedback is appreciated and much loved so please do that! 

Also, kudos to anyone who can catch the Spiderverse reference I dropped.

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