#honestly just dropping her in any real world situation would probably have caused her to spiral let alone this

[definedbydaylight]

“It’ll Be The Last Time” - Matty Healy x F!Reader

Part 2:

Masterlist: .°˖✧

Word Count: 2132

Warnings: angst-ish, smoking, alcohol, drugs and semi-smutty?, mostly just mentions of it, also i promise this is a Matty fic i just love George so i can’t help but add some love for him in there

Series Summary: “You’ve known Matty since you were 14 and the boy has never failed to get on your last nerve, but over the years you two end up having unexplainable moments where you can’t help but feel you two are connected in a way you’ll never feel with anyone else, until one night he tells you something that may change how you view the boy forever…”

January 13th 2011

Today is finally the day, your debut album is coming out and you should be over the moon, you should be enjoying being out with your friends celebrating, but instead all you can think about is the words Matty spoke to you last summer. You hadn’t really spoken to him since, you’d been out with all the boys since then, you really couldn’t avoid it cause somehow Kelsey and Ross were still going strong all these years later, so you’d seen Matty, you just hadn’t spoken to him past a simple greeting. The club you were at was hosting a release party for you, a small area roped off for just your group, your manager had set everything up as a surprise, you would’ve been fine with a small listening party in your flat, but Kelsey insisted you go along with the idea and enjoy your big day. Honestly she was probably more excited for the release than you were, she’d been planning your outfit for the last week, acting as if it was your wedding day.

The situation at hand felt all too familiar to you, the fact that she’d picked you out a green dress to wear only added onto the nostalgic feeling, but you could never say no to her. You’re currently downing your third dirty shirley of the night, you were over an hour into the party and there was still another 45 minutes before the album dropped and your sad music would be blaring through this club, you almost left bad for the people who came out here who didn’t know what they were about to be subjected to. George and Adam are the first of the boys to arrive besides Ross who’d come early with you and Kels, they walk over to your chosen spot in a booth in the far corner of your section, they both greet you with a hug.

“Don’t look too happy about beating us to an album now y/n!” George jokes to you.

“Oh please we all knew she’d be the first.” Adam nudges your arm. “But for real love what’s with the sulking in the corner? It looks like it’s Kels’s release party!”

All three of you look to Ross and Kelsey dancing together to whatever upbeat club song was playing at the moment, the instrumental far too loud and drowning out any words that would help you identify it, you give a small laugh.

“Just preparing myself for the world to either hate it or love it I guess, I’m ungodly nervous.” You admit to the two.

“Oh please y/n/n! ‘With Your Permission’ is going to smash, every song is a fucking tune and you know it!” George had always been the most encouraging about your music dreams.

“Everyone’s a critic though.” You reply slamming back the rest of your drink, when you look back up you see Matty entering with his girl of the week on his arm. “I need a shot! George care to join me?”

He smiles and follows you back up to the bar, you can’t see but you feel Matty’s eyes following you both as George snakes his arm around your waist guiding you through the crowd.

“4 shots of Tequila please.” You smile kindly at the bartender as he prepares the liquor for you both.

“Any particular reason for the excessive alcohol consumption?” George teases you as the shots are set in front you both.

“Killing the nerves babes.” You smile at him, it’s only a partial lie, you were trying to drown your nerves in alcohol, but it wasn’t about critics or ratings, it was about his best mate who’d drunkenly confessed his love for her just barely 5 months ago now.

“Good enough for me.” He kisses your forehead and you both shoot back two shots in each in quick succession.

Afterwards your eyes find Matty’s and you can’t read his expression like you usually could… it was going to be a long night.

2006:

George and you and had been off and on since the dance, you weren’t really official in the dating sense, but when you both got horny or felt like being romantic you knew exactly who to go to. No one in the group questioned it, you were teenagers and you had sworn to Kelsey about a thousand times that you didn’t want anything serious and she trusted your decisions. The only person who took issue with it was Matty for now obvious reasons, he never really said it but his body language and snide comments told you enough about how he felt. Especially now as you were currently sat on George’s lap at another one of your school mate Josh’s parties, his hands on your waist and one of yours playing with the ends of his hair and the other holding a cider Ross had just brought you on his way back outside from the kitchen. Your whole group was gathered around a makeshift fire pit in the backyard, the heat from the flames keeping you all warm in the crappy early english spring, you were honestly surprised it hadn’t started raining yet as you stared at the dark clouds overhead.

“I’m bored!” Kelsey interrupts the comfortable silence you all’d built up, minus the muffled party music coming from inside the house. “Ooo! Let’s play a game!”

The group groans in unison at the suggestion, but when she breaks out the puppy dog eyes at Ross he’s quick to convince everyone to agree to a drinking game.

“What game do you even have in mind?” You ask your best friend wondering what she might have up her sleeve this time.

“Let’s do never had I ever! You say something you’ve never done, and if someone in the group as done it, they have to take a shot! Adam would you be a dear and go grab us a bottle of something and a few those little plastic shot glasses I saw in kitchen? I’d make Ross do it but he’s just got back from the last trip I sent him on.” And of course no one can say no to Kelsey, so Adam nods and is off to the house.

You all set up in a little circle on the patio beside the fire pit, you’d taken your spot next to George and somehow you’d ended up directly across from Matty on the other side of the circle, his stare held on you and he nursed one of his many smokes of the night. You and Matty hadn’t spoke of what happened at the dance since that night, you’d felt bad in a way about how you’d just left him there, but he knew you liked George, his best mate, and he’d still kissed you. Adam returned with two bottles, one apple sourz and a store brand tequila, a baggie of shot glasses under one arm, behind him trailed the host Josh and you and Kelsey’s school friend Maya.

“Hope you don’t mind but I brought along some randoms to make it more interesting.” Adam says as he hands everyone a shot glass and places the alcohol in the center of the circle.

The game started innocent enough with stupid and playful “Never Have I Ever”s, everyone had taken as least 2 shots at this point, and you were all definitely starting to feel the affects of the alcohol. George had made the mistake of getting on Matty’s nerves by using a very specific embarrassing example to get him to take a shot, and what happened next didn’t help.

“Okay! Ummm.” It was Maya’s turn, and she had no clue what flood gates she was about to open, and neither did you. “Never Have I Ever… had sex…” She admitted quietly.

Ross and Kelsey both took their shot expectantly, as did Matty, you felt your face heat up as your glanced to George at your side, he quirked his eyebrow up at you as you both smiled and threw back your shots together.

“Y/N L/N!” Kelsey shouts from other side the circle. “You dirty dog! Why didn’t you tell me!?” She faked being hurt as she placed a hand over her heart.

You put your face in your hands at the new found attention from the group and leaned over into George, he sweetly rubbed your back and laughed a little at your embarrassment, but you knew it wasn’t in a mean way. The one person you expected to make a comment hadn’t spoken up at all, just sat in silence with a small smirk on his lips, something brewing in his eyes. Josh’s turn was next, then Adam, and finally it was Matty’s turn.

“Hmmm…” He feigned being deep in thought about what he’d say. “Oh! I know! Never Have I Ever kissed my date’s best mate while at a school dance.”

Silence overtook the group after he spoke, your face stilled and your heartbeat quickened as you made eye contact with him.

“That is so weirdly specific.” Maya laughs not knowing the gravity of the situation.

“Well?” Matty speaks up again. “Go ahead and take your shot June Bug.”

Everyone’s eyes were on you again, but this time it wasn’t embarrassment you left it was anger, you held your gaze on him as you took your shot.

“My turn.” You say with heat behind your words that everyone could feel.

“Umm no it’s Kels-” Josh tried to speak up before Adam slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Never Have I Ever tried to throw my best mate under the bus by telling his date all he wants from her is a ‘good shag’ before telling her I’ve always cared about you more then kissed her without thinking about the repercussions of my actions.” It’s your turn smirk at him. “Go ahead Matty…” You say drawing it out. “Take your shot.”

George is quietly fuming beside you and his grin on your waist tightens as Matty grits his teeth and takes his shot, the tension in the air is so think you could cut it with a knife, and your just glad you can tell his anger isn’t directed at you, but at the curly headed brunette.

“Jesus Christ Matty.” George mutters as he rubs his temples with his free hand. “You know if I wasn’t drunk as shit right now I would break your fucking nose.”

“Damn Matty you did not think that through.” Josh laughs trying to lighten the mood and failing.

Kelsey is watching at you as you stand up and turn to George, a worried expression on her face. “Fancy yourself a ‘good shag’ babes?” You smile at him.

He looks up at you, smiling right back. “With you? Always.” You grab his hand as he stands up, you both pass Matty as you walk to the house, but George pauses for a moment and leans down to Matty’s ear. “She’s bloody fantastic in bed by the way.”

You both enter the house taking up residence in the master bath for some privacy, meanwhile outside Ross is handing Matty’s ass to him on platter. Only Adam knew the true nature of Matty’s feelings for you, Matty didn’t open up about how he felt about these kinds of things easily, only telling Adam after he’d gotten wasted at his after the dance. Matty truly did feel bad with how he’d handled telling you about how he felt, but tonight he was drunk and high and couldn’t stop himself from being an ass after learning the George had been the one to deflower you.

“Lay off him man.” Adam tried to to speak up and Ross whips his head towards him.

“Are you kidding me! He acted liked a child and practically decided to try and ruin his relationship with not only y/n but his best mate as well in the process!” He yells, he then redirects his attention back to Matty. “What we’re you thinking Matthew!?”

Matty sat in silence now, just taking everything Ross had to throw at him, at some point before now he’d reached for the apple sourz and began to down as much as he could, feeling every emotion and yet none all at the same time. Kelsey was rubbing Ross’s back trying to get him to calm down but it wasn’t working and she eventually gave up, going to sit between Josh and Maya, trying to process the events of what just happened and why you hadn’t told her.

After several more minutes of verbal abuse from the friendly giant Matty had finally had enough. “FUCK OFF ROSS, I’M BLOODY IN LOVE WITH HER! OKAY!?”

Silence overtook the group once again, everyone finding out the truth 4 years before you did.

Part 3

a/n: okay haha idk i just got into a rhythm while writing this so idk if it’s good cause my brain cannot handle trying to check it over rn cause i have work in like an hour haha, but i’ll revise when i get home! anyway hope you all enjoy! xx

[johnkrrasinski]

started from a call

full masterlist

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x female!reader

Word count: 3,610

Warning: angst with a happy ending! that's all.

Summary: written for @wkemeup's 9k writing challenge with the prompt "character a leaves an embarrassing, drunk message on character b’s voicemail and spends the rest of the night trying to discreetly delete it from [b]’s phone." inspired by a bit of ross and rachel from friends too. you found out from steve that bucky was in love with you in high school but after he returns home with a girl in his arm, you cancelled your plans to tell him how you feel. will you and bucky have your happy ending?

a/n: please like, reblog and leave a feedback. :) enjoy!

"Alright, I'll see you tonight. Bye." He leaned against the kitchen counter and hung up the phone with a grin on his face. "You hear that, Sam? We're going on our third date tonight." He threw his phone up into the air and caught it so casually without spilling a drop of his coffee sitting on his right hand. "Looks like I'm getting that 300 bucks soon."

"Hey, easy. You ain't going to that date yet, who knows? She could bail on you. It doesn't count if the date doesn't end well."

"Oh, but it will. I just gotta turn on my charm and next thing you know, we're already meeting the parents stage."

"Meeting the parents? That's a big step from you, Buck."

"Hey, I'm a man of my words. If I said that I'm going to change this year then I'm gonna stick to it."

"So Leah isn't just a one-time thing to get 300 bucks?"

"Maybe yes, maybe no. We'll see how tonight goes. But one thing's for sure is that I'm getting that 300 bucks."

Sam and Bucky made a bet as their New Year's resolution that Bucky would never go on a second date with any girl or remember to call her in the morning after a wild night. His commitment issues had given him a reputation as the player in the gang. It wasn't a new thing anymore to anyone that when they visited Bucky's place in the morning, they would see a girl with a dopey smile and slightly ruffled hair walking out of his apartment, giddy that Bucky just made a promise to call her later.

You, Natasha, Wanda, Sam and Steve were hanging out at Nat's place. The six of you had been friends since college. You, Nat, Bucky and Steve had known each other since high school and the four of you kept in touch despite going to separate universities. You met Wanda when you went to NYU and Steve met Sam while he was in Harvard. Long story short, after the four of you graduated, you and Wanda lived together as roommates and even started your own bakery business. Steve and Bucky lived in the same building as you and Natasha and Sam lived nearly alone. They were too independent for roommates. Don't even start on Natasha and how much she valued her personal space. That's how the six of you ended up here, gathered at your place on a Saturday afternoon.

"Are you gonna pick her up tonight?"

"Of course. Gonna clean up well, bring her some flowers and knock on her door at 7 pm precisely. Which girl isn't gonna fall for that?" Bucky walked over to the couch you and Nat were sitting on and leaned on the headrest, his arms caging both you and Natasha.

You didn't say anything nor did Natasha because she knew about your feelings for Bucky. Despite never feeling that way about Bucky in high school, your feelings changed a week ago after learning that Bucky used to be in love with you but never had the courage to tell you. That's why he never had a girlfriend during his high school years and he wanted to take you to prom and confess his feelings to you but he was too late. Another guy had already snooped in first.

You were his first love but it wasn't reciprocated until now. That's why in college, he learned how to get over you and slept with as many women as possible because he felt like he lost four years of his life of finding the one. He never intended to be a player and feed girls empty promises, it just kind of became his way of dating. He was too afraid that no one could live up to you yet he enjoyed being with women. Hence, the bet.

The day you found out from Steve about Bucky's past feelings for you while playing truth or dare, you immediately wanted to call him up but Bucky was out of town for a few days and as soon as he was back home, he had Leah in his arm. Your heart was crushed. Wanda told you that it would probably last for a few days and that he'd eventually be single again but you totally did not expect this thing to turn into something serious. You loved Sam with every fibre of your being, he was like the big brother you never had, but you wanted to curse him for making that bet.

So you just rolled your eyes and stayed silent throughout this entire conversation, even though your heart felt like it was being stabbed over and over again. "Alright, I gotta go. Got a big date tonight. I'll see you guys in a few hours." Just like that, Bucky walked out of the room without knowing the pain his words caused you.

The next day you were sitting in your bed watching The Notebook in your pyjamas because you were too heartbroken to do anything productive. It was Sunday so you could just have a whole day to yourself and do absolutely nothing but cry. Wanda knocked on your door bringing a plate of cookies and she had a pitiful look on her face. "y/n? Sweetie? I made you these cookies, they might make you feel better." Sometimes you thank the stars for bringing her into your life.

"Thank you, Wanda. You're so nice to me." You know you probably sound like a hormonal whiny kid but everything made you cry at the moment.

"Do you need anything else? I know how it feels to get your heartbroken, trust me. When me and Vision had a fight and we didn't talk for days all I wanted was to curl up and never leave my bed, so in case you need anything, I'm here." She offered you that warm smile of hers.

"No, all I want right now is to just eat these cookies and go back to my film, thanks Wan."

"Okay, I'll be outside." Your pity party was interrupted when Nat arrived in her leather jacket and burst into your room.

"Get up, you are taking a shower and you're getting that face beat."

"Natasha, what the hell? Leave me alone."

"Y/N, listen to me. I got a date for you. His name is Scott and he's a real nice guy, he's funny, he's a good friend of mine and he is really smart. He is so much better than Bucky, I promise you. Now c'mon, I already told him that you are meeting him tonight at Stark's restaurant at 7."

You whined, doing anything you can to get her to leave you alone with your tears and your cookies but you knew that once Natasha set her mind on something, there's no talking her way out of it. Damn that woman with her determination.

"Y/N, c'mon! Wallowing all day isn't you. I know you and what's good for you. That's why I found you a great guy who will charm you so good that you will forget Barnes even existed. You can't let him win, y/n. If he's going to be happy with someone else, then you better show him that you can be much happier with other people."

You stared at her, trying to absorb her words. There's some wisdom in that. You're not the type to cry over a guy, not even for even Bucky Barnes. So you let Natasha drag you to the shower and asked Wanda to do your hair when she does your makeup. She chose an outfit for you, a dress that was not too sexy but chic enough to leave a good first impression.

Scott was early to the restaurant and he looked elated to see you. He was wearing a grey suit with no tie and he had a really exuberant smile on his face, the type that drew people easily. You could see why Natasha called him a nice guy.

"Wow, sorry, I just- didn't expect you to be this beautiful."

"Ah, thank you, Scott. Have you been waiting long?"

"No, not at all. I just arrived here like five minutes ago."

The night went on and Scott did most of the asking and talking, you answered each question curtly with forced enthusiasm in your face and body language. You weren't even listening to half of the things he said because your mind kept playing images of Bucky with Leah and how you heard from Sam that the date went well so he lost 300 bucks. You kept thinking about Bucky and Leah and how they would probably get married and have kids and live in the suburbs with a golden retriever while you'd still be single and you'd compare every man you meet to Bucky. Maybe it was your karma for not reciprocating his feelings in high school.

Five glasses of wine and you spent more time nodding than talking. Honestly, all you wanted to do was to just go home and go back to The Notebook because their love story was much better than your love life. Scott woke you out of your daze, "Natasha told you that I was cuter than this, did she?" after you gulped your sixth glass of wine.

"Oh Scott, I'm so sorry. It's not you, it's me. I know it sounds cliche but it's just... I'm not in a place where I'm looking for a boyfriend. You are a really likeable guy and I swear, if we had met at another time, maybe I would be a better date but right now, I just- I have someone else in my mind." You sighed, it felt like a relief to get that off your chest.

"Is this guy... an ex-boyfriend?"

You chuckled, "no... He wishes."

Scott nodded, "look, I don't know what your situation is but I've been through a divorce and it's never easy. But eventually, you'll be fine. You can't see it now because you haven't had closure." Then it was as if the bulb above your head was turned on.

"That's it.  Closure, yeah. That's all I need. Okay, give me a minute. I'm gonna call him now and I'm going to get my closure."

Scott sat there watching you comically trying to find your phone in your purse and tapped on Bucky's contact number. The normal you would be sweating with every ring but intoxicated you had no worries in the world... For now.

"This is Bucky. Can't pick up right now, leave a message." Beep.

"Hello, yes, Bucky! Or James, should I call you James? I always thought Bucky was a weird name. Anyways, I'm just calling to tell you that I am fine and I am on a date with Scott. And speaking of dates, I just gotta tell you that I'm happy to hear that your date went well. And that, my friend, means that I am over you. That's right, I'm over you. Tell Leah I say hi." You said sarcastically.

You hung up the phone and threw your phone back into your purse. You felt like you just won a chess game.

The next morning you decided to sleep in because your heart was pounding and you could barely sit up without feeling like you might fall. You were supposed to be working at the bakery but since you owned the bakery, Wanda let you sleep it off until you recover. You couldn't remember anything from last night, how you got back to your apartment was a mystery. You tried to put the pictures together, from being forced to go on a date, meeting a guy named Sean? Simon? Sebastian? Scott! Yes, Scott. You ordered your meals and then... Nothing, it was all blurry. You weren't even sure if anything happened at all after eating your meals.

The apartment was empty because Wanda was working at the bakery and it was just you with your hangover pills. Bucky came to your apartment without knocking because Wanda told him on the phone that you were home. He greeted you with a smile and asked about your date.

"Uh, let's see. I think there was a restaurant, I know there was wine. And there's a guy, Scott and pretty much that's all I can recall."

Bucky made a yikes face. Seeing the state you were in, he could do the math (of the wine you had). You probably enjoyed the alcohol more than the guy. What a doofus, he thought. If he was the one going on a date with you, you'd definitely remember every detail from last night.

"Leah's downstairs and I'm taking her back to her place but I left my keys here last night. Have you seen it?"

"No, check the drawers. Maybe Wanda put 'em there."

"Ah, okay." He opened the drawers and found the keys to his bike.

"Did we... Speak on the phone last night?"

"Nope, my phone was dead and I didn't charge it all night so I haven't really checked it. Why?"

"Nothing, nothing. It's just... Never mind. My memories are a bit hazy right now. You should go, say hi to Leah for me."

Bucky nodded as you walked back to your room to go lie down. Your question reminded him that he should probably check his phone now because there could be work-related messages but the first thing he heard was a voicemail from you. "Oh, y/n. I got your message!"

That instantly stopped you in your tracks. Your eyes went wide and you froze. You immediately turned around and ran to grab his phone away from him. Bucky had a confused look on his face, "who's Scott?"

"Oh my God, no, Bucky, give me the phone. Give me the phone!" But it was already too late, he was already halfway through your voicemail and by the time you successfully snatched his phone out of his grasp, he had already heard every word.

Bucky stood there dumbfounded, he needed time to process everything you just said to him. "What do you- what do you mean you're over me?"

"Oh, God... Alright, um- lately, I've um- sort of, have... Feelings for you." You never had to chase a guy or confess your crush first so this felt new and my God, it was nerve-racking.

"You have feelings for me..." He said it as if he was convincing himself that his ears got it right. Bucky couldn't believe the words that just escaped through your lips, for years he had dreamed of this moment. Though never did he ever want you to make the first move but adolescent him wanted to hear you say what he'd been wanting to say to you too.

He didn't say anything for what felt like minutes and you couldn't decipher his thoughts from the look on his face. "I need to sit down," he pulled one of the dining chairs and leaned on his side in a defeated posture.

"Bucky... Please say something." You alerted him in a hushed tone, not wanting to startle him than you already did. But he didn't. He was lost at words. What the hell was he supposed to tell her?

"Look Bucky, I'm sorry for telling you this way but I had to. I just- I've been wanting to talk to you about it since you came back to New York, well- actually, since Steve told me but-"

"Whoa, Steve told you?!" He interrupted.

"Yeah, it just accidentally slipped when we were playing truth or dare..."

"Okay well," he stood up from his seat, yet he still couldn't look you in the eye. "I can't do this right now, Leah's waiting for me downstairs and I gotta go." He basically ran out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving you alone.

Once your hangover had begun dissipating, you decided to help Wanda at the bakery and took the night shift. She must've been exhausted from managing the bakery alone while also helping the employees in the kitchen so you told her to go home and leave it to you. The bakery's usually slower at night.

When it was nearing closing time and your employees had gone home, you decided to clean up and turned off the lights and checked everything one last time before locking the door. The bell above the door dinged and you were slightly annoyed because who the hell comes to the bakery at this hour?

"I'm sorry we're clo...sed." It was Bucky. He stood there in a black coat, with an expression you still couldn't figure out. "Bucky, what are you-"

"You have no right to tell me that you've got feelings for me." His tone was harsh, he never spoke that way to you or anyone... Ever.

"What?"

He walked closer to you, maintaining his gaze, "You can not tell me that you've got feelings for me now when I'm doing well with my life and Leah..."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I was in love with you for years! Years, y/n! And you never said and did anything and now when everything's going well you're ruining it!"

"I am ruining it?" You repeated the question because you couldn't believe what you just heard. How dare he said those hurtful things to you.

"Yes! I was doing fine with Leah and now I don't know what's going to happen with me and her anymore..."

"Yeah, well, I was doing fine before I found out that YOU were in love with me and never had the balls to tell me!" You did everything you could to not cry, you hated crying in the middle of an argument.

"Hey, it's not like I didn't try. There were your ex-boyfriends and your dates and I had to move on. I couldn't wait forever! And now, now you're too late."

"Oh, so what? You're just gonna walk away and pretend that this never happened?"

"Yes, I'm going to do exactly that and I'm going to go see Leah." He turned around like he did earlier in your apartment and left you alone once again with your heartbreak.

"Fine! Go ahead and see Leah because I don't give a fuck about cowards like you or whoever you sleep with." You slammed the door and tried everything you could to not have a breakdown here because you really hated letting an argument hurt you. You sat on one of the chairs where the customers would sit and you hid your face with your hands and cried.

Not because you just lost an argument but because of what Bucky said and it felt like you had lost Bucky before you even had him. Now there was no hope left for you and Bucky, things were too complicated.

You didn't know how long you had cried there, alone, in the dimmed lighting of your shop but after you felt like the tears had dried, you wiped the traces of your tears from your cheeks with the back of your thumb. You stood from your seat and was ready to go home. You couldn't wait to eat some leftover pizzas, take a warm shower and cry into your pillows until you fall asleep.

But when you were about to leave, you saw Bucky standing on the other side of the door, watching you through the windows with a softer expression on his face. You opened the door and Bucky instantly grabbed your waist and kissed you as if his life depended on it.

You gave in to his kiss, letting him pour every desire and yearning into your lips for as long as he wanted. You grabbed his face because you wanted him impossibly closer and you shut your eyes, letting your guard down. Because it was Bucky, and you'd known him for as long as you could remember and you both deserved this moment.

Bucky eventually pulled away until both of you were running out of air. You were breathless from his kiss, you never knew he was such a good kisser. (It's Bucky and he's had a lot of women on his bed, of course, he was excellent at it. Who were you kidding?) But now that you've had your own front-row experience, you felt a tad of possessiveness at the thought of sharing those lips or any part of him with anyone else.

"I couldn't go back to her knowing you are here alone and I had thrown away what I've wanted for as long as I could remember."

"I'm glad you came back." You pressed your foreheads and you rested your hands on his chest. You could get used to this.

"I hope it's not too late to say this but, y/n y/l/n, will you let me take you to dinner and see a movie after maybe?"

"I wasn't the one who said it's too late," you halfheartedly teased him.

"Shut up, so is that a yes or a no?"

You bit your lip and nodded, "yes. Definitely a yes." You stared into his ocean blue eyes, so deep and beautiful, you could easily get lost in it.

"y/n y/ln, I'm going to put all of your ex-boyfriends to shame."

"Hm, we'll see about that." You put your arms around his neck. Then a thought crossed your mind and your smile faded away, "what are you gonna do about Leah though?"

"I'll talk to her in the morning. Let's take you home now, yeah? It's getting late."

You bit your lip and nodded, "okay."

Ninth grade you dreamed of popular jocks and athletic seniors, but little did you know that, sometimes, the one who sincerely loved you was the book nerd who loved The Hobbit a little too much.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E123 (Feb. 2, 2021)

After last week’s thoroughly relaxing and brief episode, tonight’s guests are Sam Riegel and Liam O’Brien!

Brian, to Sam: “You look like Tim Curry moved to Nantucket to become a sommelier.”

How did Caleb and Veth approach the ally-ship with the Tombtakers? Sam: “I mean, we got some information, and I think we got a little closer to Lucien and knowing whether he has any of Mollymauk inside of him, which is I think the most important knowledge that we’re seeking right now. Is there someone to be saved inside there? We got glimpses, and we got a little hint that Mollymauk is maybe still in there? Maybe? And we got a little more insight into their plans, so that was useful.” Liam: “We know why we were having that fucking dream.” Sam: “But other than that, it was just a road trip with assholes.” Liam: “All our plans have been ripped in a new direction, and it’s just been improvisation.” Sam notes that it feels like we’re always about to rip into Caleb’s backstory, but haven’t yet followed that thread all the way through. Liam: “It’s partially frustrating, to be sure, but also I like the idea that-- his whole shit has been selfish, it’s been dealing with the trauma that he’s been through and not the greater world, and that’s been shifting somewhat.”

Does Caleb think the book was worth it, and is he still interested in reading more? Sam: “How do you ask Caleb not to read a book?” Liam: “Caleb has spent enough time with the Nein to know you shouldn’t put a hand on a hot stove. After what happened with the book, he knows it’s a terrible idea. But maybe. But it’s a really bad idea. But reserve judgment, but it’s a really terrible idea. I think that Caleb is very aware that mages and people like him very easily fall prey to their curiosity and it can lead to bad places. But there is still that amount of scientific endeavor where you think there is value in knowing and learning, and maybe we can ride that line. He was True Neutral at the start of the campaign, and maybe he’s Chaotic Good now, but part of him is hubris, even if it’s a little bit, still.”

What about Otis has drawn Veth’s focus? Sam: “I mean, he’s a little shit. She was curious about Otis because he’s a small like she is, and in talking to him, he seemed to be real creepy, but he was just creepy and distant and didn’t value his past or family or anything like that. She sees someone who’s like her, but so not like her, and maybe that scares her a little bit more.”

How does Caleb feel about Beau being on this ride with him? Liam: “The dream is another example of how Caleb had very narrow vision of the things he wanted to do. It used to seem so massive to him, but now... To have Beauregard involved feels right. If anyone in the group is going to stop him from grabbing something he shouldn’t, it is probably Beauregard. She’ll punch him in the fucking face to stop him, which I think he needs, to a certain extent. They’re two different kinds of nerds, and I kind of like that, that this group of nine philosophers, they’ve reached out and somehow grabbed the two nerds in the party.”

How do Caleb and Veth see the Somnovum? Sam: “I mean, they seem real bad. Anything that’s a quorum of powerful entities heading towards your planet to unleash an energy of any kind, typically bad? I assume they’re bad, or at least the Tombtakers wish them to do ill.” Liam: “I think they want the kind of peace that comes from snapping your fingers and turning people to dust. Caleb sees them as a cautionary tale; they’re the worst-case scenario for arcane inquisitiveness.” He sees Allura Vysoren as the antidote to that.

Why the staunch refusal to use Halfling Luck? Sam: “I don’t like Luck! I just don’t like Luck. I think it’s cheap, I think it’s a cheat, I think it’s stupid. It just feels like a do-over.” Liam: “I am your antithesis! If I ever voice a halfling, I am going to hammer that feature!” Sam: “What I love about D&D is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. If you roll bad, okay, that’s it. If you roll well, it makes the success more enjoyable to know that it’s a pure success and don’t one where you’re like well actually... it’s so stupid. If someone was about to die, I would probably use the fuckin’ Luck feature. Well. It depends who. If it was Travis, yeah, no, he’s fucked, sorry.”

Liam drops that he’s picked Sam’s character class and race again for a hypothetical campaign three. Sam: “It’s not what I was thinking for future characters, but I’m excited to explore.”

Cosplay of the Week: an amazing Mollymauk by KatofValkyrie!

What was it like to bring the Tombtakers into the tower? Liam: “It is complicated, because he does not like him. Lucien’s just a fucking dick. But Caleb also knows that Molly’s in there somewhere. That tower’s only for the M9, and Lucien’s not in the M9. Their situation with these people is shitty, it’s terrible. Caleb doesn’t feel like they have the upper hand. He doesn’t like that they’re even going on this journey per se, because life is bigger than his bullshit. He feels like they’ve been losing over and over again, so it was a gamble to try to get on equal footing.

What spurred Veth into making sure she and Yasha have some one-on-one time? Sam: “Yasha hasn’t been getting a lot of moments to shine. Now that she’s back, I just got the impression that Yasha feels out of place sometimes, or timid, or unsure of herself. When Veth was Nott, Nott certainly had her share of those moments. I think she sees a kindred spirit and wants to make sure that she’s been giving all the opportunity she can to flourish and thrive. Dani, you’re just laughing at my mustache, aren’t you?” Dani: “Yes, that’s the only thing I’m laughing at through this whole bullshit.” Sam denies all knowledge of trolling, but eventually admits, on the topic of Yasha and Beau getting together: “They’ve made me wait this long... I’m going to make them wait a little bit longer!”

What was it like to show his friends the upper floors? Liam: “I kinda expected somebody to sneak up there before that. That being part of the tower is not even a conscious choice of his, it just is. The reason Caduceus has creeped Caleb out for a long time is because he talks about how-- Caduceus is a really kind person and wants Caleb to let go of the past. And in a really simplistic way, turn that frown upside-down. And that’s just not who Caleb is, and it’s not who everybody is. There is something to be said for trying to stay open and positivity, but thinking you can shut out the past, especially a traumatic one, is just not true. When things happen to us, we carry them. But to candy-coat it and say, ah, I’m free, or everything is good, or I’ve turned the corner... life is way messier than that. It’s not flipping a switch, it’s not bad-to-good, it is such a work in progress. Even when you make strides and start to get to a better place, you can backslide a lot. So the tower is who he is, and the tower is 7/9ths love for his friends, and 1/9th hope, but there’s still a percentage of him that carries everything from the past, and knows that he should, and knows that he should not go back to where he was. And the way to do that is not to say everything is rainbows, but to remember it. The tower is just like an extension of who he is. He’s never going to forget the past, and he’s never going to be like, I’m good, or I’ve turned a corner. He should remember the past, and he should do better, always.”

Does Veth still believe it’s possible to get Molly back? Sam: “Well, she was a person trapped in another body for many years, so has some experience there, and definitely believes that the spirit and soul of Molly is in there and just needs to be unlocked somehow.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot by HarpySN!

How are Caleb and Veth dealing with their guilt and fear about being in the middle of this? Sam: “It definitely was a deep conversation that might have repercussions going forward. The problem with all of what we’re doing now is that we don’t have time to deal with our petty problems anymore. It’s all high tension all the time!” Liam: “It’s true; they’re not in control of their situation at all anymore.” Sam: “It’s good to have these check-ins, but it’s not like we can do anything about them. We’re reactive right now.” Liam: “He’s not happy with where they are, but they wouldn’t even be this far if the goblin hadn’t pulled him out of the mud. So part of it is, you saved me from where I was and got me on my feet again, and now it’s disconcerting to see it all just get knocked sideways by something he never could’ve predicted. I think Caleb felt nostalgic for when things were simpler, in a way, for them, when we’re both troubled drifters.”

What was it like to see Gelidon’s return? Liam: “I am the least superstitious person at the table. Ashley’s dice suck.” Sam: “It was fun fighting a dragon!” Liam: “Two massive battles in one episode, neither of which came away with a victory. I guess surviving is a victory.” Sam: “I’d forgotten about the dragon, honestly.” Liam: “I loved it. I was so upset at the idea that we were going to stealth and not get into it.”Sam: “Mercer doesn’t keep a live dragon around and not do something with it. That dragon’s coming back.”

How do Caleb and Veth feel about going to see Essek? Sam: “He can be very helpful, I believe, but as Sam Riegel, a player of D&D, I’m super suspicious. What the fuck is Essek doing up there, so close, now? I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. And I can throw him pretty far because he floats.” Liam: “I 100% agree with you. I do not understand what Essek could bring to what we are going through. I know the audience loves him, I love him too. He’s a really cool character. But he’s fucking toxic. He out of curiosity caused a war between two nations. And Caleb has been changed for the good by the M9 from months of travel with them. Essek has had none of that. Caleb has changed for the good, but not because of people like Essek. Essek is where Caleb came from. We kept the lid on the pot during the whole treaty at sea and it almost all went fucking sideways, and only because we pressed him into a corner. I hope that guy finds some sort of balance and peace for himself, but I do not see how his input here would be helpful. There’s other heavy hitters that I would try to pull in.”

Liam notes that the Cloven Crystal is in the Bag of Holding. Sam: “Do I have Fluffernutter, or is Fluffernutter gone?” Liam: “Nope. 300 pounds of fireworks? Gone. A dead mage, a threshold crest, and fireworks.” Dani: “Your basic essentials.”

[headcanonstation]

Phantom Thieves S/O has palace

Ren Amamiya

Breaks his heart to find you have a Palace

Ren figures it out because of how you may have been acting. That or curiously getting to him to put your name in the nav

Apologies in advance, he isn’t gonna be reaching out too often as he’ll be putting way too much focus into preparing to infiltrate 

During this time there will be no Mementos trips 

If he can help it, there won’t be a day they aren’t going in until your Palace is taken down

Though for him personally, he doesn’t care how tired he may be. He is gonna go in

Odds are its getting dealt with in about a day or really close to that

It does kind of scare him on the why you have a Palace

What gets to him is he feels like he should have seen the signs. Feels like that maybe he could have prevented it or at least curb the development of it

Exploring the place is the actual worst to him he isn’t having a very good time

Ren will be kind of more quiet while in the Palace. Looking more focused

But he may be a little more “impatient” as it were

Ren really, really does not like running into your shadow

Has fingers crossed they don’t have to fight your shadow, but if they do he is gonna hate it

Gonna act as more of a support unit if they do have to fight said shadow

Regardless if you know he is a phantom thief or not, he is gonna write the calling card. And he is gonna drop it off to you. {In your mailbox, locker, under your door. Etc. He isn't going to directly hand it to you, again regardless if you know of him being a phantom thief}

Ryuji Sakamoto

The thought never occurs to him, almost believing it be absolutely impossible for you to have one

He is not gonna be the one to put your name in, regardless if he notices you being off your A-game. Someone else is gonna be doing it

Ryuji can’t help but wonder why you have one. Again, he found it be impossible for you to ever have one. So he is pretty curious as to why it happened

Whatever the reason is for the development of the Palace, he swears he is gonna knock it out of the park

He definitely gets impatient during infiltrations and downtimes

Kind of becomes pretty prone to getting into trouble and pushing forward which results in his friends going “oi slow down”

Also becomes a little more impatient 

Unlike Ren, Ryuji becomes more talkative during the exploration. Asking things like if they are closer, if Mona can sense the treasure, where exactly they are, what is the next course of action- you get me

He seems to have an “easier” time powering through any exhaustion he is having and practically demands to be on the frontlines at all times

Makes sure all his hits, hits harder

He has a huge need to know what your treasure is, further adding to his impatience

Will write the calling card, with help from Makoto

If you know he is a phantom thief {yeah,,,,,,"if"}, he hand delivers the card to you

If they have to fight your shadow, Ryuji does okay. He doesn't do the absolute best and his attacks may actually miss a lot

Ann Takamaki

She immediately has a need to know if anyone is connected to you having a Palace

She just wants to talk

Ann is a lot like Ryuji where she did not enter your name in the Nav, not wanting to see an answer at all pop up. The only difference is she knew it could be a possibility. It was not impossible to her if you had one- just unlikely 

Ann can’t help but think about the what if of the thieves finding you in Mementos. Able to stop you there and prevent a Palace from developing further

She just finds herself thinking how she could have helped prevent this, if at all. Playing scenarios in her head of helping you before it got this bad

But this is no time to wonder, this is the time to help you

Inside the Palace, she doesn’t act far too differently. Outside of it though, she becomes kind of pushy to go into the Palace

When it comes to you, she finds herself trying to spend time with you- more than usual

She doesn't like the Mementos trips during the time where you still have a Palace. While it's nice to help other people- you need her help right now

No matter what your Shadow is like, she swears she is gonna take them down

She promises to herself that no matter how much it hurts her, she isn't going to hold back on your shadow. After all, it's not exactly easy to attack something that resembles/represents you

Really would rather not see the calling card at all

Yusuke Kitagawa

His first thoughts are the fears that its alike to Madarame’s

He isn’t sure he can handle that

As such, he is pretty nervous about the whole thing

Upon finding out though its nothing like that, if anything more like Futaba’s, brings him a wave of relief

If he were to be honest, being in your Palace frustrates him

Not only does it frustrate him, but it hurts him. Especially as they go further and further into their exploration

You don’t deserve to have to be dealing with this and the burden this thing probably brings to you

Kind of like Ryuji, he just thought nothing like this would come to pass for you. At least, so as long as he was there with you

During the Palace, he is more reserved

A lot like Ann, he is kind of pushy with going into the Palace. Not nearly as much as Ann, but it’d be a lie to say he doesn’t at all try to push Ren into going in sooner

Seeing your Shadow actually angers him, more than anything. Because this isn’t you, but a distorted version of the person he cares about

But Yusuke remains relatively calm

During downtimes while they aren’t in the Palace, he will be trying to seek you out and keep you company- regardless if you know what is going on

Insists to be the one to write the calling card, there are no exceptions 

I would argue he is one of the more aggressive thieves when it comes to fighting your shadow. He holds absolutely nothing back and is ready to fight

This isn’t you and he wants to get rid of your shadow as fast as possible

Makoto Niijima

She audibly gasps

However, she can’t bring herself to bring it up for a short bit. Its not that she doesn’t want to, but it becomes more real whenever it is she mentions it

She ends up bringing it up after seeing you again and again. Knowing the toll a Palace can take on a person, she knows she can’t just ignore it

Part of her wonders if she is any part of the cause. She hopes not, but it worries her that what if she plays a part in your Palace

She tries to remain composed both in and out of the Palace, trying not to show any signs of struggling with the idea of it

When around you, she gets kind of awkward 

She’ll promise to you that she will be there for you, through thick and thin. Which to you may come out of nowhere, but Makoto feels a need to say it

Its when Makoto sees your shadow that it really, really hits her about the situation

Still, she tries to remain composed but internally she is just having a marathon if emotions

Makoto helps in creating the calling card and will hand it off to you should you know of her being a phantom thief

If not she will put it in a normal envelope and give it to you, saying simply it was addressed to you and not much else

Maybe even sneak it into a book your reading or in your locker

Fighting your shadow at first will have her be a deer in the headlights, but her friends will snap her out of it

Which will help her find new strength when it comes to taking down your shadow

Futaba Sakura

Curiosity kills the cat, and it killed Futaba upon entering your name in the nav

She figured if anything popped up, it would be just be a Mementos trip. Not something as extreme as a Palace

Her first thought was how long have you had this?

Futaba first brings it up to Ren before anyone else

She knows this is more of a personal Palace to take care of, but they have to help you

She had one of these things and she’ll be damned if she lets this go ignored

Futaba admittedly would rather it just be her and Ren, again seeing as this is more personal. However, this is a little more extreme than a simple field trip to Mementos, so that isn’t a viable option

Her nature ends up very serious, focused and a little hurt. She won't have snarky comments to hand out. She won’t really have any upbeat cheer in her voice either

Futaba is going to be going overdrive to help the thieves get rid of the Palace faster

Will be more subtle in pushing the idea of going into the Palace during downtimes. She isn’t going to be aggressive in it, more so just making it clear she would really like to get back in asap

She wishes she could do more while they are exploring the place

During time outside the Palace she will be in constant contact with you. Asking if your okay, if anything happened, if you need to talk, etc

Seeing your shadow will kind of have her wince, but outside of that it only fuels her further to steal your treasure

She doesn’t do anything when it comes to the calling card. She just demands to see it before it sent to you

Haru Okumura

She’s ready to go guns blazing just say the word

Haru would probably be the most worried when it came to the whole Palace infiltration

After all, last time they did this with someone she cared about they kinda died

So yeah she is a little on edge on the that “what if” even though she knows it wasn’t their fault

Regardless of her unease though, she’ll put her best face forward and try to remain optimistic 

There may be times during the Palace where she lets her emotions get to her

At first she was worried of what your Palace was and why it even existed. You weren’t a bad person,  so why in the world do you have one of these?

Honestly, overall you could be forgiven thinking she wasn’t too anxious about the whole thing. Because on the outside she doesn’t seem too bothered, but trust me she is having a time internally

She vows to herself they are going to take care of this for you and she is not going to let anything bad happen to you from this infiltration. She swears it

Seeing your shadow doesn’t seem to do anything to her, if anything it prompts her to try and further figure out the why question

Haru requests if she can give you the card, especially if you know she is a thief. Regardless, she promises things will work out

She is merciless when it comes to fighting your shadow? Way more than what anyone was expecting from her?

[saturnsstufff]

Awsamdude/Technoblade- Rumor Has It

For my beloved @sugarandspicebutnonice

Warnings: sexual innuendo

    Techno was a great Prince. He worked hard to keep his family's name in good graces. All of Phil's boys worked hard to keep their names held high with respect. Tommy was known around for keeping sprits high, any ball or formality with Tommy was always known as the best to attend.

   His older brother Wilbur was a skilled artisan with music. Always teaching and making new sounds like it wasn't any struggle. Anyone could find him out in the court yard with a guitar in hand. Humming and singing a casual song.

   The eldest, Technoblade was a skilled swordsman and statists. Anytime he was called into a meeting, the others shuddered knowing he would trump them all. He made swinging a sword look like art. Trust me, you would know.

   You had a wonderful relationship with techno for a long time. But sadly, you both had parted away from each other. Of course, it was on all good terms, He was more concerned with the kingdom rather than establishing a strong and sturdy relationship.

   You, being a knight- fully understood. But you also choose to be a bit selfish about it. You truly wished for him to give you a bit of attention at least when together. He could be such a ladies man when he choose to in public, yet when it came to the two of you he just became closed off and anything but warm. Even behind closed doors it was lacking some spark of passion.

   So you both agreed it was best to let things lie.

  But what left you with a sour taste was how quickly he moved on.

   You would give him the benefit of the doubt of course, he was a well known man. She could have been someone he had met previously, and during your break off she was there to talk it out with him.

She, she ain't real

   But something about her screamed fake, her smile and movements seemed too thought through. Her words all laced with a sickening sweet hum, it also didn't help she giggled at basically anything techno said.

    Plenty of times you sat with the general and talked about how dense she came off. Respectfully, you had assumed Tech would have went for a well educated woman such as yourself. But after seeing her- you wondered if that type was in short supply.

   Anything she did, she would just bat her eyes and he was wrapped around his finger.

   It honestly made Sam and you laugh.

She ain't gonna be able to love you like I will

   As much as you started to loathe the woman, techno wasn't yours anymore. Thus you started getting closer to Sam. Both of you connecting on how your past relationships had been. Well you were casted aside, Sam was flatly cheated on.

   Of course knowing that, your heart ached for him. Sam was a well educated and handsome man with a heart of gold. Respectfully his whole job was centered on protecting and serving the people.

   Jumping into a relationship was Sam was like practically nothing. You promised him all the love in the world, and just like you, he promised to give you the same.

   And love each other you did.

She is a stranger

   Techno did see you grow close to his general, and honestly it didn't set well with him.

   He liked the woman he was with, but he also had known you since childhood. You both had played within the court yard plenty of times to claim it as your own.

   Sam didn't do that with you. Sam had only started to know you when you joined the ranks.

   Techno would often catch himself watching you and Sam spar. His eyes would watch as Sam's hand grabbed at your waist, gripping your hips and using his own to throw you off balance. He hated how close your bodies were.

   At one point he couldn't help but pull you aside and ask why you let him touch you. But that conversation drove spikes through his heart. "How can you just let him touch you like that?! He’s practically all over your body! You wouldn't let me touch you like that- and You and I have history" he yelled not believing what he saw.

   When your face twisted in front of him into disgust, he thought you were almost joking. "The hell is with you?! I'm not your girlfriend! Or don't you remember!?" You yelled at him. Lightly shoving him back from you. "Don't tell me where he can, and cannot touch me" You sneered. In all his years he never saw you so heated.

Sure, she's got it all

   Truthfully you saw techno leave you as a drop to his pride. He dropped a knight for a soft noble girl. A girl babied all her life. You knew as soon as she was exposed to blood she would have fainted like a goat in pasture. But in the end of the day, you weren't sleeping with her so what did it matter?

But, baby, is that really what you want

   Arguments between Technoblade and you had become more frequent. Sam let you duke it out, he knew he had no place to tell you to leave it be. Sam also didn't appreciate how fast Techno jumped onto your case about finding someone else.

   Although he knew it irked you about Techno moving on, you never got in his face about it like he would. Sam viewed this as your way of showing you were the bigger person.

   On one particular day he found the arguments amusing. Techno had started up again when Sam was publicly teasing you. Well techno found your back talking distasteful, Sam relished with how powerful you were.

   Listening to techno ramble off on his pathetic reasonings left you a laughing mess, even to the point you cut his argument off. "Bless your soul, you've got you're head in the clouds, she's going to use you like a fool!" You laughed in his face.

   His jaw tightened as he spat at your words, pointing at Sam. "You made a fool out of you General. She doesn't even love you- Your wasting your time on a-" at Tech's words you couldn't help but push back even harder for him targeting Sam.

   "How dare you say that. Your common penny is getting around more than I- And, boy, she's bringing you down!" You called out. Putting a finger to his chest. "She made your heart melt- But its all a lie!" You didn't stop their, you had more to say to him. "She thinks your all that- a fairy tale prince to save her dreams! But you're cold to the core" you said to him. Causing him to back off.

   "Besides. Now rumor has it she ain't got your love anymore"

Rumor has it, ooh, Rumor has it, ooh, Rumor has it, ooh

   You weren't lying. Their were plenty of rumors going around saying she was sleeping with others besides Techno. Although Sam and you had no proof to this. Your hunches seemed right.

   On one day, Sam had left for a out of village meeting. You really didn't mind, you trusted him enough and knew he wouldn't do anything behind your back.

   But sadly you wished to go with him. Techno had asked for you to join him for a round of chess. Something you both greatly enjoyed when together. But now you knew there was meaning to the game.

   Sure enough when you sat with in in the court yard, he brought up Sam.

   "You know he is much older than you..." he said as he moved his knight across the board.

   "And She is half your age" you said flatly. Picking your pawn up. "But I'm guessing that's the reason that you stayed" you said moving it to where you pleased. His brows drew together in slight anger. But he did try and keep his calm.

   "I heard you've been missing me" he said, a small smirk growing on his lips. He found pride within those rumors. Knowing that you still supposedly whined and withered about for him.

   Of course, you knew he was gravely mistaken.

   "You've been telling people things that you shouldn't be" you said carefully. Knowing he was probably behind the rumors somehow.

   Techno took this moment to see if he still had a effect on you. Usually during chess you both would flirt a bit. So naturally, he took the chance. "Like when we creep out and she ain't around" he said bemused, your face twisting into disgust again.

   "I sneak out to see Sam... besides Haven't you heard the rumors" you said moving your queen. When he didn't respond you laughed. He didn't even under stand. "Bless your soul, you've got your head in the clouds" you said, fully amused within the moment.

   "C'mon darlin... I know you fell hard for me when we started dating..." he cooed to you. Your eyes darting up like daggers.

   "You made a fool out of me" you said to him. Wanting to get your point across. Well he moved his pawns about you took your moment to explain how you felt. "You make me sick to my stomach.. And, boy, you're bringing me down" you said softly. Smiling to yourself slowly. "You made my heart melt, yet I'm cold to the core" You said, moving your queen to take his knight. Your eyes slyly skimmed over his. His lost knight now within your fingers.

   "But rumor has it I'm the one you're leaving her for"

   After that game, rumors and tensions soared wildly. Sam at one point thought you were back and evolved with Techno again. Of course you explained to him the situation, which thankfully he understood and apologized for trusting second hand mouths.

Rumor has it, ooh, Rumor has it, ooh, Rumor has it, ooh

All of these words whispered in my ear

   But Techno's mood plummeted fast...

Tell a story that I cannot bear to hear

   A engagement, specifically Sam and yours. Oh how his blood boiled at the news. He thought his hands all over you was bad, but now... now you would take Sam's name in law. You would he his wife. Not Techno's.

Just 'cause I said it, it don't mean that I meant it

   Because of this news he didn't hesitate to run and find you. More than hell-bent on giving you a piece of his mind. He wanted to make it clear you couldn't marry him.

People say crazy things

   He didn't care what people would say, he wanted to claim you again. Techno didn't want anyone else touching you. He especially didn't want Him touching you.

Just 'cause I said it, don't mean that I meant it

   Even if within the past week he yelled hurtful things to you, he hoped you would understand he just wanted to protect you from unworthy suitors. Sam couldn't provide for you like Techno could. Sam was a general born from a farmer. Technoblade was to be crowned king.

Just 'cause you heard it

   So their he stormed. Heading to the stables, knowing full well that's where you were. His anger was fuming. He couldn't wait to shove it in Sam's face that Techno wouldn't let you marry him.

   But lets just say Technoblade was the one left speechless in the end.

Rumor has it, ooh, Rumor has it, ooh Rumor has it, ooh,

   Especially when he slammed the door open to the stables and saw Sam's body covering yours, your legs around his waist in a tight hold well he was buried deep inside you.

But rumor has it he's the one I'm leaving you for

[tinyboxxtink]

"...So I Married A Monster" *Chapter 1*

[Yes I know it's absolutely inappropriate/irrelevant but this gif was too priceless not to use it, okay?]

Chapter 2 is HERE!

So, I gotta shout out the anon who asked me to explore this idea from a one-shot I wrote. Which actually was a request from @word-scribbless, so really this was a team effort. LoL.

Alright so here's the sitch:

You're dating Rafael Barba, and you finally decide to introduce him to your kids. Everything's going fine, until he figures out your ex-husband "Billy Loomis" is actually William Lewis!

Chaos ensues.

RIGHT?

Alright so I just decided to elaborate on the one shot, so I hope you enjoy this introduction.

Yes, I don't know why we're going back into the dark dark depths of angsty, dark storylines, but here we go. It's William Lewis once again, so you already know it's not going to be some fun fluff piece.

Plan your expectations accordingly.

Also, @storiesofsvu said they might read this one, so there's that. Eeep.

Obviously my lovelies are the best as well.

Tag List

@madamsnape921

@lolliepopsicle

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@milkshqke

@wanniiieeee

@gibbs274

@sassyada

@aprildecker-blog

@bookishfanfic

@stars-in-the-skies-world

@stars-trash-18

@omgsuperstarg

@objection-argumentative

@thatesqcrush

@shittanyy

@mrsrafaelbarba

—————

You twirled your hair nervously, pacing back and forth in your living room. Rafael Barba, the man you were seeing, was on his way over, it was just a normal day. Except that it wasn’t. Today was the day you were going to introduce him to your kids. Something he wasn’t even aware you had.

You had your reservations about dating guys without kids, as it never really worked out. Men without kids didn’t tend to understand the problems that came along with it, like having to cancel plans at a moment’s notice if one of your kids got sick or something. But Rafael seemed like a really good man, and though he didn’t seem like the “I love kids” type, you had gotten to know him enough to know he came from a good family, and that he might be open to at least meeting yours. You hoped you were right.

Soon your doorbell was ringing, your toddler Kylie came bounding towards the door.

“I’ll get it!!!!” She squealed.

“Uh– No no, Kylie!” You intercepted her on her way to the door, snatching her up in your arms.

“Maggie!” You tried to call her softly, not wanting Rafael to hear you. Your eleven year old came strolling out of the living room while on her phone.

“What?” She barely looked up at you.

“Can you take her? Please?” You asked her sweetly, causing her to move her phone down from her face.

“Why? Who’s at the door?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow at you.

“Just…a friend,” You looked towards the front door nervously. Maggie noticed your hesitance, it finally made her forget about whatever she was doing on her phone.

“Who is it, mom?” She pressed.

“I’ll explain everything, okay?” You gave her a pleading look. “Just take her in the living room and I’ll be there in a minute,”

“…It’s a guy, isn’t it?” She crossed her arms in a sassy manner.

“Maggie!” You pleaded.

“Ok fine…” She rolled her eyes and took Kylie from your arms. “Come on Ky, let’s go find a snack,”

“Thank you,” You kissed her head and ruffled Kylie’s hair as they walked towards the kitchen. You fixed your hair once more and swung the door open, revealing Rafael standing there holding flowers for you.

“Hey baby,” He kissed you softly while handing you the flowers. “I can’t believe I’ve never been to your house, it’s gorgeous,”

“Probably because we’re in New Jersey,” You teased him. You knew how much he hated Jersey, so the fact that he came all the way out here on his day off, really meant something.

“Probably,” He nodded with a teasing smile.

“So…there’s also another reason, I’ve never asked you here,” You ran your fingers through your hair as he entered your foyer.

“Oh?” He asked, curiously.

“I um, so– remember when I told you about my ex husband…?” Your voice trailed off.

“Yeah, that he was a real douche,” Rafael rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, but there’s a good thing about him,” Your eyes glanced over to where the girls had run off to.

“…Oh?” Rafael had a hint of worry in his voice.

“He’s a…” You looked down. “He’s a good dad,”

“….A good dad?” You heard Rafael’s voice shift an octave higher.

“Yes…” You forced yourself to look up at him. “In fact, he’s been keeping the girls all summer,”

“The girls?” He blinked, trying to wrap his head around it. “As in, multiple?”

“…Yes,” You bit your lip. “….You can run screaming now, it’s okay,”

“Ay, carino…” He put both hands on either of your face. “…Where are they?”

“Really?” You bit your lip with a relieved smile.

“Of course!” He kissed you and wiped a few tears that started dropping down your face as he spoke.

“…Okay, come with me,” You took his hand and let him into the kitchen. Maggie was handing Kylie a pudding cup and a juice box when you walked hand in hand with Rafael. Maggie gave him a side eye, while Kylie instantly bounded over with her snacks and a huge smile.

“Hi!!!!” She beamed at Rafael, sticking out her left hand which of course made the snacks fall out of her hand onto the floor. Maggie groaned in frustration as she ran over and picked up the snacks, now eyeing Rafael up and down.

“…Who’s this, mom?” She asked you, not taking an eye off Rafael. He didn’t seem phased at all, he just stuck out his hand to Kylie, since she addressed him first.

“Hi, I’m Rafael. And what’s your name?” He smiled warmly at her, making her eyes sparkle.

“I’m Kylie!” She shook Rafael’s hand furiously with a huge grin. Maggie snatched her up quickly, breaking their handshake.

“I’m Maggie,” She said curtly.

“Maggie,” You said through gritted teeth. “Be nice,”

“Oh it’s fine, carino,” He chuckled, smiling at Maggie. “I was protective of my mami when she’d bring strange men home too,”

“So you’re saying you’re a strange man?” Maggie smirked.

“Maggie!” You hissed.

“I guess you’ll have to figure that out yourself, chica,” He smirked back.

“…Guess we shall, amigo,” She narrowed her eyes, but quickly smiled. She liked this guy.

“Wow…I’m impressed,” you whispered to Rafael as the girls got more snacks for you and him.

“Thank you, mi amor,” He smiled before kissing you on the cheek. “And thank you, for trusting me enough with your kids,”

“Anytime,” You smiled warmly as you pulled him into a real kiss.

“Gross!!!!!” Kylie made a gagging sound before collapsing into giggles. This had gone better than you could have imagined.

-----------

After you and the kids all had snacks, you set up a movie for them to watch while you and Rafael went to your kitchen table to have coffee and talk more about the situation.

“So...I guess this is a stupid question, but why haven’t mentioned you had kids before this, carino?” Rafael ask while he sipped his coffee.

“Well..” You nervously stirred your coffee with your spoon. “I guess I was selfish,”

“Explain,” He pressed.

“Well I don’t typically start a first date with ‘hey by the way I have kids, so you might wanna run now’,” Your explanation caused him to chuckle in amusement.

“Yes I can see that,”

“And honestly by the second or third date, I don’t even like the guy anymore so it’s just pointless,” Your voice lowered even more as you started to allude to your feelings for him.

“...I see,” His chuckle turned into an amused smile. “And with me…?”

“With you...I wanted to introduce you,” You looked up to meet his eyes, hoping that would be enough explanation. His growing smile made it obvious it was.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” He put a hand over yours. “So I guess you want to keep me around, huh?”

“For now,” You teased him with a small giggle. He leaned over to give you a kiss, but your phone began going off. You looked down to see the screen:

BILLY CALLING

“Oooh, one sec baby,” You grabbed the phone. “It’s my ex,”

Rafael nodded in understanding as you turned from him to have the conversation.

"Hey Billy, what’s up?” The mention of their father’s name caught Maggie’s attention.

“Is that daddy?!” She called across the room. “Tell him WICKED was so fun!!!!”

“Wicked?” You repeated into the phone with a sharp tone. “Billy...did you take them into the City?”

“Daddy lives in the City now,” Kylie added to the conversation.

“He WHAT?!” You stood up and moved away from Rafael as your voice raised. “Billy, when were you going to tell me you moved to New York City?”

“No, I think it is a pretty big fucking deal,” You growled into the phone.

“Swear jar!!” Kylie giggled.

“You know how I feel about the City,” You ignored her as you lectured your ex.

“...And how is that?” Rafael raised an eyebrow.

“Shut up, you know I love it,” You rolled your eyes at him. “I just don’t want my children--” You were cut off by Billy’s questioning.

“What? It’s nobody, Billy,” You saw the hurt in Rafael’s eyes when you called him a “nobody”. You walked back over and squeezed his hand.

“I don’t want to get into ‘the talk’ with my ex on the phone, baby,” You explained softly.

“Well I was pretty sure you introducing me to the kiddos was ‘the talk’, but clearly I was wrong,” He shook his head and stood up to go, but you squeezed his hand tighter preventing him from walking away.

“I’m sorry Billy, that was my boyfriend,” You gave Rafael a small smile, hoping for his approval. His grin back gave you all the approval you needed.

“...What?” Your brows furrowed. “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know I needed your permission to have a boyfriend, Billy,”

“No, he just met the girls today. In fact it wasn’t even like fifteen minutes ago--” Billy’s voice was rising, Rafael could hear obscenities through the phone.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business--” You bit your lip in nervousness.

You hated it when he got like this, he had quite the temper on him. It was one of the reasons you got divorced. That, and the fact that he was constantly absent from your lives for work. It was like raising the girls on your own anyway, so you figured you’d make it official.

Rafael noticed the fear in your voice, and he went into a protective mode. He grabbed the phone from you and spoke to Billy with an eerily calm voice.

“Listen Billy, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t appreciate you calling here and intimidating my girlfriend when we were having a perfectly nice day,”

“.....Barba?” A very familiar, terrifying voice came through the ear piece.

“E-Excuse me?” His voice wavered.

“Rafael Barba, is that you?” The voice half laughed; all of the color drained from Rafael’s face.

“...Lewis?” Rafael barely whispered, causing your eyebrows to furrow again.

“Loomis,” You told him, causing him to furrow his own eyebrows. “His last name is Loomis,” You clarified.

“You have some balls, detective,” His evil chuckle made Rafael’s blood run cold. “First you and the red headed bitch try and put me away, and now you’re fucking my wife?”

“She is NOT--” Rafael clenched his fists.

“You know what, as much as I enjoyed this trip down memory lane, I think I’d like to talk to my wife,” William quickly tried to avoid any more detection.

“Like hell you will--” Rafael started to growl, causing you to snap the phone out of his grasp.

“Um, Billy,” You gave Rafael an accusatory look as you spoke to your ex. “Can I call you back?”

“I don’t want that man near my kids,” Billy stated angrily.

“What?” You blinked in surprise. “Why?”

“He’s a bad man, Y/N,” William lied.

“W-What are you talking about?” You looked at Rafael cautiously.

“What is he saying?” Rafael questioned angrily. “Whatever he says, he’s lying,”

“No I’m not, he’s the one who’s lying to you sweetheart,” William quickly shut Rafael down as he heard his accusations through the phone.

“I-I have to go,” Your voice quivered as you hung up on Billy.

Your mind was racing. Who could you trust?

-----------

After you hung up, you just sat there for a second trying to process what had just happened. You didn’t have much time, as Rafael started throwing a million questions at you almost immediately.

“You were married to William Lewis?” He hissed. “Do you have any idea what that man did to me? My squad? My best friend?!”

You suddenly snapped to attention as the familiar feeling of being interrogated kicked in. “Dining room, NOW,” You grabbed his arm and pulled him into the other room, away from your children’s ear shot.

“What the FUCK are you talking about, Rafael?” You now raised your voice a bit. “I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about, but I married Billy Loomis, not this-- William Lewis,”

“Oh please,” Rafael scoffed with a dry laugh. “That’s barely an alias!”

“I’m sorry, are you insinuating I’m a moron?” You crossed your arms. “You think I’m that stupid not to know my husband is a...whatever you think he is?”

“He’s a MONSTER, Y/N!”

“What are you talking about?!” You tried keeping your voice below a roar, but this was getting to be a lot. “You just heard his voice, you don’t even know if it’s the same--”

“He knew my name,” Rafael simply said. “He knew who I was, and he taunted me about it,”

“He taunted you?” You laughed sarcastically. “How did he ‘taunt you’?”

“He’s rubbing in the fact that he escaped NYPD, and now he’s upset I’m fucking--” He paused at the offended look on your face. “...Dating, his ex wife,”

“Wow,” You exhaled exasperatedly. “Wow,”

“Look I’m sorry to be crass, but those are the words he used,” He put a hand to your face, but you stepped back. “Except he used wife,” He added.

“What are you talking about?”

“He still thinks you're his,” Rafael explained. “He thinks of women as things, as property. And he clearly thinks he still ‘owns’ you,”

“Look I-- I don’t know who you think Billy is,” You shook your head as you walked towards a cabinet full of family photos on display. You picked one up and handed it to Rafael: A family photo at the beach.

Billy’s arms were around you, his gorgeous smile at it’s full power. That smile was heart melting, you fell in love with it as soon as he had flashed it your way in a coffee shop. Maggie’s arms were around his neck, and Kylie was in your lap with her hands raised in glee. It was a few years ago, Kylie was a baby and Maggie was nine.

“But this man isn’t a monster,” You finished your thought. “He’s a kind, generous man. He’s a wonderful father, even if he wasn’t that great of a husband--”

Rafael��s eyes were wide and horrified as he saw Lewis’s arms around you, that sick evil grin looking at him as if he was taunting him through the frame. He snapped his head up when you mentioned him not being a great husband.

“Why do you say that?” He cut you off. “Did he hurt you?”

“What?” You laughed, as if thinking that Billy could ever be violent was the funniest thing in the world. “No, he never hurt me Rafael. That’s why I don’t understand--”

“Look, I don’t want to scare you Y/N,” Rafael put the photo down and put his hands on your shoulders. “But this…’Billy’, he isn’t who you think he is,”

“And who is he?” You gave him a curious look.

“He’s a…” He looked into the other room, making sure the girls weren’t listening. “He’s a serial killer and a rapist,”

“What?!” You yelled rather loudly, stepping out of his grip. “Alright, that’s it--” You started leading him to the door.

“W-What are you doing?” Rafael began to panic as you showed him out. “Y/N please, you have to listen to me--”

“No, I’m not going to sit here and listen to you say such vile things about the father of my children,” You narrowed your eyes.

“Why would I make this up?!” He cried, trying to stop you from shutting the door on his face.

“I-I don’t know,” You looked down, thinking about it. Why would he make up such terrible things about Billy? Then you thought about what Billy had said: Rafael was the bad man.

“Maybe because YOU’RE the monster,” You suddenly glared.

“W-What?” Rafael’s voice fell to a whisper, hurt tears came to his eyes.

“Billy said you were a bad man, maybe you’re trying to flip all of this on him. Maybe Billy was trying to warn me, and you’re trying to get to me first,” The more you said it out loud, the more it made sense to you.

“NO!!!!” He almost screamed, tears now dripping down his cheek. He tried desperately getting back into the house, causing you to put more pressure on the door to keep him out. You had never seen him this...unhinged, before.

“No, Y/N please,” He pleaded with you. “You have to listen to me. Please, for the love of God baby you HAVE to listen to me--”

“No, I don’t have to do anything Rafael,” Tears stung your own eyes.

“I-- I thought we had something,” Your heart was breaking as you spoke.

You had thought you were really falling for this man. This kind, sweet, amazing man. And now it was all unravelling, his true colors were coming out. You almost let this psychopath into your children’s lives.

“We did-- we DO!” He was shaking; he was so upset. “Why do you think I’m being so adamant about this? I-- I love you!”

“Shut up!” You barked at him. How dare he say that to you for the first time, at this of all times?

“You-- You need to leave, Rafael,” You pointed to the driveway. “And don’t come back. Don’t call me, don’t text me,” Your voice was stern but filled with tears.

“No,” Rafael barely whispered, his eyes filled to the brim with fresh tears. “Don’t do this, Y/N. Please don’t do this--”

“NOW,”

“Look-- I’ll go,” He put his hands up in defeat and started to walk backwards off your porch. “But for the love of God-- PLEASE, just--- Just google the name ‘William Lewis’,”

“...Why?”

“You’ll see I’m telling the truth, I swear you will,” He looked at you with serious eyes. He was really convinced of what he was saying to you. Your heart started winning over your head, but just for a moment. You had to think about your children’s safety, you couldn’t listen to the ramblings of a crazy man.

“I don’t need to do that Rafael, you’re clearly the psycho,” You snapped before slamming the door in his face. As soon as it was closed, you sank to the floor and pulled your knees to your chest as you silently sobbed, trying to not alert the girls about the chaos that had just erupted.

Why did this have to happen?

[irresistiibles]

okay okay!! hello here is a real quick plotting/starter call! i’ve got blurbs for all my characters so toss this a like to plot or if you just want to get some stuff started feel free to  reply with who you want things for/from. please only request THREE STARTERS per mun because otherwise i just will not have time for everything. in terms of pre plot drop things i do wanna keep some chill vibe and am fine doubling up on threads but i will probably pick and choose stuff to transition based on muse. feel free to transition any of our stuff as you see fit!

AMBER

she’s fighting more than she should that’s for sure. she’s good with a bow and arrow, but idk how much that’ll do here. honestly i think she could do well with a gun if someone just gave her one. will try and help people where she can. open to injury

ASAMI SATO

she can handle herself but boy is she tired of fighting. she’s always got a few weapons on her so she’s managing but she’s mostly trying to make sure her and her girlfriend are safe

BINX CHOPPLEY 

fae are hard to fully kill in her world so she’s not too stressed. she’s small has a crossbow, and is going for it. will mostly be trying to help people in need and get them to nice quiet places

BLUE SARGENT

she is swearing that she’s never going out again. she’s got a pocket knife and spite to get her by, but realistically blue i gonna try and find somewhere to camp out.

CIEL PHANTOMHIVE

not built for this at all! he is a nice guy with asthma pls he is so screwed. open to getting him killed to get his memroies back so if you want a plot involving that hit me up

CHIHIRO OGINO

idk how much i’ll get chichiro involved in this. realistically she’s been up and lost in a far corner of the white house for most of the night. if she does run into monsters she is unfortunately the type to try and talk her way out of a situation, but girl does know how to run if needed, which is what she’ll be doing.

CORALINE

scared, tired of this sort of thing, probably trying to get out of there, and when that doesn’t work is going to be smart and board herself up in a room somewhere

EDWARD ELRIC

honestly he’s more comfortable fighting than dancing. worried about winry and al but also just everyone else. he’ll be on the helpful end of things and trying not to act too relieved to be back to something he’s good at

ENTRAPTA

a freak she’s having fun. she wants some flesh samples of monsters if possible. they should be afraid of her, not the other way around.

ESTHER MCKINNON 

man i don’t even know if she brought her wand she’s trying to find the fam and drag their aggressive asses to a quiet corner while hopefully not getting knocked out along the way. open to injury

GLINDA UPLAND 

not happy! she was having a good night!! and everything always gets ruined!! back to the pink bubble it is. will try and yank someone else in there but her magic has no rules to it so who knows if that’s even possible lmao

JI EUN TAK

unhappy and scared, especially cause she does not remember her own supernatural experiences. will try and hide and pull people out of danger if possible. she is the protective sort but also just a normal gal so could get herself hurt trying to help someone else.

JIN LING

tipsy at the wrong time!! able to fight luckily but he feels less confident without fairy and is really missing his dog. stressed! very stressed but stubborn and will be fighting.

KYOSHI

i kinda wanna bring some of her memories back without killing her so some big fighting for her definitely open to trying to help people or witnessing someone dying (cause that would trigger her memories lmao) definitely feel free to hit me up!

LILY EVANS

drunk, tired of shit happening to her, flinging spells around a little recklessly but doing what she has to do to stay safe.

MIANMIAN

she can fight but she doesn’t like doing it. she is much more comfortable behind people as i figure she got more comfortable night hunting alone later in life she’s definitely out of her comfort zone and a little freaked out

NIE HUAISANG

this man does know how to run and hide and stay safe when needed even if he doesn’t show it. not above tripping someone to get away safely. worried about himself and his brother and that’s it everyone else can rot for all he cares

RITA SKEETER

also will trip people to get away safely lmao. honestly she can turn into a bug and hide pretty easily so i’m open to stuff with her but i don’t think she’ll be doing too much

SCARAMOUCHE

horrible puppet man is amused by all of this he’s the worst. may purposely lead people into danger while claiming to take them to safety because he’s the absolute worst!! or is just taking advantage of the chaos to attack people. i would not recommend approaching.

SHANG QINGHUA

he can fight! a little! he swears! but he’s drunk and has already had such a night he is attempting to get help and hide immediately. will shamelessly cling to anyone who seems like they can protect him

SHI QINGXUAN

they’re a little disappointed things went south but qingxuan can take care of herself. if she took a bottle from the bar in the chaos that’s her business. another one who doesn’t love fighting, and is nervous, but capable enough with monsters just like this luckily

TOPH BEIFONG

honestly! super excited loves a good fight this is so much better than some fancy lame dance! will protect people if the opportunity is available but is more focused on just knocking some monsters around

VICTOR NIKIFOROV

hiding. just hiding. are you kidding me? this is just a normal dude give him a break

ZAGREUS

unfortunately zagreus thinks fighting is fun and will be trying to keep track ofhow many monsters he can take out. if you want someone way too upbeat given the situation he’s your guy

ZHONGLI

another immortal not too worried about getting hurt. he’s more of the helpful sort though, and can create pretty powerful shields, and will do so to get people out of danger as needed. not fighting so much since he’s retired from that, but protection is definitely available from him.

[in-tua-deep]

Ok I totally want to hear more about this survivors au/Delores is real! How do the siblings handle having this different version of Five? Five may be better adjusted but he still has to heard his family around like a bunch of stray cats. What happens when Hazel and Cha Cha show up? How do they find out that Vanya causes the apocalypse and how does Five handle that revelation?!

here is the thing, i think the survivors au has the potential to be HILARIOUS

no one knows how to handle a well-adjusted five, and this absolutely includes the commission

So you mentioned Hazel and Cha-Cha?? Five in this au was not nearly as absolutely feral as he is in the show bc he knows how to interact with people - he was raised by a competent adult and a weird best friend and they occasionally saw other survivors as well

please picture old Five hanging around the water cooler and chatting with Hazel

the other funny thing is that Five is competent passing - he is well adjusted emotionally but functionally?? Hazel is out there complaining about dental being cut and office parties and budgets and Five is there sipping his drink having never filed taxes in his life. Five doesn't know what the fuck a dental plan is, he was a child soldier and then lived in an apocalypse.

So please picture for me Hazel being like "okay I know corporate wants us to keep what we're being paid to ourselves but fuck that, workers unite, what do you get paid as a legend old timer?"

and five is like "you're getting paid? i get to not get tossed back into the apocalypse, I think"

"but what about expense forms? what about medical care?"

"I'm like 80% sure i'm being experimented on, actually." Five says nonchalantly, "Don't get me wrong, my idea of medical care is fucked by being a child soldier but I'm pretty sure regular people don't have electrodes attached to their heads every time they get a checkup. Could be wrong though! My ex-dad used to monitor my brainwaves while I slept so like, my idea of appropriate shit is fucked, you know?"

This is a Five who was raised by Rick, he is polite to his coworkers. If Dot asked him if he wanted to grab lunch, Five would have gone and grabbed lunch with her or politely said that he couldn't.

Cha Cha only ever talks to Five when she wants to talk shop, so they've had a couple of conversations about weapons but not much else tbh, Hazel just tends to be more personable

So when they're sent after Five, Hazel is much more hesitant to kill who he perceives as a "work friend" and also is definitely thinking about all the times Five casually revealed a way the commission was being highkey shady about him, such as the potential experimentation, no pay, working under duress etc. He's much more easily turned against the commission because he's even more primed to say "fuck the commission" than he is in canon

Hazel out here like "how did Five break his contract when Five wasn't even being paid? I kind of want to read it."

Hazel out here like "I would unionize if I didn't think the commission was anti-union enough to send literal assassins after me if I suggested it :/"

meanwhile with the siblings

Five just. talks over them a lot and makes so much sense that it's actually really hard to argue with him, and he's weirdly considerate of his family's obligations

Like Diego is like "i have to go see Patch" then Five is like "that's great I'm proud of you buddy, it would actually be really handy to have some law enforcement read into the situation if you think she's up to the task. that goes for everyone by the way! If y'all have people you trust, more bodies would be super helpful I think"

the entire family, collectively, who have like zero trusted social links: uhhhhhhhh

Diego, with this weird permission, probably?? Does? Awkwardly attempt to read Patch into the situation? Patch is, obviously, like "what the fuck, Diego" but probably goes with him to the mansion (????????) because she's concerned and then meets his fucking whacko family with their superpowers and suddenly everything is 100% more realistic

Five is just like "yes hello I'm aware I look like a child, i'm actually in my late 50s or early 60s (apocalypse time amiright) because of time travel stuff. Yes I am Five Hargreeves who went missing in like 2002 or whatever. anyway it's lovely to meet you, i'm so glad diego has someone he trusts, and considering my sibling's shifty looks when i told them to invite anyone they trusted this genuinely makes me concerned that Diego is the most socially well-adjusted of them."

"That cannot be possible." Patch says, like someone who has met Diego Hargreeves.

"You haven't met the rest." Five says sympathetically, "In our defense we were raised in isolation as child soldiers."

"That... explains so much." Is all Patch can say to that, "But you seem..."

"I'm adopted." Five waves away.

"We're ALL adopted." Diego grits out, very aggrieved by this and also not sure if he likes the fact that Patch seems friendly with Five, or at least is listening to him?

"I'm double adopted."

However! With the recruitment of Patch, herding Diego becomes like 90% easier.

Honestly the worst to herd are probably Luther and Allison? Luther because he's Number One and resents Five taking charge and also resents Five's casual dismissal of Reginald and also suspects that Five (or at least the commission) has something to do with Reginald's death?

Allison because she is torn between following Luther and helping him and helping Five but also calling Patrick and Claire at every possible moment while ALSO trying to repair her relationship with Vanya. She's flighty - she'd bail on a Five-apocalypse-assignment if Vanya mentioned being hungry or if Luther called or anything like that

Vanya likes to be included and, if asked, would probably drop as many current obligations as she can. Like she would probably cancel her teaching if Five genuinely and sincerely asked her for her help, which he does because he's 100% sure Dolores would manifest in front of him and smack him if he dared even imply someone without powers wouldn't be helpful

Vanya is like "I'm not sure if i'll be helpful - I don't have powers ):" and Patch is like "wtf are you talking about - my superpowers are Gun, Backup, and Reading Comprehension and i am like the most useful member of this team right now"

Vanya gets a confidence boost just from hanging out with Patch honestly, I think they should be friends

Klaus is thrilled to be included are you kidding?? He says he does it for money but he's just happy to be there and also as one of the most emotionally intelligent siblings he is mildly concerned about the fact that Five looks like he's about to cry and also emotes

Five also gives Klaus positive reinforcement, hugs, and Five absolutely weaponizes the I'm not mad, but I believe that you can do better and I'm going to give you more chances because I love you and fully believe that next time you'll be amazing way that Rick used on him.

I feel like Five ends up saying something along the lines of "I understand that x is really important, and we're definitely going to look into it. Is it something that needs to be addressed right now, or is it something that can wait until after April 1st? If it can wait, I can write it down here on this list so we don't forget. If it can't wait then we can figure out a time to address it and help you" a lot

Like Grace malfunctioning and potentially killing Reginald?

"We don't have to make this decision right now." Five says patiently, "Because Grace is a robot, we have some options. Living with a robot who is potentially malfunctioning and homicidal is dangerous, but Luther saying that means admitting that Reginald might have made a mistake or error with Grace's programming or upkeep. I haven't been here for a long time, but I remember Reginald being very precise. Regardless, this isn't a choice between permanently shutting her off or not. We can shut her down temporarily until we can fully address the issue. We can ask and see if there is a 'system reboot' option or some sort of system check that Grace can undergo. We can try find and hire an expert to take a look at her programming to find the issue."

Five gives this speech while like, organizing the weaponry in the house on a table very nonchalantly

Five out here making buzzer noises at his siblings arguments like "yeah no that's a false dichotomy and a strawman's argument, want to try again?"

(Look apocalypse nights were long and they had games that were literally about arguing pointless shit like ranking types of chairs or the best way to break out of a prison without powers and things could get heated)

"Who died and made you boss?" Luther demands.

"Uh, the world? Were you not listening?" Five asks, looking very purposefully confused.

It gets even MORE delightful when Five reads Rick into the situation because a) he promised and b) his siblings really have like, no connections jeeze

Rick fully believes that this is his son from the future, like Five introduced himself, but Five skipped out on a few key details. Such as being adopted.

So Rick spends a solid chunk of time just staring at Five, who looks basically nothing like him, trying to think like, who is his mother ???? if we save the world will Five stop existing? why would I name my child 'Five'? Does everyone have powers in the future? was there like... a radioactive apocalypse? would radiation give future humans superpowers? when did my life turn into a comic book? am i even allowed to ask these questions? will knowledge of the future fuck things up?

and then when Five comes back and is like "what is up everyone this is my dad Rick who will be joining us, he doesn't have any memories of me thanks to time travel but if anyone is mean to him i WILL kneecap them"

"Your DAD?"

Five does kidney punch Klaus for saying that Rick is a DILF but otherwise everyone just is like, warily looking at this Normal Dad Man in confusion because?? This is the dude who raised Five, who they watched take out like an entire commission team by himself yesterday? He looks so. Normal.

Rick is very confused and like, wonders if he's supposed to be the team mascot? But Five keeps involving him and asking his opinion and in return Rick enforces snack breaks and makes everyone sandwiches and has gentle talks with everyone

Every time Five notices someone about to blow he just lovingly makes sure that that person is alone in a room with Rick

Luther ends up crying on the sofa with Rick gently patting his back as Rick calmly states that Luther seems like he's put a lot of time and effort into his family and making his father proud and that since Reginald isn't here to say it, Rick will have to be the one to say that he's proud and that they've been dropped into a difficult and stressful situation - so soon after Reginald's death when they're still grieving! - and he's doing so well

Luther, experiencing unconditional positive paternal regard for the first time in his life: i don't know why i'm crying so much

honestly this is just a comedy of juggling the gang, having impromptu therapy sessions and discussions, investigating the apocalypse and the eye, leonard trying to meet vanya continuously and failing because she's constantly surrounding by family or rick/patch, the commission trying their best to bust up the dream team/isolate Vanya/kill or remove Five, while Hazel lives out his romcom dreams with Agnes and also says "fuck the commission"

[dumbass-extraordinaire]

Duck, Duck, Grief

The newly reopened wound on Aubrey’s thigh throbs dully as she limps away from the base of the ruined Mt. Kepler and back towards the gate.  She hears a voice in the back of her mind, the sensible one that sounds a lot like Duck, telling her that walking on an injured leg is a bad idea and that she’s only gonna make it worse.  A louder, more vicious voice tells her she deserves it.  This one doesn’t sound like Duck.  She ignores them both and keeps walking.  The night air is cold, numbing her exposed arms and face.  Aubrey is grateful for it.  Having a body feels like an impossible task right now.  Thinking is out of the question, because thinking means acknowledging everything that just happened- 

(gone all gone all gone he’s gone he’s gone it’s all your fault why couldn’t you heal him useless you didn’t even try you told him to leave he was supposed to leave now he’s gone it’s your fault)

-and she wasn’t ready.  Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and her ears were buzzing and it was too cold and she couldn’t breathe-

(he’s on the ground his eyes are open he doesn’t see you he isn’t breathing why isn’t he breathing his hands are cold he is never cold he is always warm warm warm warm smile warm laugh cold)

“Miss, are you okay?  Can you hear me?”

There is a voice above her-

(it is not his voice you will never hear his voice again your fault all your fault dead dead dead)

-the voice continues, but it is not talking to her anymore.

“I think she’s in shock-- Oh god, she’s bleeding, oh that’s real bad, aw jeez,” warm hands grip her arms and lift her to her feet.  She doesn’t remember falling to her knees.  That explains why her leg feels like it’s on fire-

(burning burning the house is on fire there is a man in a mask her dad is on the ground burning)

  She is vaguely aware of being half-carried over to an ambulance.  They sit her down, telling her to put pressure on the wound, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders.  She does this without comment, cannot open her mouth for fear that the words will come tumbling out and never ever stop.  She does not move.

…

Duck and Minerva had just finished taking down the abomination and were making their way over to Leo Tarkesian and Dr. Sarah Drake when they saw the top of Mt. Kepler lift into the air, then came crashing back down, shaking the earth and causing the telescope to creak and sway a little, which in all honesty was really terrifying.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” Duck yelped as the ground shook with the aftershocks of the mountain’s collapse.  He lost his balance but Minerva grabbed his arm to steady him before he could fall over. 

“Duck Newton You Should Be Careful!  Core Strength Is An Integral Part Of Any Hero’s Skill Set!” She exclaimed cheerfully, clapping a hand onto his shoulder with almost as much force as the mountain’s collapse.

“Thanks Minnie,” he wheezed, rubbing his sore shoulder.  Sarah ran up to them, her eyes wide with shock.

“What the hell just happened to the mountain?” she asked, her face pale with fear.

Duck scratched his head.  “Honestly, Sarah?  I got no earthly idea, but we should probably go find out,” he sighed.  “C’mon, we got a ways to go.”

The group of four made their way across the field towards the parking lot, Minerva still giving Leo a piggyback ride on account of his injuries.  When they reached the front gate, Sarah paused and turned to Duck.  She looked as exhausted as he felt.

Running a hand through her hair, she sighed, “As fun as this has been, I think I’ve just about maxed out my daily limit for weird.  If it’s all the same to y’all, I think I’m gonna head on home.”  She points to him, “Don’t think this means I’m gonna let you off the hook about this, mister.  I expect an explanation.”

He salutes her playfully, “Yes, Ma’am.  I’ll have that report on your desk by Monday.”

She smiles and says, “See ya around, Newton,” before turning and walking into the night.

Duck, Minerva, and Leo do the same, making their way to Duck’s government-issued truck.  He chucks the extra broadsword into the truck bed, slings Beacon back around his waist, and slides behind the wheel exhaustedly.  A part of him waits for Aubrey to call shotgun before remembering with a start that she isn’t with them.  He’s so used to having her and Ned as back up in life threatening situations that their absence right now is disconcerting.  He’s more than a little anxious to see them again; they’d all been so busy with their own situations the past few days that they hadn’t had much of a chance to hang out.

“What A Fine Chariot This Is, Duck Newton,” Minerva booms jovially, slapping the roof of his truck.  There is the distinct sound of crumpling metal.

Duck squints blearily at her as she squeezes into the passenger seat, mentally cycling through the five stages of grief as Minerva buckles her seatbelt.  He turns the key in the ignition and drives out of the parking lot.

… 

The closer they get to Amnesty Lodge, the more nervous Duck gets.  Not for the first time since the whole Sylvain mess started, he resents Kepler’s location in the Radio Quiet Zone.  Usually he didn’t mind not having a cellphone, but right now he would give just about anything to call Aubrey and Ned and make sure they’re okay.  The herd of ambulances and police cars heading towards the Lodge do nothing to quell Duck’s mounting anxiety levels.

His anxiety turns to dread as he turns onto the dirt road leading to the lodge and sees the crowd of townsfolk gathered in front of the gate, an ambulance parked off to the side.  He jerks the truck to a stop and jumps out, not even bothering to take the keys out of the ignition as he scans wildly for his friends.  Minerva moves to follow him, but he stops her, telling her to watch out for Leo.  Things are complicated enough without throwing an honest-to-fucking-god alien warrior into the mix.

When he finally does see Aubrey’s colorful shock of dyed hair, it is both a relief and an extra source of stress.  A relief because she’s alive, and a source of stress because she’s sitting in the ambulance.

Duck rushes over to her, his heart dropping into his stomach as a list of every worst case scenario runs through his head.  Someone found out about the lodge, someone went through the gate who wasn’t supposed to and went on a rampage, Agent Stern arrested someone, someone got hurt, someone got killed.  At least Aubrey is okay.  And while he doesn’t see Ned anywhere, Duck isn’t too worried about the old guy.  He’d survived ramming into a Pizza Hut sign with a jetpack, as well as the explosion of said jetpack immediately afterwards.  The man was damn near unkillable.  He skids to a stop in front of Aubrey, his momentum almost causing him to crash into the side of the ambulance.  He takes her in, noting the bandage on her leg and the shock blanket around her shoulders.

“Y’okay, kid?”  He asks, “Aubrey?”  She doesn’t respond, doesn’t look at him or even seem to register his presence.  

That’s his first clue that something’s wrong, because he’s seen her like this before, after the whole ordeal with the Pizza Hut sign.  The hollow, haunted expression on her face is nearly identical to the one she’d worn that day.  It scared him then and it scares him now.

“Aubrey,” he repeats her name.  “C’mon kid, ya gotta talk to me.  I just got here, I’m way outta the loop.”  Nothing.  She just keeps staring blankly ahead.  He crouches down in front of her, waving a hand in front of her face to get her attention.  Again, nothing.  Shit.

He stands back up and starts pacing, raking his hands through his hair, “Aubrey!”  He snaps.  The longer she stays unresponsive, the more nervous he gets, “I need you to say something, kid, you’re fuckin’ scaring me!”  Try as he might, he can’t quite keep the panic from bleeding into his voice.

Finally, finally, she looks up at him, and his heart breaks.

Aubrey looks absolutely wrecked.  Her eyes are bloodshot and ringed black with smeared mascara and eyeliner, her face blotchy and tearstained.  Disconcertingly, both her irises are a bright, piercing orange.  Duck figures this is something important, something he should ask her about right away.  He doesn’t, though, because he couldn’t care less about whatever earth-shattering event made Aubrey’s eyes change color.  He doesn’t care about all that world-saving, chosen one stuff, and he never has.  He cares about people, his people, and right now that’s Aubrey and Ned.  They’re the Pineguard, his family, and he would rather die than see them hurt.

“D-Duck,” Aubrey whimpers, her voice fragile like his ma’s best china.  “Duck, I couldn’t…h-he…”  She shatters, then, curling in on herself as she sobs.

“Hey now, uh,” Duck has never been good at comforting people, especially when they’re crying.  But this is Aubrey and she needs him, social anxiety be damned.

He sits down next to her on the tailgate of the ambulance, shifting so that he’s almost facing her, and puts his arms out, “Do you-- Ooph!”  Before he can finish his question, Aubrey collapses against him, sobbing into his shoulder.  Duck freezes for a moment, unsure, before wrapping his arms around her.

“I-It’s all,” she hiccups, “it’s all m-my fault, Duck, I-I couldn’t…”  She dissolves into sobs again, too distressed to continue.  Her shoulders shake with the force of it.

Duck pats her back awkwardly.  “Aw, Aubrey, I don’t know ‘bout that,” he says, “I don’t think-- don’t blame yourself, kid.  I’m sure you did everything you could.”  Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because she starts crying even harder.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he just hugs her tighter instead.  He hates himself a little for that, wishes to god that the words didn't stick in the back of his throat like old gum on the underside of a picnic bench.  Aubrey hiccups, and Duck rubs her shoulders soothingly.  He’s never seen her like this before, never seen her this broken.  Sure he’s seen her cry, seen her upset, but never like this.  Something is very, very wrong, and Aubrey’s clearly in no shape to tell him what, so he scans the crowd for someone who can.

Finally, he makes eye contact with Jake Coolice.  Which, okay, not exactly ideal, except for the fact that he’s standing next to Mama, who’s engaged in conversation with Detective Maygen.  Duck jerks his head towards the matriarch of Amnesty Lodge, hoping Jake picks up what he’s putting down.  The neon-cloaked Sylph looks confused, and he points at Mama and mouths her name in a silent question.  Duck nods emphatically.  Jake smiles and gives him two thumbs up before tugging on the sleeve of Mama’s duster to get her attention.  The older woman turns to Jake, who points in Duck’s direction.  She squares her shoulders, like she’s preparing for battle, and makes her over to the ambulance.  

The first thing Duck notices is how tired she looks.  The second is the blood on her shirt and hands.  

His blood turns to ice in his veins, “What the fuck happened?” he demands, “Are y’okay?”

Mama sighs, her whole body moving with it, “It’s not mine,” is all she says, and her shoulders slump in something a bit too much like defeat for Duck’s taste.

“Whaddya mean, whose is it then?” he asks, panic setting in.

She exhales softly through her nose.  “Duck, honey, I’m real sorry,” she begins, “now I don’t want you blaming yourself for this, ‘cause it ain’t no one’s fault.”  Mama pauses, looking up at the night sky before running a hand down her face.  There is dried blood under her fingernails.

“Whaddya mean, Mama, what happened?  What don’t ya want me blaming myself for?”

She looks pained, “Duck, sweetheart--.”

“No!  Don’t baby me, I aint a fuckin’ kid,” he snaps.  “What. The. Hell. Happened.”

“I-it was Ned.”  The response comes not from Mama, but Aubrey.  She pulls aways from Duck, exhaling shakily and wiping her eyes.

Duck stares at her.  “Whaddya mean, did he get hurt or somethin’?” he asks, pretty sure he already knows the answer to that question and hoping to god that he’s wrong, “Aubrey?”

She shakes her head.  “No, uh,” she takes a shaky breath, “Shit, I can’t do this.  Mama, uh, can you explain, please?”  Her voice trembles as she gives the older woman a pleading look.

Mama gives her a sad smile, “Sure, baby.”

“Thanks,” Aubrey sniffles.  Duck puts an arm around her and she buries her face in his shoulder.

Mama takes a deep breath, “Duck, ya said ya didn’t wanna be babied, so I guess I better just say it outright.  Ned ain't hurt, honey.  I’m so, so sorry, Duck, but he’s dead.  Ned’s dead.”

The words hit him like a punch in the gut, leaving him breathless and gasping.  

That can’t be right, Ned can’t be dead.  Ned ‘Cowardly’ Chicane, the only one of them with any sort of self-preservation instinct, the guy who just the other day had assured Duck that he didn’t need to worry about him getting hurt because he quote-unquote, “knew when to get the hell outta Dodge” was dead?  No way.  This had to be to work of the shapeshifter, or some sick practical joke.  It couldn’t be true, because if it was, it would mean Duck had failed.  It would mean that something happened and he hadn’t been there to take the big hit.  It would mean that Ned had taken the hit instead.  And he can’t handle that.  What’s the point of being the “Chosen One”, the so-called savior of the planet if he can’t keep the people he cares about safe?  

“Duck?”  Mama’s voice cuts through the haze of grief and shock clouding his brain.  He doesn’t respond, “You with us?”

He wants to argue, wants to break down and scream at the injustice of it all.  But he doesn’t, because he’s not the only one grieving Ned’s-- he’s not the only one affected.  Aubrey’s here too, huddled against his side like a barnacle on the hull of a ship.  God, she’s so young, still just a kid, really.  She shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.  She shouldn’t have to deal with this at all, truth be told, but that’s not in the cards.  The least Duck can do is be strong for her.  He’s good at being strong.  So he pushes aside all his grief and anger and self-recrimination, packing them away in a cardboard box in some dusty corner of his mind to deal with later.  Aubrey comes first.

He takes a deep breath, “Yeah, Mama, I’m with ya.”  He runs a tired hand down his face, “What, uh, what happened?”  His voice trembles right at the end.  He clenches his jaw.  

Mama glances ever so slightly at Aubrey.  “I’m fine,” is all the young woman says.  Mama looks to the night sky, as if hoping the stars can tell her how to make this easier.  Whatever she was looking for, it isn’t there and she faces Duck once more.

She does that thing again, squaring her shoulders like she’s getting ready for a fight, “The Abomination, it took Ned’s shape an’ then spilled the beans about everything on television.  The lodge, the gate, Sylvain, all of it.  That’s why all these folks are here,” she gestures to the crowd of townspeople.  

“Ned, he killed it and came down here to try and divert ‘em, send ‘em on a wild goose chase.  It sorta worked, actually, he got rid of about half of ‘em.  He starts talkin’ folks down, tryin’ to get the rest of them to see sense,” she laughs bitterly, “And it mighta even worked, too, ‘cept then the glowing coffin shows up and out pops Dani.  And she’s all feral, completely outta her mind after being separated from the hot springs for so long.”  

Her mouth presses into a thin line.  “And then she, well… She charged these here folks, and Ned, he tackles her.  Thing is, you get a buncha scared folks with guns in one place, well, someone’s bound to get hurt.  And tonight, that was Ned.  He got shot, and by the time the ambulance got here it was too late.  There wasn’t nothing any of us could do,” she looks over at Aubrey when she says that.  “And that’s… that’s the whole story.  I’m sorry,” she gives him a sympathetic look, “Y’alright, Duck?”

Duck says nothing, just nods sharply.  Because how do you respond to something like that?  What do you say when someone’s been ripped from your life and you can’t remember the last thing you said to them?  What do you say?  What can you say that would be enough to encompass the raw, gaping wound that takes the place of your heart, the way your stomach drops, when you think of all the things left unsaid?  What do you say?

As it turns out, “Let’s go home,” is a pretty good start.

[idontblushsrry]

Request fic

Anon asked: 

Would you do a Hiei from YYH fic where Hiei and the reader are in "will they won't they" stage since they clearly like each other but she's not going to push Hiei and Hiei wants to ignore his feelings but he can't once he gets blatantly jealous when Shishiwakamaru makes a comment about her during the Dark Tournament after she turns him down for "not being her type"?

A/N: I kinda messed with somethings because I haven’t seen Dark Tournament in a hot minute.

Word Count: 1624

“Hiei, you’re glaring again.”

“Shut it Kurama. I’m not glaring, merely observing.”

An exasperated Kurama smiles at his friend who despite, verbal assurances that he was “merely observing” seemed to be growing increasingly irritated. Demonic aura rolling off his friend in waves as Hiei’s hand twitched to grab his sword.

The object of Hiei’s ire stood there completely unaware of the death looming over his head. Or maybe, he was all too aware. Shishiwakamaru had no issues when it came to taunting his rival team. You were no exception, the fact that you happened to actually catch Shishi’s eye was nothing more than icing on the cake.

The fact that Hiei looked ready to turn him into a sword sheath made this interaction all the more sweet.

All the while, you were caught in the crossfire between the 2 demons’ mind game/ ego contest. You continued your conversation with Shishiwakamaru out of pure politeness, every question he asked, you answered bored and disinterested, each answer getting shorter and shorter as time stretched on. To be truthful, you’d rather be back at the hotel, you were wasting the team’s precious training time by being here. You tried to shoo them off but Kurama insisted for the sake of being a gentleman and Hiei stayed because he wanted to “scope out the competition”.

Now the competition had more than ended and neither of them had any real valid reason to remain here, demons long gone, any stragglers you’d be more than able to avoid on your way back to the hotel. But you figured the same reason you were still here was why Hiei stayed around. Kurama probably just stayed behind to make sure Hiei didn’t add any extra charges to their long list of crimes.

“If you’re done wasting oxygen, Shishi, we’d like to head back now.”, Hiei, fed up with Shishi’s persistence speaks.

“If you’ll excuse me, your presence is no longer required. I can escort my Y/N back to the hotel if you’re that busy.”, Shishiwakamaru was all too aware of the underlining irritation in Hiei’s voice, more potent than his usual cadence.

That seemed to be the tipping point for Hiei because he grabbed his sword and nearly lopped off Shishiwakamaru’s head if it weren’t for Kurama placing a hand on his shoulder with a look that said ‘save it for the arena.’

Alright, this had gone on long enough, “Actually Shishi, I was thinking of heading back with them, it’s getting kinda late and I don’t wanna be here at night with just you...”, you mumbled the last part out a little awkwardly and gestured towards the exit where Hiei and Kurama stood.

Your “excellent” moderator skills seemed to have worked though because Shishi didn’t put up a fight. He smiled at you before gently taking your hand in his and placing a kiss on the palm of it. “Until we meet again Y/N, you hold my heart in your hands.” With a final smile directed at you, ignoring the way Hiei’s glare intensified, he walked away, leaving you to deal with the aftermath of his actions.

The aftermath being one pissed off fire demon named Hiei.

As you all made your way back to the hotel, you could tell that Hiei was very pointedly, ignoring you. He trailed behind you and Kurama before completely disappearing into the trees going who knows where.

The walk back with Kurama was silent but not unpleasant. You were mainly lost in your own thoughts, Kurama offered you a sympathetic smile but otherwise didn’t bother you. Any advice he could’ve given you would be repetitive, the both of you being closest to Hiei and knowing how he operates.

Upon coming back to the hotel, you note with nary a concern that Team Urameshi’s common room was completely empty. Fine, you needed to be alone with your thoughts anyways. All you wanted was tea, after that, you’d leave.

It did not appear that the universe was on your side as Botan appeared by your side with a cattish grin that said she’d found a new piece of drama to prey upon. 

“So, Y/N, me and the girls were playing truth or dare. Since everyone else is out, we were wondering if you’d like to join us?”

She said that all too innocently, it seemed she was either trying to lower your guard or she’d finally put her paws away. It did sound nice though, hanging out with Keiko, Yukina, Shizuru, and Botan in a situation more relaxing than hoping your boys don’t die every time they go out to fight.

“I’m sorry, I have to say no. I’m feeling a little tired from today and honestly, I’m just gonna pass out on the nearest surface, preferably a bed.”

She looked a bit disappointed, but understanding. “It’s just that I wanted you to see that Yusuke’s spirit beast had finally hatched.” 

“Oh, good for him, but I’m sure I can see it tomorrow. Aren’t the best things worth waiting for?” She looked a bit confused at your usage of the quote and you took that as an opportunity to leave. As interesting as Yusuke’s spirit beast sounds, you honestly were hoping to wait up for Hiei so you could talk to him about today.

Mind made up, you sped to your room, catching the faintest sight of a black puff of hair atop a blue...blob, before closing the door. You set your tea down to let it cool while you changed into your sleepwear. Pacing all the while and triple checking that your curtains were pulled back and your window was open.

“Why do you look so nervous?”

The sound of Hiei’s voice causes you to jump up in fear, tea cup almost spilling and dropping to the floor as a result. You turn around and see Hiei, perched on the windowsill, as dramatic as ever but also as serene as he’d ever been.

“Hiei, y-you’re here.”, a little caught off guard, you beam at the sight of him.

“Why wouldn’t I be here?”, he states that as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, the implied affection doesn’t go unnoticed by you either. He jumps down from the window and enters your room, but that’s it. He puts his hands in his pocket and makes no moves to get closer to you beyond that.

Is he-? It’s faint but if you squint and the moonlight hits him just right, you could swear he was blushing. Hiei? Blushing?? You must be more tired than you thought because in what world does Hiei blush?

He opens his mouth to say something before closing it and you’re reminded, this is the world where Hiei blushes. The same world that forced him to compete in a tournament that could cost him his life. And the same world where he cares for you and you him but neither of you acting upon it.

“Hiei I-”

“Y/N look-”

At that you both laugh, feeling some of the tension in the room ease a bit after doing so. You try to urge Hiei to go first but he insists you speak, so you do. 

“I just wanted to say that I don’t have any feelings for Shishiwakamaru.”, you figured being blunt would be the best approach, Hiei appreciated it despite him being one of the most roundabout people you knew, “You know I only have eyes for you right?”

At your honest admission, Hiei looks a little guilty, eyes flitting about the room before settling back on you. His blush intensifies as a pout forms on his face, “I know that, I’m not an idiot like Kuwabara.”

Despite him looking like he wants you to finish this conversation for him, you remain silent. He had more that he needed to say to you, even if he didn’t know it.

His eyes took another trip around the room and he fixed you with a glare that said ‘seriously?’. You just smiled innocently and waited for him to continue.

“Listen Y/N because I’m going to say this once.”, he clears his throat, standing up straight and removing his hands from his pockets to point at you. “I find that you’re more tolerable than others. If I let my guard around you...I trust that you’d watch over me.” As soon as he finished, he looked away and plopped onto the floor, legs crossed.

You tensed the slightest bit, this subject was new to both of you, before forcing your body to move and making your way across the room to Hiei. You sat in front of him and placed a daring hand atop his.

To your relief, he didn’t seem opposed and even tangled his fingers in yours. Now both of you were staring into each other’s eyes, waiting for someone to make a move or say something. 

An unrestrained smile broke out across your face as you savored the feeling of Hiei’s hand in yours, the warmth of his calloused hands sending a fresh stream of butterflies up your arm and into your stomach. 

Hiei smiled too, a smaller one than yours but the happiness in his eyes more than making up the difference. It seemed like the two of you would sit there lovesick forever until Hiei, in an unprecedented show of boldness, leaned in and placed the gentlest kiss onto your lips.

It was clumsy, too firm at one point and angle a bit awkward, but it was so remarkably Hiei. The kiss was so brief that you were left dazed and wanting for more.

Hiei didn’t oppose when you pulled him in for another kiss, nor did he oppose the many that followed.

[veliseraptor]

CQL Characters Rated by Their Stress Levels

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being “Lan Wangji smiling at Wei Wuxian” and 10 being “Lan Xichen at Guanyin Temple.”

Lan Wangji: Varies wildly over the course of the series; see @howpeacefulislwj for detailed rundown. The roundup post averages his peacefulness at 4.2/10. Generally speaking, stress levels middling, between 3/10 and 5/10 with some extreme highs, pretty much all Wei Wuxian related.

Wei Wuxian: One of those people where you’re like “god I hate him, everything’s so easy for him and he can do everything better than me, it’s the worst, how the fuck does he do it” and then years later you find out that he had an epic burnout and dropped off the face of the earth for sixteen years because actually it wasn’t that easy he just made it look that way. 

I mean, he starts the series at about a 5/10 general state (he’s managing a lot but handling it okay) and basically escalates to a relatively consistent 9 or 10/10 for most of the stretch from the Burial Mounds through to his dying. Someone should make a @howpeacefuliswwx chart, I’d be curious to see his average.

Jiang Cheng: Has been existing in a constant low-level state of stress since late childhood and only grows over time. The calmest I think we ever see him is when he’s holding a bunny and other than that it’s mostly downhill. I worry about him getting ulcers sometimes. 8/10.

Jiang Yanli: Jiang Yanli is so used to being stressed that she barely even registers it any more. What do you mean, most people don’t raise two other children when they are also a child? What do you mean, most people take breaks from supporting others to help themselves? Weird. If she was thinking about it she’d be at a 8 or 9/10 but since she’s so accustomed to this way of life that it just feels totally normal she’s more like a 4 or a 5. 

Jiang Fengmian: Avoids being more stressed by generally avoiding his problems, which is one way to deal with it but doesn’t really end up working out most of the time. 3/10.

Yu Ziyuan: Resides somewhere in the vicinity of 5/10 stress levels, 11/10 rage levels, and when the stress levels get above 5 then everyone else’s stress levels better be hitting the roof.

Lan Xichen: Lan Xichen would probably be relatively unstressed if life didn’t consistently come crashing through his relatively chill vibes. Lan Xichen on a good day is, like, 3/10, handling pretty well, but when things start going wrong around him then he pretty quickly hits critical stress levels and will do drastic things to resolve that, such as convincing Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao to set aside their near-murder differences and swear brotherhood, which will definitely work out absolutely fine. Ends up averaging closer to 8/10 because things keep going wrong around him.

Lan Qiren: He’d be fine if his entire family didn’t insist on causing him problems, constantly. Handling it surprisingly well, all things considered. Still 6/10 though.

Nie Mingjue: I mean, does spend a large chunk of time steadily inching toward a qi deviation? That on its own is pretty stressful and also he just seems like generally a high blood pressure sort of person. But the qi deviation inducing saber is definitely not, like, helping. Putting him at a roughly 6 or 7/10 with a median level that just keeps inching slowly upward.

Nie Huaisang: Actually less stressed than you’d expect given how flighty he seems to be! Even when plotting revenge is less “stressed” than “determined.” Pretty good at keeping himself calm most of the time. Generally sits at a stress level of 4/10 or so with a few significant exceptions.

Jin Guangyao: Very stressed all of the time. He has a lot to be stressed about! Between the various complexes and the tendency toward paranoia, Jin Guangyao is definitely among the most stressed in a room at any given time, while doing his best to convey otherwise. But seriously, look at this smile. Does that look like the smile of a serene man to you? 10/10.

Jin Zixuan: You know those high-strung racehorses that sometimes get spooked by, like, a shadow on the ground? That’s Jin Zixuan. Mostly manages to mask his constant low-level “AHHHHH” with a layer of arrogance and/or social awkwardness that looks like arrogance, but it’s there, in the background. 7/10.

Jin Zixun: Shielded from the general Jin neuroses by being an asshole. It’s not fair, but there you are. 3/10 because he does seem to have some inferiority complex issues going on, but that’s not the same thing as stress.

Jin Guangshan: Deserves to be a lot more stressed than he is. Alas, is confident enough to not be terribly stressed. 2/10.

Mianmian: So you know how cheetahs are very panicky animals and so they often in zoos get paired with dogs who will help them figure out that this situation is safe and they don’t need to panic? I feel like Mianmian is Jin Zixuan’s stress meter in their friendship. She will let him know when to be stressed! Because she is not going to spook at her own shadow. Has a sense of reasonable responses to stressors and knows how to remove herself from a bad situation when necessary. Generally a 5/10 because the inherent stress of existing in the Jin Sect is a real thing. 

Wen Qing: It’s hard to be the most competent person in the room most of the time who spends most of her time in very politically precarious positions and with her or her brother’s life at least sort of in danger! Pretty up there for “most stressed” candidates. She’s really having a time of it. Generally hovers around an 8/10.

Wen Ning: Generally not stressed, at least not in the traditional way. Is distressed a lot, but not so much stressed. Ends up at roughly 4/10.

Wen Chao: Like Jin Zixun, gets somewhat shielded from stress by being an unrepentant asshole, though his end of life 11/10 stress via Wei Wuxian kind of makes up for the rest. Averages more of a 2/10 most of the time, though? I don’t think we can let that relatively brief period skew the scale too much.

Wen Ruohan: Does “magic induced losing your mind” count as stress? I mean, he has a pretty stressful job even before that, but he doesn’t project “stress” so much as “incipient madness” during the period where we actually see him doing things. Not sure what rating to give here. It seems like he’s kind of on a different scale.

Wang Lingjao: For the most part seems to manage to get by relatively stress-free, up until things start going completely to shit and she gets haunted to death. Generally closer to a 2 or 3/10, because life as a servant ascended to mistress in a strictly hierarchical society is inherently a wee bit stressful.

Wen Zhuliu: Too sick of this shit and not getting paid enough to really stress out about it. 1/10.

Lan Sizhui: One of those people who manages to appear serene and calm all the time but mostly has just gotten used to functioning at a higher level of stress and therefore can pass for calm even when he is having an Experience of it, which makes his stress levels kind of hard to gauge. But I’d put him at a relatively consistent 6/10.

Lan Jingyi: Wouldn’t call him stressed exactly but he’s definitely very high energy. Kind of gives off the vibes of a very energetic dog who would be stressed if you didn’t keep him busy, but mostly (because I feel like Gusu Lan Sect is pretty good at keeping him busy) hovers around a 2 or 3/10. 

Jin Ling: I feel like Jin Ling isn’t stressed most of the time up until the actual events of CQL itself, where he is both very stressed and very confused almost constantly from the time he first runs into Wei Xuanyu, and it only goes downhill from there. So covering the events of the show I’m going to put him at a 7/10, because he does manage to deal with some wild things with some equanamity and makes it all the way to episode forty-five without breaking down sobbing.

Ouyang Zizhen: Seems like a sensitive soul but doesn’t give off the impression of carrying around a lot of stress, at least not from what we see of him. Probably the chillest of the junior quartet, tbh. Gonna give him a 2/10.

Xiao Xingchen: For most of his life Xiao Xingchen manages his stress very well! He’s actually surprisingly chill. Gets significantly more stressed, understandably, after Xue Yang engineers his no good very bad breakup (the first one) with Song Lan. But in general not that stressed! It is actually part of why he doesn’t handle the stress when it comes very well. He’s not used to it and he only had one pair of eyes to sacrifice. In general a 3/10.

Song Lan: Makes up for Xiao Xingchen’s relatively low stress levels by picking up on the stress for both of them. Still chiller than a lot of people on this list, though, but there’s a lot of very stressed people in this show, so. 5/10.

Xue Yang: Manages his stress by making everyone else very stressed, on purpose. If he’s having a bad day he’ll go and make someone else have a worse day and it helps. At least until there’s a dead Xiao Xingchen and then nothing helps! But as a rule exists at a general 2/10 and honestly he deserves it.

A-Qing: Her life is inherently stressful because she is a street kid trying to make it in a world that is not very friendly to people with no structure supporting them, but she manages to bear it pretty well on the whole. Still, it’s hard being a-Qing. She just makes it look easy. Probably a 4 or 5/10.

Sect Leader Yao: He’s not stressed, but he’s very good at making everyone around him stressed every time he opens his mouth. His presence is a +2 to stress for everyone in his vicinity with the exception of Sect Leader Ouyang, who is for some reason immune. 0/10.

[anika-ann]

Conundrum (A.B.)

Type: One-shot, challenge fic

Pairing: Andy Barber x fem!reader    Word Count: 7700 (:

Summary: conundrum - a confusing and difficult problem or question

Andy Barber is a difficult man whom you have yet to understand. He certainly doesn’t make it any easier; and right before Christmas, he manages to surprise you again.

Prompt: You have to look for a gift impromptu

Warnings: a smidge of angst, a drop of awkward humour, mention of death (mild AU - both Laurie and Jacob!), alcohol consumption, feels, explicit language, reader gets called a dumbass... that’s it I hope, lemme know

A/N:  This is my submission for the Happy Hoelidays challenge. There’s no hoeing tho, shame on me. Also, if you want some music to go with this, know that I listened to ‘God I Hope This Year Is Better Than the Last’ by SYML an obscene amount of times.

Andy Barber was an enigma.

Reporters liked to think he wasn’t; almost a year ago, they tore down all the walls he had built up to protect the privacy of his family and they shed light into startingly intimate details of his life – and where they couldn’t shed light, they used their imagination and sold it with a claim of having a reliable source. Naturally, it worked; there were always people willing to believe it just so they obtained more of juicy gossip material.

There were wanabe psychologists who would address his trauma and tried to analyse his personality, the consequences he would suffer in the aftermath of the tragedy, who attempted to strip down his soul just to get a few more reads and generally talked about him as if they were best friends, as if they knew him.

It was all a load of bullshit.

The truth, you thought, was that no one knew him. If you were being honest, you weren’t sure if even his wife ever had, truly – but that was you under the influence of the little information you bothered to gather from the influx of crap that the media provided the public with.

What you believed was that the reporters and all the self-proclaimed experts on him knew nada.

Andrew Barber was and always would remain an enigma; to the public, to the little what remained of his family after the death of his wife and son, to his co-workers – the category which included you. If you could even call yourself a co-worker; you were simply a secretary. Granted, one whose previous employer let her peek over their shoulder quite a bit so you learned a thing or two about law, but Andy Barber was the lawyer. The former DA from Boston, who moved over to rule the DA office of Portland, your home.

Even after having been working with him for nine full months, Andy’s thoughts and feelings didn’t get any easier for you to read or predict. When he wanted to let you know he was disappointed, he did. When he was truly angry with someone, well, he wouldn’t let it go unnoticed either.

Other than that, however, you would have had better luck trying to decode the actual enigma-encrypted messages sent during World War II.

Small talk didn’t last longer than three sentences from you each. Work-related affaires were discussed in his office with politeness and with calm, rather dispassionate mannerism. If you caught a hint of a smile when an important case that helped people went his way (or the office’s way really), you considered it a miracle that sent your heart reeling.

He would sometimes smile only for you if you brought him a coffee without him asking first, simply because he looked like he needed one; at those times, he would thank you softly and let slip in your first name instead of referring to you with your last. Those were your favourite moments.

Well, almost.

You found him with a tumbler and an expensive whiskey on occasion when you were leaving the office late; you never commented on it, but there were four times he actually silently invited you to have a glass with him. You refused the first time and accepted the other three.

Those nights, you got a glimpse of the mystery of a man hidden behind surprisingly soft mannerism, one which was in such a sharp contrast to his shark-like demeanour he displayed in front of the judge and the jury. His scars ran deep, his hopes had been shattered, his life in the past year as bitter as the overpriced liquor. Your heart cracked for him to the point of nearly breaking altogether.

And yet, it was beating for him too; behind all that hurt, you couldn’t but notice certain gentleness. Yes, he could be scary, downright terrifying and when his temper got the best of him, the true rage on display, he was a force to be reckoned with. But oh, that gentleness. The kind shattered soul he hid so well every morning, more so on the days right after your little heart-to-hearts. Trying to build a working relationship with him – a friendship of a sort, anything you wanted to call it – was a game of push and pull and more of a string of guesses than an effort that would bore fruit.

You might have already given up on that and instead, with the ferocity you hadn’t known you possessed, you kept punching the crush you had on him; that silly thing that would always call louder and louder after he revealed a piece of him on one of the precious nights, only to shut you out completely the next morning.

Andy Barber had never even remotely showed a romantic interest in you and by God, did you not blame him for not being interested in anyone at all as far you knew. While you considered yourself a fairly capable worker and half-decent person, you were aware you could never measure up to him. Just another reason to push down the feelings you had for him, ones that seemed to bloom with more intensity whenever he raised the corners of his damn lips, when he asked a question about you during those stupid nights as if he cared— nonsense. You had to get rid of those. He didn’t even like you, barely acknowledged you in the end. Or did he? You honestly didn’t know.

Bottom line was that if you couldn’t get close enough, then the reporters knew jack shit, no matter how much reading on him they had done or how many books on psychology, criminology and law and shit they went through. Many people knew Andrew Barber’s name, but no one could hope to know him.

And yet, those assholes still called and asked about him.

It was the fourth one that day; December 23rd, over a year from the accusation of Jacob Barber, and those fucking vultures still called Andy Barber’s office. They weren’t even good newspapers and news sites anymore; obviously, because every rational decent person would have let the poor man rest. But nope. Not them.

“Portland’s DA office, secretary of Mr. Barber speaking. How may I help you?”

“Oh, wonderful! Is there any chance I could talk to Mr. Barber personally?” the chipper of a man asked on the other end of the line and just by not giving his name, he raised suspicion; was it forgetfulness caused by his distress or intention?

Fortunately for him and unfortunately for you, you had to be polite. Hot-shot lawyers and other important people rarely returned the courtesy, but that was the world you lived in.

“There might be, Mr-?”

“Oh, Connor. Peter Connor.”

“Well, Mr. Connor, what is your legal issue?” you asked patiently, writing down his name automatically.

“Well, you see, I would rather talk with Mr. Barber about—my delicate situation, in private.”

Your eyes narrowed as you stopped scribbling and spared a brief glance towards the door to Andy’s office. It was opened ajar in what could be an invitation, but all blinds on both the door and the windows were down in typical fashion.

Talk in private?

Yeah, not gonna happen. You knew a few tricks that these assholes calling the office tended to pull and whoever this man was, you were growing more suspicious by the minute that he was not seeking legal advice.

You went back to your notes and wrote down the word liar right next to his name and a question mark. Was he a liar? One way to find out you guessed; you caught your phone between your ear and your shoulder, opening a new tab in your browser to google the name along with a wild guess of him being a reporter.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Connor, I’m afraid I will need more information before I put you through. And I will probably need to make you an appointment, my boss is a very busy man-“

“Oh, is he? Lots of cases in Andrew Barber’s new district, huh?”

The blood in your veins was set aflame even before the search was done, because in an instant, you knew for sure.

And then you had it confirmed by the results.

This jerk had even given you his real name, utterly shameless. Sure, he could have only had the same name as the journalist you found, but what were the chances? Two days after you told his colleague – who had made it through your vetting, got an appointment and even got past the reception desk before you spotted him for what he was – to get lost and not try again?

Your pulse skyrocketed along with your blood pressure. Technically, you didn’t owe Andrew Barber anything, but he was respectful enough, didn’t make much trouble and for most time, was an okay boss to you.

You owed him this much: he was a decent guy. Why couldn’t other people show a shed of basic human decency too and leave him the fuck alone?

“That depends, Mr. Connor,” you purred, barely holding the outrage locked inside. You felt both energized by your anger and achingly tired and done with humanity. You rested your elbows on the desk and leaned onto it with a sigh, massaging the bridge of your nose, eyes closed. “Is he going to have to sue your rag of a newspaper or will you and your colleagues finally get the memo and leave. His. Personal. Life. Alone?!”

You most definitely strained the last words through your teeth, but you didn’t care anymore if you were being rude. He was the fourth reporter today ready to ask about Andy’s personal matters. The FOURTH!! He was lucky you didn’t tell him to go fuck himself… explicitly.

“Are you threatening me?” the man demanded, his voice insulted, losing all traced of pretence.

As if you ever. You knew better than that, working with lawyers.

“Nice try, Mr. Connor.  I will thank you to never call this office again unless you have legal issues or a relevant question which you should direct to our PR department anyway. And if you could extend this to all editorial staff, please, preferably to all editorial staff in the United States, that would be splendid. Have a good day. Happy Holidays.”

You slammed the phone down, missing the slot for it, not caring. You were sure he would hang up on his own.

“Asshole,” you muttered under your breath and hid your face in your palms, grunting, fingertips sinking into your hair.

“I hope you don’t mean me,” sounded from the doorway and you yelped, honest to god yelped and straightened in your seat, head snapping up-

-only to meet your boss’ curious gaze. Hurt and anger casted shadows over his beautiful cerulean irises, but there was no mistaking the melancholy and resignation on his face either.

“Of course not!” you blurted out quickly, panic rising in your chest.

How much had he heard? Was he going to fire you for being unprofessional? Did he figure out what was this about— of course he did, there was little room left for doubt. Your choice of words was pretty straightforward.

Andy bounced off of the doorframe he was leaning onto, not easing his stance – his arms remained crossed over his chest and had you not been so alarmed, you would have indulged in the sight of his biceps nearly cutting through the seams of his shirt.

“Why do I get the impression that whoever you were talking to was not the first person to call the office to feed on ‘the misery man’ that Andrew Barber is?” he more stated than asked, his tone unmistakably bitter.

You gulped as he approached your desk, nails digging into your palms. You had no idea what to say. Once again, you couldn’t quite read Andy; you had no idea where this was heading and how you should answer without setting him off, making him sadder or even more bitter. And without getting fired, obviously.

“I—uhm, well, I suppose you heard me, so you know he wasn’t the first—Mr. Barber. I apologize-“ His eyebrows rose a fraction and you didn’t dare to analyse why. “-if I was too loud. But--- humanity sucks.”

The moment the last two words left your mouth, you instantly regretted them, snapping your eyelids close and squeezing. You were sure you were about to have bloody crescents in your palms from your nails at this point.

Did you really just say that? To your boss, no less?

Way to go, me.

“Not wrong there. Why don’t you take your lunch break now?” he offered casually.

You nodded as you felt the tell-tale burn of tears forming in your eyes; fuck, this was humiliating. Why had he had to walk in exactly in that moment? And now using that tone?

He didn’t say anything else and you didn’t dare to look at him. Only when you heard him walk back to his office and close the door behind him, you opened your eyes and released the breath you were holding, your heart hammering in your chest.

Gulping and swallowing your tears before they could escape, you grabbed your purse and your coat, rushing out to the cold air of Portland winter.

✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  

Andy didn’t bring up the incident again when you came back. You had a short list of assignments for the upcoming days off which you went over with him before parting ways for the holidays. You mentioned you would probably drop in tomorrow despite not necessarily having to, but wished him Happy Holidays in case you’d miss him during your brief visit.

The corners of his lips twitched at that, but he wished you the same. You supposed his holidays weren’t about to be happy – more like the opposite. Last year, he celebrated with his family, even if it might have been already falling apart. This year however…

Your heart cracked another fraction for the man and you wondered if you should leave some cookies for him in the office tomorrow at least. Then you realized he would probably hate it, either being bitter about feeling like a charity case or hating the reminder of what he had lost, what wasn’t waiting for him at home anymore. Not to mention that maybe even the poinsettia, which you had placed on his office window two days ago and neither of you commented on, was already too much.

The only cookies you baked that night were the ones you knew should stay in a box with apples for over a day, the cookies you were supposed to bring to your sister’s house for Christmas, because your nephew Harry loved them.

With cheesy Christmas songs in the background and a bottle of wine for the party of one, you kneaded the double batch of dough and couldn’t but spare your achingly handsome and likely lonely boss a thought and maybe… maybe a tear or two.

✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  ✦  ✧  

The office was empty when you arrived on 24th at around half past four; everyone left as soon as possible, which was to be expected. Admittedly, despite not knowing what you would talk about with Andy, you found your heart sinking when you didn’t see light peeking through the blinds of your and his offices. You had expected him to be working to avoid being at home; but then again, you knew next to nothing about him. Maybe he was with a girlfriend. With a boyfriend. With former colleagues. With his deceased wife’s family. It was only assumption of yours that he might be lonely on Christmas.

You shook your head at your train of thought as you unlocked your office, mentally going over which files you needed to bring home, trying to eliminate the amount as not to endanger confidential information by taking them away from the safety of the bureau.

You froze in your tracks when you found a rather large piece of paper folded into a roof on your desk. A note, you realized, frowning and slowly walking to the suspicious object.

There were very few people who could enter your space, namely three: the janitor, you and Andy. The first option was unlikely, the second impossible, the third confusing. You didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just shoot you a text if he needed anything.

You halted in your steps, the air knocked out of your lungs when you noticed that the note was not the only new item on your desk.

There was a box.

A box roughly size of your extended palm. And if you weren’t mistaken… it looked like a jewellery gift box.

“What the hell?” you asked yourself breathlessly, your curiosity getting the best of you; more so as you recognized what was most definitely Andy’s handwriting on the paper.

Andrew Barber, your boss, with whom you weren’t sure what your relationship was – if there was any at all – might have got you jewellery.

Say that again?

A tiny voice in your head told you he might have just used the box for something else entirely, but that didn’t seem to be his style.

So you picked up the gift carefully, almost reverently removing the lid, your heart pounding in your chest, stomach twisting with pleasant anticipation; with the familiar rush that kids feel when opening a present with high hopes of what could await them inside.

Your lips parted in pure shock, you mind turning blank.

There were no words in English language to express how… how absolutely magnificent the bracelet inside was.

Five thin circles with symbols made of slender lines inside, looking like charms, but withing the body of the bracelet, one clasped to the next one with delicate ellipses. The metal reflected the fluorescent lights of the office, glimmering softly, appearing almost fluid, a thin stream of water trapped in a box.

You actually had to blink and it took all your willpower not to pinch yourself, because—how-

How had he known? Where had he got it? Holy mother of Jesus, how much had he spent on it?

And why get you a gift in the first place? You were… acquaintances at best. Yes, there were almost friendly moments, and then there were those nights, but this was---this- you couldn’t even---- think, apparently.

Keeping an eye on the opened box, you gently placed it back on the desk, afraid to even touch the metal itself. You blindly reached into your purse in search for your phone to dial the only number that made sense for you to dial at that moment.

It sure as hell wasn’t Andy’s.

Nothing but a dialling tone sounded for half a minute, the time seemingly endless. You fell heavily into your chair, still staring at the absolutely gorgeous and thoughtful gift.

How did he know?!

You fought the urge to roll your eyes as your sister still didn’t answer the phone and your hand automatically reached for your necklace to toy with.

And that was when it hit you.

Your necklace; one you got from your sister during the period of your biggest obsession with the Divergence series. Two arrows in a circle pointing different directions, the symbol for a ‘divergent’ person. Your eyes wandered over the five circles of the bracelet – scales, an eye, hands connected, a flame, a tree –, an incredulous chuckle escaping you.

But--- you didn’t think he would notice. You didn’t even wear it all the time, rather often, yes, and yeah, perhaps you did have a bit of a bad habit of fumbling with it when nervous-

“Hey sis! What’s up?” Amber’s voice sounded cheerily from the microphone. You jumped in your seat, startled by her as she interrupted your musing. “Please tell me you’re still coming, because Harry wouldn’t shut up about his favourite chocolate chip.”

You cleared your throat, barely able to comprehend what she was talking about, too caught up in your head.

“I—hi. Uhm- I need help actually,” you finally stuttered and you could practically feel her frown even over the phone.

“Oh? Is everything okay? You sound… a little strange.”

“That’s-“ not wrong. You scanned the office and listened in for the tinniest noise, making sure you were still alone. “I’m at the office and I--eh, I found a gift for me.”

“Awww, a secret admirer? Nice!” Amber chuckled, then abruptly stopped. “…unless it’s a stalker. You don’t think you have a stalker, right? Is that why you called me, so I could tell George? He’s not on duty-“

This time you did roll your eyes at the mention of her husband who happened to be a police officer.

“No, Amber, I have no stalker as far as I know. I’m pretty sure I can recognize my boss’ handwriting at this point.”

Nothing but silence could be heard from the other end for a good minute. You bit your lip in anticipation of… something.

And then: “You’re shitting me.”

“Not really-“

“Holy mother of-!” your sister squealed loudly and you winced, instinctively withdrawing from the phone. “Your boss got you a Christmas present?! --Wait. Is it a Walmart card? Because if it is, then this call is pointless, because that’s boring as-“

“No, Amber, he—he gave me a bracelet,” you admitted softly, your gaze once again wandering over the said object. Beautiful. Fragile. Yours, apparently. What?

When Amber only responded with silence again, words suddenly spilled from your lips, all the mixed feelings you had about receiving the bracelet released, relief singing in your veins as you vented.

“And-and it’s actually really beautiful and--- it’s thoughtful, because it has all the fractions from Divergence on it? But not like something you buy for ten dollars, only paying for the copyright or whatever and the quality is shitty, no, I mean--- it looks pretty, eh, delicate.”

It did, awfully so, which was why you still couldn’t make yourself to touch it even if you really, really liked it and wanted to do nothing but to wear it for the rest of your damn life.

“And expensive. I-- I think it might be real silver and…” you wavered, almost scared to share your last observation out loud for it seemed impossible for it to be true. “Amber, you know I looked through a lot of Divergence-related goods so I would know. It- it doesn’t look familiar at all, it’s--- I think it might be custom-made.”

You choked on the last word, tasting so strange on your tongue as you couldn’t quite believe that you were saying it. You felt--- incredulous to put it simply… and touched and- absolutely bewildered.

Silence stretched in the follow-up to your rambling and you felt your brows drawing together.

“…Amber? You there?”

“Oh yeah, I’m here,” she assured you swiftly, mischief curling around the tone of her voice like a smirk on her lips you couldn’t see. “Just wondering how could you not tell me you started sleeping with him-“

“What?! No!” you protested instantly, straightening in the chair. “I’m not—I’m not his sugar baby or whatever! This is not a ‘thank you for letting me fuck you raw’ gift-“

“Not that you would complain from what I heard and saw-“ she hummed playfully.

She was right. But shush!

“Screw you!”

“George does, that’s why we have Harry in the first place,” she sassed you. “But… sis? What kind of a gift it is then?”

And wasn’t that the question.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Well, you should, because from what you told me, you guys aren’t even friends. Nota bene, this isn’t exactly a gift you give to a friend,” she pointed out, addressing one of the million issues concerning the damn (gorgeous) bracelet.

“I-- I guess?” You were sure, in fact. This was something to give to a… well, to a lover, to a partner. “But- Amber, he doesn’t--- that’s not-“

“What did the note say?”

“Huh?”

“You said you recognized his handwriting,” she reminded you slowly as if speaking to a five-year-old. “What does the note say?”

You glanced at the note again noncommittally, remembering exactly what it said. Pretty much nothing. Definitely nothing to go on.

“Uhm… Thank you. Happy Holidays.”

There was a beat of silence, again. “That’s it?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Eloquent.” You rolled your eyes at her sarcastic tone. She should see him at court. True though, on personal level, he wasn’t exactly chatty. Unless he opened up a bit over a glass of whiskey--- anyway, she had a point, obviously. “What are you gonna do?”

That snapped you from your musing like a shot of life into your bloodstream.

“That’s why I’m calling! I should-- I should get him something too, right?” Right?! Absolutely. “Oh god, I hate last-minute shopping. And I don’t even have a fucking clue what to buy! Well, a good whiskey is always a safe bet I guess, but supporting his drinking habits doesn’t sound like a good idea. Plus, it’s kinda… impersonal with comparison to what he gave me.”

Though if there was one thing you learned about Andy Barber, it was that he could appreciate the high-quality liquor, so perhaps it wouldn’t have been as impersonal as one might think.

“Well, I don’t know him so I can’t really help, but what you got from him should definitely give you a clue.”

“A clue?” you parroted, confused.

“I don’t mean like a clue for what you should buy him. But… look, even if you didn’t suspect that it’s custom-made, which whoa, he has to pay a lot of attention to buy you something like this. Much more attention than you thought.”

“…okay?”

“He likes you, you dumbass! It doesn’t matter what you get him, he’ll be happy you got him anything in the first place!”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” you deadpanned, unsure which statement you were referring to. That he liked you or that you shouldn’t take care to choose something that would really bring him at least a little joy.

You tried your best to ignore how your heart skipped the beat at the former.

“Whatever. Harry’s throwing a hungry eye on me, I gotta go fix him a snack unless I want him to eat all the candy again. Good luck!”

“Amber!“ you called out in honest despair, panic rising in your chest, only to get no answer.

You pulled the phone from your ear to look at the screen, already knowing what awaited you.

Disconnected.

Fuck.

It seemed you were on your own. Wasn’t that wonderful?

You shot your sister a simple ‘I hate you’ text, the gears in your head already turning frantically in order to figure out what you could get Andy.  

Amber replied with a set of laughing emojis within seconds. Bitch, leaving you alone to deal with a situation like this! What a sister she was.

You sighed, admiring the delicate lines of the bracelet again, torn between indulgence and guilt. There was no questioning whether you should buy Andy something too.

Say yay for the last-minute shopping for a man out of your league and whom you had no idea what you should get.

You were utterly at loss, growing anxious not only about the difficult choice of a gift, but also about possible delivery, wondering what should you even tell him and when.

Maybe though…. just maybe, you were getting kinda excited about what you were about to do too.

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Three hours.

You spent almost three hours at the mall where you could barely breathe because of the crazy crowds and yet you were none the wiser; your excitement left you quickly, once again replaced by despair. It took you three hours and passing the lingerie shop four times, a shop with pieces on display that barely covered anything, intended for either bedroom games or a swimming pool, before it finally hit you.

You cursed under your breath, calling yourself an idiot in murmur loud enough to have few people around you look at you in surprise.

“Dumbass, I’m such a dumbass,” you continued your monologue as you fished out your phone, quickly scrolling through your contacts.

To say that the person on the other end was shocked to hear from you at this time of month and hour was an understatement.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Lee. I have… eh, a favour to ask…”

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You were being ridiculous.

Absolutely and utterly ridiculous as you stood on a modest porch in front of a small family house, the roof hiding you from the intrusive drizzle but not keeping you quite safe from the wind as you clutched your handbag to your side as if it was your lifeline, cursing yourself for not wearing a scarf in December.

Your nose was practically freezing, your cheeks burned from the wind and your hands were cold too, because you were stupidly underdressed; as if you haven’t lived in Portland your whole life.

But that wasn’t the main issue; an Uber dropped you off about five minutes ago and still, here you were, standing outside and trying to convince yourself to ring the bell.

The plan had been to finish packing a bag and leave around 10 p.m. to your sister’s house, where you would spend the night so you could be with her family on Christmas Day from the very beginning. But then Andrew fucking Barber, your fabulous boss, left a gift in your office, a breath-taking bracelet now sitting low on your right wrist, and it all went to hell.

Maybe you could still make it to your sister’s house – it was shortly after nine, your bag waiting on your bed, so maybe you should just call another Uber and be on your way. Maybe you could leave the silly envelope in the post-box just so you wouldn’t have to deal with Andy’s reaction; after all, he had chosen the same approach; cookies be damned, there would be more left for Harry then-

But you really, really wanted to thank him. And you might be shitting your pants, but the prospect of seeing him in a domestic environment, possibly more relaxed, perhaps nearing the man you had had the honour to see on those nights… you couldn’t make yourself to pass on that opportunity.

At the same time, you kept reminding yourself that Andy did not expect to see you tonight, he might not even be home – you were pretty sure a dim light was coming from the living room, the TV on probably, but yeah, you could keep lying to yourself – and that he might be grieving and genuinely might hate you for invading his privacy since you had to search his home address in the official documents.

Yeah, you definitely should just spin on your heels and-

“Oh for God’s sake,” you muttered under your breath and pressed the doorbell, your heart suddenly hammering in your ribcage as you realized there were no takebacks now. “Shit.”

Maybe you should just run. What if he had fallen asleep already and you just woke him up?! Oh, he was so going to be pissed and he might even show that emotion, screaming you down like he did one with that intern-

A scruffle on the other side of the door snapped you from your hopeless expectations and you sucked in a horrified breath.

And then the door slid open before you could react and you were certain you looked like a deer caught in the headlights, a semi-frozen deer to make the situation worse and--- there he was.

You quickly dropped your gaze, only then realizing how rude that was and that you should meet his eye no matter how much you did and did not want to do so at the same time. As you gaze travelled up, you found that a domestic Andy was everything you imagined he would be; black socks, loose dark grey sweats, pale t-shirt slightly wrinkled. One of his arms hung loosely by his side, the other still at the door-knob as you continued your inspection, gaze caressing the line of his bare forearm, reaching the sleeves that were hugging his biceps precisely. Broad shoulders, perfectly trimmed beard framing plush lips with the slightest hint of a curious smile.

You smiled awkwardly as your eyes met his watching you with interest, dimmed with a hint of a doze-off you must have woken him up from. You tried not to dwell on the inconspicuous redness surrounding his irises.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up!” you blurted out quickly, rewarded with a light shake of his head and a stifled yawn; subtle.

“You didn’t. Hi,” he greeted you, only to make you realize that 1. you forgot to say hi and 2. his post-nap voice was a thing from wet dreams-- which was definitely not relevant at that moment.

“Hi,” you offered unsurely, eyes roaming his face, searching for any trace of anger. All you found was bewilderment; if pleasant or not, you couldn’t tell.

“I’m sorry for barging in. I just… uhm- I wanted to thank you and-“

The hint of a smile on his lips grew a fraction, expression softening at your admission and before you could find your footing, he opened the door further, subtly extending his hand to usher you in.

Your heart skipped a beat, the strangest feeling tickling your gut, teeth sinking into your lower lip, the grip on your handbag growing stronger. Yet you accepted, taking two reluctant steps inside. The door clicked shut behind you, sealing whatever fate awaited you.

Attempting not to look too nosy, you turned back to Andy rather than scanning the hall.

Words got stuck in your throat. As tired as he looked, worn to a bone by everything but physical exercise, you couldn’t but marvel at what a handsome man he was, even without his smart suits and ties and neatly styled fluffy hair; it was still very fluffy, just more of a mess than a fashion statement.

God, wasn’t he beautiful.

He kept looking at you too in mute anticipation of something, appearing mildly lost just as you were, giving the impression of a man who couldn’t tell what to expect.

Your gaze locked with his, unyielding, a gorgeous trap and you knew you had to say or do something before your heart gave out entirely.

Your mouth opened, no words coming out and you cursed yourself, simply opening the bag and pulling out a Tupperware box with half the cookies you baked last night, practically shoving it to Andy’s capable hands.

He accepted the item with eyebrows shooting up once before settling back, eyes misting for a moment. His fingertips brushed yours as he took a firm hold of the box, the not-quite-there smile of his remaining on his lips.

He seemed perplexed.

You felt like an idiot.

“This feels so silly now,” you admitted with a sigh, realizing the absurdity of the situation only accented by the fact that you stood there in the hall of his home in your coat and high-boots, ridiculously overdressed in comparison to him.

“It’s not,” he whispered finally, forcing the corners of his mouth to rise higher. “Thank you. Didn’t know you baked. Should have figured.”

You shrugged. “Never came up.”

Something shifted in his expression as did in the air; you knew he sensed it too. The unspoken hung between you, that you meant not in your daily routine at the office, but on your private nights, so rare and precious, so desperately pretended to be non-existent the next morning.

Your gaze lowered as the silence fell on your pair again and you awkwardly shifted your weight from one leg to the other. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“So, uh-“

“Thank you for the bracelet. Really. It was-” you licked your lips, meeting his eyes again, so deep, so blue and somehow soft and you forgot what you were about to say. “Eh- I wasn’t expecting it. I-- I didn’t think you’d… notice. And--- care.”

His brows furrowed for a bit and he placed the box on the shoe rack next to him; an action he soon regretted you guessed, because his fingers went for his wrist as if he wanted to readjust his cufflinks, a nervous habit of his, only to meet bare skin. Good to know you weren’t the only one iffy in this conversation.

“But you liked it?” he asked almost shyly and the corners of your lips rose on instinct as did you right hand, the sleeve of your coat sliding down a fraction, enough to reveal the new accessory.  “Looks pretty on you.”

Your breath hitched as his fingers gently slid over one of the symbols, brushing over the sensitive skin of your wrist. His gaze returned to yours, a flicker of something heated in his eyes, calling butterflies to your stomach.

Lord have mercy.

“Thanks- uhm--- thank you. Here, I got you something too.” You quickly reached into the handbag again to hide how flustered you felt – for a different reason than awkwardness.

He had touched your wrist and you turned into a blushing mess. Fabulous. And to make the matter more humiliating, now a twinkle of amusement played in his irises.

“You gave me a plant. And cookies.”

“Yeah. Kinda? But that was more of a… gesture?” you offered reluctantly as you handed him the envelope. “I uh—this is probably stupid, but, uhm--- here.”

“Stop putting yourself down,” he muttered darkly, causing your cheeks to burn hotter. “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me anything.” Pulling out the firm colourful paper, he blinked a few times, seemingly surprised. Ha, you bet he expected a Walmart card! Instead, there was a voucher for five entrances to the swimming pool where your friend Lee worked at. “Oh. Thank you. That’s really nice of you.”

A stone the size of Texas fell from your stomach and you couldn’t help the sigh of relief. Andy seemed genuinely pleased by your choice of gift and you felt your whole body relax.

“It’s just… eh, just for half an hour each and you can pick them on a horizon of three months. I’m not sure how often you like going, so… uhm, my friend works at the place, so you just give her a call and it shouldn’t be a problem to book it for mornings right before the opening hours,” you explained lamely, earning a puzzled look.

“How did you know I liked going when no one’s there?”

That caused one corner of your lips twitch in slight amusement and your eyebrow arch, even if his reasons weren’t exactly funny; his cheeks flushed a hint of red, a sight to behold for more than one reason. It was nice to have the roles reserved, you making him feel flustered for once.

Really? The rather quiet lone-wolf Andy Barber, followed by reporters still, just asked you this? Cute.

“…that’s fair,” he said and for a brief second, you were afraid you had shared your thoughts out loud. But he didn’t look offended, so probably not. The self-awareness then. “Thank you.”

“No problem. I’m-eh, glad you like it.”

You stood there again, both smiling – a little reluctantly, a little soft – and once again you had no idea how to proceed.

What you did know was that you enjoyed talking to him, even if it was awkward like this. You enjoyed seeing him in his natural habitat, in his home, relatively relaxed. You thrived seeing more of this Andy Barber, just a handsome guy, not Andrew Barber, the hot-shot lawyer.

He was the first to break the silence, hesitantly gesturing further into the house.

“Would you—would you like to-“

YES! was what you brain screamed.

“Oh, I don’t want to be a bother…” was what you told him, mentally cuffing yourself on the head.

“You’re not,” Andy opposed lowly. The whisper of your name that followed made you shiver.

His gazed trailed all over your face, so intense you would swear he saw right into your soul and further. You felt naked, but for some reason not too vulnerable – Andy seemed to like what he saw, expression genuinely inviting and yet. Yet there was a subtle promise of this not being a friendly invite which was as exciting as unsettling. The air appeared the crackle and you found yourself yearning to taste the electricity on your tongue.

“May I?”

He beckoned to your coat, suddenly free hands already rising and all you could do was to nod, automatically placing your handbag on the floor and unbuttoning the garment. Once if fell open, revealing simple black jeggings and a light pink sweater, Andy sidestepped you, fingers sliding under the hem, cautiously skimming over the bare skin above your collarbones, leaving a burning sensation in their wake.

The warmth of his fingertips seeped into your flesh and yet you shuddered, goosebumps rising on your skin.

You watched Andy put your coat away with care, turning back to you torturously slowly. He filled all of your personal space, so close and too far. You weren’t sure when exactly the air turned so heavy in your lungs, but as your gaze travelled to his lips, not missing how his sought yours in return, you felt all the oxygen leave the room.

“Andy,” the word rolled off your tongue, nothing but a soundless breath of his name.

His gaze flickered from your eyes to your lips again and back before he spoke, voice barely above a whisper, hoarse.  

“Am I imagining it?”

He didn’t have to say what and still you knew with absolute certainty that he was addressing the unbearable and delicious tension, the one that had been building and coming to life during those three nights you had spent talking in his office late--- and now it was back with smouldering intensity.

“You’re not.”

You shivered and gulped when he cautiously took a single little step further into your space, your gaze falling to his chest, lowering in sudden surge of the deep-rotted insecurity, whispering about your and his world being thousands of miles apart. And yet, your heart raced in anticipation, your hopes dizzyingly high that you might touch heaven, even if for a few moments.  

When his fingertips grasped your jaw, tough light and oh so careful, your eyelids fluttered close, already indulging in the sensation. God, his touch was so soft despite the roughness of his fingertips…

As if he wished to torture you or to indulge that sweet little moment before lips met lips, he stopped an inch from his destination, his breaths as wavering as yours, the words whispered straight into your mouth just a little broken.

“I’m fucked up.”

Your brain basked in blissful fog, but this got across, causing you to tense briefly.

You couldn’t deny what he was saying, you both knew he spoke the ultimate truth – well, you guessed. What had happened to him, having his life dismantled and then losing his family, that sort of thing was bound to leave a scar. Confirming it bluntly though, that felt unforgiving, only adding insult to injury.

“We all are,” you whispered instead, not only because you wouldn’t say ‘fucked up’, the words too harsh.

And it wasn’t trivializing the tragic turn his life had taken. It wasn’t downplaying the depth of his wounds. It wasn’t necessarily implying that you had been through something equally horrible either. Most importantly, it wasn’t you mocking him.

And somehow, he understood that; even if he could have interpreted it in every wrong way imaginable and shove you away, insulted, disgusted.

But no, in that fleeting moment that meant everything, Andy understood that this was your acceptance; this was you telling him that you were willing to try; take whatever he offered and give anything you could in return.

Finally, his lips brushed over yours, slightly chapped and oh so warm and delicious, withdrawing too soon, leaving you to savour the taste as your ran your tongue over your own lips. You inhaled shakily, overwhelmed by everything that was him, powerful, electrifying and then your hand was somehow on his chest, your palm laid over his racing heart, your fingers twitching as his ribcage expanded with a sharp inhale.

Blindly, your mouth searched his again, his whiskers tickling softly and scratching at once, a pleasant sensation on your sensitive skin as he grew bolder, and truly attached your lips in a kiss that made you feel lightheaded with the emotion poured into it. Your hand curled around his nape, an instinct to pull him closer, fingers toying with the short soft hair there, drawing a hum from within the expanse of his chest.

You granted him access to your mouth when he wordlessly asked, but it was him who retreated shortly after that, his heart now appearing as if in pain with its furious beats under your palm. His breaths started coming out short and it dawned to you what was wrong. How fast this could have felt to him, even if he was the one to start it.

‘I’m fucked up,’ he had said. Too caught in the moment, you hadn’t fully realized the extent of his words perhaps.

But you did now – at least a little better than before.

So when he rested his forehead against yours and a breathless ‘sorry’ slipped from his lips, you shook your head lightly and planted a kiss on his cheek, hand still on the back of his head, fingers running over his scalp in a hopefully soothing motion.

“I’ve got you, Andy. You lead.”

You had no strength to keep him close when he pulled his face away, your eyes snapping open in fright that you had said something terribly wrong.

But Andy’s cerulean eyes were big and glassy, grateful and softly speaking about him being… moved by your proposition. Your heart felt like it just grew twice its size, too big to fit into your chest at what a breath-taking picture he was.

The next thing you knew, he dropped a chaste kiss to your forehead and pulled you into his arms, an almost protective embrace, kissing the top of your head for a good measure and you melted against his large frame, smiling into t-shirt.

“Thank you,” he murmured breathlessly into your hair and your smile widened, remembering the note he had left with the exquisite gift that had started everything that led you right here into this moment.

“Happy Holidays.”

Thank you for reading! I’ve been sitting on this since the beginning of damn November. I hope you enjoyed.

It was my first (and maybe last) time writing Andy, so I hope it was alright. Feedback always appreciated.

P.S. – sorry if the nosy reporters thing offended you.

P.P.S. - …I know, the prompt was veeery loosely filled. Shush.

Pretty divider by whismicalrogers.

[xskyll]

The BNHA x Chobits AU that no one, not even Mineta, asked for.

The ramblings of my mind under the cut. Warning, it’s loooong.

Okay, so bear in mind that I only watched four episodes of Chobits and it was probably about 14 years ago, and also I didn’t really like it, lol

-Todoroki finds Midoriya laying on some bags of trash next to a dumpster.

-First he’s like “oh no, I need an adult,” because for all his “training,” dad never actually told him what to do when he found a dead body, (this is the summer before he starts U.A., so he’s still living at home). Endeavor is away for a week, and Fuyumi doesn’t count to him (sort of an Aristocats, “she’s not [an adult,] she’s just a sister!” thing). While he’s trying to remember that the police exist, he notices this dead body has very strange ear-like things. He comes closer to investigate. There are lots of weird body types in the world, because of quirks, but these things look metal, which isn’t unheard of, but something about these ears just strike him as unnatural.

- Good news, it seems like a robot, not a dead body. The ears open easily, and there are buttons inside. A power button (that’s right CHOBITS!! It’s in the ear! My love story isn’t going to start with molestation), some USB ports, an aux port, a slot for a microchip or SIM card or whatever, some sort of safety switch (he flips that on)…what really convinces him this is totally a robot are the blutooth and volume buttons (that’s right, Midoriya in this au can charge phones AND he’s a speaker, although the volume buttons’ primary function is to control the volume of his voice).

- He has no good reason for taking this thing home. It weights a ton, it’s awkwardly naked, except for some bandages wrapped around it, which do nothing to hide how anatomically correct this robot is, and he already has a phone charger, so he really has no use for it. 

- He feels weird about it though. While he was checking out the ears, he touched its face and the skin was soft and warm. He checked for a pulse, just out of curiosity, and found one. It looks like a person, aside from the ears, and it feels like a person. He feels bad leaving it in the trash. So he takes it home.

- Cue comedy routine where he gets this thing, not just in the house, but to his room without Fuyumi noticing.

- Once in his room, he hits the power switch. Nothing happens. He holds the power switch. Bingo. Robo-boy powers to life, bright, adorably large green eyes open. He’s holding it in his arms, and it’s still all tied up. It looks up at him and says hello.

- He drops it.

- He apologizes as he picks it back up, tugging at the wrappings to try to get its arms free. He realizes he needs to get pants, or at least boxers, for it, because it’s awake now and very much naked.

- For the very first time, he realizes that this adorable, thin-yet-lean-muscled, between 14-16 looking robo-boy might have been someone’s weird sex doll. They probably threw it away because they found a real person to date and they didn’t want them to know about their underage sex robot. This also sort of explains the pulse; the mystery pervert person probably programmed a fake pulse and did something to make his skin warm, to make him feel more real. Gross.

- He’s broken from these thoughts when the robot speaks. It says, “Please insert memory bank files or turn on base memory.” Todoroki is already freaking out, because this thing wants its memories, and he doesn’t have them. He opens the ear again and investigates. Next to the empty slot, there’s a small button labeled BM. Base memory? Sure, why not. He pushes it.

- The robot goes blank faced for a few seconds. When he comes to, he looks at Todoroki, then the room, then down at himself. He flexes his arms, trying to break the bands around him, but stops, saying, “Safety mode is on.”

- Todoroki finishes helping unwrap him, awkwardly doing so while pointedly looking away, once he gets to his lower half. Once he’s free, he goes and gets a pair of boxers and throws them in his direction. “Can you put them on?” He’s curious if the robot can do something like that unaided, and also he doesn’t want to cloth it himself, because even though this is a robot, it looks like a very cute boy his age. And it has a pulse. He can’t stop thinking about that.

- The robot puts on the boxers, after inspecting them for a second. He honestly does struggle to figure it out for a moment, cause he has zero common sense, but he does figure it out. It probably takes him about a minute. Once they’re on, he stands and starts inspecting the room.

- “Do you have a name?” seems like a dumb question, but he asks anyway and the robot answers, “I’m Project Midoriya.”

- Background info time. Midoriya is not fully a robot. He was kidnapped just seven months ago, coming home from school. It was the day of the sludge villain attack, but he got nabbed before they could cross paths. AFO wanted a quirkless person to experiment on. He did his research and found Midoriya Izuku, a quirkless boy with no friends and little family, who wouldn’t be missed very much. He’s confident enough that he won’t get caught that he titles his new project by its name: Midoriya. Midoriya’s memories are still in his mind, but they’re suppressed. AFO found it easier to backup his memories to a chip, so he could remove them as needed. When they were installed, Midoriya responded best to his own name anyway, so calling him that was also the easiest thing. Without his memories, AFO found him a bit annoying, because he had no social skills or common sense. He needed to be taught, which he didn’t have the patience for, so usually he just left the memories in. He was a timid boy anyway and easy to intimidate, especially if he threaten to hurt his mom.

- The cops figure his disappearance was maybe a runaway situation, but given his track record and the profile on him they’d compiled from listening to his mom, classmates, and teachers, they figure it’s more likely a kidnapping or murder. Fun fact though, he got kidnapped the day Bakugou told him to kill himself. Obviously no body is found, but he knows people go to forests to hang themselves, or put weights in their pockets and drown themselves. Those bodies can take years to find. So while all of this is happening, Bakugou is out there just every day, “what have I done, what have I done, what have I done?” When they finally see each other again, Bakugou freaks out and Midoriya’s suppressed memories are triggered. Bakugou demands answers, Todoroki is confused and defensive, and Midoriya is just, “System overload. Shutting down,” and then face plants to the floor.

- Anyway, back to Shouto. He asks Midoriya if he remembers anything. Midoriya has exactly one memory (or at least, one easily accessible memory), and it’s this: “A man. He looked like this.” He put his hand over his face. “He said, ‘Sensei put so much work into you. Why are you so useless (Deku)?’”

- More bg info, AFO gave Midoriya to Shigaraki, telling him to try to make him useful, and Shigaraki DID try for a couple of months, but he was over the whole situation after basically one day. With his memories, Midoriya was scared and traumatized, had morals, cried a bunch and sometimes tried to escape, and was just UGH. He could mute his voice, but even that didn’t help, cause this kid was just sooo annoying. Without his memories he was awkward and boring and still annoying. Eventually he just yeeted him into a trash heap, but took his memory chip, since it technically contains LoV information.

- Midoriya considers his only memory and thinks being called Deku feels sort of normal, so he says as much. “Deku might also be my name. You can call me that, if you want.” Todoroki says he’ll stick with Midoriya, because Deku isn’t a nice name for his new robot friend.

- So the first section of the story after this is fairly light-hearted. Todoroki has to keep Midoriya a secret from Endeavor and Fuyumi (I feel like she does find out eventually, but agrees to help hide him, as she sees it’s good for her little bro to finally have this (maybe?) living thing/person to talk to and take care of.) Speaking of care, Midoriya is very easy to care for. He can eat, drink, and sleep, but doesn’t need to. He has some sort of self-charging system. Most of his “care” involves teaching him social skills (which oof, blind leading the blind, but they say teaching is the best way to learn, so this is actually good for Shouto too). Embarrassing stuff happens. Fluffy stuff happens. It’s a good time.

- Shouto spends the summer with Midoriya this way. Most of their interactions are fluffy and light, but not all. The first time he comes back to his room after training with his dad, he learns two things: Midoriya has first aid knowledge programmed into him and he’s capable of crying. As the trainings continue, Midoriya eventually reveals that he has over a hundred fighting styles programmed into him and knows over 70 ways to kill a person, but he can’t access any of that information while his safety is on. Todoroki is just like, “Uuuuuh, that’s really good to know…but we’re gonna keep the safety on for now, okay? I hate my dad but also please don’t murder him. He’s famous so we wouldn’t get away with it. Also murder is bad, don’t kill people.”

- Midoriya wants to know if all heroes are like Endeavor and Shouto is like, noooo and shows him the debut video of his personal favorite hero: All Might. Watching this video is the first time Midoriya has a “System overloading. Shutting down” moment. Shouto has an absolute panic attack, because if Midoriya reboots and his memories are wiped, then he’ll have lost the best friend he ever had. But Midoriya restarts and he’s fine. He explains that sometimes he shuts down, to prevent a system failure, which would damage his…idk, hard drive or whatever. He quietly admits that the All Might video is very familiar, and he thinks maybe it used to be important to him. Shouto questions him about his memories and Midoriya theorizes that perhaps he has them backed up, but he isn’t sure how to access them. 

- This is exciting for Shouto, because he thinks maybe if Midoriya experiences more “triggers,” like the video, he might regain his memories and be able to shed some light on the general mystery of where he came from/who made him/what his purpose is. Whenever Endeavor is away, he tries to sneak Midoriya out, so he can see the real world. He isn’t too concerned about his ears, because in a world of quirks, there are plenty of odd looking people around. So far he’s been wearing Todoroki’s clothes, which a little too big on him, so they go shopping and get him clothes. None of their outings seem to trigger anything, except one time when they pass a park where Midoriya and Bakugou used to play as kids. Midoriya grows quiet and seems far away for a moment, but he doesn’t overload and shakes off the familiar feeling.

- Whenever they see All Might stuff he’s just !!!!!!! He can’t remember why he likes All Might, but he remembers how he feels about him. The more All Might stuff he sees, the more his old feelings return. One day they pass a large All Might poster and Midoriya says, “I think maybe I wanted to be like him, once.”

- Eventually Todoroki starts school. He feels bad about leaving him, but Midoriya is content to stay in his room and occupy himself until Todoroki comes home. He’s part computer, so he’s a total boss at helping with math homework. He likes doing homework with Todoroki in general, because he likes learning. This is great for Todoroki’s grades because again, the teaching thing helps everything stick better for him. 

- The attack on USJ happens and Todoroki sees Shigaraki, who has a hand on his face, and he’s like, “Shit, shit, shit, this is the guy who threw away Midoriya,” and he has NO idea what to do with that information. Midoriya belonging to the LoV does explain the “70+ ways to kill” programming though. He tells Midoriya what happened and Midoriya is kind of whatever about it. He says, “Maybe I belonged to villains, but I belong to you, now.” And Shouto is like, “No, no, no, no. You do not. You belong to yourself” and Midoriya is just ????

- I think for the Sports Festival, Midoriya convinces him to use his fire. It’s sort of like, “It’s your power, even though its origin is Endeavor. Just like how everything I can do is my power, even though I was programmed by villains. Being made by villains doesn’t make me a villain. Using the resources they gave me doesn’t make me a villain. Being Endeavor’s son doesn’t make you Endeavor, and using your fire doesn’t either.” Todoroki turns off Midoriya’s safety, confident he has nothing to fear.

- Midoriya watches the Sports Festival on tv (using his blutooth, he can actually just hear the volume in his head, so he can watch silently). He sees Bakugou. Seeing him on screen doesn’t have a huge impact on him, but he does feel something. Fear, unease, admiration, and affection. He’s confused and uncomfortable, and ends up looking away from the screen whenever he’s shown for too long.

- Shouto actually starts making friends at school. Being with Midoriya has taught him a lot about being kind and the joy having other people in your life can bring. Still, he doesn’t trust anyone enough to tell them about Midoriya. He’s terrified of losing him.

- For the Hosu incident, Midoriya is home alone, probably doing something on Shouto’s laptop. He sees the breaking news and is just, “Welp, that’s where Shouto, the official best person in the world, is, so guess I’m going to Hosu to make sure he’s safe.” He leaves the house alone, for the first time ever, and just runs to Hosu. Idk how far away Hosu is from the Todoroki residence, but Midoriya doesn’t fatigue and he’s also outrageously fast, so it’s fine. Also he can see in the dark, but only if he activates his night vision, which makes his eyes glow. Not good for sneaking, but very pretty and cool. I’m not sure how he finds Shouto, or how Shouto found Iida, but I imagine Stain is like, seconds from skewering him and then Midoriya comes out of nowhere and collides with Stain (which is a big deal, cause remember, Midoriya is filled with metal parts and is super heavy). They fight together and at some point Stain cuts Midoriya and he bleeds, which for Shouto is like !?!??! And then he licks his blood and the paralysis works and Shouto is just !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Later, after the life threatening stuff is over, Todoroki has some seriously thoughts about this, because what if Midoriya is human? Or part human? That would be a huge development, and also kind of relief for him, because he sort of feels like he’s been falling in love, but he’s been desperately stomping down on those feelings, because he knows falling in love with a robot probably isn’t healthy. But falling in love with a half robot? I mean, Iida could be called part robot, with his legs, if you want to get technical about it. And Todoroki does want to get technical about it, thank you very much. If Iida is dateable, then so is Midoriya.

- Back to Hosu. They beat Stain and, after securing him, Todoroki tells Midoriya to go home, before his dad arrives. Once he leaves, he begs Iida not to tell anyone he saw him and promises to explain later. For ease of narrative, Native was unconscious the entire fight.

- Endeavor shows up, as does the Nomu. It takes Shouto but Stain rescues him. At the hospital, Todoroki explains the Midoriya situation to Iida, revealing that this incident was the first time he realized Midoriya had blood in him. Iida agrees to keep the secret, but urges Todoroki to tell someone. Maybe Aizawa. He agrees to consider, but he doesn’t want Midoriya to get taken away and like, locked up to be studied or something. He and Iida become better friends, bonding over almost dying together and sharing the secret of Midoriya. 

- Midterms! Shouto scores higher because he has an awesome robot tutor. He doesn’t actually care, but good for him regardless.

- Summer field trip time. Midoriya can’t come, obviously. I’m thinking during this time, he decides to sneak out of the house and explore on his own. He feels guilty, because Shouto would worry if he knew, but he just feels this draw. He feels like maybe his old memories were important, and he’s becoming curious. He keeps thinking about the boy from the Sports Festival and about All Might. He ends up in his old neighborhood. He sees his middle school and he doesn’t remember anything, but seeing the building makes him feel lonely and sort of bad about himself. It reminds him of Shigaraki calling him Deku, and the familiar feeling that gave him. He leaves and finds himself on his old street. He isn’t close at all to his old home - he can barely see the apartment building - but he can still see it. He almost shuts down, but turns away quickly and starts back the way he came. He doesn’t remember anything, but seeing that building fills him with overwhelming emotions. The strongest one reminds him of his feelings for Shouto, but it’s different. He can’t place it, but he knows he’d die to protect Shouto, and he feels like maybe he once knew someone in that building that he would also die to protect. Once he gets home, he realizes he’s crying. He decides to sleep and he dreams of green eyes and a smile that looks like home.

- Shouto is injured during the villain attack and goes to the hospital. Once he’s released, he agrees with Kirishima that they’ll go rescue Bakugou. That whole thing pretty much goes at it did in canon, except All Might never found a successor, so he’s more powerful. He defeats AFO and does not have to retire, though he’s feeling an overwhelming pressure to find a successor now, because he knows he’s hanging on by a thread.

- Dorms!! Shouto is bringing his boy with him. He figures he can hide him just as easily there as he can at home. Getting him in is a little tricky, but he manages. From there, it’s smooth sailing.

- Except not really, because living with 18-19 other people (19 if Hitoshi is in the class, which, maybe) is way different than living with 2. Midoriya is discovered in like, a week and everyone is freaking out, most of all Bakugou, who basically breaks down. He tries to hit Midoriya and screams at him, about thinking he was dead and going to his funeral and how it was his fault and having to face his mom and did Midoriya even think about his mom??? As previously mentioned, Midoriya just shuts down and face plants to the ground.

- Shouto finally learns Midoriya’s full name. Midoriya Izuku. A+ name. Very cute. He plans to use it immediately.

- Bakugou’s insight changes the situation completely. Now they know Izuku was once 100% human and something awful happened to him. They end up bringing him to Aizawa and explaining the situation and everything they know. Todoroki gets scolded, cause Izuku could have been dangerous and he should have known better, but he doesn’t even pretend to have regrets. Endeavor would have made him throw Izuku back into the trash where he found him. His best friend isn’t trash.

- Now the name of the game is helping Izuku restore his memories. Bakugou is a huge help, but patience is required, to keep Izuku from overloading. He remembers bits and pieces at a time, all centered around Bakugou. Aizawa agrees to let him attend classes, so they can keep an eye on him. He’s also hoping a school setting might trigger more memories. He meets All Might and he doesn’t even get to announce his system malfunction before he’s out. He sees him, starts smoking at the mouth and hits the floor. All Might is very alarmed.

- Tsukauchi is made aware of the situation. He wants to keep things under wraps though. If the LoV is aware Midoriya is out and about, they may target him. If they can restore his memories though, they may gain insight into the group’s plans. That being said, he thinks it’s only right that they tell Inko. They tell her they have information on her son and make her sign a contract, agreeing not to release any information. Once she agrees, they brief her on what they know and, at the end, bring in Izuku.

- Izuku has been talking with Bakugou about his mom, to prepare for this (he usually wants Shouto with him for these conversations, and Shouto and Bakugou sort on inadvertently become friends). He can’t remember her at all, but he remembers the face in his dream. He knows it’s her. While talking, he’s shut down a few times (which drives Bakugou up the wall, and also scares him a little, cause he kind of looks dead when it happens), but he thinks he might be ready to see her now. He’s brought in and he does not shut down, not fully, but he comes close. He definitely glitches a little, maybe doing a quick reboot, quick enough that he doesn’t even fall, and his voice comes out cracked and metallic when he speaks, and there are sparks in his mouth, but he manages, “Mom?” They both cry and she holds him while he tells her, voice wavering between sounding normal and sounding robotic, that he doesn’t remember her, but he loves her, he knows he loves her so so much and he knows he’s missed her, even though he didn’t know who she was. It’s very emotional, and extremely hard for both of them when they finally have to separate, because Izuku can’t go home with her. She’s allowed to visit though, and each visit helps him restore little pieces of his memory. Between her and Bakugou, he starts making enough progress that he stops shutting down when he gains a new memory, and he starts remembering his old hopes and dreams. He doesn’t remember what AFO did to him, but he remembers enough of his past to feel self-conscious now, about his body. He breaks down one day and Shouto holds him while he grapples with his identity, his humanity, and his future. 

- I’m picturing a scene where he’s crying and Shouto takes his face in his hands and explains all the beautiful things about him that make him human, and he finishes up with something corny like, “I know you, Izuku. You’re human. You have to be human, because I’m in love with you.” And then they KISS and it is ROMANTIC!

- He decides he still wants to be a hero and he becomes a real member of 1A, instead of just a visitor. The whole class helps him design a costume and come up with a name and in general are just like, “Cyborg Hero, yay!!”

- And that’s all I got. I think eventually he would fight the league, and probably retrieve his chip, giving him 100% of his memories. There’s a LOT of trauma to deal with there, because he was basically torn apart and put back together several times by AFO, but they do gain all the information they need to take down the LoV for good. And the Overhaul arc is in there. Izuku might still intern with Nighteye, because All Might is like, “Robot successor? Maybe???” and he wants Nighteye’s opinion. Nighteye can’t see his future, because he’s not fully human, but eventually he gives his stamp of approval. Eri is rescued and that’s a very personal fight for Izuku, because he identifies with what she’s gone through. And of course she loves him and thinks his ears are cute and his glowy eyes are pretty.

- Oh, and the School Festival. I honestly don’t even know what to do with him. He can learn any instrument just by like, downloading some YouTube tutorial videos. He can learn any dance by watching it once. He’s really strong, really fast, and can also operate as a speaker (though that can be awkward, cause it’s through his mouth, so he’d just be standing there with his mouth open). They might keep his role same as canon, idk. They’d probably all fight over him.

- I’m sure none of this was anything like Chobits. Sorry. I just think the ears are neat, really, and liked the idea of Izuku being a cyborg (Chobits isn’t even about cyborgs, lol).

Sorry this is outrageously long! If you want to write this into a full fic, feel free to use my ideas! Just give me a shoutout, maybe? And tell me about it, so I can read it!

[sgtjbbhasmyheart]

Drunk Texting Is(n’t) Bad for Your Health- Chapter Two

Series Summary: Talk about your unconventional meet-cute! Bucky receives a text by mistake requesting he prove he's not Reader's sister. The easy dialogue between Reader and Bucky sparks a natural friendship, but could it lead to more? Bucky still deems himself unworthy of any form of affection or love. Reader is hellbent to prove him wrong. With the help of some (meddling) friends along the way, Bucky may get his happily-ever-after after all.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 2921

Warnings: bad language words, blink and you’ll miss the angst, just some fluff

A/N: divider credit- @firefly-graphics

DO NOT copy or replicate without my permission

You awoke with a start, feeling as if you were late for work or something important and forgot to set your alarm. Your heart beat an erratic tattoo against your ribcage. Scrambling for your cell phone, you blindly reached across the side table near your bed in a panic. Unplugging the phone, you brought the device an ungodly closeness to your face. It was only 6:17. On Saturday.

Your pulse throbbed behind your eyeballs, and a strange stickiness coated the inside of your mouth. Did you drink that much last night?

How could you not? Timmons was a fair boss, and you enjoyed your job, but that dude loved the sound of his own voice.

The quarterly business dinners were mandatory for all employees, even for the P.A.s. Typically, they weren’t so bad, but last night, Timmons felt the need to toot his own horn for landing a massive contract with Stark Industries slash The Avengers. He went on and on about how great it was for the firm.

He was like a giant kid in a candy store with his ramblings. ‘We will be promoting the face of The Avengers and everything that goes with it,’ he spouted off like the firm was god’s gift to public relations.

You groaned at the reminder of last night’s presentation. The contract wasn’t even in effect yet, and you were sick of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Timmons could be a real buzz kill.

Rolling to your back, you brought your phone up to tap the screen to read the emails you received overnight. On display was a text from 11:04 by someone named James. It read: “Goodnight, (Y/N).”

Your mind went back to last night again, trying to recall who this James was. He must be significant if you plugged his contact information into your phone already. Had you met someone last night?

Drawing a blank, you clicked on the text bubble to pull up the thread. Briefly scanning through the numerous texts, everything came rushing back. In an attempt to text your sister, Robyn, you mistakenly texted this mysterious, James.

You felt like an utter buffoon when you learned he wasn’t Robyn. You always did have a way with the cute boys. Probably why you were single. You groaned out loud as you read on.

You im safely inside my apartment. Pretty sure no one followed me home

James Did you triple check the lock on the front door?

You yes dad yeesh

James There are a lot of bad people out there. Just want to make sure you’re safe.

You sounds like you watch the news too much but its sweet of u to care

James I know from experience.

You r u the bad guy or have u been the one mugged?

James Let’s just say I have friends that have dealt with the bad things of the world.

You right i almost forgot ur a military-trained assassin athlete mchottie

James Did you ever send your sister a text?

You shit thanks for reminding me i have such a crazy story to tell her

James Only good things, I hope.

You oh yeah all the good things an enigmatic yet handsome stranger cares more about my safety than any of my ex-boyfriends ever did.

James My ma raised me right.

You id say

James_ I hate to cut this short, but I think you need your rest. Especially if you’re meeting your sister tomorrow._

You i dont want to agree but ur probably right

You whats ur name btw?

James My name? Why? Do you plan to continue texting me after tonight?

You duh ur fun to talk to

James Oh.

You or not its cool if u dont want to

James It’s James.

You nice to meet u james im (y/n)

James Nice to meet you as well.

You my sister just texted me back and were still meeting at 9 i should go 

You goodnite james

James Goodnight, (Y/N).

Oh. My. God. Had you seriously drunk-flirted with a stranger and offered to keep texting him? You had no shame with a few drinks in you.

You brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of your nose and sighed loudly.

What did you know of this James? He had a New York area phone number. Check. He could have been a real dick about your mistake but wasn’t. Understanding. Check. He worried about you getting home safely in your inebriated state. Caring. Check. Not too forthcoming with the nine to five. Secretive. Check. His mouth looked so soft and plush, and his eyes were made to drown in. Gorgeous. Check.

A heat simmered beneath your skin as you recounted the shortlist you’d made. Were you lusting over someone you’d exchanged less than forty texts with? Had you somehow woken back up in high school?

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you stared at the screen displaying the message thread. Were you really considering this? You nodded your head to answer your own question. Where was the harm in a little shameless flirting? If worse came to worst, you could always block him.

With your mind made up, you began typing into your phone, constructing an apology.

You Good morning! First off, I want to apologize for the way I behaved over text last night.

You Though, I do like to imbibe in the occasional drink or two, I am, by no means, a lush.

You Please take everything I said with a grain of salt. Apparently, I get loose-lipped and cheeky with free wine. 😐

You Again, I’m sorry and understand if you wanted to cease our correspondence for my behavior.

You blew out a breath and tossed your phone aside. It was up to fate now and a stranger named James.

You laid in your bed for several minutes staring at the ceiling, contemplating between whether to send a ‘haha just kidding’ text and what the weather would be like, so you could forego shaving your legs in the shower today.

Your phone chimed during the pondering of hair removal, indicating a new text. You knew it was James proclaiming you a freak and to forget his number, but secretly, you hoped it was Robyn canceling today.

Seizing the phone from your mattress top, your heart’s beat increased with each second you went without looking at the screen. Finding the courage, you flipped the device over to read the message.

James Quite the formal apology, Ms. Professor.

You smiled at the text. It didn’t tell you to pound sand or eat shit. No, it was teasing and in jest. You sighed in relief.

You Cease our correspondence too much?

James No, no it was perfect if this was 1863, and you were breaking up with me via telegraph.

You Stop!

James Exactly! ‘Never speak to me again!’ Stop. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ Stop.

A belly laugh disrupted the tranquil air of your bedroom. You quickly thumbed out a reply once you caught your breath.

You You’re incorrigible.

James I’m glad to see you are using proper capitalization and punctuation this morning.

You Ha!

You When you are buzzed and/or tipsy, capitals and periods be damned. Like you’re so perfect when you’re drunk.

James We all have our flaws.

Was he implying he was a sloppy texter when drunk, too? You shrugged it off as him being cryptic again.

You What are you doing up so early on a Saturday? I didn’t wake you, did I?

You were suddenly stricken with guilt. You should have waited for a more reasonable hour to send out rapid-fire apology texts. Not at 6:36 in the morning. You didn’t want last night’s behavior hanging over you, though. Better to clear the air now than later. You could always ask for forgiveness again if you had disturbed his sleep.

James I had just gotten back from my run when I saw your texts. I have training this morning.

You Oh, right. For your hush-hush, super top secret mission/quidditch game.

You You ever gonna tell me what you really do?

James_ Maybe. Someday._

How far away was someday? Was he planning to text you until you both died or until he got bored? How did texting relationships even work?

You Or is it one of those situations where if you told me you’d have to kill me?

James 😈

You There you go again--being all mysterious.

James Keep ‘em guessing and coming back for more.

You Has that strategy worked well for you in the past?

James Got you to text me again this morning, didn’t it?

You scoffed at what he had suggested. He was correct, but your stubborn streak would deny everything.

You The only reason I texted you this morning was to apologize for acting like a drunken fool last night.

And to squash the curiosity burning in your veins. But he didn’t need to know that.

James Oh.

The reply caused you to furrow your brow and your stomach to drop. You regretted not adding more levity to your last text. Of course, it wasn’t the only reason you were drawn to him.

You I appreciate that the selfie you sent wasn’t a dick pic. And you genuinely seemed to care about me getting home safely. Thank you.

You And maybe- a teeny, tiny bit- is honestly interested in getting to know you better.

You waited on pins and needles for his text, watching the pulsing ellipsis on your screen. Was he just humoring you?

James Hook. Line. Sinker.

Reading his response generated a flush from your jaw to your hairline. You growled in embarrassment. You fell for the oldest trick in the book. He baited you for a compassionate answer, and you delivered beautifully. Hook, line, and sinker, indeed.

You You’re an ass. I take everything back.

James Don’t be mad. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but you played into my trap wonderfully.

James If it makes you feel any better, all kidding aside, I want to get to know you better too.

James I fell asleep with a smile on my face last night and woke up with one this morning.

James Because of you, (Y/N).

A flutter broke apart in your chest. You hadn’t time-traveled back to high school; no, this was junior high territory.

You You’re lucky you’re so damn charming, James.

James Doll, you have no idea.

The subway ride into Manhattan usually gave you the chance to get a little reading in since it took nearly fifty minutes from Queens. Not today, though. You spent the entirety of the train ride texting back and forth with James. It was mundane stuff, but you were getting a grasp of who James was as a person.

You Favorite color?

James Black. You?

You Blue.

You Favorite ice cream flavor?

James Chocolate. Yours?

You Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.

James I didn’t realize we were getting specific.

You We weren’t, but that’s my favorite.

You Favorite movie?

James I like the classics- The Wizard of Oz, It’s A Wonderful Life, Frankenstein.

You I have too many to list, so don’t ask.

You Okay. Lightning round because I’m almost to my stop.

James Where are you going again?

You paused your reply for a brief second, wondering if you should divulge your destination. You’d known James less than twenty-four hours; although, it felt like weeks after this morning. Where was the harm in telling him where you were meeting your sister? There were nearly nine million people in this city. There was no way you’d ever bump into each other.

You A bakery in the Upper East Side called Two Little Red Hens. Ever been?

James Don’t think I have.

You Well, since you like chocolate, they have a fantastic cake called Brooklyn Blackout. Super rich but delicious.

James Sounds right up my alley.

You Cats or dogs?

James I’m gone too much, so cats.

The answer piqued your interest. Maybe he was an athlete. Wouldn’t it be practice and not training, though? Or he’s FBI or CIA.

You Socks on or off for sleeping?

James Off.

You Silver or gold?

James Silver.

You Morning, noon, or night?

James Night.

You How do you take your coffee?

James Room for sugar and creamer.

You Boxers or briefs?

James Boxer briefs.

You laughed out loud, looking around the subway car to see if anyone was paying attention to you. Per usual, they weren’t.

You Touché.

As soon as the train stopped, you gathered your purse close to your body and made for the exit. You followed the crowd of fellow passengers through the turnstile and ascended the stairs onto street level.

The morning sunlight caressed your skin like a warm blanket. The humidity wasn’t too bad, yet, but the threat of afternoon thunderstorms still hung in the air.

Even with the reasonably early hour, the sidewalk was stuffed with people, carrying to-go coffee cups or shopping bags. You fought for your little spot of real estate on the grimy concrete.

Stopping at a red traffic light, waiting to cross, you typed out another question for James.

You Pineapple on pizza--yay or nay?

The light changed as you finished, and the throng of pedestrians around you guided you across the street. You spotted Robyn outside the bakery as your phone dinged with a new text alert.

“Wow, I’m surprised you made it on time,” Robyn said as you hugged hello.

You looked at the clock on your phone. 8:58. “You and me both, sister.” Glancing back at your phone’s screen, you giggled.

James What kind of monster puts pineapple on their pizza??

“What’s so funny?” Robyn asked as you accompanied her through the bakery’s door.

With a grin on your face, you punched out a quick reply:

You Well, it was nice knowing you, James. It was a swell friendship while it lasted--a whole 11 ½ hours.

Robyn elbowed you softly in the ribs with a look on her face, seeking an explanation.

“Ow,” you grunted. “What?”

“You tell me. I half expected a zombie to walk through the doors today after your text last night. Not Suzie Sunshine.”

You both edged closer to the counter as the line in front of you dwindled.

James Say it ain’t so, doll! Pineapple on pizza? Really??

You let out a low chortle as you skimmed the text. You glimpsed up at Robyn as you shuffled forward in line again. “Believe me, I’m pretty hungover,” you replied, shoving your phone in your back pocket. “It’s a funny story. I’ll tell you everything when we sit.”

Robyn stared at you warily, still trying to figure out what had come over you. “Okay,” she conceded, stepping to the register to order.

With each of you supplied with an iced coffee and a peach ginger scone, you found an empty table by a window along 2nd Avenue and proceeded to tell Robyn about James.

When you stopped to catch your breath, remembering the whirlwind the last twelve hours had been, you peered at your sister for her reaction.

She stared at you like you’d grown a second head. She shook her head in disbelief. “(Y/N), what where you thinking?”

Your brow pinched in confusion. Was she actually scolding you? You crossed your arms over your chest. “I was thinking about how my big sister is always telling me to meet new people and how it’s time I thought about settling down.”

“Not like this it’s not,” she hissed. “This is how your body parts end up in someone’s freezer!”

You choked on the piece of scone you shoved in your mouth before she started ridiculing you. After coughing to clear your airway and taking a sip of your iced coffee, you leered at Robyn. “Oh, my god! Dramatic much? Have you been binge-watching Dateline again? Jesus Christ, Robyn, he’s harmless,” you countered.

“You think you’ll be so careful, but you’ll let one little detail slip, and he’ll find you,” Robyn said before taking a pull from her coffee.

“You mean, like, how I was meeting you at Two Little Red Hens at nine o’clock?”

Robyn’s mouth popped open in an O. “What the hell, (Y/N)?” she stage-whispered. “Are you trying to get yourself kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking?”

“Please,” you drew out in one long syllable. “He doesn’t know what I look like. How would he snatch me?”

“He could look you up on Facebook.”

“Without a last name?” You shook your head, no.

“What about a reverse search on your number?” Robyn asked, pushing the plate holding her scone away. “That’s a thing.”

“Perhaps, but it seems like a lot of effort for a mistake I made. It wasn’t like he was seeking me or anyone else out.”

Robyn huffed out a breath and folded her arms in exasperation. Always the protective big sister. You could tell you were breaking her down, though.

“C’ mon, Robbie. It’s all in innocent fun. I’m not saying I’m hoping he’ll turn out to be Mr. Right, but the banter is fun,” you remarked. “James is charming and witty and nice to talk to.”

Robyn shook her head once more, frowning. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

You reached across the table for her hand and squeezed gently. “Me too.” You smiled slyly, remembering last night’s dinner and Timmons gushing about The Avengers. “If not, I know how to get ahold of a couple of centenarians who know chivalry isn’t dead.”

Chapter One | Chapter Three

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[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Alt Ending, Part 5

Hot take but finals kinda suck

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Tag: @solangelo252

You’d think her body would be grateful that she was finally giving it food, but no. She put it in her mouth and instantly felt nauseous. It didn’t even want to go down her throat, and keeping it there felt basically impossible.

But Tim had looked so happy when she had tried, so she forced it down.

(Well, she forced some of it down. If he noticed that a good amount of the food she brought to her mouth actually disappeared into the sleeves and folds of her dress he didn’t say anything.)

Tim started coming by three times a day with food after that. She didn’t complain despite her discomfort, she had really missed him.

Also, he looked stressed out and/or exhausted whenever she saw him. She worried about him. They both had a tendency to overwork themselves when they hit blocks, hell she’d sometimes joined him in his week-long deep dives into cases, but now that she was an outsider looking in… she was kind of shocked she’d ever let it get that far for either of them. When was the last time he’d slept through the night? Taken proper time to clean himself, even? A while, she guessed from the deep bags under his eyes and the way his hair was frayed from running his fingers through it.

“Timmy,” she chirped.

He flashed her a tiny smile. “Hey,” he said, coming over and taking a seat beside her on the bed.

She took the bag from him and set it aside, much to his dismay, but then she reached over and dragged him into some cuddles and he suddenly had new concerns. He groaned into her shoulder.

“Bean, come on, I don’t want to sleep.”

She didn’t let go. “You need to.”

“Don’t have time.”

She rolled her eyes, bringing a hand up to start attempting to smooth out his hair. “You have to sleep eventually.”

“And I do!”

She didn’t answer, which he took to mean she didn’t believe him (a good assumption, she didn’t).

“I do! I get at least a few hours a week.”

“Wow, amazing. I take it back. You totally have a healthy sleep schedule.”

“Worry about yourself, first. You don’t sleep either,” he huffed, but he was starting to relax into her hold nonetheless.

“I’m also literally dead.”

“You used to say you’d sleep when you were dead.”

Marinette scoffed. “Well, to be fair, I thought I’d actually die when I died.”

He gave a short laugh, and she opted not to acknowledge that it was a little forced.

She yawned and laid back with his face in her shoulder. “I’m surprised none of the others have drugged you to get you to sleep yet.”

“They’re too busy drugging B --.” He winced just slightly. “They’ve just got a lot on their plates is all, I’m the least of their worries.”

She didn’t say anything about his tiny slip up, just gave a light hum to say she understood.

She didn’t dare to move until she was completely sure he had nodded off. Even then, she only did so to pick up the food he’d brought for her.

Her nose scrunched a little at the prospect of eating, but when she opened it and saw it was fried rice she perked up a little. She nibbled at her food.

Honestly, she didn’t know if it was working. It seemed to be, but then again most of the things that got better could be attributed to other causes. Her skin was gaining color again, but the bleach may have just started to wear out. She was feeling more energized, but then again she was now getting a total of four cups of coffee a day thanks to Tim and Jason fueling her addiction. Exercise was getting easier and she was packing on muscle again, but she was also working out enough with Dick for it to be explainable that way…

She didn’t know if it was working. She didn’t even know if she WANTED it to work. The plan had been ‘kill Bruce and then quickly off yourself before the others can react’ and not having an instant out was kinda problematic when it came to finishing that plan.

Not that the first part of that plan was working out for her, either. Bruce still hadn’t come to see her. She doubted he ever would at this point.

She didn’t even have a way out, as the door was automated and presumably opened by someone outside.

No. The only way she would ever leave was if she managed to ‘fix’ herself, and that wasn’t happening because there was nothing to fix! She would know. Her entire thing as Ladybug was fixing things.

She looked down at Tim. When he slept all the little wrinkles in his forehead smoothed to make him look much younger. She smiled a little at the sight, pressing a kiss to where she knew the creases usually were.

At least, even if her situation couldn’t be helped, she could still help others.

~

She’d come to expect a routine of sorts, so the moment it was broken even slightly her brain short-circuited.

Duke stood in the doorway as usual, but when she glanced past him…

“Where’s Cass?”

His grin disappeared a little, but he pulled his back to his face with ease. “Wow, I’m really feeling the love here, Mari.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, we both know Cass is the best person to ever exist.”

Duke nodded his agreement and came over to take a seat next to her. She cozied up to him as usual, curled under his arm as he pulled up their newest show on his laptop…

She had a lot of thoughts about Cass being missing.

On the one hand, she just missed her friend’s too-warm body pressed up against her and quiet complaints about how the actors were doing it all wrong.

On the other hand… Marinette was completely aware that they had Cass stopping by as much as she did to check on Marinette, to see if they were making any real progress with her. Cass was a human lie detector, able to detect when someone was going to be dishonest before they’d even realized it themselves, and they’d be stupid not to take advantage that. So, the fact that they were no longer making Cass drop in as often… either they thought she was doing better, or that she never would do better.

Marinette hoped it was the first. She knew it was the second.

She found it harder than usual to enjoy Duke’s snide comments about how dumb and cliche some of the characters were. She turned and pressed her face into his side. The glasses on the bridge of her nose dug into her skin.

Fuck. She was never getting out of there, was she?

She felt his free hand come up to run through her hair and she sighed.

“Duke…”

He pressed pause on the show.

“Tim told me you’re a meta, that you can control light. Can you do it for me?”

There was a beat.

“Why do you ask?”

She laughed a little. “Does it matter? Can’t I just be curious about why my favorite brother didn’t even bother to tell me that he has powers?”

“I thought you already knew. It’s common knowledge.”

She huffed. “Maybe I just prefer to be told things than meticulously look through every piece of information to figure it out.”

“What kind of bat are you?” He joked.

She winced and the hand in his shirt balled it just a fraction tighter. She didn’t respond.

There was a few seconds before he sighed and moved his hand from his hair to her chin, gently pulling her face out of where it was hidden in his side. She refused to meet his eyes.

It was silent again, neither of them sure what to say.

“Here,” he said after a moment, putting his free hand out and making light dance across his palm.

Her face lit up, literally and figuratively, at the sight of the tiny ball of light. She leaned a little closer.

“Aw, it looks like a tiny sun!”

He laughed a little. “Yeah. I can also…”

There was a moment of silence as he concentrated and the tiny ball of light split into the colors of the rainbow. She giggled, reaching out to cup his hand in hers. It was the first non-artificial light she’d seen in months, the first rainbow she’d seen since… Paris, actually.

Well, even if she wouldn’t ever see the outside world again, at least she could still have this little fake sun. It was basically the same, just as good, she told herself. She ignored the tears rolling down her cheeks that were telling her otherwise.

~

She tossed the plastic spoon she’d stolen from one of her meals in the air idly.

The plan had been to turn it into Baby’s First Shank but that probably wasn’t going to work out. Pen to the throat was at about a .01% chance of working, attacking him with a spoon-knife needed a few more zeroes added to that already insanely small number. She gave it a .000000001% chance at best.

Then again, the other option was trying to strangle someone who had an insane height and weight advantage to death before someone else could interfere...

She sighed to herself and put the spoon in her teeth, starting to pull.

She didn’t get very far before she heard the metallic whoosh of the door opening and she barely glanced up to see Dick.

He stared at her from the doorway, his eyebrows slowly raising as he watched her attempt to bite an edge into a spoon of all things.

She pulled it from her mouth with a ‘pop’.

“I think your eyebrows are trying to escape,” she told him.

He blinked at her before rolling his eyes and walking inside fully. “Thanks for the assist. Would have lost them otherwise,” he said sarcastically.

“I’ve seen you lose your phone three minutes after putting it down, Dickie, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

He gasped and rested a hand over her heart. “You think that low of me?”

“Lower. I was being nice.”

Dick pouted and walked over to the bed. She didn’t think much of it until he was diving onto her stomach. She put her hands out in an attempt to soften the blow, but it wasn’t enough to save her. She groaned in pain as his extremely hard head made contact with her not-so-hard stomach.

“FUCK. This is why your parents called you Dick, y’know!”

He only laughed at her.

Despite herself, she gave him a smile.

She rested her head back in the pillows for a moment (mostly just to catch all the breath she’d lost) before pushing him off. “Ready?”

He groaned into her comforter before rolling onto the floor. “‘Kay.”

Marinette grinned as she took a seat beside him, starting her usual stretches. He pushed himself up to sit with minimal groaning and started working on his shoulders.

It was quiet for a while as they stretched.

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek and kept her eyes on her foot when she spoke next: “Dick?”

She could feel his gaze on her.

“I… can I have some more stuff? Everything here is so boring. I just… I want new things to do. Or, at least, new things to look at.”

There was a long silence between them. Anxiety bubbled under her skin. She switched legs so she could gauge his expression through her bangs. His expression was carefully neutral.

She cringed.

“Obviously I’m not ungrateful! You guys have all been really nice and accommodating! I get food and a phone and, honestly, that’s fine --!”

“Mari!”

Her mouth snapped closed.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to apologize. Anyone would be bored here. I can talk to them. It’ll probably depend on what you want.”

She finally looked at him properly, eyes wide. She really hadn’t been expecting that to work.

He slowly pulled his legs to him to sit criss-cross applesauce, head resting on his hand. “I can probably get some baking things, a sketchbook, just blunt objects in general. Deadly, but not before someone could get there.”

Marinette nodded her understanding, a smile making its way across her face.

“You’re the best.”

“You constantly say Duke and Cass are the best.”

She was torn between agreeing with herself and flattering him. Since she wanted something, she decided on flattery: “That was, like, a few hours ago. I’ve grown since then. You’re my favorite now, Dickie.”

“Can I get that as my ringtone?”

“Only if you only use it to mess with Jay.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

~

The door whoosed open and she barely moved her head to look at it.

She froze.

Bruce?

No. No way. There was no way in hell.

But was there? Cass HAD stopped coming. Maybe she had somehow convinced them that everything was working out and everything was fine.

Marinette hadn’t done anything differently, though, so that probably wasn’t it…

Oh. Oh shit.

Maybe she was actually going insane. Because there was no way the bats would have made that kind of mistake by letting Bruce in when she was still intent on murdering him. He had to be a hallucination, because nothing else really made sense. Kwami, Tim was going to be SO smug about this one.

Actually, no, he didn’t have to know.

Her gaze slipped away from Fake Bruce and back to the dots on her ceiling. Because, as everyone knows, that if you don’t acknowledge hallucinations they go away…

“Marinette,” Fake Bruce said, trying to trick her into outing herself as losing it.

“Marinette,” he tried again, starting his way over.

She did her best to ignore the footsteps and the way the bed shifted when he sat down. No wonder schizophrenics fell for this shit, this was all so real…

Except... weren’t schizophrenics not supposed to be able to tell what was real and what wasn’t? Wouldn’t her knowing (thinking?) he was fake be an indication that he was actually real? Or was that just her mind trying to justify believing it?

Marinette bit inside of her cheek and let herself look at Fake Bruce again.

He cracked a smile for her. A hand reached over and pushed some hair away from her face. “Hey,” he said.

She hesitated.

It would suck if this all was fake, the others would get confirmation and she really wouldn’t have a way out. But if it was real then this was her only shot. If it was real Cass would be watching the cameras to see what she was thinking and she would know for sure that Marinette was still intent on killing Bruce…

Fuck.

Marinette pushed herself into a sitting position and looked Maybe-Bruce up and down before grabbing him by the front of his suit and pulling him into a hug. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes when he hugged her back.

“Fake.”

The man tensed underneath her and then sighed as he pulled back.

He gave her an awkward smile. “I’m sorry, Marinette.”

She shook her head slightly and fell back. With a flick of her wrists the knife she’d created out of her plastic spoon was in her hands and she absently tossed it at the hallucination. Either it would make him disappear or it would look like it stabbed him and she could pretend that it actually happened.

But then it didn’t do either of those things.

Her eyebrows knit together when the spife shattered upon impact.

He looked unconcerned as he gently swept all the pieces into his hand and then put them in his pockets.

“The fuck?”

“Language,” he chided lightly.

She grinned. “You really need to work on your ‘Bruce’. Accepting a hug that quickly is one thing but chiding someone for language? In OUR family? I’m pretty sure he gave that up by Jason.”

The man chuckled and shook his head. “I’m Superman.”

“Oh.” She blinked a few times before shrugging to herself. “Okay. You look just like Bruce. It’s kinda creepy.”

“Yeah, trust me, we know. It’s pretty helpful, though. One time a person tried to assassinate Bruce and ended up fighting me. It wasn’t their day.”

She smiled a little, but it didn’t last very long. She fell back in her pillows and glared at the ceiling. “This sucks.”

“I’m sorry this all happened to you. You’re just a kid.”

She rolled her eyes. She’d long-since given up on denying that something had happened to her. Not because she no longer believed it, but because it wasn’t worth the effort. No one ever believed her when she said it.

(Could she blame them? No. She almost believed it herself just a few moments before. Still annoying, though.)

Instead of saying any of that, though, she brought a grin to her face.

“You and B should switch houses for April Fools. See if anyone notices anything.”

~

She really should have noticed something was up when her coffee didn’t energize her at all.

It had all been going fine. She was making Jason dispose of all the pieces of food she’d used sleight of hand to get away with not eating (she was still a little bitter about him stealing her pen and this was the most she could really do to get back at him, compromised as she was). They made idle conversation, mostly just about how Damian had got himself a new pet cat that he had named BatCat (though, apparently, they had heard him slip up and call him Charles a few times). They debated over how good that name was and the merit of Jason’s suggestion -- BatPussy, of course -- as she drank her third cup of coffee of the day.

It was about halfway through her drink that she began to notice that something was off. She squinted at Jason suspiciously.

“Decaf?” She asked, her voice worryingly sweet.

He raised his eyebrows and tried to look unimpressed despite stepping back a good half-step. “Please, if it was decaf classical conditioning still would’ve made it work at least a little.”

She opened her mouth to retort, then realized he was right. Or, at least, she was pretty sure. She couldn't seem to think of anything against it.

She frowned, looking down at her drink again and swirling the contents around. She drank the rest of it, trying to figure out why exactly it wasn’t working.

Was she already at the point where caffeine had little effect on her again? She didn’t think she was that bad yet… hell, she probably couldn’t be because she was depending on others to give her her fix…

She shook her head slightly and then quickly realized that was a bad idea. Pain stabbed through her skull and she stumbled into Jason. The plastic thermos slipped from her fingertips and went rolling across the floor. Her head crashed into his chest and arms were quick to wrap around her.

“You got shitty coffee, try a different place next time,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

He laughed a little. “Yeah, okay, kid. I’ll be sure to do that.”

She nodded as much as her headache would allow and felt the arms around her slip down to pick her up. She blinked her eyes open blearily and regretted it when the light attempted to murder her via knife to the head.

Heh. Little light particles with little knives.

Wait.

Did she get a concussion? Somehow? Without getting hit?

She buried her face in his shoulder and it was then, as he set her in bed and tucked her in, that she realized what had happened.

“Bitch,” she murmured above whatever drug they had put in her drink.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and she could do little more than scrunch up her nose and vaguely wave him off. Her eyes fell closed again.

~

Marinette woke up a while later.

The first thing she noticed was that the lights were dimmer, something she didn’t have to open her eyes to see because her head wasn’t pounding as much.

Then she realized a person was with her. They had entwined themselves around her, tangled their limbs with hers. They needn’t have bothered, everything felt like lead. She wouldn’t be moving for quite some time.

… why was she being held down? Oh no. That was probably bad, huh?

Marinette made a sound in the back of her throat and started trying to shift away from the person pressed against her back. She needed to see who they were. They didn’t bother to tighten their hold on her, she wasn’t really getting anywhere.

In fact, a hand stopped holding her down. Instead, it came up to pet her hair.

Oh? This was nice.

A voice by her head told her it was all okay. After a moment she realized she recognized that voice. She smiled sleepily. Cass. She liked Cass. She pressed closer to her and was rewarded with a hand rubbing up and down one of her arms.

She nearly fell asleep again. Cass was safe, Marinette was safe… the warmth against her and the soothing touch… of course, it certainly helped that the drug was still in her system and she was exhausted...

But then her mind wandered back to her first question. Why WAS Cass holding her down? Why did they drug her in the first place?

She moved so her hair could block some of the light and then cautiously cracked her eyes open.

The batboys were all moving things inside almost silently. Jason was carrying an entire fridge on his own. Dick and Damian were arguing over the positioning of the table they had just brought in through angry hand motions. Tim and Duke were working together on… was that a gaming set?

And she was being held down because the door was wide open.

Marinette looked at the doorway for just a moment longer. She allowed herself to imagine getting out and swinging through the city with her lasso, allowed herself to pretend she could lay in the grass, allowed herself to believe that she could see the sun and the stars and just breathe fresh air again…

And then she closed her eyes and sunk into Cass’s grip.

What was the point in trying? Even if she could somehow beat out all six of the people in the room with her and get past whatever security Bruce had to have outside of the room all while drugged… then what? No money or idea where she was… and she’d be running from the bats of all people…

Yeah. Useless. She curled up and allowed sleep to take her again.

~

Quite a while later she woke up and blinked a few times when she realized she wasn’t the only person in bed. At first she thought it was just Cass or Tim, they were the most likely culprits, but then she realized everyone had managed to cram themselves onto the bed with her. Her and Cass had gotten brushed to the side of the bed to make space for Tim, Dick, and Damian. Jason had collapsed across the end of the bed -- presumably for space, but Duke was laying half on top of him so that obviously hadn’t worked out.

Marinette smiled faintly and buried her face back into the crook of Tim’s neck.

~

When she woke up again, most of the drug flushed from her system (somehow…?), she thought she was alone.

This was fine. She was able to stretch out and sit up.

She blinked when she saw Damian, who was sitting on her floor and playing a video game.

Huh? Video game?

She looked around her room confusedly. The bats had basically made her a one-room apartment, complete with kitchenette and a tiny study area. Of course, it was much higher quality than the apartment she’d had, with a high tech gaming system and a little dining area and holy shit that was a MINI LIBRARY?

Wild.

“You’re finally up.”

She hummed lightly as an agreement. She crawled over to the end of the bed and smiled when he handed her a twizzler. It was objectively one of the worst candies, but she liked having something to do. She twirled it in her hand idly.

“Do you think… do you think it’s working?”

She frowned confusedly and dropped off the bed to sit beside him on the second beanbag chair. She chanced a quick glance in his direction to gauge how he was feeling... his expression didn’t let anything on other than that he was thinking hard, though she was pretty sure that was about the game.

“Gonna elaborate on that?”

He clicked his tongue. “Are you going to join the Undead Robins Club?”

She grinned at him. “I wasn’t a Robin.”

“You know what I mean.”

Her smile disappeared a little and she trained her eyes on the game. “I don’t know.”

“You know we never will know for sure, right?”

She blinked. She hadn’t expected anyone to acknowledge it. They were the bats, they were never going to chance taking off her glasses because if they were wrong and she WASN’T better… well, it wasn’t the kind of mistake they could easily come back from.

“Yeah, I know,” she said after a few moments.

“Do you care?”

“Doesn't really matter if I do. It won’t change anything.”

He frowned. “That’s not answering my question.”

She bit her cheek. “I… yes. I care. It still doesn’t matter.”

He looked like he was going to argue, but instead he just went back to playing the game.

“Damiiiiiiiii…” she whined and, when he gave a vague grunt to show he was paying attention, she continued with “... shouldn’t I get to play first? It’s mine.”

“You slept in too long,” he said without looking up.

She huffed. “Only ‘cause I was drugged!”

“Unfortunate.”

She got off the beanbag chair and whacked him over the head with it. He barely acknowledged it outside of an annoyed click of his tongue.

She huffed and pulled the chair back to herself to sit again. “Is it two player?”

“Nope.”

“You’re a bitch.”

He clicked his tongue again.

She pouted for a little while longer before looking back at the screen with a smile. “... heard you got a cat named Charles. Wanna talk about him?”

Damian’s face lit up. “Can I?”

“Only if you let me play.”

He looked pained. If he gave it to her then he’d be giving her something she’d want, which was a sibling no-no, but if he didn’t then she probably wouldn’t listen to him gush about his cat. A few moments went by before he reluctantly handed over the controller.

She beamed and scooted her chair over to rest her head on his shoulder. She could feel him stiffen underneath her but, when she didn’t move again outside of what was necessary to play the game, he relaxed again.

“I thought you were going to listen,” he chided lightly when she didn’t take a break between levels.

“I can listen and play.”

Damian sighed a little and shook his head.

“You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want --.”

“I’m getting to it! So, he’s a black cat that apparently hadn’t been adopted because everyone thought he was evil so the pet store was going --.”

~

Marinette noticed something was up the minute the door opened.

First of all, it was Duke and Damian. That’s all that really needs to be said. Those two together… it’s never a good thing.

Secondly, they were there as Signal and Robin. Most of the time the others avoided even talking about their lives as vigilantes for fear of setting her off in one way or another, but here they were showing up in their suits? No, something weird was going on.

“Hey, Mari, can we skip a fight and you just put a bag over your head and let us pick you up?” Tried Duke.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You want to…? Huh?”

“We don’t really have much time to explain. I’ll tell you on the way.”

Damian held up a potato sack and some twine, which really wasn’t all that encouraging.

She hesitated. “... what’s something only you two would know?”

“Really?” Said Damian with more than a little exasperation.

“Hey, we’re all bats here. I’m not moving until you prove you’re who you say you are.”

(Technically, if they were really Duke and Damian, they could fight her and do it anyways. She probably couldn't beat both of them at once. Still, that kind of fight would hurt all of them and she really didn’t want to have to do it at the moment.)

Duke hesitated before shrugging. “Your favorite ice cream flavor is mint. Which I don’t understand. Just brush your teeth if you like that taste so much.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Alright, you’re who you say you are. Robin?”

“… early on I lied and said that Nightwing’s real hero name was actually BatNightwing to mess with you both.”

She frowned. “I forgot about that. You’re a dick.���

“No, Nightwing’s a Dick. He’s a Damian.”

Marinette was THIS CLOSE to fighting them anyways.

But she didn’t. She was kinda curious about where all this was going. So, she allowed them to bind her hands and slip a bag over her head. Arms wrapped around her -- she didn’t really care who it was -- and she was lifted off the ground. Then, they were walking.

Part of her wondered if this was some kind of test. They were checking to see how compliant she was or how likely she would be to run once outside. Maybe they had Superman on call in case she tried to escape.

She really couldn’t tell.

She didn’t think that they had any reason to take her out of the perfectly safe and well-stocked place they had put her in.

Maybe her location had been compromised and they were moving her to a backup? No, that didn’t make sense. Duke made sense for transport, Damian didn’t. Damian was one of the worst fighters in the family (he was in no way BAD at fighting, of course, it was just a byproduct of being in the game the shortest amount of time and not being a meta) and he was the second most likely person to end up fighting her after Jason. What the fuck?

Wait, Duke said he’d explain on the way.

“What’s going on?”

“New idea on how to bring you back,” said Duke simply.

Well, she guessed that was more information than she’d previously had. She’d take it for now.

She heard a quiet whooshing noise and frowned confusedly, only to feel herself get set down… somewhere. She felt carpeting underneath her, which meant she was in… a house? No. A car, she thought as she noticed the quiet hum of an engine. She’d been put in the fucking trunk. She kicked out as much as she could without knowing exactly where they were and gave a cry of protest, but then the lid was clicked over her head and she was thrown into uncomfortably complete silence.

She scowled to herself. She shouldn’t have thrown her spife at Superman, it would have been really useful right then. She tested the bindings against her hands and winced at how tight they were. Did they really use zip ties? Those were notoriously bad for circulation.

… oh. Yeah. She was dead. That actually wasn’t that bad, then.

Still annoying. Hard to get out of. Assholes. She wondered if it was worth dislocating her arms…

Yeah. Probably. If she could get out then she would be OUT.

She flipped herself onto her stomach. She pulled her feet up to her arms and then started pushing back. Her body strained in protest and she bit down on the front of the bag over her head to stop herself from making any sounds.

And then she felt a pop in her left shoulder and a flare of pain and the makeshift gag wasn’t enough to hold back her sobs. Her arm throbbed and it was only made worse when they reached the city proper and the roads started getting choppy. Every little bump in the road sent a new wave of pain rolling through her and all she could do was ride it out.

They started hitting smoother roads what felt like hours later... it was kind of concerning because she had no clue where they could be, those were uncommon in Gotham, but at least she no longer felt like she was going to die every few seconds.

She took a few seconds to bring her breathing back to normal before she started slowly wiggling her arms out under her butt and legs and then they were in front of her. Great. She picked herself up as much as she could in the tiny space, checked her angle mentally, relaxed her muscles, and then dropped down on her shoulder to get it back in place.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. It felt weird and still kind of hurt but at least it was mostly better.

She pulled the bag off of her head and relished in the slightly fresher air.

She looked down at the zip ties on her wrists and she sighed a little. Time to do that hack that looked stupid but actually worked if the kidnappers were stupid enough to leave you alone.

She brought her feet up, untied the laces of her shoes, and tied them back around the ties. Then she set to work trying to saw at the zip tie.

She paused when she heard the low rumbling of a plane. Were they near an airport? Oh. That was going to be a problem. She went faster.

Unfortunately, Marinette didn’t get very far before there was a click and the trunk opened.

She cried out in pain at the sudden light and squeezed her eyes shut, turning to press her face into the carpeted interior.

Hands grabbed her and pulled her out of the trunk. Before she could do much to look around so she could get her bearings and make herself a portal, the bag was forced over her head again and a strong grip on her arm (the good one, thankfully) kept her from pulling it off again. Then someone knelt in front of her and fixed her shoelaces.

“Really, NightMare?” Duke said, unimpressed.

“In my defense, I was left unsupervised.”

Damian scoffed.

Someone picked her up again and she sighed as they carried her along. They were definitely at an airport. She could hear people milling about. She was sure it was Gotham, too; she could feel a few stares, but most people seemed comfortable with the vigilantes among them.

Then came the normal airport stuff. Walking. Some arguing over whether she counted as luggage or if she could go through the metal detector with them. Sitting. A little chatting with civilians. More walking. More sitting. Very light chatter, just formalities and asking for drinks (Duke, who she figured out was the person carrying her, slipped a box of orange juice up her bag so she could have something). And then they were in the air.

After some time in the air the bag and zip ties were removed. She kept her eyes closed to let them adjust to light naturally and instead focused on rubbing feeling back into her hands.

One English alphabet later, she opened her eyes.

They were in a private plane (or was it a jet?), which explained why it was as quiet as it was. Damian was drinking a glass of water and reading something on his phone. Duke was nibbling at some complimentary pretzels and working a Rubix Cube. They both glanced in her direction from time to time, but they seemed pretty confident that she couldn’t do anything while they were in the air (which was true, but annoying).

She looked around a little more and found that there were no other bats.

“Um… where’re…?” She trailed off, unsure.

They stopped glancing in her direction, ignoring her and her question. The frown that had been on her face since pretty much when they’d first taken her from the room deepened.

“Do they… do they know what’s going on?”

The silence spoke volumes.

She rested her head in her hand. “I’m going to need something stronger than a juice box for this.”

Duke sighed but called a friendly looking woman inside to get her some wine. Marinette and Duke sipped at a glass each (Damian wasn’t allowed any, something Marinette took a little too much joy in). She scrutinized the two over the rim of her glass.

“Are you going to explain or let me guess? Because letting me guess is going to end up with me assuming you’re doing something way worse than you actually are.”

Damian sighed a little. “It’s hard to explain.”

“We’re in a plane. I’m going to guess we have time. Start talking.”

“We drugged them all -- except Orphan, she’s just out doing patrols and won’t know what’s going on for a good few hours -- and grabbed you.”

Duke gave Damian a pleading look to make him continue for them.

Damian, reluctantly, put down his phone to talk. “Signal and I have an idea on how to bring you back from the dead. The others won’t like it, especially not Red Hood, so we’re making the executive decision to not ask.”

Marinette didn’t know a lot about when Jason had been resurrected, it was a sensitive subject so it was avoided pretty much at all costs. All she’d gathered was that it was a rather messy experience for everyone involved.

She rested her head on her hand and then looked back down at her drink. She snatched the bottle from the table and, when Duke protested, set him a glare and started drinking directly from it. They were actually going to bring her back through probably shady means. She was NOT drunk enough for this shit.

~

She got stuffed in a suitcase when they left, which was extremely insulting (and a little embarrassing, if she were honest).

She rested her head against the side of the suitcase and listened to the dull thrum of people talking on the other side. She vaguely recognized the language, both Nino and Damian both spoke it when frustrated, but the words were all Greek to her.

Well, they were all Arabic, but you get the point.

~

She didn’t even realize she had been asleep until she was awoken. Rather abruptly. The zipper for the suitcase was opened and she tumbled out. Marinette cursed in French as she hit the ground and laid there, her entire body aching from not moving for so long. She hadn’t known her face could get pins and needles, she wished she could go back to her blissful ignorance.

“Are you sure about this? You want to save her?” A woman’s voice said above her, sounding a little skeptical.

Marinette forced herself to roll over so she could glare at whoever it was, she knew when she was being insulted, and then she blinked up at the new person.

A tall woman with dark skin and hair and a body to die for stood above her, hands on her hips.

“Holy shit, Dami. You got terrible genes. She’s gorgeous and you’re… you? What?”

Duke hid laughter behind his hand and Damian scoffed.

Amusement flickered behind Talia’s ‘I could kill you before you could even scream’ expression. “I’ve changed my mind. I like her.”

“Cool,” said Marinette as she quickly pushed herself to her feet. Her body wasn’t ready for that, but that was the least of her concerns. The pretty lady was ushering her along and Marinette wasn’t going to hold her up if she could help it.

“How did you die?” Talia said, which was an interesting choice for conversation.

Marinette shrugged, though, unconcerned. “I don’t know, really, there wasn’t this ‘oh, wow, I’m dead’ moment. My guess is I either drowned in acid or died of dehydration at some point. Does it change anything or…?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Oh. Good.”

“... do you not know why you’re here?” Asked Talia carefully after a moment’s contemplation.

Marinette shook her head. “Nah, they’ve been avoiding telling me. I assume it’s painful.”

“... yes. Very.”

The four lapsed into silence after that.

Marinette felt weirdly on edge as they walked through the facility, her hands rubbing the goosebumps that were prickling along her arms. The further they walked, the more on edge she felt. They were approaching something unnatural, something so undeniably WRONG, and she needed to GO.

But Damian and Duke were behind her, probably sensing her unease, and running ahead would only get her there faster… so she walked.

She bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt to ground herself.

But, the moment they stepped into the room, she froze.

Green water. That apparently hurts.

Acid.

“FUCK.”

Duke was ready for her to run, apparently, stood in front of the only exit and ready for a fight before she could even get a full step away from the hell that awaited her.

“No no no no no no wait it’s fine I actually don’t mind being dead it’s fine guys please --.”

Damian grabbed her arms and she choked out a sob,

“Damian god damn it I was kidding about the mom thing you’re perfectly attractive or whatever I promise I really didn’t think it would hurt you that much we don’t need to do this let’s tALK IT OUT --!”

“It’s not about that --!”

Duke managed to get a hold on one of her legs and lifted and all she had to struggle against either of them was a foot and she was SO fucked --.

“PLEASE DUKE PLEASE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I DID BUT I PROMISE I CAN BE BETTER YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GO I’LL BE FINE WE CAN FIGURE SOMETHING OUT PLEASE --.”

Talia grabbed her last leg and she sobbed as she thrashed around uselessly. They started dragging her towards the acid. Nothing to do no way to run no help in sight no --.

“PLEASE! I PROMISE I’LL BE BETTER PLEASE JUST LET ME GO!”

And they did. They let her go and she fell into the acid.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep22

All of this ‘the culprit’s motives are super shallow and they’re just unhealthily obsessive’ discourse is giving me war flashbacks to . . . . basically every other part of the entire When They Cry franchise, lol.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus spoilers for Umineko]

I feel like at the end of the day we’re all just gonna have to agree to disagree about how we feel about how Ryukishi is handling Satoko as the culprit here, since I don’t really think any amount of social media posts detailing our interpretations of her character are gonna change anyone’s minds, lol. But I’m still gonna give my thoughts on her anyway because it’s fun, even if I’m basically just preaching to the choir.

To be honest, this feels pretty much in line with how Ryukishi already wrote characters like Takano and Beatrice, in terms of them having unhealthy obsessions that lead them to mass-murder. The amount of violence Satoko has caused is arguably worse than either of them, but they’re all pretty awful if you think about the reality of what they all did as villains.

Sorta like with how a lot of the old-school Umineko discourse went, I think people are too focused on the whole idea of Satoko hating studying, and ignoring everything else about her character and her circumstances. Although even then I feel like people are being kinda unfair toward Satoko about how strongly she feels about academics, but maybe I’m just biased because of my own history with schooling and the intense levels of anxiety and self-hatred that can go along with it.

Plus the fact that Satoko already has a long history of sever abandonment issues, and has basically always had HS that amplified her feelings of paranoia and persecution. It’s pretty obvious at this point that she never really got ‘cured’ in the first place, though it’s less important to think about HS as an in-universe fictional disease with it’s own rules, and more important to just think about it as a representation of real-life mental illnesses which aren’t bound by the rules of made-up brain-worm parasites and aliens or whatever.

Also, the Satoko that started all this looping in the first place was one who never dealt with Teppei returning to the village, and thus never went through her whole character arc related to that. The series is kinda ambiguous about how it handles the idea of people’s character development carrying over between loops, but it explains a lot about Satoko’s attitude here if you go with the idea that she never really had to overcome any of her trauma or coping mechanisms in the “good ending timeline”, and this is the consequence of that taken to it’s logical extreme. The idea of her view of the world being skewed by the fact that she only remembers the “good ending timeline” is also kinda lamp-shaded by the part where she hears about Rika’s looping and is like “oh yeah, that’s the month where we had that cool action movie stand-off with the Mountain Dogs :)”. By the time she really got to understand exactly what was going on beyond the specific timeline she had experienced, she was already way over the edge.

I get why people don’t like the idea of Gou ‘tainting’ the VN’s happy ending, but I honestly like the idea that it’s examining the consequences of how Matsuribayashi was such an overly-specific timeline where basically nothing bad happened and everyone just banded together to beat Takano. It kinda glossed over a lot of the personal problems that the main cast had in the rest of the series, and this really goes to show the effects of some of that stuff not getting properly addressed. It also reminds me that Minagoroshi is a timeline that even in the VN, Rika completely lost her memories of, so I can see how even post-Matsuribayashi she might have never let Satoko know about the details of that one timeline where she overcome her abuse.

I also feel like it only really got to this point because of Featherine’s meddling. In the original Matsuribayashi timeline, Satoko just started drifting away from Rika and ended up wandering into the Saiguden and meeting Featherine before anything actually serious happened in that timeline. I think that if she had just been left to her own devices and that timeline had just kept going, Satoko probably would have either found a way to reconnect with Rika, or they would have just slowly drifted apart for good. But then Satoko got given the power to time travel, and only started going off the deep end after going through another five years of identical suffering.

And on that whole note, it reminds me of how in Umineko, Lambda had a whole conversation about the idea of an abused person becoming an abuser themself if they’re given the power to lash out. Which is basically what’s happening here. Satoko is being given the tools to completely detach herself from reality and try as many times as she likes to get what she wants.

Which also reminds me that this episode in particular REALLY lays the Umineko parallels on thick, lol. Particularly the whole ‘Satoko is turning into Lambda’ thing, which feels just about 100% confirmed now. They straight up have Featherine bring up the exact same ‘monkeys using a typewriter’ analogy to explain Rika’s situation that Lambda uses in Umineko to explain Bern’s situation.

I know a lot of people don’t like the increasingly blatant Umineko tie-ins, and that a lot of people still think it might just be misdirection, but considering how much stuff in Gou has been surprisingly straightforward and predictable, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it seems to be.

Though to be more specific, this is probably more about the start of Lambda and Bern’s relationship, and their appearances in Umineko, rather than the very first origins of them as individuals, if that makes sense. Obviously the concept of Bernkastel as an identity has been around since Higurashi itself, and we’ve known for a long time that Lambda was the one who originally gave Takano her blessing of certainty, but we’ve never known the full details of how those two started their relationship, and Featherine’s whole series of name-drops in the last episode makes it seem like Lambda as a meta individual more or less already exists, with Satoko being an iteration of her. So I think they both technically already exist, but this is how the two of them come into contact and start their whole unhealthily obsessive relationship.

I guess it’s still possible that, even if she’s already existed for a long time as a meta individual, she hasn’t actually come up with the name ‘Lambdadelta’ for herself yet, and this might be where she does so. Even with the list of names Featherine referenced, she didn’t technically bring up Lambda’s name directly. So in that sense this might be ‘Lambda’s’ origin story, even if she already exists.

Considering how basically the entire story at this point seems to be acting in service of setting up the whole LambdaBern relationship dynamic no matter what, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this will end with Satoko and Rika fully embracing their codependency and mutually ascending to the meta plane so they can stay together once and for all. There might still be human versions of them that stay behind in the real world and continue living normal lives, though.

At the very least, it feels like that’s the logical outcome of the whole Chekov’s Sword Fragment plot device that’s been hanging in the background for ages now. I think it’ll just be the in-universe explanation they use to show the mechanics of how exactly that process works. It’ll probably be used to ‘sever’ Satoko and Rika’s meta consciousnesses from their physical bodies and allow them to basically become witches.

Mainly I just can’t really see this having a ‘happy ending’ at this point, aside from the whole idea that maybe the severing process leaves behind ‘normal’ versions of the two of them who stay in Hinamizawa and go back to their normal lives. I dunno if that’d make people happy, but it’d at least be a way for Ryukishi to have his cake and eat it too, lol.

I just don’t think that there’s any real chance of this ending with them just talking to each other and agreeing to put an end to all this, though. For one thing that’d just feel kinda anticlimactic and honestly make Gou’s story feel even MORE pointless, if it just ends with literally the exact same ending as the VN with nothing really being changed. But I also feel like Featherine wouldn’t be willing to just let Satoko ‘give up’ without having one of them definitively win their current game. In general I just feel like Ryukishi should just commit to the story he’s setting up at this point, instead of just backing out at the last minute and circling everything back to the same ending we already had like nothing in Gou ever happened. If we’re gonna have this whole new story to begin with, it should at least have some lasting consequences.

Anyway, I think in the next episode we’re finally going to loop back to the Damashi arcs and see how they played out. At this point I don’t care too much about getting answers to the ground-level mysteries of those arcs, and I doubt the story will spend much time on that, but I’m curious to see how it progresses Satoko’s whole development through these loops, since I think she goes through some changes with her motives and methods over the course of them.

Specifically I think that the actual experience of being physically present in her own set of loops and causing so much pain and suffering started to get to her, and she might have almost given up in her own way during Tataridamashi and wanted to just stay in that arc, but things went south anyway. Maybe, if that’s what happened, Featherine basically let her know that she won’t let her give up, and will force her to keep looping until one of them ‘wins’ no matter what. Either way, I think that arc was a turning point for her. Like how she asked Featherine to arrange things so that Satoko can make sure that she and Rika’s loops are synced up, she probably asked Featherine after that arc to change the rules again so that Rika will start remembering the details of her deaths. At this point it’s pretty obvious that the Hanyuu fragment Rika was talking to earlier in Gou was more or less just Featherine putting on an act and manipulating her, so the scene of Hanyuu giving her the power to remember her deaths was probably just Featherine telling her about the rule change.

And going by how the Nekodamashi arc went immediately afterward, I think that rule change was related to Satoko becoming increasingly desperate to put an end to the loops as soon as possible. And considering how she was willing to spend so much time reviewing Rika’s hundred years of looping just to prepare for this, it’d make sense to me if she becomes desperate because she basically gives up, but realizes that she isn’t actually allowed to give up, so she has to try and make Rika give in as fast as possible. Either way it’s pretty obvious that Satoko’s methods start becoming more violent in that arc, and she basically tries to brute-force Rika into submission, leading up to the loop where she just spawn-camps her and straight up starts screaming at her to just stay in the village while tearing out her guts. It’s still possible that her attitude in that loop was just one big act, but I think that was the result of her being genuinely desperate to just have Rika give up once and for all, and her starting to crack under the pressure of doing all of these things with her own hands across so many loops. 

So now we’ll just have to see how the confrontation between them at the end of Nekodamashi plays out once we get back to it. In the long run I just think it’ll lead to the ending I talked about before, with them using the sword on each other. The exact nuances of how that sorta ending might play out are up in the air, though.

Either way, I think there’s probably enough time to wrap up all that in two more episodes, but there’s still reason to believe that there might be some kind of sequel in the works. I don’t really want to bet on it, though, so I’m just gonna assume that there’s two episodes left and base my theories on that. In which case I think the next episode will go over the Damashi arcs and end with Rika and Satoko’s confrontation at the end of Nekodamashi, and then the final episode will wrap everything up. Considering that they both more or less know exactly what’s going on with each other by that point, there isn’t really that much that needs to be wrapped up. I think that will be the final loop we get, so it’ll all just come down to how their confrontation plays out, and what decision they come to about how to handle each other.

I honestly don’t really know how I think a full sequel would go, if it’s at least one cour long. Assuming that it’s not just a new Umineko anime that more or less continues Rika and Satoko’s arc via Lambda and Bern, but is a straight up ‘Higurashi Gou Season 2′. It just feels like there isn’t really that much that needs to be done to wrap things up, now that everything’s being laid out in the open, and Rika and Satoko are both aware of each other’s looping. They might switch it up so that they both end up teaming up to take down Featherine, but I kinda doubt that’ll happen.

I’m still hoping this is leading into some kind of new Umineko anime though, lol. That feels like it’d be the main reason for putting so much effort into this whole elaborate LambdaBern origin story we’re getting here.

I’ve heard rumors that there’s been listings for a 25th episode of Gou, so it’s possible that rather than another full season, there’s just one extra episode at the end. I’m not exactly sure what the point of doing one extra unannounced episode at the end would be, though. It might end up being a bridge between Gou and a new Umineko anime.

At the very least, if it’s just ‘Satokowashi Part 8′, it makes me wonder why they haven’t announced it yet, and why they didn’t just split that arc into two BD volumes with four episodes each, instead of having it be one big volume with seven episodes, and one random episode at the end for some reason. But if it’s more of an epilogue or a bridge of sorts between Gou and something else, with Gou’s story concluding with episode 24, then I guess it’d make some sense to do it that way.

We also know there’s gonna be a panel for Gou at a convention around when ep24 comes out, so if anything gets announced it’ll probably happen there.

Anyway, this whole episode can be summed up as “Satoko does a gay little psychological torture that pisses Rika off”, in the most morbidly entertaining way possible, lmao.