#hopefully by the end of the year i'll have made room for a desk
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
dlnqnt · 4 months ago
Text
cleaning my room has gone v slowly but it's getting there !!
1 note · View note
reiderwriter · 11 months ago
Text
Unhappy Holidays
Tumblr media
Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader
Summary: You're unlucky enough to run into Spencer Reid at holiday celebrations four years in a row. In the New Year, you're resolving to rid him from your mind forever, but you never were one to stick to resolutions 👻🦃🎄🎆
Warnings: SMUT 18+ minors dni, enemies to lovers, low-key work rivals, semi-public sex, car sex, hate sex, fingering, thigh riding, creampie, unprotected sex (no condoms but contraceptive mentioned), slight spoilers for s4 of Criminal Minds (but not really).
Prompt Request: #50"You're so fucking obsessed with me.” #82"Really? Because your pussy is saying something different, sweetheart.” #93"Use my thigh. You've been staring at it all night anyway.”
A/N: This is my first submission for @imagining-in-the-margins November/December Office Party writing challenge! I'm sorry I've been so busy recently, but the holiday season really does take a lot of effort to get through at work lmao. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more over my vacation! For now, enjoy some very unserious smut~♡ (as if I write any other kind).
Here's a link to my masterlist, where you can find all my work!~☆
Working with the FBI was no walk in the park, which, from your desk at the opposite corner of the bullpen, Spencer Reid sure made it look like.
Working on adjacent teams for the last three years had become gradually infuriating. You were forever in the man's orbit, stuck dealing with the other women on your team sat giggling about him and his many stupid haircuts, and wondering just how far you'd fallen to have to stare at his stupid face 5 days a week.
If you were unlucky. His team did happen to be out on cases a lot more, whereas yours handled correspondence and consulting cases, a cushy and safe job.
It annoyed you to no end that you had multiple field-based qualifications, extensive fire arms training and were top of your class at the academy only to be relegated yo desk duty whilst boy wonder with his doctorates was allowed to trip over his own feet catching actual killers.
Other people wondered where your dislike of the man sprang from, and you could only let out a disgruntled squeak and tell them your horror stories.
A few months into your job, your been fresh faced and bushy tailed or however that saying goes, and overly eager to take any assignment that came your way. Even if the assignment was baby-sitting an injured Doctor Spencer Reid. He'd been shot whilst out on a case whilst trying to talk down an unsub, and you'd jumped at the chance to get to know him.
He was an office legend, of course, though those days it was more for his characteristic lack of social graces rather than the beauty he'd grown into. You'd been so eager to get to pick his brains, find out how he'd managed to score the position on the BAU at such an early age.
Reality had hit you square in the face when he'd spent a week ignoring you, making you run around like a headless chicken searching for hard copies of documents the FBI had digitised a millennia ago, and hadn't so much as spared you a glance.
The straw that broke the camel's back came as you were running back to him triumphant with a document he'd requested eight hours before and had let yourself into Penelope Garcia’s office quietly, only to hear him bad mouthing you.
“She makes me uncomfortable. I've had her out searching for useless files all day because I don't know what to do with her.”
“She's trying to help, Spencer, it's her job right now, cut her some slack.”
“Her job is currently getting in the way of mine. I even tried writing my own doctor's note so I could get rid of her, but Hotch wouldn't allow it.”
You'd dropped the file loudly on the table, watched the two spin around with horrified looks and turned silently and left the room.
He hadn't once tried to find you after that, and you let your apprenticeship under Doctor Reid quietly fizzle out as you got back to your regular work.
Your resentment still burned though.
Each time you'd been caught in the same elevator with him, you'd ignored him to an almost insane degree, enjoying the way he squirmed and tried to make small talk.
You'd been in contact with JJ and his Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner as well, through cases you'd recommended, but always maintained your cold shoulder.
The one place you could not ignore him, however, was a Penelope Garcia party.
After you'd slammed the file down on her desk, Penelope had guiltily sent you a gift basket filled with sweet treats and books, and had hounded you for a week to make sure your feelings weren't too damaged by her friend's stupidity.
You actually liked her, and found at least one silver lining to the storm that was Spencer Reid ripping through your life.
In the three years since the “incident,” you'd found yourself at three parties where Penelope in all of her heartwarming ways had tried her best to force a reconciliation between the two of you, to disastrous results.
The first was a Halloween party, and you'd been incredibly proud of your Princess Laia costume when you'd arrived. Only until you'd gone to the kitchen to top up your drink to hear Spencer Reid boring some guest or the other about how Star Trek was more advanced, and had a richer plot line.
Penelope had stepped into the kitchen just as he'd caught a glimpse of your (rather skimpy) outfit - yes, you'd chosen swimsuit Laia, yes, you were going to own it - and had immediately jumped into introductions, as if you weren't already intimately acquainted.
“Spencer! This is Y/N! She loves Halloween, too, she makes all of her costumes. You guys should talk.” She'd led the other guest away and left you there with Spencer as you'd awkwardly looked upon his own costume.
“Are you the Tenth Doctor?” You asked begrudgingly, noting his pin-striped suit and the shorter hairstyle he'd chosen.
“Are you a fan? I prefer the original show run more than the current stuff, but David Tennant has really been doing a wonderful-”
“I'm sorry, let me stop you there. I don't watch Doctor Who. I guess I prefer something with a… How should I say, richer plot?”
He'd snapped his mouth shut and didn't have chance to open it again before you turned dramatically and walked away from him.
The second party you'd been cornered into was just over a year later.
Having been stuck in the office over Halloween, Penelope was determined to get in one last celebration before Christmas steam-rolled every other holiday, and thus you'd been invited to her single-people-only-friendsgiving-potluck, and you'd found yourself having to navigate knocking on her door with a casserole dish in your hands.
Luckily a large hand had appeared from behind you and knocked on the door for you. Unfortunately, the sudden shock from the silent appearance of a man right behind you startled you so much that the dish fell straight from your hands anyway.
Penelope opened her door upon hearing the crash and you whirled on your would-be attacker.
It was Spencer again, eyes round in shock, hand still curled into a fist.
You took a calming breath as you gathered yourself, trying not to bite his head off. You wanted to scream and shout and rip his head out but you didn't, instead letting the fury drip into your voice as you finally opened your eyes again.
“That dish took me four fucking hours to make.” You huffed in anger once more as Penelope guided you into the apartment and poured you a glass of wine before you moved back to the entry hall to clean it up again.
Needless to say he didn't care to converse with you after that.
A few small parties in between had been blissfully Spencer-less and you'd lulled yourself into a false sense of security. That's when you accepted the Christmas party invitation.
As one of the unlucky few members of the FBI who had to stay out over christmas in case of some emergency or the other, you'd been grounded in Virginia, unable to travel home for the holidays. So Penelope Garcia's singles-only-Christmas-fun-time-Party was your last ditch effort to spend the holidays actually resting and eating good food.
Learning from last time, Penelope reassured you that there was no potluck, that she had prepared all the food herself, and all you'd need were a bottle of wine and a willingness to party.
You'd taken those recommendations as law and had immediately let yourself into a glass of mulled wine as you arrived, and - noticing that the party was Reid-free - had allowed it to raise your Christmas spirits slightly more than you usually would.
By hour two of the event, you were full of yuletide joy and swaying freely along to the tune of Silent Night.
Spencer’s late entrance really would have gone unnoticed by you had you not bumped face first into his chest as you spun yourself around in your dance, his hands quickly falling to your hips to steady you.
The few moments it took you to gather yourself were about as long as you needed to realised that he'd caught you in his arms underneath the mistletoe. And with your mind fogged by mulled-whatever-it-was-Penelope-mixed-into-that-punch, the part of your brain that objected to the very existence of Spencer Reid went silent, and the incredibly tiny and somewhat damaged part of your brain that instead saw him as attractive started shouting loud instructions.
Before your common sense could return, you pushed yourself up on your tiptoes to kiss the very warm, very close man holding you upright.
“Mistletoe,” you muttered as you clawed his arms off of you and took yourself straight to Penelope's bathroom to throw up.
So yes, your acquaintance with Spencer Reid had never been good, and you were perfectly fine with resenting him from afar, privately.
With three years of bad experiences under your belt, you weren't excited at completing your yearly tradition of horrendous interaction. Which is perhaps why you immediately and loudly protested Penelope’s New Years Eve party invitation.
“Y/N, it's a party. What's the worst that can happen?” She pleaded as she followed you down the corridors of the office building.
“I could see Spencer Reid. I could be forced to converse with Spencer Reid. I could get absolutely wasted and kiss Spencer Reid. There, three options, please accept my resignation from partying.”
“Y/N we both know you don't drink anymore, so at least one of those is unlikely to happen. And Spencer might not even come, he has tickets for an indie theatre from 6pm onwards, they're playing some Russian movie from the 60s that's like 4 hours long or something. So u retire yourself and tell me you'll come?” She had to take three or four steps for each of your own, not that you were so different in height but because you were practically marching in order to avoid the topic.
But you finally stopped and let out a sigh as you turned back to Penelope who stopped just before she ran into you.
“You're sure he won't be there?”
“I'm sure he RSVP’d no.”
“Fine. But I'm not drinking and I will still be expecting the Penelope Garcia virgin punch experience.”
“Bring the party poppers and you have a deal.”
“Done.”
–X–
Over the week since you'd accepted the invitation, you'd made peace with it. For the most part, you did love a Penelope Garcia production. There was something wonderful about your friend and her ability to brighten anyone's mood, an ability that was only heightened at holidays. She was like a glittered goddess gaining power when worshippers used her altar, except the altar was her house and the worship was a range of hallmark-induced holidays.
You arrived at the party at 10pm, and though that was the start time you'd been given, you weren't surprised to see a full house of Penelope’s team mates already in attendance. Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau and Emily Prentiss sat spread across the sofa in the living room area, and you noticed a few techie friends also grabbing drinks and chatting.
“Y/N, I'm so glad you're here! You remember everyone on the team, right?” She pulled you into a hug and then sat you down in the middle of the group, waiting for you to mingle and become comfortable before she ran off to more hostess duties.
“Of course, nice to see you guys.” You grabbed your promised punch and sat back comfortably, striking up a conversation with Emily about how bleak the dating scene had been recently.
“It seems like all the men around me are jackasses,” Emily muttered and you giggled along.
“I'm wounded,” Morgan shot back, a hand pressed to his chest in faux pain.
“Good. You're like a lion out there in the clubs stalking gazelles, it's like watching a nature documentary when you're out there.”
You almost snorted your entire drink up your nose as Emily finished, needing to compose yourself for a second.
“I guess the men on our team aren't great with romance,” JJ laughed and took a swing. “Hotch and Rossi have four divorces between them, and Derek here is a lost cause.”
“Our only hope is young Spencer. May he grow into a respectful young gentleman and break out curse,” Emily toasted.
“Oh that ship has sailed,” your laugh this time was bitter, your mood immediately growing sour with even the smallest mention of Spencer Reid.
“Ah, Penelope mentioned you had a problem with our boy wonder. Care to share?”
You opened your mouth to give your standard non-answer and move the conversation along, but you were interrupted.
“Yes, Y/N, care to share? I am slightly curious about that as well.” You turned around and there he was, and your stomach turned in disgust.
Just one time, just one party. You'd been having fun, and here he was to ruin it.
“What are you doing here?” you gaped up at him, unsurprised to see him still decked out in sweater vest and slacks even in his down time.
“I was invited.”
“You declined, Penelope said you had movie tickets.”
“Ticket, singular. And it was cancelled so here I am. What's your problem with me, Y/N?” His jaw clenched and he grabbed the back of your chair and leaned down. It was supposed to be intimidating, but you rolled your eyes. When he looked that attractive, veins in his arms popping out of the sleeves he'd pulled up, you couldn't see him as intimidating. His arms were distracting yes, but God that was nothing compared to his thighs. His pants were tight, and you thanked whatever Clueless tailor had sewn them, because you now allowed yourself a momentary lapse to enjoy the appearance of his lower body.
You tried to shake the thought of his attractiveness from your mind, reminding yourself where you were and in what company.
“I don't think I need to answer that. I think I'll enjoy holding it over your head instead,” you said, standing up and beginning to gather your things.
“Wait, Y/N, where are you going? New Year isn't for another 30 minutes.” Penelope scrambled over and grabbed your hand, pleading with you to stay.
“I'm sorry Pen, but there's just this very annoying bug buzzing around me, and I think I need to get away from it.” You said your goodbyes and excused yourself from the party, happy to have walked away relatively undamaged.
Fate had other plans, and as you stepped out of the apartment building ready to walk yourself home, a hand caught yours from behind as a voice chased you.
“Y/N, wait. I'll go. You go back inside.”
“And return with my tail tucked between my legs after making a grand exit? I'll pass, thanks boy genius.” You shook yourself from his grasp and made to walk away again, but he quickly matched your pace and stepped into your path, cutting you off.
“I can't let you walk home. It's like 40° out here, and your coat is more style than substance.”
“Get into a car with a stranger? I'm sure you of all people know how stupid that sounds.” You stuck a finger out and poked his chest, but he grabbed your hand and held it in place as he spat out his next words.
“I'm not a stranger, I'm the man you're obsessed with, Y/N. Big difference.” You laughed, mostly in shock at his indignance, but he stared at your face as serious as could be.
“Me? Obsessed with you? I'm not the one who followed a woman they're barely acquainted with out of a party filled with all of my friends. Sounds like you're projecting, Spencer.”
“Am I?” He questioned, stepping closer and grabbing your hip as he continued his questioning. “I wasn't the one who was sat there talking about me with all of my colleagues.”
“Well, I wasn't the one who turned up to a party I'd declined an invitation to.”
He was imperceptibly close now, hand gripping your hip so tight you wondered if it'd leave you with a mark.
“I certainly was not the one who initiated a kiss last year, Y/N. You need to face the facts, you're so fucking obsessed with me.” If his hands had you feeling dizzy, his words were completely knocking the sense out of you. Suddenly you returned to the person you'd been under that Mistletoe, and everything from his closeness to the rough edge to his voice begged you to do it once again.
“Go fuck yourself,” was about all the words you could manage as he finally let his lips fall down and crush into your own.
You should've pushed him away, but instead your traitorous body wanted to prove his point, opening up for him faster than you'd opened up to anyone else before.
His tongue flicked against your lips and you gladly let him explore your mouth, opening up to tangle your tongue with his.
He tasted sweet, like the punch Penelope had handed you earlier, only now you wondered if someone had accidentally laced it with how free you were being with your affections.
He resurfaced for air, but you didn't care if there was nothing in your lungs at all if it meant that his lips would engage your own in battle once again.
“Look how much you want me,” he smirked. “Look how needy you are after a single kiss, chasing my lips like that.”
“You and your big fucking mouth. I wish you'd shut up once in a while.”
“I'll make it my new year’s resolution.” His lips joined your own again, and you clashed hard, exploring as much as you could muster as he pulled you in the direction of his car.
“I'm not driving… home… with you,” you growled between kisses, trying not to put your teeth to his neck and bite down hard. You're not sure if that impulse was a murderous one or a kinky one.
“I'm not putting you in the front seat, Y/N, I'm putting you in the back. You should be familiar with the idea.”
Heat sparked between your legs, and you allowed yourself to be manhandled into the beat-up trash heap of a car.
He'd not taken his hands off you as he got you in, pushing himself in first and then pulling you by the hand that you'd unconsciously gripped hard. You immediately straddled his hips, skirt naturally riding up in the process. He noticed and looked curiously down at you, growling as you pressed your lips against his neck and grabbed you instead by the hair gathered in a ponytail at the back of your head.
“See, you're obsessed with me. Just admit it.” Without breaking eye contact, he dug his fingers into the material of your tights and pulled in opposite directions, leaving your underwear exposed to his wandering eyes.
“I'm not obsessed with you,” your voice needed conviction to land, but it came out as a lusty whisper, especially as he slipped his fingers inside your underwear and finally touched your aching cunt.
“Really? Because your pussy is saying something else, Princess.” He found your clit faster than you'd ever expected, rubbing slow circles into your skin as you began rocking your hips back and forth.
It was becoming hard to disagree with him, with each flick of wrist growing the heat between your legs. You attacked his neck again, hands practically ripping at his top buttons so you could muffle the sounds of your arousal against his neck, collarbone, chest, any stretch of that pale skin available to you.
He forced your hips to a stop with one hand as he slipped a single digit inside of your hole, gathering your arousal as he set a steady pace, thumb keeping your bundle of nerves occupied.
“Listen, Y/N, can you hear that?”
“I can't h-hear anything.” You had to grind your teeth together to get the words out with minimal interruptions of moans bursting from the pit of your stomach.
He leaned in close to your ear, nuzzling your neck and placing chaste kisses up towards your ear, finally pulling away just enough to whisper a single word in your ear.
“Liar.”
His hand stilled and pulled off you quickly and your eyes broke open, hands unconsciously fitting into his shirt as if you were worried he was going to leave you there like this, on the edge of pleasure but still so far away.
“Use my thigh. You've been staring at it all night anyway.”
“Jackass. You've only been here for like 20 minutes.”
“You can climb right out of this car if you want to, Y/N.” He tried to keep his tone light, but the death grip he had on your thighs, the very obvious tent pitched in his pants and the way his eyes couldn't go five seconds without undressing you told you you had more power in this interaction than he wanted to give you.
There was no way either of you were letting the other go unused tonight.
You relaxed your grip on his shirt and shifted your weight to one of his thighs. Lithe he may be, but lowering yourself down there was an unexpected strength there. He watched on curiously as you rocked experimentally against him. Back and forth you rocked, trying desperately to keep up his momentum or tempt him to help you out again.
It was time to let your voice back out, and you did, moaning without a care as you hummed his leg like a bitch in heat.
“You're enjoying this lot, huh, Y/N,” he muttered, and you watched as his hand worked his pants zip open, removing one of the barriers in the way between the two of you, as he began palming himself.
“What's that saying? Anything you can do, I can do better?” He growled at that response but didn't stop you. Instead he bought a hand down on your ass as you moved, so hard you jolted at the sudden pain. Your eyes shot open as your hips stilled, but you felt warmth grow between your legs.
“Yes, you definitely enjoyed that. Should I do that again, or do you think we should hurry this up and go back up for the countdown?”
You hesitated only a second before you pushed his hand off his lap, shifting your hips further towards his knees before letting your hand reach for where his had just been.
You didn't let yourself think about how big he was as you pulled his cock free, didn't let yourself wonder how he measured up against anyone you'd been with before. You didn't let yourself waste time thinking about how various office rumours were true, and definitely not a second was wasted feeling jealous about how those rumours were spread in the first place.
Instead you simply slammed your lips back against his, mouth opening to let your tongue engage his as you lifted your hips with his help and lowered yourself down on him.
You didn't have to rid yourself of sinful thoughts after that as he purged every single brain cell from your head, filling you so contently that there was simply no space for anything but him.
You locked up on top of him, clawing at his shoulders as you whimpered at the stretched, falling so he was balls deep inside you. You wanted to move, to use him for your pleasure, but your walls tightened every time you even thought about it as he stroked your hair through it all.
It had been some time since you'd last had a sexual partner, and you needed the few minutes to overcome the first uncomfortable bliss of it all.
“That good?” he whispered, but the harsh tone of earlier was gone, replaced only by unsure humour to break the silence.
“Been a while.” He nodded, kissing you again to distraction as he shifted your positions.
Cradling your neck and securing your legs comfortably around him, he lowered you against the backseat, pulling out slightly as you adjusted to the new angle.
“Better?” You nodded quickly, because it was. There was no more pressure on your legs, and despite the cramped space in the car, you had enough space to lie almost flat.
“Yes… thank you.” Just as his cutting tone had escaped him, you also heard your own tone softening, the sigh of contentment slipping past your lips almost sweet. Almost.
“Are you going to fuck me now, or what?”
He let out a shocked laugh, but lent down to shut you up with a kiss nonetheless. Bracing himself against the car door, his hips softly rocked into you, pace increasing until you were back to the edge of cumming, nails pressed hard into his skin until you were sure he was going to complain.
He didn't though, but kept up his thrusts, until your vision suddenly darkened and stars exploded in them, rolled back in your head as they were.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, where should I…?” He panicked, but you wrapped your legs around him, grabbing him by the tie and pulling him down to swallow his moan as he shot his load inside of you.
“Birth control.” You whispered when you finally let him go, gasping for air. “Contraceptive pill. No need to get the car dirty.”
He collapsed on top of you then, forehead resting against your own as you both caught your breaths.
The moment was silent, and you found the synchronicity of your breaths almost calming. Eventually you had to break apart, and he helped you up to a sitting position, but didn't break eye contact as fell back into his lap.
His hands stroked your back, dipping to your ass at times, but he didn't talk. Neither of you did.
The eye contact between the two of you was possibly the most pleasant conversation you'd ever had.
“I'm sorry.” He blurted, just as fireworks erupted into the night sky. Your heart shook, and you weren't sure of it was the shock of the sound, or the way the rainbow of lights illuminated his sincere expression.
“You don't have to apologise for cumming in me, Spencer.”
“Not that. Before. The casserole and the mistletoe, and the Halloween costume.”
“Wow. Um, okay. Apology accepted, I guess, though I'm not entirely sure why you're apologising now.”
He took a deep breath just as another set of fireworks went up.
“I pulled you under the mistletoe. It was Penelope’s idea, she knew how stupid I was being around you and sent me over. I saw it and took the chance.”
“Fuck. Why?”
“Because I was pretty useless at being chivalrous the year before.”
You climbed off his lap in a scramble and sat on the seat beside him, mind racing, trying to figure out where the hell he was going with this.
He turned to you, trying to keep your attention as he stumbled over the words.
“You couldn't knock on the door, so I wanted to help you, but I didn't think I'd scare you so much you'd drop it.”
“You didn't scare me it was a momentary lapse in my observational skills.”
“You shrieked,” a smile threatened to pull his lips up, they twitched as you flushed red.
“And Halloween?” You looked at him again now, trying to figure out what the hell was going on between the two of you.
“You refused to look at me for a year after we stopped working together,” he shrugged quickly running a hand through his hair and expelling a breath. “I don’t really know how to talk to women.”
“You just know how to piss them off?”
“Morgan says it comes naturally.”
“Yeah, well, Morgan is very wise.”
A brief silence stretched between you, or as silent as a night full of cracks, pops, whizzes and bangs could be.
“I don't get it. You tried your best to get rid of me when I was there to help you. I wanted to impress you, and you kept sending me on meaningless errands, and now you're saying what? You wanted my attention?” There was a quiet anger to your voice, but you were surprised to find it diminished and tired.
“I wanted you gone because you were distracting me, Y/N, not because I hated you.”
“Well, what's the difference, Doctor Reid? Please indulge me.” You huffed a little but kept your eyes on him, trying not to seem too desperate for his answer.
“I have an IQ of 187. Emily says when I'm around a pretty girl it's more like 52,” he fidgeted with his pants, forcing the words out.
“You're a pretty girl. We had a case to work and all I could think about was how to get you to like me. Hotch chewed me out like three separate times for being absent minded.”
He was looking anywhere but you, trying his best not to appear like a fool but you were locked onto him.
“Oh my god you're an idiot.”
“When you're around, yes.”
“And that means I'm equally stupid.”
“No, you just jump to conclusions and hold grudges. There wasn't anything really that stupid about your actions, though it could be suggested that not thoroughly thinking through the wording of the conversation you overheard-”
You cut him off with a kiss, pulling him down again mlby his tie.
“Oh my god, shut up,” you whispered as you broke apart.
“Does that mean we can do this again? Because I'd like to do this again?”
“Stop talking, start kissing jackass.”
He finally didn't argue with that, pulling you back into him as you sat under the stars in his car welcoming the new year.
1K notes · View notes
catboyfelixer · 8 months ago
Text
I Hope You’ll Always Be My Guardian Angel | Lee Felix
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Pairing: Felix x GN!Reader Summary: Felix is a guardian angel-in-training, and you’re his last assignment before he can graduate. Genre: Fluff, Humor Notes: Jeongin also makes an appearance in this <3
Tumblr media
All Felix could hear was pencils on paper scribbling away, students flipping to the back of the test that he had finished half an hour ago. This was not his first rodeo. This wasn’t even his second rodeo. But every time he failed his in-person assessment, he had to come back and do the written test all over again.
All he wanted to do escape the white walls, floors, uniforms, furniture, everything, and get back to Earth. The only other color in the room were the black numbers on the white clock, ticking agonizingly slow. Normally he would drift off into daydreams about his next assignment on Earth to pass the time. But lately those daydreams would turn into embarrassing memories of failing his exams on Earth and dread about failing them all over again.
At least he wasn’t alone. Most of his classmates had passed on their first try, but Jeongin being here too made him feel a bit better. He was asleep on the desk next to Felix’s, drooling a bit on the test. He always looks peaceful, even smiling in his sleep. Felix wishes he could be this laid-back about failing as many times as they have. Whenever Felix has doubts about ever graduating, Jeongin throws an arm around him and tells him they’ll make it eventually, even if it takes a hundred years. Hopefully they’ll both pass this time, and join their friends as full-fledged guardian angels.
The instructor rings the chimes, playing a melodic tune to signal the end of the exam. Felix shakes Jeongin awake, and they get ready to find out who they’ll be assigned to for the next two weeks.
Tumblr media
You slammed the door to your apartment as you walked in, and dropped your bag on the ground. The loud thud didn't startle you, and you didn't care about all your textbooks splaying out. Who cares about the tripping hazard.
Yeah, it was one of those days.
First, you spilled coffee on your new shirt. You were too far from home to change and you were running late for class anyway.
Second, none of your group had anything prepared for their parts in the group project. Nothing! They had two weeks to do literally anything. You'll have to bring this up to the professor before the presentation tomorrow.
Third, your laptop just completely died during your last class of the day. All the notes you took- gone.
Fourth, you banged your elbow on the door frame on the way out of class. Maybe you would've been calm if it was only three things. But come on.
You're lucky nothing happened on the way home, who knows if you would've lost your mind.
You hear a knock at the door. After a brief pause, there are two more louder knocks.
Fifth, someone's at your door. On your bad day.
You mentally compose yourself, taking a deep breath before walking to the door.
When you open it, you're blinded by bright lights enveloping a figure in the hallway. You cover your eyes and hear a voice.
"Oh, sorry. Let me turn that down." The figure reaches up and turns down the light coming from the halo on his head.
...
...Halo?
You look back, and see a man dressed in all white from head to toe. He has shoulder length blonde hair, what seems to be a halo floating on top of his head, and a pair of translucent wings behind him.
"Um... Be not afraid?" he says, tilting his head as if he's the one confused here.
You just stare at him blankly. Why is there a man dressed like an angel at your door.
He sticks out his hand, hoping for a handshake. When you just continue staring at him in bewilderment, he clears his throat and tries again.
"Hello, my name is Felix and I'll be your guardian angel for the next two weeks." The way he says it is stilted, as if he's practiced saying this beforehand.
"What?" is all you manage to say at first. This is so completely bizarre.
"I've never been good at this part. Can I come in? It'll be easier to explain if I can sit down and read my cue cards," he explains, already walking past you and into the living room behind you. He trips on the bag you left on the floor and stumbles into a side table, knocking over a potted plant.
Sixth.
He stands up, wipes the dirt off his pants, and continues walking like nothing happened. He sits down on the old black leather couch your parents gave you and some cue cards appear in his hands out of thin air.
He flips through them, nodding at each card before they magically disappear when he's finished reading them. Looking up at you, he smiles and pats the couch next to him, which you ignore.
"Like I said, my name is Felix and I'm in training to be a guardian angel. You're my assignment for my exam. Nice to meet you!" He puts out his hand for you to shake again, and this time you hesitantly take up the offer.
"Ok, let me get this straight. Guardian angels exist. Ok. I guess this might as well happen," you start, finally taking a seat across from him, "But why only two weeks? Do I just... not get a guardian angel after that?"
"Don't worry, you didn't have one before this and you were just fine, right?"
Considering the day you just had, that's debatable.
"Why does an angel need to take an exam? Aren't you, like, just born knowing how to angel?"
"No, that's silly. And also, I wasn't born," he says, not elaborating on why that's silly or how angels are made.
"I wasn't born either," you lie. You shouldn't be the only one caught off guard today.
"Oh, that's interesting," he responds. He pulls out a notepad and a pencil and writes that down. Did he... believe you?
Somehow you find that endearing. Just a little bit.
"Oh yeah, I have more cue cards to get through."
Tumblr media
He follows behind you on your walk to the grocery store like a puppy. Every so often he yells out "BE CAREFUL!" just before you step on a rock.
"WATCH OUT!"
He pulls you towards him, wrapping his arms around your waist and tucking his chin in the crook of your neck. He's unexpectedly warm, warmer than any person you've been in an embrace with. Are angels known to be warm? You'll have to look that up later. You subconsciously lean into him, and against your own will, you notice your heart beating harder in your chest.
You look around, expecting a bike to be barreling towards you or something, but he points to the ground where a squirrel runs by your feet. When it's gone, he lets you go, and the warmth retreats too. You turn around to question him, but he starts talking first.
"Phew, that could've been dangerous, good thing I was here," he says. He wipes some non-existent sweat off his forehead and gives you a thumbs up.
"There's no way that would've been dangerous," you start, but he's too busy mentally patting himself on the back for a job well done. He doesn't hear you at all.
You sigh, and you guess this is what your life will be like for the next two weeks.
When you get to the store, no one seems to notice the wings or the halo. But what they do notice is the kindhearted guy helping the little old lady get some organic cereal off the top shelf, and the pretty boy making funny faces at a crying baby to calm her down. You definitely notice the cute way he furrows his brow while reading the shopping list, making sure you didn't forget anything. And how he offers to carry the heavy bags for you when you finish paying. He's lifting an entire bag of flour under one arm, and two more reusable shopping bags with his other hand. He's kind of... nice to have around, you think.
You don't think about his pretty face or his toned arms carrying your groceries, not at all.
The two of you walk home, side-by-side. Your thoughts wander to what happens after. Will he go inside the apartment again? Where is he living while on Earth. He's not expecting to stay the night, is he? You just met him. Then again, he is your guardian angel. If anything, it's probably better to have him close by. Just in case. You turn to ask him where he's staying, but he suddenly stops in his tracks and stares past you, further down the street. He squints to see something, and then a big goofy smile spreads across his face.
You look, and there's two men in the distance. One is just a regular dude eating a hotdog. The other guy... is another angel. He's wearing the same all white outfit as Felix, and there's a halo floating above him emitting a soft light.
"Jeongin!" he calls out, and when the angel turns, his translucent wings catch the light of his halo and become barely visible.
'Jeongin' smiles brightly and waves in your direction. Felix drops your groceries and jogs to catch up with his friend. They do a complicated handshake and start talking, which would be cool if you weren't left with all the heavy bags on the ground.
Above you, you hear a man shout 'Mamma mia!' and when you look up, a giant black blur falls out of a balcony.
A crash roars through the street, followed by a perfect C major chord, and when Felix turns around there's a broken grand piano where you once stood.
"Ah.... shoot."
The last thing Felix sees before being teleported away is the man next to Jeongin falling over after choking on his hot dog.
Tumblr media
A moment later, and Felix is back in a very familiar room. White walls, white carpet, a white couch and a white coffee table greet him once again. He takes a seat, and Jeongin appears in the room too.
"I lasted longer this time!" Jeongin exclaims, punching his fist in the air as a show of victory.
"By literally half a second."
"Still counts," Jeongin responds, and Felix rolls his eyes.
"So what happened to your guy?"
"I think the hotdog was bad, I don't know," Jeongin says, scratching his chin. "He got it from back of some guys car. Maybe food poisoning."
The sound of the door swinging open grabs their attention, and they watch as their principal walks in.
"How can there already be two people back, the exam just start- oh"
Principal Park sighs as he looks at the two students in his office. Of course it's these two again. He adjusts his glasses and addresses them.
"You both know the drill, be back for the written test in two weeks," he says, and leaves them alone in the lobby again.
Felix stands up to leave, and a familiar phrase escapes his lips.
"You know, I'm starting to think we might not be good at this."
Jeongin wraps his arm around Felix's shoulder, and says the same thing he always does when doubt creeps in.
"This was just a test round! Next time is the real deal. We'll get it for sure!"
And with that, they leave to prepare for their next exam, memories of their latest failure already being buried away.
117 notes · View notes
twoturtlesinabathtub · 3 months ago
Note
so I think you mentioned you were working on a new fic in your series. what all has been happening with that? any new details? I’m eagerly awaiting the next chapter :)
Yes! Fic 4 of 5 is coming along nicely—it's just been going a bit slowly, since I'm dealing with some health issues and have been prioritizing those. I'm glad you're excited haha, so here's a sneak peak at the beginning of the fic.
"You crazy bastard, you did it. You actually did it," said Chris, clapping Leon on the back so hard that he stumbled forward a step. "Welcome to S.T.A.R.S., man."
Leon chuckled, clutching tightly the new uniform that had been pressed into his arms about ten minutes before. It wasn't his favorite color—the olive drab of the pants and vest could only do so much for one's complexion—but he could do worse. He fleetingly wondered why the hell the shirt was so white. That didn't seem very practical.
"Thanks," he replied. "Hopefully it won't take long to adjust."
"Nah. You'll crush it, trust me."
Captain Marini seemed to have sensed Leon hadn't wanted to be the center of attention that day, and kept introductions brief—an unnecessary effort, really, since almost every S.T.A.R.S. member on both teams had seen Leon around the office several times over the past year or so.
The worst part had been what Enrico had said to Wesker a few minutes ago.
"I'm surprised you didn't try to snatch him up, first," Marini had remarked. Leon had been by Chris as his friend explained they'd be sharing a desk for the time being, and Leon had been able to overhear the two captains conversing, Wesker leaning against the doorframe of his office with arms casually folded. "Pretty sure we can whip him into shape fast," Enrico had continued. "I almost feel bad for yanking him out from under you." Miraculously, Leon had managed not to choke.
"A missed opportunity on my part, perhaps," Wesker had mused, and Leon had practically been able to hear the suppressed smirk in those nasal tones.
"Who knows? Maybe I can lend him to you, sometime. You know I don't mind sharing."
Chris had squinted at Leon. "That was one weird noise you just made. You had the chicken salad for lunch, didn't you? I told you it looked off," he tutted, shaking his head.
"I appreciate the offer, Enrico," Wesker had said, somehow sounding completely unaffected. "I'm sure Leon could prove flexible enough to perform well in a number of positions. You have good taste."
Leon's attention returned to the present, and he caught the tail-end of Chris saying Leon could look through any of the desk drawers he wanted, but the point man wouldn't be liable for any therapy bills that might ensue.
"What the hell, I'll even let you put up a poster," said Chris, slapping the wall next to his desk. "Except for Mötley Crüe. No goddamn Mötley Crüe. Got it?"
Leon snorted. "Got it."
"Good. And you'll want to talk to Richard soon—he loves to help the new ones out. Right, Rebecca?" Leon and Chris glanced over at the medic, who was seated near the switchboards at the end of the room; she glanced over her shoulder, gave the men a quick thumbs-up and a bright grin, then went back to studying the consoles like she could make them catch fire with her mind.
Leon couldn't help quirking a brow at his friend, even as a fought back a smile. "You're pretty excited—maybe just as excited as I am. Are you assuming me being around the office more means I can pick up even more of your slack?"
"You said it, not me," Chris replied, holding up his hands. "Besides, odds are we won't even be working the same hours very often. Bravo members usually take nights, so you're probably gonna mostly be working the graves shift—which brings me to my next point."
"Your what now?"
Chris's smile was wide and warm. "We should do something fun before your schedule's completely fucked. Jill," he said, turning to catch his fellow teammate's attention.
Valentine was cleaning her gun nonchalantly, boots up on her desk as she leaned back in her swivel chair. "Yeah?"
"You catch all that?"
"Obviously—you're four feet away from me." Jill smiled at Leon. "Good job, Kennedy." Leon returned the expression, albeit a bit self-consciously; he had to actively remind himself not to act like an imbecile in front of one of the people he practically hero-worshipped. "Knew you had it in you."
"Oh, uh, thanks. Yeah." Idiot.
"When does your new schedule start?" Chris asked, craning his neck to look back at Leon.
"Friday night."
"Perfect—plenty of time for you to sleep off a potential hangover." Chris turned towards Jill once more. "So, Harry's? Thursday? We can roll out the welcome wagon."
Jill smirked, slotting the magazine back into her gun without looking. "Like we need an excuse to get drunk. I'll ask around."
10 notes · View notes
b-theone · 2 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
Setting: Predebut, 2017
Starring: B:ONE, Ad Astra ex trainees ( Jeongwon, Beomseok, Jisung), staff
Word Count: 3.1k
Before B:ONE there was ASTER, but for the first to exist, the latter had to fall apart.
Tumblr media
Being a group of nine wasn't easy, at least not when you're supposed to be debuting at any minute, but any minute turned into months and no one debuted, nor changes were made for the lineup. Luck seemed to be running out in ASTER, and the group was starting to wonder if the project was about to be discarded to leave space for the next girl group. However, destiny has dealt its cards a long time ago, and only a few ones were destined to make it.
“I'll be leaving the dorms on Monday, I'm leaving the company and going back to Wonju. My father fell sick, so I doubt I would've been able to make it knowing that.”
Everyone knew that Jeongwon only had his father in life, and it had been hard enough for him to leave Wonju, even if it was near Seoul and he could just come and go for practice, everyone knew he wouldn't want to even try as he'd want to be with his father as much as possible, just in case it got worse. It was a hard hit, since Jeongwon had quickly assumed the position of leader since ASTER came to be as the nine member group eight months ago, rather than just being just Ad Astra's predebut team. Now someone else would have to take on that spot, and pray that this small change wouldn't be the end of ASTER.
“I think Beomseok would be a good leader. He might not be the oldest but he has been here for a long time, so he deserves it.” Jeongwon spoke again, earning a look from everyone.
There was a clear Hyung line, and it was made, now without Jeong, had three other people and Taeseok. Beomseok was part of the maknae line, one of the oldest, but not old enough. No one really cared about it, since he had more experience, and Jeongwon regarded him as a second in command.
“We can always go visit you after practices, and when we debut, we can go when we're free. This doesn't have to be the end of our friendship.” The youngest one spoke hopefully.
No one really looked at him, but everyone shared the same thought. He was too hopeful, and too naive. Jeongwon would probably fade into a memory, and even past that, and would be probably just another man from Korea, and millions of Korean men. They hoped one day their paths would cross, but it was highly unlikely, and no one dared to tell that to the maknae.
Being back at the practice room was hard, even if they were now eight, which means someone else could get a new chance to shine. Jeongwon didn't have any main position, or at least, no staff had positioned as such, so his place could be easily filled in, but there was something that made his absence feel like they had lost half of the group. He was someone who led the group through thick and thin, and now their worst moment was without him.
“I think we should do our best to debut, for Jeongwon hyung. I know it seems like we're just... Further and further from it, but we have to push harder to make them realize we're here to stay.”
Even though Beomseok was trying his best, no one felt moralized enough to do anything that day, having lost someone so important for the group in the middle of the uncertainty of debuting or not... It felt like hell. It felt worse for Jongbin, who shared a room with Jeongwon for six years,  and now he had to start again with other people.
It didn't help that the company took the news as an opportunity to experiment with the lineup. Sometimes it was  four, sometimes they added people to the point they were eleven, and so they went back and forth, further destabilizing the groups morale.
“I don't know if we're even debuting.” Kohya said to a fellow foreign member of Aster.
“I think they're going to move us around until we get tired and we quit. Maybe they were building the group around Jeong-ssi.” The other man said from his place on the bed.
Kohya, who was crammed on a small desk with all his strings for bracelets, let go of it just to look back at his friend, who then looked back at him.
“It could be but I'm not sure, wouldn't it be easier if they just kicked us out? They could clean up the building and give it to more girls and get more trainees in, and that way they'd be able to fit more possible future idols.” Kohya said after a while of careful consideration.
His friend seemed to think about it carefully, trying to find any problem in Kohya's logic, only to be met with nothing. “You're right” the older one ended up saying.
“What do you think they're doing next? They tried already many things and it's been barely a month.” Koya then asked again, sparking a new debate about what would and what should ad astra do next, as if they were debating a strategy for a game.
In the company, Taeseok, Kyungmin, Beomseok, and Kohya were just taking a break from the practice, as they were picked for the new pseudo lineup. In that break, the four guys were discussing the same question, what would ad astra do with them?
“I think with Jeongwon going, they're just doing time until they see who else will leave before doing anything else. You know, it was a hard blow, so it's expected they'll just go playing around until things settle.” Taeseok spoke, trying to settle down the anxiousness that had settled over the group lately.
The room was almost clinical, with the cold white lights illuminating the room almost in a blinding light, and the lack of windows made the place feel like a room like an underground place from those scary movies his dormmate loved. All trainees had to practice there, only debuted groups had the privilege to get a nice room, and it was probably because they had to upload their dance practice.
The room full of mirrors and grey walls and floor, making it feel almost like they were being watched. Taeseok didn't like it, but he didn't have to, he just had to get through it long enough to have a pretty practice room like those girlgroups he saw.
“Do you think they're just waiting? That we're not going to be kicked out of the company if we don't get out on our own?” Beomseok asked, playing with his water bottle.
“If they were planning to debut us then why are they changing the lineup so much?”
“Maybe they're going to debut us as subunits? Like that NCT group.” Kyungmin offered as an alternative, something that no one else had thought about it.
The group looked at each other, thinking about what Kyungmin had said, wondering if they were planning to debut them in some new way that wasn't used before.
“Doesn't seem like it, it seems too out of the pocket for a company that's debuting their first group, I think they'd play it safe."
It was hard to know what was going to happen, but Taeseok and Kyungmin quickly found a pattern. They were put together, no matter how the group was changed, they came and went as a pair. To them it joined a man by the name Jisung, born in 1994.
Jisung was a nice person, he was in the room next to Taeseok's, and they were both introverted people, so they glued to each other in practice while the others ran around and played. It could be said that they became friends rather quickly, like a fire started by thunder, and as such, it was bound to die soon.
“I've been kicked out of the company.” The man said one day,  coming into the practice room he was supposed to be in an hour ago.
He was about to get inside the room an hour ago, he was even with his arm around Taeseok's shoulders as they spoke about the latest drama they were watching, and then he was taken away by staff telling him he was requested into... No one was sure, he was too far by the time they told him why he had to follow them.
Apparently, it was to get him out of the company. And the question was hanging right in the tip of their tongues, why was him, the always honorable Jisung, being kicked out?
“They didn't give much of a reason” Jisung spoke, knowing what everyone thought, wanting to clear out any possible misunderstanding. “They just said they didn't think I'd fit Aster, and the higher ups didn't think I'd make a good fit on the company any longer, so they're ending my contract.”
It was definitely strange, even more when it came to a man who did nothing wrong. No one could believe it, not because they thought he was a bad man, but because the company was acting in strange ways. Maybe it was a way to kick him out of the company and slowly dismantle the group without raising suspicions.
Or maybe they were all putting their faith in a man who wasn't worth it, and he was lying so no one knew what he had done to get himself kicked out. No one could be completely sure anymore.
“Then what do we do from here?” Taeseok asked, not to Jisung in particular but to everyone in the group.
With Jisung gone they'd be down to seven, and now another reorder would happen. Once again the dorm arrangements would change, and then they would be subjected to a new restart full of lineup changes. But it didn't, once again it was the seven of them together, practicing as they always did, though this time there was a small change.
They were now given a song, a brand new song, an original. The only changes made were on positions, or who had to sing which lines, but the group stayed the same way.
It brought some relief that they were finally moving together in the same direction, further solidifying the idea that Jisung hadn't been the man they thought to be. It didn't help that Jisung seemed to have banished from earth, not even trying to communicate with them as Jeongwon had done on a few, scarce times.
It didn't matter, no one really cared, they were to busy to even do so as lately they had to train more and more to learn what they were given, and change what they were told. It was a hard time for everyone, but the promise of debuting soon made everything worth the hardships. All they hoped was for it to be worth it, and not end up disbanding after the numbers didn't go as high as staff hoped for.
Everyone was putting far too many expectations on them, the creator of Aster was even overseeing their practices, and choreographers started to press them harder. They tried different concepts, different songs, different everything and they didn't seem satisfied. They seemed to be waiting for the pressure to be too much.
Until it calmed down. It felt like the calm before the storm, as if they were waiting for the last jumpscare, but nothing was coming. They decided on a rather cute concept, almost as if they suddenly decided on them being the boys next door, the kind of sweet guys girls could fantasize about being their girlfriends and getting sweet dates under the moonlight.
No one complained, no one knew what to say, they were happy to have a debut set, one that they liked... More or less. There were some complains, some who would've preferred other things but after not knowing if they would even debut, anything was a good idea. Everything was good if their name was in the teasers. And soon, they were getting ready for it.
The name was announced to be changing to B:ONE, something about unity, and being the one group fans should love, none of them were really paying attention, at least no one but Beomseok, who should know because of his role as the leader. Fittings started, trying to see what would go for the MV, what would go for the teasers, what would be good for the member reveal, and so on and on with songs, clothes, and stage names. It almost felt like they were becoming a product more than the idol version of themselves.
And then, a call was made from the office of the creator himself, but it wasn't for the leader, but rather for Taeseok. Obedient as ever, Taeseok didn't question it before heading to the office, spending a total of an hour before getting back to the dorms, forgetting about the practice and all schedules. It was the creator who went to excuse him from it.
By the looks of it, Taeseok was the next one to go, being cut off so close before making it. No one could even go and comfort him, and neither did they know if they wanted to, after all there was a chance that he had been just as guilty as Jisung, and no one knew about it either.
Beomseok went to his room at night, when they had gotten back from the practice and the rest of the group was fighting to get to the shower first. They spend a long while speaking, long enough for everyone to settle who would shower first, and for each of them to shower. By the time he got out of the room, the sweat had dried up, and he had bloodshot eyes and a barely contained fury.
No one knew what happened after that, as Taeseok came behind him, with his head hanging low and unable to look at his groupmates, picking the skin of his hands apart as he walked to Beomseok and gently grabbed his arm, telling him in a hushed whisper to let it go, while the leader shouted that he wasn't going to let it happen.
No one knew what was going on, but they all heard the strain in Taeseok's voice as he pleaded their leader, and said leader seemed to grow more agitated, until the door was slammed and they all heard the sound of Taeseok trying to hide his cries. The first one to get out of his room in aid of the older was Hao, who got closer to him and hugged him, not saying anything and neither asking for anything. He was followed by Kohya, and who had been followed by Inwoo and Sanghoon just standing and watching. While the Japanese boy hugged Taeseok too, the English man went to get some water for the crying man.
Sanghoon wasn't good at emotions, but he understood the importance of showing Taeseok he was there for him too, so he got closer and awkwardly caressed the patch of black hair that wasn't being crushed by the heads of the two foreign members. Kyungmin, who was the last one to shower, got out of the bathroom to find the scene unfolding, couldn't do much more than just turn around looking for both Beomseok and Inwoo, just to find the English man getting out of the kitchen.
After a brief talk, Kyungmin went back into his room, getting out a few minutes later completely changed.
“Taeseok, do you want to talk?” He asked once he finally got closer to the group.
By then Taeseok seemed to have calmed down, with him only sniffling and drying his tears. Inwoo took his pale yellow handkerchief and gave it to the man, who dried his tears and cleaned his nose on it, before being told to keep it as Inwoo was gifting it to him.
“No, it's...” He seemed to choke up, and the group prepared for other round of tears, yet they never came. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
Everyone understood the best they could, and Inwoo went on to prepare mandu and tteokbokki, knowing Taeseok loved that. Sanghoon went on to help him prepare the food for the rest of the group, while Kohya, Hao, and Kyungmin decided to get Taeseok out of his gloomy mood again.
Dinner went by, and there was food untouched, making them remember that Beomseok had left a while ago and he was yet to get back. They all waited, using different excuses to keep themselves awake, until they all realized that it was most likely that he wouldn't go back to the dorms that night. For the group, it showed the seriousness of whatever he was told, for Taeseok, it was pure terror running through his veins.
Beomseok wasn't there either when they all got up, and he wasn't at practice either that day. And when they went back to their dorms, every trace of Beomseok ever being there was erased, as if they had imagined him. Now, they were six.
Everyone knew Taeseok would blame himself, that whatever happened to him and Beomseok would live forever in him and the guilt would eat him, they knew him that well. So they spent their time trying to cheer him up.
That was, until none of it worked and Taeseok wasn't there in the morning. But he was there when they got to the practice, already thinking they were five set to debut.
“Hey guys, I spoke with the staff. Beomseok decided to leave the company as he didn't agree with some stuff going on. We are still debuting, but, until the company is sure we are debuting as six, there won't be any new leaders."
“I wouldn't mind if we didn't get a leader, I'm happy you didn't get kicked out Tae, we thought we wouldn't see you again.” Kyungmin said, palming the back of the dancer.
“Alright then, let's practice?”
“Totally! We gotta show the company who's the boss!” Hao quickly said, putting his cap backwards as a sign of getting ready.
6 notes · View notes
cookies4evry1 · 8 months ago
Text
Woo Woo Movie Night
Daniela has a movie night with the villains.
It was another stormy day it seems, it has been raining for three days now and everyone was mixed about the weather. Some didn't mind the rain but others did as it could cause them to end up sick if not careful and it made everything wet.
You couldn't hang your clothes to dry out at all...
The eight year old girl looked down at the kingdom from her balcony, besides her was Jafar who was busy studying the old relics that both had found weeks ago. Daniela hummed as she walked over to the older man. " Have you decoded anything yet?"
"Not yet, I'm getting there." Jafar flipped through the papers.
Tumblr media
"Well, I guess we're gonna have to ask Merlin for some help then..." Daniela sat by him looking at the ancient language in concentration. Jafar chuckled to himself. "Well I guess we should've been able to if it wasn't for the pesky weather."
"Yup, it's been pretty bad..." Daniela looked back at the window. "Hopefully the others are okay... There were some strong winds the other day."
"Yes, how dreadful... Now Daniela I presume your are thinking about something yes?" Jafar got up from his seat getting ready to head off.
"...you know me so well, yes I am thinking of something. Something to do together, to pass the time." Daniela then went to follow him as they walked across the long halls of the castle. " Like what?"
"We can watch a movie together with some friends!"
"Wow how pleasant."
"Don't be sarcastic Jafar."
"I try not to be."
"Well, I think it's a fun idea, I'll invite villains if you want."
"Hmm..." He smiled at the young girl, he couldn't admit to caring about her to others but... She wasn't annoying.
"So should we watch something funny or..?" She babbled on about what movie to pick as she sped walked.
"What about one of those horror movies." Jafar was interested in watching one of those scary movies that Ursula was talking about. She seemed pretty entertained by some of them it peeked his interest. Daniela flinched a bit, she wasn't scared of most things but horror movies...
"Uhh, horror? Are you sure?" Daniela turned to Jafar who was standing there. "Yes I'm sure."
"Ah well fine then... Um, I guess so why not! I guess that'll make a fun movie night." Daniela then found herself more pumped up to make invitations. Jafar followed behind Daniela who went looking for her pens and paper.
"Okay I'll go write some invitations!" Daniela sat down at her desk and began to write.
Dear friends,
I invite you to the Dream Castle for a movie night, we'll have some food and beverages ready at the table. Please arrive at the requested time written below, and I hope to see you soon.
From yours truly Daniela.
Daniela then chanted a spell that she's been practicing for a while. After finishing the spell the letters were sent to their respective owners. "And done, I got them written down... Well all we have to do is to deliver them and prepare the food."
"I'll accompany you to the kitchen, I don't want you to cut your finger again."
"I won't."
"I won't take those chances." They then had a little playful banter together during the preparations.
°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°
    After finishing up everything, and setting the things down both went to the entrance of the castle waiting for the guests. Opening the gates Maleficent came in first she was very serious about the invitation as she came exactly on time. She was a bit excited though she didn't want to say it. Ursula and Scar came in second they were busy having a little banter about sharks. Hades and the Queen of Hearts came in as well, not only that they brought their minions as well. Daniela greeted them with glee. Daniela then led them to the room where she had prepared the settings and food.
"Okay so! I told Jafar to choose what type of movie to watch and he said horror so!" Daniela brought out some movies and placed them on the counter. Hades was busy snacking on some worms. "I think we should watch the this movie kiddo, seems interesting."
"The one with the robots?"
"No! We should watch this one, this was a good movie I do recommend Angelfish!" Ursula excitedly grabbed the one with spiders on the cover. Daniela hummed before looking at both. "Well... We are doing this in order, so I guess we'll watch this one first then?"
"Cub you seem to be tense? Are you scared?"
"WHAT NO!" Daniela denied, looking away before getting the movie in the t.v. "Why would I be scared I got you guys here!"
The adults stared at her, they weren't convinced at all. But they didn't care at all, they were here for a good time.
"Anyways I'm gonna cover myself okay, it's cold." Daniela huddled in some blankets. Jafar and Ursula were seated nearby Daniela as she held the bowl of snacks between both of them. The movie began to play as the girl tried not to focus on the scary bits of the movie. Besides it's just a movie... None of it is real...
...
...
Then all of a sudden just twenty minutes in the movie the first jumpscare happened and the girl freaked out.
"AH!" Holding Jafar's arm tightly she flinched. Maleficent looked at the child with some confusion. "You didn't hurt yourself did you?"
"Kiddo it was just a jumpscare don't worry." Hades was busy making fun of the bad animation quality from the movie. While Scar was busy not even watching just eating, looking up to the screen he then wonders what even scared the girl anyways.
But either way he tried to comfort her somehow. "Cub calm down it's just a weird looking monkey."
"No it's fine, it's fine I got it." Daniela's face was red with embarrassment. She was the ruler here and she got scared at a flimsy movie. How can she be scared like that unlike Pain and Panic who were busy huddled up behind Hades they were busy eating!
After that they went back to watch the screen. The Queen of Hearts was having fun though, she thought it was interesting.
They continued to watch the movie together and Maleficent declared to take in Daniela with her to watch the rest of the film. Daniela did feel better being held by the fairy, she was very strong so it made her feel safe. Daniela didn't like the disfigured people in the T.v there were spiders crawling out of the person's eyes and mouth which terrified her. Maleficent decided to pet her head to calm her, Daniela shared some caramel popcorn with her.
They watched the rest of the movies until it was late. The adults were surprised at how quiet Daniela was during the rest of the movies, but when they checked her, she was asleep in Maleficent's arms. 
It seemed like the petting and warm hold made her sleepy.
The next morning the sun was finally out and Daniela was able to go outside and play with the animals again.
"I do love the rain but I sure missed the sun." The young girl smiled at the clouds which were dispersing. It was a beautiful day after all.
Jafar who was behind her then asked, "Daniela are you feeling better."
"Ah, yes don't worry I don't really remember that much of the movies." Daniela only recalled the creepy spider things and the ugly melting lady though she only remembered talking to Maleficent about something.
"You fell asleep." Jafar recalled how tightly she was holding on to the fairy.
"WHAT! Oh no I wasn't supposed to sleep, I didn't get to say goodbye or anything! I'm a bad host!" Daniela then went to quickly make plans to apologize for her behavior last night.
13 notes · View notes
jazlynriddle · 20 days ago
Text
Welcome to your life - Pt 2:
Acting On Your Best Behaviour Ch 4:
Tumblr media
Summary:
They'd seen it in their fellow orphans often enough to recognise the pattern and were now forced to admit, despite their hopes to the contrary, that Isidora had likely suffered similar side effects.
No… they'd always known she had. The Keeper had just wanted the power that Ranrok had, enough to convince themselves that they would be able to handle it better than that naive woman.
With the start of the Keeper’s sixth-year in Hogwarts, comes a whole slew of headache-inducing challenges from the most unexpected of places. Between insignificant pests throwing wrenches into their plans and tedious teenage drama, that the Keeper is entirely unprepared for, they wonder if they'll make it to their NEWTs without losing their sanity.
Or worse, Ominis or Sebastian.
Tumblr media
Warnings: Sebastian x MC x Ominis! Drug Addiction! Spoilers! Slow-burn corruption! Dark content! Fucked up 1800s orphanages! MC has no love for Anne or Solomon! Dubious happy ending (it's happy for MC, Seb and Ominis at least).
You can also read on AO3! (chapter specific warnings below)
Notes:
Warnings: Quite a lot of vulgarities?
Boy am I glad I told ya’ll I was going to take a three week break, because I was ridiculously busy during those three weeks. I barely got one and a half chapter written- it should hopefully be calmer for me this week and maybe I’ll actually have time to write…
"Class dismissed." Professor Weasley smiled as she returned to her desk.
The Keeper sighed, shoving their Transfiguration textbook into their satchel. The day had barely begun, and already they were feeling worn out as they followed Ominis out of the classroom.
Fuck.
They really messed up last night. How could they have lost control like that? By the time they'd gotten a grip on themselves, the jar they were holding had been depleted by nearly half its contents.
Horrified by their own actions, the Keeper had sworn to themselves that it wouldn't happen again. Honestly, the thought that their self-control had slipped so badly, and they hadn’t even realised it, was terrifying. What is wrong with me?
With only half a jar left, they probably shouldn't take any more for at least a week. They would need to ration out the energy as long as they could. The Keeper bit back a groan, not wanting to worry Ominis as they made their way towards the great hall for lunch after Herbology.
What the Keeper wouldn't give to be able to go to the Room of Requirement and smash some furniture. Maybe they could at least smash the pots at the bottom of the staircase to the Slytherin common room later. Everyone always kicked those by accident anyway, no one would think anything of it.
If nothing else, at least their mind hadn't been this clear since school started. They still weren't quite up to their usual standards, but the Keeper had to admit that the fog in their brain had cleared, enough for them to actually hear themselves think at least.
"Professor Sharp? Do you need something, sir?"
The Keeper paused as Ominis spoke beside them, drawn out of their thoughts and frustration, as the Professor approached them.
"Not from you, Mr Gaunt." Professor Sharp shook his head, turning to face the Keeper instead. "A word, if you will?"
"Of course, Professor." The Keeper replied quickly, pushing down the burst of anxiety that twisted their stomach. What now?
"Go on ahead Ominis, I'll join you later." The Keeper added, placing a hand on Ominis shoulder briefly, before following Sharp to a spot where they could speak outside the flow of traffic.
Ominis lingered, uncertain if he should stay nearby and wait, despite the Keeper's words. He was worried about them, and about what the professor needed from them, they didn't need even more problems on top of everything.
He'd thought the rest yesterday had done them some good, the Keeper had seemed less absentminded and distracted today, but they'd also been fidgeting far worse than they had for all of last week. Combined.
His partner had been walking around with a charged atmosphere that made Ominis uncertain of what to do or what to say to them. He'd never felt so useless and awkward, at least with Sebastian he'd understood what was upsetting him.
Ominis knew something was up with the Keeper. Something they weren't telling him. He'd been waiting for them to come clean with Sebastian and himself when they were ready, but if this got any worse… He had a feeling that things could get dangerous.
Perhaps he should press the Keeper harder for a proper explanation…
He didn't want to fight with them about it, but neither he nor Sebastian could help if the Keeper refused to be honest with them. Truthfully, that also stung, they were lovers, weren't they?
He was so tired of people he loved keeping secrets from him, putting themselves in danger without caring about how he felt.
Ominis paused, re-examining the thought, but that wasn't quite true, now was it? The Keeper wasn't just keeping secrets from him, they were keeping secrets from everyone.
They'd told him and Sebastian so much already, such mind-blowing secrets the Keeper held. Why would he assume that they'd told him everything? That they wouldn't have even more Inferi in their closet?
The Keeper had never said that they would be relying on Sebastian and Ominis, it was always the Keeper who'd been the one being relied on. It'd been like this the whole time he'd known them. From helping Sebastian with his search for a cure for Anne, to supporting Sebastian when Ominis couldn’t, to keeping the nightmares away for the two of them.
Ominis had never seen the Keeper ask anyone for support, it was always the other way around. Sure, they'd ask for information or assistance with achieving a goal, but they'd never sought to confide in anyone. Even telling Sebastian and Ominis about their childhood abuse had been in honest answer to questioning, rather than the Keeper wilfully seeking comfort from them.
Perhaps the Keeper just wasn't used to asking for help?
He and Sebastian might have to take the initiative here this time, and he should probably speak with Sebastian about this first…
With that in mind, Ominis took a few steps towards the great hall, when he noticed something with his wand sight.
The bullies, who'd been stalking them since the classroom as usual, were abruptly walking in the opposite direction.
Ominis frowned, why would those wombats leave all of a sudden? A feeling of unease gripped him. What in Merlin's name were they up to?
Well, following his gut had rarely led him wrong. So, without hesitation, Ominis spun on his heel and pursued the stalkers.
Using his wand sight to keep them within "view", Ominis carefully trailed the two boys all the way to the Central Hall.
He frowned as they scurried down the stairs and took a left turn. Following quickly behind, he stopped to wait by the Statue of Gregory the Smarmy, as the boys travelled along the corridor to the Potions classroom.
Hearing the door close behind the two bullies, Ominis hurriedly made his way through the corridor as well, stopping behind the door to the Potions classroom this time. His eyebrows rose on his forehead as his wand sight showed the stupid boys standing before Professor Sharp's office door.
Tipping his head to the side, Ominis strained his ears and his eyes widened as he heard one of them whisper. "Alohomora."
Ominis wasn't sure which he was more surprised by, that those bumbling baboons were trying to break into the office of a Professor or that one of them could cast Alohomora in the first place.
Waiting for them to enter the office, Ominis slipped into the classroom as well and stopped beside the ajar office door, focusing on trying to hear any sounds that emerged.
"Have you checked behind the jars?"
"Are you stupid? Why would he keep legal documents on an ingredient shelf?"
"Hey, I'm just being thorough."
"We don't have time to be thorough, he'll be heading back here after lunch. We're already lucky as fuck to have more time thanks to his chat with the mudblood."
"Fine fine, got it. Merlin's balls, why does he have so many scrolls on the bloody floor."
"Anything useful in there?"
"Not yet, oh hey, my essay from last week!"
"Stay focused dimwit, we need to find that document with Sallow's signature or we won't have proof that something's up with that mudblood's guardianship transfer."
"Urgh, can't we just tell Sharp that no one's seen Sallow's uncle in Feldcroft all summer, despite that thing staying in his house?"
"No, you twit, girl gossip ain't evidence. If we can prove it's a forgery, it'll fuck 'em up way better, but we need that damn paper and another one with his signature on it or my dad's lawyer won't be able to prove that for me."
Ominis stiffened. That was not good. How did these idiots even figure that out!? If this got out, it wouldn't be the Keeper alone who'd get in trouble.
"How'd you get him to agree to that anyways?"
"Heh, caught him making out with me mum last year."
"That's fucked up, mate."
Deciding he'd heard enough, Ominis quietly left the classroom, closing the door behind him and sprinting towards the stairs. If he was lucky, Professor Sharp would still be speaking with the Keeper.
Tumblr media
"What did you wish to speak about, Professor?" The Keeper asked politely, working to suppress their anxiety.
The teacher observed them for a few moments, lifting his chin slightly before speaking. "How have you been?"
What?
The Keeper blinked in some confusion, feeling even more wary of what this might be about. "...fine, sir?"
"Hm." Professor Sharp scrutinised them with narrowed eyes and folded his arms. "I've been having some concerns for you."
It took a fair amount of effort for the Keeper to reign in their physical reaction. Merlin, were they lucky the Professor had chosen to speak with them on a day when their brain was actually functioning.
"It has not escaped my notice that you've been having difficulties focusing in class." Sharp frowned, and while the Keeper felt like his words were reprimanding, his tone was oddly even and clear of irritation. "Both your classwork and assignments have suffered since the start of term."
"I've heard similar reports from the other professors." The man sighed, relaxing his arms, and leaning against the wall beside them to take weight off his bad leg. "If something is bothering you, or if taking seven NEWTs is too difficult for you to manage, it is perfectly fine to drop a class or two."
The Keeper found themselves bristling internally at the suggestion that they'd bitten off more than they could chew with their courses. They would have been 'perfectly fine' if they didn't have two fucking wrenches in their steam engine.
"You needn't worry about me Professor, I have just been… adjusting to school again." The Keeper gave a tight smile, doing their best to keep their wounded pride under wraps.
"Mhm." Sharp eyed them sceptically, his expression told them exactly how convinced he was. Which was clearly, not at all.
The Keeper felt a flash of impatience, as Professor Sharp hesitated for a few beats, before finally airing his thoughts. "Have you perhaps, been having a hard time due to a… lack of guidance, like that of which you had from Professor Fig?"
The Keeper stared uncomprehendingly at him for a moment. What? Why would he bring up Fig all of a sudden? The change in topic was bizarre, and they wondered if Sharp was just throwing out random guesswork.
Though, they did suppose that all this nonsense might have been easier to deal with if Fig were here… The old man would probably be livid that they had been using Pain energy so much during the holidays, but it would have been nice to be able to seek his advice about dealing with those pesky stalkers.
Too late, the Keeper realised that they had been silent for far too long and Professor Sharp's brow had taken on a pitying crease. Disgusting.
The Keeper bit back their grimace, well, can't do anything about that now, might as well go along with his assumption. "I do miss Professor Fig, however, I can assure you that I have everything handled."
Professor Sharp sighed again. "If you were anyone else, I would not be concerned by a dip in performance at the start of Sixth year. The jump in subject difficulty is not insignificant."
"However, the drastic decrease in your performance is concerning." The professor continued, humming thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. "I'd initially intended to simply ask that you consider dropping a subject to decrease your workload."
The Keeper frowned, what had they done to change his mind?
"But, I believe it might be better to speak with you more on this matter." Sharp straightened, and the Keeper struggled to swallow their groan. This was taking far too long already, they just wanted to go to lunch with their boys, having Sebastian and Ominis around always soothed their frayed nerves.
Professor Sharp gave them a small smile as he waved a hand in the direction of the Potions classroom. "Would you mind joining me in my office? I will have an elf bring us food and you may eat while we discuss."
What an absolute waste of time that would be. If you can’t convince me here, what makes you think a change of venue would?
The Keeper liked Professor Sharp well enough. He was a pragmatic man, and they respected him for his power and skill. As well as his level-headed leadership qualities, but he could keep his pity and ‘guidance’, the Keeper had no use for them.
Those would have been of more value to Sebastian two years ago than a 'talented' sixteen-year-old who was only showing some difficulties keeping up with the curriculum. These adults were so bad at gauging when they should intervene, versus when they should give a kid space to solve their own problems, the Keeper thought to themselves with some bitterness.
Plastering on a forced smile, the Keeper opened their mouth, intending to tell the professor where he could shove his invite. Politely, of course. When they were interrupted by the approach of a slightly breathless Ominis.
"I apologise for interrupting Professor, this will only take a moment." Ominis bowed his head politely.
Professor Sharp gave a long-suffering sigh but nodded, waving a hand dismissively. "Very well, Mr Gaunt."
Ominis then turned to the Keeper, and they wondered what he'd come back for. "I wanted to tell you that Sebastian and I won't be able to have lunch with you, Sebastian's uncle has asked us to help him catch the two rats who've been pestering us, they're apparently in his office at the moment. I hope you don't mind."
The Keeper blinked, Solomon's office? He definitely didn't have an office in the Feldcroft house, not to mention, he was dead. That left only the possibility that Ominis was trying to give them a coded hint.
"Of course, I'll see you guys after lunch in Defence then." The Keeper nodded, answering smoothly as they digested his words.
Two rats who'd been pestering us. The bullies, obviously. Catching the bullies in Solomon's office. Catching the bullies in an office… the Keeper’s eyes widened. Professor Sharp's office!
"Be sure to return within the hour, Mr Gaunt, you wouldn't want to lose house points for tardiness." Professor Sharp eyed Ominis sternly.
"Of course, Professor. I apologise again for the interruption." Ominis nodded respectfully.
As Ominis left, the Keeper turned back to Professor Sharp with a bright smile. "As I was about to say, Professor, I wouldn’t mind speaking further in your office, I suppose it would be more comfortable than the hallways."
The teacher nodded approvingly and began leading the way to the Potions classroom, where his office was located. The Keeper could barely contain their anticipation, hopefully they would reach the office in time to catch the buffoons in the act!
The walk was painfully slow, and it was even harder for the Keeper to stop themselves from rushing the limping teacher. It felt like ages since they'd had something vindictive to look forward to.
Finally, as they stepped through the open Potions classroom door, a sharp grin spread across the Keeper's face, at the rustling sound emerging from the office door. The door that was slightly ajar.
The professor stiffened beside the Keeper, and with a surprisingly swift movement, he jerked the office door open, his voice a low and dangerous growl. "I sincerely hope that the two of you realise how much trouble you're in."
The Keeper leaned forward, peering into the office behind Professor Sharp, and had to stifle a snicker at the identical looks of terror on the bullies' faces. The professor's normally stoic countenance must be truly terrifying, and the Keeper was mildly disappointed that they couldn't see it from behind him.
"Pro- Professor Sharp! T- this isn't what it looks like! We-" Selwyn stammered in alarm, dropping the parchment he'd been holding.
"If you think you can weasel your way out of this, I will be even more concerned for your intelligence than I already am." Professor Sharp's dry tone was laced with derision and the boys wisely clammed up. "I can assure you that the consequences of breaking into my office will be worse than a failed essay, Mr Selwyn."
"T- that's not- you can check! I haven't changed anything!" Selwyn spluttered, scrambling to pick up the parchment, freezing when he realised that the fact that he'd been holding it, was even more incriminating.
"W- well sir, we didn't break in, t- the door was open, and we were worried th-" Macnair started, when the professor flicked his wrist and the man's wand slipped from his sleeve into his hand.
"Priori Incantatem." Sharp pointed his wand at Macnair’s, across the room, causing it to reveal the boy's last cast spell. The Alohomora charm.
Shaking his head with a sigh, Professor Sharp lifted his chin, his voice disappointed. "Clearly, you are both liars who won't even take responsibility for your actions. The fact that you are here despite not even taking my class, Mr Macnair, is not convincing me that you aren't here to help your friend cheat. I expected more from students of my house."
The two boys wilted as the futility of their attempts to escape judgement sank in, forced to endure the scathing disappointment of their Head of House. All while the Keeper watched them get railed by the ex-auror in satisfaction.
As Selwyn lifted his eyes dejectedly, he spotted the Keeper standing behind the professor, and his eyes widened when they flashed him a mocking smirk. His face immediately turned red with anger.
"This is all your fault, isn't it, Mudblood!?" The brown-haired boy spat, unable to restrain himself, while Macnair's side-eyed his friend in alarm.
"Twenty points from Slytherin! I do not tolerate language like that between housemates." Professor Sharp snapped. "And I don't see how your own foolish actions can be blamed on your junior. If you are referring to my timely return, then I would have you know that it was I who invited them to my office."
For the first time since the Keeper met them, the two idiots made a wise decision and stayed silent. Seemingly reminded that the Keeper was still with him, Professor Sharp turned his head slightly to speak to them.
"I apologise but it seems like we'll have to postpone our talk while I deal with these two." The professor sighed. "You should still have enough time to grab a quick bite before classes resume."
The Keeper nodded their head in response. "No worries, Professor, I understand. I'll head to the great hall then."
The professor nodded and the Keeper slipped back out through the door, chuckling quietly to themselves. Well, that had certainly been worth burning most of their lunch break.
"Tempus." The Keeper murmured with a flick of their wand. Fifteen minutes, they'd have to get to the great hall as fast as they could if they wanted to have any food.
With a sigh, the Keeper picked up the pace, just shy of sprinting through the halls.
Panting slightly, they weaved through the trickle of students leaving the great hall, heading to their next classes, till they arrived at the large doors to the Great Hall. Slipping inside, they spotted Sebastian and Ominis speaking by the table, and hurriedly made their way over.
"You made it!" Sebastian grinned. "How was the show?"
"Satisfying, they looked like they were going to wet themselves." The Keeper smirked as they surveyed the remaining food on the table, searching for something they could eat very quickly.
Sebastian's grin stretched further. "You better show us that memory in the Undercroft pensive when we get the chance."
"Of course." The Keeper chuckled as they grabbed some bread, cheese, and turkey slices to put together a quick and simple sandwich.
"I was wondering if Sharp would still want to speak with you, but now you barely have time to eat. It'll be ages till dinner." Ominis' expression was somewhere between irritated at the professor and worried for the Keeper.
The Keeper laughed as they smushed the sandwich as flat as it could go. "You underestimate me. I had to eat fast when stealing food, couldn't afford to be caught with any of it, so I'm used to it."
The Keeper promptly demonstrated their point as they effectively crammed half of the sandwich into their mouth, chewed quickly and swallowed, chasing it down with a gulp of tea. In less than two minutes, the first sandwich was gone, and they began working on the second.
"Please don't tell me they're inhaling their food." Ominis pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Well, can't say anything then, now can I?" Sebastian replied distantly, uncertain if he was impressed or appalled at the way the Keeper was eating. "At the very least, I can say their swallowing techniques aren't limited to swallowing yo-."
"Sebastian! I swear if you finish that sentence-" Ominis exclaimed, smacking Sebastian in the shoulder with one hand and covering his face with the other, while his ears turned red. Thank Merlin the great hall was empty.
"Haa-" The Keeper sighed as they set down the cup of tea that they'd emptied to wash the two sandwiches down. "Alright, let's head to Defence. We can discuss the two idiots after dinner."
With a final slap on Sebastian's shoulder, Ominis trailed after the Keeper as they strode towards the door, followed by Sebastian and his cheeky grin.
Tumblr media
"So, Ominis, what exactly happened while Professor Sharp was being nosy?" The Keeper asked in a low voice as they took a seat beside their blind partner in the Slytherin common room after dinner, while Sebastian sat on the couch opposite them.
"I noticed our stalkers leaving after the professor approached you." Ominis began.
"What did Sharp want to talk about anyway? You said he was being nosy?" Sebastian tipped his head to the side curiously.
The Keeper waved a hand dismissively. "Just some presumptions about my lack of focus being related to Fig's passing. Carry on, Ominis."
Sebastian gave them a scrutinising glance, and Ominis' features took on a concerned countenance but continued as requested.
"I decided to follow them, and thus witnessed them breaking into the office. I eavesdropped on their conversation for a bit and then went to find Sharp." Ominis flashed a wry grin at the Keeper. "I was rather relieved when I heard him invite you to his office, I wasn't sure I'd be able to come up with a way to get him to return in time to catch them."
"It was fortunate that you arrived when you did, I had been about to politely turn him down." The Keeper chuckled. "So, what did you overhear?"
"...that's…" Ominis trailed off, his jaw tightening and his eyes narrowing grimly. The Keeper frowned, they were getting a bad feeling about where this was going.
"They were looking for evidence that they could use to prove that we forged Solomon's signature for your custody transfer over the summer." Ominis’ words made the Keeper stiffen and Sebastian’s eyes widened.
"How- how could they-" Sebastian spluttered in shock.
Ominis shook his head, rubbing a hand over his forehead anxiously. "I don't know, they were looking for the letter from Solomon and any previous document with his signature for Macnair's lawyer to run tests on, saying girl gossip isn’t evidence."
“Girl gossip? What in Merlin’s name could that mean?” Sebastian echoed in bewilderment.
His words barely registered as the Keeper's mind raced. They'd found out. Somehow, someone had realised that something was abnormal with Solomon. If this got out… if those fucking morons managed to draw enough attention to initiate an investigation…
Sebastian…
They could lose Sebastian.
Like fuck I'll let that happen.
The Keeper's blood boiled. Up to this point, their stalkers had been a nuisance. Now, those two fools were a threat.
Anyone who tried to tear apart the paradise the Keeper was building, whether they realised it or not, would suffer the worst pain imaginable before death.
Still, how did the stalkers figure it out? The two boys hadn't made any sort of intelligent move until today. Which meant that something must have happened recently that caused them to recognise the irregularity.
The Keeper mentally backtracked, going over everything the bullies should have witnessed, searching for anything different from the last few days.
The most outstanding event was probably the visit to Feldcroft on Sunday. However, what could they possibly have notic-
The Keeper's eyes widened. Girl gossip? The twins. Hadn't those stupid boys had been talking about them with their twin girlfriends outside the Feldcroft house?
"Sebastian." The Keeper spoke, drawing his attention.
His eyes turned to them questioningly, hand stopping midway through its motion, leaving his fingers still threaded in his hair.
"You said that Solomon told your neighbour Mrs Ndiaye that he was going to be leaving the house to you." The Keeper continued and Sebastian frowned, lowering his hand.
"That's righ-" Sebastian started, cutting himself off as his eyes widened. "Merlin’s balls. She might have mentioned that to her daughters."
"And if they had told Selwyn and Macnair, even those idiots would have realised how unlikely it'd be for Sharp to release me into the custody of a man who wasn't going to be around for the entire summer." The Keeper grimaced.
We underestimated them.
Notes:
For comedic effect, please imagine the Keeper eating like Link from Breath of the Wild! xP
Also, can I just say that I hate coincidental plot advancement? Things like Harry Potter just "pure luck" stumbling into something inherently important or overhearing vital information. Like walking in on Snape threatening Quirrell or Snape and Karkaroff arguing about being Death Eaters. At least the thing with Slughorn had the excuse of a luck potion, what about every other time!?
I can accept some level of luck in fiction, like just barely making it in time for something, that makes it exciting, but when the whole situation is coincidental from start to finish, it breaks the immersion for me.
Here’s a cool piece of trivia, the reason there are three doors you have to go through to reach Professor Sharp’s office, is actually part of fireproofing building design! Since fires have a hard time travelling past doors.
2 notes · View notes
canmom · 1 year ago
Text
Das Abenteuer der Canmom in Köln (zur Gamescom)
It's time for canmom to have another adventure! What will that wacky lil porygon do next?
[you may be wondering, whatever happened to the plan to transfer l'aventure de canmom à Annecy to the main site for easier reading? that's still planned to happen, hopefully pretty soon! I've just been very busy.]
So: I work for a small VR games company called Holonautic. I've been working for them for around four months now (time flies)! This week some of us were in Cologne, Germany, attending Gamescom. Until this trip I hadn't met any of them in person, and indeed only had a vague idea what they looked like, because the modern world is wacky that way.
Tumblr media
What's Gamescom? It's a major industry expo where game devs show off their games to the public and journalists, and otherwise have various industrial sorts of chats. The event fills a massive convention centre (the Kölnmesse), similar to the Excel Centre in London. Thousands and thousands of gamers enter in massive queues, and once inside, they queue up some more to get a chance to play some work in progress games at massive display booths.
Or maybe they go to the indie room, where there are hundreds of tiny desks just wide enough for a dev to set up a computer with a demo... or the retro games area, where various old consoles were set up for people to play... or one of the zones set up for laser tag or something like that. There was a lot going on!
Tumblr media
Even Cthulhu came down to check out the games.
My own experience of Gamescom involved very little of that. With my Trade Visitor badge I could skip the queues, but most of my time was spent in a corner of the Business Area demoing our game to influencers, other devs and members of Meta and Unity, and then heading out to restaurants to have dinner with other VR devs in the evening. I had a good time though! It was great to meet the rest of Holonautic in person, and get to see the sights of Köln a tiny bit. And it was a very rewarding feeling to see other people enjoy the game I'd been working so hard on.
So in this post I'm going to talk about my trip, do a bit of amateur sociology, think about the place of videogames in the world and all that - and also talk a little about how the game sausage gets made - at least as far as I can without breaking NDA. Sadly, the game I spent most of the weekend demonstrating remains under wraps, so I'll have to tell you about that another day. I didn't get to see a ton of games but I'll also talk about the handful of indies I did see!
Tumblr media
This time I travelled by train (non-transport nerds, feel free to skip this paragraph), taking the Eurostar from St. Pancras to Brussels, and then the ICE 19 to Cologne. Although it was slower and a bit more expensive than flying, once you factor in the time it takes to travel out to the airport, and the security generally being much more straightforward, I think I much prefer the trains. I spent my journeys drawing other passengers (coming soon to @canmom-art) and reading Osamu Tezuka's manga Ayako (which will be its own post). It was all told very straightforward and comfortable.
[minutiae: I thought I was clever by getting an Interrail pass instead of just buying tickets the usual way, but I didn't realise that you also have to pay for seat reservations, so in the end the Interrail probably cost about as much for a 'there and back again' type of trip.]
Tumblr media
By far the most expensive part of the trip was the hotel room. We stayed in a hotel pretty close to the centre of Cologne, but it turned out that its proximity to be about 15 minutes walk from public transport, so we didn't end up saving that much travel time. Since I ultimately spent almost no time in my hotel room, I think if I go next year, the call will be to stay at a hostel. But anyway, let's talk games.
How a game gets released on the Quest
So, Holonautic specialises in VR games. I wrote about our previous games in this very nerdy post, but in brief, there are broadly two major types of VR game: PC VR and standalone VR. For PC VR, the game runs on a computer, and the headset just contains a screen and something that can be tracked. For standalone VR, the headset is essentially a powerful Android smartphone with a custom OS; it uses the headset's cameras for tracking and does all the computing on the headset.
With the success of the Oculus/Meta Quest series, standalone VR became really, really popular - much more so than PCVR ever was. It makes sense: for native games you don't need a powerful gaming PC and there are no cables to trip over or expensive base stations, but you can still play PCVR games if you want to. Almost all of Holonautic's games are Quest-native.
For PCVR games, you can use one of various APIs, such as OpenXR, to wire up your game to VR tracking and input. Moreover, Valve built pretty good VR support into Steam, and since Steam is pretty much anything-goes, it's pretty easy to release a PCVR game in a way people can get it - but marketing is all on you, as with any Steam game.
The Quest is a different story. Compared to other consoles, Meta (which absorbed Oculus a few years ago) occupies a bit of a strange position in this industry, simultaneously the hardware manufacturer, the only publisher, and also a developer of first-party titles.
Tumblr media
I don't have any good pictures for this part so here's me in a massive cathedral. Metaphors? No no. It's just a holiday photo...
There are two ways that games can get released on the Quest. There's the store, which is heavily curated: here, Meta acts as a publisher, releasing only games they think will sell, but they also put games through months of QA and handle all the marketing for you (i.e. putting it in front of people when they boot up the Quest). To get on the store, you basically need to have an in at Meta - there's a whole process, I'll talk about that in a moment. There's also 'App Lab', which is much less heavily vetted - but also it's a lot harder to get an audience on App Lab. If a game is particularly successful on App Lab, Meta may end up promoting it to the store. But a lot of games just languish there.
Of course, just because you have a liaison at Meta does not mean you have a free pass onto the store. There's a whole series of stages you have to go through: first you write up a detailed pitch, then if approved (based on what else may be in the works, Meta won't approve two overly similar games), you have a few months to make a 'Minimum Viable Product' prototype of your game and show it to Meta. I joined the company about a month before the MVP was due on our game.
Assuming your contact at Meta likes the MVP, you get a few more months to make a 'Vertical Slice', which is essentially a small portion of your game that's more or less complete. (For example, a single level.) Then, you show this to Meta again. If you make a good impression, they'll give you the go-ahead to finish the game and release it on the store.
Tumblr media
Here's another random picture of Köln from the famous Hohenzollern Bridge. Are you saying this wall covered in padlocks is symbolic of something? Overactive imagination, I tell you.
So if yo uwere wondering, the last few weeks of intense work were all about making that vertical slice be as good as possible (and it got pretty clutch at the end). Since we were all going to be at Gamescom, we agreed with our guy at Meta that we'd demo the game in person.
The upshot of all this is that selling a VR game is heavily heavily shaped by Meta, and specifically the individual at Meta who makes the call. Holonautic has a longstanding contact with a laid-back American guy I'll call W.; he has in the past championed some of our games like Hand Physics Lab that left other Meta staff unconvinced. (As it turns out, W. was right and Hand Physics Lab was successful.) But he's not shy about saying that a game doesn't make the cut and should go to AppLab instead. Our game would live or die based on W.'s opinion.
But not just W.; Meta itself as an organisation is also looking for certain things, shaped by its internal politics. They have new features they want to tout - so if you can come up with a game that uses mixed reality, hand tracking and shared anchors that's probably going to count in your favour. And they have certain directions they are keen to push: sporty exercise games are in favour at the moment.
What does this mean for the evolution of the medium? Well, of course people will make the games they want to make, and just because Meta likes an idea doesn't mean it will sell. But Meta does have a lot of power to dictate the general direction of VR games - and if the Apple Vision Pro takes off in a few years, Apple will no doubt end up with a similar role.
It's been interesting to see the forces that shape a game up close: our ideological desire to make things that are new and different and meet our personal tastes, balanced against the need to have successful games to keep the company afloat (good old M-C-M'), and the need to satisfy Meta; all of this leaves its fingerprints on the game.
To not keep you in suspense, I think the demo to W. went pretty well; I can't really say more than that. It was also a good chance to tell the Meta guys about the parts of their APIs that are jank and hard to use - and to their credit they were apparently rather desperate to get feedback and I feel hopeful that they'll make it better.
It's hard to talk about Meta, because it's just such a massive organisation. We can talk about massive erosion of privacy, enabling genocide in Myanmar, and so on - but we're dealing with a small sub-corner of this huge beast, which is less a social media company and more of a games publisher and console manufacturer. But I definitely understand why someone wouldn't want to let a Facebook device loaded with cameras into their house! I could go more into privacy and the Quest 2 but it would be way too long a tangent. Ultimately this is probably a 'no ethical consumption'/'we live in a society' type of deal - one day Meta's domination will erode and we'll have to deal with a different superpower.
Whatever happens, we can continue to explore what's possible in this medium! I think of all the ethical bargains that must be made with the tech industry, I have done OK.
Tumblr media
What Cologne is like
On Tuesday, I arrived in Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof) and walked over to my hotel, where I met my colleagues. Most of them looked fairly similar to how they'd set up their VR avatars... but none of them had realised I'm super tall. surprise, bitches ;p
We went out to an Indian restaurant where we all ended up ordering biryani. This being Germany, the portions were massive, so I asked for mine to be in a box to finish later, forgetting that my hotel room had no fridge or microwave and I'd have zero time to eat it (rip). Overall I think I hit it off pretty well, and we chatted for a while about games we liked, the mess that happened at Za/um, movies and the like - it was good to get a chance to interact more casually in person instead of only ever talking about work stuff. Everyone was exhausted from travel so we turned in pretty early, though probably not as early as the restaurant would have liked...
The thing that surprised me most about Cologne is how much it didn't feel strange or unfamiliar. If not for all the signs in German and cars driving on the right, you could drop me in an area of Cologne and tell me it's an unfamiliar part of London and I'd easily believe you. The parts of the city that are filled with business parks and glass-fronted chain stores could exist almost anywhere on Earth.
That said, there are some ways the Germans do things differently! One is restaurants. I visited three different restaurants and two of them worked on a 'self-service' model. Essentially, you order your food at the bar, and they give you a little buzzer device. When it buzzes, you go back up to the bar and collect your food. Nobody would wait tables, there would just be one person behind the bar taking orders and such (though someone would still have to clean your table).
Restaurants also close very early in Cologne. I think a couple of times we put staff in an awkward position of wanting to go home but having to sit around until our party was done. That said, at one point I walked through a riverside area with a few dozen steakhouses, and that seemed to stay open a lot later.
Köln has a decent amount of graffiti, a surprisingly large portion of it in English. Under most bridges there's usually a good number of tags. I didn't manage to get any good photos but shout out to the person who wrote something like 'this world is too damn loud', which is a big mood for autistic girl walking away from a convention centre lmao.
Wednesday: in which our heroine finds out what an influencer is
The next morning we all went down to a German bakery (pictured above). According to my colleagues, the thing to get is a Bienenstich, or 'Bee Sting', a kind of cake with crispy honeyed almond flakes on top and cream in the middle. Here's a really bad photo:
Tumblr media
It was pretty tasty!
We scooted over to the convention centre on the metro, and made our way in. I started getting used to navigating the Messe. Our company didn't get our own booth this year, but XR game devs are pretty tight-knit, and Niantic, creators of Ingress and Pokémon Go, there to promote their new phone-based AR Monster Hunter game - lent us some space in their booth to do a demo to the popular VR influencers Cas and Chary.
We headed over to Hall 8 and none of us could find the Niantic booth. Eventually we figured out why: the Niantic booth was outdoors. On a very bright summer day.
The Quest 2 has a bit of a finicky relationship to light. If it's too dark, the cameras can't pick up anything and tracking can fail - hand tracking is especially susceptible. But bright sunlight is also a problem. Essentially, the controllers on the Quest 2 contain small infrared LEDs, which are tracked by the headset's cameras. This works very well, in general - but in the sun, the background infrared radiation can completely overwhelm these LEDs and the controllers become essentially unusable. You also have to be very careful never to let the sun shine through the lenses inside the headset when you take it off, or the focused sunlight can destroy the screen.
So, an outdoor demo was a problem. Luckily, Niantic had an air-conditioned tent in their little zone. We all filed into the tent and started testing the headsets. Even inside a tent, it was too bright for the Quest 2 hand tracking... but we managed to figure out the Quest Pro still worked (since it uses cameras in the controllers for tracking), and rushed to test everything would work. Before long, Cas and Chary arrived, and we demoed the game. Look mum, I'm in a tweet:
Tumblr media
Before this convention I had very little knowledge of the whole world of VR influencers, and honestly I still don't, but it seems to be a big thing - a good word from an influencer is a massive boost to a game's chances. I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is between an influencer and a journalist; both are in the business of reviewing new tech and games and rely on a reputation of unbiased analysis for credibility, and both are courted by devs hoping to promote their games. I guess an influencer is like a fully independent journalist? In any case, Cas and Chary were really sweet in our extremely brief meeting, and it was amazing to see the first people from outside the company having fun with our game.
We got word that bHaptics, a Korean company which makes haptic suits and gloves for use with VR devices, had some space in their booth and were willing to let us do some demos there. So we set off back down the entire length of the convention centre to go into the secret Business Area.
Wednesday at Gamescom is restricted to trade visitors, meaning it's much less crowded than the later days. On those later days, that restriction only applies to the three halls designated as the Business Area. Like regular Gamescom, these halls are divided into flashy booths trying to sell you stuff, but in this case it's mostly companies trying to sell services and tools to developers: backend services, special 3D pens, anti-cheat... also a bunch of stands selling merch and figurines for some reason (maybe because they want to manufacture tie-in merch for your game), as well a bunch of national organisations promoting the game development scene in xyz country.
The Belgian stand functioned as a meeting spot, and they were also handing out vouchers for free beer. A strategy that seemed to be quite effective, judging by how crowded their booth became that evening.
We tested our headsets in the bHaptics zone, and discovered DOTS Netcode's prediction/rollback is good enough to make the game feel smooth even on public convention centre wifi, which was rather satisfying - so you know, good job Unity! Unfortunately the Shared Anchors continued to be a pain. We briefly ran into the head of DOTS at Unity and arranged a demo, scooted off to meet W. from Meta who bought us drinks, scooted over to Niantic again to meet some members of XR Bootcamp (a training course in XR game dev, whose cofounders Ferhan and Rahel seem to be the glue that holds the whole XR dev scene together), and at last wandered back to the Belgian zone...
...and then I went back to bHaptics to have a go at their gear. I didn't take a photo (rip) so here's a photo by CNet showing the full bHaptics getup, which in combination looks... kind of like you're the member of the SWAT team on washing up detail...
Tumblr media
(source: Scott Stein/CNet)
I had never gotten to try any sort of haptic suit before this, so it was quite novel. Essentially the vest contains 40 (or 16) vibration motors; the gloves contain further motors on the tips of each finger, and there's another motorised ring between you and the headset. There are also motorised wrist bands, motorised ankle bands...
The first demo was designed to showcase the features of the suit and wristbands, so you could try out various actions like shooting guns or putting stuff in a backpack with and without haptics. A second demo focused on manipulating objects: no wristbands, just the glove and hand tracking.
Of the various devices, the most convincing was probably shooting with the haptic suit. Vibration motors are well-suited for brief, intense pulses, and firing guns definitely felt more impactful with the suit on - not a perfect simulation of impact, but a strong effect. The backpack demo was especially impressive: it really felt like dropping heavy objects into a backpack. You also got to shoot at your own mirror image and feel the bullet/laser impacts, which felt like a rather roundabout way to give myself a back massage, but I could see it being effective in the right game.
The hand demo convinced me less. The problem is that vibration is a poor simulacrum of pressing against a solid surface, so it just felt distracting to have a vibration pulse when i grabbed an object - and you still had the usual physics jank associated with manipulating objects in VR using hand tracking. The final section of the hand tracking demo was social interaction: you were faced with rotated clone avatar, and you could shake your hand, punch or slap yourself, or give yourself a hug. As someone who lives half a world away from most people I love, I think giving someone a hug in VR would be a fantastic use of the technology, but sadly this hug was... not entirely convincing. It is very hard to simulate a steady touch with vibration motors.
Ultimately I think the best use for this haptic gear may not be simulation fidelity, but more abstract: similar to the haptic suit used in certain public demos of Rez Infinite, pulsing in time to music. Such uses are mentioned on the bHaptics site, and I'd love to have been able to try that kind of demo. (And yeah, I'm sure you could hook it up to the other kind of remote-controlled vibrating devices if you so desired, though you'd probably have to do a bit of work to wire everything up.)
It was really cool to finally get to experience haptics, and I was very grateful to the bHaptics members for taking the time to show me their gear.
After I'd satisfied myself, I caught up with the gang; we went out to dinner with other XR devs at a Turkish restaurant called Bona'me near the river. (The food was tasty and had a decent amount of vege options, once again in huge portions but this time we split them between the table. ...and once again we were the last table to leave by a long way, and I feel bad for the staff who had to sit around waiting for us.)
There, I met a solo dev called Ben Outram, who's spent the last three years working on a game called Squingle, a fascinating psychedelic game about manipulating bubbles in a world of DMT-core abstract visuals. (Honestly, check this game out, it's nuts. Meta are sleeping on it, it should absolutely have a full store release.)
Thursday: chaos reigns
On Thursday it somehow ended up that in the space of an hour, we would be demoing our game to the head of DOTS development at Unity (whose name I somehow never managed to catch), demoing our other game Cybrix to Cas and Chary, and then doing the big important demo for meta. Then it turned out that our metro line was blocked by an accident up ahead. We hurried out to get an Uber, and our driver gave us a rather... exciting ride; he rolled down the window to argue with another driver and dropped us off in the middle of the road while we waited in traffic. Rather harried, we arrived back at the bHaptics corner and set up for the demos in an unused area of floor nearby.
I'm not sure if I can say too much about how our demos went, but unfortunately we ran into some versioning issues and were not able to show Cybrix to Cas and Chary before they had to rush off (we weren't the only one to face transport issues that morning). Lesson learned: test everything, not just the part you're worried about. It's not the end of the world, though, and we all headed over to W.'s hotel, into a swanky suite with a nicely laid table for the most important demo of the week. We had the room for maybe 20 minutes, then we were out the door again to the lobby of another hotel to talk it over.
After that... suddenly the afternoon was free, ish. We went back into Gamescom and ate some very expensive ramen. Then, word came that some more influencers wanted to try out our games, so it was back to bHaptics and well, the story gets a little repetitive at this point :p I can't say much more than that without talking about our game, so I will just have to say that the demos went well.
Tumblr media
This was my view for most of Gamescom.
At the end of the day, I had a couple of free hours to scoot over to the indie games area and try out some games before everyone went home. At this point my social batteries had run very dry indeed so I was glad to get some time to just play games.
The indie zone was divided into lots and lots of small booths, typically just wide enough for one computer. And even late in the evening, it was very, very busy...
Tumblr media
This is just one small corner of the indie area.
Not really knowing almost any of these games, my 1337 MLG Pro Gamescom strat was to wander around until I spotted an empty chair and then play whatever game was going and chat with the dev if they were around. This worked out pretty well! I'll write up the games I played in a moment, but first I'm overdue to wax philosophical.
What was really striking about walking around the indie area is just how many games there are. Wandering around you can pretty quickly spot patterns and influences just by glimpsing at screens (here's a combat tutorial, there's a crafting/survival game, and yonder a narrative game that's borrowed the entire interface of Disco Elysium).
I've seen, up close and personal now, just how much fiddly effort and dedication it takes to make a game. There's something kind of strange and alienating to me about encountering all this creative output in a massive aggregate, where you can only give it maybe half an hour in a noisy room, surrounded by a dozen more or less similar games, in a way that kind of demands you rapidly assign it into a broad, combinatoric category: x art style, y core mechanic, z emotional register. Presenting this game this way really seems to file them all down to Content, which can be boxed and tagged and matched to a consumer with the appropriate set of subculture flags.
One thing that is distinctive about games as a medium to me is the very strong separation between 'mechanics' and 'presentation'. To produce a game you don't just need a system to manipulate, but also associate it with a narrative to make it comprehensible and lend it some sort of affective impact.
So you could theoretically make a game with the exact same mechanics as, say, Half-Life 2 - the same movement, the same enemy hitboxes, the same collision geometry and shooting mechanics and progression - but a completely different presentation style and telling a completely different story. Indeed, a typical early stage of game development has placeholder 'programmer art' and 'greybox' levels.
Equally, you could lift the iconography of a game and drape it over a completely different mechanical substrate - and indeed, it isn't at all uncommon for major franchises to launch spinoffs in different genres.
So games as a medium consist of all these different pieces which you can attach in various ways to define a game which you can name. And once this is done, that game becomes in a sense 'concrete': we act as if Half-Life 2 is an object with a distinct existence. It's a powerful social construct. Then, a successful game is then one which manages to unify all these disparate elements into some sort of whole that feels coherent. Game development sees all the possible elements of a game gradually collapse into whatever gets released. It's highly stochastic: an arbitrary decision by a tired dev, or even a glitch, might later become fixed as one of the core icons of the great 'Franchise'.
When there were less games around, and it was a lot harder for people to get their hands on dev tools, it made sense to think of games as solid, discrete things. Whatever you got on the cartridge or disc was pretty much immutable. Now, though, most major games operate as a 'service' that is constantly modified, and it is not uncommon either for players to mod a game, on a continuum from small changes like injecting shaders or changing music, to total conversion mods that are a 'whole new game'.
And indie games, then... you've got a subculture which heavily emphasise sharing techniques, and it's just as beholden to genre as AAA games. The existence of all these games side by side, even though each one has its own name and identity, seems to further break up "games" into combinations of pieces. When I encounter a new third-person action game, it's as a variation on a kind of broader, abstracted super-game. My first task is to discover the particular quirks of this manifestation of the third person action game. The days when we had a shared culture of 'games everyone has played' are basically already gone, but we still have a certain degree of shared context, because each game is a probe into that constantly evolving game-space, which someone has gone to the trouble to fish out and decorate...
I suppose this is all coming back around to the otaku database thing, isn't it? Or just semiotics in general...
Anyway, here's what I found on Thursday:
Tumblr media
I played an FPS called Serum, in which the core conceit is that you inject big syringes into your arm to give yourself powerups. Otherwise, it seems to be a game about gathering and crafting. Sadly the demo computer didn't have headphones, so I was missing sound, and seemed to be a bit underpowered for the game. Nevertheless, I walked around a bit, manufactured a healing serum, and shot some wolf and rabbit monsters with a bow and arrow.
I feel like I was rather ruder than I intended to be, because in talking to the dev afterwards, the first thing I mentioned was the performance issues and he had to apologise like, yeah, we're running it on a laptop (it sounded like he said with a 3070? but I must have misheard him, unless he has very high standards for underpowered), it does run better on a proper computer. The environment design in this game was definitely really strong. Not quite sure how the serum mechanic would work in practice - it sounds quite like Bioshock's plasmids, but the demo didn't really give the opportunity to try out the different options.
Tumblr media
I played Dead Pets Unleashed, an adventure game about a demon girl in a struggling punk band. One of the devs was hanging out with this one and generally had a great vibe, joking about how almost nobody picked a certain option and suggesting the route that would get the most out of the demo.
The game uses a sidescrolling perspective with hand-drawn sprites. The art style is very consciously flat, its population of monster people allowing an impressive variety of colours. It broadly alternates between conversations with choices that adjust stats (e.g. +punk, -social) and a variety of minigames - there was a music minigame of course (the conceit being chasing away intrusive thoughts), but I also washed a dildo, constructed a hot dog, and waited tables. Generally it oozed style, absolutely nailing the punk vibe, and had a bunch of cute features like changing your character's outfit. You can play the same demo on Steam. I think this is one I might well get when the full release comes.
And then I played... a game I can't even find now! I really should have made a note or taken a picture or something. It was a kind of Amanita-like point and click game in which you play a tin can person, manipulating objects as you try to rescue your can dog, descending into a city made of cardboard boxes. The puzzles were occasionally a bit obtuse, but the cute style really carried it. The devs weren't on hand for this one, but they did have a wall where you could leave postit notes with your comments on the game, including one with a fairly essential hint for the first puzzle. It was called something like 'can world' or 'box world', but at this point, I can't find it anywhere. It's a shame because I thought it was neat.
That was all I had time for on Thursday: I zoomed off to another restaurant by the river to eat some more falafels. Someone let off some fireworks for some reason.
We started to make our way back, across the famous Hohenzollern Bridge, which is one of those bridges with a tradition that lovers will attach a padlock to the fence to symbolise how long their relationship will last.
Tumblr media
At this point the padlocks have started to resemble kudzu, hanging down in strands of linked padlocks, or even growing up onto the superstructure of the bridge on chains. Questionable symbolism or not, it all makes for a fantastic textural effect, especially since it maintains the sheer density of padlocks for the entire length of the bridge.
While we were crossing, a boat passed under the bridge carrying some kind of a party. From a distance, all you could really see was a mass of glowsticks, and all you could hear was the ghost of the beat. It was a cool sight.
At this point I was pretty much completely exhausted so while there was some kind of industry party I definitely could not handle the crowds and walked home past the cathedral for an early night, eager to head in early to Gamescom tomorrow with a good night's sleep...
Friday: just like in my Bloodbornes, amirite gamers?
Predictably I overslept. Since I'd only get a few hours at Gamescom, I decided to visit the famous cathedral. I took that photo that I posted earlier, where somehow my little phone camera absolutely nailed the lighting, even if the cathedral is severely out of focus...
Tumblr media
I headed inside the building too.
Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is a bit of an oddball, historically. While it wasn't uncommon for cathedral-building projects to last a century, after working on this thing from 1248–1560 they downed tools, leaving the city with a half-finished cathedral for about 300 years.
Tumblr media
They had the front and back of a cathedral, with a big crane on the front part.
In the 1800s, the middle ages were in and the state decided it would be a good idea to have a big cathedral - both to make their new Catholic subjects happy and a symbol of THE NATION. After raising a stonking amount of money with one of the world's first NGOs, they built the rest of this thing, which briefly became the tallest building in the world. Hooray, said Emperor Wilhelm I. I love being a big strong nation with a big cathedral dick.
The cathedral survived the first world war, but got hit by a lot of bombs in the second - though the towers remained standing. After the war, they put it back up again. Now, it's a tourist attraction. Transsexual atheists can walk in and turn their phone to funny angles to try and capture the ceiling...
Tumblr media
You can call this a Deutsch angle, because... ok whatever guys they can't all be winners.
Tumblr media
They've got some old school Christian-style guro in here.
The interior is pretty cool: huge vaulted ceiling, massive stained glass. The stained glass unfortunately photographs really poorly on a phone, the colours washed out pretty much no matter what. They did have this funky ladder contraption, which I assume is probably used for maintaining/washing the windows...
Tumblr media
After a little while in there I decided this was pretty neat but I'd go to Gamescom, to say goodbye to everyone and maybe get a glance at some of the mainstream game zones. As it turned out we had another demo lined up, so we went back to The Corner Near BHaptics and did the routine. This time the audience was mostly other VR devs so I got to have some nice technical discussion.
At last, I had about an hour before my train. I thought about exploring the indie game zone some more, but decided I should really at least take a glance through the other halls. What I discovered was... queues! Many many queues. And various elaborate dioramas.
Tumblr media
Sometimes they had actors to go with them. I decided to include the people taking the photo because... I don't even know what I was going for with this one to be honest, it seems kind of banal.
Tumblr media
Here's a queue of people waiting to play Rogue Trader, which boldly tells you it's the first(!) CRPG in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, hopefully not also the last. 'Warhammer CRPG' is a concept that 16-year-old Bryn would have gone completely insane about. 31-year-old Bryn was still a bit curious, but not enough to wait for a sitting down queue with less than an hour left at the con.
Tumblr media
I didn't take a lot of photos of the Extremely Gamer Shit, but for a taster, this lady was DJing a set on something called the 'Leet Desk', which appears to be a desk with built in RGB lighting, billed as 'the desk for gamers', because we can no longer contain the rainbow puke. When I walked past, she was playing an EDM remix of a tune that I vaguely recognised from a movie or a game but couldn't place specifically, which felt about right. Maybe it was Skyrim?
A lot of people walked around with the Hoyoverse bag, Hoyoverse being the collective term for the games of Chinese developer miHoYo such as Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact. Their slogan was 'tech otakus save the world', which thanks to their cunning move of handing out large bags, was soon paraded all over the convention. I feel like the jury is still out on the impact (ha ha) of tech otakus on the world...
In the end, the last hour was spent briefly walking around to see the halls and then I left to say my goodbyes and hop back on the train. The journey back was totally straightforward. I finished reading my manga and drew some more train passengers, who were generally pretty happy to be drawn.
Cosplay
It's a con, there's gotta be cosplayers right? Sure enough, the crowd was peppered with stormtroopers, kitsune, army men, luffies and various spooky skull guys... I didn't get many photos but here's a couple.
Tumblr media
Obligatory stormtroopers. Luckily, the inside of the con was airconditioned, those suits look toasty.
Tumblr media
These three kindly stopped to pose for me. I don't know what game they're doing, Dead by Daylight maybe? DbD girls, tell me ^^'
Tumblr media
This robot-girl cosplayer's costume is neat: when you look close you see it's made of old PC parts. Or at least the casings of them. I spotted a graphics card and an old VR headset. She also has built-in stilts so she towered over everyone, big respect. She was hanging out in the hall on Wednesday, so she might have been there in an official capacity, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her.
Observations of demographics and stuff
It's been a good long while since I've been to any sort of nerd convention. Mostly I've been to scifi/media fandom cons like Nine Worlds and Worldcon, or general nerd-shit cons like MCM Expo, and in the old old days, Warhammer cons like Game Day. But this event being specifically a gaming expo was pretty new to me.
Predictably the demographics skewed male (but not overwhelmingly) and white/East Asian (almost without exception). The various national organisations present were primarily European (which tracks for an event in Germany) but there were large stands e.g. promoting Korean game dev or the Guangzhao region of China. In the indie zone, there were a good handful of Japanese devs, and I spotted one game that was fully in JP. Here and there, you'd spot banners promoted other gaming expos - a lot in Europe, but also there is apparently a Gamescom Asia in Singapore, and a Tokyo Indie Games Summit which sounds pretty fun. By contrast, while I don't have any real stats to substantiate, I would say I saw very few organisations were promoting game devs from South America, Africa or Oceania.
Beyond that... this is very definitely a place for nerds, but there's a lot of different varieties of nerd you can be now. So sure, T-shirts with slogans and cargo shorts for many, but equally you could dress super goth, you could show off all your tattoos, you could go in your colourful coordinated kitsune cosplay or just wear some bright hair die. I'm confident I saw a few other girls from the isle of 🏳️‍⚧️, but 'hello I clocked you let's be friends' is not the best introduction even from another trans girl lmao - in general I didn't really talk to people besides the group I had arrived with. I think if I'd gone alone, it would not be the sort of con where you make a lot of friends, but who knows?
All in all, a solid adventure. I'll probably go again next year, if I can find somewhere cheaper to stay. I never did get to see the chocolate museum.
ok, story over - thanks for reading, nerd ;p
10 notes · View notes
bluejay-writes · 10 months ago
Text
Heaven is a Misnomer - Chapter 1
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
To protect him from his unsafe home life, Jake's mother sends him to the Celestial Realm for an exchange program. Jake faces a pile of Celestial Realm biases, a broken system of oppression, and unlikely friends. This year is going to be unpleasant at best, but he'll survive. Hopefully.
Fandom: Shall We Date?: Obey Me! Rating: Teen, for now. Might bump it up for violence but I don't think it'll get that bad. Chapter 1 Wordcount: 3136 Characters/Relationships: Jake (Exchange student OC) / Raphael (Eventually. This is a slow burn). Michael exists, mentions of all the demon brothers and extras exist, and they appear in some of the middle chapters. A bunch of new OC angels because we don't know enough about the celestial realm in canon. Notes:
Well fam, here we are, as promised. First week of 2024, Jake's story in the Celestial Realm. Bad Khakis. Michael being problematic.
I'm really excited for you all to get to meet the extended OC cast, given that we don't have a lot of named angels in canon! Also the exchange students that got introduced in DD get fleshed out so that you can meet them more as real people. (The more I write of this the more I love Bunny and Aya, honestly.)
I'll be posting a chapter every Tuesday, and given how long the chapters are turning out and how many chapters I've got plotted past what I've written, I hope you're down for another ~100k word ride.
This follows the canon timeline, and is happening simultaneously with "Devils in the Details" which chronicles Nia's first year of the exchange program in the Devildom. If you're here and sad that there aren't a ton more scenes with the demon brothers, well! There's a whole fic for that already! Knowledge of that fic is not necessary to read this one, but the tie ins make it fun!
You can also read this on AO3, if that's your jam!
|| Next Chapter >
Tumblr media
Chapter 1: What do you mean, Exchange Program?
“Same time tomorrow, Mr. Costello?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Jake said, a smile plastered onto his face as though it was the most important thing in his world, and that he hadn’t been fighting tears for the last twenty minutes.
He’d been having tutoring sessions over lunch time for his entire high school career.  It had been the cause of no end of strife in his school life, but it was better for him than not.  The tutoring sessions were a cover, of course, for counseling sessions. Therapy. It was something his mother had worked out with the school counselor the moment she knew what school he was going to.  Jake had always been a troubled kid, and his mother wanted to avoid that kind of thing following him to high school.
This of course, was the cause of a ton of rumors that made his life ridiculous, but Jake was the king of gossip and rumors, so he was entirely too happy to either play along or do something completely contrary to what they were spreading that made the rumormongers look like idiots.
On his way to his locker, Jake glanced down at his phone. He still had five minutes before passing time to wolf down his sandwich. He was leaving the bathroom after washing his hands when he practically ran into his bestie Nia making a beeline for the ladies’ room.  She didn’t seem to even notice him, and he pursed his lips.  Great. Something happened while she was reading under the bleachers again.  That was the only real downside to his lunchtime therapy sessions. He never got to have lunch with his bestie, and as much as she claimed to love the time for reading, he knew she was dealing with her own personal hell. People were assholes. Especially their fellow students.
Tumblr media
“Jacob, can you see me at my desk, please?”
Jake sighed, stepping up to his Chemistry teacher’s desk.
“Care to explain why you didn’t turn in last week’s assignment? The late work deadline was Monday.” He said, lips pursed in a way that made Jake think of a cranky old woman librarian.
“I did, Mr. Cook.” Of course he did. Jake did all of his homework, it was the one reliable escape at home.
“I have no record of your lab report, nor the associated worksheets.”
Jake bit back his retort. Fighting with Mr. Cook about this never worked, and only got the Chemistry teacher more and more on his case.
“I have the slip you signed when I turned it in.” Jake said, pulling out his binder and getting out the slip in question. He refused to let go of the paper, simply showing it to the teacher. He just knew if he let go of the signed slip that it too would get “lost”.  He didn’t know if Mr. Cook did it on purpose, but his grades were suffering because this man was determined that he never did his work.  The signed turn-in slips were his mother’s idea, after the last parent-teacher conference where his academic reputation had been dragged in the mud. Mrs. Costello was having absolutely none of that, she knew full well how much focus her boy put on his academics.
“Ah. I see that you do.” the teacher said, and seemed to set his jaw. “I will have to look into what might have happened on my end.”
“Please.” Jake said. He was thinking ‘See that you do.’ but he just had this feeling if he said that out loud he’d never hear the end of it. “Is there anything else, Mr. Cook?”
“No, that is everything I need from you, Mr. Costello.”
“Great, can I have a pass to my next class? I still need to stop at my locker, and—“
“You’ll be fine if you hustle.” Mr. Cook said, and then promptly dismissed Jake from his attention.
Jake cursed internally, and walked out of the room as fast as he could - he couldn’t do with being yelled at for running, but he was going to need to pull off the power walk of his life if he didn’t want to be late to his last class of the day.
Tumblr media
“Welcome home, Jakey.” his mom said from the kitchen, where she was busily cooking dinner.
“Hey Mom.” Jake said, setting his bag by the stairs and plopping down at the kitchen counter.
“And how was school?”
“I had to show Mr. Cook one of his signed assignment slips today.”
“Seriously? That man gets on my last nerve.” 
Jake watched as his mother chopped ingredients for dinner slightly more aggressively than she had been.
“It should be fine. If not, I can go to the AP’s office and complain directly.”
“Heaven help that man if I have to get involved again.”
“I still think he’s just homophobic and taking it out on me because I’m the one most publicly out at school.”
“It could be, as much as I hate to say it.” his mother said, sliding the chopped vegetables into the skillet. “But maybe we shouldn’t talk about that right now—“
“Talk about what?”
Jake froze at the sound of his father’s voice from behind him. Shit. He’s home early.
“I was thinking it was possible that Mr. Cook is intentionally ‘losing’ my assignments because I’m gay, is all.” Jake trailed off towards the end of his sentence. He knew how this was about to go down.
“Some teacher is losing your things.”
“Yes. I have pr—“
“And it’s because you’re supposedly gay.”
“It could be.”
“So tell him you’re not gay. Then it’s handled.”
“That would be a lie, dad.”
“You’re kidding, right Jacob? This whole thing is a joke, haha, joke’s on old dad.”
Jake looked up at his dad and winced.
“No, I’m not kidding, dad. I’m gay.”  It was probably the fifth time he’d accidentally outed himself to his father.  It wasn’t like his dad was old enough to have Alzheimer's or something, he was just usually too drunk to remember anything the next day.
“Oh Andy, leave the kid be. You know it’s just a phase.”  His mother said from the kitchen, and he winced. That was her way out of this argument every time.  Honestly, all he wanted was his dad to realize that being gay wasn’t the worst thing that a kid could be these days. It wasn’t even that rare for a kid to be gay, especially in the city.
It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, really, his dad not thinking the highest of him, but he knew that when his dad got upset like this… well… it went bad for his mom, real fast.
“Yeah sure, just a phase.”  his dad said, and threw his bottle against the wall.  From the way it splattered, it wasn’t quite empty, either.  Jake didn’t look forward to cleaning that up.
Here we fucking go. Jake thought. He started to say something, but his mother spoke before he could.
“Jake, go to your room.” His mother said, gaining all of his father’s attention.
“What, Marnie. You just going to take his side?” his father spat, and Jake all but sprinted up to his room, grabbing his bag on the way.  There was a reason he always left it against the stairs, much as he wished there wasn’t.
He got into his room and shut his door, practically collapsing into his desk chair. Perfect way to spend a Thursday night, he thought, pulling out his math homework and his phone.
Jake > Nia: Nia, they’re at it again. Nia > Jake: Oh shit. What this time? Jake > Nia: Same shit, different day. Dad found out I’m gay, I guess. Nia > Jake: You came out to your parents more than a year ago!!! Nia > Jake: How many times is this going to happen? Jake > Nia: I don’t know. What can I do? I can’t.. Anything. Nia > Jake: You know you’re always welcome here. Jake > Nia: I can’t leave my mom. Nia > Jake: I know. Hey look on the bright side, tomorrow’s Friday. Jake > Nia: Friday… gods bless Friday, I need my Ma hugs. Nia > Jake: Me too! Also it’s Pizza and Ice Cream Friday. Jake > Nia: Now there’s inspiration to get my math homework done.
Downstairs, more glass shattered, and Jake winced. He just hoped his mom was going to be okay, after this.  He knew he’d hear all about it tomorrow, how much he was a bad son, and did he have any idea what she went through for him…
I really do understand. Jake sighed, and put his headphones on.  The music was far too loud, but it served to drown out the mess that was his home life so that he had a chance to get his homework done.
Now… how was this supposed to work again? A squared plus B squared…
Tumblr media
Jake woke suddenly to a hand on his shoulder, and jumped so hard he almost fell off of his bed.
“Sorry Jakey.” his mom said quietly. “Your dad’s out again. I brought you some dinner.” She set the bowl of vegetable-heavy macaroni and cheese on his desk.
“You don’t need to apologize, mom.” Jake said, reaching out to pull his mom into a hug. “It’s not your fault he’s like this.”
“I know, baby. But you deserve better.”  She ruffled his hair, and chuckled. “Looks like we need to trim your sides again.”
“Oh no, am I getting scruffy?”
“Just a little bit.”
Jake felt a strong need to put a hat on. Scruffy did not fit his aesthetic one bit.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure he fit his own aesthetic at all.
Circumstances made it so that he came out of the closet way earlier than he really felt comfortable, but he knew that if he was just himself, but gay, that it would backfire.  So instead, he was flamboyant, expressive Jake.
At least in the privacy of his own bedroom he could be himself. Quiet, melancholy Jake. Much less bright than anyone thought he was.  Anyone but Nia, at least. His bestie knew him inside and out, so at least he had that going for him.
Tumblr media
Friday dawned like any other day ending in Y, and Jake hauled himself out of bed and to school. Early, of course, for track practice.  His mornings were utterly incomplete without a long run.  Something that helped him clear his mind and get his school mask settled into place.
Of course, by the time he was in the locker room showering off the sweat and changing out of his running gear, the rumors and gossip were already flying.  There were two new students today. Something about an exchange program.  Jake soaked in as much gossip as he could on his way to his first class. He absolutely had to share this with Nia. Hopefully she was already in class, and there hadn’t been some incident keeping her from her morning reading. It seemed like that kind of week.
Jake bounded into the classroom, glad to see Nia in her usual place.  He plopped down in his chair, facing backwards so that he could chatter at her before class started.
“Nia!!!”
“Morning Jake. Happy Friday.” Nia looked up from her book, casually putting her bookmark in to hold her place. 
“That’s your normal Friday Greeting. Today is not a normal Friday!”
“What?”
“There are new kids!”
“On a Friday?”
“Yep!”
“Their parents are the worst. Why would you start your kids on a Friday, at least wait until Monday.”
I think my dad takes the cake for the worst, but… sure, Nia.
“Okay, okay. I get your point, but like… they’re both seniors. Brothers, apparently. And smokin’ hot.”
“I’ll take your word for it?”
“No way. Between the two of us we have seven classes today. Surely we’ll catch sight of one of them, right?”
“Yeah. Hell of a story to tell ma later.”
“Miss Laney. Language.” Mr. Randall said, entering the room.
Jake rolled his eyes, grateful to be facing away from their teacher initially.
“English, Mr. Randall. Christian jargon, specifically.”
The teacher laughed. “Alright, alright. Good morning.”
At least he was dealing fine with Nia’s pedantic backtalk this morning. Maybe he was excited about new students to teach, as well.  Jake turned himself around in his chair, as the rest of their classmates started to file into the room. Jake was excited to meet the new kids, but he got the vibe from Nia that she could do without adding any new potential bullies to her watch list. He didn’t really blame her for it. She had the worst luck.
Tumblr media
After lunch, Jake walked into Chemistry, expecting to have another discussion with Mr. Cook about his homework.  What he wasn’t expecting was for his usually vacant table to be populated… by the two new kids.  Oh, sweet! He’d get to meet them and could tell Nia what to expect in case either of them were choir kids.  The blonde looked… choir-possible. The other… seemed like he’d rather be skipping.  Did he just wink at me?
Jake settled into his usual chair, and engaged immediately with the new kids.
“Hi, I’m Jake, and apparently we’re table buddies now.”
Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome - the one who’d winked - grinned. “Hi there, Jake. I’m Diaval. And this,” He gestured to the blonde who looked like someone had taken him off of one of those 90s trashy romance book covers, “is my brother Mark.”
“Pleasure to meet you. Brothers, both seniors…” Jake said, thinking. “Don’t let me sound too stupid here, but you don’t look like twins.”
Mark scoffed. “Please. We’re barely brothers. My father is—“
“Someone entirely different than mine.” Diaval finished, rolling his eyes.
Oh. Jake thought. They don’t get along at all. This is going to be interesting.
He slipped his phone out and sent a few quick texts to Nia, before turning his focus on Mr. Cook, lest he get his phone confiscated.
Tumblr media
Jake was looking forward to band.  His last period class, Band usually kept him sane and happy. He was surprised, after their conversations in Chemistry not to see Diaval here in band. He’d seemed like a musical sort. Maybe he was in choir with Nia.
Shaking his head to get the new kids out of it so that he could focus, Jake waved to his fellow percussionists before getting himself settled at the timpani.  He’d just picked up the mallets when the director beckoned him over. Setting the mallets down carefully, he practically flounced over to the director. The man never needed him for anything before, so this was a novel experience. He wasn’t even the percussion lead…
“I just got a call from the office, Jake. Your mother is here.”
Jake blinked. “Why is my mom here?”
“I certainly don’t know.” the director said, shrugging. “But apparently you’re going to be heading out straight from the office today, so grab your bag. I’ll see you Monday.”
Jake knew not to argue. If mom was here to pick him up, there was probably a good reason. Better her than dad, that was for sure.  He’d have to text Nia from the car, though. She’d worry, otherwise.
Of course, he didn’t have to do that, as he ran into Nia in the hallway.
“Oh hey! I have to go to the office—“
“—because my mom is here…”
“Weird.” They said in unison, and weird only began to cover the next few hours.
Tumblr media
Their moms had come together. And had taken them out to get fancy coffee. Which was like ten red flashing lights right there. Something was very off.
Of course something crazy was happening. Of course.
“So, you’re saying you signed me up for an exchange program?” Nia said, and the look she was giving her mother over the top of her coffee-adjacent drink was telling.
To be fair, Jake was giving his own mother the same look.
“Isn’t it just supposed to be like, to another country though?” he said, concerned.
“Well…” Nia’s mom started, and his mom interrupted her.
“It was my idea. I didn’t know if you two would get in, but I suggested to Lynn, I mean Nia’s mom, that we could sign you both up so you’d be together.”
“Well, that backfired.” Nia said, bitterly.
“They said you can still text though! And video call, and regular call!” Nia’s mom said, trying to sound excited for them.
“But…” Jake said, not excited about being separated from Nia, and especially displeased about leaving his mom alone with how his dad was being.
“And there’ll be a big dance at the end of the program.” Jake’s mom said, her smile equally fake.
“So you’re saying the two hot guys who just transferred in today are our replacements?” Jake shared a look with Nia. That would explain some things about the supposed ‘brothers’ they’d met.
“Well…”
“In Nia’s case, yeah, literally.” Her mom said. “They’re staying at our place since we have the space…”
“And you’re going to trust them to take care of the girls?” Nia said, cautiously.
“Well, no. I had to take a few months of 8-5s to cover Janice’s maternity leave, so it works out.”
“That is suspiciously convenient.” Jake said with narrowed eyes.
“Jake… There’s a reason we did this. I’m divorcing your father. But It’s going to be messy… and I need to know that you’re safe, okay?”
“So you’re sending me off to Literal Actual Heaven where Angels are from to keep me safe.” Jake was angry. Nia just looked like she was numb. “And you’re sending Nia off to Literal Actual Hell.”
“Technically it’s the Celestial Realm and the Devildom.” His mother said, quietly.
Nia still hadn’t done so much as blink in the last five minutes.
“Adania. Please. Just try it. It’s a year. It’s Room & Board covered, and we have been promised you will both be entirely safe.”
Jake reached out and took Nia’s hand in his, at which point she basically melted, falling over into his shoulder.
“Ugh. Fiiiine. Can we still have pizza and ice cream night?” Nia asked, sighing.  Jake could feel the subtle trembling.
“Yes. But we’re going out for pizza.” her mother said, grinning. “And Marnie’s coming along.”
“What.” Nia said, so blankly it wasn’t even a question.
“Yeah, we’re gonna do the whole arcade thing.”
“Mom, we can’t afford that.”
“With the stipend they’re giving me to house a literal angel and a literal demon? We’re good.”
“Mo-om!”
“Hush. You’re leaving tomorrow. Let me spoil my baby girl.”
Nia rolled her eyes and Jake just laughed. 
A year in Heaven, huh? Wonder if it was going to be anything like Seven Minutes in Heaven. Maybe he’d kiss an angel. Ha. Gay angels. Unlikely. This year was going to suck.
Tumblr media
4 notes · View notes
barakittens517 · 2 years ago
Text
PT. X: The End
Summary: In which the lost has, at long last, been found.
Words: 2,237
Warnings: n/a
Pairing: Morpheus x gender neutral reader
Notes: holy shit we finally made it :') massive shoutout to anyone that made it this far! hopefully i'll be posting a *refined* version of this on AO3 soon. mucho mucho love to all of you <3
Tag List: @ponyboys-sunsets @i-am-not-a-raccoon-anymore @memento-mora @freedomsofdream
Tumblr media
The way back to the Dreaming is silent. Morpheus heads straight for the library, leaving you in the throne room alone. It’s quiet- too quiet. You wait a moment before sneaking in after him. The dream lord doesn’t notice as you duck behind one of the bookshelves, tiptoe-ing quietly towards Lucienne’s desk. 
This is the second time you’ve eavesdropped on Morpheus. You have a quiet moment of reflection for the fact that you have never overheard good news. 
No matter. Once you figure out how the hell to get back to the waking world, you’ll never have to worry about Morpheus or Lucienne or anyone ever again. 
“Ezra may have been a dead end,” Morpheus admits. “The Corinthian is gone, so what power would he have here?” 
Lucienne tilts her head towards his coat pockets. “My lord, he’s not entirely gone.” 
Morpheus pulls the tiny skull from his pocket, holding it at a distance like some scene from Shakespeare. “You cannot be serious.” 
Lucienne nods. “It is the last of him. If you destroy it, you’ll be destroying everything he had an influence on. Including them.” 
“Not all of them,” Morpheus corrects her. You had been taken from the Dreaming, unfinished. You shudder at the thought of being reduced back to what you were. At this rate, you’d be better off destroyed entirely. 
“I think you should speak with them first, my lord. Whatever choice you make will directly affect them, permanently.” 
“I think…”
You miss the rest of their conversation in favor of putting yourself as far from the dream lord as possible. To exist is one thing, but to make him choose between The Corinthian and you?
The answer is obvious. 
You know the dream lord is proud of his creations, and assume destroying The Corinthian was something akin to an unforgivable act. It had been hard enough, watching him crumble to dust in the auditorium. 
There was at least hope, with The Corinthian, that he could be made again- better, stronger, even kinder perhaps. 
But with you? You, with such a cruel joke of purpose, and you’d spent over a hundred years being quite the opposite of a perfect partner. What use is there in starting now? 
You follow the cobblestone path outside of the castle, walking as far as your feet will take you. You take the time to bargain with your conscience- dying is the best you could wish for. It will hurt, but it will be temporary. 
And Morpheus will be better off with someone new. A completely different blueprint, a brand-new dream that will never have known life as a weapon.  
Gods, what a nightmare. You had to give The Corinthian credit, if only a little. You never imagined your purpose being so world-changing. Say you had destroyed Dream of the Endless? What would have happened then? 
You’re so caught up in thought that you don’t even hear Morpheus calling after you. The city is far behind you, and looking down you find yourself standing in a field dotted with pink carnations. 
Fiddler’s Green. 
“Ellis!” Morpheus calls again, and he’s next to you in an instant. “What are you doing out here?” 
“Getting one last good view in, I guess.” 
Morpheus sighs. “It does not have to be the last.” 
“It does. It does, ‘cause I’ll be damned if I make you pick between me and him,” you snap. “It’s not fair.” 
You sit with a huff down in the carnations, folding your knees to your chest. Another magnificent sun is setting over the hills again. 
Morpheus quietly sits next to you, watching as you pluck the nearest carnations to bits. 
After a few minutes, you stop and sit still. “Can I see the book again?” you ask. 
Morpheus pulls the hardcover book from his coat and hands it over. You leaf through the pages once more, looking for your rough draft.
You had hoped to see what you were meant to become- one last look before the end. And there you are, unfinished. The lilies in the column still make your stomach turn. 
Morpheus watches you carefully, quietly. The sunset has cast a rose-gold hue onto everything, and he’s struck by how beautiful you look. His own creation. 
The moment is ruined by the sound of tearing paper. You’re careful to avoid ripping out the other pages, but it isn’t right to have your failed existence in a book of proud accomplishments. 
“There,” you say, handing the book back to Morpheus. He’s speechless. “Now you can start over, right?” 
You’re overwhelmed by a sense of freedom, and of the end. This is it for you, and you should be allowed such an act of bravery. 
“Ellis, that’s not-”
“Start over,” you interrupt. “I’m serious. Make somebody perfect from the start. And maybe don’t leave ‘em unfinished for too long.” 
It’s a joke, but it still stings. If Morpheus had never left, who's to say you wouldn’t have had the perfect life? 
The skull in Morpheus’ pocket feels like it’s burning a hole through his coat. There is so much he wants to say, and so little a chance that you would even listen. You’ve already made up your mind. 
He pulls the trinket out anyways, watching your jaw drop in recognition. Frustrated, you play it off like another joke. “You could even make him your partner.” 
“I want you.” 
The words hang in the air between you, tinged with an endless yearning. Your heart flutters at the thought of what might have been. 
“I can’t stay like this,” you say quietly. 
“Then don’t,” Morpheus replies. His grip tightens on the skull, and a large crack appears to split above the jaw. 
You reach for his arm, panicking when he squeezes even harder. “Dream, cut it out. You’re scaring me.” 
“I do not mean to scare you. This is not a difficult choice for me, Ellis.”
“And what, I don’t get a say in it?”
“You do not have to stay here. But at least let me do this for you.”
“Okay,” you say quietly, releasing your grip on his arm. You sit in silence for a moment, preparing yourself for the worst. “Will it hurt?” you ask. 
He looks at the last piece of the Corinthian for a moment, and the dozens of pressure cracks spider-webbing around the cranium. Before he can answer, you reach for his hand again. 
“I don’t care.” 
You squeeze as hard as you can, and within moments the little skull is crushed to bits of sand. For a moment, nothing happens. You can hear Morpheus holding his breath, waiting. Hoping. Praying, even. 
A faint tingling sensation, like pins and needles, begins prickling up your arms. You look down to see the bones of your forearm revealed, the skin of your hands wisped away to skeletal fingers. Without a mirror, you can only assume the rest of your visage has been reduced to what it was before Ezra Lillin came into your life. 
Empty eye sockets. Flesh stretched taut over your skull. Your left arm is missing in its entirety. For once, you’re afraid to look at the dream lord- not because of what you can do, but because of what you are. 
“Ellis,” you hear him breathe out, finally. 
“Hi.” You’re embarrassed, shockingly, to return to your previous form. You refuse to look away from your hands, refuse to finally meet the eye of the dream lord. 
Morpheus is speechless. Seeing you now is like a hundred years had never passed. Here you are, his soulmate, exactly as he had left you. The rare view of a second chance.
The silence is deafening, for a moment. Morpheus breaks it with a simple question, one you had never once considered. 
“What would you like to be?” he asks. 
Yours, I want to be yours, please- “What am I supposed to be?” your voice is foreign once again, raspy and new. 
Morpheus motions to the shreds of paper in front of you. “I would not know. I never… never got any farther than that,” he answers. 
“That’s okay.” You’re quick to reassure him. “I… I don’t mind. Will it bother you? If I look the same?” 
You could almost swear you hear him breathe a sigh of relief at the thought. “Not at all.” 
He takes the sand from his coat pocket and carefully pours it into his hands, working quickly to form the missing pieces. A sweet breeze floats through Fiddler’s Green, and the sand blows with it, materializing the flesh that covers your bones. You watch in amazement, and within moments you’re almost complete. 
Just missing the eyes. 
“The most important part,” Morpheus comments, and for a moment you’re drawn back to Ezra’s shop, to the Corinthian. He had said the exact same sentiment, albeit for wildly different reasons. 
The dream lord looks around for a moment before picking two morning glories from the path from the field. Carefully, he holds the flowers out to you.
“What do you think?” he asks. 
“Are they going to be purple?” you ask. 
Morpheus laughs, the sound ringing in your ears. “Would you prefer a different color?” 
You shake your head. Internally, you’re ecstatic. “No, they’re perfect.” 
Morpheus nods. He pinches the rest of the sand into the center of the two blooms, balancing them carefully in one palm. “Alright,” he says, “Tilt your head back.” 
You lean back on both arms, looking up to the sunrise setting over Fiddler’s Green. “Like this?” you ask, looking over slightly. 
Morpheus nods, brushing the loose strands of hair away from your face. “Just like that,” he repeats quietly. 
Gently, he places the flowers on each of your empty eye sockets. You would be irritated by the feeling if you weren’t so focused on the dream lord being so close to you. You’re certain he hears the breath hitch in your throat as he leans over. 
He places a hand over your eyes, and for a moment, the world goes black. You’re briefly struck with the thought of something going wrong. 
“I c-can’t see,” you stutter, panicking, and Morpheus takes his hand away, reaching for yours. He gives it a reassuring squeeze.
Still black. 
“Ellis,” you hear him say with a laugh, “You have to open your eyes.”
You turn to him, eyes closed. “That’s it?” you ask incredulously. 
“That’s it.”
You reach for both of his hands, holding them in front of you. His palms are warm and rough. 
“Are you looking at me?” you ask. 
“Ellis,” he says, “Look at me.”
And you do. 
His irises are whirlpools of inky black, dotted with the same galaxies you’ve seen in the night sky of the Dreaming. You still get lost in them, but for once there are no flashes of sin, of regret, or despair. 
Just the god of dreams, looking back at you so lovingly that without a second thought you lean forward, crashing your lips against his. He reaches gently to cup your face, stroking your cheek with his thumb. 
You’re struck with the overwhelming sensation that this is where you are meant to be. You tug his collar to pull him closer, wishing it never had to end.
After a moment, he pulls away slowly, both of you breathless. The nervous butterflies in your stomach are going absolutely haywire, and you can’t help smiling like an idiot. Morpheus has an almost identical look, and if Fiddler’s Green could speak, he would tell you both how absolutely, dumbfoundingly lovestruck you look.
He settles for cultivating the red and yellow daisies that bloom in a small patch between you and the dream lord.   
“Would you like to see them?” Morpheus asks, fabricating a small pocket mirror out of thin air. 
You nod. He clicks the mirror open and hands it to you, watching as you take a deep breath to steel yourself from visibly reacting. 
The morning glories have transformed into deep violet irises, with flecks of a lighter lavender. The edges are ringed in a pale gray. You watch yourself tear up at the sight, at how beautiful they are. 
“Thank you,” you say quietly, closing the mirror as a tear spills down your cheek. Morpheus hesitates for only a moment before brushing it away gently with his thumb. 
“Anything,” he answers, just as quiet, “for you.” 
You’re overcome with a flood of emotion, an outpouring of love and gratitude and fucking relief.
You’re not a weapon anymore. 
You won’t hurt anyone, not even Morpheus. 
Especially Morpheus. 
You wrap your arms around his neck in an embrace, almost falling into his lap when he sits back. You settle in sideways, your head tucked into his chest. He keeps an arm around your waist, his chin resting on the top of your head.
“You are welcome to return to the waking world,” he offers quietly. “Although you will always have a place here, with me.”
You ponder for a moment, what it would be like to have a normal life on the planet. For over a century, it had been the only thing you had wished for, more than anything. 
But you know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is where you belong. Where you have always belonged, close enough to hear your soulmate’s heartbeat. 
“What if I want to stay?” you ask. 
Morpheus pulls you even closer, pressing his lips gently to the top of your head.
“Then stay.”
<3
24 notes · View notes
kellanved-ammanas · 11 months ago
Text
Maybe I'll Stop by Later
Summary: Pyro accidentally guilt trips Engie into taking a break for the team Christmas party.
~
Pyro poked his head into Engie’s workshop. Yep, he was still there and still working. It was the last day before they had their first major break since they’d started this job. So perhaps he was trying to finish whatever he was working on in preparation for heading home for the holidays tomorrow. But… “The party’s started in the common room.”
Engie looked up at him. “Huh?”
Pyro repeated himself, speaking louder and slower this time in hopes of being better understood. Engie had always been the best at understanding him through the mask mostly because he tried to. Which encouraged Pyro to make more effort towards being understood. “You should join us.”
“Oh, uh… maybe I’ll stop by later.” Even if he meant that in the moment, he’d forget about it later and not come.
Pyro walked further into the room, closing the door behind him. “You could take a break now.” And then maybe once he was at the party, he’d end up having a good time and want to stay for the whole or most of it. “You deserve one.”
“Nah, not really. I had to double check to make sure both cars are in running order this morning so I didn’t get to get started on this until like an hour ago. And I’ve got almost nothing substantial done on it in that time.”
Pyro wasn’t going to force him to come to the party if he didn’t want to. Maybe he didn’t like parties and/or Christmas so pushing him would be rude. Besides, Pyro’s flamethrower was probably due for some thorough maintenance anyway, it had been a while. He left to go retrieve it from his room.
Upon returning with it to the workshop, he carried it over to the side table and sat down to start taking it apart. It was easier to work on without the gas mask obscuring his vision but more than that, he didn’t like working on it alone if he didn’t have to. Working on things in the same room as another person working on their own thing was nice. So as long as Engie kept open his invitation to use the side table for others to work on their own stuff, Pyro was going to take advantage of it.
“Much as I appreciate your company, I know you’ve looking forward the Christmas party. You should go have fun with everyone.”
“You’re leaving tomorrow. I want to hang out with you.” Everyone was leaving as far as Pyro knew, except for himself as he had nowhere to go. Part of the reason he’d been looking forward to the team Christmas/going away for the holidays party was because he’d thought he’d get to hang out and have fun with everyone before they all left. Since that wasn’t happening, he was going to prioritize and make sure he spent time with Engie. “I’ll go later.” Hopefully when most of them would still be sober enough to play cards or board games with.
“Well… all right then. If that’s what you wanna do.”
It was so Pyro didn’t respond.
Not even five minutes of silent work time went by before Engie stood up and made his way around to stand in front of the desk. “You know what? I think I’ve changed my mind. A break to go to the party for an hour or two couldn’t hurt. I ain’t gonna see everyone again ‘til the after New Year’s after all. So uh… you wanna come with?” He gestured back towards the door.
The flamethrower was already halfway taken apart and leaving the task unfinished was bothersome. But on the other hand hanging out with Engie and everyone else at the same time was the ideal scenario and the Christmas decorations were all so pretty. And he could come back to the workshop with Engie afterwards to finish. So, nodding vigorously, Pyro stood and followed Engie out towards the common room and the party.
5 notes · View notes
on-noon · 2 years ago
Text
short story: a Countdown to Magic Prolouge
I look down at my list, check the address. This is the house. Makes sense too, the old houses are the ones with weird taxes, and this definitely looks old. That "no magic allowed inside" sign doesn't seem legal, but I work for the city, not my dad. So it's not my problem.
I knock on the door.
I knock again, louder. There's chatter coming from the inside, so they're definitely home.
It doesn't look warm outside, I should probably get inside soon.
Someone comes behind me.
"What're you doing just standing outside?" the man says
"I knocked the door and was waiting for an answer."
"Who knocks on the door to an inn?" he goes inside, pushing the door open without much care. I follow him.
An inn?
There's a desk in front of the door with a sign on it that reads "wait here to check in." So I wait.
This girl, who couldn't be more than fourteen or sixteen comes and asks "Are you waiting to check in?"
"No, I work for the city, tax collection to be specific, so could I talk to whoever owns this property?"
"That would be my dad, but he's not home yet, he should be back by the time the countdown ends. I also know where all the paperwork is for taxes though, and can pay them if they're due before than," she says.
"The taxes will be due in one and half months, so before the countdown ends, yes. Isn't there an adult here who can handle this? Isn't some watching you?" Hopefully she's not alone, that would probably be child abandonment, and I'd have to go report it to the Mage Society, especially for that long.
"My neighbor's here as the adult, she should be back in a couple hours, but she'd have no idea how to handle any of the tax stuff."
I guess I have to deal with this child now.
"Okay, go get the receipt for when this house– this inn was bought."
"Follow me," she says. "And this house was never sold, so I'm going to show the other paperwork instead."
This building is oddly far out of town for the property to have never been sold. If I remember correctly, this area should have been part of the area where the city sold the land to the first people who built on it. Either that or it was a farm.
"I don't think I've seen this on the list of properties still with their original owner, but I guess I can look at the certificate. I'll have to verify it though, with the city's paperwork."
The rate for the few properties that have never been sold is set so cheap that we have to make sure there are no scammers. And of course we can't just change the laws.
She leads me up a ramp, through a sliding door to a dark room filled with mostly papers, and a few random objects.
She looks at a few different papers, then hands me a box. "That's our sales records for the year."
She goes deeper into the room.
"Wait, I don't need your sales records. I just need the certificate stating this as a never-sold property, along with a family tree or something to show the line of inheritance."
I don't even know how she came up with needing sales records for taxes.
She comes back with another box of papers. "No, we do need the sales records. You must be a different tax collector than normal. Here's the agreement my great-great-whoever made with the city."
I look at the paper. It seems to be a page long legal document. As I read it though, it starts to get interesting. It claims they never joined the city, but to avoid joining the city agreed to pay a portion of their sales in taxes?
How have I never heard of this?
"I'll need to go look through the city's archives, you understand, make sure this claim is legitimate."
I take the streetcar back to the city archives, the site of the old city hall. I don't know where to look for this. Usually I only need to look at the property records. Would this be shown on maps? Maybe if I can find a map of the city from that time.
I thought I knew how to handle anything now. I read through the entire tax code. All of it, all the fraud types and punishments, all the odd historical exceptions from back when they would just change the law if they had a problem.
And the head collector trusted me.
I look at maps of the city from the time, but I can't tell. None of them are at any useful detail, or technically aren't maps of the city limits.
Where would they put the papers showing the growing of the city or whatever?
I thought I was familiar with the city archives, but I have no clue where to look.
I pack up the maps, they aren't useful, and notice some blood on one of them. I look down at my hands. A papercut. Great. And I got blood on the old documents. I flip through the maps, luckily I only got blood on two of the maps.
I go down to the desk, "Eaohg, I was looking through the maps from the times Lathp Hills was added and got a papercut. I accidentally dropped some blood on two maps, it didn't obfuscate any information."
"Okay, thanks for telling me. What were you doing with the maps anyway? Tax collectors usually only care about the property records," she says.
"There's this one weird case, they claim to not be in the city and have some weird agreement. But I don't know where I'd find anything to support that. But how could you make that up? She had even this whole thing about taxes based off of sales?" I say. Hopefully Eaohg will take pity on me and help.
"That would have to be the Weynild's, I think that was mentioned maybe in one of the thousands of other documents in here they're mentioned in. You might find whatever agreement in the Mayor's room, third rack."
"Weynild? Who's that?" Surely she misinterpreted. That girl couldn't have been mentioned in any of those documents. So maybe she was tricking but based off an existing tax agreement we had with someone else?
"The Weynild's are the family that run the inn in Lathp Hills, but that inn has been around longer than anything else in the area. Longer in fact than when Lathp, whoever they were owned the land. And they show up in a surprising amount of records. It's a whole thing. But yeah, Mayor's room, third rack is where the document you want should be."
I easily find it, once Eaohg told me exactly where it was. A copy of the agreement that girl gave me. So know I have to go back, and look through all those records of sales, calculate five percent of that and collect the taxes. No problem.
Except it's snowing now. And I guess it's late enough I can justify ending my workday now. I take the tram home, also I guess the streetcars over to Lathp Hill aren't enclosed, but these trams are, so I made probably the correct decision. I still want to finish the case, though.
When I get home, my mom's painting. Mountains, like in her hometown.
She only says she was worried about me, did I get frostbite, she saw the snow.
I hold out my hands. "Doesn't seem so. Just a papercut."
She doesn't ask about my job. Eventually Horatio comes home, from wherever he was, and he goes straight to reading his magic theory papers. They're for the level of people who study that stuff, they can't be interesting. And then my dad comes home, late again.
He brings the food, so we set the table and get to dinner.
Horatio talks about his magic theory, what he read in those papers. Dad doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, but he does mention that at the Mage Academy here, they need someone to teach magic theory. He almost outright offers Horatio a job somewhere he’s not even qualified to be a student at yet. Horatio took way too long to pick up on it.
I mention that I found a new weird exception in the tax law.
And no one responds, they just keep eating their dinners.
The next day, I’m the second one to leave, after Horatio. I get to Lathp Hills, and this time I just enter the inn, no awkwardly waiting around.
I quickly find that girl, and she brings me to the sales records. I look through a couple random sheets, make sure all the numbers add up on those, make sure there’s no lowering the count between sheets. I even remember an off statistical rule to try and tell if the numbers are made up.
I didn’t make certain they weren’t scamming, but I checked. And besides, the amount they ended up paying in tax was much higher than probably it would be based on property value.
I leave, and look back at the property, try to guess a value.
They've still got the "no magic allowed inside." Which even if they can somehow get out of paying taxes the normal way, they can’t get out from under the authority of the mages. The sign looks old, but surely it could have been removed in the hundreds of years since the Mage Society took control of the city.
But they’re not in the city, not quite.
Maybe I should tall my dad or someone who works under him.
But then would he care about a weird tax situation?
3 notes · View notes
dear3st-dead-diary · 8 months ago
Text
Dearest Dead Diary
My dad got in a car accident, he was hit by someone on purpose, he's fine or so he says but he has yet to see a doctor. I hipe ge doesn't have a concussion and... dies.
I'm on day three of Vyvanse And Dolox. It's very effective, in w days I've cleaned my house from top to bottom and built a makeshift desk for my laptop out of left over materials from other shelves I've assembled. I just hope the new setup doesn't kill my creativity.
The first day was fun, I cleaned the bathroom and did the dishes then I went to the mall where my friend with disposable income paid for everything.
Day two was also fun, I did my laundry, cleaned my room and put away all my clothes. My friend came over and and I did her makeup and shapped her eyebrows (she's really pretty) and then we went to a sex shop that was hidden inside of a building through an elaborate set of halls and stairs.
I got some damn good stuff from there for some very good prices I also wore a killer outfit and got many compliments. The guy who runs the place has the sort of beauty to him I can't explain.
He's from a generation of queers I could only imagine the hardships he's faced, but he wears them all with pride and it shows. I hope he gets more business, he's got Hella good stock.
We came back to my place, and I dyed her hair, we cuddled for a few hours before she left around 3 am.
Today, on the third day, I finished the rest of my cleaning, and then got the news about my dad.
Today sucks. Tomorrow I atleast get to go to a house party. I don't think I'll be drinking, I wanna wait more to see how these meds affect me before I try to consume any alcohol. Cannabis om the other hand actually balances out some of the side effects. Weirdly enough, though I haven't smoked alot yet, so I guess tomorrow we'll see how that happens and what happens if I take a dab or something.
Last time I was at this party I had a seizure on the stairs and broke my foot, it's been 3 weeks and it's taking forever to heal.
I was manic but for once, I finally feel like I'm thinking clear, thinking freely, like I can rationalize. That's something I haven't consciously been able to do before. At least not to this extent.
So I'm making the conscious decision to not drink. The last time I drank on antidepressants I got alcohol poisoning, I made the mistake of drinking the amount I normally would have had I not been medicated and.. well that ended horribly.
So it takes me 12 cans to feel drunk, but now that I'm medicated it should only take three, Hopefully. Seriously I'd save so much money if I didn't need so much liquor to feel intoxicated.
But regardless, I'm being responsible. Another side effect is dry mouth and loss of appetite. Which kind of sucks in the sense that I was working uo to building more muscle, but if I end up loosing weight in the process... I don't know how to feel.
I was dangerously skinny due to stress last year and I lost alot of strength, however I looked so good. So obviously I should strive to gain and not lose, but I can't shake the feeling of knowing at that weight no matter the size of clothes I'd always fit.
I purposely gained 20 because I wanted to start building back up a lot of the muscle mass I lost. Maybe there's some way I can find the middle ground of being slim yet lean?
I'm not sure.
I'm going to try and find something healthy to feed myself. Hopefully tomorrow goes great, and if I'm lucky I'll even end up closer to my friends, more romantic or platonic, either of which is fine. I'm the rare type that actually loves people.
My best skill is talking anyone into opening up, I treasure that skill, I've had some of the loveliest conversations with the shyest of people. I've made a lot of friends that way. And oddly enough alotta enemies? But those are people projecting thier own insecurities or past experiences on me.
I've noticed the people who don't like me are the people I've said "NO" to. Frankly that's probably for the best.
I've worked hard on these relationships. I value every one of them, I really put in as much work as I can towards my friends, it's definitely paid off as we've grown closer over the past year. I'm glad, I hope we keep growing and even growing together, making eachothers lives better.
But enough with the sap. I've got productivity on my mind and the motivation so I better put that to yse while it lasts.
With a future and goals.
- A
0 notes
probablyintensemuses · 3 years ago
Text
What To Expect When You're Not Expecting. (1)
Chris Evans x Black (pregnant) Female Reader
Summary: It's no secret that Chris wants to be a daddy. He's said it in many different interviews and blogs before. He just never expected the mother of his child to be someone he didn't know, let alone fuck.
Warnings: 18+ angst, mentions of alcohol abuse and cheating/ malpractice.
Note: If this gets a few hits and is well received I can make it a mini series. If not I'll leave it one and done.
Tumblr media
»»————««💌»»————««
a month prior
Chris was getting older, there was no denying that. He was forty and still hadn’t found the ‘one,’ yet. Every relationship he had entered seemed to go in the same pattern of amazing highs and devastating lows, them all resulting in a breakup. So after much thought, he found himself jerking off over a small test tube trapping his sample inside. Hoping one day, his true love will be in possession of it and they can begin his dream—a big happy Boston family.
“We’ve put your sample in the freezer and it won’t be defrosted until we get legal confirmation from you personally.” Dr. Perez said, standing from her desk.
Chris stood up as well, holding his hand out and clasping it onto hers with a firm shake. “Thank you so much. Hopefully, that day is soon.” He smiled.
“Hopefully.” She sighed, trying not to allow her mind to wander off onto the pages of her own tragic love life.
See, Dr. Eleanor Perez and her wife Kaitlyn Perez were at faults. No fault of her own, it’s just that her wife couldn’t stop fucking cheating. Kaitlyn didn’t even have the decency not to fuck her other partners in their shared bed at their Boston home. It was becoming unbearable for Eleanor, and the only thing that was making things tolerable was the euphoric feeling she got when she finished another bottle of wine each night.
Last night was Moscato, tonight—maybe Josh, Behringer even. Whether it was red or white she just wanted to feel nothing at the end of it.
Chris walked out of the doctor's office, twirling his car keys on his fingers and unlocking his Audi, diving right into the passenger's seat. He loved the stark contrast of Boston versus the restless cities like Atlanta and L.A. Everything about Boston made him feel nostalgic and grounded—and there’s no place he’d rather been.
Chris put his car and drive and pulled out of the facility, then his mind began to wander. He was forty now and any lover he pursued would reasonably be the same age. He selfishly wanted a big family but wasn’t willing to just shack up with anyone. Chris had the vision of a big bold primary-colored relationship that would sweep him off his feet and never put him down. And he just hadn’t found that yet.
Through extensive research, he found older pregnancies were risky and if done intentionally it is better to perform in the office. So he stored his sample—he just hoped he could put it to use soon because he was craving a simple life filled with simple love.
—two weeks later—
You’d never liked the doctor's office. You’d rather be in a prison cell with Pablo Escobar taking turns drinking toilet water than end up here. Everything from the nurses, needles, and the particularly clean environment sent shivers down your spine. You wanted nothing more than to be in and out.
But today you sucked it up for your once-a-year physical, which included a pap smear, a feeling you still hated even though you’d been getting it since you were eighteen. You sat in the waiting room clutching your jacket closer to your body as the Boston fall breeze blew inside behind people as they went in and out of the building.
“Geez.’ You blew into your hands. “You’d think this place could afford heating.” You rolled your eyes feeling your phone vibrate in your lap.
Msg from Vada🐣: How’s it going? You scared yet?
Msg from Y/N: Petrified. I’m cold too. 😔
Msg from Vada 🐣: Come to my place after, I’ll warm you up with hot cocoa.
You smiled as you bit your lip typing your message to Vada.
Msg from Y/N: Stop being a better best friend than me.
Msg from Vada 🐣: You know I love competition, Y/n. Call me when it’s over.
Msg from Y/n: shut up bitch.
Msg from Vada 🐣: Call me and then I will, jerk.
You laughed shoving your phone into your purse. Most days it felt like Vada was the best thing to happen to you. she was your best friend since childhood and nothing could break you two apart, she was always there for you. Sometimes too much that it was overbearing and bothersome but with some reflecting, you wouldn’t have it any other way with anyone else.
“Y/n Y/L/n.” A nurse called, peeking her head around a heavy wooden door.
You swallowed hard, holding tightly onto your purse. “That’s me.”
“We’re ready for you.” The nurse smiled, widening the door as you walked over.
“Right.” You mumbled underneath your breath, keeping your head down.
“Alright, just head over to room number five and Dr. Eleanor will be right in.” She smiled, her eyes were wrinkled in the corner.
“Okay.” You said just above a whisper, slipping into the room.
Once the door behind you shut you let out a loud groan slipping into the cheap pink examination gown they had laid out for you. Hearing the lab desk creak at the slightest touch you climbed up onto it laying backward and scrolling on your phone hoping to desperately dissipate from this place.
You settled into a comfortable position opening Google docs and returning to one of your students essays. You worked as a high school English teacher and last week you had assigned your students to compare a modern tale rather it be from literature or pop culture to the story of Frankenstein. 
You got an array of different essays, some being too bland to be the work of juniors and seniors and others making you cackle at the attempt. But one stood out in particular. Aria Evans—a junior in your A.P English class. She never seized to empress you and this essay comparing the tragic story of Joaquin Phoenix’s joker and Frankenstein almost had you falling off the lab desk at how compelling and complete it was.
Every claim had evidence to back it up, and the diction, boy was her diction strong. Her stance was firm and she supported it from thesis to conclusion.
“Wow,’ you gasped, almost laughing at how perfectly curated her work was.
“Ms. Y/n!” A voice spoke almost sending you into a frenzy.
“Huh?” You lifted up off the desk, completely unaware your doctor had been calling you for some time now.
“Am I,’ Dr. Eleanor coughed. “Am I interrupting something?” She slowly put on her gloves, her hand missing several times.
“Um, no. I’m sorry I was lost in my students work.” You said, biting your nails.
“Right.’ Dr. Eleanor slide over to you in her rolling chair. “Let’s get this show on the road.” She snapped her last glove on.
“Right.” You kissed your teeth together laying back down, hoping the process would be over shortly.
“That was quick,” Eleanor said, flicking at the syringe she held. 
“What was quick?” You said, trying your best to peak down at her but you couldn’t see past your spread legs.
“Just this whole process, I thought it would at least be a year—maybe longer.” She yawned.
You grunted at the feeling of the syringe entering you. “Yeah,’ you shifted uncomfortably. “Me too.” You rolled your eyes, hating every moment of this.
“All—all set.” She slurred slightly.
“That was fast.” You sat up, clutching your bare chest.
“Yeah.’ She sniffled, tossing her gloves out. “Life usually is.”
“Yeah.” You said, watching her slumped form as she grabbed the clipboard. “I’ll send your results at the end of the month.”
“What results?” You asked, furrowing your eyebrows together.
Dr. Eleanor laughed. Looking down at her clipboard and suddenly the world around her froze. Her heart began racing and her palms began to sweat. What had she just done?
“Your um, your, pap…pap smear—your pap smear results!” She blurted out louder than intended.
You took in Dr. Eleanor’s form. She did not look alright, her skin was red and almost looked hot to touch and she was sweating profusely.
“Um, oh alright.’ You said, skeptically. “Am I good to go?” You pointed at your folded clothes.
“Yep, I’ll see you in a year!” She waved, slamming the door behind her and running to the lady's room.
Once there she pulled out a sterile syringe and filled it with warm water and made her way to room six with shaky hands. She knew she needed to stop drinking before work—if she hadn’t Chris Evan's sample wouldn’t be walking out of here inside some random woman and she wouldn’t be about to inseminate a woman with warm water instead of her Husband Chris Ellison's sample.
She was just hoping faith was on her side, along with statistics. She knew you only had about a twenty percent chance of getting pregnant and you were young, only thirty years old so there was a chance your body would reject it and you’d take it as a heavy period. God she hoped with every drunk fiber in her bones that ended up being the case.
“Alright, Ellison family.” Her voice warbled. “Are you ready for your insemination?”
—about one month later—
You were not feeling well. Everything you ate you wanted to puke up, and you were seriously starting to regret ordering that sushi takeout last night.
“Never again.” You groaned into your hands.
As the bell rung your A.P English section for juniors started to pile in. You stood up and made your way to the printer gathering your papers as you felt something wet trickle down your face.
You wiped your hand over it pulling it down and taking a look. Sweat? You thought. Why were you sweating? And profusely. You shook it off just like you wanted to do your stomach ache—but that wouldn’t go away.
“Good morning amazing people!’ You greeted your class, getting grumbles or silence in response. You were used to it at this point. “I was thinking today we could go over some SAT techniques for the English portion. I know we aren’t even into our second semester yet, but it’s always good to prepare early, right.” You took a phone from your student Hunter's hand as you walked past.
“So firstly,’ you gaged as you tried to sit in your stool in front of the class. “What you should…what you should.’ You coughed, trying to shake off the dizzy feeling and ignore the floaters that covered your vision.
You stood up from the stool immediately feeling the blood rush from your brain to the bottom of your body leaving your top half numb as your vision was cut off by enormous floaters and you fell to the floor blackness surrounding you.
“Ms. Y/L/N!” Aria shouted, holding onto you as you were passed out on the floor. “Call the front desk!” Aria told her best friend Cayley.
You had woken up and immediately noise surrounded your ears. You were no longer in your class room, instead you were in a hospital bed with a bandage on your forehead. Fuck what happened? You thought.
“Y/n,” Vada said, walking into the room. “Thank god.” she hugged you.
You hugged her back. “What happened?” You groaned.
“You passed out at school girl.’ Vada rubbed your back slowly. “The doctors are running some tests right now.”
“Alright.’ Both you and Vada heard a voice come into the room.“Oh hello.’ The doctor said. “Y/n, how’s your head?”
“Um. Fine I guess. Is everything alright with me?” You asked nervously.
“I would say so.’ He rolled over to you. “Blood work is excellent, except one thing we picked up.”
“What, food poisoning?” You chuckled.
“No. Pregnancy.” He said.
“What?” You laughed.
Vada gasped, looking down at you with concern.
“I’m assuming you didn’t know.’ He began.
“Didn’t know what?’ His words echoed through your ears. “I’m not pregnant!” You pleaded, looking between him and Vada as tears began to rim your eyes.
“Blood test are usually extremely accurate, so I don’t see that being possible. If you need time to process, I understand.” He said.
“Time to process what! I’m not pregnant!” You yelled as your voiced cracked. “Do another test, now!” You demanded.
“The only other test we have is a urine test. Would you like that?” He rolled his eyes slightly.
“Yeah I would!” You spat
The doctor shook his head leaving the room. And just as he left the room fell into silence, before Sebastian spoke up.
“Are you seeing someone.” Vada pushed you and spoke barely above a whisper.
“What?” You turned and looked up at her.
Vada smacked her lips and tilted her head. "Are you fucking someone?" She bit her lip doing a weird thrusting motion with her hips.
You scoffed not here for her shenanigans, as a tear fell from your eye. “No, I’m not fucking anyone! Why would you—how could you ask me that!”
“I’m just wondering.” She held her hands up. “Sorry.” She felt bad.
“What the fuck is happening Vads.’ You whimpered into your hands. “I haven’t fucked anyone in months.”
Vada’s face softened as she grabbed your small hand into hers. Vada was also a single mother and had no intentions on letting you go through this alone. “Whatever it is,’ she swiped her thumb over the pad of your hand. “We will figure it out, together.” She smiled softly.
Just then the door swung open as the doctor walked in with two cups. One filled with water and the other empty and stick in his other hand.
“Alright, drink this and pee in this.” He handed you both cups.
“Right,’ you sighed, swallowing the water and getting up to go to the bathroom.
Once you finished peeing you sat back down and the doctor took your cup dipping the stick inside.
“Pink means pregnant.” He pulled the stick out and all you saw was hot pink.
“How?” Your voice cracked. “I haven’t had sex in..in months.”
"Are you sure about that?" The doctor said, leaning into you.
"If she said she's sure, she's sure, asshat." Vada’s nostrils flared.
"Vads." You said softly, grabbing her arm to calm her down. "I...I don't know how this is possible,' You struggled to keep the tears at bay. "I haven't done anything with anyone in so long."
"Maybe it's a medical miracle." You laughed wiping off your tears. "or a hormonal thing."
"Yes, pregnancy hormones.' The doctor said. "Look I can do two things for you, I can leave a message at your gynecologist's office and set you an appointment. And,' He dug into his white coat pocket. "I can give you these." He handed you a vile of two small white pills.
"What are these?" You sniffled.
"Pills to get rid of your miracle baby, if that's your choice." He explained. "You have a few weeks to think on it, Dr. Eleanor should be calling you in a few days."
He walked near the door holding onto the handle and letting his teeth sink into his bottom lip. "Congratulations."
your eyes remained moving rapidly as you try desperately to grapple with your reality. How could be pregnant, there must have been a mistake. Your eyes watered as another tear fell from your eyes.
"Y/n, what are you thinking?" Vada said softly.
"I—nothing.' Your mouth fell open. "I'm so confused."
Vada walked around sitting in front of you, looking deep into your eyes. "I'll support you, no matter what you want to do." she smiled.
You sighed, throwing yourself into her arms. Vada was always there for you and it made your cherish your friendship with her more. "I love you, Jerk." Your mumbled into her slender shoulders.
She hugged you back, pulling you closer to her and sticking her nose into your messy curls. "I love you more, bitch."
— two weeks later—
Tumblr media
"Now, Mr. Evans I have requested you here to own up to my mistakes.' Dr. Eleanor said, wiping her clammy hands onto her slacks and avoiding Chris's intense blue eyes.
"What mistake, doc." Chris's leg bounced up and down as he grinned his teeth.
"About two months a go—I...I um,' She coughed. "Accidentally artificially inseminated a woman with your sperm." She spat out the truth.
Chris's ears began to ring and his eyes went wide. "What.' His voice cracked. "Did you just.' He paused, hyperventilating. "Fucking say."
Dr. Eleanor bit the inside of her lip squeezing her eyes shut, wishing it wasn't real. Wishing she hadn't been drunk or that she had payed more attention to her call sheet.
"In—initially I thought I had no reason to tell you. There was only a twenty percent chance she'd get pregnant.' She swallowed hard. "But she did, so."
Chris's back sunk into his seat as his nostrils flared. "She did what?" He knew what it was but he wanted her to say the words.
"She um.' Eleanor hung her head low. "She's pregnant."
Chris slapped his hand on the desk, standing from his seat. "who is she?" Dr. Eleanor jumped back. "Huh?" His Boston accent breaking through.
"I can't tell you that. Legally." Dr. Eleanors voice shook.
Chris rolled his eyes, his hands folding into a fist. "But you could legally get someone pregnant by my sperm! Someone I don't even know!' His blood began boiling by the second. "Someone I don't even trust, someone whose the very reason I came to you!" He yelled.
"You know what," He sucked in a deep breath. "We're done here." He walked towards the door. "You'll be hearing from my lawyers." He slammed the door behind himself.
"Stupid fuck." He spoke to himself as he pulled his phone to his ear. "Yeah, I need your help finding someone—but I don't know where to start."
It took a whole week for his team to find you but they did. Y/N Y/L/N. You were an English teacher at miller high school right here in Chris’s hometown. He had also found out you taught his niece Aria which didn’t help him. At all.
He’d wanted to approach you, get a feel for you. But what would he even say. ‘Hey I’m the guy your pregnant by.’
“We have to be smart about this Chris.’ His manager said to him, fluffing out his hair in the mirror. “You can’t just walk up to the girl and say ‘I’m your baby daddy, oh and by the way my name is Chris Evans and I’m a huge celebrity.” She flailed her arms about.
“I’m not gonna do that. I just want a conversation.” Chris said. “I want to talk to her, see if she’s even still pregnant.”
“And if she’s not?”
Chris sighed. “Then we put it behind us.”
His manager folded her arms, staring at him. “You want this baby, don’t you?” She asked.
“What I want, is to meet her.” Chris tapped danced around this question.
“And you will, just in the right way.’ She said. “I can’t have her leaking this to the press and spinning the story. We’ll right up a contract and give her some hush money.”
“Maybe she won’t say anything.” Chris gave you the benefit of doubt.
His manager scoffed. “Chris, baby. Do you realize who you are? You can look up your net worth online she’ll definitely talk.”
“Well how do I meet her?’ He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. 
“We will find her and set up a meeting, if and only if she signs the contract.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Chris asked.
“Then I guess you won’t be a daddy, now will you.” She tapped his nose with her manicured finger tip.
Chris grabbed her arm. “You can’t do that, it’s not fair to me. or her.”
“Release my Prada.’ She said, feeling Chris loosen his grip. “I’m doing this for you, and your safety.”
“Is this what my protection is going to feel like, hm? Guilt.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll sign. I promise.”
The day had ended and it was a miserable one. You couldn’t keep anything down and your head pounded each time the bell rung. All you wanted to do was go home and kick your feet up and sip on some ginger tea.
You packed your bag slowly as a soft knock against your classroom door caught your attention. You turned around furrowing your eyebrows as a women in a pants suit and a man with a briefcase stood at the arch of your doorway.
“Can I help you?” You pushed a curl behind your ear.
“No, but we can help each other.” The woman spoke. “I’m particularly interested in you and the baby you’re carrying, and so is my client.”
You gasped, holding your stomach. “What—who, what do you want.” You said, shielding the thing you currently held in you stomach.
“My client wants to meet you, but I’m not letting that happen until you sign these papers.” She said with a straight face, putting a stack of papers and a pen in-front of you.
“Whose your client?’ You grumbled, looking at the papers.
“Sign and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me and I’ll sign.”
She laughed, looking you up and down. “You’re a little minx, aren’t you?”
“Who is he?” You pressed further.
She looked down racking through the stack until she found her golden ticket. “Sign this and I’ll tell you, I promise.”
You looked her up and down not knowing if you should trust her. Whoever her client was he had to be big time, and you hoped he wasn’t a mafia boss. You took the pen in your hand hesitantly signing the dotted line.
“Good girl.’ She smiled. “Just letting you know that was an non disclosure agreement and if you speak anything of your pregnancy or who the father is we will hunt your ass down.’ She smiled. “And by we, I mean him.” She pointed to the large man besides her.
Your breathing hitched. “Who, is, he.” You said breathlessly.
“Ever heard of Chris Evans.”
Your eyes clutched together, the name was eerily familiar and you just wish you had a face to match.
“Um I think so, I’m just trying to recall what he looks like.” You said, pulling at your hair.
The woman looked you up and down, clearly not believing you had no clue who Chris was.
“I find that hard to believe.” She snorted. “Meet us at the address Saturday morning, he wants to meet you.”
You picked up the small piece of paper with an address on it. “Fuck.” You whispered.
What the hell were you in for. 
709 notes · View notes
tvseries-writings · 2 years ago
Text
It’s all Peter Parker’s fault
Prompt: The reader pranks her girlfriends , Peter is her accomplice but things don’t end well for her. And her girlfriends don’t like the joke.
TW: injuries, blood
Wandanat x reader
Support me on ko-fi ☕️
Tumblr media Tumblr media
You look at Peter and shake your head. « No, we don't talk about it. They will kill me and then they will kill you but only after having tortured you…and after having made you suffer very, very slowly. "
Peter turns the camera at you, waving you to smile. "Come on y / n, for our followers"
You sigh and yank the camera out of his hands, glaring at him. " I hate you Parker, I hate you"
Peter gives you the best apologetic smile he can pull before wishing you good luck and walking away.
"A friendly neighborhood spider-man.….please, that boy is the devil himself"
You shake your head in irritation, muttering to yourself as you walk into your bedroom.
You and Peter had opened your YouTube channel about two years ago and, contrary to what you expected, had reached a million followers in less than twenty-four hours ... and then, well, the number had gone up again and again and again. goes up, never stopping. And your followers keep asking you for particular tricks to play on you, on your girls and Peter, on Tony. And well, what you are about to do is one of the most requested and most liked.
You put the camera above the desk, diligently hiding it behind some plants and carefully checking if it could be even minimally noticed by your girls, also positioning yourself in different places in the room to check.
"Damn Parker, if this backfires me somehow ... I'll kill you with my own hands, I won't wait for Natasha and Wanda to do it"
You shake your head, nervously looking at the time on the clock on the wall.
Your girls will be there in thirty minutes and you don't have much time. You open the bottle of fake blood, sprinkling it a little on the corner of the coffee table in the center of the room and a little in your hair. You put on the biometric mask that Bruce designed and smile thinking about when he created it and, above all, when Peter asked him to make a little secret modification for the two of you. The doctor looked up and muttered something about teenagers scaring him before adding what Peter had asked him.
You activate the mask, brushing your forehead to bring out a hyper-realistic cut and, at the same time, shield your mind so that the Sokovian can't understand that it's all a joke ahead of time. The first time you and Peter saw it, you were amazed and super excited already thinking about all the tricks you could have done. You to your girlfriends and him to Tony. Or rather, "Mr. Stark" as he likes to call him.
« F.R.I.D.A.Y., activation of the “PRANK” protocol » « Immediately miss y / n, do you like the usual modality or do you prefer to make some changes? » " No F.R.I.D.A.Y., use the usual method, thanks“
You and Peter implemented that new mode in FRIDAY a couple of months ago, making sure Tony never found out and it worked great. Or at least, it had up to that point so hopefully it will continue to work.
You lie down on the ground, near the table and dirty the cut with fake blood. You sprinkle some on the ground as well and then settle into a position similar to what you might be after a bad fall.
You close your eyes, waiting for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to warn your girlfriends by telling them you were hurt. Without saying anything more.
You force yourself to relax your muscles, in a very uncomfortable position, as soon as you hear footsteps approaching hastily.
Wanda is the first to enter the room, her heart beating furiously in her chest since F.R.I.D.A.Y. told them you needed help, ignoring their further questions about it and refusing to give any answers, simply remaining silent.
The heart of the Sokovian stops when she notices your body lying on the ground, unconscious and with a deep cut on the forehead.
" Shit, y/n!" The sokovian screams as she hurries to run towards you, falling to her knees next to your body and taking your head in her hands. Natasha follows quickly, a worried frown flashing across her face as she checks your pulse. Her throat forms a lump when she sees that, despite Wanda's light taps on your face, you don't give any sign of wanting to wake up.
" Detka, detka please wake up"
Wanda's voice is full of concern. The Sokovian holds your face in her hands as Natasha carefully examines the cut on your forehead.
The Russian watches the room, looking for whatever may have caused you that wound and when her eyes rest on the corner of the bloody table, the fear grips her stomach. "We have to call Bruce"
Wanda looks away from you and looks at her girlfriend as soon as she hears the concern steeped in her voice. She follows her gaze and notices the bloody nightstand too. "F.R.I.D.A.Y. call Bruce and tell him to come here right now.”
Natasha's voice trembles a little; her gaze rests on your unconscious body and her attention turns back to you. "Hey malyshka, you have to open your eyes for us love."
You barely hold back the laughter, trying to fully immerse yourself in the part before starting to open your eyes - a few minutes later - blinking over and over again before focusing on Wanda's face and then Natasha's.
You take on the most confused face you can interpret before speaking with a hoarse voice.
" W-what happened? Who are you? "
As soon as the words leave your lips, your girls become even more worried. Wanda caresses your cheeks and you, despite struggling to do so, you dodge from her grip, sitting up despite the protests of the two girls. "Who are you? I don't know you, get away from me "
Wanda and Natasha take a few steps back, giving each other worried looks. « Malyshka..y / n, it's us, your girls. Natasha and Wanda. "
Natasha talks, looking you in the eye and staying as calm as possible. He doesn't want to scare you, especially considering the considerable concussion you got.
Wanda approaches again, trying to put her hands on your temples. She would like to use her powers on you and try to make you remember but you walk away again with a snap and emit a fake moan, immediately putting your hands to your head and screaming in pain.
« Hey, hey… it's okay, we won't get close anymore but please don’t move. You have a bad cut on your forehead and we think you have a bad concussion and we need to get you checked okay? "
You shake your head quickly and stand up; Wanda sprints at you and you pretend to faint.
The Sokovian takes you in her arms before you hit the ground. She starts slapping your cheek as Natasha helps her lay you down again. « Shit… shit, detka wake up. Come on, don't do this to us, wake up please "
Wanda starts sobbing but even though your heart tightens as you hear the girl cry, you force yourself to act for a couple more minutes.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y. where the fuck is Bruce, why didn't he get there"
Natasha screams at the AI, barely holding back her tears as she looks at you without being able to do anything. "Mr. Banner is not at the base at the moment, Miss Romanoff"
Natasha shakes her head, runs her hand through your hair, moving a strand behind your ear and kissing your forehead with shining eyes. «Malyshka wake up, please. Wake up baby. "
You can't take it anymore, you can't continue with this joke. You burst out laughing, sitting up and getting up to go get the camera. “Girls, you have just been trolled"
You frame your girls with the camera.
At first their looks are confused and then, well, then Wanda throws two pillows at you with her powers and you almost fall to the ground. " Oh come on, it was funny”
Your girls glare at you.
" Fun? Fun?? You scared us, you idiot! "
Natasha growls, looking at you with her right eyebrow raised and her arms folded under her breasts. Wanda stays silent, just glaring at you before a small, wicked grin flashes across her face.
" Yes well, let's see how fun a whole month without sex will be, detka"
You open your mouth wide, immediately lowering the camera and throw it onto the bed. Natasha bursts out laughing and nods, pulling Wanda into a kiss that the redhead gladly returns. “ Oh come on, mine was an innocent joke, was it Peter's fault and then, a month? But are you serious? A month is a long time and- "
You whine and that only makes your girls laugh even more, your sexy and beautiful girls caressing each other's hips before turning their attention to you. “The next time you'll think twice before making such a stupid joke"
You take off your mask and throw it in the trash - you'll get it back later - and then look at your girls pouting.
Wanda approaches you, puts two fingers under your chin and lifts your head before letting you kiss on the lips. When you are about to intensify the kiss, the Sokoviana walks away and looks at you with an amused smile. « I think you'll be late for training with Peter, Kate and Yelena malyshka… and you don't want to be late do you? Wanda and I will arrive later, we have 'things' to do "
You open your mouth as Natasha pulls Wanda onto the bed and the Sokoviana pushes you out of the room with her powers, shutting the door.
You walk around the compound muttering to yourself, until you get to the gym. You walk in and walk towards the spider boy with killing fury in his eyes, paying no attention to your surroundings. You are focused on your goal. " I swear to you Parker, this time I'll kill you, I won't be able to have sex with my girlfriends for the next month ... shit, I told you it Will go bad, I'll strangle you with those cobwebs, you little-“
Your fury is interrupted by a stabbing pain in your shoulder, you widen your eyes and fall to the ground as you grimace in pain. " Oh God, oh God y / n I'm sorry, I'm so sorry but you walked by and, I didn't see you, shit-Yelena do something, damn, I'm sorry-"
Kate Bishop, and one of your best friends, begins to ramble, panicking as she just stuck an arrow in your right shoulder.
Yelena is laughing under her breath and Peter looks like he's going to pass out. “Zolovka, it looks like a month has just turned into two months. Sestra won't be very happy with it. "
The blonde points to the arrow in your shoulder and you groan in frustration considering that the girl might really be right.
Peter looks at you anxiously, biting his lip and running a hand through his hair. “ We need to call Mr. Stark and- I know what to do, I saw it in a video. Here, like this. "
The boy paces back and forth before firing a web that clings to the arrow and then - before either of you three can even think of stopping him - he snatches it off forcefully.
You scream, instinctively covering the wound on your shoulder as you push back the tears.
" Stupid spider boy”
Yelena growls, lurching forward and helping you put pressure on the wound. Blood flows copiously from your shoulder and your vision begins to blur.
" Karma sucks"
You giggle without strength, starting to lose consciousness. Yelena gives you a hard slap on the cheek, which makes you prick up your head and wince at the same time. “ Don't you dare die. Sestra loves you and I’m starting to like you, don’t move and stay awake. Stupid Spider boy Go get Natasha and Wanda. Kate, go get Doctor Banner and get first aid kit "
The two teens run, following the ex-widow's instructions. Yelena continues to put pressure on the wound and when your muscles relax and your head hangs down, the Russian hopes she doesn't have to break the worst news in the world to her sister.
…………………..…………………………………
When you wake up, familiar lights and smells make you realize you are in the infirmary. You are forced to blink a couple of times before Natasha and Wanda's faces become clear.
The worry on their faces fades slightly as soon as they see you awake. " Hey malyshka, you made us worry"
Natasha bends down to kiss your forehead, before taking your right hand in hers.
Wanda just rubs her nose against the back of your free hand, leaving a sweet kiss on top. " When Peter ran to call us we thought it was a joke but then we found you unconscious in Yelena's arms, covered in your blood and I think our heart stopped detka"
Wanda's voice trembles slightly; she is terrified of the fear of losing you and thinking that today she almost lost you due to a stupid mistake by Peter and your carelessness ...
“ Hey, I'm fine, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere okay? I love you"
You whisper and look first at Wanda, smiling at her and then at Natasha, squeezing her hand.
You motion them to lie down in the tiny cot with you and your girls carry out the order, despite the small size of the cot.
Natasha puts her arm around your waist as Wanda rests her head in the hollow of your neck, leaving kisses on the spot that you have discovered to be your weak point.
You're about to fall asleep when Wanda talks.
“ Oh, and by the way, don't think we've forgotten your punishment. It's still a month without sex, we actually wanted to get to two months but since this injury will lead you to stay away from missions for at least two weeks ... we thought it was enough punishment " Wanda and Natasha smile in amusement and you groan. “ Oh, fuck you Parker. Fuck you.”
Thanks for reading! It occurred to me the other day while watching a video on YouTube and here we are. I hope you liked it…usual things: requests are always open, now I also write for Stranger Things (just to let you know) and nothing, if you want to support me here is the ko-fi link. Have a Great day!
Taglist: @mmmmokdok @chaekhan @lightwhoranoutoflight @snowdrop1026 @ultroncanpegme @houseofaharkness
108 notes · View notes
realityescapee01 · 2 years ago
Text
Boyfriend Theo - Free Trial (part 3 of 3)
part 1 here | part 2 here
Steo | Stiles x Theo | lime | lemon | sm ut sm ut sm ut
Theo doesn't take rejection well. So he thought to just show Stiles.
Show Stiles how he is as a boyfriend. And hopefully, Stiles changes his mind.
Tumblr media
He started acting like Stiles' boyfriend.
Stiles gets a trial of having Theo as a boyfriend.
Kira can't help but notice how Stiles was smiling. She sneaked behind Stiles while Theo was away into the football team locker room.
"Someone's happy!" Kira giddily said.
"Oh, uhm... we..." Stiles made a kissy gesture.
"Oh! When?" Kira then punched Stiles on his arm.
"Last Friday... Ouch!" Stiles grimaced. Kira kinda forgot about the supernatural strength bit for a second.
"Ohmy! I'm sorry, Stiles." Kira started rubbing Stiles' arm.
"It's okay, it's okay. I think it's better if you stop that now... Theo's a little bit of a jealous boyfriend, Kira."
"...Oh!" Kira immediately took her hands off of Stiles. "It's just so funny that you think about him this much now, Stiles. Before, you were all suspicious of him. Now, you lookout for how he might feel." Kira said with a dreamy giddy face.
"Well... I'm falling, Kira."
"So the free trial would be upgraded into a lifetime full subscription then?"
"... Yup. But don't tell him that."
Kira made a -promise, cross my heart- gesture to Stiles.
The two's conversation halted just in time for Theo to come and get Stiles.
"Hello, Kira."
"Theo." Kira just nodded.
"Let's go?" Theo took Stiles by the waist again.
"See you later, Kira!" Stiles bid goodbye for now.
"Stiles?" Theo called him.
Stiles looked back at Theo. Then Theo kissed him on the lips. Just a fast, peck of lips.
"Oh..."
Theo had this shitty wide grin on his face which Stiles came to love by now.
Stiles may have been held back a year because of the Wild Hunt, and he hated it. Highschool isn't exactly fun for him and Scott before, being seen as the "nerdy" kids.
But now, Stiles is enjoying it. Partying knowing that Theo's got his back. And then exams, not a problem because he has Theo as a tutor. The chimera is actually pretty smart. He gets everything.
Theo has a football practice that end of day, so Stiles stayed a bit and watched him. Theo was good but his teammates cannot keep up. Stiles is pissed at them but he can't blame them, the team was a new one, it just started this year. So, it was forgivable. Theo is actually like an assistant coach because he knows how to play it.
Stiles received a chat from his dad, saying he shouldn't wait for him because he will do a double shift today.
Stiles thought about telling his dad about him and Theo's situation. But he didn't know how. So he just replied that it's okay and he'd bring him dinner later.
Stiles didn't notice that Theo's practice was over and that the chimera is right in front of him, standing over him.
When he looked up from his phone, Theo grabbed his chin and made him look up to him and then Theo leaned down for a kiss.
"Why so deep in thoughts?" Theo sat beside him.
"Ah-mn, Theo, before we go to your house later, can we stop by and give dad some dinner?" Stiles said, trying to veer attention from his blushing cheeks.
It's his first time being kissed like that on the bleachers.
"Sure. Wait here, let me just clean up." Theo winked as he lifted his shirt, showing Stiles his abs.
His abs that Stiles loves running his hand over and over again whenever they cuddle. He loved the feeling of the muscles' bumps and humps.
"Y-Yeah. I'll be here." sir. daddy. ???. Stiles thought those last words.
They leave school and stopped by a diner. Stiles ordering a healthy meal for his dad. He hopped out of Theo's truck and jogged towards the sheriff department.
"Dad, here's your dinner." Stiles placed it neatly on the desk.
"I hope it's not salad only."
"I just want you healthy dad."
"I know that, but I'd love a burger every once in a while."
"There is one in there."
"Really?!?" The sheriff rummaged inside the paperbag and indeed saw a burger. "Oh! Thank God! Thank you, son."
"Also, dad. Uhm, I will be over at Theo's tonight." Stiles said, looking away from his dad and scratching the back of his neck.
"Theo? You've been with him quite a lot lately, Stiles."
"Uh-yeah. Yeah."
"Why?"
"Oh, uhm, we have an exam coming up. We're just having a group study."
"Group study... with Theo?" the sheriff nodded knowingly.
"Y-Yeah, for the exam, dad."
"For the exam." the sheriff repeated and kept nodding.
"Dad! Why are you nodding like that?!?" Stiles couldn't shake the scrutinizing and suspicious look.
"Why are you defensive?"
"I'm not defensive!" Stiles' voice hitched.
The sheriff raised an eyebrow and gave Stiles a look.
"It's... dad, we're just studying."
"Studying, okay."
"Dad! Stop that!"
"Look, Stiles, son. I just can't help but get suspicious and confused at the same time. You hated this guy and now you're completely inseparable. What is going on, son?"
"Dad... remember the time you saw me and Scott in... Sinema? You know, when I said we're clubbing and then you asked -in a gay club- and then you said -you're not gay- and then I said -I could be- remember that?" Stiles blurted out really fast.
"Yes, I do."
"Yeah... I still could be, dad. Anyways, Theo is waiting and we'll talk about this in detail some other time. So, bye bye!" Stiles ran out of the sheriff's office.
"Stiles? Stiles!" the sheriff called out to him but Stiles didn't look back.
Stiles got into Theo's truck and then they drove to Theo's house. Stiles has been there a few times so it was very familiar to him now. He has a corner in Theo's cabinet by now. Sets of clothes, underwears and a bath towel. Just like how Theo has his clothes and bath towel over at Stiles'. Brushes too.
They stayed in the living room for a while. Making homeworks and studying. Actually studying for the exam.
'See, dad? We are studying.' Stiles thought to himself.
'We are studying... we're not doing something... ah, Theo's hand looks so...' Stiles stared at Theo's hand. Theo's fingers. They looks so good.
'Wait! Do I have a thing for hands now?' Stiles started questioning himself again.
Praises. Sir. Daddy. And now, hands... Theo is bringing out some fetishes and kinks from him.
'Ugh! Fucking Theo!' Stiles thought as he felt Theo lean closer.
And kissed his cheek.
"T-Theo!" Stiles felt a tingle down his spine.
Theo just scoffed a bit and licked his cheek this time. Stiles leaned away from the sudden warm and wet feeling. Stiles was caught off guard.
Theo chased after him, after his lips and kissed him. Slowly turning to an open mouth kiss. And then Stiles was fighting for dominance with his tongue.
But of course, Theo took control of the kiss. Sliding his tongue deeper in. Playing and coaxing Stiles' tongue with his own.
It's not a new thing for Stiles by now, they had kissed a lot of times after the first one.
Chaste kisses. Open mouth kisses. French kisses. Theo is a great kisser.
It made Stiles crave more and more of Theo. Lips, tongue, his body...
There were a lot of times Stiles wanted to give in and try to get more. But he just never had the courage. And Theo didn't push him, telling him he didn't wanna make him uncomfortable.
But right now, Stiles felt that he wanted it. He really really wanted Theo.
Stiles moaned into their kiss and moved on to Theo's lap.
"Hmn, Theo... fuck." Stiles started grinding against Theo's lap.
"Oh, Stiles?" Theo took a good look at him.
"Theo! I'm tired of craving. I want do it." Stiles said, breathless and pupils blown.
"Are you... sure?" Theo asked a second time, albeit smelling Stiles' full blown horny, aroused, lustful chemo signal.
"Yes! This is included in the trial, right?" Stiles whined.
"The what, Stiles?" Theo wanted him to say it.
"The... you know!" Stiles was blushing really hard.
"I want you to say it. For verbal confirmation."
"Theo!... fuck... okay, uhm... S-Sex. Sex is included in the trial, is it?"
"Yeah. I wanna give you a full experience before the decision."
"Y-Yeah... so... Theo, please... fuck me."
"...Hmn!!! You have no idea how hard I was holding back!" Theo slapped Stiles' butt and smashed their lips together into a hungrier kiss.
Completely taking Stiles into a storm of lips, tongue, groping and hip grinding. Theo made him wrap his legs around his waist and carried him up to the bedroom.
On the stairs, Theo pushed Stiles against the wall and kissed and sucked on his neck.
"Hnn, I wanna fuck you right there and then back at the sofa, but you deserve a bed, Stiles."
"I kinda have a thing about getting shoved against walls."
Theo laughed "I kinda noticed." Theo unzipped Stiles' pants and let Stiles' hard cock spring out, a little bit of precum leaking out of the tip.
"Theo, please." Stiles gripped Theo's shirt.
Theo just smiled with a growl rambling from his chest. His wolf and coyote pushing him to go bring Stiles to bed and finally take him.
Theo gave in, took Stiles away from the wall and continued up the stairs then into the bedroom.
He set Stiles up against the door as he closed it. Stiles grunted a bit. Theo looked at Stiles' erection and licked his lips.
"I'm gonna suck you for a bit, okay? Don't cum yet." Theo winked.
"Wh-How?" Stiles was still being carried by Theo.
His arms around Theo's neck, his legs around Theo's hips.
"Just like this, Stiles. Carrying you. On my shoulders."
Theo then lifted Stiles higher, almost up to the ceiling.
"Holy shi-" Stiles gasped as he got hoisted higher. He's now propped up on Theo's shoulders. Hands holding into Theo's hair.
His legs sitting on Theo's shoulder, his hard cock perfectly in line with Theo's mouth now.
"Ohmygod!" Stiles exclaimed as he felt Theo's tongue lick his tip. He then followed it up with moans.
"Tastes good, Stiles." Theo praised him.
And then put Stiles into his mouth again. Stiles moaned louder and gripped Theo's hair tighter as Theo took him in deeper down his mouth.
"Ohshi-Theo!"
Theo kept bobbing his mouth up and down Stiles' cock.
"Theo!!! I cannot not cum!" Stiles warned with a tug on Theo's hair.
"Alright, you can cum, Stiles." Theo said before sucking him again.
Given permission, Stiles shot his load in Theo's mouth, trying real hard with the situation.
It ain't easy cumming if you're way up against the wall, riding on your wolf's shoulders.
'My wolf.' Stiles smiled to himself.
Theo let Stiles down gently back to their previous position.
"You were amazing, Stiles." Theo praised him.
Stiles perked up a bit on that. Theo smiled and then whispered...
"Now, for the main part..." Theo carried Stiles to his king sized bed.
Theo dropped him on it and started undressing himself. Giving Stiles a show.
Which Stiles greatly appreciated and watched intensely.
Theo smiled and took his clothes off slowy. Making Stiles gulp a lot of times every time a piece of clothing gets taken off.
Jacket. Shirt. Belt. Pants. Boxers.
Stiles let out a very appreciative hum when Theo stood there in all his naked glory.
Hard cock included.
"Hot damn!" Stiles said out loud.
Theo laughed a little and stalked closer to Stiles on bed. And then he glowed his eyes at Stiles.
'Oh shit! I'm gonna get devoured.' Stiles shook a bit when Theo grabbed his ankle.
"Relax, Stiles. I'll be gentle... as much as I can." Theo said as he ripped Stiles' pants off.
"Holy shit! 'Gentle' my ass!!!" Stiles argued.
Theo just laughed and ignored him. He then proceeded to rip Stiles' briefs off. And then the shirt.
"I loved that shirt!"
"Do you wanna get fucked or what?" Theo teased.
"I do. Yes, sir." Stiles behaved.
Theo laughed on his ear. Growling, he started at Stiles.
Kissing and sucking on his lips. On his tongue. Nipping on his earlobe and neck. While his hands slid on every part of Stiles' body.
Come to think of it, this is the first time he sees Stiles' completely naked, ready for the taking.
Theo looked back at Stiles naked on his bed. Horny and hot and anticipating him.
"Theo..." Stiles softly called his name.
Stiles' milky white skin now dusted a little pink from blushing. His nipples the same as the color of his lips, light pink, and taut too.
Torso slim and skin smooth, also littered with moles. Theo traced a line from mole to mole. Stopping on Stiles' happy trail.
Stiles moaned at that. It was so sensual, so high for him. He felt his already leaking cock bob and ooze out some more.
Stiles groaned and cursed. His hips bucked uncontrollably. Erection desperately wanting attention.
"Theo, please!" Stiles squirmed.
"Shh, I'll take my time. I've wanted you for so long, Stiles. So long." Theo licked his lips.
Stiles felt so vulnerable, so exposed to Theo right now. He's there, all naked and aroused, and making silly noises of moans and grunts and panting.
Theo slowly trailed his fingertips towards Stiles' cock. Which oozed out more precum. It looked so hard again even after cumming in his mouth a while ago.
The tip looking so pink. Theo traced the length up to the tip and down to the base with his fingertips. And up again to the tip, dipping his thumb a little into the slit.
"Fu-ahhh-ck!" Stiles covered his face with a pillow.
"Stiles, what are you doing? Take that pillow away. I wanna see your flustered face."
Stiles muffled a 'no' under the pillow.
"Come on, I want you to watch me." Theo said in a low, raspy, morning voice.
Which Stiles found to be so hot. He swore he could cum again just by all these, Theo's fingertips and voice alone.
"Stiles." Theo called again, then Stiles removed the pillow from his face and looked down at Theo.
"W-What-ohmygod!"
Theo started rubbing both of their cocks against each other. Stiles loved how it felt. His cock rubbing against Theo's cock.
Since he came in Theo's mouth a while ago, and he was leaking precum nonstop, it felt nicer because they're all slippery enough. The rubs and strokes went smoothly.
Stiles kept cursing and moaning. He's seriously doubting if he can survive this. Theo's gonna be the death of him.
And he isn't fucking him yet.
"Stiles, cum for me."
"Theo, holy fu-ahh!!" and Stiles did as he was told. He cummed, for the 2nd time.
Theo letting it drip all over his cock. When Stiles was done, Theo was all slicked up. Coating up some of his fingers.
"I'm coming in, Stiles."
Stiles was all sweaty and breathless and was covering his face with his forearm.
"I hope you're not tired yet." Theo said as he started lifting and turning Stiles' over on his belly.
Theo rubbed up against Stiles. Moaning at his ear. Theo hummed and slapped Stiles' butt and squeezed it. Stiles replied with a groan.
Theo then raised Stiles butt up, making him go propped on his knees and elbows.
He slowly traced a slick finger around the ring into Stiles.
Stiles shuddered from this new sensation. He's never done it before. Theo's gonna be the first one.
Theo made sure his fingers are slick and pushing in slowly. Slowly stretching Stiles. He doesn't want this to hurt too much.
2 fingers in, Theo observed how Stiles was taking it. Soft groans and a very faint hip buck.
That was a good sign. Theo then slowly took his fingers out and replaced it with his cock.
Slowly pushing past the ring of now loosened muscles.
Stiles moaned loud and gripped the sheets. He buried his face on the pillow that smelled so much like Theo. So good. Adding to the sensation.
Theo kept pushing in until he's all in. Theo could see Stiles feels a little stinging so he stilled his movements and let Stiles adjust to his size.
Theo leaned on him and kissed his neck, his back, kissing and sucking; leaving love bites everywhere.
When he heard Stiles moan and felt Stiles' hip push back against him, Theo began to move. He gradually moved in and out of Stiles. Loving every second of it.
Every second Stiles gripping every inch of him. Warm and wet and tight.
Theo kept saying how good it feels to Stiles ear. And Stiles agreed with him, Theo also felt so good.
Theo's thrusts became faster and harder, hitting Stiles prostate hard. Stiles was slowly going crazy from the pleasure. He couldn't even say a complete sentence, or a phrase. He could just moan and say Theo's name. And keep himself butt up through Theo's thrusts that are stronger and harder now. Almost knocking him forward every pump in.
Stiles was so drowned in pleasure that he didn't notice he cummed for the 3rd time. Spilling everything on to the sheets.
"Stiles... I'm so close." Theo warned.
"Y-Yeah!" Stiles
"Do you know what happens?"
"K-Knot."
"Yeah..." Theo pushed deep and slumped back down to Stiles.
Sending Stiles down to bed to lie on his belly. Theo, without pulling out, turned them over.
He now lies on his back on the bed. And Stiles lying back down on top of him.
"Holy fuck!" Stiles gripped the bedsheet.
"I'm cumming, Stiles." Theo warned.
Stiles felt Theo shoot and slowly swell. Stiles kept moaning and cursing. Theo kept whispering to him to stay still as possible so it won't hurt that much.
"You're so good, Stiles. So good. Stay still. You're doing great." Theo kept assuring Stiles.
Hugging him through it. Kissing and sucking on Stiles' earlobe.
Stiles was reaching back to Theo, holding onto whatever he can. Landing on Theo's thighs. And the heels of his feet, he planted and dug into the mattress to stay still.
"Theo... Theo... Theo..." Stiles kept chanting Theo's name while just taking in all the sensations he's feeling.
There's this pleasure and pain mix and it's driving his body to overload.
Theo sucked on a spot on his neck and stayed there the whole time the knot is on.
Only letting go when the knot subsided.
"Stiles?"
"Yeah?"
Theo turned them to their sides. "That was amazing."
"You're amazing." Stiles was in some kind of trance high.
"Only the best for you. All the time." Theo said in a low voice. That sexy voice Stiles swoons over.
"E-Every time?"
"Yeah, every sex we'll ever have."
"I'll dry out... ohmygod."
Theo chuckled and hugged Stiles to sleep.
And that was the first time they had sex in Theo's bed. And they did again some more times.
In Stiles' bed. In Theo's truck. In the woods. In the fucking woods near the lake.
Stiles was chuckling and moaning as he got railed against the big tree.
"What's funny, Stiles?" Theo was pumping him.
"Uh, just-I never thought I'd fuck in the woods-hn."
"Oh, I have more for you."
And Theo did. Fucking Stiles in places Stiles fantasize about and placed he never imagined doing it.
They've done it the bathroom, in the tub, in the shower against the wall. In the kitchen, counter, and table. In the living room, on the couch, on the carpet, on the coffee table -breaking the one in Theo's house.
In this hidden clearing Theo made in the woods. On Stiles' study desk. In the football locker room after a game.
And every time, Stiles fell deeper and deeper.
Theo just pulls all the right strings. Pushes all the right buttons. Does all the right things. Things Stiles needs.
Stiles reached a decision.
When the 3 months free trial was up, Theo asked Stiles again.
"So, Stiles, are you gonna continue your subscription or are you cancelling it?"
"Well... I'm continuing it, boyfriend."
"Tell me, Stiles. What was it? My pure intentions? My good behavior? My treatment of you? Or my impeccable love making?"
"You know, I could still break up with you, right?"
"You won't."
Stiles giggled. "By the way, I also came up with my term of endearment for you."
"Okay. Let me hear it."
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
"Mój kochany wilk." Stiles said something in Polish.
"Stiles..." Theo reached for his waist.
Theo was so glad because Stiles' chosen term matches with his.
"Now tell me, what's your term for me?"
"Mój księżyc."
Stiles' eyes widened. Theo just called him something in Polish back.
"You know Polish?"
"Of course, I'm not gonna be substandard for you, Stiles."
"Pocałuj mnie." Stiles requested.
Theo smiled and went in for a kiss.
-+-+-+ ( complete ) +-+-+-
disclaimer: I am not an expert in Polish language, phrases were googled and translated only.
Mój kochany wilk = my darling wolf
Mój księżyc = my moon
Pocałuj mnie = kiss me
thank you. more on my master list here
I also have an AO3 account
Like the gifs used here? See source under them. Reblog, do not repost. Thank you all gif creators here ♥️
55 notes · View notes