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softomi · 4 years

Text

Catfish

prompt: mother says to be wary of people you meet on the internet, especially since you never know who’s on the other side of the screen.

pairing: atsumu x reader

the unpaid extras: osamu, suna

general taglist: @graykageyama

Osamu liked to mess with his brother and lately he’s been planning the largest prank. It originally wasn’t supposed become a huge thing, but then Suna just kept edging him on; adding more things one by one and it just spiraled. Osamu was catfishing Atsumu with your pictures.

Now, Osamu knows that it sounds bad but technically you were in on the prank. You had never met nor even knew Atsumu, heck, you didn’t even know who Osamu was. You had been part of the prank merely through text messages and the occasional meet up with Suna.

To put it simply, Suna met you through one of his teammates; coincidentally you ended up in one of his classes and the two of you built a tiny friendship. Which was why, when Suna was thinking of the perfect person to catfish Atsumu with; your face lit up in his head.

You were the perfect candidate, exactly Atsumu’s type literally to a tee. When Suna pulled up your contact, the first thing he did was offer to pay you. Every picture you sent used for the prank, he’ll send you cash through an app and as a broke college student who needed cash fast, you agreed as long as the photos weren’t used for anything weird or sexual. He made sure to send you proof of each photo in use.

This brings it all back to dear Osamu catfishing his brother. He had created an entirely new Instagram for you, complete using your name and a cute description that him and Suna had spent two hours thinking of. They decided to even spend a few days perfecting it, posting pictures a few days apart with captions, following random groups, liking posts, essentially creating a whole new personality using your photos. Osamu had even developed a fake occupation for you; a foodie blogger to which some posts were dedicated to food reviews for restaurants Osamu deemed worthy of a post.

And when Osamu says that the prank spiraled; it fucking spiraled. Originally it started with Suna and Osamu following the account, suddenly Suna’s teammates began following the account. Osamu made the mistake of tagging Onigirl Miya in one of your photos, ultimately adding a few random people to follow the account. Suddenly after two weeks of having the account, you gained over two thousand follows.

It was no worries though, because Osamu can quickly catfish Atsumu, take down the account, and call it all good.

Safe to say, Atsumu accepted the friend request rather quickly. Osamu and Suna snicker to themselves, it took Atsumu less than five minutes to accept and he was already liking all of your photos. Not even ten minutes pass and he’s sliding into the DM’s.

The two men looking at the phone and burst into laughter. They spend five minutes cackling at Atsumu’s random ‘hey’ message that followed with a smiling emoji.

Osamu was absolutely entertained, it was hilarious that his own brother had fallen for his catfish and honestly, Osamu was ready to give up the act after three days but then Atsumu said something that just really pissed him off. He doesn’t remember what it was, he just suddenly ended up two more weeks later still having the fake Instagram account and still having Atsumu believe that he was falling in love with some girl.

Somehow the account ended up with over five thousand followers, Atsumu messages the account religiously, and Osamu for some godly reason is still managing the account three months later. It’s spiraled.

“I have a girlfriend!” Atsumu doesn’t know why his friend and brother are laughing. He’s scrolling through your Instagram, the catfish Instagram.

Osamu almost chokes on his food, “So what, have you guys gone on a date? Have you even seen her in real life?” Suna snorts into his drink, he coughs when he accidentally inhales the water sharply.

Atsumu slumps in his seat, his voice small, “No, but we talk every day and she likes me!”

Suna is coughing even harder now, tears threatening to leave his eyes to the point that he excuses himself to the bathroom. Osamu has a shit eating grin on his face, “How do you know she’s actually not some old dude catfishing you?”

“She’s not!” Atsumu stutters, “She’s real!”

“Prove it.”

Osamu was about to learn a harsh lesson about the world; the world loves to bite you in the ass when you least expect it.

Atsumu leans forward, an eerie grin on his lips, “Happily.” Atsumu whips out his phone, quickly presses a number and holds the phone to his ear. He holds a finger up to his brother, even gesturing for the returning Suna to remain quiet. The phone picks up, “Hey babe, you wanna meet me here at Onigiri Miya?” Atsumu looks at the watch on his wrist, “Twenty minutes? Perfect.”

Osamu’s believing his brother is bluffing. There was no way in hell he’d be able to somehow magically bring the catfish to life, heck, Atsumu would be a god if suddenly he could. Thirty minutes pass, Osamu is exchanging looks with Suna. It’s absolutely silent between the three.

Osamu is suddenly feeling guilty, Suna is uncomfortable to the point that he’s even texting you to make sure you weren’t actually coming, and you confirmed with him that you weren’t.

“Should we tell him?” Osamu whispers when another five minutes pass.

Suna is deadpanned, “I don’t know, we’re kind of reaching a sad territory now. Let’s just break up with him and ghost him.”

Osamu groans, “But do we want to deal with a sad Atsumu, I’ll take getting my ass kicked over him crying in my apartment.”

The door chimes and their jaws smack the floor. You walked through the door, eyes roaming the place before landing on the three huddled into the corner. Is he a fucking god? Atsumu stands from his seat, he meets you halfway, pulling you into a heartfelt kiss that has you swooning.

The closer you approach with Atsumu’s arm around your shoulder, the more they truly begin to believe that Atsumu is a god.

“Guys, this is my girlfriend.” This time it’s Atsumu who has a shit-eating grin, “Ain’t she a beauty, the pictures don’t do her justice.”

It takes everything in Osamu to not scream, “But, you said you’d never even met her before.”

Atsumu gazes into your eyes, hearts practically floating above his head, “I mean I guess technically this is our first-time meeting, right?”

You nod, a puppy like expression on your face, “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet. You must be Osamu.” You point to him then your fingers drag to the other male, “Suna.”

“Oh.” Suna sits straight up, “Oh!” He catches the glint in your eyes, the conniving little minx of a look. Suna was no longer calm, “We’ve been double crossed!”

There’s screaming, fingers are being pointed at each other, Atsumu is gripping Osamu by the neck of his shirt, Suna is literally calling your phone to make sure that it’s actually you, Osamu is pulling his brother’s hair. The customers of the restaurant stare with their jaws dropped at the scene.

Everyone is squished into Osamu’s small office. Suna is sitting on the desktop, Osamu in his chair, Atsumu in the spare seat, and you lean on the arm of Atsumu’s chair. His arm dangles around your waist, pulling you to lean on him with a cheery grin.

Atsumu leans forward, taking in the expressions of the two bewildered boys, “I guess let’s start at the beginning.”

While the story technically began three months ago with Suna asking for your cooperation, the story of you and Atsumu began two months ago.

The extra cash from all the pictures you sent Suna was giving you enough to be able to go out and live a little on the weekends. Originally the bar was dead, you and your friends were tucked into the corner in a booth when a rowdy bunch of men came in. Your friends gasped having recognize them as members of a sports team and with their excitement, they must have won a game.

It didn’t affect your group that much until it came to split ways; being in your last year of university, you excused yourself, insisting that you needed to go home to finish a project. As you stood at the register, card tapping against the counter, that was when he showed up.

At this point, Atsumu had spent the past hour believing the gods were on his side. He practically walked by your table ten times just to make sure the face matched the one in his instagram’s DM. After forty minutes of the constant back and forth, your quick gazes at him walking by the table seem to do nothing. Were you unable to recognize him?

He took his shot watching you stand alone at the counter. He finishes off his drink and smoothly strides to you.

“Hey!” Atsumu leans on the counter, flashing a smile despite alcohol dripping from the side of his mouth, “Wouldn’t you consider this fate?” He gestures between the both of you.

You’re confused, shooting him a puzzled gaze, “Sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else.” You hand the card to the worker, anxiously eyeing the male who’s increasingly invading your space.

Atsumu places a hand on the small of your back, it was something Instagram you had mentioned you liked, instead it triggered a fight or flight. Your hand makes harsh contact with his cheek, he retracts his hand immediately.

“Don’t touch me!” You bark at him, “Perv.” You’re aggressively signing the receipt, storming out of the door while other men seem to ooh at Atsumu’s situation.

“Hey!” Atsumu catches your figure outside of the bar, you’re waving a hand to catch a cab, “I think we got off on the wrong foot there.”

You don’t give him a second glance, “Look, I don’t know who you think you are.”

“Atsumu.” He stands right in front of you, blocking your sights for a cab. He’s got the widest smile on his face as he holds out a hand, “Miya Atsumu. Volleyball player. Setter for the Black Jackals.”

“Okay.” You run a hand through your hair, oddly taking his hand into a shake while eyeing him, “Miya Atsumu, volleyball player, setter for the Black Jackals.”

You step to the side, arm out still trying to catch a taxi but he blocks your way once more and he looks at you with such wonder. His eyes practically having stars coming out and his smile warm and inviting. He was wondering if you were a twin, maybe he had actually gotten the wrong person.

“You are?”

The wind is causing your hair to blow in your face, he wants to so bad to brush the strands behind your ears but the way you gave him a slap earlier makes him think that’s a bad idea. Your fingers pull your hair back, “Y/n. I don’t have a fancy title like yours but, I guess I don’t know, senior to be graduating at the university.” You sidestep him once more, “I’m just trying to catch a cab home.”

Once more he blocks your way and you look at him with defeat. He was persistent. He laughs, “Sorry, last time, but do you not know me?”

You’re still as confused as ever, “Look if you’re going to pull some cheesy line about seeing me before, it’s not going to work.”

“Wait, just hold on a second.” Atsumu pulls out his phone, his fingers are shaking as he presses onto the app. He pulls up your profile, handing you his cell phone, “This is you isn’t it?!”

Your eyes scan the social media page, your mouth falling open, there’s a hidden laugh itching in your throat. These were all the picture you had taken for Suna and somehow, you’re being shown by a stranger your fake profile.

“We’ve been messaging for like a month, I can’t believe you don’t recognize me.”

I don’t recognize you because I’m not the one talking to you.

You’re perplexed, you weren’t sure what you were supposed to do, if you told him he’s being catfished you’d lose the flow of side cash you’ve developed but if you didn’t, isn’t that just wrong. And the more you look at him from under the stars, he’s rather cute; you suddenly feel bad for slapping his face earlier.

“Do you want to get some coffee?”

Your offer sends him over the moon, he’s walking alongside you to the nearest convenience; Atsumu is rather talkative, bringing up topics of everything and anything that comes to his mind. As the two of you look over drink options in the cooler, his hands pull two cans of black coffee.

“You’re favorite right?” He holds one out to you.

Your actively smiling, biting your lower lip and wondering if you needed to play along with the role but as he stares at you with such adoring eyes, it makes your heart skip a beat just taking in the fact that he would remember something trivial over text.

“Actually.” You place the drink back, opting for a sweeter caramel macchiato, “I would say that this is my favorite.”

Atsumu quirks a brow, “Are you saying you were lying to me?” He places a hand over his heart, “And here I thought we were soulmates.”

Your hand smacks against his arm, “Shut up.”

“So what are you studying for?” Atsumu sips his drink, the two of you leaning against the windows of the convenience store. There’s a slight sway in his body and you’ve unknowingly followed his movements.

“Literature. Once I graduate, an internship is probably where I’ll start but I’m hoping I can get hired into a publishing company.” He’s comfortable to be with and you aren’t sure if it’s because he thinks he knows you or because his presence is just like that; comfortable.

Atsumu finishes off his canned beverage, “And you do that, all on top of running a foodie Instagram.”

From what you gathered on a quick skim of the account; they have your occupation as a lower level food blog; it’s rather funny. You can only nod to him, “It’s just a side hobby really.”

“Well maybe I could join you on one of your little adventures.”

You try to suppress the immense grin that wants to grow on your lips, there’s an internal battle happening of whether you should tell him or not but once again, the way he looks at you, the cute doe eyed look; it puts butterflies in your stomach.

“How about tomorrow?” He lets out a small gasp, your hands pull out your cell phone and offer it to him, “Your number?”

“I’m free for lunch, just text me when and where.”

You press the number he’s inserted into his contact; in a second his cell rings and he’s showing off his screen, “Don’t message me on Instagram though, I’m detoxing from social media for a bit. Just, text my number.”

He walks you to the curb, helping you flag down a cab, and you give him one last gleeful glance before getting into the car. As you sit, you’re quick to dial Suna’s number. You know he’s probably sleeping but the light feeling in your heart overrides his sleep schedule.

“What?” He’s groaning.

“Suna listen to me carefully. The prank that you guys are doing.” You hear a small snore, “Suna!” He jolts awake and you groan, “You know what, go back to sleep.”

“Thanks.” He hangs up immediately.

Your phone dings, Atsumu’s name pops up. Can’t wait for our date. You bite on your thumb, a smile on you before you respond.

Although having just seen him forty minutes ago, you two text back and forth. First he wondered if you arrived home safe, next he sent pictures of himself insisting it’s for you to choose for his icon, then he proceeds to narrate his way home. You wonder if you’re responding like catfish you but the more he brings up random topics, the more you forget about that stupid prank.

Wait let me call you.

Your heart beats faster, your phone lighting up with his name. You press the answer button slowly, “Hello?” You giggle.

“You’re telling me that you like spikers more than setters.” His voice is nearly screaming and you lean back on your chair laughing into the phone.

The quick research you did on his team had you watching short videos, and while you had to admit it was amazing to watch, your eyes drifted more to one of his teammates than him, “What’s his name?” You lean to look at your computer screen, “Bokuto Koutarou?”

“No!” He’s whining out into the air, “If I had known you were a spiker girl I would have changed positions.”

Your eyes catch the time on your laptop, “Woah. It’s three in the morning.” That meant you had spent over four hours total texting him and now you were on the phone with him, “What are you doing awake?”

He blows out a breath of air, “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Well.” You draw out the word, dragging your self to your bed, “I’m going to go to sleep now.” There’s a pause on the line, “Atsumu?” He hums tiredly, “Good night.”

There’s a small snore from him before he shifts around, “Good night.”

The morning light urges you awake, for a second you peak at your phone’s time and it nears ten in the morning. You’re about to throw your phone back onto the bedside table until Atsumu’s name catches your eye. For having gone to bed at three a.m. he shot you a text at seven.

Morning beautiful.

It was sweet, simple, and it made you smile; giving you the extra push to get out of bed. You stalked your own catfish page, there hadn’t seemed to be any updates so there was still time. A quick search of the internet has you picking out a random restaurant nearby and you send off a text to Atsumu about a meeting time.

You were late, pushing through the doors of the restaurant, your eyes scan the place to see him raise a hand for you. He’s dashingly handsome despite being in casual wear, you wonder if he spent time like you did just trying to pick out an outfit or if he spent forever gelling his hair as long as you tried to get your strands into the perfect waves.

“Sorry, did you wait long?” You pull into the seat in front of him.

He’s smiling and you hope to god that when you break the news to him, he’ll still smile for you, “I just got here not too long ago too.” He looks over the menu quickly, “What do you think you’ll get?”

You inspect each dish, a light hum on you as you dance around the option, “The spaghetti sounds nice.”

Atsumu tilts his head, “It has red meat in it.” You stare blankly at him, “Aren’t you allergic to red meat?”

“Oh.” You set the menu down, “Actually.” He follows your actions, you’ve become nervous at what you’re suddenly about to do, “There’s something you should know.”

“Fuck this!” Atsumu throws the napkin on the table, you jump as he harshly stands, throwing the chair back.

“Atsumu.” You stand.

“No! Don’t. Were you just messing with me then? Did Osamu tell you I was going to be at the bar last night?” Atsumu’s fist ball, “You know what, whatever.”

“Wait.” You follow him behind, “Atsumu. I’m sorry.”

He harshly turns to you, god, even in sunlight you were beautiful to him. He wants to laugh, the month he spent talking to the fake you; yeah that was all bullshit to him but honestly when he saw you last night, when he spent over four hours actually talking to you; he actually felt that maybe this could be something deeper.

“I’m really sorry, I know I should have said something right away.” You have a soft pout on you and it makes him outwardly groan.

He runs a hand through his hair, “Okay, it’s fine. I probably deserved this prank too anyways; must have pissed him off somehow.” He waves a hand, “You can just go back to doing whatever.”

Your hand pulls on his wrist, “I owe you a meal.” You bat your eyes with a cheeky grin, “If you take pictures of me, we can send them to Suna and use the money for our food.”

“Oh.” He begins to smile, “I like that idea.”

Back into Osamu’s office, Atsumu has now pulled you onto his lap, your head resting on his shoulder with arms hanging around his shoulders. The two bachelors stare at the sickly loving sight.

A lightbulb goes off in Suna’s head, “Wait! My money!”

You snort a laugh into Atsumu’s shoulder, “Hey, I earned that fair and square. You paid for goods.”

Osamu is having a staring contest with his brother, “So you two have been actually dating for two months? Why would you still message the catfish account then, why not just kick my ass when you found out?”

Atsumu taps a finger on his chin, “Well, I was just originally going to ghost you guys but then babe here and I discovered that we could fund all of our dates with Suna’s money. We even started setting aside leftover cash from our dates to plan a trip.”

You giggle, “We’re going to Disney next weekend.”

“All the pictures.” Suna whispers.

There’s an amused hum in your throat, “Honestly I’m surprised you guys didn’t figure it out. We were dropping hints in the photos.”

Indeed, the two males looked at the pictures you sent them. If they backtracked to two months ago, there wouldn’t be any hints but the closer they get to the present; it was painfully obvious. They were just too caught up in their excitement to even notice. In one photo, part of Atsumu’s shoulder and hair was just barely in the picture; another had his reflection vividly displayed in the window of the restaurant, and somehow Osamu and Suna missed the obvious Black Jackals jacket sitting on the back of the chair next to you.

The two boys were having a mental breakdown.

You shifted on Atsumu’s lap, leaning forward to tap against the top of Osamu’s phone, “Now, if you’d please deactivate the account since this whole charade is over.”

Osamu ended up not deleting the account. He set the account to private because seeing how his brother was so deeply entranced by you, Osamu had a feeling this one was going to last and he was right; on Atsumu’s wedding day, his little best-man speech had him whipping out the catfish Instagram to display on the monitor for everyone to see.

#haikyuu #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu scenarios #osamu #suna #atsumu

696 notes · View notes

xsamuu · 4 years

Note

HEYYYYY!! I saw your ask box was open and I was wondering if I could request a headcanon? Where the reader is in a massive fight with a friend they haven't seen for like 3 years and the friend takes it too far by saying something like "That's your boyfriend? How gross" "Ew why does he look like that? Couldn't grab someone better? Ugly ho" or whatever you come with? Tendou, Bokuto, Kenma, Kags, Nishinoya please, if you will?

I screeched when I saw this omg thank you I hope this is up to your standards bebs 😼👍🏾 but uh I should say some did come out a little bit like scenarios but I tried to stick to headcanons sorry for that still hope you enjoy 🎃😼

~Admin Rizzo

Tendou Satori

-you was minding your own business walking through a park your hands intertwined with your lover when a ✨m u s t y✨ old friend you knew had decided to share there unwanted opinions

-Tendou could see how uncomfortable you was and wanted to remove you from the situation but as he went to walk around the obstacle you stopped dead in your tracks

-“That’s who your with oh my god that’s fucking gross, I guess you’ll hook up with anyone you thot”

-It’s safe to say that tendou had come up with thousands of insults by the time the slur left there mouth

-Who even was this person?— WAIT WHO THEY CALLING A THOT?!

-you wasn’t a very confrontational person but nevertheless you wasn’t about to let this person who wasn’t even in your day to day life anymore talk smack about your man

-you went to retaliate when a big arm swooped around your shoulder catching you off guard

-“Babe lets go I wanted to bring you to the park today not a circus” 🤡

-Needless to say your ‘friend’ was shocked and maybe a little intimidated

-You on the other hand had to summon all the strength in your body not to laugh in there face

-With his arm still wrapped around he moved you away from the situation the both of you quickly changing the subject to something more important

Bokuto Kōtarō

-Bokuto loves spoiling you

-your the love of his life and he will make sure you know this not only through his words but also his actions

-this however works both ways there isn’t something you wouldn’t do to show him how much you support and love him

-You was sitting in the crowd at one of his games it was a very important one winning this match would definitely get him recognized by some powerhouse teams

-every time he would score a point for his team he would look up at you and every time you would be there imitating his celebration “HEY HEY HEY THATS MY ACE” You felt only pride and absolute infatuation with this man

-you was cheering your heart out when you suddenly felt someone bump your shoulder (a little too hard to be an accident—)

-You swung your head around only to come face to face with an old friend from middle school they looked bitter asf and your conscience was telling you to just ignore them

-“Oh you have nothing to say to me now Huh? I see your at another one of these boring ass games I thought you didn’t have time for people?”

-It’s true at one point you did say that but you didn’t think you’d loose one of your closest friends because of it even so you continue to ignore them hoping they’d get the message and leave

-they didn’t.

-“So you and number 4 are together I’m assuming. I guess ugly attracts ugly”

-immediately you saw red but you couldn’t ruin this for bokuto important people were here. As if he could sense your distress he shot his eyes up to where you were in the stand

-He called a time out, and started running out the gym everyone was confused but when he reappeared in the stands you knew all to well that he had caught on

-“Babe I just noticed your supposed to be closer to the match your an important guest” he smiled you mouthed him a thank you and gathered your things walking a few rows closer to the front

-Thankfully Akaashi was there looking up at you distracting you. The owllike man glared at your old friend “I don’t know what you did to Y/N but you better leave before you have another problem”

-When you looked back your ex friend was nowhere to be seen you giggled as bokuto gave you a big kiss before returning to the court

Kozume Kenma

-Kenma isn’t a contentious person in fact he would much rather settle an issue in the most inconspicuous way possible

-Even so if he feels that him or his partner was disrespected in anyway he will not hesitate

-You and Kenma was at a gaming convention you had been planning since the beginning of February (it’s now late April)

-You had sat through the entrance ceremony and was walking around admiring all the stalls and you were both having so much fun

-Kenma had left you for a split second to get someone’s autograph it was the animator from a game he played religiously you didn’t mind you stayed put and was scrolling through your phone

-“Long time no see y/n” you lifted your head to the sound of your name being called and made perfect eye contact with an old ‘friend’

-If you were being completely honest you hated them all they did was make you feel like an inferior insect whenever you two were together you hummed a ‘yo’ before going back to your phone

-“Still a quiet freak eh LuLu I guess you here on your own or something”

-Lulu was the name of a magical girl from a cartoon you used to love but upon finding out people would use it to mock and degrade you

-you was gonna walk away the ridiculous nickname when you heard a familiar voice

-“no y/n is with me and you are?” It was a genuine question but anyone who didn’t know Kenma would take his pack of expression as bored or sarcastic

-The person scoffed and pointed accusingly at Kenma “That’s who your with LuLu you couldn't do any better HE’S JUST AS LIFELESS AS YOU ARE”

-You tugged on Kenma sleeve motioning to just leave as you felt uncomfortable but Kenma wasn’t having it you had been so excited to be here and with him and this nobody came out of nowhere and started harassing you

-“Listen um going to say this in a way you could understand— he smirked at you and then opened his mouth again

-What escaped his mouth next left you shocked, scared, a little embarrassed for him even but mostly touched

-he cleared his throat

-“lifeless. I’m not lifeless in fact I have a burning hatred for you right now. And that why I feel no guilt in what I’m about to do.”

-You gulped and held on tighter to kenma’s sleeve mentally preparing yourself for what he was about to do

-“YoU HaTe LuLu’S tRanSforMatiOn sOng?!” He practically shouted. Instantly a horde or gamers, writers, weebs and more bombarded the area shouting and screaming and causing a scene

- From all the commotion it’s sounded like your ‘friend’ was ok but some of the words leaving the mouths of the mob were kinda cruel

-you smirked and Kenma led you away

-You know he doesn’t like being the center of attention but he still protected you and for that you’d be sure to thank him for that

Kageyama Tobio

-Kags never really liked leaving you behind when he had to go to different countries

-without you it made him anxious and you would reassure him that you’d be fine and eagerly awaiting his return

-Including the return of his big, fat juicy—

Ahem heart 🙂

-You had been sitting in a café Face Timing him

-You’d often have dates like this and you both enjoyed them you was talking to him when someone took up a seat next to you

-“Hey Y/n funny running into you here” a familiar voice echoed

-A w k w a r d you hadn’t seen or heard from this person since a fight you had a couple years ago why now?

-You had nearly forgotten about your boyfriend on the other side of your iPad screen until “Oh you bought a friend y/n”

-you was at a loss for words but before you could answer the unwanted annoyance to your left answered for you

-‘We’re not friends y/n cut me off because she’s toxic” it took kageyama a solid 10 seconds to realize that this wasn’t a real friend and that you were silently asking for help

-You rested your head in hand obscuring the person from kags field of vision therefore blocking there vision of your face and boyfriend

-hoping they’d get the message without you having to vocalize it

-they stood up and you let out a breath you didn’t know you was holding

-“I wasn’t checking out your friend don’t worry he isn’t my type I prefer cute boys” they spat

-Before you could even assess the fact that they pretty much called your boyfriend ugly you was already pissed at the fact that they referred to kags as your friend

-you stood up abruptly and it’s like they were waiting for you to loose your cool all hope was lost when you heard him clear his throat

-“[there Instagram name] Damn you was easy to find. I liked you post”

-You felt a tinge of confusion race through you but watching all the blood in there body rush to your friends face made you curious

-“DELETE THAT RIGHT NOW” people were definitely looking in your direction

-“Leave then I will” Now you was curious what the help did he do?

-seconds, literal seconds. The annoyance was nowhere to be seen

-“Kags..wha—”

“I shared there IP address in the comments :p”

- “PFFT kAgS!”

Nishinoya Yū

-Noya made sure that you felt like the only person in the world before he asked you out, so when you started dating you didn’t think he could get any more protective over you

-You was sitting in the cinema with him both smiling and listening on to the movie

-He fidgets a lot in his seat but you dont mind you know he cant help it besides you find it cute he is just so full of energy

-“Babe imma go to the toilet be right back” he kissed your cheek and left

-you continue to watch the movie until you feel someone slither into the seat next to you and hearing the voice your your temples irks and your expression one of annoyance

-One of your ex friends for how many years ago had to be in the same theatre at the same time on the SAME FUCKING DAY

-they didn't seem like they were moving so you just spoke first

- “can i help you.?”

-No response :/

-You were even more irritated than before

-Noya came back a few minutes later and noticed another person had sat right next to you

-Noya is dense VERY VERY DENSE he assumed you ran into one of your friends so he didn't question it

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

-After the movie finished you grabbed your things and rushed to get out of that situation

-The same person had finally said something after a whole hour

- “That’s who you came with.. You really know how to pick em an annoying toddler really Y/n your honestly pathetic--”

-It didn’t bother Noya he has been called short all his life this isn’t any different but this rando was obviously upsetting you and he would NOT have that

-Noya would step infront of you and confront the person they get a warning

-one fucking warning

-If they don’t take it i shit you not noya is going for the ankles periodt

- “I DONT KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE BUT YOUR UPSETTING MY PARTNER THE FUCKING DOOR IS BEHIND YOU SO TURN AROUND”

-Noya looked like the aggressor and its safe to say he may have caused a scene but he would be a fool not to step in and protect you with all you got

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intomymindspace · 4 years

Text

Video Games ✰ Tendou Satori

Video Games covered by The Young Professionals

tendou satori x gn reader

Through the Summer and the Fall // Haikyuu!! Songfic Series

a/n: hi everyone, I'm sorry for a posting a week late! I’ve been really unmotivated as of late for personal stuff but also because I'm lowkey still a little bummed that my Bokuto fic (definitely totally am not plugging it rn - totally do not click the link, ahaha 🥺) didn’t do as well as I hoped it would. But no matter! Here is the Tendou insert, as promised! It’s not the best, and I definitely have a bit of writers block and am behind schedule. I wish I could write his character and for him better considering how much I love him. Next will up be flattykawa 😌 and I will be posting it hopefully soon to help make up for last week’s missed post. I've also changed up this blog and have given it hopefully a better look - there is a new theme on desktop!

Warnings: part 3 spoilers for jojo’s bizarre adventure that include character death, my bb tori being insecure about him and his body but I love him and his flat a$$ so much, and as always, we clown on flattykawa in this household but all in good favor

It was a rainy day, and Tendou was quiet and content as he sat on your bed, reading the new Weekly Shonen Jump magazine that he had just been mailed. He had let Ushijima read it earlier - but as always, he only read the advertisements. You sat beside him on the floor, his long legs dangled off the edge of your bed, his foot brushing your arm every now and then. You were playing the new otome game you had bought a week ago on your console. On days like this, the two of you often fell into comfortable silences when hanging out with each other - and today was no different. There was nothing to do other than school work and go to practice - but even then, it wasn’t necessary for the third years to attend anymore. Not since they lost in the finals against Karasuno.

He was pulled away from the panel he was reading when he heard you gasp - his crimson eyes flitting to your monitor to see what had happened.

“What happened?” You turned around to look up at him, an excited look on your face.

“Murasame Jinnosuke confessed his love for me! I didn’t expect it to happen so fast into the game.” He looked back at the screen to see a handsome samurai on your screen. Snickering, Tendou ruffled your hair.

“Good job, now just see if you can get a real guy to confess his undying love for you.” Squinting at him, you slapped his leg playfully.

“You’re supposed to be nice to me, Tori-kun.”

“When am I not?”

Ever since you had taken the place of Shiratorizawa’s volleyball club manager two years ago as a first year, you quickly bonded with the strange amalgamation of players. It had been a running gag between the third year players to find out what type of guys you liked. You could always be found on your phone during breaks playing otome games - and that was the beginning of the years of playful torment from your fellow classmates.

It wasn’t that you weren’t attractive or that you didn’t gain attention - every Valentines Day you always received several confessions and chocolates, but you always rejected them as kindly as possible. For someone who played as many otome games as you did, they were surprised to say the least when you had always declined the advances of many classmates, saying that they just weren’t your type with a kind smile on your face.

It was Tendou’s turn to squint as he turned his attention back to your screen as you continued to play through the game. He scoffed at some of the things the fictional samurai said to you - what was so special about him anyways?

This is my idea of fun

Playing video games

Tendou shut his manga volume, and he noticed your curious eyes looking at the cover. Smirking playfully at you, he poked your forehead.

“Suddenly interested in pirates?” You sat back, rolling your eyes.

“Maybe. Who’s the character on the front?” He stared down at the covered, humming.

“Shanks. Say, I never thought you were one to go for a tough-looking guy.” He held a mischievous grin on his lips.

“Ha! Sure. Keep thinking that, Tendou.” He feigned a gasp.

“You used my last name too? With no honorific? No nickname? The rudeness! I’m so hurt!” You couldn’t help but egg your friend along.

“Hmm, maybe I should start watching One Piece if he’s in it…” But before Tendou could clap back, Yamagata slid into the seat next to you, a teasing smile on his lips.

“Ah, so that’s your type, huh? Tough-looking guys with scars?” You rolled your eyes at the libero. “I’m pretty tough too, aren’t I?”

“As if.” But it didn’t stop them from the teasing.

So what if you maybe did prefer more muscular guys? Tendou didn’t understand why the thought hurt his feelings so much. He may not have the bulging muscles, but he was just as strong. He sighed to himself, watching you from across the table as you shoved Yamagata playfully. Why would you want to like someone like himself anyways?

It's you, it's you, it's all for you

Everything I do

Tendou entered your dorm room unannounced as he always did - but this time he was surprised to see you in tears as you huddled in your blanket, staring at the tv. The first thing you usually did was banter with him about his bad habit of not knocking, but all he could do is stand shocked in your doorway.

Instantly, his gleeful eyes turned blood red. Shutting your door behind him, he quickly made his way over to you, his eyebrows furrowed, a scowl on his lips.

“Who do I have to beat up?” A million thoughts were running through his head - were you made fun of? Did someone reject you? Did you receive a bad score on an exam? He wrapped his arms around you the second your tear-filled eyes looked up at him.

“Who did it? Who hurt your feelings?” His genuine care and questions only made you cry harder into his chest.

“Dio.” You said, but it was too muffled for him to hear. Pulling back, he gave you a quizzical look. You pointed at the scene that was unfolding on your tv.

“Dio killed Kakyoin.” Tendou immediately smacked a hand to his face. His eyes flickered to the screen to see a tall, muscular character slumped against a water tower, a hole in his torso with text on the screen saying “Kakyoin Noriaki has died.” He couldn't help but laugh.

“You want me to beat up the mighty and powerful vampire lord and stand user, Dio Brando? For killing the guy who licks cherries weird?”

Slapping his arm, you pouted at him through your ugly tears. “Don’t make fun of me! I really liked him.” Tendou kept on snickering as he rubbed your back.

“I know, I’m sorry. But it’s just too funny to just not tease you.”

As ridiculous as it sounded, Tendou wondered if you would ever cry for him the way you cried for Kakyoin. He smiled to himself as he stared down at your face that was still buried in his chest - he hoped you wouldn’t notice how fast his heart was beating at the notion of you coming to him for comfort.

Maybe your type was animated men.

I tell you all the time

Heaven is a place on earth with you

Tendou put his jump comic down and just watched your gameplay - he was too distracted by his thoughts of you to focus on the new chapter of My Hero Academia.

He couldn’t help but pine over you. You had been so open and kind to him from the first time you met him - he remembered that day with ease. You had looked so confident walking into the volleyball gym, introducing yourself to the players as their new manager.

He was genuinely surprised that you weren’t turned away by his quirks - and he was thankful that above all, you treated him just like you treated everyone else.

It seemed so easy for you to become friends with the other first years at the time. You found commonalities with each of them, and you even managed to break Ushijima out of his shell by the time you all first went to nationals. Tendou remembered the hours upon hours that the two of you spent together - whether it was hanging out in the dorm watching animes, giving him tips and encouragement on the court during timeouts, or quality conversations on long bus rides to and from games. If you had never joined as manager, Tendou would’ve never guessed that the two of you would become as close friends as you were now. And he had always been a good guesser.

As he stared at you, controller in your hand, he remembered why he realized he liked you so much - it wasn’t because you shared a strong love for manga and anime. Okay, well, maybe it was, but it wasn’t the commonality. It was because you understood and even empathized with escaping through these fictional stories.

He knew what it was like to want to escape - to want to find paradise away from everyday life. On the court, Tendou could sneak into the small slice of heaven that he visited when he played volleyball. Off the court, he wanted nothing more than to have you safe in his arms as the two of you escaped into the world of whatever show you had chosen to binge that day.

To him, you were just as heavenly as the defeated looks on his opponents’ faces that he craved to see - maybe even more.

Tell me all the things you want to do

I heard that you like the bad girls, honey, is that true?

You squealed excitedly as you waved the game in front of Semi’s face after practice had ended.

“Semi-semi! Look what just came in the mail!” He pushed your hand out of his face, scoffing.

“I can’t see it if you’re rubbing in my face like that, idiot.” The setter had a smile on his face nonetheless, making you laugh as he took a look at the game. His eyes widened.

“No way, Castlevania Judgement?!?!” You nodded proudly, smiling at Tendou and Ushijima as they walked over to see what the commotion was about. The middle blocker gawked at the game you held in your hands - the third years had been talking about the release of it for at least a few months now.

“You jealous? If you want, we can play after dinner.” Semi quickly nodded, and you looked at Tendou and Ushijima for their answers.

“What, when have I ever said no to wanting to play video games with you?” To his reply, the captain simply nodded.

“Thank you for your invite. I am happy to attend as well.”

Tendou and Ushijima sat on the edge of your bed as you and Semi sat in front of your tv, switching the controller after every chapter of the game. Ushijima had no interest in actually playing the game - and Tendou knew he would get a chance to play with you later. Semi was more excited for the game than he was anyways.

You couldn’t contain your excitement as you gushed over one of the main characters, Simon Belmont. From the looks of it, he was a powerful fighter - and Tendou sighed once again - he was super muscular and tough-looking too. You were too invested in the gameplay with Semi, that you weren’t paying attention to the conversation Tendou sparked with Ushijima.

“I don’t get what’s so special about him anyways.” The redhead had a pout on his face, his arms crossed. Ushijima was very aware of the middle blocker’s crush on you - his friend often coming to the captain for his advice. While Ushijima had almost no experience and knowledge at all in terms of dating, he was always observant of the people around him, and was very blunt.

“Tendou-kun, if you like them so much, it would just be better to ask. It is pointless to be jealous over every fictional character they like.” He couldn’t help but gawk at the monotonous tone and the serious look on his captain’s face.

“I’ll raise you a better one. It’s pointless to ask because their standards seem to be so high anyways.” Ushijima couldn’t help but stare at his friend.

“And why should that stop you? They’re not real.” Tendou sighed, exacerbated.

“I get it, I get it! I know they’re not just going to pop out from the screen or anything.”

“But?”

“But that doesn’t mean those aren’t their same standards to people they prefer in real life,” Tendou admitted, and Ushijima knew he hit the reason why. Tendou may be tall, but he was lean and lanky. The muscle he had was nowhere near that of any of the fictional guys you crushed on. What could you possibly want from someone way weaker - someone like him?

“They are not the type of person to go completely for the way someone’s body appears. If that were the case, they should’ve confessed their attraction to either myself or Yamagata by now, based on your logic. Besides, they told me they liked you.” Tendou couldn't help but roll his eyes, placing a hand over his heart.

“Wakatoshi-kun, you wound me. Of course they like me - they wouldn’t be my friend if they didn’t. Couldn't you at least sugar coat your advice sometimes?”

It's better than I ever even knew

They say that the world was built for two

Before the prefectural qualifiers in the fall, Shiratorizawa managed to snag a practice match with none other than Aoba Johsai. While there was clear tension throughout the entire time, the teams kept interactions outside the court lines as light-hearted as possible. Seijoh managed to snag victory during the first match, but Shiratorizawa hit back just as hard, winning the second match.

The boys were currently loading their bags into the bus as you supervised them, reminding them to triple check that they had everything. You were almost caught by surprise when a volleyball rolled towards you, hitting the back of your foot gently.

“Sumimasen.” You heard from several meters behind you, making you turn around. It was the Great King himself, Oikawa Tooru, that was slowly jogging towards you - it almost seemed like he was doing it in slow motion. Your fellow teammates heard the setter, their eyes sneakily following him as he got closer to you. They couldn't help but snicker at their so-called sworn enemy - it was obvious by the way that his aura sparkled around him and the smoulder on his face that he had rolled the ball your way to get your attention.

“I’m so sorry, could you get that for me?” You nodded, a polite smile on your face. The great Oikawa was definitely handsome, to say the least - and Tendou couldn't help the childish frown that filled his features. As you picked up the ball and handed it back to the setter, he flashed you a heart-stopping, pearly white smile.

“Thank you,” he said, taking the ball from you, brushing your fingers in the process. “You are the manager for Shiratorizawa, right? I didn’t catch your name earlier.” Oikawa ran a hand through his silky hair as you gave him your name.

“Wow,” he flashed you another smile, “such a beautiful name for someone just as gorgeous.” Semi couldn’t help but let a snort out at Oikawa’s compliment.

“Thank you.” You took the complement in stride, deciding it would be nice to say something back. “You played great today, Oikawa-san.” He laughed jovially.

“Thank you, you’re very kind. And cute. Would you be interested in catching boba with me sometime? I know a cute place that has good milk tea and milk bread.” Tendou rolled his eyes at Oikawa’s words. It probably was his plan all along - to try to bewitch the manager of Shiratorizawa. When Tendou saw a smile grow on your face, he couldn’t help but feel defeated. Were you actually going to say yes to him?

“I’m very flattered Oikawa-san. But I’m sorry, I must decline your offer.” Oikawa’s eyes widened in surprise. The Great King? Being rejected? “You’re not really my type.” You turned around, making your way onto the bus, leaving Oikawa with his jaw on the ground, the ace on Seijoh’s team as well as your teammates laughing their asses off at the scene that had just unfolded in front of their very eyes.

“That’s what you get, Crappykawa! You should’ve gone to Shiratorizawa!”

“Iwa-chan, that's not funny! I feel like my heart has been broken into thousands of pieces!”

“Well, if they’re gonna hit it, they better hit it til it breaks!”

“Pfft, I’m actually not surprised they didn’t say yes to him.” Semi commented, placing his duffle bag into the storage compartment. Tendou’s head quirked at the statement.

“Why’s that?” Reon asked, storing his things as well, making Semi and Yamagata snicker.

“Did you see how flat his ass was? I’m 100% sure their type is thicker guys. Like their ace, or something.” The three of them burst into laughter, Tendou only slightly laughing along as well. Ushijima only grunted in disagreement as he shut the compartment’s door.

“I believe their type is actually redheads.” All of the third years looked at their captain with wide eyes and dead silence - before laughing even harder. Semi slapped Ushijima’s bicep lightly, bending over. Tendou’s eyes widened - Ushijima was not the type to joke around, right?

“I didn’t think you actually knew how to crack jokes, Ushijima-kun!” The olive-haired man only looked down at his fellow third years in confusion.

“I am not joking. I simply just decided to ask them earlier, and I am only relaying the answer they gave me.” They couldn’t help but bend over, Yamagata even wiping tears from all the laughing.

“Stop! Your bluntness is only making it worse!” By the way the rest of his teammates reacted, Tendou believed Ushijima really must have been joking - in his own way. He had just picked a hair color different from Oikawa’s, right?

“Good one, Wakatoshi-kun.” Tendou let out a chuckle, giving his friend a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Only worth living if somebody is loving you

And baby, now you do

Tendou’s eyes widened as he relieved all the memories. Was Ushijima actually serious? He had never asked his friend about it - but perhaps it was because he was too scared to actually know the truth. Quickly, Tendou pulled out his phone and googled each of the characters - Shanks, Kakyoin, and Simon. The samurai was still on your screen, and he flipped through the tabs on his internet browser, trying to find the similarities.

Obviously, they were all built rather strong - but Tendou couldn’t get what Ushijima said out of his head. They were all redheads, after all. Why hadn’t he noticed this before? He looked back at you, your attention still on the otome game. Should he ask you? Would it be weird? Tendou thought about texting Ushijima, but he quickly decided not to. He already knew what his friend would say. Right after he called your name gently, you set down the controller and turned to look up at him.

“What’s up, Tori-kun?” He had never felt this nervous before - it wasn’t even like he was going to confess to you or anything either.

“Uh - what’s your type? Like, in guys? I promise I won’t tease you this time, I just want to know.” Surprisingly, you smirked at him. What were you thinking?

“You gonna brag to Eita and Yato that you finally found out after all these years?” The apparent blush on Tendou’s cheeks only spread further.

“What? No, I wouldn’t do that… Unless I had to,” he said, trying his best to come off as his usual teasing self. This only made you snicker at him.

“I’m surprised you guys haven’t beat it out of Toshi-kun yet. I already told him a few months ago.” Tendou’s eyes widened at what you said.

“Huh?” You rolled your eyes at him.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t believe how casual you were about it. You were always so hellbent on keeping it from them - but perhaps it was because they made such a big deal out of it in the first place. Tendou didn’t exactly know how to respond to you - he was still trying to process the realization. So he had guessed wrong this whole time?

After sitting in silence for a couple of seconds, you gave him a playful smile. “Redheads,” you said, turning around and picking up your controller. Ushijima’s words echoed with yours in his brain.

Besides, they told me they liked you. Tendou let out a choked noise.

“I’ve made a mistake!”

You burst out laughing at Tendou’s exclamation. Setting your controller down once more, you stood up and turned, leaning your elbows against your bed. “You guys really are that oblivious, huh? Even Toshi-kun saw that I liked you. He went so far as to ask me about it too.” You propped up your head with your hand, staring at him. Getting past his initial shock, Tendou settled back down.

“How shallow of you,” he teased, leaning his head closer to yours. “I can’t believe the only reason why you like me is because my hair is red, yanno?” In return, you inched your face up closer to his as if you were challenging him.

“I know,” you said smugly, your eyes flickering down to his lips, “I’m such an awful friend. I’ll only break your heart once I replace you with another redhead.” He smirked as he noticed where your eyes had glanced. Tendou may have been oblivious, but he wasn’t called the Guess Monster for nothing.

“I’m guessing that you want to kiss me right now, hmm?” He asked quietly, dangerously moving closer to you - your faces now only mere inches apart. A blush crept onto both of your cheeks. You answered back, your voice nearly a whisper.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself, Guess Monster?”

Immediately, Tendou closed the distance between the two of you. Your lips were warm and soft, making him wish he had at least put on chapstick earlier. His heart was beating so hard inside of his chest that he was afraid you’d hear it, but you said nothing as the two of you pulled away. Saying nothing, he only smiled as he traced his fingers up your neck, cupping your jaw. Pulling you into a deeper kiss, he sighed contentedly as he felt your hands trail up his torso.

Kissing you felt like paradise.

As always, thank you so much for reading!! please like, reblog, and follow 🥺

~ Crystal

through the summer and the fall masterlist

blog masterlist

buy me a ko-fi! (but only if you want to and can)

BONUS

The following day, Tendou met you at your door to walk with you to lunch. With your hand in his, the two of you took your sweet time making your way to the cafeteria to meet up with the other third years. Today, Coach Washijo had asked for them to play a practice match against the Miyagi first years he was holding a training camp for. You decided to tag along since you had nothing planned to do for the weekend.

As you talked about a weird dream you had, Tendou couldn’t help but gaze adoringly at you - he couldn’t believe that you liked him, or that you were actually dating him now even if it had only been about twelve hours. The two of you waited in the lunch line, his chin resting on top of your head as he held both of your hands from behind you - it felt so natural to touch you. He could tell that people were staring - but none of it mattered when all he needed was the sound of your excited voice and the blatant look of love in your eyes.

Stepping away from your back slightly, he moved forward to gently place a kiss on your cheek - and that's when he heard the yells. The both of you turned to find your fellow third and second years staring at the two of you with wide eyes and mouths catching flies. Goshiki accompanied the team as well, his face beat red. Ushijima was behind the flustered first year, a rare half-smile on his face.

“Afternoon guys!” You had said it so casually as you leaned back into Tendou’s arms, allowing him to place a cheeky kiss on your temple - making Semi gag and Yamagata nearly tear up.

“I did tell you all that they preferred redheads.”

#tendou x reader #Tendou Satori x reader #tendou imagine #Tendou Satori imagine #tendou reader insert #Tendou Satori reader insert #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu reader insert #through the summer and the fall #intomymindspace #tendo x reader #tendo satori x reader

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theartistichuman · 4 years

Text

Tma 200 spoilers

I might post this to my ao3. This is a rough draft so please ignore the subpar writing.

Summary-

Melanie and Georgie heal.

They never did find the bodies in the end. That’s not for lack of trying; they scoured every inch of what used to be The Magnus Institute. They found a plethora of tapes, and some preserved Leitners (Georgie insisted on throwing them out, despite Melanie insisting that they were safe, and even if they weren’t they couldn’t hurt her anyways) but not a single body. Not even of the previous archivists.

Neither of them knew exactly what that meant. Georgie stayed stubbornly optimistic, but Melanie knew better. Georgie may have had her encounters, but Melanie almost was an encounter. She knew what it felt like to be afraid of what you’re becoming, but to want to hurt people anyways. She knew what it felt like to want to burn the world around you, and just keep walking. Melanie wanted to believe what Georgie did- that those two were dead and at rest- but she didn’t have the hope to keep it up. Not like Georgie did.

It takes time to make a new normal. Most days it felt like the world was holding its breath; waiting for the moment that their rest would be interrupted and they would be dragged back into their fear. Georgie started going to therapy, and seemed all the better for it. Melanie saw a psychiatrist every month or so for a check up, but after spending so long with Laverne worshipping her, she knew she needed a bit more time. It wasn’t good to put it off, but Georgie (and, by proxy, Georgie’s therapist) insist she take her time.

Georgie starts her podcast up after Melanie scolds her for getting stir crazy (employment was still fickle). She changed the theme, citing t that people probably wouldn’t want to speculate about the supernatural after they lived it. Instead she starts inviting people to send in her stories.

“Community counseling”Georgie told her over their celebratory dinner (dinosaur chicken nuggets and boxed wine) “people might feel better if they get their stories out there.”

Melanie highly doubted that, but she was the first guest on the newly rebranded ‘What the Apocalypse’ anyways. (It did make her feel better, but she suspects Georgie knows without her admitting it.)

The Admiral is different from how he was before. He didn’t pounce on things and his separation anxiety got so bad the vet put him on meds. The Admiral didn’t seem to like the dark much either, but according to Georgie that might not be because of the end of the world.

Every morning they take their meds together at breakfast. Melanie (with the assistance of her Scanmarker Air, that she refers to as her “sketchmarker air” to Georgie’s dismay) gets The Admiral his tuna, as Georgie makes them cereal.

Every evening they sit together and listen to their favorite books. Georgie will order them Hungarian on Fridays, and Melanie buys a cat carrier for The Admiral for Tuesday walks. It feels like family, and Melanie loves it so much it hurts.

Basira wanders in an out of their lives. Melanie isn’t sure what she’s up to, but she seems lost. Before she always seemed headstrong and powerful: like she knew where she was going and why. But now, without the pressure of the world on her shoulders, Basira seemed... timid almost.

Whenever Basira came over Georgie and Melanie would bring out their board games. They would drink an obscene amount of apple juice, and laugh until the sun came up. Basira never stayed past that, and they never asked her to.

One day Georgie interrupts their newfound evening “Melanie, we should talk.”

“About.....?” Melanie tries to point her face at where she approximates Georgie’s is. Georgie gently touches Melanie’s chin and guides her face up.

“Up here babe,” she says, fondly, “but I’ve told you that you don’t need to do that.”

Melanie knows she doesn’t need to do it, but the hand on her skin makes it worth it.

“I know.” She says back. “But I’m being polite.”

Georgie snorts. “Polite? You? You made Martin cry in your first week of work.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Melanie takes the hand on chin, and rubs her thumb across the knuckles. She ignores the small pang of loss she feels at his name. She thinks that in a different life they would’ve gotten along, maybe even been friends. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Martin, actually. Well, Martin and Jon.” Georgie said. “I was thinking, and I understand if you disagree, that maybe we could... do something for them? Like a funeral or memorial or something? Maybe even just a headstone or something.”

Melanie opens her mouth to respond, but Georgie rushes in before she speaks.

“And I know you and Jon never got along, but I just think that after everything he deserves it. And even if he doesn’t , Martin certainly does. Even if neither of them deserve it I think it would help. My therapist told me I need closure, and I just thought-“

“Babe, babe, slow down,”Melanie interrupts, “I’d love to. Even if Jon and I... even if he was a bit of a wanker, he did sacrifice himself to end the apocalypse. And. Well, I just think t-that-“

Melanie stutters to stop for a moment to think. Georgie seems to understand that she’s not done, and squeezes her hand. Melanie takes a deep breath before continuing.

“I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up. Or after that. It was just me and my dad. When he died, they told me- they told me I couldn’t bury him. I couldn’t even have the ashes. Some bullshit about how he was part of a crime scene, which, looking now, didn’t make any sense. Not that I had enough money or time for a funeral, but... well, any closure would have been nice. I just- I just- I just don’t think I could let anyone close to me go un-un- I don’t know it’s just... it’s just bad.” Melanie winces a bit at her ending.

Georgie doesn’t say anything. Her hand stills from where she was playing with Melanie’s fingers. Melanie realizes a little belatedly, that she’d never talked about her father’s death with Georgie. After all they’d been through it seemed almost silly that Georgie didn’t know.

“And even if Jon was a wanker, Martin certainly wasn’t.” She tacks on in attempt to lighten the mood.

Georgie snorts at that. “Jon was... an acquired taste. He was a lot less uptight in University, but good god sometimes you could actually see the rod in his ass.”

“Hey!” Melanie says in mock offense “don’t speak ill of the dead!”

“You literally just called him a wanker!” Georgie retorts.

“Yeah but I’m allowed to! I don’t like him!” Melanie smacks her arm.

“Anyways. What do you want to do for them?” Georgie says once she stops giggling. “I was thinking a headstone, but that might be too much upkeep.”

“And people may not take kindly to a memorial to ‘The Archivist’ and his plus one.”

“Exactly,” Georgie agrees, “ so out with it. Give me an idea, oh wise prophet.”

Melanie pinches her hand. “Shut it, you. Maybe- maybe like a... bench or something?”

“A bench?” Georgie says teasingly, “that’s the best you’ve got? Not so wise after all.”

“Okay prophet, what have you got?”

“Maybe we could do something here? Like a photo album or something.”

“We don’t have any photos of them.”

“We could, like, write a heartfelt letter and burn it.”

“Maybe.” Melanie says with no small amount of suspicion.

“Okay, fiiiine maybe I don’t have any ideas.” Georgie relents.

They sit in silence for a bit after that. It should be uncomfortable, and probably would have been if it wasn’t Georgie and Melanie. Eventually Georgie gets up to find her phone so they can listen to the next chapter of their book. Melanie tries to lie down in the warm spot Georgie vacated, but The Admiral had already taken up the vacancy.

Melanie’s head lands in his soft fur, and he chirps inquisitively before curling around her head. Melanie buries a hand in his fur, and he rewards her with a content purr.

“Comfortable?” Georgie says when she re-enters the room. Melanie groans.

“Yes yes you fuss pot. Ready for our next chapter?” Georgie sits on the edge of the couch by Melanie’s head, and when she starts to pet her head, Melanie wishes she could purr like The Admiral.

Georgie snorts. “I think I might have a type.”

“And whats that?” Melanie nuzzles further into Georgie’s hand.

“Yeah,” Georgie pokes her cheek, “my type is ‘cats re-incarnated as people’. You can’t tell by looking at him, but Jon would absolutely melt at the slightest hair petting.”

Melanie is just about to protest being compared to Jon when an idea hits her. She sits up abruptly, and she hears Georgie give a little gasp in response.

“That’s it!” Melanie shouts.

“What’s it?” Georgie says, almost as loud.

“I’ve just had a great idea.”

Melanie gives her proposal, and even though she can’t see it, she knows Georgie is smiling the rest of the night.

—————

A week later, Georgie and Melanie walk into their apartment with two boxes. They would have just used one, but they were nervous the little ones would fight in the car ride that Rosie graciously provides them (with the payment of demanding photos).

And so Jon and Martin entered their lives.

One of the kittens is sleek black with golden amber eyes and short hair, and the other is white with blue eyes and so much fluff that he looks three times the size he really is. There were more kittens in the running, but these two were at the top (according to Georgie, they were basically photo copies of their namesakes), but Melanie decided these were the two when the woman at the desk told her they were inseparable.

They were worried about how The Admiral would react to their new additions, but it was proved irrational within three hours. The Admiral seemed to take a liking to them immediately.

“Maybe it really is Jon.” Georgie jokes when she stumbles on the three cuddled together. “Sometimes I thought The Admiral liked him more.”

(That was obviously false; anyone with -or with damaged- eyes could tell The Admiral adored her.)

They barely had to make an adjustment to their routine- the only real difference was the number of bowls during breakfast, and the number of feet that pattered in the halls.

Basira didn’t know what to make of it at first, but Georgie later told her that she stumbled in on Basira apologizing to Jon. Neither of them judge her for it; both of them did the same thing when they got him.

The days stretch to weeks, and the weeks stretch into months. Melanie goes to therapy, and attempts to keep houseplants. Georgie records her podcasts and teases Melanie when she fails to keep a cactus alive. Together they make their home with new cat toys (that The Admiral still refuses to play with), a cat tree (which the Admiral is more than interested in), crotchet throws from Rosie and the occasional mug from Basira.

One morning Melanie wakes to find the last bit of residual anger in her gone, and when she cries Georgie holds her tight.

Melanie loves it so much it hurts, and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

#the magnus archives #the magnus pod #tma #what the gfs #what the ghost #fanfic #jonmartin #wtgfs #Georgie barker #Melanie king #Melanie is trans #just assume she’s always trans in my fics #this is my first Magnus fic #I didn’t edit this at all #what the girlfriends #Melanie/Georgie

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idontblushsrry · 4 years

Text

Inuyasha Characters As Roomates

In honor of yashahime’s release i’ve decided to post this for no real reason.Can you tell who my bias is lmao. Lmk if I should do a Part 2 with the people I missed. Also I apologize I haven’t updated in like a year I have a post addressing this coming up soon. Thank you for your continued support despite the fact that I’ve been updating infrequently, I really appreciate it. Without further ado:

Warnings: Some swear words oop

Word Count: 1632

Inuyasha

You want Inuyasha as your roommate???Chile anyways...

No but fr tho in general Inuyasha isn’t an awful roommate, he pays his bills on time(ususally), doesn’t make too big of a mess but that’s just because he owns like 3 things and 2 outfits.

No, the real problem with Inuyasha is that he is LOUD

You walk outside to throw the trash away and he’s in his room screaming about a video game or something and the WHOLE neighborhood can hear him.

People pokin they head out in concern and everything

Another time he was watching a horror movie and you guess the characters did something stupid because you hear a scream from the character and then Inuyasha screaming “WHAT THE FUCK, WHY WOULD YOU GO THAT WAY DUMBASS! THAT’S WHY YOU’RE DEAD NOW!”

Shit woke you up out of your sleep

After that incident you knew you’d have to ask him to be a bit more considerate of your eardrums.

So, you ask him to quiet down and he pouts like a child and huffs and puffs.

He does quiet down tho...for about 2 minutes until he stubs his toe on the end of the couch

God bless you and your patience but god bless his girlfriend Kagome

She’s a saint

If it were up to Inuyasha your groceries would consist of a cabinet of ramen like the man has the budget for ramen and paying his share of he bills why would he spend money on things like fruit???

This is where Kagome comes in, she comes by pretty regularly and she brings food or groceries because she of all people knows how terrible Inuyasha’s shopping habits are.

Bless her soul truly and every time she does this you thank her lmaoo

Inuyasha eventually does move out with Kagome but he does apologize for being loud before he leaves, you aren’t sure if he did that on his own or if Kagome made him do that

Kagome

She’s so sweet

Fair share of chores, groceries, she cooks for yall sometimes, truly a saint

Only 2 problems:

Ms. Girl has no moneyyy

Poor Kagome, she always tries to pay her bills on time but between trying to feed Inuyasha, helping out her family, and school the paycheck only spreads so thin(She does eventually quit school to start working more but)

Nothing wrong with this but you do end up having to cover for her sometimes.

She of course thank you and you don’t usually mind and your routine was functional for you two, until you meet problem number 2

The loudest mf on the planet Earth, her boyfriend, Inuyasha

One day you’re in he kitchen grabbing something to eat and you hear pounding on the door like the police showed up.

You proceed cautiously because...what the fuck and you almost reach the door before you hear

“I’ll get it!”

You’ve never seen Kagome run faster

She opens the door and you see this 5′5 mf who was banging on the door like he paid the bills

Inuyasha just has rbf but you don't know that so you think he’s making faces at you

Immediately you have a problem with him

“Hey Kagome, who’s this?”

She looks between you two before immediately rushing to introduce you to each other

“Oh, I forgot my purse be right back guys.”, Kagome left not knowing that yall were about 2 seconds from fighting

You didn’t like Inuyasha for banging on the door and glaring and he didn’t like you for glaring at him

After that you just avoided talking to inuyasha for the sake of keeping the peace

When he came over you exited stage left

Eventually Kagome does move out with Inuyasha and she asks why you and Iuyasha had never spoken to each other

“Are you kidding me the first day we met he was already glaring at me?!”

“Ohhh, that’s just his face, he’s really sweet promise :D”

You doubted that

You liked Kagome as a roommate but you were glad she was moving out so you could find someone who could pay the bills on time.

Sango

She a baddie ngl

Aside from that, Sango is the perfect roommate

However, I hope you aren’t allergic to cats or Miroku because they’re pretty much a package deal

Also hopefully you don’t hate children because she does have Kohaku to worry about

But she makes pretty good money at her job so expenses aren’t a issue

She also isn’t home too often between her job, taking care of Kohaku and Kirara, and her relationship

She ends up spending more and more time at Miroku’s place anyways

Sango finally moves in with Miroku when she gets pregnant, yall still keep in touch tho because you’ve become good friends

And thus you say goodbye to the best roommate to ever grace this Earth lmao

Miroku

Miroku is the shortest lasting roommate on this list

Mans is a little creeper pervert and that shit gets annoying after a while

You’ll be walking out the shower and Miroku’s standing there like “hey lil mama lemme whisper in ya ear”

Needless to say you smacked the taste outta his mouth and he stopped with that real quick

He stops but you’re surprised when you see Sango come over

Your hand starts itching with the urge to slap him again...

You meet Sango and what she sees in him is... baffling, scientists to this day still don’t understand

Baby girl, you’re Sango do better, self love

Anyways, Miroku moves out eventually and he takes his nasty ass ways with him

Later you find out that Sango moved in with him and sje’s gon have a baby by him

But you know that’s none of your business

Koga

If you thought Inuyasha was loud...

Inuyasha doesn’t have any friends, Koga has a wolf pack...

Parties all the time good luck homie

If you were tryna study, sleep, do work, etc. best wishes lmao

You come home and mans got 2 random people over like how ya doin O-O

“Hello”

“Where’s Koga?”

They point to the kitchen and you head here ready to just “talk” with Koga

He turns around and gives you the cutest smile known to man and you immediately lose your will to argue

Can’t argue with a man that beautiful sorry...

Anyways besides being loud af, Koga is HYPER

Mans is up at 5 am knocking on your door like “hey you wanna jog to the gym”

“No Koga, goodnight”

‘No problem, it’s the morning btw!”

He’s actually a decent roommate and he moves into a bigger house with his friends and calls it the ‘pack house’

He actually invites you to come move in w him and his buddies

You tell him you’ll think about it

Sesshomaru

The king of “I’m better than you”

He has his life so well together and you’ve gotta give him props

Mans is basically Caspar the Friendly Ghost of roommates

Does he actually live here? the lights stay on and his name is on the deed so... I guess

Seriously tho, Sesshomaru doesn’t need a roommate but he does need someone to mind Rin

You might ask, what about Jaken, Jaken is busy (following Sesshomaru) or so he claims

Sesshomaru isn’t too bad honestly he covers the majority of the expenses in exchange for you watching Rin and feeding Ah-Un

So you’re basically Rin’s stay at home nanny

But you don’t mind because she is a SWEETHEART

Ah-Un isn’t too bad, just feed 2 lizards

(Although depending on who you are feeding them bugs might be your worst nightmare)

Jaken and you buttheads all the time, it’s almost comical

The times you interact with him mainly consist of you telling him to leave Rin alone or him telling you something Sesshomaru said

Speaking of Sesshomaru you don’t see him often and the only times you hear from him are in the form of notes he leaves around the house to the degree of ‘I fed Ah-Un this morning’ or ‘Make sure Rin takes her vitamins’

The other times you “hear” from him are when Jaken comes by saying things like ‘Lord Sesshomaru has requested that you prepare Rin to go out’

And for a while you were like who tf does he think he is because like yea he pays most of the rent but like he isn’t paying you for this so why does he think he can order you around indirectly

The first time you see Sesshomaru, it’s late and Rin’s been asleep for hours.

You walked into the kitchen and didn’t bother with turning the lights on but then you heard the smallest shuffle and a groan

And the moonlight comes through the window at the perfect angle and it reflects so beautifully off his silver hair

He turs some and you see his face and immediately take back all the times you’ve cussed him out mentally

And the you realize you’re in your pajamas staring at this man you’ve never met before that’s sleeping on the couch. For all you know he could be some random guy who broke in

He looks so peaceful that you loathe to disturb it but you poke at him w a stick and he groans out something to the tune of “Go away Jaken”

“I’m not Jaken”

He immediately sat up and stared at you like he was trying to figure out who you were in his head for a moment

“Don’t you want to sleep in your room?” you asked him. He stood up and begun to walk towards his room in response

You just watched him walk away but before he turned the corner into the hallway you swear you heard him say “You should get some sleep too.”

#inuyasha imagines #inuyasha imagine #and they were roommates #sango #miroku #sesshomaru #koga #koga inuyasha #kagome #inuyasha

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cryptidshuffle · 4 years

Text

the less we say about it the better - chp 1

ao3

Rating: Teen Fandom: Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware Relationships: Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman (pre relationship) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Temporary Character Death(its benrey dont worry hes ok), meta about deaths and respawns, arguing about the rules of uno, gay pining, Mutual Pining, fellas is it gay to comfort ur friend who u love and are both boys?, also fair warning it'll eventually be a poly ship with benrey, Autistic Character, Autistic Tommy, ADHD Gordon, everyone is gay and trans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

Summary: “after everything we’ve been through we deserve a few mental break downs.” they are trying to recover after black mesa, but recovery is hard. especially when one of you is still dead

---------------

They had been out of Black Mesa for a few weeks now. It was difficult trying to acclimate to life after the incident, but they were all making it work.

The science team had gotten together for some sort of game night, something cathartic about being around others who share the same trauma. Anyways, snacks and Uno was just as chaotic as one would imagine with this group of chucklefucks, with competitive tensions high on the last round of the night.

“You can’t stack the draw 4 cards, Gordon,” Bubby argued, smacking Gordon’s hand just as he placed the card.

“Says who?”

“It’s literally against the fucking rules of the game,” Bubby said back.

Tommy agreed with, “It is in the official rules, Mr. Freeman, they- Mattel confirmed it on Twitter.”

“But that’s dumb!” Gordon argued back, “I’ve always played where you can stack those, why change that now?"

Bubby retorted, “Well maybe you’ve always been playing wrong, huh? Ever thought about that, smartass?”

Dr. Coomer chimed in with, “Well on the official page for Uno (card game) on Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, it states that

The following official house rules are suggested in the Uno rulebook, to alter the game:

Progressive Uno: If a draw card is played, and the following player has the same card, they can play that card and "stack" the penalty, which adds to the current penalty and passes it to the following player.[4](Although a +4 cannot be stacked on a +2, or vice versa.)[6] This house rule is so commonly used that there was widespread Twitter surprise in 2019 when Mattel stated that stacking was not part of the standard rules of Uno.[6]”

“Well, there you have it,” Gordon exclaims, interrupting Coomer’s Wikipedia infodump, “Just because it’s a house rule doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate way of playing."

“What if I don’t want to play with that rule, that’s fuckin stupid,” Bubby grumbles.

“Jesus ok, I'll play a different card, happy?” Gordon says dejectedly, taking back his controversial draw 4 card for a more innocuous one. “It’s your turn anyways.”

Bubby throws down his last card onto the pile. “I win fuckers!!!! Ahahahahaha!"

“You wouldn’t have won if you let me stack the fucking cards,” Gordon said as he threw his losing card pile onto the coffee table.

“Don’t fret Gordon! Bubby is just extremely good at card games,” Dr. Coomer replied.

“You're forgetting I’m a goddamn genius, that extends to my sick-ass Uno skills,” Bubby bragged.

Gordon chuckled, watching the two older scientists get up to leave, and watching Tommy remain, quietly cleaning up the uno deck into neat piles to place in its box.

“Well gentlemen, it’s been fun, though I think it’s time Bubby and I better get going!” Dr. Coomer said.

“No problem, don’t want you two to be late for your old man early-bird breakfast at Golden Corral tomorrow!” Gordon teased.

“Shut the fuck- I’ll kick your ass,” said Bubby.

“Hello Gord- Actually our old man breakfast is not until Saturday! It’s the one day a week I let loose and unhinge my jaws at the buffet like a Burmese Python!” said Dr. Coomer as Bubby grabs his coat and keys.

“That sounds absolutely horrifying,” Gordon laughs.

“It really is,” says Bubby. “Well, see you later asshole,” Bubby says, herding himself and Coomer out the front door.

“See you guys later,” Gordon says.

“Goodbye, Gordon! Goodbye, Tommy,” Coomer also says, before they leave Gordon’s apartment.

Tommy had yet to get up to leave, he stayed sitting in his seat staring into space, and fiddling with the Uno card deck.

“Hey Tommy, you alright man?” he asked gently. At the mention of his name, he was shaken a bit out of his stupor.

“Y-yeah I'm fine Mr. Freeman, why do you ask?”

“I mean you were kinda just staring into space for a bit, and you didn’t say anything when Bubby and Coomer left.”

“Oh shit. Sorry about that, I’ll get out of your hair,” Tommy said, starting to move to leave.

Gordon placed a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “Hey, if something’s bothering you, just know I’m here if you wanna talk about it,” Gordon comforted.

Tommy blushed slightly at the contact and nodded.

“Thank you. I-uh… I’ve just been thinking about things that happened back in Black Mesa and, you know,” he pauses to think for a bit, and sighs, “honestly I’ve been thinking a lot about Benrey.”

Just at the mention of him, Gordon felt his stomach drop with the weight of too many emotions.

“Yeah...I uh… I understand,” he responds with a sad sigh, “anything in particular you’re thinking about him?”

“I don’t know just kind of- Earlier I started thinking about how much he would enjoy game night. And then I started to miss him and realize that- that he’s not here. I feel guilty about killing him and upset at what he did. He was still my friend and I just- I want to know why he did what he did. I just want to understand,” Tommy said.

Gordon looked away as he thought about his own emotions regarding Benrey. He was undeniably angry with him, for getting him ambushed by the bootboys, for getting his arm cut off, frustrated with the constant taunting. Yet… he also felt guilty for some reason and he couldn’t quite place why. Gordon really didn’t want to feel guilty.

“Yeah…” Gordon sighed, “I'll be honest I do feel guilty about it too. I don’t know why because I feel like it should be justified since he did try to kill us. But there were times when him pestering me about my arm felt like… like sincere questioning? I still… I don’t know.”

“Yeah… I think-” Tommy cut himself off, staring at a fixed point in his vision, trying to decide whether or not to bring this up.

“I don’t think Benrey understood how human mortality worked.”

Well, that wasn’t what Gordon expected. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he was from Xen, Mr. Freeman, he wasn’t human. It was different for him. You remember he did die several times, but he came back eventually. He had to wait for his form to regenerate.”

“Wait-” this time Gordon cut Tommy off, “Oh shit, that wasn’t a joke? For some reason I just assumed his talking about respawns and shit was part of his Epic Gamer bit?”

“I mean it was a little but I think… there’s probably a reason Benrey attached himself to video games so much, yeah? He can see himself in the structure. Like, uh- something he can relate to.” Tommy says. “It doesn’t excuse what- what he did, but I feel like knowing why things happened makes- makes them more understandable.”

Gordon leaned back on the couch blown away by the revelation. In hindsight it wasn’t that surprising but it took him a few seconds to come to terms with the reality.

“Yeah, when you put it that way, I guess it does make a lot of sense. Wait though, I swear to god all of you have died at least once, but you guys aren’t from Xen?” Gordon said, now confused about the seeming metanarrative of the mortality of his friends.

“Yeah, but those were weird Black Mesa things, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said, not elaborating any more than that.

Gordon waited a beat for Tommy to explain more but he said all he needed to.

“I will ask you more about that later, but I do not have the energy to unpack all that right now,” Gordon said with a gentle laugh.

“Wait, getting back on topic real quick, why couldn’t Benrey just... respawn now? Did we really get him that good?”

Tommy looked incredibly sad when Gordon said this, and he regretted it immediately. ‘Damn it Gordon, Tommy’s clearly upset about Benrey, you don’t gotta be an insensitive dick.’

“Well Mr. Freeman, that’s kinda why I’ve been thinking about him,” Tommy said, “I’m not sure. It shouldn’t have taken him this long to respawn. Depending on the amount of damage it takes longer but… It’s been a while and what if- What if he is back but he is mad at all of us and that’s why we haven’t seen him? Or what if it is taking a really long time because we hurt him a whole lot. Or what if we…”

Tommy got quiet for a few seconds, the silence in the room was deafening. For an instance Gordon felt as if making a sound would shatter the air like glass.

Tommy finally said with a whisper, voice thick with choking back tears, “What if we killed him for good? And I don’t- I never see him again?”

It honestly broke Gordon’s heart how distraught Tommy was. Pushing his own complicated Benrey feelings aside, he was gonna focus on Tommy here and now.

“…Tommy, is it ok if I hug you, man?” Gordon couldn’t think of the best way to comfort the other man with words, but physical comfort he could do.

Tommy looked a little surprised at this ask but nodded. Gordon leaned in to hug the other scientist and Tommy collapsed in his embrace, completely breaking down.

Gordon just sat there and held him as Tommy sobbed into his shoulder, trying to comfort the crying man by rubbing circles into his back.

Gordon’s brain processed the things Tommy had said. Was Benrey really gone? Why did he feel guilty about the idea of having killed Benrey, he was fine with the concept during the final boss fight on Xen but now… the thought made him feel… sad? Regretful? Even his seemingly rational justifications didn’t seem as clear at the moment, only thinking of his fonder memories with Benrey.

‘Fuck this,’ he thought as he felt his own tears well up, ‘this isn’t about me, I need to focus on being there for Tommy,’ pushing his own feelings to the back of his mind to be dealt with later.

Tommy eventually calmed down enough where his sobs turned into sniffles, and he started to pull away from the hug.

“S – sorry for having a – a breakdown on your- on your couch Mr. Freeman,” Tommy said, the post-crying mental fog making his stuttering more noticeable. Tommy didn’t really have the effort in him to care.

“Don’t worry about it, man, after everything we’ve been through we deserve a few mental breakdowns,” Gordon joked trying to lighten the mood.

“Oh, that was nothing, Mr. Freeman, in terms of mental breakdowns that was as mild as a first-grade pizza party in the eye of a hurricane,” Tommy compared in a way that made little sense to Gordon, yet ridiculous enough to cause the man to burst out laughing.

“Alright I’ll take your word for it,” Gordon said, still laughing.

“I’m serious Mr. Freeman, once you have a meltdown so intense that you accidentally teleport yourself to an inter-dimensional void, the rest is a cake walk at the school fair,” Tommy said.

“Waitwaitwait- teleport?” he leaned back to look at him in surprise, “Since when could you fuckin teleport!” Gordon asked caught off guard.

“You know, learned some things from my Dad,” Tommy said, again failing to further explain himself.

“…Well alright. Yeah that tracks.”

Gordon was quiet for a moment before responding with, “You know, Tommy, I want you to know I’m here for you if you need anyone to talk to. You were there for me when I was at my lowest in Black Mesa, and I wanna be that friend to you if you need it,” he said giving the other scientists hand a comforting squeeze.

Tommy smiled, “Thank you, that means a lot Mr. Freeman.”

“You know you can call me Gordon, you don’t have to be so formal all the time Dr. Coolatta,” he teased.

Tommy blushed, ‘dammit why did he have to be so cute?’

“Wow Mr. Fr – Gordon are you really gonna make fun of my doctorate that I worked very hard for,” Tommy teased back, still a bit sniffly from crying.

“Dude, I cannot imagine you in college for some reason, what was your doctorate even in” asked Gordon, semi-jokingly, but still a bit serious.

Tommy laughed a bit, wiping the remaining tears away with the back of his hand. “Bio-chemical engineering. Creating Sunkist was for my thesis project.” Normally Tommy would be more then willing to infodump about the topic but he found his energy to be draining fast.

“What the fuck, that’s cooler than mine was. Us nerds in the Theoretical Physics department didn’t do any crazy shit like that,” Gordon said.

“Bold of you to assume I was a nerd, G-Gordon. I was the craziest guy in the frat house,” Tommy said.

Gordon’s memory vaguely recalls Tommy’s insistence that he “do something crazy” when drinking Darnold’s Potion of Grow Gun Arm.

“You know what, yeah, surprisingly I can see that image vividly in my head,” Gordon said. “Real talk though…” he said changing the subject and putting his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, “Are you- uh, ok? Like feeling better?”

Tommy was quiet for a second, eyes flickering down to look at his fidgeting hands in his lap, before replying with, “I’m ok. N-not great, I don’t think, but I will be.”

Gordon nodded. “Tommy, if there’s one nugget of wisdom that I have to share, it’s that healing takes time, things usually turn out to be ok in the end. No matter what’s going on with Benrey…it'll be alright, I’m sure.” Gordon patted his shoulder for emphasis, “not the best advice out there but it’s the best I can come up with straight off the dome. And I don’t wanna seem like I didn’t try to help you out."

Tommy laughed gently, “Thank you Mr. Fr- uh, thank you Gordon. You did help. Even if- if your advice was a bit cheesy.”

“Whatever man, you can’t blame me for trying,” Gordon laughed, playfully shoving Tommy where his hand had previously rested on the other man’s shoulder. Tommy laughed in return. He only noticed the warmth of Gordon’s touch once it was gone.

Tommy absentmindedly noticed the time on the wall clock in Gordon’s apartment. Jesus, 11:30? When did it get so late? The older scientist really hoped he wasn’t overstaying his welcome; While he would love to just stay here and joke around, he had already bothered Mr. Freeman enough and was already exhausted.

“I- I’m probably gonna head back home now, I didn’t realize how late it was,” Tommy said, standing up from his spot next to Gordon.

Gordon nodded. He had the passing thought of offering for Tommy to stay but… maybe that was a step too far. ‘Tommy probably wants his space,’ Gordon rationalized to himself.

He nodded, “Alright, don’t let me keep you,” he said, getting up as well to help Tommy gather his belongings. Which, to be honest Tommy didn’t bring much but some snacks for the group, but Gordon just needed an excuse to do anything.

Gordon walked Tommy to the front door of his apartment, like the good host he was, opening the door for him.

“Thanks for coming over Tommy,” he said.

Tommy nodded. “Thank- thank you again for letting me talk about Benrey, I know it was kinda rough there at the end, but if you ever need to talk about anything… I'm here for you as well.”

Gordon smiled, “Thank you Tommy, I'll keep that in mind.”

Tommy smiled in return, “Have a good night G-Gordon,” he said turning to head to his car.

“Goodnight Tommy.” Gordon turns to head back inside, but before he does, he can’t resist one more jab.

“Thought you could teleport?” he calls out teasingly.

Tommy flips him off, which causes Gordon to laugh harder. “Gives me a headache,” Tommy called back, trying and failing keep a straight face.

Gordon laughs as he waves a final goodbye, turning back inside and closing the door after Tommy waves as well. His thoughts race as he gets ready for bed, trying to ignore his fluttering heartbeat as he lays down for the night.

Tommy shuffles his thoughts in his head as he drives home. The emotional rollercoaster of his already draining social interaction meter from the science team, his Benrey guilt, and his small crush on Gordon was just too much for one day. His hands clench and unclench the steering wheel, looking forward to collapsing in bed for the night, hoping his dad won’t notice he'd been crying.

Somewhere, in an interdimensional void far away from this reality, someone begins to shift awake.

#fanfic #hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware #freelatta

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kacychase · 5 years

Text

As I quickly scramble through my backpack, I ask myself what the heck I'm doing. Going out with Min-Hyuk for a pikamon-chase? With their app? In real-life?

AT NIGHT?

This must be a joke.

"Yo, Shin-Ae, you ready?"

Even though I'm doubting this, I immediately act confident: "You bet boi!" With hearing these words, he grins at me. "Alright. We'll destroy the others' arenas and get dem Wizardcarps to finally get the 350 tokens for you!"

All of a sudden, I feel energetic. With the summer nights, I finally got myself more time after having dealt with this year of high school.

"My Giantboss will be better than yours." "Tch, sure it will", Min-Hyuk winks at me. Getting cocky, huh?? "Oh, just you watch."

And he did, after I had caught my last pikamon necessary in an alleyway.

"YO BOI", I exclaim, "I GOT IT!" Honestly, I wouldn't have thought that I would be that much into the game once we have started the nightly raid. We should definitely do this more often. “Girl, this better be better than my pika right there!”, Min-Hyuk shouts in excitement, well aware that this will be a big change for all the pikamons I gathered. Sometimes, I really appreciate how supportive he is, and I see it then and there again. “Let’s do this”, I mutter absently, completely absorbed with evolving my Wizardcarp. And as I finally send out my last, and click on the evolve button, I suddenly see a message pop up.

And as I see the name of the sender, my stomach drops. “Min-Hyuk?” Suddenly, my happiness about that new pikamon in my deck is not as overwhelming as I have thought just seconds ago. Looking up at Min-Hyuk, I already see his worrying gaze fixated on me. “Do you want to?” I just stare back. To be honest, I’m just overwhelmed with this situation.

The breath I let out is shaky too.

Yeong-Gi/Nol: Can we meet up soon?

For a minute, I just look back, trying to calm down. It’s been a while since we even talked or chatted at all. After he said that he would want to avoid me, I was left betrayed. Luckily, Min-Hyuk came over for a visit then. This dude saved my ass several times now. Hearing Min-Hyuk’s understanding words - that it’s fine if not, that he can come with, that he’s always going to be there if I’d need anyone - I just type a response.

Shin-Ae: Where?

As he responds, my heart sinks. Somehow, the vibe I just received from his messages makes my throat close up. “Lemme get you there. It’s dark and I don’t want you to be alone.”

I just let out a quick thanks before hugging the best friend I could have. Then, we both get going to WacDonald’s.

Throughout the journey, Min-Hyuk has put an arm around me and casually plays pikamon jog as if there was nothing to face for me. Of course, I get it - he doesn’t want to butt in or bother me too much, and it kind of calms me that he doesn’t make it too big of a deal. “Don’t expect that I won’t smack this guy’s ass for hurting you though. I mean, he kinda was your crush.” “Say that again and I will whoop yours”, I quickly growl, but I know that he has a point. “That dude was hurting you girl. Like, I respect your decision but honestly, that dude’s a jerk for pulling that at least”, he quickly elaborates and I notice that he’s trying to really understand my point of view. I let out a sigh.

“I know. I’ll deal with it. I trust you to be around this time though!” “You can count on it”, he responds, reply as ready as a pistol shot.

“Alright.”

We go through the usual way to the fried chicken and burger joint I used to work at. Usually, I would think of my manager that really helped me figure out what to do during the hard time I had with working, school and my friends. But now, I can’t help but feel extremely nervous. “Should I stay with you when you talk?”

In the last few months, I have experienced what it’s like to be insecure and unsure. But I really, really hate that feeling still. “No. It’s fine, and I think we need to discuss things together.” “Alright. I’ll get ourselves stuff from Wac then.” “What the heck. This late?” “Absolutely. What do you want? On me!”, he chirps with a smile, already awaiting his meal. “... A Bigwac menue please. With chicken.” “‘kay. Text me if you guys are do-”

His gaze is stuck on something behind me. When I turn around, I realize that his brown eyes were stuck on someone instead. “Hey.”

Yeong-Gi seems to be just as overwhelmed as I am. “Hi”, I just reply and I hear Min-Hyuk saying confidently: “Alright, be right back. You better not hurt her again.” Seeing him throw a dark glance at the redhead, said redhead just looks at him apologetically. “See you.” he gives me a last look - one that makes me feel protected and loved - and goes away.

And leaves me alone with Yeong-Gi.

"What did you want to talk about?", I quickly cut to the chase. After what he has done to cut out our friendship, I don’t want to create further unpleasantries for either of us.

His hair is dishelved and his pants and white t-shirt look hastily put on. But his look shows me so much sternness, regret, and assuredness, as if he's been thinking long and hard about what he's about to do.

Man. I hate how my heartbeat betrays me in these moments. "I wanted to check if you're doing okay", Yeong-Gi replies equally serious, having my eyebrows furrow and my jaw drop slightly.

"Dude wtf? You said just two weeks ago that you don't wanna talk anymore. And now you come back, asking me if I'm okay?", I just retort. I just hope that I don't sound too hysterical but sometimes, reality teaches me not to dream.

But just as before, he just stares at me and takes a few steps towards me. “Yeah. I know I made myself clear-” All of a sudden, hurt flashes in his eyes. It’s short but I see it. All this time, I really have tried figuring this young man in front of me out but… He’s been making it really hard and knows how to avoid me constantly, even after I called him out.

This makes me feel more unusual with all that heartbeat going on, so I just reciprocate his stare into my eyes as he speaks. “But I just can’t seem to forget what we’ve been through together and… Ugh, whatever.” His unstable grin on his face, his closed eyes… He really doesn’t like talking about his feelings, does he? “Yeong-Gi?”, I quickly snap him back to reality as I step closer. “What’s up?” His eyes, this time more confused.

Why am I like this with him? “It’s just… I would feel bad not being around you, you know? I wanna make sure you’re alright after stuff that has happened.” His direct stare at me shows me honesty that leaves me shaking. I knew that I wouldn’t ever deserve him as a friend - let alone someone I’d care more about.

That aside, I’m not into relationships anyway.

“I-” As he takes a step close, I suddenly realize the closeness our bodies have, and I wish I could treat it with as much ease as I used to. But now, I just smell his amazing scent, see his stupid brick body and his damn beautiful face. And I’m angry at myself for being so affected by it.

“I wanted to tell you some things before I might be gone, too”, he just says with a smile that looks sad and regretful.

Wait. Leave? Did he want to get rid of me before leaving so that it won’t… hurt as much?

It would be something he’d do.

It would certainly be something I’d do.

“Like what?”

I remember that he rarely talked about his future. College, work, et cetera were really never things the two of us would discuss together. What other secrets is he keeping from me. His hesitant face tells tales. “Yeong-Gi. I know that you don’t like sharing. But don’t you think that after… well, everything that happened, you can’t tell me what’s troubling you? I know you didn’t like when I testified to you with Yu Jing-” And indeed, I find him furrowing his eyebrows for a millisecond. “But I… You know, I wanted to help you. And I can’t say I don’t care anymore”, I just tell him straight away, adding “so pull that crap again and I’ll whoop your butt!” That stuff gets him to snort and smirk a little. For some reason, it relieves me enough to know that this is the Yeong-Gi I know and I can at least sense that something is up.

“I know.” Raising an eyebrow, I patiently wait for him to continue, however not forgetting what he said two weeks ago. “I will go overseas for a place to study. I’m sorry I haven’t told you.” As he looks down at our feet, I just can’t help but think that there’s something el- “And I think”, he takes in a deep breath and to my shock, I see a reddish blush appear on his cheeks. “I-” For some reason, he looks away and I just say: “Come on, spit it out!”

Immediately picking up eye contact again, he says “Alright.” His hair is lighted halfway from the lamp post we’re standing next to, his eyes intense when he says: “I think I have feelings for you.”

And with that, my brain has stopped functioning and I now lower my gaze down to our shoes. Keep it together, Shin-Ae. Don’t think about how his feet could stomp yours twice. What a sasquatch. “So after all this time… I have even told you that you have a girlf-”, I start to ramble but he cuts me off, gaze ever so stern: “Alyssa and I broke up.”

Wam.

You know this feeling, when everything suddenly drops on you? Why didn’t he tell me all of this earlier, or in portions? Why can’t I trust him with things? And why do I still feel like this with him?? “Nol?” “Yeah?”

All of a sudden, I realize how upset I am - I’m shivering and everything inside me blazes with anger. “So what you’ve done two weeks ago, ignoring me, was just to come and tell me all of this?! Out of nowehere?!”, I say, not giving a crap about his reaction and his face looks equally responsive. “I really tried keeping my word okay?! I really just wanted to leave and not have you miss me!”, he suddenly replies, also raising his voice until he abruptly silences himself. “But I couldn’t, okay? I couldn’t. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

All of a sudden, my heart strings seem to be pulled and I want nothing more than to kiss this guy. What the heck is going on with me? Why am I this emotional right now? “Who do you do this for, Yeong-Gi? For me, or for you?”

As look closely, I realize that this time, I can see freckles on his face including one or the other scar. Why the heck is he so handsome? His facial features are partly lighted by that lamp post, and I see his gaze carefully calculating me as I step towards him, even closer. But he doesn’t step back. Looking closely, I even see him shiver slightly.

Is this that difficult for him?

A long pause is lying upon the two of us, but I start to get worried and try to step back. Suddenly, however, I feel a hand of his grabbing my arm. Man is he strong, and as I notice that, I can’t help but quickly scan his quite toned body. “Wait.” His distant murmur sounds more like a plea than anything, and I immediately freeze in place.

“I’m doing this for both of us.” With that, he closes the distance again, surprising me. Looking at each other, I feel his breath fanning on my face. Goodness, are we close, and my heart beats fast. “Both?” I look at his lips. They look incredibly soft… What it would be like to-

But I have no way to think about it much, since he tells me: “Maybe I just need this, Shin-Ae. Please tell me to stop if I should.” I should say something. Really should. But I don’t say anything, and as his lips meet mine, for a small peck first. As we meet again, the kiss is far sweeter than I would’ve thought. Wow.

Yeong-Gi is a pretty good kisser.

(Extra scene)

Nol POV:

As I walk home, I quickly call Soushi, my buddy in emergency situations. “And, how did the talk with Shin-Ae go?!”, his voice hastily becomes audible. “Pretty good… I… guess…”, I just murmur, not knowing what the heck to do with this kiss, especially since I’d leave soon. Why the heck did I do that?!

“Also… Did that kiss tutorial video help?”

“Shut up!”, I just reply, not believing that Soushi has actually given him that video.

But to be honest, it was pretty good advice.

#i love yoo #shin-ae yoo #shin-ae x yeong-gi #nol hirahara

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hutchhitched · 5 years

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The Vintage Joshifer Series: End of Love—Chapter 18

End of Love by hutchhitched

A kazillion years ago, I started posting this story. I never intended for it to drag on this long in between updates, but life happens and so does writer’s block. I know there’s little readership in the Joshifer fandom anymore, but I needed to finish it. If you’re still around to read it, thank you. If you want to dive in, I’d appreciate it. You definitely don’t have to be a Joshifer fan to read it since Josh and Jen’s characters are historical actors and not versions of their modern selves. There are three more chapters after this one, all of which will be posted this month (fifty years after the events that take place in the final chapter).

Historical events in this chapter include the following:

The Democratic National Convention took place in Chicago in August 1968. Bobby Kennedy’s assassination (see Chapter 16) threw the convention into chaos since there was no longer a clear front runner. LBJ’s vice president eventually won the nomination, but the real story was outside the convention in the streets where members of the New Left protested—including the Yippies, who nominated a pig for president (3:38). Riots broke out in the streets, and protestors, police, and journalists were all injured.

Not long after the DNC, there was a protest at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, NJ, led by those who were supporters of women’s liberation. The New York Radical Women (NYRW) and National Organization of Women (NOW), and members of consciousness raising groups all participated. Gloria Steinem, who helped found Ms. magazine and just recently toured the country promoting her new book, was one of the founders of NOW.

Shout out to @xerxia31 for drawing my attention to the quote, “The version of me you created in your mind is not my responsibility.”

Chicago, Illinois, August 1968

“Jen, are you working again today?” Amy shouted through the closed bedroom door. When there was no answer, she rapped loudly on the wood.

Half asleep, Jennifer stretched and rubbed sleep from her eyes. She rolled over and slipped her arm over Josh’s naked torso and yelled in a sleep-choked voice, “Yeah, I have to be there at noon. Sleeping in.”

“I’ll be home late tonight. Be careful.”

“Thanks, Amy,” she replied and nestled her head into Josh’s shoulder.

“Yeah, be careful,” he grunted and shifted onto his side. “Someone might try to take advantage of you or something.”

“Mmm… Good morning,” she breathed as he traced her collar bone with the tip of his tongue.

“Good morning to you. Signs point to it being very, very good.”

Jen spread her legs and sighed as he settled between them. His mouth greeted her as if they’d been separated for months, even though they’d spent the majority of the night before high and trying new positions from the Kama Sutra he’d scored from one of his friends at work.

“I’m not going to be able to walk today if you don’t stop that,” she teased in between sharp intakes of breath. She twisted her fingers in his hair as she approached her climax and tugged hard.

“Don’t gripe, doll,” he said as he tore his mouth from her. “You know you love this.”

Wrapping her arms around him, she tugged him against her and welcomed him inside. His long strokes drove her over the edge quickly, and he plunged into her as she gripped and rippled around him.

When they were finished, he tugged on a pair of bellbottoms with frayed denim hems and walked to the bathroom. He returned a few minutes later, dropped a kiss on her forehead, and left with only a brief farewell tossed over his shoulder as he walked down the hall. Stunned, she sat up and stared after him, but he didn’t return.

“Something’s still off,” she muttered before shrugging and dressing for work.

She’d only been at her new job for a few weeks. Once she’d decided to take Jack’s advice, things had moved quickly. She interviewed and got the job within a few days, allowing her to leave her job at the Tribune and take a reporter position at the local NBC affiliate. It had taken a bit to readjust to reporting news on camera instead of typing it, but she had no regrets. Her boss at the TV station was a saint compared to Mr. Murrow, and she enjoyed the new relationships she’d developed with her co-workers, most of whom were incredibly good-looking and closer to her age. The field was an entirely different world than the newsroom, and Josh seemed amused by her stories.

“Not sure what’s wrong with him today,” she mused as she made her way to work to receive her assignment and camera operator for the day.

“Jennifer,” her boss called from his office and motioned her inside. “I want you on the DNC this week. I know you usually work weekends, but Chicago doesn’t get the convention every year. You’ve got today and tomorrow to prep, and then you’re on until Thursday. I need you at the top of your game. These things are notoriously dull, so you’ll need to create some interest through interviews. Get people’s ideas.”

“On the convention floor?”

“No, you’re outside. I’ve got another team inside the convention itself,” he explained. “I need you to report on the mood outside the event.”

“Is anybody going to be hanging around outside? If people can’t get in, why would they be there?”

“I put in a call Daley’s office. The good mayor seems to think there might be trouble. Police are expecting some more radical groups to be in the streets.”

“Radical groups,” she murmured. She’d ask Josh what he’d heard when she got home. He knew more than she did about who would be there.

****

But Josh wasn’t at home when she got there. She stayed up late, studying and prepping for her assignment, but he didn’t come back. His clothes still hung in her closet, so she knew he hadn’t bailed on her and would return eventually. Still, his absence grated on her, especially when he didn’t return the next day either.

She woke early on Wednesday to featherlight kisses on her forehead. Josh settled onto her, pressing her into the mattress and winding his fingers in her hair.

“I missed you,” he whispered and wiggled his crotch between her legs.

Grouchy from lack of sleep and even more frustrated he’d been missing for the past two days without any sort of explanation, she snapped, “Where have you been, asshole?”

She almost smacked him when he chuckled, but she forgave him quickly enough when he explained he’d been planning a demonstration for the day at the DNC. He kissed her softly, lovingly, and she relented. She closed her eyes, let him inside, and moaned when he moved inside her. His political pillow talk excited him more than anything else lately, and he eventually came with a long, guttural growl in her ear. He pulled out quickly and dropped his head between her legs. His mouth worked magic on her. When he kissed her afterwards, she tasted both of them in his mouth. She wasn’t sure why that turned her on so much, but it drove her to beg for another round before she left for her shift.

****

Jen was met by a throng of protestors and twice as many police as she stationed herself outside the convention and attempted to interview as many people in the crowd as would talk to her. She wrangled a conversation with a woman named Katie, who proudly proclaimed herself a member of the Youth International Party.

“Katie, can you tell us a little bit about why you’re protesting today?” Jen yelled into the microphone and turned it toward the other woman. She bumped into the other woman when someone jostled her, and she strained to hear the answer.

Katie screamed at the top of her lungs, “Fuck the pigs! The Yippies are here to show how corrupt the police and government are. They support the military industrial complex, sending our boys to die in ’Nam while they wallow in filth in D.C. We’re here to nominate our own candidate, Pigasus the Immortal, because even a pig could run this country better than that asshole in the White House.”

Jen’s eyes widened imperceptibly, but she schooled her features as best she could. No matter what her interviewees said, she needed to remain neutral and report the news. No matter how radical or extreme, no matter if she agreed with the sentiment or not, her job was to present the facts and share what was unfolding in Grant Park to the rest of the nation.

As the crowd around her shouted, “Pigs are whores,” she marveled at the irony of nominating a pig for president while simultaneously slandering the police as whores. Tension crackled in the air, and she wondered briefly if Josh was actually somewhere in the crowd like he was supposed to be. Admittedly, while her political bent was less radical than his, she still agreed with a lot of his ideas. This, though, seemed more like it could burst into a riot immediately and not stay just a protest.

Hours passed, and she kept interviewing, kept side-stepping potential problems, and kept doing her job. As darkness fell, the crowd’s energy ticked higher. Something was going to happen. She could feel it. Thousands of police and national guard and military surrounded the protestors, and all it would take was one spark for the area to erupt.

Three minutes later it did. Someone threw a rock, the police retaliated, and a full-scale riot broke out in front of her. A Molotov cocktail whizzed over her head, and she motioned to her cameraman to start rolling. She had no idea if the station would pick up her report, but she wasn’t letting this opportunity go. This was a career-maker.

“As you can see, violence has broken out at the protests outside the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago. It’s 11:00 pm, and city ordinance says that all public parks must be closed at this hour. That hasn’t fazed the protestors, mainly members of the Youth International Party and others of the New Left, who demand an end to American involvement in Vietnam and a rehauling of the federal government.

“Chicago mayor, Richard Daley, has consistently declared that he will see law and order maintained, and he’s backed up that assertion with over 12,000 police, 5,000 national guard members, and 12,000 regular army troops, according to reports from the mayor’s office itself.

“Earlier today, Yippies, members of the Youth International Party, nominated a pig for president as a statement about the state of the government. Tonight, the establishment is fighting back. Expect more—”

Something struck her in the side of the head, and she saw stars. She focused enough to see her cameraman swivel the camera to capture the events, so she could gather herself.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, careful to keep her voice low in case her microphone was broadcasting. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and grunted at the pain. When she pulled her hand back, she was stunned to find it covered in blood.

The crowd jostled her, and she realized she needed to get out of harm’s way. Her head hurt, and she swayed when she tried to take a step. Dizzy and confused, she staggered to her left. A few seconds later, she collapsed.

****

“Wake up, Jennifer.”

The voice was insistent and familiar, and she tried to listen. It hurt too much. Too tired to care, she slid back into darkness.

“Jennifer Shrader Lawrence. Wake up!”

“No. Ow. Sleep. Sleep now.”

“Come on, doll. Wake up. Right now.”

With a growl, she nudged into the hand cupping her jaw and opened her eyes. The light from a single lamp made her head explode, and she whimpered in pain. It took several seconds for her to focus. When she did, she sighed, “Josh.”

“You know, you shouldn’t get a bottle thrown at your head. You’re too pretty to carry off a scar on your forehead.” His eyes were filled with concern and a hint of anger, but his lips curved into a gentle smile that made her want to kiss him.

“Good thing I have bangs,” she joked quietly in an attempt to keep her head from swirling. “How’d we get back here? What time is it?”

“A buddy of mine gave us a ride. I saw you get hit, and I managed to pick you up before you got trampled. Also, don’t black out in the middle of a riot. That’s just common knowledge.”

She frowned. “I was working.”

“You were,” he agreed before adding forcefully. “Now, you’re not. You take a bottle to the head and bleed all over yourself, you’re in no shape to be on TV. And it’s almost 4:00 am. You’ve been out for a while.”

“I took you away from the protest.”

Josh didn’t answer. Instead, he put a bag of ice on her forehead where the bottle had hit her right over her right temple. Indicating she should take it from him, he grabbed a bottle of aspirin off the bedside table, popped three into his hand, and put them on her tongue when she opened her mouth.

“You’re going to be laid up for a few days. You should call your boss when it’s a reasonable hour. He can call in a replacement.”

“Josh, I need to work.”

“What you need to do,” he snapped, “is get well. I’m going to sleep. I have to be back out there tomorrow.”

“You’re going back?” she yelped. “Why? So you can get hurt? There are thousands of police out there and the army and Daley doesn’t give a shit about any of you.”

“Which is exactly why we’re protesting, Jennifer.”

“Doesn’t make it smart.”

“I never said I was smart.”

Before she could say another word, he flipped off the light and headed to the living room.

“Where are you going?” she demanded, her anger barely contained.

“I’ll be on the couch tonight. Go to sleep.”

“Jackass,” she muttered, but she wasn’t in any shape to drag him back to bed. Instead, she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep. When she woke up the next morning, he was gone.

****

“There you are. I thought you weren’t going to make it home before I left.”

Josh stood in the hallway, his expression unreadable, and Jen zipped her suitcase closed. She rose and crossed to him, but he didn’t reach out for her or return her tentative smile. She really shouldn’t be leaving town when their relationship was on the rocks, but her boss insisted they needed her presence in Atlantic City, that her coverage of the riots not quite two weeks prior had shot her to superstardom—at least as much as a local news correspondent could be. She was the trusted face of news in Chicago and covering the Miss USA pageant would give her a softer side that would solidify her image of being able to report everything in the news cycle. She thought it was bullshit, but she wasn’t really in the position to argue.

“This isn’t exactly the farewell I was hoping for when I asked you to make sure to say goodbye to me.”

“You shouldn’t be going,” Josh grumbled, and anger flooded through her.

“I don’t exactly have a choice, do I?” she snapped. “Not if I want to keep my job. Besides, it’s a beauty pageant. It’s not like I’m going to get hurt again. I’m not covering a riot.”

“Jennifer, there are consciousness raising groups all over the country headed to Atlantic City. They’re planning all sorts of protests against this—this—this travesty that likens females to cattle. I can’t believe you’re willing to cover something that makes other women look like pieces of meat.”

He threw up his hands, and she pursed her lips. “It’s my job.”

“Get a new one, then. You’re supporting the establishment. I thought you were against all the shit—”

“I’m a journalist, Josh. A journalist, not an activist. That’s your job.”

He glared at her before whispering, “Maybe you’re not who I thought you were.”

“The version of me you created in your mind is not my responsibility,” she said, her voice frigid. “I’m leaving. I have a flight to catch.”

He didn’t stop her when she grabbed her suitcase and stalked past him. She was down the stairs and into the cab before tears spilled over and wet her cheeks.

****

Atlantic City proved to be a lot more than Jennifer expected, and it made her furious that Josh was right. Of course, she was always mad when Josh was right and she’d argued against him. He liked to gloat, and she had no desire to go back to Chicago and hear him snicker.

Worse than that, she had an aching fear in her gut that she’d fly home, and he’d be gone. She didn’t know why, but she hadn’t been able to shake that he was planning to leave for months. It seemed only a matter of time. How could she tame Josh Hutcherson, activist and rebel and total playboy?

Why hadn’t they managed to have a discussion about their relationship in the year they’d been living together? They’d never promised to be exclusive, never had the conversation, and Jen had a sinking feeling that he was just biding time until he went back to his former life—floating from place to place and woman to woman, following the fight for the causes he supported and relationships be damned. Andre and Jackson were his only close friends, and he hadn’t seen either of them in months either.

Something wasn’t right, and she was terrified of eventually discovering what it was.

She shook herself as her mind drifted to Josh for the hundredth time in fifteen minutes. The action behind her on the pier ramped up as the pre-pageant sessions dragged on. She’d interviewed dozens of protestors, asking them their views on the women’s movement and women’s liberation. Several members of the New York Radical Women were there leading the protests, and Jen thought she’d go insane if she heard the words “consciousness raising” again.

Jen directed her attention to what she thought would provide the clearest portrayal of what the protestors were attempting to accomplish. She interviewed women carrying signs of females marked up as cuts of meat; she directed her crew to record the Freedom Trash Can as women threw in high heels and tweezers and bras and pantyhose; she heard the term bra burner and twirled to spot a fire until the woman she was interviewing explained that they’d decided not to set the trash can on fire because they feared the wooden boardwalk would go up in flames. Finally, she took copious notes during the pageant itself until protestors in the balcony unfurled a large banner and simultaneously set off a smoke bomb that drove everyone from the auditorium.

In short, she realized later when she was back in her hotel room and reviewing her notes, she’d done everything she could possibly do to both keep her job and work against the establishment Josh seemed to want to insist she supported. If she was honest, her work that day was a giant middle finger to both her boss and her whatever-the-hell he was to her because Josh sure hadn’t promised her anything.

She was fuming by the time she landed in Chicago the following evening, ready to return to her apartment and find him and his belongings missing. If she could stay mad until she found out for sure that he was gone, maybe she’d be able to survive the loss.

When she walked in the door, she had a string of curse words waiting on the tip of her tongue to fall, to distract her from the pain she knew was coming.

“Hey, doll. I missed you.”

Tears pricked her eyes, and she dropped her suitcase. She took three giant steps and threw herself into his arms. He tried to ask her what was wrong a million times, but she shut him up with her mouth every time.

“Take me to bed,” she begged, and he obliged. She was well into her third orgasm before she believed he was really there.

#joshifer #joshifer fanfiction #the vintage joshifer series #joshiferrecs #joshifersource #fyeah-joshifer #jhutchdirectory #end of love #1960s

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butterflydm · 5 years

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The Magicians Revisited: 1x05 Mendings, Major and Minor

Significant moments: Quentin asks Dean Fogg if anything will happen to Julia because of what she did in 1x04; Dean Fogg essentially tells him not to worry about Julia or her current life.

Julia is trying to get her hands on the spells that Marina stole from Brakebills now that Marina has cut her off.

Fogg is trying to get Alice back into the loop of his and Jane’s little magicians’ group, after she stormed out at the end of 1x03.

The school is having their Alumni week, where the current students try to get one of the school’s graduates to mentor them. Eliot and Margo want to get more exciting mentors than they had last year, Q is just kinda drifting along, and Alice arrives with her aunt, Genji, who is a famous magician who runs a retreat and is reputed to be a strong personality. Q apologizes to Alice for boxing her brother’s niffin, and Alice sorta kinda accepts the apology.

Penny is doing work by himself and a mentor named Stanley foists himself upon him. Travelers are rare, Stanley explains, so Penny doesn’t get a choice in who mentors him. He tells Penny that being a traveler is a life-destroying curse. Astral projection is like “traveler’s training wheels”, he says, but he tells Penny that he should forcibly stop himself from ever doing more by getting a tattoo that prevents physical traveling.

Q asks Eliot and Margo for advice on impressing a mentor. Margo tells him to do a good job in the upcoming Welters match that the school is throwing. Eliot thinks the game is boring, Margo likes it.

Q gets a message that his dad, Ted, is sick and goes to visit him in Jersey. He learns that his dad has brain cancer. Ted is worried about Q because he hasn’t seen him since he started at the new school. He tells Q not to study finance and to do something that makes him happy, like card tricks. At first, Ted plays off his cancer as less bad than it really is, but squares with him after Q walks in on him throwing up. Q asks why Ted isn’t taking treatments, and his dad tells him that trying to fix things sometimes makes them worse.

Now, both Eliot and Margo are definitely making up to Alice with the thought of gain for themselves — they (believe they) are competing against each other to get mentored by her aunt. Yeah, seeing how fake this attempt is does confirm for me that Margo’s friendship attempts in the first episodes were genuine, because she’s so much less… herself in this scene talking to Alice.

Julia reconnects with James and is still searching for more spells on her own. After she gets hurt, she calls Pete come to help her out. She trades him sex for information. She’s not impressed with the safe houses he sends her to. When he suggests they leave New York together to seek out places with more magic, with an interest in turning their sex into romance, she turns him down.

Q talks to one of the mentors about healing magic and whether or not it’s possible to cure cancer. She tells him that cancer is not considered treatable and this is potentially because it’s too much a part of the body to separate it or, alternatively, that cancer itself is a magical result of an old curse (which I guess gets confirmed in S3/S4). She tells him that some magic comes at too great a cost to actually use.

The physical kids play Welters against the nature kids, but Quentin gets distracted because he can’t stop thinking about his dad’s cancer. Q creates a spell that wipes the board and wins the game — tying back to Eliot’s point in 1x02 that magic is fueled more by pain than by talent, I guess, though this is not something the show is consistent about. At the party after the game, Margo has a personal talk with Quentin about magic and what powers it.

Penny meditates and focuses on Victoria’s voice and discovers her location, trapped in a dungeon cell. The Beast comes in to interrogate her, and then speaks to Penny, freaking him out so much that he shocks back to his own mind in Brakebills. He confronts Stanley about lying - there was a traveler in the missing third-year class named Victoria. Stanley basically tells Penny to protect himself by getting the anti-traveling tattoo and forget about helping other people. Stanley does not know Penny well enough to know that Penny can’t help himself from helping other people, even if he actively dislikes them.

Eliot talks to Alice, there’s an opportunity for them to potentially build a friendship… he’s being sincere, she’s not immediately shutting it down… and then Q interrupts and hauls Eliot off, cutting short that particular seed of possibility. We’ll see how Eliot and Alice develop as a potential friendship as we continue along! Anyway, Q asks Eliot about Cancer Puppy, and, with Eliot’s help, Q does a spell to try to cure the puppy. It goes… poorly.

Q and Dean Fogg talk about the late Cancer Puppy, the failed spell, and the essence of magic. There’s a lot here that obviously Fogg wants to impress onto Quentin for the sake of the immediate danger of the Beast - we can't fix everything but we can fix some things, so fix what you can. And the warning that magicians are not just the caster of magic, but also the material through which magic is cast. After that conversation, Q goes to talk to his dad again. He shows his dad magic by repairing the model airplane that he broke when he was a kid and tells his father he’s learning real magic.

Julia talks to James and he’s forgotten her existence. She goes to the hedge witch bodega and accuses Pete of selling her out to Marina, and he tells her that she’s out of control and doesn’t listen to anyone’s advice.

Alice decides to stay at the school and her aunt decides to mentor no one. In her next class with Q, Alice tries to comfort him about his dad. He tells her he’s glad she came back to Brakebills.

Kady and Penny talk about what he saw in the dungeon with the Beast. She recommends he talk to Alice and Q, since they were involved in the spell and what happened with the Beast. He’s reluctant, but agrees. Q immediately recognizes that the crest is Ember’s seal, from Fillory.

Magic: 1. Q is practicing a spell when Alice drops by to give him a message from the office that his dad is sick. 2. Julia creates invisible fire in her apartment. 3. The students do spells for the Welters game. 4. Julia shows off a spell for the hedge witches that Pete sent her too. 5. Penny astral-projects to Victoria’s location. 6. Gerrold the Cancer Puppy is being kept a puppy through anti-aging magic but that kind of magic does not prevent diseases. 7. Q tries - and fails - to cure Cancer Puppy. 8. Dean Fogg’s glasses show him outlines. 9. Q repairs the plane that he broke when he was two. 10. Marina made James forget Julia’s existence

Relationships: Quentin & Julia: estranged friends Quentin & Eliot: friends, confidantes, romantic undertones Quentin & Penny: frenemies & reluctant allies Quentin & Alice: friends, romantic undertones Penny & Kady: romantic & sexual relationship Kady->Penny: manipulative relationship Marina & Julia: burned bridges Pete & Julia: transactional -> burned bridges Marina -> Kady: blackmail/extortion Quentin & Kady: friendly but not friends Jane&Fogg->Quentin&co: manipulative mentorship Julia & James: relationship broken through a memory-erasure spell Eliot & Margo: best friends (with a competitive streak) Margo & Quentin: friends Eliot & Margo->Alice: fake friendliness Penny & the Beast|Martin: enemies with a personal interest Alice->Kady & Penny: allies Penny->Alice: allies Kady->Alice: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Physical contact: Julia tries to physically push past Pete into the hedge witch hideout and he stops her. Margo and Eliot hold hands as they walk through the gardens during Alumni week. Eliot presses his arm against Q’s when he stands next to him. The boy sitting next to Eliot in the cottage is hand-feeding him food. Ted Coldwater touches Q’s shoulder and hugs him. Julia sits in James’s lap as she’s trying to convince him that she’s doing better and kisses him. Julia kisses James again before he leaves her apartment. Pete takes care of Julia’s injured hand after her invisible fire spell. She kisses him and they have sex in exchange for him giving her info on other hedge witch safe houses. Margo smacks Q on the shoulder to get him to pay attention to her and come play in the Welters game. Penny and Kady snuggle post-sex. Stanley brushes past Penny as he’s leaving. Eliot hands Alice a drink. Q grabs Eliot by the wrist and pulls him off for a private conversation. Q takes Cancer Puppy from Eliot. Q and Eliot’s fingers brush while they’re working up the spell to try to cure the puppy. Q touches his dad gently on the chest to wake him up. Pete touches Julia as he tries to usher her out of the bodega. Margo holds Eliot’s arm as they go to try to compete over Alice’s aunt as a mentor. They snuggle as they walk away after the conversation is over. Alice’s fingers brush Q’s when she’s talking to him about his dad; he pulls away. Kady and Penny touch casually as he works on drawing out what he saw in the dungeon where Victoria is being kept. Q and Alice’s shoulders brush when they stand up together.

Character Notes: Penny: Pisces. Margo: is reading “The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science”. Quentin: his parents are divorced and don’t really like talking to each other. His dad has brain cancer. He’s still on his dad’s insurance, so his dad knows he checked into Midtown Mental Health and that Q isn’t taking his meds, since they are coming to Ted’s house. Q broke the wing off one of his dad’s model planes when he was two. Ted Coldwater: used to build model airplanes with his dad. He now knows that magic is real. Julia: not generally a good baker, as James is surprised that what she made tastes like ‘people food’. Kady: does not recognize Fillorian imagery. At this point in the series, we’ve got two known Fillory fans (Julia and Quentin) and three known non-fans (Kady, Alice, and Penny). Margo has not yet been revealed to be the stealth nerd queen of our hearts, so I’m looking forward to that. And, iirc, Eliot likes the books but does not know all the details by heart the way that Margo, Q, and Julia do.

Students: Stanley claims that Penny is the first traveler at Brakebills in 35 years, but Penny learns in this episode that Victoria - who went to Brakebills in 2013 and is part of the famous missing third-year class - is a traveler too. Third-years: Victoria Second-years: Margo, Eliot First-years: Alice, Penny, Quentin, Kady

Timeline Notes: Julia and Pete’s second talk is two days after she casts the invisible fire spell and sleeps with him. Other than that, time is a mystery.

Who is in Fillory? The Beast Victoria Penny (briefly)

#TMRevisited #tmwk3 #the magicians #long post #text post #keeping track of things

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doubleleoenergy · 3 years

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V; BLUE BAYOU SERIES

Oh that boy of mine, by my side. The silver moon and the evening tide.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: TFAWS!Sam Wilson x fem!Reader

Summary: Sam gets hurt during a mission.

Warnings: Panick attack, mentions of loss, hospitals, and pain. A nice mix of sadness and fluff.

Word Count: 1939

Author’s Notes: I have one more finale part that I’ll be writing for this series, I hope you all have been enjoying it!

The past month with Sam had been MAGICAL. Moving in was the best decision she had made, finally feeling like she had a HOME. She’s struggled for a sense of stability ever since she was a little girl. When her father died, her mother became a mess. She tried her best of course, a widower with two young daughters working two jobs to try to stay afloat. They had moved at least TWELVE times before y/ had even reached High School. Once she was old enough to get a job of her own she had helped to lighten the load of bills that were put on her mother, taking care of her sister while her mom worked nights and weekends.

Sam was WARM, he radiated positivity and stability, and it was something she NEEDED. He was the perfect man, and sometimes she wondered if she even really DESERVED him. And being the PERFECT man he was, Sam made it a point to assure her every day of how much he loved her and how lucky he was to have her in his life.

It was a Saturday evening, Sam had left early that morning for a mission with Bucky, giving her a soft kiss before he walked out the door. She spent most of the day grading work for her classes before prepping dinner for her and Sam. He usually called when he was on his way back from a mission, but unfortunately her phone lay silent for almost two hours. Her anxiety was getting the best of her, frantically cleaning over the house as if it WASN’T already completely spotless.

Was it time to start worrying? Maybe his phone had died, or maybe he was stuck in a post-mission meeting with the team and wasn’t allowed to use his phone. After scrubbing the kitchen counter until her fingers felt RAW, she decided to stop obsessing over cleaning and try to get her mind off of Sam.

Y/N put down the sponge, washing her hands in the sink before walking into their bedroom, flopping on the bed and turning on a rerun of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. TRASHY television was one way to get her mind to relax. She let her mind envelop the drama between the characters, texting Sam to let him know that dinner was prepped and ready for his arrival.

After an hour of watching catfights her phone sat silent against her side, her text from Sam still unopened. It was 9:30pm at this point, the latest he had EVER come home was 8:00pm for a day mission, and this wasn’t one that was supposed to keep Sam out of town for a couple of days.

Y/N was pulled from her thoughts as her phone rang, Bucky’s name and photo coming up on the screen. She immediately picked it up, sitting up in bed and putting the phone against her ear.

“Hey, Buck, I was just going to start texting you. Sam hasn’t been picking up and he’s usually home by now. I’m assuming you just got done with a meeting or-” She can HEAR him sighing on the other line, cutting her off and trying to keep her calm. She can hear the sound of traffic in the background as Bucky drove, weaving in and out of the lanes.

“Y/N, I’m coming to pick you up. Sam was in an ACCIDENT during the mission. He’s alright, but they took him to the hospital to monitor him. I’ll be there as soon as I can and we’ll go over there together.”

It’s like she can HEAR him but he’s far away, her heart is pumping loudly in her chest and her hands are SHAKING as she hangs up the phone. “Oh my god...oh my GOD.” She gets up off the bed, stumbling around the room to put on a pair of grey sweats, one of Sam’s sweaters, and her sneakers. Tears are welling up in her eyes and she’s trying her hardest to fight them BACK, but to no avail.

The call has TRIGGERED her, bringing her back to that day in 2001 when her mom got the call. Her father’s crew hit an IED, there were no survivors and her father wasn’t coming HOME. She remembered how her mom fell to the floor in an uncontrollable fit of sobs, her little sister tugging on y/n’s sleeve and asking her why their mom was so sad. They had just received a letter from him the week prior, telling them all how much he loved and missed them, telling y/n he still slept with the small pink bear she’d told him he could have in case he felt SAD.

She crumples to the floor, out of the memories, her breathing heavy and her vision blurring. Y/N is trying to focus on a spot on the wall, on literally ANYTHING in order to not have a panic attack. It’d been so LONG since she had fought through a panic attack like this, the last time having been a few months before moving to Louisiana.

“Y/N? Y/N I’m here!” Bucky calls out, following the sound of the television drifting from the bedroom. He walks in, eyes WIDENING as he notices her body shattered on the floor, the tears streaming down her face as she tries to catch her breath.

“Hey, it’s me, y/n...you need to work on steadying your breathing. I’m gonna take you to Sam, okay? He’s fine, the doctor said he has a few bruised ribs and a broken arm...and a SLIGHT concussion.” Okay, maybe that wouldn’t help. Bucky moves to put his hands on her shoulders, trying to pull her out of the trance she was in.

His touch is helping, her breathing gradually coming back to it’s normal pace, her vision FINALLY focusing on his face in front of her. Bucky leads them in taking a few deep breaths together until she’s fully calmed, removing his arms from her shoulders and helping her stand.

“Sam is going to be fine, I promise. I’m going to take you to the hospital now, okay?” Bucky assured, leading her out to Sam’s truck that Bucky had driven back from the base.

“He BETTER be fine.”

Y/N’s foot is tapping IMPATIENTLY against the linoleum floor of the hospital. To be fair, she had only been standing there for five minutes as she and Bucky waited for someone to call them back to see Sam, but that was far too long.

The ride to the hospital had remained silent, y/n staring at the night sky as they drove, laughing quietly when Bucky complained about Sam ONLY having Marvin Gaye CD’s in the truck.

“Mr. Barnes, Miss Wilson?” The nurse called, a bright blush forming on her cheeks and her stomach fluttering at the sound of Sam’s last name coinciding with HER. “You can come see him now, he’s awake.”

They followed the nurse past the double doors, the smell of bleach and a patient’s leftover dinner wafting through her nostrils. They continue down the hall until they stop in front of room 108. “Here we ARE, I’m going to check on a few other patients and then I’ll be back.”

Before y/n reaches out to push open the door, Bucky clears his throat. “You should go in FIRST, I’ll go get us some coffee from the machine down the hall.” He utters, turning back down the hall in the direction they had just walked.

She takes a deep breath, turning the knob of the door and walking inside. She can hear the monitors beeping, walking further and seeing SAM. God, he looked so fragile in the hospital bed, his arm in a sling and bruises covering the skin of his face. “Sam…” She squeaks out, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Sam turns towards her voice, a huge smile spreading across his face immediately at the sight of her. His hand motions for her to come sit next to him on the bed. “Babe, I’m SO sorry I didn’t call. I mean, well, I’m sure Buck told you why.” He croaked, eyes meeting hers.

Y/N moves to sit next to him on the small hospital bed, making sure not to hurt him with her movements. “Yes, he did…” Her tears are falling down her face, she can’t HELP it. She feels Sam’s unbroken arm wrap around her, pulling her into his side and placing a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m fine, the doctor said I could go home tomorrow morning. My arm and ribs will heal in NO time.” Her fingers trail up and down his clothed chest, sniffling. “You’re not FINE Sam...I’m not fine. I thought I was going to LOSE you, I can’t lose anyone else…”

Sam is confused at first, wracking his brain for what she means before it CLICKS. Her dad, she lost the first man she’d ever loved on a mission, and now she was left to relive the scenario with HIM. He tilts her chin up, stroking her cheek and wiping the dampness of her tears away.

“I know that what happened with your father has made this all seem WORSE than it is, but I will not let anything happen to me, or to YOU. I want to love you forever, I promise you that. And besides, I JUST became Captain America. I’m not looking to be replaced any time soon.” He teased, a small laugh escaping her lips at his words.

“Yeah, tonight definitely triggered me. I ended up having a panic attack but Bucky came and calmed me down. You’re right, I can’t just be AFRAID for you any time you leave the house. Today was just surreal and it showed me just how deeply I care for you. How I also want FOREVER with you.” She places a gentle kiss to his lips, hearing him slightly wince as she had her weight on his bruised ribs. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry.” She moved off of him and over to the chair beside the bed.

A knock interrupts Sam’s protests, Bucky striding into the room, two coffees held up in his hands. He hands one over to y/n, taking a sip of his own as he moves to stand closer to Sam.

“Damn, man, you look like SHIT.” Bucky commented, a sly smirk spreading across his face. “RESPECTFULLY, I mean.” Y/N smacks his arm, stifling back a laugh.

“Very funny, Buck. Say it when I’m healed and you’re a DEAD man.” Sam responds, his free hand moving to grab y/n’s and give it a squeeze.

“If we’re going to roast Sam, I think the bruises aren’t fair game. That ugly tablecloth of a gown? That’s completely FAIR.” She announced proudly, winning a high five from Bucky and a groan from Sam. “But don’t worry, I know just what to do to make you feel better. I’ll be the BEST home nurse when you leave here.” Y/N followed the sentence up with a wink, Bucky making fake puking noises beside her.

“I guess that’s my cue to leave. Let me know if you need anything.” Bucky rests his hand against y/n’s shoulder, giving her a smile before walking out of the hospital room.

Once the door shuts, y/n moves to rest next to Sam again, careful this time to make sure she isn’t pressing on his ribs. She leans her head on his shoulder, both of them closing their eyes as Sam runs his fingers through her hair absentmindedly.

“I guess we’ll just have to be CAREFUL having sex until your body heals...my FOREVER.”

#sam wilson x reader #sam wilson #marvel #marvel fic #blue bayou series #doubleleoenergyworks

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in-the-bookish-dark · 4 years

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The Flitcraft Parable - Dashiel Hammett

(from The Maltese Falcon)

In his bedroom that was a living-room now the wall-bed was up, Spade took Brigid O'Shaughnessy's hat and coat, made her comfortable in a padded rocking chair, and telephoned the Hotel Belvedere. Cairo had not returned from the theatre. Spade left his telephone-number with the request that Cairo call him as soon as he came in.

Spade sat down in the armchair beside the table and without any preliminary, without an introductory remark of any sort, began to tell the girl about a thing that had happened some years before in the Northwest. He talked in a steady matter-of-fact voice that was devoid of emphasis or pauses, though now and then he repeated a sentence slightly rearranged, as if it were important that each detail be related exactly as it had happened.

At the beginning Brigid O'Shaughnessy listened with only partial attentiveness, obviously more surprised by his telling the story than interested in it, her curiosity more engaged with his purpose in telling the story than with the story he told; but presently, as the story went on, it caught her more and more fully and she became still and receptive.

A man named Flitcraft had left his real-estate-office, in Tacoma, to go to luncheon one day and had never returned. He did not keep an engagement to play golf after four that afternoon, though he had taken the initiative in making the engagement less than half an hour before he went out to luncheon. His wife and children never saw him again. His wife and he were supposed to be on the best of terms. He had two children, boys, one five and the other three. He owned his house in a Tacoma suburb, a new Packard, and the rest of the appurtenances of successful American living.

Flitcraft had inherited seventy thousand dollars from his father, and, with his success in real estate, was worth something in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars at the time he vanished. His affairs were in order, though there were enough loose ends to indicate that he had not been setting them in order preparatory to vanishing. A deal that would have brought him an attractive profit, for instance, was to have been concluded the day after the one on which he disappeared. There was nothing to suggest that he had more than fifty or sixty dollars in his immediate possession at the time of his going. His habits for months past could be accounted for too thoroughly to justify any suspicion of secret vices, or even of another woman in his life, though either was barely possible.

"He went like that," Spade said, "like a fist when you open your hand."

When he had reached this point in his story the telephone-bell rang.

"Hello," Spade said into the instrument. "Mr. Cairo? This is Spade. Can you come up to my place--Post Street--now? . . . Yes, I think it is." He looked at the girl, pursed his lips, and then said rapidly: "Miss O'Shaughnessy is here and wants to see you."

Brigid O'Shaughnessy frowned and stirred in her chair, but did not say anything.

Spade put the telephone down and told her: "He'll be up in a few minutes. Well, that was in 1922. In 1927 I was with one of the big detective agencies in Seattle. Mrs. Flitcraft came in and told us somebody had seen a man in Spokane who looked a lot like her husband. I went over there. It was Flitcraft, all right. He had been living in Spokane for a couple of years as Charles--that was his first name--Pierce. He had an automobile-business that was netting him twenty or twenty-five thousand a year, a wife, a baby son, owned his home in a Spokane suburb, and usually got away to play golf after four in the afternoon during the season."

Spade had not been told very definitely what to do when he found Flitcraft. They talked in Spade's room at the Davenport. Flitcraft had no feeling of guilt. He had left his first family well provided for, and what he had done seemed to him perfectly reasonable. The only thing that bothered him was a doubt that he could make that reasonableness clear to Spade. He had never told anybody his story before, and thus had not had to attempt to make its reasonableness explicit. He tried now.

"I got it all right," Spade told Brigid O'Shaughnessy, "but Mrs. Flitcraft never did. She thought it was silly. Maybe it was. Anyway, it came out all right. She didn't want any scandal, and, after the trick he had played on her--the way she looked at it--she didn't want him. So they were divorced on the quiet and everything was swell all around.

"Here's what had happened to him. Going to lunch he passed an office-building that was being put up--just the skeleton. A beam or something fell eight or ten stories down and smacked the sidewalk alongside him. It brushed pretty close to him, but didn't touch him, though a piece of the sidewalk was chipped off and flew up and hit his cheek. It only took a piece of skin off, but he still had time scar when I saw him. He rubbed it with his finger--well, affectionately--when he told me about it. He was scared stiff of course, he said, but he was more shocked than really frightened He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works."

Flitcraft had been a good citizen amid a good husband and father, not by any outer compulsion, but simply because he was a man who was most comfortable in step with his surroundings. He had been raised that way. The people he knew were like that. The life he knew was a clean orderly sane responsible affair. Now a falling beam had shown him that life was fundamentally none of these things. He, the good citizen-husband-father, could be wiped out between office and restaurant by the accident of a falling beam. He knew then that men died at haphazard like that, and lived only while blind chance spared them.

It was not, primarily, the injustice of it that disturbed him: he accepted that after the first shock. What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with life. He said he knew before he had gone twenty feet from the fallen beam that he would never know peace again until he had adjusted himself to this new glimpse of life. By the time he had eaten his luncheon he had found his means of adjustment. Life could be ended for him at random by a falling beam: he would change his life at random by simply going away. He loved his family, he said, as much as he supposed was usual, but he knew he was leaving them adequately provided for, and his love for them was not of the sort that would make absence painful.

"He went to Seattle that afternoon," Spade said, "and from there by boat to San Francisco. For a couple of years he wandered around and then drifted back to the Northwest, and settled in Spokane and got married. His second wife didn't look like the first, but they were niore alike than they were different. You know, the kind of women that play fair games of golf and bridge and like new salad-recipes. He wasn't sorry for what he had done. It seemed reasonable enough to him. I don't think he even knew he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling."

"How perfectly fascinating," Brigid O'Shaughnessy said. She left her chair and stood in front of him, close. Her eyes were wide and deep. "I don't have to tell you how utterly at a disadvantage you'll have me, with him here, if you choose."

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spytap · 7 years

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Italy 2017 - Part 3 of 4: FLORENCE

This took a lot longer than I expected, but I had a lot of thoughts (and even a twist ending.)

So here’s a theory: Florence is Italy’s Greatest Hits album.

It has all the big names: The House of Medici, Machiavelli, The Renaissance. You’ve experienced them a thousand times over, to the point where they’ve become part of the background radiation of modern culture. If there was a classic rock station for art and architecture, they’d be playing Florence 24/7 like it was Bohemian Rhapsody or Don’t Stop Believin.

But there’s a flip side (#OldMediaReference) to that analogy: the thing about Greatest Hits albums that makes them equally interesting and frustrating is that because they’re composed entirely of snippets in time, they’re not really complete albums in and of themselves.

Oh sure, obviously you can enjoy everything on a Greatest Hits album when you take them as singular experiences, but they’ll never really come together with the cohesion you’d expect from an entire album. They’ll always be slightly fragmented, with stylistic changes that reveal themselves as products of their specific moment of creative inception; never quite gelling into a singular whole.

Put more simply, no Greatest Hits album will ever feel as complete as Dark Side of the Moon, or My Kind of Blue, or To Pimp A Butterfly. They may be chock full of beautiful, meaningful, or culturally relevant snippets, but absent the context of time, place, and stylistic symmetry, they’ll always ultimately feel a little…shallow.

------

We came into Florence knowing it was almost everyone’s favorite city in Italy. When I asked for recommendations on things to do/see/eat in Italy, 95% of them (not an exaggeration, I just counted) were in or around Florence. A dozen times or so, I heard people say “Florence is my absolute favorite” or “it’s magical,” or “no city in Italy can match Florence” or something similar. So we had high expectations as the train pulled into the station and we clamored out onto the track alongside several hundred of our closest friends.

Navigating any city on foot and with luggage is difficult. Navigating any city on foot, with luggage, and in the rain is outright hard. Navigating Florence on foot, with luggage, in the rain, where your apartment is smack dab between the biggest outdoor market in the city (open rain or shine) and one of the biggest tourist destinations in the country - well that’s an exercise in personal murder restraint.

So we began our journey into Florence splashing through the puddles, trying to avoid sinking a wheel into a missing or uneven cobble, explaining - for the fifth time this block - that no I don’t need new luggage; as you can plainly see I have luggage. It’s right here. In my hand. Please get out of my way.

Fifteen minutes of rather terse urban navigation later, we reached our apartment, nearly tossing our suitcases as we crossed the threshold of the doorway just to be rid of them. After a quick overview of a very-not-to-scale paper map, we figured out that we were actually very ideally placed for the city. So doing our best to discard the negative energy we’d accumulated between the train station and the apartment, we ventured out into the great unknown to go get lost just as - as if by way of an apology - the city immediately pulled out sapphire blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

Let me be upfront: I … never really gelled with Florence. It was beautiful, and I’m genuinely glad we spent so much time there, but in many ways it felt so polished and so familiar that it just never really felt like a real city. The feeling I got walking around the city was that I could have very easily just been in a well-made theme park land. I also don’t think that feeling was helped by the fact that out of all the cities we visited in Italy, Florence was where I felt most surrounded (and at times, overwhelmed by) tourists, and the one where we heard near constant English somewhere around us.

And again, Florence is unquestionably gorgeous. I have easily 100 photos of, around, up, and on top of the Duomo. It’s a stunning piece of architecture and design, and we devoted three quarters of an entire day to just exploring its wonders. But after seeing Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo, and touring a half dozen choice tracks from its greatest hits catalogue, I still didn’t get any sense of the city itself. I knew what it *was* - that was made absolutely crystal clear all around you - but what I was searching for was some sense of what it *is*. Today. Right now.

And the part that bothered me most about Florence is that I don’t think I ever found it.

Let me sequence break a bit here, and take a step back. My personal travel philosophy is that I tend to prefer semi-blind exploration over planning, and getting to know a city by its food and layout. I like to wander, and let a city and culture open themselves up to me - as opposed to seeking out elements that I’d bookmarked in advance. That sense of not knowing and then finding is more thrilling to me than checking off a previously-considered to-do list. Does this mean I sometimes miss the “can’t-miss” elements of a city? Absolutely. But it also means that I get a better sense of what the people who live there experience and find important, and have a thousand large and small adventures that are uniquely mine and almost irreplicable.

To be clear, I often have one or two things that I’m interested in experiencing, but I try to keep it to one planned or expected thing per day - such as a specific attraction or area of the city - with the rest of the day devoted to getting as thoroughly and properly lost as possible.

So when we were setting up the trip, I only had a couple specific things I wanted to do beyond “eat and drink my way through Italy.” Generally my unstated goal for each city was to find the most authentically “here” food experiences, to see the streets as its citizens do, and to do my best to discover what really and truly matters to that city.

So the irony (or personal hypocrisy?) of all of this is that for the four days we were in Florence, the food and wine were, without exception or equivocation, absolutely superb:

We had the best pasta I’ve ever had in my life in Florence - made by dumping freshly made, just cooked noodles into a wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano, and then mixing the cheese and pasta up with an absurd amount of cream and freshly-shaved black truffle.

I had the single largest steak I’ve ever eaten, at somewhere between two-and-a-quarter and two-and-a-half pounds, served perfectly crusted on the outside and just this side of raw in the middle - Florentine style.

We took a day trip out to Chianti and drank the best Italian wine I’ve ever had, and then went to the Tuscan Wine School the next day to surpass it again by discovering a dozen different ways to turn Sangiovese grapes into joy.

If you go beyond simple culinary hedonism, everything you’ve ever read about the architecture of Florence is, somehow - impossibly - actually understating it. For all my comments above, there’s a very good reason the Cathedral di Santa Maria del Fiore is one of the most visited cathedrals in Europe. Even today, standing in front of it, it seems absurd - like something CGI-ed into the background without thought or consideration to real world physics or historical technology. How does it…why does it…just…exist? Right there? Still? And we can go inside?

Turns out that goes doubly so for the inside, which defies all attempts to properly convey or communicate scale of size or effort. Suffice to say that whole lives were lived singularly devoted to the construction of this one building. Whole families. For generations. This singular structure was their entire purpose in life.

Pick a museum and start wandering through, and you’ll stumble on names that probably ring a bell such as Michelangelo, Botticelli, Caravaggio, or Da Vinci. They’re all there, because like First Avenue & 7th St Entry, they all got their start there. And then you find yourself standing in front of The Birth Of Venus, or Adoration Of The Magi, or Annunciation, or David.

It’s surreal. And overwhelming. And humbling.

But…

Beth and I have talked about this a lot, but I came away feeling like Florence as a whole was so focused on highlighting portions of its past that I never got a sense of what it meant today, hundreds of years removed from its former glories. To continue the classic rock analogies, Florence felt like seeing The Rolling Stones live: no one’s shelling out to hear the new album, so everything is tailored toward making the experience about the familiar.

After a while, it felt a little like a video game: no matter where we went, we were pulled back into one very specific period of Florence’s past - like the developers were using an invisible hand to bring us back onto the gameplay path. We found ourselves in a cycle of tourism which, while perfectly comfortable, remarkably easy, and occasionally awe-inspiring, lacked the sense of adventure, or intrigue, or curiosity that Milan and Genoa provided. To steal from game design terminology a bit, in Milan and Genoa we discovered things, but in Florence I never felt like we had much agency.

Perhaps this feeling was why my favorite moments in Florence were the quiet ones: a post-dinner gelato and walking through a square at midnight. Hiking up to Michelangelo Park at sunset and gazing down at the city while the sky lit up purple and red. Pizza and people-watching on the upper level of the market. Everything about our day in Chianti. The quiet moments were the ones where I could feel like I was starting to appreciate the city and not just being moved through the “attraction -> shopping -> attraction” pathway.

So that leads to the big questions:

Did I enjoy my four days in Tuscany? Yes (mostly.) It (obviously) wasn’t my favorite city of the trip, but it was still four days in a beautiful, historic city with incredible architecture, excellent food, and an almost endless supply of inexpensive but superlative wine.

Will I go back? I may; one day. I feel in many ways that I’m being unfair to the city. Perhaps I was too taken by Genoa, and judged Florence by an unfair set of expectations upon which it was never designed to compete. Perhaps that I owe it to the city to give it another chance. Perhaps, having done all the big attractions already, I can wander around with no destination in mind and finally find the connective tissue that makes the city more than just Renaissance Disneyland.

But as I write this out, now comfortably back in California, it strikes me that maybe I’m just …well, maybe I’m just wrong. Maybe, like standing in front of a Caravaggio and thinking “wow it’s…really dark” I’d focused on the wrong elements and missed the point entirely. Maybe the most important element of Florence’s identity today *actually is* that it forever reminds us of a very specific time.

The grand irony of Florence is that by celebrating its past so overtly, Florence stands as a demonstration to the modern world of what a place and its people can do when they deliberately choose to cast aside a slavish veneration of the past. That we can choose to reshape ourselves around comprehensive cultural progression. That even in the darkest of ages we can choose to pull whole civilizations forward towards renaissance and discovery. And there’s something beautiful to that sentiment.

Perhaps that’s what Florence is today: a timeless reminder that the moments in human history when we allow ourselves to dream and be driven by a sincere desire to explore and support artistic and intellectual creativity are the moments in human history when we build the great works that will forever define us.

And even if we’ve heard that refrain a thousand times before, maybe there are moments in human history where we need to be reminded of that, and hear it again as if for the first time.

------

Leaving Florence, we head off to the last stop on our journey: Rome. We’ll only have a few days here, so we won’t have much of a chance to really get to know it with any real amount of intimacy, but amongst the literal ruins of Western Civilization I’m hoping that we can at least get a glimpse of the city’s heart and soul.

And maybe eat a cannoli.

#travel #italy #florence #vacation #longreads #long reads

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saturdaynightgaming · 5 years

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Paul “SHIELD” Corentin

My name is Paul Corentin, and my life has been a series of discoveries. When I was 12 my friend and I had the brilliant idea to show off our knife throwing skills by attempting to impale an apple resting on my head. We even taped it for Youtube. Thankfully, I must have an exceptionally thick head, because somehow the knife tip just bounced off my forehead.

We posted it, but no one believed it. People tried to point out where the green screen was. No matter what we said, no one believed us. This led to the second discovery, it’s not just my head that’s hard.

My friend Donny Corven was trying to convince a guy at our school that the video was real. The guy was one of the meanest bullies at our school though. The bully, Jeff, started smacking him around, I couldn’t let that happen. So I surprised Jeff with a push.

Obviously, Jeff didn’t take that well. I wasn’t a fighter at the time, Jeff was. Donny actually knew how to fight because of his dad, but Jeff was double our size. Jeff hit me with a right cross and a hit to the gut. This was the second discovery. I took the blows but barely felt them.

I didn’t even double over. That ticked Jeff off and he spent 10 minutes pounding on me to no avail. I tried to fight back, but he swatted my attacks away like I was a fly. Donny didn’t fare as well. He landed a few good blows, but Jeff laid him out rather quickly.

That’s what hurt me, my friend getting hurt and I was powerless to stop it. A teacher finally broke up the fight and sent Jeff and me to the principal's office. Donny was taken to the nurse. The principal gave us a choice, take licks, or get suspended.

I’d never seen Jeff so worried, and for good reason. If he got another suspension, he would be expelled for the year, and have to repeat the eighth grade. The flip side of that was that our principal used to be the baseball coach. He was known for having a powerful swing with a bat and a paddle.

Jeff tearfully accepted the paddle, the suspension wouldn’t have hurt me that much, but I was actually curious how tough I was. Jeff screamed and cried with every strike. I laughed and stared at him with what felt like a strong thumping. I could see the burning hate building up in his eyes.

I decided at that point, that I was going to learn to fight, so that people like Jeff would be the one on the ground next time, instead of Donny.

I immediately found Donny and asked if his dad could teach me to fight. His dad was happy to, but also droned on and on about the whole you shouldn’t fight unless you absolutely have to shtick.

We trained together every day after school. We were taught to box first. Donny was definitely the better fighter, he had had many more years of experience with his dad. But I typically won, simply because he couldn’t hurt me. I took headshot after headshot and never once got woozy. I simply waited until he ran out of stamina and let his guard down.

The next discovery was on Donny’s part. He refuses to tell me the entire story, but something happened when he and his dad went to a boxing match out of town. Donny came back, his dad didn’t. After that, Donny didn’t want to spar anymore, and he got distant for a while.

I refused to stop learning though. I started cutting lawns to earn enough money to take karate, self-defense, judo, Akito, and whatever other fighting classes I could find. I even got on the sparring team at our school. I was undefeated.

On the night of a competition, a shady guy asked if I wanted to make some extra money with my skills. I said sure, and he gave me an address. It was an abandoned warehouse where an underground fight club was happening. The only rules here were no weapons and don’t kill anyone. This was the first time I felt pain, but my opponents felt much more.

I fought every Friday night and left with $500 bucks every time. After a year of this, I was undefeated. One night a group of guys who had lost a lot of money betting on my fights had enough. They jumped me with bats and knives in the parking lot.

I didn’t get out of there unscathed, but they were much worse off than I was. I had some bruises and a couple of minor cuts. They had broken bones, concussions, and a fair amount of blood loss. I stopped feeling sympathy for my opponents after that night. And I had an even great hatred of bullies.

I started looking for bullies at school. I would catch one beating up classmates and show them the error of their ways. I would step up do a massive amount of damage, and then get out of there before anyone saw. After three months of this, the school finally installed cameras to catch me.

That was actually really beneficial at first. It even made the bullies stop, at least while they were on school property. They moved their activities off grounds, and so did I. I became the bully of bullies.

After high school, I started fighting nightly. I told my parents that I got a night shift job so that they wouldn’t worry. During the day I would sleep and train, at night I would beat the mess out of people.

I ended up being a victim of my own success though. No one would bet against me, and the pool of fighters that would test me shrank. The organizers started scheduling me for one night a week when they would have the best fighter go up against me. When that got boring to the crowds, they started sending me up against two and three guys at a time.

I decided to walk away when they wanted me to fight several feral dogs at once. My pay had gotten pathetic too. They offered me a job shaking people down for their lost bets, but I said no. I thought about going to college, but no degree brought the same kind of thrill as fighting in the ring.

I briefly entertained the idea of becoming a masked superhero like the ones that started appearing around the world. But that wouldn’t pay the bills, and I was afraid to test if I was bulletproof as well.

By luck or fate or whatever, I happened across news that Donny was opening up an MMA gym. That was a style of fighting that I hadn’t gotten to try yet. I swung by the gym and started talking to him. It was weird, it was like we picked right back up where we left off.

As luck would have it he was looking for someone to teach some alternate classes. The main focus of the gym was MMA, but he thought to diversify with other styles of fighting would bring in more business.

As an added bonus, he offered to teach me how to fight MMA. I jumped on that opportunity, and almost regretted it after a week. First of all, I had to relearn to fight legitimately. When I was fighting illegally, any kind of dirty trick you could imagine was fair game.

On top of that my form was sloppy because it had never really mattered that much if I got hit. It still didn’t really, but if I was going to take Donny’s class, he demanded that we do it right. The other challenge came from the strength training he put me through.

I was typically content with the strength I gained through my constant fighting, but Donny showed me a more rounded approach. I could barely walk after most of these workouts. But after three months, I was hitting harder, moving faster, and no one could break my grapples.

In the midst of all of this, I noticed that Donny refused to spar or touch anyone. He also wore gloves and long sleeves even in the summer. I asked him about it once, and he shrugged the question off with a joke about not wanting to get our sweat on his skin.

I found out the truth a few months after I started competing professionally with the gym as my sponsor. I had had a successful career all the way up until my next match was with Jeff, the bully from high school. His family moved away before I ever got my revenge on him.

I had also heard stories that he liked to break the rules in the ring. He kept pounding his opponents long after they were out. There were also rumors that he had attacked a few of the fighters, in the parking lot, that he had lost to in the ring. There was a laundry list of other grievances that told me that he had never changed.

I saw myself as his reckoning. In the ring, I beat him handily. The only problem was that I kept beating him on the ground. The ref tried to pull me off, and I knocked him out before continuing to hit Jeff. He begged for mercy, and I kept pounding on him.

I saw red, and he was the totem for every bully I had ever dealt with in my life. I probably would have killed him, but then I felt a cold hand touch my cheek. My body went cold and I felt the strength drain out of me. My vision went black even before I hit the ground.

When I woke up Donny was there. He explained that Jeff was in a coma, and it took a lot of fast talking to keep the police from arresting me. I had been banned from competing for a year though.

In my mind, the damage I inflicted was worth it though. But then Donny started speaking to me about my pent up rage. He knew things about me that I tried not to even admit to myself. Then he helped me to understand that people are more than just the bad things they do.

By the end of our conversation, I was weeping. I had been fighting everyone for so long. I let my soul get as tough as my skin. I believed in justice so strongly, that I had abandoned mercy. I needed a balance of both.

Then a voice spoke out of the shadows of the room and said, “That’s good to hear because I really hate having to arrest mutants when their abilities can be put to much better use.”

I was actually the only one to jump in surprise. Donny explained, “This is Agent Thompson with SHIELD. There is a lot that we need to get you caught up on.”

They proceeded to explain mutants and Donny’s powers to me. Donny had been working for S.H.I.E.L.D for years now. S.H.I.E.L.D had also been keeping an eye on me for nearly just as long. They wanted Donny to focus me before they considered recruiting.

I didn’t believe them at first, then I joked about the stupidity of the idea of us being superheroes. Running around in spandex fighting crime. They said that they were recruiting me to be a special agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, not a superhero.

I don’t know why I said yes, I just felt I needed to, and so I did. That was when I went through the hardest training of my life. Paperwork and laws.

Written by: Sean Halldorson

Image Credit: https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-look-like-a-tough-guy

#Season8 #Marvel #heroes #Backstory #Tabletop #RPG

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fanfic-phoenix · 8 years

Text

The Mysterious Case of Love, Murder and Magic - Chapter 1

“Are you ready to continue, Mr Potter?”

Sharp green orbs bore relentlessly into the eyes of his interviewer, cold and devoid of any visible emotion.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He sounded genuinely curious, but his questioner knew better. He knew that his subject was a champion in the art of masking his true feelings. That had been the father’s doing. And speaking of the father,

“You just found out that your father committed suicide, a few weeks after he was exposed as a…” He cleared his throat awkwardly. Obviously Potter picked up on his hesitation. His crisp voice showed his annoyance more than anything he’d seen before, and yet it was disguised as mild.

“As what, exactly?”

Emerald eyes continued to stare, and the nervous detective swallowed, trying to moisten his dry throat. He wasn’t the one under interrogation here; why was he so much more nervous than his subject?

“As a fraud, Mr Potter. Richard Brook came forewa-”

“Richard Brook, Detective Inspector, died twenty years before your team of so-called ‘professionals’ created this mess!”

Here came the first unmasked flash of strong emotion, the first flash of anger, to emerge from the sixteen year old so much older than his tender years. The Detective, the only adult in the room and yet feeling oddly inferior, sighed.

“For one, Mr Potter, we’re well aware, of your opinion of Mr Brook.” His mind added another line: God knows the papers were, too. “And secondly, may I remind you that I want to find the truth just as much as you.”

“And yet you ignore the ones handing it to you. Isn’t that logic rather flawed, Lestrade? I don’t wonder that Dad thought you stupid – you’re proving it to me now!”

Lestrade sighed; clearly now was time for a new approach.

“Harry, how about we start again?”

The boy before him slipped into a languid slump, one arm hanging lower than the other, almost dusting the grey floor. “Must we?”

Lestrade blinked, wondering briefly if the child purposely emulated his father’s lax standards of respect. Who was he kidding; of course he was!

“How about we start by you telling me this. How did you meet Sherlock Holmes?”

The day dawned slowly at Privet Drive, yet one resident of number 4 was already awake. Nightmares plagued this fourteen year old mind, leaving it with little sleep and even less peace. He lay on his second hand bed, feeling the lumps in the decrepit mattress prod at every bone in his thin body, staring at the yellow stains on the supposedly white ceiling. He savoured these moments, however unenjoyable they may seem. The quiet moments, when the only noise was his own quiet breaths and the only movement were his shivers - whether they be from biting cold or biting terror.

Today was the first day of the second week of summer, whatever the London weather might say, and the youngest inhabitant of 4 Privet Drive hated it with a burning passion. Why did he hate it? Why, his name was Harry Potter, the unlucky orphan bequeathed to Vernon and Petunia Dursley, who did all they could to change him. To ‘fix’ him. They reckoned the beatings and starvation and isolation could rid him of his freakishness, his differences - the one thing they truly could not stand. He was extraordinary, and totally unlike anything they knew how to deal with. He was a wizard, one of the most famous wizards to ever live in fact. The Boy-Who-Lived, son of Lily and James Potter.

The last person to see Cedric Diggory alive.

Of course, his relatives didn’t know that. If they had, he held no delusions on what his fate would have been. They wouldn’t have taken him back, wouldn’t have risked their precious little Duddykins getting hurt. Or killed.

He wasn’t actually the killer, not technically. (The fact that if he had stopped Cedric taking the cup - if he’d noticed that something was wrong - then Cedric would still be alive weighed heavily and permanently upon his mind.) That title belonged to the recently resurrected Lord Voldemort, a hollow shell that was once a man, who had murdered Harry’s parents, Cedric, and countless others.

He couldn’t really blame people for not wanting to believe him.

Not one soul believed him. It was easier for them to lay the blame at his feet, let him once again shoulder the burden that was the greatest mass murderer in the world. Even Ron and Hermione doubted his innocence. They didn’t say, but he could tell. The disbelief shone bright in their eyes, and lay heavy in their voices. The Minister was denouncing him as crazy at this very moment, and the newspapers had thought him mad for a while now. He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t deny it. No one could live the life he did without losing most of their sanity. Mass murderers hunting him, friends abandoning him, newspapers abusing him… it was a mess.

He groaned as the day broke fully outside of his window. He knew it wasn’t long now until the shrill voice of his Aunt Petunia (who was not as sweet as her name might suggest) began caterwauling outside the door, yelling for him to make breakfast for the zoo. Peering desperately at the damaged alarm clock, he wondered if he could make a break for it. Sure, he’d regret it later, but for now he wanted to be alone, far away from a yelling cousin, demanding uncle and frying pan brandishing aunt. Decision made, he began to make his plan. A plan which, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t doomed to total failure because he thought of it. It was only usually his plans went to hell, thank you very much!

Out of the window would be the quickest option, but that had the downfall of, well, the fall. His grand escape wouldn’t go well if he was to break his ankles upon landing. Next option was through the front door. But that would require passing every bedroom in the house, with a high chance of awakening the troll, so that was no use either. Aha!

Today was Saturday! He’d simply offer to go to the Post Office for Aunt Petunia. Dudley and Vernon were watching the match tonight, so she’d be willing to get him out of the house so that she could make the ridiculous amounts of food it took to satisfy the never satisfied.

It was midday before he had the chance to escape, but his plan came through. That was why he was sat on the swing in the park, with only his thoughts to accompany him, when a dirty rag was pressed roughly to his nose and mouth.

He awoke in a warehouse, his head pounding and wrists aching. A quick glance told him why - cords wrapped so tight they cut into tender flesh, and in such away that movement was excruciating, blood trickling out slowly and dropping, like the waste from a tap, onto the filthy ground below. He looked at himself, ignoring the growing stiffness in his neck, and catalogued no less than fourteen new gouges and three new bruises. The deeper cuts had been crudely dressed - obviously they didn’t want him bleeding out. Where had the gouges come from? Catching a whiff of cheap cologne, he was assaulted by a vivid memory. He had woken briefly before this, and hadn’t been too pleased at his surroundings. He smirked slightly at the echoing memory of his head smacking against his attacker, but then winced slightly, both at the vivid sound of bones snapping his mind supplied, and the pain a smirk caused. He supposed he should be more frightened, but he really was’t. Perhaps after being abducted from Hogwarts - the safest place he’d ever known - by Voldemort meant that nothing, nothing in his entire life, could possibly be worse.

White noise blared into his ear and he started, emerald eyes darting round the room and checking for anyone entering. No one. His eyes continued to fly, before they landed on a screen. It remained dark for a moment, before the unbearable noise in his ears ceased.

Welcome, Harry.

Said boy choked down a gasp. He wouldn’t show surprise at the text on the screen, he wouldn’t show weakness.

Brave one, aren’t you.

He should be. He was a lion. He’d survived Voldemort, he could survive some small time kidnapper.

I need your help. I want to talk to your Daddy. We’re playing a game, a game of hide and seek almost. I want to win, and you’ll put me one up.

Harry blinked, before talking. He was fairly sure that he could be seen, and probably heard too. “You’ve got me mixed up with someone else. My parents died years ago. You’ve made a mistake.”

No one’s told you then? Tut tut. And they call me immoral. You don’t even know how you were conceived.

Did this man think he was a fool?

“Of course I know. When a Mummy and a Daddy love each other very much-”

Oh Harry, you poor ignorant fool. You don’t know your parents.

“Well, of course not!” He fumed, “They’re dead!”

Your mother may have died, I don’t care. Her partner may have died with her. I still don’t care. The man I care about is your real Daddy, who is very much alive. Speaking of…

What? That was impossible. James was his dad! He had to be! Everyone said how much they looked alike, how much they acted alike. This had to be a mistake!

Right on cue, a phone besides him dialed. It was picked up almost immediately. A deep baritone voice came through, but Harry didn’t listen to him insisting a painting he didn’t know about was a fake. He was far more interested in the bright red light shining on his head, and the fact that such a monumental mistake had been made. Was he going to die here? On what was probably a case of mistaken identity?

Don’t answer yet Harry, else we’ll have to get rid of you, and that would be a shame. A bit different than my usual style, but you caused a bit of trouble when we tried to strap the bomb on. It’s in the corner now. We’ll set it off later if required.

Harry kept silent, his trembling breaths the only sound in the room. He wanted to cry, to scream, but he couldn’t.

“It’s a fake. That’s why Woodbridge and Cairns were killed.”

Don’t talk yet Harry, let’s surprise him.

He focused on breathing, trying to stay calm.

“Oh, come on. Proving it’s just the detail. The painting is a fake. I’ve solved it. I’ve figured it out. It’s a fake! That’s the answer. That’s why they were killed.”

Daddy’s a bit impatient, isn’t he! But he’s not proved it yet, the naughty boy. Keep quiet Harry.

Harry scowled, this man was not his father! Really, it was amazing a criminal could make such mistakes and stay out of prison. But the screen was right about impatience, at least, he could hear the deep calming breath from over the phone.

“Okay, I’ll prove it. Give me time. Will you give me time?”

Ok Harry, let’s give him a shock. Say exactly what I tell you, else we’ll shoot you.

He took a steadying breath, trying to ignore the voice in his head that told him that the screen could possibly be right. It couldn’t be right, but he let his own tremulous voice ring through with the word dictated.

“Daddy?”

He heard the sharp intake of breath of the man over the phone, whilst muffled voices sounded in the background.

“It’s a kid. Oh God, it’s a kid!” He assumed that was someone official.

“What did he say?” He assumed that was someone who listened carefully to the words.

“Daddy.” That was the quiet voice of…

Sherlock Holmes. My playmate, your Daddy. Now, you’re going to say this. Exactly this.

He felt his breath hitch. Clearly Sherlock had sensed some form of truth, else he’d have been confused. It hadn’t been confusion in his voice, only disbelief.

“Don’t worry Daddy. I’ll be ok. I won’t hate you when - when,” He felt his voice crack slightly, and a single hot tear ran down his skin. He swallowed, “When I’m dead.”

Sherlock’s voice was panicked, as several more panicked voices muttered confusedly in the background.

“No no NO! Listen very carefully, Harry. You are not dying today. I’ll come fetch you myself when we’ve got this mess sorted.”

He choked. It was true. James wasn’t his father! How could he be, when this stranger knew his name at the claim he was his son? He felt his heart and breathing speed up - this meant that something had gone on, something he knew nothing about! Either he was lied to, he was adopted, or (more likely)... His mother had betrayed his father.

Touching sentiment from Daddy there. Rather shown his hand though, hasn’t he. Say this, it’ll really get him working.

Harry’s voice trembled and a second tear fell. He stopped thinking of his parents… his mum and her partner.

“Ten...”

He could imagine Sherlock’s look of sudden panic, dropping the phone to the side and looking for clues.

The voice he assumed was the official sounded out.

“What did he say?” “Ten!”

Carry on.

“Nine.”

The low voice of Sherlock Holmes sounded.

“It’s a countdown. He’s giving me time.”

Several expletives sounded, but only one voice sounded remotely calm, though it held a hidden tremor.

“The painting is a fake, but how can I prove it? How? How?”

“Eight… Don’t worry Daddy.”

Voice trembling on the final word, he tried to think of what had probably happened. Had James known? Or had he died trying to protect a child he thought was his own? He felt sick; would James have even tried to help if he’d known? He didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think of the lies and betrayals and the fact that everything he’d known about his parents was a lie! Picturing the scene he could only hear, he imagined a figure rounding on the others, preferring it to the previous image. “This kid…” Here came a choked mix between laugh and sob, as if the speaker couldn’t quite believe, “My son will die. Tell me why the painting is a fake. Tell me!”

He best be careful here, he’s about to break the rules! Carry on.

“Seven …”

“No, shut up. Don’t say anything. It only works if I figure it out.”

Phewee, that was close, wasn’t it!

A small sound of relief escaped, and he strained his ears to hear what was going on. He could hear the pacing of one, probably a man, if the heavy footprints were anything to say.

“Must be possible. Must be staring me in the face.”

Desperate. He was desperate. He couldn’t help it. A rush of warmth engulfed him, despite the situation - he had a dad, and he cared. He felt sick again. This man couldn’t be his dad. Biologically maybe, but really? No. He hadn’t been there, hadn’t held off a maniac to save his life. It was an insult to James to think of Holmes as anything close to his father. The warmth began to recede, and he felt glad.

You seem a bit relaxed, carry on.

“Six…”

The warmth was gone now, gone as if it had never existed.

“Come on.” People were beginning to get frustrated now.

“Woodbridge knew, but how?”

“Five…”

“It’s speeding up!”

“Sherlock.”

Harry felt another tear fall. He was going to die. He was going to die. He was-

“Oh!”

“Four…”

“John, in the planetarium! You heard it too. Do you know? Do you know the name?”

Clearly this John didn’t, as he heard no reply.

“Three…”

“What is it?”

There was a laugh, a laugh of pure relief. Harry felt his heart lift. Sherlock must have got it!

“This is beautiful!”

He heard the footsteps of his father approach the phone, and obeyed the command.

“Two…”

A furious voice sounded in the background, “Sherlock!”

“The Van Buren Supernova!”

There it was, the answer.

Oh, what a shame. He got it. Well, I suppose you can say what you want now. Bye!

The screen flashed off and the target disappeared from his forehead.

He was ok.

“Please! Is somebody there? He’s left me alone, you got it!”

He heard a relieved sigh over the speaker.

“Y-you took your sweet time about it.”

There was a brief silence over the phone, before the deep laughter of Sherlock sounded through. He heard himself join in, and it took a moment for them to calm down.

“Jokes. Hysterics. You’re in shock.”

“So are you.”

What was he doing? He was tied up in a warehouse, and instead of asking for help he was snarking back at the man who saved him! Joking with the man Lily had betrayed James for! He was definitely in shock.

Voices in the background started again. “Go find out where he is and then text me. I’m coming with you.”

There was silence except for footsteps, but only for a moment.

“The Van Buren Supernova, so-called. Exploding star, only appeared in the sky in

1858.”

“So how could it have been painted in the 1640s?”

“That was John, Harry, in case you’re wondering. Dr John Watson, slightly less idiotic than the general population.”

Laughing bemusedly - how were they holding a conversation like this? How were they ignoring the fact that Sherlock was his biological father? - he decided to play along with the facade of normality. “Pleased to meet… hear you, Dr Watson. Can you fix bleeding wrists? And other cuts? And bruises?”

“I’ll... I’ll give you a checkup when we find you.”

Poor John. Harry couldn’t help but pity the man, he sounded so confused. A whispered conversation was going on in the background, an argument. He couldn’t hear it, he only caught the words ‘father’, ‘shock’, ‘Sherlock’ and ‘fine’. A toneless voice came through the speaker.

“So,” There was the sound of a throat being cleared. Harry didn't blame him for stalling. It wasn't exactly every day that father and son met via kidnapping. He didn’t want to discuss it either. He was fairly sure he preferred the lie to this reality. His inheritances were truly awful - a crazy murderer off his parents, and a kidnapping off of Holmes - but he still preferred the lie. Mercifully, he heard someone yelling in the background, before Sherlock could say anything.

“We've found him!”

“Well Harry, we'll continue this when we've picked you up. John insists I ‘clear the air’. Apparently that's what people do.”

Harry could practically hear the sneer, but also genuine confusion. He stayed silent, settling in to wait.

Twenty minutes later, he could hear the door of the warehouse creak open.

“Bomb in the corner, disarmed but probably should still watch for that!” He yelled out. He wasn’t too keen on being blown to smithereens.

“Bloody hell. Donavon, get the bomb squad on!”

A small team of officers entered first, one (he assumed Donavon) dialing on her phone.

“No need Lestrade, called them on the way here. They should be here soon.”

Green eyes flew to the owner of the voice, the voice he recognised from the phone, as Donovan’s face turned sour.

The first thing he noticed of Sherlock Holmes was his height. Merlin, he was incredibly tall. He gave the impression, however, of a gangly colt - in possession of height and long limbs that were easily trip hazards. But perhaps that was because he had the build of a stick insect. Judging by the sure footed steps taken, it was probably the stick insect resemblance. He wore a long blue trench coat and scarf - much too thick for the weather. Both articles, in fact, were shed soon after he entered, placed carefully on a table. Beneath those, he was clad in what looked like a silk shirt in purple, with black trousers. There was a frown on his pink lips, framed by high cheekbones and a crease between his ice blue eyes. Tousled brown hair sat upon his head, looking like the man had repeatedly ran his spidery hands through it.

Stood next to Sherlock was a man, whom he assumed to be Doctor Watson. Judging by the close proximity of him to the tall man, they held a close companionship, though the Doctor was older. He seemed far more ordinary than Sherlock too, wearing jeans, t shirt and much more sensible jacket than the trench coat. He was shorter too, shorter than average perhaps (though most likely everyone appeared shorter than average next to the giraffe-esque height of Holmes.) Moving his hand, a medical bag was clearly seen, and Harry relaxed slightly at the look of kindly concern in his eyes.

The odd pair approached him together as the others hung back. There was a brief flash of fury in the younger man’s eyes as their gazes met, quickly hidden behind a porcelain mask of apathy and ennui. The Doctor crouched in front of him.

“My name is John, John Watson. Can you tell me where it hurts?”

“My wrists, mostly. The binds are tight… they had to restrain me.”

He spotted Sherlock’s mouth pull up at the corners before he ducked behind the chair to work at removing the binds. It was almost a look of… pride? Was he happy that Harry had been a pain? He ignored it, concentrating on the binds moving around his wrists. It took a moment before he felt them loosen, and he held them up for examination. He watched John bustle around, as Sherlock began to talk, pointing to a selection of people.

“Sally Donovan, Anderson - he’s an idiot - Graham Lestr-”

“Greg!”

“Greg Lestrade, slightly more competent than most. John Watson, more competent than anyone in the force.”

Sherlock grinned at him, but Harry kept his face stony. Confusion briefly marred the face of the tall man, but he carried on talking regardless.

“Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. We’ll just call your mother and get this done with.”

Green eyes flashed darkly towards the icy blue ones that looked down to him. A blink, and then shock once again filled the pale face. His mouth formed a silent ‘oh’ of surprise and he shifted his weight till he leaned backwards.

Hadn’t he known?

“How could you not know!?”

The question came out far harder, far more angrily than he meant it to. A porcelain mask had built itself onto the face of the Detective. Officers had turned to look, and John Watson had paused his medical examination to check on his friend.

“I- I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Now people were really staring. Sherlock Holmes did not stutter. Sherlock Holmes did not

apologise. Sherlock Holmes did not speak in a voice choked with… sentiment, or look upon a face with a look of pure, real sorrow and regret.

Sherlock must have felt eyes upon him, for he cleared his throat and when he spoke again his tone was far more normal.

“I don’t know why I wasn’t informed of Lily’s passing, nor why I failed to deduce it when I saw you.”

Harry flinched slightly at the piercing look he was subject to.

“I suppose… James received the same fate.”

Bristling at the resentment expressed in a name he treasured so, Harry had to retaliate. His voice was glacial, more hostile than he knew it was capable of being.

“My Father died buying my Mum time to save my life. He gave his life to try and save us, which begs the question; what on earth did Mum see in you?”

“Is this really the time to discuss this? Perhaps after John’s checked your wrists?”

Harry was vaguely aware of the silence that encompassed him and Sherlock. He was vaguely aware of the look the Detective sent to Doctor, a look that clearly said ‘Help me!’ He was vaguely aware of the fact that, really, Sherlock had a point. Now wasn’t exactly the time to discuss, not with the police all around. Perhaps he should have waited for his emotions to calm, for his senses to clear. But as the blood roared in his ears, he knew that he wasn’t waiting.

“No, actually, I think now is a great time to discuss. Seeing how you left me for fifteen years and will probably leave me again once you can drop me home, now is a great time to discuss!”

“I didn’t choose to leave you.”

He wasn’t sure why, but the calm, sangfroid voice of the man he faced infuriated him.

“Of course you didn’t,” he scoffed. “This is the part where you declare you never wanted to leave and that Lily picked James so you only left to avoid ruining her life further, and I run into your arms declaring that my life will be fine now because I have a parent again.”

“Perhaps you should sit down a moment.”

He hadn’t noticed he was standing.

“Don’t act concerned, answer the bloody question: what did mum see in you?”

Silence.

He felt his anger dissipate slightly. Could Sherlock not see a single reason? No, this was not the time to feel sorry for him. He screwed up his rage tightly, holding onto to it for all he was worth.

“Tell me!”

A hurt look fluttered onto the pallid, pointed face of the man who stood admirably beneath a barrage of irritability, before it became blank.

“She saw a man to whom she was attracted, who was clearly attracted to her, and could hold a decent enough conversation. Therefore, the logical choice for a... companion whilst her husband was away.”

John closed his eyes. Bit not good. This whole thing was a bit not good. In front of the force too… he was going to have to hide the gun again. Mrs Hudson was already upping the rent about the wall, they didn’t need Sherlock to exacerbate the issue with more holes.

The-Boy-Who-Lived looked at the Detective, disbelief in his eyes. The Detective threw up his arms and turned to face his faithful blogger, desperate.

“Help me!”

“I can’t!”

He tried again, his voice lowering and becoming more threatening (though everyone who knew the pair - most of all Sherlock - knew he’d never bring himself to do something to hurt his blogger). John barely reacted,

“I won’t, Sherlock. Your mess, not mine.”

An aggravated sigh, before he made an attempt to salvage it alone.

“Clearly that wasn’t the best way to describe it.”

“Obviously not.”

Lestrade tried not to let his draw drop at the resemblance. Sally was already planning her resignation speech - she didn’t think she could cope with a baby freak running around London.

“Am I given a retry?”

“No.”

“Alright. Time to take you home then.”

“I guess so.”

Harry travelled in the police car. Sherlock followed in a cab with John. Both were silent passengers, receiving concerned glances from their equally mute companions.

Upon arrival, Lestrade and Sherlock took the ex-hostage up to the door, the gangly Detective knocking on the door.

Out came a red faced man, with a mustache that fairly bristled with his emotions. Right now it bristled in some form of smug anger, observing his nephew stood with an officer.

“Knew he was no good, just like his parents. What’s he done? Criminal damage? Theft? Assault?”

“On the contrary, Mr Dursley, your nephew has just been released from the hands of a kidnapper.”

That was Sherlock’s low voice, and he didn’t give Vernon a chance to reply before he continued.

“In fact, I don’t think I’ll be returning Harry to you. I’m not entirely convinced you’re a fit guardian.”

Dursley was turning red with every word.

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“You’re in clothes of no poor quality, perfect fit despite your frankly dangerously large frame. Perfect teeth, though a frankly awful smile. Your house is well kept and expensive. Clearly you have the money for any necessities, yet your nephew hasn’t even got a well fitting pair of jeans. The bags under Harry’s eyes tell me he gets very little sleep. Whether that’s down to you working him into the night, the poor bed you provide or the-”

He cut himself off, turning to mutter something in the good Doctors ear. John shook his head, looking resigned (he had long ago realised he would spend a good deal of his existence filling in the gaps of his flatmate’s fractured knowledge of social customs and common decency.)

Sherlock made a note of his new knowledge (announcing in front of strangers that someone suffered from nightmares was a bit not good) and continued his torrent of deductions.

“Moving on, you clearly have the resources to feed everyone in your household easily enough, yet Harry exhibits signs of a distinct lack of food in his system. Do I need to continue?”

Throughout the downpour of criticisms, Vernon’s face had taken on the remarkable qualities of a chameleon. Now though, it had decided on a very particular shade of puce, one exhibited only when the person was in a rather foul mood. Acting on an instinct - a protective instinct he only now knew he possessed and which infuriated him because it proved what he had always tried to deny, he did care - the world’s only Consulting Detective unobtrusively moved himself to shield both the son who had rejected him and the blogger who refused to abandon him. Lestrade noticed the movement and realised with a jolt that Sherlock fully expected some form of risk. Harry was jerked from his place by a quick tug on his sleeve by the Detective Inspector, as Vernon began the attack Sherlock had anticipated.

“THERE IS NOT A CHANCE IN HELL I’M TAKING ABUSE FROM A COUPLE OF.... FROM A COUPLE OF-”

“It would be wise, Mr Dursley, to end your sentence there. Neither myself or my companion Captain Watson are gay, but I will not hesitate to deal with you in the appropriate manner if I hear such terms as you were preparing to use within my presence.”

Sherlock’s voice was frigid, colder than any of the people around it had heard it be before. Sure, they’d seen him angry, but never livid. Never so furious that his very eyes clouded and hardened with a poisoned mist of rage. Never so furious that his lips disappeared into pale lines in an effort to restrain the deductions that came so effortlessly to mind and could so easily tear the man to a trembling mass on the cold hard floor.

Harry watched the Detective heave in a breath, as he stood by Lestrade. He’d never seen anyone stand up to his uncle like that… perhaps that was why Vernon seemed so pale. John glared at the walrus before him, his posture straighter than before. “Mr Dursley?”

He spoke calmly, but it was a terrifying calm. The calm before the storm. Sherlock gently removed something from his friend’s back pocket, placing it in his own. A weapon? (Harry did notice the good Doctor’s fist clenching and unclenching.)

Vernon nodded tightly upon hearing his name. John continued.

“My name, Mr Dursley, is Captain John Watson of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. I have met men twice the person you are. And, Mr Dursley, many of those men were gay. I would thank you to readjust your view hastily.”

Pale as a sheet, Vernon opened his mouth to retaliate. The deductive genius sensed quickly that John would not endure much abuse without cracking - the main reason he had removed the gun. (He wasn’t entirely sure how legal it was, and if John was to punch the man - not that anyone would complain - it probably wouldn’t go down well if found on his person.) He decided to cut in before they came to blows, it’d probably be easier.

“I have little patience for idiots, Dursley. Come along John. Harry, you can stay with us until you want to move or…” He paused briefly, but covered it quickly, “You could stay permanently. Lestrade, do let me know if there are any updates.” The detective began to walk away, pulling his blue coat tightly to his thin frame, flipping up the collar. The other two followed (Harry hesitating slightly before deciding that, actually, nothing could be worse than Vernon), pausing only when the Detective turned over his shoulder to give his closing statement.

“And Dursley? You should probably ask Petunia about the yoga instructor at Total Fitness.” He flashed a cold smile, before striding down the path to catch the oncoming taxi.

Harry smiled slightly at the memory before hiding all emotions behind a blank mask, stowing his heart behind stone walls, rather than on his sleeve. He heard Lestrade’s small sigh, and felt his resentment settle for a brief moment. He knew Lestrade had only been doing his job, was only doing his job now. And he clearly missed his father, seeing as how any resemblance he showed to his father elicited a sorrowful sigh. But Harry couldn’t help but harbour a deep burning anger, and the police were the ones to blame. His father was gone. Gone! Like almost every other adult in his life, he’d left.

He watched Lestrade fidget, answering the question before it was asked.

“Yes, Detective Inspector, all of Dad’s deductions seemed real. Were real. I’d very much like to return home now, John’s waiting for me.”

John hadn’t been the same since the… the fall. Harry, he’d lost his father, but at least he hadn’t watched. John… he’d lost his best friend, heard the shaking voice of a man usually so composed, watched the tumbling body of the fallen detective. Seen the mangled leftovers still dripping blood from the fresh wounds, leaving spotted stains on his always pristine suit. Harry couldn’t imagine seeing that, that’s why he didn’t leave John alone for too long. It wasn’t safe to leave a broken mind to it’s own devices.

He left the room with his head high and back straight, making himself as dignified and superior as he could. Mycroft had taught him that; act like you’re the best person in the room, soon everyone else will believe you too.

He passed a room containing Anderson and another Officer and grinned slightly at the raised voices he could. After the fall, the poor idiotic forensics specialist got guilty, decided to trawl through crimes and the like, searching for Sherlock, who (obviously) had to have faked his death. Clearly Anderson had decided to quit, pursue his new passion full time.

As he walked through the station, he soon came across a face he really didn’t want to see.

“Sally.”

“Harry.” Sally Donovan, the beginner of the end. She had begun the investigation into Sherlock Holmes, given Moriarty the opening he needed to invade the minds of everyone but the closest believers of the Consulting Detective, the ones who knew the truth. He hadn’t forgiven her either. He didn’t think he ever would.

“You been with Lestrade then?”

He sneered, the upper corner of his chapped lips curling upwards.

“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to Sally. I don’t ask you obvious questions. For example, I wouldn’t ask you who’ve you got your claws into this time, when I can tell it was the janitor.” He smirked, “From the state of your knees and the distinctive stench of that awful disinfectant they’ve got, you’ve either been doing the cleaning or doing the cleaner.”

He looked her over again, peering at her dishevelled clothes and smudged red lipstick, his sneer growing more and more prominent as she coloured dramatically, finally bursting in her anger, “Why you little-”

“And my question is answered. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” He swept past her, putting his hands in the back pockets of his slightly rumpled trousers, “I need to get home.”

Yes, Uncle Mycroft may have taught him how to intimidate them, but it was Dad who taught him how to ruin them.

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#hp #ff #hp fanfiction #sherlock #sherlock ff #sherlock fanfiction #hp/sherlock #crossover

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nealiios · 7 years

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“The Derrick”: Part I - Returning To My RPG Roots

I’ve chosen to create a short game scenario set in a universe I’ve been building for literally decades. “The Derrick” has been a very long time in coming.

THE DERRICK - The title card for a possible upcoming interactive horror mystery game.

Now as with almost every story I ever tell you, I have to back up a bit to explain where some things have their origins, specifically the concept behind "The Derrick” as well as the fictional setting of Adams, Oklahoma (in which my upcoing short story “The Tome” is also set).

Like a lot of kids who grew up in the 1970s and the 1980s, I was an avid player of Dungeons & Dragons, and I spent a lot of time kicking down doors, slaying monsters, and trying to hit on succubi (since I couldn’t land a girlfriend in real life in those days). It was a marvelous first introduction to the world of role-playing games.

One day while perusing my favorite game store in Tulsa, Oklahoma I accidentally came across something which nearly cost me my sanity -- which was highly appropriate given that the game in question was the RPG Call of Cthulhu based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I was already a gigantic fan of Lovecraft’s literary work, and had devoured nearly everything he’d ever written, but the possibilities of actually playing in his horrifying universe was something that immediately “called” to me. I remember being so excited about it that I didn’t even wait to get home to break open the box, and I sat in the parking lot reading the instructions in my non-air-conditioned car on a punishingly hot Oklahoma summer day.

ROLL FOR SANITY LOSS - Discovering Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu boxed set introduced me to the sanity-losing joy of one of the best RPG systems ever devised. Several year’s later, Call of Cthulhu developer Sandy Petersen wrote the introduction to my book “Swords & Circuitry: A Designer’s Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games.”

By the time I finished reading through the full rule set (thankfully in cooler circumstances), I realized that I’d finally found the game system for me. D&D was hellaciously fun, but sometimes the gameplay felt repetitive. With my group, we mostly spent our time murdering monsters to get their stuff so we could get better equipment to kill bigger monsters to get even better stuff...rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Call of Cthulhu, however, was a game that was about exploring mysteries, solving puzzles, and doing your dead level best NOT to end up in a gun battle with eldritch Outer Gods (which never, ever, ever went well for players who tried to pay CoC like it was just D&D in 20s drag.) I loved that players were constantly battling to stay sane, and that everyone was HIGHLY mortal. Characters never leveled up to being unkillable demi-gods. You were always at risk, always challenged, and you had to use your head while simultaneously terrified about what was lurking around every corner. If you did your job properly as Keeper -- essentially a role equivalent to a Dungeon Master in D&D -- you scared the crap out of your friends as they worked to save the world from cultists, and conspiracies, and monsters who often concealed their actions behind phenomena which ordinary people might dismiss. It helped if you were someone with a strong sense of paranoia about the world.

While CoC was a great game, it was not a title that had a strong following in Oklahoma at the time. It didn’t have the strong word of mouth, and a lot players simply didn’t see the appeal of a horror game set in the 1920s. (It also didn’t help that the Cthulhu pantheon were, for a short time, a badly handled part of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. They were later retconned into a number of other monsters, with mindflares being the most clearly obvious remnant of Cthulhu’s original imprint on the D&D universe.) For a long time it was simply something I had to love without a regular group, but that didn’t keep me from working diligently on developing my own scenarios to run at OKON, the largest science fiction convention in Oklahoma at the time.

Like most Keepers, my first scenarios were focused on events in the typical settings of Innsmouth or Dunwich or Arkham. There was, after all, a seemingly bottomless wealth of source material upon which to draw from Lovecraft and his Kalem Club contemporaries. What I didn’t love about using his established canon, however, was that it was too easy to have certain details of each town too easily recognized by reasonably well-read players. They knew who Pickman was and what Whaley was up to in the woods. They understood what was happening when people began to display that “fishy” look in Innsmouth. Often they’d have the mysteries solved before we got very deep into my adventures which meant that I had to change my approach. In order to get players off the scent, I had to take them where they’d never been, and introduce them to characters they’d never met. Ardently I set about the creation of an entirely new Massachusetts town named Tallchester, determined to create it in as great a detail as I could manage. Although I wouldn’t have recognized it as that at the time, I was developing my first real experience as a game designer and as a world builder.

A MOLDERING, ANCIENT TOME - My notes on the Tallchester setting have not fared well over the decades, but it somehow makes the content feel moodily appropriate.

DOWNTOWN TALLCHESTER - One of several maps that I drew up as part of the Tallchester campaign setting.

As you can see, my folder for Tallchester is now a crumbling, moldy mess that would be well suited for discovery in the basement of Miskatonic University. In it I have extensive maps, character bios, and a multi-page print out from a BASIC program I’d written to randomly generate NPCs for the entire town. I had reams of handouts to give to players about events mentioned in the local newspaper, some of which were relevant to scenarios I was running, and others of which were “seeds” for adventures still to be written.

YOU LOOKIN’ FER A HANDOUT? - No Call of Cthulhu scenario is complete without a fistful of handouts, and “The Curse of Tallchester” was no exception.

I could easily have spent forever building up that fictional town, but I found that players at conventions really enjoyed it when I relocated my adventures to more familiar settings. Tulsa and its environs had been a major city during the oil boom, placing it right smack dab in the middle of Lovecraft’s 1920s. The richest oil magnate in the world at the time, J.P. Getty, lived in the Mayo Hotel. Movie stars made a point of being seen in the oil capitol, and major aeronautics companies were furiously building there. The north side of Tulsa was for a time the most prosperous black community in America, so much so that it was called “Black Wall Street” (and tragically it would also become the site of the worst race riot in America’s history). In a lot of ways it was an absolutely perfect Lovecraftian city, and all I had to do was put in the work on a source book.

Starting around 1987, I began spending a lot of time in the newspaper archives of the Tulsa Tribune, looking for any sufficiently weird headlines which might serve as the start for an Oklahoma-based Call of Cthulhu campaign. I did not come away disappointed. Between the strong streak of yellow journalism of the day and the strangeness of a world still grappling with spiritualism and science, the Tribune ended up being a gold mine of ideas. There was plenty of stuff to work with, and it was dovetailing with another project of mine to explore the ghost stories of my family and of the neighboring town of Sand Springs -- a town which originally had been named Adams before the land was bought and redeveloped by benevolent city founder, Charles Page.

FRONT PAGE OF THE TULSA TRIBUNE, 2/6/20 - Even Tulsa’s real newspaper was covering some eldritch-level creepiness back in 1920.

Around the time that I was beginning to draw these elements into a cohesive whole, the unthinkable happened. I got a full-time, salaried job in the computer game industry doing EXACTLY what I’d been doing for fun on Tallchester and for Tulsa. I relocated to the west coast where my life became a full time dive into other worlds and other projects. As I lived and breathed new settings with very little spare time, the Tulsa Call of Cthulhu sourcebook was placed on hold and would stay there for a number of years. It wouldn’t be until a visit to the Sand Springs Cultural and Historical Museum and a discussion about the town’s folklore that I’d begin to see an opportunity to fuse both projects into a fictional setting (see my previous blog post about “A Ghost Town of My Own”). My new world would be a dark, mirror image of both Tulsa and Sand Springs and would serve as the heart of a written-for-Chaosium campaign that I wanted to name Crude Awakenings. Not only could it serve as a game framework, it would also serve well as a fictional “verse” for short stories, films, comic books and a number of other potential properties that today we’d call transmedia. Tentatively I began toying with ideas for short stories all set in this universe, with the first tale to be called The Tome set in the city’s gothic and terrifying library.

For another long spell the ideas sat until last November when I began to dust off my notes. I considered the possibilities of simply taking The Tome and turning it into a game, but after reflection, I realized that it wasn’t well suited to being a game. I needed something that would lend itself well to the format, and which wouldn’t need to be completely restructured in order to be made interactive. And so I returned to my notes on Crude Awakenings and the first scenario that I’d described for the campaign. “The Derrick” began with an oil derrick, a mysterious death, and a romp that could lead on to a globetrotting adventure of mystery, exploration, and horror.

And that’s where we begin, back where we started, standing over a dead man in the oil fields south of the eldritch city of Adams, Oklahoma.

#Call Of Cthulhu #RPG #Role-Playing #Chaosium #Writing

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