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artnerd1123 · 4 years ago

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Among Us: CR3WM8TS

Updates Required (part 2)

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With the ship launched and crew settled, it’s time to get to work. Which, for Bunbun, means updating. How smoothly that goes depends on the crewmates in charge… Bunbun’s hoping she’s in good company.

Featuring appearances by Junior, Laser, and Rose!

Among Us archive/askblog Fic chapters post

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Ok so originally I wanted to keep all this together, but decided it’d be better to chop it into pieces. That way I can keep my momentum, keep posting for y’all, and still intro y’all to the crew as things get moving!

Yes, I’m aware this chapter is coming out 3 days after the last one. I do not control the will to write but my motivation knows no bounds rn! Enjoy the fruits of my hyperfixation labor lskjfsdf

===+===+===

Mission Log 4

Ship Model: SKELD D34-H120 Designation: SUPPLY TRANSPORT, EXPLORATION AND DOCUMENTATION OF SECTOR G PLANETS Crewmate Count: 9 Crewmate Colors: DARK GREEN, WHITE, PURPLE, DARK BLUE, YELLOW, RED, LIME, BLACK, PINK

Location: SECTOR F Ship Status: IN TRANSIT Course: PLANET 326-OCE-894 - SECTOR G Systems:

Navigation: COURSE INLAID / STABLE / UPDATES NEEDED

Engines: UPPER - ONLINE, TANK 0.98 / LOWER - ONLINE, TANK 0.97 / ALIGNMENT UPDATES NEEDED

Reactor: ONLINE / FUNCTIONING OPTIMAL

O2: STABLE

Electrical: CALIBRATOR OFFLINE

Communications: ONLINE / UPDATES NEEDED

Shields: ONLINE / FUNCTIONING OPTIMAL

Weapons: TEMPORARILY OFFLINE / FUNCTIONING N/A

Security: CAMERAS ONLINE / ALL FUNCTIONAL

Administration: MAP OFFLINE - UPDATES NEEDED / CONNECTION SECURE / SHIP FILES UP TO DATE / ALL CREW ACCOUNTED FOR

Medbay: EQUIPMENT OFFLINE - UPDATES NEEDED / FUNCTIONAL / CREW FILES UP TO DATE

Supplies: FULL

Storage Chutes: CLEAR

Vents: CLEAR

Notes: Many systems functioning on reserve power temporarily, as updates are needed. PINK identified systems in need of updates. PINK has commenced updates under DARK BLUE supervision. Updates still in progress. RED has been admitted to medbay for minor injuries. Other crew performing normal activities.

===+===+===

The soft thump of boots on metal accompanied two crewmates as they meandered down the hall. Bunbun trailed after River, taking a look at her task list. The tasks from Reactor and Security glowed green. Five other tasks still remained white. More updates in one day than she’d prefer, sure. But she’d had a nice send off by the reactor monitor. Lemon’s kind words were only a minute behind her. And, if Lemon was right, she and River were off to meet his son. Hopefully he was just as friendly.

River reached upper engine first. If his disgruntled huff was anything to go by, it meant there was company. He got himself settled near the doorway as Bunbun caught up to him. She stepped into the room nervously. Amid the hissing and noise of clunky machinery, she could just hear someone shouting. It took her a minute to locate the source- half hidden by the steam, a crewmate in a lime suit was waving near the system monitoring panel. Bunbun waved back hastily, moving closer to make out their words. “-ey! Hey! Over here!” the crewmate called, waving steam out of their face. “Got it! I’m here!” Bunbun shouted back. Squinting, she did her best to swipe away some of the steam, stopping next to the stranger. From the shock of red hair she saw through bits of fog, she had a feeling he was Lemon’s son. Though she did wish she could see him better. And hear him better. It was so loud and so misty in here. “One sec! Let me just- set this thing on low for a minute-!” He coughed, tapping at the monitoring panel. “All good! You do what you need!” Bunbun replied. Soon enough, the clanking and roaring of metal died down to a low rumble. The mist cleared out as the noise quieted. Once it faded, Bunbun got her first good look at the crewmate. He had a bright green suit- lime, as HQ called it- and a brown paperboy’s cap. His large square glasses were still unfogging with the room. He had a smattering of freckles across his peachy skin, especially over his nose. The square of gauze taped to his cheek had a couple dark fingerprints against it. Oil, if Bun had a guess. As she’d noted before, his hair was just the same shade as his father’s- though it was longer and more tousled. He took off his glasses to polish them, giving a glimpse of dark blue eyes, and a brief glance at heavily pierced ears. He was definitely on the younger side for a crewmate. If she had a guess, he was out doing field work for space academy. He flashed a nervous smile at Bunbun, fidgeting as he pushed his glasses back on.

Ah, she knew that look. Seems she’d found her fellow timid crewmate.

“Er- hi, sorry about that,” he chuckled sheepishly. “Things get pretty hectic in here, a-and i’m not used to other people doing engine maintenance…” “It’s ok,” Bunbun said, “I know how that gets, believe me.” “Eheheh, right… I’m, uh Lemon Junior by the way. But you can just call me Junior.” Holding out a hand, Junior tried for a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, uh…?” “Bunbun,” Bun replied, taking his hand for a gentle shake. “I take it you heard about the updates I need to do?” “Yeah, uh, I did,” Junior nodded. “Lemon sent me up here to help out after we finished refueling.” Gesturing to the panel, he looked to her uncertainly. “If, um, I’m allowed to ask… what kinda updates are you… y’know… gonna do…?” Bunbun was sensing a theme with the engine monitors on the ship. “Just a couple things to make alignment reports more accurate,” she explained. “The engines are a little old, so giving them an update just lets the records be more accurate. Helps HQ make sure they won’t need any big fixes.” Junior nodded along as she spoke. Relief shone on his face. That made Bunbun relieved too. Any soothing she could offer in the ways of tech was nice. “Yeah, ok. That’s ok. You can, um, do what you need to,” he sighed, stepping back. “Just let me know when you’re done updating here.” “Of course!”

With that, Bunbun settled in, once again, to take care of the software. She could feel Junior watching her as she worked. It wasn’t… horrible. It didn’t feel like how river watched her. More like those curious interns she encountered sometimes. A glance over her shoulders said Junior was keeping more of an eye on the screen. He looked away quickly when he saw her watching, looking like a kid caught with the cookie jar. He must have an eye for software, she thought fondly. Kid after her own heart. She moved to the side nonchalantly to give him a better view as she worked. She could see him smile out of the corner of her eye. One of her own tugged at the corners of her mouth. Maybe they could talk code later. That would be nice. Across the room, River was grumbling to himself. When he wasn’t staring holes in the wall or his fellow crewmates, Bunbun could hear him shuffling around impatiently. Engine aligning just took a little longer. The patch would have to be replicated exactly, after all. Can’t be too careful. River’s grumbly restlessness was more of a nod to his lack of patience. From Junior’s nervous fidgeting, he’d taken notice. “... um… you can wait outside… if you want…” Junior called hesitantly, looking to River. “Can’t,” River said bluntly. “Oh- why?” Junior perked up. “Did you need something?” River shook his head with a grunt. “Gotta watch the newbie.” “Er… oh.” The lime-suited crewmate seemed to deflate a little. “Ok. Just. Thought I’d offer,” Junior mumbled. “Whatever,” River snorted. Bunbun just bent her head lower over her tablet. The green upload bar ticked forward at a snail’s pace. Though the process only took a minute or two, it was still the worst part of working with tech. Not to mention the sooner she left, the sooner she could get River out of Junior’s hair. He was fidgeting with his hands enough that she knew he was self soothing. C’mon, c’mon… almost there… she begged internally.

When the green finally filled the bar, she let out a long sigh. “Ooookay, upper engine’s all done,” she reported. “Thank the lord,” River drawled, exasperated. “All of it?” Junior blinked. His face lit up with awe. “Sheesh, that was fast!!!” “Well, yeah,” Bunbun chuckled, hiding a smile, “I wouldn’t be so highly recommended if I was slow.” “Fair ‘nuff, fair ‘nuff.” Humming contentedly, Bunbun turned back to the system monitoring panel. Oh yeah, she’d definitely talk code with him later. For now, she leaned forward to study what she’d just done. Now came the tricky part. Reuploading the exact same fixes on the other engine. How to go about this…? “Hey, Junior?” She asked, waving her crewmate over. “I have a quick question before I head out.” Junior tilted his head to the side, hat nearly slipping off his head. “Head out?” he echoed. “Well, yeah, I’ve gotta do the same thing down at lower engine. I just wanted to know if-” “Oh! Oh, nonono, lemme save you the trip-” Junior broke in. Rushing to her side, he reached for the manual alignment slider. “Y’see, I figured out this little loophole awhile ago- just a sec-” Bunbun watched with increasing confusion and concern as he expertly centered the slider, eyed the screen, and gave the slider a rather rough slam with his fist. The monitor sputtered a minute, and so did she. What was he doing? Where had her work gone??? “Wh- what did you-?” she managed to squeak, falling silent as her tablet made the distinctive thrum of a task finish notification. The screen stabilized a moment later. Junior pulled back, looking quite pleased with himself. “Aaaaaand- there!” he chirped, smiling. “I just sent your code down to Lower Engine. No need to walk down yourself.” “... how in the world did you… find that?” Bunbun wondered, baffled. “I-it’s an old system,” Junior replied meekly. “It was a bug my dad found out on accident awhile ago. We just found a way to make it useful.” “... huh.” Bunbun nodded thoughtfully. Useful bugs. An old idea, sure, but it worked just fine here. “Fair enough. Thank you!” “‘S no problem, glad I could help,” Junior beamed. “You ready to go now?” River called. “My legs are gonna give out if I stand here much longer.” Bunbun and Junior shared a look. They may have properly met a few minutes ago, but… well. They’d both seen enough of River. “Coming, coming,” Bunbun sighed. Waving at Junior, she plodded after her dark blue crewmate. “Hope the engines behave for you and lemon!” “Thanks, miss! Hope the systems behave for you too!!!”

Behind her, the engine slowly started roaring back to life. Its noisy growling echoed off the walls as she followed River once again. It might’ve just been her optimism, but she thought the sound was smoother now. Meanwhile, River seemed to have chosen a path for her this time. They were headed straight to Medbay. The noise didn’t necessarily decrease as they approached. It just changed from machinery to voices. Bunbun could only make out the conversation once she got close. River had parked himself outside of the door, looking inside a bit warily. Bunbun hung back uncertainly. What was he waiting on? “Will you please sit still?” a voice begged, clearly exasperated. “I’ve been sitting still for five minutes now!” another whined, equally as annoyed. Curious, Bunbun edged around River to peek in the room. The medbay looked as it usually did- four beds and equipment in the back. The scanner and computer monitor looked a little old, sure, but they’d been polished so well they looked new. Movement from the back right bed caught her eye- it was the source of the voices.

Sitting on the end of the bed was a crewmate in a red suit. Her pack was leaned against the footboard, a pair of red and black headphones sitting atop it. Both objects nearly got kicked over as the crewmate squirmed. Her straight dark hair was cut a little above shoulder length, a long swoosh of it nearly covering her right eye. Her brows were furrowed over her earth-toned gaze, expression quite put out. Her skin was a tannish beige, with plenty of bandages littering her face. Evidently, she was not a stranger to Medbay. A black choker was visible as she shifted again, grumpily trying to free her hand from another’s grasp. It’d been stripped of its glove, revealing some painful, blue tinted blisters. The one hanging onto the crewmate’s hand was wearing a white suit. Her long coppery hair was partly tied up in two buns, the rest of it spilling fluffily past her shoulders. Her bangs hung so low they almost covered her olive green eyes. Of course, the heart shaped glasses she wore did a better job of that. Bunbun admired how they matched her earrings, though- pink hearts adorned the crewmate’s ears. A flower pin was rooted near the right side of her head. She looked somewhat annoyed by her patient, but not angry. She was doing her best to maneuver her gently, giving her all the care of an electrician fixing sparky wiring.

“Five minutes isn’t enough for me to examine your hand,” the one in white pointed out. “Rose, babe, come on,” the one in red groaned, “it’s nothing serious, just a little plasma burn!” “You may think so, but you’re not the medic, are you?” White retorted. “But- I- you-” Red sputtered. White raised a brow. After a minute or two of stumbling over excuses, Red’s shoulders slumped. “Ghhh. Fine,” she grumbled, “have it your way.” “That’s what I thought,” White said smugly. “Now, about that hand of yours…”

A knock from the doorway drew everyone’s gaze instantly. River hadn’t moved from his spot, though his hand was now raised. He rapped his knuckle on the doorway a few more times. “Hey. Rose. Laser,” he nodded to white and red respectively. “Mind if we come in?” “Oh! River! And- you’re Bunbun, right?” Rose asked hesitantly. Bunbun nodded, giving a tiny wave. “Er, yeah. That’s me.” “Well, I wasn’t expecting either of you today!” Rose said, head tilted. “Come right in. I’ll be finished here in a little bit.” “Just don’t take the bed next to me,” Laser huffed at River. Rose gave her a look, and her patient stuck out her tongue.

River walked almost cautiously into the room, going over to stand by the left side beds. He stood straight and proper there, hands by his sides. Bunbun trailed after him. She got herself comfortable leaning on an empty bed close to the group. Rose busied herself wrapping Laser’s hand in some gauze. The two whispered to each other- something about dinner plans- as she worked. Once all was said and done, the medic straightened back up. “Now! What can I do for you two?” Rose asked them warmly. “Nothing for me today,” River replied, nodding in Bunbun’s direction. “I’m supervising Bunbun. She can give you more details.” Bunbun blinked a bit at the sudden and calm introduction. That was the most polite response she’d heard River give all day. It honestly caught her a bit off guard. Scrambling to compose herself, she held her tablet close to her chest. “Um- yeah, I’m just g-going around the ship to update some systems,” she explained timidly. “Your ship is a little out of date, but i’ve got plenty of patches and software updates to help out.” “Ah! I was wondering when HQ was going to send someone here,” Rose sighed softly. “About time, if you ask me,” Laser snorted. “We’ve been needing someone to help this bucket of bolts for lightyears.” Rose gave laser a little pat in agreement. Even River seemed to nod, albeit he rolled his eyes a little. “Yeah, so, I’ve just got a couple updates to do in medbay. I’ll try to be quick, but… y’know. No guarantees,” Bunbun continued. “That’s ok! And entirely understandable.” One finger tapped her chin thoughtfully, her gaze bouncing around the room. “What needs to be updated in my little corner?” “Ooone sec-” Bunbun mumbled, opening her task list. There were two tasks listed in medbay. “It looks like just your scanner and computer monitors? If that’s alright?” “I don’t see why not,” Rose hummed. “Go right ahead, miss. Let me know if you need anything.” “Will do, thank you,” Bunbun replied. She’d hardly taken a step towards the monitors, though, when Laser broke in. “Whoa whoa whoa- hooold on a sec there-” Laser burst, holding up her hands. The action made her wince, but she made no other signs of pain. “You’re here for updates, right?” “U-uh-” Bunbun stammered, confused and alarmed, “y-yes-?” “Are there any updates assigned to Weapons or Shields?” Laser pressed. “Let me… check…?” Bunbun said warily. Looking down at her task list, she gave it a quick scan. Surprisingly, they were both absent from her tasks. Huh. Well, that’s odd, she thought. Out loud, she answered Laser’s query. “No, there’s n-nothing for Weapons or Shields.” “Yes!” Laser whooped, pumping her bandaged fist. An action she immediately regretted. Hissing in pain, she still managed a wide grin. “I told you guys updating your stations often was a good idea!!!” “You did say that, didn’t you, firecracker?” Rose chuckled softly, a gentle smile on her face. “Mmmmhm…” River hummed, lips pressed tightly together. “W-well, it does keeps the systems running up to HQ code, not to mention upping their efficiency,” Bunbun explained timidly. Laser gestured to her enthusiastically. “You! I like you!” Laser grinned, “cuz you get it!!!” “Don’t mean to interrupt, ladies,” River spoke up- almost gently, giving Bunbun another momentary bluescreen- “but Bunbun does have a job to do.” Luckily, Laser and Rose’s voices snapped her out of it. “Oh. Right. She does, doesn’t she?” Laser echoed. “Sorry bout that, Bunbun.” “Indeed she does,” Rose agreed. Smiling apologetically, she nodded towards the scanner and monitor. “They’re all yours for as long as you need, Bun.” Giving the two a grateful nod, Bunbun strode towards the scanner. “It’s no problem,” she replied, pulling up her code. “I’ll be done in just a tick…”

===+===+===

The updates in medbay took much longer than expected. Around thirty minutes in total. There was a lot to get to. Not only did Bunbun find herself tripping over incorrectly stored files from previous medics, but the outdated medical system kept trying to override her new input. The whole thing was confusing, frustrating, and very difficult to work with.

Fortunately, she found herself in good company.

Rose’s level head and gentle tone helped keep her distress down, and she knew all the work arounds for the computer. Laser offered plenty of encouragement. River, to his credit, actually stayed quiet. He added input only once- when a security bypass code popped up. Other than that… nothing. He just sort of. Stood there. It was odd. But Rose and Laser were enough to distract Bunbun from it, and enough to keep her on task.

When she finally pulled back from the equipment, the other ladies gave a little cheer. “Good job, hon! It’s running like a model made yesterday,” Rose beamed. “You wrangled the hell out of that code!” Laser grinned. “That’s a perfect job in my book.” “Thank you, thank you,” Bunbun laughed, waving a hand. “You’re too kind- both of you!” “We do our best,” Laser winked. “Anytime!” Rose hummed. “... yeah. Glad you got that figured out,” River finally spoke up. Bunbun gave him a quiet nod of thanks. Was he just… warming up…? She really hoped so. Shifting in place, River jerked his head towards the door. “You ready to head out, Bunbun? Just a couple more stops.” Bunbun paused. Holding up a finger, she flipped up her tablet. Both the tasks she’d had for Medbay now glowed green. Perfect. She nodded quickly. “Yeah, I’m good,” she replied. “M’kay. Let’s get a move on,” River sighed. “See the rest of y’all around.” He turned to go, pace a little slower as he left the room. Bunbun waved over her shoulder to Laser and Rose. The two smiled and waved back, free hands gently entwined as they gave their well wishes. The sight left Bunbun smiling all the way down the hall.

The more of her crewmates she met, the more at home she was starting to feel. It was… nice. Really nice. A good assignment so far. She hoped it’d stay that way.

#cr3wm8ts #au:c #among us oc #bunbun among us #river among us #junior among us #laser among us #rose among us #among us #yes i went crazy went stupid and did most of this in one day #what of it #slkjflksflskfsdlkfjsl #anyways yea here's this #will have crew files up somewhat soon #ish #probably tomorrow #arty writes

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casper-writes-stuff · 5 years ago

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North Side of the Trees Part One

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900057/chapters/54735148

Summary: Virgil gets caught in the thrall of a Will-o'-the-wisp and finds himself in the territory of a lamia- a half snake half human creature, and is a little freaked but a lot gay and Jesus how is this his life?

This has been in the works for. So long. Too long, honestly. But the first part is done! I'm pretty excited about that, actually and I'm even more excited to get part two out once it's finished.

Enjoy!!!

Virgil doesn’t really know what happened after he’d entered the forest. He remembers seeing a wispy light off in the distance and despite knowing it was a Will-o'-the-wisp it was almost as if he’d been possessed by the urge to follow it.

Will-o'-the-wisp’s typically lead you somewhere you wouldn’t be seen again. Most assumed that meant death, Virgil was inclined to agree. Not like he was able to stop though, even as he kept tripping over roots and stumbling over fallen branches. His trance like focus on following the wisp never broke, his gaze never wavered from the ghost-like fire that was always several feet in front of him.

He didn’t come back to himself until it dissipated, seemingly scared off by something Virgil couldn’t see because as soon as he was aware of his surroundings he was kind of panicking.

“Hoooly shit,” he cursed, looking around the dense forest, an area he’d never been before because it wasn’t within the designated safety borders and Virgil was never really fond of the forest anyway.

Virgil was honestly so busy panicking he didn’t see the glowing yellow eyes in the trees, didn’t notice the movement of a thick tail loosening from a thick branch until there was suddenly a cacophony of crunching leaves and a thud on the ground in front of him.

He snapped his head up, hands pulling away from yanking at his hair to ground him while he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth in calculated measures.

Except he wasn’t really breathing very evenly now, if at all, what with looking at a fucking half snake dude laying in the ground, arms crossed as he used them to prop himself up.

“What?” Virgil asked, letting out a disbelieving laugh because lamias were typically women, at least from the rare sightings humans had seen of them and also because lamias had never willingly showed themselves to a human before and he was a little worried about what that meant for his safety.

The lamia started speaking, and Virgil flinched back as pain threatened to split his skull in two at the sounds coming from the snake man’s throat. He stopped speaking, frowning for a moment before sighing.

“Want…” he started, a strange accent thick in the word, “want keep you?”

...What?

Virgil stared at the lamia, utterly perplexed that he was trying to talk to him in broken english. How the hell was he supposed to react to this?

Snake man huffed, pushing himself up until he was eye level with Virgil, making the slit pupils and scales decorating his face so much more detailed and…

Jesus Christ, Virgil was not gay for a snake, nope this was not happening.

“Want keep you. You dumb?”

Virgil snorted out another laugh, trying to keep it stifled because if he was attracted to a snake then yeah, he’d say he’s pretty fucking dumb.

“That’s… up for debate at the moment. Um… you. You want to keep me?” he asked, taking a step back when the lamia grew closer to him.

The movement made him narrow his eyes, and the next thing Virgil knew he was wrapping himself around him and he was suddenly encased in snake.

Virgil went red faced, letting out a small squeak because wow he was not expecting to be in this situation today. Granted, he hadn’t been expecting to meet a lamia ever, and yet here he was.

“You followed wisp. Found me. I want keep you, make safe,” he kept speaking, a forked tongue slipping out between his words.

Oh God, his pupils got big all of a sudden, was that a bad thing?

The lamia leaned forward suddenly, burying his face in Virgil’s neck and tongue ghosting over his neck, forcing another startled squeak from his throat.

“Smell good. Taste good. Look good. Let me keep you.”

Virgil found himself asking once again how the fuck he was supposed to react to this. A lamia found him attractive apparently? A monster… who’s kind had been typically caught eating men wanted to keep him, and apparently make sure he was safe?

What. What the fuck was his life right now?

“Okay well you suddenly got so much more personal than I have let even my last boyfriend get so maybe-” he cleared his throat, trying to ignore his burning face as he gently pushed the lamia’s face away from his neck, “maybe back up a little bit, dude.”

Snake man seemed to pout, but he at least followed Virgil’s guidance away from his neck.

“And also why? Like you’re cute, I can not deny that,” Virgil continued, trying not to get distracted by the pretty pink that dusted the lamia’s face at that, “but humans have found lamia’s eating men before and I gotta be a little worried about my safety here.”

Snake man shook his head, seeming irritated by Virgil’s words and wow, he could not help his concern for his well-being spiking at that.

“Only women and only human men who threaten safety. Still dangerous here, but I keep safe.”

Ah, well okay that was a little less worrying?

“And you are pretty. Prettiest human I’ve seen. Let me…” the lamia eyed his neck again, his tongue slipping out as he breathed deeply, “let me keep you.”

“You are really insistent on that, aren’t you?” Virgil asked, rubbing at his neck as his eyes dropped to the tail wrapped around his legs up to his waist.

His scales were a pretty shade of yellow, with paler patches littering his tail in random shapes, sizes, and placements. Virgil used his free hand to stroke over the skin, now distracted with the way the muscle seemed to contract under his touch.

The lamia hissed, and Virgil’s eyes snapped up to his face again to see a flustered expression.

“Oh uh… sorry, man,” he said, pulling his hand away.

Snake man shook his head, taking a moment to seemingly recover before he spoke up.

“Name? Need name to keep you.”

Virgil bit his lip, glancing around the forest as he thought.

That… would be interesting, but he wasn’t sure how he felt being ‘kept’ by a lamia when he had a life back in town. It wasn’t much of one, and he struggled to make ends meet more often than not, but he wasn’t sure how well he’d take to being away from people.

“Flattering offer, but I can’t really say it’s all that tempting outside of the pretty snake man offering it,” he said, looking at the lamia.

He frowned, leaning away from Virgil for a second as he thought.

“You keep me?”

Virgil spluttered, blinking rapidly as he jerked back the best he could wrapped up in lamia tail.

“What? Dude no, you’d literally be killed if someone found you and I’m not about to let that be on my conscience.”

He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest as his pout returned.

This lamia really needed to stop being cute so Virgil could stop dealing with the crisis of wanting to kiss him.

“Then stay with me,” he said, getting closer to Virgil’s face again, reaching a hand up to run it through his hair, a soft gasp escaping him and his other hand joining the first.

Was he… being petted by a snake?

“You haven’t really done much to sweeten the deal, snake man,” Virgil said, a little amused by his excitement over his hair.

The lamia paused, shifting his attention from Virgil’s hair to his face, though his hands remained buried in the strands.

“What?” he asked, making Virgil raise an eyebrow.

“Not sure what you’re asking, dude. ‘What’ is the vaguest possible question.”

“What did you call me?”

Well his english seemed to be getting better, at least?

“Snake man? I don’t exactly know your name,” Virgil answered, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket so he didn’t do something dumb, like pet the guy’s tail again.

He hummed, going back to playing with Virgil’s hair.

“My language hurts you, name would be bad to say.”

Virgil thought at that, trying to keep his mind focused and not melt when the snake started digging his nails into his scalp, scratching the skin in a pleasant way.

“Can you like… translate your name to english? Since you seem to be able to speak it.”

The lamia paused at that, tilting his head and looking up at the treetops for a moment.

“Deceit. Closest word.”

Virgil nodded, gently pulling Deceit’s hands from his hair.

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Deceit, but I should really get home. It’s getting pretty late, and I’ve really gotta figure out how to get home because I’m honestly lost as fuck.”

Deceit frowned, looking at Virgil’s face in consideration.

“Stay with me for night. I will get you home tomorrow if promise to visit.”

Virgil weighed his options, letting out a sigh because his choice was honestly very small.

Either he got lost in a forest full of magical creatures that want to kill, eat, or keep him with malicious intent, or he stay the night with the lamia who had proven to at least not want to hurt him on purpose and go back home tomorrow so he can figure out how to work visiting said lamia into his not so busy schedule.

“Yeah, alright. I can agree to that.”

Deceit grew visibly excited for a moment before he cleared his throat and schooled his expression into a more muted eager one.

“Perfect. Will lead you to nest, meet pests who like visits.”

Virgil watched as Deceit’s expression grew into fond irritation at the mention of the ‘pests’ and he had to assume he probably meant friends. He could relate to that, Remy was the most annoying fucker in town but Virgil would honestly kill for him.

“Alright, Dee. Can’t really walk with you wrapped around me though.”

Deceit grew red, Virgil letting out an amused laugh as he uncoiled himself from around his legs.

“Sorry. Let’s go, before moon rise.”

Virgil shrugged, and gestured for Deceit to lead the way.

#casper writes #ts deceit #ts virgil #anxceit #mythical beings and creatures au #disregard of personal space #sympathetic deceit #lamia deceit #human virgil #virgil really just rolls with whatever happens to him in my fics doesnt he #also why do i keep writing creature deceit?#idk man but i love doing it so who cares

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fanfic-scribbles · 5 years ago

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Lunch Buddy: Chapter Thirteen

Masterlist

<<Previous Chapter Next Chapter>>

Overall Story Facts:

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Story Summary: Steve Rogers makes a friend. A prickly, generally people-averse friend, but they’ll both take what they can get.

Quick Facts: Friendship (/Eventual Romance) – Steve Rogers & Reader (leading to Steve Rogers/Reader) – Female Reader

Story Warnings: Reader-insert that verges on OFC, written in 1st person past tense

Chapter 13: Hurt

Chapter Summary: Steve gets hurt and everybody else has to deal with the fallout. Jerk.

Chapter Word Count: 5197

A/N: I know what the next chapter is going to be and we are continuing our trajectory for ~softness~

I was sitting in bed on a beautifully lazy Saturday morning when my phone rang. I glanced over, expecting to have to tell Steve that I wouldn’t be putting on real pants for anything short of the end of the world and he had to come over or nothing, but it was Sam’s name that showed up on the screen.

“Hi Sam,” I answered and paused my game.

“Hey. I’m sorry to call you like this, but I need to tell you– Steve’s fine now, but he got hurt pretty bad.”

I put down the controller and felt a cold something creep through my body. “How bad?”

“He’ll recover just fine,” Sam said. “But some of his injuries–” He inhaled sharply and I gripped my comforter so hard my hand hurt. “Last I heard, he was still in a medically induced coma, but they were planning to take him out of it soon. It’s actually kind of a good thing though; he was hurting really bad and nothing they did was helping.”

“Because pain meds don’t do shit for him,” I said and held my face. How bad was that bad?

“Yeah,” Sam said, sounding regretful. “I had to get back to DC so I couldn’t stay, but he was doing a lot better when I left. Stable, and on his way to healing up. He’s going to be okay.”

Sure, right, yeah; aside from maybe almost dying before I knew anything about it. Not that I was important enough to know– I was just a friend– but… “Do you think they’d let me visit?”

“I think so. There are SHIELD agents keeping watch but…have you met Natasha yet?”

“No. I’ve met Pepper?”

“She might be able to help if you need it.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.”

Me too, but that was selfish. “Don’t worry Sam, I’ll figure it out. Thanks for letting me know.” I looked at my closet. “Fair warning though– when he’s out of the woods and I stop being freaked out, I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“Nat has dibs I think. He was covering her from an explosion.”

“Fine,” I said. “But if she doesn’t do a good enough job, I’ve got second dibs.”

“I’m not contesting that,” he chuckled. “I gotta go. I’m sleeping on my feet.”

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry; I’ll take a nap.”

“Sam.”

“I’ll be fine when I get a chance to sleep for three days. And I’m going to, I promise you that.”

I didn’t have time to nag. “You better. Bye Sam.” As soon as I hung up I jumped out of bed, put on real pants, grabbed some essentials, and bolted out the door so fast I got halfway down the hall before I realized I had to go back and lock it.

I spent the whole trip there panicking and trying not to panic. Sam said he was going to be fine, so Steve was fine, right? But he was in a hospital, and what kinds of injuries could keep Steve in a medically induced coma? The guy fought aliens and broke bones that healed in half the time and once stubbed his toe on the doorframe and didn’t even flinch.

I tried really hard to think about stubbed toes and slammed elbows rather than the myriad reasons one would be admitted to a hospital. Those thoughts carried me into the building, to the map where I could find his wing, and over and into said wing, up until I almost ran into someone. I pulled back to get around them. “I’m so sorry; I–”

They put themself right back in my path and I jerked back to see not just one but two very imposing, militarily inclined men. “Uhhhh….”

“This area is off-limits to unauthorized visitors,” one of them said.

Right; the SHIELD guys keeping watch. “I’m here to see Steve Rogers,” I said and told them my name in vain hopes I might be on a list or something.

The first guy, a sandy blond who looked like he wanted to drop-kick me out the window, shook his head. “Authorized personnel only. The Avengers probably have an address for fans to send well-wishes.”

Even though they had no reason to know who I was, I bristled at his snide tone. “I’m not a fan; I’m his friend.”

The other guy– dark hair, looked like a washed-up TV action star– snorted and he shared a look with the other guy that very clearly said what they thought of me.

“Ma’am,” Blond said. “Please leave or you will be escorted out.”

I felt sick. Steve was hurt and I couldn’t see him and the embarrassment of being seen as some sort of gross hanger-on was almost too much. Almost. I was too worried to be completely mortified, but I still had no recourse. They were dicks, but they were doing their jobs, and for the moment Steve was…safe. I turned, intending to text Pepper and wait in the cafeteria until she could help me (and maybe get a dusty bagel to help soak up the misery), when I almost smacked right into Tony Stark.

What a day.

“I’m– sorry,” I said lamely and moved aside to get around him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

I sighed and told him my name. “I’m a fr–”

“You’re Cap’s little lunch friend,” he said. He knew who I was? Stark waved a hand. “Pepper and Rogers have mentioned you. Well, Pepper mentioned; it feels like Cap brings you up all the time. You going in to visit?”

“I was going to, but–”

“Chickened out?”

“Not allowed, apparently,” I said and jabbed my thumb in the direction of the gargoyles. At least the assholes pretended to be more professional then and stopped snickering, but even Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) peering expectantly at them from the top of designer sunglasses just made knockoff-Stallone shake his head.

“No unauthorized visitors allowed,” he repeated.

“Oh come on; what’s Cap going to say when he finds out you chased off his BFF?”

They looked at me like they still didn’t believe it for a second. Blond said, “I’m sure Captain Rogers will understand we’re just doing our jobs.”

The worst part was that they were right, damn it.

“What does she need? A note from home?” Stark waved his hand. “I can write one; who has paper. We still do paper sometimes, right?”

“She needs proper authorization,” the guy on the right sneered.

“Consider this authorization.”

We all jumped at the sudden appearance of a man in a suit, whose calm smile made him look like the dictionary definition of ‘mild mannered.’ The two guards, however, stood very rigidly at attention. “Sir.”

The new man said my name and extended his hand. “I’m Phil Coulson.”

I shook his hand and introduced myself properly. “I’m sorry but– am I allowed to–”

“You can visit Captain Rogers whenever you like,” Phil Coulson said and looked right at the guards. “Understood?”

“Yes sir,” they said, much less enthusiastically than their initial acknowledgement to him.

“Not that Captain Unblemished is going to be here that long, but hey.” I suddenly had a small bouquet of flowers in my hands, thanks to Tony Stark. “Since you’re allowed all-access now, can you give these to Cap? I’ve got things to do.”

“Uhh, sur–”

“Thanks, nice meeting you, etcetera et al,” Stark said and left with a dramatic turn.

Somehow I had imagined a little more mocking, maybe a few accusatory points about me ruining some of his fun in poking at Steve, but the guy seemed…annoyed. And not necessarily with me. I turned my head to Coulson, who only shook his. “This last assignment got…complicated,” he said and opened his arm towards the hall. Understatement, but at least I was finally going to get to see Steve. The two…gentlemen…parted, and my second savior (wait until I told Steve who the first was) walked with me.

“He’s right in here,” Phil– Coulson– Phil Coulson said, standing next to an open door with no room number. The inside was very dimly lit, and the curtain drawn halfway over the door blocked the bed from sight, but I felt less like a tension rod.

“Thank you, Mr. Coulson,” I said. “I’m sorry if I caused problems.”

“It was no problem for me, and there won’t be more for you,” he said like it was a promise. “And please, Phil is fine. I was on my way out earlier and I’m afraid I still have to go, but it was nice to finally meet you. Hopefully next time we’ll see each other under better circumstances.”

“Yeah, next time. Thank you,” I said and stepped in.

It was so quiet, and mostly dark, aside from a single light off in the corner. Steve was very still in the bed, bruised and bandaged, but I could see his chest moving. He looked roughed up, but he didn’t look comatose. He didn’t even look like he had come close to death. He just looked like he was sleeping.

I set the flowers down on the nearest flat surface and walked slowly, quietly, to the chair next to his bedside, and perched on the edge of it. I wasn’t sure, at first, if I should stay– he was sleeping; was this creepy?– but the more I looked at him the more I settled in. One of his arms was completely wrapped up; there was a bruise on his jaw, closer to his neck than his chin; a strip of stitches on his neck; one, two, three, four, five scratches that I could see, plus a patch of skin that was raw, like it had rubbed against concrete. He didn’t look as bad as I’d expected him to, which I assumed meant all the terrible things had happened on the inside.

But he was breathing. He wasn’t even on oxygen; nothing about the machines around him said he was in dire straits. With a little bit of makeup he could have looked like a hospital patient in a Hallmark movie, ready to wake up and be released at any moment.

But he had been hurt. He had been hurt badly enough that it was a blessing he had been out for the healing process. I didn’t know why I hated that idea so viscerally, but it made me want to punch something.

I sighed. A small tuft of hair hung at a weird angle over his forehead and I brushed it back into place. Then, just to reassure myself, I let my hand hover over his mouth and felt a warm, steady pulse of air.

“They took him out of it earlier.”

I jumped so hard I hit my feet and had to windmill so as not to crash into one of the monitors. Miraculously, I didn’t knock anything over or otherwise make a lot of noise, and Steve didn’t show any signs of waking. Once I was done with my quiet heart attack, I turned to face the woman standing at the end of the bed. She had red hair and eyes sharp enough to cut. I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly who she was.

“Uh…hi,” I said and forced my hand down, away from my heart and to my side. I told her my name and waited for her to finish looking me over.

“Natasha Romanoff,” she said.

Yup. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Steve says a lot of good things.”

She barked a laugh. “Did Rogers pay you to say that?”

That was surprisingly harsh, so I kept quiet. I was batting a thousand today. But she sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry.” She straightened out and looked completely composed. Neat trick. “It’s been a long week.”

“I bet,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She moved her eyes to Steve and frowned. “Annoyed, but that’s not fatal.”

“Yeah, I’d have been dead a long time ago if it was,” I said and shrugged. “But I also would have taken a few jerks out with me, so…win some, lose some, I guess.”

She made a small noise that was neither this way nor that and I shut my mouth before I could embarrass myself further. She walked around to his other side. “Who called you?”

“Sam.”

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“Not…exactly,” I said. I didn’t really want to tell her because I wasn’t sure her current sense of humor would allow for me to fake-threaten our mutual friend, but she looked at me so hard I got my bank information and social security number ready to go just in case she wanted them. “I got upset and made a joke about having dibs on kicking Steve’s ass when he’s better. Sam said actually you had it first since Steve was covering you in some explosion?”

Her lips pressed tight for a moment as she stared at Steve. “He didn’t have to.”

“But he’ll probably argue it when he gets up.” I looked at him. “He’s a jerk like that.”

“Yes. He really is,” Natasha said. She started to reach for him, but then abruptly stepped back. “I’m– I can’t deal with him yet.” She started to leave, but stopped at the edge of the curtain. “Are you staying for a while?”

“I think so.” I pulled out my book to show her and set it on my lap. “I don’t really have much else to do today.”

She nodded curtly. “Good. The rest of us do, but Steve…he doesn’t have the best reaction to waking up in medical. It’ll be better if he has a friend.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone having a great reaction to waking up alone, in a hospital, after almost dyi– “I’m on it,” I said before I could delve too deep into those thoughts.

“Thank you,” she said with a brief burst of warmth that almost made her seem like someone else. Then she was back to being aloof. “I’m sure I’ll see you later.”

I didn’t even have time to say “Bye” before the curtain swooshed behind her and settled into place like she was never there.

It was a couple of hours before Steve began to stir, and I had only left my seat to stand up and stretch a few times. I didn’t know he was awake at first, until I saw part of the pillow shift, and I put my book on my lap to find him staring at me. Drowsily, but definitely staring.

“Hi.” He squinted and frowned. “Am I dreaming?”

I snorted and put my bookmark in before I set the book on the table. “No. I’m pretty sure your subconscious isn’t that mean to make my face the first one you see.”

He frowned deeper. “My subconscious definitely isn’t that mean to you.”

“Hey, I call it like I see it.” I leaned in closer. We were both quiet, and I was content to stay that way. “I’ve been looking up photos and your teammates are pretty. I mean, Sam alone would be a good sight.”

“Sam is very handsome,” he agreed so easily it made me smile. “But it’s not so bad to wake up to you. Not bad at all.”

“Do they have you on pain meds?” I asked.

He shrugged, and winced as he did so. “Doubt I could tell if they did. I don’t hurt as much anymore, though.”

“Good. That’s good.” I swallowed. “I’m glad you're okay.”

He got a small smile. “Soft.”

“Only right now. You scared the shit out of me.”

Steve lost his smile and opened his eyes wider. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault, it’s just…” It felt like my throat swelled, so I took a second to try and compose myself.

But Steve was alert now and sat up. “Hey, no; come here.”

I didn’t quite know what he meant, until I saw his arms open and, well, why not. I couldn’t help but glance at the door but there was no new noise and nobody I could see, and I leaned in to hug him as gently as I could. He wrapped his arms around me, warm and breathing and feeling like normal. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“You scared a lot of people,” I said and stayed there until his grip loosened and I could pull back. “But since I’m selfish, yeah; mostly me.”

He smiled weakly and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry you had to find out.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m glad; I…I guess maybe it’s weird for you that I’m here–”

“It’s not,” he said. “It’s definitely not. I’m just sorry I upset you.”

“It’s an upsetting thing.” I shrugged. “Emotions. They kind of suck.”

“Sometimes,” he said. Someone knocked on the door and we both looked when someone came in. I winced as the lights were turned on, but I suddenly realized Steve had still been holding my hand up until that point, when he released it to rub his eyes.

“Oh, sorry Captain,” the doctor said and she smiled at me. “I didn’t realize you had a visitor.”

“Oh, hi Dr. Sherazi,” Steve said, sounding a little brighter. He introduced me to her and we shook hands. I was getting a little tired by all the new people, but I tried not to let it show too much. Steve was worse off; I could be okay for him.

“When I said don’t be a stranger this isn’t quite what I meant,” she said and started checking monitors. When she turned to me, face already expressing apologies, I knew what was coming and I looked at Steve.

“Go home.” He reached out and touched my arm. “I’ll be okay.”

And I didn’t hide myself that well, apparently, because he gave me a Look that said he knew I’d rather be gone. I wasn’t sure whether to feel bad about that or not. “Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m going to call Sam and after that I’ll probably be besieged by people wanting to yell at me.” He cringed. “I…don’t want anyone to see that, really.”

I nodded because I didn’t want to be obnoxious, but after I packed up I asked him, “Is it okay if I come back tomorrow? I don’t– I don’t have any plans, really; but it’s okay if you don’t…”

“I’d like that,” he said and opened one arm. I hugged him one more time and took a real breath for the first time since that phone call.

The next day I pre-planned my morning and set off with a few extra supplies. I stopped by a pastry shop on the way and stood in a long line to get a drink for me, fill a thermos for Steve, and buy a few treats which I shoved in my bag with his tightly-lidded coffee. When I got to the hallway and saw the same two guards I braced myself, but they looked resigned when they saw me.

“We apologize for the misunderstanding yesterday,” the dark-hair one said and his partner muttered something similar. “And for our reactions; it was uncalled for.”

I tried to smile as brightly as I could. “It’s okay; I can be a bitch sometimes too so, hey, kindred spirits,” I joked.

He frowned. Deeply. My smile fell. “It was a– I was just kidding; I meant–” I sighed and gave up when his face didn’t change. “I’m sorry,” I said and left.

Steve looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I came in and threw the curtain back into place behind me. “Even when I try to be nice I fucking suck at it,” I said and dumped my bag on the chair.

“Good morning to you too,” Steve chuckled and put his fork down. “What happened?”

I opened my mouth and stopped. He looked normal, healthy, but he was still in a hospital bed. “Don’t worry about it,” I said and put my drink on the side table so I could rifle through my bag. “Here,” I said and handed him the thermos.

“You're my favorite,” he said fervently and took it.

That made me smile again. Pretty big, too. “Also here,” I said and put the two white bags on his tray. “This place didn’t have strawberry so I got you a chocolate and a plain croissant.”

“You’re my favorite person ever,” he said and pushed the hospital’s plates aside so he could dig in.

“Yeah, yeah; eat it before someone else walks in. I didn’t bring enough to share.” I was the best. My smile was almost painful, but luckily Steve was too distracted to notice while I wrestled it under control. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. The burns are gone.” He held up his arm to show me skin instead of gauze.

“I guess you’re not going to be the mummy for Halloween.”

“No, but I could be Frankenstein’s monster maybe.” He extended his neck to show me the scar where his stitches had been.

“Tch.” I sat back. “It’ll be gone in a few days.”

“Like nothing ever happened,” he quipped, too lightly, but that was an issue I didn’t know how to tackle.

“Except for my new blood pressure medication from the heart attack you gave me.”

“Were you that worried?” he asked jokingly.

“Yes,” I said. He went silent and stopped eating. “Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t know how to deal with actual concern.”

“I could learn,” Steve said with a softer smile.

“You’ll need to with friends like yours,” I said. “They were all pretty worried.”

He shrugged. “Most.”

Maybe– I hadn’t met all of them– but I was pretty sure I knew who he meant. “I don’t think I would have been allowed in without Tony Stark’s help when he came to visit,” I said. Steve’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “There are some SHIELD guys making sure not just anybody can come in and some random chick claiming to be your friend naturally didn’t make the cut. But when I was about to leave, Tony Stark came up on his way in and made it a thing until Phil Coulson came by and said I could be here.”

“Oh,” Steve said. “I’ll have to thank Tony.”

“Me too, but I’m trying to figure out how,” I said. “I’m thinking the cheesiest fucking card I can find but I don’t think he’d get that I’m joking. That would be awkward.”

Steve smiled. He was about to say something but I caught sight of the book in his lap and I jerked to attention as I suddenly remembered. “I brought you books!” I said and got them out to hand to him. “Just in case you get bored. I almost forgot.”

“Thank you,” he said, laughing, and set them aside. “Did you ‘just remember’ because you know I was going to say something sincere?”

Huh. “No, but wow, I got lucky.”

“Steve, you’ve got to get some friends that aren’t emotionally constipated.”

We both looked to the doorway to see a man with two butterfly bandages on his cheek, a smudge of dirt on his throat (in blatant contrast to his obviously recently washed hair), and a bouquet of flowers in his hands. The price sticker was still on the cellophane wrapping and I snorted at the sight. Perfectly coifed spies and billionaires were something else. This guy was an unmistakable disaster. I could handle that.

“But then how would he relate?” I asked as the man came over to give Steve a hug and place his flowers next to the set from Tony Stark.

“I’m way better with my emotions than you are,” Steve said, looking at me as his friend stood up.

“That’s like saying you’re taller than the ground,” I said. His friend laughed and I…took a little pride in that; sue me. Steve then introduced me to Clint Barton.

“Hawkeye,” Clint said and grinned wolfishly. “But if you don’t know who Captain America is then I’ve got no chance.”

I glared at Steve. “You told people about that?”

“It’s funny,” he said, his smirk nearly matching Clint’s grin for deviousness alone.

But Clint’s face fell when he sniffed the air. “Hey,” he said. “It smells like chocolate in here.”

“She brought me a chocolate croissant,” Steve said.

“Aw.” Clint deflated.

“Yeah, it’s all gone. Sorry,” Steve said.

Clint narrowed his eyes. “You're not sorry at all, are you?”

“Nope,” Steve said cheerfully.

Clint looked at me and jerked his thumb in Steve’s direction. “This guy.”

“Yup, he’s an asshole,” I agreed. I looked at Steve. “But for some reason we like him anyway.”

“For some reason.”

Natasha was apparently the queen of sneaky entrances, but I didn’t jump this time. She was a little steely, until she saw me looking, and then she gave me a real smile and greeted me with a hello.

Maybe she was like a shark waiting to bite, but I hadn’t done anything wrong, so I smiled back. “Hello Natasha.”

“How are you?”

“Oh, I’m all right. You?”

“I’m much better, thank you.”

“I don’t like this,” Clint said, creeping towards the door.

“You two have…met?” Steve asked, not taking his eyes away from Natasha. Smart.

“Briefly,” Natasha said.

She and Steve stared each other down and I looked around but Clint was gone. Oh. I looked at them. “Should I leave?”

Steve opened his mouth. “Please,” Natasha said politely, without looking at me. “We won’t be long.”

“Okay.” I stood up and left my bag at the chair, but I hesitated. However the way they looked at each other– Natasha ready to strike and Steve ready to defend– made this completely out of my league. I slipped out the door and shut it behind me.

“Oh geeze,” Clint said.

I sighed and stared at the door. I didn’t hear anything, but that wasn’t necessarily good. “I can’t believe I was so worried about him almost dying only to lose him like this. Unfair.”

Clint patted my shoulder consolingly.

But only a couple of minutes passed before Natasha opened the door, and she wasn’t covered in blood. That seemed like a good sign. Then again, strangling someone wouldn’t cause a whole lot of blood loss. I couldn’t help but peek in first and Clint did the same, but while Steve looked a little stunned, he was still alive.

“Wow,” I said and went back to my seat.

“I have excellent self-restraint,” she said and leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. “At least we finally got to meet you.” Her tone dipped into teasing. “Steve has been so sly, stealing away all the time for his lunch dates.”

Steve turned red and ducked down. “Come on, Nat.”

“Not very sneaky are you?” I said, even though it was true.

“No, he really isn’t.” Natasha’s lips were tinged with amusement. “But I hear you’re pretty direct yourself.”

I shrugged. “Guilty.” I looked elsewhere. “I don’t have the best filter.”

“You’re fine,” Steve said.

Maybe, but most likely not really. He was probably just being nice to me because I had fallen to pieces the day before. I cleared my throat and sat back when I realized I was leaning close to Steve. I could do this; I could make nice with his friends. I hoped. “By the way Natasha, thanks for that photo of Steve chucking Sam into the water. It’s my desktop background.”

“It’s what?!”

I ignored Steve and so did Natasha, but Clint laughed. Natasha smiled. “I’m glad you appreciated it. It is one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken.”

I realized something then and dared to get my hopes up. “Steve. Surfing. Is there video?”

“Of course” and “Of course not” came in unison from Natasha and Steve respectively, and he whipped his head in her direction so fast I heard his neck crack.

“Natasha,” he pleaded.

“That’s very valuable blackmail though,” she told me. “I have stories that would unseat politicians I’d charge less for.”

“How much to peek at stills?”

“I’m sure your job is lovely, but it’s still probably more than you make.”

“A recounting of the experience?”

“Hmm…how detailed?”

“I’ll take subject-verb-object at this point.”

“Steve surfed wave.” Her lips curled devilishly. “Wave surfed Steve.”

“Two sentences?” I gasped.

“Well, I like you,” she said.

“Hey Clint,” Steve said. “Do me a favor and tell the doc I want those experimental pain meds she was trying to talk me out of. Or just, anything that makes me unconscious so I don’t have to hear Nat get sweet-talked into giving up that video.”

“Wow, you really do believe in me,” I said. “It’s okay though, my imagination can take it from here.”

Steve’s mouth screwed downwards. “I have no friends. Everyone I love is dead to me.” He looked thoughtful. “Or dead.”

That was so delightfully dark it shocked me into laughter, and Clint too by the sound of it. Natasha, however, punched him so hard he actually said “Ow!” and rubbed his arm.

I stayed with them for a couple of hours, until my patience began to fray and I started checking the clock. Not that Natasha and Clint weren't great (I might have fallen a little in love with her when she made a “Die Hard” joke so wonderfully dumb that Clint got caught up in a groan while he laughed) but I was just…getting tired. Before I could attempt some pathetic excuse, though, my phone buzzed and I pulled it out.

Pepper: You might want to warn Steve that Tony is on his way.

“Oh boy,” I said and fired off a quick ‘thanks.’ When I looked up they were all staring at me, and I looked at Steve to get my grounding. “Pepper just said Tony Stark’s on his way.”

“‘Oh boy’ is right.” Steve grimaced. “You should probably go before he gets here.”

I hesitated, because that seemed a little crappy, however…I knew my limits. “Yeah, I– I don’t think I have the energy for him.”

“Don’t worry.” Natasha took a seat. “We’ll supervise.”

“Aww,” Clint said, but he showed absolutely no sign of moving. How someone could lean almost 180 degrees in a chair that was very solidly 90 degrees (if not less) and even pretend to look comfortable I had no idea, but more power to him.

I packed up and stopped to hug Steve. He held me a little longer than I expected. “Don’t worry; I’ll be out by tonight,” he said and let go. “And as soon as I’m done with debriefs, I’ll let you know. I still owe you lunch.”

“So you better stick around.” I stood. “I’ll collect. Someday.”

“I won’t hold my breath on that one,” he said.

I held my heart and looked in Clint and Natasha’s direction. “He’s learning.”

I got a pillow to the face, but Natasha got a new cushion. And while Steve may have been annoyed…he was okay. And he was going to continue to be okay.

Win-win.

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#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers & reader #captain america fanfic #avengers fanfic #reader insert #lunch buddy

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thenovelartist · 6 years ago

Text

His Heart Song

Hot dang, this was supposed to be short!!! But my muses wouldn’t fricking shut up. This is based off @edendaphne‘s Lukanette commission for @bbwoulfc.

Even if you don’t like the pairing, it’s a beautiful picture and I LOVE IT!!!!

~AO3~ ~Fanfiction~

...

The first time he met her was because his sister brought her over to hang out. Just like Juleka, she was thirteen, two years younger than him. She was adorable and easily flustered and all over the place like a bee over a flower field.

He enjoyed teasing her when she stuttered. Surprisingly, it got her to relax, which got her to calm down just enough for him to hear her heart song.

He played it for her, and that was the beginning of their friendship.

Within weeks, he was able to read her inside and out, and she didn’t hang out here with his sister that often. Yet, reading her was second nature. Which was surprising considering he had to dig under her wave of notes to get to her heart song. And even if it did take extra time, he found out…

It was worth it.

…

“Why is your heart like this?” he asked, playing her heart song, something sharp and stuttering.

She smiled bitterly. “I’m just a little nervous.”

“Why? For the date?”

She nodded. “I mean, I’m excited to go and he’s a nice guy. I’ve just never been on a date before.”

He hummed. “Would you feel more comfortable if I took you there and took you home?”

She mulled it over, her lips in a line. She didn’t want to bother him.

He smiled. “That’s a yes?” Luka said.

“How do you do that?”

“Magic,” he always said.

It always got her to smile. “Only if you’re willing.”

“Of course. Anything for a friend.”

“Then yes, I’d appreciate that, Luka.”

…

She was fifteen when Luka lead her to a first date for the last time. He would always be there for her, because she was his sister’s friend, because she was her friend, because she meant more to him than just a friend would.

And because he loved her that way, he encouraged her to go chase the guy she really liked.

He regretted it from the selfish standpoint. But he remembered true love wasn’t selfish. She didn’t owe him anything. And she didn’t belong to him. He couldn’t hold onto her nor old her back. So he let her go.

He played his heart song that night, and it sounded an awful lot like the breaking of a guitar string.

…

“Stay still,” she said, holding a sharpie to his arm.

“Why?” he asked with a chuckle.

The sixteen-year-old beauty flipped her hair away as she leveled him with a blue-eyed gaze. She was growing into a stunning woman, and her heart song was beautiful, too.

“You always know how to play people’s feelings,” she said. “While it took me a while, I finally figured out your pattern.”

“My pattern?” he asked, though he surrendered his arm to her as she tugged at it.

She nodded. “Yup. You know how some people walk down the street in a color or a pattern or a symbol that just screams ‘them’?” her face fell when she realized that she was the designer and he was the musician. “Oh, no, that’s not your thing. Anyways, it’s totally a thing, and you have a pattern that I only just figured out.”

He chuckled. She’d dove head first into fashion, and just when Luka was beginning to think she had reached the bottom, she dove deeper. But she was so passionate. Her heart song when she was like this was wild and wonderful and free. He could rock out to it for hours, easily.

Instead of rocking, though, he was listening. Listening to her hum everything from his original tunes to Jagged Stone songs as she doodled on his arm with the sharpie.

Two sharpies, actually. The black was shadows, but everything else was his favorite teal blue. “It suits you,” she had said.

For half an hour, he stayed and relaxed, feeling the sharpie color his arm and watching her expression change with every portion of it.

She grinned when she was done. “Your pattern, sir.”

He looked over the artwork that covered his arm from his shoulder to his wrist. The detail and time she put into it… it just fit. He could hear her heart song sing proudly over the work she’d done. It was such a beautiful sound. He played those chords over and over in his head until he memorized them. “I love it.”

She grinned in pride, and that song took off.

“What’s your symbol, pattern, color?”

She shrugged. “Symbol.”

“What is it?”

“A flower.”

“What kind?”

She shrugged. “A flower.”

“I want to see it,” he said. He looked up and down his arm before pointing to a free patch. “Here. I want to see it.”

She looked at him with a slowly growing smile of amusement. “If you insist.”

“I do.”

Which he rarely ever did.

She pulled out a pink sharpie, one that suited her to a tee, and doodled her flower in that open spot on his arm, right in the crook of his elbow that he could keep protected.

“It suits you,” he said, looking at the flower and feeling a warm beat fill his heart.

She just shrugged.

When she left, his mind raced back to her song. He wrote it down as quick as he could, then began playing it over and over again.

As he looked in the mirror that night and took in the artwork on his arm, the artwork the girl his heart sang for had done just for him, he realized that he couldn’t bear to part with it.

The next morning found him in a tattoo shop. It wasn’t cheap, but walking out at the end of the day, he knew it was worth it.

She was worth any cost.

…

“Luka, you did not get that tattooed on you.”

“I did.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“I like it,” he said with a smile. “Do you have a problem that I’m forever wearing your artwork?”

She shook her head, her grin unable to be hidden. “No,” she eventually said. “Not at all.”

…

He was so excited to share the news with her. Nineteen, and his dreams were coming true in the best way. His favorite artist had heard his stuff, loved it, and was ready to beg and grovel to buy a couple songs.

Luka had laughed at that.

But for the Jagged Stone to come to him and admit he loved Luka’s music was incredible, and Luka was willing to sell a couple on one condition.

“I want to play with you.”

Their impromptu jam session had been amazing. Jagged was a true artist, and Luka counted himself lucky his idol hadn’t let him down. He was a great guy who warned Luka to never stop honing his talent.

“Luka,” his mother called out, “Marinette’s here.”

He was buzzing with energy. And that all came to a halt when he caught sight of her, her heart song playing in his ears. Something slow that tugged on the heart strings and overflowed your tear ducts.

“What happened?”

She sniffed, wiping away a tear. “He just… ended it.”

So they sat on his bed, her head against his shoulder while he played anything that would ease the tears.

“You know,” he said once she had calmed down and was paying attention to his music. “Your heart it beautiful. It beats like this,” and he played for her.

“And I don’t like hearing it sound like this.” He played a few more notes, and he saw a smile pick up on the corners of her lips.

“And for that guy,” he continued. “To just end it like that?” He plucked a few disharmonious chords.

He felt like a winner when she huffed a laugh.

“Thank you, Luka.”

He smiled and continued playing a song for her. “Anything for you, Marinette.”

…

“So you’re really leaving?”

As excited as he was, he hated that the answer to her question was yes.

“Don’t get me wrong,” the eighteen-year-old girl said. “I’m really happy for you. Like, really happy. It’s amazing that you’ll be touring with Jagged Stone and playing your music and I’m really really happy for you to be living your dream.”

He could feel a ‘but’ coming.

She tackled him in a hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

He held her as tightly as he dared. Heaven help him, this was going to rip his heart out. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he lied.

“I know,” she said. “And I know you have to go. This… this is your dream. And people will love you and your songs and it will be amazing. I’m really happy for you.”

But she wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t happy she wasn’t happy.

“Keep in touch,” she begged.

“I promise.” Because his heart couldn’t take it if he didn’t.

…

He was loved by the crowds. People were buying up his music and his gear and talking about how much they loved Jagged Stone’s opening act.

But none of that love came from a girl with a beautiful heart song. They came from screaming fans who all wanted a piece of him. He couldn’t hear their music. He couldn’t play it back to them. But honestly, he didn’t quite care. There was only one song he wanted to hear.

And he hadn’t heard it in months.

Sometimes, he’d play her songs that he’d written down. It reminded him of her. Reminded him of home. Mostly, it grounded him. But there was always a part of him that realized that the songs were just a little emptier than he would like it to be.

“That’s some good stuff, mate,” Jagged commented.

“Thanks, but that’s not something I wrote.”

“Huh. Who wrote it?”

He paused. “People have songs. I just listen for them.”

“I hear where this is going,” Jagged said, smile in his tone. “Your girl?”

“I wish she was my girl,” Luka said. “But she’s just the girl I love.”

Jagged hummed. “You’ve told me about her, I think.”

“Probably,” Luka said with a mirthless smile.

“You see her lately?”

“With time differences and all, I rarely get a call. Mostly its e-mails and texts.”

Jagged hummed his understanding. “You should invite her to a show.”

“She’s busy studying her passion,” Luka said. “I won’t take that away from her.”

“Well, you can’t always go off living your dream while she’s living hers. You two gotta be a part of each other’s dream, too. Penny taught me that.”

Luka smiled in fondness. Jagged may be a rock star with a bunch of women screaming at him for his attention, but he understood the power of one woman vs a thousand. “Yeah, well, I won’t make her sacrifice too much. I’ll wait for her school to go on break.”

Jagged smirked. “Whatever you say. Just be careful that in letting her be, you aren’t pushing her away.”

Luka didn’t like how those words settled in his heart. So he put his guitar away for the night. And didn’t pick it up again until the show.

…

Two weeks later, and he was trying to figure out Marinette’s schedule so he could send her tickets.

“Luka,” Penny called form outside his door at the hotel. “Someone is here to see you.”

His brow furrowed in confusion, but he walked out into the hallway—

And his jaw dropped.

There, in a red tank top and jeans with her hair cascading around her shoulders was the one who made his heart sing.

She smiled. He couldn’t help it, he scooped her up as she flew into his arms, and he spun her in a couple circles before slowly setting her down on the ground.

“I missed you,” he murmured, one arm holding her against him while the other wove into her hair.

“I missed you, too,” she responded.

“How did you know I was here?”

She pulled away, and her expression turned confused. “You weren’t the one to send me tickets?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “I was waiting until you were out of school because I wouldn’t want you to miss it.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh,” she breathed out. “And… and here I thought it was because you didn’t want to see me.”

His eyes widened as something akin to a screeching violin sounded in his head. “Of course I wanted to see you,” he quickly assured. “But I couldn’t ask you to put your dream on hold for me.”

She smiled, a myriad of emotions pouring off her in one wonderful symphony. “It’s one week. That’s not ‘putting my dream on hold’.”

“I still didn’t want to interrupt your school work,” he said. “Design is your passion. Your dream.”

“And you don’t think you’re important enough to interrupt it?”

The tune changed right then and there. Everything changed to suddenly become harmonious and wonderful to his ears, and he could just stand there and listen to it forever.

“Are best friends important enough for that?” he asked quietly.

Her eyes fell away from his, her cheeks suddenly turning pink. However, her eyes fell to his tattoo. More specifically, her symbol in his pattern. Gingerly, she touched it, and he was certain his face turned pink, too.

“Luka,” she began, looking up to meet his gaze. Her breathing quickened, and his heart begged her to say the words he could hear in the wonderful melody rolling off her. “You… you need to know… after you left, things… they weren’t the same.”

“They haven’t been the same for me, either,” he encouraged.

“And…” her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry for taking you for granted.”

“When have you ever?” he asked.

She touched his arm, the one with the tattooed sleeve on it, then looked back up to him. “Friends just don’t spontaneously decide to tattoo a doodle on their arm.”

“It’s my pattern,” he argued.

“Not this part,” she said, rubbing circles with her thumb over her symbol.

He smiled.

The music changed once again as understanding passed between them.

“Luka,” she whispered, her blush deepening. “I’m sorry for only just figuring it out.”

“It’s okay,” he assured.

“I love you.”

He beamed. He couldn’t help it. His fingers buried deep in her hair, wrapping around to cradle the back of her head as he pulled her closer to him. “I have always loved you, Marinette.”

She smiled, leaning into his embrace as he smiled so widely his cheeks hurt.

“And,” he continued as he pulled her against his chest and pressed his nose into her hair. “I always will.”

#miraculous ladybug #fanfiction #Fan-fanfiction? I think #edendaphne is AMAZING!#marinette dupain cheng #luka couffaine #lukanette #romance #friends to lovers

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cobythinks · 6 years ago

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I Don’t Do Soulmates || A Sanders Sides Soulmate AU

A/N: This is a long one, so most of it is under the cut. Also, be sure to check out my MASTERLIST.

Summary: Roman doesn’t do soulmates, even though he has three. Dalton doesn’t do soulmates because he doesn’t have any. Despite Roman’s best efforts, though, it feels like he’s destined to meet his soulmates one day. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Ships: Roceit, LoganxPattonxVirgil, platonic LAMP

WARNINGS: sympathetic Deceit, mentions of death, mentions of a car accident, food mention, swearing, depression, talk of self harm/suicidal thoughts. Nothing super explicit. Please stay safe!

Roman liked fairy tales. He always had. He loved the stories about the kings and the queens, knights, princesses that needed saving, evil stepmothers, fairy godmothers, dwarves, beasts, soulmates, and especially happy endings. When he was little, the bookshelves in his bedroom were dominated by various copies of the books and CD cases. His walls were covered in drawings of those stories - and sometimes stories of his own.

The day he found out that he was lucky enough to have three soulmates was the best day of his life. The thought that he could be a prince or a knight and protect someone who meant so much to him? That just fueled his creative energy into more. He’d write stories to his soulmates in bright red marker and pen, usually accompanied by illustrations.

Roman never once considered that most of his heroes had a tragic backstory. After all, that was just a story. Just something to make the stories more interesting. His life was fine - perfect even. He had three soulmates, more than anyone else he knew! Patton, who never seemed to use the same color of marker. Logan, who always used dark blue ballpoint pen. Virgil, who seemed to only own black and purple markers.

Even his parents only had each other, just one soulmate each. Unlike some antagonistic fairy tale parents, they were wonderful. They encouraged him in writing his stories - sloppily relayed to his soulmates across his arms and sometimes legs.

As far as fairytales go, Roman was sure he’d gotten the better end of the deal. He didn’t have a curse or a wicked stepmother, he had all the good.

At least… he did.

Roman was nine years old when it happened. It wasn’t anyone's fault, of course. Accidents like that happen all the time. It was January, and it was getting dark as they drove home from the movies on the backroads. No one could have seen the patch of black ice covering the road. No one could have stopped them from sliding, spinning off the road. No one, not even a prince from one of Roman’s stories, could have stopped his parents from dying.

After the crash, stricken with grief and confusion, Roman stopped writing to his soulmates. How was he supposed to protect people he’d never met if he couldn't even keep his own parents alive? He couldn't keep making them promises he’d never keep. So it would be best, he figured, to not. At least for a little while.

A little while turned into eight years.

“Roman, get your lazy ass out of bed!” Roman groaned, rolling out onto the floor. “Now! The bus will be here in five minutes and I am not driving you again!”

“Okay! God, Aunt Rina,” Roman muttered under his breath as he pulled himself standing, glancing with a frown at his mirror. He’d fallen asleep in his clothes again, not wanting to change and see the messages written there.

Not that he didn’t read them. Roman smiled sadly, pulling at his wrist to examine an intricate flower in black and purple. He read all the messages he got from his soulmates. He never replied. They didn’t deserve that. They’d stopped trying to directly contact him years ago, Roman wasn’t even sure if they remembered.

“ROMAN!”

“OKAY!” Roman yelled irritably, grabbing his backpack. One plus side of accidentally sleeping in his clothes and shoes, he could just leave his aunt's house as soon as he woke up. He hurried through the kitchen, avoiding looking at his aunt.

“Hey,” Roman sighed and lifted his head to look at her. She sighed. “Breakfast.” Roman caught the banana she threw at him and turned without replying, hurrying down the street to the bus stop. He stuck the banana in his backpack, halfheartedly planning to eat it at lunch.

His aunt wasn’t a bad person… they just didn’t get along. They never had, and it probably didn’t help that Roman had three soulmates he refused to contact. She had none. So, it was natural she’d be bitter and angry about it.

Roman slipped into the backseat of the bus and pulled up his sleeve, smiling fondly at the poem written in dark blue ink. Even after all these years, they used the same colors. Virgil with his purple and black - eternally edgy. Patton continued to supply different kinds of inks and colors - some complete with glitter. Roman sighed and pulled the sleeve back down, looking up moodily as someone else got on at the next spot.

He didn’t recognize them, they must be new. It was the beginning of a term. Roman sighed, watching as the kid looked around. Then they locked eyes, and for some god-forsaken reason he smiled and walked over, sitting across the aisle from Roman.

“Hey,” Roman grudgingly smiled. No reason to be rude - this guy hadn’t ever done anything to him. “You’re new, right?”

“Uh…” The kid shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I’m Dalton.”

“Roman.” Roman ran a hand through his hair. “Nice to meet you.”

“I guess.” Dalton sighed and shook his head. “You too.” Roman nodded, looking down as the pink Crayola marker traced the outline of a few hearts on the back of his hand. He shoved it into the pocket of his jacket, planning to check the finished design once he was alone.

“Are you in drama?” Dalton suddenly asked. Roman looked over in surprise, nodding.

“Uh.. yeah. How’d you know?”

“Your jacket…” Dalton shrugged sheepishly. Oh yeah, he was wearing the hoodie from the play last year. Roman smiled. “Is it hard? I kinda wanted to try out, but I’ve never really acted before…”

“You should do it,” Roman said, turning to face him better. “It’s really cool, and I think you’d do well.” Dalton frowned.

“You just met me.”

“Yeah,” Roman shrugged and looked at the floor. “Anyway, where’d you move from?”

“Oh, just a few towns over.” Dalton sighed. “I came to live with my mom and her new husband, and his kids. Long story.”

“Hey,” Roman held up his hands. “You don’t have to tell me, we’ve all got long stories.” Dalton smiled.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Roman looked at the back of his hand and smiled fondly at it.

Four hearts in a group covered most of it, and Patton seemed to be highlighting them with all different colors. Purple, navy blue, and sky blue… and red. Roman looked away and put his hands back in his pockets. Dalton didn’t seem to have noticed, he had turned to look out the window as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Do you have your schedule?” Roman asked with a sigh, grabbing his bag and standing.

“Uh…” Dalton rifled through his pockets and pulled out a folded paper. Yeah. “Logan just graduated last year, he made me a map…”

“Cool.” Roman tried not to think about the poem on his arm when he heard the name. Logan was a common name. “He’s…”

“My step-brother,” Dalton said as they slowly made their way to the front. “Like I said,”

“Long story.” Roman grinned. “Who do you have for first period?”

“Mr. Corey,” Dalton frowned. “Math. why did I decide to have math in first- nevermind.”

“I have him second,�� Roman said. Dalton nodded, then smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry I’ve kinda bugged you all morning, uh… but thanks.”

“It’s nothing,” Roman, threw an arm around the other kids' shoulders. “I’ll show you where Mr. Corey’s room is.”

“You sit alone?” Roman’s head jerked up from where he’d been reading Virgil’s to-do list. He yanked his sleeves down when he saw Dalton. Dalton slid down the wall next to him, pulling out a paper bag.

“Uh, yeah,” Roman shrugged. “Gotta fill the quota for teenage brooding, y’know?”

“But like, you don’t have any friends?” Dalton seemed completely surprised. Roman frowned.

“I mean…”

“You just seemed like the popular kind of jock guy. Theater guy.” He corrected as an afterthought, pulling out a sandwich.

“Well, not everything is obvious.” Roman sighed, then dramatically pouted. “Are you saying you aren’t my friend?”

“Hey-” Dalton frowned. “That’s not fair, dude, come on!” Roman laughed, shaking his head.

“I’m kidding. Geez. You don’t have to sit with me.”

“I want to,” Dalton shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich. Roman watched him for a moment, then remembered his own lunch. The projectile banana from Aunt Rina. He sighed and grudgingly pulled it out, Virgil’s handwriting flashing through his mind.

‘Remember to eat’ he was always writing things like that. ‘Water is actually important.’ Whether it was for himself, or for his soulmates, Roman didn’t know. And he certainly never planned on asking.

“What do you have after lunch?” Roman asked as he peeled the fruit.

“Creative Writing,” Dalton replied. “You?”

“Do you have Bird?” Roman asked, face lighting up. Dalton pulled out the wrinkled paper, transferring Dorito crumbs onto it, then nodded. “Well, that’s at least one class we both have.”

“You write?” Dalton’s face lit up. “That’s cool!”

“I mean…” Roman shrugged and rubbed the spot where Logan’s poem still remained on his skin. “Kindof. I like to, but I don’t know if I’m good.”

“I’m horrible,” Dalton said matter of factly. Roman frowned.

“I refuse to believe that.” he declared.

“I am!” Dalton laughed. “I mean… I might not be horrible. But I’m not good. I’m nothing like…” he trailed off and shook his head. “Logan hates it when I compare myself to him. I can’t help it. Did you know he graduated a year early? He’s the same age as me, but he’s already graduated!”

“...yeah?” Roman tried to ignore thoughts of scribbled conversations between his soulmates. Talking about grades and accelerated programs in that dark blue ink. “Well, you shouldn’t compare yourself.”

“You haven’t read his poems,” Dalton put his sandwich down.

“Do you have any poems of your own?” Roman asked. “I don’t care about Logan, I’ve never met him. I want to read yours.”

“You… you do?” Dalton stared at him for a moment before he sighed. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? You could stop talking to me, and we’ve only known each other a day. Wouldn’t be that devastating.”

“What, you don’t find me absolutely charming?” Roman grinned. Dalton rolled his eyes, then pulled out a notebook and flipped forward a few pages.

“Just don’t make fun of me, okay?”

“Would a prince charming ever make fun of someone like you?” Roman joked, accepting it. Dalton chuckled.

“Prince charming, huh?”

Roman didn’t respond, eyes skating over the words on Dalton’s page. He was good, which meant he had really bad self-esteem or that Logan guy was amazing. Maybe as amazing as the one who used blue ink. He quickly banished the thoughts and looked up, grinning.

“This is great! Mr. Bird is going to love you.” He declared, passing it back as the bell rang. Dalton smiled, shoving the notebook into his bag as fast as he could.

“I want to read some of yours eventually,” he declared as they stood up. Roman shook his head.

“I don’t write poetry. I write stories.”

“Well, I wanna read your story.”

“You will, we’re required to peer edit in Birds class anyway,” he explained.

“You know what I mean,” Dalton laughed anyway. “Show me the way, then, Prince Charming.”

Roman ignored the slight flush to his cheeks when Dalton said that and nodded, turning into the English hall. What right did he have to think about this kid when he ignored his own soulmates, anyway?

Roman sighed, staring down at his bare arms. Well, no sleeves. They were in no way bare. Virgil’s morning to-do list was faded, and at the moment being ‘bedazzled’ with glitter gel pens in gold and silver. On the other arm, the poem had grown. Roman knew it had been open-ended, but he hadn’t realized it was just unfinished.

It was beautiful.

Everything they did was beautiful. Their drawings, Logan’s poems, just the way they talked to each other. They did more when they were younger before they exchanged phone numbers and started talking that way. Roman closed his eyes to block out the marks.

He didn’t want to talk to them. He’d just let them down. It was best that he hadn’t let a pen touch his skin in years. It was best that he just… avoided it. He couldn't break a promise he didn’t make.

And then there was Dalton. Roman sighed, running his hands through his hair. Someone who didn’t think Roman was weird, who didn’t know he was a depressed orphan who spent a summer in a mental health facility because he wanted to see his parents again. Dalton didn’t know. And Roman didn’t know about his past, they didn’t know each other's long stories. That was the best part about being friends with Dalton. The past didn’t matter.

Roman opened his eyes again and stared at the hearts on the back of his hand. They were beautiful. What started out as some kind of doodle - probably because he got bored during school as always - had somehow become some kind of 3D masterpiece. It was beautiful.

And there were four hearts. Roman ran a thumb over it, smiling sadly. Patton remembered him. There was no other reason to draw four hearts. God, why did he have to care so much? Roman buried his face in his hands, shaking his head. Why did he have soulmates? How could he have one soulmate? Let alone three! It didn’t make any sense! It had never made any sense.

“Hey, your aunt said you were-” Roman’s head jerked up in surprise. Dalton stood awkwardly in the open door. “Uh… sorry. You left your phone in the drama room, and…”

“Th-thanks.” Roman got up, letting his hair fall over his eyes to try and disguise the tears. “Sorry, you didn’t have to.”

“It’s okay.” Dalton shrugged. “Uh… are you good? Sorry I barged in, your aunt said it’d be okay.”

“It’s fine.” Roman snapped, tossing his phone onto the bed. Dalton frowned. “Sorry, D, you just came over at a bad time.”

“Sorry about that,” Dalton said quickly.

“Don’t be.” Roman grabbed his jacket and pulled it on. “What’s up?”

“Logan’s being an ass.” Dalton declared, leaning against the doorway. Roman snickered, turning to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He met one of his soulmates last week and ever since then he’s been super weird. Now the guy’s at our house and… yeah.”

“Oh.” Roman pulled the sleeves of his jacket down to cover his hands. “Sorry about that, buddy.”

“It’s okay.” Damien walked over and sat on the bed next to him. “I don’t care about soulmates, the guy’s just annoying. He keeps trying to hug me.”

“Wow, what a horrible thing,” Roman said sarcastically. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Okay, whatever.”

“I don’t do soulmates either,” Roman mumbled.

“Well, guess we can complain about Logan together.” Dalton laughed, bumping him with his shoulder. Roman chuckled, nodding.

“Sounds perfect. You can come complain about him, and I can listen and nod slowly and agree.” He declared.

“What, you don’t have anything to complain about?” Dalton asked skeptically. “Like your crazy aunt who eats chocolate covered bugs?” Roman groaned.

“I told her that was disgusting.”

“It’s okay. You can complain about the bugs, I’ll complain about the step-brother. It all evens out.”

“Well, you’re better at math than me so that sounds right.”

Logan and Patton met. Roman didn’t care. At least, he tried not to care. But how could he not care? Why did he have to keep getting their marks if he didn’t want them? Why did they happen to meet at the same time as Dalton’s stupid step-brother and his? Why did he have to be so certain that Dalton’s stupid step-brother was his soulmate?

Roman sighed, staring at the ceiling.

He doesn’t do soulmates. He’d decided that… well, he never necessarily decided that. He just didn’t want to talk to them. He didn’t want to meet them. He didn’t want to disappoint them. It was inevitable that if he contacted them, he’d disappoint them. Besides… he didn’t need a soulmate. He had a friend - for the first time in years. And that was fine.

If only there was a way to get rid of the marks.

He’d spent the past three hours googling it, and he had nothing. According to science, there was no way to get rid of the connection between soulmates. He was stuck with it, and it was stupid.

“How’s that ceiling looking?”

“Ugh, I’m trying to brood Dalton come on.” Roman sat up, frowning. “How long have you-”

“I didn’t want Rita to offer me another weird snack.” Dalton shrugged. “Anyway, what are you brooding about?”

“Nothing.” Roman barely got the words out before a pillow smacked him in the face. “Hey!”

“Cut the crap, you dummy,” Dalton demanded, holding the pillow threateningly. Roman squinted at him. “What the hell is going on with you? You’re lucky enough to have three soulmates and you claim you ‘don't do soulmates’? You’ve been googling all about them for days now.” Roman sat with his mouth partway open, surprised. “I rant to you about my crap. Can't you just… talk for fifteen minutes about whatever it is?”

“...I don’t get it.”

“What’s wrong, dumbass.”

Roman sighed, shaking his head.

“How do you know I have three soulmates?” he asked. Dalton rolled his eyes and pulled Roman’s jacket off.

“Three handwritings,” he said softly. “Different colors. Come on, I’m not an idiot. Logan has two, and… wait.” Roman tried to pull his arm away but Dalton pulled it closer. “What the hell?”

“D, listen, I-”

“This is Logan’s handwriting. And Patton’s. What the hell is going on, Roman?” Dalton shoved Roman’s arm and got up, folding his arms. “My step-brother is one of your soulmates?”

“No.” Roman pulled his jacket back on and stood up. “I mean… yeah. It doesn’t matter, though. I told you before that I don’t do-”

“You don’t do soulmates, I get it!” Dalton yelled. “I don’t either. Know why? I don’t have any soulmates! You have three! I drew on my arms all the time until I was fifteen just trying to get someone to respond! You’re an idiot!”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Roman spread his hands miserably. “I never asked for soulmates… I don’t want to meet them! I haven’t drawn on my skin in years because I don’t care. Okay?” Dalton sighed, burying his face in his hands.

“I just… when you first said you didn’t do soulmates…I thought you were like me. I thought, that maybe, we could be actual friends. But…”

“I don’t have soulmates.” Roman insisted. Dalton looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “Okay? Just… I just have whatever they draw. On my skin. Like soulmates. But they aren’t. Please stop yelling at me.”

Dalton just looked at him, and Roman looked back.

“Logan has been studying soulmates for years.” Dalton finally said. “If there is anyone who can get rid of them, it would be him. I’ll ask.”

“Wait- really?” Roman stared at him. He couldn't tell if the feeling in his chest was sadness or elation. It was just something. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” Dalton scoffed. “When you get Logan talking, he never stops.”

“Thanks.” Roman wrapped his friend in a hug and Dalton laughed, returning it. “You’re the best.”

“Yeah well, you better believe it. I’m gonna have to listen to all Logan’s crap to find this out for you.” Dalton laughed.

“I owe you,” Roman said enthusiastically. “I will get you five boxes of chocolate covered crickets.”

“If you do that, I’m gonna cut your hair off,” Dalton said, shoving Roman away playfully. Roman frowned but nodded.

“Okay, no crickets. I’ll think of something!”

“But before I go back to my house, where I’ll be forced to hear many many things that are irrelevant to the question I’ll ask, let’s go do something actual people do.”

“Everyone stares at the ceiling all day,” Roman said, waving a hand dismissively. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Your aunt said she’d bring us snacks in fifteen minutes and if we aren’t gone I’m jumping out the window.” He said, turning to the door.

“Yeah, let’s go.” Roman chuckled. “Bye Aunt Rina!”

“Don’t get hit by a car.”

“So, you’re saying that hypothetically, you want to know how to cut off a soulmate bond?” Logan asked, adjusting his glasses.

“Hypothetically,” Dalton said, smiling winningly. “I figured you’d know, you’re almost an expert.”

“D…” Logan shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out for ages, too.” Dalton frowned.

“You just wanna know everything, cuz you’re an ass.” Logan sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Look, Dalton, I want to know the same thing you do. But scientifically, biologically, even spiritually which is a load of shit but I still looked into it, there should be no reason you stop having a connection with your soulmate.” Logan shook his head. “Why do you care? You don’t have a soulmate!” Dalton scowled, stepping back.

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I-”

“Shut up, you fu-”

“Dalton, I’m sorry!” Logan yelled, grabbing his arm. “I know you’re upset about that, and I get it. But no one can control soulmates. Anomalies happen, and that’s why Ro- and that’s why no one understands it.” Dalton frowned.

“I was asking for a friend,” he said, pulling away from his step-brother’s hands. “Because unlike everyone else on earth, he knows that soulmates are stupid!” Dalton stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Logan had been about to say a name, and he knew which one. How did he know who Roman was if they’d never met? If Roman hadn’t written to them in years? Dalton hurried down the street toward Roman’s house. He had to figure this out, he had to figure this out before he got in too deep. Before he got his hopes up.

“Hey Dalton,” Rina said when he walked through the door. “I didn’t hear you knock.”

“Where’s Roman?”

“Where do you think?” Dalton ran down the hall and slammed open the door.

“Holy shit-” Roman scrambled to get up from where he sat on the floor. “Dalton?”

“What are you-” Dalton’s eyes flew immediately to Roman’s hands. He scowled. “Roman!”

“What?” Roman asked bitterly, tossing the pocketknife onto his bed.

“What the hell are you doing!” Dalton stormed over and grabbed Roman’s arms, glaring at the handwriting scrawled across it in purple. The sentence severed in several places, and Dalton glared up at his friend.

“Listen, you can’t do this.”

“Go away.”

“No.” Dalton shoved Roman into the desk chair and pulled open a drawer, rifling through it. Of course, Roman had a stash of bandages in there too. “How many times do I have to tell you-you're-”

“An idiot! I know!” Roman snapped. “I’m sorry, okay? I just hate seeing Virgil’s stupid…” he shook his head and Dalton sighed. “Nevermind.”

“Logan knows your fucking name,” Dalton said, pressing the bandages over Roman’s arm.

“What are you talking about?”

“I asked him about the soulmate thing,” Dalton said, walking to the bed to pick up the knife. “And he got really upset. Logan doesn’t get upset. Apparently, he’s researched soulmates for a specific reason that he didn’t specifically tell me because he stopped himself halfway through saying ‘Roman’.”

“Yeah right.”

“So what’s your deal?”

“I just…” Roman shook his head and Dalton raised an eyebrow. “I can never talk to them. Okay?”

“...okay.” Dalton sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Please don’t do it again, Roman.”

“I’m sorry,” Roman muttered, rubbing the bandages. “I just…usually, no one cares.”

“Well I do, so stop being…” Dalton took a deep breath. “Please.”

“Okay, whatever.” Roman pulled on his jacket, concealing both the bandages and the Muriel covering his right arm.

Dalton leaned against his desk, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t make things worse. He was always making things worse. But now, this time, he really didn’t want to make things worse.

“Why do you care?” Roman asked softly. Dalton sighed and looked up at him, offering a small smile.

“Cuz I’m in love with you, dumbass.”

Somehow, Roman was less bothered by the marks on his skin than ever. He barely noticed them, most of the time. He kept his arms covered - though sometimes their doodles would creep onto his hands, but he didn’t mind. After all, who needed a soulmate when you had a boyfriend who wasn’t fated to love you anyway? It was still difficult because Roman did care about the people writing on his arms. But he didn’t have to be involved with them, right? He could still laugh at the puns Patton might scribble in green marker, he could still use Virgil’s to-do list as his own if he was having trouble. He could still read Logan’s poetry, though it wasn’t as good as Dalton’s.

“We’re out of milk.” Roman sighed, slamming the fridge shut.

“I live a block away, let’s just make cereal there,” Dalton said, standing up with his bowl. Roman snickered.

“Do you have milk? What if we walk all the way there and you guys are out too?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“We always have milk cuz I’m the only one that drinks it. My step-dad is lactose intolerant.”

“Let’s go.” Roman grabbed his own bowl and Dalton chuckled. “We’re going out, Aunt Rina!”

“Have fun and don’t murder anyone!” Rina yelled back. Roman rolled his eyes, but couldn't help but grin as he and Dalton walked down the sidewalk. He grabbed Dalton’s hand, ignoring his boyfriend’s protests.

“It’s fine,” he promised. Dalton raised an eyebrow. Roman grinned. “We’re just two soulless guys who happen to be dating, right?” Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Right.”

Dalton led the way up the front steps and into the kitchen, where he put the bowl down and pulled a gallon of milk from the fridge.

“Tada! I was right.”

“I didn’t doubt you,” Roman scoffed. Dalton laughed, pouring his milk before doing Roman’s as well. “Aw, for me? You’re too kind.”

“Dalton?” both looked up when someone poked their head into the room. He was tall and pale, with black hair and glasses. Roman knew it was Logan, he had a purple grocery list on his left arm. “I thought you were going to be at your boyfriend’s house.”

“We were out of milk,” Roman said, lifting his bowl. Logan stared at him, lips pursed.

“Don't worry, geez.” Dalton waved a hand. “We aren’t gonna bug you guys. I told you soulmates are stupid.”

“Good.” Logan adjusted his glasses. “We’ll be in the living room, you can manage to stay out of that room can’t you?”

“Yeah.” Dalton looked at Roman and rolled his eyes, Roman chuckled. Logan sighed and left, shaking his head. “...that’s Logan. I told you he was an ass.”

“I still believe you,” Roman promised. “You’re stuck with me, understand?”

“Thank god.” Roman glanced toward the hallway when the doorbell rang, but Logan answered it almost immediately. Dalton chuckled, elbowing him as they heard a chipper voice start to ramble. Roman wasn’t really listening until he heard him say;

“And this is Virgil!” Roman stiffened, and Dalton gently leaned his head on Roman’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he whispered softly. Roman frowned. What exactly was he referring to? He opened his mouth to ask, but then the owner of that chipper voice bounced into the kitchen.

“Hey Dalton!” he said, beaming. “Oh! And Dalton’s handsome friend!”

“He’s my boyfriend,” Dalton said, narrowing his eyes. Patton laughed - it had to be Patton.

“Awe! Hi, I’m Patton!” yep, it was Patton alright. Roman smiled, nodding politely.

“Patton, Dalton promised not to bug us, and-” Logan sighed as he walked into see Patton trying to hug both Roman and Dalton at the same time.

Roman pushed him away, feeling his heart race. This was not a good time to be at Dalton’s house, obviously. Shit, he never wanted to meet his soulmates and now all three of them happened to be here.

“Oh, sorry!” Patton chuckled, stepping back.

“It’s fine,” Roman said in a soft voice. Dalton took his hand, smiling supportively. Roman frowned. What was with him right now?

“Well, I guess you've met Patton.” Logan sighed. “This is Virgil, he’s our... other soulmate.” He walked in, followed by a short teenager with purple hair and a black jacket. Just like Virgil would most definitely look.

“This is my boyfriend,” Dalton said as he squeezed Roman’s hand. “Roman.” Roman’s head swiveled and he narrowed his eyes. Dalton just smiled back sadly. The other three just stood there for a moment.

“...that’s a nice name.” Patton finally said. “I’ve always liked it, anyway.” Roman self consciously rubbed his arm through his jacket sleeve, knowing that a purple grocery list was on his arm just like the other three.

“Yeah, well,” Roman shrugged. What else could he say? He looked back at Dalton, who was obviously trying to convey silently that he should do something. But Roman had no idea what it might be.

“Erm, anyway,” Logan chuckled nervously as Dalton’s eyes flicked between Roman and the group of others. Roman scowled. Dalton could not be serious. They were dating for crying out loud! “Nice to meet you, Roman. Dalton’s boyfriend.”

“Dude.” Dalton hissed. Roman glared at him.

“Let’s just pop in here,” Patton was obviously forcing a smile as they all went to the living room. Roman turned to Dalton.

“What the hell!” he hissed. “Dalton, what was that!”

“Roman, they’re your-” Roman raised an eyebrow and Dalton lowered his voice. “They’re your soulmates. You should at least tell them.”

“No, are you crazy?” Roman shook his head. “I can’t. I told you that a month ago, D!”

“What did they ever do to you?” Dalton demanded. “I just want you to make sure you’re happy, okay! I care about you!”

“Then why did you try that?” Roman demanded.

“Soulmates are real, Roman. They’re a thing. We’re really close, but I know you wish you could be with them! I’ve always known!”

“No, I don’t.” Roman insisted. Dalton frowned, folding his arms.

“Why?”

“They’d be disappointed,” Roman said, repeating the lie he’d told himself for years. Dalton snorted. “They probably don’t even remember me and-”

“You know they do. You saw their faces when I said your name!”

“Well, I don’t care!” Roman yelled, pushing Dalton away from him. Dalton stared at him, eyes filled with hurt. “You don’t get it, Dalton. I can’t risk letting them down!”

“How can you let them down if they don’t even know you?”

“I just will. It’s inevitable.” Roman sighed, burying his face in his hands. Neither of them seemed to realize they’d been shouting, and that it had attracted the others back to the doorway. “Besides, I’m as good as dead to them. I haven’t let ink or paint touch my skin since I was nine years old.”

“Roman-”

“I’m serious! You said it didn’t matter! You said that we didn’t need soulmates, so why are you doing this?”

“ROMAN!” Dalton grabbed his wrist and shook his head, pointing to the doorway. Roman turned, eyes widening. All three of them stood there, looks of shock on their faces. Roman pulled away from Dalton and shoved past them, refusing to make eye contact. He tried to say something to his boyfriend as he left, but it was like his voice stopped working. So he just left, and as soon as he left he started running to get as far away from there as he could.

“Roman!” Dalton went to run after him but Logan grabbed his arm.

“Dalton, what’s going on?”

“Let go, you fucking asshole!” Dalton yelled, karate chopping his stepbrother in the arm.

“Language!” Patton said indignantly. Dalton rolled his eyes.

“Dalton!” Logan tightened his hold and Dalton sighed, glaring at him. “Tell me right now what you know about this.” Dalton closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“I can’t.”

“It’s obvious. Let him go.” Virgil said, pulling Logan away. “Your step-brother is dating our soulmate. Duh.”

“...why? How? What?!” Logan’s voice rose in volume with every word. “Dalton, how long have you known that?”

“Since the universe was created,” Dalton said sarcastically. “Can I go? Roman’s upset.”

“At you.” Logan pointed out. Dalton glared at him.

“Hey, why don’t we all calm down?” Patton said softly, stepping between them. “Dalton? Can you please talk to us?”

“Roman was my friend,” Dalton said softly. “Then he was my boyfriend. I’d seen all Logan’s marks often enough to figure it out. So we talked. Roman…” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Whatever you guys did when you were kids made him hate you or something.”

“What? We didn’t do anything!” Virgil snapped. “He’s the one who just disappeared.”

“I don’t know!” Dalton shoved past Logan, shaking his head. “But he’s my boyfriend, not yours! So I’m going to go find him to make sure he’s okay!” he took off, running to the street. He couldn't see Roman. He had no idea which way Roman went.

“Dalton, please!” Logan said from the porch. Dalton didn’t turn around to flip the bird, then decided Roman wouldn’t want to be found, so he sprinted away from both their houses. He turned left, running up the street. “Dalton!” Dalton kept running, trying to hold back tears. He had to find Roman before he did something stupid. God… what if Roman was going to do something stupid?

Dalton didn’t stop when Logan’s car pulled up next to him. Where would Roman go? He wouldn’t go back to his aunts' house, he hated it there. He might have run to the high school to hang at the theater… maybe?

“Dalton!” the car pulled in front of him and Dalton stumbled to a halt, glaring at the people inside.

“What?”

“Let us help you.” Patton leaned out the window. “We can find him faster driving, okay? We aren’t going to steal your boyfriend.” Dalton narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah right.”

“We just want to make sure Roman’s okay.” Virgil piped up, opening the back door. “Get in, and tell us where he could be.” Why Dalton trusted Virgil more, he wasn’t sure. But he clambered into Logan’s car anyway.

“I don’t really know,” he confessed. “When Roman’s upset we usually just go for a walk. But he��s mad at me this time. I’d check the high school theater.”

“On it.” Logan hit the gas and drove toward the high school. “While we’re driving, can you please explain why Roman hates us?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my business,” Dalton shrugged. “But he doesn’t hate you. He just… doesn’t want to meet you. He doesn’t like the idea of soulmates.”

“Really?” Patton asked sadly. “When we were kids he seemed so excited about us, and then one day he just stopped writing. He used to write stories to us, like fairy tales.”

“I don’t know!” Dalton snapped, glaring at him. “We just need to find him before he…” oh god. Please don’t let Roman try anything.

Roman stared blankly down at his arms, where yellow writing appeared a few minutes ago. At first, he’d thought it was Patton. But it wasn’t. It was one of Dalton’s poems. He must be writing on one of the others. Roman reached up and brushed tears out of his eyes, taking a shuddering breath. He’d been about to cut again - but he couldn't break one of Dalton’s poems. Was that why he was doing this? Classic. Why did Dalton care, anyway? How could he care if he didn’t have to, according to fate?

“Stupid Dalton,” Roman muttered, then felt horrible. Dalton wasn't stupid, he was Roman’s best friend. More than that, his boyfriend. So why did he do what he did? Why did he tell them he was the fourth soulmate? It wasn’t fair. Roman didn’t want this. He didn’t want anything.

“Roman!” Roman’s head jerked up and he stared in surprise as Dalton tumbled out of a car, sprinting across the parking lot. “What are you doing here?”

“...sitting.” Roman sighed and looked around the strip mall.

How did he end up here, of all places? Dalton fell to his knees next to him and grabbed Roman’s arms, inspecting them worriedly. There was nothing but the healing scars from the month before. Roman sighed sadly.

“I’m so sorry.” Dalton suddenly pulled him into a tight hug. Roman’s eyes widened, but he returned it. “I know you didn’t want to meet them, but I thought…. I thought it might make you happy if you just tried. I just want you to be happy.”

“It’s okay.” Roman sighed softly. “I… I don’t mind meeting them. But I still love you… you know?”

“You do?” Dalton sat back and grinned, wiping tears from his cheeks. “Really?”

“Of course! You’re stuck with me.” Roman repeated, then looked over Dalton’s shoulder to where his three soulmates were standing near the car. He lowered his voice. “Do they hate me?”

“No one hates you.” Dalton scoffed, sitting against the wall like he had that first day in the cafeteria. “They’re just worried. Virgil let me write to you, y’know.” Roman looked at his arms, nodding.

“Thanks. I’ve always loved your poems.”

“Do you want to talk to them at all?” Dalton asked softly. Roman scowled.

“I’m not gonna break up with you unless you want me to.” he insisted. “So yeah, I can talk to them. And you don’t have to worry. Alright?”

“Sounds good.” Dalton looked over at the others and nodded. The three of them walked over and sat down, completing a circle on the sidewalk.

“Hi,” Roman said softly, staring at his hands.

“It’s so good to meet you!” Patton said, beaming. Roman smiled.

“You gave us quite a scare,” Logan adjusted his glasses. “Dalton was very upset.”

“Like you weren’t.” Virgil scoffed, elbowing him. “Anyway, Roman. I’m just glad you’re okay. I always wondered what happened to you.”

“Oh, that,” Roman sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t mean to vanish… I just took a break from writing and never… finished the break.”

“That’s alright,” Logan said matter of factly. “Statistically, only sixty percent of soulmates ever meet or actually enter any kind of relationship. Half of those people remain only platonic soulmates.” Roman smiled.

“Well good, cuz I’m taken,” he said, elbowing Dalton. Dalton elbowed him back, harder. “Hey!”

“You started it.” Dalton shrugged. Roman chuckled.

“Anyway, I’m sorry for vanishing. Just got in a funk.”

“Well,” Logan stood and brushed off his pants. “Would you like a ride home? You walked quite far.”

“Sure.” they all stood now, and Dalton took Roman’s hand as they walked to Logan’s car. “Thanks, really.”

“No thanks needed,” Logan waved a hand. “Just don’t hurt Dalton or I will run you over with this instead of giving you a ride.” Roman’s eyes widened.

“Okay, geez.”

“Wow, you care about me?” Dalton laughed as they got in.

“Of course I do.” Logan scoffed. “Just because I am, as you so eloquently put it, ‘an ass’ does not mean I don’t care about you.”

“Good to know,” Dalton muttered, leaning his head on Roman’s shoulder. “Hey, why don’t we go hang out at your house Roman? I bet your aunt has some good bugs to serve as snacks.”

“Oh my god.” Roman glared at him. “You know those are disgusting.”

“I don’t want to know what you’re talking about.” Virgil declared, shaking his head. Dalton laughed, smirking up at Roman. Roman smiled, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Maybe things would turn out okay after all.

The End

133 notes · View notes

lynnearlington · 6 years ago

Note

kara/lena high school part time job

Kara takes the job at the pumpkin patch because she’s known Mr. Ehlers her whole life and along with her hourly wage he offers her a free pick of pumpkins and free hot apple cider every shift.

The work isn’t bad either. It’s only a few hours every weeknight and she gets to be outside, meeting all different kinds of people.

Her friends stop by too, pick out their pumpkins for their annual contest while she’s working. Alex, who takes the event as seriously as Kara does, monopolizes nearly a half hour of Kara’s time picking out the perfect one.

Aside from that, the job is mostly uneventful. Kara walks down the rows of pumpkins and helps out anyone that looks lost, takes a few shifts at the register checking people out.

On one particular night as Kara’s rearranging a display of pumpkins painted with black cats, she notices a girl staring down at a pile of pumpkins for long enough that Kara feels her help is likely needed. She straightens out her vest and makes sure her nameplate is on display before strolling towards the girl.

It isn’t until she’s too close not to get noticed that she realizes who it is. Lena Luthor.

The realization makes her trip a little, but she plays it off as much as she can by kicking a nearby pumpkin and laughing at herself when Lena startles and looks over.

“Stupid pumpkin,” she mumbles, fighting a blush when Lena just looks at her, eyebrows raised.

It’s not her fault that Lena’s one of the more popular, elusive figures in their high school. Lex Luthor’s little sister and the only person in their class to get a perfect SAT score. Kara’s had a passive crush on her since they were biology partners sophomore year and Lena laughed one time at Kara’s dumb joke about pigs while they were dissecting one.

“Gotta watch out for those,” Lena replies dryly, looking Kara up and down once before turning back to the pumpkins at her feet.

“Yeah, totally,” Kara says, running her palms down the front of her vest and swallowing. “Hi, Lena.”

“Kara,” Lena greets with a slow nod of her head.

Kara puts on her best customer service smile. “Can I help you out with the pumpkins?”

Lena kicks her toe lightly against a nearby pumpkin and glances back at Kara. “I think I’m just looking.”

“Well, I’m here if you need me,” Kara says, hands in her pockets as she rocks a bit on her heels. Lena nods absently at her and Kara should probably turn and walk away, but her feet feel rooted to the ground even though she can’t think of anything useful to say.

Lena glances at her again, looks confused by Kara’s continued presence, but doesn’t comment. Instead, she turns to walk down the path, her eyes on the pumpkins.

“You know what you’re going to carve?” Kara says, feet finally moving to follow behind Lena and words coming out a bit more eager than she’d like.

“Pardon?” Lena’s hands are in the pockets of her light grey jacket and she turns to watch Kara skip her direction.

“On the pumpkin,” Kara clarifies, coming back beside Lena and walking with her through the rows.

“Oh,” Lena says, a play of a smile on Lena’s lips giving Kara a stitch of confidence. “I hadn’t thought about it.

“I’ve got tons of ideas if you need help with that too. It’s always better to have a plan.” Kara knows she’s sounding probably far too enthusiastic about pumpkin carving compared to the normal person, but her mouth starts inventing things to say to Lena before she can stop it.

Lena stops again, her lips thinning into what looks like the beginning of a smile and she laughs just enough to make Kara feel warm up her throat. “I think I’ll just go for the normal jack o’lantern look,” Lena says. “I’m not really sure.”

“A classic,” Kara says, nodding in agreement. “Respect.”

“Thanks,” Lena replies, but she draws the word out with a tinge of sarcasm that makes Kara blush.

“Sorry,” Kara says. “Am I bothering you?”

Lena glances away for a moment before offering Kara a full smile. “No, you’re fine.” They’re quiet a moment, Lena turning back to look at the pumpkins before she speaks again. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Part time, obviously,” Kara answers, moving to stand next to Lena and observe the pumpkins as well. It strikes her a bit odd that Lena would say that - as if Lena would know anything about Kara’s life other than they go to the same school and Kara’s full of really great biology-related puns. “My family’s been coming here since I was little.”

“That’s nice,” Lena says in a quiet voice before abruptly bending down to pick up a large pumpkin at her feet. It looks just on the too-heavy side so Kara reaches out to steady Lena’s grip, their hands brushing against each other briefly.

“Careful,” Kara tells her after Lena’s secured her hold on the pumpkin.

“Thanks.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Kara says, as gung-ho as she can manage.

There’s a light flush in Lena’s cheeks that Kara attributes to the chilly breeze fluttering past them. “Well, I think this one works,” Lena says, hefting the weight of it in her hands and holding it against her stomach.

Kara eyes it skeptically, a bit confused at the abrupt choice. “You sure?”

Lena smiles, her lips pressed together and her dark hair fluttering a bit across her face. When she moves a hand to put her hair back behind her ear, she struggles again with the weight of the pumpkin and Kara has to jump forward and grab it before it falls to the ground and likely smashes there.

“Ooof,” Kara exhales, taking the pumpkin in her own hands and laughing at the startled look on Lena’s face.

“Sorry!”

“How about I carry the pumpkin?” Kara offers, laughing at the embarrassment on Lena’s face. “Are you even sure you want this big guy?”

Hands now free, Lena runs her fingers through her hair to straighten it, pulling it back and off her head in quick agile motions that Kara can’t help but track. “It seems fine.”

Kara clicks her tongue in disappointment and moves to set the pumpkin back down. “You can’t settle for fine,” she says and she smiles entreatingly at Lena. “Come on, I can help.”

Lena seems to take a deep breath, hands retreating back into the pockets of her jacket. “Sure, okay,” she says softly and it shouldn’t excite Kara as much as it does, but her stomach flips over nonetheless.

“Great!” The word squeaks out of her much higher than intended, but she turns to lead Lena back down the through the rows of pumpkins before the other girl can catch a glimpse of her blush.

They spend the next fifteen minutes together strolling down the paths of pumpkins. Ehlers’s Pumpkin Patch is the largest in the county and Kara fills the time explaining its history and how the pumpkins are organized.

It’s probably a lot more information than Lena really cares to hear about, but she stays quiet and listens to Kara as she details her favorite designs and which pumpkins work best for which ones.

Just as they’ve stopped in front of a small pile of medium sized pumpkins and Kara’s lifting one up she thinks would work for Lena, they’re interrupted by a loud call of Lena’s name from across the patch.

Lena jumps as she hears it and Kara nearly drops the pumpkin, but they both turn towards the sound. It’s Lex Luthor. Lena’s older brother, graduated nearly two years ago, but famous at their high school. He’s strolling towards them in jeans and a large black sweater, scarf loose around his neck.

“Lena, you ready?” Lex is asking, smiling charmingly at Kara as he gets closer. “If Mother doesn’t get a glass of chardonnay soon she might start taking it out on civilians.”

It hadn’t occurred to Kara that the rest of the Luthor clan might be there and she nods at Lex, a little taken aback by his presence.

“Yeah, sorry,” Lena says, breathing out the words and offering Kara an apologetic smile.

Lex glances between them, bemusement obvious on his face as he puts his hands on his hips and arches an expectant brow at his sister when she makes no other movement. “Well? Let’s go.”

“Right yeah,” Lena says again, shaking her head. She reaches out to put her hand on Kara’s forearm, holds it there warmly for a few seconds until the feeling shoots straight up Kara’s arm. “Thanks for your help, Kara.”

“Yeah, anytime,” Kara manages to reply through the sudden dryness of her throat.

Lena smiles, the look doing nothing to calm the beating of her heart and the awareness that Lena Luthor is touching her. “See you at school,” Lena adds before turning to join her brother and head towards the exit.

It doesn’t occur to her until Lena’s well out of sight that Kara’s still holding her pumpkin and Lena left empty handed.

–

They don’t see each other at school like Lena said. Not really anyway. They don’t share any classes together this semester and they’re on different lunch schedules.

Kara’d like to say that Lena leaving the pumpkin patch without a pumpkin wasn’t something that was occupying a lot of her thoughts throughout the day, but that’d be a lie.

It consumes her so much that she knows she’s not going to be able to let it go until she’s assured Lena has her pumpkin for whatever she needed it for. The pumpkin they’d picked out together is sitting in a safe spot that Kara’d hid it in the night before.

After her shift, she clocks out right on time, skips her usual free cider and even declines an invitation to run over to a local Fall Festival. Instead she hefts the pumpkin up into her arms and has every intention of loading it into her car and driving over to the Luthor household to personally deliver Lena her pumpkin.

In fact, she gets all the way to her car with the pumpkin and is struggling to get the back door open when a spattering of footsteps across the gravel parking lot draws her attention.

It’s the object of her thoughts, half jogging her way and smiling as she leans across Kara’s body and helps her with the back door.

“Lena,” Kara greets, breathing the name out in surprise and trying not to sound too pleased.

“Hi,” Lena says, sounding uncharacteristically shy. She’s dressed in dark tight jeans and an oversized grey sweater, her hair loose on her shoulders and looking just as crushworthy as ever.

“Hey, you forgot your pumpkin yesterday,” Kara says, lifting the pumpkin up in her arms to show Lena.

Lena blinks at it, seems almost startled by the reminder as if there’d be another reason for her to show up at the pumpkin patch that night. “Oh, right,” Lena says softly, a hesitant smile on her face.

“Good thing I brought it out,” Kara says with a happy grin. She gestures towards the entrance to the pumpkin patch with a shrug of her shoulder. “We’re closed.”

A beat of silence as Lena look towards the darkened lights of the Ehler’s Pumpkin Patch sign. “Good thing,” she says through a smile that looks just a bit off.

Kara’s not sure how to read it, but she’s seen Lena have the expression before. Years of going to school with Lena and nearly as many having an unwavering crush on her meant Kara’s relatively familiar with Lena’s cadre of emotions and expressions. Most of the time, Lena’s expression hovers somewhere between two emotions, relatively unreadable as a result.

So she moves past it with an easy smile and hip checks her car door so it closes again. “Do you want me to bring it to your car?” Kara offers and Lena straightens with a polite smile.

“Yeah,” she says after another moment of silent consideration. “That’d be nice, thanks.”

She waits for Lena to turn and lead them that direction, takes a deep calming breath before following the other girl. Lena’s sleek looking white car is parked not too far away and Kara waits for her to pop the trunk before setting Lena’s pumpkin there.

Straightening, she scuffs her hands together to shake off any lingering dirt and smiles widely at Lena. “Mission accomplished.”

Lena returns the expression, a more genuine look than earlier, but after a moment frowns and starts to pat at her pockets. “I need to pay you,” she says hastily, clearly searching for a wallet she can’t seem capable of finding. “My purse is in the car.”

Moving around Kara, Lena heads to her front door, but Kara grabs her elbow and halts the motion with a laugh. “Lena it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lena says, looking incredulous. “I’m not going to let you spend your money like that.”

Kara laughs, but let’s Lena go ahead and open her car, bending to reach across the seats and pull a tote from inside. “It’s really not that big a deal.”

“What did it cost?” Lena asks, head down as she fishes inside her bag. “Ten dollars? Twenty?”

Eyebrows raising, Kara tries not to laugh again, but reaches out to touch Lena’s arm and stop her flurry of motion. “Lena, it’s barely the price of a cup of coffee.”

A flit of embarrassment flushes across Lena’s face. “Oh,” she says succinctly, punctuated by a quick chuckle.

“Like I said, don’t worry about it,” Kara dismisses, waving her hand at Lena and smiling. “I couldn’t let you go without a pumpkin to carve.”

She puts her hands back to her hips and lifts her chest a bit in an exaggerated heroic pose that makes Lena laugh again. The sound floats so prettily across the chill fall air and that Kara feels herself warm all over.

“Such a hero,” Lena jokes, abandoning her bag back to the driver’s seat of her car and crossing her arms over her chest.

“All part of the job,” Kara says in a haughty voice that makes them both smile before she relaxes her posture and just enjoys a few moments of hovering in Lena’s presence.

Lena’s eyes search her face for a few seconds, her teeth poking out to bite softly at her bottom lip before she seems to come to a decision. “The price of a coffee you said?”

Kara’s brows pull down the slightest, but she smiles as she nods. “That’s right.”

“Well,” Lena says on a deep breath. “Then you’ll have to let me buy you that coffee.”

Kara blinks, takes a second to process the offer and the nervous look on Lena’s face. “Right now?”

Lena shifts on her feet, shrugs a shoulder. “Are you free?”

“Uh,” Kara’s mouth gapes a second, her palms feel suddenly clammy and she stuffs them into the pockets of her jeans. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Good,” Lena says definitively, nodding sharply and uncrossing her arms. “Starbucks on Elm?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kara says though she doesn’t get all the words out before Lena’s sliding into her car and shutting the door. The engine roars to life and Kara’s still standing there, staring at Lena’s figure in the front seat until she realizes she should probably move.

“See you there,” she yells out, bending over to wave through the window of Lena’s car.

Lena waves back, smiles and Kara tries not to run to her own car across the lot.

–

They meet up at the small Starbucks not too far from their school. It’s open for a few more hours and mostly devoid of people.

Kara immediately orders a pumpkin spice latte because they’re advertised all over the massive menu boards over the register and when Lena tries to order a boring americano, Kara talks her into changing. “Get in the spirit, Lena,” she says and it doesn’t take much convincing before Lena’s rolling her eyes and ordering the same as Kara.

They find a table in the back, tucked around a corner and mostly private. It’s the first time Kara’s ever really been alone with Lena. They’ve been in the same classes for most of grade school, and even partnered together on a spattering of projects, but they don’t run in the same social circles and it’s rare for Kara to ever spend this much time with Lena outside school.

It feels exciting and nerve racking and Kara’s sure the sugar in the drink she’s practically chugging down is not helping.

“Thanks for the coffee,” Kara says softly, smiling at the face Lena makes when she takes a sip of her drink - somewhere between a wince and hesitant enjoyment.

“This isn’t coffee,” Lena says, but a smile is tugging at the corner of her lips that makes Kara want to laugh.

“Thanks anyway,” she replies, sitting forward in her chair.

“Thanks for the pumpkin,” Lena counters and it’s then that Kara’s nerves start to ratchet up.

What do you talk about to the girl you’ve crushed on for years, the girl that most of the school probably crushes on? Kara searches her brain for something interesting to say, dismisses about sixteen different ideas for being either too nerdy or too boring. In the end, she settles on: “So did you decide what you’re carving?”

A quizzical look crosses Lena’s face before it clears and she laughs softly. “I think I’ll stick with the jack o’lantern look. It feels in my wheelhouse.”

Kara fights a look of disdain, but shrugs in passive agreement. “I suppose you can’t go wrong with that one.”

It turns out Kara doesn’t quite succeed in hiding her expression because Lena laughs again and bends her head to catch Kara’s eyes. “Your face says otherwise.”

“Oops,” Kara says, making a show of covering her face with her hands until Lena reaches over and peels one away. The touch makes Kara’s knee start to bounce before she takes a breath and stills it.

“I’m assuming you have a better idea?”

Kara waggles her eyebrows and fishes in her pocket for her phone. “You’re going to regret asking me that,” she says and Lena lets out an exaggerated sigh, but she’s grinning at Kara - an expression Kara can’t help but want to keep on Lena’s face as long as possible.

“I’m sure I will,” she says, leaning forward when Kara puts her phone on the table and opens up her photo album entitled carving ideas.

It doesn’t take long for Kara to convince Lena to at least jazz up the classic pumpkin face with a few different details - picture after picture of Kara’s own versions help her argument. After Lena agrees to make some adjustments to her design and Kara claps way too excitedly about it, the conversation winds its way through topic after topic.

It’s the longest she and Lena have ever held a conversation, and the coffee makes her jittery. But Lena is so pretty in the dim lighting of the Starbucks and if she focuses on that twenty percent less, she finds that they’re good at talking to each other. It helps that Lena laughs at all her dumb jokes, the kind of puns that usually Alex calls lame.

As they talk, she learns things about Lena she hadn’t thought to know before. Like how Lena is so much smarter than even a perfect SAT score would imply. That she goes skiing every winter break with her family and that she hates PSLs and has an irrational fear of empty swimming pools.

Kara feels like her crush is expansive in her chest, pressing down and spiraling outward in a way that’s starting to feel overwhelming.

“I don’t do haunted houses,” Lena says, waving her hand in Kara’s face as if the idea could get wiped from her mind. Kara laughs, smacking Lena’s hand from her airspace and trying to ignore the hot feeling that runs up her arm at the brief contact. Their coffees are long finished, sitting on the table between them.

“But it’s October!” Kara says. “You should come with me. I know a great one upstate that you have to sign a waiver for before going.”

Lena blinks, her smile incredulous as is the laugh she lets out. “You could not pay me to do that.”

“They’re open Friday,” Kara tells her, the offer clear.

“Nope,” Lena says, popping the word out of her mouth definitively. She leans back in her seat and affects a look of nonchalance that’s familiar to Kara from school. But there’s a small quirk to her lips that indicates a smile lurking beneath it.

“Yes, totally, thank you for inviting me, Kara is what I think you meant to say there,” Kara says.

“You should get your hearing checked,” Lena replies dryly.

“Come on,” Kara entreats, enjoying the careful suppression of a smile on Lena’s face. “It’ll be fun. We can go after the game.”

“I don’t do football games or haunted houses,” Lena says, her grin finally breaking across her face slowly. “Get it into your head, Danvers.”

“Oh, totally, for sure. I forgot Lena Luthor is too cool for such things,” Kara says, nodding overly serious, but laughing when Lena frowns.

“Jerk,” Lena says, but she starts laughing too and her toe collides with Kara’s shin under the table in a gesture that makes Kara’s stomach flip over.

–

The poor Starbucks worker kicks them out ten minutes to close, glaring unhappily at them for holding up her night. Kara feels nearly as light as a feather as they make their way through the parking lot to their cars. Lena’s arm in her coat brushes Kara’s. There’s a violent urge in Kara to sling her arm up around Lena’s shoulders and pull her close.

“I have something to confess,” Lena says as they idle by her car. The moon is bright up above them, a little chill in the air. Lena’s pale skin is even prettier in the October night.

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t need that pumpkin,” she says softly, looking towards her trunk. Kara blinks. Why would Lena not need a pumpkin? She had been in a pumpkin patch. What else would she have been there for?

“What?”

“I didn’t need it,” Lena repeats. “That’s not why I came back to the pumpkin patch tonight. Lex had already got me one yesterday.”

Confused, Kara tries to figure out what that means. “Then why did you…?”

Lena takes a deep breath, fiddles around with her keys and shrugs. “I came back to see you.”

“Me?” It comes out a bit too loud, but she can’t help it as she points at herself, eyebrows shooting upward.

It makes Lena laugh even as a flush creeps up her neck. “Yes, you.”

“Me,” Kara repeats. “Me?”

“No, I came to see Mr. Ehlers himself,” Lena says, deadpan. Kara feels like her hands are going to shake their way out of her coat, they’re buzzing with nervousness so much.

“Why’d you want to see me?” Kara says. “I mean, I wanted to see you too. Obviously. Because I had a pumpkin for you. Very serious business. Pumpkin business, you know-”

She is blissfully interrupted by Lena Luthor grabbing ahold of the lapel of her coat and pulling her close. Their lips meet then, and Kara for sure hits cloud nine in four seconds flat, even when she can’t really figure out how to do anything. It’s more like their lips just hit each other and all sense of time and memory escapes Kara. They pull away slowly, Kara still pressed somewhat close to Lena, and she feels the dopiest grin come across her face as she looks down at Lena.

“Cool,” is all Kara can think to say, the lingering taste of pumpkin spice on her lips - whether from her own drink or from Lena’s mouth she’s not sure. “I get it now.”

Lena rolls her eyes, her fingers running up the collar of Kara’s coat until they brush against the hair at the nape of her neck and it feels so good that she can’t help but lean forward to kiss Lena again. It’s inexpert and the best, kissing Lena Luthor.

Pumpkins and free apple cider is cool, for sure. But this is way better.

FALL PROMPTS | MY KO-FI

#Anonymous #writing fall prompts #prompt fill #hs au #supercorp fic #this tag is for fic #churning these out in random order #trying to keep them as short as humanly possible

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kinderes · 7 years ago

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Cold as Stone (Part 2)

Part 1

Summary: Having already lost one of their own, the sides decide to try and figure out what their next course of action should be.

Word count: 2310

Author’s note: thank you so much for the positive reaction to the first part! I hope you enjoy this part too! also, shout out to @mememic-bry for offering to beta this for me!! <3 warnings for: panic, petrification (being turned to stone), violence, blood

tag list: @mememic-bry @princelogical @super-magical-wizard @rileyfirstname @that-one-invisible-chick @silverglimse-productions @misslilidelaney @creativenostalgiastuff @hissesssss @akiraaria @prinxietyandchocolate @nyxwordsmith @justanotherpurplebutterfly @k9cat @hanramz-the-fander @logansanders33 @spottybob @specifiedshippinglover13 @miss-meg1710 @justanotherlemon @fillogree @timeywimeygalaxy @darkstarsigh @icecoldparadise

The remaining three sides stood silently for minutes after it happened, barely moving as if they all had been turned to stone. Logan was the first one to speak.

“Well, we’d best get started, shall we?” His throat was tight and he cleared it before speaking again. “Roman, what do you know about the dragon-witch? You’ve already clarified you aren’t aware of how to break this spell, but some background information would be beneficial.”

Roman could hardly believe how quick Logan got down to business, but in some ways he appreciated it. The sooner this was over, the better. “Umm. Well. She resides in those mountains up there,” he explained, pointing them out, “specifically on the highest peak of the tallest mountain.”

“Do you know of any weaknesses? Other abilities? Anything that might be useful to us?”

Roman was having a hard time focusing, but he wracked his brain anyway. “She... can breathe fire, of course…” He tried to think of what else she could do, but meeting resistance, he moved onto the next topic. “Her underbelly is weak. That’s usually where I strike her before she flees.”

Logan hummed. “I see. Do you suppose that defeating this dragon-witch would free Virgil?”

“I’m honestly not sure, but if that is what must be done, then I shall do it,” Roman said, now determined.

It was at that point he noticed Patton had been suspiciously quiet. He looked over to find Patton standing directly in front of Virgil’s statue, worry and grief etched in his face. He reached his hand up towards Virgil’s forehead as if to brush the hair out of his face, hesitating for a moment before he settled his hand on the side of Virgil’s face and pressed his forehead against Virgil’s. Roman couldn’t help but remember the dragon-witch’s words.

“It is not your role to protect them. You may try, but you will always fail.”

“Roman, are your injuries going to hinder you? If so, we can rest a while before we leave,” Logan inquired, adjusting his glasses.

Roman hadn’t even been thinking about his injuries. He felt tired and sore, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. “They’re fine, but… maybe you two should stay here.”

Patton finally looked away from Virgil and fixed his eyes on Roman. “What do y’mean, kiddo? Of course we’re coming with you! We’ve gotta save Virgil!”

“I have to agree, I don’t think it would be wise for you to go alone,” Logan said firmly. “What if you also get turned to stone? We would be none the wiser if we waited down here.”

Roman opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again. He’d been so focused on the others he hadn’t even considered that possibility. What would happen if he was turned to stone? Seeing that Logan had a point, he huffed. “Fine. But neither of you had better get caught.”

“We can make no promises, but we will certainly try not to,” Logan agreed. “We should leave immediately, although I doubt we’ll make it up the entirety of the mountain today.”

Roman nodded in agreement, and Patton gave one final glance towards Virgil’s still form before the three of them departed.

They reached the foot of the mountain within an hour and began their climb up the worn path towards the summit. They barely spoke a word to each other for a long time, aside from Roman occasionally giving them directions. Roman could still remember a time when Virgil’s absence would have made him happy, but now guilt just twisted in his stomach.

They came to a small clearing just as the sun was setting and decided to make camp there. Logan made a fire while Roman conjured up some bedrolls for them to sleep on. Patton seemed distracted, just sitting and watching as the other two worked. Roman knew that under normal circumstances, Patton would have jumped at the opportunity to help either of them, but Roman also suspected he was taking Virgil’s condition the hardest out of all of them.

After the beds were all laid out, Roman took a seat beside him. He struggled to find the right words to say. “If you like, I could conjure up some marshmallows and we could roast them on the fire?”

Patton gave him a weak smile. “Thanks Roman, that’s nice of you, but I’m not feeling very hungry right now.”

“Oh.” Roman fidgeted with his sash. “Well, how about-”

“I think I’m gonna turn in for the night!” Patton said suddenly. He crawled over to one of the bedrolls and settled into it. “G’night guys!”

“Good night, Patton,” Logan returned, prodding the fire as he did so.

Roman’s mouth was left hanging open from Patton’s sudden interruption. “Ah… y-yes, sleep well, Patton,” he said awkwardly. He watched as Patton drew the blankets tightly around his form, breathing out a long sigh before he stilled. Roman covered his face with his hands, suddenly feeling very tired as well.

There was a long silence after that. Roman would occasionally look over at Logan, who was staring into the fire, deep in thought for what felt like forever. It seemed as though Patton wasn’t the only one taking this hard. Or perhaps Logan was just thinking about their situation; Logan was always hard to read.

“Roman, can I ask you a question about the dragon-witch?” Roman was drawn out of his own thoughts as Logan spoke. He saw Logan adjust his glasses. “She is a creation of your own making, correct? Is there no way for you to simply… make her vanish? I’m not as familiar with the workings of the imagination as I would like to be.”

Roman sighed. “It doesn’t quite work that way, Specs. Even if it did, I’m not sure it would reverse the spell on Virgil.”

“I see,” Logan said simply. “Another question: We’ve all witnessed you defeat a dragon-witch before, but I don’t recall her having the ability to turn people to stone. Is that… your doing?”

Roman laughed bitterly. “You’re implying it’s my fault?”

“Is it?”

Roman paused, staring down at his feet. “Possibly. I just wanted… I mean, you saw how easily I overcame that other dragon-witch, right? It was almost… too easy, and I may have… enhanced design slightly.” He could feel Logan’s stare on him. “But I never thought she would be of any danger to the rest of you,” he continued quickly. “That is the truth, Logan. I-I never meant for this to happen.”

Logan sighed. “I can hardly hold it against you for wanting to challenge yourself. I only hope we can correct this mistake.”

“I hope so, too,” Roman said quietly. Patton stirred in his sleep briefly before settling down again. Logan seemed to be drifting off as well now. He silently vowed wouldn’t let harm come to either of them.

The sides woke early the next morning and continued their trek up the mountain.

“If we continue at this pace, how long do you estimate it will take us to reach the peak, Roman?” Logan inquired.

Roman took a second to think - the campsite they’d departed from an hour ago lay about one-third up the mountain, so he tried to guess from that. “We might make it there by nightfall, but the path gets narrower and steeper up ahead, so that may slow us down.”

“Uh… guys?” Patton tried to speak up, but the other two sides didn’t hear him.

“If we take into consideration the height of the mountain, then we should also consider shapeshifting into warmer attire once we reach a high enough altitude,” Logan commented. Seasons weren’t as consistent in the imagination as they were in reality, but Roman had created all of the mountains so their tops would be covered in snow most of the year, if for no other reason than aesthetics.

A shadow passed over top of them, but only Patton noticed. “Hey Roman, I think-”

“Ah, I do always enjoy wearing a warm winter cloak!” Roman mused. The way it draped over his shoulders somehow made him feel more… heroic.

“Guys!” Patton called out desperately. The other two turned just as Patton tackled them to the ground. A loud roar rang in their ears and a whoosh of wind ruffled their hair. The dragon-witch had narrowly missed them. Patton kept his arms held tightly around both of them for a few seconds, before tentatively relaxing enough so that they could all push themselves to their feet.

“That was… too close for comfort,” Roman said, straightening out his clothes and brushing off the dirt. He exhaled and gave Patton a grateful look. “It’s a good thing one of us was paying attention. You really saved us there, Patton.” Roman couldn’t help but notice a few grazes on Patton’s arms. He made a mental note to help him patch them up later.

“Yes, it was a rather close call,” Logan agreed, appearing a little flustered. He picked his glasses up off the ground from where’d they’d been knocked off and slipped them back onto his face. “Thank you, Patton. Very quick thinking on your part.”

Patton beamed at them, but his smile quickly dropped when he glanced up. “Well, y-you two might wanna move out of the way before she comes back.”

A roar erupted through the air from behind Roman and Logan, and they didn’t need to be told twice before running for cover. Patton, on the other hand, hadn’t moved. Roman halted. “Patton, what are you doing?!”

Logan also stopped in his tracks. He frowned, as if trying to piece something together. “Patton.”

Patton gulped. “Yeah?”

“You looked, didn’t you?”

“U-um—” Patton didn’t get a chance to finish before the dragon-witch swooped down again. Logan and Roman managed to dive out of the way, but all Patton could do was yelp and try to crouch down. This proved to be difficult, seeing as his feet were now solid stone and couldn’t move. He covered his head and whimpered.

Roman felt his temper flare up. How could he have let this happen again? One thing was for sure though - he wasn’t about to let the dragon-witch get away.

Roman drew his sword and stood in front of Patton. The dragon-witch landed with a heavy thud, teeth bared and sharp. She prowled towards him, her body lowered as if she could strike at any second. Roman readied himself for the attack.

The dragon-witch suddenly lunged towards him, but Roman acted quickly. In one swift moment he dived underneath her and struck the underside of the dragon’s stomach.

The sound that followed was deafening.

Roman dropped his sword to cover his ears, squeezing his eyes shut from just how loud it was. By the time he opened them, he had no time to react before a set of long claws swiped across his stomach. He cried out in pain, clutching at the wound. He dropped to his knees. On some level he registered Logan and Patton shouting his name, and the sound of wings flapping and slowly fading away.

He lifted his arm briefly to examine the wound and hissed at the sight. There wasn’t as much blood as he’d expected, but it was still staining his white costume and his sash had been apart. He wasn’t sure if he could find the strength to stand up for a few moments, but then he remembered - Patton was still turning to stone. As he staggered to his feet, Logan came to his side and helped to hold him up.

“W-well, I think that could have gone better,” Roman said, trying to lighten the mood. He managed to half-smile at Patton, but Patton didn’t smile back.

“Roman, you’re bleeding!” Patton said, his voice filled with worry. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Ah, ‘tis but a flesh wound, Padre! Besides, what about you?” Roman tried to straighten himself up, wincing as pain shot through his torso.

Patton looked down. Half of him was already stone, his legs entirely covered. “O-oh, it doesn’t hurt or anything! Feels kinda funny though…” Roman could tell Patton was trying to be brave, but he couldn’t help but hear the tremble in his voice.

“Roman, your wound needs tending to,” Logan said, shifting his weight slightly.

Roman shook his head. “I’ll be fine, we should focus on Patton for now.”

“The process has already started, there’s nothing we can do for him.”

Roman opened his mouth to protest, but Patton spoke first. “He’s right, kiddo. You need to get that wound fixed up!”

Roman could do nothing as Logan set him gently on the ground and Patton continued to turn to stone before his eyes. It was frustrating. If there was anything Roman hated, it was feeling helpless. As Logan lifted Roman’s top off to get a better look at the wound, Roman’s pain and frustration manifested itself as tears welling up in his eyes.

“Roman?”

Roman looked up to see Patton staring down at him, with a soft expression he’d seen many times before when he’d been frustrated or sad or upset. “It’s going to be okay.”

Roman choked out a laugh. “How can you say that?”

“Because there’s still hope!” Patton said, smiling softly at him. “You and Logan’ll figure something out. I know you will. I believe in both of you.”

Roman and Logan exchanged a glance. Neither of them were very sure of that statement. Roman looked back up at Patton. The stone had almost reached his neck. Logan continued tending to Roman’s wound as Roman spoke. “I… we will try, Patton.”

Patton’s voice was shaky and his eyes glistened with tears. “I-I know. I love both of you. Take care of each other.”

Those were the last words he spoke before he completely turned to stone.

#my fic #sanders sides #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #not sure when the next part'll be up #i'm gonna do a bit of rewriting so it might be a while!#but in the meantime i hope you like this part!!

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cosmosogler · 6 years ago

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hi guys. i went to campus today! i did a little work and then ran out to the pumpkin patch with tia to sort out our marathon stuff. it’s on saturday.

i asked her about comics before i could stop myself and she said she doesn’t read them (or books) and doesn’t really have much interest in it. so i shut up about it instead of asking if she wanted to read mine.

we stopped at chipotle on the way home. there was a dog and i got to pet him and i was very happy about that. he licked my hand and i squished his face with both hands. snoopy only lets me pet her with one hand at a time.

and i did comic work all night! i finished TWO little side comics. my queue is starting to look a little more populated with my own work again. still need to actually finish scenes faster than they’re posting... but one thing at a time. i also need to start boarding the next part of the story because i’ve only got three scenes left before my sketchbook is blank! too much to do.

well ok before i started drawing i fixed a few things around the apartment, like my ceiling fan and stuff. the ceiling fan is designed kind of stupidly though- the screws don’t take screwdrivers. there’s no little hole for any driver. i had to get some pliers to tighten the screws by grabbing them and twisting.

yeah. tomorrow i’ve got group therapy which will take up all my afternoon time. not sure how much work i’ll be able to get done tomorrow, which means i’ll still be scrambling to catch up in the back half of the week and probably also the weekend. but i’m still injured and i’m still not feeling any better. breathing was REALLY DIFFICULT today. like i try to take a deep breath and i’m still not getting enough air, and it’s way shallower than i used to be able to do. i still think it’s a muscle problem but i don’t see the doctor about it until friday.

suzanne said that is FAR too long to have to wait for chest problems but there’s not really much i can do about it. i’m used to waiting a while for the doctor... that’s why it’s hard to make appointments when i’m sick. i figure i’ll have to wait 3-4 days for the doctor anyway and by then i’ll be better enough for school. so i don’t bother.

it sucks to be permanently out of breath though!

i was super uncomfortable trying to sleep last night and i kept waking up and i only ended up sleeping about 6 hours. that was really annoying because now i’m not rested at all, i’m still injured around my neck, i re-hurt my shoulders grading yesterday, and my chest doesn’t hurt any less. RIGHT BACK WHERE I STARTED. did i not rest long enough? but i’m so far behind... what can i do? maybe i can talk about it in group. but i’ll just be harping on about the same complaint week after week, with nothing to do about it or change my situation, and that’s annoying to hear about between friends let alone a group where everyone is trying to better themselves.

i really like the side bits i did for the comic today. i’ve really liked all of them for this arc. well... i like all of the ones i draw haha but this last series especially has been fun for me.

oh and lunch made me extremely ill the last two days straight. that’s a bummer. it would help if i got up in time to have breakfast, but, i’m so drowsy all the time. part of it might be lack of oxygen, i dunno. stress. lack of sleep. i should be drinking more water, i’m thirsty all the time even though i have to fill up my water bottle like five times every day.

i dunno! i wish the doctor could tell me something i didn’t already know. that would be nice. i wish i could see the doctor in a reasonable amount of time. tha would also be nice. but things are not nice, so i just gotta... try to tough it out i guess. work when i can, rest when i can’t. you know, the usual.

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lozshop · 6 years ago

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Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

New Post has been published on https://lozshop.com/review-loz-pokemon-pikachu/

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond BlockS

This is the best replica of a Pikachu I’ve seen this month, especially when compared to its counterparts. The eyes, ears, mouth, tail, cheeks, etc. are all instantly recognizable and distinct, and it’s much cuter than anything other model featured before. So I’ve decided to make a very review for one of the best Loz’s products.

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks for every single detail

The back even keeps the stripes and tail colors, as well as a tail that is the most accurately shaped as Pikachu’s tail.

Unfortunately, the size of the tail makes the figure a little backheavy, making it more frustrating that, as far as I can tell, there are no base plates made for these bricks…

And I just said that I’m impressed with how well they constructed Pikachu’s face, especially since they were working with more pieces than the other sets utilized, but with how they designed the face… We are working with high levels of “derp” here. Oh, that’s even better.

Not as good as it trying to find its nose though. Or its “punched in the stomach” face. I guess that looks normal. …Though we now have a very sarcastic-looking Pikachu. And now Pikachu’s just seen what Professor Oak does with all those Bulbasaur that starting trainers don’t take… Eh, heck with it… Let’s create a derp gif for future reviews so I don’t have to steal other peoples’.

And the mouth… …I don’t know why they bothered to make an actual mouth as opposed to a small smile or something… but thank you for making it as goofy and ill-fitting as possible. I want to say it reminds me of a really early computer-animated independent short I saw one time where the characters’ mouths moved in a diamond pattern, but it’s not coming to mind.

Actually, is anyone else getting a Far Side feel from this? Especially with the fat kid whose mouth turns into a trumpet when he’s excited? Like what Strong Sad dressed up as in that Homestar Runner cartoon? …No? …Just me?

The cheeks are nice, though, especially since they could afford to round these. Maybe they look a little big, but Pikachu are known for their large cheek patches that generate electricity, so I can’t fault the design for that.It even has a cute little button nose! …Which is offset somewhat by the close-up shot of the lifeless pupils staring at me…

They built the top of the head to give it a much more spherical and natural look, so we’re not dealing with the cube-heads of Nanoblocks or the creepy Ionix mask stolen from the Happy Mask Salesman.

Guess this Pikachu has avoided meeting with a terrible fate. …Still gotta save the world from the moon, though…

However, I’m strangely put off by the shape of the ears. On the one hand, I’m glad they matched the shape of the ears so well, since Pikachu does have rod-like ears, but on the other hand, since most of the figure is so blocky, they don’t quite match the design.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so concerned with the design if they kept the cylindrical shape, but the little triangles on the top don’t match the smoothness of the rest of the ear. Why couldn’t they have used cones for the tips and kept it smooth all the way up? …Still, it’s a minor nitpick at best, one that only people with too much time on their hands would bother to point out and complain about. …Anyway…

I LOVE the design of the arms. They’re just the right shape and size and actually look like arms as opposed to claws or tiny brick mounds. I even love the little claw at the end, since that just perfectly represents how tiny Pikachu’s little fingers are and just makes it all the more cute.

Not as much detail was put into the feet, but they did make them look like feet and not little blocks or The Tramp’s comically oversized shoes. It would have been nice to have some semblance of toes, but they keep him standing, so can’t complain.

The tail is very nicely shaped, given what they had to work with. I would have liked it if they made the tail more slanted and lightning-shaped, but I don’t know how they would have pulled that off without using an excessive amount of bricks that probably would have made the design more fragile.

I especially love their use of headlight bricks to build a slant on the backside of the tail and make it look less “blocky.” …Though I’m wondering if those crevices left between the bricks can be filled in with something?

But the best part about this figure? The thing that causes it to excel far beyond anything else we’ve seen this month? It’s articulated! Yes, it actually has hinged arms and ears, allowing for roughly 90° of movement with the arms and 45° with the ears. Ok, it’s not minifigure-level, or possibly Wall-E level, but when you have a figure built out of standard building bricks, you take what you can get. And now you can reenact that Paffendorf meme that was briefly(and I mean BRIEFLY) popular a few years ago.

Even the tail has a wide angle of movement, so you can get it to adorably wag its tail. …It’s too bad the arms don’t pivot forwards, or we could get it to reenact Leek Spin in addition to Paffendorf. …My mind’s strangely centered on ancient memes today, isn’t it?

And now let’s look at the Pokéball that came with this figure. …Strange that a Pikachu would be paired with a Pokéball, as anyone who’s even slightly familiar with the show or game would know, but I guess if you’re illegally producing knock-offs of other franchises and you don’t know if you’ll get away with any more, it’s best to include as much as possible in your first release.

Besides that, the faux-round shape and how the red and white bricks don’t properly layer on the black middle makes it look mechanical and avant garde, more like paper cutout origami than a proper ball. …In fact, do you know what this design reminds me of?

Still, I guess it’s not terrible and it’s impressive they could make one with the limited amount of bricks they had. I guess we’ll just pretend Giant Pikachu is so powerful, it can rip the heads off Daleks and paint them red and white.

And that’s your LOZ Mini Blocks Pikachu set! A strange yet welcome addition to the new trend of creating figures out of regular building bricks. And since it’s not made out of Nanoblocks, I don’t have to superglue it together to keep it intact, nor spend 2 hours getting the first layer of bricks positioned. Heck, since there are more Mini Blocks in the range, I might just have to look at some more and see what this is compatible with.

Review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks in main factors

Quality: The quality is very high, even higher than their Nanoblock bricks since I couldn’t find any “problem” bricks that were melted or molded incorrectly. The plastic quality actually feels even higher than most other mainstream companies, since they’re made with that “Lego”-feeling plastic that franchises like Mega Bloks and K’Nex don’t even have. The colors are vibrant and the bricks molded quite nicely, with a uniformity not many obscure building brick companies have. There were a few bricks that felt loose or didn’t quite click together smoothly, as was expected with LOZ, but overall, the high quality for the relatively low price point of this item is extremely commendable.

Design: This is the best Pikachu model I’ve seen so far. It legitimately looks like what I’d imagine a Pikachu to look like if Lego ever decided to make a Pokémon figure in the same style as their Wall-E set. The proportions aren’t perfect and it looks quite blocky in some areas, especially around the torso, but I would probably expect this of any building brick company that decided to take a stab at this character. And the fact that they made it articulated and more than just a statuette REALLY helps up the fun factor to be had with this set. I guess my only legitimate complaints are with the derpy eyes and the undetailed feet, and maybe the diamond mouth, but since they made this with standard Lego brick shapes, I’m impressed with the amount of detail they were able to accomplish. If Lego DID make this, most of the detail would have probably been through stickers, and I’ve already made my opinion of stickers clear in my Lite Brix review… As for the Pokéball, it’s ok. It’s a very bulky, strangely cubist version that looks like if Pablo Picasso was hired to design a brick set, but it’s recognizable and sturdy and does fit the strangeness of the Pikachu design.

Creativity: As it’s a Pikachu most likely produced without a license from The Pokémon Company, there’s not much creativity in the idea of building a Pikachu or a Pokéball. However, the fact that they managed to build this out of standard brick shapes with no custom bricks is impressive, especially in areas where they flipped the bricks on their sides to give the design a bit of a slope. And again, the fact that they included articulation does make it feel like a legitimate toy and not just a model to assemble and stick on a shelf.

Readability: The instructions are done in the standard “single sheet” and “multiple steps in one” styles we’ve seen so far from Diamond Blocks and other Nanoblock companies. However, since these bricks are a bit bigger and there’s more of a variety with the shapes, it’s much easier to follow along with than regular Nanoblocks. I’m much more of a booklet-type of person, but I didn’t lose my place or start on another layer before I finished the first, so it also has that going for it over Nanoblock instructions. Overall, if it was just printed in a booklet, I would have no complaints.

Packaging: I LOVE this box. It gets the product information across without seeming too cluttered or overly detailed. It’s just the assembled product against a white background, but the small details they added did catch my eye and heightened my interest in the product. It’s obviously trying to trick you into thinking it has something to do with Lego Ideas with its “LOZ Ideas Classic Creator Series” declaration, but it backs it up with Pikachu sitting on a piece of paper covered in sketches, which really does give it the appearance of an “indie” fan creation. And the small windows on the back featuring the figure’s articulation really help to sell this item. So even though it’s not the Engrishy type of box like the Jie Star boxes are, it’s professionally made and slightly humorous that they’re trying to pass this set off as legit.

Compatibility: It’s compatible with Lego Nanoblocks

Overall for my first review LOZ Pokemon Pikachu Diamond Blocks:

If it was compatible with other building brick lines, it would have been a 5/5. I LOVE this figure and the packaging that came with it. It’s fun, it’s stylish, it’s professional, and it perfectly represents the cartoony nature of Pokémon. If Lego or some other company was to include Pokémon in their line of figures built with standard bricks, LOZ has set a standard that might be tricky for them to match. If you can find this set, whether you’re a huge or passive fan of Pokémon, I highly recommend it. It’s truly the best building brick set featuring Pokémon I’ve ever seen…

#LozBlocks, #LozDiamondBlocks, #LozPokemonPikachu #Reviews/Unbox #loz #lozblocks #nanoblocks #diamondblocks #miniblocks #ministreet #blocks

#loz blocks #loz diamond blocks #loz pokemon pikachu

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years ago

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@tuesdaney

Info!! (rip this got super long). also image uploader within this is being weird so image is coming as a separate submission. or maybe it’s in the post three times and i just can’t see it, in which case i am so sorry

We can fix every formatting problem behind the scenes. Shh, no one even needs to know anything went wrong.

Alternian, AU since she eventually joins a session.

Age: 7 sweeps

Name: Januss Celera. Januss from Janus, in reference to both the Roman god of time and Janus particles (specifically particles which are half hydrophilic and half hydrophobic). Celera from Acceleration.

Janus is also a god of transitions and duality, so I think it makes sense for this switching-up thing you’ve given her. He is also associated a lot with travel and journey and so forth. It’s ALSO speculated that his name could’ve been derived from the Latin verb ‘to go’, which fits her speed theme. What I’m saying is Januss Celera is a great name.

Strife Specibus: vehicular manslaughterkind i don’t actually know. she’s not really one for combat, which is to say she’ll murder anyone clearly weaker than her no problem but if it looks like anything close to a fair fight she’s going to be a coward and run away. at a loss for something that fits

She has a really rough and tumble vibe. I think for a regular weapon you could give her maybe a tireironkind? Something that’s functionally related to her interests but that she can also grab and wail on someone with if she needs to.

Or you could reference her excessive need to win by giving her trophykind. If someone beats her in a race, she can just grab the trophy they won and bash them with that. Seems fitting for her personality.

You could give her vehiclekind as a secondary weapon, though! Weaponize those cars, Januss.

Fetch Modus: also not too sure. I like the idea of a modus where she has to be traveling at least a certain speed to get items out, so at walking pace she could only get out little things but if shes flooring it in some kinda vehicle she can take out whatever she wants

Velocity Modus sounds like a good idea. Gotta speed up to eject things.

Or you could do like a Time Challenge Modus. When she wants to eject something from the modus, it’s split into ‘components’ that are scattered across an area and she has a time limit to collect them all. If she fails the time challenge, the item gets locked down for a time proportionate to how important the item is. She could use such a particularly annoying modus because she feels confident in her ability to Always Succeed.

Blood Color: ok hoooo boy here’s where we get to the Whole Idea behind Januss and its going to take a second of explaining my personal speculations on troll genetics and biology, so:

There’s a specific part of the troll genome that goes “hey! this troll is a seadweller” which triggers the development of gills and fins in a grub-to-be, and the violet blood. It’s actually present in the genes of every troll, but is only able to switch on in purplebloods, and only in specific circumstances. basically, all violetbloods are technically mutant purplebloods (and fuchsia blooded trolls are like. an even rarer “hyper mutation” of purplebloods but thats not relevant here) uh. I hope that makes sense? I like speculating how blood color works in trolls and seadwellers in particular are weird. Anyway,

Januss is a violetblood, or at least appears to be one when she’s a grub. She has a mutation in the protein responsible for “switching on” the seadweller gene, though, and it basically switches back off after 4 or so sweeps. As a result, her blood color has shifted from violet to purple and her fins and gills are stunted. On the surface she just looks like a violetblood with kinda small fins, on the inside her gills barely work and are getting worse, and she probably has a few other odd symptoms from her body suddenly changing its mind about blood color. (she’ll probably live to some weird age inbetween what’s expected of violet and purple, for example. if no one finds out and culls her.)

I like this explanation of her state a lot. Something like her having an enzyme/growth hormone that has a visible effect on the blood color and results in the development of particular features. And then her body just says Oops and stops producing that hormone and so her blood goes back to the basic state… It’s really interesting. I think it works, especially because there’s some speculation on the bridge between purples and violets anyways, considering the purple association with aquatic mammals. They’re Close to the seadweller without actually Being the seadweller and I think that provides some definitely reasonable room for mutation and weird halfway development.

All of that is to say- your theory tracks well enough to justify the theme of your character.

Symbol and meaning: Aquaries is what she’s grown up under and goes by, but technically she’d be Capries, which is somewhat reflected in her horns. When she winds up playing Sgrub and eventually stops hiding her mutation, she makes a new (non canon) symbol for herself by taking Aquaries and making it fit the purpleblood sign language. (caus like, I doubt she’d automatically know “oh yes my actual sign is capries” but she does want to reflect her real blood color)

I like that a lot! Figuring out and working things out for herself is great. And not to spoil what we talk about during the land/title/moon section, but I do agree with these assignments. So I’ll be keeping this in mind when working w/ her design!

Trolltag: agileTraverse. caus she’s fast and can do some sick stunts and she knows it

Might I recommend supersonicAstrobatic[SA]? Just to REALLY push her speed theme and at least pay reference to the fact that she wants to race spaceships. Or astrobaticTerminality[AT] if you want to keep the same abbreviation. It keeps the spaceship reference. Terminality pays reference to the god Janus’ theme of End Points, meaning here the Extreme, The Most. Also a good reference to the fact that she’s ruthless and will, in fact, do a kill. She’s a terminal astrobatic.

Quirk: ^she encloses her words like this to resemble her symbol. she types fairly normally, no capitalization unLESS/SHE/GETS/EXCITED/OR/ANGRY/IN/WHICH/CASE/SHES/FAST/AND/LOUD/AND/EVERYONE/KNOWS/IT!!!!!!!!!!!!^

Not sure how she’d change that after changing her symbol, maybe by swapping the ^ for a u.

Honestly I think just keeping it around would be acceptable? It’s the way she’s talked for a lot of years, so you could make the argument that the habit is hard to break and just sticks around. It’s implied that it reflects a real manner of speaking, too, since Sollux’s changes upon blindness. So unless you think she would change some of her vocal mannerisms or would undergo some physical impact (like losing her front teeth, to return to the Sollux example), there’s no Real need to adjust her quirk.

Special Abilities: nothing beyond standard highblood stuff, and the aforementioned mutation. It’s worth mentioning that she can’t do chucklevoodos though. I figure her seadweller upbringing keeps her distanced from the whole juggalo religion thing, even after she “shows her true colors”, as it were.

Makes sense, since she didn’t fall back into purpleblood until she hit, what, ~8 years old? I think you could probably make a case for her not having psychic abilities but still having just the subtle passive influence of chucklevoodoos. Because I think the implication is that it’s a natural ability meant to Keep Lowbloods In Check that is cultivated by the church for a specific purpose/aesthetic.

What I’m saying is that you could give her some really weak chaotic auras that make her slightly more naturally intimidating.

Lusus: Sailfishmom! A large sailfish with some froggy qualities, like bug eyes and fins that are more like a tadpole’s tail. Sailfish caus they’re fast and frog caus they start in the water but do land stuff later in life. She has a pretty ok relationship with her lusus, who helped her through the rough patch that was “oh fuck im a mutant”.

Love the idea of this! Really clever. The transition of the tadpole combined with the speed of the sailfish fit her image very well! Do they breathe through their skin?

Personality/interests: Januss is constantly impatient and constantly moving. Part of this is just the way she is, part of it is her anxiety to grow up and leave the planet as soon as possible so she can claim governorship over some backwater colony where no one higher up than her can figure out her secret. her passion is vehicle racing, be it ships or cars or spaceships (well, she wants to race spaceships, anyway. when she’s actually off planet.) She has an enormous garage of assorted vehicles in her hive, which is a gargantuan decommissioned spacefighter carrier, half sunk near a sandbar as the dying wish of the former captain.

Sorry to interject. There’s just something very, very funny to me about the idea of a Carpenter Drone just placing a child in a half-sunken spaceship and being like Good Luck. It’s also a great hive location thematically, so good on ya.

She loves giving custom paintjobs and shady modifications to her rides, the latter giving her a nice edge in the less respectable races she participates in (which is all of them.) Her trophies and her killcount on the tracks are both formidable in number, but out of the drivers seat she tends to be a coward. She has few friends, and barely filled quadrants, managing to escape culling only by pulling some strings with her royal status. This isn’t because she’s antisocial, rather she’s terrified someone will figure out her secret. All of her friends are land dwellers because of this, since hanging out underwater for long would probably drown her.

I like the idea of her giving some really wild paintjobs to her rides. Violets are described as the eccentrics, so her reflecting just a little bit of that seadweller tendency could be fun. The shady modifications are also interesting. Does she purchase them on the black market? Have a supplier? Or does she fiddle with them herself? All of the above could be interesting.

Like she could start off buying from a shady person and then move into tinkering with them herself, to… mixed results.

I like the idea of her being a coward, too- it makes sense! If there’s a fair fight on the horizon, she runs the risk of bleeding. And running the risk of bleeding is something she’d never want to do.

I have to point out that she’s not really Currently at risk of being culled for being partnerless. At 7 sweeps, she’d be sitting comfortably at about 15. Though we don’t Really have confirmation of about when the Imperial Drones come knocking, it’s safe to assume it’d be closer to when the trolls are About To Leave Planet, since that’s when they’d be adults. Which means she’s got a little over one sweep to sort her shit out or run. …Or pull some nobility strings, as you’ve mentioned.

I feel like it’s worth noting at this point that Janus is heavily associated with Auspices. So giving her a more firm relationship in that regard might be a good idea just to draw the link.

Despite her cowardice she has a definite ruthless streak even when off the track, it just tends to only be aimed at lowbloods who she’s sure she can take on. While racing she’s even more brutal, and her general cockiness and arrogance combine with this to make her a terrible sport. If you win against her you’re dead as soon as the race is over if she thinks she can take you.

I like this a lot. Especially because it shines a light on a very Purpleblood habit of hers. Purplebloods are said to take their work very seriously (even if their work isn’t often… conventional, by our standards) and to desire to be the Foremost in their field, plus they’re known for being very violent.

Also I hope her underestimating lowbloods comes back to bite her in the ass.

Title: Something of time, for sure, since the whole theme I’m trying to run with Januss is well, literally running. Trying to get into her adult life and away from what she’s afraid of, trying to always be the fastest on the track, her mutation making her a seadweller for only a limited time, et cetera. I don’t have a concrete plot planned for her but you can bet her need to hurry everything will Absolutely Ruin her life bigtime at some point and she’ll have to dig her way out of that. That being said, I can’t decide what class fits her.

I agree with her time assignation so much. The valuing of action, the refusal of passivity even if it’s reckless, the Very strong struggle against fate, the focus on the destination, her restlessness, her ruthlessness… It all checks out!

Now on to her class:

Prince of Time, Prince of Time, Prince of Time, Prince of Time-

Sorry, got excited about that one. I just think with her general ruthless nature and her impatience, prince of time is a Very fitting role for her. She’s someone very active and someone who seems very focused on her own goals. And this title suits that, but in the worst possible ways.

Basically speaking, a Prince of Time is able to destroy time or destroy With time.

Given her impatience and her desire to progress, I can easily see her just destroying segments of time. Deleting them. Poof. Trying to get to where she wants to be as fast as possible. Of course, this would fragment the universe and cause great harm. Skipping out on major segments and very important events could easily distort the timeline. Since inevitability is tied so strongly with the time aspect, Inevitability Itself could be destroyed, which could severely hurt the Alpha Timeline and splinter things to the point of incomprehensibility. Using her time travel in this way could really damage her life and like the lives of everyone across multiple different versions of reality.

She could also destroy through time, like making things experience decay and destruction at a further rate, or bringing about their inevitable demise sooner than expected.

Her inverse, Sylph of Space, would allow her to passively create Space. As she fragments and chews up timelines, more and more Boundless Space is able to exist. Each time she uses this power, she creates another timeline, more theoretical Room in which to operate. Which could lead to some grand ‘working with yourself from another dimension’ fun!

The development needed for this title comes with this: She would have to undergo some major character development to stop from ruining everything. She would have to learn to reign herself in and get herself under control and learn to appreciate the moment before she Destroyed All.

Land: Not sure? I like the idea of a water covered planet where she has to figure out how to lower the water level to properly traverse it, and even after figuring it out the water will only recede very slowly, making her wait. Sort of both a lesson in patience and an acceptance of her mutation? idk

I love this idea. The fact that it would seem like a mockery of her condition at first but it would allow her to slowly come to terms with it. And the teaching her to slow down and smell the roses. Maybe she could stumble upon mysteries and treasures, things she absolutely would’ve missed if she’d been able to rush through the planet.

Dream Planet: Derse for sure.

Wow this is very long. I’ll send over the picture in another submission.

Here’s Januss! Left is living that highblood life, right is in session after she’s become comfortable letting that go. She wears the goggles during her races as her highblood self, and more or less all the time later, since she’s found that when she dosen’t have to keep up an elaborate lie around water, she likes it a lot better.

I’ll be honest there’s not much I had to edit for her.

LEFT SIDE-

Horns and hair: I kept them the same. But let me tell you spriting that hair wasn’t easy! Very fun, though.

Fins: I edited them to be slightly smaller than the traditional seadweller fins!

Eyes: I wanted to make them nicely sharp and with some dark lines to make sure they looked defined and dangerous. I also had to give her some eyelashes because of troll rules.

Mouth: I loved it so it gets to stick how it was.

Clothes: I took John’s ectobiologist jacket and edited it so thoroughly I almost considered skipping on mentioning it, but that’d be rude. Either way, I liked most of the detail and really liked how it looks kind of like an admiral’s jacket. I decided to take the jacket and extend it down into the pants, though. For two reasons, really:

1. The original pants color looked too much like purpleblood and I thought it’d be antithetical to her trying to hide her blood condition to wear such a large amount of it on her clothes.

2. Combining them together reminded me of racecar driver jumpers!

Shoes: They’re just some pretty simple and straightforward boots.

RIGHT SIDE-

Horns, hair, fins, eyes: See above.

Goggles: I liked them a lot, so I kept them around. I just took the outline of her shirt and created an overlay with it, and then put a screen for reflective light.

Mouth: Purpleblood lipstick, like in your original art.

Symbol: I couldn’t really see the detail of the symbol really well on your original drawing, so I tried to create what I could tell of it as best as I could. It looks a liiittle similar to Capripia, but that’s fine. I think the straight edge ends and the curled wings as well as the rounded diamond set it apart enough and I think it takes enough notes from her Aquaries symbol to be at least recognizable in context!

Pants: Because she’s a purpleblood I didn’t want to leave her without some neat patterned flourish. So I added a checker pattern to one leg. Mostly because I’ve seen a lot of motorcycle racers with those kinds of patterns on their legs. And it makes her look edgy.

Boots: The same but edited to have more gold and purple.

Thank you so much for sharing her, I absolutely loved her and loved working on her!

-CD

#tuesdaney #januss celera #januss #celera #violetblood #purpleblood #mutantblood #(technically?)#seadweller #(kind of?)#submission #review #redesign #cd review

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just-jordie-things · 7 years ago

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Chasing After You - Scott McCall

word count: 5524 warnings: swearing, angst, mentions of sex, bad soup

“And maybe it’s cause you miss him I don’t know you don’t talk to me about it much, but I could definitely set you up with this guy that used to be in my Trig if you’re up for it, we talk sometimes but he seems chill and he’s single” Malia rambled on as you were blankly stirring the soup bowl in front of you, watching the contents circulate around in the strangely designed bowl. Malia was your best friend, but she always picked the most awkward places for lunch.

“Mal, I don’t need to date” You said, but was unable to meet her eyes. She’d been trying to set you up with someone ever since you and Stiles broke it off nearly a year ago, sometime between the mess of the Dread Doctors and Theo Raeken, you’d both just lost feelings for each other.

That being said, it still hurt when he didn’t even say the words, and just left you sitting at your kitchen table, getting up and leaving your house without a second glance. But somehow you knew that it was the end of your short lasted relationship that had started out so strong.

“I mean it’d be a blind date so it couldn’t be that bad” Malia shrugged a shoulder. “Worst case scenario, you don’t like him and you leave and try someone else” She said, slurping her own soup in a way that would normally make you laugh. But you could only pull a tight smile, scooping up a spoonful of the cloudy liquid and watching it drip back down into the bowl. “And best case scenario, you get to have sex again” She said nonchalantly.

“Uh, what’re we talking about?” You looked up to see Scott had finally shown up, pulling out the chair that was between you and the werecoyote at your circular table.

“Cupid here wants to set me up on a date with one of her weird guy friends” You told him, your tone low, and bored. Scott’s brows rose just slightly, unable to suppress the shock on his features.

He recalled the night you’d shown up at his house, in old jeans and a sweater. You stood there at his front door in silence, not even looking him in the eyes as you gathered your thoughts asked him quietly if you could come in. It took half an hour of sitting in the middle of his mattress, smoothing out his covers before you’d told him that Stiles had broken up with you. He was astonished, wondering why his best friend would do such a thing, especially with no words shared about it, just abandoning you in your own home. But Scott didn’t say anything, just set his hand over yours gently, giving you that gentle Scott McCall™ look before pulling you into a hug. You didn’t cry once, but he had almost wished you did, because the empty and broken look on your face broke his heart in a way it shouldn’t have.

“Yeah” You spoke, pulling him from his memories. “And I thought Lydia was cupid. But figures she probably won’t talk to me for a while…” You trailed off, eyes landing back on your still full bowl of soup. Seeing that she’s dating my ex boyfriend, you wanted to say, but didn’t want to spark a conversation about it, so you kept it to yourself.

You weren’t mad Lydia and Stiles were together, in fact you were happy that they were happy, they both deserved it. In fact, Stiles and you had patched up a friendship before he’d gotten taken by the Wild Hunt, but your heart ached a little bit when he came running back to Lydia. You had never been in love with him, you knew that for sure, but there was still that pang in your chest.

“Well we don’t even see Stiles anymore he’s in Virginia then off to college, so we’ll just get you another boyfriend” Malia said, slurping her soup again. You gave her a look, glancing to Scott for a moment as you both thought about how to reply to the girl without saying she was completely wrong.

“It doesn’t really… it doesn’t really work like that” You spoke softly. “Besides, I don’t need a boyfriend, I’ve got a month left of summer before I go to college so it’d be pointless anyways” You said. Scott was quiet as he reached in front of you, gathering a spoonful of your soup and putting it in his mouth. You didn’t even stop him, even when he gave you a weird look.

“What even is that?” He asked as he smacked his lips, trying to get the strange flavor off his tongue. You slid him your glass of water wordlessly, and he took a long drink.

“It’s not pointless if you’re having sex, I mean relationships are just-”

“Mal can we not talk about this so loud?” You whispered across the table as Scott was choking on your drink, probably cause he downed half the glass in less than three swallows. The short hair girl shrugged, and picked up her bowl to drink down the last of her soup.

“Do you want me to set it up or not? It’s one date y/n” You didn’t say anything, your eyes landing on the empty water glass that was still in Scott’s hand, sitting on the table.

“I don’t know Mal, can I think about it?”

“No” She stated, and Scott gave her a look. “What?” She asked innocently.

“You can’t just set her up if she doesn’t want to” He said, and she rolled her eyes good naturedly.

“Okay, is this really because of summer ending? Or is it cause of Stiles?” She asked, sounding sure that she knew the true answer.

“I’m over Stiles” You said with a shrug. “Go ahead, listen to my heartbeat, I’m not lying” You said. Both of your friends were silent as they focused on it.

“No… but there’s something else” Malia spoke. Scott kept his head slightly cocked to the side as he stared at your tee shirt covered chest, as though concentrating as much as he could on the gentle beating. You didn’t comment off of Malia, just pulled out your purse to pay for the meal you’d barely touched.

“You don’t have to worry about it, I just don’t want a relationship before I leave Beacon Hills” You told her, offering a gentle smile. “I’m fine Malia, I don’t even mind being single, I have you guys” You added, a more genuine grin pulling on your lips as you all stood, Malia leaving money for her part of the meal and shrugging her shoulders with a long sigh.

“Fine, but don’t come crying to me when you’re all horny” She said, Scott becoming an awkward stuttering mess as the three of you exited the restaurant.

“Mal…” You breathed out but chuckled quietly, but gave up on trying to explain to her that dating wasn’t all about sex to you. “Alright, I’ll cry to myself” You joked, and she just shook her head at you.

“Whatever you strange human, I gotta get going” She said, and your brows furrowed as she dug out her keys.

“You have plans?” You asked out of surprise and she nodded.

“Job interview, actually” She told you, and you and Scott shared an astonished look.

“Really?” He asked, thinking about what Malia in the workplace would be like.

“Mhm” She hummed simply, walking off towards her car. “You two don’t have too much fun without me” She called, and you waved lightly before turning to Scott.

“Hello” You stated, and he smiled his small crooked smile he’d always had. “I didn’t get the chance to say so earlier, Malia was busy telling me all the male contacts in her phone” You stated, and Scott chuckled. “It’s not funny, it included everyone, which means you, Mr Tate, Peter, and a really lot of guys that I don’t even know the names of but apparently went to school with us”

“Come on, let’s go somewhere good for lunch” He said, sticking his hands in his pockets and turning on the sidewalk to go somewhere else. You smiled to yourself as you followed after him. “And by the way, I’m hurt that you turned down a date with me” He said, making you laugh and shake your head. “What’s with the laugh? I’m a charmer!” You rolled your eyes, patting him on the arm a few times.

“You keep telling yourself that McCall” You said.

A date with Scott McCall did sound appealing, in fact, it sounded amazing. Scott had been your best friend throughout almost all of your life, and had never once left your side, when things were great, when things were falling apart, he was a constant. You couldn’t imagine being without him. And being something more than friends seemed relatively simple, like a small little step.

Until you threw in the fact that he was Stiles’ best friend into the mix.

You were in a fit of uncontrollable laughter as Scott was unable to use his chopsticks to pick up the noodles of his lo mein, they just slipped back onto the plate, and he’d stare at it depressingly.

“Scott!” You gasped as you held your stomach with one hand, your chopsticks expertly held between your fingers, a clump or rice between them. “I can’t breathe please just get a fork!” You begged, but he shook his head stubbornly.

“I can’t use a fork! We’re at Wong’s y/n, I gotta learn to use these!” He said, only to drop his newly grabbed group of noodles.

“Okay okay okay, just let me help” You said, catching your breath from the laughter you’d finally calmed down from. Scott sighed but nodded his head. “Alright, hold one like you’re going to hold a pencil” You instructed, demonstrating for him. Scott looked from your hand to his repeatedly, making sure that he was copying every detail. “Then take the other and pinch- no like- no the other- Scott” You let out a soft giggle as he struggled to hold the second chopstick. Then set down your own to reach across and arrange them for him, adjusting his fingers to hold it properly.

“This still doesn’t feel right” He grumbled, looking up at your eyes as you fixed his hold.

“Well you just have to practice” You told him. “You’ll get the hang of it, I’m sure” You said, catching his gaze on you. Your cheeks flushed and you realized you’d held your fingers over his a little longer than necessary, and retracted quickly, sitting back in your seat and staring at your plate. “Although it’d be nice if you had a flaw, other than that messed up jaw of yours-”

“Hey!” Scott said with faux offense, his hand coming up to brush over the crooked structure, and you laughed. Scott smiled at you even as you avoided eye contact with him.

He wondered just how wrong it was to fall in love with his best friend’s ex girl.

When you were finished with lunch, and Scott had finally gone up and grabbed a fork, making a big scene about using it, you two walk back to the parking lot outside The Soup Spoon, where you’d had your first and failed lunch and Scott left his bike parked.

“It’s weird to think I’m going to college in a month” You said, and Scott looked over at you with a pondering look in his eyes. “I mean, it feels like just yesterday i fell down the stairs and knocked you over and almost gave you an asthma attack” You said, laughing at the memory of the first time you met Scott, in the first grade, by toppling over him.

“I did have an asthma att-”

“Shut up no you did” You laughed, nudging his side with your elbow. “You just wanted me to get in trouble”

“No I didn’t!” He defended. “You pushed me down a flight of stairs! You literally knocked the wind out of me!” You rolled your eyes at him, a smile still tugging on your lips.

“Yeah right, you were mad cause it put you in the back of the line on pizza day” You said, and Scott thought for a moment, not remembering that small detail.

Truth be told, he almost did have an asthma attack, the most beautiful girl in his class had tumbled down the staircase with him and it had made him lose focus on what had actually happened until your teacher came rushing down after you both and asking if you’d needed to be taken to the nurse. Scott had replied by shoving his inhaler into his mouth and shooting in three clicks worth of air. It was an awkward meeting, but after that you played with him at recess because you felt bad, and the more time you spent together, you grew closer and soon became very close friends.

“Huh, yeah I think it was…” He mumbled slightly to himself as he tried to remember the events of that day that didn’t involve you. But he was mostly drawing a blank.

“It was” You confirmed as Scott consumed himself with his thoughts. “What’re you thinking so hard about? That’s dangerous you know” You said, and he looked over at you, a sheepish grin on his face as he shook his head and dismissing his moment.

“Nothing, just… thinking” He shrugged, and you smiled softly as you neared his motorbike. “You need a ride home?” He offered, silently hoping you’d say yes. He didn’t usually like other people riding with him because it made him nervous he’d get in an accident somehow, but you on the other hand, he loved driving around. Your arms would wrap around him and cling on tightly, your face usually buried into the back of his shoulder as you pressed completely against him. He liked the feeling of knowing you felt protected around him. Which you very much were.

“Actually I was going to walk home, it’s nice out today and I felt like stopping at the library on the way” You said, and Scott tried to not visibly deflate.

“Alright” He said, grabbing his helmet off the seat of his bike. “Try not to get kidnapped, or murdered, or-”

“I won’t” You cut him off with your laugh, tucking your hair behind your ear. “I think I can handle myself fine, besides, who’s going on a murder spree at the public library?”

“Don’t jinx it!” Scott said quickly, and you laughed again at his overprotective nature.

“I’ll be fine Scott. I happen to be a little more worried about you driving that thing” You said, gesturing distastefully towards his bike. Scott gawked slightly.

“I’m wounded! I’ve never had an acc-”

“In the woods turning Malia back to human” You cut in before he couldn’t finish his false statement. Scott shut his mouth, realizing you were right. “Also that time you came over and it was raining-”

“That was different!” He butt in this time. “You told me your house was being broken into! By an assassin no less!” He yelled his worry aloud and you waved your hand dismissively. “Plus I was definitely breaking the speed limit and it was really wet so it doesn’t really count” He added.

“Fine fine. Just don’t get run over by a bus on the way home” You said.

“Only if you don’t get slaughtered” He replied, and you giggled before nodding.

“Alright deal. I’ll see you later McCall” You said, waving slightly as he got on his bike. He waved back as you were heading off towards the library.

“Bye, y/n” He said after you were already too far from earshot.

Malia groaned as she headed to her front door, getting annoyed by the rapid doorbell being pushed, accompanied by a quick knocking fist.

“WHAT!?” She yelled at her visitor’s face, causing Scott to stumble backwards at her sudden outburst of anger. But the girl’s brows furrowed upon seeing her alpha standing there. “What’re you doing here?” She asked. Scott never visited, not alone anyways, usually you were there with him, maybe even Stiles and Lydia as well. But meetings or hang outs weren’t usually held at Malia’s house.

“I need your help, well, your advice” He told her, coming inside without an invitation, and beginning to pace her living room. Malia shut the door, becoming more and more confused by his actions.

“You want… my… advice?” She asked slowly, as though disbelieving him.

“Yeah” Scott said, walking back and forth in front of her couch.

“Uh… okay” Malia said, wondering what her expertise were that Scott could possibly need her help for. She jumped over the back of the couch to sit in front of him, his anxious pacing making her frustrated but she tried to keep that to herself. He seemed worried, and usually when Scott was worried, no good came of it. “So?”

“I like y/n, no, I really like her, no I love her” He rushed out the words so fast it took her a moment to realize what he’d just told her. When it clicked, her brown eyes widened and her mouth opened.

Now, Malia Tate was not somebody who understood drama, or social cues, or really anything involving any sort of relationship. But she knew that this, this bombshell, that Scott had dropped on her, was a big deal. One of her close friends, was in love with her best friend, who had previously dated his best friend.

“Say something? What do I do? I can’t keep it in anymore and it’s not fair to y/n, it’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to Stiles it’s… it’s not fair to anyone!” He rambled on as she sat there with her mouth agape. “I gotta do something I gotta tell her…. But am I even aloud to do that? Does the bro code apply? I mean Stiles is with Lyd now and her and y/n were friends but it doesn’t feel the same? Is this wrong? Am I wrong? Malia please tell me what to do!”

“Well…” She licked her lips as she looked around the room, like the answer would magically come to her. “This is the thing” She said to herself, eyes narrowing slightly as she gathered her thoughts.

“What?”

“This is the something else” She told him, but it still didn’t make sense. “Earlier, y/n wasn’t lying, she was just covering something else up, and this is it” The coyote grinned to herself, proud of her detective skills.

“Wha- how the hell is this the something else?” Scott asked. “She couldn’t possibly know about this-”

“Not that dumbass” The back of her hand smacked against him hard. “Her own feelings, not yours” She told him, and Scott thought for a moment.

“You mean… you mean she likes me too?” Malia shrugged. “Maybe, I dunno”

“That’s not helpful” He groaned, falling back onto the recliner in her living room. “I gotta know!”

“Then ask her” Malia said simply. “I mean, you’d know if she was lying, right?” Scott rubbed his face with his palms.

“But what about Stiles?” He asked her, to which she just shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you Scott, I already told you what I thought you should be talking to her. If you’re so doubtful about telling her maybe you don’t-”

“Don’t tell me that I’m not in love with her” He grumbled. “I’ve known for too long and- you know what? I’m going over there right now” He said, standing up and heading back towards the door. Malia didn’t follow him, just turned and watched him as he opened up the door. A part of her wanted to text you right now, ask you about your feelings towards Scott, but as he quickly rushed out, she figured that she’d rather just let it play out and hear from you what happened, whenever it happens.

You wandered over to your door when you heard the knocking, holding your glass of wine delicately between your fingers as you opened up the door.

“y/n I need to-” Scott stopped abruptly when he saw the glass in your hand, his heart sinking in his chest slightly.

“Hey Scotty” You grinned wide and stepped aside to let him in. “Wanna spend the night? I’m watching Marvel movies upstairs” You said cheerfully, hoping he’d say yes and keep you company. Scott let out a small sigh before nodding. “Yay! Want a drink?”

“I can’t get drunk but… why are you drinking?” You looked down to your half full wine glass, then shrugged a shoulder.

“Nothing better to do” You told him as you closed the door. But Scott heard the skip in your heartbeat, a tell tale sign you were lying. “Now come on let’s go upstairs” Your grin returned, and you skipped off towards the staircase, running to your room. Scott followed after you quickly, coming into your room to see you dancing slightly as you pushed play on the DVD player, your feet spinning you around on the floor, causing your drink to slosh up the sides of the glass.

“Alright- alright let’s just take this” Scott said, fingers wrapping around your glass and setting it on your dresser. “Before you spill it” He said, and you shrugged but nodded your head, still dancing slightly for a reason unknown to him. “Now, why are you drinking and dancing around?”

“I dunno” You shrugged.

“y/n, I can tell that’s probably your second glass, and I know for a fact you aren’t a lightweight, so I’ve still got time for real talk with you” He said, and you bit the inside of your cheek. You sat down on the edge of your mattress, the only sound in the room being Iron Man 2 playing quietly in the background. Scott walked over closer to you, crouching onto the floor in front of you. “Hey,” He said gently, looking up at you with the softest expression. “You know you can talk to me about anything right?”

“Not this” You muttered, wishing you had your wine with you, but knew at this point it wouldn’t do you any good. Part of you wanted to stare at Scott, right into those puppy brown eyes that you’d fallen for so long ago, and just sit and get lost in them. But the other part, the slightly more logical and less tipsy part, knew better. Knew that he’d catch right on to what was happening, and it would only make you feel worse.

“Why not?” He asked in his kind voice, his hands grasping around yours lightly.

“Because it makes me feel guilty” You muttered, hanging your head to stare into your lap, hoping you wouldn’t have to look at his expression.

“Well… well sometimes I feel guilty too…” Scott trailed, just barely brushing on the topic he thought you were talking about, but being careful with his wording. Your eyes flicked to his briefly, seeing something… weak… there, then shooting right back down to your hands.

“It’s a really bad guilt” You continued softly. “The betrayal kind” Scott nodded solemnly.

“Yeah I know what that feels like” He murmured to you, his fingers hooking under your chin, and lifting your head so you’d look at him, but you kept them downcast. “y/n, y/n look at me” He prompted in the same quiet whisper, and you let yourself meet his gaze. “Nothing you say to me is gonna change anything”

“What if it changes everything?”

“Will it?”

“Maybe” You responded quickly, your y/e/c eyes flicking between his, searching them intently for an answer, trying to figure out if the both of you were talking about the same thing.

“Then so be it” Scott said like it were simple, like everything was an easy yes or no choice.

“But what if it hurts someone else?” You asked him.

“Fair” Scott said, and you silently begged him for a different answer, the opposite answer. “But what if that won’t matter, what if this- what if you…” He caught himself before trailing off. “What if you feel better afterwards… what if this is something Stiles would want for you” Your heart beat rapidly in your chest at the words, the ones that practically confirmed what you had hoped to be true.

“What if it’s wrong?”

“Does it feel wrong?” Scott questioned, his thumb rubbing over the back of your hand, his other hand sliding from under your jaw to lay over your cheek.

“Sometimes” You murmured, unable to help yourself from pressing further into his warm and comforting palm. You registered that you were leaning, and that you weren’t doing anything about it. “Sometimes not so much…” You continued, your breathing growing a little more staggering as the tip of your nose brushed over his. Your eyes trailed down to his lips, looking soft and inviting.

“Well maybe you’ll have to find out for yourself… you won’t know unless… you try…” Your eyes glanced back into his then back down to his lips. Your empty hand that wasn’t held in his hesitantly laid on his shoulder, focused intensely as they neared yours. Scott’s eyes slowly beginning to slide shut, as he pulled you closer to him slightly, your lips barely brushing over each other before you spoke.

“Scott what’re you… what’re you doing?” You murmured, your brows cinching together. His eyes opened, looking into yours with a sort of sadness held within them.

“Exactly what I came here to do” He told you, but, you pulled slightly away from him, standing up and walking away from the bed where he was still crouched at.

“You- you can’t- you can’t do that” You stumbled, running your hands over your head, pushing all your hair back but it just fell right back in front of your face. “It’s not- it’s not right you can’t” You said, and he stood up, walking over to you. “You and Stiles it just.. It just-” You couldn’t say anything, just stand and stare at him.

“y/n, listen” He sighed, looking down for a moment before back up at you, his hands cupping around your cheeks.

You wanted to say something, almost anything that had previously been stirring in your mind would have sufficed, but you couldn’t. So instead, you did as told, and you listened.

“In the seventh grade, and yes, that long ago, Stiles told me had a crush on a girl. He told me he was so in love with her, that she was beautiful and smart and funny and kind, and that there was nobody else” You nodded when he paused for a moment. “And when he said it was you, I wish I’d had the courage” He sighed. Your brows cinched together , confused by his words.

“The courage?” You repeated in a questioning tone.

“The courage to say me too.” He murmured, before pulling you gently closer, hesitating for just a few seconds, as though he was waiting for you to reject him once more, but when no sign of resistance came, he leaned down and slanted his lips over yours.

You weren’t surprised by the kiss itself, you could see it in his eyes, in his short pause of thought before he initiated it. But the feeling that it gave you was so strong you nearly let out a small gasp as you wound your arms around his neck, pressing your chest against his and passionately kissing him back.

You weren’t sure you’d ever had such a life-altering kiss before. It was an out of body experience, like you were gazing down into your own room, watching your body being held against Scott’s as your lips softly moved in sync together. This couldn’t be real, the butterflies in your stomach had multiplied by the thousands and any shroud of doubt that you’d previously had in your mind about being with Scott, withered away.

Finally, and desperately, when you pulled away, your eyes still shut and your nose still pressed against his, you slid your hands to his crooked jaw, speaking softly, invisibly.

“I was worried I’d never get to do that” You admitted, and after long last looked up into his eyes. Some days Scott seemed taller than he was, and now, with his head bent down so he could reach you properly, he may have been closer to eye level, but it just drew more attention to how he towered over you.

“I wasn’t” He said, a small smirk pulling on his lips, but it softened to a smile as you giggled quietly, your eyes lighting up like the stars as you gazed at him happily.

“You should do it again” You murmured through your gentle breath, already leaning up towards him, your bare feet standing onto your tiptoes on the carpeted floor. Scott removed his warm palms from your cheeks to encircle around your waist, tugging you impossibly closer to him. Your mouth was still open in a wide smile as he kissed you eagerly. A smile played it’s way onto his own lips as well when one of your hands ran through his thick dark locks of hair.

“So you’ll go on a date with me?” Scott asked, almost unsure of himself, but you smiled, stepping back slightly and nodded, biting your lip to keep you from grinning too much.

“I would love to go on a date with you” You whispered back, and Scott was so thrilled that he lifted you up and spun you around in circles.

“Great! He said, kissing you once more but much more quickly and chastely. “I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go try that soup place again” You stuck your lip out in a pout and made a quiet whine, but Scott just laughed and shook his head. “I’m kidding love, we’ll do something better than that” He assured you as he pulled you in close and planted his lips against your cheek before hugging you tightly. Your hands were in fists as they grabbed the back of his shirt, illogically thinking he’d never be able to pull away from you if you held on tight enough. The tip of your nose was buried into his neck, filling your senses with his wonderful scent of outside, pine, you thought. Your eyes fluttered shut as you memorized the scene of your life being played out in your life at the moment.

“I love you so goddamn much, that I was afraid I’d never be able to be with anyone again if I couldn’t have you” You told him, lips moving softly and quietly against his shoulder, but he heard you clearly, and you could tell, because his hands rubbed circles in your back and his lips dropped a lasting kiss on the crown of your head.

“I still would’ve been chasing you around” He assured, swaying you back and forth slightly.

“Really?” You asked, a smile pulling on your lips. Scott nodded, one of his hands reaching to push your hair back behind your ear, cupping the side of your face in his hand.

“Yeah I would’ve followed after you for the rest of your life if that’s what it took” Your cheeks tinted pink, your lips pulling wider at his sweet words. You figured if he stared hard enough, that he’d see hearts in your eyes.

“You would’ve?” You said softly, leaning up closer to him and rubbed your nose against his, eyes fluttering shut. He smiled, nodding and humming before kissing you softly. You giggled against him, leaning further until you were walking with him, his feet shuffling backwards and yours forward. He tilted your head to the side, his lips covering over yours in a new angle before the back of his legs hit the edge of your mattress. Scott pulled away from you, looking down at you questioningly, and you just smiled and nodded, and Scott leaned back onto the mattress, you crawling on after him.

“This is okay?” He asked quietly as you laid onto the bed next to him, your chest pressed against his. You nodded your head slightly.

“Yeah” You whispered out. “Very okay” Scott smiled at you softly, before sliding on his side over and setting one knee between his legs the other on the other side. You stared up at him as one of his hands lay on your hip, the other still holding your cheek delicately. Neither of you said anything for a second, just looked over each other’s features.

“I love you” He finally spoke, his thumb swiping gently from your bottom lip to your chin. You blinked, smiling at him, not getting enough of this.

“I love you too” You replied, fingers runnings along his jaw.

With that, he leaned down, and pressed a kiss to your lips.

And truth be told, you would’ve chased after him as well.

for @high-functioning-fangirl02 bc i told her i’d post it yesterday but i totally lied cuz i ate mashed potatoes and passed out instead.

(also this is sorta inspired by scalia if you can’t tell (i’m trash for them rn))

xoxo ~ jordie

#teen wolf #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf scenario #teen wolf fanfiction #scott mccall x reader #scott mccall imagine #scott mccall scenario #scott mccall fanfiction #tyler posey #tyler posey x reader #tyler posey fanfiction #tyler posey imagine #tyler posey scenario

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nicesideburns · 7 years ago

Text

imma post this here ab my 2 cents abt the animu

srry my text is for ants on this blog heres a link where its more readable

Devilman Crybaby [SPOILERS]

OKAY I JUST WOKE UP AND PROBABLY FORGOT MOST OF THE STUFF BUT LETS DO THIS SHIT So, I personally enjoyed Devilman Crybaby FULLY as I've been one of the many devilman friends that have been dying for material that stay loyal to the material. And surely Crybaby DID deliver. Although some aspects have been translated to a more 'modern' approach opposed to the 80s. I know just about EVERYONE is like where's the SIDEBURNS and as someone who loves sideburns...sorry that trait kind of burned out way back then. So, I can understand what they were doing with the designs because its Modern times. Especially in anime, there's more different hairstyles that are IN right now that hasn't been the classy 80s look. So, it was bound to change in that aspect. My advice, if you can, indulge on the original material crybaby is based off of. Although some warnings because people have been rightfully mad about the portrayal of the women in the source material (which I will try to cover) as it's heavily present back then as well. Go Nagai has been Known about this issue with his series, so it's sad to say that this was also to be expected. Anyway, I'm getting side tracked just a bit. But the source material and modern Adaption are the same yet different. Also to keep in mind that Devilman was NEVER meant to be happy in the end. Just in case people are upset about the ending Crybaby IS, as I've stated before, the modern take of Devilman and because of that factors to the original story itself has been changed up. In my opinion, it's not a huge issue as I've read all of Devilman and even the OVAs, I believed they touched up on each arcs well. Even translating them into episodes despite making some adjustments to it. Personally, as each episode developed I could easily remember that certain arc of the series and be like God this takes me back. They're different, yet they play parallel with the original source material. I also REALLY can't complain about the pacing because Devilman itself did go that fast (with some bits of moments). In fact, it was one of the key things I was worried about with them dragging certain aspects too long and making things worse. Now let's see one of the things I wanted to touch. The explicit horniness of said subject matter? Primarily how 100000x hornier the demons, typically Sirene, get to gain their Raw Energy to fight. Which I thought was very Weird, since it wasn't like that in the original. Mainly it was, if I'm remembering correctly, left with Akira becoming Devilman. It's kind of a like a more Upped the scales puberty hitting him like a bus because his personality DOES change and he DOES get 10000x hornier. I guess they tried to convey that through the normal teenager looking up porn, masturbating, and engaging sexual activities. Not saying it was right to convey it like that or necessarily wrong because in the original Akira HAS made rather crude remarks toward Miki and even groped her. So it's like I guess this is better. I GUESS. But having it contribute to come demons, like Sirene, felt really I don't know off? In my taste. Especially Sirene because she was Amon's lover before Akira took him away and she wanted him back. I felt they just, as CJ puts it, that horny single desperate housewife opposed to the deadly yet beautiful being demons looked up to. IDK I guess what I'm saying is that it felt weird not acknowledging Akira as Not Amon but instead Amon and engaging with him before attempting to kill him. Even though in the past she KNEW Amon was taken from her and even acted out to take Miki from Akira to (imo) 'prove a point' of having a loved one taking from you. Literally her whole arc is focus on murdering Akira to bring Amon back because thats her lover. Not just...I'm horny n miss that sweet demon dick. When it really was, why did a human TAKE the one powerful thing I've loved type of deal. But I still love her... Another thing I wasn't too happy about was the whole Ryo thing. I guess they didn't want to explore to much on him because it was just 10 episodes and little time to cram everything. But Ryo (like prior to like ep 8 n beyond I think), has done some personal exploration on himself and patching things together on himself. I literally wasn't happy myself when they changed the aspect of him being adopted by some doctor in the original material, but instead some dude he found in Peru. It kind of killed his development and mystery in a sense because in the crybaby verse he's famous and well loved by all. When in the original it was different in terms of that (I can't really explain because my memory is hazy), but he does start off as NORMAL like Akira. (TOUCHING ORIG SPOILERS) Had a dad he believed to be his dad and raised based on research until he noticed his father was being strange. That's why he sought Akira because of the outcome of his father and the research he was doing, so he wanted to dig deeper. But of course, way later in the story as we near the apocalypse, Ryo began to patch things on his own to the relation to his father and the way he talked to him. Not heavily specific but I remember the one famous scene old fans remember when his father attempted to murder Ryo and Ryo remembered it as him going 'mad' from the demon. Yet upon later reflection we come to figure out while what happened to the father is TRUE, the father himself grew to knew that something was wrong with Ryo. That Ryo never was his son and was something Else. Hence, the keypoint of us and Ryo realizing that the father was right and Ryo is something else. It was a shame that had to be cut back and adjusted heavily with Peru to explore that aspect. They did touch on this a bit in crybaby with how Akira struggled being Devilman and facing his own demons, Ryo spent his time reflecting and researching to find out what he was. This wasn't explored as much as I would fancy, but again, 10 episodes. But this has been touched on in the manga where a portion of the time it was Akira's dilemma then to Ryo's. It's probably because they wanted to build onto Akira's character as well as the supporting characters to highlight their importance to one another, especially with Akira. Which I can say I was satisfied with because I appreciated being attached to said characters. I can say for sure I enjoyed their approach with the track team and the focus on familial relationships. I would also like to briefly touch on that rapper guy, Koda or something. I didn't like his approach being the token gay man to later join the demons. It felt tasteless in my eyes to make him like that. But I did enjoy his struggles being a devilman and the loss he underwent to see that, like Akira, still have their human heart and experience grief much like Akira. It was a really nice touch. Also, we gotta talk about the big elephant in the room: Ryokira. Crybaby didn't really focus too much on how close the two was in my opinion and only briefly touched it in the beginning half before shifting more on Akira and his relationships with the others. WHICH IS A SHAME... But people are complaining about how they didn't focus on the gay enough and blahblah fujoshi stuff. But it's limited time. But the two have been shown to be Very close to each other and even points where Akira, himself, would stand up for Ryo even if Ryo clearly did something wrong. Which caused tension between him and Miki because he held Ryo at a high standard than anything which can be shown in old material stuff. The same can be said with Ryo because he legit does like Akira in that aspect (coughgay) but its shown in other portion of the Devilman saga and whatnot. but Ryo is KNOWN to actually LOVE Akira to the point he found Miki distasteful (yeah one of Go Nagais token problems) around him and Akira. Espcially with the final episode, with the whole Mad At Myself scene because it highlights his regret killing the one being he truly loved. It was a damn shame their relationship wasn't explored much to gain that depression strings unless, like me and others, are familiar to the original material and very well known about this beforehand. But it was pretty Vague in crybaby imo. ANYWAY I think I've got some of the key points because I'm worn out and tired.There's probably more I'd like to explore and briefly point out especially with how ass and tiddy it is. But to keep it short and simple it's literally has been like that with Go Nagai's materials sadly and one of his many problems. But I can't touch on it much due to me being sick and my foggy memory but im sure there are others that can expand on this. I've overall personally enjoyed Crybaby as it didn't disappoint and I really did enjoy the new approach on some materials and execution. It's not Perfect perfect but at least it doesn't exaggerate too much with the material like the OVAs have done. The OST was good as hell too. Overall Abel score I'd give it...an 8/10 that's what I'm feeling

#ur shit doc is speakin #long ass post abt my take on c////r////y///bb

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sunbrights · 7 years ago

Note

ALSO ALSO: We Gotta Take Care of Somebody Else's Kid

Asahina’s kid has a set of blocks to play with, except that they’re not really blocks. As he understands it, they’re shoeboxes scavenged from a whole lot of somewheres, painted to look like brick and wood and glass. Asahina had worked on them all through her pregnancy, even when she was too big around to properly see what she was doing.

(“She needs to be a kid!” she’d insisted, whenever anyone tried to convince her to slow down, or stop, or that what she had already was enough. “She needs real toys, even in a world like this one.”)

They’re nice. It’s not like the Future Foundation’s compound was designed with children in mind, anyway, and Tsumiki’s recommendation had been to keep the kid indoors and out of the air pollution outside, at least until her critical development years were finished.

The kid’s done pretty well, considering the circumstances she’s in.

She’s also a fucking nightmare. She has her mother’s energy in triplicate, and she loves to destroy what she builds more than she likes to build it in the first place. It’s been ten minutes and he already has a headache blooming behind both temples, while she shrieks and laughs and smashes in the background.

“I don’t think this is wise,” Peko says, again.

She wants to do this even less than he does, he thinks. She’s been doing that thing where she holds all of her joints too stiffly, her shoulders drawn in and her knees locked and her neck pulled back. She hovers by the door with both arms crossed and watches Asahina’s little ogre tumble through play-made cities, eyes narrow and apprehensive.

“It’ll be fine!” Asahina says, again. She clasps Peko by both elbows, which only twists her joints up tighter. “Please! It’s just for one day. I’ll owe you a billion, I’m serious.”

“That,” Fuyuhiko mutters, “and there’s literally nobody else here to do it instead.”

The little ogre drives her whole foot through the side of one of the boxes and sends it flying across the room, where it collapses in a pathetic heap against the wall.

He probably shouldn’t be calling her little ogre out loud, today. At least not while she’s in earshot.

“Hey,” he barks, and her head swivels toward them. She has to shove the mess of her hair out of her eyes. “Let’s go, Sakura. You’re with us.”

Sakura demands the pool.

On the one hand, he can’t blame her; the pool is maybe the least boring place in the entire compound, to a kid. On the other hand, pools are pretty fucking boring, and they reek of chemicals to boot. Especially this one, with how aggressively Asahina maintains it.

That doesn’t matter to her little ogre, though. Sakura refuses to let him sit on the deck and watch her play. “That’s boring!” she says, while Peko ties the decorative bows on her swimsuit. “You’re boring.”

He sits with her on the steps of the shallow end; that’s as far as he’s willing to let a pipsqueak push him around. She’s not ready to be swimming on her own yet, so she throws things out for Peko to dive for: pens and paperweights swiped from Togami’s desk and, once, Fuyuhiko’s eye patch, because he was stupid enough to take his one good eye off of her for half a goddamn second.

(Peko returns it, cupped in both hands. She tries to hide her smile under the surface of the water, but her nose still scrunches and her eyes still crinkle, and it makes having the damn thing be cold and slimy the rest of the day worth it, just about.)

Sakura gets tired of watching Peko dive, eventually, the way she eventually gets tired of everything. She bounces in the water until it starts to spill over the edge, and then she bounces some more, just to see how high she can toss it.

“F—” He has to clamp his whole jaw down on the rest of the syllable to keep it from coming out the way he wants. “C’mon, hold still, kid. There’s not gonna be any water left at this rate.”

“I wanna go out!” she insists. “Out deeper. Like Peko!”

Peko meets his eye across the water.

“Alright,” he says, and the water churns with Sakura’s excited feet. “But only if you make a deal. You get me? Something for something. That’s the way it works.”

“I get it, I get it!” She cranes her neck back to look at him, and nearly catches him on the chin with the top of her head. “Come on. What do I gotta do?”

“Here’s the deal.” He stands up in the shallows, arms hooked around her middle, and she shrieks with delighted laughter. “We’ll go out into the middle, you and me. Out to where Peko is, yeah?” She clambers up to his shoulders while he wades out, arms around his neck. “But you gotta have one hand on me or her the whole time we’re out there. Got it?” He grips her fingers, in case she isn’t listening. “You don’t do that, and we’re outta here. No exceptions.”

The bottom of the pool starts to slope down. Not by much: the water still only rises about halfway up his chest, but when it sloshes it licks at the bottom of Sakura’s shoulders. She drags herself higher in his arms, one clammy hand against the back of his neck.

“You alright?” he prompts.

She hides her face against the side of his head; the tip of her nose is cold and wet, right in his ear. It’s gross, kind of, but he resists the urge to pull away and scrub at it.

“You wanna go back?”

“No.”

Peko glides toward them, both hands outstretched. The surface of the water barely ripples.

“We’re here,” he tells Sakura. He’s not sure what else to do, except pat her back with his one free hand. “Peko’s right behind you. One hand on us the whole time, remember?”

Sakura nods against his jaw. She’s got her fingers all twisted up in his hair, now. She doesn’t let go.

“Sakura,” Peko says. “When I count to three, jump.”

Her fingers twist so tight she might actually tear his hair out.

Peko isn’t deterred. “I’ll catch you,” she says. She pats her palms against the surface of the water. “With both hands. You won’t break Fuyuhiko’s rule.”

“Hey,” he whispers. “If you want anybody watching your back, it’s Peko. She’s the best there is, take it from me.”

Sakura lifts her head from his neck. “You ready?” he asks. She rubs at her eyes, and nods. “Alright then.”

“One,” Peko says. “Two….”

Sakura squeals when she hits the water.

Peko stoops to wring her hair out onto the pool deck. Sakura copies her, doubled over at the waist, small hands scrunching her dark hair into knots.

“Will you do mine like yours?” she asks.

Peko looks at him for help, but it’s not like he knows how to translate any better than she does. He shrugs, in a way he hopes at least looks apologetic.

“Like… how?” Peko tries.

“Like yours!” Sakura grips her hair in both hands, uneven clumps on either side of her head. “Um, pigtails.”

“Oh.” Peko touches the side of her own head with her fingertips. She’d let her hair loose, to go swimming. “I… Yes. If you’d like.”

“Yes!” Sakura grabs her by both hands and drags her down to the pool deck. “Sit! And then I sit… here!”

She plops herself down at Peko’s feet, smile big and hair a rat’s nest, and waits.

Peko’s eyes are big. She looks overwhelmed. She lifts her hands, but they only hover on either side of Sakura’s head, frozen.

He stands up to bring her glasses over to her. She tilts her head back to look at him, and he lets their fingers brush when she takes them. “Thought they might help,” he says. She closes her eyes, and takes a small, measured breath.

When she opens them again, she takes Sakura’s hair in both hands and starts to pick through each of the tangles with her fingertips, methodical and gentle.

“Is it gonna be pretty?” Sakura asks him, when he sits down across from them.

“It’s pretty on her,” he answers. He squints at her. She squints back. “Jury’s still out on you.”

“We’re gonna be twice as pretty,” she tells him. She squirms when Peko tugs through a knot, two fingers against her scalp. So it doesn’t pinch. He remembers that, back from when Natsumi insisted Peko teach her how. “And you’re gonna be zero pretty, ‘cause your hair’s not long enough.”

“You need to hold still, Sakura,” Peko says.

Sakura sucks in a breath and holds it. She does manage to keep still, up until the point she has to let all the air out. “Is it almost done yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Hey,” he says. “You think that’s an easy hairstyle to pull off? You gotta let her work.”

“But I’m bored already.”

“How about I tell you a story, then? Will you sit still for that?”

Sakura’s face scrunches. “I’ve heard all of Mom’s stories already,” she says to her feet. “I know they’re not real.”

“Do I look like your mom to you?” Sakura shakes her head, without looking up. “No. So you know I ain’t gonna bullshit you, right?”

“Bad word,” Sakura mutters.

“You wanna hear the story or not?”

“Fine,” she sighs. “I guess.”

“Okay then. Now listen up, ‘cause I’m about to tell you a story about the greatest ninja who ever lived. It’s a big deal, understand?” Sakura looks back at him, eyes round. “‘Cause the greatest ninja who ever lived was a little girl like you, once.”

Peko plaits while he talks. First her fingers smooth through every twisted knot and tangle, until Sakura’s hair lies dark and sleek against her head. Then she splits it into sections: first two, tied high, and then three and three on either side.

He can’t look at her too much. He’s figured out that the key to keeping the little ogre’s attention is to not let her think there’s something else more interesting she could be paying attention to. But each time he does look, Peko is a little looser: her shoulders slouch, her chin dips, and her fingers pluck and weave with easy confidence.

She ties the braids off with her own ribbons, long and white and fluttery. “There,” she says. Her hands hover for a moment, then skim the top of Sakura’s shoulders, a hesitant little pat. “Finished.”

Sakura nearly falls when she scrambles to her feet, but it doesn’t stop her, or even slow her down. She sticks her head out over the edge of the pool to check her reflection. “See!” She twists back, and points him in the face, triumphant. “Pretty!”

“Yeah,” he says. “Can’t argue that one.”

Getting Sakura down for her nap turns out to be the easiest thing they’ve done all day. She rides the whole way to her room on his back because she demanded it, and ends up half-drooling on his shoulder by the time they’re halfway there.

(He blames the sugar, personally. He’s seen the box of donuts the little ogre hides behind her bed, because she’d drowsily shoved it into his lap when he laid her down, slurring that because the three of them were best friends now, they had to have a donut pact.)

He and Peko sit together on the floor outside Sakura’s door. It’s been a long day; his muscles ache in bizarre places, and his clothes are still damp all over, somehow. He wants a breath, just one, before it all starts back up again.

Peko tilts her head back against the wall. Her hair is still loose, and starting to dry in the open air, frizzy and stiff from chlorine. Her eyes are far away.

He lays his hand out next to hers, close but not touching. He’s learned plenty in the last few years, mostly through trial and error.

“Hey,” he says. Her eyes slide back into focus, and when she looks at him the line of her mouth curves into something that can’t be called a recognizable smile, but that’s recognizable to him all the same. “You okay?”

She looks down at their hands, curled next to each other on the floor, and doesn’t answer. She’s learned to think, to take time to sort feeling from instinct. He’s learned to wait.

She wriggles her fingers underneath his hand, so that she can cup her palm up and trace the ridge of his wrist with her thumb.

“Yes,” she decides, and her touch is warm, twined through his.

#fuyuhiko kuzuryuu #peko pekoyama #kuzupeko #danganronpa #me @ me: why are you the way that you are #i said quick fics #this is just the regular kind #i might clean up some of the longer ones and put them on ao3 #maybe put my shorter stuff in a collection or something #at some point when it's not past my bedtime #this is the last one of these!#thanks so much for the prompts y'all #i had a lot of fun #on-2 #asks and answers #memes #sunwrites

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frenchibi · 7 years ago

Text

Ignite the Sky - Chapter 2

Read on ao3 - this is a joint project between myself and @josai

Chapters: One [Two] →

“Be quiet,” Hajime hisses, as the boy (Tooru, his name’s Tooru) gasps in surprise at the shadow passing over the street ahead. “We can’t have my mom notice you yet, okay? So you gotta be quiet.”

Nevermind the fact that he’s spilling curiosity and nervousness everywhere, anyway, still mixed with the same heavy, sad feeling from when Hajime found him.

Tooru’s fingers twist into the cloth wrapped around Hajime’s chest, but he doesn’t say a word. He just nods.

Slowly, Hajime moves them forward. His house is right there, he just can’t have anyone see them, because who knows what they’ll say-

“Now,” he hisses, and hopes Tooru is ready as he darts out behind the crate and starts running.

He hears him trip, a soft gasp, but then his grip tightens and he’s running, too, half a step behind, his breaths and adrenaline roaring in Hajime’s senses.

It’s not too far, but with apprehension clamping down over his heart, it feels like a lifetime before they skid past his parents’ garden fence and up towards the front door.

Hajime stops just before the crash into it, slamming his feet down to jerk his momentum to a halt and throwing out his arms (it’s hard, okay, without wings to slow you down) - and Tooru knocks into him from behind with a small, startled yell.

“Shhh,” Hajime implores him immediately, turning and grabbing his hand, taking a brief second to make sure he’s not hurt - how troublesome that would be, on top of everything else - before tugging him a bit closer.

“When we get inside, we need to hurry upstairs to my room as fast as we can, okay?”

Tooru nods, wide-eyed, fear still coming off him even though it’s sort of masked by the running and the sound of his heartbeat.

Hajime stops for a second at the door, listening hard and extending his senses as best he can. He feels his mother’s warmth on the other side, but far enough away to be in the living room, or even outside, in the garden - if they hurry, they can do this.

“Okay. Stick close,” he tells Tooru, tightening his grip on his wrist before pushing the door open. It’s never locked at this time, and Hajime knows to stop it before it creaks, just wide enough so they can both slip through.

He can already feel Tooru slowing, eyes darting upwards to take in new surroundings, but he tugs him on, refusing to let him stop and stare. They don’t have time for this.

He drags him to the staircase, old and wooden, immediately regretting that he didn’t tell him to skip the fifth and seventh stair because they creak-

He feels his mother’s attention shift ever so slightly and decides that the time for being subtle has passed - he pulls at Tooru’s hand and yanks him forward into a run, bounding up the rest of the staircase and straight into his room across the hall.

Hajime closes the door behind him, holding his breath as he wills it to go quietly, before spinning around to face the boy he’s just snuck in.

Tooru is looking at him, mildly terrified, red-faced from running and spilling nerves all over the place that Hajime really wishes he’d get under control.

He lets himself breathe before his eyes flit around the room.

“If my mom comes in,” he says, gaze lingering on Tooru, “you gotta hide in my closet, okay?”

Tooru takes a couple gulping breaths before he nods, once, resolute. Hajime can still feel his fear.

He really is kind of troublesome, this boy from the forest. Human.

Must be pretty inconvenient, Hajime reckons. But it’s not like he could have left him there. And, weirdly enough, he feels kind of… attached to him now, even as he’s dragging a grubby-looking arm across his face and breathing way too close to crying again.

“Hey,” Hajime says.

Tooru looks up at him, wide-eyed and sort of trembling and it’s like Hajime can hear his heart skip a little.

“...you don’t gotta be scared of me,” Hajime says. “...and not of my mom, either. I just… gotta figure out how to tell her about you so she won’t freak out. But she’s nice, I promise.”

He frowns a little, frustrated, when Tooru doesn’t reply. He seems to keep swallowing his tongue somehow.

“Let’s play something,” Hajime says finally, eyes already falling on his box of toys. “Okay?”

Tooru blinks at him, following his gaze - and catching on Hajime’s bin, metal with an intricate design engraved on it. He looks like he’s remembering something, and then he cracks the tiniest of smiles.

So he does know how. Hajime can’t help but feel a little smug. He’ll get him to talk soon enough.

“How about this?” Hajime opens the box, rummaging around, but he’s really not sure what he can use that can make this human talk. His action figures? No, no, that won’t work. Or maybe the-

A smile breaks out on Hajime’s face when he sees it, because it’s so perfect.

Tooru looks at him curiously, tilting his head to the side in confusion when Hajime pulls out simply a long, black string. Intricately woven, it’s soft to the touch and slides through Hajime’s fingers easily.

“Come sit with me,” Hajime says, sitting down next to his bed, crossing his legs. He starts wrapping the string around one finger, twirling it between his digits, weaving a pattern. Tooru watches, curiously, letting down his guard enough to drop down to the floor next to Hajime, sitting on his knees.

“Have you ever played this before?” Hajime asks, looking up to Tooru, who shakes his head. “It’s easy. You make these kinda patterns, see?” He hooks his thumbs under some of the string, opening his fingers enough to show the design. When he’s finished, it looks just like a butterfly, wings stretching out between his hands.

Tooru wrinkles his nose, reaching out and touching the string. He looks interested, flinching a little when Hajime puts his hands together again to unravel the string.

“You wanna try?” Hajime asks, holding the string out for him.

“Yeah,” Tooru says, voice low. “I… never did this before.”

Hajime smiles - it’s warm and bright, and Tooru curls his toes, the feeling is so strong. “I’ll help you, here.” Hajime twirls a piece of the string around Tooru’s fingers, looping it around properly. Tooru smiles, a little, and Hajime talks.

Some of the tension starts to leave Tooru’s shoulders, and Hajime can start pulling some words out of him, slow and steady.

They make a few different patterns, and Hajime tells Tooru about his family. Tooru’s a real good listener - he doesn’t interrupt, nodding along as Hajime talks, slowly starting to interject.

He seems conflicted whenever Hajime is close to him. He leans into his warmth for a minute, before shying away again, retreating back into his space.

Hajime wonders when the last time was that he had a good, long hug.

He really wants to give him one.

Iwaizumi Hanako is in the garden when she feels Hajime come home. She’s not distracted enough to miss his nervous energy, like he’s hiding something - oh, he probably flew out past the herb patches again.

She straightens up, brushing her hair out of her face as she surveys the flower bed she’s standing in. It’s not quite what she’d pictured for it - not yet, but it’s coming along nicely.

Well. It’s not like she expected Hajime to abide by that particular rule, especially when he was out with the Hanamaki and Matsukawa boys, but it certainly didn’t hurt for him to be aware that he’s doing something he’s not technically supposed to.

It isn’t until she re-enters the house that she realizes something is different.

The first and most obvious indication is the set of dirty footprints leading up to the stairs. Hajime knows to make sure his feet are clean before he goes upstairs - and usually, he tells his friends that, too. Hanako sighs, and starts making her way up towards Hajime’s room.

Before she can open her mouth to announce her presence, though, she’s struck by a sensation that makes her heart drop into her stomach.

It’s a profound, heavy sadness, and it takes her a moment to catch her breath when she realizes that it’s not Hajime that it’s coming from. In fact, it’s a new aura, someone she doesn’t recognize at all.

Her first instinct is to immediately open Hajime’s door, but she decides against it when she feels Hajime’s emotions from underneath the heavy, uncomfortable presence of barely repressed fear and sorrow.

He’s… there’s concern, but there’s also something else there, a strange sense of calm and purpose that she’s not used to from him, and it makes her hesitate.

She knows Hajime trusts her. If he snuck somebody in (somebody whose pain is so great), without asking for her help, he must have put some thought behind his actions. And, right now, it seems like he’s trying to help his new friend on his own.

So even though she’s compelled to intervene immediately, she decides to wait.

Yashiro comes home when Hanako is just finished cleaning the stairs, and she catches his arm before he can head up to say hello to Hajime, shaking her head and gesturing to the kitchen, to explain. As she expected, he doesn’t like the idea of Hajime having an unknown visitor in the house, but he trusts Hanako’s judgement and they give Hajime some space.

Hanako goes through her usual evening routine, just being sure to monitor what’s going on upstairs. Whoever it is, Hajime has managed to calm them enough so the sadness isn’t quite so overwhelming. She can feel it, still, but it’s no longer the only thing there.

There’s also a tiny bit of hope. Some safety. Comfort.

Hajime doesn’t come downstairs at dinner time, claiming that he’s not hungry - really out of behaviour, but as soon as he sneaks downstairs to grab some food, she makes sure to stop him before he gets back up the stairs.

“Hajime?” She starts, putting her hand on his shoulder. He jumps, surprised, looking back at her with wide eyes - he knows he’s breaking the rules.

“Oh, um, Mama,” he starts, looking away, stammering in his nervousness. “I, um, just, wasn’t hungry, and, um-”

“Hajime,” she says again, and Hajime takes a moment to take a deep breath. He focuses, feeling that-

Oh.

He’s not in trouble.

“Mama,” he says, reaching up to take her hand, “I-I… There was a boy, in the forest. He’s got no home… He was so alone, Mama, and so scared, and I just thought-”

“It’s okay,” she interrupts his rambling, squeezing his hand. “Let’s go upstairs together, okay?”

Hajime nods, whispering to her that the boy is scared, and she can feel his mood shift when the door opens and Hajime walks in holding her hand. He immediately tenses up from where he’s sitting on Hajime’s bed, and Hanako doesn’t need to see him to know he’s terrified.

She looks up anyway, taking in the sight of him. Curling into himself, wearing some of Hajime’s clean clothes - they’re a bit big, hanging off his frame, and she’s not sure if it’s because of their size difference or how thin he is - and he smells. Smells of fear, or sadness, and of fire.

Her heart aches-

What happened to this poor child?

He flinches when she sits down next to him and she can see that his fingers are trembling. He tries to hide it, pressing his hands together, looking down at the bed. Hajime climbs up between them, sitting half on Hanako’s lap, swinging his legs up on the bed and reaching for the boy’s hand. He fidgets, but lets Hajime take it, their fingers lacing together slowly.

“What’s your name?” Hanako asks, wanting to start off simple. Easily. The boy looks down at his lap, but Hajime squeezes his fingers reassuringly, and that seems to give him a bit of courage.

“Tooru,” he says quietly.

It’s a good start.

The conversation moves slowly, after that. Hanako talks more than Tooru - but that’s okay, as she starts to piece together bits about him. He came from the human village that’s not too far away, but he’s been on his own for a while. A few weeks, maybe months. Time seems to have slipped away from him, but from what he’s describing, he’s been by himself long enough.

“What happened to your parents?” Hanako asks, but the question feels wrong as soon as she asks it. Tooru looks up from where he’s sitting - tears start to well up in the corners of his eyes, and Hanako feels the overwhelming sorrow coming off him before they start to fall.

Hajime pulls Tooru close to him, half of his weight on Hajime, letting him cling to his shirt while he cries. Hajime looks to Hanako before turning his attention back to Tooru, rubbing circles on his back, whispering to him softly while he cries.

She makes up her mind right there.

Sure, she’s probably going to get strange looks, but Hanako couldn’t care less. He’s alone, and she’s not just going to take him back to the human village where he has nobody to take care of him. She can feel how he trusts Hajime - he’s holding onto him so tightly, letting everything else go. Hajime is already getting attached too, she can feel it. He’s worried, but hopeful. Hopeful that she can help him; that they can help Tooru.

Tooru calms down, after a bit of time being held, his sobs turning quiet, his tears drying up. He’s still shaking a little in Hajime’s arms, but he leans into the touch when Hanako runs a hand through his hair, which is in desperate need of a wash. All of him is, really; Hajime may have given him some clean clothes, but she’s sure that the first step to getting him calm is a hot bath, a warm meal and a good rest.

“Would you like to take a bath?” Hanako asks, looking at Tooru when he lifts his head to look at her. He looks unsure, averting his gaze shyly, but Hajime nods excitedly.

“Yeah! We can take one together. Come on, Tooru!” He wiggles out from beneath Tooru, climbing over his mom. He takes Tooru by the hand, leading him down the hallway to their bathroom.

Their house is quite simple, really, but one thing that Hanako has always enjoyed about this house is the spacious bathroom. The bathtub is large and takes time to fill up, so Hanako turns on the taps while Tooru looks around, taking in the new room, and the view of the lake from the wide window.

Tooru’s still shy, but Hajime seems to sense that and leads him along by the hand. Once the bathtub is full of water, he gets in first, almost to show him that it’s okay.

It’s safe.

Taking a deep breath, Tooru pulls off the clothes Hajime’s given him and tosses them down on the floor. They get wet, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he kicks them to the side, dipping his hand in the bath water.

Hanako lays out two towels, turning to Tooru and Hajime. “I’ll leave some clean clothes in your room for the two of you. Okay?”

“Okay!” Hajime runs his fingers through his hair, rubbing in soap to clean himself off. Tooru watches for a moment, before stepping into the tub too-

But, no. Wait.

Hanako catches sight of a birthmark on Tooru’s hip. It’s small, but it looks similar to one that Hajime was born with… It’s probably a coincidence, but -

Somehow, it cements that Tooru is meant to be here. With them.

She steps out of the bathroom, able to breathe a little easier when she feels more positive energy coming from Tooru. The bath helps warm him up, clean him off, and start scraping off the layers of hurt that are covering his heart so entirely. She leaves them be, heading to Hajime’s room and setting out a set of clean clothes for the two of them. She straightens them out perfectly, her mind completely made up.

She wants to help this boy. She wants to keep him safe.

It’s just about convincing Yashiro at this point - but as soon as she walks back downstairs and sees him sitting in their living room, looking up to meet her gaze immediately, she knows that he’s been paying attention. He can feel what she’s feeling, and her steadfast determination is something that he’s always appreciated.

She sits down next to him, takes a deep breath, and tells him everything.

Unlike Hanako, Yashiro is a realist, and is immediately skeptical.

“Shouldn’t we take him to the human village instead?” he suggests, sighing, but Hanako knows he can feel the warmth coming from the two upstairs.

“He’d be all alone there, Yashiro. At least here, he knows Hajime.” She closes her eyes, focusing on the little bit of hope building up inside of Tooru, the little flicker of trust and safety that is starting to fight the sadness. “He was alone in the human village once, Yashiro. I can’t send him back there not knowing if he’ll be okay.”

Yashiro doesn’t seem convinced, but he knows that they have to at least try, so he nods in agreement. “Okay. He can stay, for now.”

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