#i was expecting youre typical really serious up tight Detective

[pseudonemisis]

I cannot get enough of this funky little man

[snowywrites]

Monika x Fem!reader

summary: fluffy fic of Monika and the reader on the reader's birthday.

word count: 2.4k

As far as birthdays go, this one wasn't really anything too special. Well, maybe you're being a little too cynical. After all, last year you hadn't really gotten to spend your birthday with any friends- you'd been preoccupied with getting home to watch the newest season of your favorite anime.

This year, however, Sayori had managed to get you into the Literature Club, and it had, not to be dramatic, changed your life. For better or worse, that was yet to be seen.

"Y/N, is everything okay?" Sayori asks expectantly, bright blue eyes examining you with bewilderment.

You focus back on the present, giving your friend a reassuring smile. "Yeah, sorry! Everything's great." And you aren't lying; today for the club meeting, Natsuki had brought cupcakes for everyone to share, Sayori had actually not realized what day it was and so gave you a 'birthday hug,' Yuri had given you a copy of one of her favorite horror novels as a gift, even signed by the author, and yet...

You can't help but give a very small sigh. "I just kind of miss Monika, I guess."

Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri all exchange glances in their respective chairs at one of the club tables. They then all focus on you with varying expressions: Sayori with mischief, Natsuki with exasperation, and Yuri with knowing amusement.

"What? Don't look at me like that!" You squeak defensively, feeling your face begin to heat up at what they were implying. "I only meant that it's- it's weird being at a meeting without our club president! T-That's all." Not that this could be called a meeting per se- more like a celebration between friends.

Sayori giggles at your reaction, and you hear Yuri whisper to Natsuki, "The lady doth protest too much," which elicits a snort of laughter from the pink-haired tsundere.

You groan, standing up abruptly from your seat and smoothing down your school uniform a bit, self-conscious all of a sudden. As your embarrassment dies down though, you feel a wave of affection for your fellow club members. As much as they tend to tease you about your little crush on Monika, they had made your birthday really special this year, and you were grateful. "Anyway, thank you guys again for everything! I had a lot of fun," you say earnestly, deciding it was probably time to wrap up and head home.

Sayori bounces up to join you, and you bid your farewells to Natsuki and Yuri, gathering up your things and heading out of the classroom.

Sayori glances back to make sure that Natsuki and Yuri are in fact walking away, and then she reaches out to stop you. "Uhm, Y/N...?"

You pause to look at her expectantly, unsure of why she's much less energetic now than she was a few minutes ago. "Yes?"

"I-I was actually supposed to tell you something," your best friend begins, uncharacteristically quiet. You wonder briefly why she hadn't mentioned this before... maybe she had been debating on whether or not she actually wanted to tell you whatever it is, considering how the words are practically being dragged from her at this point. "Ah, well, Monika asked me to, that is. The reason she couldn't come to the Literature Club today was because she was stuck at a meeting with the student council, but..." Sayori exhales in what could be a sigh. "She did still wanna see you for your birthday, so she hoped you could stop by there and wait for her."

You stand there in the mostly empty hall of the school, puzzled at why this news would bring such a reaction from your friend- especially when it makes you feel so fluttery inside. "Oh!" You try not to let it show, but you're fairly certain you're lighting up like a Christmas tree. "I see. Thank you for telling me, Sayori!"

As you turn to leave, you feel Sayori reach out to touch your shoulder, but she retracts her hand quickly. When you look back at her, she's her old self, giving you a big smile. "Yeah, I guess you're gonna go see her, huh? Well, I'll catch you later, Y/N!"

Before you can respond, Sayori dashes off, forgetting to wish you a happy birthday.

Well, that was weird. Then again, Sayori's been pretty off lately whenever you and Monika are involved.

The thought of the brunette is enough to make you forget all about whatever might be troubling your best friend, and you make your way through the school to the student council room with a giddy spring in your step. They must not be out yet since the halls are pretty deserted still.

You risk taking a peek through the little glass window on the door, and your hunch is confirmed. Students belonging to the council are all sitting in a circle of chairs, discussing... well, school-related business stuff. You aren't really sure what they do, exactly.

You catch sight of Monika at the head of them, naturally because she is the president, but you aren't expecting to see her with such an expression.

Usually, Monika seems to you warm, open, patient, and friendly... but here, she looks... not even bored, but more like she's utterly apathetic towards all the conversations going on around her. You've never seen her so uncaring, to the point where she seems almost irritated by the presence of everyone in the room with her.

Maybe she's having a bad day? The thought makes you a bit sad, and you find yourself wondering if she would even want to see you. Do the others in the council even realize she's so unlike herself?

As if to answer your silent question, one of the other students turns to Monika to say something, and when they do, the familiar expression you're used to your club president wearing slips back with ease onto her face. She listens attentively to whatever it is she's being told, and then she smiles and nods, commenting something you can't hear in return.

You watch the exchange, too fascinated to stop watching even if you do worry someone might notice you peeking inside for such a long minute. As soon as the student turns away from her, Monika is once again the picture of discontentment; you even notice her tapping her nails listlessly against the surface of the table they're all seated at.

The sound of the doorknob rattling causes you to leap backwards in shock, stumbling slightly over your own two feet. The meeting must be over, because someone is stepping out, and then another, and then you're hurriedly dodging out of the path of the entire student body as they file out, talking and laughing with one another as they head down the hall, eventually leaving you alone.

"Y/N?"

Looking away from their retreating figures, you face Monika and find her as she always is with you- curious emerald eyes and a friendly air about her. "Ah- hello," you greet her, trying not to sound as awkward as you feel about your... let's be honest, spying.

"I wasn't really sure that you'd show!" She exclaims, startling you with a sudden hug.

You've actually never gotten a hug from Monika, although you have a ton of hugs to compare hers to- Sayori throws herself at you pretty much daily, and hers tend to be suffocating, always too tight and lasting a bit too long.

From Monika, though? Her hug, despite making your head spin and your heart skip a beat, makes you feel so safe, secure... she's so warm and you can't help but be enamored with whatever perfume she uses.

Unfortunately, you're too stunned to return the embrace in time before Monika pulls back from you, and you could swear she has a faint blush on her cheeks. She doesn't apologize for her impromptu action, though, and you're glad for that.

"Why wouldn't I?" You ask, dumbstruck.

She studies you for a few seconds, and you get the idea that she's trying to detect if you're being serious or not. Eventually she says, "Oh, nevermind that! I am glad to see you, though. I have something I wanted to give you."

'Please refrain from saying something really stupid and cheesy like, 'the best gift you could give me is just getting to see you on my birthday,' you think to yourself. "A gift? You really didn't have to- or, I mean, you shouldn't have-! Not that I don't appreciate it, though...!" You don't typically struggle so much with your words, but you're still a little off your game after the lovely hug. It's like your mind is foggy, your tongue is twisted, and you simply can't think straight. Which isn't really new when you're around Monika, but today it's impacting you even more than normal. Maybe because you two are all alone for once, not surrounded by Sayori, Yuri, or Natsuki, or even any other students for that matter.

Monika gives a soft laugh. "I wanted to. Technically it's two somethings rather than one," she admits.

You find your mind racing as it tries to go over the potential possibilities. A book like Yuri? That would be very fitting, since you'd befriended Monika through the Literature Club.

You watch as she takes a gift box out of her bookbag, offering it to you with a sweet, "Happy birthday, Y/N."

God, you're definitely blushing. Like, fierce blushing. Either that or the school suddenly decided to turn fifty heaters on all at once. 'Geez, pull yourself together!! Act normal!' You internally berate yourself. If there had been any doubt before, it was all erased in this one instant- you were head over heels for your club president.

"Awh, thank you! It's nice of you." You accept the gift, examining it momentarily. As expected of the class star Monika, the box itself is wrapped perfectly. It's even your favorite color, with a matching ribbon tying it shut. Whether or not you're a sentimental person, you recognize that this is the sort of memento that could easily be kept for a long, long time. You glance back to your friend. "May I open it now?"

Monika nods. "Please do!"

You feel her gaze on you as you carefully untie the ribbon and open up the gift box to see what's inside.

She was right, it is more than one thing. They sort of go together though, you realize as you lift one of the presents up to admire it.

In your hand is a necklace. The chain is a light silver, and the pendant contains a pretty stone in the shape of a heart. The stone shimmers slightly as it reflects the light of the school hall.

"It's so pretty...!" You breathe.

"I'm glad, I thought it was pretty too," Monika says. She sounds calm, but when you glance at her you think she's ecstatic, but the expression is gone as soon as you blink, leaving you to wonder if it had been your imagination playing tricks on you. "It's your birthstone, did you notice?"

You hadn't noticed until she'd pointed it out, but it was indeed your birthstone. Monika is just... so very thoughtful. It's really no wonder she's so popular. "Thank you so much!!" You chirp, still somewhat surprised that she would go so far just for a birthday gift for you. You hadn't known her personally for very long, after all.

You set the necklace back down inside the box to bring out the other gift, another accessory- it's the same color as your birthstone necklace, but it actually reminds you of something else.

Yes, it's a big bow similar to Monika's own. If you were to wear it, it could even look like she and you were matching. You could just be reading too much into things, though...

"I.. love them. So much." You have an overwhelming urge to put your thoughts onto paper in order to give Monika the proper thanks that she deserves for being possibly the most generous person in existence, and because you feel like you're failing miserably at voicing just how touched you really are by these gifts. "I almost want to get you something in return...!"

Monika shakes her head in amusement. "It's your birthday, not mine." A contemplative finger rests on her chin as she adds, "Although... there is something you could do for me. If you wouldn't mind, of course."

Perplexed, you respond without giving yourself a chance to think about it. "Anything!"

You're rewarded with an affectionate smile from Monika, but it seems as though she was expecting that to be your answer.

She extends a hand for the gift box that you've already set both the bow and necklace back in, inquiring, "May I?"

Wordlessly, your intrigue piqued, you hand it back to her. She takes the bow out first, stepping closer to you.

It's not foolish of you to have been anticipating a kiss- even now you could very easily initiate one if you so chose, because of how terrifyingly close Monika is to you as she gently pulls your hair back for you, tying it back with the Y/FC bow and even brushing a stray lock of hair from your face after she does so.

While you're struggling to recover from your short-circuiting, Monika takes the necklace and places it around your neck. The brush of her fingers sends sparks of static against your skin, and you feel as if time is standing completely still, and it's just you and her in this world.

The faint click of the necklace as it clasps shut is what brings you back to reality, and all too soon Monika is stepping away from you again, still close but at a much more reasonable distance away.

She appraises your appearance and then smiles softly. "As I thought."

Is she being mysterious on purpose or does being around her just happen to kill your brain cells? "E-Eh?"

"You look lovely, Y/N."

The compliment makes you want to bury your face in your hands in the futile hopes of hiding your blush, but by now it's probably too late for that.

You stutter out your thanks, desperately trying to mend your scattered thoughts, and she once again wishes you a happy birthday, reminding you as well to bring your poetry assignment to the club meeting tomorrow.

As she's leaving, you realize you never got the chance to ask about the strange behavior she'd exhibited during the meeting with the other students.

[aibari]

safe returns

a @destielsecretsanta2020 gift for @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover

notes: this fic is set after the s15 finale. there’s a bit of canon-typical grief at  the start, but this is a fix-it fic :)

read on ao3

Afterwards, the world knits itself back together slowly, like broken bones healing. People come back to their loved ones, but not all at once, filing in gradually. Dean guesses they've had a long way to go. Wherever the hell they went, when Chuck had punted them out of existence.

So it's a slow and gradual thing, and it sucks. He catches himself out constantly, thinking that maybe -

And then Sam will give him a concerned look, so understanding and careful it makes him feel like he's been skinned alive.

And he knows by now what that feels like.

Anyway, the point is that while people are still coming back, he can't quite let go of the thought that Cas might, too. Even if he's in the Empty. Even if it's dumb as hell to think that it could ever -

So. The thought sits in his chest like a tumor metastasizing, like a rusty fishhook, like a birdcage. Hope is a thing with feathers, or however the fuck that saying goes.

He can't think about it for too long. If he does, he starts needing a drink, starts to feel his jaw lock up. Can't touch it, or he'll slice his fingers open.

So instead of thinking about it, he joins a pie eating competition. Goes on a series of hunts with Sam that all resolve easy. Drinks beer and sleeps in motels and eats greasy diner food, and it's familiar in a way that's both familiar and deeply fucking depressing if he lets himself think about it. He's forty-one, he's helped defeat God, and he's still doing this shit? Does he even know how to be anything else? Does he have it in him?

Six months after the end of Chuck, the stream of people showing back up slows to a trickle and then dries up. Dean takes his fragile hope and buries it as deep as it will go.

So it goes.

-

He dreams about Cas, which is business as usual. Dreams with Cas used to mean something, and maybe that something was covert fraternization and angel politics, most of the time, but it was Cas. Now it's just trauma. Dean sits on their bench, and Cas sits next to him, and Cas says:

Because you cared, I cared.

And Dean says:

Don’t do this, Cas.

And then he starts to choke, words and letters pushing up against the back of his throat like yesterday's dinner.

Cas is still talking, words fading in and out like a radio with bad reception, and his hand rests heavy on Dean's arm, and he says:

"Dean."

And then Dean wakes up, gasping, staring up at the water-stained motel room ceiling.

The handprint on his shoulder burns.

He stumbles into the bathroom to splash water on his face and then stands there, hands clutching the edges of the sink, staring blankly at his own reflection.

There's a pull in his chest, tethered somewhere under his ribs.

He takes a deep breath, and then another.

Then he wakes up Sam, who groans and then squints at him in the half-dark of the room. The light of the neon sign outside paints a violet streak across his cheek.

“Dean, what -?” Sam says. “What’s going on, what time is it?”

“Don’t worry your sweet little head about it, Sammy,” Dean says. “Just got a little something to take care of, so I’m heading out.”

Sam frowns at him. “What do you mean, out?”

“What are you, some kind of detective?”

“Dean,” Sam says, with the kind of heavy, long-suffering bitchiness that means he’s gonna get passive aggressive about it.

Dean doesn’t have that kind of time. “I’m going to Minnesota and I’m gonna have to go there alone.”

Sam opens his mouth to say something.

“Don’t say anything, Sam,” Dean grits out.

“I wasn’t gonna,” Sam says, like a liar. 

Dean rolls his eyes at him and starts packing. It takes about a minute; it’s not like any of them ever really unpack.

There’s a joke in there, somewhere, Dean thinks, jaw clenching despite himself.

“Dean,” Sam says from behind him. Dean freezes in the middle of stuffing a t-shirt into the bag, unable to turn around and look at him.

“What,” he asks, stiff like set concrete.

“Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” Sam says, like he has his own ideas about where Dean is going. “Promise me, alright?”

“Sure,” Dean says. It’s a like, but he’s pretty sure they both know it.

It’s not like he even knows where he’s going, exactly.

He doesn’t even know what he’s going there for. He just knows that he has to.

He finishes packing and they say their goodbyes. Sam bitches about it when he takes the impala, but Eileen will be coming up later in the day to discuss some kind of hunt developments. Sam will be fine.

Whether or not Dean will be fine might be a different question.

He’ll figure it out.

-

He takes the I-35 up through Illinois and Iowa, barely stopping to take a piss. The burn of the handprint has settled into something gentler, but it still throbs in a telltale heart rhythm. He thinks about Cas, at the end, standing tall and telling Dean that he loved him.

It makes his jaw go tight.

He turns up the music. It’s Creedence, and he sings along as hard as he can stand, white-knuckling the wheel.

“That’s real healthy,” he murmurs to himself in the space between songs, but it does help to have something in the car that isn’t his own thoughts, his own fuck-ups and messes.

The closer he gets to Minnesota, the stronger the pull gets.

He’s playing with fire, not doing the research and going in solo like this. Whatever’s pulling at him could be freaking anything.

But it won’t be.

He knows that for sure, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it is.

He just has a feeling.

-

After he crosses state lines the final time, rolling on into Minnesota, he stops at a diner for dinner. He gets a burger and fries, and by this point he is so full of whatever thing is pulling him forward it’s hard to stop moving. His ribcage feels like it’s full of bees.

He keeps thinking about Cas.

“This is you, isn’t it,” he murmurs. “Whatever’s happening here. It’s about you.”

No-one answers him, but he’s used to that by now.

He can fill a silence like nobody’s business, so he launches into a rambling review of the music on the regional radio station, (bland enough to give Wonderbread a run for its money,) the scenery (cold and snowy), and the present company (non-existent; please, Cas, come back to me).

The waitress keeps looking at him funny. When he goes to leave, she won’t let him pay. For a second, he thinks she might be interested, but then she gives him a soft, sad look and tells him about how her partner had taken months longer than her to come back, and that she understands what he’s going through, that he shouldn’t give up hope, and then he has to go.

-

He sits in the parking lot for a while, hands on the steering wheel, wishing he’d paid more attention to the mindfulness kick Sam’s been on for the past month.

He can’t stop thinking about the look on Cas’ face, right before -

Fuck.

If he were in any other car, he’d be punching the dashboard.

He turns up the music again instead, and wipes his face, and gets back to driving.

So it goes.

-

He stops at a motel by the interstate and stumbles out the morning after to a bright winter’s day. The sky is blue enough that he has to squint against it; the snow crunches under his boots. With every breath, the cold air knifes down his throat.

He follows the pull of his invisible line.

-

The forest is quiet. The snow muffles all sound but the crunch of his boots, which reverberate like gunshots. Dean makes a quick mental inventory of Minnesota monsters. He’s unprepared for most of them; if any of them show up, or if this is a trap, he’ll be up shit creek. He’d probably deserve it, too, coming here like this.

He walks for hours, pulled forward, chest sweetly aching and handprint throbbing to the beat of his own heart.

By the time he reaches the field, he’s almost lost track of time.

It’s just a large, empty space. If it hadn’t been covered in snow in the middle of winter, it’d make a sweet concert space.

There’s no-one else here, but -

(something in his chest wrenches)

-then there is.

A man in a trenchcoat stumbles into the clearing, and Dean knows him. He knows him, with a bright and certain rush of heat that leaves him breathless.

“Cas!” he yells, and hears the answering, “Dean!” and then he’s running and laughing and tearing up at the same time. He’s a mess, but he can’t help it, couldn’t stop it if he tried. They meet in the middle and it’s like a scene from Love freaking Actually, hugging each other tightly and spinning each other around. Cas smells like petrichor and ozone and day-old sweat. The stitching on his coat is rough and reassuring under Dean’s fingers. He never wants to let him go.

“Thank you,” Cas says, serious as a freshly dug grave, “for meeting me.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, buddy,” Dean says. Then he leans back a little to look Cas properly in the eye. “Cas,” he says. “Earlier. I said the wrong thing.”

Cas gives him an expectant look. His hands are fisting into Dean’s coat. “What did you want to say, Dean?”

The way he says his name makes Dean shudder. He swallows thickly. “I. Back when you - I said don’t do this, but what I should have said was - me too, Cas.”

Cas tilts his head slightly to the side, like he’s confused by something. Dean had almost forgotten what shade of blue they were.

“What?” Dean asks, as softly as he can, which isn’t much. He’s not good at this. Not with Cas. Not yet, but hopefully - if he dares to hope - hopefully soon.

“You don’t have to humor me, Dean,” Cas says, stiffer than a freaking fridge magnet in a freezer. “I know I’m not what you -”

And Dean can’t stand hearing him finish that sentence, can’t stand not having them be on the same page.

“Alright, fuck this,” he says, and pulls Cas down into a kiss.

[homeformyheart]

ménage - mason x nb!detective (twc)

author’s note: brooklyn was the last detective i created because i wanted to romance mason with a shy / oblivious detective that “wants something more” and found they have some deep resentment toward rebecca that i wanted to process/write. the ending was inspired by that sera ask. i hope you enjoy!

copyright: all characters, except my oc detective, are owned by mishka jenkins @seraphinitegames.

series/pairing: the wayhaven chronicles – mason x nb!detective (brooklyn kingston) rating/warnings: 14+; swearing, arguing word count: 2.5k summary: brooklyn finally lets out their resentment toward rebecca and quits out of anger, retreating to their apartment where mason comforts them.

ménage

mason could feel brooklyn begin to bristle under his arm as they sat on the living room couch, waiting for the meeting with rebecca to wrap-up. trapper activity had spiked in wayhaven, and this time they were seeing an increase in kidnappings of supernaturals that brooklyn recognized. well, they recognized their human forms anyway. which meant that the trappers were closing in on people who may have more of a connection to them.

brooklyn had kept themself busy to avoid thinking about the bounty on their head but hearing about trappers targeting people they knew was difficult to ignore. thoughts of tina, verda, eric, and haley easily came to mind and left a pit in their stomach that they couldn’t quite identify. it was probably a combination of guilt and anxiety and at this point, they just wanted to go to sleep and avoid dwelling on it anymore. the team had completed their briefing but rebecca wanted to discuss something with adam and nate before calling it a night.

they sighed and leaned sub-consciously closer to mason, his thumb absent-mindedly drawing circles on their arm. it was something that brooklyn realized helped soothe their nerves. they weren’t used to any sort of physical affection; they actually recoiled from it if anything since they didn’t have much relationship experience in that department and certainly didn’t receive any from their parents. but something about mason made them feel safe and warm, and they struggled to pull away like they would’ve done if it were anyone else.

the murmured conversation between adam, nate, and rebecca was becoming harder to ignore. not that they were particularly loud, but because it was obvious that they were discussing them. logically, the discussion was probably focused on how to increase protection for both them and the town without bringing in reinforcements lest people get wind of something happening, but all brooklyn could focus on was the concerned looks nate kept throwing their way and the disapproving frowns apparent on adam’s face, even from his profile.

“can you please stop talking about me like i’m not even here? or even better yet, stop talking about me like i’m a child and making decisions for me,” brooklyn snapped suddenly, irritation clearly lacing their tone.

mason’s arm around their shoulder tightened slightly, almost startling them out of their annoyance. they glanced at him, prepared to shrug his shoulder off in retaliation, when they noticed he was only looking at them with genuine concern. they leaned further back into his embrace but the tension never left their body.

rebecca blinked at them in surprise before putting her professional mask back in place. “please give us some privacy,” she said, glancing quickly at the team who nodded in return and left the room.

brooklyn took note of the fact that mason was the last to leave and not before he gave them a long, concerned look.

“you know they can hear everything we say anyway, right? sending them away doesn’t mean this conversation is private. how many conversations have we had with your team listening in?” they muttered, standing up so that they could be closer to eye level with rebecca.

“it doesn’t matter. what matters to me is your safety, brooklyn. you are always my priority,” rebecca said firmly, with such conviction that someone without a lifetime of experiencing less than that would be easily convinced.

brooklyn scoffed, eliciting a raised eyebrow from rebecca. “you have an odd way of showing what’s a priority to you. i could fill ten notebooks with all the times your job took priority over me.”

rebecca started twisting her hands together. “i made sure you didn’t want for anything. i gave you everything you needed to live comfortably, and i knew that i could trust your safety in the hands of the supernatural nannies.”

their jaw dropped. “oh my god – are you serious? so you surrounded me with supernaturals and yet lied to my face about what kept you away,” they said with a humorless laugh, shaking their head. they were getting close to their limit. “let’s be honest, you didn’t want to be a mother.”

they could see the energy drain from rebecca’s face and she swayed on the spot. “how—how could you think that? no matter our differences, you are my child and i love you.”

“what am i supposed to think? you weren’t around no matter what i did! i was the perfect child. i never got into trouble, i studied hard and got into a good school, i didn’t date, and i never stayed out past curfew. it still wasn’t enough for you,” brooklyn said, her voice starting to rise in volume.

“everything i did was to protect you and make sure you could have a normal life – and you did,” rebecca’s voice was starting to grate on brooklyn’s nerves.

an unfamiliar tightness in their chest made brooklyn pause to take a breath. “i didn’t do anything that would cause you to worry, and you think you can take credit for that? you think it’s because you were a good mother?”

years of repressed resentment bubbled up to the surface all at once. brooklyn had almost forgotten how deeply they had buried it all. it was easy to forget that a dormant volcano could still erupt if the telltale signs were ignored. balancing two jobs and handling all the supernatural missions and happenings took up so much brain space that they had been too exhausted to notice the building resentment.

it started with harmless annoyances, like rebecca’s comments about how the team could ensure their safety on a mission and the occasional question about whether they still wanted to be part of this world. it became harder to ignore when rebecca would pull adam aside to talk privately after almost every meeting and the way in which they both glanced at them made it obvious that they were the topic of discussion.

brooklyn couldn’t help the well of tears building in their throat. “you think it justifies that you were never around? i had already lost and never got to know my father. what i needed was my mother.”

* * * * * mason leaned with one foot against the wall of the hallway beyond the living room, arms folded across his chest and a small, almost indiscernible frown on his face.

normally the team would disperse when rebecca asked for privacy, however, adam was the only team member that promptly left the area. felix and nate were clearly hoping for a peaceful resolution to whatever was going on between agent kingston and brooklyn, if the concerned looks on their faces and pacing were any indication.

“i really hope they can talk things through calmly,” nate said, his brows furrowed so deeply that his face seemed to scrunch in half.

felix played with the frayed edges of his scarf anxiously and stayed silent, an unusual move for the typically chatty vampire, but mason knew he was a bit more sensitive to familial relationships and he had come to think of rebecca and brooklyn as part of their unit bravo family.

they could all hear the vibrations of the discussion in the other room, their heads snapping up once it escalated, the shouts passing through the walls as if they weren’t there.

* * * * * “you didn’t want a child – i know i was an accident,” brooklyn continued, “so don’t try to tell me you care about me. you can’t even look at me because i remind you of dad!”

“you are my child! i cannot lose you like i lost your father! i refuse to,” rebecca came the closest to screaming as one might expect from her.

that was the tipping point. once an eruption starts, it can’t be stopped, and brooklyn was ready to blow.

“it’s not up to you!” they screamed back, chest heaving and fists clenched. rebecca took a step back, shoulders sagging with a general weariness that seemed to sink her entire body.

but brooklyn was angry and wanted to be angry, glaring pointedly at rebecca without making direct eye contact. they didn’t want to feel guilt for hurting rebecca. they really didn’t want to sympathize or come to an understanding of her motivations. they wanted to hurt her as much as she had hurt them over the years.

they gritted their teeth and threw their hands up in the air. “you don’t want me to be part of this world that badly? you don’t want me to be part of such an important part of your life, then fine, i quit!”

they spun on their heel with the intent to storm out of the room before their mother’s pleading voice made them freeze.

“brookie, please—” rebecca’s eyes glistened with unshed tears.

brooklyn turned back around so fast even they were surprised they didn’t fall over. “no! you do not get to call me by dad’s nickname for me. i don’t want anything to do with you anymore!”

and then they finally did storm out before they could see rebecca’s body crumple to the floor in grief.

they threw open the door and nearly ran headfirst into nate who had been hovering by the doorway.

“brooklyn, she loves you and is worried about you, as we all are—” nate said gently, brow furrowed in concern.

they didn’t register that both felix and mason had stepped closer to nate, with felix laying a hand gently on nate’s arm to pull him back, eyes conveying a silent message that now was not the time to intervene. mason had stepped slightly in front, perhaps subtly trying to draw brooklyn’s attention unsuccessfully to him instead. but all brooklyn could singularly focus on was nate, who despite his good intentions, picked the wrong time to try to smooth things over.

their fury exploded. “i should’ve known that you’d take her side! i know you all would pick her over me. just like she always picked her job over me. well you can have her, i don’t want anything to do with any of you anymore!”

they clenched their fists and walked as fast as they could in their heels out of the warehouse to their car, seething and hoping that the team would leave them alone. they slammed the door and gripped the steering wheel tightly, peeling out of the lot and letting their adrenaline and anger keep the tears at bay until they were safely home.

as soon as they walked into their apartment, the fight left their body and they collapsed on the couch. brooklyn immediately started crying, putting pressure on their eyes with their palms to try to force the tears to stop. they were not someone who wallowed in their emotions. they needed to be composed if they were going to move forward and move out of wayhaven. they reached for their laptop and pulled up some of the job search websites they always had bookmarked.

* * * * * back at the warehouse

even though rebecca had returned to the facility, her professional demeanor securely in place by the time she walked past them, the team stood around the living room as though awaiting instructions. nate looked as close to being on the verge of tears that mason could recall.

felix was struggling the most, moving from the couch to the armchair to the window, barely settling in one spot with both feet planted before he was moving to the next.

he finally broke the silence. “do you think brooks meant it? quitting the team?” what he really wanted to say was us. were they leaving them.

“i don’t know, but i really hope not,” nate said quietly.

mason just shook his head and walked toward the door.

“where are you going?” felix asked, sounding a little… afraid.

“to check on brooklyn,” he said without hesitation. mason’s shoulders tensed for a second before he made eye contact with them both, a seriousness in his gaze that made their eyes widen. “don’t wait up.”

* * * * * at the detective’s apartment

a knock on the door made brooklyn’s shoulders tense and head throb even more than it did already.

“if you’re here to lecture me about family or being nice to my mom, you can leave right now,” they yelled through the closed door.

“you know i wouldn’t do that, sweetheart. let me in.”

brooklyn sighed and unlocked the door, not bothering to open it as they walked toward their bedroom. they heard the door open and close but didn’t turn around.

“if you’re here to convince me to stay with the agency or the team, you can keep it to yourself,” they called out, falling backward on the bed and applying pressure to their eyes again.

mason didn’t respond as he walked over to their room, sinking down in the space next to them and leaning over until his body cast a shadow over theirs and his hair barely brushed their hands.

“i won’t ever try to make you do anything you don’t want to,” he said quietly, gently pulling their hands away from their face.

their eyes were red and already starting to puff up but any thoughts of how disheveled they were flew away as mason’s grey eyes bore into theirs. they swirled with something, not the uncertainty and confusion of deeper feelings between them that they had gotten used to earlier in their relationship, but of something else. something that brooklyn had craved all their life.

“i was serious, you know. my resume’s been polished and i’ve bookmarked several open positions in the city,” they said, reaching up to stroke his cheek with their thumb if only to avoid eye contact for a little while longer.

mason smirked and leaned down until his nose barely touched theirs. brooklyn knew he could hear their heart start pounding louder and held their breath as he softly touched his lips to theirs.

“okay. but make sure the next apartment has proper heating. i am so sick of being cold,” he grumbled, pulling back so he could carry them in his arms and position them more comfortably under the comforter. he tucked his arm under their shoulders and pulled them close.

they glanced up at him, eyes wide with surprise. “really?” they blurted out, dazed. would he really leave unit bravo behind? the agency?

“i told you once before sweetheart, i go where you go,” he said as though it was an established fact.

their gaze dropped and mason heard the stutter in their throat as they whispered, “that was when adam gave you orders to.”

“hey. i’m saying it now,” he tilted their chin up with his other hand so that they were looking directly at him. “i go where you go.”

brooklyn looked up at him as he pulled the comforter up to their shoulders, all the tension and emotions from earlier leaving their body heavy in his arms. “thank you,” she whispered, eyes half closed with sleep.

* * * * * permatag: @kelseaaa; @kat-tia801; @anotherbeingsworld; @crackerdumortain; @pearlsandsteel; @gloynporslen; @sosolenoo; @alyssalauren;  @wayhavenots; @gingerbreton; @takemyopenheart; @fhauvilles; @writer-ish;

[babycracker]

Echoes In The Forest - Chapter 13

Story Rating: explicit Chapter Rating: teen & up Pairing: adam/f!detective (jordan mills) Word Count: ~4k Warnings: none

--

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Felix murmurs quietly, trudging along between Nate and Mason. Jordan and Adam are walking up ahead close by the boy as he continues wandering through the forest.

“You mean you haven’t felt that way since we got here?” Mason scoffs, not bothering to lift his eyes from the ground in front of him.

“Yeah, but worse now,” Felix answers, and Nate places a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“It will be alright,” he tries, but somehow Felix doesn’t find himself as reassured as he usually does when Nate attempts to comfort him.

They’d hurriedly packed up their camp and were now following the boy in the hopes that he would lead them to somewhere that may offer some answers about what had happened to him, and where the other kids who’ve gone missing may be. It seems like a long shot to Felix - if the boy is in this state now then it seems unlikely that he would be leading them anywhere important. He very much doubts that the Erlking has any more use for him, if this was even his doing at all.

He glances up at Adam and Jordan, frowning at the way they’re walking as far apart from each other as they can without losing sight of the kid. As if this mission isn’t confusing and stressful enough, now he has those two to worry about as well.

He’d been happy enough to realise that they have feelings for each other, maybe even a little bit excited. Until those feelings started to show themselves and made an absolute mess of things. He’s not sure what’s to become of Unit Bravo if Adam and Jordan can’t sort themselves out. He doesn’t want to lose her, not after all this time. She’s a part of his family now. He can’t lose any more family.

Adam stops suddenly, holding one hand up over his shoulder to signal at the rest of them to follow suit.

“What-” Jordan begins, coming to a halt a few steps ahead of him and grabbing the boy’s arm to stop him from walking. Adam glares at her and holds one finger of his other hand up in her direction, a silent instruction to shut up and Felix almost winces at the death glare that she gives him.

Until he hears what Adam has obviously heard and snaps his attention towards the woods to the side of them, concerns about Jordan’s position within the unit now temporarily forgotten.

“I can’t hear anything,” he vaguely hears Mason whisper beside him, and the wave of panic that hits him over the simple statement is bigger than he would have expected. It really is going to be up to him. He’s slightly comforted by the fact that Adam at least can hear what Felix can see, but it’s hardly the help he hoped he would have after Adam had fed from Jordan.

A loud rustling sound from behind them has both him and Adam spinning around and Felix takes a couple of steps towards the noise, peering into the bushes.

“Felix…” Nate warns, and there are footsteps behind him before Adam’s hand lands on his shoulder.

“Do not run off again.”

“He’s following us,” he looks up at the team leader who just nods in reply, an uncharacteristic amount of concern written all over his face. It’s amplified as he looks back towards Jordan for a moment, who appears positively terrified.

“We have to keep moving,” Adam announces distractedly, making his way over to Jordan and Felix can’t help but notice that he’s walking significantly closer, despite the eye roll she gives him for his efforts.

He loves her, but can’t she put her grudge on hold for just a little while when there are more important things going on?

--

“I need to speak with you once this is dealt with,” Adam blurts out after one of the longest silences ever to take place between them, and Jordan frowns up at him.

He has some nerve, she’ll give him that. To treat her the way he has been and then demand to talk to her while they’re in the middle of something which quite frankly terrifies her. It’s alright for him, she supposes. He’s not the one this thing is after.

“You think I really care what you need?” she mutters in response, noticing the annoyed look he gives her despite the fact that she’s already turned away from him.

“You should. For all of our sakes.”

She can’t help but roll her eyes again at the typical Adam response. Of course he’s going to turn this into something about Unit Bravo as a whole. She understands that it very much affects all of them, but just for once she’d like him to be straightforward with her, she’d like him to acknowledge that this is a him and her problem and it needs to be handled between him and her.

She sighs and doesn’t bother answering him, and he seems to either take it as agreement or as a sign that he shouldn’t push it right now. Either way she’s more than happy to not speak with him for the rest of the afternoon. For the rest of the mission, if possible. They have more important things to deal with.

He glances up at the trees and the significantly smaller amount of light filtering through them after a while and stops again, glancing at her with uncertainty before turning to face Nate, Felix and Mason.

“It’s going to be dark soon. We should stop.”

“And what do you suggest we do with him overnight?” Jordan asks before anyone else can say anything, gesturing down at the boy. “Tie him up?”

Adam actually seems to be considering it for a moment and Jordan’s eyes widen in horror at the thought that he would actually tie a child up like a dog for the night.

“Are you serious? I was being sarcastic.”

“It’s a valid point, though. We can’t let him wander off,” Mason points out, and both Jordan and Nate glare at him.

“We’re close anyway. We probably don’t need him, actually,” Felix points out before an argument can ensue, and Jordan notices his unease for the first time. Too caught up with bloody Adam to have seen it earlier.

He’s bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet, eyes darting nervously around them and his hands fidgeting at his sides. The sight of him makes her all the more nervous, and suddenly walking through the woods at night with four vampires and a near comatose child seems like the less creepy option.

Adam’s right though, as much as she hates to admit it. She’s exhausted and she needs a break or she’s not going to be of any use to anyone.

“So we’re supposed to just let him go?” she protests despite all of that, the idea of letting this little boy wander around on his own in the dead of night not quite sitting right with her.

“Yes,” Adam answers simply, looking at her as though he doesn’t understand her hesitance.

“I don’t think he’s in there anymore,” Nate reasons carefully, and she shakes her head slightly before looking down at the boy.

He’s right and she knows it. His face is completely void of expression, his clouded eyes staring at nothing in particular. He seems to be barely even breathing, and even aside from all that she’s fairly certain that he wouldn’t physically survive the trip back out of the woods anyway.

“Fine,” she snaps, dropping the boy’s arm and turning away from him. There might be nothing left of who the boy once was but she still doesn’t like the idea of watching him walk away from them.

Nate moves to wrap her up in a tight hug, and it takes her a moment but eventually she winds her arms around his waist and returns the gesture. She’s feeling only slightly better about the situation when Nate pulls back suddenly and looks questioningly at Adam, who has come to stand beside them.

“I need a moment with the Detective.”

“I don’t think now is the time…” Nate trails off when the expression on Adam’s face makes it clear that he’s not going to back down this time, and Jordan looks between the two of them wearily.

“Do I get a say?”

“No,” Adam replies, taking a gentle but firm hold of her arm and leading her away, calling over his shoulder to the rest of Unit Bravo, “set the camp up.”

--

Adam’s not stupid, it’s not the right time and he knows it. But his conversation with Mason has been eating at him all day, and he feels that he may explode if he doesn’t get it off of his chest.

He’s a few steps ahead of her, but he can hear her stomping along behind him, deliberately making it obvious to him that she’s not happy as though she thinks it’s going to sway his decision to talk to her. If he’s honest, he is almost tempted to let it be for now but he knows that this up in the air, disastrous tension hanging between them is going to be nothing more than a distraction for the both of them, and neither of them can afford that right now.

“What do you want?”

It isn’t until she speaks and breaks him out of his own thoughts and hesitations that he realises she’s stopped walking, and he turns to find her with her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at him.

“I want to speak with you about yesterday,” he begins and then draws a blank with how to proceed from there.

“Didn’t we do that already? You said I was going crazy, remember?”

“No. I said that your mental state may have been temporarily, but negatively impacted,” he corrects, falling silent when she just stares at him with one eyebrow arched.

“I’ve been made aware of the possibility that I may have…” he pauses, trying to squash down the sudden panic that rises in his chest to be able to finish his sentence, “unintentionally exposed you to certain things.”

“Certain things such as?”

He clears his throat slightly and finds himself averting his gaze, looking everywhere but at her so as to avoid seeing her reaction to finding out that what she’s been feeling actually comes from him.

“Certain emotions.”

He waits for it. Waits for her to press him on which emotions he means. Waits for the disgust, the horror, or the mocking. When none of it comes he looks back up at her and she’s frowning at him, in what looks to be concern.

She opens her mouth to speak, but snaps it shut again when she can’t seem to be able to get the words out and just gives him a small nod in response.

“I can assure you that it was not my intention to do so.”

“So what am I supposed to do about it?”

There’s a question he’s not sure that he knows the answer to. He doesn’t know how deeply she feels the things she’s feeling, he doesn’t know if just ignoring them is a possibility.

“There is nothing you can do. They will fade in time if you don’t dwell on them.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t want them in here?” she pauses and taps the side of her head. “You don’t want me knowing that you feel these things?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“Bit late, Adam.”

She is impossible. How difficult can it be for her to just go about her life as though they were not there? They’re not even her emotions, she has no idea of where they’ve come from, she’s no need to fixate on them or even acknowledge their existence.

“I need you to do this,” the words come out slightly more desperate than he’d intended, sounding more like a plea than a command and her expressions softens just a little. Not enough to reassure him that she will do her best to ignore the parts of him that he’d unwillingly forced on her, though.

“Why?”

“You have your own emotions to worry about, without needing to focus on mine,” he arches a brow pointedly at her, trying to give her the hint that he can feel as much of her as she can of him, probably more.

Realisation dawns on her face as she clicks on to what he’s said, but to his surprise her frown deepens and she takes a step closer to him. “And is that what you’re doing? Just ignoring them and pretending they don’t exist?”

“Yes.” There is no right answer to such a question, so he refuses to feel any guilt whatsoever at the way her face falls a little at his answer. At least he tries not to feel any guilt, but he knows it’s there, creeping through his gut despite his best attempts to ignore it.

“Just when I thought you were already as big of a jackass as you could get,” she mutters, her focus falling down to the ground for a split second before she glares back up at him.

They don’t have time for this. He wouldn’t have time for it in the best of circumstances let alone with all that is going on already.

“Just deal with it so that we can get back to normal,” he snaps, a little harsher than he means to, his impatience peeking through just a little more than is probably necessary.

“No,” she begins, taking a deep breath and standing a little straighter, “no, you wanted to talk and I let you talk, so now it’s my turn. I think you’re afraid of me finding out how you feel.”

He rolls his eyes and lets out a huff, turning to walk away from her and back towards the new camp site. “That’s preposterous.”

“Hey! Don’t walk away from me,” she’s behind him in an instant, grabbing at his arm to slow him down and then stepping in front of him to prevent him from going anywhere.

“I think you’re afraid that I feel the same,” she continues, letting go of his arm when he glances down at her hand and he falters, unsure how to react to her outright accusation.

“I- we don’t have time for this right now, Detective.”

“I think that’s why you don’t use my name.”

“Jordan,” his voice hitches just a little - not little enough for her to miss it though - when he attempts to prove her wrong, trying to ignore the annoyance bubbling up inside of him at being put on the spot like this.

“I think that’s why you didn’t want it to be you yesterday, I think that’s why you had a problem with me and Mason, and I think that’s why you always look as though it legitimately causes you pain to be close to me.”

She crosses her arms over her chest again and watches him expectantly, clearly ready for an argument and waiting for him to disagree or lose his cool. So, he does neither. She might be looking for a fight but he most certainly is not, so he sidesteps his way around her and tries to leave again.

“I’m talking to you! You can’t just walk away from me in the middle of this,” she grabs his arm again, annoyingly persistent and defiant, and this time he roughly pulls it away, whirling back around to face her.

“I can, and I intend to.”

“Why are you always such a jerk to me?” she steps closer again, the proximity making him incredibly uncomfortable and starting to anger him all at once as he realises it’s unlikely that he’s going to get out of this situation without at least some kind of an argument.

"Because you-" he begins to reply, feeling himself grow angrier by the second as he finds himself at a loss for words once again.

"Me what?" she fires back stubbornly, holding his gaze, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

"-are insufferable." He finally finishes. It’s as good an answer as any, and is certainly better than telling her that he needs to act that way towards her so as not to become too attached.

"Fine," She throws her hands into the air suddenly and moves to walk past him, deliberately hitting his bicep with her shoulder on the way.

"I won't make you suffer me anymore. I quit," she grumbles under her breath, but he hears her and his arm shoots out now to grab hers and he pulls her back closer to him, a little more roughly than he'd meant to.

"You what?" he asks, his eyes piercing into hers unforgivingly.

"I. Quit."

"You cannot."

"Try and stop me."

His grip on her arm tightens as she tries to walk away from him again, and now she is the one to glare down at his hand before arching an eyebrow at him.

"You cannot," he repeats. His stomach tightens up with worry. No, not worry. Fear. His eyes widen slightly at the epiphany. He is afraid to lose her. He's afraid of the part of her that he still feels within himself being the only part he gets. He's afraid of the possibility of never being able to look at her again or be near to her again, never being able to watch her laughing with Felix again.

His face twists into a frown. He is just as afraid of what the fear might mean as he is of the fear itself. He is afraid of how remarkably easy it has been for Jordan to ignite those feelings within him, after no other has succeeded in… well, he can't even remember how long. She's still glaring at him, though her expression has softened, as though she can sense the battle raging inside of him. It irritates him even further, the way this woman pities him.

"Tell me why not." Her voice is barely above a whisper, but the way it pierces the heavy silence surrounding them hurts his ears. The hand not holding onto her twitches at his side before he lifts his arm, the backs of his knuckles just grazing her cheek before he quickly pulls it back and releases her.

"I-"

"Apologise?" she cuts him off, and he falters at the interruption and takes a slight step back.

"Yes."

"No." She steps towards him again despite his attempt to get away from her.

"No?" he asks faintly. Her heart is racing, she's riled up and her body heat is almost scorching. He takes another step away to distance himself before he is overwhelmed but she steps with him, the gap between them remaining virtually non-existent.

"No. I don't accept your apology. Not this time."

He's lost for words, racking his brain for a response. She continues talking before he can articulate his thoughts.

"I don't accept that you feel sorry for feeling something for me. As though it's a bad thing."

"I- do not feel anything for you. You are a member of my unit, that's all. I feel for you as I feel for my other agents."

"Lying."

"And if I did, it would indeed be less than ideal," he continues, deliberately ignoring her rebuttal.

"Why?"

He sighs in exasperation and looks away from her, his gaze shifting up to the high tops of the trees as though he believes that if he looks away from her for long enough she'll disappear. Unfortunately it doesn't work and she's still staring at him expectantly, waiting for his answer.

"Why is of no consequence," he answers and she finally looks away from him to roll her eyes.

"You are such an asshole."

Something snaps inside of him, finally growing tired of biting back his own opinion while she constantly throws her own in his face.

"And you, you are the most stubborn, most unwarrantedly self assured, most irritating, most relentlessly persistent human I have ever met."

"And you are the most arrogant man I've ever met."

"Then why must you persevere in trying to drag emotions of which you are not certain out of me?"

"Because I am certain of them!" She's yelling at him now, loud enough for him to be able to hear the rustling of disturbed birds taking flight from the branches they’ve settled on for the night above them. Her eyes burn into him, her heartbeat almost deafening. She inches closer to him and he tenses, his fingertips seem to burn and itch with a need to touch her but his hands remain by his side.

"You are certain of them too, I know you are. You might not be certain of what to do about them, but you're certain they're there."

He glares down at her, his body tense and the beat of his own heart matching hers. She stands before him, still inappropriately close, her head tilted back a little to be able to hold his gaze, eyes wild and face twisted in frustration.

She opens her mouth to speak again, but Adam has had enough. He doesn't want to hear anymore, he doesn't want to hear the words out loud in case they ring as true as he fears they will.

"Detective-" he tries to cut her off but she shakes her head angrily.

"No, you're going to-"

"Detective Mills!"

"Agent Du Mortain, you will listen-"

Before she can finish her sentence, before he even knows himself what he's doing, his hands are on her hips, pulling her flush against him and he's ducked his head down to press his lips against hers, swallowing whatever she was about to say.

Her body is almost as stiff as his, and his still open eyes search hers, waiting for some kind of reaction. Her hands fly up to either side of his face and he watches her eyes close. He's kissing her. And after a moment she's kissing him back. Why is he kissing her? He feels her tongue tracing his lower lip and jerks his head away from her, though his hands remain on her hips.

They stare at each other in shock, in anger, in something else that Adam's not willing to acknowledge before Jordan lifts onto her tiptoes to reach his lips with hers again. He reciprocates almost immediately, as though it's an automatic response, and his grip on her hips tightens.

This time he allows her tongue to slip into his mouth, a small groan escaping him when the taste of her hits him and all at once it's too much. She's too close, pressed against him too hard. She feels too good in his hands, tastes too good in his mouth, and his mind is becoming far more clouded with thoughts of her than he is happy with.

He pulls away again, straightening up to his full height and jerking his hands off of her hips as hers fall from his face and hang loosely at her sides.

"Adam-"

"It’s dark. We should be getting back to the others,” he cuts her off before she can say anymore, his gaze lingering on her for a split second before he turns and walks away from her.

He hears only silence behind him and resists the urge to turn and ensure that she is alright, but breathes a small sigh of relief when he hears her slowly but surely start to follow him back.

Well. That did not go at all according to plan.

--

tags (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @admdmrtn @masonsfangs @oxjenayxo @mmerengue @agentsunshine @bravomckenzie @freckles-spangledvampire @mistyeyedbi @kelseaaa @ambrosykim @amlovelies @forestcreatures @maraudern05 @kat-tia801 @alyssalauren @vintage-vamp @adamdumorpain @zevorah

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Worth It

Pairings: Dousy, background Pepperony, FitzSimmons, Philinda, Mackelana, and Huntingbird  

Word Count: 2.8K

Warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of gun use, mentions of ptsd, light swearing

a/n: Here’s my soulmate au for day 6 of @aosficnet2 ‘s AoS AU August! It’s got Modern Man!Daniel Sousa based on Enver’s appearance as a police officer in The Avengers. 

___

Daisy “Quake” Johnson - Inhuman, hacker, Agent of SHIELD, and now she could add “Avenger” to her list of descriptors. The agent hadn’t been entirely surprised when she’d received an impromptu meeting with Director Nick Fury about her powers. At the time he had told her he was putting together a team, a group of people with super-human abilities that would work together to defend the world if the threat arose. She had signed on, she was already a SHIELD agent and she’d had plenty of training with her ability from her mom growing up at Afterlife, but she never met the team. Well, until about 24 hours ago. They were a bit of a nightmare (a complete shitshow if she was being blunt), none of them had worked together before so it was no surprise that they were butting heads. Daisy got along just fine with Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow as the two of them had crossed paths from time to time within SHIELD, but she couldn’t say the same for scientist Bruce Banner (the Hulk), billionaire Tony Stark (Iron Man), or the first-ever superhero Steve Rogers (Captain America). Of course, now they were also dealing with a Norse god of thunder who was supposedly good and his brother who was apparently bad. Thor, Stark, and Rogers: three massive egos in one aircraft. 

Judging by the footage they were streaming from the museum Loki was more than just bad. Daisy had always been wary of powers, her mom had taught her that. Power was extremely dangerous when put in the wrong hands, that’s why Afterlife was so selective in choosing who got to go through terrigenesis. Loki was clearly the wrong hands and even though she really hated the men she was surrounded with, if they were the world’s only hope then she’d put up with them. 

“So you expect me to believe there is life on other planets?” 

Daisy sighed, trying not to get too frustrated. The man had been in the ice for seventy years, he missed a lot and probably had no reason to expect that “aliens” existed. Of course, she had known the truth since she was a child: not only was it highly probable that life existed elsewhere in the galaxy, but she was part-alien herself. Of course, no one else knew that. Inhumans were a secret from the rest of the world and it would need to stay that way. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Seismic Activity, did you know that already?” Stark asked sarcastically, raising a brow at her and she rolled her eyes. 

“It’s Quake, actually, and yeah, I knew that, statistically, it was highly probable that alien life exists,” she bit back, glaring at the man, “Just about everyone in this century knows that.” 

“Agent Johnson if you have some sort of issue with when I was born then you should just come out and say it,” Cap said, a frown on his face as he sat up in his chair. 

“Look, I couldn’t give two shits whether you were born yesterday or a thousand years ago, I just don’t think we really have time to be debating extraterrestrial life right now,” Daisy said, fighting the urge to roll her eyes again as she gestured to the holoscreen displaying Loki’s cell.  

“She’s right, gear up.” Director Fury said. Daisy wasn’t sure when he had entered but she was glad he was taking her side. “We’re under attack.” 

Daisy nodded, rushing out of the room to find her gauntlets and her weapons. It wasn’t a great idea to quake on a giant helicarrier so she’d probably be fighting old school. 

“Woah, what the hell is that Johnson?” Natasha Romanoff was sneakier than Fury and Daisy hadn’t even known she was in the room until her wrist was tightly in the woman’s grasp. 

She sighed, tugging her arm out of the redhead’s grip and slipping on her gauntlet to cover the writing. The marks weren’t uncommon, most of the world had them. They developed at age 16 and were usually the first words your soulmate said to you. However, not everyone got one or soulmates died and SHIELD specialized in utilizing the soulmark-less. That’s not to say there weren’t agents with soul marks in the organization, for ordinary agents SHIELD held a mostly don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Typically the only way to get into high-risk assignments like the Avengers was to prove the lack of a soulmate, but of course, the Avengers were less than typical. 

“They make exceptions for people with powers.” She brushed it off, slipping on her other gauntlet. 

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re connected to someone,” Natasha argued and Daisy huffed, turning away. 

“Stark’s got a mark, and he’s actually met his soulmate. If something happens to me mine’ll never know what they missed.” 

Daisy quickly slid her various knives and guns into place in their holsters before leaving, effectively putting an end to one of the worst conversations she’d had in a while. She didn’t need the Black Widow to guilt-trip her, she had herself for that. She’d heard the stories about the pain people felt when their soulmate died and it often kept her up at night, but right now she had a job to do and she’d be damned if she sacrificed the world for one person she hadn’t even met. 

Of course, her dedication to the cause hadn’t mattered much, she still wound up on the floor of the helicarrier with Phil Coulson bleeding out. She didn’t know the man super well, but he was usually the agent present whenever an 0-8-4 was discovered and since Daisy was something of an 0-8-4 herself, they crossed paths pretty frequently. She knew he was an upstanding and kind man, she knew he was a good agent, and she knew he didn’t deserve to die like this. 

It wasn’t long until Fury came and swept him away and Hill ushered her back into the briefing room where some of the others were gathered. They all looked worse for wear and apparently they were about ready to give up. The Hulk was gone, Loki had jettisoned Thor from the airship, and he has the tesseract and would likely be taking over earth shortly. Daisy couldn’t believe it. 

“I just watched several good agents die, and you want to throw in the towel? Do you have any respect for yourselves?” She questioned, glaring at Rogers and Stark. 

She stormed out when she was met with silence, passing Fury in the hallway. She wanted desperately to change out of her skintight Quake suit and get cleaned up, but she wasn’t ready to give up the fight yet, opting instead to unzip the top half, tying the sleeves around her waist. She wandered around the ship like that, her sports bra the only thing covering her torso, before finding herself on the top deck, leaning over a railing. 

“Have you met them yet?” 

Daisy turned to see Rogers gesturing to her wrist where the words “Who the hell are you?” were written in a neat script. 

“Nah,” she shook her head, barely concealing her disappointment with a smile. 

“You’ll find them eventually, or they’ll find you.” He gave her a tight-lipped smile.

“Thanks for not berating me for risking my life while my soulmate is out there somewhere.” 

“Hey, I hid my makr to join a highly experimental drug trial and enlist in World War Two so I don’t have much room for judgment.” He joked and Daisy laughed, feeling a little better.

___

Daniel Sousa had been sure this would be another day at the station as he slipped his uniform over his shoulders, covering the soulmark on the back of his shoulder. Soulmarks appeared when a person turned 16, appearing at the place where their soulmate would first come in contact with them. The combination of the location of his mark and the words (“Probably your only chance at survival now let me go”) had always been a mystery to him though he hoped he would solve it soon. 

He took the subway to the station, just like he did every morning. Daniel was a police officer for the 99th precinct in NYC which was about a fifteen-minute subway ride away from his apartment. Despite its obvious flaws (thanks MTA), he liked taking the subway - it was more environmentally friendly than driving himself, it was much faster than trying to make it through New York traffic or walk (though sometimes he did walk when it was nice and his leg wasn’t bugging him as much), and the crowds increased the probability that he’d come across his soulmate. 

She wasn’t on the subway today again and so Daniel resigned himself to daydreams of how they might meet. He hoped it would be romantic, that she’d bump into him accidentally (it was the best way he could explain the back of his shoulder), maybe he’d catch her as she tripped over him and they’d lock eyes and she’d take his breath away. He pushed away the fears that she would be freaked out by his prosthetic or the fact that her words on his shoulder didn’t fit that scenario at all. He wanted their meeting to be perfect for her. 

He was ripped away from his thoughts by his partner, Jack Thompson, telling him they had to go check out a call downtown. There weren’t any detectives involved so it likely wasn’t anything serious- probably a noise complaint or something equally mundane.

Daniel had been right, the call was a typical noise complaint, easily solved and probably ignored as soon as they left the building (Jack bet they’d be back in 24 hours, Daniel gave it 32). However, he never could’ve guessed that when they went to climb back into the squad car a portal would open up in the sky and a bunch of space creatures would attack earth. Thompson grabbed the radio to inform the station of the situation. It took a few minutes of convincing (he didn’t blame them, he only believed it because he was seeing it) and a few more to figure out what to do (there really isn’t an official protocol for Hostile Alien Invasion) before they were told to stay put and that backup was on the way. 

Daniel reached for his gun, steeling himself for the fight he was sure he was about to be involved in. An alien invasion would be a really bad time for his crippling ptsd. Still, he was sure his hand would shake if he had to actually lift his gun, his finger would hesitate on the trigger, he’d have to fight to keep his eyes open because if he closed them all he’d see was Afghanistan. 

“Sousa you with me?” Thompson asked, snapping him from his thoughts. 

He nodded, letting out a shaky breath, when had he stopped breathing? 

Thompson nodded, more to himself than to Daniel, “Good, cause we’re going to get through this.” 

___

If she had been really thinking at all, she might’ve wondered if she was having an out-of-body experience as she moved through the streets of Manhattan with the purpose of a woman on a mission. The Avengers were scattered across the borough trying to fight the Chitauri with mixed success. It seemed like no matter how many they blasted, quaked, shot, or struck with lightning more kept coming through the portal. Daisy was taking out as many of the aliens as she could while trying to command the local police forces- badges or not, they were purely human and severely underprepared to fight this threat. Their services were more equipped to evacuate and protect the civilians. 

She hadn’t been paying attention when she knocked into someone’s shoulder. It was a police officer, she noticed, though where most of the officers she’d seen seemed ready to take on the Chitauri head-on, he looked terrified. 

“Who the hell are you?” The man questioned, quickly grabbing her wrist before she could run off. 

“Probably your only chance at survival now let me go.” Daisy bit back angrily and the man gasped, dropping her arm and backing away like she had burned him. 

“You’re- we’re-” The man stuttered and even though he could’ve been about to say anything (maybe “you’re Quake!” or “We’re gonna die!”) Daisy knew exactly what he meant. She knew from the burning sensation on the wrist he had been holding. He was her soulmate. 

“Oh my god, I don’t have time for this!” Daisy yelled angrily, quaking the alien that had appeared behind the man. 

She silently cursed fate or destiny or whatever was behind this for planning her soulmate meeting during a literal alien invasion. 

“Listen, I need you to leave the frontlines- spread the word: all officers are to evacuate as many civilians as possible. Focus on protecting them.” She ordered making an effort to put the world-altering event before the life-altering event she had accidentally just stumbled upon. 

“Who’s going to be there to fight?” 

Daisy quaked another approaching Chitauri soldier. “Leave that to the people with powers.” 

The officer nodded mutely, seemingly stunned into silence. 

“Sousa!” Another officer called out, “Quit chatting we have a job to do!” 

The dark-haired officer, her soulmate, nodded to the man and started to move away. 

“Officer Sousa!” Daisy called, taking steps backward herself, “Maybe we can get some coffee when this is all done?” 

“Sure but how’ll I find you?” He asked, turning back to stare at her hopefully. 

Daisy’s steps were picking up speed, the urgency of the day not lost on her. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll find you!” 

And with that she was off, turning on her heels and sprinting towards Stark Tower. 

___

Daisy stared at the computer monitor in front of her. It had been a few days since the Chitauri attack and while New York and her mental state was still a disaster, she needed to do this. The file she had found in SHIELD’s database was a welcome distraction, as was the handsome face staring back at her from the screen. 

Daniel Jordan Sousa. Born 1984 in Twin Falls, Idaho. Served one tour in Afghanistan before being discharged due to an injury resulting in the amputation of his left leg. 

She scrolled down to the contact information. 

Cellphone: (xxx)xxx-xxxx 

Bingo. 

Daisy: Hi, it’s Daisy Johnson, your soulmate? I was wondering if we could get that coffee?

She was surprised by how quickly he responded. 

Daniel: I’d love to! 

Daniel: btw how did you get my number? 

Daisy: It’s a bit of a story, mind if I tell you over that coffee?

Daniel: does 1:00 work? Maybe we could grab a bite to eat while we’re at it?

Daisy smiled before checking the time, 11 o’clock. She had two hours to get ready. 

Daisy: 1:00 sounds great. I know a cute place off 12th ave 

___

Daniel had no intention of pulling his soulmate from the field, he knew it was where she wanted to be and he’d never dream of taking it from her. However, he’d be damned if he wasn’t out there to watch her back. So, he joined SHIELD not long after they met. Despite his prosthetic, he climbed the ranks relatively quickly though Daisy wasn’t surprised. She had seen his record both in the military and the police force, Daniel Sousa was a damn fine agent. 

The two weren’t in any hurry relationship-wise. They had moved in together fairly quickly but even two years later they had yet to get engaged. It was a bit of an anomaly - soulmates were usually hitched within a year of meeting each other but Daisy didn’t really hold much stock in a piece of paper declaring their relationship valid and Daniel decided he really didn’t need that paper either as long as he still had Daisy. Besides, with their separate jobs at SHIELD, they didn’t really have much time to plan engagements or weddings. 

In 2014 the pair were recruited to an elite team by Phil Coulson, the man Daisy could’ve sworn had died in her arms, the man the Avengers were told had died. She had shaken her head at Fury when she found out. “You manipulative son of a bitch,” she had said though she had meant it fondly. Who knows what would’ve happened when the Chitauri invaded if he hadn’t done what he had. 

Daisy and Daniel joined scientist duo and soulmates Jemma Simmons and Leopold Fitz as well as Coulson’s soulmate Melinda May on the Bus, a giant plane Fury had given Coulson as reparations for his death. The team had its bumps in its initial missions but they quickly became a tightly knit family that only grew when Coulson took over as Director of SHIELD after the Hydra takeover. 

When Daniel finally proposed Jemma had been her maid of honor and Bobbi and Elena had been her bridesmaids. Likewise, Fitz had been Daniel’s best man and Mack and Hunter had filled out the rest of the groomsmen roles. It had been a small but beautiful wedding, Daisy’s mom had allowed them to have the ceremony at Afterlife and Coulson and May had been their officiants. 

Daisy had cursed fate when they met, but looking back she realized it was all worth it for this. 

___

a/n: I had no idea how to end this. Also, I have no clue where the 99th precinct operates in NYC (if it even exists) I just wanted to make a Brooklyn 99 reference. Though I’m realizing belatedly that B99 takes place in Brooklyn and probably doesn’t operate in manhattan but oh well.  

[black-kitten-imagines]

An unforeseen rescue ~ Aramis x reader

Picture not mine

Word count: 1,593

Warnings: some violence, but what else would you expect of a Musketeer fanfiction

Summary: The four musketeers are enjoying their day off when d’Artagnan is attacked by a stranger.

The square was bustling with people going along their business. There were a few older ladies sitting under a tree weaving baskets while keeping an eye on what their grandchildren were doing. There were a few scavenging dogs here and there trying to steal some scraps while dodging the boots of angry vendors. The four musketeers Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d’Artagnan were standing at the edge of the square under the arches that protected the walkway from wind and weather. Aramis was leaning against one of the stone pillars while the rest of the group stood near by.

The four of them were enjoying the peacefully normal everyday life of the people around them as they took a short break from their duties. On days like this with the sun shining through the luscious green leaves of the trees and when the chirping of the birds and the happy chattering of the people passing by were the only noises to be heard, everything seemed so peaceful, no violence, no danger, no one plotting against the king and queen – it all seemed so far away.

Over the crowd the more spiritual one of the group noticed a stranger coming towards them. He was wearing worn out pants, a shirt and brown leather boots. A scabbard and rapier hung at his side and his face was concealed by the hood of a cloak. Aramis had no doubt that the armed stranger was coming straight towards them.

Just as he pushed himself off of the pillar to warn his friends the stranger raised his voice. “Hey, you!”, he directed it at d’Artagnan. This startled the young man from the peaceful idyll he was captured by, making him send a surprised look the direction of the approaching person. Having his attention the stranger shouted: “Yeah you, musketeer scum!”  There was a slight grin detectable in the person’s voice. The words shocked the older musketeers and angered the young impulsive hothead.

Walking towards them the stranger’s rapier was pulled and immediately connected with d’Artagnan’s weapon. The clashing of metal on metal disrupted the tranquility of the afternoon. While blow after blow followed the other three wondered what their companion could’ve done to attract this person’s anger. The two fighters were almost dancing that elegant were their movements. Both of them seemed to be equal until suddenly d’Artagnan landed on the ground defeated, the opponent’s blade at his throat.

Just as the others wanted to step in, the attacker who had kept his hood on during the whole fight pulled it of only to reveal a woman underneath it. This made the older musketeers halt in their steps and a smile of recognition spread onto d’Artagnan’s face.

“(Y/n)!”, he shouted out full of surprise. “Hey there, farm boy!”, the girl said with a grin as d’Artagnan stood back up again. “How come you’re here?”, he asked and engulfed her in a tight hug. “You owed me a fight.” At that response the young man had to chuckle. “You improved”, he stated impressed. “Well, after you left I had a lot of free time on my hands”, (Y/n) said cheerfully.

Suddenly d’Artagnan grew serious pushing the girl away from him so he could look at her properly. “What’s with your dad? Does he know you’re here? He’ll be furious.” Being friends with her for such a long time d’Artagnan knew how her father hated it when (Y/n) went out on adventures, when she wasn’t the good little girl staying on the premises of their farm and how violent he could become.

Unlike d’Artagnan (Y/n) didn’t seem scared at the thought of her father. The happiness and cheerfulness didn’t disappear from her voice when she responded, a glint of relief in her eyes. “My old man finally cut the curb and now I’m a free woman!” As those last words left her mouth she turned high-spirited in a circle her arms wide spread as if she were trying to hug everything around her. “No family to bind me to that horribly boring place. And of course I had to come and see you”, she concluded which ended up in the two of them hugging again.

During the whole conversation the three other musketeers watched carefully. They still had no clue of what was going on. That was when the youngest musketeer brought (Y/n) over to introduce her.

“Guys, this is (Y/n) a childhood friend of mine from Gascony. (Y/n), these are my comrades Athos, Porthos and Aramis.” One after the other they bowed slightly. Being the romantic hero type Aramis of course had to be flamboyant by taking her hand in his, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles which made her blush.

Never had a man paid this sort of attention to (Y/n). Back in Gascony they all thought she was weird as (Y/n) knew how to fight and didn’t behave like the typical woman should and therefore they kept their distance. (Y/n) never cared about those boys back home but this man in front of her made her heart skip a beat.

Aramis was just as infatuated by her as she was with him. In his eyes she was the most beautiful and confident woman he had ever seen and he was impressed by her fighting skills.

“So (Y/n)”, d’Artagnan said turning back to his friend, “what are your plans for your stay in Paris?” Nervously chuckling and scratching the back of her neck the girl looked up at him. “Other than never wanting to leave ever again I don’t really have any. I still have to find a place to sleep.” “You want to stay in Paris?”, d’Artagnan asked surprised. “Yeah, I love it here, all the people, the action. And also... I... I kinda sold off the farm”, she replied embarrassed. “You did what?!. You sold the farm without even having any plan for the future, no place to stay?!” The girl looked away embarrassed.

“Hey, hey, we can see if you can spend a few nights at the garrison”, Aramis jumped in to spare (Y/n) from d’Artagnan’s anger. At the proposition the (e/c) eyes of the girl lit up in hope. D’Artagnan sighed. “Ok, but we have to go check something out. You stay here and afterwards I can maybe show you around Paris.”

“D’Artagnan you can’t just leave me here. It’s so boring. I want to come with you. Come on. Please?”, (Y/n) begged her finger itching for adventure, “you saw that I can take care of myself.” D’Artagnan didn’t like the idea of taking her with them but he couldn’t say ‘no’ to her pleading eyes and he knew she was far too stubborn to talk her out of this. So sighing he agreed causing the girl to jump up ecstatically.

When the five of them reached the old, vacant tavern where they were supposed to meet a merchant to seal a deal it was suspiciously empty. The musketeers immediately knew something was off. Turning to leave again they stopped in their tracks as unnoticed by them quite a handful of heavily armed men had entered the room add started to circle them.

An ambush.

The strangers’ weapons were already drawn. In response five more blades were unsheathed. Without a word spoken the ambushers attacked. There were far more men sent by the merchant than Aramis and his companions, so each of them had to take on multiple attackers.

Aramis regretted that he had led (Y/n) into this danger by not refusing to take her, but his mind wasn’t occupied by this thought for too long as two of the enemies charged towards him.

Slowly but surely one man after the other fell to the floor hardly standing a chance to the well trained musketeers. Even (Y/n) was able to stand her ground.

Once in a while one of the attackers’ blows would hit their target but luckily only causing some bruises through the armour or some minor cuts.

Just as they had thought they nearly made it another mad appeared out of nowhere the blade of the weapon heading straight for the charming musketeer’s chest. Aramis saw this coming but couldn’t do anything about it as he had his hands full with keeping two other men at arms length.

Luckily, he wasn’t the only one who noticed the appearance of this new man. Their new found companion had as well. Scared for the life of the attractive man fighting next to her, her swings grew more violent and she finally stuck her last opponent to the ground.

As soon as she had rid herself of him she ran over to Aramis just in time preventing him from being seriously injured by burrowing her blade into the back of the attacker which resulted in him dropping to the floor.

In the meantime the other four musketeers had rid themselves of the remaining rivals.

“Thanks, for saving my life”, Aramis said a little out of breath. “You’re welcome, handsome”, (Y/n) replied winking cheekily.

Since that fateful and very eventful day a few weeks had passed. Treville had allowed (Y/n) to stay at the musketeer garrison as long as she liked as a way to show her his gratitude for saving one of his most loyal men. The girl didn’t plan on leaving any time soon. She enjoyed spending time with the musketeers and aiding them on their missions. And once in a while she and Aramis would sneak off spending the afternoon off, away from the city on rides in the country enjoying the tranquility.

[spellnbone]

Dell [41] - Traveller [Magi Colegio, Mexico] Rigby [31] - Editor for Lore&Lore, Hogwarts Textbook Publishing Company     -- (currently on a pre-paternity break) [Hufflepuff] Edgar [28] - Columnist for the Daily Prophet [Ravenclaw] Amelia [28] - Barrista at the Wizengamot [Hufflepuff] Colter [25] - Dragon Researcher and Reserve Ranger, Russia [Hufflepuff]

Growing up in the roaring twenties and raising herself to be a firework of a woman in the thirties, Laura Bones never wanted children. Had there been day-cares in the south of Wizarding England, perhaps she would’ve considered it, but as it was, children were but something she thought would tie her down. She wanted to travel and explore as many cultures as possible, so when a new friend, Jorge Centello, invited her to come explore the Wizarding Americas with him, she had no doubts.

Gone they were, for two entire years, and eventually friendship changed into passion and by her 19th birthday the young Witch had to declare to her parents that she was pregnant. An accident, perhaps, but she was too proud of a person to say it was anything less than on purpose, and to prove it, she married Jorge -- under the condition he took her maiden name because “do you know who the Bones are?! You’d honestly want me to take that away from me?!” He didn’t want to, and, in fact, took her name. A promise that, well, perhaps the child was an accident, but he was committed. Wild as she was, he had long given up on denying how he felt about her, and firmly believed that if he could spend the rest of his life with her, it would be a happy life.

Jorge was fiery himself, but more like a steadily burning camp fire than whatever explosion Laura appeared to be. Brave and unwavering as he was, he didn’t fear the judgement of the much stricter Wizarding Society of England, telling her again and again, even in his unbreakable vows at their wedding, that as long as they were together, no amount of rain could dowse his flame.

So, Dell was born. The young family remained unstationary as they had before, travelling the Americas until it was time for Dell’s magical schooling (age 13-19), for which they returned to Jorge’s hometown in Mexico. With his grandparents there, it didn’t matter that Laura kept travelling for months on end, returning mostly for birthdays and holidays like a child at boarding school. But she was not a neglectful mother. She taught her son all she thought important about the world, taught him about his family in England and the high sense of justice they fostered. And, being so far away from them, Dell took great pride in them. A pride akin to a niche interest, the way one is interested in certain periods of history, or dinosaurs.

Dignified like his grandparents -- who didn’t have much, but who carried the kind honour the way only humble people know how -- he put a lot of emphasis on making his family proud. Aware of his precious, bicultural heritage, he was open-minded in situations where others would be more tight-lipped, always hoping to do his name justice. He wanted to be an exemplary Bones, succeeding easily. He was well-loved at school and studied hard, which earned him a traineeship position at Gringotts in London after his graduation. Why England despite speaking English as brokenly as his father? Well, partly because he finally wanted to see all the things his mother always told him about for himself, and partly because he wanted to show off in England what admirable off-spring the Bones had produced.

The reason why Laura agreed to follow a year later? Well. Ten years ago, another such accident as Dell had happened... By the time Dell was off to England, little Rigby was almost old enough for his letter from Hogwarts, and Jorge thought perhaps it was his time to struggle with helping with his son’s homeworks, instead of his wife. Laura agreed, though her reasoning was simpler. Less pragmatic. Less humorous. The truth was, when she looked into her little boy’s eyes for the first time, those big blue orbs like her mother’s which no other Bones-Centello has, she was overcome by the strongest, deepest and most earnest feeling a person can have, a feeling which Jorge had already felt many years prior when he had first seen Laura and which had only grown with every day he had given Dell a big, long hug: loyalty. Loyalty to family. Loyalty to a need of togetherness. Loyalty to a creation of ‘home’.

It made her miss her own parents, made her miss seeing the same people every day, made her miss looking at a pile of bricks and think “this is my house, this is not just where I sleep, this is where I live.” A big, happy family, all gathered in one place, this was what she wanted. So off they went.

Rigby, who had seen Dell go through his school-career with stellar grades, wanted nothing more than to be like him. He adored his big brother. Worshipped him, really. Always followed him everywhere. All the “why?” questions typical for children his age were directed at Dell, not his parents or grandparents. Everything Dell had, he wanted to have, too. Everything Dell was, he wanted to be, too. There was a joke going around the Centellos, that his eyes were only so big so they could see all of Dell at all times, and only so blue because Dell’s school uniform was blue, like the sky and ocean sharing each other’s light and colour. In his private schooling he was studious -- because of Dell. In social situations he was attentive and friendly -- because of Dell. His clothes were always neat and clean -- because of Dell. So naturally he was devastated when Dell moved away. He tried to hide himself in his suitcase! And in return how happy he was when his mother finally agreed that they’d all move to England!

But oh dear. The shock that awaited him there... Dell met them at the Port Key and they found that their good little boy had turned into, well, into a hippie. Long hair, no shoes, and strong convictions on his lips. Whatever he had expected England to be, it had bitterly disappointed him. He had been horrified by the strict structures of the Wizarding Society there, the conservatism, the purebloodism, the way half-breeds and magical creatures were treated, everything! He had promptly quitted his job and joined a few travelling magi, and by the time his family had followed him, he had turned into the Dell we know today. And the first thing he told them as they arrived in the old House of Bones he had always dreamed to live in once, was: “I reject the heritage, by the way. I don’t want to own money that has been used to oppress the unfortunate.” In fact, he declared that all money was bad and that he’d be travelling some more now, dismantling all of society’s norms until everyone had accepted Diogenes’ teachings as their one truth.

Needless to say that his mother was incredibly proud of him and had Jorge pack a lunch for him. He’s always welcome to come back home, and whenever he does, for birthdays and the holidays, just like Laura used to do it, he explains how he denies social norms to have an effect on him through personal actions, such as helping others for no rewards, rejecting monogamous relationship structures or negative opinions on ‘bad habits’, and wearing dresses and wearing lipstick beneath his bushy beard. Every year for Yule, he comes back with more strange concepts, and every year his family gathers around and listens attentively, though never entirely capable of distinguishing his jokes from his serious suggestions.

But before all the family could adjust and grow fond of the Bones gene showing itself once again, Rigby’s little heart had to break. Seeing his brother like this, so ... different from how he remembered him? It upset him terribly. Perhaps the first time a Bones has ever disapproved of another family member’s weirdness. But you see, it wasn’t logical. It was something deep within Rigby that was shaken and, in a way, awoken. Until now, his personality had been this idea he had had of his brother. But if his brother wasn’t Dell anymore (no calculated smile left, no gender left, no shoes left), then who was Rigby?

His first two years at Hogwarts he tried his best to uphold who he thought he’d been. Perhaps to prove himself that one couldn’t just be so wrong about one’s identity. But the more aggressively he studied, the more care he took in what others thought of him, the less ... happy he was. And when his younger siblings, the twins, joined him at school, he became more and more aggravated by the day to see them taking ‘who they were’ so easily. Amelia just bursting with ideas and love to give, and Edgar floating through the halls as though he thought himself a ghost, untouchable by others anyway. Between who he was and who he wanted to be grew a chasm. A chasm only one person could allow him to cross and help him to explore: Dell.

For Rigby’s thirteenth birthday, Dell took his brother aside. The talk lasted all night. It went from the Bones’ family history and values, over fears and love and imagination, to how no one could and should tell you what is ‘right’ but the unfilled cavities of your own heart. Rigby cried a lot that night. It’s not always easy to quite detect where the thorn sits, but with a bit of luck, patience and acceptance, water washes out the wound.

Rigby never became as wild as any of his siblings. He might’ve given up to put such weight on scholastic achievements but he never quit caring for proper attires or quoting particularly charming passages from his favourite books at the prettiest boys he could find. His sense of justice, different than Dell’s, is a private one. It’s not the world he wishes to flip off, just all the factors that could influence who he is. Dell doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him, but Rigby very much does. He needs people to understand who he is, to accept him fully and to not ask him to cut himself down. Not society needs to strip itself off all judgement, but every person needs to see what is truly within them, and accept it. That is what he wants.

Naturally, his family agrees, and when he finally introduced them the -- by then (in)famous long-term -- boyfriend (and his former boss at work) he had always carefully shielded from the weirdness of his family, saying that they’d not only exchange vows next Summer but also planned on adopting a child, everyone was more than elated. Until they realised that this meant by the terms of the tradition, the heritage would therefore not be able to go to him either. He could’ve gotten a wife and have a child with her for good measure, even left her afterwards, but Rigby refused to because of his integrity to who he was. And because no one wanted to fight with him about it, all eyes went to Amelia, fifteen at that time. With a gasp she pointed at Edgar: “He’s five minutes older!” who had long realised what was going to happen and was intently hiding behind his book.

Amelia and Edgar had never any doubts about who they were. Perhaps because right from the very beginning, they always knew that they were each other’s other half. One right-handed, the other left-handed, they were able to do most anything while keeping their fingers locked, not mirroring each other -- never mirroring each other! -- they were more all the assembled parts that the other didn’t have. What one was brilliant at, the other failed, what scared one, intrigued the other, and yet their laugh had the same melody, chiming in unison as though a well-rehearsed song. At the age of eight, after leaving Mexico, where they had shared a small room, their parents could finally offer them each their own bedroom, but Amelia’s was barely ever used. Yes, they were tucked into their own beds every night, with both parents telling them a story each to make sure they’d actually fall asleep, but before the clock would strike midnight, Amelia would be hiding under Edgar’s blanket.

Thus it came, that after their first night at Hogwarts -- which both had anticipated greatly! -- they stomped into Professor Dumbledore’s office demanding another try with the Sorting Hat. By the time Rigby renounced the heritage, they had almost peaked in their independence. Like Dumbledore told them that night: them being apart had not washed soft all the perfect little puzzle-locks that had made them fit beforehand -- like glass in the ocean -- but actually created more of those edges which only the other could fit in. Returning to each other over the holidays was never difficult, but they no longer required each other to feel like a full person. The first year at Hogwarts, Edgar had tickled the pears every night, meeting Amelia on the couch in the Hufflepuff Common Room to find sleep in her arms there, the second it had been mostly every day except the few ones where they were too tired and slept through the night, the third it was mostly when they didn’t have to wake up early the next day, the fourth mostly on weekends and special occasions, and by their fifth year, it happened so rarely that Edgar had to explicitly tell the resident Hufflepuffs who he was when he entered the Common Room because they were no longer used to seeing him there.

During their sixth and seventh year of Hogwarts, Amelia stood in constant correspondence with Rigby. She had always been very close with him, trying to comfort him when Dell had left Mexico, trying to lose him up in his dark times before he turned thirteen, and trying to cheer him up when his OWLs had turned out even worse than expected. They clashed, too, being no less impulsive than the other, but when it came to it, when it was important, she was always there for him. Feeling no less awful than him whenever he struggled, crying with him whenever he worked through a heart-break, and staying up many long nights with him in the Common Room just talking about this and that. Both of them demanded to be their true selves, to not be disciplined or caged in for their needs and wishes, and this brought them closer. As Rigby grew more and more confident in who he was, Amelia grew proud of him, defending him whenever someone even dared mumbling something bad about him.

On the other hand, Edgar’s Eurasian Eagle-Owl Maxwell fluttered in at least weekly with a new letter from Dell. Knowing Dell, one could easily imagine that Edgar was heavily influenced by his principles and philosophies, but the truth was that Dell’s convictions were rooted in the factual problems one could pin point with a finger. He’s the kind of person to raise his voice when he gets heated about a topic he cares about, to accuse those who don’t live by their words with harsh insults, to actually goes through with what he preaches. Edgar on the other hand had always been soft-spoken and more passively curious about the world. When he speaks of what he’s learnt, he doesn’t offer advice, he doesn’t have unchangeable opinions or ever thinks himself more right than the kind person before him. But learning of Dell’s adventures was learning of the world out there, and that was why they wrote so many letters. And Dell? Well, Dell did patiently answer all of his brother’s questions and lectured gently through the parchment, but in truth, he too learnt from his brother open-minded way to view the universe, always surprised by what he found in those letters in the end.

Perhaps Amelia and Edgar would’ve gone on to live fairly separate lives, unwavered by what the other was doing whatsoever, forever. At first it seemed to work. Amelia went to study and do her traineeship at the Ministry, while Edgar went to travel around with Dell for a few months, then alone. They barely saw each other during that time. Loving each other still, yes, but no longer needing each other as desperately. Sometimes they joked about it. That they were grown up now. That they had done as Dumbledore had told them they would: become their own, full person. And then came the war. The Order. The first deaths. The intrusive thoughts, whispering doubt into this head that had always seemed sure of itself all these years. And Edgar found himself in Amelia’s arms again. She too saw the world changing, knowing of her twin’s secret only a few nights after the Order had sworn him in already, and she knew that whatever had happened -- they never spoke of the Order -- it had hurt him terribly. Therefore it hurt her too. By the age of twenty, they were as co-dependent as they had been with eleven. Child-like, clinging to each other, seeking each other’s warmth, feeling incomplete without the other there.

At age fifteen, when the heritage was rewritten in Edgar’s name, to be received after his marriage upon his first child’s birth, it mostly seemed like an awkward topic to talk about for him. But now? Now, at age twenty-eight with multiple failed, long-term relationships and death following his every step? While he does long for a peaceful family life, he doubts it’ll come soon. He is too anxious, he’d be distant, he’d not be able to commit to love someone he could so easily lose. Who could lose him even more easily. So his gaze goes to Amelia again, the same way it did when they were fifteen. But now his gaze goes to her because in theory she’s the one who lives the secure life, the one who could be a safety-bringing mother to her child. And his gaze goes to her because -- and no, he’d never admit it -- the idea of Amelia finding someone more important than him, makes him sick to his stomach...

Amelia wants Edgar to find someone to love that way, and she’s certain that it’ll happen for him eventually. But as unspoken as he is about it, they know they feel the same about it all. The idea he might love someone more than her terrifies her. She had a few relationships as well but the love never felt as deep, as palpable, as important as Edgar’s love, and sooner or later she’d sabotage it -- consciously as well as subconsciously --, make the other break up with her so she didn’t have to break their heart. So if he were to leave her, she’s certain she’d have no one left.

They could reject the Bones’ heritage as well. The family book into which the traditional vows are carved into and only ever need the names changed out, would probably sigh at their nonsense, but it wouldn’t refuse. These are the Bones we’re talking about, after all! When has a generation ever been easy? And as long as at least Laura Bones is alive, there’s no rush in inscribing the name into the vows just yet anyway. And who would receive the heritage then?

Colter. The youngest. The wildest. The most dangerous, courageous roaring lion that has ever lived. Being his father’s precious little treasure, he comes after him. When the Centello grandparents came to visit once, they said that Colter resembled Jorge so terribly, it was as though someone had turned the time thirty years back. And with every year he was surrounded by Gryffindors (he was a Hufflepuff but chose himself mostly Gryffindor friends), he became wilder and wilder. Amelia’s bratty influence certainly didn’t help. “Hey you go do this and see what mom says because you're the youngest and you can get away with it,” was her way to go about it, rather than acting like an older sibling. No sorrows seemed to weigh on Colter ever, no fears would ever affect his muscles, no injustice would ever pass his mind. He was the youngest and had it the easiest, never worrying about the future whatsoever. And so, when Edgar took him to the side one day and asked him how he’d feel about getting the heritage, he almost choked on a horrible laughing fit. Here he’d been, thinking to be left alone with all that traditional baggage, only to find his oldest brother a Cynic, his older brother queer as a 2/5th Knut and the twins too stupidly intense about each other to find another spouse.

He never said no, so that’s currently every Bones’ hope, but he did buy a one-way ticket as he left to tame dragons in northern Russia, so...

[yunaffie]

Shu Takumi interview

Several years ago, Official Nintendo Magazine UK (now no longer existent) had an interview with Shu Takumi and it was even on their website. Now their website is no longer around, but I did manage to find the interview on the Wayback Machine and I figured I’d repost it to make it easier to find, as well as give people who haven’t seen it yet the opportunity to do so.

    On the day that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies is released, Takumi talks to us about his best-loved series

Shu Takumi's most famous creation, Phoenix Wright, is famed for his 'turnabouts'. These whiplash-inducing twists of logic see him step into the unknown in order to seek his client's innocence; he's essentially a chancer, blagging his way to victory. Talk to Takumi, however, and you sense that he leaves nothing to fate. His stories are intricately plotted, his jokes laser-targeted and his heroes full-bodied personalities.

In a medium in which storytelling starts and ends with 'man hates thing, man shoots thing', Takumi is a rare exception to the rule. With his latest yarn, Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, on the horizon, Associate Editor Matthew Castle was lucky enough to cross-examine one of gaming's definitive voices.

Matthew Castle: Before we start, just for any readers who might not know who you are, could you tell us about your role at Capcom?

Shu Takumi: I'm a director, which means that I propose ideas for new titles, design the games, write the scenarios and direct the projects. In addition, I mutter complaints and, when the intense pressure of an impossible schedule finally gets to me, escape into a fantasy world of my own creation [laughs].

MC: Before developing Ace Attorney you worked on Dino Crisis. How does one go from dinosaur survival horror to virtual courtrooms?

ST: Dino Crisis was the brainchild of my then boss, Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami. Working on his projects taught me not only how to make games, but also how to think about them. After Dino Crisis 2 wrapped, Mr Mikami gave me six months in which to create any kind of game I wanted.

I was still pretty wet behind the ears, but as I'd originally joined Capcom with a desire to create mystery and adventure games, this was a huge chance for me to make my mark as a creator. In the end it took a team of seven 10 months to produce the first GBA Ace Attorney title. Having the freedom to create exactly the kind of game I wanted was amazing and it was a real pleasure to work on that project.

MC: Can you remember when the idea of Ace Attorney first came to you? How did your bosses respond to the idea of a lawyer-based adventure game when you first described it to them?

ST: It was in 2000 when Mr Mikami said I could make my own game and my original idea was a fairly typical adventure with a detective as the main character. Most mystery adventures have the player choose from a number of different dialogue options for their character in order to progress the story, but I wanted a new gameplay style that enabled players to deduce for themselves what was happening, rather than just selecting canned responses. I developed this into the concept of facing off against the suspect in a crime and exposing the contradictions in their statements.

I was sure my new idea would be a fun and original take on the genre, so I started to revise the main character, since a detective would be too traditional for such an original concept. I asked myself, "What kind of professional would face off against a suspect and expose their contradictory statements?" The answer, of course, was a lawyer and so the Ace Attorney concept was born.

Incidentally, I wrote the game design document at home during my summer holiday straight after Dino Crisis 2 finished. One day, I got a call from Mr Mikami. Despite having supposedly given me free rein to design whatever I wanted, he warned me off doing a game about courtroom trials!

MC: Ace Attorney paints the police and legal profession in a silly light. Have you ever had feedback from lawyers or policemen about your portrayal of them?

ST: A few years ago I had the opportunity to speak with some police detectives and they told me that their real-life investigations are nowhere near as absurd as those that were depicted in Ace Attorney. I thought to myself, "Well, I had sort-of guessed that already..."

I've never had feedback from any lawyers, but I imagine it would be the same. They'd tell me they don't scream out "Objection!" as vigorously as our characters and I'd think to myself, "Well, I had sort-of guessed that already..."

MC: Every Ace Attorney game is full of great characters, so when you wrote each sequel how did you decide which people to bring back?

ST: The first time a previously featured character returned in a later case was Larry Butz. Phoenix defended him on a murder charge in the very first case of the first game and he showed up later in the same game as a supporting character in the fourth case.

He wasn't originally planned to be a recurring character, however. The schedule for designing and drawing a new character for that case was so tight that there was a serious risk we wouldn't make it in time, so we decided to reuse an existing character simply to save time on asset creation. Thus, Larry made his encore appearance, which ended up being a well-received element of the first game's storyline, so from the second game onwards, we started bringing old characters back intentionally.

How we choose who to bring back is simple: it's usually either characters who are popular with fans, or those I am fond of [laughs].

MC: For all the madness, there's something traditional about the mysteries at the heart of Ace Attorney. Did you draw on any classic crime writers for inspiration?

ST: You could say that there is a mixture of the spilled blood of victims, the guilty tears of killers and the sweat of hard-working detectives flowing through my veins... To put it less graphically, from the time I came across the Sherlock Holmes series as a child, all the way through to my university days, I've been obsessed with reading classic murder mysteries. It's safe to say that Ace Attorney would not exist were it not for Perry Mason.

When writing the cases for the games I've found inspiration in the works of GK Chesterton, Ellery Queen and Anthony Berkeley, to name but a few. And I can't leave out that modern classic of the genre, Columbo.

MC: How hard is it to devise a juicy twist and to hide it from view? In storytelling you often want to obscure the details, but videogame design often requires clarity. Did you find it hard to rectify those two things?

ST: They say that it's harder to create a puzzle than to solve one and that's certainly proved to be the case in my experience. For the first game, with my lack of experience I found it less like a challenging task than a hobby with which I became obsessed.

You need to control the information presented in the game so that there is a single right answer for the player to deduce, but also weave in plenty of initial inconsistencies for them to uncover and our trademark 'turnabout' twists to confound their expectations. This is where reading all those mystery novels in my youth has really paid off.

MC: Having worked on four Ace Attorney games, how did it feel to step away and work on Ghost Trick? Were you nervous to leave that safety bubble?

ST: I first started working on the Ghost Trick concept in 2004, after the completion of the original GBA version of Ace Attorney 3. The third game was supposed to be the last one, but plans changed and I ended up working on the first DS Ace Attorney, which, as you know, was the first Ace Attorney title to be localised and released in the west. My next project after that was Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, so by the time I got around to finishing Ghost Trick it was 2010, six years after I first thought up the concept.

I certainly felt a lot of pressure when making Ghost Trick, as it was a brand new IP and I had just left the Ace Attorney series, but I was grateful for the chance to take on a new challenge.

MC: Ghost Trick featured some incredibly gruesome murder concepts - death by giant roast chicken is my favourite. From where did you draw inspiration for such a huge variety of deaths? Did any not make the cut?

ST: I feel that the most violent way of murdering someone is by directly shooting, stabbing or strangling them, so for Ghost Trick I wanted to have more indirect ways of killing someone, with a darkly comical, more symbolic feeling to them.

Combining this approach with the fact that the Nintendo DS screens are not the largest, or most high-resolution displays out there, it became important to make sure that whatever death we were presenting to the player was visually easy to comprehend. So being crushed to death by some giant object was a perfect fit for our requirements, whether it was under a big rock or a huge roast chicken.

As far as cut ideas, there was going to be a stage where the victim had been crushed by a huge safe that fell from the ceiling, but time restrictions meant the whole stage was cut. I do love having giant objects fall on people, don't I? That's probably the influence of Tom and Jerry on the young Shu Takumi showing through.

MC: More importantly, how did your team react as you presented these death ideas to them. Was anyone worried for your sanity?

ST: Yes, and not only that, but I also made it my goal to cause the team to worry for my sanity whenever I presented an idea, because if they were, it meant it was a good one. I would hear a little voice in my head saying, "You win!" at times like that. The more "You win!" moments one can have in life, the better.

MC: There were nods in Ghost Trick to Ace Attorney - Missile the dog, for example; a character who looked like Wright - do you see the two games as existing in the same universe?

ST: Those are really just coincidences: the guy who looks like Phoenix actually only has the same colour suit on and the dog is not the same breed as Missile, which, coincidentally, is the name of my pet Pomeranian.

Ghost Trick takes place in what is obviously a much more fantastical world than Ace Attorney. You may have noticed that the level backgrounds in Ghost Trick never have any kind of writing in them. This was an intentional design choice to prevent the game's setting from being identifiable as taking place in any particular country or era from the real world.

MC: Could you imagine an Ace Attorney/Ghost Trick crossover? Any deaths that we couldn't prevent by way of possession could then go to trial in a courtroom...

ST: ...or Phoenix Wright could be killed and Sissel could prosecute his killer in court! Whatever form it might take, a crossover between these games is something I would love to see happen.

MC: When you return to Ace Attorney after a period of absence - whether it was to write Apollo Justice or Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney - how easy do you find it to slip back into that world and that writing voice?

ST: Writing for Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney was the first time in several years that I wrote in the voice of Phoenix and Maya, but those characters are so dear to me that I carry them around everywhere in my heart, so it was very easy to pick it up again. It was like a reunion with old friends and was a very pleasurable and nostalgic experience for me.

MC: When you came to write the scenario for Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney, how hard was it to make those two universes gel? Layton's world traditionally dispels the paranormal, while Wright tends to embrace it.

ST: I worked together with Level 5 to develop the world in which the crossover takes place. It took quite a lot of time for both sides to find a setting into which we were happy to place our biggest characters. The starting point for me was when I wondered to myself if one could still use logic to solve a case in a world in which crimes could be committed using magic. I really liked this idea, so it was hard, but fun, work to design the court sections of the game around it.

MC: Putting all diplomacy aside, who would win in a battle of the wits between Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright?

ST: If you ask me, I don't think Phoenix would be able to hold a candle to Layton in a real battle of wits. However, we all know that the hand of fate somehow always manages to bring a 'turnabout' in Nick's fortunes, no matter how sticky the situation, which means, well, sorry, Professor, but you're out of luck!

MC: With Ace Attorney 5 and Ace Attorney Investigations how does it feel to see your characters in the hands of other Capcom employees? We imagine it must be like a parent sending their child to school for the first day.

ST:

That's an apt comparison. I do have mixed feelings about it sometimes. For instance, I was really surprised to see that after we focused on the new character of Apollo in the fourth game, the Dual Destinies team decided to bring Phoenix back. Ultimately, though, having creators other than myself take the helm of the series is a valid choice, as it brings new directions and new story possibilities.

The team on the new game have looked at what the essence of Ace Attorney is, and as long as they can give the fans another great game to enjoy, I'll be happy. After all, the fact that the series is still going over a decade after I made the first game is something I couldn't possibly have imagined in the first place.

MC: Have you seen the Ace Attorney film? If so, what did you think of it? Was it funny to see characters you sketched out all those years ago in the flesh?

ST: I saw it, and I even got to make a little cameo when the film company invited some Capcom staff to visit the set. You can see me briefly in the spectators' gallery in the final court scene.

It was really something to see the story I wrote for the first game brought to life on the big screen by real-life actors.

And those costumes! They were such perfect recreations. The director, Takashi Miike, is an expert at making existing works from other media into entertaining live action films and he did a great job with Ace Attorney. I highly recommend that everyone reading this check it out, if they can.

MC: This interview is part of our 100th edition and we're looking back over some of our magazine highlights. Looking back over your own career, what is your personal highlight to date?

ST: As a creator, the greatest compliment to me is when someone tells me that they played one of my games and enjoyed it. In the course of the press tour for Ghost Trick in 2010, many players from around the world expressed their love of Ace Attorney to me and it's moments like those that make me glad I became a game creator. Also, I'm deeply honoured to have been asked to take part in this special issue and having myself, my team and our work considered a highlight of your magazine's history. I'd like to thank you on behalf of everyone at Capcom. This opportunity is in itself a highlight for us.

MC: Many of our readers are keen to know, what's next for Shu Takumi?

ST: Game projects are a complex balance of so many factors: what I want to make, what players might make of my concept, what Capcom as a company wants from the game, and also broader trends in the gaming industry. My next project is in the preparation stages and I still don't know myself what form it might take by the time it's finished.

Whatever happens, though, I'll be pouring my heart and soul into it and working towards that eternal goal of hearing positive reactions from the players at the end of all the hard work.

[imaginedanganronpa]

HMmM how about the V3 boys having to do a footrace against their fem crush for whatever reason, but bc of their laid-back personality, everyone expects them to lose, but they’re?? So fast?? (Bonus if they look super cute in their track clothes) thanks so much and take your time!!

Thisis such a cute prompt, thank you! I hope you like it! 

V3 Boys Having a FootraceAgainst Their Fem!Crush Who Ends Up Winning!

Saihara Shuichi

He wasn’tentirely sure how he got sucked into this situation, but nevertheless here hewas. Saihara is, clearly, not the most athletic type and sports were never really his strong-suit, so he never would have intentionally landed himself in this.

Every year, Hope’s Peak holds a ‘sports day’ which was geared towards the athletic Ultimates, like Tenko for example, but anyone could participate and everyone was expected to participate, at least a little bit. 

Saihara wondered why they always associated it with the athletic students, when it was a cross-class event, but oh well; perhaps that’s not too important.

The bright side to sports day is that he gets to see you. Now, you were fairly laid-back so no one really expected sports to be your thing, either. You didn’t normally show off since you tried avoiding that kind of attention so no one really seemed to have any standards for you.

Plus, he thought you looked completely adorable in your track outfit, it was hard to not stare…

Ouma and Kaede knew all about Saihara’s feelings for you and have been pestering him to finally do something about it, which the Detective refused. So, once they saw their opportunity, they took it.

Teamwork was a big part of sports day and everyone was expected to work together. Kaede waved you over and mentioned that Saihara had yet to find a partner and asked if you’d join him, without ever consulting him first. This caused him to melt away into a flustering, bumbling, red-faced mess. Although she only wanted to put you two together, Ouma had more mischievous plans in mind.

“Hey, I know, you guys should race against each other!” He cheers gleefully, causing Saihara to furrow his brows and ask him, “Why would we do that?”

“Oh, c’mon Shuichi~! It’s sports day, this is what you’re supposed to do! Besides, you’ll have no problem beating her.” He leaned in and muttered that last part, pretending to hide it but purposefully saying it loud enough so that you could hear it, side-eyeing you the whole time.

Oh, now he’s done it. You immediately accepted the challenge and started to line up around the track. Ouma practically shoved Saihara forward, forcing him to follow you as Ouma giggled and gathered with the rest of his class. Kaede was crossing her arms since, if Saihara did win, you might think he was a show-off and then there was no way you’d team up with him anymore! What was Ouma thinking?

You could sense that everyone agreed with Ouma and leaned towards Saihara winning - Detectives and Police Officers have to maintain top shape, after all. He likely had to do this in training, so all bets were off.

Little did they know, you’ve never shown off your athletic skills. So, once the horn sounded, you bolted past Saihara without looking back.

His eyes widened and he slowed down, startled by your sudden energy. He did his best to keep up with you, but you were just… so fast, there’s no way he could possibly keep up! You left him in the dust without a second thought, causing everyone to watch in silence as he doubles your time.

After reaching the finish line long before Saihara, you stand there and brush yourself off with a smirk on your face. He lightly jogged towards you with a baffled expression. “I had no idea you were that fast, (Y/N)!” 

With a bit of a smug attitude, you shake his hand and ask him to be your partner for the remainder of the day. He agreed, as long as you gave him some track-tips and told him your secret.

Ouma Kokichi

Ouma was over-confident and cocky, and everyone knew it. His way of flirtingwas teasing you, so when he challenged you to a footrace it wasn’t verysurprising. You could immediately tell that he just wanted to show off andimpress you but he came across as a bit condescending.

You were just trying to have a peaceful P.E. class before Ouma came along to bother you, which is something he did very well. He subconsciously placed himself above others, and you were no exception, despite being his long-time crush.

Ouma was convinced that he would be able to smoke you in a race since he’s never actually seen you run before… by now, you were used to his antics and seemed unfazed by his remarks.

“Oh~ C’mon, (Y/N)! Are you scared? You know you can’t beat me!” Heegotistically mocked you in a childlike manner, whining and tugging on yoursleeve to lead you towards the track; typically, you’re a very laid-back personand yet, something about the way he went about this made your blood boil.

You wanted to prove him wrong, and you knew that you easily could. You knew Ouma liked you and that he was simplyteasing you, but you weren’t going to let him talk to you like that.

Plus, youfigured that everyone else was betting you would lose and felt like you had something to prove.

Between Ouma’s loud and persistent boasting about how great he was and yourrelaxed personality, he seemed like the likely winner. After all, you can’ttalk a big game and then not live up to expectations.

Both his class and yours gathered around the track to watch the race unfold. It wasa bit intimidating, especially because you weren’t too familiar with his classmates and you weren’t used to being the center of attention.

You had to take a break and excuse yourself to the Ladies’ Room before the raceso you could change, stretch, and gather your courage. 

After a few minutes, you finally walk out in your cute track outfit which wasform-fitting against your figure. Even Ouma couldn’t help but to drop his jawand stare at you in a wide-eyed expression.

“A super cute outfit like that isn’t going to stop me!” He exclaims ratherdefensively, insisting that this was your method of trying to catch himoff-guard and distract him. That wasn’t entirely your plan, but if it happened, it happened. You certainly wouldn’t complain.

Your Instructor served the purpose as the Timer. You and Ouma each took yourplaces beside one another and got into a running position. The Finish Line wasin sight and all you had to do was zone out his persistent teasing andjokes. 

On the count of three, you were both off. You lightly jogged beside Ouma for amoment, just to get his hopes up. He glances over his shoulder and lets out aloud laugh as he passes you, sticking his tongue out as he waves you goodbye and then turns his head to lookforward once again.

With a smirk, that’s when you actually give it some effort and sprint past himin no time. Ouma stopped dead in his tracks as soon as you bolt in front andtake the lead, watching as you kick up the dirt and make it to the end almostas fast as lightning.

Genuinely amazed by the feat, all he can do is stop running and watch you as you cross the Finish Line long before he could. He walked towards you with a stunned expression, speechless and blushing since he’s never been put in his place before.

Of course, Ouma accused you of cheating, but did so in a lighthearted manner which made you think he wasn’t being entirely serious. “Really though, how did you manage to do that?” He asks, his eyes sparkling.

You shrug your shoulders nonchalantly, “You’re the only person who thought I was slow.”

RantaroAmami

Rantaro was always the cool, relaxed guy in your small circle. He seemed to be smooth and suave with everyone, which he swore wasn’t because he was intentionally flirting.

You tagged along with a small group of your friends, including Rantaro, Kaito, Kaede and Maki. You were lingering around outside of Hope’s Peak after-school, simply talking about anything and everything.

Somehow, the topic of sports came up in conversation. Kaito was all over it. 

“None of us are really athletic,” Rantaro says in passing, which wasn’t inherently wrong. The only person who could be considered athletic was Maki. “Speak for yourself,” Kaito says defensively, which isn’t a surprise since he spends so much time training that the comment likely hurt his pride.

Rantaro simply shrugged in return and the Astronaut leaps up, “Well, I’ve never even seen you try! At least I put in the effort.” You roll your eyes at the boys’ bickering, while you and the other two girls exchanged glances that all said the same thing… typical boys.

That’s when everything started to spiral downhill. Eventually, Kaito challenged the other man to a footrace to prove himself, which only caused you to scoff. This drew their attention and caused him to retort, “What? Do you want to try it?”

Rantaro isn’tthat big on footraces but he got sucked into it just like you did, through Kaito’s pushy orders – that, and he knewthat Rantaro had a crush on you and had been desperately trying to get you twotogether so perhaps this was his way of forming a bond between the two of you.

Graciously, the green-haired man stands and extends his hand politely as he towers above you. “May I have this race?” He asks with a bit of a snicker. He was never the overconfident or cocky type, but maybe he felt like he had something to prove.

Taking his hand, you slowly stand and accept with a nod and a fierce grin that didn’t shake his confidence.

That’s the convoluted story of how you found yourself in this mess, excusing yourself to change since you weren’t about to run around the track in your regular clothes. 

When you walked out again, Rantaro’s eyes widened and a small grin formed on his lips. Your outfit was tight around your curves and flattered your body.

“Well, don’t you look cute?” Normally, this wouldn’t be a flirty comment had it been directed towards anyone else, but he’s had feelings for you for the longest time and knew exactly how to show them.

Both of you were pretty laid-back but there seemed to be a general agreement thatRantaro would win simply because his legs were longer, and he showed a bit more enthusiasm and less reluctance to the idea of a footrace.

Your three friends gathered to watch the race unfold and Kaede gave you the countdown. After she yelled, “Go!” the two of you both took off like lightning. Granted, you and Rantaro were tied for the first half of the race, but with a little bit of determination, you powered past him and made your way towards the finish line.

Your legs were on fire, but Kaito’s stunned face made it worth it.

And Rantaro couldn’t help but to smile as you pass by, wind sweeping past him in your wake as he watched you throw your arms above your head victoriously. He slowed down his own pace since he’d never be able to catch up to you now and calmly jogged towards you at the end.

It was a short race, but Rantaro clapped for you and bowed. “Huh, I didn’t know you were that fast, (Y/N).” A wide grin spreads across his lips as he embraces you in a congratulation-hug.

You never bragged about it before since you didn’t think it was a big deal, simply shrugging and brushing off your shoulder. “It’s really nothing special,” you say with a faint blush on your cheeks. 

“Nothing special?” Rantaro repeats, surprised, “(Y/N), there are so many special things about you.”

Kiibo

Kiibo has never experienced these kinds of feelings before, buthe’s almost certain that this is what love is. You could always tell that he has acrush on you since, let’s be honest, he makes it painfully obvious. 

He’s the one who suggests a footrace after watching Kaito and Maki, closely followed by Kaede and Saihara, participate in them. Kiibo always feels left out of P.E. and some other events that Hope’s Peak hosts because he isn’t like everyone else; he can’t do the same things since his systems might shut down.

But he’s always admired you, and found beauty in watching you lightly jog around the track, even though you often were a bit standoffish and kept to yourself. He thought that footraces were just a normal thing and didn’t put much thought into it before jumping straight into proposing the idea.

Kiibo just wants to impress you, and show you how worthy he is ofhandling your heart! He’s seen couples race before so that’s why he’s so determinedto win. Kiibo doesn’t realize that he may come across as cocky by challengingyou to a footrace, but you give him the benefit of the doubt since he doesn’t seem to have malicious intentions.

Unfortunately, he still doesn’t really know how to flirt likenormal humans do, so you assume that he just doesn’t know better.

With his extra settings, including a jet-pack sensor, he’s sure hecan beat you! Again, totally not realizing that this isn’t really how youflirt. But Kiibo was the clear choice since your classmates knew what he wascapable of and figured he’d simply use one of his high-speed functions to win.

You humor Kiibo, insisting that you have to change first, and disappear into the Girls’ Locker Room. You started to wonder how you’d possibly get the upper-hand when you were racing against an actual robot, but put enough faith into your own abilities before heading back out to the track.

By now, a crowd was beginning to gather since everyone was curious as to what he would do. As soon as he saw you in your outfit, he felt himself overheating. “Wow, (Y/N), you look… great.”

Kiibo nearly shuts down when he sees you walk out in your trackoutfit, his jaw dropping and his eyes his eyes turning into static for amoment… oops.

Everyone’s obviously rooting for the robot rather than thelaid-back girl who doesn’t really stand out – there’s a vast difference inqualities here. Plus, being a robot means he’s got to have something up his sleeve,right?

You get in a starting position and wait for the proctor to give you the countdown. After a few seconds, you takeoff out of the gates and start making your way down the winding track.

He restrains himself since he doesn’t want to cheat and use his functions to win, which he easily could do. However, you start to pass Kiibo by and give him a smile over your shoulder as you take the lead.

It takes him a moment to register that he was actually losing, realizing that he harshly underestimated you and going into a full-blown panic. He couldn’t just challenge you to a traditional race and then lose! That definitely wasn’t impressive to anyone…

But by the time the thought crossed his mind, you were already crossing the Finish Line, and the reality settled in: he lost, and you were victorious.

He’s blown away, and literally blown off his feet. Kiibo isstaring up at you, sitting on the ground in disbelief. You bend over and extend a hand outtowards him to help him off of the ground.

“You are amazing, (Y/N)!” He says as you help him back onto his feet. He thought that his skills alone could get him the win since he wasn’t going to cheat and use his unique abilities in a traditional race; he felt a bit shameful. But somehow, seeing your smiling face caused him to relax.

“That was fun!” You cheer and Kiibo nods, “we should do it again some time.” He nods frantically, determined to show you what he’s made of.

He insists that next time, you’re really going to have to try since he’ll pull out every trick in his book.

KaitoMomota

As much as Kaito likes sports and working out as a whole, he isn’t the most talented. He trains and pushes himself past his own limits, trying to perfect his own image. 

With that said, he’s also not great with girls either. You knew he had a crush on you solely because of the way he carried himself around you, because let’s be honest, he makes it quite obvious. But Kaito was a sweet guy and you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In his mind, challenging you to a race would be a way for him to show off to you! It never really crossed his mind that this may sound a little bit cocky or self-indulgent, he just wanted to show you how fast he’s become since he’s been working so hard lately.

Kaito has toshow off how much of a ‘real’ man he is! He’s been training and he won’t letthat go to waste! Maybe if you saw how great he was, then you would return the feelings.

Yeah! If he shows you how amazing he is, you’ll be falling all over him! Or, atleast, that’s the plan. Kaito overestimates his skills with the ladies and tends to overthink his advances, overexerting himself in the process.

You decide to humor him because, what’s the worst that could happen? He was always extremely kind and caring towards you so maybe this will be fun, right?

Admittedly, having your class surround the track was rather intimidating. Naturally, Kaito’s classmates rooted for him due to his overconfidence; that’s what really sent you into a competitive mood.

Since he boasted so much and could often be seen training and working out in Hope’s Peak’s courtyard, he put on the illusion that he must be really, really good at sports so of course they’d root for the person seemed to be the obvious victor. Something about that boasting didn’t sit well with you, though, and you wanted to prove them all wrong.

It was hard to not root for him and have a bias when you’re as loud as he is. People can’t brag that much and then crumble under pressure… or maybe he was just in over his head.

You walk out in your track outfit, sizing Kaito up and watching his jaw drop. You looked… amazing. But he wouldn’t let a cute track outfit distract him, so he shakes it off and gets down to business. “Good luck, (Y/N),” he says with a smirk as he assumes his position.

You simply nod in response and stretch as you get ready. After a few seconds of breathing, the instructor sounds the alarm that signals the commencement of the race and your legs start moving without you realizing it initially.

You jog slowly for a while, just to build his confidence. If he was going to brag, you had to give him a little moment, throw him a bone. Then, you suddenly fly by Kaito and leave him coughing in the dust.

“Holy shit!” He exclaims as he watches you take the lead. He quickly snaps out of the daze and regains his confidence, pushing himself forward and trying his best to catch up with you, but to no avail. 

You were just… too fast for him. He couldn’t even wrap his head around it: you were gone in an instant, and before Kaito could recover, you were already passing the Finish Line.

“When did you get to be so fast?” He asks, clearly amazed. You grin and shrug your shoulders, brushing past him smugly. “I don’t have to brag about it,” you say smugly with a playful smile.

Kaito becomes increasingly embarrassed, apologizing for his cockiness and insisting that he just wanted to impress you. Quickly, you hush him and place a finger over your lips. “I know, I know, don’t worry about it.” 

His defeat doesn’t stop him from insisting that you become his training partner, though! Honestly, you didn’t expect anything less from the Luminary of the Stars.

KorekiyoShinguuji

Now, thisboy isn’t incredibly athletic by any means – but he’s always up forlighthearted challenges here and there. Plus, he likes to impress his crushes and gets a kick from showing off in certain situations.

You were walking towards the track during P.E. which was the only thing you really felt comfortable doing, although you bite your tongue and hold back your full abilities.

Typically, you were reserved and laid-back, so no one really expected you to be as fond of the track as you were. You didn’t want to show off or bring attention to yourself, so you calmly walk around the curved path instead.

Korekiyo has never really given off a vibe that he might be good at sports. Generally speaking, he’ll calmly pace the track while listening to music nonchalantly, or read a book on the bleachers if he can get away with it. He doesn’t really participate in P.E. and your classmates never really had a chance to gauge his skills.

“Oh, Kiyo!” Angie calls for him, waving him over. You were standing near the Artist and overheard their whole conversation, “I bet you would be good at track! You have such long legs, Atua is telling me you should give it a try!” She gleefully tried to convince him to race her but he simply wasn’t buying into it.

You tried to not eavesdrop but it seems as though you couldn’t hide from Angie, who immediately caught wind of your amusement and whipped around to face you almost instinctively.

She noticed you listening to their conversation and waved at you, “(Y/N)! Would you like to race Kiyo, instead? I bet he would be more inclined to race you~!” As soon as she mentioned your name, a blush formed on Korekiyo’s face. He had a crush on you but was able to suppress it and hide his feelings, although you had your suspicions.

Her compliments send a egotistical wave through his body, and once he gets a burst of pride it’s hard for him to turn it down.

Korekiyo would undoubtedly be good at racing based on his physique so the odds don’t seem to be in your favor. He put his hair up in a long ponytail and stands at the Starting Line, patiently waiting for you to join him. Meanwhile, Angie gathered the rest of your class to watch the strange match-up between the two of you. It was quite… unexpected.

It wasn’t hard to tell that everyone was rooting for Korekiyo, though. You were both fairly relaxed and not the type of people to get into silly competitions, but based on appearances alone, he was an obvious choice to win. Sighing, you can’t hide forever and eventually join him at the Starting Line after changing into your actual track clothes.

“Hm,” he hums, “cute outfit, (Y/N).” You can tell he’s smiling under his mask as he admires you, but you shake it off as to not let it bother you.

Suddenly, Angie yells for you to go which signals the start of the footrace. You were both a little bit caught off-guard, but you start running without really thinking about it. Although Korekiyo does take several long strides that gives him a good distance, it takes no time for you to pass him up.

You looked so beautiful as you ran as well, a smile forming on your lips. You looked so natural and in your element that he couldn’t help but to admire you, since he’s never seen you so happy before.

Passing Korekiyo by, you glance at him over your shoulder and return his smile. After you finish, and badly beat him, he jogs up to you and didn’t appear to even break a sweat.

“Wow,” he says, breathing a little bit heavier than usual, “I knew you were remarkable, but you certainly exceeded my expectations, (Y/N).” He extends his hand to shake yours, which you promptly squeeze.

He was never a sore-loser and could accept when someone outdid him. Korekiyo beams at you, telling you that you were phenomenal and that, “It was a good race.” You nod in response and thank him for the kind words.

He was the real winner though, because the beautiful image of you smiling ahead of him, gracefully looking over your shoulder, was a memory he would carry with him for as long as he lived.

Gonta Gokuhara

Gonta has had a crush on you for the longest time but he isn’t thebest at expressing himself, often coming across as a little bit loud andarrogant. This is completely unintentional since this boy only has the purest intentions and a golden heart to match.

But he really wanted to find a way to impress you and show you that he has feelings for you, even though you already had a hunch anyway. Gonta has never confessed his romantic feelings for someone before since this isn’t a feeling he gets very often, so he confided in some of his closest friends to help.

And some were more helpful than others, to say the least…

Ouma is the one who originally encouraged him to challenge you to a footrace and ‘show her what you’re made of!’ 

It didn’t help that Kaito overheard the conversation and jumped in by saying that girls love it when guys can show off for them.

Well, neither of them have the best luck with the ladies, so Gonta probably shouldn’t have taken their advice in the fist place.

“Show off… how?” Gonta asked, quizzically. Ironically, your classes were both near the exit that lead to the track outside of Hope’s Peak. Ouma’s the one who made the suggestion to race you, and it seemed like a great idea! These were his friends after all, who totally wouldn’t set him up!

He was raised by wolves, and everyone knew how strong he was – he seemed like a very obvious choice, while you were the clear underdog. But you rarely showed off your athletic side since you were known to have a very laid-back personality.

After he challenges you to a race, you decide to humor him because you knew how sweet Gonta was andhe’s always been such a gentleman towards you, so graciously accept his offer. He becomes giddy with excitement at the thought of finally proving himself to you! He was fast so this should be a walk in the park!

Your classes and some of the Hope’s Peak staff gathered around the track. You waited for a moment before coming out in your cute track outfit, causing Gonta to blush; it distracted him and caused his natural instincts to flare, but he quickly collected himself again.

He definitely wouldn’t be a pushover and he was in this to win it. He thought that by doing this, he would win you over so there was no way Gonta would give in too easily. You could feel the pressure weighing against you since this was Gonta after all, you knew what he was capable of but shook off your worries. 

The horn sounded and caught you off-guard which gave him the easy lead and caused you to fall behind, but once you started running, you soon tied him. You were neck and neck for awhile, but you eventually broke out in front of him which caused Gonta to gasp.

Once you pass him, he starts working even harder but just can’t seem to catch up to you, no matter how hard he tried. You were too fast, even for him, which shocked not only Gonta but the entire audience as well.

Everyone was stunned when you came in First Place, leaving the larger man far behind. You weren’t the Ultimate Track Star, but you might as well be! You managed to come out on top even with the odds stacked against you.

Gonta approached you with a disappointed expression, but he still offered you a warm smile. “(Y/N) is amazing!” He cheers, but soon wipes the grin off of his face, “Gonta just wanted to impress (Y/N)…”

He scratches the back of his head, as you stand on your tip-toes and lift his chin with your forefinger. “You were just as amazing, Gonta, I promise.” This caused him to smile brightly, his face lighting up and nodding in approval. 

“Thank you, (Y/N)!” He then asks for a rematch, and when you agreed and shook hands, he promised to try even harder next time.

RyomaHoshi

Despite what you may think, he isn’t the best with ladies. Although Ryoma can recognize his feelings for you, he never really knows what to do with them and expresses them in very peculiar ways.

Both of you had fairly laid-back personalities: you were both extremely reserved and kept to yourselves. Ryoma doesn’t like showing off or being the center of attention so he tends to stray away from the pack during P.E.

Today simply wouldn’t cut it, though. All of the students at Hope’s Peak had to submit physicals and timing your races around the track were a part of it, and everyone seemed to be even more competitive than normal on marathon days.

Still, Ryoma wouldn’t rush through it. He took his sweet time, walking around the track with his head in the clouds. He would speak if spoken to, trying to keep up a conversation between his peers, but he didn’t take the marathon too seriously. He didn’t see a reason to stress over this sort of thing, after all.

Tenko catches up to Ryoma, dragging Himiko behind her. Tenko was one of the people who took this physical very seriously, whilst Himiko was more like Ryoma… she couldn’t care less, and seemed annoyed by the other girl forcing her to run.

“Hey, Ryoma!” Tenko’s loud voice echos and catches his attention, “why aren’t you trying?” She had a sour tone that he could sense immediately. Shrugging his shoulders, he didn’t really have an answer. “I don’t see a point in all of this.”

She gasped, seemingly appalled and unhappy with that response. You were lingering not too far from where this was happening, overhearing the commotion and feeling impartial to siding with Ryoma in this case. “Why not? Exercise is good for the soul!”

He glances at your classmate and shakes his head, “I’ll just mind my own business, thanks.” His blunt attitude caused you to giggle, which brought a blush onto his face. He didn’t notice you walking behind him before and now regretted being to nasty towards Tenko, not wanting to disrupt his appearance in front of you.

Suddenly, she turned towards you. “What? You don’t put in effort, either, (Y/N)!” She did have a point, but that’s when a bright idea popped in her head. “I know what’ll light a fire in you two! A good, old-fashioned competition!” Judging by her tone, you weren’t interested.

And yet, somehow, Tenko roped you two into this mess. She backed you into a corner where you felt like you couldn’t say no and brought your teacher’s attention to your little group, who agreed that you and Ryoma should be putting in more effort.

So, he hesitantly agreed which caused you to fall in line as well. The general consensus was that Ryoma would win, simply because he was more vocal about his abilities and he was faster to jump onto the bandwagon, where you had to be convinced to participate. He was an athlete who extensively trained in tennis, while you were simply the quiet, laid-back girl who often faded away in the back of the room.

You lined up at the start of the track and took your positions, glancing at him in the corner of your eye. He stared at you and mouthed a, “Good luck,” before your instructor signaled for you to start.

You both take off at the same time, but you took the lead from the very beginning. Ryoma had never seen you run before, so he wasn’t expecting that! He watched as you zoomed past ahead of him, so far that he wouldn’t possibly be able to recover. Maybe he was the one who needed the good luck after all!

He was so stunned and doubled your time, even though he never slowed down. He met you at the Finish Line long after you were done, and you were fixing your hair and dusting yourself off.

“Wow, (Y/N), I didn’t know you could run.” Ryoma says, genuinely amazed. You simply brush him off and insist that it was nothing, but he wasn’t convinced. He saw something special about you when you ran and could tell that it was something you were passionate about.

“That was a good match,” he says, blushing as he shakes your hand.

- Mod Rantaro

[ikesenhell]

Admissions

Again., Chapter 6–a collaboration by myself and @a-shout-to-the-void​ AKA Vaya. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here, and Vaya’s  here. NOTES: HERE WE GO AGAIN. 

He hated to admit it, but Mitsunari was right. Something about this case didn't add up. They lingered in the office, pouring over the smallest details of the dossiers.

“So.” Mitsunari cleared his throat, those purple eyes wide and serious. “They still haven’t found the daughter.”

Ieyasu just grunted. No point in acknowledging it. In the timeframe of the murder, it would have been impossible to hide a child. They both knew it.

“I got some interesting records.” He flopped another file onto the table. “The child--sorry, Renée Ailes--she’s been having problems with her mother for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“Apparently. Police interviews with the girl’s friends indicate that they’d get into fights and she would come stay at their houses regularly. It’s unclear over what just yet. And then, the week before the disappearance, she made a bunch of withdrawals from her savings account.”

“Savings account?” Ieyasu echoed, huffing a laugh. “What, did she have $20 in it?”

Mitsunari blinked. “The withdrawals total somewhere around two thousand.”

“What!? How does a high schooler have that much money? I didn't even have a bank account!”

“No?” Mitsunari looked utterly confused. “I think I had--”

“Right, your family is rich. So is theirs.” Ieyasu scowled and flapped the folder shut. “Anything else?”

“Report says there’s a boyfriend. Of the daughter, I mean, not the mother. He’s twenty-two. Jacqueline Ailes claims to have no knowledge of him.”

They both paused. Ieyasu inhaled slowly. “He’s been interviewed, right?”

“Yeah. He claims to have no information. He says he hasn’t had any contact with her since the night she disappeared. And,” Mitsunari continued, brow furrowed. “No warrant was issued for his home. That’s all the information we have about him.”

Nothing about this was adding up. Ieyasu rearranged the pieces over and over again, struggling to find where they all fit. God. Maybe someone else could make sense of this, but he was just a lawyer, not a detective. The longer they looked at the evidence, the murkier it became.

“There’s something wrong here,” Mitsunari murmured. “I don’t like it.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” Ieyasu grumbled.

The other man shot him a silvery, sweet smile. Ieyasu’s heart almost beat out of his chest. How could the man make everything look handsome? “I’d try to be wrong more often, but I don’t think you’d like that, either.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

“Well then.” Mitsunari beamed; all of Ieyasu’s blood tangled and quickened at the sight. What had gotten into him? “Shall we make do with what we have in the meantime?”

“Guess we have to.”

---

For once, the pair found themselves sitting in the gallery of a courtroom the next morning. Around them, clusters of people volleyed whispers as the prosecutor settled back into his seat. Ieyasu couldn’t see his face, but the way the man tilted his chair onto its back legs and rocked felt too confident, too assured, and it irked Ieyasu. Probably some hotshot fresh into the office. Typical.

At least Williams would be offering the closing defense. That was sure to be tolerable, if nothing else. She rose from her seat with the kind of flame in her eyes that Ieyasu had never seen--a zeal that radiated off her and to the balconies like a Valkyrie.

“Oh,” Mitsunari murmured, his eyes wide. “Oh.”

“Over and over again throughout this trial, we’ve heard the prosecution present pieces of evidence that they believe condemns my client. Their language was clever, I must admit. ‘If we believe,’ ‘anyone might think,’ ‘under these circumstances.’ The prosecution has spun pretty words to distract the jury from the reality of their evidence: it’s circumstantial. There is not a single piece of evidence that definitively puts my client within a mile of the murder at the moment it happened. There is not a single piece of evidence demonstrating a clear motive.

“No, instead what we have here is what we see all too often in a courtroom: a prosecutor brought a flimsy case against a man from a disadvantaged community, assured in their belief that the jury they’d so carefully selected would be led astray by cheap theories and empty words. But that was their mistake. There is only one truly just outcome today, and it is the freedom of my client. An innocent man’s life is in the hands of the law. Use it well.”

The jury returned a verdict in less than ten minutes. “Not guilty” were the last words the head juror spoke before the entire courtroom erupted in thunderous applause.

Somehow in all the commotion, she saw them. Smiling from ear to ear, she pressed through the crowd, letting her client remain with another staffer. “Hey!”

“Hello!” Mitsunari nearly glowed. “Excellent work. You really did a phenomenal job.”

“Thank you.” She let her twists down from the tight bun, peering at Ieyasu with a teasing grin. “Find any fault with me, senpai?”

“Senpai?” Ieyasu repeated, staggering over his thoughts. “No. You--that was just fine. You did alright.”

“Ooh, high praise. Well, thank you.” And she shot him a wink. “Either way, I wanted to say thanks to you both for getting me home the other day. It really saved me. I was a bit tanked.”

“To say the least.”

Mitsunari shook his head. “It was nothing. We were happy to make sure you got back safely. Nothing happened?”

“No. Someone came on the L train to preach, but, y’know. L train.” Williams cast an eye back at the swelling crowd and offered them both a conspiratorial smile, sending shivers through Ieyasu’s body that he couldn’t entirely attribute to respect. “I have to go. Someone needs to do this press conference. I’ll see you both soon--outside of court, hopefully?”

“Hopefully.” Mitsunari shook her hand.

“Yeah,” Ieyasu muttered, and she fixed him with such a dazzling, gleaming smirk that he almost recanted all his sourness. “Probably. Probably soon.”

“Oh? I’ll hold you to that, Tokugawa. Cheers!”

She sauntered back into the crowd. Ieyasu ripped his eyes from her legs and cleared his throat. “Come on. Let’s go.”

---

They did meet again. Mitsunari hadn’t expected it to be so soon afterward. Fortunately for him, he and Ieyasu were both on a run to the local coffee shop when they saw her in the packed, cramped line. She looked resplendent in the sea of black coats, her bright yellow one sunny and warm in the New York bustle.

“Here!” She called, motioning to them. “I saved us a place!”

Ieyasu shot Mitsunari a questioning glance.

“I didn't know you’d set up a coffee visit with Williams,” Mitsunari guessed, as confused as his partner.

“I didn't,” Ieyasu answered, but pressed forward anyway, jostling his way between grouchy pedestrians. Never one to turn down a good social event, Mitsunari followed, apologizing to every pushed passerby with a smile. That seemed to smooth them over. Finally they got to her corner, and she welcomed them with open arms.

“I didn't know we were meeting!”

Williams just winked at Mitsunari. He marveled at the way she made warmth spread clear to his toes. She had that same strange, unquestionable power that Ieyasu had. No doubt everyone felt this way around her. “I didn't think you guys came here.”

“Better than Starbucks,” Ieyasu grumbled. “Though usually they aren’t this damn crowded. What gives? Did everywhere else run out of beans?”

“Dunno--oop!” Someone next to her elbowed her. She jostled forward into the two of them, who caught her at the same time. “Sorry, sorry--”

“It’s fine--”

“Don’t worry! It’s nothing--”

Amidst the scent of roasting coffee and mocha, the sweet, lingering smell of honeysuckle swirled around them. Both he and Ieyasu paused. Was that her? Mitsunari parsed through the options and immediately realized it was--the perfume was woven into every twist of her long hair.

“Are you wearing that perfume?” Ieyasu asked, as if reading Mitsunari’s mind. “Honeysuckle?”

“Yeah.” She pet her hair sheepishly. “I’m fond of it. When I was a kid growing up in the south, the summers smelled like honeysuckle, so I got attached to it. We had some in the backyard with the morning glories.”

“I recall that!” Mitsunari jumped in. “When we summered in the Cape, there was some growing out back. It’s a wonderful, mystical kind of smell.”

Ieyasu and Williams both shot him looks--one flat, the other teasing.

“Summered in the Cape?” Ieyasu stared. “Could that be a bougier sentence?”

Williams barely restrained her giggles. “Extremely bougie. ‘Summered’. He said ‘summered’.”

“Yes, it could be bougier,” Mitsunari added, playing dumb. “I could say something like: ‘We stopped over at the Cape on our private jet between horse races, where we would go and attend to our stables’.”

“That didn't happen, did it?”

“No. We don’t have that many horses.”

Williams burst into unfettered laughter and hid her face in Ieyasu’s shoulder, who looked like he might write his resignation letter within the hour. Mitsunari just smiled cheerily back until he shook his head.

“The perfume is really strong. You’re getting it all over my coat.”

“Oh?” Williams teasingly brushed off his shoulder. “Sorry about that. I’m assuming you don’t have memories of summering in the Cape to that smell.”

“No.” Ieyasu paused, then lowered his head, admitting, “My grandmother… had some. I think. I don’t know. I didn't care enough to remember that, obviously.”

Mitsunari had long grown used to Ieyasu’s way of worming out of things. He didn't miss the subtle way that Ieyasu tucked his coat in closer around him, burying his nose into the collar for a moment more than necessary in the warm confines of the coffee shop. Williams didn't pretend not to notice--she just grinned at him until he turned away, his ears unusually dark in the dim light.

“I don’t suppose I’ll get to run into you both here every day?”

“Well.”

“We come in around eleven thirty,” Mitsunari calculated. “Because typically when we enter the office at eight, Umeka prepares coffee, and by the time it wears off it’s around eleven fifteen. By then she’s usually occupied with Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu doesn’t like the way anyone else prepares it--”

“--everyone else burns it,” Ieyasu muttered, almost too subtle to be heard.

“--so we typically come in for a dip here anywhere from eleven twenty-three to eleven thirty-six.” He paused. “If you were so inclined to join us.”

If looks could kill, Ieyasu might’ve committed a crime with the one he sent Mitsunari. For her part, Williams smiled. “Well, I don’t know my schedule like that, but I’m thinking I could arrange something.”

“I’d like that.” Mitsunari paused, noticing Ieyasu still hadn’t moved that horrifying stare, and added, “We would like that.”

“Perfect.” Williams laced her arm through the crook of Ieyasu’s elbow. “It’s a date.”

[wooolfies]

How bad is ‘this’?

Verse: Zombie Apocalypse AU

Pairing: Jurnex 

Warnings: chose not to apply warnings for plot reasons, sorry

Characters/Parties: N. A. Jurow, John Kennex

Word Count: 1471

[source]

John Kennex jumped out of his car. His partner did the same, they both headed up to where the buzz was going on. Tough situation. One of the major criminals of the city was active again, a genius maniac who loved to see the world burn.

He was here today to help stop her. Several people, two of them cops, had been kidnapped.

The squad was getting ready to move in, with  latest data the Drones were submitting, they plotted out strategies to solve this. Of course also backup plans were made.

Then the time had come, a SWAT team and a few detectives moved in, making their way up the building.

But suddenly everything turned south, a large group of goons was away ting them, the hostages were not even at this location. A struggle in a tight space, everything went so fast and then a grenade exploded. Kennex was caught up in a flashback and then blackness surrounded him.

***

When he opened his eyes his vision was blurry. The first thing he felt was pain, or rather soreness. Without the pain medicine it was almost not bearable.

The ceiling above was white, he was in a bed, his blanket had a familiar pattern. His right hand reached up to remove the clear plastic mask it was suffocating instead of helping, there was no flow at all. One of the first things that told him, something was wrong, apart from his physical and mental state.

He grunted as he sat up, everything hurt. When he shifted his weight he noticed that one thing was like always, though. His right leg was missing, he had lost it about two and a half years ago.

He was in a hospital, the flowers on the table were dry and dead, and his IV bags had run dry.

He mildly started to panic. He had spotted his prosthetic leg, leaning on a chair at the table.

He moved to the edge of the bed, still trapped by cables. He, half panicky tried to free himself. After he did so, he started to get up, leaning on his nightstand and his good leg. But this leg was like jello, he fell and hit the ground hard.

He mumbled something, trying to get up. After laying in bed for weeks it was very hard to move, and with just one leg it was extra hard.

He felt week and like his body was not up for the job at all.

But he kept trying. He ended up crawling on his belly towards his leg and leaning onto the wall to attach it.

Slowly he tried to get on his feet, failing a few times, but he had to know what was going on. He grabbed his bag, with a little stuff, on of his colleagues had left for him.

A little later, he had reached the door  to the hallway, he pulled it open, right facing one of the food charts that were storing all the trays. He pushed it aside and almost fell over again. He clinged to the wall, he only support available.

The lighting in the hallway was bad, some of the lights were dead other were flickering and humming. Next to the typical hospital smells that made him already uncomfortable, it smelled like rotten things, presumably coming from the food in the chart. He already felt nauseous, it all made him gag.

“Hello? Nurse?” he didn’t yell, but he said it loudly. What was going on, he made his way towards a front and the nurse’s station. He was barely keeping it together, he was dragging his feet and walked very slowly always expecting to fall over again.

***

In a hallway, with pour light, there stood a woman. She was wearing a black helmet with a headlamp, a thick, army green jacket, which was not open in the front. There was an assault rifle over her shoulder and a backpack hanging one one strap, she was looting drugs and other medical supplies into it, when she heard steps, she turned towards them. She drew bead, up the hallway, she didn’t see who or what it was, the footfalls were slow and of naked feet, a bit dragging.

Her finger moved towards the trigger when she saw the figure emerge front the shadows, a man in a hospital gown who glanced angry at her. He opened his mouth to say something when he lost balance and tripped over his own feet, letting out a rather helpless yelp.

She kept her gun up, when she walked over to him, with careful steps, the light was blinding him.

Damnit, why was she aiming her firearm right at him, what had he done?!

“Be careful or you’re gonna kill someone, lady,” he grumbled, as he tried to get up.

She sighed in relief and put the safety back on, and help him up. Both her hands were gloved, through the opened jacked he could see that she was wearing tactical armour, strapped to her left thigh; a hand gun.

“Where are you coming from?” she asked, her voice had something familiar but he couldn’t tell what it was.

“My bed,” he responded sounding very tired and not less grumpy. “What do you want with that? Is that how you greet everyone?”

“Just the dead,” she answered. Now supporting him so he wouldn’t fall over. “I thought you are one of them.”

He watched her pull off her right glove, in order to feel his forehead. Even though he was quite pale, he had no fever.

What the hell. He had so many questions, everything was turning in his head.

“What is your name? Do you know what day it is?” she asked.

“John Kennex, and that was one of the questions I would liked to ask next.”

“It’s Thursday, the 19th of July,” she explained and had to take her second arm too, to keep him from falling over.

“Fuck. I’ve been in a coma… again,” he sighed. “I’m so tired of this.”

“Hey, it’s alright. I’ll take you to a safe place and check you over, alright?”

He looked at her again, there was still this familiar feel to her, he squinted his eyes as he looked into her face.

“What are you? Why are you looting? What happened here?”

“Seems like you have slept some time,” she took a deep breath, “I’m Natalyia Jurow, I’m a doctor.”

He nodded. Things were odd about her, things didn’t make sense, but his mind was too fuzzy to really process all those informations.

She obviously was left-handed, the side she was carrying her side arm and the way she had held her rifle, now she was feeling his pulse with her right hand though. Also the grip of her left hand was a lot tighter, but he really didn’t think about that yet.

“How bad is this?” he asked, looking around in the hallway and the mess everywhere.

“Very bad. End of the world bad,” she said, totally serious and a bit grim looking.

She picked up her stuff and closed the closet, then she helped Kennex to get moving again. On their way out they luckily found a wheelchair.

He noticed how tense she was, even though she appeared professional to him, it made him feel uncomfortable.

The closer they came to the leaving the hospital, the tenser she got.

“Can you stay right with me?” she asked as she let go of him to grab her rifle with both hands. “And please, no matter what happens, not exclaim loudly, we don’t want to attack attention.”

She opened the back door slowly, peeking outside. Kennex still tried to grasp what was going on. Then she reckoned him to follow.

“Whatever you do, be as quiet as possible,” she whispered into his ear, while she helped him down the stairs. They left the useful wheelchair behind.

She had parked a yellow-black ATV in the ally and was now heading towards it. She took of her jacked and let him put it on, before she helped him sit down behind her.

“Hold on tightly,” she said.

He still didn’t get what was going on, something was strange though. It was suspiciously quiet, nobody was on the pavement they drove on. Cars were parked all over the street some of them had crashed into each other. A strange stench filled the air.

The ATV  had an electric engine and except the sound of the moving tires it moved quietly. While they rode down the street, Kennex could see a few people, wandering around as if they had no destination. Weird.

Jurow gave no damn, she just drove. Kennex held onto her to don’t fall off as she took a turn. 

Tagging: @grumpymedbae @donsdawn @sternenfall96

Taglist

[megastarstrike]

Playing Detective

@saioumaexchange gift for recipient #77, who asked for “ a hanahaki disease fanfic! like shuichi or kokichi has the disease. or pregame kokichi and shuichi or both????” I was your pinchhitter and im not too familiar with pregame so i just chose to go with hanahaki. hope you enjoy your gift!

CW: kind of graphic imagery? not really but i thought it was worth noting

Kokichi Ouma was not stupid. Sure, there was that one time he bumped straight into a pole after one too many all-nighters, last year when he got sick and refused to visit the nurse until he collapsed in the middle of class, or a few months ago when he was helping Angie with art and accidentally drank out of the paint cup, but he definitely wasn’t stupid.

But after watching his close friend run to the bathroom, he couldn’t help but feel as if he was missing something.

Kokichi stared at the chair in front of him where Shuuichi once sat, twirling the straw in his drink absentmindedly. They had been studying together (and by studying, he meant talking while having books out) when Shuuichi suddenly shot up from his chair and darted to the bathroom without a word. How urgent was his issue if he didn’t so much as excuse himself from the table?

Moments later, Shuuichi returned to his seat and offered him an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”

“Wow, do you really think my face is so ugly you had to vomit?” Kokichi said. Tears welled in his eyes. “You’re so mean, Shuuichi! I thought you loved me!”

“I-I didn’t—”

Kokichi dropped his act when Shuuichi burst into a round of coughs. All he could do was bite his tongue and hold the other’s hand, hoping that his presence would be reassurance enough.

Once the coughs stopped, Shuuichi spoke again with his lips pursed and brows furrowed into a painful expression. “I must be getting sick. Don’t worry about me.”

It felt like a lie, but it clearly wasn’t. Was it a half-truth? Or was it not a truth at all?

“Nishishi! I would never worry about you,” Kokichi laughed.

“Ah… right.” He averted his eyes and lowered his head to scan through the textbook in his hands, not noticing that the book was upside-down.

“... You know that was a lie, right?”

Shuuichi gave him a tight smile. “Don’t worry about it, Kokichi.”

Yet Kokichi worried.

*

All the tissues in the classroom had run out despite it not being flu season. People shot Shuuichi pitiful looks. Sounds of retching in the bathroom weren’t uncommon. Everything was suspicious, but perhaps the most suspicious was Shuuichi running out of the classroom with no warning and the teacher letting him do so.

Kokichi frowned.

Shuuichi never missed class if he could help it. If he suddenly ran out of the classroom without even letting the teacher know first, something must be seriously wrong.

He nudged the person to his right. “Pst, Miu, you think Shuuichi’s skipping class?”

Much to his delight, Miu didn’t care enough about the class to ignore someone talking to her. “You really think that weak ass emo has the guts to skip class? You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Then what else do you propose, Miss I-Forgot-My-Invention-To-An-Invention-Fair?”

“Okay, that was one time. Also, where do you think all that vomiting is from, the fucking sky?”

“That was two times and you know it.”

“Ouma, Iruma, please pay attention,” the teacher called, bringing their conversation to a close (though they would continue to kick each other under the table until class ended).

If that wasn’t confirmation that Shuuichi was sick, Kokichi didn’t know what was. Vomiting meant the sickness must be serious, and the sheer amount of tissues he went through meant the symptoms were frequent. He didn’t have any medical training other than two health classes he was forced to take in junior high, but he didn’t need any to know that this illness was taking a toll on his friend.

So Kokichi made preparations.

*

“So you’re telling me you want me to distract Shuuichi while you lockpick and investigate his room, violate his privacy, and find who knows what in there?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

Maybe Rantarou wasn’t the right person to assist him in morally gray activities, but he was the only person who Kokichi trusted could keep his mouth shut and trusted him back.

“You can’t just, you know, ask Shuuichi what’s wrong?” Rantarou asked.

Kokichi scoffed. “You really think Shuuichi’s gonna tell me what’s wrong?”

“Right, good point.” He hummed and tapped his fingers against the wall. “I’ll do it, but if Shuuichi asks me what’s going on, I’m answering honestly.”

“Don’t worry, he’s already used to me snooping around his stuff.”

“For your sake, I hope so.”

And that was the end of that conversation.

*

Shuuichi paused. “Kokichi’s totally going through my room right now, isn’t he?”

Rantarou hesitated but eventually sighed and crossed his arms. “Yeah, sorry for not telling you sooner. Just thought it would be for the greater good.”

“It’s fine. He won’t find anything anyway.”

“... You expected this, didn’t you?”

Shuuichi shot him a weak smile before bursting into another round of coughs.

*

Lockpicking wasn’t the hard part. Kokichi had been doing that since he knew what a lock was. The hard part was Shuuichi being a clever bastard and cleaning his room in anticipation for the inevitable.

Looks like Shuuichi’s learned something from me, Kokichi mused as he shut the door behind him.

The floor, while usually riddled with loose papers and pencils, was cleaner than Kokichi thought a floor could ever be. The blankets on the bed were set in an almost robotic neatness, and the desk was cleared of everything. If Kokichi didn’t know better, he would have assumed the room was abandoned.

But Kokichi had another trick up his sleeve. He unzipped the backpack slumped next to the desk, only to see normal books and school supplies.

His heart fluttered. Shuuichi really knew him well.

Kokichi looked down into the empty trash can nearby and frowned. Trash was only taken out once a week on Sundays. As conscious of himself as he was, there was no way Shuuichi could make it through more than a few days without so much of a tissue in the trash can. So where else would he hide it?

Under the bed. Of course, he would cram it under the bed.

Kokichi took a deep breath, preparing himself to find anything before lifting the mattress the slightest bit.

The smell of dry blood and traces of vomit smacked his nose immediately. Flattened tissue boxes were scattered underneath the bed in a pile of bloodied tissues and flowers. It felt as if he had walked straight into a dumping ground for a hospital, only the dumping ground would be much less disgusting than what was under the bed.

Despite all his instincts screaming at him to set the mattress back down and run away from the horrid smell and sight, Kokichi reached under the bed and took out the cleanest flower he spotted. He turned it over in his hand, frowning at the traces of blood and a faint hint of vomit on the petals.

The original petal color appeared to be a dark purple. Petals were bunched up in the middle and slowly decreased in frequency as it reached the outer edges of the flower. A short, green stem protruded from the flower, though it wasn’t tall enough for him to hold it by the stem.

Judging by the blood and vomit still present on the flower and Shuuichi’s frequent bathroom trips, he had most likely been throwing them up. But why would he be throwing up flowers? What kind of medical condition would warrant that?

As much as he wanted to solve everything without explicit outside help, there was no way Kokichi could identify the flower or the condition online without giving personal information to someone he didn’t trust.

So he stuffed the flower inside his scarf, made a mental note to wash his clothes soon, and left the room as he had found it.

*

“When are you gonna tell him?”

Shuuichi blinked, caught off guard by the question. He turned towards the concerned face and gave her a smile, though it didn’t seem to ease any of her worries. “Don’t worry about it, Kaede. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Everything will be even finer if you just tell him what’s up with you.”

He had to admit that was true. But just because it was true didn’t mean he had to follow it.

“I’m sure he can figure it out on his own,” Shuuichi said. His smile grew warmer. “He’s one of the smartest people I know, after all.”

Kaede frowned. “You’re just avoiding having to have the talk, aren’t you?”

“... Maybe.”

*

Kokichi slammed the plastic bag containing the flower onto the table in front of him, and he was suddenly grateful he hadn’t decided to procrastinate his hygiene. “What’s this flower?”

The girl sitting across from him gave him an exasperated sigh. “Kokichi, you’re my friend, but you can’t just interrupt my anime binge sessions. I planned this session out weeks ahead of time.”

“Aw, pwease, Tsumugi? Pwease help your wittle buddy out,” Kokichi whined, summoning tears to his eyes.

“Oh my god. Never speak like that again.”

“Only if you help me out.”

“Fine, fine.” Tsumugi tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before picking up the bag, investigating every detail. Her face brightened. “Oh, this looks like a purple carnation! There was this one anime where—”

“Booooring. You know a medical condition where people throw up flowers?”

Her eyes drooped. “Oh. That’s more depressing. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

“Yeah, sure. Can’t be any worse than what Miu says every day.”

“Hanahaki disease.”

Kokichi furrowed his eyebrows and frowned. “Hanahaki disease? Isn’t that only in fiction?”

“It’s typically portrayed in fiction because it’s rare in real life,” Tsumugi said, “The victim needs to hold a strong love for someone they seemingly don’t have a chance with. But the strong love needs to be as intense as the belief that their love is unrequited, and that’s the part that gets the majority of the population. Symptoms are coughing, vomiting flowers, stuff like that. The flowers tend to represent who the victim loves.” Her gaze turned sharp. “Are you suggesting there’s someone at our school with hanahaki disease?”

“Pfff, what? No way,” Kokichi said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms behind his head. “Can’t a man be curious?”

She poked his cheek. “It’s plain to see you suspect someone of having hanahaki. Is it Shuuichi?”

“... Maybe.”

“It totally is. I’ve noticed it, too.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Someone as boring as me can observe people without being suspicious,” Tsumugi said. Her gaze fell on the flower. “Purple carnations mean capriciousness. I’m certain you can take it from there.”

Kokichi bit his thumb, deep in thought. It was scary how much Tsumugi knew about the situation, but he had already suspected she knew something; She was the person he went to for help, after all. If everything she said was true, that would mean Shuuichi loved somebody enough to contract hanahaki disease. But who could that person be?

Tsumugi frowned. “Oh my god. Don’t tell me you still don’t know who it is.”

“Yeah, I totally know who it is. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s when I worry most. But fine. Tell me who it is.”

“It’s definitely… I lied. I have no clue who it is.”

She sighed and rested her elbows on the table separating them. “Think about it. The flowers are purple, and they match a specific kind of dark purple that matches the hair color of somebody in our class. There’s only a few people in our class who match the definition of capricious, only one that prides himself on being that. You’ve been playing detective for long enough.”

Kokichi analyzed the clues one by one before it clicked. “Wait… you’re telling me that Shuuichi likes me? So I was the one hurting him all this time?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it that—”

“I can’t believe that bastard didn’t even tell me I was hurting him. He didn’t even tell me he had this disease! Why would—”

Tsumugi grabbed his sleeve. “Stop right there. You’re not one to jump to conclusions, and you’re not gonna jump to one now. Who are you, Kaito?”

Kokichi stopped, his face blanking.

Her voice softened. “I know you’re worried about Shuuichi, but you need to calm down before you confront him, or you could send him into a panic. Make a plan first. You like making plans, right?”

He nodded.

“Then make a plan, think about it, and then go confront him. It’s plain to see you care about him a lot. Don’t mess this up.” She smiled and patted his shoulder. “Now get out of my room. I still have anime to watch.”

Even though all the strength had left his body, Kokichi mustered up a smile and saluted her. “Aye, aye, captain. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

*

It was two days later when Kokichi finished planning and moved onto the execution.

“Thanks for bringing me out here,” Shuuichi said, looking up at the blue skies ahead of them. “I really needed to get out for a while.”

Kokichi turned back around to him with his arms folded behind his head. “Of course, you do. How long have you been cooped up in your room?”

He laughed, but his voice was devoid of humor.

They walked into the courtyard and took a seat on a bench, chatting as they watched the water fountain stream endlessly. Birds chirped in the background, and to Kokichi’s relief, no students were nearby. The grass beneath their feet was wet with dew from the rain yesterday. It was the perfect atmosphere to put Shuuichi at ease.

Step one completed.

Kokichi licked his lips, steeling himself for a conversation he wasn’t prepared to have. “Hey, Shuuichi, you mind explaining something to me?”

Shuuichi tensed. “Wh-What do you need?”

Step two completed.

Kokichi’s voice caught in his throat. His mouth moved, but no words could come out. So he pulled the bag containing the flower out from his scarf and held it out to him. His gaze moved up to meet his eyes, and his voice fell to a whisper. “What is this?”

“I-I…” Shuuichi’s eyes darted from the flower to Kokichi and back to the flower. His fists clenched and unclenched, and his breath grew unsteady.

Then Kokichi’s plan fell apart when Shuuichi began to cry.

“I-I’m sorry!” Shuuichi sobbed, holding his face in his hands, “I’m so sorry!”

Shit. What was he supposed to do?

Kokichi scooted closer to him and held onto his wrists, prying his hands away from his face. “Shuuichi…”

“I knew you would figure it out. I just didn’t want to tell you myself because I’m a coward.”

“Shuuichi, no—”

“You shouldn’t be comforting me, you should hate me for—for keeping this from you for so long.”

“So how long have you been keeping this from me?”

Shuuichi took a deep, shaky breath and dared to meet his eyes. “Um… a month?”

“A month?”

“Yes. Then it just got worse and worse from there. L-Like I said, I’m really sorry for not telling you. I should’ve just told you from the beginning, but…”

Kokichi reached up to wipe a stray tear on Shuuichi’s face. “Shuuichi, it’s okay. It’s really okay.”

“No, it’s—”

“These flowers are for me, right?”

Shuuichi gulped and nodded.

“Then if I say it’s fine, then it’s fine.” Kokichi gave him a gentle smile and flicked the top of his head. “I thought you would be smart enough to know that. That’s one of the reasons I fell for you, after all.”

Shuuichi’s breath hitched, and his eyes widened. “Wait… you like me? You’re not lying?”

“Jeez, you really have that little faith in me? Would I lie about something like that?”

“Yes.”

“Ouch.”

“But… you’re not lying now, are you?”

Kokichi rolled his eyes. “I literally tell you that I love you, I broke into your room to figure out what was wrong with you, and I’m here now. Take a wild guess, Shuuichi.”

“To be fair, you do that every day.”

Kokichi raised an eyebrow.

“Oh… Oh!” Shuuichi laughed. “How did I not see that until now? God, I’m stupid. I’m so, so stupid.”

“But I still love you anyway,” Kokichi purred, wrapping Shuuichi into an embrace. “I love you, Shuu-i-chi~”

“Y-You really mean that? You really mean that. Oh my god, you love me.” He backed out of the hug, sniffing and wiping the tears away from his eyes.

“Aw, are you crying?”

“I—” Shuuichi doubled over, coughing and hacking as bloodied flowers spilled out onto the sidewalk. The pile grew larger with each cough, seemingly endless until a pitiful final petal floated down.

Kokichi wrinkled his nose at the pile. “Really? That’s how much you love me? That’s a shame.”

“H-Hey, it hurt.”

“I know, I’m just joking.” He stood up from the bench and held a hand out. “Now that we’re boyfriends, we should go prank the nurse!”

Shuuichi’s face reddened at the title, but his lips curled up into a smile. “Is this your way of getting me to go to the nurse?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Shuuichi took the hand and stood up, though he only held it tighter when they began walking. He planted a kiss on the side of Kokichi’s head. “I’m glad you’re my boyfriend.”

Kokichi froze before jumping into action and swatting his face away from his head. “Ew, gross! At least wash your mouth out before kissing me. You didn’t even clean up that mess you left back there.”

“... Oh, I didn’t—”

“Let’s go to the nurse first. I don’t want to look at that again.”

Shuuichi turned around to glance at the pile of blood and flowers then turned back to Kokichi with a smile. “Me neither.”

[ask-glados]

A Trip to the Beach

Just a funny little TeslaDOS RP turned into a drabble. XD Written by me ( @ask-glados​ ) and @myinventions​

—————

“So, where ARE we headed, anyway?” GLaDOS asked, her hologram giving a smirk.

Tesla shared with her an unusually impish smirk. “To give you the most memorable night of your life, of course~ there’s a frenzy of high societal parties going on just waiting for us to arrive uninvited!” He laughed. “I jest, of course.”

“Well, if you want to make this night memorable, you're going to have to try pretty hard, because so far, it's been pretty typical,” she teased. 

“Well, there’s a sandy beach not too far by the River Thames that I discovered last time I was here. I found it most tranquil for thinking - it was actually at that spot that I was inspired to create that weekend project which started this whole ordeal to begin with. I thought you might enjoy it.”

“So, you HAVE thought this through after all.”

“Of course, I have. It’s not every day I’m honored with such impeccable company on my side of the time portal.” He really didn’t know how to express how much he appreciated her being here with him in the ‘past’ - or, his ‘present’.

“By the way, did you know that salt water is highly damaging to electronics and machines? It's quite possibly the worst thing you can expose them to, due to its corrosiveness.”

Tesla blinked and stared at GLaDOS for a moment, his eyes widening. Of course. She was made of metal. How had he forgotten such a crucial detail? 

However, she then let out a laugh. “Oh, don't worry. I'll still go. Just make sure you keep my core far away from the water.”

After looking out at the sparkle of city lights along their path, he patted his breast pocket where her core was safely kept and smiled at her hologram. “I’ll make sure of it.”

When they reached the beach, it was dark and completely empty, as expected, lit up just enough by the lights of the city and the glow of the moon. After checking that the coast was clear, GLaDOS turned her hologram off and on, dropping her era-appropriate disguise clothing into a neat pile, re-exposing her holographic white dress and red ascot. She had also removed her hologram’s shoes, leaving her barefoot. 

“Ah, that’s much better,” she said, shaking her head and hair around, stretching her arms out before walking out across the sand, enjoying the feel of it between her toes.

“Efficient,” Tesla remarked at her quick-change, smiling admiringly at her. He meanwhile remained in complete ensemble as he walked closely behind her along the sandy shore. With a long stick he picked up, he gestured to a rocky area near the docks. “It was in that spot the idea struck me - like a bolt of lightning - and where I remained so until dawn visualizing the entire project in my mind.”

She simply smiled at him as she began heading toward the water. She walked in long, confident strides — neither too fast nor too slow.

Tesla looked down, smiling at her core in at his pocket, happily sighing. 

“Who would have imagined. This is where it all started... and now, here you are," he thought aloud, before watching GLaDOS's hologram get closer to the water. "—Say, where are you going?”

Her hologram stopped and turned to smirk at him. Luckily, since her voice still came out of her core, her hologram’s distance wasn’t an issue in regards to hearing her. 

”Forgive me. I was under the impression that humans usually come to the beach to go in the water. Well, except for the boring ones who’d rather laze on the shore like blubber-filled sea cows.”

“Heh~” Inevitably his cheeks were going to start hurting from smiling so much - that, or a premature development of crow's feet around his eyes - not like any of that mattered at all. "Are you implying that I'm a blubber-filled sea cow?" He laughed aloud, walking closer to her. "I would greatly enjoy accompanying you — but I might have to consult your genius, given this," he pointed to her core in his breast pocket, "as well as my lack of appropriate swim attire."

“Just leave me on the shore, genius. I’ll survive. Along with the top layers of your incredibly excessive getup.” She gestured to the fancy suit that he wore.

She was serious. Tesla just stood there awkwardly as his face suddenly grew ruddy. To someone from her time, it was really no big deal. His so-called ‘underwear’ was really just the equivalent of shorts and a T-shirt. But to him, the mere thought of being so underdressed in public — what scandal! 

“But—” And yet, he found himself unable to find any words to object. “...Alright,” he conceded after a pause. 

Heading back to where the pile of her disguise was, he gave her core a serious look, and turned his back to her hologram, placing his jacket — and her core — in a safe place. “Don't look.”

She chuckled at his silliness, but complied with his request and looked away as he ‘changed.’

Once completed — and, face ruddier than ever — he returned to her hologram, taking her hologram's hand, and trying to laugh off his embarrassment. “Well?”

She gave a fake gasp, putting a hand to her mouth. "A different layer of clothing! Oh, the horror!" She gave a laugh. 

Tesla's face momentarily went redder, before joining her laughter at just how absurd it all was.

“In case you’re worried, though, my sensors will detect anyone long before they approach.”

Squeezing her hand tighter, he tapped her nose with his other index finger “I certainly hope so. Worst case, we'll make history on tomorrow's front page of the gossip column being called out as lunatics taking a night swim in the River Thames.”

She chuckled. “Well, come on, then,” she said, pulling him along as she stepped toward the oncoming waves, the sea foam brushing her toes.

He followed close behind, his smile unwavering. The mix of sand and splash of waves under his feet was splendid. And her — right here. 

Without warning, he suddenly swept her up princess-style and rushed straight into the oncoming wave. She yelped in delight and laughed as she was pulled under the splashing wave with him, her voice undeterred by the water or any need for breath. 

When they resurfaced, Tesla shook his head, blowing his wet hair from his face, though some of it still stuck to his forehead. Looking down at her in his arms, he blinked. Water dripped off of her, but her hair and dress still flapped in the wind, dry as ever. “How peculiar. Water seems to impenetrably slide off of you!” 

“Hard light doesn't retain water, Mr. Tesla," she said, smirking at him. "I thought that someone as intelligent as yourself would have deduced such a simple science fact.”

“Deduction is one thing, empirical observation is another,” he replied with a smirk, setting her back on her feet.

GLaDOS smiled, then suddenly her eyes went wide in panic. ”AHH! BIRD! BIRD! OH GOD, IT'S GOT ME! KILL IT! KILL IT!!!” She pointed frantically toward the shore where a seagull could be seen with GLaDOS's core in its beak, chain still attached, dragging Tesla's vest behind it like an anchor as the gull tried to fly away with her. 

“Unhand her, you fiend!” Tesla shouted, running on the beach after the bird — that was now clearly seeing this as some sort of game.

“KILL IT! KILL IT!” she continued to yell. 

As he tried to corner it, Tesla glanced back at GLaDOS' hologram—just one holographic jolt over here and it would be over in an instant. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like that was going to happen. She was frozen—paralyzed by fear. 

Taking a heavy breath, he fixated his gaze on the bird. “I'LL SAVE YOU!” he declared valiantly, increasing his speed and catching up to the bird in its circuitous pattern. And then, he found his opportunity as the gull was making curve along its circumference. With careful calculation, gallantly, he intercepted the bird's path, leaping for the creature itself, rather than the vest—for if he aimed simply for his vest, he risked the chain snapping. He managed to gently tackle the bird to the ground, crashing into the sand as the bird squirmed and squawked in his grasp. 

“GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME!” her core shrieked in his ear, still being held in the bird's mouth. Apparently, the bird had a very tight grip on her.

Between GLaDOS' shrieks and the seagull's caws, he winced at the loud noise in his ear. “Steady now, steady!” It wasn't certain just who Tesla was exactly speaking to as he wrestled with the bird. His arm wrapped around its belly and his hand trying to pry her core from its beak. He coughed as both sand and feathers were swatted in his face, until he finally was able to pin the bird down under his weight.

“Easy there, little thing.” Ever so gentle, making sure the fragility of both the bird and the core were safe—and even with the gull putting up a stubborn fight, surprisingly, he maintained a level of calm in such a tumultuous moment. “Let her go—Ow! Don't bite me! Just let it go easy—No! I know it's shiny... and you like shiny things—Stop!—Stop trying to swallow it! You'll suffocate yourself, you bird brain! Let... her... go!”

Finally, after much struggling, her core finally came just loose enough for him to slip her out of the bird’s grasp.

“About time!” Without wasting another moment, Tesla seized the opportunity to free GLaDOS’ core from its beak. Her core safe in the tight grip of his hand, he lifted his weight off the seagull, and it scrambled out from under him and flew away - most likely squawking outraged expletives at him. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Tesla rolled over on the sand onto his back, groaning to catch his breath. He had a few very minor scratches around his arms from the gull’s talons and pecks, but it was hardly anything even noticeable. He tilted his head in her core’s direction. “Well, that was certainly eventful. How are you holding up?”

Her core was vibrating erratically in his hand, trembling. ”Eugh. Disgusting thing. Pure evil.” She let out a sigh of relief.  ”Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.” Looking between her and the night’s sky, he took another breath, softly hushing her. His hand’s grip loosened and tightened around her core, trying to comfort her. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

She gave another shaky sigh of relief at his touch. She felt gross—her core all covered in wet sand and gull saliva. Out in the distance, her hologram vanished as she deactivated it temporarily.

“Come here.” Pulling her core onto his chest—right above his pacing heart, he nestled her close... safe. He equally felt gross. Who knew what diseases that fowl carried. And he had sand stuck all over his wet form, given he had run right into the sand straight from the water. His fingers traced the rim of her core—like a hug, but not covering her optic. "We'll get you all cleaned up in a little bit. Just... look... up." He gestured with his other hand to the canopy of bright stars above them.

She hummed in contentment at his embrace as she gazed up at the stars. A split second glance was all it took for her to match up the star patterns with the star charts in her database, instantly identifying all the visible constellations and astral bodies. Her hologram suddenly appeared next to him, her head laid against his chest.

Stars twinkled above them like powdered sugar on a dessert. Tesla recognized a few constellations—they were on the same hemisphere as his hometown and New York after all—and soon grew lost in thought gazing at the vast expanse of it. "Oh! Why, hello again~" Tesla smiled warmly at her hologram's reappearance. His arm wrapped around her, pulling her in tighter to keep her cuddled close. "Aren't you a little Cuddle Core~?"

She chuckled, turning toward him and giving him a peck on the cheek.

"Ha~ Thank you~" He blushed, giving a soft chuckle as well. Such public displays of affection feeling almost so... foreign to him. Or was his sensitivity simply due to the fact that their care and endearing perception of each other was mutual? Regardless... he greatly enjoyed it—far more than he cared to admit. 

She leaned on his chest with folded arms, propping her head up, gazing at him as her core continued gazing up at the stars. ”I can identify every one of those astral bodies and constellations, you know.”

Tesla tilted his head in her hologram's direction, admiring the details of her face, before gesturing his look back to the sky, "Is that so~?" He played dumb. Of course she knew, but it was still fun to put it to the test.  "Then... what is...” He hummed aloud indecisively "That one, that's directly above us?"

"Vega. One of the brightest stars in the night sky. Part of the constellation Lyra, the Lyre. Vega also forms one corner of the Summer Triangle, which is made up of itself, Altair, and Cygnus," she recited, continuing to gaze at him, her head casually propped up on her arms. "It was also the first star—other than the Sun—to be photographed, in 1850."

"Yes... Alpha Lyrae, as it’s also designated..." Tesla pulled out his handkerchief and began cleaning the gull saliva off her core. “And what about... that one, close to the horizon?” 

Honestly, he wouldn’t mind staying here forever, with her, joking around, talking science, doing crazy things he’d never have done otherwise. It was nice. He’d only known her a little over a year now, but already, he was beginning to find it difficult to imagine his life without her. 

GLaDOS couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun. Even the thrill of testing seemed to pale in comparison. She’d always hated humans and been ashamed of her own humanity. Yet, being with him made her feel so good—better than testing ever had, and for the first time since her activation, she felt truly loved and appreciated. Like somebody actually wanted her around. It made her think that perhaps, maybe humanity wasn't so bad after all.

[22kjde]

Just Tattoo of Us

Request: Hi! If you’re still doing requests could you do one where the reader is Mr J’s tattoo artist, the only one he hasn’t killed. Maybe have a jealous Harley in it.

Warning(s): Swearing, slight (sexual) violence i.e. choking, sexual references, light dirty talk, Jealous!Harley

Word count: 2.1k

          The bell dinged, signifying yet another customer entering the already crowded tattoo studio. Mind you, it was a Saturday at 1:19pm in the middle of a busy city - Gotham; to be exact.

City of Crime.

Has a ring to it.

Even though the dangerous city had quite the crude reputation to be... crooked, let's say, she loved living in it. It was just something about living life on the edge - never really knowing whether the next day would be her last - that excited her and she couldn't get enough of the rush that came with it.

Though of course, the perks also came with a few disadvantages, that many would say would be a little too colossal of a problem and would turn them away from moving to the crime-ridden town.

You know, just a tad of a turn-off.

She had run into - well, saw at the corner of a street and then swivelled in the other direction as fast as she could - many a criminal during her occasional strolls through the underworld.

Don't take a midnight stroll on the wrong side of town, I'm telling you. It's not a good idea.

There was one special occasion, however.

Meeting the one, the only, the infamous, Joker: Clown Prince of Crime - the 'Jester of Genocide', if you will - under the pale moonlight oddly drew her being towards him in some sort of way. Which way that was, she didn't know herself yet. Maybe curiosity, maybe incredulity, maybe attraction, but she was certainly intrigued by the acid-washed man.

Now, the woman wasn't an idiot, nor ignorant, at that. She had acknowledged the presence of his partner in crime - his Harley Quinn - nevertheless, she persisted in trying to get into his circle of trust, to be his friend, in an obscure form.

You would think being his tattoo artist wouldn't get her very far, huh?

She was the only tattoo artist within a 3-mile radius of his unknown location in which he and Harley lived.

I wasn't kidding when I said the tattoo studio was crowded. How much do you wanna bet getting a micro-sized rose on your ankle is? Joker made sure she was earning as much as your standard lawyer or doctor in the city by taking the liberty to act on some pretty drastic measures.

Basically, he executes every other tattoo artist in the general area, to put it simply.

How sweet.

But as one can imagine, his significant other would be slightly suspicious, and that was to be expected when your man paid special and notable attention to another woman. Yes, jealousy wasn't exactly an aspired trait in a normal relationship. But anyone who knew about them and their past knew that Harley Quinn and her Joker were anything but ordinary.

Jumping into a VAT full of bubbling acid to prove your love for a psychopath who manipulated you?

No thank you.

Although, with saying that, the adrenaline-addicted tattoo artist from a family background was seemingly willing to do anything and everything but.

"I was thinking about a new lip tattoo, whaddya think?" A deep yet velvety voice broke her from her trance and snapped her back to reality where she noticed she had just been staring out of the recently cleaned, sparkling window, wielding a tattoo pen that was still whirring from inscribing her art onto her last customer - she had forgotten to turn the machine off before spacing out.

Quickly switching it off, she swallowed before looking up at the blindingly green-haired man standing in front of the mirror and pulling at his bottom lip, inspecting.

"Well if you want it to say "P U S S Y", count me out." She retorted with a quick wit, something she never really understood if it was a gift or a curse. Her sharp tongue usually got her into some hefty trouble more than a few times. But hey, she was comical.

Her comment earned a chuckle from him which in turn made her smile to herself. Making him laugh was always a daily mission for her. To see him smile because of what she did or said was always an achievement.

"That's why I like you, doll. You always have some sarcastic remark. It's refreshing. Hearing the words "yes, Daddy" and "play with me, Daddy" from Harls every day gets repetitive over time." He sauntered over after checking himself once over in the mirror - vain bastard - and sat on the extended tattoo couch, now level with her, as she had been sitting in her spinny chair, whilst she discarded her old rubber gloves and put on a new pair, the sound of the material smacking against her skin as she pulled on them.

"Oh, I'm sure it must be very tiring to have kinky sex on the daily, J." She rolled her eyes as she used his nickname that only certain people were allowed to call him. He normally only allowed others to refer to him as "Joker" or "Mister J". She snickered at the glare he gave her before continuing, not adhering the warning. "I'm serious! Ya gotta use the handcuffs, the ropes, the ice, the foreplay, the whips... I would imagine fucking your tailor-made girlfriend who obeys your every command would be absolutely tedious."

His hands were around her throat and squeezing within seconds after she had finished her sentence, making her stand up with him and letting him push her back into the wall with a thump, a constricted grunt of slight pain resounding from her closed throat. Her doe eyes looked up and met his narrowed ones with only a few inches between them.

"I don't think you want to know just how interesting I can really be with my toys, doll-face, so I suggest you shut up about my sex life unless you want me to prove to you that you're wrong." His threat was laced with a presence of sexual tension. The sensation of his fingers around her neck and his breath fanning her face with seducing threats that came with his body mere centimetres away from hers almost made her knees buckle from underneath her and she had to stop herself from releasing an audible moan of desperation and anticipation from thinking about what he could do to her right then and there.

The two of them must've stayed in that position - staring each other down with nothing but their laboured breaths filling the room - for a solid five or so minutes until the door to the room slammed wide open and a bustling bleached-blonde skipped in, the sound of her heels tapping against the floorboards jolting the woman held against the wall back to life and she tried pulling away but to no avail. Keeping his grip tight, but not tight enough to cut off the airways, he continued to gaze intently into her eyes. His glazed over with a fire burning deep inside of him that he didn't conjure with his girlfriend any longer.

"Puddin'?..." The mixed tone of anger, disappointment, and rejection was detectable from Harley as the nickname for her lover spewed from her red lips. Walking into a secluded room to see the man she loved with a woman she had already been jealous of, in a position she thought was only reserved for her in the bedroom, brung out the worst in her as she felt the rage bubbling up inside at an increasing rate. Ready to pounce at the bitch trying to steal her boyfriend, she was stopped by the voice she had fallen in love with.

"Harley, sweetums, I want you to go home and be ready for me for when I get back, okay? Daddy's going to get a new tattoo and I was just in the middle of telling our artist here exactly what I want. Detail... by... detail." The reply had a sickly sweet underlay to it which, to any typical person, could've been easily picked up on and scoffed at - something she almost did - but to Harley, blinded by her emotions towards the criminal, it was just another demand for sex which she gladly complied to every time. She looked past everything she had just witnessed only minutes ago after hearing the pet name she had been called, convincing herself that the man dangerously close to a woman that wasn't her, still loved her in his own way.

"Alright, Daddy, but don't be long. I'll be waiting..." An exaggerated grin, accompanied by a giggle, was sent in his direction before she turned on her heel and walked through the doorway, shutting the door with a click after her.

Shoving his body off of her, the trained tattoo artist dramatically gagged and stuck her forefinger inside her mouth. She was amazed yet disgusted at the same time at how submissive a woman could be towards a man. Never in her life did she witness such obedience without question to someone who was clearly not right in the noggin'.

"You've messed her up, J. Like real bad. She worships the ground you walk on. She's just your fucking sex toy and she doesn't even realise it, thinking you "love" her and shit." A rant had been building up inside of her until finally, it started to be projected. "I kinda feel sorry for the girl. She was a psychologist, a good one at that, with a PhD, and you've somehow manipulated her and worked your way into her mind so that now she'd do anything for you. She'd die for you."

"And that's how I like it. People in this city respect me, all because-..."

"That's not respect! That's psychological torture and I'll be damned if I end up like another one of your 'dolls' you can have fun with one minute and couldn't give a fuck about the next." She didn't notice but she had begun to yell with pent up anger flowing out of her, she didn't even register entirely what she was saying.

She had wanted to be by his side for as long as she could remember after meeting him, as his companion, his partner, his lover. She had thought she could replace Harley and become his new Queen of Crime. However, after seeing what previous Dr Harleen Quinzel had now become under his hands, she began to have second thoughts.

"You think I would treat you just like some random woman I picked up from the club? Oh, no, no, no. You... are one of a kind. You're unique... You're mine." As he spoke these enticing words in a sultry manner, he came closer. Each step forward he made, resulted in one step backward for her until the back of her knees hit the chair and she fell back into it, now laying down. She watched as he placed his hands either side of her on the armrests and wedged his knees beside her, crawling up her body until he was hovering above.

Her breath became uneven as she tried to stop herself from giving in and looking down at his crimson lips that looked o so kissable. "I want you. And the things I want, I get, no matter how. I know you've been wanting me since the first time you saw me. I know you touch yourself at night at the thought of me doing dirty things to you. When you're alone in bed and your mind keeps drifting off to think about what I could do with your body. And I know how badly you want to feel full. You want me inside you. Isn't that right?"

The way he spoke her thoughts aloud without caring who heard him made her cheeks turn a shade of red so deep she didn't even think it possible and her core slick with want and need. The rough nature of his gravelly voice mixed with the undertones of lust and greed for her, visibly shook her as goosebumps appeared on her skin. Hearing all of these sinful words whispered from the mouth she had tried to resist earlier made her reach up to pull his head down as she just couldn't take the teasing any longer, connecting their lips together in a heated, passionate kiss.

A growl was released from the depths of his throat as he shifted his body weight onto his elbows either side of her head and pressed his lower half into her, allowing her to feel what she did to him without touching him once. Hands moving to grip his shirt around his torso, she opened her mouth to grant him access to explore with his tongue before moaning gently.

Amongst all the fiery desire and passion the both of them were sharing, she had managed to remember a specific moment that had happened during his visit to the studio earlier before which made her pull away from his hungry lips to add her sarcastic rebuttal, as she always did,

"Play with me, Daddy."

[joanasherwood-blog]

Bell Qualifier MIPS Helmet

Lightweight polycarbonate shell•This helmet comes equipped with MIPS (Multi Directional Impact Protection System), the newest innovation in energy management• Protection against move force is very necessary for motorbike riders as a result of once you crash your head typically hits the bottom at associate degree angle• By stepping outside the boundaries of normal helmet style MIPS is in a position to supply revolutionary technology you'll accept Transitions adaptative protect enclosed Adjustable ventilating system for cooling and luxury cushiony wind collar drastically reduces wind and road noise Moisture-wicking, removable/washable interior Contoured cheek pads mechanics profile resists pounding and elevate Integrated speaker pockets ClickRelease for the quickest, easiest, tool-free protect changes ever NutraFog II superior anti-fog, anti-scratch and UV protected protect cushiony strap with D-ring closure Accommodates the Bell Sena SMH10 and Cardo Scala Rider Q1/Q3 Bluetooth communication system DOT approved Industry-leading 5-Year warrantee Qualifier DLX MIPS Helmet I really feel abundant safer simply knowing the MIPS technology is within the helmet.

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Sunglasses will get uncomfortable and simply add another layer to seem through.

Qualifier DLX MIPS Helmet

Thumbs up. Noise - I nearly subtracted a star as a result of everyone seems to be correct, it will be a touch noisy at higher speeds.

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Mips - i actually do feel safer with the MIPS technology. I hope I ne'er would like it however it's reassuring simply knowing it's there

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Bell Qualifier MIPS Helmet

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