#if somehow by freak accident i got both forever.
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
definitely-not-iorveth · 3 months ago
Text
okay this looks fun!
using my spotify liked playlist for this.
links to the songs: dumb org xiii nad kolíbkou the flame kompass
@mortallyperfecttimemachine @vossn @goofgoofdildo @fridgebaby @loki-is-my-kink-awakening @swanfloatieknight @lauvemsomhelst @do-androids-dream-ao3acc @ineadhyn @loki-is-my-kink-awakening & everyone else who sees this come tell me my music taste is shit
Challenging you all!
Put your music library on shuffle, then list the first five songs that come up in a poll to let people vote for which one they like the most!
Then tag Tumblr friends to keep the game going!
12K notes · View notes
cherriegyuu · 1 year ago
Text
memories of us | lsm
Tumblr media
pairing: seokmin x f!reader - soulmate!au summary: every night seokmin dreams of his past lifes, when he met and fell for his soulmate countless times. genre: fluff, angst word count: 11.9k warnings: reader has really low self esteem a/n: this is not, in any way, connected to elevator. both stories are centered around soulmates, however the rules are different. in elevator people carry marks that vanish from their bodies once they meet their soulmate, here is the bond is created by eye contact. i hope you enjoy it :)
Tumblr media
Today, when I woke up, the first thing I thought about was you, but that’s not something new. You’re always the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last one before I go to sleep. My mind is consumed by thoughts of you the entire day. There’s not a single minute when you don’t make your presence noticed,  even if you’re not really here by my side. The funny thing is that I haven’t met you yet and somehow you are the only one in my mind. 
I started to dream of you when I was sixteen. At the time I had no idea of what was going on, I didn’t know what Memorous were, and I couldn’t even phantom why I was dreaming of an older version of myself. I was young and the naive teenager version of me thought that it was something everyone goes through. Ah, maybe these are memories from my past lives. I was right about that part, but I didn’t know the length of what was going on with me. 
Tumblr media
It was only a month later when I told anyone about it. Because those dreams were something no one ever mentioned around me before, so I was afraid to speak about them. What if, because of those dreams, people started to label me as a freak? I had already a very negative reputation, so to say, I didn’t want to make it worse. When I finally mustered the courage to talk to someone about it, I figured that I should tell my mom about it. She was a mother, my mom, and like all moms she would probably know what to do. 
She didn’t. 
For a while, she just sat there and stared at me, not like I was a freak but as if I had become a stranger. I was no longer Lee Seokmin, her eldest son who on most days seemed like the youngest. I saw her eyes change that day, from a mother who loved her son to a woman who didn’t know who the boy in front of her was.  
It was also the first time that someone told me that I was cursed.  
None of us could be sure whether I was cursed or not, but she said it with so much belief that I knew that it had to be true. 
I don’t think I have ever felt so alone. Before my mother said those words to me, those words that would be forever stuck in my brain, you are cursed, Seokmin, and there’s nothing any of us can do to change that, I used to be normal - or as normal as a sixteen-year-old hyperactive boy could be. But the second those words were uttered, released into the world, something inside me changed.   
I think that the best way to describe it would be a click, I felt a click inside my heart. There’s no other word I could use to describe it. 
After everything that happened in the span of minutes, I changed. I started to be more restricted, no one else in the world knew about the dreams or about me being a Memorous. My circle of friends got smaller and smaller. What if, by accident, I told one of them something about the dreams, about you? That couldn’t happen. 
In reality, I didn’t have many friends. You know, the kind you tell secrets to and are really close to. Those were the kinds of people that I wanted to avoid at all costs. I wasn’t a loner, though. I had people I could hang out with, people that I would go to a bar or a club with, but I liked to be alone. 
It’s weird, isn’t it? I had friends but I wasn’t actually friends with any of them. I wasn’t a loner but the thing I enjoyed the most was being alone. 
When I turned eighteen and high school was finally over, I moved away from home. For two years I saved every cent that I could, my main goal was to just leave. I studied my eyes off in school so I could get into a university that was as far away as possible from home. I needed to get a scholarship so I wouldn’t need to ask for help from my parents. 
Doing those two things made me feel somewhat proud of myself. It was like I was telling them see just because you think I’m cursed doesn’t mean that I can’t do what I want. 
Tumblr media
 Let me explain to you how the dreams work: every night I dream of you, no exception but every night is a different life. 
This is how Memorous must live. I remember every single thing about our past lives, all the details that people usually forget about their lives. I remember them, more or less. I know what you were wearing on April 18th, 1811; I know what was the first word you said to me in Madrid, it was a curse by the way; the first time we bonded.  
Sometimes it feels so real that I think if I look by my side, I’ll see you there. That couldn’t be true, I haven’t seen you in this lifetime - I would never be able to let you go if I had. 
There’s a trick about being a Memorous though. Once I fall asleep and dream of a different life everything I dreamed the night before vanishes and I can’t remember anything. At first, I thought that it happened like that because sometimes we forget about the dreams we have. It was as if it simply vanished from my mind, and I could only remember it when I dreamt of the same life again. It’s like a selective memory kind of thing. 
You know, the feeling of a dream being so real that you could either wake up in panic or just really happy and satisfied? 
For me, every dream was like that. If I held your hand in my dream, when I woke up I would still get the feel of your skin against mine; if we fought for whatever reason I would still feel the sadness and the anger lingering in my body. 
When I understood what was happening, I started to write down the dreams, every little detail that I could remember. Slowly I started to find a pattern in the dreams, slowly I learned to tell the lives apart and so I started notebooks. It’s a little weird, I know, but I had to keep track of our lives. Maybe, at some level, you might think that I’m crazy or that I’m a stalker. But could it be considered stalking when it’s my own life? 
I can’t wait to meet you.  Although I haven’t actually met you or even seen you this time around, I feel like I have known you all my life. Is this the feeling we’ll get when we finally meet, this feeling of fullness? 
I wonder if you feel that too. 
Tumblr media
Out of all our lives together I have a favorite one. I mean, it is expected, isn’t it? After such a long time of living countless lives, every day being a different person - although I’m ultimately the same - we are bound to have a favorite one. 
If I do say so myself that life is very much Shakespearean. Okay, so imagine this: two families who were very powerful but were opposites and hated each other with a burning passion. And there you have it. Sounds very much like Romeo and Juliet, doesn’t it? Maybe if it happened a couple hundred years earlier, in England, then maybe I could say that we actually inspired him, but we happened far too late. 
You know, I still remember the first time I saw you that time around. I think that maybe that bond was the strongest one we’ve had, probably because we were supposed to hate each other. The idea of an unexpected bond between two opposite families is kind of thrilling, isn’t it? 
We met at a party. Because our families couldn’t even stand to be in the same space together, mostly our dads - why is it always the dads though? -, they send you and me to represent the families. As you can probably imagine, we had no idea of what the other person looked like. 
So, there I was walking inside this immense ballroom, and you were the first person I saw. Looking at you I just knew that you were out of place, that kind of environment wasn’t one you felt comfortable in. At that point, you weren’t looking at me but when you finally did, it was like the entire world stopped. I felt my heart thump inside my chest, but I could feel you too. I saw as you went wide-eyed. You took a step closer to me but then, realizing what you did, you took a couple of steps back. For the entire night, we didn’t approach each other but my eyes never left yours, as yours never left mine. 
We followed each other through the night.  I got angry, really angry, when someone wanted to talk to me because all I wanted to do was look at you. Whenever my feelings changed, I would feel yours changing too. You felt mostly curiosity. How could this man, someone you had never seen before, catch your attention in such a way that you couldn’t look at anything or anyone else? 
Back then it wasn’t like today, you know. The bond happened more quietly, or maybe we only thought it did. Though the bond is something that has been around since the beginning of time, we only found out about it much later in life. I suppose that back then we still didn’t know much about it. Maybe the change everyone felt around a couple that was bonding was there but because we didn’t know what it was supposed to be we just overlooked it. 
Back to the story. 
You were the first one to make a move to leave but I couldn’t let you go, no way. I followed you out and much to my own surprise you were waiting for me, because somehow you knew that I had to go after you. We didn’t say much, just promised to meet each other a couple of days later. 
From that moment on, things took off, or as much as you could possibly expect from a couple in the early nineteen century. We would always meet each other. Everything was exciting because no one could know about what we were doing. Besides the whole ‘my family hates yours’ problem that we had, there was also the problem that both of us were promised to other people. You were supposed to marry a young Duque and I had to marry the daughter of a rich family. If we were against it before, imagine what it was like after we found out about how we felt for each other. 
Our happiness didn’t last very long. We were careless and, although we were trying to hide it, we weren’t as stealthy about it as we liked to imagine. 
It’s needless to say that when our families found out they were far from happy. They didn’t try to kill us or anything that dramatic, but they started to rush things. Your marriage that was supposed to happen only a year later was set to two weeks later; mine was happening in a few days. Of course, neither of us accepted that. 
On the night before my wedding, I felt something trying to pull me. It was like my legs were moving on their own and I saw myself walking out of the house and into the city. I found you there, all alone in the middle of the street, staring at the church I was supposed to get married in. I realized then that the sadness I felt was only partially mine, a lot of it was coming from you. I didn’t really understand how it was possible for me to feel everything that you were feeling but I knew that there wasn’t another explanation for it. 
You couldn’t control your emotions and tears were running down your cheeks, you tried hard to push them aside, but it was of no use. The more you tried to make the tears stop the more they fell. I couldn’t control myself by then. You were afraid when my arm went around you but once you knew that it was me you turned in my arms. The tears that ran down your face were no longer out of pain and hurt, they were because we were finally reunited. 
We ran away. We didn’t take anything with us. There was no time to go home and get clothes, or say goodbye. We were sure that if we were together then everything would be alright. Because we had each other nothing in the world nothing could hurt us. 
That's… that’s as far as the dreams go. I’d like to think that we had a happy ending. 
Tumblr media
 Two years into college I finally understood what my mom meant when she said that I am cursed. 
You see, the dreams I have at night are just fragments, tiny little pieces of an entire puzzle. I could only see a day or a week, at most. But the thing is that I only saw us young, meeting, starting the bond, falling in love. Not once did my dreams show us a little older, getting married, having kids, or even if things didn’t work between us. I never dreamed of those things. 
At first, my guess was that the dreams were trying to show me a way to get to you, find you in a world that’s filled with billions of people. That wasn’t the case. 
One night I dreamed of you dying. I woke up in despair. Instead of the sweet dreams, filled with warm touches and whispered words, I faced images of you surrounded by blood, a lifeless body in my arms. 
For a while I wanted to make myself believe that it was just a nightmare, that it would eventually go away but I knew it wasn’t that simple, nothing ever is. 
I kept seeing the same thing for days and every day it got worse and worse. It got to the point where I stopped sleeping at all. Every time I closed my eyes I could see your body on the ground, eyes wide open. I knew that it wasn’t true, but I felt like you were looking at me, like you blamed me for your death. 
I searched it up. If the same thing happened to other Memorous I wanted to know how to make it stop, if I could even do something like that. From task number one I had problems. 
For one, Memorous doesn’t like to be clear about it, we are heavily judged by it because no one understands what it is like to be one. Most people just think that we are making a fuss over nothing, that knowing what your soulmate looks like, what that person likes and dislikes makes it much easier to find the person you are supposed to bond with. What they don’t know is that, like everyone else in the world, people’s taste, personalities and all else changes. In one of your lives, you were a dancer, the stage was your home, and being watched by people was something you thrived off of but in the next one you were a shy girl who couldn’t bear the thought of people looking at her (this actually happened, just so you know). 
Second, there aren’t many Memorous in the world. We are considered an anomaly, there are very few of us. I believe that we will only be able to understand why we are born this way when a scientist is born as a Memorous. 
But not everything is a lost hope! God bless the people who aren’t scared to share their stories because they want to help other people. I found this post, on a very weird and hard to find website, saying that there is a way to break this ‘curse’. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it’s not up to us to end the cycle. Well, technically it is but it’s not a choice that we can make. It’s confusing, I know. 
Apparently, the only way for us to stay together for a long time is if both of us are born Memorous, meaning that you and I must know our past lives. The one who wrote the post was a young boy, claiming that it was his grandparents’ story and that both of them were still alive and fine. 
It’s not much but at least it’s something. I can’t help but wonder if this time around you already know who I am. 
Tumblr media
I saw you today, or at the very least I thought that I did. I looked at my right and you were right there! Your eyes went anywhere but me, it was like you were purposely trying to avoid me. I went after you, called after you (even though I don’t know what you’re called in this life). It seemed that you were running away from me, though I’m sure that wasn’t the case. How could you run from someone you don’t know? 
On days like this, I think I’m starting to lose my mind. The dreams are starting to feel more real than ever, and I don’t know what to do. Is it because we are getting closer to each other? Maybe we are in the same city? I hope so. 
I’ve hoping for something, just a tiny signal, for the longest time. Was today it? I think about seeing you, how the dreams are now just a repeat of all the first meetings before, how every day when I wake up I have a feeling inside my heart telling me that we are getting closer to each other. 
Are we? Does this mean that we are getting closer? 
Maybe this is the universe’s way of letting us know. Because our lives, all of them, have been so messed up that this is fate’s way of apologizing for all the crap that it put us through. 
I’m going to find you soon. Hopefully, wherever you are you’re also looking for me and that will probably make our lives that much easier. 
Tumblr media
You closed the journal and put it aside. You managed to hold yourself back while reading, you didn’t want the tears in the back of your eyes to fall on the pages, the precious pages that told your story through Seokmin’s eyes. 
It had been hard to come to terms with the idea, the fact, that he was your soulmate but over the years you became more and more used to it. Your lives were too different, your backgrounds complete opposites, and yet - somehow - you were it for each other. 
The first time you saw him on TV, you clearly remembered how you felt. It was as if someone had just punched you in the chest. On the other side of the tiny screen was the boy - now the man - you had been dreaming about for years of your life. You never thought that you would find him, especially so soon but then again if you thought about all your dreams, both of you seemed young - maybe even younger than your 25 years. 
You stayed away from the TV for about a month after that, but you knew that it wouldn’t last much longer than that. The entire time Seokmin was in the back of your mind, always making sure that you wouldn’t forget him. That was simply something that would never happen, you forgetting about him - even if that was one of the many things that you wanted to do. Eventually, you found yourself turning the TV on again, watching every single program, every video, and buying any magazine that featured him. 
Thinking back at it, you felt sort of stupid for doing those things and not just trying to look for him. You were right, your soulmate was Seokmin but your own insecurities were holding you back. Out of everything you had, there was one problem you considered to be major: you had nothing to offer him. 
You were the kid no one wanted, the kid that had been tossed into an orphanage at the age of eight, and no one had gone back to take claim. Like a monkey on a tree, you moved from house to house without a chance of staying, even the prospect of making friends didn’t exist. 
Growing up you always dreamed of meeting your soulmate, imagined the way you would finally meet the other person. In your mind you were always the hotshot, someone who could make anything happen with a simple word. As you got older you wanted to just live a decent life but all you had was a shitty rented apartment in a sketchy area of the city, a shower that didn’t run with hot water, and were living paycheck by paycheck. 
That wasn’t the life you wanted, it was a life that you were almost embarrassed over. How could you ever share a life with someone when you could hardly sustain yourself? That wasn’t possible. 
But then it happened. You got dragged by your friend to go to the TV station and watched as Seokmin recorded a program. Jun said that he wouldn’t notice you, that you would sit far in the back, and you could put your bangs down and cover your eyes so there wouldn’t be a single chance of the bond happening. 
It was a lie, you knew that. Jun lied straight to your face, and you let yourself fall for it. You couldn’t say no to him, much less to his kids. Hana was so excited about it. Watching Seokmin on TV was her favorite thing in the world, more than dancing or watching cartoons. He’s pretty and funny, my soulmate has to be just like him, she said. It was funny and endearing to watch. Sometimes you just wanted to meet Seokmin because of her, because she was so in love with him. The day you decided to take a step forward was also the day you took eleven steps back. 
“Are excited?” Jun bumped his shoulder into yours and smiled. 
He could be the kind of person your silly heart would fall for if there weren’t any soulmates. Jun was essentially a good person, with a heart made of gold and filled with so much love that his kids would never go a day in life thinking that he didn’t love them. 
“No" yet another lie. 
You were excited, a little too excited. Or maybe your excitement was actually just fear. Fear that the bond might happen, fear that Seokmin would be disappointed in who you were, fear that maybe your dreams would come true. 
“You said that Seokmin is pretty” Hana called out. 
A moment of weakness that you regretted. 
“Handsome, honey. Boys are handsome” 
She repeated the word a few times as if trying to memorize but everyone knew that she would just keep calling boys pretty. 
“Why are you carrying her around like she’s three?” 
Hana sighed and hugged Jun’s neck, her head on his shoulder. 
“I’m daddy’s little girl” 
Jun looked like he was about to cry and Hanbin just groaned, his sister’s act wasn’t something that he was too fond of. You could only smile at them. They were almost too cute for you to handle. 
You were one of the first people to get in so there were still a lot of empty spots to choose from. The second you and Jun started to move towards the back Hanbin and Hana protested.  Of course, they didn’t want to sit in the back. Besides being kids, and too short to be able to see anything, both liked Seokmin so being too far away was not something that they wanted. In the end, you caved. You couldn’t say no to two kids who were doing the puppy eyes at the same time. 
As minutes went by and the studio got filled with people you started to get nervous. You ran your sweaty hands on your jeans trying to get them dry, but it was useless. Every person who walked inside made your heart skip a beat because you thought that it could be him. It never was. The scared part of your brain told you that it was a good thing, that maybe he wouldn’t show up at all, but the other part, the one that wanted to see him in person just once, told you to just wait a little longer because he was going to show. 
You waited, for over an hour and there was no sign of him. You knew that in this kind of event it could take them a while to get everything sorted but you were told that it shouldn’t take long once you all went inside. 
“Stop,” Jun said, his hand on your arm “Don’t overthink it" 
He was smiling at you kindly. It was the kind of smile that was supposed to calm you down and reassure you and yet all it did was make you even more nervous. 
“What if we bond?” 
“Then you’ll deal with it later” 
What if I don’t know how to deal with it? 
When people started to scream you looked up and saw the host walking in. He talked for a couple of minutes, made a few jokes trying to be funny and then he introduced Lee Seokmin, a TV personality. The crowd went crazy, there was a girl behind you screaming so loud that you thought you’d go deft. 
Seokmin walked in, his characteristic smile in place, as he waved at the audience. 
Seeing him in person made the world slow down, even your own heart. Instead of going crazy, your heart nearly stopped, as the sight of Seokmin put you at ease. Your hands were no longer shaking, you didn’t feel like trying to hide yourself anymore. In fact, seeing him made your soul scream at you it’s him, what are you waiting for? Your soul was begging you to go to him. After all, it knew him, because despite being apart for years it recognized him immediately. 
And then Seokmin looked at you. 
His eyes were on yours as he stood frozen there. You could feel him everywhere. He was shocked, surprised, caught off guard, hopeful, and just so happy. His happiness was contagious because inside you felt happy too. You wanted to stand up and hug him, stay as close as possible to him. The fear you felt for years was momentarily forgotten in the back of your mind. 
Your legs moved before you could even realize what you were doing. You stood up and walked to him, stopping only a couple of steps away from him. You felt his heartbeat like it was just under your skin. Being so close to him made your body tingle in the best way possible. Your entire being was begging you to just take another step, just one closer to him, just so you could touch him and feel him all around you. 
When Seokmin moved forward, his hand raised ready to touch you - just like you wanted to do - you took a step back. Suddenly the realization of what could happen came crashing down around you. Your dreams, and images of Seokmin lying lifeless on the floor that had been engraved in your mind were unexpectedly in your eyes. You could see it coming, your downfall, and the things you dreaded the most, happening. 
“I…” 
Seokmin wanted to say something, anything, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to. What words could he possibly profess that would make the fear running through your body go away? 
“I’m sorry, I can’t do this" 
Turning around and walking away from him might have been the hardest thing you ever did. 
Tumblr media
You tried your best to keep living normally but it was close to impossible. Every second that went by you were reminded of Seokmin, of the broken look on his face when you walked away, of the way he felt like he had somehow done something wrong. And he felt unloved when it was supposed to be just the other way around. Even before the bond, before you had the chance to look at him in the eyes, you already had feelings for him. Perhaps it was because you knew that you were supposed to love him, you knew that once you met him your feelings would be unstoppable, or it was just because he was charming. 
And just how charming he was. 
You didn’t know one single person who disliked him, someone who would flat-out say that there was nothing good to like about him. Everyone loved Seokmin, his easy smile and friendly eyes pulled everyone in. 
“Until when are you going to keep avoiding him?” 
Jun had become the personification of what was happening inside of you. You wanted to meet Seokmin, desperately. You wanted to find out where he was and just go to him, introduce yourself, and just talk to him. Everything seemed so simple inside your mind, and in Jun’s as well, but it was so far from it. 
“You’re just avoiding it, you know that” 
“So, what if I am? I’m sorry if I don’t want to see my soulmate die!” 
You weren’t angry at your friend or even Seokmin, as he would feel sometimes. You were just angry at everyone else, at the world, at destiny, at anyone in the world who decided that it was a good idea to make you see your soulmate die every night. 
“I know that, but wouldn’t it be better if you could spend some time with him? Let’s say that you’ll have six months together, that’s it. No more and no less. Don’t you want to be with him for as long as you possibly can instead of keep hiding in here?” Jun moved his hand showing the lounge of his dance school “Think of all your past lives, about how happy you were because you were with Seokmin. In this life too, shouldn’t you be able to feel that kind of happiness?” 
Jun was the only person who knew that you were Memorous and he was also the only person who would say that there was nothing wrong with it. You aren’t cursed. If you ask me, you are one of the lucky ones. I would anything to have more memories with Seol. He was also the kind of friend who wasn’t scared to say that you were messing up your own life, that you were doing something wrong. Most days he would act like the dad you never had. You were grateful for him, for having someone so eager to make sure that you were happy. 
“Here’s a wild scenario” Jun smiled at Hana, who was running to him, as he stood up “Seokmin doesn’t die" 
His words left you speechless as you watched him move away from you. 
When you got home that day Seokmin’s journals were waiting at your doorstep. 
Tumblr media
Reading Seokmin’s words was much like reading your own. Since you started to have dreams, you thought that you were the only one who felt like that, like the only one who didn’t have anyone else to run to. Yes, both of your lives were very different, the place both of you came from was also different. But looking at it or wasn’t all that different. 
His words and the way he described his feelings for you were the things that made you take a deep breath and go meet him. 
I know that you are scared, I can feel it but please reconsider it. I’ve been waiting for a moment like this for a very long time and I would like to believe that you have too. I’ll be in the city for a few more days so let’s meet. If you don’t come to me, I will go to you. We can’t run away from this. 
Seokmin. 
Somehow you found yourself getting out of your tiny apartment and going towards Seokmin. You knew just how much he could feel your nervousness and yet he tried to stay calm so you could feel at ease too. The entire time, since you left the TV station, you could feel him in your mind and it was like he was talking to you, trying to convince you to meet or just to be comfortable with the idea of him. 
At times you could swear that he was talking to you, his voice clear in your mind. It’s okay, you don’t have to worry. It was like Seokmin himself could read your thoughts. Of course, there were moments when he would feel that spark of fear, and anxiety but most of the time he was in complete control of his emotions. He was doing that for you, there was no mistake, so you felt childish for being all over the place and guilty for bombarding him with emotions that you couldn’t fully grasp. 
That was one of the many reasons why you decided to go to him. His words had been the main reason, but you also wanted to put your heart in peace. From the second you walked away from him your heart had been heavy. It was the kind of emotion that was impossible to verbalize, the only word that could possibly come to mind was lost. Your heart was lost. You walked around feeling like there was a huge part of you missing, your eyes looked for something, someone, that was never there. 
It was like that until you got his journals. Although you didn’t feel whole you could feel that a little piece of you was back. Perhaps it truly wasn’t a part of you, instead what could be the missing was a piece of you never found before. 
The missing piece had always been Seokmin. 
You stopped in front of his door, your hand closed into a fist just an inch away. 
The truth was that everything you felt, every tiny thing, could be summed into just one word: fear. You were scared. 
For years you saw Seokmin die in your dreams, he died in a new way every night. You saw, more times than you could count, the life left his eyes as he took his last breath. Sometimes you would just hear about it from someone, just words thrown into a conversation – words that always managed to break your heart. It never mattered how you found out, it always happened suddenly and unexpectedly. 
Whenever you and he were settling into a life together, when you allowed yourself to love each other freely, it happened. You always thought that your love for him, as his for you, worked like a time bomb. And the moment the bond was made was when your time started to run out. 
The only thing you thought about was how if you never made the bond then Seokmin would be able to live a long and happy life. It was okay if once, just once, you didn’t find your soulmate. As long as Seokmin got to live, you were fine with whatever life threw at you. Many people went through life without ever finding their soulmates but that didn’t mean that they weren’t happy. It just meant that they had to find other ways to be happy. 
“Just, please, knock on the door” 
You turned around, startled by the sudden presence behind you, a voice that you had memorized a long time before meeting the person to whom it belonged. Seokmin was there, looking at you like he had just walked out of some kind of sappy movie with his hair a mess and a hoodie that was at least three sizes bigger than him. 
“How long have you been there?” 
He smiled at you then making you feel like your insides were melting. Seeing him was like making the bond all over again. Your hands were sweating, your heartbeat out of control, slow, fast, and slow. The air around you was heavy and the tension between the two of you was almost palpable, like a thin sheet separating you and him. 
“Long enough to know that you’ve been hesitating, for at least, five minutes” 
How was it possible for him to be so calm when you felt like your heart was about to combust? Having him so close to you made your entire body shake. You almost wanted to take a step back before you fell to your knees. It was like your legs were barely there to support you. 
“I want to say so many things but I’m afraid that if I do, you’ll run away again” 
You shook your head at him. This time around you weren’t leaving or running. You had made it this far, there was no way you were backing down. Somehow, seeing Seokmin in front of you made you feel stronger like you could fight the entire universe just because he was right there by your side. He wasn’t doing anything, but he looked at you like you were everything that he had been waiting for and then some more. 
“I came so that we could talk” you tried to smile in reassurance, for him or yourself you weren’t sure “Do you want to do this here or somewhere else…?” 
“I think that it would be best if we had some privacy” 
You took a step aside to let Seokmin open the door to his hotel room. 
You had always been scared of people, not of what they could do to you in the spot but of what they could cause in the long run. From a young age, you learned that you were alone and that the people around you never really wanted you there. For the foster homes you went through most of your life, you were just a way to get easy money; for your first boyfriend you were just a pity bet; for your high school friends you were just the girl they let hang out with them in exchange for assignments; for your parents, you were just someone, something, that they could easily toss aside when they finally got bored. 
All of those things left deep scars on you. Though you did your best to cover them, they were always there right under the surface. You always smiled at people and made sure to tell them that you were perfectly fine even though you weren’t, even though all you wanted was to curl into yourself and let yourself feel all that pain. 
Jun had been the first person to get through to you, the only one who had stayed long enough for you to think that maybe he was around you because he actually liked you and not because he wanted something from you in return. 
It was true that Seokmin was your soulmate, that once the bond is made someone can never really walk away from it. You knew all of those things, like a book that you were constantly reading. Knowing something is completely different than doing it. The insecurities, always in the back of your mind, screamed at you louder than any belief or hope. Your brain always told you that someone like Seokmin, someone who had everything – and anyone – he could possibly want, would never stay for someone like you, bond or no bond. 
“Do you want something to drink? I can get you anything you want” 
Seokmin opened the door for you and pointed at the couch in front of it. As you had expected his room wasn’t just room, it was like a goddamn apartment – hell it was bigger than half of the houses you went through as a teenager. 
“I… it’s fine. I’m fine” 
Seokmin knew that you weren’t fine but chose to stay quiet about it, he knew that it wasn’t a good idea to tell you just how much of you he could understand. It wasn’t only because he could feel every tiny thing coming from you but also because you were like an open book, filled with words begging to be read. 
“I got your journals,” you said “I also read them” 
Your words made Seokmin sigh in relief. He thought that if you saw his journals, and read his feelings, you would be able to understand how desperate he felt, how much his feelings had been all over the place – despite him trying to remain calm. His feelings mirrored yours very much, almost in every way. 
“Because you shared yours with me, I think it’s only fair if I do the same with you” 
He looked up at you, surprise all over his face as you handed him the small box you had been carrying. 
“I’ve dreamed about you, for the past ten years, too. Every night I saw you and fell for you, every version of you” 
The surprise Seokmin felt, the happiness, and the relief that ran through his body the moment he saw you at his door was almost completely gone when he heard what you were saying.  He wanted to think that maybe he heard it wrong but the look in your eyes assured him that he hadn’t heard it wrong. Your words had been loud and clear, ricocheting inside his brain. 
“For how long you have known about me?” 
Your heart was breaking, shattering into tiny pieces when you saw and felt the change in Seokmin. He held the box with your journals like it weighed a thousand pounds, his face was contorted with something that you couldn’t decipher but his feelings were clear, like the sky on a starry night. Seokmin felt betrayed, hurt, and unwanted, all things that weren’t true. 
“Since you started, around the same time, since I was sixteen as well” you whispered. 
Seokmin felt his heart drop all the way down to his toes feeling sick to his stomach. He had always wanted to find you, from the day he understood what his dreams meant he looked for you – everywhere and anywhere in the world. You were the reason why he even started to work in TV, he thought that if he got a job that required him to talk to a lot of people then it would be easier to find you. But the idea, now the fact, that you had always known about him but even then, decided not to look for him, not to take a step away from him, was like a slap to his face. 
“Do you know that I tried to look for you everywhere? I nearly went crazy. Every day since my dreams, the memories of us, started I searched for you. While you…” he scoffed like the world had played yet another sick joke on him “You knew who I was but you never…” 
He couldn’t bring himself to say it; thinking about it – feeling it – was already bad enough. Seokmin didn’t want to voice it, if he did then everything would become that much more real, too real, more heartbreaking than anything else in his life up until that moment. 
The dreams crushed his heart every morning when he woke up. Seokmin felt his heart die a little inside his chest for the life he never got to live with you, for the words he never got to hear from you, for seeing the bright light leave your eyes time and time again. But ultimately those dreams were just that: dreams, memories of a different period in time, of a different life that although felt real, it no longer was. 
“I was afraid, Seokmin…” 
“I know that you were! I felt it, with fiber in my body, I knew that you were scared, terrified that for some reason I wouldn’t love you. I knew all of that like it was my own fear” 
The despair he had in his voice was felt in your body, every tiny cell. You hated that he was feeling like that, that your first ever encounter with him – a proper one – was only worth a fight. That was not how you wanted things to go. You thought that if you ever met him things would run smoothly but the reality of it was far from your expectations. 
“Like you, I am a Memorous” you had to say it, you needed Seokmin to hear your words just once “The first time I saw you, like you are right now, was on TV but it was so fast that I couldn’t be sure. I was on the bus, passing by a TV store. The next day I stayed in front of the same store the entire day, waiting for that brief second of your face for hours. When I finally saw you I cried, right there in the middle of the sidewalk because I just felt so happy to see you, to finally find the boy that I had seen so many times before, the boy I loved so blindly, even though I have never met before. 
“But the dreams… they are alive inside my mind. I don’t forget them like you do. My brain stores them like they are memories of this life, all those feelings were as real as if I lived them this time around. I thought about all the times I saw you die, and I couldn’t live through that again. I couldn’t let that happen to you, not after I saw you. I only knew you from the screen of my tv but my feelings were already so strong. I wanted the bond to happen, you can’t doubt that for a second, but I was scared. I would very much rather live knowing that you were somewhere out there, living a happy and long life than having you live a short one with me” 
Your words were more than enough to make Seokmin stop. Until that moment, his mind was flying all over the place but the second you opened your mouth he couldn’t bring himself to be angry anymore. Those feelings, the fear of seeing your other half – the one you were supposed to be with – die, was one he knew very well. He often wondered what would happen when he finally met you. 
The first time he saw you, he had been over the moon, he felt you and everything else. He felt the pull and your desire to get closer to him. To say that Seokmin was surprised when you ran away was an understatement. He didn’t truly understand everything that was happening inside of him, the unthinkable mix of you and him made him feel dizzy because he couldn’t set you apart. 
He could finally understand the things you did but it didn’t mean that he liked them. 
“I think it’s going to be a very long night” 
Tumblr media
Seokmin read your journals in front of you, and it didn’t feel embarrassing. Those journals, your words, had been written for him and for him only. While you wrote down your dreams you thought of him, of how he would read them one day and how much you wanted him to. 
You spent the entire night in his hotel room. You talked for hours and hours and suddenly the subject wasn’t as heavy anymore, both of your fears momentarily forgotten, and you were simply enjoying each other’s company. 
Seokmin was everything that he seemed to be, but he was also that much different. His bubbly personality was still there, fully out in the open for everyone to see, but there was also a shy side to him - one that not many people knew about but it was cute to watch. More often than he would like to admit, Seokmin would trip over his words, insecure about what he could and couldn’t say to you. The ice is still very thin, it’s making me nervous he said at some point in the night. 
You had scooted closer to him or maybe he got closer to you, how it happened didn’t really matter. You found yourself sitting on the couch with your knees pulled to your chest as Seokmin quietly played with your fingers. 
Just having him around you felt like a dream but the moment his skin touched yours? It was like fireworks exploded under your skin, like every single nerve in your body was suddenly awake. You could feel him everywhere, like he was not just the man in front of you, but he was also part of the air, like he could be all around you whilst staying in the exact same spot. He gave you calmness, a sense of peace and security. Things that up until that moment no one had been able to give you, not even yourself. 
“I really want to kiss you” you whispered.  Seokmin’s fingers stilled in yours and something sparkled in his eyes as he looked at you. The moment was suspended in the air as if it wasn’t neither here or there, as if time itself had stopped and all the attention was now on the two of you and the way you were feeling in that very second. 
You couldn’t bring yourself to look away from him, you didn’t want to. It was the first time, in your entire life, that you craved someone’s touch and presence. With Seokmin you wanted that and so much more, everything that he had to give, you wanted. 
Feeling like that for someone after only knowing them for a couple of hours was impossible, the kind of thing that you would never expect to happen, the kind of thing that you would laugh at because something like that couldn’t exist. But with you and Seokmin, nothing was as it seemed. 
It was true that you had only known him for a little while but just in this life. When you looked at him you saw traces of the many different people that he had been in the past and because of that, it was like you fully knew him. That wasn’t the case, and you knew that, but even so, the feeling of reconnection still existed. 
Seokmin inched forward, his eyes focused on your lips, as he interlocked your fingers and pulled you towards him. There was one second of hesitation, one tiny second that felt like an eternity before his lips finally pressed on yours and then it was pure magic. 
Tumblr media
Seokmin had to leave a few days later and you hated the idea of having to see him walk away. It wasn’t final, you knew that, but it hurt all the same. He had stayed in the city for you far longer than he was supposed to, his phone always blowing up with text messages from people concerned about his whereabouts when in reality he had been locked up with you inside your apartment. 
On the contrary to what you previously thought, Seokmin didn’t care about your tiny apartment, about the fact that you had been to more foster homes than what you were willing to admit, or about the fact that you didn’t have a degree. I like you for you, not for the baggage that comes with you. 
You sat at the airport for hours after his flight departed, the emptiness growing inside of you as the seconds ticked away. 
Seokmin felt the same way. He wanted to stay or for you to just go with him, but he didn’t dare to ask. He knew that even though you didn’t think much of your life, you liked it. You loved to be a receptionist at Jun’s school, loved being surrounded by the kids, loved the city you lived in, and you were a little proud of yourself for being your own person and living your own life - even though you would never admit it. He got into the plane with a heavy heart, but he had to figure things out. He had to find a way for the two of you to be together. It was uncertain of what the future held for you. You could be together for just a year before one of you died or your entire life was still ahead of you. The not knowing drove him crazy. 
Tumblr media
 Three weeks apart was all he could take before he found himself boarding a plane to the other side of the country and breaking a few contracts while he did so. You called every day, facetimed whenever there was a chance and texts were always a constant but just that wasn’t enough. 
Due to the distance, the constant pull to you only grew stronger and the grasp he had of your feelings, how Seokmin could tell exactly what was going on with you, was slowly disappearing. It wasn’t that you were learning to control what he could and couldn’t see. Once the bond is made the newfound soulmates need to stay close to each other, it’s physically and mentally tiring to be away. He noticed that you sounded more exhausted on the phone, as your eyes nearly closed when you talked on Facetime. 
All those things pulled him to you, yes, but Seokmin also wanted to see you desperately. 
He didn’t tell you that he was coming to see you, he wanted to make it a surprise. The entire flight he felt just how happy you were, probably because you were at the dance school with the kids, but he also noticed your worry, because he hadn’t answered his phone in a few hours, as you tried to push it as far back in your mind as possible. 
The long see-through glass walls of the school allowed Seokmin to see you inside. He heard your laugh before he saw you, the sound had been imprinted in his mind like the type of song that just gets stuck. And then he saw your profile looking at the little boy in front of you lovingly. When you smiled, he thought that his heart would explode inside his chest. 
Seeing you, even from far away, was like going home after a long time. The feeling of calmness, the feeling of finally being able to breathe properly. Just looking at you made him lighter in a way that he couldn’t exactly put into words. 
The kids were the first ones to see Seokmin. The little boy you talked to gasped, and his eyes went wide. All the other kids had the same reaction, some of them pointed at him while others just went back to what they were doing before. 
You stood frozen in place and watched Seokmin walk from where he was to the door. You had to make sure that he was really there, that it wasn’t something that you were imagining. If it wasn’t for the cute selfies he sent you stored in your phone, you would be sure that meeting Seokmin and everything else that happened after had been nothing but a dream. It wouldn’t be the first time you wished for a life that could never have. 
You got up and took a step away from the kids before walking as fast as you could - nearly running - towards him. He met you halfway, his arms reached for you before you collapsed into him. 
You sighed in contentment and relief when you felt his skin against yours, when his warmth enveloped you. Everything else was forgotten and it no longer mattered. 
“You’re really here,” you said against his neck. 
His chuckle ran through your entire body and he tightened his arms around you, pulling you as close as possible to him. 
“Half a country away is too much" he murmured. 
You stayed in place for minutes, long enough for one of the kids to get bored and call out your name a couple of times. One of them ran inside and got Jun, because the little boy thought that Seokmin might be holding you for too long. 
“This reunion is great and all but it’s weird for the kids” 
At the sound of your friend’s voice, you let go of Seokmin but you didn’t go too far. Three weeks had been long enough, you would take whatever few moments with him that you could get before he had to leave again. So you stayed by Seokmin’s side, your fingers interlocked with his. 
“Seokmin, this is Jun” 
“I was the one who gave him your address, how else do you think he would send you his journals?” 
Seokmin looked at you, with surprise in his face. He hadn’t expected you to tell someone about it, about his journals, or about anything at all. From the moment he saw you, and even from the journals you wrote, he knew that you were the kind of person who didn’t tell those around her much about her life so it was a surprise that you had talked about it with someone. 
“It’s good to see that things worked out for you,” Jun said, he looked at the watch on his wrist before looking back at you again “Go on, take the rest of the day off” 
You shook at head, pointing at the kids behind him - who were already making a fuss all over the place. 
“I still have a few more hours to go and you need help with the kids” 
Jun just rolled his eyes when he took a few steps closer to you and Seokmin, pretty much pushing out of the door. 
“I’ll let you know that there was a time when I managed this place just fine without you” 
Tumblr media
 For the rest of the day, you walked around town with Seokmin. He held your hand the entire time, letting it go just to put his arm around your shoulder, either way, he always had his hands on you. You didn’t mind it, in fact, you liked it a lot. The idea of always being close to him made your heart flutter in impossible ways, made you imagine what life would be like when you finally got to be with him for more than a few hours at a time, it made you wish for a future when you would be able to see him every day and talk to him and just be around him. 
“I’ve been thinking,” Seokmin said when you reached your neighborhood. 
“That could be dangerous” 
During the time you and Seokmin talked on the phone, he told a lot about his childhood and there was one thing that was clear to you: he was an unpredictable kid. His ideas were always crazy and so unnatural for a child. When you were in foster care you thought that the other kids were crazy, but they were just reckless, Seokmin was wild. 
“I should have never told you those stories,” he said with a sigh, a tiny smile on his face “I’ve got this job offer, here in the city. It’s not like what I do now but I think that it could be fun and I’ll try to make it work as much as possible. If I do take it, we’ll be closer to each other” 
You were shaking your head before he was done speaking. Seokmin changing jobs, and doing something else that was not what he wanted initially was a huge no. 
“You’re not moving here” 
He sighed again and took your hand in his. 
“I know you’re worried about my job, but I only started to do it because I thought that it was the easiest way to find you. I can do something else, anything else, if it means that I can have you” 
You turned to look at him, your hand squeezing his. His words assured you, more than anything in the world. Hearing those words was the only thing you needed. 
“Remember how I told you that Jun’s soulmate mom is a social worker? She told me that there is this University, not the most prestigious one but a university nonetheless, that is more likely to give out scholarships. A couple of months ago I took the test to get in and I got the results a week ago” 
Seokmin nodded at you, not really understanding what you meant. Truth be told, he was a little hurt. The second he mentioned it you were already denying it, like the mere idea of having him close to was repulsive. He knew that couldn’t be the case, knew that those things never reached your heart but even so, the feeling of getting rejected was there. 
“I got in. I have to move there in the next few weeks or so, to settle in and find my way around town” 
“Where… where is that?” 
You laughed and kissed him quickly. He looked way too cute with the confused look on his face. 
“I didn’t ask for your address just to have it, Seokmin. I want to be close to you so I was looking for a place near yours but also close enough to the university” 
Before you even done speaking Seokmin already had his arms around while he placed quick kisses all over your face, making you laugh. 
Tumblr media
Moving away was harder than expected. There weren’t many things that tied you to that place, but the few things that did make it heartbreaking. 
Just as you predicted, telling Jun was easy. Your friend, like always, had been supportive saying that he had your back in all the choices you’ve made and the choices that you would come to make. 
His kids were a completely different story. When you told Hana about it, she started to cry, tears running down her little face and sobs escaping her lips. You knew that it was going to be hard to talk to her, but you didn’t think that it was going to be like that. Hanbin was easier but you knew that he was also feeling it. 
“Will you call us every day?” 
“I’ll call you every Sunday morning,” you said pinching her cheeks “We all know how much your dad loves Sunday mornings” 
Jun groaned but he still had a smile on his face. 
“Why do you hate me?” 
It broke your heart to leave all three of them, but it was something that you had to do, not only because you wanted to be close to Seokmin but because of yourself. The change was something that you needed to do in order to move your life forward. 
Moving day wasn’t as terrible as you expected. Seokmin had helped you move all your stuff, boxing everything to perfection. You didn’t have much you wanted to take with you but even so, everything you owned had been labeled and wrapped. 
Somehow Seokmin had managed to convince you to just move in with him. You tried to deny him at first. It didn’t make any sense; you had just started something with him and suddenly you were putting your toothbrushes together. That was way too fast. “We don’t know how much time we have together so why waste it by being apart?”  You tried reasoning with him “What if I can’t stand your habits and you hate mine?” To what he just said, “I’ll love all of your nasty habits and I’ll be the perfect prince, so you’ll have nothing to complain about”. 
It all ended with a heated make-out session on your couch. 
Tumblr media
Seokmin was feeling edgy. He was supposed to be home hours ago, he knew that you were worried but restraining yourself from calling him. He loved his job, he really did, and it was amazing that he got to keep it and be with you at the same time, but he hated days like those. He hated the late-night shootings when he had to be away - especially when he could feel how worried you were - and he didn’t even like to think about when he had to do something out of town. 
The drive back home felt endless. He broke God knows how many speed limits, and crossed a few red lights. He didn’t know why he was feeling like that, he knew that there wasn’t anything wrong going on at home. You would have called him in case something happened, he would have felt something change. 
But at times he couldn’t help but feel anxious. 
It had been four years. Four years since you found each other, since you started your life together, probably the four happiest years of his. But whenever he wasn’t expecting it, whenever Seokmin started to feel comfortable again with his life and you around him, his dreams would come back to haunt him. Instead of seeing you, in the past, he saw you as you were in this life. He saw the woman he loved, more than any of his dreams could have let him know, die in front of him, in his arms. It was always like that, you had a smile on your face, a tear ran down your cheek and you said that loved him. 
On nights like that, he would search for you. His arms moved directly to you and pulled you to him as quiet sobs escaped his lips. You always cried with him on nights like that. You didn’t have those sorts of dreams, but his despair and fear ran through your body as if they were your own. 
That night was just like that. The whole day he had a sickening feeling in his stomach. Like the world was telling him that something was bound to happen. The one thing that had somehow calmed him was how at ease you were during most of the way. 
Seokmin walked inside a house in darkness, the light in the hallway the only thing that could possibly tell him that there was someone home. You always did that for him when he had one of his late nights. 
You were sleeping in the bedroom, so Seokmin tried his best not to make a sound. But he knew that all his efforts were useless when he walked out of the bathroom to find the bedside lamp on and you looking at him. 
“I didn’t mean to wake you” 
You sat up and smiled at him, shaking your head. It was a good thing that he had woken you up. Your sleep wasn’t peaceful, no nightmares or dreams but although you were asleep you still had that weird feeling of being awake while sleeping. 
“It’s fine, I actually have to talk to you about something” 
Seokmin wouldn’t like what you had to say to him, in fact, you were pretty sure that he would probably hate it. 
“I talked to your sister today” the words left your lips in a quiet whisper. 
Seokmin stood still, his eyes focused on you, but his mind was somewhere entirely. He finally understood why you had felt so anxious and nervous during lunchtime and why he was feeling on edge the entire day. 
“We’re not doing this” he shook his head. 
“Seokmin it’s been 12 years, you’re going to have to talk to them at some point” 
You reached for his hand at the same that Seokmin scoffed at you. 
“You haven’t talked to your parents in 22 years and I don’t push toward them” 
Seokmin regretted his words the second he said them. He watched as you tried your best to control your emotions and not let him feel just how hurt you truly felt about his words. You pulled back the hand you reached to Seokmin and tucked it under the blankets. 
“I did try to look for them, Seokmin. I found them. It went the same way as it did when I was eight years old. They didn’t want me” 
You never told anyone about that, it wasn’t the kind of thing that you liked to talk about. To be honest you didn’t even like to think about it. 
A week before you moved in with Seokmin you searched for your parents. With Jun’s help, you managed to find them, quite easily. They still lived in the city, in the same house you lived in for the first eight years of your life. All it really took to get a hold of them was to find the documents they filled when they left you in the foster house. Your meeting with them didn’t last long, less than five minutes and they didn’t even invite you in. All the conversation was done at their doorstep. “We can’t do anything for you, we’re not parent material,” they said to which you answered, “I’m no longer a kid who needs care and protection”. 
For them to suddenly find their inner parent wasn’t something that you wanted or expected but you thought that they could, at least, be part of your life but even that they refused. They only showed some kind of interest when you mentioned Seokmin and just by looking at them, you could tell that their interest was more on what Seokmin brought with him than for you. 
After that you never mentioned them again, never allowed Jun to talk about it again, not even thinking about them was allowed. 
“Just because people bond doesn’t mean they become good people, Seokmin. It just means that there’s someone out there who won’t judge your choices” 
“Babe…” 
Seokmin crawled on the bed towards you, his arms going around you and tangled his legs with yours. 
You stayed quiet for a while, unmoving. That was your favorite place in the world, his arms. Even if you had just some kind of argument with him, even if you were hurt by what the other person said, you never turned your back on each other. 
“I’m afraid if I let them in again the same thing will happen. I can’t go through that again” 
You turned in his arms, facing him. 
“They were probably just afraid Seokmin, the things people say about Memorous aren’t nice. Maybe they were just afraid to lose their son. Your sister did sound really sorry on the phone” you ran your hand on his cheek “You’re thirty years old, the feelings you had at eighteen are not the same and you certainly are not the same person. Maybe we could try talking to them, and if it doesn't work, it doesn’t” 
“Thank you for reminding me that I’m old” 
You giggled against his chest, which made Seokmin kiss the top of your head. 
“You’ll only be old when our kids kids go to college” 
Something in Seokmin’s eyes changed, all the anger and laughter from just a second before suddenly disappeared. He rolled on the bed, so he was on top of you. 
“Are we talking babies now?” 
You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed your way up from his collarbone to his lips. 
“You’ve been lacking in that department lately, husband” 
He pulled your hands away from his neck and presses it against the mattress. 
“I’ll be sure to make it up to you, wife” 
Tumblr media
taglist: @wonwooz1, @ryuwonieebae, @sobun1est, @mirtaspace, @feat-sun, @wonvsmile, @belladaises, @mhlsymlysn, @immabecreepin, @uniq-tastic, @miriamxsworld, @aaniag, @k-drama-adict, @maiamorrrrrrrrrrrr, @roguesthetic, @sofix-hc7, @@scarlet789, @moonlightgrleric, @r6njunlv, @mixling-blog, @cinnamongirl127, @haowonbins, @valgracia, @shuabby, @slut4donghyuck, @manutuankim
if you were tagged, please consider reblogging. likes and comments are also always welcomed
if you want to be tagged in my next fics, please fill out this form
thank you for reading
321 notes · View notes
thevalleyoftriumph · 3 months ago
Note
"He'll apologize after he's done here. Make it up to them somehow later, have a long talk with them about this." Assuming Dark did not execute cg/ they weren't there/ SOMETHING idk, and Dark was able to patch a very beaten and unconscious Chosen up and drag them back to the house, how would that conversation go? Would Beast take one look at Dark and attack him? Even if Killer or Chosen want to try diplomacy? Would They (one of the alters) wake up, realise their still in the house with the guy who is stronger than them and has harmed them, and book it? If so would Dark follow? Or let them leave Would they wake up to a note? Would one of them rip it up before the others have a chance to see it? Would they TRY diplomacy, only for the argument to immediately resume Theres so many possibilities, none of which can happen since Dark was blasted to kingdom come, BUT we can imagine for a moment
Oh man the convo would go so horribly so badly. Like let's be so honest Dark is the worst person to have a genuine and emotional conversation with he does NOT know what he's doing he's almost worse than Chosen 😭
I've never actually thought about this particular scenario before [as in it's actually like.. never crossed my mind somehow] so I can't really say for absolute certain what would happen, BUT . Let's indulge.
I think you're pretty right that if it were Beast still in front when they wake up, it'd probably immediately assume it was still in danger and attack Dark - that, or it'd absolutely book it the first chance it got, since it's not really looking for a repeat of the Virabot part of that whole thing. Sometimes it's just gotta do what's safest, and that doesn't always mean fighting back - sometimes it means retreat.
I think Chosen would still have some sort of faith in Dark and would like to stay and hear him out - and Killer by extension would, too, in a way. But both would be extremely hurt by everything and can be just as stubborn as Dark when they want to be, so it'd be pretty hard for them to not end up cutting him off a bunch to put their points in.
I think however, aside from Beast, Killer would also probably think about leaving. Maybe not forever, but definitely long enough to go sit outside and think about things for a while. They'd probably slip out when Dark is busy and he just comes back to them gone and briefly freaks out lol.
Honestly I'm certain the argument would just start back up eventually unless something changed REALLY fast you're totally right about that. These guys are sooo bad at emotions and Talking Things Out that it's almost comical if it wasn't borderline depressing.
HOWEVER ☝️ I think even during another argument, for Both of them their fight would just constantly be lingering in their minds - especially through Any Other Future Argument, the thought always rears itself back around. They're cautious of their actions, both of them - neither wants to get close during an argument anymore. If, say, Chosen instinctively tries to get closer - he stops, pulls back, then continues with what he was saying. It would do neither of them good if it got physical again, in fact thats the last thing EITHER of them want, so they do everything physically possible to remove even the possibility of an accident if they end up disagreeing about ANYTHING. No matter how small.
IDK THERES JUST SO MANY WAYS THIS COULD GO AND COULD EFFECT THEM ALL IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE TIME POST-SHOWDOWN TO HEAL FROM THEIR ISSUES. They love each other dearly and are each others best friend but they're also both so so so badly traumatized people and need a therapist SO much. So badly. Alas there's no therapists in the Outernet who work with cybercriminals who had a hand in nearly destroying their world unfortunately. 😔
7 notes · View notes
sapherin · 2 years ago
Text
Tumblr media
Today marks the two year anniversary of me endlessly stanning Eusine and Morty by complete accident of me googling “Ecruteak City”. Thank you sacredshipping for being the best thing to happen to my artistic career.
⭐️🤍💛🧡❤️ 🩷 🎈💚💙💜🤎🖤⭐️
You clicked on this and now you will be subjected to my backstory and feelings with this ship. (If you asked why I like this ship elsewhere there’s barely anything new here sorry lol)
When this couple had its heyday on Bulbagarden forums ~12 years ago I absolutely did not care for them. I didn't get the appeal whatsoever, I thought they were both own'd losers who were just friends and nothing more. I did think they had some cool fanart but that was it. Silver in any iteration was my favorite Johto character at the time and I was all into Silver/Lyra or Ethan or PreciousMetalshipping, the last ship being my goto ship to make my whole personality at the time. Nothing about them really "clicked" to me until I started watching HGSS longplays for PleinAirpril references back in 2021. Somehow just the mere image of seeing them together in the Burned Tower and thinking about Eusine and Morty for more than 5 seconds was enough to make go "oh shit they're gay." And lo and behold I'm stuck here 2 years later stanning this damn ship. I mean that last sentence in the most cheeky way possible since it's obvious at this point that MinaMatsu/Sacredshipping makes me so happy and I want to draw them forever. I got to do so many fun new things with my art and meet so many kind people because of my crazy dedication to them...I owe a lot to them.
I guess what really makes MinaMatsu work for me is the fact they're essentially the same character. They both start out confident in achieving their goals, get their egos put in check by the player (Eusine just refuses to lose right away) and ultimately fail to obtain their goal. Obviously what makes them fun is their opposing personalities. Morty takes a more passive, introverted approach to meeting Ho-oh with his secret training believing he can become the person that is worthy of it. One day he'll become the strongest and coolest Ghost-type trainer to have ever live and Ho-oh will go "wow he's so cool" and swoop down from the heavens before him. Meanwhile Eusine decides he's already worthy of Suicune, will show the entirety of Johto and Kanto his fixation of it, and will chase it down and give it no choice but to chose him. No one else had his undying dedication to track down Suicune, did they? No need to train like Morty does, Eusine got all of the worthiness in the world. They have clashing personalities and yet they're still good friends which is so sweet. It's just so heartwarming to see men with similar goals and different perspectives on how to obtain that goal just get along and enjoy each other's company. Perfect harmonious duality. I'm not going to go too much into how I see others interpret them but when I see people headcanon them as rivals or them secretly not liking each other (groan) because of how they behave I'm just like...why. If you want a rival-to-lovers m/m relationship in pokemon, Reguri and Raihan x Leon is Right There. That's a whole new ship. Morty never says anything demeaning about Eusine’s endeavors or Eusine himself in his in-game calls to the player. (No, Morty saying he doesn't care for Suicune that much unlike Eusine doesn't count.) Morty literally leaves his place of work to be with Eusine in the Burned Tower. Clair has definitely yelled at him for that. That's not "he secretly hates Eusine" behavior y'all but I actually played the games so idk.
Ok ok back on topic now that I pissed off somebody out there. I just love how they're both mystical freaks. Morty having this supernatural connection to Ghost-type Pokemon and his strange abilities to foresee possible futures and communicating to ghosts just makes him an easy character for me to fall in love with. Weirdo probably hangs out more without dead people than living ones. Eusine being...Like That and his bottomless desire to research every aspect of Ecruteak City's past and be Suicune's friend is also fun to watch. Suicune please say Eusine is cool its what Granddaddy Eusine would want. Masters EX does confirm that Morty once lived in a sheltered world and didn't have many friends - must be hard when you're the freak of the week - so it's possible that Eusine is the person he's closest to. And why wouldn't he be? They both otherworldly guys that chased a lifelong dream and failed, but at the end of it all they still have each other. It's a nice touch that the HGSS credits have them walking together chasing (presumably) another Suicune...they'll probably never give up on anything as long as they have each other. Their dreams will never turn into nightmares when they're together.
Like a perfect couple they complete each other...if they melted and fused together they'll be the gayest most powerful mystical freak that both Ho-oh and Suicune would have to recognize as worthy. I don't know where that thought came from but I'm keeping it. They're puzzle pieces I guess is what I'm getting at. I could go into how cute they are in Pokespe, the gay anime episode, and how Masters EX basically confirmed Morty idolized Eusine more than anybody (I think I rather wait until Eusine get implemented before I dive into that), and how Fall Morty is the both the worst and best possible thing to ever happen to me since his design alone immortalized my MinaMatsu mania but I'm keeping this babble as short as possible and ending it here.
I just want a give a big thank you those who drew this ship for me whether it be gift art, art trades or commissions...I want to make a silly little booklet or some type of showcase page with all the art you lot have given me. I haven't set my mind on anything just yet. I cherish everything here so much.
Tumblr media
Counterclockwise from Top Left to Bottom Right - @/nitunio, @/ghoasttoasties, @/lalalettie on Twitter, @/plushiesnextdoor on IG, and @/northernmei on IG Uhhhh I should leave you with a little something for reading all of that junk…here’s a little preview of what I got in the works 
Tumblr media
Ok that’s it bye I should log out
46 notes · View notes
biggreenstache7 · 1 year ago
Note
Yeah
Tumblr media
(for context)
YAY!! I'll keep this brief because i'm already planning on writing a huuuge txt file with all of The Lore I Have In My Head in case i never actually write it into a story but still want people to know more about my favorite guys ever BUT here goes a Nick Birth: This Has Almost Nothing To Do With SiIvaGunner
so the whole universe is like . just A World where robots are created and have been being created for ages to fulfill specific purposes like attack and defense and whatever . and in very specific instances either by contact with the outside world or pure chance they have like a really low chance of becoming sentient. this was never planned but at some point a few decades in people sorta start accepting it and treating them like. Normal Society Members. but the ride to that point is uber hard and the woodmen came to be like fairly early so they still had to deal with that shtick
ok worldbuilding over. nick himself was created on may 17th 1965 and in a moment where, because the factory he was made in was super fucked and where malfunctions constantly occurred, most of the robots made in that brief period came out broken right out the gate, and the ones that didn't were highly damaged, nick included. (hence his broken chestplate that he has no way of fixing)
Since the few robots that did "survive" could barely fulfill their designated purposes of attack if any at all, experiments began being ran on them to see if they could serve any other purpose, mainly that of defense and, most importantly, fire protection. this also went uber wrong and resulted in (atleast for nick) growing flowers sometimes out of her control and a weird sort of attraction to fire while still being Very Definitely able to be harmed by it.
so those were the first 17 years or so of non-sentience and robot shit and whatever until one day the factory was set ablaze in a freak accident of unknown origins and nick was one of the only robots to actually make it out, with that probably being the moment he gained his consciousness. then immediately fell from a great height into a trash chute and definitely forgot about anything that had happened to him for the past 17 years, having it only vaguely appear in dreams and such for the rest of her life and proto haunting her forever. tldr sentient robot whose factory was FUCKED UP
after that he spent a few years wandering the streets of new age (city that got 'turned' into grandiose city waay later on) fumbling jobs and just sorta living anywhere and everywhere and constantly trying to learn more about the world & arts & herself until Uno Dia wandered into a library where the dude who ran the place thought she could be like a janitor and that's where she stayed for the next like 2 years until actually becoming a librarian himself.
then also met john there not long later cause john was looking for law books and BOOOOOOOOO GAY PEOPLE GTFO 👎! you know the drill also it's 1989 . and ignoring the literal 30 years of story i have in the middle they are both in the here now. noooo way. somehow even as a tldr for the Absolute Origins this is pretty big. also it only actually merges with siiva in 2016 meaning that they have almost 30 years of history together before that LOL.. its a lot. but then in siiva uhhhhh i just pretended that she was there all along in like kfad2 and john just had her secretly working as a cameraman because he didnt wanna have to fill forms for a plus one and have to come out as gay in the process. and in spooktacular iii hes not there physically but john is always calling him like every hour and shit because hes clingy. as fuck. wahoo
so much shit i missed but that was sort of the point i guess. so #notsiivagunnercore
8 notes · View notes
askthechronoverse · 1 year ago
Note
Hawkodile and Dr. Fox for the ship meme?
Tumblr media
General:
Rate the Ship -   Awful | Ew | No pics pls | I’m not comfortable | Alright | I like it! | Got Pics? | Let’s do it! | Why is this not getting more attention?! | The OTP to rule all other OTPs
How long will they last? - Feels like forever... when they finally get together.
How quickly did/will they fall in love? - It took a few years after everything died down.
How was their first kiss? - Average, though Hawk would disagree. (What is this question?)
Wedding:
Who proposed? - Hawkodile, but he needed a lot of help from Unikitty.
Who is the best man/men? - Eaglator, and it was shocking he accepted
Who is the braid’s maid(s)? - Unikitty (Do they mean maid of honor?)
Who did the most planning? - Unikitty
Who stressed the most? - It was both. They were both freaking out.
How fancy was the ceremony? - Back of a pickup truck | 2 | 3 | 4 | Normal Church Wedding | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Kate and William wish they were this big.
Who was specifically not invited to the wedding? - Master Frown and Brock (They were worried he would bring Master Frown as a plus one)
Children:
How many children will they have naturally? -  "1"
How many children will they adopt? - 0
Who gets stuck with the most diapers? - Richard... somehow.
Who is the stricter parent? - Hawkodile
Who stops the kid(s) from doing dangerous stunts after school? - Hawkodile.
Who remembers to pack the lunch(es)? - One of Doctor Fox's robots.
Who is the more loved parent? - Doctor Fox.
Who is more likely to attend the PTA meetings? - Hawkodile
Who cried the most at graduation? - HAWK
Who is more likely to bail the child(ren) out of trouble with the law? - Doctor Fox
Cooking: 
Who does the most cooking? - One of Doctor Fox's robots.
Who is the most picky in their food choice? -  Neither of them
Who does the grocery shopping? - That robot.
How often do they bake desserts? - Sometimes, but a lot of that baking is Doctor Fox experimenting.
Are they more of a meat lover or a salad eater? - They are pretty even.
Who is more likely to surprise the other(s) with an anniversary dinner? - Hawkodile.
Who is more likely to suggest going out? - Doctor Fox
Who is more likely to burn the house down accidently while cooking? - BOTH OF THEM
Chores: 
Who cleans the room? - One of Doctor Fox's robots.
Who is really against chores? - Neither of them are, really.
Who cleans up after the pets? - Doctor Fox, if you mean her experiments.
Who is more likely to sweep everything under the rug? - Doctor Fox
Who stresses the most when guests are coming over? - Doctor Fox
Who found a dollar between the couch cushions while cleaning? - Hawkodile
Misc:
Who takes the longer showers/baths? - Hawkodile
Who takes the dog out for a walk? - What dog?
How often do they decorate the room/house for the holidays? - Both of them
What are their goals for the relationship? - They want what they have to last. They are total opposites and a mess together and please send help.
Who is most likely to sleep till noon? - Neither of them
Who plays the most pranks? - Doctor Fox.
4 notes · View notes
velvethopewrites · 2 years ago
Text
Ten Lines Tag Game
Thanks for the tag @startanewdream! Are these from posted works or WIPs? Hmm. This made me realize I haven’t posted a damn thing in an entire year (almost) so I’ll do both. 😬
Rules: Share the first lines of your ten most recent fics (or as many as you like if you don't have 10) and then tag some people.
From Crossroads:
The one thing about grief, Harry thought, was that it had no time limit. No rhyme nor reason, either. Indeed, it seemed to thrive on showing up and popping in whenever it felt like it.
From Loving is A Journey:
Ginny weeps at the funerals only.
She cries so hard for Fred - gut-wrenching, body-sobbing tears that she is embarrassed to think about. Then she cries for Tonks, knowing she will never see her friend's funny faces again. And finally, for Professor Lupin and his short, painful life. Ginny even cries a little bit for Teddy, who is of course, not dead, but now an orphan. His is a life that has barely begun but is already filled with so much pain. And it is pain that will wait for him until he is old enough to comprehend it.
From my unpublished first destiel, Accidentally On Purpose:
Sleeping together. Literally sleeping. (One half of them, at any rate)
Together.
The first time it happened, it happened sort of by accident. (Dean hated to think it had happened on purpose, but then again who knew about these things…)
(I admit I am not happy with the start of this fic at all and it has been re-worked 10,000 times until I wept and gave up, hence the ‘unpublished’, and me not posting for a year)
And from my other unpublished destiel, Two Guys & Some Pie:
Ah, yes. Early morning. That time of day that poets loved to wax…well, poetical about.  From the “fresh” start of the day, and the cherished alone time, to singing the praises of that sweet indulgence of the first cup of coffee. Not to mention the stanzas dedicated to the quiet, yet somehow musical sounds of the city just waking up, and the near ethereal sight of the sunrise breaking across the sky in various hues of purple and pink as the image warmed your soul and let you know your place in the world.
Dean, however, was not a poet.  He knew that all of that was complete bullshit.
From my unpublished (probably forever) original mystery story, simply going by the working title ‘Canyon Mystery’. (Great title, I know)
Hi. I’m Disney Jacobs. No, I don’t go by ‘Diz’ or anything else even resembling a nickname. Just Disney. And that’s enough. Yes, my parents were Disneyland freaks. Well, my mom was. She’d take us every year, until she got too sick to travel, but that’s another story. And the us refers to me, my older sister, and my younger brother. Yep, that’s right, I’m the trouble making middle child. The middle child with the weird name. My two siblings were given normal, run of the mill names. Heather and Aaron, to be precise. I’ve often wondered about the private bet my parents clearly had running and why Dad only lost it that one time (he got to name Heather and Aaron; me, not so much).
And I tag whomever wants to do it since no one does my tags, anyway, lol well, okay I’ll tag @late-to-the-fandom but I am fairly sure they’ve done it already, lol
3 notes · View notes
badeehbom · 1 year ago
Text
Gone with Edna
The single white rose I held in my hand glistened with droplets of water and I stared at it for a while. Cool moisture developed on the flower from a slight drizzle of rain from gloomy clouds that decided to visit while the sun remained shining. An irony of a weather but accepted nonetheless because Edna would have liked this. The combination of warmth and slight cold would have made her stand out in that pink summer dress she always insisted on wearing every time we saw each other by the park for a picnic. I still remember that the little colorful frogs she painted herself just by the edge of the dress were messy, but she loved it anyway. "It's a plain dress and I'm making it my own. A chaotic touch of personality." She would say. I would joke around with her and she'd play offense while I sarcastically apologize.
We were good together like that, but I wanted us to be better—better together, maybe even best; however, Edna is my twin brother's girlfriend. Edna will remain forever his girlfriend because I am only but a living reflection of the man she is best with. I wanted to be him so badly sometimes, but I didn't want to resent him either for fairly acquiring a love that was consented to him in the same manner. I love them both (although not in equal measures) but respect for my brother outweighs the despair that creeps inside my heart.
Despite this boiling pot of jealousy, brotherly affection, and love for Edna, I still managed to find a way to secretly spend time with her. Does my brother know? Well that's a secret. One, I know, that Edna will bring with her, safely stored in her knowing heart.
There was one time when she came over, the only time I knew of, because our parents were taking a week vacation to a tropical country. Sandy beaches and fresh coconuts were the highlight of the trip along with local foods from restaurants. They sent pictures of everything to us and suddenly, the thought of bringing Edna to the beach crossed my mind. Next thing I know, she was ringing the doorbell and I quickly ran to my feet and answered it. I knew she came for my brother, not me, but I wanted to receive her myself. She smiled a strange smile and I greeted her before letting her know that my brother will come down shortly. "Take a seat on the sofa. I'll call him for you." She thanked me and I felt her stare piercing my back. Why is she looking at me?
Later that night, they both laid down on the bed. When my brother was finally asleep, she went to the balcony and sat on one of the chairs. I got the feeling that she was waiting for someone and after five minutes, I decided to follow suit. She smiled that same strange smile again, but directed to the stars and the full moon that shone brightly above us. Never would I ever expect the next two words that would come out of her lips and the sense of weird relief and embarrassment that proceeded it.
I know.
She said to me and continued to look on the stars. I stared at her for some more, taking in her beauty as the light of the moon pictured it; and I too managed to smile towards her and the celestial bodies above us. And so we continued our relationship whatever this can be called, and my brother knew none of it.
———
Six months later, at 5pm on a Sunday, the devastating news of Edna's death arrived at our doorstep and my brother wept loudly. Edna was on her way to our house when a drunk driver crashed into the mini-bus she was riding on her commute to our place. She died on the spot and we only got contacted because somehow, our address was written on a piece of paper stuck behind her phone case. They thought, perhaps, that we were family since her phone would have taken a while to open and her IDs with her home address were somewhere in the wreckage. Only a work ID, those that only had your photo, name, and position on it, were found next to her phone.
A freak accident.
My brother didn't take that lightly and screamed while crying at some point. He even acted like he almost wanted to murder the police officer that stood before him��the man who delivered the news of Edna's passing. It's true that it's much easier to project one's grief in the form of sadness towards the messenger, but I knew it in myself that he didn't want to be angry at the officer either. I wept and screamed in my own way without my brother knowing while he nursed his grief the best way he could.
———
Somehow I knew that I could never love anyone else like Edna. My heart and soul were captured by her, sealed by fate on that night by my brother's balcony. The moment she confessed her knowledge to me with the blessing of the moonlight and the veil of the night, there was no turning back. No one could ever replace Edna in this heart I share with my brother, but he deserves another chance at love too.
We watched her casket's slow descent and felt our drenched coat as the slight drizzle slowly became a shower while the sun remained shining. The single white rose on our hand accepted the offering of rain too; and when we finally decided to let it go, so did I from my brother's hold. His heart will remember Edna, but mine while live forever on the memory of that evening—that evening where Edna knew she loved two different people in a body of one. Before I left, I wondered what her last thoughts were. Did she thought of us? Of me perhaps, if I so boldly think? Well, it's alright. Similar to those last thoughts, I too, am gone with Edna.
21-June-2023 Finished: 3:20am
1 note · View note
batchilla · 25 days ago
Note
hi @interwebseriesfan24 as promised I am back to freak the fuck out.
Got me looking like this guy.
Tumblr media
I love how we just see the Reader (who I'm dubbing DR, for Detective Reader, from now on) absolutely want to kill Dick for this. Because y'know what, I'd want to kill him too! He drops by DR's apartment late at night as Nightwing, all but confirming the theory he and Dick Grayson are the same, and yet this man is somehow awake, functioning, and presentable. That's evil to me. (Not in the normal evil way, but I mean, how can you be all three before nine in the morning. I'm only ever functioning and presentable before nine in the morning, I'm never truly awake until eleven.)
for real. It's not malicious, it's not mean, but also, Dick, how dare you. Be tired and grumpy with the rest of us you little shit.
Sincerely, I would kick him and find a way to frame it as an accident. Just to frumple him up somehow, if that were possible.
His preferred method for DR making him less presentable would be a heated makeout session tbh ;)
wild comparison to make (at least to me, with what I know about the Batfamily), that's amazing! If DR were in Gotham, she'd be run ragged, but he's right. The bat signal would probably be turned on less frequently.
Oh yeah it was meant to be an insane compliment. Honestly Detective reader would be SO done, but she'd find a way to keep penguin in prison for more then ten minutes.
Anyway, can we also discuss these sentences where you wrote about how Dick feels about DR's smile??
I'm so glad those hit, I often worry I come across as to dramatic and I am glad I found the balance.
But seriously, boo to McElroy. Awful man, I will not give you the time of day. (But as someone who has dealt with sexual harrassment, I think you wrote DR's perspective about him being back very tastefully, and it was realistic to me with how she would be feeling. Also Dick is gonna fuck him up at some point, I feel it in every fiber of my being. Even if he doesn't do so in the manner we, the readers, would expect. Because, the claws may not have receded, but they have relaxed. You've got something going on here.)
first off, my sincere condolences. I am very grateful for the feedback, as I was worried about handling it properly. He will be hit by the karma bus, and the karma truck, driven by Dick and DR respectively.
I love that Dick trusts her. He's only gotten an introduction from McIdiot (that's his name now, to me), but he trusts DR's gut.
Badabupbahda. Indeed. He knows her and trusts her. If she's scared, there's cause, and he won't let that cause happen.
Moving on, I do want to say I laughed out loud when this line popped up: "Was it deceptive? Well, no more than anything else he did as Nightwing… well, maybe a little more. "
I had such a shit eating grin on my face writing the entire Nightwing on the other roof scene. Free indirect discourse is such a fun tool to play with and drop into fics as a little extra spice. It has been a long time favorite of mine. I don't think I would want to use it 100% of the time but it's like salt flakes on a roast potato imo. Just a sprinkle is so good.
Your style is so hilarious to read. I love the way your thoughts blend into the story, the way you weave funny little bits in. Your articulation, your word choice are both awesome (think of it in the way you'd see the word used before our time, like how it was used in the early 1900s). I love seeing you bleed into the story, even if it's just a little bit.
hm. Well. This will haunt me and make me feel good about my writing forever.
It's a great situation because he's misreading his own last name to keep a cover he's already lost. What a ham.
Hes just a silly lil guy your honor. Truly I feel like the 'Richard Grerson' moment was one of my faves of the series to write so far. It is so silly and yet she is also so right to be annoyed because... Richard Grerson? he thought that would work? meanwhile Dick is just PANICKING. No he doesn't think she's that dumb he just isn't used to smart people who aren't the bats.
And that's the second best part of this chapter to me, that he gets to see that if you paid close enough attention (like DR!!), anyone with a good head on their shoulders could piece together that he is (at the very least) a superhero.
Yes exactly. Aside from a bit of a revenge prank, what she's doing is also calling out his mistakes. It keeps him safer, because it's presumable that the mole working for the serial killer is ALSO paying attention.
Because now there's this risk for him. He has to shut down that idea for her, but he can't make it obvious, he can't interfere too much as Nightwing. That's like giving an affidavit, confessing Dick Grayson was the first Robin, and now is Nightwing.
I am planning to play with this more next time we see Dick. He's going to have to 'convince' her to trust him but without letting on he thinks she doesn't trust him. Its a delightful mess.
the key phrase here being the real him.
I completely agree. Because Who is the Real Him? Is it Richard Grayson? Is it Nightwing? In my humble opinion its both. The truth of Dick is that he's both. To truly know the real him, you'd need to know both. Which is why to me it's so special that she recognized him on sight. Princess Bride? Me? Inconceivable. You've fallen for one of the three classic blunders and assumed I know what I am doing. (I do occasionally, and this is one such occasion).
The best part of this chapter, to me, was when you wrote how Dick knew what it felt like to fly. And that DR made him feel that way, if not better. To have (as you wrote) "gravity become an afterthought" because of a person must be an exhilerating and fantastic experience. For that to be how Dick feels about her. After everything he's gone through - everything he's experienced - it's amazing. It does something to me, gives me this unknown feeling that rides my train of thought. I love it
Again, so glad this landed. I had it stuck in my head as a brainworm since I had the idea. DO NOT DARE APOLOGIZE LOOK AT THIS DM I SENT WHILE SHOWING THIS ASK TO A FRIEND LIKE A PROUD KINDERGARTNER WITH AN ASSIGNMENT THAT GOT A STICKER. seriously I might have to name my firstborn @interwebseriesfan24.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
More pics of me reading this ask
When I saw that you had posted Chapter 2 for YKIKR, something lit up inside of me. You absolutely deserve the praise you received for Chapter 1. It was delectable! And I knew that this would be just as delicious to take in. Dick Grayson is back in the building (aka my brain), and he's a welcome presence. Fun fact, but Saturdays are always blue to me, so this being posted on a Saturday feels so fitting because that's his color. (Also, I'm in awe that my ask about Chapter 1 is something you think about daily. But it makes me glad that I send these asks to writers.)
I love how we just see the Reader (who I'm dubbing DR, for Detective Reader, from now on) absolutely want to kill Dick for this. Because y'know what, I'd want to kill him too! He drops by DR's apartment late at night as Nightwing, all but confirming the theory he and Dick Grayson are the same, and yet this man is somehow awake, functioning, and presentable. That's evil to me. (Not in the normal evil way, but I mean, how can you be all three before nine in the morning. I'm only ever functioning and presentable before nine in the morning, I'm never truly awake until eleven.)
Sincerely, I would kick him and find a way to frame it as an accident. Just to frumple him up somehow, if that were possible.
Also, can we talk about this paragraph you wrote in Dick's perspective, the one where he thinks how, "It wasn’t that he objected to her as a partner - short of his family, she was possibly the best he’d ever met. Frankly, if she was transferred to Gotham, the bat signal would be turned on far less frequently."
LIKE HELLO?? I see that as an absolute win!! That is a wild comparison to make (at least to me, with what I know about the Batfamily), that's amazing! If DR were in Gotham, she'd be run ragged, but he's right. The bat signal would probably be turned on less frequently. And I love how he just....god, he feels so bright here. He's always been bright to me in a way that makes you want to be enveloped by the brightness. And that's what I read him as here, and that younger version of me is sitting right next to me, reading and feeling the same way. I know I said it last time, but you really have portrayed him so well. I may be older, but god does it feel like time had stopped and only now resumed.
Anyway, can we also discuss these sentences where you wrote about how Dick feels about DR's smile?? Because that floored me and made me kick my feet. That man is smitten, and I am **here** for it!! (Pretend that here was bolded, I'm drafting this ask in my notes app, lol)
But seriously, boo to McElroy. Awful man, I will not give you the time of day. (But as someone who has dealt with sexual harrassment, I think you wrote DR's perspective about him being back very tastefully, and it was realistic to me with how she would be feeling. Also Dick is gonna fuck him up at some point, I feel it in every fiber of my being. Even if he doesn't do so in the manner we, the readers, would expect. Because, the claws may not have receded, but they have relaxed. You've got something going on here.)
I love that Dick trusts her. He's only gotten an introduction from McIdiot (that's his name now, to me), but he trusts DR's gut. He saw her reaction to the guy. The venom he held back will intermingle with the words in his throat at some point (I'm typing this as I read), and they will make for a dangerous pair.
Moving on, I do want to say I laughed out loud when this line popped up: "Was it deceptive? Well, no more than anything else he did as Nightwing… well, maybe a little more. "
Because honestly, yeah, anything he does as Nightwing is technically deceptive. But the framing of this line......okay, it reminded me of a literary technique we learned the actual name of in one of my lit classes (I'm an English major; I didn't know the formal name for the term, but I knew what it was): free indirect discourse. Obviously, this is fanfiction, and yada yada yada yah, but like. It's so funny, idk. I love it. (It is not my favorite/the best bit ((imo)), though!! That's at the end :) )
For a few seconds, I forgot this series had so much going on besides the romance aspects, lol. And I really enjoy when that happens, because it makes my reading experience better all the more. Like, they're mutually crushing on one another, and one of them is a superhero, and oh yeah, they're tracking a serial killer. I love the intermingling of ideas.
Also, he really did commit the cheesiest move known to history. Pebbles at the window.....Dick Grayson/Nightwing would. (I think both personas would, personally.)
Your style is so hilarious to read. I love the way your thoughts blend into the story, the way you weave funny little bits in. Your articulation, your word choice are both awesome (think of it in the way you'd see the word used before our time, like how it was used in the early 1900s). I love seeing you bleed into the story, even if it's just a little bit.
The fact that Dick still thinks DR doesn't know he's Nightwing is the best thing, to me. It's a great situation because he's misreading his own last name to keep a cover he's already lost. What a ham. I mean, he blew it when he asked abkut himself first, and now he's finding out how he's given away details of who he could be during his non-superhero time. And that's the second best part of this chapter to me, that he gets to see that if you paid close enough attention (like DR!!), anyone with a good head on their shoulders could piece together that he is (at the very least) a superhero.
DR seeing Dick as a corrupt cop (whether or not to make it so he doesn't catch on to her knowing his double identity) is a great detail. Because now there's this risk for him. He has to shut down that idea for her, but he can't make it obvious, he can't interfere too much as Nightwing. That's like giving an affidavit, confessing Dick Grayson was the first Robin, and now is Nightwing.
Did I want to howl in pain from the idea you placed in front of me that Dick Grayson would never get to tell DR how wonderful she is, that he'll never get to confess to her? Yes. But that's the beauty of this duel identity. Although, I'd like to point out that you wrote that, "he’d never feel that warmth of 10,000 stars directed at the real him", with the key phrase here being the real him.
AND DON'T THINK I MISSED THAT PRINCESS BRIDE REFERENCE WITH THE "As You Wish" THING. (Unless I'm reading too much into this, and it is not a reference, lol. In that case, pretend you did not see this.) That does so much here, and I know you know what you did with this. But know that I know what you did with this, and it makes me insane.
If I could, I'd reach through my phone screen and shake you right now. Oh my goddddddddddddd!!!!!!! Okay, onto my favorite/the best part (imo) before I go balls to the walls insane.
The best part of this chapter, to me, was when you wrote how Dick knew what it felt like to fly. And that DR made him feel that way, if not better. To have (as you wrote) "gravity become an afterthought" because of a person must be an exhilerating and fantastic experience. For that to be how Dick feels about her. After everything he's gone through - everything he's experienced - it's amazing. It does something to me, gives me this unknown feeling that rides my train of thought. I love it.
Anywho, I love this. Thanks again for writing and for being you. Have a great night!! Sorry for the length of this. (I know last time you said not to apologize, but I wrote so much, and I never know if people are in the mood to read this much about a reader's thoughts. Also!! The formatting of this worked!!)
Im going to freak out about this later. Because I’m ✨with people✨ and can’t take ten minutes to write the reply this deserves. So see you in an hour or so.
Please don’t apologise because responses like this are my main motivation for writing, and they mean the absolute world to me.
Im at a shopping centre with my child sibling and im trying not to cry because then I’ll have to tell this kid that I write about fictional men I wanna smooch.
6 notes · View notes
lizzielikeborden · 2 years ago
Note
OMG any eddie angst would be so good!! maybe like the reader and eddie are secretly seeing each other but they don’t want it public because he’s “the freak” so he gets mad one day because he’s sick of hiding it and he says some hurtful things. idk i’m a sucker for some angst
2.7k words
They say high school sweethearts are rare to last forever, that fleeting moments and quick love are more inclined to happen than finding someone who will stand next to you and love until that last breath fills your lungs. That’s what Eddie did for you, filled your lungs with what could be your last breath at any moment with quick love and fleeting moments. Core moments that froze time and focused every last ounce of your physical and spiritual being on only one thing at once. 
But it could’ve been different, fleeting moments could’ve been consistent time spent with one another in a loving fashion consistently. No, that couldn’t happen, not for you and not for him. You were considered normal, actually above normal, someone who could mingle with every crowd and be accepted. Someone who everyone considered a friend. Then there was Eddie “The Freak” Munson, the boy who kissed your hands, danced around with you, slipped rings onto your fingers, played the guitar for you, watched scary movies with you, and slept outside on accident next to a fire with you. But with you and only you, because to everyone else he was loud, aggressive, obnoxious, and weird. Even though his friends loved him and cared for him, they would say the same words just not in a negative context. 
The first time you kissed was at his trailer, the two of you had the radio on, listening to it and dancing around to Dio. But that normal dancing turned into slow dancing, even though the beat of that song was not at all the type you would slow dance too. You bounced the lyrics of the song off one another in loud shouts and freeing voices until you were nearly inches away speaking in slow low tones. The words you were ricocheting back and forth no matter matched where the song was, almost like a round. Until suddenly the words coming from the two of you stopped as your lips met. 
After that the two of you were inseparable, at least when no one else was around. The two of you agreed that because of Eddie’s reputation, and your status that your relationship would be a secret. It was a mutual thing, a choice you had both sadly and begrudgingly agreed on. But that was over the summer, July to be exact. And now it was almost a new summer, April to be exact the very tail end of it. Somehow you had managed to contain and keep that secret all that time. Through almost an entire school year. 
So there the two of you were, your hands on his face pulling him down to your level, kissing him softly on the lips. There were very few moments where he was soft, where he was gentle. Where his eccentric personality was hidden by a fluffy exterior. 
“I love you.” You pulled back from the kiss and whispered to him right next to his earlobe. 
“And I to you.” He mimicked your actions, down to the way your head was tilted.
“I have to get to school.” The moment was gone as you pulled away from him taking steps back and picking up your book bag. 
“I’ll be there at some point.” It was almost like you instantly went back to strangers, he jumped over the couch and laid down on it and you walked out the door like nothing ever happened. 
You hadn’t seen even a peak of Eddie all day, you had gone through several boring class periods. Talking to friends of yours, and people you loathed all the same. But now it was lunch, and as you sat with a group of girls who you had gathered together throughout the entirety of your high school experience, along with their boyfriends who were the class A type of jocks. 
“So, who’s coming to Friday Night Lights before the basketball game?” One of your friends piped up amongst the large amounts of small conversations. She was locking her hands with her boyfriend who got to sit right next to her, he didn’t even realize how lucky he was. The privilege he had to get to be right there and not be judged openly. The same privilege that everyone except Eddie had. And he saw that, yes he was listening somewhat to the conversation that was being had at his lunch table. But he was also watching you, like he always did. He saw you smile, laugh, and play along with their little facade they put on everyday. It stung him deep, deep in the heart he felt the pain, worse than a heart attack, because at least in a heart attack there’s a likelihood that you’ll collapse and possibly die. But this just hurt, and it made his stomach turn. There was nothing worse, not to him. 
“I can’t I’ve got-” Before you could finish your sentence directed towards the question that was asked you heard another voice pipe up from another table, booming and electric. 
And of course it was Eddie, walking across the tables, screaming about who knows what, certainly you didn’t because all you could hear was white noise. There was a ping in your heart that rang up through your neck and into your head making you dizzy. You weren’t embarrassed, no, you were hurt, because from what you could make out it was all of your friends yelling and talking amongst themselves about how much of a freak he was, how dumb he was, and how disruptive he was. 
“What a freakshow, oh my god he’s a mess.” The one who had asked the question was eyeballing him down like a hunter stalking prey. 
“He’s probably on drugs, just fucking look at him.” Her boyfriend pulled her in closer, a warm embrace if you will, as if he were scared of Eddie, what Eddie might do. 
“SHUT UP FREAK!” One of the kids at your table stood up on the table, mimicking Eddie just screaming like a wild animal. 
You looked up, you thought you felt eyes on you, you were right. But they weren’t the eyes of anyone near you. Only those of the man you loved staring you down from afar, rose on one of the tables. His expression read of anger, as if he expected you to at least tell them to knock off their rude behavior, not that his had been any better. But in a moment that chance was gone, he snapped his neck to the side throwing his hands up behind his head making an ugly face.  Time felt slow as you tipped your head down to look at the table, one blink at a time you collected yourself feeling the table shake, hearing laughter and more whispering. 
“My god that was embarrassing, how does he even have the friends he has?” One of the girls was laughing hysterically as she made the comment. When you looked up you could no longer see Eddie, he was gone, like he had vanished. 
“I’ve gotta use the restroom, I’ll be back.” You were squeamish jumping up like you were covered in bugs, not wanting to be near them any longer. You needed to see Eddie, you needed to find him and see if he was okay. 
Running out of the lunchroom you made your way to the hallway, which was empty, completely and utterly empty as you took more steps peering around you heard footsteps. Chasing after the full of hyper feelings you ran into Eddie almost in full force. 
“Are you okay?” You touched bicep as he balanced on one leg, crossing the other in front of him. 
“Peachy.” Eddie looked down at his feet and nodded his head moving his shoulder back a little to avoid your touch a bit. 
“They shouldn’t have said those things Eddie, that was awful.” You were being genuine and honest, your body felt like slime slipping into the ground. 
“Oh but they’re true, they’re all true! And you know it, in fact you should know it better than anyone in the fucking world. But no one would know it would they.” Eddie wasn’t raising his voice even a notch, but his tone was condescending, mean to say the least. 
“Sweetheart, what are you talking about? I don’t think you’re a freak, you were just being expressive, and that’s not a bad thing.” You sighed as you spoke feeling bad, you wanted to touch him, you wanted to hug him and you didn’t care who saw but when you even went to take a small step forward he jumped back. 
“Oh no, don’t TOUCH the FREAK!. Miss Perfect cannot be seen with such a sight as me. Go back to lunch, sit with your friends, share some LAUGHS, make fun of ME WITH THEM. You’re too good for me, you belong with one of those athletes, watch them PLAY BALL.” Eddie took time with his words shouting a few words out a time. Mimicking each one that he put extreme emphasis on.
“Eddie stop it, I would never make fun of you!” You whisper yelled at him almost in tears at the way he was talking about you, the way he was talking about himself. 
“Oh but everyone else can and you say nothing, you do nothing, you’re perfectly complicit sitting with those people who do nothing but make fun of me and my friends. You’re just like them, bunch of fucking bullies.” Eddie shook his head laughing it all off as you knitted your eyebrows together. 
“Eddie, stop it! Just stop it! We both agreed to this, we came up with this together, it was not just me.” You snapped back at him before he could keep telling you how awful you were. 
“But it was all for you, every last bit of it. So that you could keep your position on the totem pole of bull fuckery that is high school. Because nothing is more important than that.” Eddie shook his head in a rude way, his words laced with malice. 
“Eddie, that’s just not true, I-” Before you could finish your sentence the bell rang and you could hear the following movements of the crowd of classmates. 
“Times up angel face, I’ve gotta bounce before the important eyes of the student body see the oddity with the perfect doll baby.” Turning on his heels he took off storming down the hallway. 
The rest of the day went by fast due to your lack of focus on academics. You sat through the classes as if you were half asleep, half dead was a more accurate description. You were moving slowly physically and you didn’t speak to a single person even if they spoke to you. Luckily you had the luxury of others just assuming that you were under the weather. All you could think about was how wrong Eddie was, how incorrect he was but you couldn’t blame him because after that conversation you never spoke of it again, never even tried to change the original agreement a little bit. The only real movement you had other than walking was twisting around one of the rings Eddie had given you, rolling it around in your pocket, randomly placing it on fingers. 
“Hey come on, schools let out.” Someone tapped on your shoulder, you had sat there longer than everyone else, at least that was the assumption you made from all the empty desks around you. People had been leaving and rising for at least a few moments. 
“Thanks, I was pretty spaced out.” You gave her a light chuckle, rising from your seat with the ring on your middle finger hand in pocket as you used the other to pick up your things and make your way out the door. 
The usual bumping shoulders didn’t happen as you were so late out the door that everything was vacant, it was these kinds of times where Eddie would appear but you knew that wouldn’t happen now, not after the conversation the two of you had. But you knew you couldn’t just go home, you couldn’t leave Eddie with whatever thoughts he had in his head…
With clammy hands you knocked on the trailer's door gently, not wanting to disturb Eddie, rather you wanted to let him know that you were there. And when there was no answer you decided to knock once more. But something in you said There won’t be an answer. So you opted to just walk inside, like you had done many times before, but it felt so hollow to walk through knowing that the warmth you felt many times was not going to just openly appear. 
“Eddie?” You walked around looking for him until you found him sitting on the floor cross legged picking at his guitar. 
“What’re you playing?” You sat down leaving distance between the two of you, facing him he didn’t even look up. The silence was worse than deafening, it was like needles pricking at the skin just going under the first layers for second at a time. “Eddie please talk to me or at least hear me out.” 
His eyes looked up for only a moment to acknowledge the fact that you were in the room, that you were sharing a space differently than you had anytime before. 
“I don’t think being a freak is a bad thing. I don’t think being associated with one is a bad thing either. I didn’t agree to say anything about us to others because it would hurt me, I did it so you wouldn’t get hurt. I know you don’t take comments from other people who don’t care to even know you bother you. But, you can’t convince me that hearing every single day how unworthy you are, how you must be a charity case to me, or anything like that wouldn’t eventually get under your skin. How it wouldn’t bother you even just a little bit. I could give a shit less.” You took a deep breath in and stopped before you continued, this really wasn’t about you, this was about him. 
“It wouldn’t and do you know why?” He sat his guitar down next to him making sure it laid perfectly flat and unharmed. “Because I would have you, the most beautiful and kind creature on my arm with me no matter what was said. I have no social status, nothing to hold up. None of that matters to me but you matter.” He didn’t even sound like himself when he spoke but you knew it was genuine, his lack of energy coming from a place deep inside himself that wanted nothing more than to just be able to be who he was with who he was with every time you were in the same space. 
“I just didn’t want your feelings to be crushed, I didn’t want the pressure hurting you, and I didn’t want you flying off the handle if it got too much. I didn’t mean for this to hurt your feelings so badly. I’m sorry.” Now you were the one looking downwards feeling stupid that all this time you could’ve just lived your life the way you wanted to, the way Eddie wanted to. 
A coil inside of Eddie snapped to hear that you were sorry, after all you weren’t the one who popped off with nasty comments and mean remarks. No, that was him and all you had done was come to see if he came out of that cafeteria mentally unscathed. “I’m sorry too.” He couldn’t bring himself to break down everything he was sorry about, not only would that take more of your time together but it would just be repeating the words that burnt his throat to say earlier. 
You just shook your head and nodded smiling at him just a little, you weren’t mad at him, no. Yes he had hurt your feelings, no he shouldn’t have said those things, but he didn’t mean them, they weren’t what he wanted to say, it wasn’t how he wanted to have that conversation come back up and you knew that. “How about this, tomorrow we walk hand in hand into the school building, exactly how we walk around when we’re alone. Attached. Together.” 
It was like lightning struck him, suddenly all that energy he had everyday of his life came back into him like a soul would return to a body after a deadly experience. A smile spread across his face and nose scrunched up a little bit. So of course you took that as a yes…
298 notes · View notes
marauderundercover · 3 years ago
Text
Taking Chances Chapter 3: Happy Little Accidents (Identities)
Prev
AO3
@maribat-bdbwm
Marinette stared at the man in front of her, trying not to let her jaw drop. Sure she’d seen pictures of Bruce Wayne last night, Adrien made sure she was well educated on the man’s less than ideal fashion choices. But his choice of a sharp suit or his eyes that too closely matched hers weren’t why her jaw dropped. No, her jaw dropped because-
“Batman!” She says, in a wonderful moment of word association added to the man’s height and build. Mr. Wayne’s eyebrow quirks up and Marinette’s face instantly turns bright red as she hears the snickers of her classmates around her. Marinette immediately wishes that they would have left her and gone back to the bus without her, but no such luck. Instead they got to see her embarrass herself in front of her bio dad for the first time. Not that they knew that, but still. It was the principle of the thing. 
“I-” Mr. Wayne starts, but she cuts him off. 
“Oh, no, oh my god, I’m- no, I’m so, so sorry. I just, you’re- and you- and well yesterday, um, so I just, you seemed really familiar and I saw Batman yesterday so I said it and I shouldn't have and I'm so sorry I'm just freaking out cause my bi- ohhhhh….I mean-” Marinette rambles on, her blush darkening as she tries and fails to let out a coherent sentence in front of the man. She’s mercifully saved by the sharp blare of an akuma alert, the phones of every one of her classmates blaring at the same time. Mr. Wayne and the other employees in the lobby of Wayne Enterprises look confused, but Marinette is relieved. 
“What-” Mr. Wayne tries to ask, but is cut off yet again. 
“Oh well that’s not good gotta go call Paris-bye!” She yells, rushing away from the group and towards the bathrooms. She groans at the look Kaalki give her when she opens her purse. 
“That was a disaster.” They say simply with an unamused face. Marinette groans again. 
“Please don’t remind me. Tikki, spots on! Tikki, Kaalki, unify!” Marinette yells before calling a portal and falling into Paris, the awkward situation pushed to the back of her mind while she pours her focus into her Ladybug duties. 
---
Bruce Wayne was confused. And worried. But mostly confused. Or, the confusion overweighed the worry until he asked about the alarm on the French class’ phones. That’s when the worry began to take center stage. A supervillian? In Paris? For almost two years? Why was the League not informed? 
“Um, would you like to watch the battle, Monsieur Wayne?” A blonde boy asks, holding his phone out and rubbing the back of his neck in a nervous fashion. Bruce studies the boy for a moment and recognizes him as the one who hugged Miss Dupain Cheng the day prior. His daughter. Who is currently living in a city with a supervillain and no League intervention. Nodding, Bruce takes the phone and watches the battle, his horror growing. There was one hero, rushing around the scene, one of her pigtails singed and soot covering her face. What the hell kind of villain was this? And why did the hero look so small? Bruce flinches as the hero, Ladybug the comments called her, is thrown against a building roughly. He waits with baited breath until she stands back up, her face set in a grimace before she went on the offense with a vengenace. 
“Who is this villain? I’ve never heard of them?” Bruce asks Adrien, not bothering to look away from the fight. 
“I don’t know this one’s name, Akumas all have different names and powers.” Adrien replies. Bruce’ gaze snaps up to meet Adrien’s as his blood runs cold. All. As in, multiple. 
“How many villains?” He asks, thankful that his newly discovered daughter is currently in Gotham instead of Paris, a sentiment he never expected with the crime rates of his beloved city. 
“Oh, there’s only one villain. Hawkmoth. Akumas are just people who’ve had a bad day.” Adrien explains as if it’s a simple concept. 
“And what does that mean?” Bruce asks, feeling frustration creep into his neutral posture. 
“It means that what you’re seeing right now is a normal citizen who’s being controlled. Hawkmoth…. He has the power to control anyone who shows an extreme negative emotion. Heartbreak, anger, sadness, lonelines, anything negative can be used against you. We, Paris that is, don’t blame those who were akumatized. They can’t even remember what they did when they were under his control. It wouldn’t be fair to hold them accountable.” Adrien explains, and Bruce can’t help the feeling of complete and total helplessness that rushes over him. If he went to Paris, even with the intention of helping the hero in order to protect his daughter, he could become an even bigger obstacle. He could hurt her. He could hurt others. 
“Is that why the Justice League isn’t there?” Bruce asks, slightly amused at Adrien’s face rapidly changing from understanding to shocked. 
“I-um, probably? If you want more information, miraculousparis.org or the Ladyblog would be your best places for information.” Adrien offers. Bruce nods, mentally making a note to check out those sites later. 
“Very well. Thank you. I hope the rest of your trip to Gotham is enjoyable.” Bruce says, careful not to slip into a threatening tone. The boy hadn’t done anything to him, and while he might want to play the protective father, he knew it wasn’t his right. Not yet, anyways. Now he had a supervillain to destroy from behind the scenes. 
---
Opening a portal into her hotel room, Marinette sighs tiredly. The battle had been tiring, especially since she was on her own. Chat Noir had some kind of trip that he couldn’t get out of and had aplogized endlessly for it. She had reassured him that she could do it, but now… she knew she could do it but she really missed her partner. Letting both transformations drop, she sighs, relieved that the odd number of girls in their class allowed her to have her own room. Until a gasp filled her ears. She instantly shifts into a fighting position, shoulders tense as she stares at-
“Adrien?!” She yells in shock and confusion. What was he doing? In her hotel room? Without her? How did he even get a key? How was she supposed to explain this? Well, he did know the basics from his time as Aspik but-
“But you’re Multimouse!” Adrien yells before clapping his hand over his mouth, his cheeks instantly turning red. Marinette’s eyes widen. 
“How do you know about that?” She asks, panic rushing through her system. 
“Oh my god.” Adrien says, his eyes widening as he glances from Marinette to Tikki and back again. “Oh my god.”
“Please don’t tell anyone! I know you don’t owe me anything, but I just really don’t know if I can handle being the center of attention and then my family would be in danger and I know they wouldn’t approve because it’s dangerous and I-”
“THE TWO GIRLS I HAVE A CRUSH ON ARE THE SAME GIRL?” Adrien says, his eyes wide as he cuts off her rambling. 
“I- wait what?” Marinette sputters, completely shocked at this turn of events. 
“Well I’ve had a crush on Ladybug for forever and then like a month ago, I was talking to Plagg about how mad it made me that people weren’t listening to you and how hurt you were by the whole high road advice which was, honestly, not my best moment. And somehow, I started ranting about how pretty your eyes are and how kind and amazing you are and so then Plagg told me that that’s a crush, and I thought he was wrong. Until I saw you the next day and realized that he was right but then I felt bad because I felt like I was betraying Ladybug by having a crush on you instead, but Ladybug is you. Which makes sense, now that I think about it and-” Adrien’s cut off by Marinette covering his mouth with her hand, desperate to get him to stop talking. 
“Plagg?” She asks, jumping back from him as the Kwami flies out from Adrien’s pocket. 
“Good job kid, you broke pigtails.” He says, gesturing at Marinette who suddenly felt like the human version of the windows error screen. Could this trip get any weirder?
Next
Tag List: @vixen-uchiha @liquid-luck-00 @stainedglassm @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @when-no-wings-do-broomsticks 
180 notes · View notes
asterekmess · 4 years ago
Note
Been seeing you getting hate mail and while I absolutely can't understand why anyone would go to all the trouble to make some one else feel bad... I also kinda really love the discourse on Scott? Like YOUR RANTS oh man. On point. Always. Tbh I tried giving Scott a chance... He is the main char after all... But I was like??? Wtf? That dude does nothing but refute others and does whatever he wants. And this was when I didn't particularly like Stiles either (first time watching Teen Wolf). But then I got to know more of him and like Tony he went asshole to lovable asshole—seriously, Stiles might not be the ‘nicest’ but he tries and his heart is in good place—while Scott is just... self-righteous. Someone pointed out that he sees people as possessions and that irks me too that I can actually see it being true. The dude has literally nothing going on except for being the one that gets bitten. And the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque romance he has.
Okay, okay, where was I going with this?? Right. LOVE YOUR RANTS. People need to understand that Scott not being liked isn't because of his race or anything trivial like it—he just happens to be—but because of his actions. Or inactions, as it were. *remembers the pool scene and Scott saying he's busy and resists the urge to chuck a shoe at him*
Basically, love you, love your work, and love your words! ❤️
I've talked with some friends about it, and our number one issue sort of...boiled down to the hypocrisy of the show? I....sort of rant a lot here, and I would add a Read More, but I can't find the option anymore?? I fucking hate Tumblr. EDIT: I found a post that told me how to do it!
So, since he's the character I focus on the most, let's talk about Stiles' morality. Because, you're right. Stiles is an asshole. He does some fucking awful shit in the first season, and even if he had a Reason to do it, it was still bad. And I still don't like it. But I understand it.
Stiles' lack of shits about what is 'lawful' is literally established in the first ten seconds of the show. He's a sheriff's son who sneaks onto people's roofs in the middle of the night bc they aren't answering his calls, who listens in on his dad's work conversations and is willing to fuck up a crime scene because he's so excited about getting to see a dead body. He doesn't care about laws. He doesn't even care about most basic manners (invasion of privacy much, with having Scott sniff Lydia to see if she liked him?). He's a dickhead, even to the people he cares about sometimes. But personality and morality aren't the same. Stiles' entire actual morality system is based around whatever he needs to do to keep the people he loves safe and happy. Lying to his dad so he doesn't get murdered by hunters? Totally fine. Telling Scott that it was "Jackson's own fault" that Scott attacked him with superstrength and dislocated his shoulder, so Scott doesn't feel like an asshole? That's just best friend duties! He will lie, steal, cheat, and he will kill to keep his loved ones safe (let's not forget this boy threw molotovs at Peter, knowing damn well what they would do to him). We can headcanon all we want about all the different people who are in this group of loved ones, but the list is canonically very short: Scott, his dad, and Lydia. Later on, like, past s3B? It includes Derek. Canonically. Stiles puts his life and the lives of others he cares about on the line while he lies to the matriarch of the Calavera hunter clan, to save Derek Hale. Derek is just canonically a part of that group now, and he fucking knows it bc Stiles is his anchor (that's canon too bb). End of Story, Sterek or no Sterek. It's why we get that insane number of lookbacks when Derek is dying before his evolution. Because Stiles is being forced to choose between two people who are BOTH in his ride-or-die group. He Cannot Pick between Scott and Derek, until Derek begs him to leave.
SO, yes, Stiles does fuckface things, and I don't always agree with what he does, but it is ACCURATE TO HIS CHARACTER. He is morally grey. He NEVER CLAIMS to be pure or good or just or righteous. Stiles knows who he is, and he stays true to himself. And I love him for that.
The same goes for a bunch of other characters! For Peter, who is strikingly similar to Stiles, in that family goes above literally everything. Screw the idea that he was following Derek around waiting for the chance to steal back the Alpha spark. That man put his life on the line (his second life, no less) to get the shit beaten out of him until Derek let him help save Derek's life Again and Again. Family Comes First.
Scott's morality is...confusing as fuck. I thought at first he was similar to Stiles, in that family came first, but...while he's protective of his mother, he also does a lot of stuff that puts her at risk without seeming to care/worry (like leaving Peter alone with her once Stiles hits their car, so he can chase Jackson) (or asking her to come to the high school when he's convinced there's a bomber in it)? Seriously, he's more protective over Allison, than his mother. It's very black and white the rest of the time. Very "this bad" "this good." And if you do "bad" then you are bad forever, while if you do "good" you are only good until you do "bad." The Betas were "good" until they asked for the bite, and then they were "Bad." Derek was "bad" when Scott met him and scared him, so after that, no matter how much "good" he did, he remained "bad." But only when it suits him. Allison is good even when she does bad, because he wants her to be good. Chris is good even though he's done mountains of bad, because of the minuscule amount of good that Scott has seen him do, because Scott wants him to be good. Even DEUCALION is good, despite the crazy CRAZY amount of bad he's done and despite having seen him do NO GOOD, just because Scott wants him to be good. Lying to those closest to you is bad, unless Scott is doing it, and then it's good, because he knows HE is good. Killing people is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Letting villains go is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Biting people is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Protecting family is good even if it requires killing or lying, unless it's not Scott doing it. Revenge for past slights is good, unless it's not SCOTT doing it. And you try to understand it! You try to say, okay, then he's morally grey, got it. He plays with the rules to suit his own morality, whatever. Except that Scott, the other characters, and THE SHOW ITSELF, are all telling you otherwise! They all say that Scott is morally pure. That he is good and righteous and lawful. That he always does the "right" thing, and that when he does "bad" things, it's justified and he had to. THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES say Scott is somehow better or more righteous than the other characters by MAKING HIM AN ALPHA OUT OF NOWHERE. (I'm talking abt canon here, not going into deaton conspiracy theories) It's like....Like in the hate mail response I did, where I pointed out that Every Single Thing people get angry at Derek for doing, Scott did too. Lying, killing (or at least attempting it), attacking innocents, losing his temper, keeping secrets, refusing to work with someone who could help, etc etc etc. Everything Derek has done that is morally "wrong," Scott has also done. And that's okay! Doing a bad thing doesn't make you a bad person, and even if it did, Scott is ALLOWED to be bad! GO FOR IT.
Except that he is sinless. It isn't that he learns from the bad things he does, it's that they aren't treated like bad things in the first place. Because Scott did it, and Scott always does the right thing.
Derek's behavior is reprehensible at times, but the show ADMITS that and frames it as bad. Frames it as him doing a bad thing when he scares Isaac or throws Peter or tells Erica who to date. And that's fine, because Derek is established as not being morally pure.
But SCOTT IS. And because they were so desperate to make him continue being "Pure" they didn't frame the things he did as wrong, or if they did, they absolved him of it immediately, using the exact same reasoning that works for Derek's situations, but this time Actually Accepting it.
He scares Stiles, well it's because he's scared. He throws Isaac, it's because he's upset. He attacks Jackson well it's because Jackson was being a dick. He orders Allison to date Matt, well he had a goal to accomplish. Every reason is treated like a fucking doctor's note that erases the bad things he does.
Being scared, or angry, or retaliating to someone being an asshole, or trying to protect himself, was NEVER a good enough reason for Derek to do ANYTHING "Bad." It was never an acceptable excuse.
IF IT WERE: If the show were making a statement about how fallable people are, how they do bad things, but they do them for a REASON. How people will do wild and terrible things out of fear, and how that doesn't make it less bad, but it makes it understandable, so don't demonize them out of nowhere. If that were the case, I would HAVE BEEN FINE WITH IT.
Scott is held to COMPLETELY different standards than everyone else in the show! And I DON'T mean that people held him to higher ones. They dropped that bar so fucking low. Anything was allowed, and any excuse was good enough.
He made out with a girl who was dating someone else, who his best friend was in love with? It's just the full moon, he's angsty about losing Allison. He ducttapes Liam to a bathtub and starts throwing random phrases at him that he hated Derek for saying to him? He's freaked out! He doesn't know what to do with a bitten wolf! It was an accident! He works with a mass murderer behind people's backs without telling them the whole story? Am I talking about Gerard or Deucalion? Who fucking knows. Either way, it's okay, because he was protecting his family. He plots to murder a cancer patient slowly and painfully by replacing meds that likely included painkillers with mountain ash, and the uses someone else's body to deliver the killing blow, and it's okay because he was just being smart! He was just working ten steps ahead! He was saving his mom and the whole town! Who cares if it DIDN"T WORK?
He walks into his ex-girlfriend's hotel room and scares the SHIT out of her while she's naked and alone in the shower? It was the wolfsbane. It doesn't matter that no one else's impulses included HARASSING someone. He lies to his girlfriend's face about her own life because he doesn't think it's important enough for her to know (who am I talking about, come on, take a guess, which one is it? Allison or Kira? Trick question: it's both). He was just being kind! He didn't want to worry her! He didn't want to make her feel bad! She didn't need to know!
I'm so far off track it's not even funny. My point was that Everything the other characters in the show are demonized for or framed as evil or bad or wrong for doing, Scott is shown to do and it's treated like at minimum a comedy, if not a Perfect Brilliant Strategic Move.
God, fucking hell. I mean, the PARALLELS you see in this show, between Scott and others. The scene of Alexander Argent going to the hotel after being bit? That bit where he pulls his shirt up in the mirror? It's a near PERFECT replica of Scott looking at his bite at Deaton's. They paralleled SCOTT MCCALL with AN ARGENT. Deaton has this whole line in S2 where he's bitching at Derek about "the person you should trust the most doesn't trust you at all" And then seasons later, we have Scott look his best friend in the eye and refuse to trust him, only to get upset later because Stiles doesn't want to work with him anymore and he "lost them." Scott goes running into Derek's house in S1 to accuse him of killing the bus driver, and when he can't get a real response, he EGGS HIM ON by accusing him of Murdering his SISTER, just to get Derek to react. Which is the EXACT same thing Kate did when she showed up and wanted Derek to lose his temper. Scott is CONSTANTLY paralleled with villains and assholes, and constantly does the things that others are persecuted for. But instead of feeling regret or learning something from it, instead of growing AT ALL. Those actions are treated as good. We are told they are righteous. And clever. That they are what heroes do. AND YES: There are parallels between Derek and Stiles' behaviors and villains/morally grey characters! Of course there are!
BUT THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THE TRUE ALPHA MAIN CHARACTER. SCOTT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUY. HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO MIMIC/EMULATE THE VILLAINS, AND HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REWARDED WHEN HE DOES IT ANYWAY.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again; I understand the urge to think that the Teen Wolf writers did all of this on purpose. That they built Scott up as an unreliable narrator, so that we're forced to come to terms with a protagonist who isn't good, and we watch them fall into a villainous role while thinking all the while they are a hero. That all these parallels are intentional and the writers just couldn't Tell us what was going on bc they didn't have enough power.
And sometimes I play into it. I will lie to myself about Scott being the 'narrator' of the entire show, and that we're seeing it all through his eyes so of course things are biased and conflicting, just so I can actually Enjoy watching it.
But I think it's absolute bullshit that this was done on purpose. It wasn't. The parallels appeared because they Wanted Scott to do the badass things that they had all the villains doing, throwing people and being sneaky and clever, and stopping the bad guy, and they didn't want to deal with the fact that they were having him do bad things. So they just pretended he wasn't and refused to acknowledge that they'd already punished other people for doing the same exact shit, but somehow Scott was getting rewarded. They wanted Scott to be the hero, so they made him the hero, and screw everybody else.
242 notes · View notes
the-cult-of-russo · 4 years ago
Text
Billy Russo Fluff Alphabet
Tumblr media
A/N: a Billy x reader fluff Alphabet anyone? 🙃
-----
A = Admiration (what do they absolutely adore about you?)
Billy admires everything about you. From your looks to your personality. He often just watches you with a dopey smile on his face as he wonders how he managed to get someone like you. 
He's gone his life feeling like people only wanted him around because they wanted something from him. His money, his skill or his looks. But you just want him for him. It scares the shit out of him sometimes but it touches his heart to have found someone who isn't using him and actually cares.
B = Body (what is their favorite part of your body?)
I answered this in the NSFW alphabet but, his favourite body parts are your neck and eyes. 
Your eyes give everything away and he can pick up even minute changes in your mood from them. He adores them.
With your neck, it gets him going ridiculously. 
C = Cuddling (how do they like to cuddle?)
With you, Billy is a huge cuddler. He loves it when you lay your head on his chest. He hitches your thigh up so he can grasp it, his other arm wound tightly around you. He also loves being the big spoon. 
He just enjoys the closeness, he feels like he can never get close enough to you. 
D = Dates (what does their ideal date with you look like?)
As much as he can do fancy dinners, he much prefers at home dates. He loves the dates where he cooks for you at home and then you cuddle on the sofa afterwards. It feels much more intimate to him. 
E = Emotions (how do they express emotion around you?)
Billy is very emotionally stunted. At first, he struggles to deal with having feelings and expressing himself. But once that hurdle is over, he has no issues with constantly telling you he loves you. He's also very affectionate because sometimes it's easier to show you rather than to tell you. Sweet kisses, soft touches or his hands gripping your hips.
F = Family (do they want one? If they do, when?)
Billy never wanted a family before. He didn't think he was built that way after his upbringing. The looming threat of failing as a parent would haunt him. 
But with you he started to crave that. Started to want what Frank and Maria have.
He started to be able to see himself as a dad, the father to your kids.  
G = Gifts (how do they feel about gift giving? What are their habits when it comes to this?)
Billy loves showering you with gifts and he's surprisingly good at getting sentimental ones. He has a fantastic memory and he never forgets what you say. If you say something in passing conversation about something you like or want, you'll end up with it not long after. 
Billy will pull all the strings he needs to in order to make sure you get what you want. He loves to spoil you.
H = Holding Hands (when/how do they like to hold hands?)
Billy likes holding hands, feeling his fingers laced with yours. But he much prefers wrapping an arm around your waist or shoulders. Holding hands creates some distance and he doesn't like that. He likes you as close as possible at all times. Pressed against his side with his arm around you brings him a sense of peace.
I = Injury (how would they act if you got hurt?)
Over the top. 
Stubbed your toe? It's the end of the world. 
Accidentally cut your finger when chopping vegetables? You're dying and he needs to call 911.
“Billy, you don’t need to call 911,”
“What, you wanna bleed out?”
“It’s-It’s a tiny slice...”
“Right, and the next thing you know, you got sepsis and they’re choppin’ off your arm. I’m callin’ 911,”
“Billy-”
“Yeah, hi. My girl’s bleedin’ out, we need an ambulance...”
If you get injured because of someone else, even if it's an accident, he wants blood. Anyone that hurts you is on his shit list. 
If anyone purposely hurts you… their days are numbered. Billy won't rest until he's got retribution for that. No one messes with his family. 
J = Jokes (do they like to joke around with or prank you? how?)
Billy loves to joke with you. He's constantly teasing you and making you laugh with dad jokes and bad puns. 
He also loves to see your face when you slurp your coffee that has salt and not sugar in it. 
K = Kisses (how do they like to kiss you?)
Billy loves kisses. He loves giving you little affectionate kisses on your head, cheek, temple, shoulder, neck. It reassures him you're still there and he can't help it, the need to be close to you. 
When he kisses your lips though, it's hard to hold back. Whether it's the slow and sensual kisses that have you melting or the bruising kisses that are all tongues and teeth, he can't hold back. Even sweet pecks on your lips turn into dirty kisses as he loses himself in you. 
He's the kind of guy that kisses with his whole body. His hands wandering and gripping you, his body moving against yours. Kissing Billy is a very involved experience.
Kissing you is his favorite thing to do. 
L = Love (how do they show you they love you?)
He sometimes struggles with his words and Billy is very much a man of action. Things like making you breakfast in bed when he's off work, cooking you dinner. Sometimes he leaves little notes for you since he wakes up early for work and he doesn't want to wake you when you look so peaceful. 
He's always checking in with you, wanting to make sure you're healthy and happy. There isn't anything he wouldn't do for you. 
M = Memory (favorite memory together?)
His favourite memory is the day you told him you loved him. It would be ingrained in his memory forever. It was the day he realised that just maybe he could have a happy ever after. 
N = Nightmare (what is their worst fear?)
Losing you. Billy's seen a lot of shit in his life and lost people close to him. His biggest fear is losing you in any way. Whether that's you willingly walking away, something that plagues him daily. Or you being taken from him somehow. He'd die if anything happened to you. 
Losing you is not an option for Billy and he will do everything humanly possible to make sure that doesn't happen.
O = Oddity (what is one quirk they have?)
He's a neat freak. He loves things being neat and orderly, he can't help it. His bookcase is arranged alphabetically, his suits coordinated by color. 
P = Pet Names (what do they like to call you?)
Sweetheart is his go to. He constantly calls you sweetheart and doesn't even realise it. When he's feeling especially soft, it's baby. 
Q = Quality Time (how do they like to spend time with you?)
He loves any time he gets with you no matter where it is. As long as you're by his side, he's fine. 
He really loves the domestic home life with you. His arms wrapped around you while you cook, snuggled on the sofa together etc. 
R = Rhythm (what song reminds you of them?)
Closer by Nine Inch Nails 👀😂
S = Secrets (how open are they with you?)
It takes him a while to open up since he has trust issues. But once he realised you genuinely love him, he started to open up bit by bit. Every time he revealed something about himself he was convinced you'd leave. But when you didn't, he got more confident to share his life with you. 
T = Time (how long did it take you to get together?)
It took a little bit. It started off casual but he knew he wanted more. You were like an addiction to him. He rarely went back to someone for sex, only if he was getting something out of it. But he liked having you around. Enjoyed being with you even when you weren't having sex. Eventually he realised he wanted more with you.
U = Upset (how do they act when you’re upset?)
Billy hates it when you're upset. He wants to be able to fix it, to make you happy. And when it's something beyond his control he loathes it. If he can fix it, he will. Instantly. No questions asked. No matter what he has to do.
If someone is the cause of your tears, he's feral. He'll make them pay for every tear you shed because of them.
V = Vaunt (what are they proud of? Do they like to show you off?)
Billy is as proud as a peacock. His biggest achievement is Anvil and he's proud of that.
His life hasn't been easy and Anvil to him is more than a company. It's a tangible representation of how far he's come in life. In how he started at the bottom and clawed his way up to the top. 
He's also proud of being a former marine. He knows he did some bad things and there's part of his time there he regrets. But he's still proud to have served his country and being part of that. 
Billy loves to show you off. Any galas or events and he's got you at his side, introducing you as his girl proudly. If you can't be there then he can't help talking about you. 
He has a picture of you both that takes pride of place on his desk. 
W = Warrior (how do they feel about you fighting? Would they fight for you, beside you, etc?)
Billy's taught you how to fight and use weapons. Of course he wants to be the one to protect you, but he's a practical man. He knows that he can't always be there. He's ensured you know how to protect yourself. 
If you had to fight, he wouldn't be happy about it. He'd hate that you'd been in that situation. But he'd be super proud of you and fuss over you to make sure you're okay. 
Billy would most definitely fight for you. Sometimes it isn't even necessary when he tries to go for people. You have to calm him down when someone bumps into you in the street and almost knocks you over. He'd murder someone in broad daylight. 
Billy would literally go to war for you.
X = X-Ray (how well are they able to read you?)
Billy is scary with how well he can read you. You can't hide anything from him. He's super perceptive and picks up the slightest thing. Whether that's a slight change in body language, something in your eyes or voice. He always knows if somethings wrong and he knows right away if you're lying to him. Nothing gets past him. 
Y = Yes (how would they propose to you?)
Billy would want to go all out and be super romantic. He'd tailor it to things you like, making sure it's all about you. He wouldn't do it out in public with an audience. Not only because of his deep rooted fear of rejection, but mostly because he wouldn't want to pressure you. It would be intimate and sweet and he'd give a long ass speech on how you changed his life and he can't live without you. 
He'd also cry. 
Z = Zen (what makes them feel calm?)
You. You are his safe space, his home. Any time things are intense with him, you can bring him back and soothe him. Being close to you instantly makes him feel better. Holding you in his arms calms him right down. 
If you're not around then exercise. Working out helps him relieve stress.
Combining them both with sex with you… well that's just his favorite way to calm down. 
273 notes · View notes
harveywritings92 · 4 years ago
Text
You get drunk and lost.
You go out with some friends drinking, get plastered and somehow you've broke away from your group. after walking around the city you have moment of clarity you text you boyfriend, "Halph! me loss...!!" before he can respond you accidently put it on silent, and he freaks and nearly tears the streets upside down looking for you, only to get a call at the ass crack of dawn by random person saying they've found you...
Warnings : alcohol use, Smoking, theft and mature situations.
------------------
Dabi: He thought it was joke at first, sure his girl likes to let loose from time to time, But she never irresponsible about it! So, when he got that text he thought you were screwing with him, He texted you [Aww what'd ya lose Doll?] you didn't text him back... He thought she just put her phone away, as time passed by soon Dabi got worried, he checked his phone; the time you'd said you be home had long passed.
He called you and kept getting the busy signal. "Tch" without missing a beat he got his hoodie, face-cover and sunglasses on and went out to the bar that you said you'd be at just in time to see your friends drunkenly stagger out of the bar giggling like a bunch of hens. "Hey." He called out to them one them... Ayaka? If that's what her name was? Dabi wasn't really paying attention when you showed him her picture.
he was to busy fantasizing you in that tight little dress bent over couch while he rails you from behind…
Anyway, back to the present. 
Aya was dazed but seemed to recognize him. "ohz! Y/n's s-shy man! how ya doing bro?" the cremator stayed close to the alley shushed the drunk woman gesturing for her to come closer. "I'm fine, where's Y/n? She still inside?" he said in low voice nodded towards the bar, Aya gave him this blank look and Dabi didn't like how loud this silence was.... "Y/n? s-she said- said she was gonna go for a walk..." Dabi eyes narrowed resisting the urge to turn this drunk putz into a pile of ashes. "Aya focus, where did Y/n say she was going?" He said slowly trying to get the drunk woman to remember, this seemed to help as her eyes widened in realization, but that hope was soon dashed as she chortled out. "Your mamma's butt! hehe..." and broke down laughing. 
Dabi growled annoyed before shoving her back over to the group drunk girls waiting for their taxi, for the rest of the night Dabi spent his time looking through every alley, back road and crappy neighborhood, he could think of, But there was no sign of you anywhere! at around 5 am He sat on bench dejected and took his phone out; looked through his contact before stopping at 'Chicken-wings' he glared at the named with a lot of confliction, But before he could press call...
His nickname for You suddenly lights up his screen Dabi answered without hesitation. "Y/n?... where the hell are you?" He hissed feeling both relieved and pissed off at the same time, however the voice that answered him wasn't girlfriend but that of a man. "Who the hell is this... where's Y/n? if you touched her I'll-" Dabi snarled flames bursting from his chin, but the person on the other end told him to calm down and explained, he lived a few blocks away from where Dabi was. 
The cremator wasted no time getting there, he knocked on the door and was greeted by an old man who looked like a breeze would knock him over, The old man confirmed Dabi was the on he called, then apologized for scaring the young man, explained he found you passed out on his patio and didn't want leave you alone outside. "I have no bloody clue how these new-fangled phones work, had to wake my 8 year old grandson to help me." he explained as he led an awkward Dabi to his living room.
"I should be one who's sorry, for the trouble my girls caused you." the raven haired man sighed seeing his girlfriend passed out on the old man's couch, The old man just waved him off. "It's fine boy, we were all young once!" Dabi thanked him again carefully collected his girlfriend and carried her back to one of his safe houses that was nearby, Needless to say aside from nursing a gnarly hangover, You also had to deal with an very Angry, horny and tired Dabi who wasn't you out his sight anytime soon.
---------------------------------------------------
Hawks: [you lost? lost what? darts?] You don't answer him. [Angel wings? you there???] he didn't wait and see if you'd reply as Endeavor was giving him this look that screamed 'put that phone away, or else I'll launch it so far up you ass you're kids will born screaming your ringtone!' the avian man smiled coyly and put his phone away and waited for the meeting to be over, the meeting and late night patrol finally wrapped up at 3:30 am and Hawks walked outside recalling the conversation he had with you and checked his phone, Keigo felt his heart sink you hadn't answered him, He flew over to the bar while at the same time calling you phone, but all he got was voicemail...
When he got there he saw all your girl friends had gone home and only one of your guy friends was there, Akito if the blond remembered correctly. "Yo Akito-san." He called as he lowered down the ground, the drunk man looked around startled be for noticing Hawks above. "Sky-guy my dude! how ya doing?" he slurred at the number two hero, who stared at him crossed armed as he observed the inebriated man, very unimpressed.
"Nothing much, was Y/n okay?"  
"w-who wha?"
"Y/n, Akito did she get home alright?"
"Oh she went to the subway."
Hawks brows scrunched up in confusion, it was passed midnight the trains weren't running right now! So, where the fuck was his girlfriend?! "Akito, I want you to listen where did Y/n go?" Again the drunk said the Subway, making it very clear he wasn't gonna be any help, Hawks flew up into the sky and sent some of his feathers out to search for his missing girlfriend and focused to see if that one he snuck in to her purse was near by.... "Come Y/n, where are ya baby?" he muttered as he eyes scanned the from above, when he felt a tug from one his feathers and almost on cue his phone light up with your ringtone.
"Y/n? where are you? are you safe?!" He asked frantically and waited but the voice coming from other end wasn't his girlfriend's but older woman's voice. "Is this Kei-Chan?" the winged hero eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Who are you?" the woman voice cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, I'm Anko, I found this girl in front of the shop is her your friend?" Hawks confirmed this expecting this stranger to be a villain holding you hostage and told her to stay where she was. 
Instead when he got to his girlfriend's location; A Subway sandwich shop. *Ah...The subway, Hardee har-har...* He mentally deadpanned before looking down at the front and saw his girlfriend passed out on a bench with a tattered old blanket draped over her, while a little old lady in worn out clothes was standing next to a shopping cart. It didn't take a genius to see the old woman was homeless this seemed to strike a cord with the number 2 hero. 
Hawk silently landed "Excuse me." he called caused the old woman he assumed was Anko to jump by the sudden voice and saw Hawks walking towards. "Yes?" the woman answered warily. Hawks introduced himself as Kei-chan the man she spoke to, he asked how she stumbled on to his girlfriend? Anko adjusted her her old jacket said she saw her going into the with a group of girls, they left in a taxi without her! 
The winged hero looked furious upon hearing this, you had mentioned your friends were a little peeved that the two of you were dating... But to abandon you in a seedy part of town while intoxicated? that was over the line, had Anko not found you first then.... Hawk's jaw tightened not wanting to think about it as the old woman tale continued. You stubbled out a few moments, and passed out on the bench out front.
"I think those girl stole her jacket and shoes, I didn't want the poor dear getting cold, so I put my blanket on her and called you." She handed Keigo your purse a used his feathers to hold it while he gathered you in his arms he thanked Anko for guarding you. He promised to return the her kindness but the old woman said it was fine, but Hawks was already coming up with a few idea as he flew back to his apartment.
The next morning you were alone and confused how you got to Keigo's apartment wondered in your friend had called him, and went check your phone to check your messages, and were very bewildered over why your "Friends" were all apologizing, begging Hawks to call off his fanclub! You were flabbergasted about the situation, until Akito left you a screenshot of their original plan; they were going to make you and Akito drunkenly hook up and ruin your relationship with Keigo! 
Of course they didn't know that Akito was in fact gay, so when they figured that out they just left you alone in front of sub-shop at 3am with no way of getting back home, you were pissed off that's for sure! and blocked them save for Akito as he had nothing to do with their plan.
Then you checked the newsfeeds and saw Hawks was trending curious you checked to see why, and saw Keigo delivering a box containing a new jacket, shoes, blankets and food to a stunned homeless woman with a note saying to "my girlfriend's hero! forever grateful Hawks!" Okay... Now Keigo really needs to tell you what happened last night!
----------------------------------------------------
Fatgum: [Aw it's all right Teddy Graham, ya can't win them all!] Fatgum chuckled assuming you lost at darts or pool while having fun with your friends, however as the night wore on and patrol came to an end, Taishiro was getting concerned, You hadn't texted him back nor had you called him to tell him she got home alright, just that "Halph...me loss!" text! The BMI hero was loosing his appetite with worry as he wandered down the street looking for the bar you were supposed be at, only to find out from your very drunk friends who was shuffling into in a taxi van.
He stopped one of them asking where you were, did you home with one of the girls? but to his dread they said you went for walk somewhere, Taishiro tried to coax them into remembering where you said were you going? But at this point your friend was too far gone to answer coherently, and with that the blond man took off down the street, hoping to find a trace of his lil'Teddy Graham! 
He searched for hours even showing civilians a photo of you asking if they've seen ya? the answers were always no... it was almost 3 am he was considering calling the cops to help look for ya... as he leaned against a wall to take break, when he heard your ringtone on his phone, Taishiro's hand was shaking as he answered the phone as this nasally voice greeted him
"H-hello, Sir? assuming you're a sir! uh... we found this lady passed out in one of our aisles, could you come and get her, before my manager calls the cops?"
"Wh-where is she?"
"The 7/11 at (random block)."
"Yeah, I'll be right there!"
The chubby hero ran down the street so fast he hadn't noticed his fat was burning off so when he finally arrived at the 7/11 his clothes were baggy and hanging of his body. "Hey, I'm Taishiro, you called me about my girlfriend?" The now skinny hero wheezed catching his breath as the snotty manager turned around to mouth off at Taishiro only to blanch when they realized how much taller and muscular the blond was compared to him and his demeanor quickly changed.
"Y-yes, sir right this way" the balding man stammered leading the 8ft tall man to the back room where a female staff member was watching you, Taishiro let out a sigh of relief and picked you up like a toddler; with your arms around his neck and your head rested on his shoulder, as he was leaving his yellow eyes noticed a backpack stuffed with snacks and other stuff hidden under the manager's desk, he hummed not thinking anything of it and went to thank clerk for watching you as the manager had gone out for a smoke break, Since he was there anyway Taishiro asked for a couple meatbuns for the road.
"Thanks, for lookin after m'girl."  
"It was no problem sir.'
"By the way I saw a backpack, back there, wha's that about?"
(the clerk went white, made sure her manager was still outside, assuming that she'd be too afraid to tell the tall man about his scheme.)
"That lazy bully of a manager has been stealing snacks and other crap from the store, He was going to try and say your girlfriend did it, and scare you into paying him not to call the cops."
Taishiro's hold tightened on your thigh. "I'm guessing he chickened out, because... Well you look like you could crack his head open like an egg!" the blond snorted as he payed for his food "And you'd be right about that!" Taishiro huffed, he then thanked the clerk for her honesty and shot the manager a venomous glare as passed him outside, later that night Taishiro reported what clerk had told him to store's head office, and vowed to return as Fatgum just to make sure the balding thief was gone! 
The next morning you were very confused as to how you’d gotten to your boyfriend’s apartment? you sat up only to get pulled back down an exhausted Taishiro who muttered for you to go back to sleep, he'll tell you everything later. 
255 notes · View notes
Note
So this is a personal one for me to ask and if you're not comfortable with it don't mind it; how would the tmnt boys (seperate) react when the reader confesses that they're autistic after the boys got curious when she had some peculiar, behavior or stims. The reader would be stressed, because she has a crush on the tmnt boy in question and she didn't want them to find her weird or just stop interacting with her. When she's met with confusion instead, because the boys never heard of it, cue this weird conversation where reader tells them to the best of her ability what it is and the boys just keep asking questions. Also some general headcannons with it maybe?
Okay so I'm actually really happy that you asked me this because I feel like ASD isn't portrayed a lot in any type of media. My ADD and ASD have a lot of overlap so I hope I can capture what you're asking of me!
Now let's get into it!
TMNT Headcanons
The boys reacting to an autistic reader
Tumblr media
Leonardo
he wasn't really sure what was happening the first time you reacted
one minute you were standing next to him doing dishes and the next you were attempting to claw your skin off like an angry cat
Leo tried not to look annoyed as he watched you rub your hands against your shirt until your flesh started to turn red
you looked like you were crying but he knew you weren't
but your face was starting to turn purple and your cheeks were puffy from the effort of holding your breath
"Y/N? You need to breathe."
You shot a glare at him, scathing eyes meeting his now very concerned expression
your own softened and you clutched your arms to your chest, heaving oxygen into your lungs until your face became a normal shade again
"Are you okay?"
The words were stuck in your throat and you weren't sure if you should nod or shake your head
so you gave him a half-hearted shrug
he frowned back at you but turned to finish the dishes on his own
when he questioned you about it later he couldn't help but be curious
"Well actually it's uh- it's kinda a sensory type of thing? There are certain textures that I can't stand touching do I avoid them but if I come into contact by accident my brain just kinda explodes and I shut down."
"How exactly does that work though?"
"I don't really understand it much but like- you know that feeling you get when you think there's a bug on you and there's not but it really really feels like it?"
He nodded
"Yeah, it feels like that. And anytime I touch something that triggers that reaction it takes FOREVER to get the feeling off my skin. That's why I usually wear gloves when I do dishes. Guess I just forgot to grab 'em today."
He was sympathetic
and god, you were so embarrassed
lucky for you, Leo's not an asshole
"Well thank you for explaining it to me, you really freaked me out earlier. I'll talk to April and see if we can keep a pair or two at the lair just in case you forget again."
Consider your heart melted
you couldn't even find the words to thank him and holy shit was your face red
"Hey y/n?"
"Yeah Leo?"
"Why didn't you ever tell me- us that you were autistic?"
Did you rip the band aid off now or make something up? Which would ,technically speaking, be less catastrophic in the long run?
"I uh- I really like you and I really didn't want you or the other's to look at me differently..."
wow, you liked him? miss ma'am you have saved this boy a world of anxiety and damn does he thank you for it
"Thanks for telling me... and y/n? I really like you to."
Awh fuck yeah, best possible execution of band aid-ripping-off ever
Tumblr media
Donatello
Donnie wished he could act surprised when you finally told him
he really wanted to, it would've made you feel better for sure
but he sucked at lying and he didn't want to make you feel like he thought you were an idiot
because that was so far from the truth
after going through extensive research on Mikey's behalf when he suspected he had ADHD Donnie had stumbled across many different websites that discussed the symptoms and overlaps between both disorders
to make a long story short, Donnie knew that you had ASD and he was waiting for you to tell him
it would probably come off as rude if he brought it up in conversation right?
he didn't want to risk it
but that didn't stop him from keeping an eye on you and your behaviors
he was a man of science, of course he was going to analyze you
not in a weird way or anything, just as a curious sort of precaution
but the longer you were involved in the turtle's lives the more noticeable your stims and meltdowns got, Donnie did his best to cover for you without making you suspicious of him
eventually he'd come up with something that he hoped would come across as a friendly gesture and wouldn't set you off or scare you away
it was game night at the lair and you, as always, were perched on the arm of the sofa, a large grin plastered on your face
inside your head was exploding but you were masking it pretty well if you do say so yourself
but Donnie was, well... donnie was donnie
so when he noticed you starting to rock a little more visibly he removed his attention from commentating the game and grabbed a pair of headphones from the side table
you were beyond confused when he passed them to you but your face revealed everything
"They're noise cancelling, try them on."
holy shit it was like putting your head underwater, everything was muffled
not in the way normal headphones did, you quite literally couldn't hear anything at all, just a calm amount of nothing
you nearly started crying when you realized that Donnie had figured you out on his own
but you'd never been more relieved about anything in your life
Tumblr media
Raphael
he wouldn't admit that he was mesmerized by your presence
you practically radiated calm
his complete opposite
it was his favorite thing about you, because despite your quiet disposition and calming aura you weren't afraid to call him out or rebut any of his insults
this was not something you expected him to appreciate nor was it something you thought would make you catch feelings
but damn if you didn't
he'd been sitting in on yours and Donnie's little experiment for an hour or so now, watching you both exchange quiet whispers and inside jokes that you always seemed to lag on
then you slipped up
not bad, nothing detrimental to the project, just the same mistake that you'd already made ten times over
you might as well have exploded
"Y'N, you just have to move thi-"
"I KNOW DONATELLO. I FUCKING KNOW AND I JUST CAN'T DO THIS BULLSHIT!"
you set everything down gently enough to avoid breaking it before turning and storming out of the lab, waving your hands like they were on fire
Raph and Donnie exchanged a look that sent the larger red turtle following after you
when you calmed yourself down enough to talk you kept your gaze locked on the wall, explaining that you couldn't make eye contact when you were upset
he might not be the smartest brother, but Raph's no dummy, he put those pieces together pretty quickly after you told him that one small detail
he wasn't upset that you didn't tell him and you'd personally never been more relieved
your heart nearly splattered into the stratosphere when you finally gace him your own explanation
"yeah, I like ya too."
you grinned so wide you were sure your face would split open and your entire body rocked side to side with excitement
he thought that was pretty adorable too
And he did stick around to offer a bit of support when you apologized to Donnie for screaming at him
Tumblr media
Michaelangelo
to be frank it probably shouldn't have taken so long for Mikey to realize that you were autistic
the similarities between your own personality and his ADHD were so in sight it was near painful
it was his turn to make dinner that night and you'd made sure that you came over early to help him set up, you knew how side-tracked he'd get and you were the poster child for solid routine
what more perfect matchup existed?
trick question, there isn't one
you were on one side of the counter cutting vegetables and he was on the other throwing said vegetables into the mixing pot
the music was at an ungodly level of loud so your only means of communication were screaming over it
"MIKEY."
"WHA?"
"YOU GOT THE-"
"YEAH."
"AND THE-"
"UH HUH."
"COOL, HAVE YOU SEEN THE-"
"TONGS? NO, THE SKEWERS. YEAH, THEY'RE IN THE OTHER DRAWER."
"THANKS."
the two of you went about your previous tasks, thinking nothing of the conversation that had just taken place
at least until you'd begun washing your knife and cutting board
that's when Casey walked in, looking both perturbed and annoyed at the same time
"Alright, which one of you knows telepathy?"
Mikey exchanged a glance with you and you returned it with a raised eyebrow
"The hell you mean brah?"
he looked at the both of you like you were the ones that had grown four extra heads before speaking again
"You literally just had a conversation with like five words and somehow just knew what the other meant? What's up with that?"
you glanced at Mikey again
"Holy shit, did we?"
"I mean, not really. You used your hands."
now all three of you were confused but it quickly became two when Casey shook his head in defeat and left the room
"You know I think he's right."
he blinked first and your staring contest ended
"But you used your hands-"
"I got autism Mikey, one does not simply not use their hands as forms of speech."
"You're-"
"Yep."
was the silence laughing at you? could it do that? it was kinda rude
"Huh, that actually makes sense, that's not mean is it?"
you shook your head no
"You're just me but fast."
Mikey agreed with that, pestered you with a few more questions, and went back about working, as did you, you saw no reason to address it further
but your cheeks burned red
"Yo- Y/N that actually explains why everyone else thinks we're a thing."
you didn't know if you could choke on air or not but you did it anyways
"Are we?"
he gave you his signature grin
"If we are then Raph owes April a hundred bucks."
you returned his smile
"Oh this oughta be good."
I'd like to preface this by apologizing for my near three week absence. Life got crazy and my writer's block hopped on a train, went through a school zone, killed seven pedestrians, and committed tax fraud before tumbling off a cliff never to be seen again.
But on the bright side- I got my SAT scores back and started some scholarship applications. Super happy with that. School's out in a few weeks so I'll be able to write more (hopefully).
Anyways, I hope I got this one down okay. I may have hyper analyzed the request so I might be a little off. But I really enjoyed doing this one and I hope you like it!
-Mars 🌠
171 notes · View notes
sergeantsporks · 3 years ago
Text
Adoption Papers
Rating: Gen, General Audiences
Part 2 of Camila is Hunter’s Mom Now
Camila officially adopts Hunter and Vee
Might be a little hard to explain where they came from, though.
Direct Sequel to “Another Shot at Life”
Ao3
“What’s a social security?”
“What do you mean an ID?”
“Why do we have to do a bunch of paperwork to live here? Luz just lived in Eda’s house for months!”
Camila pinched the bridge of her nose. “Things work differently here than in the Boiling Isles. And if the two of you don’t want me to get arrested for kidnapping, we have to fill out paperwork, and I have to officially adopt you.”
Vee sniffed the papers. “But I’ve already been living here!”
“Yeah, pretending to be me,” Luz reminded her, “Gonna be a liiiiiitle hard to explain why there’s two of us.”
Hunter squinted at the documents. “I used to do paperwork for the coven. But I have no idea what any of this says.” It was all a lot of technical stuff—with a lot of words he didn’t know the meaning of.
Camila sighed. “I’ve filled out most of it, but… we’re going to need to explain where the two of you came from. And ‘wandered in from another dimension’ isn’t something I think we can tell people.”
Luz bounced up. “Ooo! I’ve got it!” She waved a hand. “Vee is my twin sister, separated at birth!”
“Luz, sweetie, the hospital records will say otherwise.”
“Okay, okay, how abooooout… we say that Vee was a home birth, maybe a year younger than me, but Dad took her away with him when he left, and we assumed he’d do all of the registry, but apparently he didn’t? What are they going to do, track him down and ask him? They haven’t managed that yet. We can say that Vee ran away and came home to us.”
“That might work. What about Hunter?”
Luz grinned at him. “We found him living feral in the woods, he was raised by a pack of wolves.”
Hunter stuck his tongue out at her.
“Yeaaah… I don’t think that one’s gonna fly.”
“How about we tell them the truth?” Vee asked, “We say he ran away from a bad situation, and we’ve been taking care of him.”
“What if they start investigating? They’ll ask him questions, definitely, and if they try to figure out who his family is-!”
Luz jumped up and down. “Oooooo, tell them your horrible family chased you, and tried to push you off of a cliff, but they slipped and fell off and died!”
Hunter felt sick. “Pass.”
“Let’s stick to something simple. You and your… uncle… traveled, didn’t have a home, and you slipped away one day. You were camping out in the old abandoned house to hide, Vee found you there and brought you home, and you’ve been living with us ever since.”
“What if they try to figure out who his family is?” Vee asked, “I mean, uncle sounds a lot like he might have just kidnapped him.”
Hunter shrugged. “I’ll tell them my whole family was already dead. Freak boating accident, bodies never found. They were recluses, no one noticed they were missing. I’ll say uhhhhhhhh, I don’t remember their names, because I was a kid, and my uncle never told me our last name.”
Luz squinted at him. “What is your last name?”
“No idea.”
Camila sighed. “This is getting complicated. What if they start trying to figure out where your family lived?”
“Mexico,” Luz said immediately, “But Hunter was born over the border.”
“Does he look Mexican to you?”
“Okay, fine, Canada, whatever!”
“Let’s just… keep it simple, okay, Luz? Hunter, what do you think? This is your story, you have to be able to tell it.”
His story. Okay, who did he want to be? “I think… I think Vee’s idea is good,” he said slowly, “Ran away—I’ll just say he was my uncle. And we were homeless, so there’s nowhere they could track him down to. Even if they DO start looking for my birth family, it’s not like they can actually pull anything up, because I’m not from here. Okay. So, I ran away, made my way to Gravesfield, camped out in the abandoned house for a bit, then Vee found me, uhhhhh…”
“A week ago,” Vee offered.
“Okay, yeah, a week ago.”
“And if they ask for details about your uncle?”
“I’ll just talk about Belos. It’s not like they can find him.”
Camila nodded. “Okay! The closest adoption agency is out of town, but I already scheduled an appointment for tomorrow. First hurdle, guys!”
“First?” Hunter echoed.
“Oh, yeah, we have to get the two of you enrolled in school—”
“School?!”
Luz laughed. “Ohhhhhhh, you’re gonna hate it, Mr. Prodigy.”
“I don’t need school!”
“Yeah? Do you know how to do algebra? How about chemistry? Physics?”
“No?” Hunter looked to Luz. “Those are fake, right?”
She shook her head. “Unfortunately, they’re all very real.”
“I don’t need those.”
“We’ll discuss it later,” Camila interrupted, “For now, let’s just… focus on the adoption, okay?”
She looked… nervous. Which made Hunter nervous.
“What… what happens if they don’t believe me?”
Camila rubbed the back of her head. “I… I don’t know, mijo. If they dig deeper, I… but it will be fine.”
Still, Hunter didn’t sleep that night, his mind running through every possible way that this could go wrong. The next morning, when they loaded up in the car, he could see dark circles under Camila’s eyes, too. It did not make him feel better.
Hunter tossed his palisman gently out the window before they set off, the bird fluttering around his head. “You can’t come with us. Stay here and protect the house, okay?”
The bird chirped in affirmation, flapping back to sit on the roof.
Vee fell back asleep, leaning against him, and he resisted the urge to shake her awake and demand to know how she could possibly not be worried about this.
Hunter hadn’t ever gone outside of Gravesfield, and it was hitting him just now how… huge… the human realm was. He watched countryside flash by outside the car window, and even still, they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
And then buildings loomed in front of him, huge and imposing. Hunter pressed his face against the window. “Is this the capital of the human realm?”
“Ha. No. We’re not even in the capital of Connecticut.”
“Seriously?!”
Hunter watched the streets go by. This world was enormous, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it.
They had the key on this side, and since he was here, Belos was down one coven head—hypothetically, his uncle couldn’t complete his day of unity plans. But if he did, or if he managed to get back through, somehow…
Hunter was almost confident that this world was big enough for him to hide in.
They pulled up to an office building, and Camila took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes nothing. Come on, kids.”
They all followed behind her into the building, and Camila approached the desk. “Hiiii. I’m Camila Noceda, I have an appointment about a couple of adoptions?”
The desk attendant glanced behind her at the three of them. “Down the hall, first door on the right. Right on time.”
Camila gave the attendant a nod. Hunter and Vee both crowded close to her as they filed into the office. “Hello?”
The woman at the desk looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, a thermos on a table covered in papers. “Hey. Paperwork.”
Camila tentatively handed her the packet, and she disappeared into a back room, coming back out after about ten minutes.
“So, neither of these kids is in the system?”
Camila shook her head. “Neither.”
The woman squinted at Vee. “Certainly looks like your other daughter. Why didn’t you report her father taking her?”
“We… we were separating. We thought he’d already filed everything.”
A grunt. “Alright. You. Other one. Hunter. C’mere.”
Hunter looked to Camila, and she gave him a little nod. He followed the woman into the other room, where she read over his form again. “Tell me about your uncle.”
“What? Why?”
“We need to see if we can find him.”
Hunter’s blood chilled. “I’m not going back!”
“Hey, it’s okay. We need to find him because we just don’t know enough about you—not even your last name. So we need your uncle for more information.”
“You won’t find him.”
“Uh-huh. Let us try, at least. Physical description?”
Hunter sighed. “Tall. Blond but greying, long hair, blue eyes. Old.” Face creeping with slime, occasionally turns into a puddle of goop, can’t miss him.
“His name?”
“Belos.”
“There’s one you don’t hear every day. Last name?”
“Dunno.”
“Right. Of course not. Where was the last place you saw him?”
“I don’t know.”
The woman sighed. “You’ve got to work with me, here.”
“Why?”
“Because this whole adoption will go a lot more smoothly. Where was the last place you saw him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. Fine. How long ago did you see him?”
Hunter struggled to remember. Kind of hard to tell when he didn’t know how much time he’d lost falling down into a cursed prison of darkness.
But according to Luz, that had only been for a couple of hours, even if it had felt like forever.
“Two weeks,” he said softly.
Two weeks since he’d been rescued. Two weeks since the worst time of his life.
“And you… ran away?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you explain why?”
Hunter shuddered. “Because I was miserable.”
“Specifically?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We can’t take you away from your uncle if he wasn’t a bad parent, Hunter. If we don’t have any indication he did anything wrong, then he can reclaim you any time he likes, and we are obligated to try to find him and return you to him. I understand that it may be painful to talk about it, but we cannot proceed without information about your past life.”
“Fine,” Hunter snapped, “He hurt me, and he locked me up, and he made me run errands for him and would punish me if I failed, happy?”
A slight pause. “What kind of errands?”
Hunting down palisman so he could drain them of their magic. “Uh… picking up medicine for him.”
“Medicine? What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I just picked it up. I didn’t ask questions, it wasn’t encouraged.”
“But you ran away, ended up in Gravesfield, where Camila found you a week ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Wait outside, send Camila in.”
Hunter shuffled out. “She wants you.”
Camila nodded, disappearing into the other room, closing the door behind her. Vee nudged him. “Are you okay?”
“She was asking about Belos.”
“I’m sorry,” Luz said softly.
Hunter paced back and forth. “What do you think they’re talking about?” He crept closer to the door, pressing his ear to the door.
“Hunter,” Vee hissed, “Get away from there, it’s rude!”
“I want to know what they’re saying,” he hissed back, “Shhhh!”
He pressed his ear to the door again. The voices were faint, but he could make out what they were saying.
“Obviously, if Vee is your biological daughter, there isn’t any reason for us to keep her from you. I don’t think there will be any difficulty with the transition. But Hunter… Ms. Noceda, you may be rushing into more than you can handle.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know him well. We don’t know where he came from, or what he’s done.”
“What he’s done?”
“He’s a liar, ma’am, you wrote that he was homeless, but he claimed his uncle would lock him up. Those two aren’t exactly compatible. He very obviously isn’t telling us everything—and I suspect he may have been part of a drug delivery system without knowledge. If I can believe him that he didn’t know what his uncle’s ‘medicine’ was.”
“Okay, well, let’s just say that I am really, really, really determined to adopt him anyway.”
“I’m really advising you not to. Let us get him into the system, foster him out, see how he does before you go all in on adopting him. He might not even be separated from his uncle—they might be planning to rob or hurt you and your family.”
“Hunter,” Camila thundered, “is not going to hurt us. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to foster him out.”
Hunter pulled back from the door, feeling sick. “Luz, what’s fostering?”
Her face paled. “It’s… it’s when they sort of send you out to different families to take care of you.”
“I don’t want to go to a different family!”
“You won’t,” Luz soothed, “Mom won’t let them take you away. And you can just run away if they do.”
Hunter started to pace, his chest getting tight. “I can’t start running away here, too! That’ll just make all of the adoption stuff harder, right?”
Vee grabbed his hand. “Hunter. Look at me.”
He did, the fingers of his free hand tapping restlessly on the side of his leg.
Vee gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” she said firmly, “We aren’t going to leave you behind. Promise.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Good. Now sit down, and just think about other stuff. Like school.”
“I don’t want to go to school.”
“I’ll teach you algebra,” Vee promised, “They had a whole course on it at summer camp—it’s not so bad. And I’ll introduce you to my friends, too. You’ll be a couple grades older than us, but that’s okay.”
Luz bounced up. “Speaking of school, Hunter, is there any chance I can borrow Red? I know we’re worried about using the portal, but Eda and Amity and King and Gus and Willow will all be so worried about me!”
“Use your little…” Hunter clicked his fingers in the air. “Your little yellow thing.”
“My—you think that will work between dimensions?”
He shrugged. “Worth a shot. Might as well try before we open the portal and risk Belos getting in.” Hunter tapped his fingers against the chair. “If there’s natural titan’s blood veins in the Boiling Isles, then there’s a place here where it connects, right?”
“Right. That’s how Phillip—he wrote the diary I was using to figure out my portal—got into the demon realm in the first place.”
“So we might not need the key portal if we can find a place on this side where the worlds intersect.” Hunter’s stomach roiled. “Except that if we can do that, that means Belos has another way to get blood.”
“If I can just get in contact with Eda, she might be able to figure out my portal and then we don’t have to—”
The door to the other room burst open. Camila grinned, her hands behind her back. “Okay, Vee, Hunter, close your eyes, and hold out your hands!”
Vee did what she said, and Hunter followed suit, a little more hesitantly. Something paper settled in his hand. “Okay, open your eyes now.”
Hunter blinked at the paper in his hand.
Hunter Noceda.
Vee bounced up and down. “We did it!”
“They’re still finalizing everything—social security, birth certificates, all of that will take a bit more time. But you two are legally part of the family and under my care, now!”
Hunter Noceda.
The words felt… odd, in his head. But a good kind of odd.
Luz slung her arms around Vee and Hunter’s necks. “Whoo! Two new siblings! I didn’t use to have… well, any! I mean, I had you, but legally!” She shook Hunter slightly. “See? Nothing to worry about, I told you Mom could handle it!”
“Hunter Noceda.” He had a last name, now. A family name. “Vee Noceda.” It felt more natural to say her name—but then, she’d already seemed to be part of the family.
Luz cackled with glee. “Aha! You know what that means? Now the two of you have to wear ugly sweaters for family Christmas card pictures!”
“Ugly sweaters?” Vee questioned
“Christ-mas?” Hunter echoed.
“Ehehehe. Welcome to the Noceda family. You two have a lot of family tradition to catch up on.”
60 notes · View notes