#interrupt or because of technical problems) is just rude; I hate it that that one friend of mine does that every now and then ugh | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mandoalorian · 4 years ago

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Sugar and Spice [Maxwell Lord x Reader] - Chapter 6

Summary: When you are evicted from your apartment by your toxic ex boyfriend and have no place to go, who do you turn to? Alone in the city as the countdown to Christmas begins, you find yourself applying for a job as the assistant of the world’s biggest entrepreneur; Maxwell Lord. Little do you know, he has other intentions for you. No doubt about it, this Christmas will truly be like no other.

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: Smut, mentions of a previous verbally abusive relationship, typical 80s misogyny (but very little of it), mentions of food and drink, alcohol consumption. This is a sugardaddy x sugarbaby fic soooo… a daddy k!nk too oops.

But in this chapter - angst… oops. Some allusions to sex but not much.

Author’s note: Starting to get fun now! It's the gala and there's a little surprise at the end. The DC fan in me is LIVING for this chapter. Hope you enjoy!

MASTERLIST

PREVIOUS - CHAPTER SIX - NEXT

You and Maxwell had been having so much fun together, you hadn't left his penthouse once, except when he had rented out a local boutique for a few hours so you could try on dresses for the big night. The boutique was an indie store, not too far from Black Gold Cooperative HQ, and when you arrived, they seemed to already know Maxwell. Of course, everyone knew Maxwell but it was like they had a personal relationship with him. You later found out that the tailors there fitted him for his suits and crafted his ties and pocket squares.

You were amazed. The boutique was small but decorated with rose gold and flowers; mirrors and paintings everywhere. It smelt like freshly cut grass and it made you miss home. It was rare you smelt anything like that when you lived in the big city. You were already in love with the atmosphere. The staff there were polite too, although they did seem surprised when Maxwell had brought you in. You caught them whispering about you but Maxwell interrupted your thoughts when he held out a short and black dress. “It’s Gucci.” he announced, double checking the label.

“Hey, it’s just like my thrift store dress I wore to the restaurant last week.” You chuckled and he nodded in agreement, a small ‘Ah’ escaping his lips as he hung it back on the shelf.

The store manager came over to you both holding a tray of tea and scones. “I thought you both might appreciate a bite to eat,” she said kindly, placing the silver tray on the little side table next to where Maxwell had been sitting. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“No, we’re fine.” Maxwell replied quickly but you held your hand up.

“Actually,” you spoke up, clearing your throat. “We could do with your help. You see, I’m not used to coming to places like this.” you admitted sheepishly, and the manager shot Maxwell a strange and confused look. You failed to understand her bewilderment.

“Of course darling,” she replied. “My name is Korin. May I ask what the venue is?”

“No you may not.” Maxwell snapped and Korin’s cheeks rosied up.

Your head snapped into the direction of Maxwell and you glared at him, in warning to be polite and remember his manners. There was no need for him to be so rude. You turned back to Korin after a beat of awkward silence.

“It’s a Christmas ball,” you told the manager with a deep breath. She took out a notepad and began to scrawl your words down on the paper. “At the White House.”

Maxwell snapped your name so loud you jumped out your skin. You spun your heel around to face him. “Can I have a word with you? In private?” He asked, venom dripping from his tongue.

“I’ll go look for something suitable while giving you two some privacy.” Korin said awkwardly before padding off.

“What the hell is your problem?” you asked the CEO who was running his long fingers through his dark blonde hair. He loosened his tie slightly and placed a hand on his hip. He looked stressed.

“You told her the gala was at the White House.” He deadpanned, looking at you like you had just burned his favourite Armani suit.

“So?” you asked.

“You do not tell people -locals,” he corrected, “private information like that. Do you understand? It was in the contract.”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the contract,” you sighed. “You’re just being rude for no reason.”

“I always have a reason.” Maxwell snarled before storming outside in a huff.

You stood there, alone, in the centre of the boutique feeling small and inadequate.

❆ December 10th, 1984 ❆

It was the afternoon of the gala. The week between yours and Maxwell's argument at the boutique had been awkward— too awkward for you to feel comfortable staying with him. He was working long hours that week anyway, and you didn't like the feeling of being alone in his enormous penthouse. So, you went back to your small apartment, paying your rent to Tristan. He questioned how you had gotten the money so fast but you decided you didn't exactly owe him an explanation. That week you shut yourself off from everyone. Technically you weren't working because Maxwell hadn't called. You wondered if he had been getting off with another woman. Surely if he wanted to terminate the contract he'd let you know. You thought about him every day, anxiety swarming in your gut, but you had too much pride to call him. You were certain you had done nothing wrong, so why did it matter?

Truthfully, it mattered a great deal to you. You hated that you cared so much. The scene replayed in your head over and over again. You were going to just stand there while he was being rude to others. It didn't matter, you were seeing him tonight anyway. You looked over at the dress which was hanging on your bedroom door, admiring every miniscule detail.

It was crimson red in colour, perfect for a Christmas gala. It exposed just enough skin, the bodice being a plain velveteen material and the long skirt coated in a sparkling glitter mesh with a high rise slit. You paired it with red heels and a diamond necklace. You didn't know if you were going to be overdressed… you had never attended a gala after all, but you knew for a fact you'd look gorgeous.

Maxwell hadn't seen the dress. He had left the boutique before you had even tried it on, and so, something primal inside of you anticipated his reaction. He hadn't seen you in a week. You weren't sure how tonight was going to go. A knock on your door interrupted your thoughts. Answered it, you were greeted by a group of three men with beaming bright smiles plastered over their faces.

"Hello! We're here to help you get dressed for the Black Gold Cooperative annual Christmas gala!" one of the men said, sliding past you and dropping his bag on your couch before any words could leave your mouth.

"I-," you were semi speechless as the men invited themselves in and made themselves comfortable. "Did Max invite you here?" you asked curiously.

"Mr Lord did, yes," the same man nodded his head and began to unpack hair equipment from his bag. "Actually your place is quite small. Shall we travel to Mr Lord's penthouse? Might be better if we get you dressed there."

"No!" you said, a little too much panic rising in your voice. "I mean, it's fine. You know, I can do my own hair and makeup. And I appreciate you all coming… I really do… but it's not necessary. And the gala doesn't start for another three hours…"

"Three hours!" The stylist gasped. "Come on boys! We have to work quick! Chop chop!"

You were pushed into a chair and one of the men began by brushing through your hair, as another man started setting out the makeup. From the looks of it, you would be doting a smokey eye with red lips. Sultry but still festive. "Where is your dress?"

"Um, bedroom door." you replied, pointing down the hallway. "Why?"

"I must take your measurements to ensure the dress is tailored to perfection." The stylist grinned, shooting you an enthusiastic chef's kiss.

"Really not necessary." you replied, wincing as the hair stylist pulled a knot from your hair. "Ow! Listen I know you have to do what Mr Lord says but I'm telling you-"

"No ifs and no buts!" he shushed you. "Besides, it's more so Mrs Lord who we're scared of."

You sighed. You had repressed the memory of his psycho mother. "Max's mother is going to be there?" you grumbled, already feeling a headache bubble up.

"Of course! She loves all the galas and events. Mr Lord… not so much."

The three of them took their time getting you dressed but by the time they were finished, the result was indescribable. You looked like a princess. You had truly never thought you were capable of looking so beautiful.

"Ah, just in time! The limo is waiting outside!" The stylist squealed excitedly as he clipped the diamond berret in your hair. "Hurry up now! Don't want to be late!"

You smiled, thanking the stylists for all their help and left your apartment. Walking down the stairs, you were stopped by an all too familiar voice calling your name. "Tristan?" you asked, hesitantly turning around to be greeted by your ex boyfriend.

"Wh-" he was speechless as he drank in your appearance. "Where are you going?" he asked, swallowing the hard lump that had formed in his throat.

"None of your business." you snapped dryly, turning back around and continuing down the stairs.

"Wait- you. You look…" Tristan was truly at a loss for words. "Who's having the party?" he was quick to change his tone.

"A friend." you muttered, rolling your eyes.

"Do I know her?" Tristan quizzed.

"No, he's new." you sighed, picking up your speed as he chased you through the lobby.

"He's a he?" Tristan scowled.

"Just- stop!" you groaned, spinning around on your heel. "It's none of your business. Just leave me alone Tristan!" you cried out. Tristan didn't say a word and you scoffed in disbelief, racing outside into the snow and into the black limousine waiting for you.

The driver, Jeeves, opened the door for you and you slid inside breathing a sigh of relief. You froze up when you felt a warm hand on your thigh. "Max." you whispered, looking at him. It was the first time you had seen him in a week.

He looked amazing, exactly how he looked on television or in the magazines. His tux had been pressed to perfection and his hair was combed and straightened into place with hairspray. You offered you a small but hesitant smile. "You look exquisite." he said, his voice small.

You were so sure you wanted an apology from him but you didn't know if it was unreasonable to expect such a thing from Maxwell Lord. But in that moment, you didn't care. You hadn't realised how much you had missed him until you were reunited with him in the back seat of his car.

But Maxwell Lord had missed you. Every day his fingers grazed his office phone as he contemplated calling you. He missed your warm embrace. He missed your smile and the softness of your skin. He missed the feeling of release as he pushed himself inside of your soaked cunt as you moaned his name, coming undone beneath him. Maxwell gulped as you placed your hand over his.

"Never been to a gala," you admitted sheepishly.

"Stay by my side, I've got you." Maxwell promised, leaning in and brushing his lips over your neck. He smelled amazing. Like mahogany teakwood with a glance of sweet honey. If you could have it your way, you'd squirm onto his lap and take him right now in the car. You wanted to make a mess of his expensive suit and fuck him so hard his perfect hair falls out of place.

When the limo pulled up in front of the White House, the red carpet was rolled out and ready. "Shit, we're a good twenty minutes late." Maxwell cursed, biting his lip as he looked through the dark tinted windows. Thankfully, it seemed as though no one was in sight and he figured you could both sneak in unnoticed. Wrong!

Taking your hand he pulled you out the limousine. As soon as your foot stepped on the red carpet, an abundance of paparazzi and journalists came out of nowhere. They were screaming for Maxwell, going wild. The flashing white lights from the cameras were blinding you as Maxwell pulled you down the carpet. "Max?" you felt panicked, squeezing his hand in terror.

"Put your head down. Don't look up." Maxwell whispered harshly. You followed his instruction, cowering behind him nervously as he pulled you through the crowds.

"Mr Lord! Maxwell Lord! Hello, Maxwell! Could we have a word? Just one question please! Sir! Maxwell Lord!"

You wondered how he had it in him— how could he possibly put up with shit like this on a daily basis. Maxwell looked up and politely smiled. It wasn't the same smile that you saw. It was his television smile. There was no sparkle in his eye. He waved and nodded his head in the direction of a few journalists. "Head inside. I'm going to speak to a few reporters. Try and get some good press. Don't talk to anybody, understand?" Maxwell said sternly and you nodded quickly. The second Maxwell let go off your hand, you felt unsafe.

"Mr Lord, can I ask, what does Christmas mean to you?" one cheery reporter smiled. "One must wonder, how does the Lord family celebrate Christmas?"

"Oh indeed," Maxwell schmoozed. "For me, Christmas is a time to give back. Which is why I have chosen to donate a sizable sum of money to the orphanage and the children's hospital. The donation will be made in the name of our dearest Black Gold Cooperative customers and clients. Because at Black Gold, we believe that everyone who invests in us, will get a little something in return." Maxwell charmed. "And what about you doll, do you have plans for Christmas? Got a cute boyfriend you'll be going home to?" Maxwell flirted, causing the news reporter to blush wildly.

You scurried down the red carpet as fast as you could in your heels, when an arm grabbed you and pulled you to the metal barriers. "I'm Angela Matthews from ABC News reporting live tonight from the White House in Washington DC. Maxwell Lord has just arrived to his annual Christmas gala, albeit late, and it seems he has brought a woman. We are joined here tonight with the sensational…" the journalist took a deep breath and leaned into you. "What's your name?" she hissed, thrusting her microphone to your lips as the cameraman turned to face you.

"I- oh- I uhm-" hesitantly you gave them your name, folding your arms over your chest and briefly glancing back over to Maxwell who was grinning and laughing while talking to a different reporter.

"Fabulous, and might I just say you look stunning tonight. What designer is that dress?" Angela queried and the cameraman kneeled down to get a strong shot of your red number.

"Uh, from a, uh- local boutique." you smiled politely, itching to run away and hide. You wanted Maxwell.

"Wonderful! Supporting local businesses I see. And so what is your relationship with Mr Lord?" Angela beckoned further. You felt sick; you were on live television and Max had told you one thing— don't talk to anyone. Whatever. You'd never been one for rules. But how were you supposed to answer? You couldn't exactly tell the nation he was your sugar daddy!

"Uhm, friend. He's my friend." you grinned. Yeah, a friend. Surely that was the best possible answer you could give.

"Considering Maxwell Lord's reputation, I'm not sure how much the nation will believe that." Angela spat back and you felt yourself heat up with embarrassment. "So you're his girlfriend? Let's see your hands. An engagement ring, possibly?"

"No!" you cried out, beginning to get frustrated. You were so loud Maxwell noticed and he sighed. "He's just my friend." you confirmed as Maxwell hurried towards you. He slid an arm around your waist.

"Darling," he gritted out, pushing you away from the reporters. "I told you to go inside."

"That lady from ABC news yanked my arm!" you accused, frowning and rubbing the skin where she had dug her nails into you.

"Inside. Now." Maxwell demanded before turning back to Angela with the fakest smile you had ever seen.

"Mr Lord! Oh wow- Mr Lord it's really you." Angela gushed as Maxwell walked on over to her, a smirk playing on his lips. "I- my whole journalistic career I have been waiting to see you in the flesh. Can I- can I touch you?"

"Um, no." Maxwell scowled and the colour drained out of Angela's skin. Realising his rejection was broadcast on live television, he knew he had to make a smooth recovery. "But doll, look at you in that pink jacket. Simply ravishing. Tell me, is there a man in your life?" Maxwell charmed. Something he loved to do was change the topic at hand from him to whoever else. He was an excellent conversationalist although he wouldn't stand for nosey tabloids pressuring him about his personal life. Shutting them out and using his charisma in other ways was something he had gotten rather good at over the years.

You were standing in the lobby of the White House, impatiently tapping your feet as you waited for Maxwell to finish schmoozing with the press. You were in awe as you looked around. You had never imagined you'd be standing in the White House. Just being in the presence of all these important people made you feel powerful. You looked up, twirling around on your feet as you took in the decor.

You jumped slightly when you felt a finger tap on your shoulder. A man, average height, average build. His hair was dark and his eyes were an interesting combination of green-brown. He dazzled you in the suit he was wearing. It wasn't quite as designer label or extravagant as Maxwell's but the simplicity of the black on black tie was something else. He passed you a glass of champagne.

"You look lost," he smiles, looking you up and down and licking his lip. "I'm Bruce Wayne. And you are?"

Taglist: let me know if you want to be added!

December Magic: @100layersofdaddyissues @mrschiltoncat @honeymandos @thisisthe-wayson @this-cat-is-dea @blonde2bomshell @maiyaaaa0130

Permanent: @supernaturalgirl @phoenixhalliwell @ah-callie @luvzoria @stardust-galaxies @wickedfrsgrl @goth-topic @nerdypinupcrystal @wonderfulfluffer @kiwi-the-first @pedroepascal

#maxwell lord #max lord #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #maxwell lord x reader #pedro pascal smut #ww84

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grantcontrol · 4 years ago

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Heartless, Swarmless ◈ Anton ⁺ Eilidh

Timing: Some time last week Location: White Crest National Park Parties: @braindeacl & @grantcontrol Summary: Anton and Eilidh meet for the first time and end up going on a trip because of some overgrown spiders. Now they know how a hairball feels. Content: Insect, spiders, vomit (not theirs), a lot of cursing

“This better not be one of those prank calls.” With an annoyed groan and a mildly disinterested sigh, Anton begrudgingly parked the white van with his company’s name in bold letters on its side into the otherwise empty designated parking space of the White Crest National Park. He faintly remembered his late grandfather taking him to this place when he was just a tiny tot, though for the life of him, he could no longer recall anything else about that visit. Park’s big, that about sums up all he knows of the place now.

Bug Busters Pest Control Solutions received the call while he was about to Netflix and chill, and while their so-called employer insisted on staying anonymous on the other end of the line, the Girl verified that whoever they were, they had already paid in full. Online. Anton wasn’t too savvy about how that whole thing worked but he trusts the Girl in these matters. Why would she lie? She was getting her pay from the same account, and as much as she doesn’t respect him, at least not on the surface, she can’t deny that they both need the money. Besides, he had already seen the same zombie movie at least three times.

Dragging himself out of the vehicle, he took his time making his way to the back of it where his tools waited for him. Most of it was standard exterminator gear. The rest? Just a few contingencies from his less public career as a pest hunter. Also a jar of peanut butter, but that’s not for him. “Where do I even fucking start?” He wasn’t even inside the park yet when he started complaining. Overgrown spiders. That’s what the caller said they were. The size of a dog? Anton already knew what they actually were. His late grandfather hated the damned things, and there was no doubt he’d hate them, too. If he even gets to find them.

It started with a deer. A family had been perusing about one of the main trails. One of the supposedly safe trails. They had stopped to gaze upon a grazing doe. The child had begged and begged and begged to be placed on their father’s shoulders, and they got their wish just as the deer began to move. The small group watched in awed silence as she inspected the forest floor, searching for her next meal. But before she could find it, the forest floor made a meal of her. It opened up wide, gripped her tight, and pulled her below. Similar instances followed, and the Park was sent into a frenzy. Eilidh, naturally, made herself involved.

Talks of eradication filled the office. But they were too afraid to state anything plainly, too afraid to even admit that they knew what truly lurked within the nearby wood. Eilidh was more direct. “Fuck no.” These creatures, these carachs, only crime was existing in view of humans. It was clear her perspective was not the majority. The carachs posed a threat, and while it had yet to be acted on, they would not wait until it was too late. Eilidh offered a solution. Let her try. The Park was full of restricted areas away from any wandering pedestrian. Away from this potential threat. They could be relocated there. Let her try.

So, she would try. Alone.

Whatever. Less eyes meant she could utilize all of her abilities. After taking a moment to secure some supplies, which became nestled within her backpack, she headed off onto her task. And was immediately struck with the sight of Bug Busters Pest Control Solutions glaring back at her. “Those cunts!” Someone must’ve called while she was distracted, because no one had made any clear moves to dissuade whoever the vehicle belonged to, for it sat undisturbed. “This is a National Park, you don’t call a fucking exterminator!” She yelled at one of her coworkers who made the mistake of walking by. They simply stared with frightened eyes, having no clue what she was talking about. With a frustrated shout, she ran over to the car. When a man, supposedly the owner, came into view, she pointed threateningly. “No! No! Fuck off! We don’t need your kind of help!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! That’s not a very warm welcome.” On any other day, Anton would’ve smirked at the sight of a tiny angry person screaming at her, what the much taller man definitely finds hilarious. For some reason. But today was not one of those days. Anton was tired. Anton was exhausted. Anton just wanted to get this job done. “What seems to be the problem, ma’am? We’re just responding to a call.”

Yes, he was, but no, he already knew what the problem was. The damn carachs, of course. He should’ve expected they’d find their way to a place like this, a place big enough where they could hide somewhere and eat something without the prying eyes of the more mundane humans. Unfortunately, the eight-legged freaks must’ve messed up, one of those mundane creatures saw them do something, and now Anton and his need for money was caught in the middle of the overgrown spiders and whatever the heck this small but pretty attractive woman’s problem was.

“I’m Anton. Anton Grant.” He thought introducing himself would make any difference, offering her one of his patented charming smiles that didn’t actually have that much of a success rate, if only serving to catch others off-guard for a brief moment or two. He doubled down with an extended hand, his dark brown eyes moving from her towards the other park personnel whose own curiosities lured them to this less than pleasant encounter.

“Bug Busters Pest Control Solutions, the best pest control service in town, by the way, is here to help. Someone called about…” He looked around them before leaning in for a whisper. “...a spider problem…” He then moved back to resume the normal volume of his voice. Just in case one of those other personnel would end up a potential customer. “We’re here to take care of it. Professionally.”

Out of a misguided attempt to sound professional, he emphasized the pronoun we throughout his spiel, even though it was clear as day that he was alone.

Eilidh rolled her eyes, not feeling any guilt for her outburst. “Respond to another call.” She wasn’t even given a second of trust before she was undermined by this outsourced ‘help.’ While she truly loved her job and the opportunities it presented to her, sometimes she hated the other people involved. Even though most were relatively sympathetic, there was still a clear bias against the supernatural. Even with visitors outwardly acknowledging the dangers, if someone cried monster too many times, the monster must be dealt with. Often cruelly. Always have to keep up pretenses. Even here.

As ‘Anton’ flashed a smile, she only blinked in response, already trying to forget the name. His hand extended forward, perhaps in an attempt at peace. Eilidh chose the opposite. Her own palms placed firmly on her hips with no want of moving. The effect was lost as another took his offered hand, whether from genuine interest or to alleviate some of the tension set ablaze by her passions. Didn’t matter either way. Angry eyes locked onto them and fearing they too would get caught in the flame, they yielded, taking a step back. The two of them still had an audience, but a ring of emptiness encircled them. A distinction between onlooker and participant.

A spider problem. The way it was spoken, as if a secret, like so many that filled this town, showed her he was probably aware of what truly lurked out there. An actual professional. Or an overconfident fool. So, either someone who could actually do damage, or someone whose death would add more fuel to the fear. Neither alternative would be beneficial. “Look, I ‘ave the ‘spider problem’ handled. So, get the fuck out of-”

She was interrupted by a voice from behind. A superior. They informed her that the Park was exploring all the options given to them. And that if her idea worked, the exterminator wouldn’t need to do his job anyway. Said in a way that was clear they wanted to scream fuck just as Eilidh had and will again, but professionalism prevented such a thing. Pretenses, pretenses. So, her options were clear. Work fast, and maybe, maybe be able to save some of the carachs… Fuck, she didn’t even have a clear plan! But the other conclusion was all the carachs dead, for she wasn’t fast enough.

She looked at Anton. Then bolted into the woods.

There is no other call. Anton wanted to just dryly tell her the truth, that his line of work wasn’t as stable as hers, and because of that, he needs to respond to every call he gets. Otherwise, his late grandfather might start haunting him, too, for letting his business go down the drain. Like his body. The past few weeks were pretty good for Bug Busters Pest Control Solutions, though, which was a little odd to think and smile about right then and there, considering he technically should thank all the bugs and rodents he had to put down for always keeping him warm and fed.

“Okay…” The lady was as rude as she was cute confirmed. Fortunately, she wasn’t the only park personnel around, and he gave the more courteous one a nod and the most charming smile he could ever muster. A stolen glimpse of the still infuriated rude woman, however, slowly chased that smile off of his face. Like she chased the other employee off. Without even moving. Damn, she’s good. He’d almost believed that she did have everything under control, too, because despite her size and her rudeness, her fire reminded her of someone else’s, someone who proved him wrong and handled herself beyond his misinformed expectations. But then someone else stepped forward and corrected her. Oof.

“Well then, I guess if there’s nothing else…” He almost gulped when she looked back at him, his mind already wincing even though it was just one look. The last thing he needed was to get slapped, punched, or even kicked between the legs. He’s suffered all three before, in public, so he was always wary of those possibilities. Still, he had a job to do, especially now that the rest of the park seems to be on his side more than hers. “I’ll just—” He cut himself off when she bolted into the woods. Okay… I guess she really hates my guts. Turning to the rest of the personnel, he just offered them a shrug before calmly walking behind her, as another quickly briefed him on their spider problem.

She ran. And ran. Eilidh wasn’t even sure what she was going to do when she got to her destination. But she knew how to run. So, run she did.

A patch of dirt caught her attention. Small circle of brown contrasting the great expanse of green. It hadn’t been there the day before. Odd. Curiosity compelled her forward, and curiosity paid off. As a foot just barely pressed upon the transitional point between grass and ‘dirt,’ the ground stirred, revealing it wasn’t ground at all. The carach was only the size of a football, but it attacked her with the ferocity of a lion. Fangs pierced her leg, injecting it with a paralyzing agent. But as it worked its way through her body, it couldn’t take hold. She knelt down, the carach still clinging to her leg, as if waiting for its toxins to strip her of all movement. She simply held it in her unaffected hands. It lurched forward, and after a moment of struggle, it escaped from her. It returned to its burrow. She fished out a tarp from her bag. Repeating the previous steps, the carach was once again in her grasp, but before it could escape her, she wrapped the tarp around its body, securing the ends in tight fists.

It fought. Desperately. Holes formed in the tarp as its eight legs went haywire. But not enough to fully rip. After a tense moment of struggle, on both the carach’s and Eilidh’s part, all motion ceased. Acceptance. She picked up the makeshift carach carrier. The contents gave one last struggle before calming again. But this all wasn’t a victory yet. She started running again, but slower, taking care not to jostle her unwilling companion. After a satisfying amount of distance was achieved between her last and current position, she opened the tarp. The carach sprung forward. When it landed, it immediately took off. Time to see if this would work. She watched as the creature scurried for a minute, before settling into the ground just as it had been when she first found it. Success!

She should probably get more tarps. Bigger tarps.

Turning back to where she came, she headed back for more supplies.

Into the Woods was a movie Anton enjoyed, though not everyone shared the notion. As he made his way through the park’s main trails, where the supposed tragedy had happened, Anton couldn’t help but hum along to the titular song that he was playing through his phone. Once he was where he thought he needed to be, the exact spot where the carachs consumed their hapless victims, he warily took out his spear and started prodding the forest floor. Since the eight-legged freaks were fond of burrowing into the ground, with their abdomens mimicking piles of leaves, or even rocks, it was the best option he had to draw them out. If his spear made contact with any part of them, especially their abdomens, then they’d spring up, almost instinctively, but instead of pinning him to the ground, they’d be wrapping their long, spindly legs over his spear, and that would expose them, ripe for the slaying. “I’m such a freaking genius.”

Except, geniuses should have expected that there would be more than enough carachs to deal with, and some of those would be bigger than a mouse. It took Anton a couple of pokes on the ground but he managed to draw one out, a small carach, and immediately pierced it in its stomach. Carachs were venomous creatures, after all, and in this case, it was either them or him. He's been paralyzed by their bite before. Fortunately, he's never experienced the second type of carach venom. Until now.

At first, he thought it was just adrenaline rushing through his veins, the excitement of surviving an otherwise dangerous encounter. But then his heart beat continued to race, and faster it did so. "What the hell?" Taking a step back, he tried to force his eyes closed before opening them in a misguided attempt to "see better". He could feel his pulse now, his very heart breaking, as a vision of his daughter being taken away from him while he was utterly helpless, locked behind bars, trapped in a cage like some animal, haunted him in daylight. Looking around him, he realized his vision was also starting to blur. Panic was setting in. “Fucking spiders.” He uttered, cursing them, before dropping to the ground face-first, clutching his chest, struggling to reach something, someone, but he was alone. “Can’t believe... I’m gonna die... To these smug assholes…”

The two intercepted as she was on her way back to the main building. Barely crawling around on the ground, Eilidh almost missed him. She considered pretending she did. No one else was around. The forest was so, so, so big. And she was so, so, so busy. Who would fault her? But as a large carach made its move towards the easy meal, something inside her pushed her to act.

Skin crashed against exoskeleton, the force from her lunge sending both her and the carach falling into a nearby bush. As she tried to get her composure, she was met with long, sharp legs beating down on her. Enough to break skin, muscle. Enough to pierce through a chest. She punched one of those legs, enough to contort her wrist into a weird angle. She snapped it back into place. In a brief opening, she sent a kick into the hard abdomen hovering above, with enough force to shatter bone if she were human. The carach shivered and leapt back, unnerved by the attack on its vulnerable spot. Eilidh was free.

She rolled from the bush, using the propulsion to end the motion in a kneel. She unsheathed the dagger from her thigh. While she wanted to help the carachs, like hell she was going to let herself be a punching bag. The two watched each other, neither wanting to make the first move. The carach was the first to bow out, choosing to save its energy for easier prey. It disappeared behind the trees. For now.

She inspected the damages. Tears and rips littered her clothes, some even threatening to make her ‘indecent.’ Hidden within those tears were gashes and cuts that had already shown signs of healing. Could’ve been better, but not bad. She turned to the downed man. “See? I have it handled.” Part of her wondered if he could even hear her in his current state.

Even as he writhed on the damp ground of the national park, the feeling of death’s cold, icy grip tight around his panicked heart, Anton could not rein in a playful smirk, his dark brown eyes delighted at the sight of Eilidh, especially the ‘aftermath’ of the battle.

“O-oh, hey!” He twitched under her feet, jaws and hands clenching as he tried to fight the carach’s venom. “You came looking for m-me? I was definitely wrong: ...you do c-care.” He tried to flash her his most charming smile yet but could only muster a weak one, barely a smile, more a wince or a grimace than anything else. “What are you?”

The “fractoxin” that was coursing through Anton’s veins might be dangerous in large doses, but the exterminator, despite how things appeared at the moment, was still a pest hunter, born and trained to deal with such monsters. As such, his body was a little more resistant to these things compared to that of regular humans, still not as resistant as what Eilidh was apparently, and he healed a bit faster, too. It helped that the predator only injected him with a small dose, enough for the sensation that tricked him into believing he was already at Death’s door when once again Death dared not have him anywhere close. Probably preferred a warm meal to a cold one.

It took his body some time to fully heal, though a sense of disorientation, dizziness, and a modicum of weakness still remained over him. Most hunters, at the realization that a small angry woman just saved them from a hungry carach, especially a pest hunter, would have been much warier at their presence, if not a little more apprehensive. Anton was not like most hunters, however, and he was more excited, if not simply interested, at the unexpected turn of events.

Dragging himself to a nearby tree for a much-needed rest, gasping for air every now and then as he clutched his arm throughout, he gestured to where the dog-sized carach disappeared into with a smile. “That thing can’t roam free in the park... You know that, right? Unless you find a place for it, for them, more innocent, stupid people will die.”

Her eyes squinted at the question. What are you? Eilidh could tell he was still fighting off the effects of the toxins. Perhaps he was even in a state of mind to not remember her words. But she refrained from the truth, or any type of answer. She went back to inspecting her clothes, trying to see what could and couldn’t be salvaged.

Hunger crept up inside her. Forming in the gut, then working its way until it resided deep in the mind. Not enough to make her lose control. But enough to be a constant thought in the back of her head. While the attack was brief, and she would walk away with no scars, the exertion still had a price. She stared off into the trees, thinking about what her next meal would be, when Anton’s words brought her back.

She thought about the tarp idea, then gave her body one last look over. The idea might work for all the little ones, but the one she just faced? No. It would tear anything she could find in short notice into confetti. Fuck. She wracked her brain for another idea. But her knowledge on the creature was limited, her experience even less so. So, nothing immediately came to mind. She couldn’t just tuck her tail in and give up, though. Not yet. Think, think! A scene from earlier replayed in her mind. One of her coworkers had described one of the gruesome deaths. A missing heart was one of the details. Hearts. That might work.

“Wait here.” She turned to leave but stopped halfway. While he seemed to be in better shape than before, it was clear Anton was in no shape to defend himself. One more departing thought. “Try not to die.” Into the treeline. She was gone.

Several minutes passed, and when she returned, she seemed in much higher spirits. Her clothes, on the other hand, had a new layer of dirt on them. One hand was red, stained in blood. Cradled in the hand was a heart that had recently lost its beat. “Don’t ask.” She lifted her hand. “They like hearts, yeah?” Without a word of explanation, she headed in the direction of where the carach had disappeared into, eyes intently facing the ground.

“Yes... Carachs eat hearts, and will often lay their eggs in empty chest cavities... Where did you get that?” Anton squinted at the bloody muscle she held when she returned. He had followed her when she disappeared, dark brown eyes on her like a moth to flame but made no effort to move, taking instead the opportunity to rest a while. He was already back on his feet, stretching his limbs and massaging his joints, when Eilidh came back.

“You know, it’s actually quite the theme since one of their two types of venom, fractoxin, gives their victim this feeling of heartbreak, and in large doses, that feeling becomes more of the actual thing.” With his hand rhythmically but softly tapping his chest, he mimics the sound of a heartbeat, once, twice, thrice, slowing down as he goes, before making the final one more of an explosion, a heart exploding, the complete opposite of what happens when the heart stops. “Some people actually farm the tiny ones. For the fractoxin. Sells good money in the…” He cuts himself off, finally realizing that he’s been explaining too much, especially to someone he wasn’t sure yet was of the same community. ...supernatural community.

“Wait!” Anton instinctively followed her when she started to leave, grabbing his spear along the way. He didn’t even get to tell her of their proportions and exoskeleton, how injuring them without a sharp weapon like his would be tough. Those legs, not unlike hers, were pretty damn dangerous, too. Is she also a climber? “We need to strike them in the stomach, where they’re vulnerable! Or toss them into the sea or at least a nearby lake!”

When he caught up with her, his eyes grew wide in horror. Well, more of surprise than actual fear. Anton didn’t fear a lot of things. Or at least he tells himself that every time he goes to sleep. Some glowing rift in time and space, an interdimensional portal of sorts, from which a slime-covered overgrown spider, most likely the same one that tried to eat him earlier, was struggling with its two free legs to pull itself away? Anton didn’t fear that. Definitely not. He gulped. “...or that. That looks like a good place to leave them in.”

Eilidh took note of the information he freely offered. Fractoxin. Nice to put a name to what she assumed the smaller carach had shot into her leg. Seeing an example of the effects, she wasn’t surprised they farmed for it. Just concerned about how it was given… or taken. Concern for another time. The mention of a freshwater body was interesting. She had been under the—misguided it seemed—impression that only salt water affected carachs. Looks like she had some reading to do.

He seemed to know a lot about carachs. Was it a result of having to adjust to White Crest, or were supernatural creatures his real targets? Either way, she stored the knowledge for future use. But the context it was given brought her eyebrows down, scowl forming. “There’s no we. I’m trying to relocate them. Or did that fractoxin fuck with your head?” She flicked her hand at him, meant to emphasize her point. But the motion caused a few drops of blood to be flung out. An apology wasn’t given.

The sight before her made all sourness inside her crumble away. A giant, glowing gash hovered just a few feet away. It was like the very universe had been wounded. Or perhaps it was more like a mouth. A mouth that was in the middle of a meal. Ensnared in slime, a poor carach tried to free itself from its great maw. Its remaining legs scurried desperately against the ground. Puncture marks littered the soil before it, yet it did not, could not, move forward. Only enough strength to keep it in that same, desperate spot. But that strength was waning, and it started to slip. Slip. Slip. In one last attempt, it stabbed the earth with all limbs, keeping it in that desperate spot. A second passed. Strength failed it once more. It was sucked into the wound. Gone.

Eilidh blinked. Turning to Anton in the brief calm, she broke it with, “Do you think-” Something shot out at her. It gripped her tight, trapping her in that very same slime. Before she could even attempt to free herself, the world around her became a blur. It exploded into lights as she met the same fate as the carach. By the time she could process what had happened, she found herself tumbling, tumbling, tumbling down a wet tunnel. She grabbed a knife. Made it pierce into her new surroundings. The descent abruptly stopped. But she would not find peace. Just as the knife struck, a loud rumble shook the tunnel, carrying Eilidh along for the ride. It almost caused her to lose grip as moisture perforated everything. But her hands managed to hold firm. While the sound was all encompassing, based on the vibrations on her legs, she could tell it came adjacent to her. She looked up. Light shined down from her. But it came and went. Almost flashing, but not quite. She stared harder. Something disrupted the light on the edges. Something pointed.

Teeth.

“Oooooh, ya think you’re gonna eat me, huh?” Pulling out her other knife, she stabbed it just above where the first was struck. Her world shook again as the great sound pierced into everything. But still, she managed to hold. And so, she started to climb up.

Anton has had blood splattered all over his face before but not like this. Never like this. Eilidh was not a gentle “first time”, he frowned, heaving a sigh as she continued to be rude at him. If he had the time to think, maybe in a few hours after this hellish encounter should he survive, he would realize that her reactions were perfectly normal. From the way things have developed, she did not seem like she was, well, normal. His late grandfather had told him stories about certain “weirdness” in White Crest, though for his part, Anton has had encounters with sentient creatures other than humans and hunters, creatures that pretended to be normal but weren’t, with some of those encounters even...intimate.

Shaking his head vigorously, he tried to shake those thoughts off, away. Now was not the time to go down “sexy memory lane”, Anton, he cursed himself in his head. Half-expecting Eilidh to lecture him yet again, he was caught surprised when she cut herself off, and in a split-second of panic, he found his hands dropping his spear, instead instinctively trying to grab at the strange woman, trying to pull her back to safety. There were no other thoughts that cluttered his mind. In that moment, he was focused on doing one thing and one thing alone: Not let the angry woman get taken by the interdimensional reproductive organ, as if she were a baby about to get reabsorbed by Mother Space-Time. “Fuck!”

Alas, Anton was ill-equipped to do that one thing. He found his hands slipping, the blood on hers not helping one bit. He managed to stand his ground, however, keep himself from falling back, to the ground on his ass. In one fluid motion, he gritted his teeth, furious at his own failure, before grabbing his spear and chucking himself into the portal. If the Girl was here, she would’ve described it as yeeting.

Through the tunnel, he flew, though his eyes were closed as he tried his hardest to keep himself from screaming, barely succeeding. When it was all said and done, he landed with a sloppy thud a few steps behind Eilidh, a few seconds after her, like something just spat him out, his flavor a little too much for the universe's palate. “Well, that was a trip.” He quipped as he grabbed his spear tightly, having done the same as her, pierced what he could of the so-called tunnel to keep himself from getting swallowed by wherever, or whatever, he had been spat out into. Eyes adjusting to the blinking light from up above, he found the familiar form he had tried to save but failed, following right after her, using one of the many small knives he always had on his person whenever he was on a job. “I fucking hate this town.”

It took them some time, not helped by the fact that they were going against the grain, or something resembling that in wherever they were, but they managed to find solid respite from all the chaos and confusion. At least what resembled respite in wherever they were. Anton had learned not too long ago to abandon what he knew of mundane physics, which wasn't much to even begin with, when things like this were concerned. The exterminator may be one step above the mundane, but he was not a magic man, a spellcaster, and with the exception of the gifts he had received as a hunter, some he was born with, others he was trained for, he wasn't that far from being mundane himself. “Where the hell are we?”

Right as he asked that, the entirety of the tunnel shook again, as if an entire world was breaking in of itself. Anton turned behind him, his instincts telling him that something was about to happen from that very direction. “Uhh… Macleod? You might want to grab hold of some—” And just like that he was spat out again. Like a fish bone caught in a massive velvet worm’s throat. “I really fucking hate this town.”

While her ascent had started strong, the progress was… lacking. It was hard to climb a mountain when it was covered in slime and tried to buck you off like an angry horse. To make matters worse, the flesh wasn’t always so firm against her weight. Sometimes a puncture accidentally became a slash as it gave and she slid. Eliminating much needed progress. And further accelerating the bucking. Every motion had a consequence. The biggest would be found in letting go. “Fuck!” Again, she stabbed the flesh. “Fuck!” Again, she tensed as everything around shook violently. “Fuck this!” Again, she pulled herself up.

There was commotion from above, something that disturbed the light that was her destination. It rapidly grew until it became a man tumbling toward her, which she narrowly dodged. The whatever-the-hell the two were stuck in gave another shake, this time not caused by her. Once motion ceased, she dared a glance down. Anton looked up at her. Not knowing the noble origins of his arrival, she assumed he got taken off guard, same as her. “Really? I’d love to be in town right now, to be honest. Not this shit.” Especially since she had plans. Oh fuck, right! She had plans! Hopefully she wouldn’t keep Milo waiting too long.

With a small burst of determination, she continued upward. But her arms started to shake under the stress. Moisture punctured through her hands, her clothes, everything. It was suffocating. All encompassing. Like the cave. No, no, no, no, no, no. She needed to get out soon, wherever this was. “We’re on our way to be dinner, is what.” Her previous fire was starting to die. She was trapped. She was trapped again. Again. Trapped. Again. She needed her bliss. She needed her bliss. An unsteady hand searched desperately for it. “Fuck you, cunt!” She barked up at the taunting light.

The use of her name triggered something within her, her lost bite. “Who the hell told you-” She looked down, but Anton did not hold her attention for long. The same mucus that coated the walls of their prison was bubbling below them. Closer. And closer. One second it enveloped Anton. The next, herself. And finally, the two were flung onto solid ground.

Ground! Precious ground! She started kissing it passionately. But something was off. Pulling back, she stared down at the grass. Except, it wasn’t really grass. Deep inside, something told her what lay before lacked life. Lacked a soul. She looked around. Everything was like that. Trees covered the area, but she felt no comfort with them. Clearly distressed, she rapidly flung her head around, searching for something, anything. But her, Anton, and that thing, they were the only creatures to be seen. No buzz of an insect, song of a bird, or rustle of leaves. Just hollow trees.

Small hope was found when that same glowing gash came into view. Except it looked like it had been reflected into a mirror. Reversed, like a door. It must be a gateway! “Look!” She pointed it out to Anton. “Let’s get the fuck out-” The massive creature spewed its inner contents all over the ground again, and Eilidh had the misfortune of being covered in another layer of muck and gunk. It seemed like her torment would be coming to end as the flow slowed when thunk —something came crashing into her head. She fell onto her back with a squelch, the projectile landing right beside her. A key. Something seemingly small and inconsequential, but as she stared, her pupils dilated. Inner voice told her to take it, take it, take it! Following her impulses, she snatched the thing and struggled to get back on her feet.

The moment he felt something gross begin to swallow him up from beneath him, Anton immediately closed his eyes and held his breath. He knew that whatever would follow would be nothing he would enjoy, and he has enjoyed a plethora of questionable things, both morally and legally. He was right, for once in his life, and although it was technically not the worst thing he’s bathed himself in, he was relieved to find himself on solid ground once more, trying his best to get the gunk off of him properly. For fuck’s sake.

It didn’t take him long to notice that something wasn’t right. Because it never really is. Shaking as much of the disgusting muck off of him, off of his clothes, he squinted as he wiped his eyes off of them as well, only to be greeted by not even a buzzing bee. Wasn’t it bee season? From everything bee-related that has happened to him in the past few weeks, his train of thought would be understandably logical. Yet nothing else was logical about where they were. At least the Girl isn’t here. That must be why it’s so quiet, so peaceful, so bliss— His train of thought was derailed when he laid eyes on the fucking thing that ate them. “What the hell is that thing? Jabba the LSD Hutt? That better not be a bug, I swear to god.”

Anton wouldn’t even have noticed the portal if Eilidh hadn’t screamed at him, his entire attention on their would-have-been predator. At the very least, he saw it coming, the creature puking yet again, allowing him to avoid most of the vomit that unfortunately Eilidh could not. Oh, man, my shoes. He whined in his head when a splatter of gunk from Eilidh flew on his shoes, which were already covered in more muck not too long ago. Then he realized something: His hands were not holding anything. Ah, fuck. His dark brown eyes wandered from them to the giant worm thing. It’s fucking stuck in its throat, isn’t it? That would explain its continual vomiting. That and the many stabbings Eilidh did on its insides.

Turning towards Eilidh when something hit her on her head, Anton finally caught a glimpse of the portal, that interdimensional moo-moo. Fuck it, we’re out of here. Not even hesitating to leave Eilidh behind, the exterminator wrapped his hands around her waist and just freaking hightailed it out of there, using his newfound adrenaline to yeet them both out of the gloomy hellhole like a pair of slippers his mother used to aim at his head whenever he became too annoying to deal with.

Unfortunately, Anton was never a trained wrestler and both of them were more or less slippery from the giant creature’s vomit, so he struggled to keep his hands and arms around her, exerting more effort than was necessary, his face contorted in pain. “We’re gonna live past forty!” He screamed to keep his mind on something else.

The next thing he knew, he was lying down on his back, his vision a little blurry. He could almost take a nap then and there, his body exhausted. But then he remembered what just happened, the absolute grossness of it all, and did otherwise. Wiping more of the puke from his face, he just laid there, dark brown eyes staring at the sky, wondering if this was all worth anything. “Being alive takes so much effort.” He groaned. Oh, man, my spear.

Before she could fully rise, Eilidh felt hands on her. Instincts taking over, she struggled against their hold: fists struck against his back, legs kicked at his thighs. A scream rumbled in her chest, ready for release. But as Anton headed for the gateway, slipping and sliding along the unsteady ground but onward all the same, she realized what was going on. Oh. Confusion froze her, and amusement at his shitty attempt to navigate against all odds made her unsure how to react. The scream died before it began, and her limbs calmed: acceptance.

Facing opposite their retreat, she was able to fully focus on the creature for the first time. Under different circumstances, she would’ve been fascinated by the size, the beautiful colors, the entrancing eyes. Instead, she just looked at it with mild curiosity, dampened by frustration. It looked, no, glared back. It still quivered and rumbled from the ordeal, but it was quickly gaining composure. And was prepared to dish out some much needed punishment. From a protrusion on its head, the slime from before shot out, meant for them but it missed its mark. Instead, a tree a few meters from them became engulfed. The ooze shifting into a crystal prison was the last sight she saw before entering the gateway. Then everything blurred. And then became blinding.

Despite being able to focus this time, the second go-around was still as disorienting. She closed her eyes against the onslaught of lights. Crashing into the ground snapped them back open. She flopped on the hard surface like a dead fish; the impacts sounding just the same. She came to an ungraceful stop. Eyes quickly inspected her surroundings. A moth flew above nose. Life! The sight made her almost cry. She looked on further, up to the lively trees dancing in the wind, to the beautiful stars twinkling at her. Wait, stars? When did it become night time? Who cares, they were back. “Fuck whatever that was,” she grunted. “And don’t grab me like that again. That was terrible.” Despite her words, there was a hint of a chuckle on her lips.

The two enjoyed the well-earned peace, just laying there.

Which was the perfect position to avoid the slime projectile. It sped pass from above, missing them by a few inches. A bitter whisper hissed out of her, “Chan e seo a-rithist…” She turned her head just in time to see another mass of slime shoot out of the gateway. When that also failed to make contact with either of them, a third rocketed by. “Looks like someone’s pissed.” After the fourth slime also missed its target, the attempts ceased. But she doubted the creature gave up so quickly. She swatted at the closest thing of Anton’s she could, his shoes, in order to get his attention. “Get behind it.” She pointed at the gateway. With no idea how long this standstill would last, there was no time for explanations. Rolling onto her stomach, she quickly crawled, like a competitive baby, until the quieted rift was behind her. Supposedly safe—as long as the gateway only worked one-way—she finally rose to resting on her knees.

The motion jostled the mysterious key in her pocket. She suddenly remembered its presence. Right. That. A chill ran up her spine at the thought of it. With a shake of her head, it passed. For now.

For a moment or two, Anton felt relieved at the sound of Eilidh’s voice, so relieved in fact that a short-lived chuckle escaped from his lips. Then he made the mistake of running his gunk-ridden hand over his mouth. Fucking hell. At least he still had the wits to NOT accidentally taste the damned thing. Gross. His brain was too distracted by the combined effort of what the fuck just happened and what the hell was still on him to realize the day had abandoned him, throwing him to the mercy of the dark night sky with only a spattering of stars to keep it all appropriately beautiful.

Catching a glimpse of Eilidh’s hand, Anton turned towards her, wary about getting slapped for all his trouble. Then he found himself immediately surprised when he noticed more of the slime flying through the air. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Monkey see, monkey do, and Anton was on his belly before he knew it, crawling behind the portal. “Your park is super weird, lady.” Although he didn’t remember outright Eilidh’s suspiciously defensiveness towards her name, his subconscious helped him make the better decision to go with something else than his mispronounced rendition of what her parents had given her.

Once behind enemy lines, or at least the enemy’s line of sight, he helped himself off the ground, though only sitting to catch his breath for a few seconds, a much-needed respite from everything else that had happened. His dark brown eyes wandered over Eilidh, his ears catching the brief jostling in her pocket. For another moment or two, he just stared at her before breaking out in laughter as the portal started slowly collapsing in on itself, as if it was never there, as if it never tried to be their grave.

“Well,” He groaned as he forced himself back on his feet, battered and bruised. “I guess that’s that. Client only made mention of a single overgrown spider, and from the looks of things, that’s been taken care of.” He offered her a hand to help her back on her feet as well, more out of instinct than anything. As a pest hunter, Anton knew full well how it was better to fight together when there were more than one of him instead of doing otherwise, and both of them on their feet could prevent more surprises. “All’s well that ends well…”

By far, this was ostensibly the weirdest shit that has ever happened to Anton since he moved into town. The insect monsters were a given, considering his family’s history, but an interdimensional portal to god knows where and that freakishly massive monster? Now those would make for a great story. Now, however, he needed a bath and maybe dinner. He wondered if the Girl, the receptionist he inherited from his late grandfather, had already closed the office. She probably did, considering how she never liked to wait for him. Besides, she probably had more homework to worry about. Guess it’s dinner alone again. Beer and something that’s definitely not soup. He’s had enough soupy shit for the day.

Eyes locked. Body motionless. Eilidh’s fingers curled around the remaining dagger. Eyes focused. Body tensing. A predator ready to pounce. The gateway shifted; movement at last. But she was ready this time. Lifting her dagger, she—

The gateway disappeared.

Ah.

Laughter filled the air. In that moment of bewilderment and relief, Eilidh couldn’t help but offer her own. Everything was funnier when you were tired and a touch delirious. But it died in her throat when she remembered who she was laughing with. A cough replaced it. Her hand went to the ground. It played with the soil which had previously been bathed in otherworldly light. Otherwordly. The dirt rested on her fingers, unaware and uncaring of what had played above it. It sprinkled back to the rest of its brethren.

Gateways didn’t just appear. And there was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. There must’ve been something that caused it, right? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; if there were secrets she would have to dig, perhaps literally. Maybe this was a special place, where the separation of this world and not was thin, easy to bend. Or tear. Her back straightened, searching hands retreating back to herself. An apology to the area lay on her tongue. But, wait, shouldn’t the Park know about something like that? Well, there were a lot of shoulds the Park refused to do. In fact, Anton just alluded to one of them. Despite her efforts, the carach died anyway. But a sense of defeat failed to find her. There was a silver lining. Its death provided nutrients for that massive creature on the other side of the door. Maybe they were connected. Like that fallen carach, maybe it used the gateway as its trapdoor. Hidden, until unsuspecting prey stumbled by. Maybe it sealed the gateway when the prey started biting back. Maybe, maybe.

Ignoring the offered hand, she stood, a dull ache pulsing through her limbs, but it was ultimately fatigue that wanted to pull her back down. “Are you gonna mention the giant caterpillar, or just claim all their hard work?” A twinkle of mirth lay in her eyes, but buried in exhaustion. Not really caring for an answer, she shooed him away with a flick of her wrist. “Bye now.” Hopefully he’d actually leave this time, his ‘duty’ fulfilled. She returned to surveying her surroundings. But gravity wanted to return her to the ground. And hunger told her to run, to hunt. She debated if it was worth looking for answers, or to just go back to her place, since she wasn’t in the mood for—Dance Macabre! Fuck! She fished out her phone. Her newly broken phone. Gunk seeped into every crevice, leaving nothing untouched. No matter how many times her thumb smashed on a button, no light came. Milo would just have to have fun without her. She stuffed it back where she found it with a huff.

Camel’s back officially broken, and curiosity no longer able to fuel her, she decided to leave the questions for another day. Let the Park fence off the area for some bullshit reason, and she’ll sneak in with the darkness of night to keep her secret. Either to find answers or wait and see if anything unfolds. But for now, as crickets chirped, and foxes chittered, and the breeze whistled by, reminding her she was alive, surrounded by life. It was time to return to her roots.

Retrieving her bag, she took off. Muscles cried at the strain, but teeth chattered in excitement. The thrill of the hunt. After a distance, her tattered clothes proved too restricting, the coat of slime stiffening, as if it too wished to turn crystal. So, she removed the garments. Naked under the starlight. And kept running. Running. Searching for prey.

[END]

#wickedswriting #. ˋ ◈ ᵃⁿᵗᵒⁿ ᵍʳᵃⁿᵗ ››› c ˋ .#. ˋ ◈ ᵃⁿᵗᵒⁿ ᵍʳᵃⁿᵗ ››› para ˋ .#. ˋ ◈ ᶠᵉᵃᵗᵘʳⁱⁿᵍ ››› eilidh macleod ˋ .#braindeacl

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degenerate-otaku · 4 years ago

Note

Au where the androids in trunks time arint evil anymore so the three of them just hang out for the rest of their lives time traveling with trunks to save the day after they realised what their doing is wrong somehow cause we need happier times

Hey! I took this in a slightly different direction since I just go with the flow.

I hope you enjoy it though ♡

******************************************

It had been almost a year since the androids had come to an agreement to end their destruction. In some ways it was an anticlimactic ending to an almost 17 year battle. A part of me still wants to bring Gohan justice by destroying them, but that may just be my Saiyan side. I know that Gohan always did his best to be like his father and forgive others, so maybe he'd understand.

It's been a difficult journey, no doubt about it. To keep the androids happy, as well as the people of earth, who probably have not forgiven 17 and 18 and want nothing more to see them dead, I tend to go out with them, just to make sure there are no problems. The androids have to disguise themselves to not be recognised, which isn't too hard since they are incredibly inconspicuous (apart from 17 perhaps, who seems like the type of kid to be stealing and causing havoc anyway). Usually, it's just a case of them hiding their eyes, since that's how people can recognise them.

“Trunks, you really need to brush up on fashion.” 18 remarked as she sipped at her drink. I snapped out of my thoughts immediately, which often consume me.

“Huh? What do you mean?” I was rather offended by her comment but I kept my face and tone neutral.

“Well...you don't have many outfits...and the ones you do have are...” She looked me up and down and continued, “A little...dated to say the least.”

Before I could respond, 17, who was riding on his skateboard as he slurped at his soda interrupted, “Trunks, you look like that guy from that movie 'Back to the Future'.”

I had no clue on what he meant, since I've never seen that movie, but it seemed like no matter what I would say, they'd always have a comeback.

It had always been like that, so what was I expecting?

“Well, we are right outside a mall.” I knew what she was suggesting immediately.

'How convenient' I thought to myself.

“Sis, your shopping trips take whole days!”

I almost laughed at what 17 had said, but held back.

“Shut up! You spend all day in the arcade like a little kid! Plus, you need new clothes too!” 18 poked her brother in the chest, asserting her authority. It's so strange to see 17 shaken like that. As a kid he seemed unmoved by everything, just like his sister.

“Ugh, whatever.” He sighed, throwing the empty cup of soda in the trash.

Strolling casually within the recently rebuilt mall, which my mother helped to fund, 18 finally found a store that she thought had good items for us.

“This place looks lame!” 17 sneered at all the rather classy looking shirts and pants.

“If you're gonna be a brat, go to Hot Topic!” 18 retorted, pointing to the store she was referencing.

“Bitch, I AM the Hot Topic!” 17 loudly declared, walking off. I wasn't sure on how much money he had. The androids liked living large, and still did so, despite my mother not being so pleased about it. She told me once on how it was like she now had three teenage brats but then she realised I was right there and said that I wasn't a brat, though I know I was when I was younger.

“Now that he's out of the way...” 18 sighed, adjusting her hair, before pulling out a shirt from a rack.

“What do you think?” She asked, holding up a blue T-shirt that said something in Japanese.

“See, you gotta stop hiding those muscles! I've seen them up close and I know normal girls will faint over that, especially with your skin tone.”

My cheeks felt hot when she said that and I began to stammer, “W-well..I don't think it's for me...uh, I...don't like showing my arms.” I looked down at the glossy marble floor, and felt her gaze pierce me.

“What, because of those scars?” She scoffed and I looked up at her, not knowing how to react.

“They aren't that bad. Plus...girls like guys who have feelings and have been through stuff.” I didn't get what she meant.

“For a person who hates humans, you sure do understand them.” I don't know why I said that. She frowned and then just moved on, after putting the blue shirt in the basket, whether I liked it or not.

“So...” She tried to steer the conversation back onto clothes, “What do you like wearing anyway?”

“Well...mostly loose, comfortable stuff.” I answered.

“Yeah, like that sweater and pants you used to wear all the time when you were like...what, 13? 14?”

Why had she remembered that?

“Yeah...I have a lot of those kinda outfits.” She walked along to another aisle and I followed, not noticing that there were a few girls looking at me and giggling.

“What made you pick this one? The whole...jacket and vest combo. You wore a similar thing when we beat your ass a year or two ago...wasn't that in the ruins of this mall?”

I felt pain thinking about that. I was a fool, admittedly for going there to try fight them, but I've grown a lot since then.

“Oh...yeah, the light blue jacket and white shirt...uh, I guess I think it looks cool..especially with the sword-”

“Ughhh, what is it with men and their little toys, I've got my brother with his stupid gun, and you with that sword!” She groaned. “They're pointless!”

“Well...technically, my sword has a point-” I smirked.

“Wow, I thought you were incapable of jokes.” She replied, then pulled out a sweatshirt for me. It was a simple grey colour with a logo on it.

“Girls also like guys who dress casual...but that sorta depends. This and some nice loose jeans would look good on you, though you'd need better shoes.” I was rather astonished at how she was able to make so many combinations and knew what would look good on me, but then I realised something.

“Why do you keep trying to find outfits that would attract girls?”

She rolled her eyes at my question.

“Well, c'mon you're almost an adult and you haven't got a girlfriend! Wait...are you gay?”

I blushed hard. “What? Well, I dunno! I haven't really thought about it...”

“I'm just trying to help you find someone.” She smiled, trying to find a price tag on some shoes.

“Wait a sec, I'll ask someone about this.” She left me standing near the basket and as I fixed my hair in while I looked in the mirror, two girls came up to me.

“Hey, uh, you're cute...can I have your number?” One said and I was unsure of what to say. I didn't want to be rude, but I wasn't sure I wanted to talk to them.

“Well, uh, you see-” My brain suddenly seemed to fail me.

“He's taken.” Suddenly, 18 reappeared and out of nowhere kissed me before dragging me by the arm.

“Hey! What was that?!” The kiss was only for a split second but I was so confused.

“Wait, was I your first kiss?” She laughed.

“N-no!” I folded my arms and didn't look at her directly.

“If I didn't know better you wanted it to last longer, hm?”

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed, losing my cool.

“Hey, I'm just messing with you...I just had to get you out of there-” She picked up the basket and walked over to the queue, her hips swaying prominently

“The kiss was unnecessary!”

“You're the first man ever to reject a kiss from me.” She sounded bewildered and I gave up trying.

We exited the store with two bags of clothes and 17 had a bag of his own stuff too.

“So, mind telling me what that was?” 17 inquired and even 18 blushed a little.

"Aww, what an adorable couple!“ He mocked, laughing hard at his own jokes.

”Shut it, bonehead! That meant nothing!“ She scolded him and I don't know why I felt hurt by that.

”I was just trying to make him look good for once, but I really couldn't care less!“ She continued and I wondered if she had even meant what she said about my scars.

For the rest of the day I couldn't stop thinking about that moment. It's stupid of me, I know. I'm so fucking awkward I can't handle a girl talking to me, and when a person I hated growing up does it to me, I want it to happen again, to feel that kinda jolt down my body.

But I guess I won't.

#dbz #dragon ball z #dragon ball #trunks #future trunks #trunks briefs #android 17 #android18 #fanfiction #dbz fanfiction #thanks for the ask!#fic request #enemies to friends to lovers

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afriendlyblackhottie · 4 years ago

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Ransom Drysdale Must Die (Chapter One)

Summary: Ransom Drysdale is a serial cheater. The only way to get him to pay for what he’s done is for him to die. Or at least be extremely humiliated. As long as you don’t fall for him.

Pairings: Eventual Ransom Drysdale x black!reader, Ransom Drysdale x Multiple OC’s

Warnings: Swearing. Eventual smut.

(Author’s Note: I was watching John Tucker must die and it made me think of my favorite sweater wearing murder daddy.)

Tags: @night-of-the-living-shred

Word Count: 2.0k

It's not that you were invisible. You preferred to think of it as keeping a low profile. Growing up, you didn't really have a choice but to keep things to yourself. What was the point of trusting people if all you were going to do was leave? You couldn't make friends or keep them if you'd be moving in another four to six months anyway. Not that it was your choice.

It started at a really young age. Technically before you were even born. Your mom had been a teen parent. Your dad didn't stick around which was all you knew about him. It didn't take long for you to get used to the myriad of men walking in and out of your life. Then you got used to seeing your mom, your only constant, getting treated like garbage over and over and over.

She never had an issue with dating. It was them sticking around that was apparently tricky. The problem is that when it would happen the same thing always happened. She'd binge on chocolate. Use you as a shoulder to cry on. Then you'd be moving to flee into the next city. It was kind of fucked up.

While she cried over the hundredth guy your nose was either buried in a book or painting which had been your only escape. You never wanted to judge your mom. She didn't deserve to always have her heartbroken. But, you also didn't deserve having a mom that wanted to pack up at the first sign of trouble. She didn't seem to get that.

As an adult, you promised yourself that you would find one place and stick to it. It might have hurt your mom a little to watch you go, but she understood that you had to go away for college and stuff. Which is how you ended up in Boston. You kind of remember living in Boston once back in the day. You liked the winters surprisingly and the way the trees looked in the fall. You remembered being happy which is why it sucked so much to leave.

You’d gotten your degree, but finding a job had been difficult. Which is how you ended up working at this country club. Though you could live without all the snobby rich people being total assholes, at least they tipped well. You mostly waitress in the clubhouse where it was usually the older crowd and the families that sucked up to them for the inheritance.

It was also how you first noticed him. Hugh Ransom Drysdale. From the moment you laid eyes on him you could tell he was dangerous. Just like those men, your mother would fall for that would inevitably break her heart. That same air of arrogance hanging over him like a cloud, except much better looking with a trust fund to go along with it.

He insisted everyone in the clubhouse call him Hugh. Which according to everyone is what he insists the help call him. God, he's a fucking asshole.

You remember the first time you talked to him. He was so enchanting. It was annoying. He was like Gaston come to life. Just as handsome, just as charming, just as scummy. Sure he made those white polos he wore to play golf look like he'd just stepped off a shoot for GQ. His gaze was enough to make any woman swoon. Even you as much as you hated to admit it.

It'd been one of the few times you'd worked at the bar. Someone had called out and being the new girl you were told to take their spot. "Sweetheart, be useful and get me a bourbon," he'd said in this rude tone.

"Not even a please?" You muttered under your breath as you turned your back to get a glass.

"What was that?" He asked, with a quirk in his eyebrow.

You kissed your teeth before turning back to him, "Excuse me?" You plastered a sweet smile on your face.

"You got something to say? Say it." He challenged.

You shook your head. "I didn't... I didn't say anything."

He chuckled. "Okay, lo-"

Your jaw dropped as you put your hand on your chest. "Oh my god, Sir, if you're already drunk I can't serve you. You'd be a liability."

"That's a big word. Did they teach you that in community college?" The glare in his eye was intense and you couldn't help it as a smile spread across your face.

"Actually I think I learned it from where you get your trust fund."

You were surprised when he laughed. But, not that little sarcastic chuckle. Like an actual laugh. "Usually I'd call the manager over and enjoy them firing you in front of me, but lucky for you I'm in a good mood and kind of enjoying this. Now get me my bourbon."

"One bourbon coming up." You shrugged.

You talked with him for the rest of your shift surprisingly. The conversation going from hostile to surprisingly pleasant. He’d told you about some issue he’d been having with his grandfather that he hadn’t told the rest of his family he laughed at the idea of them finding out. Said he couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces when they found out everything was going to the nurse.

It was the trashy rich people drama that you craved.

“I know there’s gonna be a lot of bullshit when they find out they aren’t getting that house,” he’d scoffed, looking up at you from his drink.

“I’d be pissed too,” you replied. “I’m sure that house looks like a museum. I’d love to see it.”

“It’s insane.” He nodded. “Imagine like a horror museum with one of those escape rooms.”

You laughed. “So like plastic spiders? Cobwebs? Ghosts!” What a turn around this had been from the initial conversation the two of you were having.

“Not at all,” he said laughing. “It’s more like everything he’s ever thought for his novels, he just adds to his home. Like he needs the visualization. He has a secret window and a chair with knives. It’s insane.”

“That actually sounds pretty cool. Your grandpa sounds like a pretty cool guy, you must admire him a lot.”

“I mean... yeah, but I’d never tell him that.”

“Why not?” You asked with a chuckle.

“It’s complicated,” he answered, before bringing his glass up to his lips. “Like, I love him, but....”

“No. I get it.” Of course, you did. Your mom was a complicated figure in your life, but you could never not love her.

“I’ve done a lot of shit.” He shrugged. “So, I think it’s mutual.”

“At least his house sounds interesting. Like a work of art. I’m kind of a sucker for art.”

“Do you paint? Draw? Doodle on an iPad.” The way he smiled up at you, you would have never guessed that he was the giant asshole everyone made him out to be. There was this softness there even if it was hiding under his arrogant exterior.

You chuckled. “I paint. Though I do partake in the doodling on iPads.”

“I’d love to see your work sometime,” he said. “Do you sell?”

“I haven’t,” you replied. “But, I’m open to it. I guess. I’d show you now, but I’m not allowed to have my phone on the floor.”

“Oh so I’m not worth risking being fired for, I get it,” he joked, shaking his head as if he was offended.

You laughed, tilting your head back. “I know right. I’m already risking it by even talking to you. Harrington is so strict.”

There was this squint on his face as he kind of looked you up and down. It felt like he was studying you and it made you feel like you were under a microscope. “You’ve got a cute laugh you know that?”

No. Don’t give in. You had to tell yourself. You didn’t want to get involved with anyone you’d have to workaround. Besides, it was Ransom Drysdale. You’d just seen him with a woman yesterday. “Thank you,” you brushed him off. “Can I get you another drink?”

He sighed, checking the time on his phone. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat. I have to get going. Maybe I’ll stop by soon so we can talk again. Maybe show me some of your work?”

“Sure.”

He’d left you a forty dollar tip. You were not expecting that.

You’d left work that night feeling pretty good. Not that you were expecting him to fall in love with you or anything. Or for anything to happen at all. It was just a nice encounter with the guy everyone was obsessed with here. Besides you promised yourself you’d never, ever fall into the same trap as Mom had.

It’s not that you didn’t date. You were picky, though. The few relationships you’d had were okay, but you didn’t want to get hurt so you never wanted to get in too deeply.

Then the next day you had come to work, he’d walked in with Marissa on his arm. That stopped any and all thoughts you may have had. It was during that lull between when they'd stopped serving breakfast and brought out the lunch menus. You weren’t surprised that a man like Hugh Ransom Drysdale would be dating a woman like Marissa Clermont. She was exactly the type of woman men like him go for. You know a model IT girl type of deal.

It wasn’t just because he’d been dating Marissa. Of course not. It was because the day before you he’d just come in with Amber Taylor. The daughter of a retired Boston Celtics player. Also, a beautiful woman (also a model you think) who clearly didn’t know her boyfriend was two-timing her.

“Fascinating isn’t it?” Your co-worker, Britt, interrupted your thoughts as she’d come back from taking their drink order. Her arms were crossed as she tried to not make it too obvious that was she looking over at them. “He comes in here with different women and none of them have any idea.”

You frowned as you saw him whispering in her ear, making her giggle, probably telling her the same thing he told Amber just yesterday. “Yeah, I see that,” you replied. “How does he get away with it?”

“Ladies! Back to work!” Harrington, your manager, barked towards the both of you which made the both of you scurry off before she even had the chance to answer. You didn’t even get to talk to her because her shift was over soon then you were off the next day. You weren’t even sure why you cared so much.

When you got back to work it was during that lull time. Ransom was there of course with a different woman. Chloe Daniels. A blonde that had been the sole heir to her husband’s entire fortune no matter how much his ex wife or adult children tried to fight it. You were happy you got to witness the drama for that.

“He messes around with girls that don’t talk to each other,” Britt was finally able to explain. “So, they never find out. At least, that’s what the story around here is.”

“Wow he has a whole system worked out...” you crinkle your nose. Ugh what a fucking pig. Just like your mother and those douchebags she dated.

“I mean, I kind of get it,” Britt said. “He’s hot. I might put up with being treated like trash for that much. Hell, I’ve put up being treated like trash for much less.”

You held in the laugh you wanted to let out as you could see Harrington lurking around, waiting to say something to the two of you. He never missed his chance to give out orders.

For as long as the couple sat through you couldn’t stop staring. Britt was right. It was fascinating.

#ransom drysdale #ransom thrombey x you #ransom x y/n #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x black!reader #ransom drysdale x poc!reader #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans x poc!reader #chris evans x black!reader

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memoriashell · 4 years ago

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seashells and shores ( and something a bit more )

Characters / Pairing: Fukawa Touko / Naegi Komaru, ensemble class 78; varyingly background / implied ships are sakuraoi / ishimondo / celeschi / naeleogami

crossposted on ao3

Notes: a very late day 3 for @tokomaruweek. beach prompt! yesterday i was feeling a little burnt out so i decided to not write since i didn’t want to put out something half assed. hopefully this being a bit longer helps make up for it! ( and by a bit, i mean i basically doubled the word count compared to what i’ve done for this week so far lmao rip so much for hoping i’d catch up tonight )

rated t for touko's trauma. and also for junko having her tits out. thanks junko.

anyways tw for like trauma, the general self-depricating / self-concious stuff for toko but also like. her trauma w/ water is brought up since it's. beach? and also drowning doesn't actually happen but it is brought up. and touko mentions claustrophobia in relation to her trauma offhandedly once, and again, just generally feeling insecure.

also it's kinda implied that chihiro and celes are both trans thank you!!!

Summary: going to the beach isn't exactly an exciting thought for her, given the fact she has no desire getting in the water.

komaru seems dead set on making sure she makes some memories anyways.

Do you want to come to the beach with us? That is the first text of the morning that she receives, courtesy of Makoto Naegi. Touko considers asking who he means by us, gathers that he probably means some assortment of their classmates, and ( while it is very tempting to say yes ) concludes that she can safely say no. And she intends to do exactly that, but she gets a set of texts that stops her from being able to do so.

touko-chan!!!!

ur coming with us, right?

you should come with us!

itll be fun!

So Komaru would be there too— their...friendship is odd, all things considered. Not that the knowledge of knowing she’d be there makes the offer any more tempting, but she bites her lip and considers what to say. Not that there’s really much of a question, just keep it blunt and to the point as per usual. No point in sugar coating things.

I’m busy. Maybe next time. She’s not that busy, current manuscript aside. Not that Touko intended on ever not being busy. It’s not her fault that Komaru is too dense to take a hint.

awww :(

pls?

if u don’t wanna get in the water, ill make sure they’ll leave you alone. im sure you won’t be the only one that doesnt want to!!

Ah. She might have to ( partially ) retract her statement on Komaru being dense. Had she figured out her reluctance without her even mentioning it, or had that just been a lucky guess? Maybe it was just Makoto’s luck rubbing off on her...

i understand if you don’t want to come

and i’ll leave u alone if u rlly dont wanna come.

but it wont be as much fun without you there :(

Urgh. Yeah, this girl doesn’t understand a thing, does she? She’s probably not even realized the impact her words have on her. Touko grumbles under her breath, but figures she should respond before Komaru sends another text begging trying to convince her.

Fine.

I’m not going in the water, though.

If this goes horribly wrong, I’m blaming you.

That is a lie. Even if worst comes to worst and Syo feels the need to front for her, she won’t hold it against her. She’s the one who agreed, after all. It’s just one last attempt at offering her an out. To change her mind. Like she should. But Komaru is nothing if not stubborn, so she doesn’t really expect that offer to be taken up on. She starts making a mental checklist of what she probably needs to take with her, doesn’t get very far into that list because Komaru’s response is nearly instantaneous.

yayayayay tnk u touko-chan ily!!!!!! :D

we’ll pick u up k????

ur staying @ the place near the dorms right? see u soon!! ♡♡

Touko grimaces at the butchering of language that is Komaru’s texting ( and ignores her own fluttering heart upon seeing the casual hearts sprinkled in at the end ), and sends back, If you love me, fix your grammar.

The car ride over is mostly uneventful. In that she means she feels like she’s going to have a headache before they even get there and Makoto keeps giving her a sympathetic look. In other words, she’s learned that Komaru and both Asahina siblings should not be left to entertain themselves for the hour-long car ride, but the only silver lining here is that it was only an hour-long ride and hopefully they would be tired out for the ride back.

The highlight of the hour was that even if it’d been a tight squeeze in the backseat, that meant she’d been ( somewhat ) uncomfortably sandwiched between the door and Komaru herself. She’s a little surprised that it doesn’t set off her claustrophobia, but reckons that might just be because it’s too bright to remind her of being locked in a closet. And also because Komaru is generally distracting in close proximity, from the way she’d been halfway sitting on her lap, to the faint scent of what Touko figures to be her shampoo.

She also considers it a victory that she did not dissociate in the midst of that, but probably only because Komaru kept checking on her and apologizing for how close they are: she’d had to bite her tongue several times from saying something harsher than she’d really mean. She doesn't hate Syo, but probably counterintuitive to let them front today: whether they are aware of this, or simply just disinterested in trying to front right now, she is thankful. If nothing else, she would consider this some kind of learning moment. Maybe. Something to draw inspiration from?

Still, once she’s free from the confines of the car, she can actually relax a little— or does for all of two seconds before Komaru has grabbed onto her free hand and started dragging her towards the loud group that she recognizes as her class. Yuta and Aoi had bolted out of the car the moment they’d come to a stop to race to the waters ( she can’t imagine being that athletic and feels tired watching them ). Touko gazes back longingly at the confines of the car and the consideration that she might’ve been able to isolate herself there, but her grip’s pretty tight on her hand. Which is nice, and distracts her from thinking about escaping until it's way too late, and she’s forced to look at the group before her, and—

Slaps a hand over Komaru’s eyes with a groan. “Enoshima, wh-what the fuck, you—” She holds off on the ( derogatory ) word she wants to say, and just scowls at the sight before her. “This isn’t a...a nude beach? Are you t-t-trying to get us in trouble or something?” Granted she’s not technically completely nude, but also more revealing than she should be. Seriously, she would’ve figured that Ishimaru would’ve already told Enoshima off already because what else is he good for ( then again, he is single-handedly the only person who would probably take no real issue with it, or be naively convinced by her that it wasn’t really a problem, so maybe she really shouldn’t be that surprised ).

Enoshima cackles at her. “Don’t be a prude, Fukawa! Or are you jealous? I’m just trying to get a sick tan.” While she’s at it, where the hell is Ikusaba to keep her sister in check? Whatever, that’s not really important, and she refuses to dignify that with a response given that Enoshima probably only wants to get a rise out of her.

Instead, she makes sure to put a decent distance between them before removing her hand from over Komaru’s eyes with a huff. “Urgh, honestly...what on earth m-made her think that was a, a good idea?” She grumbles, glancing around now that she doesn’t have to stare directly at...that.

Actually, now that she looks around, the only seemingly responsible person from their class currently present was Oogami— and honestly, she seems too busy being in love with her girlfriend to count ( if it wasn’t kind of heartwarming, she’d probably be disgusted. Not in a homophobic way, in a general ew PDA sort of way ). As for any else viably responsible: Kirigiri being absent wasn’t a surprise, Fujisaki’s too soft to really keep people in check, Byakuya is...his own entirely separate category, and she would rather die than count Hagakure as responsible in any capacity. And Makoto might be a voice of reason, but she’s pretty sure he’s utterly useless here. Which is probably a horrible sign of things to come, but what else did she expect from anything involving her peers?

“You don’t want to go in the water, right?” Komaru’s voice cuts in through her thoughts, watching her closely before taking her hand to start pulling her along then. “We should set up somewhere to sit, then!”

We? She thinks, but instead attempts to free her hand from her grip and voices, “...Don’t you want to go in th-the water with the rest of them? You don’t have to, uh, to stay with me, you know. I’m not a k-k-kid.”

Her expression looks conflicted. “Well, yeah, of course I do want to! But only for a bit, probably? I mean, it’d be kind of rude to leave you alone since I asked you to come?”

She ignores the way her stomach twists at that, and purses her lips. “Technically s-speaking, Makoto asked first. You aren’t— it’s not rude of you to want...to want to have some fun without me. I know I’m n-n-not fun to stick around.” She knows she wouldn’t want to stick around herself if she had the choice. “It’s not like, like I wasn’t prepared for th-that.”

“Yeah, but— that’s the thing. You shouldn’t be! And I want to spend time with everyone, and that includes you too.” And now she’s sulking. God. Fukawa is about to growl back something she’ll probably regret saying, but is saved from doing so by a much calmer voice interrupting, having overheard their argument.

“Why don’t you go join your brother for a bit? Fukawa-san can join us if she would like to. We have an extra seat.”

Celes looks hot— and she means that in a very literal sense ( mostly ), decked out in one of her usual frilly black dresses. She looks out of place in the hot summer heat. Touko is also not sure where and how she managed to get a table out here ( and tea, apparently, and you know what she’s just not going to question it ), but Fujisaki is already pulling out the extra seat in offering, and she sighs reluctantly. Better this than feeling like she’s holding Komaru back.

“G-G-Go. Or...or I’ll let Syo toss you in the water.” Not really a threat - if anything, Syo would dive bomb into the water with her. Argh, maybe she should’ve just let them front today...

( No, no she shouldn’t have. The only person currently present that Syo would’ve mostly listened to would be Komaru— and maybe Makoto or Fujisaki if they were feeling generous— which is an entirely different set of issues she doesn’t want to linger on. Needless to say, she doesn’t particularly want Syo to cause chaos today )

Touko is saved from having to argue further with her on this because as Komaru opens her mouth to protest, Yuta comes to steal her away, blabbering on about something about a game they should play: and while he’s definitely as oblivious as his sister, she’ll consider that a good thing, just this once. The only words Komaru manages to get in is to ask Toko to keep her bag for her, which she would’ve done anyways, picking it up from where she’d dropped it. She watches them wander off ( and only looks away when Komaru starts discarding the clothes she’d been wearing over her swimsuit ) before trudging over to sit next to Fujisaki, who flashes her a small smile as she types away on her laptop.

“I am surprised you came, Fukawa-san. You do not seem like the type for these activities. You are usually quite disinterested in participating in these kinds of things, in fact. Did something change?” Ugh. This is why Touko hates being around Ludenberg. Because she’s observant, generally only bested by Kirigiri in that regard, and is generally good at picking people apart when it comes to lies and acts and fronts ( though Touko would argue this is from personal experience, and not from being a gambler ). And this fact would have irritated her, quite honestly, if she had not self-sabatoged herself by taking it as an insult, instead.

“I-I-I get it. No one really wants...wants me here. That’s what you meant, right...? You don’t have to r-remind me.” She grits her teeth. If nothing else, when she isn’t busy lying, Touko can appreciate her honesty. The tiny hand that wraps around her wrist stops her from saying anything further, even if it doesn’t take much to wrench her arm out of Fujisaki’s grasp: but she gets the feeling she is only able to do so because she isn’t actually trying to hold on too tightly.

“I’m sure th-that’s not what she meant, Fukawa-san...” Ever quick to play peacekeeper, she supposes. Touko simply grumbles at her and rolls her eyes. “...Especially since not everyone was available today, it’s nice that you were able to join us!”

“Yes, it is a shame. I would have liked for Yamada-kun to have been able to help with my tea, today.” Celes sighs as if disappointed— really? That’s what she’s on about?

Touko does a second look at who is not currently gathered, and denotes, “Is Maizono st-still out on tour...?” She thinks Komaru had mentioned something like that in passing.

“Yes! Maizono-san is on tour, Yamada-kun is at an important convention, Ikusaba-san, she’s...doing some kind of training...? I think Kirigiri-san is supposed to be on the tail end of a rough case, and...” Here Fujisaki pauses to giggle into her hand. “I sh-shouldn’t really laugh at this really, but Ishimaru-kun got sick. Oowada-kun had to force him to rest since he had been trying to work through it and made it worse for himself... or so that’s what I was told.”

Oh, so that’s the reason she hasn’t heard the loudmouths today? She might take back her sentiments on Ishimaru being useless, but he’s on thin fucking ice. Of course the overachiever would get sick during the summer holidays— apparently, she’s not alone in that thought.

“Only Ishimaru-kun would get sick during vacation and still manage to find a reason to not take a break.” Celes rolls her eyes, but Touko gets the feeling she’s amused too.

“So wh-what you’re saying is, uh, is that Oowada’s going to get sick next...right? I guess— we’ll find out if idiots get s-s-sick or not.” Touko quips— which earns a softer laugh from Fujisaki, so that’s pretty good.

Of course, it wouldn’t be like her if she didn’t put her foot in her mouth almost immediately afterwards by asking why they aren’t going in the water: she’s not really surprised because Celes rarely participates in gym ( and coming from Touko that says a lot ), but she was pretty sure Fujisaki wasn’t that self-conscious of herself. Not as much? Not that she really has any place to talk in that regard.

“Well, we already went to the beach at the start of the summer holidays! I’m not really missing out on anything, and it’s probably not my last opportunity to go during this break anyways.” And then, a little more sheepishly. “...Also I’m close to making a breakthrough on this code, I think. I wanted the fresh air, but I don’t really think I can afford to take much of a break right now.”

“She would have stayed on the train if I did not warn her we were approaching our stop, I believe. And not all of us can be like Enoshima. The brazenness of that woman is truly something else.” Touko is not sure if she says that from a place of respect or fear, and honestly she relates. And also doesn’t say any further on the subject because Celes gives her a dirty look.

Her gaze goes back out to their peers— she is pointedly avoiding needing to look at where Enoshima is— and spots Komaru and Yuta splashing around with Aoi and Oogami. Well, it looks like just splashing at least, from where she’s at. And Hagakure, who really just looks like an out-of-place sea cretin with the way his hair floats on the water’s surface, so. There’s that?

( No, she’s not at all envious of the fact that all of them get to have fun because they don’t have crippling fears: the ocean does not instill the same fear of confinement that a cramped bathtub does, but fear— there is still the fear that something will tug her down and her body will simply let herself dragged underneath out of instinct, a fear of something worse if she tries to fight for survival— )

Focus. She can feel the way her breath catches a little, the uneasy way her heart beats and concentrates on calming down. She doesn’t seem to have gotten Syo’s attention yet, nor anyone else’s, thankfully. She’ll just...watch Komaru for now, yeah. It takes a moment to relocate her, head breaching from underneath the water and surfacing like...like one of the sea’s legendary enchantresses. She means that in a wholly respectful way, of course, watching the way she shakes the water from her hair, mouth open in a wide grin while she laughs. Touko doesn’t need to hear her to know that on the sole basis of her appearance— the bright look in her eyes is enough to say she is happily enjoying herself without her.

On that note, hm. Maybe she can use some of that for the basis of her next novel— something about a siren and a lady visiting the sea? Tragic romances are always a hit, aren’t they? Okay maybe a tragic lesbian romance is more self-projection, but that's besides the point. No one has to know its self-projection if people eat it up like anything else that has her name on it.

Or maybe you need to talk to a therapist more often? Syo contributes helpfully, apparently having become more conscious at some point. Maybe her panic hadn’t gone as unnoticed as she thought. Not that they’re wrong, but talking to a therapist isn’t exactly going to help with her gay pining ( unfortunately, she wishes it were that simple ).

Yeah, that’s not something she really wants to linger on, and as if Celes can read her mind, says, “How do you ladies feel about a bet?”

“Pass.” Touko says immediately, because she is arguably far from a smart person, but she is smart enough to know to not take her chances against the ultimate gambler. Celes ignores her.

“You see, I would bet that Komaru—”

“No. We’re leaving h-her out of it.” Toko interrupts, and Fujisaki ( thankfully, like the god sent angel she is, even if she seems too good to be real ) nods her agreement.

“I don’t think Naegi-kun would be really happy if he heard us talking about his little sister like that...” Her reasoning is fair, if nothing else.

“Fine. Do you think Naegi-kun is going to interfere on Togami-kun’s behalf, or help Kuwata-kun?” A painted fingernail points out the trio by the sea. Kuwata seems pretty intent on forcing Togami into the sea, suit and all, much to his disdain. The duo is yelling, probably. On the other hand, Makoto just looks like he doesn’t know whose side he’s supposed to be on here.

In the end, it doesn’t matter because by some luck ( or lack thereof ) Togami manages to trip on a washed up stone and ends up taking the other two boys down with him. The heir doesn’t even look all that mad, really, as Kuwata dunks him back under the water in retaliation: she knows what his angry face is, and that is not it, even if it looks kind of like he’s swallowing a lemon.

Or maybe that’s just her and her sour mood feeling like she’s swallowed several lemons raw because Touko doesn’t know how to make lemonade out of all the citrus life has handed her.

“By the way Fukawa-san, about Komaru—” Celes starts, but is interrupted by Komaru’s sharp yelling, which is followed by the wet feeling of her arms wrapping around her. Touko frowns, pushing her away.

“You’re w-wet.” She states the obvious as she makes a face, not that that seems to stop her. “Are you...you're done going in the water f-f-for now?”

“Mhm! It’s too cold in the water, honestly. You’re nice and warm.” Komaru hums happily, and she grabs a towel from her bag to wrap her up in it before she ends up being the next sick kid. “I was thinking we could maybe spilt a snack...? And then we could make a sandcastle! Asahina-san was telling me about shells she saw earlier that we could use?” Touko bites back a small snort at how childish she sounds.

“Yeah, yeah— let go of me, s-so I can get up...” She agrees, ignoring the curious way Celes’ watches their interactions. She mutters something that passes for a thanks before she leaves ( not that she thinks Fujisaki notices at that point, full enraptured by her laptop screen ).

By snack, Touko realizes that this is more of a way of making sure she eats lunch— Syo had not so accidentally let it slip once that when she gets caught up on things, she has the tendency to skip meals. She bites her tongue on saying that it wasn’t necessary and instead pays for their meal because she can do that, she has the money to spare for that kind of thing: and she knows she doesn’t need to, but sometimes she feels like she needs to make it up to her before Komaru gets sick of their friendship.

And if it comes off like a date, that’s simply just coincidence.

When they return to the shore, Komaru drags her off to an area a little more secluded— she doesn’t really realize this at first, simply accepting her fate to follow along, but notices she can’t really hear anyone else. It helps her relax, feel like she doesn’t need to be so guarded.

( It doesn’t stop Touko from briefly complaining about how sandy she’s going to get because of this, which is annoying. And then immediately shuts up because Komaru offers to let her borrow her clothes, and she has nothing coherent that she can say to that. She eventually manages to spit out a no when it becomes obvious Komaru is waiting for her to say something )

“Well, okay then. You can always let me know if you change your mind.” She says, then, “Oooh, Touko-chan! It looks like there are tide pools over here!”

Komaru leaves her to pick out shells for them to use while she does the dirty work of constructing a sand castle. “So you won’t end up too sandy,” she explains. “And I trust your eyes to pick out nice shells.” She can’t really complain— although she almost makes a scathing comment about the fact that her eyes can't really be trusted when she wears glasses— and just keeps away from the waves for the most part. The water laps at her feet while she lingers around the tide pool, and then returns with the fruits of her search.

It’s...not an awfully constructed sand castle. Well, that’s probably more than a little generous to say. You know, if she was going to compare it to something kids made. As it stands ( or doesn’t, if Touko is being honest ), it’s probably not the most...concretely built and looks like part of the base might fall apart at any moment, but doesn’t say anything as she dumps an assortment of shells at her feet. And then pulls out a towel, so she can sit and watch her work. It feels like there’s another problem with this, but she can’t quite place what it is; it’s probably not important enough to point out.

Going back to the novel idea: maybe it’s not about a siren after all. Maybe it’s about a sea princess instead. A lonely girl drowning in the waters called home, in a lonely castle, and—

“Here you go!” Komaru plops a shell into her hand with no warning and beams at her. “It’s nice and pretty just like you, Touko-chan. So you should keep it!”

She definitely doesn’t almost tear up upon hearing that, swallowing thickly as she bites back a self-deprecating, Are you sure it’s not just ugly like me? Instead, she picks out a small shell from the pile and holds it out to her.

“...H-H-Here. Completely plain and, and average like you.” And cute, but that’s not important. Still, Komaru looks like she’s actually said something of worth as she throws her arms around her neck.

“Thank you! I’ll take good care of it.” She acts like she’s given her a houseplant or something of actual value, and not a shell.

Stiffly— because she still really doesn’t know how to respond in these kinds of moments, despite being friends for a few odd months now— Touko pats her back and mutters, “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is!” Komaru pouts at her. “It is to me. Isn’t that enough?”

She opens her mouth to point out that she’d really just been reciprocating a gesture, but the wave crashing over them interrupts the conversation— oh yeah, she thinks absently. That’d been the other problem that she’d noticed when Komaru had started building, but hadn’t thought it was a big enough issue to point out.

Once she processes that yes, that happens, her first thought is how cold she is now, soaked to the bone. Touko represses a shudder and tries to ignore the fact that she will need to shower later because salt water gets itchy. The second thing that occurs to her, in the midst of this, is that now Komaru is wailing into her shoulder.

“I should’ve been more careful, I’m sorry Touko-chan! You’re okay? You aren’t upset, are you? I thought th—” Touko leans forward to cut her off. Her lips taste like salt, and vaguely reminiscent of the sweet snack Komaru had coaxed her into splitting. She wants to bite down on her lip, a nervous habit, and pulls back before she can accidentally manage to bite the other’s lips instead. The implications of that are a lot more than she’s willing to handle right now, and averts her gaze as soon as she leans back, so she does not have to acknowledge her actions.

That doesn’t stop Komaru from throwing her arms around her a little too eagerly, a grunt at the impact of their bodies colliding. “Too m-much.” Touko manages to wheeze out, and before she can start apologizing again, follows with, “I’m not upset. I should probably just...just buy something overpriced from one of th-the nearby shops since our clothes are soaked now...”

She takes this in fairly good stride, jumping to her feet and pulling her up by her hands. “Can I pick out an outfit for you? It’ll be fun!”

Their ideas of fun are very different quite frankly, but considering Komaru won’t overthink her appearance like she does, thus meaning it’ll be more time efficient. And quite frankly, she’s tired, so she just agrees. On the condition they can just go take a nap in the car afterwards.

Touko doesn’t quite agree with Komaru’s fashion choices, but she picks out clothes that cover up everything that needs to be hidden, so she can’t exactly complain. Nor does she complain when they do less napping and more snuggling in the backseat. Which means on the ride back, Komaru ends up falling asleep on her shoulder. She thinks about how pretty she looks in the light of the sunset.

Maybe she can rethink her next novel being a romantic tragedy.

#tokomaru week 2021 #toukomaru #tokomaru #komaru naegi #toko fukawa #touko fukawa #danganronpa #* zhi writes

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brain-jarred · 3 years ago

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Chapter one. Marriage problems

In the dank bowels of New York, it was a normal day of extracting brains from dubiously consenting test subjects, and Dr. Hal was bored. Bored with his life, he knew he was smart, he knew he had a brilliant mind. In theory this job was in fact nurturing his mind, and putting it to good use in bettering mankind, and-

Yeah yeah whatever. He knew that this was for a good cause, as he carefully cut open the patient's skull, revealing the squishy and oozing brain. He sighed, and his colleague finally took notice of his dour mood. “Dr. Hal? What's wrong? You don't seem very enthusiastic about this.” Dr. Param asked, looking up from their clipboard which they were doodling in the margins of. Dr. Param was very much like Dr. Hal, in the sense that both of them had similar backgrounds. Though despite this similarity, the two were as different as could be. “Come on, Hal! Put some pep into that neuro-needle!” They said cheerfully, pumping their metal arm in the air, much like a cheerleader. In response, Dr. Hal just rolled his eyes and took the neuro-needle out of the tray, and did what you do with a needle.

Once he was done with it, he returned it to the tray, and the doctor began the process of removing the brain from the skull. He sighed again, and turned to Dr. Param. “Hey Dr. Param? Do you ever feel like… I don't know, that we could be doing literally anything else with our lives?” He questioned as he lifted the brain with one hand, and cut the spinal cord with the other. “Like, I know that this is to improve mankind and everything, but… this is just so…” He plopped the brain into a jar, staring at it for a bit. “Boring.” He said flatly. Dr. Param looked shocked. “What?! No way!” They retorted, limping their metal wrist joint in at Dr. Hal. They put down their clipboard and slid a pan containing a brain across the counter. Then, they sat their elbow where it had been. “Listen Hal, Dr. Hal. All jobs have their… their dips!” “Dips?” “Like low points on a graph!” Dr. Param said while walking around. Their six metal legs made clicking sounds as they moved on the metal floors. They had their arms behind their back. They circled around the now brainless body that was laying on the surgical table. They patted one of the legs to accentuate their point. “You just-” Another slap to the cadaver’s legs.”-Just gotta keep going!”

“Dr. Param, I appreciate the enthusiasm, as well as the attempts at motivation, but you should stop slapping the body.” “You aren't listening to me!” Dr. Param slapped the body. “No. I’m not.” The scientist sighed and walked over to the sink, removing his thick plastic gloves, placing them in the cleaning solution. His hands were… not human. Because neither Dr. Hal, nor Doctor Param, were human beings. Doctor Param was a centipede-esque cyborg, maybe even centaur-like in their design. They had one almost normal looking hand, if not for the sharp claws on the tips, and one needle like appendage on the other arm. The other legs, six of them, were simple, like a bug’s legs. They had huge red eyes that stared annoyed into the back of Dr. Hal’s head. Or rather, they were staring at Dr. Hal’s brain, that was visible through the translucent psychic aura that made up his body. He looked very much like a person, but without bones, skin, muscle, or even nerves. He looked like a person composed entirely of blue jelly. The only solid parts of him were his brain and his eyes. The two doctors both had human brains, greatly enhanced, yet still human, brains.

“I’m just saying-” “I know what you're saying.” Dr. Hal interjected. “You're saying I should just accept the life I've been given, and I shouldn't wish for anything more.” “Wow. Rude.” The cyborg huffed. ”That's your problem! You are rude. When people try to cheer you up, you just-” they waved their arms around. “You push them away! You push me away.” He huffed. “Why have you been so- what am I doing wrong!? You have been so on edge lately.” “I don't want to talk about this anymore.” Dr. Hal looked away and began to pad out of the room. “Don't walk away from me!” They said, raising their voice. “Please! Let's just talk!” They said, throwing their arms up in the air.They had been working with each other for sixteen years, and though Dr. Hal was walking away, and acting standoffish, he did care about his colleague. The two of them had been working together for sixteen years. The pair acted like a married couple when they argued. But really, they were both married to their jobs, not each other. Recently though, Dr. Hal’s marriage with work was failing. Like a marriage in which both of the participants were no longer in love with each other.

Dr. Param followed Dr. Hal for a bit, before sighing and going to sit down in one of the chairs outside the operating theatre. It was a bit awkward to sit in, considering they had a 5 foot long body. In reality, the bug-like cyborg laid on the chair rather than sat in it. They watched as Dr. Hal put his hands in his lab coat and power-walked away to his quarters. They hated when he got like this. Lately they had been noticing that his colleague's heart just wasn't in his work like it used to be. Dr. Param missed it, back when things were simple. Executing tests on subjects, researching, and all the other marvelous things- they weren't fun anymore. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be fun, maybe this work was supposed to be hard and laborious. But… Ugh. Dr. Param just sat there, trying to think of ways to reignite that fire that had been reduced to cinders within Dr. Hal. Meanwhile, Dr. Hal was in his quarters. The off-white walls surrounded him, it was a small room, only about 9 feet wide and long. The ceiling was low, and if he jumped, he would probably hit his head on the ceiling. Not that he was the type to just randomly jump. That was more of Dr. Param’s thing. Being all excited and enthusiastic about their job… Dr. Hal wondered how they did it. How they managed to be as passionate about their work as they were the day they both first woke up and did their first assignments. Part of him admired it, maybe even envied it. These walls. These floors. The lights, the blood, the smell of this lab. It was all the both of them knew. Their old lives were gone. Dr. Hal wasn't supposed to miss it. He had consented to this after all. He consented to having his body removed from his brain, and having his brain utterly transformed into something inhuman. Dr. Param consented to it too. So then why did he feel like something was missing?

Why would he miss being a terminally ill cancer patient? This was a far more noble life than wasting away in a hospital bed with no family to be there as he died. Of course he did not remember being a terminally ill cancer patient, but that was what his bosses told him. They even showed him pictures of who he used to be. Birth records, I.D., photographs. All meaningless to him now.

He had been thinking more about it lately. He hadn't told anyone though. He always got the feeling that the bosses didn't like it. It was an unspoken taboo to mention the past when the goal of the organization was to further the path into the future. He closed his eyes. Well, he didn't really have eyelids. He just shaped the ectoplasm that comprised his body to slide over his eyeballs. And then there was a knock at his door, before he could tell them to come in, someone he didn't expect to see today walked into his room stiffly. The person that entered his room was a pale man, with wispy and wild white hair, and a ratty scarf worn over his lab coat. His face was round, it would have been almost friendly looking if not for the deep scowl that he wore on his face at all times. Dr. Hal sat up, and then got off his bed to stand respectfully towards the head scientist “Dr. Brian.” He remarked. “It's good to see you.” “You did good work on the last subject, but we have another assignment for you.” Doctor brian said, ignoring pleasantries and going straight for what was needed of Dr. Hal. “We have a subject coming in that is extremely high profile. Not only that, but it's going to be a vivisection. Further details will be given later.” He said in a monotone. “Oh. I see. But why are you telling me this in person? I feel like this could have been communicated in a memo.” He crossed his arms and tilted his head. “Because you haven't been confirming your memos.” He huffed. “You have been acting highly unprofessional lately. Now tell me why that is.” He asked pointedly, glaring up at Dr. Hal. “I apologize.” He began, taking in a breath. “I have just been feeling unwell lately. I was actually going to request a week’s vacation for-” “Denied.” The head scientist interrupted. “The high profile vivisection is tomorrow.” “Oh.” Dr. Hal folded his arms. “I assume my...talents will be needed?” he asked. “Both you and Dr. Param will be needed, yes.” “Alright.” he looked away. “Tell you what-” Dr Brian began. “You can have your week's vacation after the vivisection tomorrow. It's estimated to take six hours to complete.” Dr. Hal’s eyes widened. Wow. That was more than double the length of the longest vivisections he had done. This must be someone special that they were vivisecting. “Will it be a terminal one?” He asked. “Yes.” Damn it. Dr. Hal hated the terminal ones. Usually they were performed only on death row prisoners or terminally ill patients. So he didn't feel shame about most of them, despite technically being a murderer. Well, he wasn't really a murderer. They were going to die anyway, so who cares? He certainly didn't. But it was still unpleasant to be in the mind of a dying person. It was sometimes borderline nightmarish. Of course, he wouldn't voice these opinions out loud. But Dr. Brian’s scowl still deepened. “Do what you will for the rest of today.” He huffed, and exited the room. End of chapter one

#oc #oc story #mad scientist oc #robot oc #Brainjarred #medical horror #body horror

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tinycaprisun · 4 years ago

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a song about it raining somewhere else

title: a song about it raining somewhere else characters: chuck taylor x trent beretta word count: 3822 part: 1/1 warnings: mild cursing, and like that’s kinda it? maybe mild angst? but also i’m a baby and it becomes fluff by the end? a/n: howdy, this is not another i’m back i’m back piece as much as it honestly is. no, see this time- this is actually a gift! 2 days ago was @trentjinshi’s birthday and i wanted to write him something! so i sat down for like 6 hours with my goopy goblin gay brain and spit out this obvious magnum opus. so, like, don’t hate it please. also hugest happy birthday to emil again!! yeehaw... i’ve technically already sent this to u

You know, of all days to have the soul crushing realization that you’ve secretly been in love with your best friend, Trent should have expected it to happen on Valentine’s Day.

The man had garbage luck anyways, and good things seemingly never happened to him. So when Chuck animatedly told him he had a date that night with some girl, Trent’s heart shouldn’t have blown apart like he had been shot. Sure, he pretended to be supportive of his buddy, returning his radiant smile despite the effect never reaching his eyes, And yeah, he wished him all the best, telling the taller man he hoped it went well.

But did Trent mean any of that? Fuck no! He was dying on the inside, mourning the loss of a relationship and love he didn’t even know he wanted! Perhaps he should have considered himself lucky that he didn’t start bawling his eyes out on the spot. The New Yorker had a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve, so the crying really was not out of the question at that moment. But he contained his feelings somehow, moving on through the rest of that afternoon like he was trudging through a snowstorm. Slow, cold, and slowly dying from the inside out.

So that led him here, sitting in his car as the rain started to come down, refusing to turn the damn thing on. He didn’t want to go back to his hotel room. Because if he did, it would remind him of the obvious. He went home alone tonight.

Chuck wasn’t alone. His friend had a probably beautiful person with a perfect personality sitting across from him at a fancy restaurant. A person who wasn’t him. Why couldn’t Trent be his perfect date? He would laugh at his jokes, softly hold his hand as they walked in from the parking lot, pull his chair out for him, admire him like he was the sun-

A harsh banging came from his left, rhythmically tapping against the glass of his car window in time with the rain drops. Trent’s head jerked up from where it had defeatedly slumped against the steering wheel to see who was trying to get his attention.

It was a security guard, holding an umbrella in one hand and wavering him off with another, politely telling him to leave the premises as the arena building they were at was closing. To be honest, getting a ticket from not leaving and instead rotting in that parking lot forever sounded like a far better time than he was having. But, he didn’t have a choice. Story of his life.

Trent started up his car, quickly leaving off into the vast night with only his thoughts to keep him company. And that was rapidly becoming annoying. The singular thing on his mind was one person, and how all this time, his feelings were so obvious. Every time he even glanced in his friend’s direction his heart rate would spike. Before now, he had chalked that up to coincidence or - considering it was Trent and how his body loved to torture him - underlying health conditions. Evidently, it was neither of those things.

One would think he would catch on to his festering crush sooner; considering he thought the entire world of Chuck and whenever he had to go more than a few days without seeing him, he would get a weird sense of longing to be back in his presence, but nothing ever wanted to work out that way. Life thought it would be much funnier if Trent felt like he was being ripped apart at the seams by a simple sentence.

Between the still processing of what it even meant to have a crush on your best friend, and knowing that right now he was out with some other person having the time of his life, Trent was not feeling great as he drove down the freeway. Grumbling under his breath, he flicked the radio on to fill the car with something other than his problems. A song the brunette had never heard before crackled to life, being about part of the way through.

By the time we get there, everybody will be drunk The chairs will be on tables and the band will be unplugged We're gonna look real good, but we're gonna look real rude I'm sorry I'm not sorry that I'm-

Fucking perfect! The last person to mess with the radio in Trent’s car was Chuck, and bastard left it on one of his stupid country stations. Trent didn’t even like country music! That didn’t stop him, however, from a few days ago when they were driving from city to city and let Chuck put on whatever he liked, even if it was something he was going to hate. He would make tiny sacrifices like that all the time for his partner, because he knew it would earn him one of those sunlit smiles. Trent really would do anything to make Chuck happy, and had been since they met.

Late to the party with you Oh, who needs confetti? We're already falling into the groove And who needs a crowd when you're happy at a party for two? The world can wait 'Cause I'm never late to the party if I'm late to the party with you

It... It was a love song?

“Throw me off a fucking bridge.” Trent mumbled to himself as he exited an off ramp. Seriously, who out there was tormenting him and making him have possibly the worst day ever? What omnipotent being did he piss off? He thought he was an alright dude, not getting into other people’s business and sort of keeping to himself. Most days he made an attempt to be somewhat nice to others and never did any of that vile or cruel shit. And yet, he was cursed to drive home while listening to a love song in a genre that he hated, and only helped to remind him more of his best friend.

Let's promise when we get in that we'll try to get right out Fake a couple conversations, make the necessary rounds These kinda things just turn into "Who's leaving here with who?" But I just want 'em all to see me come in late to the party with you

Wasn’t that a funny line. Wanting others to see the person you’re with because of how much you loved them? Trent understood that. Whenever he would go anywhere with Chuck, he would always want people to know he was there with him- whether he realized it or not.

He could talk for hours about him. It could be the simple telling of a funny story, or gushing about how good he was in the ring. Or how great of a friend he was. That made Trent wonder about what Chuck would be like if they were together. His mind wandered, dreaming up scenarios and infinite possibilities as he pulled into his hotel’s parking garage.

The musing didn’t stop when he killed the engine, happily ending that fucking song that was starting to piss him off with how cute it was. Trent pushed himself out of the car, gathering his singular bag from the trunk and wandering inside through the rain. Which, if anyone was curious, was even worse than it was when he left. It was coming down in buckets now, being slung into the New Yorker’s face by the wind.

Checking in was easy enough, having the briefest of conversations with the man at the desk who happened to have a thick southern accent.

Chuck had an accent, but only when he drank a lot. It took about 3 and a half beers for it to come out, but by that point he didn’t care all that much to hide it. He wouldn’t be trashed, as he was a pretty solid drinker and had made putting strong shit back a hobby over the last few years. Trent knew exactly how it sounded, though. A smooth Kentucky accent that always caused him to punctuate the last word of his sentences and pronounce certain things differently. Never anything like “y’all” or something southern like that, after all Chuck wasn’t that dime store cowboy they worked with.

The thing Trent remembered the most about Chuck’s accent was how he said his name. He would draw it out, almost like he was whining, except it was low in his voice and always accompanied by a wide grin. One that’s toothy like Cheshire Cat, and annoyingly sweet like bubblegum. Trent idly wondered if he tasted like bubblegum too, but the thought turned vivid fantasy was interrupted for a moment by the elevator reaching his floor.

The brunette slowly approached his room, still partially entranced by the ideas he had created in his mind as he unlocked his door and slipped in. From there, it felt like he wasn’t even alive anymore. Not in a morbid sense, but as in he wasn’t participating in the concept of reality at that moment. Trent was so disconnected from his actions, it was almost as though he was outside of his body and looking in from somewhere else. So much so, that when he snapped out of his revere from his phone buzzing, he was lying in bed wearing only his boxers.

Not that what was on his phone was of any importance to him. All Trent saw were notifications for things he didn’t care about, the only thing sticking out was a short text from Orange sending him more condolences over his current “issue”. Damn, he was acting like someone had died, not his friend’s heart being broken. Trent didn’t bother responding, tossing the device back on the bedside table and rolling over to face away from it.

The alarm clock on the other stand read “10:17 p.m.”, blinking at him like the piece of shit was broken. It also only now occurred to Trent that he had never turned the lights on while he was basically astral projecting. So he was bathed in darkness, with the only illumination being that digital clock and the street lights below outside the window.

Was he going to fall asleep at a respectable time? Because deep in his bones he could feel the shroud of tiredness creeping through him from all of the emotional energy he drained today. And with that, Trent grabbed one of the unused pillows and wrapped himself around it, cuddling it tightly and not bothering to get under the bed covers.

Maybe if he tried hard enough, Trent could pretend the pillow was something else. --

Who in the hell was knocking at his door at - the New Yorker stopped his angry brain tirade to peek at the clock again - 11:53 at night? He had only gotten to sleep an hour and it was cut short by who knew what. If this was Orange coming to tell him he had broken another hotel microwave by “forgetting to take the metal spoon out of his mac and cheese”, Trent was going to fucking kill him.

Getting up from where he lay, Trent stumbled blearily across the room to the door. In those few seconds, it processed with him that his hair must have come untied while he was sleeping because it was messily draped around his shoulders. Among that, he was still only dressed in boxers, riding rather low on his hips. Maybe he had a restless sleep even though it was quick?

He didn’t care what he looked like though as he slowly pulled the door open with a yawn and blinked from the harsh light flooding in from the hallway. Trent prepared to open his mouth and berate his shorter friend when he heard a sniffle come from in front of him.

Chuck was standing on the other side of the doorway, soaking wet from the rain. By the look on his face, it seemed as though he had been crying as well, with red eyes and a running nose. His eyes didn’t meet Trent’s as he all but whispered, “H-hey, man.”

Did the longer haired brunette care that his friend was ice cold and drenched from head to toe? No. That was why without words, he dragged his friend into the room and hugged him tightly, letting the hotel door slip closed on its own. Chuck didn’t need to be told twice to hug back, nearly crushing Trent from the strength of his shaking arms.

They stayed like that for a good while, with Trent rubbing soothing circles into his back and letting him rest his head on his shoulder when he began to weep again. That was before he slowly drew back, silently taking Chuck’s hand and guiding him to his bed so he could sit. Trent grabbed the comforter and wrapped it around his friend, figuring he could just use a blanket later when he needed to sleep.

“I... didn’t even tell you- what’s wrong..?” murmured the Kentuckian, slouching in on himself and bringing his knees up so they were closer to his chest. He must have been really cold. Trent paused for a moment, looking with a pained yet sympathetic smile.

“Don’t need to. You’re upset, and I gotta fix that.” He wasn’t sure who hurt him, or even what, but just let it be known he was going to destroy whatever it was.

“Well, uh, t-thank you?”

“Yeah, dude. I-” Love you. “Care about you. You’re my friend and shit. Hurts to see you cry.” With that, Trent carefully maneuvered around Chuck and hopped off the bed to go rifle through his clothes for something dry he could wear. And- probably some pants for himself. When he first opened the door, he couldn’t help but notice Chuck gave him the slightest look up and down, with his cheeks going red afterwards. Trent assumed it was only because he was cold, and the warmth from his bedroom had fucked with his internal body temperature.

While digging through his bags trying to find some of the clothes he always packed for his friend - and if it were any other day than today, Trent would have told you it was because he was just being a nice guy. He knew better than that now. - Chuck began to talk again. “Date ditched me...”

“They didn’t show up?”

Chuck sighed. “No, she did. But- when her ex came around... She would’a rather been with him.”

Trent grabbed the extra clothes and stood, turning around to face Chuck who was staring off into the corner. Considering how already destroyed his heart already was from earlier, he was a bit surprised it still had a few more pieces that could shatter at this sight. Coming back over, he set the pile to one side of him, then sat back down on the other. “Chuck...”

“I don’t know what I expected? Every girl, or hell- every guy, I’ve ever tried to date has never worked out for me. I don’t get it.” Oh, Trent should not have been so happy to hear those words. Well, he wasn’t happy to hear most of them, and was hurting for his friend, but two of them in particular stuck out to him like a sore thumb. Every guy. That meant Chuck had been on dates with men. That meant, even though it was fucked up to think about this at the moment, that Trent still had a chance.

“You just haven’t found the right one, man. None of those assholes from before deserve you anyways.” Chuck brought his gaze back over to Trent, eyes glassy and expression- disbelieving. His hair was matted to his head, still wet in some places, but mostly stuck in small spots to his forehead. Everything else about him was still about the same caliber as that, slowly drying and clinging to parts of his body that weren’t being disrupted by the comforter.

“Or maybe I didn’t deserve them...” Something- came over Trent then. There wasn’t a word for the mix of emotions he felt upon hearing that. But what he could feel were his hands taking either side of his best friend’s face and holding his head up to where he would look him in the eyes.

“That’s not true, you and I both know that. Anyone in the world would be lucky to have you.”

Chuck honest to god laughed at that and tilted his head. “Name one person.”

Fuck. For all intents and purposes, the answer he desperately wanted to give was ‘Me’, but that never came out of his mouth. Instead, it was like Trent was suspended in fear, unable to say what he wanted for the thought of being rejected. Or somehow even worse, him thinking it was a joke and getting upset with him. So, Trent said nothing, trying to think of a different response that would be true, but didn’t give himself away.

That was the nail in the coffin, though. Chuck took his silence as an answer, unable to provide a single person who could possibly want to be with him. The other man shook Trent’s hands away from his face, hurt welling up in his eyes with a grimace as he moved to grab the clothes that were gotten for him.

“See,” Chuck hobbled to a standing position, holding the clean garments close to his sodden chest like it was going to protect him from the pain he was feeling. Trent, just say something, anything, he yelled to himself whilst watching Chuck shuffle over to the bathroom and pull the door open. He flicked his eyes down to the floor for a moment before coming back up and locking onto Trent’s. “No one could ever love me...”

“Chuck-” Trent was too late, Chuck had already disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. And God damn it, his stomach had sunk to the depth of his being, twisting and turning like he was going to be sick. He should have said something. Even if it meant ruining the only thing he really had left to care about. There was his job, his other friends, his family and that; and while they meant a lot to him as well, he truly believed in that moment, and probably for some while now, that Chuck was his world.

As goofy and kind of bullshit as it was to hear, that’s what he felt like. That this guy he’s known for a good chunk of his life was his sun, moon, and every star in the sky. And Trent knew he’s never felt that way about another person. He knew that no other person on this Earth - or fuck, any other planet - could beam at him when they pull an upset and win a match together like he could. No one else made his chest feel warm whenever they complimented him quite the same way that Chuck did. There wasn’t a soul who had the same giggle, the wit, the determination, the personality- fucking any of it. No one had quite what his best friend had, and that was why he loved him.

Trent had no idea how long Chuck was going to be in there, or if he was ever going to come out. Knowing him, he could stay in there all night, not wanting to face the world again- let alone his friend. Even still, he got up from where he was and placed himself a few paces away from his bathroom door. Within his head, he hyped himself up, vowing that no matter if he got scared or felt like everything was going to go wrong, the New Yorker was going to tell him the truth.

Approximately 4 minutes later - if you asked Trent it felt like 10 years - Chuck finally emerged from his hiding place, dressed in some of his friend’s clothes and with shockingly drier hair. Not sure why he was so surprised that he had run a towel through it or something, but that didn’t matter. The taller man seemed confused as to why Trent was standing at the door, but before he could ask what was happening, Trent said, “I do.”

Chuck squinted at him with a, “What?” but it came out choked off and shaky, like he wasn’t prepared to speak.

“You said no one could ever love you, and that’s not true. Because I love you,” He wanted to protest, but now that Trent was talking, he couldn’t stop. “And I didn’t realize it until today, but I seriously am so in love with you that I don’t think I could picture my life without you. You mean everything to me and I would do anything for you just to see your beautiful smile or hear you say my name. And I know it sounds like I’m lying and that I’m trying to make you feel better, but I’m not. If I think about it, I feel like I’ve loved you forever but never realized it, and I wish I could have known sooner. Because you need to know that you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met, and I would be the luckiest guy in the world to even have a chance with you-”

“Trent-”

“I love the way you purposefully send me a string of those stupid emojis over text because you know it annoys me. I love how you can make anyone feel better with just one smile and your passion for loving others. I love how much you love animals and how every dog you see, you consider kidnapping-'' Trent had become so caught up in his declaration that he hadn’t noticed his friend had moved from in front of him and Chuck’s lips were on his.

Before he could even do anything; not even get a gasp at the sudden action, Chuck was already pulling away, breathing as if he had just run a mile. His face was bright red and his hands were holding either of Trent’s arms as he searched his face for a reaction. Or anything really.

“I- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-” It felt as though Trent was living in one of those shitty romantic comedies he secretly liked to watch, because he was the one who cut Chuck off while speaking with an somehow even more desperate kiss. He felt him respond almost instant, bringing one of his hands up to Trent’s face to cup it gently as his own arms latched cautiously onto Chuck’s hips. And that was where they stayed, for who knew how long, but every second of it was exactly where they wanted to be.

You know, of all days to have the life-changing realization that you’re secretly in love with your best friend, Trent - and Chuck for that matter - hadn’t expected it to happen on (the day after) Valentine’s Day.

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whitworth-waldo · 5 years ago

Text

So, I wrote a one shot on Loceit, and it was kinda based in the flirty wave things that Janus just LOVES doing at Logan, but it feels kinda forced into it, but I tried my best so... I saw @totallybelievabledude's post and I wanted to write that.

Sorry if it's not what you wanted, but I'm pretty proud if it. 🥰

Anyway:

It was the middle of an argument, well, not necessarily an argument, more of a debate. Well, no one knows what to call it, but it was Deceit, Patton, Roman. Logan occasionally popped up with some facts here and there.

Deceit had been impersonating Logan for a little bit throughout the argument debate thingy because he knew the sides wouldn’t listen to him, and he just liked doing anything involving his boyfriend, well, secret boyfriend. The others didn’t know, and they didn’t need to. Plus, it would be weird to pop up as Virgil and just be like, “Hey, so you know how I hate Deceit? I think we should listen to him, I STILL HATE HIM THOUGH!”

So, that brings us about to where Logan came back, the real one.

“Not that any of you care-”

“Oh shit, shit.”

Deceit hid his face while Logan continued.

“I am unharmed and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Deceit smirked, he knew exactly why Logan didn’t want to talk about it, but we won’t go there.

“I’m just here to deliver one last fact and spare you my company.”

Deceit waved at Logan, much like how he did during the first Selfishness vs Selflessness fight, Logan got all flustered the first time, so it would probably work out the second time.

Patton went to say something, probably telling him that everyone enjoys him being around, but Logan interrupted.

“PETER SINGER-”

Deceit guessed he had to shout to get everyone’s attention, or he was just discombobulated from the wave, who knew. He wondered where Logan was going with this, Deceit recognized the name, but he couldn’t remember who the guy was or where he heard of him from.

“Is an Australian philosopher and activist who champions the movement called 'Effective Altruism'. The primary feature that differentiates Effective Altruism from other moral philosophies is its practicality. It employs the heart, and the mind so that Effective Altruism can earn its namesake and actually… be effective.”

Deceit was confused. Was Logan gonna agree with him? Were the others finally going to see he’s not that bad?

“The aim is to help as many people as possible while maintaining a "Perfectly Adequate standard of living'. So a poor, sick person giving five of their last fifteen cents to an aid organization, while incredibly altruistic, is not effective altruism because that money won’t go very far, and the act would only harm that person’s already unacceptable standard of living.”

Logan was on Deceit’s side! Logan, the logical side, the side that everyone ended up listening to at the end of the day, he was 100% on Deceit’s side! He wasn’t kind of agreeing, only to say that Deceit was wrong. Nope, he was agreeing with every point Deceit had made so far.

Deceit didn’t know if Logan was just biased, but damn did it feel good.

Deceit threw himself onto Logan’s bed, he landed face down and groaned. Logan, who was behind him chuckled.

“What’s the problem?”

Deceit sat up.

“That was tense. Now come here.”

Logan tilted his head, but he sat on the bed next to Deceit. Deceit had a lazy smirk as he pulled Logan onto his lap, he rested his head on Logan’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around Logan’s torso.

There was a knock on Logan’s door.

“I’m doing something currently, I’ll be able to come down in 30 minutes.”

Deceit smirked as he heard the person walk away, he used Logan’s voice. A perk, he thought. He was able to copy the side’s voices while not having to appear like them. Logan sighed, knowing Deceit would whine if he moved, and in all honesty, he didn’t want to move. He moved so that he was lying across his boyfriend's lap, instead of sitting on it.

“My head was comfy! Traitor.”

Logan shrugged at Deceit’s mock betrayed tone. He grabbed a book that was on his bed. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Logan found himself enjoying this series, even if it was quite different from the books he usually read.

Deceit started to run his hand through Logan’s hair, and suddenly, Logan found that he couldn’t focus on the book.

“Do you think the others will be suspicious that you agreed with me?”

Logan shrugged, he rested his head on the mattress and looked at his boyfriend.

“Even if they are, it’s not like they’ll expect something like this.”

They were both quiet for a while, both enjoying the comfortable silence. Then there was another knock on Logan’s door. Deceit rolled his eyes.

“Yes?”

Logan just told him to hide, Deceit shook his head and smirked.

“Uh, you ok buddy? You’ve been up here for like, an hour more than you said you would be.”

Logan looked at his watch, Roman was right.

“I guess I got too interested in the book I was reading. Sorry, I'll be down in a second.”

Logan stood up and stretched, Deceit got up after him. Deceit placed a chaste kiss on Logan’s cheek and waved. It was the same flirtatious wave he’s been doing, it always made Logan blush.

Deceit then teleported, or you could call it fast traveled, there wasn’t a name for it, but Deceit did that to the dark side of the mind place.

“Where were you all day?”

Remus had an eyebrow lifted and his head tilted in confusion.

“There was a dilemma, and it seemed like they needed me.”

Remus nodded.

“I’m gonna go microwave this fork. I’ll tell you what happens.”

Remus ran away, and Deceit chased him. Luckily, Deceit managed to catch Remus before he could put the fork in the microwave, but then he heard the microwave go off in the kitchen.

“What did you do?!”

Remus shrugged, but he couldn’t contain his smile.

“I put a barbie in the microwave, and I knew if you saw it, you would take it out. It was a classic distraction method.”

Deceit groaned.

“WHY?!”

“Why not?”

Deceit covered his face with his hands.

“I swear; you scare me sometimes.”

Remus gasped and put a hand on his chest in an offended manner.

“Sometimes?!”

Remus mumbled something that Deceit couldn’t hear, well, almost.

“Must not be trying hard enough.”

Deceit shook his head.

“Please don’t try harder, I don’t want you being even more chaotic!”

Remus shrugged.

“Whatever you say.”

Remus walked away and Deceit presumed he went into his room, so Deceit went into his. He took off his coat and his under-blouse. He then put on a yellow hoodie over a white tee-shirt, he paired it with black sweatpants. He took off his hat and ran his hands through his hair.

Deceit woke up to someone throwing themselves onto his bed right next to where he was, up until now, sleeping. Deceit recognized the figure next to him almost instantly, so he snaked his arm around their waist.

“You were right.”

“Of course I was dear.”

Deceit moved so that his boyfriend was pressed flush against his chest.

“Roman told Virgil what happened. Virgil didn’t like it one bit, so they called me down and started questioning me. A lot.”

Deceit nodded, knowing how upset Virgil could get. He had to deal with Virgil when he was a lot, for a lack of a better word, worse. It’s not like he ever thought Virgil was a burden, he could just get very agitated and rude when someone brought up a touchy subject, and Deceit guessed he was now a touchy subject.

“Do they know?”

Logan shook his head.

“No, I don’t think they thought of anything like that. They wanted to know if we were friends.”

Deceit hummed.

“What did you say?”

“I said no, but I didn’t necessarily mind your company. Which is true. Technically, we’re more than friends, and I don’t mind your company if anything I adore it.”

Deceit chuckled.

“You don’t have to defend lies when you’re talking to me. Literally, up until today, the other sides knew me as Deceit.”

Logan shrugged and rolled over so that he was now facing Deceit. Logan shoved his face into the crook of Deceit’s neck. Deceit rolled his eyes.

“Hey, Dee? Do yo-”

Remus had barged into Deceit’s room, only to find the two brain cells, as the fanders deemed them, intertwined and cuddling.

“I see you’re busy. I’ll come back later.”

Remus shut the door and walked away.

“Will he tell the others?!”

Logan looked up to his boyfriend with big doe eyes, Deceit almost died then and there.

“No, even if he does the other’s would take it as him being the cursed… thing that he is.”

From a bit away, the two heard Remus yell.

“Wear protection!”

Logan’s face lit up a bright cherry hue and he froze. Deceit laughed and rolled his eyes. Logan shoved his face back into the crook of Deceit’s neck, and Deceit could feel the heat radiating off of Logan’s face.

Deceit kissed the top of Logan’s head, and he used the arm that wasn’t around his partner's waist to play with Logan’s hair. Deceit felt Logan relax, and soon Logan started drifting off.

When Logan woke up, he was on his bed. He frowned and looked around for his python partner, but Deceit was nowhere to be found. He got up and went to brush his teeth, but then he noticed a familiar yellow hoodie on his nightstand. It was neatly folded and had a note on top.

“Sorry I had to drop you off, but we wouldn’t want Remus to think we did anything besides cuddling. Since you couldn’t wake up next to me, why not wake up next to my hoodie? Eh, sorry that was bad, but I’m writing this with a quill because that’s all I have in my room, plus it looks cool.

~ Your Boa Boyfriend (Sorry again, couldn’t help myself.)

Janus”

Logan laughed at the note. He unfolded the hoodie and put it on. Despite all the sides being relatively the same height, the hoodie was a little big on Logan, even though it seemed to fit Deceit perfectly.

Anyway, when Logan walked out into the kitchen wearing a yellow hoodie, especially after siding with Deceit, the only side who wears yellow, they had even more questions. Logan just shrugged at all of them and ignored them.

It’s safe to assume that those little flirty waves that Deceit does, those really work on Logan.

#deceit x logan #logan x deceit #loceit #long reads #fanfic #kinda long but thats ok

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jae-writes-fanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

Caviar and Cigarettes

Ashton x Reader - Collab Masterlist - 3763 Words - Part 1 of 1

Notes: this was written as part of a collab event as a gift for @mermaidcashton using a mix of their different suggested tropes but specifically ‘waking up in vegas.’ I hope you enjoy it ❤️ also I’ve never been to a casino I’m sorry this is 100% based off of what I know from TV

Warnings: mentions of alcohol/alcohol consumption, people are on a plane which could be scary, light nsfw content, some swearing.

- - -

The overhead compartments creaked as the plane rushed down the runway headed for liftoff. The sensation always sent a shiver down your spine and caused knots to grow in your stomach.

You hated flying and had everyone been back in LA instead of visiting the UK on a press tour, you would’ve opted to drive to Las Vegas from home and meet the boys there. Unfortunately for you, being their one-person PR/Social Media Management team placed you behind the scenes for the entire junket. And now, it placed you in the window seat of a plane preparing to hurtle dangerously through the sky- although your friendship with the bride-to-be was partly at fault.

Next to you, Ashton rolled his eyes as you gripped the armrest tightly. Across the aisle he watched Michael and Crystal giggle at something, and just ahead of them he could see Callum and Luke watching a movie on one of their phones.

He loved his friends and was beyond happy for Michael and Crystal but each of their small smiles and soft looks felt stifling and Ashton found himself wishing things could just be like when they were younger. Everything felt easier then, it was much more fun going on trips, there was less pressure to do or say the right thing or post the right statuses. They were just four friends making music. Now, everything was different including you.

You silenced your phone and offered Ashton a consolatory smile. “I know you’d rather be across the aisle,” you said glancing over at the others, “but let’s try to be friendly it’s a long flight.” There was a slight edge to your tone and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“You’re right dollface,” Ashton bit back, “I’d much rather be seated with my friends. Not our social media manager.”

You felt a warmth spread across your face as you tried to think of a smart response. Ashton has always been the most aloof of the four when you joined the behind the scenes team yet every conversation with him turned sour.

When you didn’t respond Ashton decided to keep going. “I mean I offense but how the hell are any of us supposed to relax when you’re here hovering around? This is supposed to be a party! A vacation! But you make it look like work.”

“That’s right Ash,” you said icily, “because I am working. I have to make sure none of you do anything stupid while you’re ‘having fun and letting loose’.”

And there you go, Ashton thought, like always making everything else difficult. Why couldn’t you just be agreeable?

“Besides,” you said interrupting his thoughts, “the last thing the group needs is more dating drama. Your last stint did enough damage.”

There. You said it, after weeks of thinking it you actually said it. You didn’t blame him for how the breakup went and for a while you were proud at how little attention Ashton gave to the fan speculation. But then he deleted all their pictures together and made a few (now long deleted) vague tweets that sent the fan base into a deadly spiral that spewed death threats at his ex and caused you more than enough sleepless nights.

You felt a little guilty when he didn’t respond with another jape- but who did he think he was anyway? Sure he was attractive but he couldn’t get away with everything. Not this time. Not after you had to stage and arrange posts for him every time he swapped partners.

You huffed and slipped your headphones in. There was no hope for pleasant conversation, and you had no desire to fill the time with mobile games. The audiobook claimed to calm and soothe the overworked professional with meditation and organization tips. Compared to the $350 plane fare the $25 download seemed like a reasonable and informative way to fill the ten-hour flight.

By the halfway mark you’d been proven wrong on both accounts. The narrator’s lilting accent was distracting in all the wrong ways, and the information sounded like every motivational speaker ever; all hype and no substance. Twice you felt your eyes drifting closed and twice you managed to snap yourself out of it. The third time however you didn’t snap back awake as your head lolled to the side.

The brush of your hair against his shoulder alerted Ashton to the situation. He chuckled lightly under his breath, for a moment you were at peace. For a moment you were someone he didn’t know, someone he might’ve liked to know better.

But moments don’t last forever, Ashton knew this to be true and before long the light jostling of the plane woke you up. You blinked slowly trying to adjust to the lights and grimaced as Ashton came into focus. The intensity of his gaze puzzled you. Was there something on your face? The expression was unconscious, but Ashton saw it flicker across your face and that stung. Not even away more than a minute and you were already getting to him.

Uninterested in having another quiet row like a soon-to-be-divorced couple, he quickly looked away leaving you once again to choose between silence and the droning audiobook as the plane crossed the Atlantic and then the entirety of the North American continent.

The sun had already set when the descent started. Outside you could see the world swathed in swatches of brilliant color and dazzling shapes against the horizon. It felt like your heart skipped a beat. The Vegas strip was everything you’d expected. The hotel itself looked like a work of abstract art, it’s glass elevators sparkling under the desert sunset.

Late dinner reservations had been made for the five of them, and you took the opportunity to settle into your room, eat an entire room service pizza, and take a nap. They would be out on the hotel’s casino floor for the rest of the night and you were more than happy to join them.

By the time you put yourself together and got there, the house was in full swing. The music was loud, the people louder. You noticed Ashton first at a roulette table surrounded by other beautiful people. You turned to walk away and look for Crystal when he noticed you.

You smiled thinly and made your way over to him, you had to. Anything else would’ve been seen as rude and that was a problem you didn’t want to deal with.

You lightly touched his shoulder to let him know you were there and glanced over the table. He hasn’t lost anything but wasn’t winning either. Ashton froze at your touch, the innocuous gesture sent a shock through his body, and at that moment something changed.

The dealer called for bets to be placed for the new round as you settled in next to Ashton. The dark jacket paired well with the retro red shirt he wore and you had trouble looking away.

“You look-“ Ashton started but couldn’t finish the sentence, his wide eyes glanced over your body for one of the first times seeing it outside of business wear. The metallic accents caught in the low light and cast an ethereal glow over you that kept drawing his focus.

You flushed, “thanks...you do too.” The sentiment felt heavy despite the normalcy of the exchange and you quickly accepted a glass of something from a roaming waiter to loosen your tongue.

You glanced back over the table and turned to Ashton with a conspiratorial grin. You leaned in to whisper and Ashton felt your hot breath on his neck.

“Always bet on black,” you offered while biting your lip as he laughed lightly. Everyone said that everyone knew that was a rookie move. But for the moment it seemed like the best advice and you were shocked when he did it.

Not as shocked as you were when he won.

Ashton turned and looked at you, amazed.

“Ash that was so lucky!” You gushed openly and your genuine smile pulled at his heart.

“Maybe it’s just you,” he said softly, the honest edge to his voice surprising you. You laughed awkwardly trying to play off the sentimentality of the words but they kept playing over in your mind.

“I think the happy couple ran away for a little bit,” he offered quickly moving on, “but I think we ought to go celebrate.”

You nodded, “well since I did help you win, I suppose you could buy me a drink.”

Ashton grinned back and quickly gathered his winnings before wrapping an arm around your waist and leading you towards the lounge. You could smell his cologne as you walked and you weren’t sure if it was that or his hand on your hip that kept distracting you from whatever he was saying.

The hazy lounge atmosphere was almost as intoxicating as the cocktails that Ashton kept ordering for the two of you. The liquor burned in all the best ways and a soft sweet taste lingered on your lips. You felt warm and giddy, and surprisingly happy to have been spending this time with Ashton.

At some point, his arm wrapped around your shoulders and you laughed at one of his jokes. Had he been sober the sound might’ve broken his heart, like most secret things do if they’ve been dreamed about before.

You turned to say something but stopped with the words dead on arrival. Ashton was closer than you had realized while talking, your faces just inches apart. The red hue of the lights flashed across his features and seemed to show how truly beautiful he was.

For a moment the closeness lingered, and you could feel a tense stiffness in the arm around you, and electricity where his hand curled around your bare shoulder. Unconsciously you felt your face tilt up towards his, and Ashton felt the same desire to close the gap.

What am I doing, you thought trying to blink out of it, I technically work for him I can’t kiss him! Besides he doesn’t even tolerate me normally.

Ashton froze, unable to tear himself away from you, the soft tint of the lights exaggerated the shadows on your face and kept drawing his eyes back to your lips. His hand on your shoulder itched to run up to tangle in the hair at the back of your neck and pull you against him.

She doesn’t even want to be here, he thought suddenly, why the hell would she want to kiss me on top of that?

But somewhere in the back of his mind Ashton knew you were struggling over something similar. He knew you were at least tempted, otherwise you would’ve moved.

A scantily clad cocktail waitress interrupted the moment and sent you both back to looking away. Your stomach felt uneasy from the tension and you drank quietly for a while contemplating your next move. You needed to say something funny, something light to keep this good energy going.

“Look at the bartender,” you said, “can you imagine him working anywhere else?” Your joke was directed at a thin sort of person who without a doubt had the Vegas aesthetic down to a T.

Ashton felt his heart drop, couldn’t you say something nice? Did you always have to be so critical of everyone?

“That’s typical,” he mumbled into his drunk.

“What do you mean it’s typical?”

“You, princess. Always having some shallow thing to say,” he took a long drink draining the glass before turning back to your shocked face.

This had been a bad idea, you knew he had some problem with you but it had been enough.

Refusing to cause a scene on the crowded floor you swiftly stood. “It was just a joke,” you hissed through a clenched jaw before walking towards the lobby and elevators that would whisk you back to the safety of your room.

“Hey come back!” Ashton tossed money into the table and quickly darted after you, slipping into the elevator at the last second.

“We were having a good time,” he said defensively, “stop being such a spoilsport.”

“A good time? Sure, it’s all fun and games for you. Didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe something is majorly wrong when you can’t go twenty minutes without insulting me?”

“It wasn’t an insult it was a comment.”

You laughed openly, “oh that’s rich Ash. A comment.”

The doors slid open on your floor and you quickly turned heel and left. You heard his footfalls behind you and it took everything in you to resist slamming your door before he could enter the room. You angrily kicked your shoes off sending them in varying directions that you didn’t care to fix.

Ashton felt his palms get sweaty and his mouth dry. He didn’t want to keep watching you walk away anymore. “Can’t we just talk about this like friends?”

“Friends?” You felt your heart get all twisty at the words, “we’ve never been friends Ashton.”

When he didn’t respond you continued, crossing your arms in front of your chest as if the pressure would keep you still and safe.

“I used to think we could’ve been. When we first met I thought: now there’s the one- attractive and smart and mature. But all you’ve ever done is play games, spew pretensions, and hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he said lamely taking a step closer to you.

“You don’t hate me? Oh that’s right you just hate the way I dress, and joke, and talk...” You met his gaze with a challenge and in another first of the night, he accepted.

Ashton looked at you with a fondness he had never expressed out loud and a gentleness that’s translated in how he took your hand in his and pulled you against him.

“I don’t hate you at all,” he said softly cupping your cheek with his other hand, “I hate that when you’re here you’re always working, I hate that you can’t ever just be with us, I hate that I miss you when you don’t answer a text, and I absolutely loathe that when you do it’s because you have to talk to me.” Because I want to talk to you, he thought unable to form the words in the mouth.

You suddenly felt very small pressed against him and you knew he could see the heat rising in your face.

“Professional was just easier,” you whispered unable to look him in the eyes, “because I don’t hate you either. For a long time I hated having to orchestrate and present people with you-“ because they weren’t me, you thought unable to say the words out loud.

His thumb softly traced the slant of your cheekbones as you hesitantly looked back into his eyes, and unlike in the lounge you did resist the urge to close the space between you, and neither did he.

The kiss was soft and filled with the emotion of everything not said, like all first kisses should be.

“I don’t hate you at all,” he whispered whilst placing kisses to the sides of your face, “not even a little bit, not even at all.” As your lips let a second time you both felt how surely the sentiment was quite the opposite and had been for quite some time.

Ashton was the only thought in your mind, and the only word on your lips as the kisses grew sloppier and needy. He tasted like cherry syrup from the cocktails and you wanted more.

A little disoriented from the alcohol you haphazardly walked backward pulling Ashton with you until you felt the edge of the mattress press against your calves. In a fit of giggles, you both tumbled back onto the bed.

You had never seen him smile like this before, his whole face seemed brighter and you knew instantly he was thinking the same things too. You moved in a flurry of hands and touches that struggled through the haze to remove clothes.

You straddled him to slide the jacket from his shoulders and fumbled with the buttons on his shirt until that too was discarded. Your hands trembled as they skated across his chest, and you felt him shiver as they were replaced with your lips. You slid down his body leading trails of kisses that stopped just above his belt buckle. The way it caught the light sent a delicious shiver down your spine and you tucked that thought away for another time.

Deftly you slipped the belt off before working on the slacks. You slowed and groaned softly upon revealing a dark red pair of lace pants under his trousers.

“Sweetheart,” you cooed teasingly as you repositioned yourself between his legs, “you should’ve led with this.” His hoarse laugh stifled into moans as you traced the lace with your tongue. Your eye wandered to the glittering bottle of champagne on the nightstand and between it and the heady look on Ashton’s face, you knew it was going to be a good night.

The next morning which really ended up being the next afternoon- you were pleased to wake up curled and tangled around a very naked Ashton. The pounding headache and dry mouth were a direct contrast.

You were thankful the curtains were still closed as the moderate darkness seemed to help the monster out hangover you were now feeling. You shifted slightly and were surprised to notice you weren’t entirely naked. You were wearing a t-shirt you didn’t remember owning. The words looked like gibberish but you gathered it was from the hotel’s gift shop.

The discovery prompted you to look around the room and you noticed something. Ashton’s fancy clothes and delightful red panties were joined by a pair of his jeans, another shirt, and an extra pair of your bottoms as well.

There were papers strewn on the nightstand and a shopping bag near the door that you didn’t remember buying. The cool air stung your bare legs and prompted you to curl back into Ashton who lazily smiled and kissed your temple as you rejoined him.

“G’morning darlin’,” he said through a yawn making you giggle.

“Do you remember going back out last night?”

Ashton shook his head but before he could say anything his ringtone cut through the silence and roused a chorus of pained groans from both of you.

He scrambled to answer it and you noticed the empty bottle of champagne on the other side of the bed, and what looked like a sacked minibar’s worth of trash with it.

I am never drinking again, you thought as the ringing subsided and your head began to throb.

“Michael wants us for brunch,” Ashton said tossing his phone back to the cluttered nightstand. You groaned at the thought of food and hoped it would be greasy enough to cut through the drunk brain fog.

You had to swing by Ashton’s room for him to get dressed making it a little later than anticipated when you finally got to the lobby. Crystal and Michael were sharing a love seat and as you both exited the elevator they erupted into raucous laughter and cheers that reverberated pain through your head.

“Aw fuck,” you hissed rubbing a hand on your temple. Ashton had an arm around your waist which kept yours from stumbling.

“Oh come on I expected a little more life after last night,” Michael called with a grin.

“I didn’t think Mikey was serious,” Crystal said, “do you have the papers on you?”

On top of them, Luke chimed in, “I got the whole crying jag on video it’ll make a hell of an update when we get back.”

You and Ashton shared a confused look and silently looked to Callum for help. He was drinking a delightful looking mimosa and sighed putting it down.

“I don’t think they remember,” he started before getting cut off.

“Awe no way! Look at them, they’re the picture of romantic bliss,” Michael taunted with a laugh.

You sighed, “come on now guys I know it’s a little odd for us to hook up but enough with the jokes.”

“Hook up?” Luke laughed, “that’s not what Elvis would have to say about it.”

You were trying not to get frustrated but it was hard. “Luke, what in the hell does Elvis have to do with anything?”

Callum cut in before the others could keep hounding you.

“Promise me you won’t freak out?”

You nodded and felt Ashton do the same.

“Alright,” Callum started slowly leaving time to gauge reactions as he spoke, “Luke and I got a call last night around 4:30, one of you were crying about how you ruined mike’s moment when you were too out of it to explain we came down here to meet you...”

As he spoke flashes of memories seemed to play in your mind. You almost remembered dialing the phone inside who to talk to, but certain you didn’t want to upset anyone.

“Apparently you’d just come in from one of those 24-hour chapels and we’re worried Mike and Crystal would be upset you stole the show.”

“Why would we go to a church?” Ashton asked slowly. Neither you nor Ashton were specifically interested in that sort of thing. Yet as he asked it you remembered stumbling through the lobby looking for something new to wear.

Your mind reeled trying to fit together pieces that you weren’t sure went to the same puzzle. You ran a hand through your hair a small ring on your hand catching in the light. You recognized it immediately as Ashton’s. Something borrowed, you thought unsure of why that mattered.

Callum shook his head as Michael dissolved into a fit of laughter.

“You dumbasses, you got married!”

You and Ashton quickly looked at each other and then back at the others and then back at each other trying to process this whirlwind of information.

The moment lingered longer than Michael found funny and without much else said you were whisked by the other happy couple off for brunch and out into a world where nothing would ever be the same.

#rpf #5sos writers collab #ashton x reader #5sos #oneshot #mermaidcashton #tw: alcohol

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squidbatts · 5 years ago

Text

i’m gonna run this nothing town

“That’s how I know I'm making the right choice. Cal, will you be my aide-de-camp?” A smile spreads across Calroy's face, sharp like the water-steel dagger he keeps tucked in his boot. “Amethar,” He says, voice sweet as the sugar beneath their feet, “It would be my honor.”

or: four snapshots of calroy and amethar, after the war

((this requires some explanation. this exists in an au where calroy and amethar (eventually) get married, calroy hates amethar but is also in love with him (and doesn’t know he’s in love with him), and calroy is still actively working against the rocks. it’s.... involved. inspired entirely by the enablers in the d20 server of color and @kindlespark‘s wonderful calroy art. please enjoy!))

{ao3}

When the War is over, when all the dust has settled, Calroy still stands.

He stands beside Amethar, the new King of Candia and the Sugarlands; Amethar, the War buddy that considered Calroy his closest friend; Amethar, the arrogant, spoiled, ungrateful boy that cared more about playing soldier than his place in the Kingdom; His Majesty King Amethar of House Rocks, the Unfallen.

He stands there, and Amethar, in mourning clothes even at his own coronation, clears his throat.

“Cal,” Amethar starts, voice a whisper and brows furrowed, “You know I- I can't do this. I was never supposed to be the one to do this, I don't know anything about politics and I didn't pay attention in my etiquette classes and I never remember any of those fancy titles. I don't even know how to read, you know that.”

Calroy, who once had to trade hard labor and quick favors for his lessons, makes himself nod understandingly. “So you've told me, Your Majesty.”

“Oh, come on, don't call me that,” Amethar says quickly, waving a hand like his title is an annoying bug that he can shoo away. Calroy feels so sick with envy and anger that he worries for a moment that he'll pass out. “I'm not just outlining my flaws for my own health, alright, I wanted to ask you… I mean, you're the best guy I know, and I trust you to watch my back, and you're great at talking us out of scrapes, and my advisors told me that I should choose someone, and-”

“Keep talking like that and I'll die of boredom before you can ask me anything,” Calroy interrupts, tone balanced on the line between joking and rude.

Amethar smiles, a clever little thing that looks much more at home on his face than his earlier wide-eyed nervousness, and his shoulders relax from where they'd begun to climb towards his ears.

“That’s how I know I'm making the right choice. Cal, will you be my aide-de-camp?”

A smile spreads across Calroy's face, sharp like the water-steel dagger he keeps tucked in his boot. “Amethar,” He says, voice sweet as the sugar beneath their feet, “It would be my honor.”

Her name is Caramelinda Merengue and she hates Amethar. She doesn't say as much, because she's whip-smart and understands that would be an insult that even Amethar couldn't miss, but Calroy can tell. He reads it in the line of her brow and the tilt of her lips, in the way her hands tighten on her dress under the table and the way her cheek dimples when she bites it to keep herself from speaking.

Calroy rather likes her.

Her father is in talks with Amethar about marriage and Amethar is deeply miserable about it, as he makes clear to Calroy each evening when they drink together. Caramelinda is miserable about it too, though she's more graceful about it and never even brings up the fact that her set engagement to the late Archmage Lazuli of House Rocks had been one of love and not simple allyship; no, Calroy had to use his spies to find out that one because Caramelinda was too loyal to her duty and her father to complain where she could be heard. This is, technically, exactly the type of thing Amethar brought him in for, even ignoring that he has his own reasons for not wanting Caramelinda and Amethar to get married; marriage means heirs and Calroy doesn't need any Rocks brats running around and complicating his plans.

He approaches the Duke of Meringue with a soft smile and an open ear. He asks leading questions about the Duke's land, his crops, his wife. Caramelinda is his only child, the last of his line, and even despite subtracting the land and livestock included in her dowry, the bride price Lazuli had promised is… exorbitant. More than enough for the Duke to live comfortably for the rest of his days and more than the daughter of a fairly minor noble merited, in Calroy’s opinion.

Love, He scoffs mentally, can make fools out of even the brightest of mages.

“You know, he doesn’t actually want you to marry his daughter,” Calroy confides to Amethar that evening.

“It seems like he wants me to marry her,” Amethar responds petulantly. The syrupy scent of his cologne fills Calroy’s nose as Amethar leans closer to fill his goblet with butterscotch schnapps and Calroy has to resist the urge to either sneeze or take a deep breath in. “My advisors want me to marry her too. They said keeping Lazuli’s promise will show that we still respect our allegiances in Candia.”

A part of Calroy is almost impressed that Amethar remembered all that well enough to be able to parrot it to Calroy; the rest of him is too busy being annoyed at Amethar’s advisors to care. Amethar’s advisors are a bunch of rich elders who have been pressuring the Kings of Candia for the past fifty years and who have no problem publicly calling Calroy an upstart.

Calroy does not like Amethar’s advisors.

“Don’t you trust me?” Calroy asks, making a show out of pouting. Amethar’s eyes flicker down, just for a second, before he settles that earnest gaze back on Calroy’s eyes. There was a time, during the War, when Calroy had gotten tired of Amethar trying to be subtle about checking out his ass and staring at his mouth, when Amethar had let Calroy push him against a tree just outside of camp, when Calroy had bit Amethar’s lip hard enough to make him bleed and then blamed it on inexperience, when Amethar had cupped a hand over Calroy’s cheek and-

Well.

Calroy mentally shakes himself. None of that matters right now. The War was the War, but this is now.

“‘Course I do, more than anyone in the world,” Amethar answers, soft and genuine enough to make Calroy’s skin crawl.

“Then trust me on this. He wants land and gold, and his quickest route to those things right now is making you keep up Lazuli’s part of the bargain. If we can offer him an easier way to get what he wants-”

“Then I don’t have to marry Caramelinda!”

Calroy makes a noise like a champion’s bell and clinks his cup against Amethar’s. “Then you don’t have to marry Caramelinda.”

Amethar is smiling so widely that he spills more than he swallows when he tries to knock his drink back. “You’re the best, Cal, really.”

Calroy grins back, but when he says “And don’t you forget it,” his voice comes out a touch too demanding.

Whatever.

It’s not like Amethar will notice anyway.

Amethar is looking for something. Calroy doesn't know what it is, which is weird enough on its own and would normally make him dismiss the idea, but Amethar's been spending too much time personally visiting the Dairy Islands for someone without a vested interest in what he could find there.

While Calroy appreciates the space he’s been given to pull at the strings that move Candia, the absence of the King has had the side-effort of making the other nobles bolder with their power grabs, more openly distasteful about Calroy's power. If Calroy has to hear another minor baron say Amethar's reliance on Calroy is unbecoming or gossip about how Calroy is a leeching social climber, he's going to do something he regrets, like run them through with his saber.

None of these people know that it's Calroy that keeps their precious liquor and food flowing, that he writes the trade proposals and organizes the council meetings. None of these people have ever had damp soil from a newly weeded field caked so deep under their fingernails that it takes fives washes for the water to run clear, they've never had so much blood dried into the creases of their hands that their palms were dyed red. Everything Calroy has, everything he is, has been fought for, and he refuses to let some snobby nobles or a flighty King ruin this for him.

He starts with increasing the number of meetings Amethar has to attend. As the Royal Aide-De-Camp, Calroy has almost complete control of Amethar’s schedule and, while it’s typically more advantageous for Calroy to go to these meetings alone and gently shift the popular opinion, Amethar’s stubborn blunt force works just as well when aimed right.

For a while, that is.

He can tell when Amethar starts to get jittery as he has less and less opportunity to sneak himself off to another country; the man all but whines about having to actually do his blood-granted duty, and Calroy makes himself grit his teeth in an approximation of a smile and then lets himself grip just a bit too tightly onto Amethar’s arm as he leads him to his next appointment.

He likes to think that he responds with more restraint than Amethar deserves.

It’s not until Amethar actually skips a meeting, like he’s a child sneaking out of his lessons, and doesn’t come back to the Castle for three days that Calroy decides this has to come to a stop. He stands outside Amethar’s rooms and puts all his energy into channeling the visage of a kind and concerned best friend. He takes a deep breath to center himself, puts a hand on the doorknob, and enters without announcing himself.

“Hey, you can’t- Oh, it’s just you,” Amethar says from where he’s making a pathetic attempt to cover the blown-up map of the Dairy Islands, brush still dripping with ink from where he’s been apparently marking the map. He relaxes when he sees Cal, even as Cal tenses.

This doesn’t look like a silly flight of fancy for Calroy to prod Amethar out of pursuing, it doesn’t look like the thrill-seeking work of a boy who misses the adventure of War. This looks calculated, particular. This, Calroy thinks, looks like a nightmare.

“What’s all this, then?” Calroy asks, gesturing.

Amethar runs a hand over his locs and laughs nervously. “It’s nothing. Just a little project of mine.”

Calroy wants to sigh, to yell, to demand that Amethar explain, but he knows that Amethar moves easiest when he thinks he's not being made to do so. He allows himself to furrow his eyebrows a bit more, hunch his posture a bit; make himself look confused and small like something hurt and sad, like someone who needs Amethar’s protection. It takes only twenty seconds under Calroy’s pitiful stare before Amethar folds.

“Okay, fine, but you have to promise to not get mad.”

“When have I ever been mad at you?” Calroy asks, question rhetorical not because he’s never been angry at Amethar but because Amethar would’ve never realized he had been. “I’m just worried. All this galavanting around, avoiding your duties, it’s not like you.”

It is like him, Calroy and Amethar both know it, and Amethar slumps at the lie. Calroy can almost see the cracks appear in his defenses. “Alright. You can’t tell anyone, but I… I have a wife.”

“You have a what.” Calroy says. It’s not a question but it should be because surely Calroy’s misheard. Surely Amethar Rocks is not telling Calroy that he has some secret little milkmaid in the Islands.

“A wife. Her name is Catherine, Catherine Ghee, and I was going to marry her the right way after the War and bring her in as my queen, but then I got moved from the Islands and she stopped answering my letters, and then my sisters-” Amethar cuts himself off, clearing his throat thickly. “Anyway, I forgot about it in the shuffle of everything else. And then there was the whole Caramelinda thing, you know.”

“I know,” Calroy confirms. Bribing enough the duke to make him rescind his acceptance of Lazuli’s -- Amethar’s -- marriage proposal had been his job, after all.

“Yeah! It reminded me. And I thought I’d go find her, it’s the right thing to do and I mean, I think I really loved her, Cal. I think she might’ve been it for me.”

Calroy’s jaw works hard enough that he feels the joint pop. Calroy closes his eyes in the face of Amethar’s enthusiasm, just to give himself a second to process. This would’ve been useful to know when you were almost married off to someone else, Calroy thinks but doesn’t say. What do you mean you got married and then just forgot about her? What part of that screams ‘she’s the love of my life’ to you? Calroy thinks but doesn’t ask.

“So, have you had any luck?” Calroy asks when he trusts himself to speak without screaming. Amethar’s face drops immediately.

“No. I found her parents back in her village but they say they haven’t seen her in almost a year, so I’ve just been traveling around. I hope- well. You know what I hope.”

Calroy hums. He does.

Many, many Dairy Islanders were lost in the War, a larger percentage than any other country. It’s very possible that Amethar’s Catherine Ghee is dead by now. Still, if she’s not…

“You should’ve asked me for help in the first place,” Calroy chides, playfully hitting Amethar’s chest. He lets his hand linger, feeling Amethar’s warmth and the strong pulse of his heartbeat through his doublet. “You have people to do things like this. I mean, really Amethar, I completely understand you and usually I’d be all for this -- hell, I’d join you! -- but when you’re gone so often, it worries the Kingdom.”

“It does?”

Calroy hums mournfully, tucking his hands behind his back and turning away from Amethar to study the map. “The War is over and the Concord is formed, but things are still getting back to normal. If your citizens notice their King, the venerated Amethar the Unfallen, leaving them so regularly, what will they think?”

Calroy doesn’t have to look at how Amethar’s face spasms at the title, but he watches out of the corner of his eye anyway. He knows the flinch intimately, has watched it and caused it enough that it’s burned into his memory; the way it starts with Amethar’s eyes slipping shut, how his jawline shakes, how he twitches as though he’s been slapped. Sometimes, Calroy wishes he could chant it just to see the reaction over and over again. Amethar the Unfallen, Amethar the Last of House Rocks, Amethar the Unprepared.

“The people will really get upset?” Amethar asks. His voice sounds smaller, less sure. Calroy makes sure his smile is more concern than smug delight before he turns around.

“It’s very possible,” Calroy answers, “But there’s no need to worry about it. Now that I know what’s going on, I can get the people whose job this should be on it. We’ll find your girl, Amethar.”

Amethar brightens, falling into step with Calroy and allowing himself to be guided from his rooms. “What would I do without you, Cal?”

Calroy is already mentally scripting how he'll tell Amethar that I've gotten some news back from the Islands and, well... your wife… they just couldn’t find anything. I'm so sorry, Amethar, I know the War has taken so much from us all, but no news is good news, right? regardless of what his search-and-destroy party finds. He bumps his shoulder against Amethar's, supportive and affectionate. “Let's hope you never have to find out.”

It has been… a very long night.

It began with a furious letter from the Duke of Meringue, accusing Amethar of defiling and kidnapping his daughter, of breaking his word, of trying to undermine him. Calroy, who reads all of Amethar’s mail, throws the letter into the fire before taking the Amethar his daily stack of relevant but not too important mail. The day only turns to chaos as the evening falls, when an unannounced carriage pulls up to the gates, holding none other than the Lady Caramelinda Merengue. Before anyone can react, Caramelinda shoves a letter at Amethar’s chest, furious and red-eyed from crying.

“I’m pregnant,” She said, with a voice that carried across the courtyards of Castle Candy like a song even as she bowed low and proper, “It is your sister’s. I have come to ask to be quartered by House Rocks, on behalf of my unborn child, your kin.”

Amethar embraced the women, gleefully accepting her words without a lick of proof, while the entirety of the assembled court gossiped and Calroy picked up the letter. It was from Lazuli, of course, and it explained what had happened in the most confusing and circuitous way possible, of course. all will make sense in time, Lazuli said, trust your feelings, Lazuli said, all is as i foresaw, probably, and if it is not then it is close enough that it does not matter, Lazuli said. It all seemed to fit perfectly, arriving just in time, and Calroy could barely stop his fist from tightening and crushing the letter. After all, if he remembered Lazuli, there was probably a letter in lemon ink waiting just for him on the back, just like there had been on so many of the missives she sent to Amethar and Rococoa on the front lines.

Calroy, now, sitting on a part of the Castle wall far from the celebration for Amethar’s new sister-in-law and incoming nibling, lets his eyes slide closed for a moment. If there's one Rocks sister he hated, it was Lazuli, who used her powers of divination for busybodying and mocking instead of something as simple as saving her own life. There's nothing Calroy hates more than a waste of potential.

Speaking of which, I should probably check this. He holds the letter carefully over his lamp, watching as the heat darkens the lemon ink until he can clearly read Lazuli’s final secret message.

congratulations. or maybe not congratulations, if it didn’t happen in this time, The letter reads, you might never get this letter, or you might get it too late, or it might not matter to you, or you might get it and assume it means something else. it is of no concern to me. congratulations, if they apply.

Calroy presses a hand to his temple, frustrated. This, right here, is why he liked Lazuli the least. He's meditating on that when he hears the footsteps and jolts, his hand is almost around his secret dagger before he recognizes the gait, the sound of the slight drag of expensive shoes and the sure thud of his steps. Calroy forces himself to relax as Amethar swings himself onto the wall beside Calroy, close enough that he can feel the other's warmth.

“What a day. Just like Laz to drop something like that in a letter,” He starts without prompting, “When I was a kid and snuck out, she was almost always waiting right outside the gate for me like she’d used her divination just to scare me shitless. She loved that kind of stuff. Guess she wanted one last gotcha, huh?”

Amethar swings his legs restlessly as he gazes out over his Kingdom, lost expression making him look more like the youth of his story than the Ruler of the Sugarlands. Calroy reaches over and pats Amethar’s knee. “It’s not your fault.”

He says it both because Amethar wants to hear it and because it’s true; with all the forces invested in the downfall of the less impressionable Rocks siblings, it would’ve been impossible for Amethar to stop it.

Amethar’s eyes clear as he nods, and then he reaches down and takes Calroy’s hand in his own. “You always know exactly what to say.”

“You make it easy,” Calroy says, half a joke. Amethar snorts, and then he pulls their joined hands up and presses a candyfloss-soft kiss to Calroy’s knuckles

It happens so quickly that Calroy can’t anticipate it or stay his reactions; the shock that he feels, the flush rising to his cheeks and the speeding of his heart, is all 100% real. Amethar looks up at Calroy through his lashes and smiles at whatever expression he finds, slow and small. When he lowers his lips back down to Calroy’s hand, this time a proper kiss right at the curve of his wrist, Calroy is more ready.

He goes for flattered but nervous, allowing some of his real tension to make a laugh come out jerky and unsure. He widens his eyes and looks away even as he continues to let Amethar hold his hand. “Your Majesty-”

“Please,” Amethar murmurs, and when Calroy turns his head he’s looking back at Calroy with warm, expectant eyes, “Not from you, Cal. Never from you.”

“Amethar,” Calroy concedes, and is rewarded with a brilliant grin, “I don’t- I didn’t think-”

“I didn’t think of it either,” Amethar says, picking up Calroy’s purposefully fumbled sentence with perfect timing. “But it just makes sense. We’ve been through so much together and I wouldn’t be able to run anything around here without you; you’re my partner in all but ceremony at this point anyway. And Laz’s letter said to trust my heart.”

“And your heart says-”

“Yes. Yes, this is what my heart wants, Cal. What about you? Will you give me, give this, a chance?”

Calroy gives himself exactly two seconds. Any longer and Amethar will get anxious, any shorter and Calroy will seem desperate. In those two seconds, Calroy starts to reorganize his gameplan for the next five years and makes a mental note to write a letter to Ceresia to personally inform them of this development. He takes a deep breath in, lets it out, and smiles like the crescent moon above them.

“I'm so lucky,” Calroy says, entangling their fingers, “To have had a man like you beside me all this time. I would be luckier to keep him at my side.”

“Not as lucky as I’ll be,” Amethar says, looking like he’s barely holding himself back from doing something decidedly improper. He settles for pressing another kiss to Calroy’s hand and Calroy, sitting atop the parapet of a castle that will be his much sooner than planned, looks out to the sparkling stars. Not as lucky as you indeed, he thinks, but still, when he squeezes Amethar’s hand, their hearts beat as one.

#a crown of candy #crown of candy #calroy cruller #amethar rocks #acoc #one shot #prince consort calroy

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loveafterthefact · 4 years ago

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Love After the Fact Chapter 20: Good Intentions (that backfire horribly in one way or another)

TFW you say something horribly rude and almost immediately feel bad about it but you're also absolutely right and feel like being petty so you're still a little bit of an asshole about it and basically you're sorry but you're not SORRY, y'know what I'm saying?

Also, 'fuck' is a Galra swear because I can do what I want

TRIGGER WARNING(S): -Use of the word 'rape' -Implications of hypothetical physical violence

First Previous Next

As they approach the castle, Adam is waiting for them, tablet in hand and looking quite stressed. “Prince Yorak, where have you been?”

“Out.” He doesn’t feel like talking. He's tired after the long day.

“Prince Yorak, King Alfor has been anxiously awaiting your return. He wishes to speak with you. Come quickly.”

“Actually,” Keith says, vaulting from the shreika. Lance takes its reins without a second’s hesitation, back unusually stiff, fluid grace abandoned. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that. Please excuse me.”

Keith walks off in the direction of the hole in the wall, suddenly unwilling to return to his prison just yet. Perhaps he only just remembered it was a prison.

“And what do you expect me to tell him, your Majesty?!” Adam calls, voice pitched higher with stress. Keith finds he barely cares. “I’m not a magic spell!”

“Tell him whatever you like! I’m sure you can come up with something sufficiently endearing, shy, and benign!”

"You forgot demure! Could you at least try to take this seriously?!" Adam howls as Keith slips away into the dark.

Keith knows that this won’t be the end of it, but he’s not sure what else to do. He’s in no mood to speak to Alfor after hearing what he’s been doing to Lance. And what might Lance do, given enough time, enough pressure? The prince has little control, but he's a powerful alchemist. With enough focus, Lance probably could do whatever he wanted to Keith. Keith could put up a fight, but then he’d end up executed for treason or some other such nonsense.

No, Lance would never do that. Keith trusts Lance.

All the same, he’s trapped. He’s also not behaving as an adult but that’s just the problem: he’s not an adult. But the royals wouldn’t wait a damn decaphoeb or find somebody else and now here he is trapped in a marriage among a species that only cares about how quickly they can continue the line of succession.

What an utter mess. But he’s not sure what to do, so he slips through the gap in the wall and sits beside a stream he found only yesterday. He sighs, pulling on the end of his braid as he contemplates having never felt safe in his life. When he was little, his father had promised that one day, they'd take Krolia and wander the stars, discover new worlds. Akira had wanted to take him to a place called Earth, to meet the people who gave him his name. The knowledge of how to find this 'Earth' -the planet with the least-inspired name ever- had died with his father. He couldn't go if he'd wanted to.

He'll likely be on Altea for the rest of his life. What a depressing thought.

“Thought I might find you out here.” Keith leaps to his feet, expecting to see Lance, but finding Alfor instead. "I heard you found a way to sneak out. The wall exit is the easiest to find."

Keith hisses, ears pinned back against his head. He reaches for his blade as the king merely raises an eyebrow. Alfor raises his hands, doesn’t move from his spot by the stream. “You can relax, Keith. It’s Keith, isn’t it? My son has mentioned that’s what you like to be called.”

Keith relaxes, but only slightly. King Alfor is exactly who he doesn’t want to see. “What do you want?”

The king regards him, eyes strikingly tired. “Walk with me.”

Keith follows Alfor, rolling his eyes once the king’s back is turned. “What do you want?”

“What do you think of me?” Keith snorts, keeps his mouth shut. “No really, I want to know.”

“Not, you don’t. You want me to kiss your ass.”

“I have my ass kissed every day, Keith. If I wanted more of that I'd join you and Lance in court. Go ahead. I can take it.”

“Fine. You’re an arrogant bastard, a shitty father, and fucking awful person.”

“What is ‘fucking’? It sounds delightfully vulgar.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, my apologies. I didn't mean to interrupt.”

Keith narrows his eyes, takes a deep breath. It's too tempting. This man has tried to use and abuse and manipulate him since he got here and now, being invited to speak his mind for the first time since he was appointed a lord on Daibazaal, he can't resist.

“Gladly. You presume to know the wants and needs of your people while you play warrior king in your study. You look down on your son with disdain and do little to encourage or speed his progress. You seem largely indifferent when it comes to his life, interests, happiness, and general well-being, and worst of all, you’ve been harassing him this entire time trying to convince him to rape me!” Keith pauses, waits to see if he’s committed enough treason yet.

“Continue.” Well, he must do as his liege commands. Besides, it feels amazing.

“You’re disgusting! I am a kit! Your son holds onto his morals while you tell him to abandon his basic principles, pin me down, and fuck me while every instinct in my body screams at me to fight him until my last breath! If my people knew, they’d go to war over me! If your people knew, you’d be overthrown in a day! Rumors run rampant in your court and spread anxiety among the people; your method of rule is archaic; your laws are outdated, convoluted, and contradictory; your infrastructure is weak and crumbling while Lance attempts to hold it together with glue, a wish, and a prayer to your ancestors!"

Keith's voice gets higher and higher, louder and louder as four phoeb's worth of frustration makes its presence known. Granted he's not speaking about Daibazaal's state, but he'll scream about that next time he sees Zarkon. “This entire place is pathetic and you clearly know far more of centuries of slaughter and promoting sexual assault than you do of actually running a kingdom!" Keith glares. "Coran seems pretty okay, though.”

“Yes, Coran is quite wonderful, isn’t he?”

Keith snarls, claws digging into his fists. “That’s all you have to say?”

“All of what you said is true.”

“I agree- Wait. What?”

“I am an alchemist and a soldier, not a leader.” Alfor sighs. “You’re a kit and clearly you’re more capable than I am.”

“I still hate you… Why the fuck are you a king?”

“I married a princess, as was prearranged from the moment of my birth.”

“Try and put my kits into an arranged marriage. I dare you,” Keith hisses, choosing to make this clear now as opposed to later. “I fucking dare you! You do this to them and I will fuck you up!”

“The kits you’re currently incapable of bearing?” Keith’s ears stiffen. He keeps his teeth bared, the ruff along his back tingling as the fur rises. “I’ll commit that to memory.”

“You do that! And I’m so sorry my being a kit is an inconvenience to you.”

Alfor sighs, stops. “No, my people’s culture is a danger to us all. An Altean marriage is not considered official until consummated. Technically speaking, you and Lance are not married, which makes this entire alliance extremely delicate.”

“Perhaps you should have found a way to sort your shit out without trading your children like fucking livestock,” Keith hisses.

“Perhaps. Perhaps I should have done a lot of things. Like appointed a regent, or spent more time with my son.”

“For a start. I’m not backing down on the arranged marriage thing, just so we're clear. Why be a king if you’re not at all competent?”

“My children. When Melinor died, we were still at war. There had already been an attempt on Melinor’s life while she was with child, which ultimately succeeded. We managed to prolong her life until Lancel could survive outside the womb. Then Coran, with the help of our surgeon, removed my premature infant from his mother before he could die with her. I feared that the moment I abdicated, my children and my lover would be slaughtered. Only the royal family and staff are permitted to live inside the castle walls. Once we left, it would only have been a matter of time. I’ve since done the best I can for my people, but like I said…”

Keith took a deep breath, swallowed. This had taken an unnecessarily dark turn. He felt a little bad. But only a little. “Alchemist and soldier. A scholar with a sword. Also, selfish.”

Lance would have done better, made a stronger decision, one that kept both the kingdom and his family alive.

“It is a pretty cool sword though. And so is this.” Alfor steps aside, revealing a crack in a rock face.

Stepping through the crack in the rocks, the only thing Keith can think is that he’s likely to be murdered here. A single chirp echoes through the dark. Keith clamps his jaw shut, reaches for his blade just in case. It’s a grotto, water bubbling up, pooling from beneath the ground, flowing from the walls. Vegetation clings to the walls with roots like spindly fingers. The air is cool and moist, but not overly so.

Alfor sighs, sits on the ground, legs straight out in front of him. “This is one of only three above-ground water sources on Altea, and the largest. There are organisms in this grotto that are found nowhere else in the universe. It is also where I taught both my children to swim.”

“You brought small children to a tiny, isolated ecosystem to teach them to swim.” It must be nice, abusing power. Though Alfor was likely just peering into a microscope, periodically glancing up to make sure his children hadn't drowned.

“Yes. It’s one of the few solid memories I have of myself with my children.”

Keith steps forward, cautious, takes a seat on the ground cover vegetation a few dashes from the Altean. He lays his blade in his lap.

“I did everything I could. I dreamed of learning, excelling, leading my people to some golden future, the king that never should have been, but was. Sometimes, that’s simply not how it happens. And it became clear that while I am a soldier, I cannot lead my people to victory against the Galra. So I sought out other solutions.

“Look at this grotto. Even on a planet without rain, there is still water, still life. In here, there are lives so unique they cannot exist anywhere else. The organisms in this pool will die if I bring them even a spot beyond that little crack in the rocks. When I wed my daughter to Prince Lotor, when she walked hand-in-hand with him, hand-in-hand with Romelle onto that imperial ship, I thought she too might cease to thrive. Imagine my selfish bitterness when I find that she has blossomed into something even more beautiful, that she, her husband, and her lover are growing closer and that perhaps I, in my desire to keep my children as safe as possible, have smothered them.

“In trying to protect them, I have constrained them. I have made them restless, frustrated, and useless. Now, my daughter concerns herself with bringing constructive leisure to your people with the benefit of lowering minor crime and I’m fairly certain my son is steadily worming his way into every nook and cranny of the entire planet and gradually tweaking laws while hoping, for some obscure reason that I won’t notice that he’s finally given up the pretense of not giving a quiznak.”

“You know it’s a pretense?” Keith asks, reluctantly curious.

“Of course I know it’s a pretense. People don’t just suddenly, magically care. When I made a tiny comment that perhaps implied I would perhaps like more support in my research of interstellar tardigrades and Coran showed up the next day with a comprehensive tablet of everything my people know about the little delights, do you think it is because he suddenly became deeply invested in what technologies might be inspired from pseudo-extremophiles? Of course not. Which is why he did not assist me in my research.”

“I… don’t follow,” Keith mumbles.

“He made a one-time effort to prove that he cares, not about tardigrades, but about me. I have not heard a word from him since aside from asking how my research is going when I seem particularly happy or particularly tired. Lance, however, has gotten married and now mysteriously shows up to hold court on the regular, sober and accompanied occasionally by you instead of a different prostitute each movement. I’ve even heard a rumor he’s even finally bothered to learn what taxes are.”

Alfor chuckles, and all Keith can think of is how unbelievably sad that laugh sounds. “I’ve no idea what he’s up to, but my son is far, far smarter than I ever gave him credit for.”

It’s Keith’s turn to laugh, quietly because he hasn’t laughed out loud since he was very small, but it’s a genuine laugh all the same. “You really want to know what he's up to?”

“Yes, I really want to know.”

“He wants…” Keith sighs, smiles. “...to be a hero. Loved and admired and adored as the beautiful, young king who guided his people into that golden era.”

“So you think my son is beautiful?”

“What?! No, that’s not what I-”

“That’s what I heard.”

Keith can hear the taunts in the king’s voice. “Well I don’t know what you heard but-”

“That’s fine. I know what I heard.”

“Did you miss the part where I can’t currently be attracted to anyone including your son?”

“No, no. I got that. But I still think you like him and I still think you find him pretty. Everyone does. Unless of course you wish to tell me that you don’t find my son pretty, in which case you have found the line. Insulting my entire person is fine, but telling me you don’t find my son beautiful? Unacceptable.” Alfor wags a finger at him, grinning.

Keith rolls his eyes. “Fine. I like him. He's a likeable person. Don't expect anything more than that.”

“That’s fine. I’d just like for the two of you to be friends.”

“I’ve… never had a friend before,” Keith whispers, tail thumping on the ground. “Maybe Shiro, my adoptive brother, but that’s it. I like being Lance’s friend. He's... good. I feel like with people in this circle that's not as common as it should be. It makes life harder.”

Keith says nothing about the rumors Lord Lanval spoke of. He’s Lance’s spouse.

“Lance is… He’s a good kid, I think. At least, he wants to be good. I can see that now. I see this burning desire to prove himself and make a difference. I admire his idealism, even if it’s unrealistic.”

“He is making a difference. It’s already started. The alchemy will take more time, since his heart is so distracted, but I can teach him how to use a sword, help him fulfill that silly dream or at least feel like he is. You’ve got your men fighting robots-”

“Fewer injuries. Theoretically.”

“It’s close, but not as good. You’d do better employing imitation weapons. All people think differently, at different speeds, and have different styles of fighting. Fighting a robot doesn’t tell you that your opponent broke their leg as a child and never had it set properly. It limits learning. I can help.”

“Anything else?”

“For tonight?” Keith squeezes the handle of his blade, watches it extend into a sword, inspects himself in it. He looks different, now. Not just healthy, but pampered and soft. Like the overbred little whore his mother told him about. He pushes a lock of hair out of his face. “Your gate should make a noise when it opens. For security. A silent gate means all someone has to do is take out your guards and they just just walk right in without alerting the castle.”

“You say that like taking out guards is easy.”

“It is. Silently and one at a time.”

“Understood. I’ll get it fixed. Now, we should get back, before Lance decides to tear the castle apart looking for us. But one more thing.” Keith looks up at the Altean. "I understand that you despise me, but do try not to ruin what little relationship I have left with my son."

"I won't," Keith whispers. He hates this man and finds him grossly incompetent, but has a begrudging respect for his efforts and devotion to his family. If, gods forbid, it ever came down to the lives of his own children and Lance were gone, he'd likely do the exact same thing. No. He wouldn't have to. He'd call Shiro. “Does he know? How his mother died, I mean.”

“No. We told him she died when he was three. He’s formed memories, based around images of her. He swears they once played in the valley while the juniberries were in bloom… He doesn’t need to know. Melinor chose between herself and him, and he doesn't need to know that.”

Keith says nothing. Lance seems very much unlike the person to manufacture memories of a deceased mother when he has two fathers, but what would he know? It’s not like said fathers have been particularly active in his life. Who knows? Maybe Keith has false memories of his own parents.

His thoughts come grinding to halt as a burning rock falls to his feet in front of him. “Uh… Alfor?”

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #galra keith #altean lance #adashi #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

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pilot-boi · 5 years ago

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Too Long Since Rest: Chapter One

Weiss is sleeping fine she swears. Okay, maybe she keeps staying up doing extra schoolwork. And fine maybe occasionally she's too stressed to sleep. And then the stress and the anxiety brought nightmares. But that was all fine, and she was handling it! Totally.

Now if only she could convince one Ruby Rose of that.

(More College AU, because have been thinking about this far too much)

Lacking Sleep

Ruby isn’t the best at picking up on most social cues, but even she isn’t blind enough to overlook that Weiss is basically asleep standing up.

AO3 LINK

It’s late afternoon, some time after the last intense bits of work for the day, and Ruby and Weiss are sitting on a sun-warmed ledge near the edge of the campus, spending their rare bit of free time winding down from classes and not doing anything with their aching limbs for a while.

They weren’t allowed a lot of time off, the clock was very much ticking what with finals and stuff, so what they do get, they cherish, whether alone or together.

Ruby was rambling on and on about something, voice loud and animated. Her points were illustrated with wide sweeps of her arms and exaggerated expressions like usual. Not even exhaustion could muffle her voice or her enthusiasm.

She was rambling about something, sure, but Weiss had lost track of what exactly she was talking about what felt like hours ago, although it definitely hadn’t been that long.

Ruby’s voice dulled to indecipherable background noise in her mind as she stared out in front of herself, eyes too stubborn or too lazy to move from watching how the specks that were people bustled around on the lower levels.

Then a gloved hand flailed into her vision, way too close to her face, and Weiss startled back.

“Hey!” came Ruby’s voice, and Weiss turned to look at her belatedly. She looked annoyed, but that too only reached Weiss’s consciousness as something sluggish and unimportant. “You listening?”

Weiss blinked at her slowly. God, she hated how much her brain was refusing to start and catch up right now. “What?”

Ruby doesn’t answer immediately, just stared at her for what could’ve been seconds or whole minutes, Weiss really couldn’t tell. Her annoyance seemed to melt away into something else, either curiosity or concern or maybe something else starting with a “c”?

Weiss wasn’t sure, but she was almost entirely distracted by the fact that Ruby’s eyelashes were very pretty, and she has a truly unfair amount of them. If she didn’t know better, she would think that she used makeup. But she’d known Ruby long enough to know that that wasn’t the case…

Her thought process that was kind of just drifting around her head aimlessly was interrupted again by a hand against her forehead, specifically Ruby’s hand. It was only the backs of her fingers, pressing lightly into Weiss’s forehead, way more gently than what she was used to from Ruby in most scenarios.

Weiss shook her head and forced her eyes back into focus, and she was vaguely aware of Ruby pulling her hand back. “What the hell are you doing?”

Ruby shrugged. “Just checking.”

“Checking what?” She rubbed absently at her forehead, because she weirdly felt like Ruby’s touch was lingering on her skin. Way after she shook off the feeling, she recognized the gesture as Ruby checking her for a fever, maybe? But why would she do that? “I’m fine,” Weiss added, just in case.

Ruby didn’t look convinced. “Are you, though?”

Weiss just made a confused noise at her. She hoped it would suffice.

It seemed to, because Ruby shrugged again and kept talking. “I don’t know, you’ve just been zoning out all day and I actually had to remind you about the essay for Goodwitch. And when I asked for help with it you gave in, like, way too easily, and you didn’t even sulk about it!”

Okay, that one was definitely true. So maybe Weiss has had less focus today than on most days and didn’t feel up to making a fuss about losing. So what?

“And you look terrible!” Ruby continued, and wow, rude. Weiss wondered if her friend’s claim had any truth to it, though. She hasn’t looked in a mirror all day, didn’t really have the time. “I mean, not to be mean, but really! I didn’t think it was possible. You’re you!”

Weiss wanted to tell her to get out of here with that simplification, but her sluggish mind didn’t seem to have any sharp comeback in stock and she didn’t feel up to all of Ruby’s teasing right now.

Her mind was annoyingly fuzzy and the world around her felt like she was seeing and hearing it through frosted glass. When she opened her mouth to say what was definitely going to be a witty comeback, what came out instead was a yawn so big her jaw popped.

Ruby’s brow visibly furrowed at that. “How much did you sleep last night?”

What a dumb, irrelevant question. What was Ruby on about, anyway? But she didn’t feel up to arguing with her right now. She wondered why, but her mind came up blank, just like with everything else today. Annoying.

“I don’t know. Enough?”

“Weiss…” Ruby all but sighed, the exasperated kind, and okay, what was with that? Weiss felt like she was being pinned as the idiot here, which was just completely unreasonable. Ruby was clearly the idiot in this partnership.

She wasn’t. Not really. They were both idiots, while also they were very much not. Weiss wondered for a moment if that was why they worked so well together.

Ruby leaned in closer and searched for Weiss’s gaze, silver eyes flickering slightly from side to side until Weiss finally gave in and looked at her. Even with her red-tinged hair hiding half her face, she looked so sincere and gentle, and it made Weiss sigh and give in way too easily.

Because Ruby had these unexpected little moments when her rough edges and everything that made her almost overwhelming to be around day and night seemed to soften out. When her warmth felt less like Weiss was going to burn up any second, and more like a mug of hot coffee when you’d been out in the cold all day but forgot your gloves at home.

And Weiss is utterly and regrettably weak for Ruby letting herself go soft on her. And so she gave in.

“Okay… not much sleep,” she admitted, eyes flickering away before she forced them back to Ruby’s face. “But it’s fine!”

But by now Ruby knew how to see behind Weiss’s words and read behind her lines, in most cases anyway. She knew that Weiss always downplayed her own problems, because she was a big stubborn dumby, obsessed with thinking that she never needed any help.

Ruby was constantly swinging between finding it very worrying and just supremely irritating, like some kind of very distressed pendulum. And so she arrived at a worrying, but fairly obvious interpretation. “Have you slept at all?”

Maybe it was because she was so tired and her thoughts were all fuzzy in her head. Maybe it was Ruby still being all soft and warm right in front of her. Maybe it was both, Weiss wasn’t sure. But once again, her stubborn resolve crumbled like it was never there in the first place. “...no.”

Ruby did not at all look pleased about that. “So you haven’t slept. At all. In over a day.”

Okay, screw this. Weiss looked away for real now because he couldn’t keep looking at Ruby anymore, not when even with her tone flat and clearly displeased she was looking at her like that. She hoped her deadpan tone was a herald of their usual teasing returning, because she knew how to handle that.

Worst case scenario she could just pretend to be offended and leave and then apologize over terrible cafeteria food. She knew how to handle the teasing and shoving and the bad jokes. Serious schoolwork and well-honed teamwork and interactions that somehow maybe border on flirting. She knew all of that.

She didn’t know how to handle something like this.

In the end she just sighed, defeated, as if Ruby needed any more confirmation. “...Maybe.”

Weiss wasn’t sure if at this point she was expecting Ruby to call her an idiot and jump back into teasing her relentlessly. Or maybe she was just hoping that was what was going to happen so that she could finally return to her comfort zone of snark and stubbornness and never leave again.

As warm and delighted seeing Ruby go all soft on her made her feel, it also wasn’t something she could handle for long, or at all really. She might handle it okay as long as she didn’t think about it, she wasn’t sure, because that blessed state of mind never tended to last her long.

But instead of going back to their usual dynamic and leaving Weiss to stew in her confused feelings in peace, Ruby sighed and for a moment she looked downright… worried? Weiss wasn’t sure, and the next moment that expression was gone, replaced by a look of fond exasperation that she was very familiar with, and so she decided that it must’ve just been her tired brain misinterpreting things.

“Alright. Okay,” Ruby started, talking but not saying anything like she tended to when devising some over-the-top plan to sneak her dog into the dorms that would definitely get her caught by the RA’s. “You’re going to bed. Right now.”

First of all, no, because Weiss was not a child anymore, and thus no one could tell her when her bedtime was. Okay, maybe Goodwitch could, but Goodwitch was kind of her own category in everything.

Ruby, who was an absolute menace on her best days, was two whole years younger than Weiss. And she was technically a freshman, and so had no rights. Especially no right to order her to go to bed.

Second of all, why the hell did she sound so determined?

Weiss wanted to tell her all that, especially the first part, as in screw you, Ruby Rose, but of course her brain and whatever part of it was supposed to handle her eloquence was not currently up to the job. “Ruby-”

“Nope! I don’t care, Weiss Cream, you gotta sleep.” She finally leaned back, which Weiss was grateful for, because she didn’t know how much longer she could’ve taken Ruby staring at her like that without straight up melting probably.

Ruby rocked back as she gathered momentum, and stood up annoyingly quickly when Weiss herself felt comparable to a sack of potatoes that somehow figured out how to grow legs. “Come on. Let’s get you back to your room.”

Weiss stared at the hand extended her way for a moment before she succumbed to her fate and let herself be pulled up.

She didn’t know what to do when Ruby was like this, and she especially didn’t know now. She’d had Ruby go soft on her before, sure, but she’d never had her gently pushing and herding her around like this, the way Winter sometimes did and maybe something like the rare moments her mother did, too.

She’d always managed to brush Ruby off or get out of the situation before things could come to this, rushing back to the security she found in teasing or rolling her eyes or sulking in her dorm for a while. Not that her roommate was ever a big help in that regard. If Ruby was loud, her sister was unbearable.

But now she was in it and too tired to come up with anything and plan ten steps ahead, and so she had no choice but to go with it.

She swayed with vertigo once she was on her feet, the world before her eyes blinking out in blotches of colour and black. She vaguely felt Ruby’s arm around her back, her side pressed against hers, the only solid thing as the world came back into focus and the ringing in her ears subsided.

Ruby didn’t let go once they started moving, and Weiss didn’t have the energy to shove her off. If she’d been honest with herself, she’d say she didn’t want to either.

She was barely paying attention to the walk back to her room, the pavement passing beneath her feet, the familiar faces they passed, and the corners they turned when Ruby pulled her this way or that. She was mostly just aware of Ruby’s movements, a rhythm that matched her own, and the warm presence still pressed against her side.

Her mind was a pleasantly sleepy fuzz despite it still being light out and it not even being dinner time yet, but she trusted Ruby not to lead her stray or let her run into any corners or any people.

The next thing Weiss knew, she was being guided down onto her bed on top of her comforter in her blessedly roommate-less dorm room. Gentle pushes and nudges laying her down, and Ruby’s arm was still around her like she was worried she was just going to fall over on her own. Honestly, she might.

The moment she can, Weiss curled up on her side, eyes shut. Because despite how she’d been holding up okay all day, now she felt positively exhausted all of the sudden. And being back in her own bed only seemed to make that even more obvious. Ruby was right for once, she really should go to sleep early.

She felt comfortable and heavy, her mind pleasantly blank and slow and fuzzy with sleepiness. She just about heard Ruby still moving around her room, her footsteps light without any conscious thought. But Weiss was too comfortable to open her eyes again or move at all, or even to just make a single sound to thank her.

Doing anything at all right then felt like it’d take incredible effort to achieve, and Weiss was entirely content with not doing anything at all. Just hanging on the edge of falling asleep.

She was too out of it to even feel surprised when she felt a blanket settling over her, warm and smelling like sunshine because she’d had it draped over her desk chair by the window. She felt the bed dip as Ruby sat on it near her knees, arranging the blanket over her better.

Her friend folded back the edge of it over Weiss’s shoulder neatly, carefully, in a way Weiss couldn’t remember Winter ever doing, but how she thought her mother maybe used to, once upon a time. She followed the feeling of Ruby smoothing the blanket down over her one last time, a gentle pressure against her shoulder before it slipped away.

She expected Ruby to stand and leave now, her self-assigned job already more than done, but she didn’t feel any movement. Then-

“Would it really be so hard for you to stop worrying me for just, like, two days?” Ruby sighed, her voice gentle and fond and so quiet that Weiss’s fuzzy mind could barely make out the words. She was certain that were she actually asleep, this wouldn’t have woken her up at all.

Weiss wondered absently if Ruby thought she was already asleep, too. “Because I do worry about you, y’know?” She heard the girl murmur, and vaguely felt a hand brush her bangs away from her face. “You wouldn’t believe me if you were awake, but I do.”

Oh.

But Weiss did believe her, as scary as it was to admit sometimes. As much as she didn’t want to interpret the signs most days because she didn’t know what to do with them. But Ruby had said it, and Weiss believed her.

And her heart ached, because Ruby sounded so sad and Weiss didn’t know why, but she knew that she wanted to help and to fix it. But she couldn’t bring herself to move, to do anything at all. Her body and mind and everything was too heavy, too close to the edge of sleep. And so she did nothing.

“I wish you trusted me enough to ask for my help sometimes.”

Ruby lingered for another moment after that, and Weiss found herself trying to commit her words into memory. Then the mattress shifted and leveled out again, Ruby’s weight gone from it.

“Night,” she said, from further away now, her voice still quiet enough to let Weiss sleep over it, but sounding maybe a little bit more fond than sad this time. And then Weiss heard the door open and close as quietly as it could, just barely over the sleepiness filing her head.

#rwby #ruby rose #weiss schnee #whiterose #yang xiao long #mine #my writing #coffee shop rwby #too long since rest #chapter 1

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srhlsx · 5 years ago

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Rewritten & Reposted March 24, 2021

MASTER | Ch. 14 | CHAPTER 15 | Ch. 16

You guessed that you had about twenty minutes until the official start of your next game, the finals for the girls that would determine who was the number one seed going into the Spring tournament. It was exciting to be so close to your goal, a thrill that was filling you up with bubbles of excitement and good anxiety.

You’d been playing in games all morning, your body thoroughly exhausted at this point but running on adrenaline now. The previous night you had talked with Bokuto about sticking around after your games were done to catch his, something he was very excited and proud about. But for now, you had one more game to get through - one more game and you’d be back on the national’s stage.

Abscently munching on a piece of fruit, you heard the familiar tone of your phone ringing from deep in the depths of your sports bag. You pushed around a few of the other bags in the pile to get to yours, recognizing the contact name right away and sliding the screen to unlock and answer the call.

“Mmf-” You mumbled, swallowing your food before trying again. “Hi, Baba.”

“(y/n), dear,” The older woman answered, sounding like she was outside with the wind blowing into the speaker of her phone. “Sweetie, we’re on our way to you. Hiroto cut himself while trimming the bushes outside and needs to go get stitches. I’m going to need to drop Eiji and Yua off-”

“W-what?” You stuttered out, panicking only slightly as you started to look around for your warm-up jacket. Some of your teammates noticed your sudden frenzy and laughed as you hobbled all over the little area you had claimed as your own in the hall. “We have a game in twenty minutes-”

“Dear, I know this is terrible, but I can’t take them with me, Eiji is losing his mind. We’ll be outside the main entrance in five minutes!”

It was lucky timing that you were on a break between your games at the moment, but also terrible luck because what were you supposed to do with a ten-year-old and a three-year-old at a high school volleyball tournament?

You continued to panic as you ripped off your playing shoes and slipped into some athletic slides, zipping your tracksuit jacket all the way to your chin as you tried to politely push your way through the crowd of people. When you got out to the front entrance area, Eiji and Yua were just getting out of the car, a sympathetic look on the woman’s face as she waved to you. You looked behind her to the old man sitting in the passenger seat and he waved at you with both hands, one wrapped in an old beach towel that you could see a little bit of blood bleeding through. You cringed.

“Hey you two,” You smiled down to your siblings. Yua bounded right up to you and jumped into your arms, Eiji following behind with a backpack on his back and a slightly paled expression. Blood and injuries were not something your younger brother was known to handle well, so it really was for the best that they were not going to the hospital with the older couple.

What am I supposed to do now?

Eiji you knew could handle himself if he were alone, being mature beyond his ten years. But you couldn’t expect him to watch Yua, especially since he loved watching volleyball more than anything in the world and his attention would be wholly devoted to you and your team. Your siblings didn’t usually make it to your games anymore, especially this year without someone to accompany them. Think… think… think…

“Hey, hey, hey!”

“Oh, thank the gods you answered!” You breathed out, shouldering open the doors to the building while holding your sister on your hip and pushing your brother in front of you. “Tell me you’re here.”

“Yeah we just sat down, gonna try and watch you guys before we-”

“Great, awesome, whatever.” You interrupted in a huff, climbing a set of stairs and grunting a little from being shoved around by the crowd of people. “Sorry, that was rude. Um, are you guys in the spectator section?”

“Uh, yeah? Are you okay?”

“Just fine, we’re coming to see you.”

“We-”

You rounded the corner as you hung up on Bokuto, seeing his full team in an empty section of seats. They all matched in their gear, white tracksuits with black and gold detailing. You might’ve been intimidated had you not been on a mission to find one person in particular as the warmup clock continued to count down.

“(y/n)!” Your eyes locked on familiar, bright gold orbs and you made an immediate line straight for the boy.

Bokuto swore that the look of relief that came across your face was like the heavens opening up and smiling down on him. He’d never had someone look at him the way you did in that moment, and he was prepared to ride that high for the rest of his natural life. The sudden change in the air was also noticed by his teammates, their gazes turning from the girl’s teams practicing below them to your frenzied state as you charged straight for them, two young children in tow. They also noticed the sudden palpable air of excitement radiating off their captain as he stood up to greet you - good, something to motivate him today.

“Can they sit with you guys?” You asked hurriedly, setting Yua down before she squirmed out of your hold and fell on her own. She beamed at Bokuto and practically ran up to him, luckily he wasn’t holding anything or it would’ve been dropped when he caught your sister and gave her a squeeze. Eiji did his best to casually wave at Bokuto, eyeing the rest of his team respectfully before leaning over the railing to look down below at your team warming up.

“Y-yeah, of course?” He answered, confused. He moved around in his seat to help your sister get a little more comfortable as she climbed all over his shoulders. “All good?”

“Fine, just-” You waved your hand dismissively, taking in a deep breath and letting out a laugh that was just shy of being maniacal. “Another day, another problem! I seriously owe you.”

“Oh, I’ll think of something!” Bokuto beamed. As you were turning away you felt him grab onto your wrist and pull you back. You whipped around to face him, only to be brought right into his lips for a short kiss. You pulled away with wide eyes, his face a smug expression as he grinned up at you. “Good luck!”

You said goodbye to your siblings, pressing a kiss to the top of both their heads (and one to Bokuto’s making you laugh since he looked up at you childishly) and warning Yua in particular to be good for your friends, she only giggled mischievously. You turned on your heels quickly and jogged back down the steps, then running through the gym doors on the main level to get to your team and join warmups.

As you hobbled up to them, you unzipped your track jacket and clumsily shoved your shoes on your feet. Rumi teased you playfully, tugging on the top-knot of hair piled on your head and then shoving you into position for the current drill as the seconds ticked down as she teased you endlessly.

“Babysitting for your girlfriend?” A voice leaned in towards Bokuto, a smug tone to it. He looked over and saw Konoha eye the two children with alarm, unsure if Bokuto was really the best fit for this.

“Hardly!” Bokuto laughed a little nervously, eyes shifting around to your two siblings to see if they heard someone call you his girlfriend. He hadn’t gotten to that point yet and he hated to admit it was killing him a little bit - he liked you so much. “We’re best buds! Right, Yu-chan?”

Your sister laughed as she stood on Bokuto’s lap facing him, she held out her hands and of course Bokuto knew what she wanted since they’d had a regular habit of playing together when he would be at your home.

He stood up, grabbing Yua’s hands tightly while she stood balancing against his legs. Her tiny feet climbed up his chest and eventually she flipped herself over and landed with a light thump on the seat in front of them - Bokuto’s hands still grasping hers. They repeated this fun over and over again, Yua never growing tired and laughing the entire time. Her small laughter filled the area and made his teammates watch in shock, was Bokuto actually good with kids?

“Bokuto-san, have you seen (y/n) play?” He looked up to see your brother still completely focused on the end of the warmups below, hands gripping the railing tightly as his eyes lit up with excitement.

“We played a little at camp this summer,” Bokuto half shrugged, pulling Yua up into his arms right side up so he could properly sit back down with her. “Caught the end of a practice match once.”

Bokuto knew that Eiji loved volleyball, they’d had many good discussions about the game when Bokuto was over at your place to hang out. But the look that lit up in his eyes as he watched his older sister below was one the Bokuto recognized well - he was a fanatic.

“But you’ve never seen her play a real game?” Eiji asked, finally looking back at Bokuto and his teammates. “You’ve never seen her take it seriously?”

“I think she probably takes practice pretty seriously,” Bokuto wasn’t one-hundred percent sure your brother knew exactly what he meant.

Eiji deadpanned, “No. She doesn’t.”

“You mean to tell me the two of you got your ahh… uh butts handed to you and she wasn’t even taking it seriously?” Konoha had a hysterical look on his face, like this fact was the funniest thing in the world.

“Well, I wasn’t taking it seriously either!” Bokuto tried covering up, clearly flustered.

“Bokuto-san, you made us practice line shots for another hour.” Akaashi deadpanned from behind.

At the new voice and attention, Yua’s eyes sparked up. “Neechan is number one!” She pumped her little fists and clapped her hands excitedly.

“Technically, she’s number three.” Konoha mumbled.

“Actually, that’s not true either.” Eiji spoke up, coming to your defense almost immediately as he rustled through the backpack at his feet. The magazine he pulled out was already folded back to a particular page as he climbed on top of a chair and stretched out to hand it up towards Konoha. “Here. It came out yesterday.”

Other members of the team leaned forward to study the page the magazine was open to, an article in the familiar Volleyball Quarterly- this one was about top liberos for girls across Japan. As all their eyes scanned the words they slowly started to bulge with shocked expressions.

On the page was a dramatic outline of three columns, each topped with a stock image of a particular girl’s volleyball player they were featuring. There was the second year from Sarukawa listed third, the third year from Tsubakihara in second, and then in the top spot was a picture of a familiar face.

“Originally they weren’t going to rank her,” Your brother commented. “Since she isn’t playing after high school and all, but obviously they had to after Interhigh.”

Smiling brightly at the camera, your hair was slightly shorter since the picture itself was from a previous year and you’d been growing yours out. You wore the black libero uniform for Shinzen proudly, hands posed on your hips and looking every part the superstar.

Konoha turned slowly to look at Bokuto with a bit of disbelief in his eyes. Bokuto simply continued to smile and sing along to the song your sister had been making up about you being number one. “Have you seen this?” Konoha asked. “Did you know?”

“Of course I knew.” Bokuto paused his singing but didn’t look away from Yua for a moment, “She’s my girl.”

#bokuto koutaro #koutaro bokuto #bokuto x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu!! x reader #hq!!#hq!! x reader #hq

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dariaroden · 4 years ago

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BRIGHTWOOD CHALLENGE 02

1: How high is your libido? Oh, honey. You couldn’t handle it if I told you.

2: Rough sex or soft sex? Either way, depending on what the mood calls for.

3: Do you have any unusual kinks/fetishes? That would depend on what you’d classify as unusual. Kinks in and of themselves are technically things that deviate from the norm. So I guess, by that definition, yes.

4: Weirdest place you’ve had sex? In a supply closet.

5: Favourite sex position? Any. I couldn’t possibly name a favorite.

6: Do you like to be dominant or submissive? I tend to be more submissive in bed and in general.

7: Have you ever had any one night stands? I’ve had a few, yes.

8: Sex on the bed, couch or the floor? Anywhere. Everywhere. All of the above and more, babe.

9: Have you ever had sex in a public place? I have yes. Behind the game booths at a carnival, once.

10: Have you ever been caught masturbating? I have. I’ve had more than a couple of roommates over the years.

11: What does your favorite sexy underwear look like? It’s a pink teddy with feathers at the bottom.

12: How often do you have sex? Not nearly enough to satisfy me, at the moment. But at least I’m getting something. Beggars can’t be choosers, as my mother always used to say.

13: Is there anybody right now you’d like to have sex with? Hell yes. @everywherealinagoes

14: Do you prefer giving or receiving oral sex? Receiving is excellent, but I’m not selfish. I’ll return the favor, always.

15: Most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you during sex? I broke a nail down to the quick, it was incredibly painful and we had to stop.

16: A song you’d listen to during hard/rough/kinky sex? Anything with a good, fast beat and a nice rhythm. Maybe ‘Rude Boy’ by Rihanna

17: A song you’d listen to during soft/slow/passionate sex? ‘Motivation’ by Kelly Rowland

18: Are you into dressing up for sex? Hell fucking yes. I have a literal problem with the amount of lingerie and roleplay outfits in my closet.

19: Would you prefer sex in the bath or sex in the shower? Bath, shower, counter...Wherever babe.

20: If you could have sex with anyone right now, who would it be? Alina Liu, @everywherealinagoes

21: Have you ever had a threesome? If not, would you? I have, yes.

22: Do you/would you use sex toys? I absolutely use sex toys and will continue to use them. You’ve got to keep things hot.

23: Have you ever sent someone a dirty text/picture? You know it.

24: Would you have sex with your best friend? I would, if she needed it.

25: Is there anything you do after sex? (for example, smoke, eat, drink)? Really just rehydrating, so drink water.

26: Something that will never fail to get you horny? Dirty texts, pictures, kissing, just about everything.

27: Early morning sex or late night sex? Both. Afternoon sex too.

28: Favourite body part on the opposite sex? Calves.

29: Favourite body part on the same sex? Ass.

30: Something that you have hidden in your room that you don’t want anyone to find? I have nothing to hide, come on in and start rummaging. Maybe you’ll find something you’ll like.

31: Weirdest sexual act some has performed [or tried to perform] on/with you? I once had someone try to fuck me with a frozen cucumber. I realize some people think that’s a glorious stand-in, and by all means, you do you boo boo. But, uh, that was not for me.

32: Have you ever tasted yourself? [If no, would you?] [If yes, what did you think?] I sure have, and I can attest to tasting like candy.

33: Is it ever okay to not use a condom? If you’re willing to accept the risks, sure, go for it.

34: A food that you would like to use during a sexual experience? Chocolate.

35: Worst possible time to get horny? Is there ever really a bad time?

36: Do you like it when your sexual partner moans? I so fucking do.

37: What is the most amount of times you’ve ever orgasmed in a day? Six.

38: Best sexual complement you ever got: Someone once told me I have a magical tongue.

39: Favorite foreplay activities: Anything, literally. It’s beyond easy to get me going.

40: What do you wear to bed? Usually just panties and a sports bra. Sometimes no bra, though.

41: What is your biggest turn off? Bad hygiene. Hands down.

42: Do you have any nude/masturbating pictures/video of yourself? I sure do. Why, are you interested?

43: Have you ever/when was the last time you had sex outside? It has actually been a while. Someone should definitely get on that.

44: Have/would you ever have sex in public? I have and I would again.

45: Have/would you ever had a threesome? I have and would again.

46: What is one random object you’ve used to masturbate? An electric toothbrush.

47: What is your favorite type of porn? Girl on girl, baby.

48: Do you like oral sex? (why/why not) I absolutely do, who doesn’t? I don’t trust you if you don’t, period.

49: How do you feel about tattoos on someone you are interested in? They can be hot, as long as they are’t weird tattoos.

50: How would you feel about taking someones virginity? I would, if they wanted me to.

51: Is there any food you would NOT recommend using during a sexual encounter? Probably like...Something weird. Like tapioca. Who would do that?

52: Would you rather be a pornstar or a prostitute? Either or.

53: Do you watch porn? Is this a real question? Hell yes, I do.

54: Have you ever been called a freak? Why? I have been, because of how high my libido is and how willing I am to do just about anything.

55: Do you feel comfortable going “commando”? I do, and do frequently.

56: Would you have a problem with going down on someone if they hadn’t shaved their pubic hair? Absolutely not. If you’ve got a problem with that, you aren’t grown and you don’t want it bad enough. Au naturale is just fine with me.

57: If you could give yourself head, would you? I so would, I don’t even care.

58: Booty or Boobs? Both, duh.

59: Have you ever cheated on someone? (Why?) No, i haven’t. I wouldn’t hurt someone like that.

60: What is your dirtiest sexual fantasy? How much time do you have sweetpea? I’ve got about a million.

61: have you ever watched someone masturbate? Yep, it’s hot.

62: has anyone ever watched you masturbate? Yep, it’s hot too.

63. Have you ever had an erection and someone noticed? That isn’t possible for me personally, but you can bet I’ve had my fair share of wet spots.

64. What is your method of masturbation? (ie. toys, clitorial, prostate) It depends on how I’m feeling, but generally a combination of toys and clitoral.

65. What is your bra/penis size? I’m a 34C.

66. What is the strangest thing you have ever put up your vagina/anus? Strangest? I guess the cucumber that one time.

67. When was the last time you masturbated? About 20 minutes ago. But, after this, I have a feeling I’ll need to go again.

68. When was the last time you had sex? Like two days ago?

69. When was the last time you watched porn? When I masturbated 20 minutes ago.

70. Have you ever bought a sex toy? If so, which one did you buy last? First sex toy? If not, which one do you plan on buying when you do? I have more sex toys than I can count. My first was a dildo with a suction on the base. The most recent was a Sybian.

71. Circumcised? It doesn’t matter to me sweetie.

72. Which not-genital part of your body do you like being touched? My arms.

73. Which genital part of your body do you like being touched? All of them. Every single one.

74. Are you able to achieve orgasm just through nipple stimulation? I could, if I’m horny enough.

75. Have you anonymously sent a sexual ask to someone? Sure have.

76. When was the last time you have had a wet dream? I have sex dreams at least every other week. Sometimes once a week if I’ve been putting my needs on the backburner.

77. Which wet dream was your favorite? The one i just had about Alina, actually. @everywherealinagoes

78. Is there a friend you would willingly have sex with? You know there is.

79. Is there a celebrity/character you would willingly have sex with? Oh absolutely.

80. Least favorite sexual position? Are there any? I don’t think so.

81. Do you like being called a slut or whore in bed? Ohhhh, yes please.

82. Are you into any BDSM? Pffft yes.

83. Have you ever wanted to have sex with someone but knew you couldnt for any reason? Why? Not really, no. I’ve gotten lucky in that department.

84. Do you like dirty talk? Love it.

85. Are you loud or quiet during sex? Masturbation? I am loud, for the most part. I can be quiet if I have to be. But if it doesn’t matter, I can be a screamer.

86. Have you ever been interrupted during sex or masturbation? Who/what? I have been, by my roommate.

87. What kind of porn do you not like to watch? I don’t like overly fake stuff. Like I realize all porn is pretty much staged in some way. But, I hate those stupid ass movies where the girl with huge tits looks at the camera, biting her lip, and is like, “oh yeah, I’m a naughty girl, i need to be punished.” Like...No. The obvious fakeness is a turn off.

88. Have you ever confessed to someone that you got an erection over them? What about masturbated to them? I have. I’m not shy about that. We all have needs.

89. Have you ever masturbated because your sexual partner wasn’t there when you needed them? Yes. Sometimes you just can’t wait.

90. Have you ever had a one night stand? Do you still keep in contact with them? I have, but admittedly I don’t always keep up with them, no.

91. Have you ever had a friends with benefits? Are they still beneficial? Yes, and most definitely yes.

92. Any kinks you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t? There isn’t much I haven’t tried. But, I’ll think on that.

93. How should someone who is interested in sleeping with you approach the topic? Literally just send a suggestive text.

94. What are your absolute no-nos in bed? Don’t leave permanent marks, don’t ignore me if I give a direction or have a request, and don’t bring nonsexual fluids into the mix. We’ll be Gucci.

95. How do you feel about quickies? They are excellent and needed.

96. Have you ever tried roleplay in bed? Would you? I have and would again in a heartbeat.

97. Describe the best orgasm you’ve ever had. What were you doing? Alone or with someone else? What made it so good? The best? I don’t even know if I can pick the best. Any time with Alina is generally A++.

98. Have you ever filmed yourself while masturbating or having sex? I sure the fuck have.

99. Lights on or lights off? Either or, doesn’t matter to me. Either way, we’re fucking.

100. What would you like to do more of in bed? Everything. All of it. Just sex.

#brightwood.challenge #challenge 02

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