#it's so weird that she really seems to be more concerned about this possibly leading to vitamin deficiencies

[running-in-the-dark]

I don't know how many doses of cholestyramine you're taking a day. I was at 3 doses a day at one point and my gastroenterologist did tell me to try to get it down to 2 if I could because if I ever had to take another medication it could be hard to intersperse them (cholestyramine will interfere with any other meds you take) but other than that nobody's told me I can't take it forever (actually, when I asked my GP about it, he specifically said, "You found a miracle. Why would you want to stop taking it?") I dunno doctors are weird.

yeah, I do take a bunch of other medications and it's complicated trying to figure out when I can take what now. I've been trying to take three doses but honestly, sometimes I just forgot one.

and yeah it seems very weird to me that my GP feels that way. I've read lots of posts about people's experiences with it and many of them have been taking it for years and aren't planning to stop, and their doctors don't tell them to. I'm likely also going to take thyroid medication forever. sure I'd rather not, I don't enjoy taking medication or anything! but it is what it is.

and especially with this one - it felt very weird when she asked if I WANT to take it forever. no?! it's fucking gross, I hate it! but it helps. so while I'd rather go back in time and have a functioning gallbladder, sadly that's not an option. taking this medication is the second best thing right now, so yeah, if I have to I'll take it forever!

I'm hoping it's just due to her general incompetence. I guess I'll find out when I see a gastroenterologist.

[authorhjk1]

Any chance that there will be a karina sequel for the main story where she would come back begging for more or begging to be a side chick/mistress or something?

Interlude: Training

(Karina X Ahin X Male Reader)

"What is going on here?"

You step into your living room with a frown on your face. You just came back from a morning run on the beach. Ahin was still sleeping when you left and you didn't expect her to be up already. And you definitely didn't expect to see another woman with her.

"Hi babe."

Ahin gets off the couch. You raise an eyebrow as you realize that she is wearing a long white dress. But then you remember that she had some sort of charity to attend to today.

You reluctantly lean down to kiss her back. Despite Ahin getting off on you sleeping with other women, it's weird to see her with someone you've slept with. But then again, Karina is also working with her anyways.

"Hi."

You can tell she is a little shy right now. Her outfit indicates that she must have come over right after a performance or something.

"Just give us a minute."

Ahin turned towards Karina and is now leading you into the kitchen.

"What is she doing here?"

Your girlfriend doesn't let go off your hand.

"She wants you."

"I will take her with me once I'm ready for work."

You are well aware of your promise to Ahin. No other woman in this house. And yet, you are barely able to hold yourself back. You haven't seen Karina in a couple of weeks. And it feels like she becomes more beautiful everytime you see her.

Ahin catches your impatience. A sly smile appears on her lips.

"She isn't here, just because she wants you to fuck her now."

You are confused. Judging from her outfit, you thought she had something important on her mind, having to get here immediately after her performance. And you don't know what else she would want from you.

"Karina doesn't want you to fuck her only today."

Ahin's eyes seem to tell you something, but you are still in the dark.

"Then what does she want?"

"You."

That word makes you frown.

"What? Doesn't she know we..."

"She does. The two of us talk, you know?"

"I know. So why...?"

"She-"

"I need you."

You look past Ahin. Karina is standing behind her, hands clasped in front of her body.

"I get that. But-"

"You don't."

She hesitates, before she takes a step forward, now standing next to your girlfriend.

"I need you. Really need you."

You don't get what she means. She didn't catch feelings, did she?

"I-I always get so jealous when I hear another idol talk about you. It makes me hate them. Like they are stealing something from me."

You glance at Ahin, which Karina seems to have caught.

"It's different with Ahin unnie. She is your girlfriend. You love her. I get that."

Karina's words now flow out of her, almost as if she is rapping. It seems like she held this in for a while now. You have to concentrate to be able to catch every word. Your Korean is still not perfect.

"I respected her too much to say something until now. And-And I don't even know what this is. I-I can't be in love with you, right?"

A shiver runs down your spine. Is she serious?

"I-I mean the only thing we do is having sex. And I don't even know a lot about you. And yet, I-I always get so jealous when..."

Ahin strokes Karina's shoulder to calm her down a little.

The younger of the two takes a deep breath.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, I need more of you. I'm not satisfied with only meeting you occasionally. I need you more regularly."

You can tell she is biting back an 'always'.

"Have you thought about the possibility that this isn't me, but-"

"But the sex?"

Karina shakes her head.

"I wish. I wish I could just tell you I've become a sex addict, thanks to you."

You feel oddly proud. Although you shouldn't be. If that's true, it is a little concerning.

"But it's not sex in general. It's sex with you."

"Okay."

You need a little time to digest what just happened.

Before you are able to say anything else, Ahin's voice makes you look at her.

"I-I'm willing to share."

She is obviously hesitant, but after another moment of thinking, she finally nods. Determined.

"I'm willing to share you with Karina."

"But aren't you already...?"

"Sharing you with other girls? Kind off. But no. I know you fuck other girls all the time. But you always change it up a little. It's not a problem, since you don't focus on anyone in particular."

Ahin takes Karina's hand.

"But I'm willing to make an exception."

You are quiet, waiting for her to finish. This is something you've never thought of. The fact that your girlfriend let's you sleep with other women still feels like a dream. But what is she proposing now?

"Karina sleep with you whenever and wherever she wants. Including this house. But don't expect me to just ignore the two of you, when I'm here too. When I'm here, I always come first."

Karina nods in agreement.

"Good. You can come over as much as you want. I can clear out a drawer for you in the bedroom. I doubt you would be staying in one of the guest rooms."

Ahin turns to you.

"If that's okay for you of course. The other rules still stand though. Don't have feelings for anyone but me. And don't get her pregnant."

"I doubt that anyone of us would want that."

You chuckle, but you catch Karina biting her lip.

How much of you does she really need?

"It's settled then. Since (y/n) still has to shower after his run, I'm guessing you would like to help him out?"

Karina nods eagerly. You can't help but get hard at the thought. If Karina is staying at your place regularly from now on, you wonder if every single shower you are going to take is going to turn into a threesome.

As Karina leaves you and Ahin to head towards the bathroom, you pull your girlfriend into a kiss.

"I know that this can't be easy for you."

"I would do anything to make you happy."

She kisses you back.

"What about your own happiness?"

"You don't get it, do you?"

You raise an eyebrow as Ahin laughs at you.

"All of this confirms that I'm with the best man I could ever have. Every female celebrity in this country wants you. But I'm the only one you love."

You lean down to kiss her forehead.

"I really do love you."

When you pull back, you look behind her as if you are looking after Karina.

"What if she does want more than just sex?"

"I don't know. But as long as you are loyal, I'm not really worried anyway."

"Wait. I have an idea."

When Ahin sees your mischievous grin, a devilish smile forms on her lips, while she listens to your proposal.

Karina moans as she gets woken up. Except for the blowjob she gave you in the shower yesterday, the rest of her day went on as usual. After you and Ahin picked her up from her dorm, Karina only then realized what she got herself into.

The three of you stayed up for quite a while. Despite her being a hard working dancer, she has never felt this sore before. Her thighs still feel like pudding. She can't see them, covered by the blanket, but red marks are all over them. Her pussy feels used, but in a good way. Like she got rid off all the stress she had inside of her before. Hickeys cover her entire body. Mostly her chest and thighs. But she vividly remembers Ahin, biting and sucking on her neck, while you made her impale herself on your cock. A feeling Karina will probably never forget.

It's your girlfriend's voice that finally makes her open her eyes.

"Good morning, sleepyhead. Breakfast is ready."

Before she can reply, Ahin is already gone. A little disoriented, Karina throws the blanket off her tired body. She looks around your bedroom, trying to figure out what to wear. Despite spending the night, she wasn't able to get a good look at the room. She was busy getting plowed into the mattress, while Ahin told her what a good slut she is.

Karina feels shame flowing through her veins. She already felt bad for asking Ahin to share her boyfriend. And although it was dirty talk last night, it might be what Ahin actually thinks of her.

The young girl's clothes are still downstairs. She left them there last night. For a moment, she thinks about borrowing something from Ahin, but she quickly shakes her head. She is already using her boyfriend. She can't also steal her clothes.

"There you are."

Ahin gives her a sweet smile as Karina steps into the living room. While Ahin is fully dressed, Karina is only wearing one of your shirts.

"Please. We already ate."

Ahin points at the full plate on the table.

"Where is (y/n) by the way?"

Your girlfriend chuckles.

"Why? Are you having second thoughts about this?"

"N-No!"

Karina quickly shakes her head.

"He is working. (Y/n) will be home later. Maybe around six."

As she sits down at the table, Karina glances at the clock in the kitchen. 12 pm. Was last night really this hard on her?

Karina only realizes that Ahin is standing behind her, after she finished her breakfast.

"Wait. What are you doing?"

She is too surprised to answer. Her fork in her right hand and her phone in the left.

"Don't worry about it."

Ahin has already tied Karina's legs to the chair by now.

"Would you mind taking the shirt off?"

"What? Why?"

Despite her questions, Karina finds herself doing what she is told. She feels awkward sitting naked in your living room, while Ahin is fully dressed and tying her to the chair.

"Let me make some room."

Instead of pushing the table somewhere else, Ahin takes the chair Karina is sitting on and pushes it towards the middle of the room.

"What is going on?"

Karina looks around. Her body is completely tied to the chair. The three of you came up with a safe word for her last night. Would Ahin still listen to her now?

"Look at this."

After stepping in front of her, Ahin takes something out of her pockets.

"That-That's a used condom."

"Correct. It's (y/n)'s. From last night."

"But-But I saw him cum in your mouth. Several times."

Karina feels her cheeks heating up as she says those words out loud.

"He did. But he made me spit it out."

"Why?"

"So you can have it."

"What do you mean?"

Ahin starts to open the nod she put into the condom last night.

"Open your mouth."

Her voice isn't loud or demanding. Just dominant. Just giving simple orders. And Karina, despite hesitating, does what she is told.

"Good girl."

Ahin praises her, before she holds the condom over Karina's mouth. A thick globe of your cum falls down, landing on her tongue.

"Don't swallow."

Karina doesn't move, but your taste is already lingering on her tongue. It takes her a surprising amount of self-control to not just gulp it down.

Ahin takes Karina's face into her hands, before leaning down. Her tongue invades the younger girl's mouth. Karina moans as your cum swirls around her whole mouth. Ahin slowly steals it from her and eventually stands straight again. Karina's mouth is completely empty. Only your taste remains.

With envy in her eyes, the younger girl watches how Ahin takes a big gulp, swallowing your cum.

"I expected you to put up more of a fight."

"Y-You caught me off guard."

The older one chuckles.

"That just means you don't appreciate this enough, yet."

She holds up the condom.

"Let-Let me try again."

Karina's desperate tone makes Ahin smile. She holds the condom over Karina's mouth again, slowly letting some of your cum fall onto your tongue.

"Keep it in your mouth."

To the younger one's surprise, Ahin just leaves her. She walks out of the living room, without looking back. A minute or two later, she reappears. A small pink object is lying in her hands.

"Did you swallow?"

Karina shakes her head, unable to talk with your cum in her mouth.

"Good girl."

Karina's cheeks heat up at the praise.

She feels Ahin working on her waist after she leans down. She wants to know what she is doing, but she can't move her head, without letting your cum fall out of her mouth.

A shiver runs through her as the small pink object touches her clit. The cold plastic gives her goosebumps. Karina knows what this is.

"Now, you don't have to do anything. Just sit here and enjoy yourself."

Ahin leans down, her face close to Karina's.

"But don't swallow. You are only allowed to swallow when you cum. Understood?"

After a moment, Karina hesitantly nods.

"Very good."

Ahin pats her head, before taking a step back again.

The younger girl's eyes dart down to the pink remote in her hand, which she only noticed now.

Karina's breath hitches as she sees Ahin pressing a button. The vibrator on her clit starts to do it's work. The setting is low at first. Enough to make Karina struggle to stay cool, but not enough to get her off.

She looks up at Ahin, not sure where else to look.

Her body starts to tremble, when Ahin turns it up a notch. Karina's spread thighs quiver. The urge to rub them together overwhelms her. It almost feels like your cum in her mouth becomes heavier.

"Try to breath through your nose, sweetie."

Ahin's voice drips with honey as she strokes Karina's hair.

Hidden from the younger girl's view, her finger presses the button once more.

A moan escapes Karina's lips, almost making her swallow instinctively. It's getting harder for her now. Her breathing becomes heavier. The vibration on her clit is now getting her off. She can feel herself starting to get wetter.

"Good girl."

Ahin kisses Karina's cheek.

The younger one's nostrils flare as she tries to steady her breathing. The warmth in her core starts to grow. She desperately wants to cum. She wants to feel your sticky seed flow down her throat. And yet, she tries to hold on, afraid she is going to spill something.

"You are almost there. You are doing so well."

Ahin's soothing voice isn't helping her at all. It only encourages Karina to close her eyes. She focuses on her breathing, trying to blend out the fact that she is tied to the chair, your cum filling her mouth.

Karina almost lets out a yelp as she feels Ahin's hand on her chest.

"Sweetie, you are doing such a good job."

The constant praise makes Karina moan. She feels validated. As if Ahin is telling her that it's okay to be a slut. That it's actually good. That it's a good thing Karina is addicted to another woman's boyfriend.

"If I remember correctly, you liked this a lot last night."

Karina almost squeals in pleasure as she suddenly feels Ahin's lips capture one of her nipples. She could swear that a drop of your cum is slowly running along the wall of her throat. It's slowly making it's way to her stomach. Sinful evidence of her almost failed attempt to keep her composure.

Ahin's lips and tongue feel more like torture than pleasure at this point. She switches between both nipples, giving them equal attention. Meanwhile, the vibrator on her clit makes Karina's tremble even more. She can tell her incoming orgasm isn't that far away anymore. A minute at most. Maybe. Or maybe only a couple of seconds.

Karina's nails dig into her own hand as she tries to find an outlet for her pleasure. Since they are tied to the chair, she can't hold onto something else.

Ahin delivers the final blow, when she lets her hand wander over Karina's midriff. It passes the pink vibrator and reaches her pussy.

The older girl lets it circle around her lower lips and Karina's resistance breaks. Her body trembles and shakes as she orgasms in the middle of your living room. She is almost completely silent. That last remaining functional part of her brain is doing its best to keep your cum in her mouth. It's an almost impossible task.

But Karina manages to hold on. Once her orgasm subsides, she opens her eyes. She is greeted by a smiling Ahin, who is patting her head again.

"Good girl."

Despite her desperate longing to take a big gulp, Karina waits for permission. Only then does she realize that the vibrator is off.

"You earned it. Swallow his cum."

Karina closes her eyes again, before she gladly lets your thick seed flow down her throat. She never felt so rewarded. It feels to her like your cum tastes ten times better than it usually does.

When Karina finally opens her eyes again, Ahin is holding up the condom again.

"You know the drill, sweetie."

Ahin sends you another picture as you step out out of your Ferrari. Just like the last one, it's mainly Karina, who is still tied to the chair. Her body is covered by sweat now. She looks tired and worn out.

Stepping inside your house, you hear moaning from inside the living room.

"Almost there, sweetie. You are doing good."

Your girlfriend's voice makes you smile as you walk towards it.

The scene in front of you makes you instantly hard. Karina is still bound to the chair. Her mouth is almost overflowing with your cum. You catch a couple of used condoms decorating her thighs. Her black hair is sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Meanwhile, Ahin is standing behind her, leaning over and fingering Karina to another orgasm.

You watch as she silently climaxes, her body fighting against the chair and the ropes. You wonder how many times she already came like this. It seems like Ahin just emptied the last condom in the younger girl's mouth, who is now swallowing it's former contents with a big smile on her face.

"Babe!"

Ahin sees you first. She walks over and kisses you, pulling your head down to match her hight.

"H-Hi."

You smile at Karina.

"Would you mind letting her go?"

Ahin walks back and starts working on the ropes that keep Karina in place. You see deep red marks as they come off one by one. But Karina doesn't really seem to care. Once they are off, she gets off the chair.

Her legs are shaking, but she manages to walk over to where you are standing. Her nude body presses against yours, her tits rubbing against your shirt as she looks up at you.

"I-I need your cum. Please. I really need it."

Her whines make you chuckle. It seems like it worked. To prevent Karina from catching any further feelings, you had to make her so addicted to your cum that she can't think about anything else when she sees you.

"Ride me first."

You sit down on the couch, Karina following you.

"Don't mind if I order take out. I'm starving."

Ahin walks away as if you and Karina are just going to watch a movie or something.

Instead, Karina quickly tears your pants off your body, before straddling you.

"Please cum quickly. I need it."

"You already mentioned that."

You bite your lip as Karina sinks onto your shaft. Her pussy wraps around your cock as she glides down to the base.

"Oh god!"

She moans louder than ever before today as she starts bouncing in your lap. Her tits do the same right in front of your face. You can only contain yourself for a couple of moments, before you take them into your hands. You play with them, while Karina keeps riding you.

Just as Ahin did earlier, you start sucking on her nipples. It makes Karina moan louder as she throws her hips towards yours.

"Oh god! Oh god! Oh god!"

Now that she doesn't have to keep your cum in her mouth, she can finally voice her pleasure freely.

"Please make me cum on your cock. Please!"

You place your hands on her waist and start using them to control her movements. You make her pick up the pace quickly.

Karina moans and mewls as she is forced to ride you as fast and as hard as she can. She tries her best to make you cum quickly. She tries to keep eye contact. She tries to flex her abs. She tries to tighten her walls. Anything that makes you want to blow your load into her needy mouth.

After ordering teokbokki, Ahin has come back into the living room. Without a word, she walks up to the two of you, reaching around Karina's waist.

The younger girl moans loudly as she finds herself in a similar position from last night. Ahin's hand starts to play with her clit, while she keeps bouncing on your cock. You keep your face buried in her tits, while Ahin latches onto her neck.

"Gonna cum!"

Karina closes her eyes, throwing her head back, almost headbutting Ahin, who quickly moves out of the way. Your girlfriend starts whispering dirty things into her ear again.

"Be a good slut. Cum on his cock."

She keeps rubbing the younger ones clit, while your grip on her waist increases in strength. You are going to leave marks again.

"You are now his cum dump. His cum drunk whore."

"Please!"

With a loud plea for you to cum in her mouth, Karina orgasms on top of you. Her pussy pulsates around you, her walls squeezing you again and again.

"Get off. I'm gonna cum."

Without even noticing it, Karina swallows by herself after having orgasmed. As if Ahin trained this reflex into her.

With the older girl's help, she manages to slide off of you. Your cock is drenched in her juices. Ahin leans forward and takes you into her mouth. You groan as her skilful tongue dances around your cock. She cleans you up, almost making you cum in her mouth in the process.

"Karina, open your mouth."

Like the good slut she has now been trained to be, Karina opens her mouth, sticking her tongue out. You feel Ahin's tongue swirl around your tip one last time, before you give yourself a couple of quick strokes.

Karina lets out a deep moan as she feels your warm cum hit her tongue, her mouth, her lips and parts of her face. She almost orgasms again without even touching herself. Her brain now connecting your cum with her own pleasure and orgasms.

Before she can savor your taste comfortably, Ahin captures her lips with her own. While for you it looks like they are just kissing, the two women on her knees fight a fierce battle with their tongues. Ahin leans in further and a moment later, Karina finds herself lying on the floor of your living room, Ahin on top of her.

[poppadom0912]

Jay’s Masterplan

Summary: 5 times Jay's plans failed and 1 time it kind of worked out.

A/N: @desimarie12 who asked for a part two of Sylvie’s Masterplan. But, this can also be read as a standalone. I changed and expanded on your idea a lot. I got a little carried away and wrote 3.7k words

I’ve got a few more asks in my inbox left to finish for this 1k celebration so they’ll be coming out very slowly by the end of this week. I’m considering this to be part of it. I hope you enjoy!!

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

1.

It had been two days since your birthday, two days since Sylvie had been incredibly sneaky and achieved one of her biggest accomplishments in life: getting you and jay to finally go on a date.

Said date was today and the past two days had been filled with nothing but anticipation and excitement and endless teasing and cheesy smiles from your sister who seemed as happy as you.

Jay claimed that he had everything under control. He was going to take you out and he would be in charge of everything. You had nothing to worry about – he insisted.

Your first date was going to be perfect.

Sylvie came over to help you get ready. She sat cross legged on your bed as you skimmed your closet and the possible dresses to wear, giving her input when needed. She helped do your hair when time was running out and you were close to running the risk of being late.

Then the doorbell rang and before you could worry any further, she was pushing you out the door, quelling all your worries with the promise that she would clean up the mess that was your bedroom before she went back home.

You didn’t miss the sly smirk on her face when you opened the door, and Jay couldn’t take his eyes off you.

“Be good and have fun kids! Make sure you use protection!” Sylvie smiled, waving you off like a mother.

You could hear her cackles after you let out a weird, almost unattractive noise, embarrassed at her words. “Sylvie!”

“I’m so sorry about her, she’s…”

“She’s being Sylvie.”

Jay was very chivalrous, opening the car door for you before he got in himself. The entire car ride had been filled with comfortable chatter and your pre-date jitters had started to die down.

His story was suddenly cut off by a traffic jam. Cars were beeping and drivers were shouting out each other. You had to roll your window to try understand what was happening.

You heard the words 9-1-1 and ambulance being shouted by numerous voices and both of you were already getting out, sharing a quick glance, exchanging no words.

You followed Jay towards the crushed cars, the smoke piling up was now a cause for concern.

"Ma'am, are you okay?" Jay asked a woman who was stumbling out her car. She held her bloodied head and tripped over her feet disorientated.

"Come with me please. I'm a nurse, I can check you out." You said, moving towards the woman, offering an arm for her to hold onto which she did without question.

Leading her towards the pavement, you looked back at Jay whose eyes hadn't left you, making sure you were safe and had everything under control.

Smiling, you nodded slightly, giving him all the assurance he needed to leave you and do his own thing.

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

2.

So the first date was a bit of a flop.

You ended up going to the hospital with one of the victims involved in the crash and at the end of the night, it had gotten too late to continue with Jay's original plans.

All that was possible was a small takeout at you apartment. In your opinion, this had been one of your most memorable first dates ever.

But, Jay wasn't satisfied. He was committed to taking you out on a proper date, he wasn't taking no for an answer.

It was now two weeks later, both your afternoons lining up together perfectly.

Due to a small timing problem, you would be meeting Jay at the park. He had to sort something out at work really quickly but that gave you enough time to set everything up to your exact preferences.

You knew Jay would have wanted more of a say in the set up but you wanted to contribute something. You brought a cute picnic blanket and a few small foods to nibble on.

Bored, you started picking on the mini charcuterie board you made, eating the cracker as you surveyed the park.

It was nice and peaceful. All the kids were in school, most people at work and only a few people were in the park, walking their dogs or going for a quick midday run.

All of a sudden, you were brought out your reverie by a light tapping on your shoulder. Looking over, you saw a small chubby hand retreating from your shoulder.

Following it, you found yourself looking at a child who couldn't be any older than two.

"Hello." You smiled softly at the little girl, her hair in two small pigtails that held just enough hair to tie up, the tiniest purple trainers and the cutest dungarees. "Honey are you lost?"

She shook her head, her finger pointing at the cracker in your hand. "I have cracker please?"

You swooned, internally aweing and cooing at her voice. Despite being a labour and delivery nurse, you could never get over your baby fever.

"Oh! You want a cracker?" You replied, already picking up a cracker to give to her which she took with the cheekiest smile on her face, her dimples almost blinding you.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Her pronunciation was slightly off but that only made her cuter.

Without any further prompting, she sat opposite you, her legs crossed as she started to eat.

You were so confused and caught up in this little girl that you hadn't seen Jay entering the park. You unfortunately missed the moment his face lit up the second he noticed you.

Walking towards you, his smile slowly turned into a confused frown as he caught sight of the toddler sitting with you.

"Sylvie never mentioned you were a mum."

You jumped, head whipping up to look at him in alarm. "Jay! Hey!"

You stood up, wrapping him in a quick hug and pressing a light kiss on his cheek before pulling away to look down at the toddler who was now on her second cracker.

"Yeah I have no idea where she came from but she asked very politely for some crackers." You said, your smile soft as watched her take a grape.

"No parents in sight?" Jay asked. Both of your eyes were stuck on her as if hypnotised.

"Literally no one is here but us Jay." You rolled your eyes, pointing out the obvious. "She literally appeared out of thin air."

"Cool." Jay hummed, nodding as if it was completely normal to have a random child come up to you and start eating your food.

You sighed wistfully, sitting back down in your spot, the little girl looking up as you did so.

"Is it yummy?" You asked, unable to stop yourself from smiling at the way her head titled to the side.

"Yes, yummy!" She nodded eagerly. "Thank you!"

"Your welcome darling." Gosh you were so gone for her and Jay took notice of how captivated you were of her.

"Gosh I just want to eat her." You said in an almost aggressive manner.

Jay totally didn't feel anything watching how you interacted with her. His heart definitely wasn't going all soft and gooey, his mind definitely wasn't wandering.

For a split second, Jay could envision a future with you.

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

3.

Third times a charm, at least that's what they say.

The two previous attempts of a first date hadn't been very successful. Your last date almost was, you didn't mind the company of the toddler but her parents needed to be found, a task that took over two hours.

Todays date was fool proof. Nothing, and Jay guaranteed it this time, nothing was going to go wrong.

On both of your days off, you both decided on lunch again. This time, unlike the past two, you were successfully able to sit and eat an entire meal without anything going awry.

Just like Jay said, nothing had gone wrong and it was almost the perfect first date.

The only thing left to make this perfect would be-

Gunshots.

Wait, that wasn't right. Gunshots were the opposite of perfection, they would ruin everything.

Gunshots?

Screams echoed in the distance and instantly, Jay was running, his hand tightening its grip around yours.

You mentally cursed yourself for choosing to wear heels.

Jay was shouting some words down his radio that he conveniently carried on him at all times. You could recognise him calling his team for backup.

Turning the corner, you were almost away from the direction of the shooting when all of a sudden, something whizzed past you and Jay groaned.

"Oh my God!" You reacted on instinct.

With the hand still holding his, you pulled him towards you and immediately inspected and gingerly held his bleeding bicep.

"Okay good, you'll be fine, it's just a graze." You sighed in relief as you took off your cardigan, wrapping it around the wound, ignoring Jay asking for you not to ruin such a nice pattern.

"I'll be fine, I can wait for an ambo-"

Jay stopped himself when you looked up at him deadpanned, mouth closing as he petulantly let you tighten up your knot.

"I'm the professional here Jay Halstead so you listen to me." You didn't break eye contact as you tightened it even more to the point that he let out a miniscule wince. "Just wait till I tell your brother about this."

"Wait, Y/N, you don't have to tell Will. Don't tell him please."

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

4.

Fourth time around, you were slowly starting to lose hope at ever having a successful first date with the man.

At this rate, you were becoming kinda desperate to the point where you were contemplating getting Sylvie involved and having her plan everything since she was clearly much better than both you and Jay combined.

You left the house with your expectations very low and you were right to have done so because not even ten minutes after leaving your house, you suddenly found yourself bagless.

The man had been so quick with it that you had no time to even react.

You weren't even surprised, just disappointed that you hadn't been holding your bag tighter. You should've known better.

Damn. Your phone was in your bag too.

Sighing, you turned around. Your destination changed now. You needed to go to the 21st precinct now.

One thing was on your side today since the walk was under ten minutes and you had worn the appropriate footwear this time too.

Entering the precinct, you smiled and waved at Trudy. You had been well acquainted with the older woman through Sylvie and Mouch.

"Hey Trudy, do you by any chance know if Jay's already left?" You asked nervously, now realising that this all could've been a waste of time if he already left to go to your date.

Trudy studied you closely, eyes squinted as she tried to figure out what was happening. "You two still haven't gone on a date yet? You want me to have a word with him Brett?"

You chuckled, appreciating her protective nature. "No it's okay but I think I was just robbed."

Trudy wasn't laughing with you. Her face dropped, eyes wide at your confession.

"Then why you standing around here for?" She huffed incredulously as she rounded her desk and started pulling you towards the Intelligence gates.

"Come on, we're going to confront lover boy."

She gave you no time to answer back as you were already in the bullpen, everyone staring at you with lots of confusion.

"Y/N, what are you doing here?" Jay asked, eyes going to the clock when a wave of fear crashed over him. "There's still twenty minutes till our reservation-"

"Brett 2.0 has been robbed." Trudy said, not wanting to waste any more time. "What a boyfriend you are huh?"

Both of you ignored that last part, everyone's eyes widening at the statement.

"Shit- are you hurt?" Jay asked, chucking his file aside and striding towards you, taking you in his arm and inspecting your body for any visible injuries.

"I'm completely fine, untouched." You assured him, taking hold of his hands to stop his unnecessary worrying. "It's just my bag - phone, wallet, keys, cards all that stuff."

"We'll find it." Jay stated, no hesitation or doubt in his words. "I'll track your phone and hopefully we'll find this man."

"We'll need another rain check." You said sadly, trying not to show too much disappointment.

"It's okay, don't worry about that." Jay shook his head.

"As long as your okay and safe - that's all that matters."

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

5.

The night had started off without a hitch and you were trying not to think about it too much.

This had all been very last minute. Jay had randomly called you, inviting you out to the very fancy restaurant that neither of your salaries could afford.

Apparently, he helped someone out at work and they owned the restaurant. So as a favour, they wanted to let him and a friend have a free dinner.

Jay wasn't going to pass on this opportunity, especially if he could take you on a date.

You were both dressed up the most fancily either of you had been for any of your failed attempts of dates. It was safe to say that Jay was even more attractive, if that was even possible, when he put a little extra effort in.

All your food had been ordered and your conversation had been flowing smoothly from one topic to the next. You had to cross all your fingers and toes to not jinx yourself.

Before the food could come, you quickly excused yourself to the restroom. You needed to go really quick and maybe touch up your face a little bit too.

The women's side was empty and so you wasted no time, quickly doing your business, washing your hands and fixing yourself in the very bougie mirror.

Reapplying your lip gloss and fixing a few stray hairs, you took a quick picture of yourself in the mirror, sending it to Sylvie before leaving.

As you went to pull the door handle, you recoiled, hissing and shaking your hand from the burning heat.

Hesitantly, you slowly moved your finger, wanting to touch it again really quickly to double check you weren't hallucinating.

Hissing again, your fears were confirmed. There was a fire.

Just great. This was perfect. Exactly what you wanted.

You had nothing on you to protect yourself. The shawl you brought had been taken by the hostess, the only sort of extra material you had on your person were the glasses cloth for your reading glasses.

But it wasn't nearly big enough to cover your face. It was good enough though to pull the door handle without inflicting too much damage on your hand.

Blowing out a puff of air, you psyched yourself up, bouncing a little in your heels. You had no idea how bad the fire was but either way, you had to be prepared to move.

Just as you pulled the door open, your phone started ringing. But you were already on the move now and answering the phone wasn't a part of the mini plan you just formulated.

So, like the smart individual you were, you ignored your buzzing phone and tried to make your way out of the smoke.

It was quite thick considering the time frame. You didn't think you were gone for too long but you were struggling to see through the smoke, let alone make your way through it.

Trying to keep ahold of your breath, you squinted to try make out the corridor and the walls. The restaurant was the type of fancy that all the walls were identical and in this disorientated state, it was even harder to distinguish where you were going.

You were starting to struggle with your breath, you'd have to inhale soon so you had to get out of here fast.

Tripping over your feet, you caught yourself on the wall, coincidentally another metal handle that was hot. Without thinking, you pulled your hand away and you fell to your knees.

You weren't able to overthink everything like you normally would.

Wincing, you quickly pulled yourself up and this time, you couldn't avoid breathing and inhaling the smoke. Your coughing fit was expected but that didn't make it any less pleasant.

Ignoring the tingling in your knees, you dragged yourself to stand straight, cloth back over your mouth and moving again towards any sort of exit.

"Call out!"

You paused. Did you hear that right?

"Call out!"

No, you were actually hearing it. If you had to guess, that sounded like the man your sister was deeply in love in. If it wasn't Matt that was shouting then you were truly losing it.

Deciding to risk it, you called out. "Matt?!"

There was a pause before you heard a commotion. "Y/N! Call out again!"

Stifling your coughs, you listened, calling out again as you moved towards the sound of his voice.

If it wasn't for the adrenaline flooding your veins, you would've deflated in relief at the familiar sight of the firefighter, a few men behind him who you couldn't recognise as the smoke was getting thicker.

Without any further word, Matt pulled you towards him and started escorting you away, shouting a few words at his men. "Y/N was there anyone else back there with you?"

You shook your head, coughing again. "No, it's only me."

It took a moment but as soon as you were outside, relief could've drowned you.

Despite all the beautiful fresh air, it welcomed you with an even more wonderful coughing fit.

In a blurry of motions, you found yourself being gently moved to sit down on a stretcher.

"Y/N, oh my gosh, thank goodness." You recognised Sylvie instantly without even looking. You could hear the tears wanting to escape in the thickness in her voice. "We were so scared."

Sylvie was multitasking, talking to you as she started fretting over you, checking for any visible injuries before starting to treat you for smoke inhalation.

"My hand." You rasped out when you realised she hadn't taken note of your trembling hands just yet.

"Shhh, don't talk." Sylvie gently caressed your arm before disappearing back into what you think is her ambulance.

You started blinking to get rid of the blurriness and the first thing you saw when you finally gained your somewhat clear vision was a harried looking Jay.

"Oh, hey."

"Hey you." Jay replied, a small smile that fell when he saw the breathing mask being put over your face and Sylvie beginning to bandage your hands. "Don't ever scare me like that, ever again you hear me?"

Just as you were going to reply, Jay shook his head, moving his hand back so that he wouldn't touch you. "Please, don't say anything."

The look on his face made you wish you still couldn't see properly. Looking into the smoke was less painful than looking at his face drowning in hurt.

"And don't you dare say sorry either or else this fire will be the least of your problems."

You sighed in relief, from both this newfound oxygen and from being reunited with Jay.

🥐🥐🥐🥐🥐

+1

Luckily for you, your injuries weren't too bad, just some smoke inhalation and third degree burns but you did have the stay overnight for observation.

The adrenaline was slowly starting to die down now that you were in the hospital. The room was silent and you could finally start to relax.

Before your thoughts could spiral, Jay re-entered the room, weirdly with a tray in hand.

"Don't talk, I asked Will and he advised you try not talk too much but if you must, then whisper please - for my sake."

You could only nod, your eyes trained on him as he made his way across the room towards you, placing the tray on the folding table.

As if knowing what you were going to ask him, a smile broke out on his face as he moved the little table towards you.

"Well, our date didn't go to plan, again, so I thought we'd do it here." He revealed, as he uncovered the tray of what you now knew was food from the hospital cafeteria.

"Now I know this wasn't the food we were going to have tonight but, you eat it everyday so there must be something to it." He shrugged, very smooth as he opened the individual packages.

"All the main dishes were gone but this can't be too bad."

Looking back at you, Jay was caught off guard at how you were staring at him. Despite everything that happened tonight, there was this softness and longing in your eyes that made his heart skip a beat.

The corner of your eyes were crinkling as they squinted. Even under the oxygen mask, it was so obvious that you were smiling, as bright as you did on your first failed date.

Jay wanted to make you smile that like for however long you allowed him to.

"Thank you." You whispered to him, blowing him a kiss from under the mask.

Jutting your head towards him, he didn't need any words to know what you were asking of him.

Taking off the oxygen mask and putting on the nasal canula, Jay made sure he was doing everything right, Will's words replaying in the back of his mind.

His touch was feather light, fingers much more colder than your way too warm cheeks.

"Okay so, sandwich first?" He asked, surveying the options again, waiting for your nod or shake of your head.

When you nodded, he opened the package and held it out to you so you could take a bite. Your hands were both bandaged making you incapable of doing anything yourself.

You smiled at him with your mouthful, your cheeks puffing out to express your gratitude for him.

As you chewed, he opened his own and also started to eat his dinner, alternating between feeding you and himself in comfortable silence.

This definitely wasn't what Jay had planned for your first date but it was definitely a memorable one and he wouldn't have you either way: happy and safe, well fed and content.

If this just the first date, then Jay couldn't wait for a lifetime full of them.

[toomuchracket]

blood-red lips (birthday party!matty x reader angst/fluff)

the year is 2022. bfiafl release is imminent. you and matty are clearly in love but nervy to admit it. he brings a date to a house party you're at. things go tits up. promptober! enjoy <3

(p.s. if ur name is mabel i am so sorry lol)

“... oh yes, we went last week, i thought it was just so incredible. we just loved it - didn't we, matty?”

“hmm?” matty's snapped out of his reverie at the mention of his name; he's not really got a clue what his date's on about, but he nods anyway. “decent way to spend an evening.”

she touches his face in a weird approximation of tenderness, and he has to fight the urge to recoil. “god, you're so funny. isn't he just, like, so funny?”

“oh, yeah, hilarious,” nick deadpans from across the living room. he nods at matty. “fancy a smoke?”

a reprieve. thank fuck. “absolutely,” he stands, flashing a quick smile that doesn't meet his eyes to the girl beside him. “be back in a bit, yeah?”

“miss you already!”

he doesn't answer, already out of the living room and making a beeline towards the front door. when he follows nick outside, the cold air chills him to the bone, but he doesn't make a move to go back inside for his jacket - that would mean going back in to her.

“so,” nick busies himself with rolling a cig, while matty lights his own one from the pack perpetually in his pocket. “your date seems… nice. if a bit, well, overly affectionate.”

“you can say ‘clingy’, mate, it's alright.”

his friend laughs. “just trying to be polite.”

matty shrugs. “fair. but why lie?” he takes a long drag of the cigarette. “so. when's everyone else getting here?”

“you mean when's the best writer in the friend group getting here?”

“stabbing me would hurt less, nicholas,” he glares, face quickly shifting into a grin. “nah, you're right, she is,” he does his best to look nonchalant, which is an impossible task for him when you're concerned. “seriously, though, is she coming?”

“yeah.”

“definitely?”

nick smirks, nodding to the street. “i'd say it's a possibility. look.”

matty turns his head so quickly he's surprised he doesn't get whiplash, and he feels a massive smile spread itself across his face as he takes in the sight of you speedwalking down the street towards him, laden with tote bags; as you get closer, the bottle-clanking within them is apparent, as is the gorgeous red lipstick you're wearing. by the time you reach the front gate, he sees it's a slightly darker red than he first thought, more akin to fresh blood than fire engines and postboxes, a colour he'd happily let you leave all over his body if it meant he got to be kissed by you. combined with the familiar rosy scent that constantly surrounds you and wafts up the steps to the front door before you do, the thought of you leaving lipstick kisses on him has matty nothing short of dazed, and he's thankful when nick does his host duties and takes the lead on greetings - matty does manage to snap himself out of delusion before he's socially required to say hello, though, which he does through a longer-than-probably-appropriate hug and a soft “hi, darling”.

you eagerly reciprocate the welcome, squeezing matty so tight he goes a bit floaty. well, more than he already is around you. “hi, lovely. been a while, hasn't it?”

like he needs reminding. part of the only reason there's someone new sitting on the sofa indoors is because you weren't free to hang out. “i know,” he pulls back, heart fluttering at how beautiful you look and how sparkly your eyes are. “where have you been?”

“farringdon.”

matty frowns. “i thought you were in glasgow?”

“yesterday, yeah. but today,” you sigh, smiling tiredly. “negotiations with faber & faber.”

“they giving you a fuckload of money?”

you nod, smirking. “oh, yeah. cleared them out,” the boys laugh, and you join in before nudging matty. “and where have you been, lately, healy?”

matty opens his mouth to answer, but nick beats him to it. “oh, with his new lady friend,” the man takes a drag of his rollie, holding it to you; you shake your head, stealing matty's cigarette instead and taking a puff, which he reprimands you for by gently nudging you indignantly. “constantly out and about, the pair of them. she's in the living room, actually.”

“oh,” you blink, and matty swears he sees your face fall slightly. wishful thinking, perhaps. but you recover quickly, turning to him with a smile that his brain tries to tell him is fake. “you brought a date?”

“i did,” matty replies, guilt beginning to gnaw at his stomach. he rushes to clarify, practically tripping over his own words to reassure you. “but it's not, like, serious or anything, me and her.”

nick raises a thick eyebrow. “does mabel know that?”

“well-”

“hold on,” you take a long drag of matty's cigarette. fuck, your lips. “her name is mabel? is she eighty?”

nick cackles, and matty has to bite back a laugh of his own. “she's your age, actually.”

“fucking hell. poor girl,” a smirk appears on your gorgeous face, and matty braces himself. “and poor you, having to moan that during sex. jesus.”

he shrugs, while nick practically cries laughing in the background; someone - probably frankie, his girlfriend - calls him from the living room, and he heads inside, leaving matty and you alone. “i've worked around it.”

by closing his eyes and imagining it's you he's fucking instead, thinking about your name and face and body and voice instead of hers, forcing his words into moans before he says them because he knows he'll end up calling her by your name if he doesn't… yeah. 

matty reaches for the cigarette in your hand, which you pass over politely as you muse. “well, i s'pose you'd have to. fuck, i'm not even in the party yet and i'm already being a bitch,” you shake your head. “m'sorry.”

“nah,” matty slings an arm around you, giddiness fizzing in his veins at the contact. “you know i like it when you get feisty.”

you don't quite know how much, but that's a secret between him and his right hand only.

humming out a little laugh, you turn to look him in the eye. there's something dancing in yours that he can't quite name - if he was any more delusional than he currently is, he would say it's attraction, flirtiness. “yeah?”

the breathiness of your voice has him reeling. “yeah.”

“maybe i'll keep it up, then. just for you,” the words are paired with a wink, and it takes everything in matty not to actually pop a boner. “can i have another drag of the cig?”

“magic word?”

you smile, saccharine. “please?”

he rolls his eyes. “they're bad for you, you know,” still, he holds the cig out for you to take. instead of holding it, though, you duck down and take it between your lips from his fingers, cheeks hollowing almost obscenely as you inhale; you stand up to exhale, winking as you do.

yeah, he's getting rid of his date as soon as possible.

someone - definitely frankie - calls your name. you start, grabbing your bags and moving to go inside, turning back to matty. “coming?”

he wishes. god, what is wrong with him tonight? “i'll finish this first, darling. you go ahead.”

“okay,” you smile. “miss you already.”

so does he, melancholy washing over him as soon as you disappear into the house. sighing, matty takes a final draw of the cig, stubbing it out in the ashtray on the garden wall; once he's sure it's done, he slides the lipstick stained butt back into the pack, keeping it safely in his pocket. which, admittedly, is a bit insane of him, but it feels like the right thing to do, to keep this definite evidence of the moment the two of you just shared.

when he reenters the house, he makes a beeline for the kitchen - partially to get some liquid courage for dealing with mabel again, but mostly because he knows that's your first (and last, and most frequent) port of call at any party. sure enough, you've already perched yourself on the counter, sandwiched between frankie and alexa with what looks like a vodka cranberry in your hand, and now that you've shed your jacket matty sees your dress for the first time; navy mesh, tastefully sheer, undeniably doing wonders for both your chest and legs without going too far… not an outfit he'll forget in a hurry.

speaking of things to be forgotten in a hurry - “matty, baby, where were you?” mabel stumbles into him out of seemingly nowhere, teetering on her louboutin-dupe stilettos; he steadies her as he best he can while trying to avoid touching her, leaning away from her prosecco breath and the way she's trying to cling to him possessively. “you were gone for so long i finished a whole bottle!”

jesus. what on earth was he thinking, getting mixed up with her? charity work? still, matty does his best to stay polite, conscious of the fact the conversations in the room - yours included - have halted somewhat. “i was just having a smoke. no big deal.”

“mmmkay,” she leans in for a kiss, which ends up on his cheek when he turns his head, and blinks her way around the room. when she sees you, her unfocused eyes suddenly sharpen, and her overly-plumped lips draw into a pout. “who are you?”

oh, fuck.

matty's whole body tenses. alexa's eyes widen. you, however, do nothing but insouciantly sip your drink, cocking your head as you swallow. “et toi?”

behind matty, nick snorts a quiet laugh, and matty has to hold one in of his own. mabel's frown deepens, confused. “what?”

“sorry. mabel, right?” you smile, genuine, before introducing yourself. “nice to meet you.”

she doesn't reciprocate the statement, drunkenness making her direct. “matty talks about you a lot,” there's an edge to the way mabel slurs her words that makes matty deeply, deeply uncomfortable. she sniffs. “i used to be worried about that, but you're actually not even that pretty, so…”

there's a beat of dead silence, before several jaws - including frankie's, and yours, and matty's himself - all but fall to the tiled floor. he jerks his hand away from mabel, a cocktail of embarrassment and disgust and utter fury coursing through him. “what the fuck, mabel? why would you even say that?”

she shrugs, and he gets even angrier. “it's true.”

“you're fucking ridiculous, you know that?” frankie's making her way over now, storming straight past mabel to hold the kitchen door open. “get out of my house. no fucking way you're getting away with saying something like that to my friend. matty,” her face softens a smidge when she looks at him. “i'm sorry, but she has to go.”

“way ahead of you, fran,” he's already got his phone out, tapping furiously. shoving the device savagely back in his pocket, he glares at mabel, who has the gall to look surprised. “an uber will be outside for you in three minutes. consider it a parting gift.”

the words take a second to compute, and then mabel's face twists into one of affront. “you cannot be serious. you're choosing her over me?”

“always,” matty spits back. and as an afterthought, so as to not seem suspicious - “i’d defend any of them before you, if you had the fucking cheek to be rude about them like that. we might've had fun, mabel, but this,” he shakes his head. “nah. we're done.”

mabel rears back, and he braces himself, but the slap never comes. instead, she looks around the room, shaking her head before storming out. “bunch of cunts.”

the door slams, and all the girls in the room flock to you as if they've been trained to do so. matty doesn't dare even look at you, the guilt from earlier turning to nausea and threatening to creep up his throat; he gently rests his head on the cool marble of the kitchen island, taking deep shaky breaths and doing his best to calm down.

that is, until your voice cuts through the hubbub of the kitchen, as soft and warm as he's ever heard it - he must be tuning it subconsciously to make himself feel better. “matty? can you come here, please?”

he looks up tentatively to find you standing by the door, heart slowing down to an almost regular pace when he sees you don't look angry, or upset. you beckon him over with a manicured index finger, and his legs seem to move of their own accord until he's standing right in front of you. the tiniest smile finds its way onto your lips, and you hold out your hand. “shall we go for a chat?”

matty nods, grasping your open hand and letting you pull him into the hall and upstairs. part of him wants to be ecstatic about the fact you're finally leading him by the hand away from a party so you can be alone - in a bedroom, no less, it turns out - but the context in which it's taking place is impossible to ignore, as is the sadness and guilt he feels about it. still, he can't stop his heart skipping a beat when you sit on the edge of the bed, and pat the space beside you for him to sit in, and reach out to hold his hand when he does.

“so,” your voice cuts through, again, but this time matty looks up to see your eyes are trained on the floor. “that was… something.”

“darling, i-” matty shakes his head, a lump in his throat. “i'm so, so incredibly sorry about that. never for a second did i think she would ever,” he shakes his head, tears pricking at his eyes.

you squeeze his hand. “matty - matthew, look at me, please,” he obliges, and the tiniest flicker of a smile crosses your face. it breaks his heart. “you weren't to know she would say that, yeah? please don't beat yourself up about it.”

“but-”

“no, seriously, it's okay. i'll get over it,” you try to smile again, but it falls off your face almost as fast as it appears; then, horribly, your voice cracks. “and here was me thinking i looked nice after i got ready tonight.”

matty's heart shatters, and all he can do in the moment is just tug you onto his lap and wrap his arms around you as tightly as possible. you're crying, he's crying, you're both clutching at each other like you're drowning… fuck, what a pair the two of you are. “don't you dare let her convince you you didn't,” matty croaks into your hair. “you're fucking beautiful, darling. always. it's fact. scientific fact.”

you laugh, and his heart lifts a bit. “even now?” you sniffle, pulling back, eyes slightly bloodshot and cheeks on the verge of being streaked by running mascara.

he nods. “i meant it when i said ‘always,’” he kisses your cheek affectionately, enjoying the way it lifts under his lips as you smile. “really like your lipstick, by the way.”

“thanks. thought it was chic.”

“it is. you've got great taste.”

“yeah, you haven't,” you nudge him playfully. “in women, that is. in most other things, i think you're good.”

oh, if only you knew what his taste in women was really like. matty grins. “shall we go back downstairs and put that statement to the test with the tequila i brought?”

“absolutely we shall,” you climb off him (and he does his best not to be upset about that), holding your hand out and squeezing his when he joins the two. “you know i love you, yeah?”

matty smiles, only slightly sadly. “i love you, too.”

[slexenskee]

Don't Forget About Us (MDNSY Oneshot)

Makoto spares him an unimpressed look. “You looked like you were going to cry in front of a KFC of all fucking things a couple hours ago— and now you’re the drunkest I’ve seen you in months and seem determined to somehow sing your way out of a crisis.”

For an ask about the new bff learning about the past bff

Read here [link] or below:

“Not here,” Satoru says, which draws her up short.

They’ve just finished up a show at a nearby club, and despite the late hour are utterly ravenous. Kenji and Yui begged off for the night, leaving Makoto alone with her lead singer. Makoto has led them to the nearest appropriately greasy and unhealthy restaurant within eyeshot— a KFC. Not her go-to pick as far as fast food or even fried chicken is concerned, but beggars can’t be choosers. 

Except they can, apparently, because Satoru seems pretty staunch in his disapproval. 

Makoto stares at him incredulously. “Don’t tell me you’re on a diet,” she laughs, joking.

Her laughter fades as Satoru’s expression remains unchanged. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen that look on him before. Distant and constellated. Even with his glasses off he’s a bit impossible to read. 

“Seriously?” Her look turns skeptical. 

He’s the size of a waif and eats more sugar than should be statistically possible. And a bit of processed fast food is hardly the worst thing he’s done to himself in the time she’s known him. The cigarette dangling from his lips is a sure sign of that. And since when does he have a problem with fast food after a live show? He lives for this shit. 

“I just don’t like fried chicken,” he returns, which is a blatant lie if she ever knew one. He likes fried chicken just fine; he especially likes it at one in the morning, when he’s starving after a setlist. 

She rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, get something else on the menu then.” She’s starving right now, and the tantalizing scent of fried food is only making it worse.

“Anywhere but here,” he says, and this time, she can hear the threadbare shot of panic in the bottom of his voice. 

Does he… Is he being serious right now? Evidently yes. Taking another look at him, he really does look unwell. 

“Okay,” Makoto says, slowly, taking a step back from the well-lit doorway. “We’ll go somewhere else, then.” 

“Preferably with alcohol involved,” Satoru adds, flippantly, and turns on his heel, as if the sight of a single fast food restaurant sign could do more damage to him than the excessive alcohol he’s about to consume. 

Makoto lets it go, for the time being. This weird but shockingly talented bandmate of hers has the strangest hangups sometimes. She’s just learned to accept them, for the most part. And not ask too many questions— he gets real squirrelly with those. And every time she thinks she’s getting closer to the truth of him, he twists the paradigm around with yet another absurd and/or vaguely horrifying revelation.  

Makoto shoves them into the nearest izakaya she can find— ironically a yakitori joint with ample fried chicken on the menu— and immediately orders them a round of beers that Satoru tacks on with a bottle of sochu. Ah. So it’s going to be one of those nights. They order a responsible amount of food with their drinks for the first few rounds, but eventually it just turns into the two of them getting wildly drunk and staggering out of the place draped over each other in search of the nearest karaoke bar. 

Makoto would have thought the guy would have had enough of singing, what with performing a whole setlist just a few hours ago, but drunk!Ru-kun really only has two modes, slutty stripper Ru-kun or karaoke star Ru-kun, and since he’s still hung up over Hawks these days, it looks like they’re shutting down the karaoke bars tonight. 

Not that Makoto minds, necessarily. It’s been ages since they’ve had a night out like this, and she’s got a whole weekend to be miserable and recover from what’s shaping up to be a raging hangover before she has to drag herself to work again. And for whatever reason, she’s sensing Satoru might be in desperate need of a night out himself. 

The place they stumble into is equal parts nightclub and karaoke bar: a large, darkly lit open interior sprawls before them packed to the gills with dancers; disco lights zip across the crowds and the bottle services girls fighting their way to their tables with sparkling champagne thrust into the air like shooting stars; and at the far end an inebriated girl with cat ears is belting out a fairly decent rendition of Mariah Carey’s Shake it Off as she struts across the bar. In short, this is probably exactly the sort of place they were both looking for. 

Makoto swindles them a free table with a bit of flirting with the hostess, and finds herself holding court among a generous crowd of random inebriated strangers thrilled to get drinks off her tab, while Satoru wanders off to find the mic. She loses track of him for a bit, but is unsurprised when he resurfaces wearing someone else’s blonde wig, up on the bar himself singing Baby One More Time as he fumbles his way through the dance routine with the cat-eared girl in tow. Still in his stage outfit from earlier in the night, he honestly looks like someone paid him to be up there, which is probably why the entire bar is clamoring towards him like he’s a celebrity or something. 

He shows up at her table eventually, sprawling himself over her and the booth with his borrowed blonde wig in tangles across his face. She throws it off him as he makes grabby hands for a bottle of champagne on the table. She should probably cut him off at this point, but she’s wasted herself and doesn’t have enough fucks to care anymore, so she just pours them both another glass and clinks their glasses together. 

She has no idea what time it is when she starts to feel hungry again and orders food. They could have been in this place for hours or days, and she wouldn’t be able to tell; it doesn’t seem to be in danger of closing on them any time soon. The crowds come and go, but the place stays packed and the loud music has yet to bother her, so she doesn’t feel inclined to leave. What would be the point? There’s no food at her apartment, and ever since she broke it off with her last fling, no one waiting for her either. From the way Satoru constantly gets his turn at the mic, she doubts he’s in any rush to leave either. 

So maybe they’re both just eager to run away from things. But for his sake, she should probably get him to talk about it. The last time he was having some kind of internal crisis he was trying to drown out with alcohol, he’d ended up sleeping with a Top Three Hero and catching feelings for him.

“Okay, so what the hell brought this on,” she finally corners him, after he’s done with an obnoxiously impressive cover of Despacito for a guy who speaks absolutely no Spanish, and is once again sprawled in the booth with her.  

“What? Nothing.” She supposes she should at least be happy to see him putting orange juice in his champagne, even if he’s yet to touch any of the food. 

Makoto spares him an unimpressed look. “You looked like you were going to cry in front of a KFC of all fucking things a couple hours ago— and now you’re the drunkest I’ve seen you in months and seem determined to somehow sing your way out of a crisis.”

“It’s not my fault everyone keeps shoving the mic at me and picking great songs,” he retorts, stubbornly. 

This probably means she should drop it and just let him run away from his own problems, but beyond just trying to save himself from the worst of his own vices, at this point she’s also just curious. 

“Fine, drink your way out of a crisis,” she amends, then shoves a plate of dosas at him. “And at least eat something if you’re going to do that. I’m not dragging you home if you’re too drunk to walk.”

Satoru pouts ferociously, but nonetheless reaches for a crepe and tears off a bite. “I’m not having a crisis,” this idiot insists, like the emotionally stunted idiot he is. 

“Really? Let’s go to a KFC then, if you’re not having a crisis about it. We’ll bring the whole band.”

“I’m not having a crisis about fucking fried chicken, okay,” Satoru says, expression turning a bit pinched. “I just— it was bad timing, is all. If I hadn’t just gotten done with playing our last setlist I would have been fine to eat there.”

This draws Makoto up a bit short. Her brow creases. “What does the setlist have to do with it?”

Satoru stares at her for a moment, indecipherable. Then he grabs his champagne and downs the whole thing. He sets the empty glass on the table as he says, “I almost had to kill my best friend in front of a KFC, once.”

It’s so unexpected she nearly drops her own drink. “What?” 

No, seriously. What the fuck? 

“He’d gone off the rails and killed a bunch of people,” Satoru continues, only bewildering her further. “I was supposed to put him down, but at the time I just couldn’t do it. I tracked him down, stood outside the store ready to kill him, and I just… I couldn’t do it.” 

Makoto leans back in her seat, reeling. 

She’d call it some bizarre made up bullshit, but sadly, every facet of Satoru’s life sounds like bizarre made up bullshit, so it’s probably the truth. 

She scrambles for a response. “I— when was this?” 

“A while ago,” he answers, clipped. He reaches for the entire bottle of champagne, and this time doesn’t even bother with the glass. She doesn’t stop him. 

She has no idea what she expected from this mysterious and eccentric bandmate of hers, but admitting to attempted murder was really not in her cards for the guy. Then again, what did she expect? She watches him down the entire bottle as she tries, and fails, to get her thoughts together. There’s just so much to infer from this and she doesn’t even know where to start. Just what kind of guy was his best friend, that he’d gone on a killing spree? And why would it ever be Satoru’s responsibility to execute him for his crimes? And what does that have to do with their setlist? 

She at least gets one of the answers she’s searching for.

Satoru wipes at his mouth, looking out into the strobe lights as he says, “He wasn’t a bad person. He just… wanted more than life could ever grant him.” 

Makoto blinks, realization dawning hard and fast. 

(I wanted more than life could ever grant me)

Satoru never talks about how he writes his music. He swears, in fact, that it doesn’t really mean anything to him at all— that he just makes them up off the top of his head. Makoto had never once believed that, and now she has the proof. She’s heard him sing Today is the Greatest hundreds of times at this point, but she’d always thought it was about himself. The more she learns about him, the more she realizes some of those lines align a little too closely to his own experiences to be anything but personal. But she supposes two things can be true at once; that song can be about him, but still remind him of a friend he’d lost. 

She almost doesn’t want to ask, but… “What happened to him?”

Even the stifling, crowded warmth of the nightclub plunges into ice as he says, without looking at her, “I can only hope he found more peace in death than he did in life.” 

Makoto startles at the implication. 

But at the time, I just couldn’t do it. 

So he managed it, in the end? 

Before she can even fathom up a response, the cat-eared girl is leaping over the booth to wrap her arms around Satoru, begging him to get up and help her duet yet another Mariah Carey song. 

“Make it Don’t Forget About Us and I’ll do it,” he says. 

Without hesitation she agrees, and he grabs his ridiculous wig and jumps over the seat to join her. He’s probably eager to once again run away from his feelings and, this time, she can’t blame him whatsoever. Or on second thought, as they really get into it in the chorus, she has to wonder if this isn’t actually him running from his feelings so much as confronting them head on? "When it’s real, it’s forever" indeed. 

//

She learns a hell of a lot about her ridiculous bandmate over the course of the following months, but she never quite gets a straight answer over his former best friend, and possibly first love, and she never directly asks, either. If he wants to tell her, she’ll listen, but otherwise she’ll let him approach it in his own time. 

But she does make sure he knows she’s around if he ever wants to talk about it. 

They’re at that same R&B karaoke joint, this time enjoying their time in a far more sedate and far less exorbitant manner with drinks at the bar. Satoru has long since lost that blonde wig, but the bartenders have clearly never forgotten ‘Karaoke Queen Ruru’ because they shower them with a generous amount of free shots and make pointed questions about the karaoke queue every time. Satoru waves them off with a laugh though, insisting he’s just here for a quiet night out. 

“You’ve gotten boring ever since you got wifed up,” Makoto denounces as he hedges off yet another turn at the mic.

Satoru’s expression turns a bit pinched— and panicked. “I’m not married,” he hisses, furtively. “And don’t say that so loud! I don’t need the rumors to get any worse.” 

“Not married yet,” Makoto revises, rolling her eyes. “For reasons that still allude me. What are you waiting for, exactly? You can’t ask for a more public or dramatic proposal than the one you already got.”

“It’s not that,” he insists, rolling his glass in his hands. 

Makoto blinks at him. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

“I’m not,” Satoru remarks, although he does look a bit shifty-eyed. Makoto squints at him. A bit of dread sinks in her stomach.

“Satoru,” she starts, cautiously. “If you really don’t want this…”

“It’s definitely not that either,” he assures her quickly. His mouth pinches into a tight line. “I know it took me, like, an inconceivably long amount of time to get to the point where I can admit it outside of our various discographies, but I do want Hawks. I don’t have any doubts about it.” 

He stops, the silence holding for a heavy, offbeat moment as he seems to want to say more, but can’t manage to force the words out. Makoto isn’t sure what else to do but wait patiently for him to finish, and when he doesn’t, flag the bartender down for shochu shots. Nothing like a bit of liquid courage to brace yourself for some trauma dumping. 

Satoru huffs out a laugh as she rolls one down the bar towards him, clinking their glasses together. “Thanks,” he says, as they cheers.

“What are friends for?” She counters, tossing the shot back. 

Satoru follows her, then sets the glass back down on the bar as he wipes the salt off his lips. “I don’t have any doubts,” he repeats, after a moment. “I guess I just… need a bit more time to let go.”

Let go? Her brow furrows in confusion. Let go of what? 

Then she remembers the last time they were at this bar. The last time Satoru had run away from his past straight into the arms of excessive alcohol and a cat-eared girl singing R&B classics. Remembers his request for his last song, where he’d stood on top of a filthy bar and belted out, “I’m just speaking from experience, nothing can compare to your first true love” to a packed dance floor all singing along with their hands in the air. 

She sets her own glass down. “Were you and your friend… were you two like that?” She asks, hesitantly. 

Were you lovers, before you killed him? 

She’s a little relieved when he shakes his head. Romantic or not, she’s sure that doesn’t lessen the pain, just makes it a different kind of regret. 

“No. Well— not exactly.” He looks conflicted. “We never… it was never like that. It might have been, but, well…” 

Then he had some kind of psychotic break and turned into a mass murderer, and Satoru had to be the one to put an end to him permanently. Right. What a fucking mess. No wonder this guy has spent most of his life doing his level best to avoid his own past. The more she learns about it, the more depressing it gets. 

She nudges him sympathetically with her knee. “It’s okay to mourn the loss of what could have been,” she says, gently. “It’s not wrong to need time to move on— no matter how much time that is.”

Satoru nods, looking lost in his own thoughts. 

Makoto bites her lip. “... Does Hawks know?” 

He blinks, surfacing from his own head to look at her. “Yeah,” he answers, without hesitation. Then he lets out a sharp, bitter chuckle. “He knows everything, but he sticks around anyway. I don’t really know what I did to deserve him.” 

“And what are the rest of us then, chopped liver?” She kicks him in the shin. “I’m not going anywhere either, you jerk.” 

Satoru’s eyes are very wide as he stares at her. Then he ducks his head, a bit bashful. “Yeah,” he agrees, looking a little wistful. “I got really lucky with all of you, didn’t I?” 

“Damn right you did!” She kicks him again for good measure. “I’m sticking around, no matter how many stupid identity reveals you try to throw at me. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” 

He barks out a laugh, grinning widely. “Good! Mark your words, I’m holding you to that!” 

(And when he confesses his plans for an anime of all fucking things, and reveals an entire past life’s worth of trauma at them, she screams a lot but she does, indeed, stick around to turn it into the best damn anime ever produced.)

--

idk I was listening to a lot of Mariah Carey's 2000's hits and remembered I'd made another Satoru cross-dressing alter-ego specifically to sing R&B karaoke hits so here we are 🤷‍♀️

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[akutasoda]

Wanna join the 1k event- congrats on 1k too! :)

Can i request Genshin Headcanons, Kaveh and Zhongli (separately) just found out their s/o that is filthy rich? Like it does get suspicious by how things she had look quite expensive, and the gift she give also look expensive, gourmet food, buying without looking at the price, when they came to visit her parents home you know to introduce them to her parents, jaw drop, it's not just a house, IT'S A MANSION. Lots of worker greet them and assist. Heck walking down a hallway full of gold decorations, and her bathroom/bedroom is massive. Shocking of all, her parents give her millions of mora as an allowance, not letting her work because her parents want to spoil her. Also can you make s/o begging Kaveh to let her help pay off his debt because she doesn't want him to suffer in debt anymore, also because she is deeply in love with him, and the debt money amount to her looks like her pocket money

no price tags

synopsis - when they find out their s/o is quite wealthy

includes - zhongli, kaveh

warnings - fem!reader (no pronouns mentioned!), fluff, slight crack, wc - 940

zhongli ★↷

↪even though he is no longer the geo archon, he still keeps a very vigilant eye on the happenings of liyue and this includes some of liyue's more notorious families - the more influential families often were included in some residents gossip at the tea house.

↪that doesn't mean he knows whose from which family. so he truly had no clue that his lover was from a very well off family. you never explicitly mentioned anything about being from such a family and he didn't really pay attention to to the kinds of things you'd brought him.

↪if anything, he greedily allowed himself to indulge in the fancy restaurants you brought him too - zhongli wasn't exactly the wealthiest surprisingly. he only really started questioning it when the price tag's seemed to forever go up.

↪eventually he'd start taking notice of the rather expensive gifts you gave him, some that no ordinary resident could possibly come by. sometimes he'd ask you how much the gifts were because he became rather concerned about how much you spent on him - he wanted you to know you didn't have to win him over with money, he loved you enough already.

↪because he never asked too much to get an answer, he would find out about your wealthy background when you invited him to meet your family. he wasn't exactly shocked per say more disappointed he couldn't put two and two together.

↪he did have to admit that you're families residence was very impressive. the amount of workers under your families name seemed excessive to him although he could kind of see why when you lead him down a seemingly never ending corridor.

↪the decorations he could easily recognise from some of the mostt renowned artists in tevyat seemed to line every hallway and room you brought him too. the more he saw, the more shocked he actually became - by the time he met you're parents he was sure he looked a little pale.

↪he soon knew exactly why you never checked the price tag when uou went out and what shocked him the most was the sheer amount of money you're parents gave you. they truly did spoil you and now he didn't feel as bad about you spending ao much money on him.

kaveh ★↷

↪kaveh didn't exactly come from a wealthy background nor was he in the ideal financial situation now. he was teying his best to get by on what little he had but his debt seemed to always hang over his head and prevent him from actually fixing his finances.

↪so it became quite new to him when he started dating you. after a while of dating he noticed how much you liked to spoil him, always gifting him gifts that he knew for sure he couldn't afford and taking him to fancy restaurants. and for a while, he did indulge himself in your affection.

↪who could blame him really? no amount of weird looks from his roomate could guilt him. however after a while it did start getting pretty suspicious - not in a bad way, he just became a bit more curious about where you actually seemed to get all this money.

↪anytime he offhandedly mentioned something, he would find himself with it the next day no matter how much it cost. a part of him was slightly envious that whenever you went out you didn't even bother looking at any price tags atleast once. eventually he did feel like he should start refusing your gifts.

↪eventually he started feeling bad about how much you were spending him but each time you assured him you could afford it and you wanted to spend it on him. he only understood when you invited him to meet your family in their residence.

↪he swore his jaw visibly dropped open when he was greeted by one of the biggest house's he'd ever seen with too many workers awaiting you at the door. a tiny part of him felt a bit subconscious about his financial situation when he compared ot to yours - especially what you're parents might think if they were this well off.

↪he was gawking at all the decorations and pure amount of space their was everywhere. it didn't matter where you took him there was prestigious decorations in large rooms and hallways that looked extremely impressive and expensive.

↪he fully understood how you had so much money when he learnt your parents gave you an allowance that equated to what was probably not even comparable to a good couple of sleep deprived months from him. he froze immediately when you turned to offer him the amount to pay off his debts.

↪he appreciated the gesture and he would gladly take the money to rid himself of his stupid debt but he felt bad. kaveh wanted to work to pay off the debt himself as it was his debt and he felt like he shouldn't be recieving that much from anyone.

↪you tried explaining to him over and over again that you loved him and wanted to do this for him, too lift a bit of pressure of his shoulders but he kept refusing you. eventually you found a small little loop hole that would make you able to pay of his debt.

↪he practically saw the mischievous glint in your eye when you started asking if he would take up a job to design a small little addition to the building that conveniently payed exactly how much he needed to pay off his debt. he knew you weren't going to let up.

akutasoda's 1k event

[giltandgreen]

Concept for Loki's Lair in New York

My concept for a fictional lair Loki occupies in New York in an AU I have not written and may never write about Loki getting some sort of Avengers I settlement where he gets banished to Midgard like Thor but instead of like actively trying to better himself he just becomes a Villain of the Week for the Avengers. But not like a scary villain rather an inconvenient one as Loki and Sigyn really like living in Midgard and so Loki is trying to prolong their stay as long as possible by being a headache/annoyance to the Avengers every so often without really messing anything up. Eventually, the Avengers catch on that Loki isn't really trying to do anything nefarious (his freeze ray that one time wasn't even plugged in and when they show up to the lair instead of fighting the Avengers his henchpeople just let them through the door with a wave and a smile) and start playing along.

Anyway, Loki's Lair is:

possibly Art Deco on the outside but Art Noveau on the inside. I've also considered it being Art Noveau on the outside and Art Deco on the inside. Art Deco seems more villainous but I feel like any room Sigyn designs is full on Art Noveau. Either way, it's a run-down apartment building somewhere that Sigyn and Loki renovated. Initially, there were some concerns about gentrification and the fact that a villain lair was going up in the neighborhood, but Loki and Sigyn have been really great about being positive forces in the neighborhood.

Has a room for all of the Loki merch that has ever been made, which Sigyn collects. Loki's merch is now being made and sold through the same Avengers line because he's become sort of an anti-hero more than a real villain. Most of the proceeds are funneled back into helping the neighborhood around the lair.

The room where all of Loki's big villain reveal/monologue scenes are held, which upon closer inspection really is just like a big stage with moving parts. (This room may also be occasionally used by the neighborhood LGBTQ community for balls free of charge.)

The room where all of the props for Loki's big villain room are stored when not in use.

A basement swimming pool where, as a sort of sidequest, Sigyn and Loki are keeping all of the alligators they rescue from the New York City sewers.

A craft room

A room adjacent to the craft room that is just used for storing glitter

Loki and Sigyn's bedroom with ensuite bathroom and double walk-in closest. This room arguably has the best views from the building and may be part of the penthouse.

The first floor lobby where there's always a couple of kindly henchpeople willing to help you into the right elevator and get to the right floor. Also two door henchpeople and a henchperson who watches the front desk, but if you look at the "security monitors" you'll find they're just watching Drag Race.

The henchperson breakroom, which is fully stocked and even has a fridge that Sigyn spelled to ensure people only take their own lunches following what has become known as the Reuben Sandwich Incident. After a little research, the Avengers find out that Loki's henchpeople not only get great benefits but Loki seems to the major force behind the creation of a henchperson union, which has really annoyed some of the other supervillains. This leads to a weird situation where Captain America refuses to fight AIM because it would require crossing a picket line.

At least two libraries

A really nice guest room for Frigga when she comes to visit

A slightly less nice room for Thor to use when he comes to stay the night

The classroom where Loki teaches his introductory heroing classes for youngsters (a la this post). Sigyn provides the healthy snacks for the classroom.

A massive kitchen complete with Asgardian style roasting spit.

[somanyratsinthewalls]

HI HI HELLO, Just saw your recs. we’re open and i thought i’d chime in! Maybe both Usopp and the strawhat reader are virgins, and decide to have their first time together to “be more experienced”? but..it’s ends up being friends to lovers!! feel free to ignore if you don’t like it or don’t feel comfortable filling it tho!

HI FRIEND!!

Pairing: Usopp x Afab!Reader

WC: 2900 ehehehe

Summary: You and your close friend Usopp decide to bite the bullet and lose your virginity to each other to get that awkward first time out of the way. Will it lead to more?

TW: alcohol consumption, nicotine consumption (don’t do it!), virginity loss, first time awkwardness, making out, fingering, heavy petting, condom usage, early bustin, p in v sex, they're so cute idk

Tags: My moot @usopp-enjoyer hope you love it (also pls enjoy other Usopp fuckers)

— —

“I’m way more of a tits guy. I mean, I’m not one to ignore a nice ass, but a super rack is really what does it for me.” Franky remarks taking a swig of his cola as he sits at the table with Sanji, Zoro and Usopp after dinner aboard the Sunny one night. 

“How could you even choose? The female form is perfect, I simply can’t choose one part over the other.” Sanji smiles dreamily as he takes a drag from his cigarette. “If I did have to pick, the view of a gorgeous ass bouncing while being taken from behind has to be the most perfect sight of all time.” 

“You’ve never seen that a day in your life, shitty cook.” Zoro smirks and takes a big gulp of sake. 

“I’ve certainly seen it more than you, moss head! All you care about is playing with your stupid swords, I doubt you’ve ever been with a woman like that!” Sanji furrows his curly brows and shouts at the swordsman.

“Obviously I have, it’s the best way to take a girl. Gripping her hair and just drilling into her until she’s screaming…” Zoro leans back in his chair, seemingly visualizing the act. 

“Jeez guys… can we not?” Usopp felt his face heat up at the lewd conversation. He was hoping the focus didn’t turn to him being so obviously inexperienced. The discourse continued despite his protest. 

“Nah bro, don’t sleep on missionary! If you think missionary is boring, you’re just bad at sex!” Franky loudly exclaims. 

“You have a point. How could it possibly be boring? Looking down and seeing a woman writhing around under your touch? Being able to watch her face as she cums? Absolute perfection.” Sanji brings his fingers to his lips and mimics a chef’s kiss. 

“I-I’m heading to bed, night guys.” Usopp quickly excuses himself from the table, face flushed with embarrassment and nervousness. He swiftly heads out from the galley to the deck and found you sitting up against the railing of the ship enjoying a glass of wine and a cigarette. 

You turn your head in the direction of the man leaving the galley and smile. 

“Hi Usopp, how’s everything going with the boys?” You ask. 

“Oh, uh, hi y/n. Good. I mean um? Fine I guess. I was gonna go to bed.” He stutters out nervously, unable to make eye contact with you. 

“Are you okay? Your face is bright red and you seem uncomfortable. I mean… more uncomfortable than usual.” You say with a hint of concern in your voice. “Come sit with me?” You pat the spot next to you on the deck. You always were better at reading Usopp than he was at reading himself. 

Usopp lets out a big sigh and sits down cross legged next to you and puts his head in his hands propped up on his elbows on his knees. 

“It just got kind of weird in there. I hate when they go on and on about… you know… sex…” Usopp finally admits. 

“And it makes you uncomfortable because you’ve never had sex, right?”

He nods. 

“I know how you feel. Nami and Robin do the same thing. I know that might be hard to believe but women are just as vulgar as men. It makes me feel insecure about being a virgin, so I get it.” You commiserate with Usopp because you really knew exactly how he was feeling. 

“Wait you’re a virgin too?!” Usopp snaps his head in your direction, finally being able to look you in the eye. 

“Yeah, you didn’t know that? It’s not like I’m saving it for anything, I just never really have found the right time or the right person I guess. The only relief I get is from ole reliable.” You raise your right hand and wiggle your fingers in Usopp’s direction. He blushes. 

“S-same. I just don’t want it to be awkward when I finally get around to having sex. Everyone always says the first time is so bad…” 

“For you? Yeah right! I’m the one who is constantly being told it’s going to hurt! I don’t want to do it with just anyone in case it is painful!” You take another drag of your cigarette, scoffing at the fact that a man is telling you he’s nervous to lose his virginity. 

“Okay okay maybe you’re right about that part… I just want to get it over with so I can stop worrying about it.” Usopp hangs his head in his hands again. 

There was a pregnant pause. 

“Well… we could… have sex… with each other?” You sheepishly suggest. 

“WHAT?” He snaps his head back up at you. 

“Is it that silly of an idea? We both said we wanted to get our first time out of the way and get some… experience… right?”

“R-right now? I don’t think I-“ Usopp stutters, incredibly flustered but also interested in your proposal. 

“Not right now!” You laugh and put your hand on his shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow? My room? After dinner? Unless you don’t want to, which I completely understand and we can forget this ever happened." 

“I-I do! I think it’s uh.. it’s a great idea… tomorrow then…” Usopp rises to his feet and bids you a nervous goodnight as you finish your wine on the deck. 

— —

The next evening you couldn’t help but buzz with excitement as you skip to the showers after dinner. You make sure to shave and lather your body in sweet smelling body wash in preparation for your “date.” You don your nicest matching bra and panties, a lacy black set, and pull some casual clothes over them. You light a few candles around your room to set the mood. You weren’t sure what kind of mood you were trying to set exactly, feeling a bit silly, but you still wanted to enjoy your first time even if it was going to be awkward. Soon enough you hear a knock at your door. 

You open your bedroom door to see a blushing Usopp with a single, beautiful red flower in his hands. 

“Uh, hi, y/n.” He smiles softly and hands you the flower. 

“For me? You’re so sweet.” 

“I grew it myself so maybe don’t… don’t get too close.. it might explode. I haven’t quite figured this one out yet…” 

You chuckle and move to gently set the flower down on your end table. 

“Are you sure you still want to do this? We really don’t have to, it was just an idea, Usopp.” 

“Yes! Yes, I really do want to. It’s… it’s about time, right?” He laughs nervously. 

You nod. 

“Come, sit with me.” You grab Usopp’s hand and pull him to sit next to you on your bed. You were anxious, but you could tell he was far more so. You raise your hands and pull his bucket hat off his head. You smoothly brush one of his now exposed dark curls out of his face. 

“I guess we should probably kiss first.. right?” You say as you cock your head and smile at him gently. 

“Yeah…” 

You close your eyes and lean in and press your lips softly against his. After a few moments, you shift your body closer to his and begin kissing him deeper with your hands on either side of his face. It was a bit uncoordinated, but Usopp eventually moves his hands to your hips and kisses you back with a bit more confidence. His kisses were messy, not at all experienced. You couldn’t help but wonder, had he even kissed anyone before? I mean, even you had gotten to first base… 

You slide your tongue gently along his bottom lip, asking for permission to enter. Once granted, your tongue slips into his mouth eliciting a small whimper from the man in your gentle hold. You found yourself becoming wetter by the second as he lets out little sighs of contentment during your kiss. Eventually, you pull away. You tug at the straps of his coveralls. 

“Could you take these off? I’ll take mine off too…” You ask while already lifting your crop top over your head. 

“Sure just a second I- um…” Usopp stands and fumbles with his clothes before eventually dropping them to the floor. You had already shed your sweatpants and were laying back on your bed in your bra and panties. 

“Woah, y/n…” Your cowardly sniper is in awe at the sight of your body adorned with black lace laying barely covered on the bed before him. “You’re… beautiful…” 

Your face flushes red and you press your legs together to somehow try to cover yourself. 

“You’re not so bad yourself…” You giggle. “Come here.” You beckon him to come join you on the bed again. You raise your torso up to meet his lips again in a passionate kiss. After a few moments, Usopp reaches his hands around your back to undo your bra. His fingers fumble for quite awhile and he mumbles into your lips. 

“No, I got it.. just a second… hold on… there!” Finally your bra comes undone and he pulls it off your body onto the floor. Usopp leans back to marvel in the sight of your naked breasts. “Y/n can I…?” 

“Yes!” You cut him off, wanting to feel more of his body and mouth on your skin. Usopp leans down and takes one of your nipples into his mouth and gropes your other breast with his hand. 

“Oh!” You gasp, reveling in the new sensation. 

Your newfound lover messily switches from one breast to the other, a string of saliva connecting his trembling lips to your body. You grip his thick, gorgeously coarse hair and push his head into your chest further, encouraging his actions. After a few moments or servicing your sensitive nipples with this lips and tongue, Usopp pulls back and lifts his head to look you in the eye. 

“Do you want to..?” He asks shyly. 

“Yes, want you so badly, Usopp…” You breath out under him. 

Usopp momentarily leaves the bed to retrieve something from his overalls pocket. After Usopp returns to your side with a condom, you slip off your panties. 

“Where the hell did you get that? Saving it for a rainy day?” You question him teasingly. 

“Pfft yeah right. Stole it from Sanji’s room. He isn’t using it any time soon.” Usopp smirks and positions himself on top of you again. You laugh. 

“You’re so bad.” You jokingly slap your hands against his smooth chest. 

“You like it.” Usopp chuckles and leans in to kiss you again. After kissing for a few moments you pull back.

“Maybe I do… take these off.” You pull at the waistband of his briefs and he obliges your request by pulling them down to free his throbbing cock. It wasn’t huge but it was certainly big enough to wonder how it was going to fit inside of you. 

“It’s… it’s okay, right?” Usopp asks uncertainly. 

“Oh sweetheart, of course it is. Maybe even a bit too much… do you think you could maybe… prep me a little first?” You ask a bit embarrassed. You were so aroused, but you just didn’t want it to hurt. 

“How do I… OH! Yeah I can do that I think…” Usopp snakes his hand down your body and cups your mound. “Can you show me?” He starts to rub tentatively at your sex. 

You slide both of your hands down to your center. With one hand you use your pointer and middle fingers to spread your sticky folds apart. With the other, you grab Usopp’s fingers and bring them to your clit and begin to use them to rub gentle circles. You let out a long sigh. 

“Just like this is good…” You softly moan and you let your head fall back. After rubbing at your clit for awhile, your move Usopps’s fingers to your entrance and guide one of them inside your wet hole. You gasp lightly at the intrusion, but you grab his wrist and prompt him to move his hand. 

“Shit… you can add another one now…” 

“R-right okay…” Usopp slips his second digit inside of you. “Is this- does it feel good?” He asks. 

“Pull them up like this…” You mimic exactly how you do it yourself and Usopp curls his fingers upwards inside of you and you feel him hit that delicious soft spot. “There! Keep touching me there!” 

“Like this?” Usopp continues to pull and tap on your g-spot and you involuntarily arch your back. 

“Fuck, yes baby, just like that… you’re doing so well, you’re gonna make me cum. Keep going just like that…” You gasp as Usopp brings his free hand to rub at your clit as he massages your insides with his fingers just the way you’ve instructed him. 

“Really?! I-I mean… shit, you’re so hot… I wanna see you cum so bad…” He honestly couldn’t believe he had you like this in front of him, laid out naked and moments from climaxing, all from his doing. 

“Gonna cum, don’t stop, shit-Ah!!” You moan out loudly as you release directly all over Usopp’s working hands. Your legs shake and your head falls back on the pillows. 

You breathe heavily while laying on your back, recovering from your orgasm as you hear your lover fiddling with the foil condom package. His hands were shaking. 

“Let me…” You sit up and grab the condom from his hands and tear it open. You gingerly lean forward and grab Usopp’s sensitive length and roll the condom on for him. He shudders as your soft hands touch his dick. 

“Thanks, y/n…” He smiles down at you nervously.  “You ready?” He asks, still wanting to make sure you were certain about this. 

“Yes, please fuck me now, Usopp.” You lay back and spread your legs so he could slot himself comfortably between them. He pushes himself close to you and lines his tender, throbbing cock up with your soaking hole. “Please be gentle…” 

“Of course, y/n, I won’t hurt you.” Usopp begins to push his member into your tight entrance and you suck in a breath. “Breathe, y/n, it’s okay, I’m almost in…” You could feel Usopp’s callused hands shaking on your hips, trying to keep his composure. 

“Hnnnn…” You whine and grab Usopp’s biceps. The stretch was uncomfortable, but not nearly as bad as you were expecting. You finally feel his pelvis flush against yours as he fills you completely. “Ahh…” You whimper out. 

“Shit, y/n you’re so tight… I’m not gonna last long…” Usopp pants out. 

“It’s okay.. you can move now.. please…” You pull him down by his neck and he begins experimentally thrusting into you. The pain began to meld into pleasure as your cunt begin to flutter involuntarily around Usopp’s thick length. 

“You feel so fucking good, holy shit y/n…” Usopp lifts his head from its hiding place in your neck and smashes his lips onto yours in a deep kiss. You moan into his mouth as he hits an extra deep spot in your tight cunt. “Wanna be inside of you forever…” Usopp grinds his hips into yours and whines. 

“Fuck me harder, Usopp, want to feel you!” You cry out. He obliges and starts pounding into you with reckless abandon. Years of celibacy were being taken out on your pussy and it felt so good. By the deep grip on your hips you were certain he wasn’t going to last much longer, but you wanted to feel him while you could. “I-I’m gonna-shit, fuck, shit!” Usopp spills his load into the condom and quickly collapses on top of you. You soothingly rub his back and draw circles into his shoulders with your fingers as he catches his breath. He rolls off of you and removes the condom from his softened member, tossing it into the waste basket next to your bed. He sits up next to you in bed. 

“I-I’m sorry… it probably wasn’t really that-“

“It was so great, Usopp. Thank you. I’m really glad we did that.” You smile up at him from your position laying on your pillows. 

“Y-yeah.. it was great, wasn’t it?” Usopp laughed. “I guess I’ll get my stuff and go then…” 

“Why?” You ask. 

“Well we just agreed on the sex and I-“ 

“I want you here. Stay with me.” You pull on his hand and bring him back down to lay with you in bed. 

“You’re sure?” Usopp looked at you like he could barely believe what he was hearing. 

“Listen Usopp, I know we’re friends but after that… I kind of want to see where it goes from here… I can’t help but feel like that meant something, not just to me but to you, too.” You caress the side of his face as he lays next to you on the pillow. “We don’t have to hash it out tonight, but… could you just stay with me and see?” You ask. 

“I guess… but if you want to kick me out in the morning, you just say the word!” 

“Shut up and go to bed, Usopp.” You laugh and nuzzle your head into his chest so that you can comfortably drift off to sleep. 

xx Mo

[fluffy-lee-boa]

Squealing Santa 2k23

Of Buddies and Bros (a barbieverse tickle fic)

Fandom: Barbie (2023)

Characters: Ken and Allan

A/N: Hello @sweettallahassee! It is I, your secret santa >:3 I was so excited to get this assignment- The world could definitely use some more Barbie t fics. Especially ones with Allan. I really hope you like it! I saw the words “cheer-up tickles” and was possessed to write way more than I anticipated haha. Happy Holidays!

This was super fun, and I can’t wait to participate again, since this was my first time and now I think I’ve really got a handle on things. Thank you so much to @squealing-santa !!!

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

It had been a good amount of time since Stereotypical Barbie had left Barbie Land altogether, with Allan having become Ken’s closest confidant and friend from there on out. It was a pretty surprising change, and one that took some getting used to, as Allan had been used to being number 3 in a world of couples. But now? Well, it was practically his job to stick by Stereotypical Ken, and help him along his journey in self-discovery. Help him find some sort of identity outside of “Beach” and Barbie.

Unfortunately, Ken was very much still attached to both Beach and Barbie, to the point that it was a real hindrance on any progress being made in that department.

Allan knew it must have been hard for the guy, so he wasn’t annoyed or frustrated. More concerned, really. I mean, even with all the changes that had come to Barbie Land, every Ken still had their Barbie. Every Ken… except for his Ken.

His Ken? Ok, that was a weird thought. Better to just ignore it and move on. Narrations could be tricky sometimes, and he of all people knew that.

But either way! He was here to help. Be a buddy, whatever that meant.

It had been another perfect, beautifully sunny day, one in which Allan had been trying and failing to get Ken out of bed. Ken had begun staying in Stereotypical Barbie’s old place, as it was vacant, and already had quite a lot of Mojo Dojo Casa House decor, including the “manly” fur coat that Ken had draped over himself as a makeshift blanket as he grumbled about being woken up.

“Ken, come on.” Allan sighed, tugging at the end of the coat lightly but firmly, “We already told Pilot Barbie we’d be ready for your skydiving lesson at noon, we can’t miss that, or it’ll throw off our whole schedule. Remember? We even had a quick stop at the beach to try surfing again…!”

Allan had been meticulously planning their days filled to the brim with activities that might lead to Ken finding his true passion. Usually Ken was pretty gung-ho about the whole thing, but today seemed to be an off day. It was probably because yesterday he’d tried acting, and instead of impressing Director Barbie with his stunning talent, he’d ended up really crying for about an hour and they weren’t able to get any good footage out of it.

So here they were, at a stalemate in Barbie’s old bedroom.

Allan considered his option, his mind cycling through possibilities. He could simply rip the fur off of him to force him up, but that sounded harsh, and Ken needed a gentle touch right now.

Wait a minute.

Gentle… touch.

That gave him an idea!

So after a second more of contemplating if the possibility of revenge was worth it, Allan made his first move. He was just lucky enough that Ken’s leg happened to be sticking out from the bed, giving him the perfect opportunity to put his plan into motion. He pushed aside any hesitation and lurched forward, putting the other’s foot in what was essentially a headlock and sitting at the end of the bed.

“Wha- HEY-!” Ken was instantly sitting up, the coat having fallen away to reveal a particularly pink set of pajamas that would have matched with Barbie perfectly had she still been around.

“Sorry, but you wouldn’t get out of bed, so…” Allan shrugged, trying to suppress a smile as he utilized a persuasive skill Barbie Land had only picked up on when they last interacted with the real world- Tickling.

It wasn’t entirely new to them, of course, but the concept of a tickle *fight* was something so novel that it had been on Allan’s mind ever since Barbie had left, and this was as good an excuse as any to start one.

“AH- AhAhAllan! You can’t-!”

“Can’t what, help my buddy cheer up?” Allan teased as he scribbled away at the little divots in between his toes, though before he could say anything further, there was a flurry of movement that was too fast for him to catch in the moment.

When Allan next opened his eyes, he found that Ken was now firmly rested on top of him, holding both his arms above his head in one hand. Curse his stereotypically large and admirable muscles- there was no escaping such a grasp.

“No… I was gonna say you can’t expect me not to fight back,” Ken replied after he’d caught his breath with a more confident smirk this time, his free hand hovering over Allan’s unfortunately unbuttoned beach top menacingly.

“Whoa! Ken, heyyy, we can talk this out!” Allan babbled the moment he realized the predicament he was in, sinking into the softness of the bed below them with a nervous, borderline awkward laugh, “I was just- trying to get you up! And you’re up now! We can go!”

“Mmm. I don’t think that’s gonna work for me,” Ken’s hand was getting dangerously close to his ribs, which made Allan start squirming without him having even touched him yet.

“In fact… You were right, buddy. This is cheering me up already,” Ken added smugly, before his gently clawed his hands back and forth over his lower ribs like he was trying to feel every gap and ridge in his rib cage.

Allan immediately burst into frantic giggles that resembled a bird of paradise making alarm calls- they were by no means graceful or dignified, but there was no arguing it, they were adorable. There was even an interspersing of snorts and yelps that kept things fresh whenever Ken wandered a little lower down to vibrate his fingertips across his barely-visible abs. Speaking of which…

“WAIT NONONONO-!”

Ken’s eyebrows raised when Allan’s protests spiked, and he realized he must be getting close to a goldmine. He kept that same goofy smile, the one he always had when he was proud of himself for figuring something out. If Allan could focus on it, he’d probably melt, but he was too busy being reduced to breathless laughter as he begged for what seemed to be his life.

But what spot exactly might be causing such a reaction?

Well, as Ken was already quite pleased with his deduction skills, he was sure he’d figured it out. So he let his hand drift farther down, lightly tracing a line with the spider-like movement of his fingers to his upper belly. Aaaand Bingo.

“KEHEN!” Allan barked, attempting to fold in on himself like a beach chair.

Ken knew this spot must be the absolute worst for him, so he was careful not to take things too far. He kept his tickles light, and almost teasing, using his perfectly manicured nails to swirls little hearts and star shapes around his belly button, “Yeah, bro?”

Allan simply shook his head, eyes squeezed shut as he dug his heels into the bed as if to dispel some of the nerves. His open-mouthed laughter hadn’t let up much despite the change of pace, and his cheeks were now a bright shade of red. So Ken, being the kind and generous person he was, decided he’d had enough.

He slowed his movement to a stop, letting go of Allan’s wrists so he could prop himself up on his elbows above him with an affectionate smile. He rested his chin on the other’s chest, which made Allan tense up with the lightest of giggles at the way his stubble scratched at his topmost ribs.

“Feeheel any behehetter?” Allan managed to ask, looking down at him with a softer smile.

Ken thought about it for a moment before he hummed, his voice smooth and deep despite the strenuous battle, “Yeah. Definitely.”

Ken moved to stand up, hands on his hips as he looked out over Barbieland from their vantage point at the end of the block. To his surprise, Allan’s giddy laughter had caught the attention of quite a few neighbors, who gave him looks that came across as almost… relieved. Truth be told, everyone had been worried for Ken for some time now, but seeing, or more hearing, him be so carefree and mischievous, it was nice to see he hadn’t changed much.

Allan had to take a few more minutes to fully recover, though eventually he sat up with a deep breath, rolling his shoulders with a smile, “Gee. Remind me not to mess with you again.”

“Or- I dunno- maybe more often…?” Ken replied, his voice bordering on shy for once, “I wasn’t lying. It really did cheer me up, broski.”

And with that, Allan knew that he didn’t have anything to worry about after all. Ken was gonna be alright, even without Barbie, and even if the journey was longer than they anticipated. They would walk down that road together, wherever it was gonna take them. That’s what buddies are for.

[buckybarnesss]

What are your thoughts on Cora?

cora hale was an underutilized character.

the concept of her is fantastic though and her impact on derek's character was not explored enough after her exit.

the potential and possibility of her character just teases me throughout season 3A.

of course a lot of this is because adelaide kane left due to landing the lead role for reign. and who can blame her for that? given colton, daniel and adelaide all went to the cw i imagine they paid better.

what remains thought is that cora hale is largely a question mark in the narrative of teen wolf.

how did she survive the fire? how did she end up in south america and with who? who exactly did she think was the hale alpha she heard rumors of? how did duecalion and company intercept her? why did the others not know her if she was their age?

in reality cora hale was in beacon hills for a few months as a prisoner and hostage than spent a few weeks with her uncle and brother before leaving. i would also like to know how she attended school considering it seems highly likely she was declared dead at age 11 in the fire.

i wish they'd answered some of those questions. i also wish they'd explored her and derek's relationship more. the guilt, the misplaced anger, the grief, anything about laura.

cora hale's survival is such a huge moment in derek's emotional arc too and we sadly see so little of it after she leaves. for such a short time she makes a huge impact.

i'd love to have explored more of her and peter too because what we saw in frayed and his concerned over her wellbeing when she was poisoned gave peter some needed depth.

cora also is the person to last mention laura hale by name in the narrative. in frayed to peter because you know he murdered laura.

i appreciated she had some animosity towards lydia mostly for being associated romantically with aiden due to his involvement in boyd's death. (why don't people ship her with boyd????)

i also did actually like her burgeoning friendship with stiles. her and him have their weird secret little club of having to endure peter's attempt of manipulation in visionary. they really seemed to vibe. she was going to help him explain the supernatural to his dad after knowing him for like five minutes. hales really love stiles.

it's sad fandom at large sees her (and somewhat rightfully) as erica's replacement and than malia's as hers.

jeff davis should've let her out of the subplot basement though. just because she wasn't physically there doesn't mean she couldn't be talked about.

i just know he has a notebook full of hale backstory. the fucker.

[familyofpaladins]

You ever just get stuck by the silliest au idea and then suddenly its consumed your mind?

Anyway TMNT Princess Bride au

Most characters taken from the 2003 series, but personality of turtles might be closer to Rise series

(I wrote this in the notes of my phone so forgive typos and weird thought process lol)

Casey is buttercup. April is westly (Originally, and what inspired this whole thing. Was that karai was buttercup and Chapman was westley lol)

The turtle bros work for stockman (bishop?) Because he says he has he will help them find their father's killer. A man who has 3 scars along his chin.

Casey just a simple farmer (oh my god. The farm house) with April there to help feed chickens and milk cows and such and such (Would she only say as you wish?? Would she be that submissive? Idk. Maybe she would as long as he promised not to call her babe lol) (LMAO HER PHRASE IS DONT CALL ME BABE INSTEAD OF AS YOU WISH LOLOLOL)

Eventually she goes off to maybe get soem schooling or soemthing. But her ship gets [sunk/destroyed] by the Dread Pirate Krang. April doesn't return and after years Casey believes she died.

Then the local royalty happens to pass by and the princess (karai)(who is told needs to find a husband so she can finally become queen) decides to make Casey her groom.

Casey still in a depressive gloom doesnt do much to reject her.

One day when Casey is out on a run (one of his few joys) he gets kidnapped by 4 demihuman turtles . :D

But then. A stranger begins to follow them. A (wo)man in black

I've mostly been going from 03 inspiration of character. But the turtles might be a little more Rise based.

Leo is inigo foil. The master swordsman. And the banter. "You seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you" "you seem a decent fellow. I hate to die" I am not left handed. He Asks april "ever seen a man with 3 scars along his chin?" "Do you ask everyone that question?

Raph is Fezzik . Big. The muscle. (Kind) Mikey doesnt have a direct foil. May have his own individual fight with april or possibly works with raph. The muscle and taunting words and stuff idk

Stockman is arrogant and thinks hes the smartest around. Accepts April's challenge.

Don is there to keep a hold on Casey. (He plays the game a long in his mind that it doenst actually take any posion). Once stockman is dead, Don just asks for th truth about what happen to the rest of his brothers, April tells him they are just knocked out and will be fine. He says he doenst really care about keeping casey as they were just doing it to work with stockman and well he's dead so no point. Bye crazy smart lady and sad prince to be. And he leaves to meet up with his brothers.

Cue april trying to lead casey away and him being like. Oh you're the pirate that killed the love of my life! Blah blah blah so you can shove it babe!

*falling down hill* doooon't caaaaaall me baaaaaaabe! Oh my sweet april ehat have I done!? *throws self down cliff*

They go through the forest (lmao splinter as rous) (not actually but the image is funny)

And Karai and her advisor Oroku Saki meet them and casey begs her to let april go instead of killing her.

April notes that the advisor has 3 scars a long his chin. That's right. Shredder is what's his face and killed splinter. (Sorry splints. You had to die in this au)

April is taken to Bishop who experiments on his death machine. Just doing his job and having fun with his toys.

BUT

shredder shows up when he learns about the demihumans and asks too many questions about the demi humans shes ever encountered. (Theres a small but decent population in the kingdom) but especially that turtles she encountered last. April doesn't care (she does but more concerned about casey) and asks instead about casey and telling him shes never going to stop.

Karai may or may not visit April… idk. But honestly she doesnt really care about marrying casey but she needs to in order to get the crown.

Anyway its shredder who throws a hissy fit and cranks up the machine "killing" april

Meanwhile the turtles have regrouped but leo is super depressed because he failed and now theh have no lead on their father's killer. Brothers eventually pull him out of it.

They hear aprils cry?? They want "the woman in black" to help them??

Idk they go look for her

("Father guide my sword" is SUCH a thing Leo would do and the humor of it hitting the tree then opening the door is peak tmnt.)

Oh no shes dead

Enter miracle max. I mean the ancient one."she is only MOSTLY dead"

Tang shen: "I'm not a witch! I'm your daughter!" (Maybe. This might change)

They all have to push raph on the cart to break into the castle. Hun is the door keeper lol

Leo goes after shredder. Raph is hauling April around. Ikd what mikey and don are doing exactly. Maybe they split off to look for karai and/or casey

Leo: RAPH!! RAAAAPH. HE'S GETTING AWAY! RAPH

Raph: sighs and puts april down carefully and goes knocks down the door for leo. Comes back to everyone gone. "Now whered everybody go??"

April somehow gets to Casey's room. Casey is thrilled.

Karai shows up… idk. Ask why she really is doing this. Is it what she really wants? Or is it just what shredder has convinced her she needs to do (marry become queen go to war and take over other kingdoms)

Karai seems to consider it (maybe) but still cant have her groom just be carted off. April says okay let's fight then. I've taken on demihimans and been dead and came back, you really want to fight?

Karai considers and concedes. They tie her up so it doesnt look like she just wlt them go.

Karai let's them all leave and ends up marrying one of the chamber men[squire/stable boy/man servant] (is that a real term???) Chapman.

Leo don and mikey all catch up and somehow raph went and found them all horses to ride out on. Happily ever after

Cody is the grandson. Hamato yoshi/splinter is the grandfather

[archangel-seraphiel]

Love of my life

Crowley X Nephalem!Reader (f) X Aziraphale

Warnings: Angst, sadness, comfort, leading to fluff and maybe light smut in the next parts

Part 1

English isn't my first language, please pardon me. This is my first story, too!

..........................................................................................

The stars shimmered on the velvet night sky as you sat on the balcony of your apartment, all alone. The feathers of your softly glittering wings gently swayed in the fresh breeze, silence put its heavy blanket around you.

You held onto your cup of hot chocolate, gazing at the sky. A sigh escaped your lips. You felt alone.

You never really had a family; you were a mistake, something that shouldn't have been born in the first place. Nephalem like you were rare, for the reason that they usually got rid of as soon and fast as possible. But at the point, they weren't aware of what you were.

Nephalem are Angel-Demon-offsprings with immense powers. You couldn't care less though. You never wanted to side with either one of them, and just wanted peace. Which is why you led a normal life, among humans. Only in solitude and night you would spread your wings in comfort.

After a while, you fell asleep on your cozy seat, drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

..........................................................................................

You walked through London, early in the morning. The park wasn't so crowded yet, you enjoyed that. You sat down on a bench, taking out a book from your bag to read.

You forgot about time, and probably sat there for hours. You didn't even notice the lots of people that went past you, alone, with friends or with their dogs.

"Would you mind if I sit here?" A voice said. It wasn't the voice that disrupted you, but rather the aura the Person was surrounded by. Definitely not human. You looked up from your book to see a man dressed in a light suit and a friendly smile. "Of course, take a seat" you said and shifted a little to the side to provide more space. "Thank you, mylady" he said, and sat down. "I see you have quite a good taste in books." You glanced over to the man. You weren't really set up for a conversation, you were quite shy around strangers. "Oh, I kind of read anything I get my hands on." A simple answer from your side. You felt his aura so strong at this point, you knew what he was.

An angel. But what does he want from you? Did they find you? Does heaven want to cage you in now? You started to get nervous, your head exploding with questions. The man seemed to notice. "Did I say something wrong?" He asked concerned as you quickly got up and left, without even saying goodbye. He got up too but didn't follow. "Wait, miss, your book!" He said, reaching a hand out after you. But you were off into the nowhere already.

..........................................................................................

-Aziraphale's POV-

"Crowley, she was most definitely a rarity. Believe it or not, I'm sure she is more than just an angel" Aziraphale said to his friend, who sat opposite to him in a cafe. He was so struck by meeting you this morning, he had to tell Crowley right away about it. "And? Even if, why would we care. There's lots of weird ethereal beings out and about." The demon said, taking a sip of his espresso. "No, not like that. She beamed of angelic grace but something was off. She seemed scared of me. I know that she must have felt my angelic presence." Aziraphale was concerned. He was sad that he might have scared you away.

He saw you in the park and immediately caught interest in you. Your whole being drew him in like a beautiful piece of art. "Aziraphale. Stop overthinking about it. It's just a girl you thought was cute, that's all." Crowley sighed. "There is no such thing as angel-mix-whatever-thingies. They get eliminated as soon as birth happened, if not before already." Crowley must be right, Azira thought. They changed conversations, but Azira just couldn't get you out of his mind. "I need to give that girl her book back."

..........................................................................................

-Your POV-

After the Meeting with the angel, which was your first in thousands of years, your mind went crazy. You fled to your apartment, closed off everything and hid in your bed. You were scared. Scared as you've never been. Trembling and heavily breathing. You always tried to surpress your aura as good as possible. Was it not hidden well enough this time? Has it really come to an end for you now?

On the other side, he didn't seem like he wanted to harm you. He would've acted right away if he was to take you in for heaven. You remember his eyes, and his beautiful aura. You lost yourself in the memory of his eyes for a moment before you shook your head. Are you going crazy now? A stranger angel you see for the first time, and you already fall for their eyes? You let yourself fall back, laying straight on your back.

You probably overreacted, you thought, as you warmed another cup of cocoa later. It was your save haven after stressy days. With the cup in your hand you went to your window. It was rainy tonight. Typical weather. No stars to be seen, just clouds. A sky as clouded as your mind.

You sat down on the soft carpet, and with a light fluffy sound your wings spread across the room. Unlike most others, you had 6 Wings instead of two. A little bit like the Seraphim. 2 on your head, 2 on your back and 2 on your lower back. They were slightly transparent, of silky white colour. The tips of the wings faded into darkness, with glittering spots like the most beautiful stars one could imagine. But except you, noone has ever seen them.

You wrapped your wings around you, covering your eyes and body. You always liked to imagine it as a hug that you've never gotten. And with that hug, your day had ended. But this time, you wouldn't sleep dreamless, but rather with the image of a certain angel in your head.

..

You decided to get your mind off the happenings of yesterday and took a stroll through the city. You were a mousy, yet pretty lady. You didn't want to attract too much attention.

You came across a certain bookshop you always felt drawn to, but never dared going in. It seemed like a shop with not too many customers, so whoever owned it would surely notice you.

But today you took all your confidence and went in. With a little ring above your head you entered and got greeted by a friendly "Hello! Have a look around, I'll be with you right away!" You froze.

The voice was all too familiar.

The voice was now accompanied by a figure coming from behind the shelves, and your guess was right.

"Oh, it's you again!" The man beamed, coming closer. "Please don't leave right away, I didn't want to scare you. You forgot your book, too!"

You felt overrun, but were too struck to leave now. "oh uh... thank you.. I'm sorry for yesterday I... I didn't mean to run away like that" you stammered, looking to the ground. He stepped closer. "My name is Aziraphale. Would you mind sharing your name with me?" "(Y/n)." You said, looking him straight in the eyes. "You're a principality, yes? Guardian of the eastern gate?" The words spilled out of your mouth. Did you really just ask that? Aziraphale blinked surprised. "Well yes, I certainly am. But how do you know that? Are you an angel too?" He knew you were, stupid question. "Uh, kinda.." you scratched your head. "I don't like talking about it. It's a rough topic." And with that the door of the bookshop flew open, a red headed man bursting in. "Angel, there's a demon in your bookshop I sense it!" He growled, furrowed his brows and stared right at you. And this was the moment you wanted to snap your fingers and sink into the ground. "But Crowley, she's an angel!" Aziraphale protested. Crowley came closer, surely not trusting you. "What in hell's name are you, girl?" You sighed, sadly. Just as you thought, you met a nice ethereal being like you, it got destroyed again. "A Nephalem."

Silence.

"Who were your parents?" He straightened up, glaring at you. "Crowley that is none of your business!" Aziraphale said, standing protectively in front of you. You smiled a little at that, but stepped forward to face the demon. "My mother was Jophiel. My father, I don't know. I am no harm to anyone, I just want peace. I'm sorry if I bothered." You explained, bowing your head a little. You knew, compared to them you're just a little youngling and had to show some respect. You were merely about 2000 years old.

Silence laid heavily on the bookshop. Crowley and Aziraphale looked at each other. Aziraphale went up to you and took your hands. "We aren't bothered by you. After this whole Armageddon thing we're just.. cautious. But I felt right away you are no harm."

Crowley came closer to you now too, eyed you up and down. "Sorry mylady. I didn't mean to be rude, just making sure you ain't here to turn us into mincemeat."

You smiled lightly. This could be the beginning of a great friendship.

[ghost-proofbaby]

“Do not,” he whispers to her in a low tone, face still impassive as he presses himself just close enough so that she’s the only one that can hear him, “Get involved in this. Unless, of course, you’re going to swing on one of the poor saps. In that case, I fully support you, my dear.” 

summary: when the party finally encounters a proper fight, aruna only has one thing on her mind: save astarion. and if she finally starts to piece together a few things about herself and her magic, well - that can't possibly hurt, can it?

wc: 5.3k+

warnings: continued memory loss, fighting, spoilers for the game (play by play description of scenes from emerald grove in act 1), aruna and astarion can't decide if they'll play nice with each other or not lol

a/n: this fic is about to be just a constant cycle of aruna taking a spray bottle to astarion as her weird way of trying to keep him alive truly

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

Aruna is beginning to believe the tadpole in her head was the least of the inconveniences she’d had to encounter on her journey.

When they’d left camp for the day, they’d have a very straightforward objective: discover a form of civilization, find a healer, and get the damned worms out of their heads. 

Simple. Easier said than done, but certainly simple. 

Or so she thought. 

It starts when they’re wandering the trails of the wilderness leading out of camp. They’re not going towards the beach this time, she promises Shadowheart that much, but what they come across is far worse than having to face off with anymore intellect devourers. 

Actual people. Tieflings, Gale identifies, who had a familiar githyanki held high above them in a cage. 

Aruna would never say she has a bleeding heart based on her choices so far on their journey, but she still doesn’t hesitate to decide to help the githyanki. Shadowheart confirmed she was on the ship, with much distaste, and made it clear she wasn’t keen on helping her. Aruna didn’t care. Astarion also seemed less than pleased at the prospect of helping, but his hands were twitching for his daggers, and she realized he’d only kept his mouth shut due to the clear opportunity for a fight to break out. 

Gale had been the only one on her side as she’d approached the situation. 

One painful merging of her tadpole to the githyanki’s (although, notably less painful than her connection with Gale, and certainly less agonizing than that with Astarion) and a failed attempt at diffusing the situation in hopes for no blood to be shed later, Astarion got his wishes. A fight. That they’d won, quite easily. Whether it was thanks to Gale’s quick trigger of his magic or Astarion’s flashing daggers was up for debate (it wasn’t really – she just couldn’t bear to boost either man’s ego by saying as much out loud.)

Lae’zel. The githyanki’s name was Lae’zel, and Aruna didn’t hesitate to dismiss her in the direction of their camp, much to everyone’s disdain. 

Aruna didn’t care. She had an end goal in mind for the day – she was going to find a healer, daylight be damned. 

“I still don’t trust the gith,” Shadowheart is continuing to complain at her side as they trek further along these paths. There are paths. Leading somewhere. And those tieflings had mentioned something about a grove. There had to be civilization somewhere nearby, “I respect your choice, but I’ll continue to sleep with one eye open with her at camp.”

“Be my guest,” Aruna mutters, growing tired of the complaints. 

She gets it – she has no former memories on how ‘distrustful’ githyankis are, but Shadowheart has made it abundantly clear they shouldn’t drop their guard around her. She got it about ten damning sighs and wistful comments ago. 

“And how are we to trust all her talk of purification? What if it’s nothing more than a trap, luring us in to lead us to certain death?” Shadowheart tsks, voicing a lingering concern that Aruna already had. But that bit of information that Lae’zel had offered was the first real lead they had on getting rid of the tadpoles, and she wasn’t about to dismiss it as Shadowheart was, “We simply can’t tr-”

“I’d hate to interrupt, but may I have a word with our fearless leader? I’ll only be a moment, I swear.”

Astarion had been lingering towards the back of the group for most of their walk. Quiet, occasionally humming to himself and smirking at others' comments here and there. Less out of real amusement, Aruna senses, and more in a belittling way. 

But suddenly, he had picked up his pace and fallen into step on Aruna’s left, leaning over and looking to the cleric who had been complaining endlessly on her right. 

Shadowheart, surprisingly, takes the hint well. 

The moment she’s fallen back to join Gale instead, probably still airing her superficial issues, Aruna is shooting a glance in Astarion’s direction. “If you’re here to say you also don’t trust Lae’zel, please just- save it for when we’re back at camp, please.” 

She doesn’t think her headache could handle anymore. 

“What? Oh, no,” Astarion scoffs, scrunching his nose for a moment, “I could care less about the gith. I just knew if Shadowheart’s yapping was getting on my nerves, you must be in desperate need of a break.”

Yapping. It was a cruel way to put it, but it still made a smile nearly break on Aruna’s face. 

“What was it you needed to discuss, then?” she asks, a little less on edge now. 

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“As I said, it just seemed as though we all needed a break from talk of the gith.”

That was… oddly kind. Even if Astarion had clearly done it in part for his own sanity, Aruna found herself appreciating the gesture regardless. 

They walk in silence for a while. Only a few mutters escape from Gale and Shadowheart from behind them, but Aruna chooses to block them out. With Astarion at her side now instead, she was able to better focus on leading them somewhere useful. Somewhere with answers, somewhere with a healer-

She should have known the peace wouldn’t last. 

Shouts sound up ahead, but the entire group’s view is entirely blocked from a large hill. 

“That doesn’t sound good,” Astarion notes the obvious, offering a quick side glance, as if observing Aruna’s own reaction to guarantee it aligned with his own. 

And it did. Well, sort of. “We should check it out.”

The entire group stares at her as if she’s finally grown tentacles. 

“We’ll be careful about it, obviously-”

“Obviously,” Astarion cuts in sarcastically.

“-But I have a feeling wherever that yelling is coming from, is… is…” 

Civilization? A step in the right direction?

“A healer,” she finally settles on it, which only makes everyone’s faces twist even further at her, “The shouting must mean people, and the more people, the higher likelihood of a healer.”

That seems to convince them all well enough. 

They creep up the hill and easily break off into natural pairings – Astarion stays at Aruna’s side as they find a hiding place in bushes near the hill’s peak, Gale and Shadowheart find a safe spot behind a tree on the opposite side, a bit further back. 

In the clearing below, Aruna spots the commotion easily. Three people – seemingly human – banging on a large wooden gate covered in vinery. At the top of the gate, there stands multiple tieflings, all arguing besides a large wheel that Aruna can only presume opens the gate.

And she can finally hear the words being shouted.

“Open the bloody gate! Goblins are coming!”

She feels Astarion tense beside her, clearly hearing what she had. Goblins. She can’t exactly visualize them, her memory predictably failing her once more, but she doesn’t have to wait long before the horde shows themselves. 

A large group. Foul creatures of all kinds, not just these goblins, are snarling in the direction of those humans. 

Finally, as if seeing were truly believing, a tiefling begins to open the gate. But Aruna already knows it’s far too late before the arrow that ends him has flown through the air – they had hesitated, and it just cost one of their own their life. 

The gate drops, despite the humans efforts to hold it up. The tiefling falls, a scream echoing from someone nearby. 

And amongst it all, as Aruna’s heart begins to race at the action, a realization strikes her. 

P.S. DO NOT FORGET – SAVE ASTARION. 

She hadn’t been sure of what to do with that in the last day, when they weren’t in danger. When it was nothing more than brains with legs and small bickering amongst the camp so far that posed the most threat, Aruna couldn’t comprehend why she was supposed to save the elf that clearly had an upper hand with his skilled hands and sharp daggers. 

But here, watching the beginnings of a battle unfold, she understood. 

Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the danger. 

Astarion is hardly a breath of a step ahead of her, crouched into a thicker part of the bush. Closer to the action – closer to the danger. Her hand flies out to land on his bicep without another thought.

“What are you-” he turns to look at her, clearly startled, but she’s determined.

He gets on her nerves. He’s impossible to read at times. She’s pretty sure he’d betray her the moment a better option of safety arose. But the letter said to save him, so save him she shall. 

“Get behind me,” she commands in a low voice, leaving no room for argument.

He still finds the space to argue. Of course he does. 

“Excuse me? I am not-” he begins to hiss at her, but he’s cut off when one of those wretched goblins have climbed to the top of the hill. 

They were only looking for higher ground, but Aruna isn’t quite as well-hidden as the rest of them. 

“Well, well, well,” the goblin snarls, “Thought yourself sneaky, did ‘ya?” 

She only sees Aruna. Not Gale, not Shadowheart. And most importantly – not Astarion. 

Her hands fly to her daggers just as the goblin reaches onto her back and produces a bow. At the sight of it, Aruna’s stomach plummets. She can hardly wield her daggers against brains – better than someone who’s never held a weapon a day in their life, but not by much. And her daggers are for close fights; that bow will end her life without the goblin having to take so much as another step towards her. 

Aruna has the disadvantage here; Aruna is going to die here. 

She still lets her shaking fingers wrap around the hilt of her dagger, deciding it’s better to go down with a fight rather than simply lay here and die, but then-

The goblin hardly had the time to string her bow, an arrow not even properly secured in it, when two daggers are easily cutting through the skin of her neck. 

Aruna hadn’t even noticed Astarion move, as if he had blended in with shadows she hadn’t seen existing on this hilltop. One moment, he’d been beside her, and now he stood behind the goblin, holding on for an extra moment before he let the lifeless body drop. 

“You expect me to believe I should allow you to protect me,” he nearly spits out, looking at her less in anger and more in disbelief, “When you just nearly got yourself killed.”

“I had it under contro-” she starts to argue back, but she cuts herself off when she looks over his shoulder. Most of the goblins and other creatures are focused on the four humans below, a new helping hand having joined them as he blasts his foes with red strikes that resemble lightning, but across the way stands a goblin with his eyes narrowed right at Aruna and Astarion. He’s quick, his arrow firing off in their direction just as Aruna notices him, “Duck!”

For once, Astarion doesn’t argue. Thank the Nine Realms. 

He drops to the ground with perfect timing, the arrow narrowly missing his back before it pierces the ground just beside Astarion’s splayed hand. 

In his shock, Aruna makes an easy decision. 

Fuck the daggers. 

Her magic still burns in her veins, humming gleefully as she calls to it with an outstretched palm and her focus set on the goblin that had sent the arrow in Astarion’s direction.

DO NOT FORGET – SAVE ASTARION. 

It’s the only thing on her mind as she recalls incantations that had fallen from Gale’s lips just the day prior, and she repeats them effortlessly, “Tormentum.” 

In an instant, three red spheres burst from her palm in a straight line, heading straight to the goblin.

They hit him without miss, in the center of his chest, back to back. 

Just as Astarion is rising back to his full height, he witnesses the goblin fall to her magic. His neck nearly snaps with the speed in which he looks back to her, “You have magic? Bloody Hells-”

She ignores his outburst, quickly slipping herself in front of him on the cliff’s edge, making herself all but a meat shield for the quick-footed elf. Most attention continues to evade them, but she’s able to spot the next goblin that has set his sights on them before he has a chance to draw his weapon in their direction. This time, as she outstretches her hand in his direction, she decides to shout a different spell.

“Ignis!” 

She’s more confident this time, power thrumming through her as the familiar bolt of a flame flies from her fingertips and heads straight for their enemy. Her aim is less on par, but it doesn’t matter – even when the flame hits the goblin’s legs rather than chest, the sparks of the magic catch fire to everything around it, effectively burning the goblin to nothing more than ash and bone. 

She can’t tell if her heart is racing with exhilaration of using her magic – magic she knows for sure now that was never learned nor gifted to her by some deity, but is hers entirely – or if it’s from the fear of keeping Astarion safe. 

And he’s making the latter exceptionally more likely when one of the creatures that resemble a distorted wolf finally looks up to them with bloodlust in its eyes, and he’s quick to step out from behind her. 

“No,” she gasps, turning to him just long enough that when she looks back, the animal is already clambering up the stones, nearly arriving to them, “Astarion, do not-”

All at once, it feels as though she loses control of her magic. As though it’s reached such extensive heights that her grasp on it slips, and between that and her swirling emotions, she has no control over what happens next. 

Her mind is a mess. Between the power, the worry of this being what she was meant to be saving Astarion from, the anxiety of him no longer being behind her so that she could fool herself into thinking she might be capable of shielding him – it’s a mess. 

Not a single incantation has to fall from her lips when the magic erupts from her, turning the innocent plants around them into enchanted greenery. Viscous vines, glowing as they ensnare both the creature clambering up to them and Aruna. 

They should have ensnared Astarion too. She thinks they’ve done as much until she watches him dart down to where the animal is one step below, and his daggers find deathly purchase in its fur. 

Blood splatters about the vines that Astarion is still able to avoid somehow, and when he pulls back, the creature falls just as limply as that goblin did. 

He looks up at her, small spatters of the blood marking his cheeks, a smug grin painted across his face, “As you were saying?” 

Damn him. Damn him to the deepest depths of the Hells, and back. 

“I… You…” she can’t finish her snappy comeback, can’t even formulate a proper thought as a sudden drain from her use of magic hits her all at once. The snarling vines still encase her lower half, and her headache blooms so painfully that she fears she might lose consciousness from it. 

The grin is short-lived when he realizes what is inevitably about to happen once her own self-made trap lets her go. 

He’s at her side before the vines have even finished retreating, catching her just before she tumbles over the edge of the small cliff. He yanks her backward, leveraging himself behind her for a moment so that she’s flush his chest before he spins. Suddenly, roles have been reversed. Astarion has become the meatshield, and she doesn’t even have the energy to fight it. 

“Gale,” his voice is stoic as he nearly carries her, “Shadowheart. Be dears and take over for us on the front lines, yes?” 

There’s not much more fight to be had. Between the goblin and creature Astarion had taken down, and the two goblins that Aruna’s magic had fell, the fight is mostly left up to the humans below.

Gale and Shadowheart listen to Astarion regardless. 

He manages to get them to the tree where the other two had been hiding with ease, finally maneuvering her so that she’s leaning against its bark. When she slides down to sit on the ground, it leaves biting scratches that she feels the sting of, even through her clothing. 

“I’m fine,” she gasps out, a clear lie when the edges of her vision were still spotted, “I’m fine, just let me-”

When she goes to stand, he’s quick to press two cold palms on each shoulder. Had he always been so cold? 

“Not so fast, my magical friend,” Astarion tuts, crouching to be eye level with her, “I’m sure the wizard will suffice in ending the bloodbath. He can walk without a helping hand.” 

“I’m fine,” she repeats herself, but it sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than him. 

At the edge of the hill, Gale is firing off magic missiles, just as Aruna had been. 

Astarion’s entire face goes hard, and she realizes that this may not be a fight she’ll win. His sarcasm is venomous as he says, “Ah, yes. You’re currently the picture of health – impossibly pale in the face, too weak to stand on your own, eyes so dazed I highly doubt you’d be able to tell me how many fingers I’m holding up. Shall I go on?”

Her silence is his answer.

“Now, I’m far more concerned with the fact that you have magic. And lots of it, if we’re to go off of your little display with the vines. When exactly were you planning on sharing that with the class?” 

“Gale and Shadowheart already know,” her vision is finally fully coming back to her, entirely focused on Astarion’s face, centimeters from her own, “It’s not my problem you were more concerned with insulting my mapping skills last night rather than asking more personal questions.” 

“You wound me. Is there nothing more personal than sharpening charcoal for someone who’s deficient with their own daggers?”

“Go to Hell.”

Gods, they were going to end up fighting each other, letter be damned, before she ever figured out the truth behind her mysterious savior quest. Maybe the true meaning was for her to avoid burying her daggers into his chest. Save him from her, it seems. 

Astarion only smiles at her, leaning back, creating distance as his palms fall from her, “I’ve already been, my dear. Can’t say I enjoyed it.”

She rolls her eyes, and it worsens the pounding in her temples, but it’s worth it.

At the most opportune of times, Gale and Shadowheart return back to their sides. Gale is the epitome of worry as he kneels beside her where she continues to sit against the tree trunk, and Shadowheart’s eyes are already examining her for wounds.

“Are you hurt?” Shadowheart’s words come out harsh, but only with concern.

“Never been better.”

“She could have killed us both with those enchanted vines,” Astarion says, although no one certainly asked him.

“I might have some salve back at camp for any rash from the vines-”

“She could have gotten us all killed.” 

Shadowheart is ignoring Astarion with ease as Gale lifts each of her arms methodically, flipping them as if to assure that there really isn’t any injury. 

“That wasn’t my intention,” she whispers, being the only one to acknowledge Astarion even though his anger is clearly directed at her, “I just- I don’t know why my magic did that.”

Gale’s eyebrows shoot up at that, “Did what exactly?” 

Astarion’s glare is hard to ignore, but Aruna manages as she swallows hard and chooses to focus on the wizard offering her far more kindness for the time being.

“I was using incantations – just, I guess I knew them from you, hearing you use them during the fights yesterday. But then, suddenly, I just… I just…”

“Decided that enchanted vines were the solution.”

“I don’t know how I did that, Astarion.” 

She really, really doesn’t. That surge of magic had ripped from her unpredictably, tearing out of her veins as if she couldn’t stop it if she tried. She doesn’t even know what incantation could conjure those dangerous plants.

“Interesting,” Gale murmurs, leaning back on his heel. He looks far less concerned than Aruna feels, “Very interesting, indeed.” 

She’s beginning to recognize that look – the look of a hungry mind. She’s starting to believe that every time it crosses Gale’s face, it’s actually just spelling out trouble for her. 

“You’re not going to elaborate on why it’s all so interesting, are you?” she asks with a sigh, deflating in defeat.

He shakes his head, a smile still on his lips. “Not a chance – not here, at least. Perhaps it’s a better conversation to have at camp.” 

Her eyes dart up to Astarion first, against better judgment considering he still looks to be fairly irritated, and then to Shadowheart. Eventually, though, her line of sight wanders to that gate covered in vines. Normal vines, not magical. 

Whatever that gate was protecting, she’d bet all two gold pieces in her pack that it was a civilization. That there was a healer. 

Her problems could wait.

“Fine,” she says, digging the heels of her palms into the ground and beginning to stand. She doesn’t miss the way Astarion flinches, hands twitching as if readied to catch her despite his angry facade. “Keep your secrets, o’ wise old wizard. For now, I think we have a healer to find.” 

Gale frowns, but over his shoulder, she can see Astarion lose the fight against his amusement in her words. 

At least he still finds her funny, even after she nearly ‘got them all killed’, as he had so eloquently put it. 

—

Emerald Grove. 

It’s an interesting place, to say the least. 

When they approach the gate (after carefully descending down the hill, during which Astarion’s hands continued to stay near Aruna in case of any more fainting episodes), the tiefling manning the wheel above opens it without question for them. They fall into a formation eerily similar to the one they’d approached the fight in – Shadowheart and Gale bringing up the rear, and Astarion sticking to Aruna’s side. He keeps a little distance, but hardly much.

She’s sort of glad that it’s him, of all the companions, that’s choosing to be her shadow. As they walk through the short tunnel to properly enter the grove, he’s the only one to breathlessly laugh as she jokes, “Think we’re about to get a hero’s welcome?” 

She likes his laugh. Painful to admit, but she can’t deny that her heart swells with a specific type of pride when she hears it fall from his lips, even in a whisper. 

Besides, it’s far more encouraging than Gale’s, “I sincerely hope you know what you’re doing.” 

She doesn’t respond to that comment. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. 

One of the tieflings she’d caught sight of fighting during the battle stands just uphill of the entrance, face to face with one of the humans. An obvious new fight is taking place. 

She can feel Gale falter in his steps behind her as she approaches, even Shadowheart slowing in her faithful following. The only person who sticks by her side is Astarion. Probably just eager to see if they can make it worse, really. 

“There are children here, you fool!” 

The tiefling is furious. And it almost frightens Aruna for a second, until she feels that reassuring presence of the elf that had just saved her life at her back. If things go south, she’s sure Astarion will be the first to draw his weapon. Whether it’s for her safety or not, she’s quickly learning that it might benefit her to have a dagger-happy friend on her side. 

“We was running, for our lives.” 

The human is red in his face, voice breathless, still clearly recovering from the fight outside the gate. If Aruna was wise, she’d hang back and not interrupt this argument.

Wisdom isn’t her forte, she guesses. 

“You led them straight to us. And you let them take the druid, too. Unbelievable!” 

Druid? Had the goblins taken any hostages? By the looks of the bloodbath outside, it hadn’t seemed like there were any survivors to take a hostage. 

Astarion closes the space between them even further as she steps up to the plate. She could ask about the druid, point out her astute observation, but her quick tongue works faster than her mind does. 

“One fight just ended, and the two of you are already picking another one?” she questions, eyeing both of them in disbelief, “Relax.” 

Astarion snorts at that. Ever so helpful. 

“Tell that to the dead at the gate,” the tiefling snarks back in a low tone, his glare hardening further on the human before him. 

“Shut it, horns. I’d be lying dead at the gate next to the goblins if you’d stalled any longer.” 

And- well, the human has a point. Aruna has no idea what dynamic is at play here, but the human would have been dead if everyone inside the safety of the gate that had chosen to aid them had put off intervening any sooner. 

She’d also be dead, possibly. Astarion as well. The thought alone sends a shiver of fright up her spine. 

“My duty is to this camp,” the tiefling anger grows to palpable levels, enough that Aruna is carefully taking the slightest step back. 

Unfortunate for her, her shadow seems to be getting more comfortable with impossible closeness. It’s a small step that would’ve gone entirely unnoticed, but her foot finds purchase on top of his as her back brushes in near collision with his chest. She’s quick to glance over his shoulder, expecting some sort of reaction, but he’s still as stone. If her stepping on his foot has caused him even the slightest bit of pain, she can’t see it as his focus remains entirely on the fight in front of them. She even glances down to see that his palm is already hovering over the hilt of one of his daggers. 

Yes, indeed. Having a dagger-happy friend on her side was going to be very beneficial. 

“God forbid you risk your precious tail,” the human sneers, and Gods, she notices all the jabs he’s making endlessly at the other’s race. Low blow after low blow, she’s starting to wonder if these two men even have any sort of alliance to begin with, “But I shouldn’t be surprised. Foulbloods ain’t known for courage.” 

She has no memory nor reason to feel defensive over tieflings. She’s unaware of the deeper history at play. But as far as she knows, tieflings are nothing more than another race in this world that she’s being forced to relearn. Horns and tails, sure, but foulblood? 

It’s as if Astarion can feel her defensiveness beginning to boil beneath the surface. 

“Do not,” he whispers to her in a low tone, face still impassive as he presses himself just close enough so that she’s the only one that can hear him, “Get involved in this. Unless, of course, you’re going to swing on one of the poor saps. In that case, I fully support you, my dear.” 

It’s certainly a tempting idea. Part of her wonders how it would feel to crack her knuckles against the face of the human, to wipe the indignation right off his face. But he has a point. And so does the tiefling. She can’t just pick a side – she can’t just choose given what she knows of the situation.

Aruna is well aware that Astarion’s insistence for her to not get involved is probably to avoid him having to carry any extra load, to have to come to her rescue if her punch doesn’t land. He couldn’t care less about the entire ordeal. It’s not his problem unless Aruna makes it his problem. 

If she doesn’t swing, however, she knows one of the men before her will. She can see it easily in their faces. Both twitching with anger, both buzzing with hatred. She needs to diffuse the situation, and quickly.

In her most persuasive tone she can muster, she interjects, much to Astarion’s disapproval, “More violence won’t bring back those you lost. Stop and think.”

She ends the plea in a bit more desperation than she means to, but only because her mind has begun to run a mile a minute in considering what a fight breaking out between the two might mean.

More danger. More fighting. More possible situations in which she’s supposed to save Astarion. 

“You’re right,” the tiefling’s eyes flicker to her as he sighs, and she’s realized that her words have worked, “There’s too much at stake.” 

“Worried about your precious hides. The both of you.” 

Her words have worked on the tiefling. Not the human, clearly. 

She braces herself as the fight begins to feel just a little too inevitable, and out of reassurance to herself, she decides to glance back down at Astarion’s hand by his dagger. It’s no longer just hovering – he’s fully made contact, fingers curling eagerly around the leather grip. He’s tense as ever, but not with the same anxiety that Aruna is. His tenseness is simply readiness. It dawns on her momentarily that whoever wrote that note to her, whoever tasked her with saving him, is an absolute idiot. It’s becoming abundantly clear with every moment they spend together that Astarion is the one more equipped to save her than she is him. 

She’s so caught up in the thought that she misses the resolution of the argument, some exchange of words that unexpectedly lead to both men walking away. And embarrassingly, she only notices when Astarion’s fingers release his dagger, flexing for a second, before wiggling as if taunting her.

“See something you like?” he practically purrs, suddenly too close for comfort.

She jumps, stepping forward into the new empty clearing before them and giving herself a little space to simply breathe. Shadowheart looks entirely unimpressed when Aruna looks to their companions for help, and Gale only shrugs. 

She spins to face Astarion head on now, trying to even her breathing, “Never. Someone just has to make sure you don’t go on a stabbing spree for your own entertainment.” 

“Oh, mother may I?” he taunts, stepping forward and making her effort of space entirely useless. He’s fast to unsheath a dagger, twirling it in his hand, blade flashing in the sunlight. She knows he’s not going to do anything with it, though. Not when his face melts into something a little more serious, a little more genuine, “You do realize we’ll never find a cure to our little…. problems if you try to involve yourself in every fight we come across?”

Yes. “It might do us well to have a few favors to call in. Just in case.” 

“I highly doubt either of those men would offer us a favor for your interjection.” 

“Guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” 

The tiefling is hanging back, not far off from there, and she senses he’s only staying back for the time being due to the way Astarion still holds his blade, carelessly letting it wave around during their conversation. And she’s starting to sense it’s purposeful on Astarion’s part. 

He presses his lips together tightly as he looks down at her, garnet eyes flashing momentarily before he simply gives in. He’s picking his battles to win the war. “I suppose we will. And I do suppose you’re wanting to talk to that tiefling now, aren’t you?” 

She answers wordlessly with a smile as he sheaths his dagger. He’s learning quickly.

[hellsdisneyprincess]

((The following is a drabble I have been compelled to write for personal reasons. The information Charlie learns from this would be canon for all versions of her, but how she learns it may vary, especially depending on if interactions with specific others lead to where it's found out a different way. So it's in a weird spot canon wise to this blog.

This can be used as an open starter if you want, but it isn't being written that way specifically. As such, it's more fantasy science than actual plot or drabble. But take that as you will.

Charlie felt really small right about now, alone in an empty conference room at the hotel. She probably could have made it to her room if she wanted, but her singular goal was to be alone as soon as possible and the conference room she occupied was a lot closer to the ground floor than her bedroom was. In front of her was a pill bottle. Another was a piece of paper. Both she got from Belphagor earlier that day. Together they represented the truth about something she'd always wanted.

There was a high chance she wasn't going to be able to have children of her own.

It had been so simple when it was laid out. Her mother was a human, her father an angel. But adding to the mix is that when they fell, they both acquired demonic traits so that was also added to her genetic makeup as well. There had been instances of those who were mixes of two of these. Rare of course, but not unheard of. But all three? Charlie was the only documented case. That was the problem.

When a woman's eggs formed, each held half of her DNA, the rest to be supplemented by the father to make a new individual. But the half that ended up in them couldn't just be chosen. It was random. This would be fine and a non-issue for most others, but was a big deal for Charlie. There was no telling how much of any of those three sources would be in the egg. Meaning, there was no way to know if there was enough of any given one in a singular egg to be truly compatible with the father of her hypothetical child to actually be viable.

On top of that, her mixed heritage had impacted her hormones the most. She'd known that she wasn't particularly gifted with certain assets, but that was only a visible symptom of the larger issue. The hormones of humans, demons, and angels didn't quite align as well as they could, and sometimes seemed to actively compete. So her cycles were irregular at best and there was no telling what they would do when they ramped up during pregnancy.

In other words, in order to naturally have a child, she'd have to happen to have sex in the sweet spot of timing. Be ovulating with a egg that happened to not only have enough of one of her genetic sources to match with someone, but have that someone be her partner at that time, then it needed to implant, and somehow still remain viable as it developed, all the while just hope that her own body didn't attack her unborn child or otherwise just shutdown the whole process.

But it wasn't like she could now have unprotected sex with wild abandon since pregnancy concerns were among the top reasons she refrained (but not the only, as there was still public image to consider). While her chances of getting pregnant was lower than most, it still was the most likely part of this whole process. So what she was actually looking at was a lifetime of miscarriages in her future. Because even if they used treatments such as IVF to at least ensure that a suitable egg was matched up (assuming she even fucking had any), her body needed to cooperate and Charlie wasn't sure it could do that.

Which brought her to where she was now. The pills were meant as a first step to at least get her hormones in check, but considering how unique her biology was, it was going to take a lot of trial and error. This was only the start of the first attempt. Her immediate future was going to be full of mood swings, discomfort, pain, and the like until they managed to find the right mix to keep her under control for the time being.

Charlie had been holding it all in but now, alone, she couldn't help but start to cry. She'd seen how hard her parents had tried to have children and that was only after she came along. Hell, there might never have been a curse at all. She arrived before DNA was really discovered, let alone its role in reproduction. But it all meant that she had spent enough time in the empty halls of the palace longing for siblings. For a large family. But it never came. That dream became to bear one herself.

But it looks like that was taken from her too.

So here she was, alone in the dark conference room, mourning the loss of children who have yet to have a chance, since they very likely wouldn't.

Edit to add: Because of the potentially sensitive nature of this, if you do reply to it, I may be a bit selective on actually making it a thread.

[the-bar-sinister]

Fire in the Belly, Spirits on the Tongue (35605 words) by VickytheSnake, thesavagesabretooth Chapters: 8/?

Summary: Sabo promised that he wouldn't leave the Revolutionary army, but what will become of the three of them now that Ace is awake and alive in his heart, and more importantly, his body?

catch up here

-

Sabo came back from his discussion with Dragon solemn, but resolute.

Koala had been waiting patiently in her quarters, packing up whether they got permission or not. Sabo needed this time away from the Revolutionary Army to get his head straight. They had to investigate, explore his memories with Ace, and understand the nature of this strange connection, and if she had to go awol for a while, then damn the consequences.

They'd make it up to the Army later.

She looked up as Sabo walked in, her smile warm despite the nerves hammering in her chest. "How'd it go?" she asked as she tossed one of her shirts into a bag. 

He smiled softly at her as he closed the door behind him, and he relaxed his shoulder blades against it. "We got our leave."

"We did? Good! We won't have to sneak out in the dead of night then!" She shut her bag. "....was he upset?" 

"I think 'concerned' is probably the right word to use." Sabo frowned. "But he said that he understood my need to take time and grieve."

Honestly, that sounded like Dragon. But the last thing they needed right now was for people to swamp Sabo and Ace with their concern when they had to figure out exactly what was going on between Sabo and the possible spirit of his dead friend.

"I understand that too," Koala smiled up at him. "Even if things are a little more complicated than that, huh?" 

"Things are a lot more complicated than that," he sighed. "Which I would be happy to keep to ourselves for now. We do have a lead on Deuce, by the way."

Koala snuck over, he looked like he needed some physical affection, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders with a quiet hum. "Really? You do? That's great news!" 

He wrapped his arms around her in return and nuzzled her shoulder. "It's what took me so long. I was talking with the intel division. A blue haired pirate in a mask was seen leaving Marineford."

She rested back against him with a little smile. "Well that's really specific, that's got to be him, right? Did they say what direction?"

"It does seem like it must be him," he muttered– his tone had changed slightly, and Koala picked up on the tell-tale signs that Ace was present now, either with Sabo, or instead of him. "It also means that he's real—"

"Ah—" he paused as if interrupting himself. "Yes, he was on the same ship as Crocodile apparently, and we know where they came ashore. "

"Hey Ace," Koala murmured, still looped around their shoulders. "sounds like he is real—and it sounds like we should head right to that island as soon as we can. Before the trail gets cold." 

They nuzzled against her. "Hey, Koala. Sorry to intrude. Just, really curious about how this will work out. You're right— we've gotta get our asses in gear."

"Lucky for you I'm smart," she gestured with one hand over her shoulder at the pre-packed bags. "We can head out as soon as you're able, alright? I'm… I'm pretty curious too." 

They glanced over at the bags, and Sabo's voice and smile snuck back in. "I had a guess you'd already be getting us ready. And I appreciate it."

Koala wiggled excitedly with a nod. It was actually kind of exciting. Yeah, the situation was weird, and it threw a bit of a wrench in her comfortable and practiced back and forth with Sabo. But Ace was a fun presence, and there was nothing quite like a mystery to solve to inject a little excitement right?

"Maybe I'm a little eager to get going too." 

"Want to have us all to yourself?" The voice was unclear but the sharp, teasing look seemed to belong to Ace. "We're pretty eager to get moving too. It's… weird to be here right now."

"Well, .what can I say? A girl has to have her fun, right? And maybe I want you all to myself for a moment." She chuckled softly under her breath. "...I bet. It's not exactly somewhere you can be open. So—let's go." 

-

They traveled as members of the Revolutionary Army often did, incognito, taking passage on a merchant ship bound for the island where Crocodile's stolen ship had landed.

The two of them made themselves scarce but unobtrusive. Helping out, as passengers often did here and there, while keeping their personal lives quiet from the bustling merchants who never asked questions. As far as anyone was concerned they were a traveling couple on their way to sightsee through the Grand Line.

Koala had been getting more comfortable around Ace, finding a teasing sort of rapport growing between them. It was easy to see why Sabo liked him so much.

Sabo and Ace, in return, seemed to be getting more comfortable switching back and forth between themselves, and it was getting clearer and clearer to Koala how to notice the differences between them. Ace seemed hesitant to fully take over, however, worried, he said about getting stuck like before, and usually only interjected in a conversation. Though sometimes Koala would catch him on his own, noticing an unusual posture for Sabo.

She didn't exactly call him out on it whenever she saw it, though once she couldn't help but teasingly greet him a little bit. Whatever the truth of the matter was, Ace certainly seemed like a separate force from Sabo. Their body language, their speech styles, everything was too different to be taken as one single man.

The more she got to know Ace, through the snippets of stories and chatter they shared, the more she enjoyed seeing him around too. Now that she knew she wasn't going to lose Sabo, the anxiety over the whole thing had lowered to a bare simmer. 

Ace, on the other hand, seemed a little anxious around her. Or maybe skittish was the right word. Embarrassed. A few times he'd interjected something into the conversation right as Koala had been putting her hands on Sabo, or going for a kiss, and that seemed to fluster him despite his cavalier and joking attitude about it.

The perils, she supposed, of sharing a body. Those moments tended to send her off balance too, unused to the surprise of going to kiss your boyfriend and his childhood best friend and honorary brother is there gawking nervously at you instead.

But she embraced them with good humor, laughing it off, or giving him a hug and a pat on the back before swiftly changing topics to try and ease his nerves. This was just as awkward for him as it was for her—she had to remember that. 

In the last hours of their voyage, Koala found herself standing beside them, looking over the rail at the island as they approached it. A moment ago she'd been with Sabo, but she'd watched the subtle changes in the muscles of their face, the shift in shoulders, and the change to his smile that meant Ace was there with her as the cool breeze tugged at both their hair.

"Enjoying the ocean breeze, Ace?" She asked cheerfully as she let her shoulder playfully bump his. She kept her eyes out on the ocean, the beautiful and rippling ocean far beyond them framed the rising landmass of the island ahead. 

His smile grew bashful and he gave her an amused aside look. "Caught me again. Yeah, I am. I missed it."

Koala giggled under her breath. "I'm starting to get a real sense of you guys, you know. Your faces, everything like that."

She hummed softly and leaned on the banister. "I can't blame you though. The ocean's beautiful. When I was a girl my favorite thing was to stand on the deck with the…" she murmured low and out of the ear-shot of the other merchants. "The sun pirates, and watch the ocean fly by." 

Ace smiled and leaned close to her– though not too close— and he nodded. "Sounds like a nice memory. When I was little, we used to sit on the beach sometimes, and look out at the sea together. Talk about sailing away."

"It is. I miss them a lot sometimes," she smiled warmly over at him. "You used to dream about sailing off together, huh? I heard a little about how things went—but do you ever wonder what it'd have been like if you had earlier?" 

His expression turned sad, and hard— like he was fighting back tears. "All the time."

She reached out and squeezed his shoulder. 

"Hey. I'm sorry. But at least you're out here together now, right? Sailing the seas in the ocean breeze." With a laugh she hoped wasn't tense she squeezed again. "and this time you've got a cute girl along for the ride! Lucky lucky!" 

He smiled, though something sad remained in his eyes. He slung his arm companionably around her shoulders. "Hey, I'm not going to complain about that. Sorry to get all tense there, it's just. Yeah, thought about it a lot. But we're together now."

"You are, Ace. And you're going to make the best of it, I absolutely insist!" She poked him lightly in the side before she leaned into his arm with a soft huff of breath.

It was difficult, wasn't it? Difficult to navigate with the limited context she had. She didn't want to make either of them sad, but there was so much history there that even the stories Sabo told her didn't hold. 

He chuckled, bashful again as she poked him. "Alright, alright, I promise. Hey— speaking of enjoying…"

He gave her an appraising look with Sabo's dark eyes, most of the sadness having vanished for the moment.

Koala tilted her head to the side with a curious smile. 

"Hmmm? What is it?" She wondered what exactly he was going to ask, was it something about the island they were coming up on?

"We've been on the ship a few days. Ship food, all that," he chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "Maybe if we don't have an urgent lead, we could go out for dinner?"

Koala blinked, her eyes going wide as a smile lit up her face. Dinner—anywhere other than a ship's galley—sounded absolutely delightful. And he was asking her, in a way that seemed almost a little bashful—she felt a very slight heat against her cheeks as she chuckled. 

"That sounds like a blast, Ace! Could we?" 

Ace's smile brightened even further and he gave her a thumbs up, his other arm still around her shoulders. "Hell yeah we can! Assuming we don't have to run for the shore chasing our lead, we'll get dinner in town and have a good time."

Koala nudged him playfully. "Then I'm hoping your first mate isn't going to make this whole thing a big rush for us, Ace. I could use a good time after that last job got a little hectic." 

He laughed softly and reached up and adjusted the hat on his head– a gesture of his she'd picked up on already— "well, Deuce was never one for moving all that fast."

"Oh yeah?" Koala asked with a playful grin. "Kind of a slow guy, then? Or just living at his own pace?" 

"He's a perfectionist," Ace chuckled teasingly. "So he spends a lot of time spinning his wheels before he gets going."

"Well, if we're extra lucky maybe he'll still be in the pub somewhere spinning his wheels waiting for us to corner him~. All the way through and till after our date of course."

She couldn't help but tease a little, her smile creeping a little wider. 

He went bright red and adjusted his hat, grinning wider. "After our date, huh? Yeah. After our date."

Yeah, it was worth teasing the guy a little. She laughed into her hand as she watched him go scarlet with Sabo's face. She hadn't quite forgotten that 'equal share of the treasure' joke of his the other day, and turnabout was fair play for how it had flustered her.

She nudged him playfully. "So take me somewhere good, Ace. I'm really sick of galley food." 

-

Ace was getting more familiar with piloting Sabo's body around. He wasn't exactly comfortable with it-– he didn't know if he would ever be, or would ever want to be completely comfortable with it— but at least it was becoming less of a completely alien and unnerving experience.

He kept in control while they scouted for information at the docks about Deuce. It didn't take much to find news. He had to give Koala— the revolutionary army seemed fantastic in terms of finding and using contacts. It only took a few quiet words and greased palms before someone gave them information. A man matching Deuce's description had left a couple of days before, on the ship of Emperor Shanks.

Koala was good at this too. The way she interacted with information networks, the way she knew when to push and when to yield in a negotiation. She was every inch the master spy she claimed to be when they were on their way there.

She was dogged, too— determined to hunt down every last lead for his benefit, all the way until they'd gotten the word that Deuce was probably with Shanks—it was then that her expression got thoughtful and pensive. 

Ace could really see what Sabo saw in her. Ferocious, determined, sly, even calculating. She reminded him, just a little of Deuce, in a way. 

He caught her expression as it changed from stubborn to reflective, and as they lingered in a wet alley at the edge of the docks after their last contact departed, he caught her eye.

"Berry for your thoughts?"

Koala smiled at him. "Nothing bad, but complicated. Emperor Red Hair Shanks is—he's capricious. He's got a dangerous reputation, and I don't know how well he'll take to us trying to follow him." 

"You're not wrong," Ace said, thinking back to the last– and only– time he'd met the man in person. "He didn't like it when I chased him down last time either. Not until he heard why anyway. Then we had a few drinks."

"You—" Koala blinked at him,"you chased him down?" 

"Yeah, right after I became a pirate," Ace nodded. He rubbed his, well, Sabo's, chin. "I mean, if my memory can be trusted I did. I went to thank him for saving Luffy's life. It was because of him that Shanks lost his arm."

It was strange to think that it was possible these memories weren't his– that they weren't real. He believed them; he believed himself. Despite everything he felt real. But once they found Deuce, he'd know for sure.

Koala bit her lip thoughtfully, chewing it as she tilted her head to the side. "He saved Luffy's life, huh? And—I always assumed it was a battle injury, possibly from Hawk Eyes." 

"You'd think, but no." Ace shook his head, remembering Luffy telling him and Sabo about it in the woods all those years ago. That part, at least, he was sure was true. "It was saving Luffy's scrawny little seven year old ass from some pirate he pissed off– and then the fucking sea king that ate him."

Koala rubbed her neck with a furrow of her brow again. "Well…ah…I'm gonna be honest with you Ace. This is going to be REAL easy to verify because that is NOT in any of the intel I've ever seen." 

"That part Sabo could tell you, too," Ace grinned. "The part about him having saved Luffy. Sabo was there when Luffy told us. It was while we were all living rough together. But anyway, I think a meeting with Shanks should be fine. Well as close to fine as any kind of meeting with an emperor anyway."

Koala scoffed softly. 

"As close to fine as any meeting with an emperor." She leaned on a wall with a small smile "we'll make do. Worse comes to worse I can try calling in a few favors." 

"I bet you could," he nodded. He didn't ask what kind. The Revolutionary Army wasn't real cozy with pirates— he couldn't imagine it was different for the biggest pirates in the world. "Hey, on another note, we can't exactly follow up on this until morning, can we? So how about we get that dinner we were talking about?"

Koala snapped out of whatever mental pathway she was traveling down, likely thinking of favors to pull in, and flashed a broad smile at him. "Oh!! That's true isn't it? We won't get a ship till then anyhow. We've got some time to kill, so let's do it! I'm famished." 

"Hell yeah. Let's find some place." Ace looped his arm over her shoulder companionably. He was getting more comfortable with that kind of thing too. After all, he was a physical person, and he wasn't used to keeping his hands off people he was friendly with.

Koala didn't seem to mind it.

-

Ace's arm was warm around Koala's shoulders as the two of them set out to find a place to eat. He was touchy, physically affectionate. Admittedly she didn't mind that at all.

Even if he was using Sabo's body, there was a tangible difference there. In the way he held himself, in the way he held her—and so on. The two of them wound their way through the streets, checking every sign for the best possible stop for this…

Was it a date? Koala bit her lip again, glancing at him from under the fringe of her hair. Ace was funny, lighthearted, friendly. He had that casual air about him that Sabo kept more buttoned down, even when they were together.

He was clearly close with Sabo—and the two were sharing a body. There was some part of her that wondered things like 'is this just a casual dinner? Or is it something more?'

The word date had been used when they talked about going out. Koala had been the one to say it even, it had slipped out of her mouth. Ace had echoed it. Their 'date'. But what did that mean to either of them exactly?

Ace was whistling a pleasant tune as they made their way from the docks into the slightly less rough area of town, and smiling quite broadly. He seemed to be pleased. Whether by the dinner, the information, both, or something more. Sabo wasn't much of a whistler, and Koala had never heard the tune on their lips before.

Koala leaned over with a small smile, shifting under his arm to look up at him. "That's a pretty tune even out of unpracticed lips." she teased. "What is it?"

Was he pleased by the dinner—maybe? More likely he was pleased about his first mate being close at hand, she was sure.

Ace looked a little embarrassed and shook his head. "I don't know what it's supposed to be called, actually. It's from a tone dial my crew found in some treasure one time. Just piano and violin. We never heard anyone else play it and never found out what it was supposed to be."

"Huh." Koala tilted her head as she listened in. "I guess you can say that if it stuck with you this long, that song's a real treasure, hm?" 

"That's how we felt about it," Ace nodded with a nostalgic smile. "We used to joke around adding lyrics to it, but never came up with ones that stuck."

"Maybe when we find Deuce you can finally find the words for it, huh?" She squeezed his arm. "Maybe you just needed more time and experience." 

"Maybe," Ace chuckled. He walked close with her and the way he smiled, she almost felt like she could see his 'real' face peeking through Sabo's.

He gestured at an inviting looking tavern a little further up the road. "Oh hey— that place smells good, don't you think?"

Koala felt her face heating up. Her whole life, aside from Revolutionary Army dallianes that both she and Sabo sometimes enjoyed, she'd never been 'on a date' with anyone but him. She looked up again to meet that smile. It reminded her very much that she was about to head in on what she'd accidentally called a 'date' with a man who wasn't Sabo, whether he was 'real' or not.

It didn't help that the glimpses of his 'real face' in Sabo's expressions were admittedly pretty handsome.

She sniffed the air and quickly nodded. "Yeah it sounds f-fantastic!" 

Ace pulled her with enthusiasm into the restaurant, which turned out to be a rather cheerful and handsome little place with a roaring fire and a small band playing in one corner of the dining room. They sat at one of the rough tables near enough to hear the performance, but not near enough to drown out their conversation, and soon enough they were settled into a hearty supper comprised mainly of fried meat and fish skewers, roasted vegetables, and large mugs of ale.

"Woah—" Koala said as she held up one of the fish skewers with a broad smile. "You know for tavern fare, the cook here sure knows what they're doing! This is fantastic!"

She took a nibbling bite of it while listening to the band, her eyes locked on the man before her. 

Ace— who had finished his collection of skewers and had just waved for more— was leaning on his hand, grinning at her over the table. "Yeah we really lucked out, huh? The band's pretty good too."

"It's a heck of an atmosphere, huh?" she flushed. "The music's great. It reminds me a little of the first restaurant I'd ever gone to as, you know—"

As someone free. She took a big bite of her skewer to try and catch up to Ace.

"Yeah?" his grin softened. "That sounds like a special memory by itself. Any highlights?"

His foot brushed hers under the table— she wasn't sure whether it was an accident or not.

She flushed deeper, and carefully she tested the waters by bumping his foot with hers, her eyes averting to her plate as she fumbled for her mug of ale. 

"Well, it was with the Sun Pirates," she lowered the tone of her voice. "Fisher Tiger had stopped in a town that was friendly enough, you know? For gathering supplies and such–and to celebrate freeing us all from the …you know… he took us out to the tavern. It was a little more tense than this, you know how people are…but Hatchan managed to liven it up when he got the band to strike up" 

His foot played against hers under the table, It wasn't an accident.

"Yeah? I bet. Music has a good way of loosening people up." He smiled at her widely again, and his voice dropped low. "Funny to think technically you were a pirate long before I was."

It wasn't an accident at all. He was flirting with her; or at least being intimate and cozy. She didn't pull her foot away, even as her fluster grew.

She laughed quietly and nodded, sipping her ale. "Since I was a little girl. It's true huh? I wasn't a Sun Pirate for long, and some of them would say I never was—but….I was part of that crew. I wear their flag. And Hatchin, he always knew how to loosen people up. One of the kindest men I'd ever known. Fisher Tiger too…" 

"It sounds like you remember it fondly," he said softly, watching her with Sabo's big dark eyes that seemed to shine with a light all Ace's own. "There's nothing quite like sailing with a rowdy crew of pirates."

"I do," Koala said with a lopsided and unsure smile as her foot bumped his again. "I remember eating my fill for the first real time since— geeze, even before I was sold… in that tavern, on meat like this. And the Sun Pirates were rowdy, and fun, and interesting! There's nothing at all like it. I know a lot of the Revolutionary Army doesn't like them but, but-– I dunno. Sometimes I miss it." 

"Well, you sure don't have to sell me on it," he teased. "There's nothing I ever loved better."

She watched his head jerk and the tousled hair fall in his face as he noticed the band strike up a new song, this one more lively than the last.

He reached across the table and caught her wrist in his hand. "Come on— let's dance!"

Koala blinked her big, bright eyes before she stumbled to her feat with a flustered laugh 

"Dance?? You wanna dance?" She stuck out her tongue as she wobbled to her feet "Sabo'll tell you—I'm a better dancer than I look like!" 

"You must be a hell of a dancer then," he teased, pulling her out to the empty space on the floor around the band. "Yeah, I wanna dance, why not? It'll be a few minutes until we get our next round of skewers."

He hadn't quite waited for her to say 'yes', already pulling her into the dance. Koala wasn't sure how to take it, or rather, she was, in a way but—

Her head was spinning a little as a butterfly-like feeling wibbled in her stomach along with the growing heat behind her flustered half smile. "Alright, well, because you're so eager I'll dance with you, ok?"

"Fantastic!"

She glanced out at the other patrons of the restaurant before she looked up to meet his eyes and catch his hand in hers. 

It wasn't underheard of, certainly, dancing in an establishment like this, but they were the only ones up at the moment, and it was definitely an exposed feeling.

Ace didn't seem to feel it though. He just smiled and danced thoughtlessly across the floor, pulling her with him, his movements brisk and sharp and excited.

Despite the eyes on her, just like that day way back when she was young, she did her best to ignore them and follow along in his dance. She clung tight to his hand as she swept across the floor with him, following his movements and the lively brass of the band.

"You're not half bad," she said as she took a dance-step closer. 

"You're even better than I expected!" The firelight flickered across his face— across Sabo's face— making it seem foreign and unfamiliar. Somehow making it seem more like Ace's face as they danced together to the passionate sound of the band.

Wasn't he the man made of flame? The infamous Fire-Fist cast in his own blazing inferno—as the light of the fire danced across his features, Koala almost believed it completely. Without the verification from Deuce, without the firm evidence.

She felt like she was looking into the eyes of Ace, Sabo's handsome yet deceased brother. A man who danced and smiled as brightly as the flame.

The song came to an end and Ace had his arm looped around her waist, breathless and face to face. Suddenly he moved in to kiss her.

She was halfway through a caught breath when their lips almost caught. Koala's eyes widened, and all that flustered attraction came rushing to the forefront as she squeaked out in surprise. 

Ace immediately stopped and pulled back, his grin taking on an awkward quality, looking just as flustered as she was.

"Whoops! Got a little over excited there. Sorry about that, Koala." 

He laughed it off, but the red of his face made it clear he was embarrassed. "Let's grab another drink and see if those skewers are back from the kitchen yet."

She'd wanted to kiss him, that was the thought that had fluttered in her mind when their lips nearly touched. The urge was there, the willingness to let herself be taken by the flow of the tide and finish their dance but at the last minute she'd frozen up.

She'd gotten too flustered, too worked up to make the move. She knew her face was red as his was and smiled nervously. "Sure, I mean—I could use another drink, yeah?"

Wasn't this a bit fast? What would Sabo think? What was she thinking?

Maybe after another drink or two her head would be clear enough, and her heart would still enough to figure it out. 

Back at their table there was fresh cold beer with a tall head of foam, and steaming fried skewers. Ace's feet didn't touch hers under the table, and he was flushed red behind Sabo's face, but he immediately launched into a story about, as he said 'a mutual friend' and the time he and Jinbei had apparently fought for more than a day straight.

She was pretty sure it was an effort to cover his nerves– and potentially to deflect any perceived embarrassment from her, too. It was almost gentlemanly, in its way.

It was charming. Almost-gentlemanly, from a rambunctious and free-spirited pirate. She flushed again, but listened with interest, interjecting with her own observations on the Whaleshark man— and how impressed she was that Ace held out that long against his fishman karate.

She thought, more than once, about brushing her foot on his or leaning across the table to give that kiss she'd abruptly ended— but each time she felt seized with that butterfly in the stomach feeling. An unfamiliar one.

She and Sabo had fallen together so naturally, so early and so completely; she'd skipped right over these sorts of nerves. 

The food was still good. The music was still good. The company was still good. They chatted their way pleasantly enough through the rest of the dinner but it was impossible to deny it was just a little more awkward than it had been before– Ace was a little more shy.

As they finally headed out into the crisp air of the dark evening street to go find a room for the night, Ace smiled at her, walking close, but not touching her.

"I had a lot of fun. Thanks for treating me to dinner."

The awkwardness became a wall. She'd struggled to get herself past it enough to cling to his arm like she had on the way there, or to make any further move. She instead walked with her hands folded behind her back as she glanced up at him under the rim of her cap. 

"I was happy to. I'd like to do it again, yeah? Even if you do eat your way through our finances like crazy." 

He laughed. "Sorry about that. As you saw, I just have too much energy. Burn off everything I eat, and then I want to sleep the rest off. Speaking of which–" he paused and gave her a shy smile. "I'm gonna grab Sabo for you. I'm beat and I'm sure he's pining for you."

"H-huh?" Koala blinked up at him before she rubbed her neck with a shy smile. "Oh ah, alright! That sounds like a good idea, Ace. I enjoyed my night with you, though! Very much!" 

"I'm glad. We'll do it again some time." She saw a shadow of his fire-light smile in the awkward edge of his mouth, and he squeezed her shoulder briefly. Companionably. 

Then Sabo sagged against her, almost as if dizzy.

"Fancy seeing you here, Koala." It was so jarring. The difference in tone of voice. The way the muscles in his face all rearranged. A moment ago it had been an awkward date with Ace, and now here was Sabo, her long time partner, who she hadn't seen all day.

Koala looped an arm around him. At least that awkward wall had dissipated, even if she still felt like she'd somehow fucked that whole thing up. 

She leaned against him with a thin smile. "Fancy seeing you too, Sabo. You'd been out some time." 

He chuckled, looping his arm around her and straightening out as they started to walk again,. "I promised Ace I'd let him have the day. He's been getting restless."

"I could tell, he got pretty animated during dinner! For ah, for a while at least."

She leaned against him, letting him lead as she closed her eyes. Until she froze and broke the mood they'd had going between them. 

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Aaand we’re back!

Anonymous asked:

Do you think the rest of the TWST staff will get cards?  I really really wanna see Vargas' vignette.  The Camp Vargas events were peak writing; "how can I help my students get stronger?  I'll hunt them down and make them think their friends are being taken by a horrible beast!".  Also I like that the non-sports clubs handled things better than the sports clubs

God those events were so much fun, they were so unhinged at times lol To be honest, I don’t remember how both groups handled the main “challenge”, but the non-sports club got concerned about people disappearing faster, that’s for sure. The sports clubs just went “idk, who cares? Maybe he’s just asleep somewhere”…

Whenever Vargas gets to talk, it’s always wild and mildly concerning, the man is crazy. Now that I think about it, seeing his vignette would be great lol

It would be a shame if we never got the rest of the staff cards. They don’t get a lot of screen time, but all the tidbits of information that we get about them are so interesting. I’ll bet that we’ll get those cards eventually, but it’ll take quite some time…

Anonymous asked:

Sometimes I don't like the TWST localization changes but other times I tell myself that at least it's not as bad as the original Digimon Adventure English dub...Apocalymon my boy, out of context you're the greatest thing ever but in context you are so so painful

I feel lucky and unlucky at the same time that we didn’t get to experience EN dub of all the shows that were popular back then haha. Like yeah, it’s great that we jumped straight to sub, but it’s I am sure it was an unforgettable experience…

But hey, at least we had the “I loved you…like a father, Kunzite” in our version of Sailor Moon. Talk about daddy kinks sheesh.

Anonymous asked:

Hi! about the pussies headcanons, reading that ♀️Kalim doesn't masturbate was unexpected!  I can't see the character like that because of his family history, wouldn't be a pervert either... just a shameless fool... I can see him/her having an occasional erection as he/she hugs Jamil, but Kalim just keeps there, rubbing it "no malice", until the itch becomes pleasurable while Jamil agonizes... I wrote a minific but single words cannot explain how much I hallucinate about this idiot's misbehavior

Hi, Anon!

I don’t think Kalim is completely innocent and doesn’t have any sexual desire whatsoever, I just headcanon that she would be more focused on Jamil.

There is this weird “gap” about Kalim: she (or he) seems childish, as if she doesn’t care about these things at all; she is flirty, but in a way that you would think that she doesn’t understand the difference between friendly and romantic flirting, so it’s easy to look at her and think that she is this non-sexual being that only wants to have fun, fool around and dance. But in actuality, she is sexual, she does have desires, feel arousal and pleasure. The thing is, she finds Jamil so hot that her sexual awakening felt more like “I want to touch Jamil”, not “I feel good when I touch myself”. One leads to the other, so the scenario you’ve described is possible! It’s not like she absolutely can’t masturbate; I just picture her being more interested in having sex with Jamil. If she feels “the itch”, she could just call Jamil and all.