#man lost it the same way ace did and ace never got it back

[1000sunnygo]

I'm still not over the fact that Law lost his hat.

Would be understatement to say he wore it just for fashion and overstatement if I say it has a narrative relevancy similar to Luffy's straw hat

But Law always wore a spotted hat, it's one of the few things he carried from Flevance. The hat is important to him. Each time he lost it during a confrontation, he retrieved it first when he made a comeback. Oda had been sparing some panels for that.

Bet he feels exposed without it on.

Law used to hide his moments of vulnerability behind his hat.

He has now lost everything for the third time, including the hat itself.

How's he going to hide himself now.

[undiscovered-horizon]

"Femme fatale" - Nikolai Lantsov x Reader

[suggestive themes but nothing explicit]

SUMMARY: When you reveal how you won the suspiciously heavy bag of coins, Nikolai is overwhelmed with anger at the thought of you being intimate with another man. The thing is, he's never told you how he feels about you... until now.

WORDCOUNT: ~ 1.7k

<I cried on national TV today, I am anything but fine lmao>

>>Grishaverse-inspired playlist<<

The bag thuds loudly as you drop it on the nautical maps scattered on Sturmhond’s desk. Tolya, Tamar and the privateer in question suddenly fall silent, their excited chattering put to a halt. Three pairs of eyes glance once at you, once at the big leather pouch.

“Did you rob a bank on your way here?” Nikolai asks. Although framed as a joke, his voice reveals that he’s not exactly discarding this possibility.

“I know that look.” Tolya gives you a half-smile, crossing his arms on his chest. Even if he wasn’t a Heartrender, he’d still be proficient at reading people. “She ripped someone off.”

You shrug and wave your hand in dismissal. “Some whaler, roughly the size of a small elephant, was very eager to spend the night with me. At first I wanted to rip his face off but then I realized that I saw a ship docking around the same time we did, so the whalers must have just gotten their wages. I offered the man that if he can win against me in cards, I’ll let him do whatever he wants to me. He got so excited he didn’t notice the stack of aces up my sleeve.”

Tamar nods her head in acknowledgement. The small smile on her lips betrays a sense of proudness. “Beat him at his own game. I respect that.” It was your and Tamar’s thing - the whole crew probably knows that most commonly known methods of cheating were invented by either of you.

“Thank you very much,” you say as you take back the bag. “But I doubt this is anywhere near close enough to get Hyram to take the nightwatch for me, so I’ll be off.”

“Come on, sister,” Tolya taps Tamar’s arm, “we have things to do as well.”

When your hand pushes down the door handle, you hear Nikiolai calling out your name in a rush. “Stay for a moment,” he asks in a strangely anxious voice. You give the twins a questioning look but they only shrug in response - their previous conversation with their captain never once involved even a mere mention of you.

The door closes with a thud behind Tolya and Tamar. What used to be a lighthearted, friendly atmosphere suddenly turns absolutely uncomfortable and tense. You furrow your eyebrows studying Nikolai’s expression. He looks… angry. Slowly, you stroll towards his desk again but the closer you are to him, the more uneasy you’re feeling. Standing maybe a meter or two away from the table, you suddenly find yourself unable to move forwards as though some force is separating you two.

Nikolai sighs. He shakes his head and looks at you with a fiery glint to his eye. "Are you out of your mind?!"

The sudden loss of composure renders you speechless. "I beg your pardon?" Part of you realizes that this conversation is not going to end quickly, so you drop the bag on the floor next to your leg. Besides, the pouch filled with coins does weigh quite a lot.

"What if you lost?” His voice cuts the tense air like treacherous blades. Those bright eyes aren’t any softer. This outburst is already surprising but considering the details of his appearance, this is already a tempered version of the fury residing in his viscera. “Have you any idea what…” he cuts himself off and sighs again. Nikolai closes his eyes, rubs his face and only then resumes talking. “What could have happened to you?"

"What's up, boss?" you nod upwards at him with furrowed eyebrows. "This isn't the first time I'm conning people out of their money through frankly reckless wagers."

"This is different,” he drones his words.

"How so?” you bite back. His inexplicable irritation is rubbing off on you. “I knew I was going to win. Even if I didn't, by some chance, I would have fought them."

"By yourself?” his voice raises again. You’ve never seen him like this before, only further convincing you that something serious must have broken his patience. But considering your history of relatively legal enrichment, it seems unlikely that it’s this little bet that had set him off. “With whalers that make Tolya look like a spud?”

It’s like dancing. Except he’s clumsy for a man of his agility and keeps stepping on your toes. And just like guests do on weddings, the two of you are pirouetting around the main attraction, naively thinking that the other person will miraculously be enlightened. The orchestra is playing the music and yet the dancing guests refuse to tell each other the name of the song.

"Come on, talk to me,” you coax him impatiently. This… dancing is tiring and there’s still quite a few things you need to do before the crew goes to sleep. “Say the quiet part out loud."

Nikolai hangs his head. You see his shoulders slowly raise and fall - he’s taking a deep breath, calming himself down. He walks around the desk and sits on its edge, leveling his eyes with yours. Something about his expression is changed like Nikolai has discarded the anger in place of defeat or compliance; like the steam that urged him to fight simply run out, returning the level-headed captain to you.

His eyes meticulously study the right-hand side of the room, along with the leather pouch, before he looks at you. "Can I be embarrassingly honest with you?"

You vaguely open your arms in a welcoming manner. "I'm all ears, captain."

Nikolai stares at you with a newfound intensity. The words almost escape him but he forces them back down his throat when he presses his lips tightly together. You see his hands grip the edge of the desk he’s sitting on as though he’s looking for something to ground him or just an outlet for his clearly turbulent emotions. Finally, Nikolai speaks but his voice is uncharacteristically low and somber: "The thought of another man having you makes me want to break this ship into pieces."

A strange tightness in your chest and throat; suffocating warmth sets your tired muscles on fire, its flames temptingly brushing against your starved skin. Then, a moment of defiance and doubt - how can you know he’s serious? That he’s not just saying this to keep you close in case he grows bored or frustrated one day? Privateers, pirates, corsairs, you’re all cut from the same cloth; hungry, money-grabbing, opportunist cloth.

"Another?" you ask. Hopefully Nikolai remains oblivious to the effect his words had on you. "You're making it sound like there's already a man I should be spending my nights with."

"There certainly is a man foolish enough to give everything away for the chance at your affection."

"If he's so desperate,” you begin thoughtfully, your voice low, “why has he never said a word?"

"I'm afraid he might just lose his sanity if you tell him no."

Perhaps it’s your own corporeality or the undisputable vulnerability in his words that makes you forget the distrust and defiance you felt towards this consuming notion. Suddenly, the tension that prevented you from coming closer has disappeared if not shifted to be located behind you, dissuading you from leaving the room. The nervous, thrilling atmosphere is nudging you forward, towards the man sitting a mere meter or two away from you, his eyes boring into you with anticipation. Some devious voice in the back of your head notices the romance in the dim candlelight and steady rocking of the boat traveling the seas.

Your legs, betraying your will, push you towards Nikolai. He straightens his back noticing you walking in his direction, suddenly his muscles flexing and creating tension. No matter how one wishes to look at it, he appears ready, prepared to take action.

"Well,” you shrug slightly, “unless he asks, how can he know it's going to be a no?"

"Better safe than sorry, I suppose,” he answers quietly as though the lack of space between the two of you is pushing down his chest, squashing juvenile vitality out of him.

A breathy chuckle leaves your lips. You shake your head in amusement at the atypical uncertainty. "Said the famous privateer Sturmhond, known for his utter lack of bravado."

Then, like you had lifted a curse that clouded the blue sky above his head, Nikolai furrows his eyebrows in a confused expression. "Yes, that doesn't really sound like me, does it?"

"Not in the slightest.” You answer. His lips curve into a smile and you find yourself wallowing in relief at the familiarity of his easy-going, up-beat attitude. “This makes me think that the mysterious admirer simply can not be you."

"When did you become a detective?” he jokes. Whether it’s your lack of straightforward rejection or the fact that you’re steadily getting closer to him, Nikolai’s humor is only improving. “Amuse me. What would I have done?"

"I think…” your voice trails off as you fiddle with the hem of his frock coat, “that you would say something smooth and suave, then have me however you want. And I’d come crawling back every night."

In a quite unprofessional manner, if either of you even thought about that aspect at the moment, his hands slide up your thighs and hips only to rest on the curve of your waist. Then, Nikolai forcibly pulls you closer to him. First you yelp in surprise but soon you hear yourself gasping as his leg brushes against your groin.

A low chuckle leaves his mouth. "That sounds like a yes to me."

You can’t stop yourself from cradling his face, threading your eager fingers through his golden locks. Nikolai’s hot, ragged breath grazes your cheeks when you lean in. His lips are slightly apart, silently begging you to let him indulge in the sweet release of carnal desire. You lean closer to his ear, your voice comes out nearly as a growl:

"I'd say yes even if it's going to be the last thing I'm going to say."

His lips feverishly kiss your jaw and neck. A stifled moan escapes your lips and you swear you can hear Nikolai snickering.

[omg-im-such-a-masochist]

Better Of Two Evils

Summary: After Damian’s flirty nature comes to life, you’re left to deal with its aftermath with no other than the Demon King and his Human vessel.

Pairings: Bálor x F!Reader x Finn

Warnings: +18, smut, slight heresy, mentions of worship, p in v, oral (f receiving), curse words, slight dom x sub.

A/N: This is my birthday gift for the amazing @theworldofotps , she wanted a sequel to Salome so I hope you like it, babe. I wish you nothing but the best in your new journey and I hope it’s filled with all good things one can have in life! I love you so much, thank you for being my friend, and for being one of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet in my life. You truly deserve the world and I hope you have an amazing day love ya.

Tags: @theworldofotps , @writtingrose , @daddyhausen , @melissahausen , @unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin , @sophiewolfheart-blog , @sultryfandoms , @new-zealand-chic , @crowleysqueenofhell , @thealliasylum , @legit9thlunaticwarrior , @mjfass , @josiewrites , @seeingstarks , @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch , @whenimakeitshine1234 , @moxkindagirl , @sunshinevirus , @im-just-a-mississippi-girl , @ripleyswhore

Of Damian’s flirty nature, you were already aware of, not only because of Finn’s endless warnings but also because you’ve witnessed the Puerto Rican man’s charm over women a handful of times now.

Damian flirts with everyone, literally everyone. No matter the age, gender, or ethnicity, he always found a way to captivate whomever he interacted with. And it was no different with you.

“Wow, mami” Damian whistled when you entered through the club’s back door. “You’re gonna give a man a heart attack”.

Your outfit was less than impressive, since it was a low night at the club you decided for a more casual look: a navy blue velvet tracksuit, along with a pair of black All Stars summed up your outfit for the night.

“Always a charmer, huh?” You chuckled, unaware that Finn was approaching you from behind.

“What can I say?” Damian smirked “A beautiful woman has the power to bring out the best in me”

“And your best is to be an ultimate flirt?” You narrowed your eyes playfully

“When it comes to you, yeah” the amused wide grin on Damian’s face was more than enough to make you giggle.

“You’re a menace, sir”

“Sir?” His eyes widened in surprise, not wasting the opportunity to tease you further. “Mami, if you’re gonna start calling me that then we just might have to go upstairs right now” Damian winked at you with a smirk plastered on his lips. “I’ll even rent the VIP room, just for you”.

Now you have to laugh. A little more than you should’ve, but who could blame you? The guy had great timing and impeccable humor.

“Wow, how could I say no to that” Your nonchalant tone left no room for doubt that you took his teasing in an amicable way, similar to two siblings poking fun at each other, you had no intentions of taking this to a more intimate level, and neither did Damian. It was all lighthearted. Everyone knew that, everyone could see that, except them. To them, this suddenly became a pissing contest, a dispute, a challenge. One they never lost and didn’t intend to lose.

“The shipping of new furniture arrived this morning, Priest”. The doubled voice resonated from your lover’s body, the tenor contrasting with the bass as both voices complimented each other with each word. “Go unpack it…now”.

“Isn’t that Dominik’s j-“

“I said NOW!” The bass voice screamed, settling its dominance. Finn’s eyes began to shift colors. One remained blue as the other turned a fierce shade of orange-red.

“Ok, Boss” Damian set his hands up as a sign of submission. “Chill out”.

Before Damian could even blink, Finn stood in front of him. His face got so close to Damian’s that they almost seemed the same height.

“If you ever dare to tell me to ‘chill out’ again, those will be your last words in this pitiful earth before you become hellhound’s breakfast!” The demon left no room for debate. Bálor learned how to tolerate humans after being in Finn’s body for over 40 years, that didn’t mean he liked them or that he wouldn’t kill one for fun. The only human Bálor seemed to truly like was you, but that could easily change if his pride is on the line.

“Bálor, he was just-���

“Silence!” He growled at you, voice bubbling with hatred, “If you dare to speak one word to defend him, little girl, you’ll know a side of me that you’ll wish you’d never met!” His fiery gaze fixed on you as he pointed to Finn’s room. “Go and wait for us there, and don’t make me repeat myself!”.

Reluctantly, you walked up the stairs, mouthing “I’m sorry” to Damian as you reached the top.

If there was a god, you were praying to him now, silently begging him not to let Bálor hurt Damian just because of a lighthearted teasing.

“He doesn’t listen to anyone’s prayers, why would he listen to yours?” Bálor’s voice rumbled in your ear, quickly making you turn around to face him at the foot of the bed.

“Do you think you’re that special, pet?”

Oh, he was mad.

At first, when you met him, Bálor called you “pet”, it was a deprecating term at the time, filled with disdain. But after a while, you became “little girl” when he was in a good mood, “my pet” when he was annoyed with you, and “pet” when he was mad at you.

“Are you God's precious little thing? That’s why you think He’ll hear you, huh?” When only silence answered him, Bálor growled loudly “Answer me!”

“No-“ Your voice was cut off by the sudden pressure of Finn’s hand amplified by Bálor’s strength around your neck.

“Good. Because HE won’t hear you! You belong to a demon and a human, the only god you should ever pray for is ME! I’m the only one who’ll hear you, and when you do pray, make sure to keep your eyes down on the earth where I am, because I’m not up in the sky, pet. Your help won’t come from up there, so stop searching in the clouds!” His hand abruptly left your neck, causing you to give two steps back due to the lack of force around your throat.

“Kneel”

Your brows furrowed at his statement, trying to understand the reason for that order.

“You were praying, weren’t you? Humans usually do that on their knees, no?! So go on, pet, kneel at your god’s feet and pray”.

“Bálor, please, let me-“

“I.said.kneel.and.pray”

Bálor pushed you down on the floor, making your knees hit the black hardwood floor with a thump. A small cry escaped your lips, your watery eyes looked up to stare at him, who had now taken full control of Finn’s body. His thick veins were black, red irises, canines sharp as razors, hair jet black, and nails tainted black at the edge.

You hoped to every sacred being that your next move wouldn’t anger him even more, but you remember when Finn once told you “Bálor is like an ice cube, cover him with some warmth and you’ll watch him melt”.

“Can I please touch you?” You asked with a meek voice, but he didn’t answer. You took this as a silent green light and pressed your palms against his torso.

“I didn’t mean to enrage you, my lord, I’m deeply sorry”. The correct word to use would be ‘upset’ instead of ‘enrage’, but Bálor didn’t deal with feelings and vulnerability well so you knew how to choose your words wisely by now.

“But trust me when I say that there was no ill intention on my part nor from Damian” You felt his abs harden at the mention of the name, the color of Bálor’s eyes began to dance like the most aggressive fire and your hands soon began to travel up and down his stomach, using touch to soothe his raw emotions.

“You’re the only one for me. You and Finn are the only men I’ll ever want, the only men I’ll ever need. I don’t want anyone else” Your hands began to travel down his abs, reaching his v-line that you traced with your nails. “Only you can satisfy me, only you can drive me insane with just a look”.

Your hands now stopped at his black jeans, one hand began massaging his crotch as the other caressed his lower belly - the most sensitive part of Bálor. “Only you can make me ache for you for days on end, only you know how to make me cum in mere seconds, only you can make me so hungry for your touch that I feel like I’m about to lose my mind if I don’t have you”.

“I don’t like when you respond to the flirtation of other men, pet”

“Damian flirts even with the walls, sir. He flirted with you, countless times” You tried to reason, feeling his cock begin to harden underneath the black jeans.

Bálor let out a small huff as you continued “Am I lying though? You know he did, with both you and Finn. And I always laughed at it because I knew there was no ill intention behind it. In the same way, there was none between him and me. You know that” You leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss on his clothed erection, “You’re the only one for me, my king”.

“On the bed” Bálor lowly hummed, cupping his hard cock with his palm.

You felt someone pushing you onto the bed from behind, panic covered your features until you saw who it was.

“You’re gonna join us?” Your soft smile pressed against the bare skin of his abs. His hands gathered your hair, softly pulling your head down to rest on the mattress.

His hand pulled the zipper of your jacket down, humming in approval at the sight of your bare breast.

“Came prepared I see” Finn grinned, head leaning down to close his warm mouth around your nipple.

“My good little pet” Bálor spoke from your right, the bed dipped as he knelt on the mattress. His hand pressed your cheeks together, causing your lips to open in a partial pout. “Let’s see how much you can handle it” He chuckled, grabbing you by the hair to quickly turn you around to lay on your stomach.

Your vision was blurred, your voice hoarse from so much screaming and cursing. Two became one, same body, same face, different details. One was sweet and sensual, the other was rough and raw. They were the perfect match, both drove you crazy in their way. The sun and the moon, night and day, dark and light, good and evil, residing within the same man, one born in hell, the other, heaven sent. Either way, you loved the duality, loved the experience, and most importantly, loved them.

“Shit, shit, shit” You whispered in a hurry as Bálor rapidly moved behind you, his cock slipped in and out with such ease that made you wonder how long you could take this.

In the meantime, Finn watched you, his hand lazily stroking his cock beside you in bed, admiring every little frown, every gasp, every moan, every plea. Your eyes instantly closed when Bálor hit your sweet spot, but they instantly reopened at the prickling feeling on your cheek.

“I didn’t say you could stop looking at him!” Bálor stated, landing another burning slap against your cheek, “Don’t you dare close those beautiful eyes, my pet”.

Finn smirked, leaning forward, placing his flattened tongue against the burning skin of your cheek. He gave a few kitten licks until the skin lost its vibrant reddish color, “You taste so good”, he licked again, only changing the route of his tongue.

Finn danced the tip of his tongue across your skin, traveling down your belly, stopping right above your mound. Bálor grinned at the sight, pulling your leg to rest on his shoulder.

“Oh my fucking god” You moaned loudly, feeling the tip of Finn’s tongue circling your clit as Bálor’s cock grew harder inside you. “I’m gonna die, I can’t take it”.

“Of course you can, love” Finn’s muffled voice echoed between your legs.

“Not only you can but you will, my precious pet” Bálor snarled in your ear “Because we won’t be done with you until the sun rises”.

[shesoutofhere]

Meet Me in the Corner pt.4

Peter Parker x Reader

Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3, Pt.4

Summary: Nolan's not that bad, Peter is still Peter and a certain masked man is a bit mean?

Ignore all typos or ill cry<3

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nolan has been talking your ear off for the past fifteen minutes. 

He’s managed to pass through about a dozen topics. You're 100% sure it's the coffee.

 You don’t really get to talk, not that you mind. He’s kept you fairly entertained.

“That night was insane, we got home at like 6:30 in the morning and had a stats final at 7:45.”

You chuckle, “You guys are insane.”

Nolan laughs with you, “what's more insane, is that Peter aced the exam. He only missed two questions.”

You roll your eyes, of course he did. 

Nolan catches you. “Woah, what's with the eye roll?”

“I did not roll my eyes.” 

“Uh yes you did, I  just saw you.” 

You sigh, “It’s nothing.”

“It's definitely something.” 

Okay so Peter and Nolan are both annoying. Makes for a great pair of buds. 

“It’s just annoying.”

Nolan leans back in his chair. “What's annoying?”

You shrug, “That Peter is academically inclined. Just makes him more annoying to me.” 

Nolan nods and hums. “I see there’s still some animosity there.” Funny, Peter said the same thing earlier. 

“Yeahh” you say, dragging the word. “A bit.”

Nolan places his coffee down and leans forwards. “I thought he was going to apologize.”

So Peter talked about this with Nolan. That is oddly endearing. 

“He did, or tried.”

“Oh god, what did he say?” 

You cross your arms. “He said a whole lot of nothing if I'm being honest.”

Nolan shakes his head, “Oh Parker.”

You expected that Nolan would be quick to defend him, but he doesn’t.

“Can I ask you something?” 

Nolan nods.

You fidget, “it may be a bit invasive.”

Nolan leans in closer. “I love invasive.”

This gives you the courage to ask your burning question. “What's with the friend group?”

Nolans eyes widened, clearly not expecting that question.

You immediately double down. “Actually nevermind, I take it back.”

Nolan shakes his head, “No, no, I get it.”

Nolan ponders for a second. “They were really nasty towards you and I'm sorry on their behalf.”

Oh wow, you did not expect that. 

Nolan continues. “They're all a bit protective of their clique, i'd say they're not always like that, or you caught them on a bad day but i'd be lying.” he sighs before continuing. “It’s just been our group for as long as I can remember and I know that's not an excuse but it's my explanation.” 

You look down at your coffee cup, “Okay, I guess I can understand that.” 

You can’t, you really can’t, but these people aren’t your friends and their choice of company isn’t your business.

“Can I tell you something?” This time it's Nolan asking the question.

You nod.

“I think Charlotte was so mean because she felt intimidated.”

Now that is a shocker.

“What? By who? By me?” 

Nolan chuckles at your confusion. 

“Yeah, you.”

You are beyond confused. “No way, why?” 

Nolan leans on the table with his chin resting on his hand. “Peter talks about you, you know.”

No, you didn’t know. 

“I think maybe she felt threatened. Peter never really talks about anyone outside of our friend group. He mingles sure but he’s never really brought someone up the way he did with you.”

You want to curl in a hole and die when you feel your cheeks start to heat up. If Nolan notices he doesn’t say anything. 

You snap your head up when you recall something. “Wait, but Peter was the one that told you guys about my oh so sad life and problems with Cal.”

Nolan winces, “yeah he did do that.”

Okay, well point lost for Peter.

“Look, Peter can be a dumbass sometimes. I don’t really know why he says some of the things he does but I can tell you he regrets it most of the time.”

He’s regretful? Half a point back to Peter. 

“He sounds like a big ol 'ball of complicated and I really don’t need that right now.”

Nolan sighs, “shame, I think you’d be really good for him.” 

You laugh at Nolans antics but quickly stop.

Wait. Why would he say that? Is this not a date? Who talks their boy up on date with a girl they like?

Nolan senses your confusion. “Whatcha thinking about?” 

You're quiet for a second. You begin to fidget with your coffee. “I’m just a bit confused I guess.” 

“About what?”

You tip your cup side to side. “It's just.” you pause, “I’ve never had a guy rout for his friend to be with someone he’s on a date with.”

Nolan looks beyond lost and now you really want to curl up into a ball and die. 

Is this not a date?

You’re quick to speak before Nolan can get a word out. “Sorry, its just that, Peter mentioned that you had a crush and that he wanted to help you out.”

Nolan nods slowly, really taking in what he just heard.

All of sudden, it's like something has clicked in his head. “Oh, like Peter said that early, at the library?” 

You nod.

Nolan nods with you, “Right, yes, this is true.” 

odd , this feels very odd. “Is that not true?”

Nolan shakes his head frantically. “NO, no it's true, I just can't believe Peter would say that. What a silly guy.” 

Nolan, who has been nothing but lax this entire time, starts to fidget with his coffee now.

Okay, you've made him uncomfortable and now you feel bad. 

“Hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything.”

Nolan whips his hand out to grab your arm across the table. “No, do not feel bad. You see, I just got out of a bad situationship.”

Oh no.

“Oh my gosh really?”

Nolan closes his eyes and nods dramatically. “Yes, the worse.” 

You put your hand on his. “Oh, I'm sorry.” 

Nolan frowns, “yeah and Peter, oh that Peter, has been throwing everyone he can at me.”

Okay, Point lost for Peter, again. 

You frown with Nolan. “What an ass.”

Nolan shakes his head. “No, he’s just trying to help. But like I said, a bit of a dumbass.”

Nolan continues, “Anyways, you’re fantastic but I just can't do a relationship right now.” 

You’ve never been so happy to be rejected, you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. 

Nolan seems to take offense to this. “Okay, you seem oddly okay with that.”

You shrug, “that's because I am. I've got too much going on. friend vibes only.”

Nolan pats your arm. “Okay ouch, but I’m totally okay with that.” 

Well, that went well. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You and Nolan ended up ordering something to eat and stayed in the cafe, chatting away.

You’re both in a heated argument about the Harry Potter movies when someone scuffs to a stop next to your table. You both look up and are surprised to see Peter. 

He looks like he ran here. He also smells like gas?

“Hey!” he says loudly. Interrupting the calm atmosphere. 

He doesn’t seem to care and pulls a chair from the table next to you guys. 

You and Nolan both stare at him while he immediately goes to pick at Nolans leftovers.

He winces when Nolan swats at his hands. 

“Get your hands out of my food. What are you doing here? I'm on a date, remember?” 

Nolan has a smug smile, while staring at Peter, who's now sitting up straight in his chair. 

“Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. Was running some errands nearby and thought I’d get something to drink.”

This time you speak up, “really? That's so crazy, considering you sent us here.” 

Nolan smirk grows wider. “Yeah, super crazy.” 

Peter looks between the both of you, clearly not expecting the two of you to gain up on him.

Peter gives an awkward chuckle, “anyways, how is it going?” 

Nolan grins, “fantastic honestly.”

Peters got a surprised look on his face. “Wait, really?”

You offer a simple yeah.

Peter drums his fingers on the table, “great as in?”

Nolan sighs, “great as it can go after being rejected.”

You scoff, “I did not reject you, if anything you rejected me.”

“No” Nolan says, “It was honestly mutual. Shame really.”

You don’t notice but Peter seems to relax in his seat.

“Well, that’s unfortunate. At least you can say you tried.” Peter says as he picks at Nolans' leftovers again. 

“Hey man, never said I was done trying.” Nolan's got a smug look on his face.

You and Peter both shoot a look towards Nolan, who is completely unphased. 

“Well”, you being, “This was great but I really have to go now.”

You begin to gather your trash and Nolan gets up with you. “Where you headed? I’ll walk with you.”

Nolan snatches his leftovers from Peter and proceeds to follow behind you. Nolan’s been good company so you don’t deny him when he asks to join you.

You're both out the door when you hear Peter call after the two of you. “Wait, let me join you guys.”

You both continue walking but Peter catches up eventually. Nolan looks at Peter, “Thought you were gonna grab something to drink.”

Peter stumbles. “I-, I got full picking off your food, so im all good now.”

Nolan rolls his eyes. 

The three of you continue to walk down through campus when you see a crowd near the front of the library. 

You stop once you're close enough. “What the hell?” 

Nolan goes to tap on someone's shoulder to ask what's happened.

“There was a gas leak from the labs in the basement. Everyone had to evacuate. Luckily someone tipped the police and they got here in time.” the bystander says. 

You can't help but feel like you dodged a bullet. That could've been you in there. 

Wait. 

You shoot a look at Peter, who quickly looks away from you.

Peter warned you not to go in the library earlier, insisted on it even. 

Peter also smells like gas. 

Peter makes eye contact with you and looks away again.

Something tells you Peter had something to do with this. 

You shake your head. You've got to stop overthinking everything, why would Peter have anything to do with this?

You look Peter over again, who proceeds to rock back and forth on his feet doing everything except looking at you.

No, Peter definitely has something to do with this. 

Nolan interrupts your thoughts. “Well, glad we stayed outta there.”

“Yeah” you say wearily, “real glad.”

Peter, still refusing to look at you, starts to walk away. 

Nolan starts walking with him and you follow.

You guys continue until you a fork in your road.  

“Well” Nolan says, “Peter and I are this way.” 

“I'm this way.” you say pointing the other way. “It was great seeing you Nolan.” you give him a genuine smile. It drops when you look over to Peter. You give a nod, “Peter.” 

Before he can react you turn around and start walking away. 

You cant see them but you can hear them.

“Come here you little shit.” you hear Nolan's voice, followed by Peter. “Ow, don’t do that. I'll explain.”

You hear Nolan scoff, “yeah you better.” 

And after that, you're too far away to hear the rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You know better. You know better than to walk around New York at night. 

You’d been at your dorm for a while after leaving Peter and Nolan. You were dying to tell Mar about today, but she texted you that she’d be out late with her coworkers. Not wanting to bother her, you responded with a simple ‘have fun and be safe’. 

You’d made yourself a sandwich for dinner and were going to call it a night but had decided you’d watch a movie. The only problem is that you can’t watch a movie without snacks.

It should be fine, you think.

A walk down the block to the convenient store and back, plus there's got to be plenty of people still out and about. 

With one final boost of confidence and a strong desire for snacks, you put your shoes and coat on and head out. 

The walk there had been fine. You make it to the convenient store and shop to your heart's desire. 

You say thank you and goodnight to the old man who’s working the register. 

Snack in tow, you are on top of the world. You swing your bag back and forth as you walk back to your dorm. You don't even have time to react, when all the sudden, someone rips your bag from your hand. 

Next thing you know, they're taking off down the street. 

You aren't thinking when you start chasing the culprit down the street. You’re yelling all sorts of profanities as you try to catch up to the snack thief. You can only run so much before you start to get winded. The cold makes it harder to breathe. You're about to accept defeat when you hear something whoosh by your head. 

You're a bit puzzled when you see someone, whoosh by your head. 

Excuse me, what?

All you can do is look down the road when you see the thief get yanked back by something. You can't really see what else happens but you stand still in shock.

You think now might be the best time to book it back to your dorm. You don't want to find out what New York has in store for you tonight.

With one final glance, you take off and run as fast as you can back to your building. 

All is well, you think, until you hear the familiar whooshing. You scream and run faster. 

You don't dare to look behind, scared to see what's there. In a matter of seconds, you’re pulled to a stop. 

You’re dead. Mar will be so upset. You will forever be known as the girl who died because she wanted a late night snack. 

You'll be damned if you don't go down without a fight. You start swinging your arms in every direction and continue to scream, hoping to get anyones attention. 

“Ow, can you hold still?”

That voice sounds a lot less menacing than you imagined.

Against your better judgment, you listen. Slowly you start to calm down but you scream again once you realize who’s in front of you. 

“Spiderman!?”

“Yes, Hi, hello, have you calmed down now. You know, you got a good few hits in and I-” he stops, you think he’s staring at you but you can't really tell.

You know, mask and all. 

Spiderman clears his throat. “Yes, Spiderman, that is me, and this,” He holds out your bag of snacks, “is yours.”

You slowly take your bag back from him. “Thank you.” you say quietly. 

“No Problem.” 

You both stand in awkward silence. 

Spiderman breaks the silence. “How about I walk back to you’re building?” 

You don't really see why to deny it, you're now scared out of your mind, plus, it's spiderman. 

“Sure , why not.”

You both begin the walk back to your dorm. 

You pull one of the candy bars out of the back and go to open it.

“Are you serious?”

You look over at the masked man next to you.

“What?”

“Don't what me? This is why you came out late at night? For some snacks?”

Your brows furrow at his judgment. “Hey, that's not very friendly and neighborly of you.”

Spiderman scoffs. “And you chased the guy down, what would you have done if he had turned around and tried to fight you for those.” 

You’re a bit stunned. You hadn't thought about that. 

Spiderman puts a hand on his hip like an upset mother. “Yeah, maybe think about that next time you choose to risk your life for some candy bars and popcorn.”

Spiderman is mean. 

You both continue your walk. “Are you mean to everyone person you save?”

“No, just the really dumb ones.”

Okay, rude. “Is there an app where I can give you a bad review?”

Spiderman scoffs. “I just saved your life, maybe be a bit more grateful.” 

Okay, yeah, he’s got you there. 

Before you know it, you make it your dorm building. 

“Well Mr.Spiderman Sir, this is me. Thanks for saving my snacks I guess.”

He justs nods. 

You wave goodbye and he waves back. You wait for him to leave but he doesn't. 

“You can leave now.”

This time he shakes his head, “nope, gotta make sure you make it back inside.”

You find your key card and fiddle with the door handle. “You do this will everyone you just saved?”

He stands still, and you can’t help but giggle at his stiff stance. 

“Um, yes of course I do. Gotta ensure everyone's safety and all.” 

His delivery of the line makes you think he's lying, but you won’t call him out on it. 

“Well,” you say digging into your bag of snacks, you pull out a candy bar. You toss it over to him. He catches it without even looking. “Consider that thanks for saving my snacks and all that.”

He laughs, “and all that?” 

You wave a hand while you walk into your building “yeah, and all that.” 

The door shuts and you see him linger for a second. He extends his arm and you see him swing away.

You shoot Mar a text as you head up to your room. 

Just met our friendly neighborhood Spiderman.

You send a second text

By the way, kinda mean :( 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poor us, we get mean Peter and mean Spiderman :(

Taglist:

@ifilwtmfc @lov3vivian @rkivesfilm @vdlikesunicorns @may-madness @im-nowhere-but-also-somewhere @greenapplesaucepi @icantcryicantstopcrying @starshine145

Let me know if I missed you or if you'd like to be tagged!

[volvolts]

the fuck is crocodile's deal???

thinking about how its next to impossible to construct a proper backstory for crocodile because of how little we know of him and how little he makes sense as a person

like we know nothing of mihawk but his personality is much like zoro. he wants to be the strongest so his ascetic lifestyle makes sense. hes a wildcard too but only because his moral compass follows strictly to himself (he keeps zoro alive and trains him because he wants a challenge, he became a warlord because he wants to be left alone, he joins cross guild for that same reason. the only times he went out of his way to do anything for others was when he shows shanks luffy's first bounty and maybe take care of perona)

but crocodile? we got NOTHING. we don't even know his last name. and i know some of them don't have last names but crocodile was a major villain. plus important characters without a last name kinda have a reason (sabo denounced his family name, buggy and shanks are implied to have been with the roger pirates since they were born)

like something happened to him to lose all his trust in other people and discard them like paper. he spent over a decade searching for pluton only to give up when luffy beat him? he willingly goes to impel down and planned to stay there until he heard whitebeard is gonna show up. he does fuck all to whitebeard. then he gives up on whitebeard, you know the reason why he's left impel down in the first place, then he saves ace, then he saves jinbe and luffy. he disappears for 10 real life years and he's back and we still got nothing on him

he doesn't trust people and yet pulled two bad bitches with swords. people praise how strong he is but he hasn't had a real fight with a real character who mattered since alabasta. and he's clearly strong cuz he got punched in the face with full blown haki and was still standing and he parried mihawk and doflamingo's attacks without any damage. speaking of doflamingo what the fuck was his deal with doflamingo? doffy clearly respected him enough to not believe he was beaten by smoker and he wanted a team up but then its never brought up again?? like was that just banter??

and the theories of his backstory are all still contradictory? whitebeard's birth son? well whitebeard didn't care that much about him and crocodile clearly doesn't either nor do any of the whitebeard pirates seem familiar with him. an ex-revolutionary? other than ivankov's comment of knowing crocodile "when he was a rookie" there's not much else. the backstory of the revolutionary army hasn't mentioned anything about him so we can toss that one out too. rocks d xebec's son? he was a warlord for over 20 years! youre telling me they never had a background check on the guy? you know they would want him dead if he was xebecs son given how far they went for roger's son. he doesn't have a grandpa who's besties with the fleet admiral to cover it up either

and then theres the theories that end up being too similar to other characters. ex-son of whitebeard? already debunked shown above and also thats just blackbeard. from a family of wealth and lost it, or was simply born evil? doflamingo did that already. cabin boy/child of an infamous pirate crew that was disbanded after the death of the captain? buggy and shanks are right there.

the man has so much going on and yet absolutely nothing at the same time. i NEED to know more about this guy at least tell me if he can even do haki PLEASE

[supercorpkid]

Ace Reporter

Supergirl, Kara Danvers x Reader!, Lena Luthor x Reader!

Word Count: 2030

More to come!

“Miss Luthor, Miss Y/L/N is here from the Daily Planet for the interview.” You hear Lena Luthor’s assistant on the phone, and look back at your hands clenching into your purse. 

You never got nervous interviewing before. But now, you came to National City to talk to Lena Luthor and try to get something out of her brother’s latest jailbreak. You are aware that the chances of Lena actually telling you anything about Lex are pretty slim. But there’s nothing you can do about it. If they sent you all the way from Metropolis to get a quote from her, you might as well work for it.

It’s not that you’re scared of her. No, that would be absurd. Yes, her brother is a borderline maniac and even though he is just a man he is a worthy opponent for Superman himself, so his mind is both amazing and bizarre. And yes, you’ve heard all Luthors have the same brain. But you’re not scared. No. You just think you should be careful with your approach.

“You can go in, Miss Y/L/N.” Her assistant signals for you to follow her, and takes you to Lena’s office. “Please.” She gestures for you to walk inside.

“Thank you.” You nod at her while she closes the door. You look to the other side of the big, fancy office to find the person you’re looking for. “Miss Luthor.”

“Hello, Miss Y/L/N.” Lena points to the chair before her desk. And you promptly make your way there. “Haven’t heard from the Daily Planet in a while.”

“Oh, yeah.” You smile, swallowing your insecurities while you’re in front of her. The fact that she was beautiful you already knew, but holy damn, you were not prepared for this gorgeous woman in front of you. You must look like a total loser while you stare at her at a loss for words. “I bet you only hear from CatCo now.”

She smiles, agreeing. CatCo is a pain in the ass of the Daily Planet. Actually, that’s not true. CatCo is a pain in your ass. Or rather one reporter named Kara Danvers. You push your reservations against CatCo and Kara aside, coming back to what it matters.

“I’m glad you said yes to sitting down with the Daily Planet today, Miss Luthor. We’ve lost touch now that you moved to National City. But you’re always out doing interesting things.” You try to butter her up a little to see if she’ll be more inclined to give you the information. “And rebranding Luthor Corp! That’s worth publishing about.”

“Oh.” Lena furrows her brows. She looks directly at your eyes, narrowing hers, clearly confused with your approach. “If you are actually here to talk about L Corp, I’d love to chat. But,” She raises her eyebrow at you and you know exactly what is coming next. “If you're here to ask about Lex, then I’m sorry but we have nothing to talk about.”

You give her a patient smile. “I’m here to hear about you, Miss Luthor.” Liar. Liar. Pants on fire. “Of course Lex’s name might come up since you took over his company, but I don’t think there’s anything more interesting than you.”

It’s a lie, but it also isn’t. You, as a person, are super interested in Lena. The Daily Planet, however…

The interview went well. As well as it could go with Lena purposely dodging all the questions about Lex, and you trying to be sneaky enough and get a quote on something about him. In the end you got a shabby quote about how she has no idea what he’s been up to, because she has much to do to recover the company since he left it in a horrible state. 

There were far more important things to talk about, and her mind is just as amazing as his for what you could see, but you did what you could in your limited time with her.

“Well, it was great to talk to you, Miss Luthor.” You stand up, showing her your hand. Lena looks at it with a smirk before taking into hers, and shaking it strongly.

“Hope I was worth the commute.” She tries to be funny, but it comes out a little flirty. With the eyebrow raised, the raspy tone both followed by a little smirk, you have a really hard time making your brain function properly. But that’s insane, Lena Luthor wouldn’t flirt with a simple reporter such as you.

“National City has its charms.” You smile, clearly talking about something other than National City. Because, honestly, this city has got nothing on Metropolis. Maybe the Super. You love Superman, obviously, but Supergirl is just as powerful and also a snack. "I guess I can see why it was appealing to some people."

“I hope you’re sticking around longer, there is much to see here.” She adds, and you furrow your brows confused to what she might be talking about. There’s literally nothing to see in National City. 

“Really? And here I was thinking nothing could beat this view." Your mind finally catches up to your brain when you realize you've been staring at her directly while saying that. "I mean, we're so high up." You point to the windows behind her.

Lena Luthor is a professional so she obviously wouldn't laugh right at your face, but she totally could after this. Ugh.

Instead, she smiles with a little nod. She rounds the table taking you to her office door, clearly telling you it’s time for you to leave without being indelicate.

“I hope to see you around, Miss Y/L/N.”

“She has given us nothing.” You hear on the phone, and breathe deep, knowing this would be the reaction from your editor.

“She doesn’t trust me. You know how hard it is to approach Luthors, especially in a situation like this. Just let me go back to Metropolis and help Clark with the investigation about Lex.”

“Clark doesn’t need any help, and we need at least a serious quote from someone in the family. Lena is our safest bet.” You can hear him shuffling with some papers. “Clark told me his cousin works for CatCo and she’ll be happy to help. She and Lena have a good relationship you can exploit. Look for her, her name is Kara Danvers.”

“What?”

“Kara Danvers.” He repeats as if you hadn’t heard him. “You can come back when you give me an actual quote I can use.” He hangs up right after.

UGH! You throw your phone in the hotel bed, pissed. Not only you have to stay in National City for God only knows how long, now you also have to work with Kara fucking Danvers? This is your worst nightmare. 

You open your laptop, looking her up on Google. It isn’t the first time you’ve done this and it probably won’t be the last. You can’t believe you have yet to read her piece that won the award. The award that was supposed to be yours. It was so close, you were sure you were going to win, then Kara swooped in at the last second and took it from you. She must be a real dick. You can’t believe she is Clark’s cousin. He’s so nice and she is… ugh. Just the worst.

You don’t want to know if her article was actually better than yours. So you close your laptop, and throw yourself back in bed, looking at the hotel walls and imagining different ways you can be passive-aggressive with Kara Danvers.

Yet, you swallow your pride and make your way to CatCo first thing in the morning. You might not want to work with Kara, but you do want to go back home, and if this is the only way, then so be it.

“Hi, I’m Y/N from the Daily Planet. I was told to look for Kara Danvers. We are going to be working together.” You give the brunette in front of you your best fake smile. Even though she looks adorable and worth much more than that.

“Oh, that’s so cool. I’m Nia Nal. Come on, I’ll take you to her desk.” You follow her, heart beating fast in anticipation, you’re about to meet the woman that took your best chance to have a better career. 

“Kara, this is Y/N from the Daily Planet.” You stop behind Nia, looking at Kara and her button up shirt and stupid cardigan. She adjusts her glasses while looking at you. You can’t believe you lost your prize to this fucking nerd.

“Hi,” She stands up, showing you her hand. “I’m Kara. It’s nice to meet you. My cousin Clark texted me you’re coming. Hopefully I’ll be able to help you.”

Yeah, right. You hold her hand, forcing a smile. “I’m sure you will.”

Nia excuses herself, and Kara shows you to a desk in front of her where you can set up your things. “So, what brings the Daily Planet to National City?”

“Lex Luthor.” Kara’s eyebrows are pinched together when she hears his name. “His latest jailbreak.”

“Oh.” She adjusts her glasses on her face one more time, then smooths her hand over her stupid cardigan. 

“You look surprised, Danvers.” You smirk, glad to know something the prize-awardee doesn’t seem to know.

“No, no.” But she clearly is still processing the information. “I’m just confused as to why you’re here. Wasn’t he in a Metropolis jail? Seems you’d get more information there.”

“Clark is looking into it.” You breathe out. “We had to look for other sources.” 

She immediately puts two and two together. “Lena.” It’s merely a whisper, but you can hear her just fine.

“She agreed to an interview, but obviously wouldn’t talk about Lex.” You raise an eyebrow at her. “With me, at least.”

"She's nothing like her brother. I thought the Daily Planet would’ve figured that out by now.” Kara crosses her arms, defensively. Looking like she won’t want to help you. Which you can’t really blame her, but still can hate her for it.

“Of course I know that.” You don’t know it for sure, but your intuition tells you so. You were only with Lena for 20 minutes, but you already know she is different from all the other Luthors. “But we have nothing on him. Even Superman is worried. I know Lena is trying to reverse her brother’s evil schemes, and moving to National City was an excellent idea, because people in Metropolis hate the Luthor name even more than they do here. But still, Danvers, if she has anything on her brother, it would help a lot.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” Kara looks back on her phone, and you dare a glance at it. She is texting Clark. 

Kara: What's up with Y/N?

Clark: Best reporter I know. Great at finding people's secrets.

You smile at the compliment. Even Clark knows you're a better reporter than prize-awardee over here. You stop looking at her phone and focus back on her face. She gives an annoyed sigh, clearly not wanting to help, but finding it impossible to say no. 

Come on, Kara Danvers. She owes you one.

“Look, I get it. You don’t want to help. Trust me, if I could, I wouldn’t be here either. But I need a quote from Lena to leave, and God, I really want to leave.” You show her your hand. “You help me, and I get out of your hair as soon as possible.”

“I can try, but I don’t think Lena knows anything.” 

“Well, that's an easy fix, isn't it? We're reporters, we just need to find something for her to learn. What do you say, Danvers?” You show her your hand one more time. “Your name can be the first one in the byline.”

Kara rolls her eyes, but shakes your hand in agreement. This fucking nerd. You can’t believe you came all the way from Metropolis to interview a Luthor and were paired up with the only reporter you cannot stand. Honestly, when did your career get so side-tracked?

[chihoshisai]

A Healing Fire

Fandom : One piece / Pairing : You x Ace / Genre : angst, hurt comfort, mild smut / Other : this one shot is 8K words and imo too long to post here, so I'm only posting 1575 words as a preview. The full fic is up on ao3 (click for the link). Feel free to start reading here to see if it intrigues you or directly read it all on ao3. Enjoy !

Summary : Working as a geisha in Wano can be quite an ordeal. Especially when one of Orochi's men demands you get fired due to your mistakes, going as far as to injure you. Luckily, Ace stumbles upon you, and takes it upon himself to see that you're well throughout your recovery. Which causes you to become (quite badly) attached to him as you discover parts of yourself through rash actions.

--------------------------------------

“I’m begging you, please stop!” 

You shot a look of terror towards the glittering sword of the samurai standing before you. The other geishas, too frightened to speak up, recoiled in a corner of the room as they watched the silver blade in action. Your hands, raised to shield your face, felt an icy sensation followed by stinging and finally the feeling of warm liquid falling down your right arm. The shock of the impact made you lose balance and fall on the ground. You glanced up at the face of the furious man, tears blurring your vision. 

“You useless woman!” he bellowed, “That should teach you a lesson. Now get out and never come back!” He pointed his sword towards your face, glaring as he did so, giving anyone in your position no choice in the matter whatsoever.  

“But sir, you can’t possibly ask for one of our own to be fired?” A geisha intervened with a shaking voice.

Feeling a sense of superiority, he chuckled before replying, “I am one of Orochi’s samurai, that should be enough of a reason. I can decide who can and cannot stay in this pleasure house according to my taste.” He scanned the frightened geishas, who shrieked in response. “If anyone has any objection, please do come forward, I’ll ensure you meet the same fate as your friend over there.” His eyes returned to you, “If I ever see or hear that you still frequent this place or others, I’ll kill you.”

You looked over towards your friends and coworkers — who could no longer look you in the eyes as they shook their heads in accordance with the samurai’s wishes. Suppressing a sob, you grabbed your precious shamisen and fled the room. You ignored the few questionables eyes and inquiries, as you proceeded to the building’s exit.

The lively and bustling streets of the flower capital made you feel a sense of panic. Unless you found another brothel to work at – which you couldn’t – you would no longer be allowed to live here. In fact, without a place to stay you would go hungry, tired, weak and vulnerable. The anxiety of the current situation caused you to be lost in thoughts – not knowing where to go, you stood immobile and aghast on the street, as the blood from your wound stained your kimono. 

“Are you alright?”

You looked up from the pair of feet that appeared in your field of vision. A man wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, an orange hat, with black hair and freckles looked at you with worry. He was without a doubt a foreigner. How he got in and what he was doing there, you preferred not to know, as he probably was involved with Kaido, even though he wasn’t wearing the usual uniform.

“Yes, thank you,” you gave him a curt bow, avoiding all eye contact whilst hoping he would drop it and let you go despite your disturbed expression. 

“I can’t believe that when you’re bleeding quite heavily!”

Unwilling to get involved with a stranger, you kept your gaze to the ground, clutching your arm, as if to hide the wound. However, he, who refused to heed your body language, grabbed your uninjured arm and started leading the way. 

You looked up at him bewildered, “What are you—?”

“You should come and meet our ship’s doctor! He’s really amazing and will take care of your wound in no time!”

Ship doctor? He wasn’t one of Kaido’s men then? Your panic increased tenfold, as this man – seemingly unwilling to let go of you – strutted the streets of Wano while continuously praising his ship’s doctor’s skills, unaffected by the stares and whispers of the locals. 

“Who are you?” you puffed, at his quick walking pace.

“I’m Ace! A pirate.” He gave you a contagious smile, which you returned with a fearful one. Having your life spared, yet shamed, by a samurai, if word got out to Orochi that you were also involved with a foreign pirate who must’ve illegally entered the country, your head would roll for sure this time. 

Ace led you to Kuri where you saw a sight that caused a knot to your stomach. Being confronted to poverty for the first time, you couldn’t help but lower your gaze, too ashamed to face the locals. Your chest started to feel heavy at the thought that this could possibly be your life from now on. 

“We're here!” Ace gave you a glance before waving towards his crew. “Guys, I'm back!” 

Multiple pirates wearing clothes you never laid eyes on simultaneously welcomed Ace back. The doctor was called quickly, and before you knew it you found yourself sitting on an uncomfortable rock with bandages subsiding the pain, and ointment to apply in upcoming days. 

“So, tell us now how did a lady like you get injured?” Ace sat by your side, the other members of his crew looked at you in anticipation.

“Well,” You gave a quick glance towards your shamisen before telling the foreigners the full story. You were touched by their angry and upset faces, as they listened to your tale, feeling a sincere sense of compassion. A few of them muttered blasphemies about the Samurai and the Shogun's actions. Their fury somewhat felt personnal ; you never imagined strangers to care so much about someone such as yourself. 

“This is quite a horrible thing you've been through today,” Ace said at the end of your explanations. 

You gave him a polite smile, “Stuff like this is a daily occurrence in this country, I'm simply one of the unlucky ones.” You gave the crew a curt smile before avoiding their gaze. 

“This country is in a worse state than we thought, Ace,” said Deuce

“Yeah,” Ace stared darkly towards the ground. The atmosphere, now silent, took a sour, heavy turn, where the pirates did nothing but arbor anger and frustration on their faces. The mood did nothing but reinforce your personal lament of your situation. 

A cheery voice made itself heard despite the miasma surrounding everyone, as a child with purple hair and a green Kimono came into view. “Ace!” She waved towards the black haired man, “You're back!” 

“Tama!” Ace stood up and went to welcome the little child. They seemed surprisingly close, and as he interacted with her, you couldn't help but notice how kindhearted he's been all this time – to you, to her, and probably to this village too. Your wary opinion of him changed, as you stared at his broad back, defining the lines of his exposed muscles and getting lost in the smile he gave the young girl. If it wasn't for him, you would've been at a loss ; the citizens of the Flower Capital did nothing but pretend they didn't notice but Ace, he was the only one who saw you, and extended a helping hand – though forcefully. The thought that you hadn't thanked him yet or even paid back the favor started bothering you . 

You felt an intent gaze coming from one of the crew members, and quickly turned your head away, blushing in embarrassment. You hadn't realized that you were staring for a long time – and quite intensely too. 

Clearing your throat, you stood up, cheeks still red, “I should probably get going.”

“What?” Ace finally looked in your direction. 

Tama stared at you inquisitively, smiling, as she asked Ace who you were. He promptly answered her before returning his attention to you. “You're leaving?” 

You were secretly pleased to see him somewhat surprised by your sudden leave. “I'm not from this village, I don't think I should overstay my welcome.” Plus they probably don't want an additional mouth to feed, you thought. 

“Yeah, that makes sense, but where would you go?” Ace asked.

“Ringo,” you replied confidently – a safe place to hide from any prying eyes and Orochi's men along with the best way to put some distance between you and the samurai. 

“Ringo huh…” Ace said.

“You've no idea where it is don't you?” Deuce said.

You chuckled, before grabbing your shamisen. “Thank you for your help today, I’ll get going now before it gets dark.” You gave the crowd a curt bow before placing your shamisen on your back and quickly walking in the opposite direction of the village.

“Wait, will you be alright on your own?” Ace loudly added, Tama had kept his attention away from you again, as she explained where and what Ringo consisted of.

Once again, you gave a bow as an answer and proceeded to disappear in the greenlife of nature. This is for the best, you thought. Even if they were good company, they were still foreigners – getting attached to them wouldn’t be any good. You promptly made your way to Ringo, thankful that no additional harm came your way. You arrived at night, feeling the cold of the region making its way to your bones, making you regret your decision. With poor vision, you wandered around until you found an abandoned cabin, which you reluctantly decided to call your new home, and settled down for the day. Now settled, you thought back on today’s peripeties : the loss of a job, a wounded limb, and the warm help Ace extended your way. You felt a fuzzy feeling in your stomach at the thought of the latter and decided to reminisce no more, letting the chime of the wind serve as your lullaby. 

-------------------------------------------

Continue reading on ao3

[flythesail]

From the end of s3 and throughout s4, Nancy and Ace have used the word "love" a lot:

"I lied to the man that I love to save his life."

"You're not the only one who lost the love of their life here."

"Your decision to call the Sin Eater on my behalf was an act of love."

These are just a few examples, yet the point is Nancy and Ace know they love each other and are making it clear to each other (or those around them) that love is the case.

With this, it would have made sense for them to actually say "I love you" in the finale, right? After all, it's the last chance to have it said on screen.

Yet, what we did get is (in my opinion) so much stronger:

"But will you solve this part of the mystery with me?"

"Yes. Always. Forever."

With this, I have to ask what does "I love you" even mean? We all know, so I don't have to explain it. And I think that's what makes nace's version of "I love you" all the better. It's specific to them only, when "love" is kind of a generic word when it doesn't have context.

When you view it that way, you can easily track Nancy and Ace's love throughout the entire series. Love isn't only "I love you."

"Just because I'm mad at you doesn't mean I want to lose you."

"I know you." "I know you too."

"I couldn't lose you."

"I can help you proofread."

"You never were."

This is only a handful of quotes for examples. But with each one, they are affirming their devotion to each other. That they understand one another. Believe in the other. Or need them in their life.

"But will you solve this part of the mystery with me?" becomes a request from Ace to commit to how they feel and let something come of it. Nancy's "Yes. Always. Forever," is to say she's all in and will always be.

It's easy to see then, why the director of the finale sees this scene as a marriage proposal. Marriage is in many ways, a promise.

And by affirming Nancy and Ace's love for each other, we get a representation of who they are. Or, what makes them unique.

"Because no matter what, the mystery of who you are will never end. And I know that the next clues will have to take you on the road. So do mine."

Literally, it's an acknowledgment that Nancy is a detective and will be traveling. More figuratively, it's Ace accepting Nancy for who she is when throughout the show, her identity is something she's struggled with. He's saying that even as she figures herself out, he chooses her and every version of her. After all, identity is not constant and will always change as time goes on. Ace is even acknowledging that for himself in that his "clues" will take him on the road too. There is no right time. There is now.

For two people who have spent the show searching for who they are, whether in regard to family, purpose, or other - this scene affirms their acceptance of each other in every form. "I love every version of you. At your best, or at your worst - I can choose forgiveness because I know your intention."

If Ace had walked into Icarus Hall in that final scene and said "I love you," it would have been true. Yet it doesn't tell Nancy anything new and it doesn't speak to her as directly as what he did say instead. Effectively, what Ace did say is "I know you" all over again, including the times she doesn't know herself. Nancy affirms the same toward him, as they go on to solve the mystery of life together.

Now, do I still wish we got an actual "I love you" from Nancy and Ace? For sure I wanted to hear them say it. Yet I can also see why it wasn't said, when it's already what they've been saying all along.

Plus, if I ever do want to hear them say it, they already did all the way back in season 1.

"I think I love you."

"I think I love you too."

Those were not their own words. But they were words that were starting to hold true. They were words that foretold the ending at the start, before their story had ever been told.

[henrysglock]

Mother is God, In The Eyes of a Child

This has got to be my farthest-fetched theory, and its more of a collection of observations that weave together than an actual theory. However...there's something distinctly weird about all this.

It started here:

Max steps on spider egg sacs in Vecna's mind lair, and the babies spill out.

"If there's a spider, you're never gonna find it 'till it lays eggs and the babies spill out"

Then Vecna killing Patrick while looking distinctly like a spider on a web, a direct comparison to those black widows.

And I talked in the discord chat talking with Em for a while like. They. They wouldn't. Right? And I've been sitting here thinking about the last time I said "they wouldn't...right?" So here we go.

"Of course you have a mother. You couldn't really have been born without one."

But Mama is dead...

just like One doesn't exist.

And whoever you are, either you aren't home (which, you're "Terry's daughter" in Terry's home which was decorated for you in hopes that you'd come home 🤨)...or you aren't Terry's daughter.

but wait: Mr. Mom? Perfect!

Mr. Mom...which leads straight to the lab going haywire:

Because of the Mind Flayer, who we know is (most likely) a version of Edward.

And "sleepyhead" is a parent thing...but it's specifically a mom thing, and it comes from the guy who's likely Edward. Why are you, as a man, so distinctly mother?

And so I'm looking at all of his God coding:

And I'm looking at his talk of spiders, particularly black widows, being the gods of our world:

There's also this particular dialogue parallel with Carrie's mother:

As well as Black Widow "God of Our World" 001 and Henry "Sensitive (Gay) Child" Creel, framed this way in back to back shots.

One of them has the rainbow flag and the other's got the black widow spider, makes sense...right? (Sure. Except not really.)

He also has a ton of God coding in his music choices:

Except, when we look at the songs he alone or he and El are overlaid with...Akhnaten is functionally a mezzo-soprano. In the pieces we hear specifically, Akhnaten sings in the same range or higher than Nefertiti.

Which then gets me thinking about the Silent Hill parallels (that Em has talked about here), and specifically this one line of dialogue from Dahlia:

And the fact that every single black widow spider reference regarding Henward/Vecna/001 has been about female black widows, never male ones:

As well as a good portion of his rant being about:

- Being vaguely broken (what's wrong with him is never said) - His kinship with spiders (specifically the female black widows) - Society's oppressive made-up rules - Being forced to pretend (unspecificed as to what, exactly, he's pretending about...all we get is "a silly, terrible play") - Reproduction

Then the fact that Vecna kind of has a thing for showing up as mothers:

And on top of all that...the fact that Vecna somehow lost his dick along the way. Where did it go????????

There's also all the birthing and reproduction imagery that goes along with the UD, most blatantly in the scene where El crawls out of the same hole the Demogorgon came through:

As well as these movies from the ST4 Movie Board:

Ace Ventura Pet Detective: Finkle has a sex change to assume a new identity and seek vengeance.

Let The Right One In: Vampire girl who is really a boy being forced to live as a girl

Sleepaway Camp: Girl named Angela who is actually a boy named Peter being forced by his aunt to live as a girl after his twin sister (the real Angela) was killed in an accident. (Wibble knows more about this one than I do, but I'm staring at Peter Ballard and all of our Angela's parallels to the lab)

Splice: Female Human-Animal hybrid "dies" (is actually in a coma) and undergoes a spontaneous sex change to male and proceeds to go berserk.

Silence of the Lambs: Main villain is a blonde, wavy-haired cross-dressing serial killer.

And then with the parallels to Room (even if it isn't on the ST4 Movie Board):

Plus Will's Alan Turing poster and the castration stuff that goes along with that..and the "Henry" that shows up behind him:

What in the gender is going on here?

[renee561]

What is your favorite bones hc and/or relationship (canon or not romantic or not)?

I have so many, but here are a few nuggets.

See under the cut:

Goodman & Brennan & Michael Stiries:

Dr Goodman taught Temperance Brennan at least a few classes and knew about her affair with Dr Stiries.

He didn't report it because he knew she would never back him up. So instead of pushing her, he gave her a copy of his office key and his landline at home in case she ever needed him/a safe space to go.

She only used the office semi-frequently and never called him at home.

Brennan wasn't the only student he found out about sleeping with Stiries, and gave them the same thing: a copy of his office key and his landline. Most of the time they only needed the office once or twice and usually called him or his wife at home.

None of them reported Stiries.

Goodman kept a record.

He lost his professor job because a student of Michael's did finally report Stiries for sleeping with her.

Except Michael weasled his way out of any disaplinary action as all the students were of age of consent.

Goodman however lost his job.

Though the next day, he got offered the director of the Jeffersonian position and him and his wife moved to Boston to live with her mother for a while (grace had just had the twins)

He flew back and forth between Boston and D.C because flights were cheaper then houses.

When the girls were two, he moved his family in with him as the back and forth was taking a toll on him.

He hired Brennan over stiries one because he thought Brennan would be better at the job and two, he really didn't want the same problems as before with Stiries.

Telling Brennan to tell Michael to go to hell was perhaps years too late, but better late then never.

Brennan and Booth are Demis but on opposite ends of the aro/ace spectrum:

So I firmly believe Booth is a demisexual where he really only sleeps with people he has a emotional connection with and while he does have a high libido, he doesn't necessarily want to fuck every hot woman/man he finds slightly hot.

Brennan is demiromantic where she can fuck someone but not necessarily want a serious relationship/be in love with them to do so.

Brennan and Angela:

They fucked as an experiment on Brennan's end and came to the conclusion she wasn't attracted to women in general at least sexually. Like she can find them appealing (ie: calling cam's outfit having sex appeal) but she doesn't actively seek the company of women for sex.

Brennan and Hodgins:

Besties but different than Anglea, especially after the gravedigger.

Caroline and Booth:

Mother figure to Booth and she is soooo Parker's Godmother. No I will not hear otherwise.

These are all my favorite dynamics and while the only romantic one I see is Booth/Brennan, I'm happy to hear about other people's.

They are demi4demi though on opposite sides of the spectrum.

[sabo-has-my-heart]

Second Time Around

The second part to 'How Cliche'

Warnings: angst, fluff, hurt/comfort

Word Count: 1910

     Taking a deep breath, you entered your old high school. It was going to be weird, going to high school again. Especially since you remembered everything from the first time. All the things you learned, all the mathematics, english, and history courses, everything was still up there in your brain. You could get top grades without trying! Maybe do some college prep courses to advance your college career? It couldn’t hurt and it might save you some money when it came time for college. Dodging around other students, you smiled to yourself. While this hadn’t been what you’d wanted, it did have some benefits. Like avoiding accidents, changing your life for the better, and keeping good on your promise not to fall in love with Ace again. Taking a deep breath, you turned a corner. You’d originally gone straight, heading for the cafeteria because you’d forgotten to eat breakfast. This time, you’d woken up early, had breakfast, you could skip that this time. It was where you’d met Ace, bumping into him when he’d hurried to grab some breakfast. Apparently he’d slept in that day as well but could eat enough for 5 full grown men! After he’d accidentally caused you to spill your breakfast, he’d paid for a new one for you. He’d been so nice to you, and after finding out you had the same homeroom, you’d become fast friends. But you were going to change that this time. You weren’t going to get involved with him, you weren’t going to make friends with him, you weren’t going to fall for him. Entering your classroom, you scanned the seats. Ace liked to sit next to the window so he could look outside or enjoy the fresh air. Walking to the very opposite side, you sat down, taking out your things. It was a short while later that Ace entered the room, looking around, an excited look on his face. Glancing over at the windows, his smile dropped before doing one more look, smiling as his eyes landed on you. Walking over, he set his stuff down on the desk next to yours, surprising you. He… he always sat at the window. After rummaging through his things, he turned to you.

     “Hey uh, sorry to bother you, but I think I lost my pencil, you got an extra?” he asked, giving you that same sunny smile he’d given you in the past. Sighing, you reached into your bag and handed him one without a word. He’d lost his pencil the first time too, making you giggle when you’d handed him one the first time. Ace grinned as he gently took it from you, his hand gently brushing against you, only for you to pull away suddenly, as if his touch burned.

     “You should be more careful with your things.” you said, getting out the things you’d need for the class.

     “Heheh, yeah, my brother’s always saying the same thing. I’m Ace, by the way.” he said, holding his hand out to you. You glanced down at it before looking back up to him.

     “Y/n.” you said simply before turning away, missing the disappointed look on his face. You silent thanked whatever power that be that the teacher chose that moment to walk in and start class, forcing him to focus on the class instead of on you. All you could hope for now was that he’d leave you alone. 

     Walking down the hall, your eye twitched with irritation.

     “So then my little brother, Luffy, he’s adorable, but he’s such a dumbass, so he-” “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” you asked, cutting him off, surprising him. He’d been walking in front of you, his hands behind his head as he walked backwards, seemingly without a care in the world. Then again, Ace never seemed to have a care in the world. Sure, that was mostly just a front he put on, the young man actually having a number of insecurities, but to anyone who didn’t know him, he was simply a carefree young man.

     “Oh, uh, no, not really. I was um, I, uh…” Ace stood there, his words lost as he stared at you. Perhaps it was only natural. Most people were so nice to him, he had so much charisma, people either flocked to him, or were at least nice to him, but you seemed to be pushing him away, “I uh… sorry… sorry for bothering you.” he said softly, stuffing his hands in his pockets and walking away, looking rather dejected. Sighing in relief, you continued on to your next class. You didn’t know why he seemed to be trying to be your friend, but it was annoying you how much he persisted despite how cold you were to him. 

     This continued on for months, the young man always trying to sit next to you. If you were by the door, he was by the door, if you were at the window, he was at the window. If you were up front where the teacher couldn’t ignore you… he wasn’t able to fall asleep without the teacher getting on his case. But it couldn’t end there, oh no, he followed you everywhere. Lunch? Well, guess he’s not eating with his friends. Roof top, classroom, cafeteria, front lawn, he’d even sat near the girl’s bathroom! He’d made sure not to sit too close so as to not look like a creep, but he was still there! On your way home? Well, to be fair you did live in the same direction, but if you walked, he walked, if you took the bus, he took the bus, if you called a friend or your parents for a ride? Oh, his poor sick brother needs him home right away. Lying little shit. Looking down at the valentine’s day rose and chocolates, you couldn’t help but tighten your hold around it, the stem bending in your fist as your eyes filled with anger. They’d been inside your locker, a cute pink card attached to the box of chocolates. It wasn’t hard for you to recognize his handwriting and the little fire stickers were a dead give away. What was wrong with him? He’d never paid this much attention to you the first time! It took all you had to not break down into tears as you slammed your locker shut before heading to the girls bathroom. Despite your promise to not fall for him again, you found the pain of your feelings for him persisting. Part of you still cared for him, still yearned for him, but you couldn’t go down that road again, it only led to pain. Wiping the tears away, you tried to put yourself back together, tried to make it look like you hadn’t been crying. Why was this happening? You’d been cold to him this entire time, why was he still chasing after you? Once you’d gathered yourself together again, you left the bathroom, heading for your classroom. You honestly didn’t want to go, but you didn’t have many options, so you reluctantly entered the room, finding the only available seat being next to Ace, almost as if he’d saved it for you. Sitting down, you gave a dejected sigh. You really weren’t in the mood to deal with him, but it looked like you had no choice as he smiled at you.

     “You know, today’s Valentine’s day.” he said sweetly, giving you a soft smile. It wasn’t his usual large, sunny grin, but there was a gentle compassion in it that you’d never seen from him before. 

     “Yeah, I know. Some idiot left me a lame rose and chocolate. They even broke into my locker to do it.” you said, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye. He looked crestfallen as he stared at you for a moment.

     “Really? I think it’s kind of romantic? I mean, yeah, breaking into your locker probably wasn’t the smartest move, but they clearly feel something for you.” he said, his smile returning as he tried again.

     “Yeah, well maybe I’m not interested in anyone right now.” you said bitterly. Ace’s heart clenched at your words.

     “Oh come on, there’s got to be someone you have your eye on.” He pressed, making you grip your pencil tightly.

     “No, actually. In fact, the last guy I liked turned out to be a jerk who never liked me back. Now leave me alone.” you said, even colder than usual. Ace was quiet for the rest of the class, the rest of the day, really. It was a couple weeks before he tried again, a note slipped into your locker, an apology. Repeated lines of ‘I’m sorry’, apologizing for thing after thing, the ones at the bottom were the ones that had you here, in front of the door to the rooftop. ‘I broke your heart once, I thought this might be my second chance to correct things, to show you that I love you more than I realized. The day you were hit was the day that my world crumbled and I realized what I had lost. I know you’re mad at me and you have every right to be. I was an ass who didn’t appreciate the girl who was right in front of me, but please, please meet me on the rooftop. If this is truly it, then let me have one last chance.’ Opening the door, you took a deep breath, looking over at the young man looking out at the school yard below. He was leaning against the fencing that surrounded the roof, a melancholy look on his face.

     “Hey… thanks for… thanks for coming.” he said softly, not even turning to look at you. His fingers tightened around the steel of the fence, the look in his eyes far away, “I know you remember too. You wouldn’t have been so cold to me if you didn’t remember. I thought… I thought I could make it up to you this time. I could show you how wrong I was, but you pushed me away… and you have every right to do so. But please, I’m so sorry. I was an idiot the first time around. I… I didn’t realize until you were gone, until you weren’t by my side anymore, but I love you, Y/n. I love you so much. Please… please don’t push me away anymore.” Ace turned to look at you, a few tears running down his cheeks. You stared at him for a moment, your heart pounding in your chest. This was everything you’d ever wanted the first time and everything you swore not to fall for this time, yet your feet seemed to move on their own. Caressing his cheek, similar tears ran down your own cheeks. Your heart ached, but you couldn’t stop it, you’d thought that the feelings had gone away, but here they were again as you pulled him to a soft, sweet kiss. His arms wrapped around your waist, holding you as if you’d disappear. Nothing was said between you two, nothing needed to be said, not yet. Right now all either of you needed was the other’s embrace. Just like those stupid romance novels, a girl had sworn not to fall for the male again, only to find herself in his arms. That was okay though, you didn’t mind, it was just nice to hold him like this. To have him hold you like this.

[siremasterlawrence]

The Handler’s Red Carpet Express 5 & 6

Hugh Jackman sitting at table in a New York City restaurant happens to see former CW and Superman actor Brandon Routh pass the window as he goes out to introduce himself and greet him.

Brandon agrees to join him under for an early breakfast’s to talk shop when the waiter who seems to be familiar to both of them appears in his inform causing a bit of a stir.

The man opens his mouth the wonder and delight of these two amazing guys as they hang on to every word he says as their life depends on it.

The way the man’s voice spoke it felt such as it calms him down after his divorce filings from his wife everything and everyone lost meaning.

Now he is finding new hope maybe he could pay for the man make him his main man he is saying this unpacking a lot hidden things in him.

He never knew he felt this could feel this such a shock to want something so fresh and yet so desperately needs to be able to live.

The man closer to Brandon flowing over him his breath felt like sunshine, it smells like the sweetest candy and he would never grow leary of it.

He fought the best he could his cock spring to life then his imagination running wild in a fit of heat he wants to kiss him so badly and he gave in.

“What would you like to order? Would you like our specials?”

“Anything you suggest really”

“You have a beautiful voice “

“Thank you! I’ll see what I can do”

“No don’t leave! I need to hear you more “

“Why don’t the two of you go to Hugh’s room and wait for me”

“You are brilliant “

“Ace”

“Good idea! Meet us there?”

“Did a fucking rainbow explode in here or something?” Hugh asked himself as the door swung open.

“Well I guess you planned a romantic dinner and you forgot about it.” Brandon suggest.

“If I did I think I would remember” he thinks out loud.

“I hope he comes soon his voice I so soothing.”

“I want to be ordered around…wait did I just say that?”

“Oh My God Me too!”

“I am hard…throbbing “

“I could burst “

“I can’t stop thinking about him”

The man walks into the room in a change of clothes catching their attention the settling back into a foggy you relinquish control.“What can we do for you?” They both beg.

The next week are on set despite the actors ongoing strike I managed to get hallmark all prepped in pre-production due to my efforts to get it started.

The two men waddle on stage in pain as I had order to their respective dressing room for a all out deep training in the video I had set up.

While they are busy I notice the first of my next to objects of desire walk onto set ready for a fight they pounce into their dressing rooms expecting something different.

It is the same set up except one minor thing the mirrors are tinted with a faint coloring in the backgrounds and he shook his head as he sat.

He awaits for his hair designer to walk in but in no way shape or form that is what he got in this room was about to reshape him for the rest of his life.

His is name is Luke Macfarlane famous for The Hallmark Channel Christmas specials they offer every year except of this truly ridiculous idea.

I have a grandiose movie Christmas special for this year to give the audience a hardy gift of a heart attack so will he as the color in the mirror grows.

His face slack a bit causing his body to go quack his mind goes into a spiral free falling in to it unknowingly it’s a a simple trick of the mind.

Across in the room next to him another actor famous for Hallmark Movies the supposed king of Hallmark Andrew W Walker sits in his chair.

The mirror becomes muddle as he reaches for a pieces of paper tower the clean the mirror his eyes are warped with spiral heavy induction.

His head falls back onto the top of the chair his eyes glued to the mirror glass images as he falls under my spell to and I dance with excitement.

The spirals disappear into a void causing them to wake up as they mindlessly leave to go on set and they take their cues it’s a club Christmas party.

The two guys walk in instantly getting both of their eyes to focus on him, Andrew scoffs walking over to Brandon blocking him to the wall.

Brandon smirks a bit listening to him chat a long way to get Brandon to open up and he is so enchanted with this super drunk ass moron and gave in to kissing him as he is succumbing.

“Who are you?”

“Whoever you want me to be?”

“Wow! A tv quote”

“So what?”

“You can’t get rid of me”

“You think so”

“My name is Luke”

“Call me Hugh”

“Why not babe?”

“Do you have him?”

“Yes Master Lawrence!”

“Well then! Why don’t you join me”

“I also have a surprise “

“What is this slave?”

“Justin Baldoni! “

“Correct! Why am I here?”

“To meet your maker “

“You are both god”

“You are right”

“Strip them”

“Strap them to table “

“Nnnnoooo”

“Say something Liam”

“He can’t hear you “

“I tranced him like you said”

“Excellent!l

“Well done”

“Don’t cry “

“Take a whiff of this”

“Who the…what the”

“Mwahahahahaha”

“Are you docile now?”

“Yes Sir”

“Good boi”

“Mmmm”

“After 24 hours of this spray “

“You will be mine”

“How delightfully delicious “

I see two more guys arrive at the station in a fit of testosterone and sex appeal Justin Baldoni and Trevor Donovan they are taken out by gloves and chloroformed tissue as they are knocked out a bit for me. They strapped him down to the table for my transformer for a lifetime.

“They are next”

“Strap them down”

“I love this forever “

The nd

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 53

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

“Guess we’re roughing it tonight,” Grim said, floating to the ground so he could kick a rock. Grim soon regretted this, because he didn’t have shoes, and rocks are usually pretty hard. He looked at Kuroki, betrayed that the rock that had never pretended to be anything else was, in fact, a rock. Kuroki could only shrug and rub the top of his head in an attempt to comfort the monster.

“Kalim-senpai would probably let us stay with him,” Enma mused.

Ito shook their head. “Kalim-senpai is, like, the only decent guy around. I don’t want to use him like that.”

Kuroki worried his lip. “Ashengrotto-senpai is probably banking on us going to him out of desperation, but I don’t want to owe him anything if I can help it.”

“Does Heartslabyul still owe us a favor for helping them with Rosehearts-senpai?” Enma asked.

“They’ve invited us to a bunch of Unbirthday parties, and we’ve gotten a bunch of free food because of it…” Kuroki said.

“Yeah, but do they think that’s paying us back?” Ito asked. “Or have they just forgotten that we’re not really in their dorm?”

"Push comes to shove, maybe we can say it's payback for all the times Ace and Deuce stayed over?" Enma said.

“Hey, guys?” Deuce’s voice called, audibly confused. “Why’re you all outside…?”

The three Yuus turned on him, their eyes gleaming.

Deuce and Ace, who had been running over, suddenly seemed way less interested in coming close to them. They eyed their friends warily.

“We lost our house to Ashengrotto-senpai,” Enma cut straight to the point. Despite this, he was smirking widely. “Since Rosehearts-senpai is totally going to make you guys sleep outside, can we use your beds?”

“You lost your house?!”

“Yeah, catch up,” said Grim.

“You didn’t even get our anemones off! How did you lose that badly?” Ace asked, incredulously. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be good at this sort of thing?”

Kuroki had never felt insulted and flattered at the same time before. Ah, he could always count on Night Raven College to introduce him to a myriad of new, conflicting emotions.

Ito crossed their arms over their chest. “That’s rich coming from you two. You’re the reason we’re in this mess, you know.”

“No, it’s the Headmage’s fault,” Kuroki grumbled.

“I thought it was Kuroki’s fault?” Grim asked.

“I can get behind that,” Enma said, shrugging.

“Sweet, we’ve been exonerated,” Ace said, pumping his fist.

Kuroki scowled at the floor. “Can we bunk with you guys or not?”

“Uhhhh… maaaaaybe?” Deuce said, slowly. “Heartslabyul doesn’t have any empty rooms, since no one drops out or gets held back.”

Ace tipped his head to the side thoughtfully. “But you four only need one bed, right? So, you can take my bed, and I’ll bunk with Deuce –.”

“No,” said Ito.

“Absolutely not,” said Enma.

“I’d rather brave the elements,” added Kuroki.

Grim looked at the three of them in turn, frowning. “Why not?” His eyes widened in ‘realization’. “Wait, does Ace have cooties or something?”

Kuroki nodded slowly. “Baaaaasically.”

In reality, the Yuus just did not want to have to be in the same dorm as Ace and Deuce while the two of them were sharing a bed. While most of their jokes about Ace and Deuce dating were just that – jokes… there was a hint of truth to the words. If the two of them were put in the same bed, that would probably kick off some fanfic-level pining, and they did not want to deal with that.

Look at Ace and Deuce! They were already blushing! Ugh. No, this was way above their pay grade.

“Well, I guess you could sleep on the floor?” Deuce said, slowly. “It beats being outside, probably.”

Kuroki groaned. “Man, I just got my sleep schedule back in order, too –.”

Enma snapped his fingers. “Kingscholar-senpai still owes us.”

“On it,” Ito said, tapping away on Ace’s phone.

Ace scowled. “I don’t have Kingscholar-senpai’s number, why the hell did you even take my phone this time?!”

“I’m texting Jack,” Ito said, shrugging nonchalantly. “So he doesn’t come out and stop us.”

“Why would he stop you?” Deuce asked, frowning.

“Never mind that! Why do you never take Deuce’s phone?!”

“‘Cause of favoritism,” Enma said.

Deuce smirked. “Try being more likable next time, Ace.”

“Aw, c’mon, he has his own charm,” Kuroki teased. “He’s like a feral cat that we took in and domesticated.”

Grim snickered, pointing a paw at Ace. “Sucks to suck!”

“Says the literal domesticated cat –!”

“I thought that you thought he was a raccoon?” Ito said.

“Shut the fuck up you’re literally homeless.”

“Wow, Ace, I didn’t know you were classist,” Deuce said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Ace whipped around and kicked him in the shin.

It was silent for a moment (save for Deuce cursing under his breath).

Enma snickered. “Woah, dude, spousal abuse isn’t cool.”

~

Kuroki leaned against Sam’s counter, tapping his foot on the floor as they waited for him to come out.

“Is there a staff’s quarters?” he wondered, suddenly. It wasn’t as if Sam slept in the shop, after all, the place wasn’t large enough to hide an entire bedroom on-site.

Ito hummed. “There is, yeah. One of the janitor’s closets has a mirror-portal-thing that leads to a pocket dimension. I don’t think there are any empty rooms, though. We’d have to stay in someone’s suite. Probably the Headmage’s.”

Kuroki’s nose scrunched. “Pass.”

“I’d rather not stay there, either,” Ito admitted, shrugging. “The Headmage’s room is constantly a mess.”

There was a beat of silence.

“How do you know that?” Enma asked, warily.

“He makes me clean it sometimes,” Ito said.

“Ooooof course he does,” Kuroki said, even if he was privately relieved.

“Here you go, little ghouls,” Sam called. “One megaphone! I told you we had one in stock!”

“Huh, I’ve never seen one around…” Enma said.

“Were you looking for one?”

Enma looked like he didn’t entirely believe this, but he let it go. If only because he now had an important question for the man: “Actually, can we stay with you for a few days?”

“I’m not in the staff’s quarters,” Sam said, seeming genuinely apologetic. Must be nice to have a genuinely okay guy as your boss.

“How do you sleep, then?” Grim asked.

“Like the dead,” Sam said.

“... ‘kay, so how much for the megaphone?”

~

It was quiet as they headed towards the mirror chamber. Kuroki watched Ito and Enma out of the corners of his eyes. Enma had slung an arm around Ito’s shoulders while they walked, something that had earned a mildly exasperated look from Ito even if they hadn’t shrugged him off. Kuroki hesitated, wondering if he should break the silence. This was, probably, the only time the three of them would be alone (save for Grim, but that was fine) for the next few days, and Kuroki really should sort this out now, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to find out.

It was fine when they were actively problem-solving, when there was something that took precedence. But…

Ito glanced over at him. They sighed. “It’s – okay, it’s not fine. I’m very mad at you. That doesn’t mean that I hate you. I just need some time.”

“Speak for yourself,” Enma grumbled.

Kuroki looked at the ground. Watched his own feet shuffle along on the tiles.

From the sounds of it, Ito elbowed Enma in the side.

“Don’t pick at his insecurities just because you’re mad.”

“You do it with Trey-senpai all the time.”

“That’s different.”

There was a beat of skeptical silence.

“It just is okay?”

“You can’t get onto me about how I deal with this. You literally broke Trey’s nose once.”

“That doesn’t count, that was in the time loop, he doesn’t remember.”

“But I do.”

Enma and Ito continued to bicker without any real heat, and Kuroki continued to hope that one of these tiles would give way beneath his feet and he would plummet a few floors, away from this conversation.

Huh, who knew he could miss Ramshackle’s general dodginess?

“... am I missing something?” Grim whispered to Kuroki.

“Yeah, bud, you kind of are,” Kuroki admitted, smiling awkwardly. He scratched the monster behind the ears. “You know how you tried to make a deal with Ashengrotto-senpai a while back, but he didn’t let you?”

“Yeah – I mean no! I never tried that!”

Kuroki snickered despite himself. “Of course. Well, the reason he wouldn’t let you is that I made a deal with him to keep you three safe from him and his shady ways, and uh… it kinda bit us in the ass.”

Grim thought this over. And then smiled. “Thanks for looking out for me, henchman. I’m promoting you to henchman #1.”

Kuroki raised an eyebrow. “I thought I was already #1.”

Grim bunted against the side of his hand, asking for more pets. Kuroki rolled his eyes, but still felt his smile shift into something a little more real as he obliged his ‘boss’.

~

It took a while for Grim to burn his way through the foliage for them all. By the end of it, the monster was exhausted, so Kuroki hugged him to his chest as they waited for Jack to come down.

Jack was, as always, relatively punctual. He raised his eyebrows at their small group. “You said you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah. Take Grim and leave the pocket dimension for, like, two-ish hours,” Ito said, hefting the megaphone.

Jack’s eyes widened. “Sounds great. Thanks for the warning. Bye.”

With that, their two mage friends were gone.

“Should we warn Bucchi-senpai?” Ito asked.

“Nah, screw him,” Enma said.

“I thought you guys were kinda getting along, now?” Kuroki frowned.

“Nope,” said Enma. “He’s fine as a person, overall, I guess, but he’s still so annoying when he comes to Sam’s shop.”

Ito yawned, flipping the megaphone on. “Right. Kingscholar-senpai! You owe us! Give us sanctuary!”

Savannaclaw was mostly silent. A few people poked their heads out of their windows curiously, but none of those people were Leona, so who cares?

“We warned you.” They moved the megaphone away from their mouth. “Who wants first shift?”

“I’ll do it,” said Kuroki.

Ito hummed lightly and handed it off to him.

Kuroki tipped his head back thoughtfully. Let’s see. The most annoying song he could think of…

Well, he only really knew the chorus for this song, but if anything that would be even more annoying! He took a deep breath, bringing the megaphone to his lips:

“It’s! A small! World! After! All!”

Enma’s eyebrows pinched for a moment. Like he was trying to figure something out. Dully, Kuroki remembered him having a similar reaction to the Painting the Roses song. Didn’t Enma say there was no Disney in his world…?

Well, he could always ask about it later. Enma was already pissed at him, Kuroki was sure that confronting him about a possible lie wouldn’t help things… though, maybe, it would even things out…

He shook his head. Later. They had a far more pressing problem: poverty.

So, he – well, he wouldn’t call it ‘singing’, it was more vaguely yelling the lyrics – he yelled until he was at risk of losing his voice.

He handed the megaphone off to Ito.

“This is the song that never ends, it can go on and on my friend…!”

Ito lasted longer. Perhaps because they wouldn’t mind losing their voice – they weren’t in choir. But they, too, handed the megaphone off, after a while.

Enma thought it over for long enough that Savannaclaw dorm seemed to give a collective sigh of relief. They had given up.

Please. If there was one trait that all three Yuus would admit to having, it was stubbornness.

“99 bottles of milk on the wall…”

When Enma got to “Negative 8 bottles of milk on the wall”, Leona finally cracked, stepping out onto his balcony, looking like he had half a mind to start throwing things at them.

(Not that they would mind – they had been happy to collect all of the things the other Savannaclaw members had thrown at them. They were really fucking poor, okay?)

“FUCKING FINE YOU ASSHOLES.”

“Thanks!” Enma called through the megaphone.

Leona made a strangled screaming sound.

~

They sighed in relief when they were given a guest room. Yay! No sleeping on the floor for them! Who cares if the room was an absolute mess of random items? Sweep the stuff off of the bed, and it would basically be a more stocked version of Ramshackle.

Ruggie dropped a couple of sheets onto the already messy bed. “You’re gonna have to make the bed yourself,” he said, sounding like he was on his last nerve.

“Thanks. And sorry,” Enma said.

“No you’re not,” Ruggie said.

“... okay, yeah, I’m not. Stop bartering so much and maybe I’ll be nicer.”

“I’m poor, I have to get the best price –.”

“You use Kingscholar-senpai’s credit card every time you come by!”

Ruggie snickered. He threw his hand up in a wave as he headed toward the door. “Fair ‘nuff. See ya.”

They were left to tidy the place up. Most of the stuff around the room was just junk – and most of that was broken. But the bed was surprisingly nice. Kuroki spread out atop it the second the fitted sheet was in place, sighing. Enma threw a sheet on top of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“We should steal this thing,” he said.

“... I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Jack mumbled. Kuroki pulled the sheet off of his head to find their friend leaning in the doorframe, Grim hovering by his shoulder. “Here’s your familiar.”

“They’re my familiars,” Grim corrected him, scowling.

“Right, of course. My bad,” Jack said. He glanced at the three of them. “You guys didn’t go easy on them at all, did you?”

“What do you take us for? Pussies?” Ito asked. “I’ve never half-assed anything in my life.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to destroy that megaphone of yours.”

The Yuus’ mouths dropped open in offense.

“Hey! We paid for that!” Kuroki complained.

“Don’t be lame,” Enma said.

“This is racist,” Ito decided.

Jack gave them an incredulous look. “I’m the second darkest person in this room?”

“Colorism,” they said, shaking their head sadly.

Jack sighed. “You three are so frustrating, you know that?”

“Thank you!” they all said, in unison, smiling brightly.

(Their smiles dropped into pouts when Jack, always one to keep his word, confiscated their megaphone.)

~

Kuroki opened his eyes at some point in the early morning. At first, he wasn’t sure why he had woken up. Enma wasn’t talking in his sleep. Ito was still sleeping like a log, as always. Grim was curled up on the end of the bed, snoring steadily. He hadn’t accidentally flopped onto the rusty spring poking out of their mattress again, because this mattress was thankfully devoid of murderous springs.

And then something flew past his window.

He rubbed his eyes, slipping out of bed, careful not to wake his friends as he shuffled over to the balcony. Carefully, he pushed open the window, grimacing at the blast of unfortunately-familiar, too-hot air blowing past his face, and stepped outside.

Ah, they were playing a game of Magift.

He blinked lazily, leaning against the railing and watching them all play. Not really out of interest, he’d never cared for sports (which probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who had ever laid eyes on him), he simply had nothing better to do while he waited for Enma and Ito to wake up.

Someone won. Kuroki hadn’t really been keeping score. He sighed, rubbing the back of his hand over his eyes. Well, that was… ‘nice’, he supposed.

And then he saw a person on a broom heading his way.

He raised an eyebrow at Jack. “Yeah?”

“You guys ever gonna tell me why you’re homeless?”

Oh, yeah, he supposed Jack didn’t know.

Kuroki shrugged. “Sure, I guess,” he said, because why not?

So, he explained their situation to Jack… he may have left out a few details, like Ito and Enma being mad at him, and why they were mad, but, in his opinion, that really wasn’t any of Jack’s business.

Jack huffed a laugh. “You guys’re screwed.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kuroki said, flatly. He slumped over the railing. “I know I’m missing something. Octavinelle has to have an advantage that they aren’t telling us about. But I just don’t know what it is.”

“Well, it’s Octavinelle, right? And the museum you have to steal from is underwater?”

Kuroki nodded.

“I mean, isn’t, like, everyone in that dorm a merman?”

Kuroki blinked.

… if there was a potion to let people on land spend time underwater, why wouldn’t there be a potion to let mermen spend time on land?

Now that he thought about it, most of the people in his class on Mermen were in Octavinelle. Like how everyone else in his class on Yajugen had animalistic features. It was so fucking obvious in hindsight, but why would he ever consider any of that?!

Fuck Azul Ashengrotto. He knew that Kuroki’s knowledge of this world was surface-level at best, that there was a good chance that all of the things that were a ‘given’ to the people who had lived here their whole lives would be impossible for him to ascertain.

“It’s enemy territory,” he breathed, his mouth dry.

“Probably,” Jack agreed.

Kuroki stared at the Magift field down below. Some poor schmuck had been left behind to clean the place up. He watched them work, thinking hard.

If they were mermen, they were probably fast underwater. So, it would be best to try for Mostro Lounge operating hours – less people for Azul to send after them. But it wasn’t as if Kuroki could simply call off from work, because then Azul would know to send someone.

And that wasn’t even including the fact that they wouldn’t know the terrain as well as them, and that Octavinelle might have some friends under the sea who could help them, and…

Damn. Damn!

He pressed his forehead against the bannister. It wasn’t cold, so it wasn’t soothing his rapidly-forming headache, but whatever.

“Okay, so, let’s see… Ashengrotto-senpai knows my schedule, and I can’t just call off work for a day, he’ll know what I’m doing. Should I call off for the next three days? But then they’ll always be on guard… it’s only three days, so it’s not like we can just wear them down…” He hissed a curse under his breath. “There’s gotta be a way to win this.”

“Do you even care about winning?” Jack asked. “I mean, no offense, but that place is a dump.”

“OF COURSE I HAVE TO FUCKING WIN,” he snapped.

Jack flinched back in mild surprise. “Didn’t know you could get that loud.”

“... that’s just because we told you to leave last night.” Kuroki lifted his head just slightly, just enough to peer up at Jack through his bangs. “Sorry for… I just… I have to win this bet, okay?”

Jack sighed, floating over the bannister to settle down beside him. “Okay. Well, if the problem is Ashengrotto-senpai knowing what you’re doing, why can’t Ito and Enma take a quick look around on their own?”

Kuroki shook his head. “That won’t work.”

“Hm? Why not?”

“‘Cause…” Kuroki started, only to trail off when the balcony door slid open again.

Enma stepped outside, dragging Ito behind him – literally, hand gripping their forearm while they flopped around on the floor in vague attempts to get away. This was probably more effort than simply walking on their own, but who was he to judge?

“You’re up early,” Enma said.

“You’re up late,” Kuroki shrugged.

Enma smiled. “Yeah, well, the lack of an alarm clock is… weird. Probably should have packed it. Not like we didn’t have the room.”

Jack looked between the two of them, his eyebrows knitting. “Why’re you acting weird?”

“Early in the morning,” grumbled Ito.

“It’s ten,” Enma sighed.

Ito sighed, too. Louder than Enma. As if their half-awake mind had decided it was a competition.

Kuroki ran a hand through his hair. “Well, if you guys are up –.”

“Debatable,” Enma snickered, kneeling down to pick up Ito.

“... – then we should probably go and get a lay of the land now, before my shift.”

“Is it really getting the ‘lay of the land’ if we’re underwater?” Enma mused.

Kuroki bit his tongue.

~

Enma peered at the glass vial in his hand, tipping it from side to side, watching the way it gleamed in the light.

“So, this’ll just help us breathe underwater? How? Does it change the layout of your lungs?”

Kuroki made a so-so motion with his hand. “Depends on the specific potion. There’re some that temporarily change the way your lungs filter oxygen. And there are more… drastic versions, which usually have longer lasting side-effects.”

Ace grimaced. “Like?”

“Uh, depends,” Kuroki said again, grimacing. “Some’ll give you the whole tail-gills-fish respiratory system package. Which, uh, you get your legs back, but also the gills don’t exactly disappear without another potion.”

“Which Ashengrotto-senpai didn’t provide, I’m guessing,” Deuce said, frowning.

Kuroki sighed. “No. But, my guess is… they probably wouldn’t give us a tail, it’d make us faster underwater… actually, we would take some time to get used to it…”

“Not giving Ashengrotto-senpai a single vote of confidence, I see,” Jack mumbled.

“If you’re going to Kuroki for a vote of confidence, you’ve already messed up,” Ito said.

Kuroki shrugged, turning to look at the Dark Mirror. “Guide us to the Coral Sea, please.”

The Mirror swirled, until they were staring into the murky darkness of what Kuroki hoped was the ocean.

“Everyone ready?” Kuroki asked.

“Mentally? No,” Grim said.

“Great,” said Kuroki. “Bottoms up, everyone.”

“Do we have to go under?” Ito asked. “The seawater’s gonna be awful for my hair, y’know. Can I sit this one out?”

“I don’t really want to go into the ocean, either,” Enma pitched in.

“Really?” Deuce asked. “Don’t you want to see what the potion does?”

Enma’s nose scrunched. “Yeah, but it’s the ocean. Fish, like, go to the bathroom in there.”

“So do humans, sometimes,” Ace pitched in. Because he was an awful human being.

Deuce hit him over the head.

“You can both take showers right after this,” Kuroki said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Since we’re in Savannaclaw, we don’t have to worry about hot water anymore. It’s fine. Drink up.”

Ito and Enma didn’t look particularly eager to try it.

Kuroki groaned. “Guys, this really isn’t the time to be stubborn.”

“It’s always the time to be stubborn,” Ito said, stubbornly.

“We could lose our house.”

Enma smiled without any real mirth. “Technically, you could lose our house, we did nothing.”

“... holy shit, hold on,” Ace said. The three of them flinched at the reminder that, oh yeah, they aren’t the only people to exist. “Are you guys fighting?”

“Of course they aren’t,” Deuce said. “They’re, like, incapable of even disagreeing.”

“Actually…” Jack said. “They’ve been acting off all morning, you might be right, Ace.”

Kuroki gritted his teeth. “Give us a minute, please?”

He didn’t wait for an answer from anyone before grabbing Enma and Ito by the wrists and dragging them away. He all but threw them into the nearest empty classroom, slamming the door shut behind himself. “Alright, you guys are being assholes.”

“We’re the ones being assholes?” Ito said, incredulously.

“It’s like nothing I can do can make you happy!”

Enma snorted. “Obviously. We’re mad about something you already did, not something you will do.”

“I can’t fucking go back in time, Enma!” Kuroki hissed.

“You haven’t even explained why you did it,” Ito said, their voice carefully level. “How are we supposed to forgive you if we can’t even understand you?”

“I don’t even get why you’re mad,” Kuroki said, glaring at the floor as if it had personally wronged him. “I was just trying to help.”

Ito rolled their eyes. “You stole our autonomy and didn’t even bother to tell us, of course we’re pissed.”

“I was trying to make sure you didn’t make a dumb decision.”

“So, instead, you’ll make a dumb decision for us?” Enma snorted. “Either way, we’re homeless now, so fat load of good it did us.”

“It would have been fine if Ace and Deuce hadn’t been so shit at espionage,” Kuroki said.

“Well, if you’d just told us ahead of time, then we wouldn’t have sent Ace and Deuce in at all!” Ito said.

“Oh, yeah, because you’re always so honest, Ito,” Kuroki said. “Fuck off.”

“Nice deflection,” Ito said, sarcastically.

“I’m just saying you’re both hypocrites,” Kuroki snapped. “Have you idiots forgotten that we’re the same fucking person? I know you’re both control freaks, too, you know! So, don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same.”

Enma laughed, bitterly. “You ‘know us’, but you still thought that we would make a deal with Ashengrotto-senpai of all people? We’re not stupid, Kuroki-san.”

Kuroki threw his hands up in frustration. “I know you’re not stupid. I never said you were.”

“You implied it,” Enma said.

“Okay, and what if Ito decided to get the study guides so all of us wouldn’t have to or whatever? What if Enma decided I only want to put time into researching interesting things, who cares about this stupid math class? I won’t say ‘sorry’ for wanting peace of mind just this once! Because I’m not sorry!”

“We wouldn’t do that,” Enma sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I know,” Kuroki hissed. “It’s almost as if I have an anxiety disorder that makes me overthink and second-guess everything!”

Ito sighed. “Yeah, we know, but that doesn’t mean you can get away with doing stuff like this.”

“Why not?! We ignore all of our other problems! Why is this thing we have to acknowledge?” Kuroki said. “Why are my faults the problem we care about?! Enma wants to stay here forever, Ito wants to go home, but when I do things you guys disapprove of suddenly I’m the problem?”

Ito crossed their arms over their chest. “Enma is allowed to want to stay, I don’t own him. It sucks, but it doesn’t affect me or my goals.”

“Really, Ito?” Kuroki asked. “Because Enma has been very interested in why we’re here. He has a stupid notebook that he theorizes in. Which is out of character for someone who wants to stay, don’t you think? What do you think he’ll do if he figures out a way back? Do you think he’ll just give it to you and let you leave?”

Enma paled, holding up his hands in a kind of surrender. “Hey, man, c’mon –.”

“And Enma, don’t you think it’s weird that Ito’s been sucking up to Crowley lately? They’ve been so against genuinely connecting with us, so why are they suddenly so down for a damn-near parental relationship with that freak? I think they’re just hoping that, if they get on his good side, he might actually put some effort into finding us all a way home, to make them happy or something.”

Ito backed up a step. “You – you said his name, he heard all of that, why would you –?”

“Because I hate both of you,” snapped Kuroki. “Why can’t you two just agree? I don’t care where we are! I just want to be together and happy, but it’s just not fucking possible. Enma has to stay here, and Ito has to go home, and it’s fucked. I hate you. I hate you!”

Enma and Ito met eyes, and something in their expressions soured.

Ito scoffed. “You’re just jealous that I have a reason to go back.”

“Of course we’re jealous,” Enma said, through a tight, fake smile. “It must be nice to be your family, to be wanted, instead of just there.”

Silence stretched between them, save for Kuroki’s breathing, loud in his own ears. Ito’s fingers dug crescents into the flesh of their arms. Enma’s hands were balled into tight fists.

“You know what? Let’s buckle down for three days and get the house back, and then we can go spend Winter Break with whoever we want,” Enma said, smiling coldly. “Maybe some actual space’ll do us some good.”

“Fine by me,” said Ito.

“Fine,” Kuroki muttered. “Whatever.”

He walked over to the door and swung it open, not surprised to find all of their friends right outside of it. Deuce, who had had his ear all-but pressed up against the door, almost fell over.

“We were keeping people from overhearing,” Grim said, quickly.

“‘Course you were,” Ito said, giggling, brushing past Kuroki to pet the monster behind the ears.

Enma smiled. Painstakingly loosened his grip on his own hands finger by finger, until he was able to press a hand to his chest.

His knuckles were still white from the pressure.

“It’s fine. It’s probably best you guys know we’re fighting, since we’re all going to be working together. Can we count on you to keep us in check?”

From the looks of things, their friends did not want to get between them. But it wasn’t as if Ace and Deuce had a choice, if they wanted their anemones off. So they got nods from them.

Ito grinned. “Sweet. Thanks, guys.”

Kuroki stretched his arms over his head, breathing a sigh of relief when his back popped. “Well, since that’s over, I guess it’s time to actually check out the Coral Sea! Let’s do this thing!”

[astridthevalkyrie]

standing at the crossroads: chapter 9

Captain Levi is your lover. But more importantly, he’s your superior, and you’re well prepared to follow him to hell if he needs you to. And when people start turning into titans, and every bloody death is one step closer to the truth, hell may be exactly where you’re going.

Chapter 8 | Series Masterlist

taglist: will be added to reblog :)

chapter warnings: female!reader, character death, canon-typical violence

a/n: I love you all <33

Your eyes open.

You’re in a cart, and it’s dark.

It takes a few blinks for your sight to adjust to the darkness, and just another second for you to remember where you are. 

A warm hand lands on your head. “Easy,” Levi murmurs; you can hear the hooves of his horse alongside your own. “I hope you’re well rested. We’re almost there.”

Using the cover of the night, you bring his hand to your lips and kiss his knuckles before sitting up straight to tie your hair back up. Graciously, you’d chosen to be the last in the squad to sleep in the wagon for two or three hours, a luxury that until recently, had been nonexistent. Sleeping during expeditions? What about all the man-eating giants?

Well, thanks to Armin and Hange’s brilliance, that was no longer a problem. Hange had her amazing titan killing contraption that had been working day and night for a whole month, and Armin had provided the revolutionary idea to start the mission right as the sun was going down. 

You stretch your limbs out, flexing your fingers and wondering when you’ll see the city you never even got to visit before Wall Maria was taken. The one Ricky—a couple meters away, in conversation with one of the new recruits—had stolen from him. The one Gunther, Eld, Petra and Oluo, and countless others died trying to take back.

Taking a deep breath, you run your thumb over the bite mark on your hand, letting it harden your resolve. They got you here. You’ll honor that for the rest of your life.

Souls seem to speak through the wind. Quiet whispers that haunt the area, but bring it to life at the same time. A hushed tone, calling out welcome back, from the ones that were laid to rest here.

You’re shaking lightly. It takes a hand over your chest and another few deep breaths to stop. It seems like this is a winding road, easy to get lost on if the whole legion wasn’t here. It’s soothing that you’re not alone.

Once you hop out of the cart, you double check your ODM gear and make sure Horsey is alright, plucking a leaf from his back. Time to make the rounds.

(Before everyone left, Levi did give the squad a speech, then you gave a better one, but it doesn’t hurt to check in again.)

First you speak to Mikasa, then Sasha, then Connie, Armin, Jean, and finally, Eren.

“Hey, ace.” He doesn’t look to be startled, just a bit lost in thought. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Ready, I think.” Definitely not the word you would use based on how tense he looks, but sure. “I always knew I would take back my home, but now that it’s actually happening it feels…like I shouldn’t be here.”

Oh, you can relate all too well, considering you felt the same way back in Stohess. “Home is home, right? It may not be where we belong anymore, but where we’re from is always a part of us.” Placing your palm on his chest, you mimic breathing in and breathing out. Eren complies, but only for a second, clearly a little too stressed to be doing breathing exercises. 

“What if we fail again?” he whispers. You’re not sure you’re meant to hear it. 

Again, clearly referring to the 57th. It’s a good question.

You bite the inside of your cheek. “Try again tomorrow?”

Eren laughs softly, ducking his head. “Talking to you really clears my head, Lieutenant. You’re the best. Thank you.”

For some reason, that warms your cheeks. You’ve always been a bit susceptible to such sincere praise. With a warm hand on his back, you leave him be, and return back to Levi’s side. Wordlessly, he hands you Horsey’s reins, and you hop on his back, glancing down to where your captain is still on foot.

The lack of danger has relaxed even him. Not that you doubt he’d be able to slice the neck straight off any titan that decided to show up. It’s kind of nice, though, and you wonder if this is how expeditions will be once Wall Maria is taken back. Missions meant to explore rather than to fight. The pleasant smell of an early morning dew from a sun that has not yet risen.

And easy seconds to simply observe Levi. To watch him carefully scan the area and see the relief in his eyes when for once, there isn’t an actual threat. Then he shakes his head just a fraction of an inch, to snap himself out of it—no time for relief. And so he scans again.

Captain Levi, with his own little pattern. How adorable.

Taking care to keep quiet, you call out to him. “Levi.” When his head turns to answer, you quickly put on your most stern face. “Hey.”

His eyeroll accompanies your laugh. “Whatever happened to Expedition (F/N)?” he asks dryly.

Your mouth falls open as you whisper-cry, “You knew about that?”

The corners of his lips twitch. “I think the whole legion knew about that.”

Levi catches your hand mid-smack, then, almost naturally, kisses the back of your hand. From what you’ve read, the blushing maiden is usually not the one sitting astride the horse. Well, you’re not blushing, but still. What a state, to be flustered like this. You’re too old to be so easily wooed.

Unfortunately, your fairytale is rather rudely interrupted by the admittedly lovely sound of the river rushing, signaling that you have arrived. Just in time, as the sun begins to rise. Levi is on his horse in a second.

“All squads!” comes Commander Erwin’s booming command. “Move towards Shiganshina at full speed!”

Here you are. Six years after you’ve joined the military, and now you finally get to feast your eyes on the fabled city of Shiganshina. The ruined city of Shiganshina, in tatters. But if everyone could rebuild Trost and Stohess, then this city could prosper once more as well. You’ll work on the houses and place brick by brick yourself if you have to.

Charging into battle always has a certain romanticism to it—the halt of a clock as time freezes, the little breeze charging between your skin and the fabric of the uniform. They’re not tangible, but you feel these things in your bones as if they were sold along with the experience. Either that, or you have some weird attraction to adrenaline, which is entirely plausible.

Alarming, then, that everything and everyone seems to be moving in real time. Where is that cruel, romantic call to battle? Why does everything feel so serene, so…real? Is it just your mind playing tricks on you? 

Usually when you lean forward on your horse or any horse, you’re used to a number of alarm bells going off in your head. Now, you feel nothing but the pleasant air. It’s a good feeling, but incredibly jarring. And it’s concerning, because you have to focus. You’re outside the walls, much as the lack of titans keeps trying to fool you from the fact. A few meters or a few miles or maybe even a few footsteps away, the Armored, Colossal and Beast Titans are waiting patiently. 

A few months ago, you saw the Armored. In today’s best case scenario, you won’t have to see the others before they are swiftly dealt with in their human forms. But even that sounds…dark, at the very least. Back in your hometown, Annie Leonhart sleeps soundly (at least, you think she’s sleeping) and provides no answers. The commander has all but said that the only way to ensure victory today is to kill the enemy shifters, but then the question remains—who will actually provide the truth that the regiment has been searching for for a hundred years? 

Are all the eggs going to reside in the basket of Eren’s basement?

Thinking about that is not focusing, you decide firmly. As of right now, the main concern is surviving and winning, not figuring out all the whys of the universe. That is not your goal, and honestly never has been.

The answers you seek, what you would like to grab onto Annie Leonhart’s collar and scream, do not relate to how she became a titan and what her mission is. What you want to know is whether the mission was worth stomping out the lives of so many soldiers. If your friends were necessary sacrifices, or just collateral damage.

Whatever the answer is, that is the closure you really require. 

Which is why it’s perhaps a good thing that the rest of the Scouts will operate on a kill-first-check-basement-later basis. Should things be left up to you, you would show much more mercy to get the answers you seek.

Brandishing your swords, you place a soft kiss atop Horsey’s mane, quietly thanking him for riding into battle with you for so many years.

Then you stand, and at Levi’s signal, you jump.

All the Scouts, including many new recruits, fly into the air alongside you, swerving past houses. You dash your way to the front until you’re by Levi’s side, ducking under him as you approach the gaping hole in Wall Maria. It’s huge, something not even a giant boulder would necessarily be able to cover, but it’s okay, because Eren can do it, and he will. All of you will be at his side until he accomplishes what he came here to do.

You fly up, up, up until you’re at the top of the wall, and you land smoothly with the grand view of Shiganshina before you.

“Shit,” someone whispers. You turn and Ricky is next to you, looking a bit sick as he gazes upon the town. 

Slipping your hand in his, you raise up a flare gun and fire the first shot, signaling the operation has begun in earnest. “We’ll win today,” you promise him. He doesn’t look at you, only continues to look morosely upon his father and sister’s final resting place, but his shaky hand squeezes yours.

“Good luck, kid,” he finally manages, in a choked voice. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

Reaching up, you plant a kiss on his cheek. “See you then.” 

He runs off, and you leap in the opposite direction, scaling the wall with sharp eyes. No sign of sudden movement, and no abnormal titan to be found. It’s still only the sound of the wind and all the zipping from the ODM gear in your ears and nothing else.

Everything about your environment suggests a quietly abandoned town, when you know that is the furthest thing from the truth. This city was the first tragedy, the first real indication to everyone that this was not an unfortunate coincidence but an actual attack.

Even then, you could say that humanity was the victim. But now, with titan shifters and corrupt royal governments, the truth might be twisted enough to reveal that you did this to yourselves.

Again, you’re wildly off track. Your job today is to help Eren plug up the holes and then kill the enemies. A goal, one dimensional, as all things must be for war to flourish.

Sweet Rose—being a philosopher or an actor would have really suited you more. This is it, no more introspective thoughts until the battle is done and over with. 

A flash of green goes up. Hange. Landing next to Jean, you give him the go ahead and he fires one as well, followed by another a few soldiers down, and another. The final flash is by Eren himself, not from a flare gun but his transformation.

“I have a nasty feeling in my stomach,” Jean mutters, “like something is about to go wrong at any second. I’m being ridiculous, right?”

Your eyes stay on Eren’s titan form as he begins to glow blue, sealing up the wall. “Focus more on staying alert than feelings in your stomach.”

“Thanks,”  he responds grouchily. Only a few seconds later do you realize you’re slipping into old habits. Almost subconsciously, your body remembered that you’d been laughing moments before Gunther was killed.

But then, Jean had nothing to do with that. You’re assuming direct causation when you know the real answer is extremely unlucky correlation. And that…is still not what you should be thiking about right now.

Two flares confirm that one wall is sealed up. With that, you begin to run, keeping everything in your peripheral under close watch. There is only so much the Armored Titan and Colossal Titan will allow you to accomplish before intervening. You almost expect that they will come out from beneath your feet, crushing all the silly little human fools on top of them.

But they don’t. You’re still standing, still running. The way the straps from your gear dig into your thighs prove that fact. 

“Captain Levi.” The man turns to you, along with Hange. “No shifters in sight, sir.”

Hange is the one who answers. “Good. Doesn’t look like we have any titan spottings either.” 

She leaves to check on Eren, but Levi stays next to you, meeting your furrowed brows with his own demanding stare. “What is it?”

“Something is off.”

“I know. Keep your eyes open. Hey.” He tugs your hood down just slightly more. “I know that look. If something happens, you don’t hesitate.”

Levi never beats around the bush. You admire him for it. “Yes, sir.”

The two of you follow the other soldiers as they start to run. A part of you wants to shed your cloak, if only to draw the enemy out, to shout here I am! come get me! because maybe that would be better than this creeping suspense that keeps building. 

When you switch back to ODM gear, zooming across the wall, it’s only a glance at Levi’s set expression that you need to continue. He’s still here. His judgment is sound where yours isn’t, and vice versa. As long as you remain by his side, things will make sense.

A flash is heard, and when you look up there is red smoke.

“That’s the signal to halt the mission!”

“Everyone, scatter and stand by on top of the wall!” Hange shouts. Levi is already moving up, and you’re right behind him. 

“My squad, with me!” he orders. “Move towards Erwin!”

Mild suspense rears into ugly anxiety. Something has gone wrong. But you don’t worry, not yet. Levi may be the captain, but you are still the lieutenant that follows his orders quickly and efficiently. 

“What are they doing?” It seems like some soldiers have begun to lower themselves off the wall, slowly making their way down. 

“Searching,” the commander answers for you as you land next to him. “Arlert has proposed a theory—that Reiner, Bertholdt, or one of their allies is hiding inside the wall.”

“Inside?” Your brows furrow. “Oh! The titan in Stohess—“

“Precisely. Levi. (F/N). I want both of you at the edge.” Be ready, is the nonverbal demand. 

You obey, looking down with your swords out. Swallowing slightly at the number of soldiers in such a vulnerable position, you call out to Armin. 

“Hey!” When he looks up, you mouth at him, not wanting to get loud just in case his theory is correct as per usual.

Good strategy. Don’t get too close.

Armin nods at you, mouthing back. I won’t.

Before you can even think of mouthing something back, the soldier next to Armin yells. “Right here! This part of the wall is hollow!”

That’s the last thing he says before a sword is run through his chest.

In the time it takes for you to gasp, even in the second that your mouth is opening, before a single sound can escape your throat at the cruel, bloody murder, Levi is already moving. Reiner Braun jumps out of the wall, his sword stained with the soldier’s blood, the first enemy exposed.

And by the time you actually gasp, Levi’s sword is lodged in Reiner’s neck. 

“Captain!” you shriek, jumping without thinking. Instinct hooks your wires into the wall as you drop, but Levi is flying up already, furious. 

“Shit!”

“Captain?”

“What are these guys made of? A blade to the neck and the bastard still won’t die!”

A blinding light shoves you back, and it’s all you can do to hold Armin against the wall. In just a few seconds, you are face to face with the Armored Titan, a much closer, much more terrifying proximity than last time. 

“Move up!” you order Armin. “To the top of the wall!”

He flies out of your sight and you dig your sword in next to Levi. “Any chance he’ll die in there? You hit him in the neck, right?”

“I didn’t get the nape.” His teeth are bared, wild anger in his pupils. Despite moving faster than anyone else, even he couldn’t get the drop on the titan. “I hit him in the chest too, but he’ll heal.”

Unlike the soldier he stabbed. You feel a jolt of anger too, but there’s no way to engage from this position. One hit and your blades will shatter.

“Keep your eyes open!” you hear Erwin shout from above. “We still need to find his allies!”

There’s a crackle, and then—

Several crackles.

The next thing you know, Erwin is screaming something else.

“Incoming boulder! Get down!”

Levi grabs you by the cape, securing you to him as the whole wall shakes. Screams litter the air and your alarmed eyes meet his. Smoke rises up, getting in your eyes.

Fuck. They blocked the entrance.

You move up with the smoke, coughing as you land by the others. Levi is next to you in an instant, glaring down the source of the boulder, a large, hairy titan standing in the middle of an army of them.

There he is.

Mike Squad’s killer. The bout of fury you feel is unmatched, knowing how different the odds are without some of the best soldiers in the Corp standing by your side. There are at least twenty large titans on each side of him.

“Commander,” your captain says, “he’s about to climb.”

This seems as good a time as any to bear forward Hange’s most brilliant invention. Strapping a Thunderspear on, you step up to the edge, moving your elbow back right as the Armored Titan grips onto the wall. He’s going to try and get to Eren, but you’ll make sure he doesn’t. A classic game of cat and mouse, except this time, the titan will play the mouse for once.

It won’t be the cat that gets blown to smithereens.

All you need is the command, but instead of that you hear something else entirely.

The next thing you know, several small titans are charging towards the wall at full speed.

Something strikes you in the chest, puncturing your heart in horror. The horses.

“Sir? What now? The Armored Titan is almost up! Bertholdt hasn’t shown yet, but he must be nearby!” 

“Yes, I’m well aware.” Erwin hasn’t moved, hasn’t said anything, he only stares down the Beast Titan and you think his mind must be going a mile a minute. If he doesn’t act soon, this is going to be a bloodbath. 

But even if he does act soon, the bloodbath isn’t off the table. They’re attacking on both sides, leaving no time for anyone to strategize.

“Let me blow him to pieces,” you growl, “Either of them. We blow up the nape and they’re ours for the taking.”

“No need,” comes the order, finally. “Dirk Squad, and Marlene Squad too! Join Klaus Squad and Belle Squad and protect the horses at the gate! Levi Squad and Hange Squad, I need you to take down the Armored Titan!”

Oh, you’ll gladly do that.

“Deploy the Thunderspears at your own discretion! Do whatever it takes to achieve your objective! This is our moment! Our chance to strike! The fate of humankind depends on this battle! Lay down your heart and lives, one final time, for humanity!”

He’s met with the chilling cries of at least a hundred people shouting, “Yes, sir!”

Your voice is among them. For the very first time, Erwin’s words strike you the same way Shadis’ words had the day Wall Maria fell.

It’s been five years.

It’s time to end this. It lies in your hands. All your hands.

“Hey, hold on, you three.” Right before you can jump off the wall, the commander halts you. “Hange can lead both your squads. I’m gonna need you right here, Levi.”

That doesn’t make sense—for one, Eren is the most valuable asset and should have Levi protecting him, and second, even if he’s needed on the other side of the wall, why would you not go with the rest of the squad?

���So I’ll protect the horses instead of Eren?”

“That’s right. And when the chance arises, you’ll strike him down.” A sharp blade is pointed in the direction of the leader of the pack, who is still sitting, watching, waiting. “You’re the only soldier I can trust to dispatch the Beast Titan.” Without even moving his head, Erwin’s gaze falls behind Levi, to you. “We have to kill him, one way or another.”

Should the Beast catch on, his eyes read, you will make sure he still gets there.

“Understood, sir. I wasn’t fast enough to finish off the Armored one earlier, but I’ll atone for that by taking the Beast Titan’s head. Lieutenant, with me.” Levi gives Erwin a meaningful look before jumping off the wall.

You squeeze Armin’s shoulder once more, then follow.

The second your feet touch the ground, Levi doesn’t waste any time. “We have to spread out. Some of the horses getting killed will still be a better outcome than all of them biting the dust. I’m going to go back up the other squads. You guide the recruits through, we don’t need any more meaningless deaths.”

All deaths seem meaningless, something you and Levi agree on. It’s a good way of telling you not to let anyone die. 

“Yes, sir.” You’re up in the air again, quickly finding a rooftop to scour the grounds from. If only this fight was in an area you were familiar with, or had even seen before. Wall Maria is a mystery, a mystery you have no time to unravel.

Turning your head this way and that, you compare. The recruits have already scattered, either because of orders or their own fear, but the reason is irrelevant. The largest group is uncomfortably close to the incoming onslaught of titans.

Maria, you hate titans, even if that’s not politically correct to do anymore.

Flying towards them at full speed, you land right before they turn the corner, right as one of the titans does. 

“Go back!” you roar. “Do not engage unless you have to!” 

One of them squeaks, but your swords have been out, and as the titan reaches out, you turn on your heel and slice its fingers off. “Go,” you snarl, not a fan of repeating yourself in this situation, “go!”

And once you hear the hooves fading away, you’re free to dance. 

Battle has always been like ballet. Your body moves the same way it did in your lessons. The same moves too—plier, glisser, sauter. In fact, if the titan wasn’t here, you’d look like you were putting on a silent performance for a silent audience. Your least favorite kind, what was the point of those recitals without applause?

At least this time, when you jump, spin, and cut open a titan’s nape, you have the spatter of its blood on your cape as the cry for an encore. An encore the crowd wants, an encore they shall get.

The recruits should have run, but the titans must be scattering now as well, so you give chase after them. Most of the senior Scouts are in the air, but they’re so preoccupied with keeping the titans at bay that they’re not able to handle the ones that have already started to go in deeper.

Finally, you catch up with the recruits from earlier. “Too many of you are here together. I see Sonia over there on that roof, three of you move towards her. And you two come with me. Quickly!”

One of the boys you have follow you is Marlowe, one of the MPs who had helped when the Scouts were being hunted by the government. The other is a redhead, who you don’t recognize and who has more sweat on his face than his horse has fur on his mane.

“Let’s be smart now.” Discarding one of your blades that has turned dull and brandishing a new one, you motion for the boys to do the same. “I know you need a hand free for the horses, but keep at least one sword out or you’ll die.”

Necessary fear mongering, unfortunately. Your orders were to keep them alive, and when everyone is safe you can concern yourself with keeping them happy.

Smaller titans are easier to fight, but they don’t make as much noise clambering around, so you don’t know one is there until it’s on top of you. As you lead the boys through the town, you pray that the Scouts deal with the titans before everyone gets cornered. There’s a number of surprise attacks, but nothing that either you or one of the other members isn’t able to take care of. 

Until—

Goddammit.

You almost knock the wind out of Marlowe when you pin him and the redhead both to the wall before they can advance. The boys are louder than the horses—you wince before peering over the side again. 

Three staggering titans clamber aimlessly towards where you’re standing. They’ll be upon you in a minute, and even if you could take them out one by one, there’s no way at least one of the boys won’t get grabbed while you’re occupied. 

“Back the other way,” you hiss, but the three of you freeze again, seeing two walking from that direction as well. They’d been hot on your trail the whole time.

Shit, cornered exactly as you’d predicted. Hadn’t your grandmother suggested naming you Cassandra? Fucking gift of prophecy did little to help you now.

“What do we do?” the redhead whispers in terror, petrified. “Marlowe?”

“I—” Marlowe swallows, calmer than his comrade but still looking like flames were creeping up his skin. “I don’t know.”

“Listen to me.” You point your blade straight ahead. “Don’t turn, don’t take any detours. Both of you will go straight through with the horses. Run as fast as you can.”

“When they see us, they’ll break out into a run too!”

“You’ll let me handle that. Boys,” you order firmly. “It’s not a request. Go before we all get eaten.”

Marlowe takes a staggering breath, nodding. “Yes, sir. Come on,” he nudges the redhead forward. “Let’s go.”

With a single whimper heard, they run. 

And just as the redhead said, all three titans give chase.

The second they’d taken a step out, you’d flown up high onto the roof. One of them screams, but you do your best to ignore it, because this needs to be timed perfectly.

They have to go after them. They have to get close.

Wisps of hair brush to the left as the titans rush past you, and that’s when you jump again, diving past the first two and straight towards the one that’s already reaching an arm out to grab them. Your feet plant on the titan’s back, and you need both of your swords to make a clean cut straight across the nape, sending the titan barreling down to the ground on its stomach.

You stand on top of it, victorious. 

The redhead’s eyes are wide in awe as the other two titans barrel forward, both stumbling on the corpse of the first one. Using a trick you learned from Levi after much begging, you hook one of your wires into the wall and propel towards the other side, capturing the titan’s neck in your wire. A spin then gets you close to dig your blades into this one too.

Its body tumbles sideways, full on crashing into the third, which collapses front facing as well. With such an inviting opening, you jump from the falling body onto the already fallen, and with one sword this time, easily kill the final one.

Just like that, they’re dead and acting as a blockade for the other two.

“Lieutenant,” Marlowe manages to get out, “You…that was…”

“The titans have size on us.” Urging the horses forward, you motion for them to make for an opening. “We have brains on them. If you can remember that, we’ll survive this.”

Just then, as if to taunt you, a loud boom shakes the entire ground, and all three of your heads snap to the wall. A flash of light and an explosion light up the sky, sending everyone reeling back. Your chest lurches.

It must be the Colossal. Nothing else could have made that much of a blast. 

With that, you bark at the recruits to go towards the other Scouts, zipping off without listening to any protests. Orders could change now that another titan’s on the other side of the wall. You hope the squads have taken care of the Armored by now, but if they haven’t, if they are now fighting the Colossal as well, they will need immediate backup.

From so far down below, you can still see the commander, whose back is turned towards Shiganshina. Going all the way towards him will consume too much time, so instead you fly towards where you see Levi, landing on the roof in front of him, with a vantage of the Beast Titan in front of you.

“You saw that, right? What should we do?”

“Hange and the others might have taken a hit.” Levi’s glare settles over your shoulder. “Hold down the fort here, I need to go on the other side of the—”

Something catches your eye. The Beast Titan has been mostly still thus far, but his arm moves, almost in a flash.

At first, you think he’s thrown another large boulder, but you don’t see anything.

Until you see many, many…

Many somethings.

With a gasp, you whirl Levi around by the shoulders, right as something sharp cuts your cheek. A drop of your blood lands on his cheek too.

For a split second both of you stare at each other, equally wide-eyed.

Then, his nails dig into your back and he crushes you against his chest as screams erupt in every direction.

Over his uniform, Levi’s heart pounds. Or, maybe, that’s your own heart, thrumming in beat with the sound of the drums. The drums? Of battle?

In the manner of a blushing bride, you pull away from Levi to turn your head over your shoulder, only to be greeted by dark, dripping crimson. Crimson like the corner spots of the beds in the hospital wing. Crimson like the taste of fresh scars on skin. Crimson like the color that dirties white bandages and orange uniforms every time without fail.

Beautiful red crimson stains the grass. Everywhere you look, everywhere there was a soldier standing, there is now only crimson—crimson—blood.

Unable to speak properly, your voice catches in your throat. “Cap…tain…”

Through the crimson mist, you see the Beast Titan’s arm move again.

“No!” you shriek frantically, jumping off the roof. “Fall back!”

Erwin’s scream tears through your ears. “Frontal bombardment! All troops, take cover now!”

“Get down!” Levi roars.

None of these words do anything to stop the assault. That hairy arm reels back, and a heavy foot steps forward.

Flying straight into the hazy red cloud, you spot banana blonde right away. His cloak is splattered with both fading and unfading blood.

Your best friend doesn’t see the rocks coming as he herds people back.

“Ricky!” He doesn’t hear your screech, even as you’re diving down. 

Something tears into your left arm the second you tackle him behind one of the houses, both of you hitting the ground hard. Your cry of pain doesn’t even reach your own ears, drowned out by the second wave of casualties. 

He’s holding you so tightly you can’t breathe, but for all you know it’s the panic that’s choking you instead. You’re squeezing him just as tight, not even swallowing as structures break on every corner.

It’s as though cannon fire is exploding around you, as though the screams are puncturing your eardrums, as though you can taste the metallic flavor of blood on your tongue. You’ve been in plenty of war zones, but never have you witnessed destruction on a level like this. 

“(F/N), the recruits,” Ricky gasps, the trepidation dawning on his face, “we have to get them back—shit, your arm—”

“I’m fine.” There’s no time to think, you don’t know when the next attack will be. You tear a piece of your cape off as you stand, tying it firmly around the cut. “We gotta go. We gotta go!”

“I know, I know. This way.” An underlying panic laces his words, but you two run on adrenaline alone, shoving any of the remaining soldiers back as well, most of them new recruits. Dead bodies whose pulses you don’t even need to check are strewn everywhere, faces of friends and comrades who you have known for years. The initial panic bleeds into a hot, bubbling, terrifying realization.

You understand now. This isn’t going to be a battle, no. 

It’ll be a massacre. It already is. The Beast Titan intends to destroy the Survey Corp right here and right now. 

But you’re not dead yet. Against all odds, you’re still standing, despite titans and titan shifters and giant boulders’ best efforts. You’re running, Ricky is running, alongside the other survivors, everyone spreading like a wildfire. And as long as you’re alive, you’ll do what you do best and preserve every life the enemy wants to snuff out. Starting with the redheaded boy you met earlier, who you see up ahead is screaming in place on the ground, with Levi snarling at him. 

“You wanna die!? Get up!”

“I’ll take him,” you say, right as Commander Erwin comes down from the wall. 

Levi’s gaze falls down to your arm, his face hardens, and then he turns around without another word. 

A strange, completely ridiculous time to feel such a rush of appreciation that he knows what the priority is, but there it is anyway. The rush of the fight is keeping your arm from stinging too badly anyways, so it’s truly the farthest thing from your mind right now.

The first thing is to get this recruit to safety. 

“Come on, kid, we have to move.” The boy doesn’t twitch so much as a muscle. “Now!”

Even though he opens his mouth, no words come out. His face is soaked with tears, and your first instinct is to snap at him that if he wants to die, you have no problem leaving him here.

Your hand shakes. On the other side of the wall, there was an explosion. If Jean was caught in that explosion, then the last thing he’d have heard you say was a reprimand.

Your knees hit the ground as a fresh wave of rocks shake the ground. Pained, you realize that anything left of the Survey Corp is behind you, because there is no one left. Your comrades. Your friends. All gone, gone, gone.

Gripping his shoulders, you force the kid to look up. “What’s your name?” you muster in the least shaky voice you can.

He swallows, looking straight at you, trembling even with your hold on him. After a long, long second, he forces out, “Floch.”

“Do you want to win, Floch?”

It barely seems like he’s in the moment with you. “W-what?”

“Do you want to win?” One jerk of a head is hardly a nod, but you take it as such anyways. Anything to make him move, anything to keep him alive. “You won’t win sitting here, I promise you. No matter what, you’ll have to move if you want to win. I can’t say for sure if we’ll have a victory, but we will have a defeat if we keep sitting here. And until you get up, I won’t get up either. So either we both move, or we both lose.” Faintly, someone screams. “It’s your choice.”

Red pebbles roll over by your feet from the latest blow. The Beast Titan has no disadvantage. If he wants to, he can walk a bit closer, and make sure there isn’t a single building or person left undecimated.

There’s too much at stake for you to die here. But still, you hold the crying kid up, gently whispering come on, come on floch, let’s go until finally, he wipes his tears with the back of his hand, even as more pour down. Then he stands, allowing you to pull him up, before joining the others with a bowed head, clenched fists and no words left to hide behind. As though to stop the tears, his eyes are squeezed shut.

Even if you close your eyes, you can't ignore the stench of death in the air.

Ricky catches your hand in his, shaking his head at the despairing question in your eyes. “It’s bad,” he says, gaze turning from you to the proud beast beyond, “the commander says the colossal might have taken out Hange and Levi Squad. Everyone, get down!”

You duck, barely, but none of the rocks hit this time. The way your hand is shaking, making the Thunderspear on your right arm go clack, clack, clack against your gear keeps you in the present, but only to fantasize about putting the spear through the Beast Titan’s nape. Your left arm stings, dirtying the cloth you’ve wrapped around it. 

There’s another crash, but this one doesn’t come from the boulders. In horror, you look up to see Eren…or more accurately Eren’s titan, sprawled on top of Wall Maria. 

Maria.

They have the Scouts cornered. Only the Colossal could have thrown Eren like that, meaning that both sides are equally lost.

Weakly, you stagger back. Is this it? The end of humanity? After the Beast Titan kills you and Ricky, will it move all the way to Sina, and take Millie’s life too?

Just to mock you, more jagged rocks hit the houses, bringing down another set closer and closer to the Corp.

The redhead, Floch, is screaming something. It reaches your ears, but bounces off, fading to nothingness as you look at the battlefield. It’s been leveled, only a few more kilometers left before there is no cover, before everyone dies. Even if everyone scaled the walls, the Colossal would either crush them or burn them, or both. Now more than ever, death looms on every path. No escape. No maneuver.

And some people would say it was worth it. For the truth, for freedom, any price can be paid. You were content with your freedom atop the wall, where most titans couldn’t reach, where you could see vast lands and wave to smiling people starting their days in the bare cracks of morning. Freedom was leaving Stohess. Freedom was letting go of your selfishness. Freedom was falling in love.

Wouldn’t you get bored? you ask yourself in a voice that sounds like your mother’s, but the question is met with a swift answer. Not with him. It would have been enough. By his side? It would have always been enough. You’d never be bored. 

Well, you’re by his side now. You’re definitely not bored. And you already achieved freedom. So really, there’s nothing else left to do but return to where you belong. 

Even now, you seem to be more focused on your thoughts rather than the fight. You want to wonder if that’s a good thing, but that would only be adding to the point. 

“I’m gonna go after the Beast Titan,” Levi is saying when you step next to him, “I’ll draw him away somehow and—”

“You can’t,” Erwin cuts in, so your protest dies on your tongue, “you won’t even make it near him.”

“Probably not. But, if you and Eren make it home alive…all things considered, I feel like it’s the best we can ask for. We’ve been brutalized.” He meets your eyes, broken but honest grays pouring into you. “To be honest, sir,” referring to Erwin but directed at you, “it seems like this battle will be where the Scout Regiment gets finished off.”

Till the end, (F/N)?

It would be so inappropriate to give him a last kiss.

Till the end, Levi.

But before either of you can make any more death pacts, Erwin hums, “Yes, if we had no way to fight back then you would be right.”

Both your heads sharply turn at the same time, and Levi questions disbelievingly, as though he thinks Erwin would ever lie to him, “Is there a way?”

“There is.”

Normally, at least a bead of relief would blossom in your heart, but not after the 57th expedition. Not after Stohess and not after you abandoned your best friend to save the man. If Erwin does have a way out of this, it will not be an easy way out, or even just a difficult one. His form of winning will be just as brutal as losing, you’ve learned. Even a victory will feel like a loss, like winning by dancing with the devil.

“The plan could go a few ways. Best case, you’ll have a decent chance of killing the Beast Titan. But for it to succeed, the recruits and I have to die.”

Never, never in a million years, did you predict the devil would be offering himself up on a silver platter.

“The Survey Corp may survive,” he continues, “but regardless, most of us will end up dead. Frankly, we’re almost guaranteed to be defeated no matter what.”

“So you’re giving up?” you ask incredulously. “We have other options! Why do you always resort to killing kids?”

Erwin has never responded to your jibes in a satisfying way. He either made you feel belittled by either not addressing you purposefully or leaving you out of his tight-knit group of friends, or he just ignored you, in a way demonstrating how little you mattered to him. It was so unlike Levi back in the day, who’d at the very least punished you for insubordination when he pleased. And you didn’t really care to pursue a plan to get a reaction out of him like you did with Levi before, but now, you wish he’d scold you. You wish he’d scream at you, even strike you down.

Anything other than a slight smile and a humorless chuckle. “Old habits die hard, I’m afraid.”

“So…so…” The words struggle to form. “Captain Levi kills the Beast Titan and the rest of just…just lay down and die?”

It’s cruel. Cruel beyond imagination. And even if it’s poor form to worry about those who will survive instead of those who’ll die, the thought of Levi, all alone even in victory makes you want to break down just like the houses and children surrounding you.

Erwin hesitates, then adds, “You’ll go with Levi.”

An uncomfortable, pregnant pause falls over all three of you. Your captain is the first to break it.

“Erwin—”

“Is this you being nice?” You almost want to scream too little, too late. “Some last merciful act?”

Your title as lieutenant and his as commander doesn’t even matter anymore. The Corp is dead. As far as you care, you’re ranked just as highly as Erwin now.

“I wish it could be.” With a tired, aged gesture, he points towards the Beast. “Arlert made a good point earlier. The reason the enemy keeps winning is because they simply know more about titans than we do. Something unexpected could happen even if Levi does sneak up on the bastard. Frankly put,” and you’ve never seen him look so unspeakably sorry about something in all the time you’ve known him, “I need a safety net.”

Well, at least he’s honest about his intentions. “You’re shitty,” Levi informs him in a tone of voice that sounds flat, but his jaw is set furiously. There’s no bite in his words, nor do you want there to be. Neither of you are angry about these orders. For once, you both feel the same thing towards Erwin, this consuming betrayal that he would do this to himself now, when the world still needs him. Levi still needs him—does he not know why Levi fights?

Of course he knows. The amount of possibilities running through his head isn’t matched by any other. If this is the plan he’s suggesting, that means he’s weighed all others and seen inevitable defeat. You’ve seen Erwin be a lot of things, proud and ruthless and cunning, but you’ve never seen him be wrong.

You scoff. “So I go with him, and the rest die. You, a-and the recruits, and—”

“And me,” a voice says softly from behind you. You know that voice, you’ve known that voice longer than you’ve known anyone else’s voice here.

In a manner so vulnerable that it’d be far better suited for a girl ten years your junior, you turn. For a fleeting second, you’re young again. In the barracks. Out in the field sparring. At the top of a snowy mountain, with a hand not warming you up but freezing you even more. Unable to control your laugh because his own is the most contagious one you’ve ever heard. How many hours have you wasted away with that voice? 

You joined the Survey Corp, that should be enough to prepare you for the cold hard facts—no one is safe. Not your squad, not Stephen, not even the commander himself. Not you. There isn’t any evidence, nor any reason, for you to believe that he would live. You’ve considered his death so many times, almost seen it happen even more times than that. It’s plagued your nightmares moreso than anyone else’s demise has. And why? Maybe because his banana-colored hair would look the worst matted with blood. Maybe because you learned to laugh again by his side. Maybe because he’s your best friend.

It’s simply impossible to keep the tremor out of your voice. “Ricky,” you choke out, voice cracking as your throat closes up.

“Hey, hey, what’s that face, kid?” He cups your cheeks in his hands, like life hasn’t completely screwed him over. He kisses your forehead, nodding at the captain and commander behind you, and you hear them walk off, talking in quiet voices. Discussing the plan, the plan, the plan to kill everyone. “You’re not gonna get all weepy for a peasant, are you?”

“I can’t,” you beg, as he pulls you into a weak hug, so unlike his usual tight embraces. Your fist clutches the back of his uniform. Above him, dozens and dozens of rocks strike the wall, trickling down like nothing. “I don’t want you to go. Not you, Ricky, please.”

Almost every friend you’ve lost in the Scouts has been taken from you suddenly, no chance given to say goodbye. You wonder if that was the universe’s way of being merciful, rescuing you from this destroying experience of knowing what’s coming and not being able to do anything to stop it. But acknowledging that would mean giving some credit to the universe, and you’d rather stand in the line of fire than do that. The universe didn’t have to force Ricky Belle to grow up in a world like this. 

He’s so peaceful now. Ricky was always emotional, crying at every death, wetting your uniform with his tears every time someone he so much as interacted with once got killed. But now, faced with the prospect of his own finality, his eyes aren’t even wet. You hate it—maturity shouldn’t mean that suddenly he greets death like an old lover. Wait until Lily sees this, you think, spitefully.

“Come on, twerp, what are my options?” Pulling back with his arms still around you, Ricky grins. “It’s either the rocks or thirdwheeling with you two lovebirds. You know I can’t be there when the heat of the battle has you two ripping each others’ clothes off right there on the grass.”

“That’s disgusting,” but a pained laugh escapes you anyway, somehow, even though the motion hurts your chest. “Ricky, what, what am I going to tell Millie?”

“Same thing I’ll tell Stephen.” He tucks a stray hair behind your ear. “That it’s been fun, but it’s time to go. At least I won’t be, uh, how did you say it, titan chow, right?”

Stephen. Ricky and Stephen. Stephen and Ricky. Your boys. Your friends. Your family. Half the reason you were in the Scouts in the first place. With both of them gone, what—what—what is the point? If Levi takes down the Beast Titan, there will still be nothing left back home. The people who deserved to see a bright future the most were snuffed out before they even caught a glimpse.

“I was supposed to protect you,” you stress. Ricky isn’t even shaking. “I can’t just let you go.”

The corners of his lips quirk upwards. “It was pretty easy for you before.”

You go rigid, eyes widening and mouth falling open. You meet his gaze, shaking your head desperately, as though to deny him. To pretend like you never abandoned him, even though you did. To object that it was easy, because it wasn’t. It was the hardest, worst decision of your life, one you replayed every time you closed your eyes. You’ll never forget. Never, ever, as long as you live.

“No sorries.” Ricky silences you with a thumb over your lips, the second the first apology is blurted out. “You did good, (F/N). You did what you had to do. Now let me do the same. Please?”

Maria, how much does this universe expect you to give? What a cruel thing to do, to ask your consent to let Ricky die. It has to be a punishment. This heart of yours has loved so deeply, and so it’ll bleed just as much. Equilibrium and all that shit.

“It’ll be just like our game. I’ll be hiding up there, in the stars, and you’ll have to find me.” His eyes twinkle, and with bated breath he hugs you again, this time with his usual fierceness, burying his face in your hair. “You’ll do it, kid, I know you will.”

Well, then, you’re defeated. With a last inhale, you do your best to memorize his scent. And then you whisper, “Okay.”

For the last time, you say goodbye to Ricky Belle.

And you turn around in time to see Levi, kneeled down, saying his final goodbye to Erwin Smith.

Times like these, you wish you were religious. So that you could clasp your hands together and scream at the sky please! spare us! i beg of you, forgive our sins and save us! If not to give these crying children something to pray to, then at least to comfort yourself that they won’t just go from this hell to a more fiery one.

“Everyone!” The commander’s voice is a stab to the stomach. “I’m about to announce our final mission. All troops, line up!”

Hands cup your forearms, then make their way down. Levi’s face is stony, but his course, tender hands compress your elbows, covered by your uniform. And yet it still feels like you can feel the rough calluses on your skin, almost lifting you up before you can sink. How rotten it would be for morale if the soldiers saw the two who didn’t have to sacrifice themselves embrace in comfort. So instead, you squeeze his arms too, keeping him rooted as he keeps you from falling.

It’s not like you have any words left to say. Both your eyes bore into his, and you shake your head slowly, letting him know that only you can see the piece of his heart that is now broken off. His throat bobs, and then he reaches up to wipe a tear that was never there from your cheek. Amidst the screams, he reminds you that you, too, are human.

“I told him to do it,” Levi admits, quietly and wildly. “It was my decision, in the end.”

The kind of confession he’s trying to make is best achieved over a glass of wine, after a good first glass has already been savored. When you can, after listening to every word with your utmost attention, pull him into your chest, and let him rest there, kissing his forehead whether he lets a few tears drop on your skin or not.

You can’t possibly hope to do that when so many rocks and screams and people are blinding you. Levi could admit to twisting the knife in Erwin’s stomach and you would only nod, and continue to hold onto him like you were his lifeline and he yours.

All else will have to fade until the reason for this sacrifice is dealt with.

Casting a blank glare upon the enemy, you finally, finally focus. “Tell me what the plan is.”

Levi’s head follows yours. “Me and you. We’ll take down the Beast Titan.” And everyone else will perish. “Will you do it?”

The way he doesn’t even need to look at you to know what your answer will be steadies you. Your hand slips down to his, discreetly intertwining your fingers. You can take it. You won’t let anything destroy you again, much as your heart will tear and your stomach will curdle. At these soldiers’ funerals, you’ll lift your head high and make sure their souls know they can count on you to make sure they are never forgotten.

For Stephen. For Nifa. For Rashad. For Gunther. For Traute. For Petra.

For Ricky.

“We’ll move in from the side. Use the bastards’ own guards to get closer to him. And then,” Captain Levi promises, with his nails digging into your palm as a swear, “we’ll make sure these deaths mean something.”

And so you find yourself on Erwin’s right, Levi on his left, facing down the soldiers who will give their lives at just the chance for your victory.

The commander yells, a terrible, horrible, wonderful speech that is not for you, but creates a pit in your stomach and a roar in your chest nonetheless. The entire time, you don’t tear your eyes off Ricky for a second. After he salutes, he’s the first to mount his horse. It takes Levi’s grip on your arm for you to look away.

And the last thing you do for Commander Erwin is give him the most genuine salute you have ever given anyone, one fist over your chest and one on your back. 

Your heart and soul to the cause.

Behind you, you think you feel Levi give one as well, but it’s gone by the time you turn, and he begins to walk, starting the operation in earnest.

First you jog, then pick up the pace, then run, until you and Levi are almost racing. Possibly the only two surviving members of the Survey Corp. You’d find it romantic if it wasn’t so horrifying. Here it is, the sentimentalism of battle, because Levi doesn’t need to tell you to go ahead. He doesn’t need to tell you when to shoot your cables. He doesn’t need to tell you when to follow him into the air, because he’ll hardly breathe before you’re next to him. He needs only to be, and you will be right beside him.

This is a dream, one born from countless disturbing fantasies, of flying and falling and falling in love, all by his side. Your captain, your lover, your duke of destruction, your husband, your superior. It’s a nightmare, a nightmare you’ll never wake from because it’s all too real, but how many times have you felt like this, flying next to him? Nothing has ever clicked so well, so fast, so perfectly.

It’s as though the universe intended him for you, and you for him. Not only does Levi hold your heart, but he’s the one who made it beat in the first place. Hiding his laughter during the wee hours of the morning when you complained about your nonexistent neck cramps, he taught you love then. And now, with no one to hide from, now that he’s sure none of the soldiers can see him, you bear witness to his anguish, glassy eyes frozen by the wind on his face.

You don’t look at the source of the horses’ hooves thundering below you. You can’t.

Most people get drunk on alcohol. You do too, but not nearly as much as you get absolutely intoxicated fighting side by side with Levi Ackerman.

So it pains you to stop him at all, but you kick yourself out of the subspace you’ve fallen into to cope with the mass suicide charge. Before he can charge the first titan, you grab his arm. “Wait. Should we kill them?”

“We have to.” But even as he says it, the titan’s eyes shift towards the two of you, and yet it doesn’t move, just stays frozen in place. “Even if they won’t attack now, don’t you think they’ll provide him more cover later?”

“You’re not wrong. But we’re betting on this being a surprise, right? This is almost a guaranteed way of letting him know we’re coming. The smoke signals won’t matter if he hears us. Plus…” Your left arm throbs in pain suddenly, making your teeth grit. “I only have one pair of swords left.”

Again his fingers clasp around your elbow, murderous intent replacing the grief in his eyes as he stares down at your injury. “You could run,” he mutters, “there’s still time. Let me kill him.”

Unable to help it, your knuckles brush against his cheek, wiping away a drop of blood. “You’ll tell the commander to ride to his death, but you’ll spare me? That’s not right, Levi. I’m with you, now and always.”

He kisses you unexpectedly, tasting bitter but warm, and you’re sure any soldier would do the same if they realized they were all alone in the world, comrades slain all around them.  That’s how you justify moving your lips against his, standing almost sideways against the wall with your hooks keeping you upright. This is not passion—not even love, although you feel it within you anyways (love, love, love, you love him)—just the natural way of things. Just like fighting, just like flying, just like breathing. His hand rests on your neck, thumb on your cheek, making sure your skin will always remember his touch. “Okay,” he murmurs, when he pulls back. “We’ll do it your way.”

This time, your gaze follows his, and you lock onto your target. Don’t get too addicted to victory, asshole.

Levi jumps first, and you follow, hooking onto the titan before jumping to the next one, with no movement except the titans’ eyes on you. Your fingers twitch, muscle memory screaming at you to slash the neck when it’s so wide open, but you push down the urge and concentrate on counting.

From titan to titan, seven…twelve…eighteen...twenty-two…

Twenty-five. And, you’re assuming, twenty-five on the other side as well. Fifty in total. Fifty-one counting the Beast Titan.

On the back of the final one, your fist clenches. There are still soldiers screaming out there. Riding to their deaths. Ricky could be one of them. Or he could be dead already, lying in a pool of his own blood.

Either way, they didn’t take your partner in crime alive.

The Beast Titan is huge. He must have a few meters on Eren’s titan (please let Eren and others be okay), and the fur covering his body makes him look all the more intimidating. 

But he’s nothing compared to the man above you, who has blood around his eyes and blades in his hands. Under the rising soon, Levi is bathed like a holy figure, a great warrior of old, and he is in perfect position to strike. 

Now, he mouths.

You move at the same time as him, going down as he goes up, a move that has never wronged you before and doesn’t today. With a hook in the titan’s back, you rush down, sliding in between his legs with a slash to both of them. Up above you hear Levi snarl, and sure enough, the Beast’s throwing arm is gone. This will be a quick fight, you know it, because you can hear the pain in Levi’s normal grunts. This isn’t a fair fight, this is revenge.

With a roar and a hand to his nape, the Beast Titan falls forward, but Levi’s ready for that too—he slashes his eyes next, not even needing to worry about regeneration with his speed. You jump as the captain goes high, and take out the other arm.

And for the grand finale, you leap back and allow Levi his killing blow.

Out of the nape of the  monster a man is thrown out, with shaggy blonde hair and a beard, but that is all the observation you can make before your captain shoves his sword in his mouth. You swallow, but vault on top of the unmoving titan’s body, stepping next to him and staring down in contempt.

The Beast Titan. The destroyer of the Survey Corp. Just a man after all. 

“After transforming, if your body’s severely damaged, it’s too busy healing to let you resume your titan form. Isn’t that right?”

The man can’t answer. Levi knows he can’t answer. You wonder what it says about you that it still makes you wince when he rips the man’s cheek open.

“Hey,” he seethes, “I asked you a question. It’s only polite to answer.”

You’ve…won. A victory that surely isn’t worth it, but it’s still a victory. The Beast Titan has fallen, and Levi—Levi has the injection. If one of the soldiers—maybe Erwin, maybe one of the recruits, maybe—maybe Ricky, if any of them are still alive, then maybe—if there’s two, there will have to be a terrible choice made—but at least someone will be brought back—

The body you’re standing on shakes. 

Fifty-two, you realize in horror.

You don’t wait. 

In a second, your arms are around Levi’s waist and you’re tugging, both of you plummeting towards the ground. He doesn’t wait either, and before you can blink, he’s spun you around so that he’s landing on his back and you on top of him.

“No,” you gasp, looking up, but your protests don’t stop it. No matter how quickly you race to your feet, it does not halt this new titan, crawling on all fours, to escape with the bearded man in its mouth. 

Defeated words reach your ears. “Hey. Where are you going? Stop.”

With no sword in his mouth now, the man is free to scream. For the second time today, a blonde man shouts his orders for this battle. These orders, not for human soldiers.

“Go, now! Rip him to pieces!”

“Hold on.” Levi is still in disbelief—victory had been yours, was rightfully yours, a hundred dead soldiers could not amount to nothing. “I made a promise to Commander Erwin…that I would kill you no matter what it took.”

Hopelessly, you turn around. Titans are running towards you in both directions. Fifty left. More, for all you know. Clearly, you still know nothing.

“I promised!” he cries behind you. 

There is absolutely no way for Levi to catch him now. Even if the two of you could defeat all of them, the Beast Titan will be long gone, outside of everyone’s clutches. The Scouts…they died for this. The commander and Ricky charged to their deaths on the slim chance that you would win. And Levi, he made just one promise and there is no way for him to fulfill it unless…unless…

You look up at the titans coming. If Levi just didn’t have the rest on his trail, then he could fight his way through half of them and catch the man. But there is no way to do that with so many more behind him, unless…

Unless…

Unless.

Ah.

Ah. So you’re finally standing at the crossroads.

Hadn’t you known it would come to this? The fateful moment when it would irrevocably be your life versus his? Hadn’t you spent months preparing for such a moment, confronted that harsh reality even before you joined his squad? It must be why you’re not surprised. Oh, how you’ve changed since that bratty girl from Stohess stepped into the Training Corp. The girl who didn’t need to try to do anything. The girl who put her fears above her heart. The girl who kissed Levi before running away from him. Running away from Levi, what a dumb notion. Even if it is what fate has led you to in the end.

“Go.” It’s a whispered command—insubordination, you think wryly—but even with the titans’ bellowing footsteps, you’re sure he hears you. “I’ll hold them off.”

Levi says nothing, but you feel him stiffen behind you. 

With life playing cruel joke after joke on you, you’d be heartless to pay it forward and force him to make a choice between your life and Erwin’s orders. So you reassure him again, “I can keep them off you. If you go now, you’ll catch him.”

“And you’ll—”

“I have Hange’s death sticks.” Stick, not plural. “But yeah, um, this might be it.”

You feel his breath catch in his throat as if it were your own. And despite your best efforts, you know that it’s no less evil to do this to him. The image of humanity’s strongest, alone, hunched over with no one to lift him up, just the thought kills you already. But he isn’t the strongest just because he can fight. It’s because he is the best of humanity, which can take any pain and any hardship and still come back for more. Still, though, you’re not going to add to that burden. You’ll make damn sure the love of your life knows he doesn’t owe you anything. 

“You don’t have to promise.” The breeze carries your words so you don’t have to turn, but you lean back slightly, so the back of your head can touch the back of his. “But just live for me, yeah?”

Not even in your favorite novels does a bride go out in a blaze of glory the day after her wedding. You’re more kickass than any of them.

The titans will be upon you in seconds. There is no time for argument—maybe a love confession, but he’d swore to you he wouldn’t. And he doesn’t.

At the last second, he speaks clearly.

“I’ll see you,” Levi finally says, his voice and mind made up, “soon, (F/N).”

“Soon, Levi,” you promise.

As you step away, you wish you could have gotten a last look at him.

Two sets of hooks sound in different directions as you fly up, tossing your sword and catching it to grip firmly before sliding around the first titan’s neck to slice it open. Forgive me, you hope he hears you, darling, I didn’t want to.

As you advance, you think.

You think of all the soldiers you’ve met. When you were a cadet, a private, a sergeant, and a lieutenant. Good-hearted people, kind people, brave people, and some bad people. All of them have been far better than you, but still you hope the fallen will accept you among their ranks. You believe you’ve fought hard enough. If everyone gets to rest, you should too, right? What’s beyond, anyway? Are they all living in harmony now, singing together? That sounds boring. Maybe they’re still fighting. That sounds depressing. Maybe they just are. That sounds like the best option.

You think of your father. How similar the two of you are now. The details of his death were never revealed, likely because the soldiers delivering the news didn’t know themselves. You wonder if he sacrificed himself for someone too, and if he was thinking of you. The man must have loved you, just a tad, because in a lost memory only now recovered, you can remember him ruffling your hair and telling you that he’ll tell you all about all the titans he slayed. As hard as you try, you can’t picture his face. Eventually, the survivors of today will forget the details of your face too. Or maybe they won’t, you’re drop dead gorgeous, ironic as the phrasing is.

You think of your mother. Her face is not one you can forget, least of all due to its resemblance to yours. Should you have apologized to her? It would not be a satisfying one. It wouldn’t even be a good lesson for anyone if you apologized to the person who hurt you the most. Because of her, you spent your life not crying. Do you even remember how to? How could she steal such a vital part of the human experience from you? It would have certainly made all the years of mourning easier if you could form some kind of physical manifestation of your sadness. No apology, but you wonder if she is capable of crying, and if she’ll cry for you. You won’t get your hopes up, though.

You think of your first squad. Eld, Gunther, Oluo, and Petra, who were as much a part of your build as a soldier as your own muscles were. Who took a part of your soul with them when they died. Somehow, even though you’ve achieved closure, the thoughts of them still make you feel ill, because if anyone didn’t deserve to die so brutally, it was them. None of them had ever brought harm upon anyone. All they had done was give their lives, always. The Survey Corp never knew such respectable soldiers and never would again. They would never know the truth, and it seems, neither would you. At the very least, you’ll be able to stand by their side once more.

You think of your new squad—Armin, Connie, Eren, Historia, Jean, Mikasa and Sasha—they, thankfully, have a shot. It’s more than enough, and if they’re still alive, you don’t doubt they’ll get to discover every secret this world’s been hiding. Those kids are different, each of them spectacular in their own amusing, clever, brave, titan-shifting ways. You only have regrets that you won’t get to be with them more, teach them more. There’s so much you wish you could say to them. And now good luck might be the most you can offer. A mental message being received is a little too much to expect from a squad that was only put together a few months ago, but you have faith. Even if they don’t get the memo, they’re good—they won’t need it.

You think of Stephen. Stephen Hansen, the most friendly boy you ever met. Stephen Hansen, who died before he even really became a man. Stephen Hansen, whose body wasn’t even in his grave. All the hours you wasted simply talking to a headstone should be considered criminal with all the theft of time. You don’t think you even talked to him for so long when he was alive. Stephen was your wake-up call, your rude awakening, but he was more than that—a comrade, a friend, a son, a person. The hole his absence left in you would never be repaired, or at least you’ll only determine differently when you can meet those pretty green eyes again, throw your arms around him, and tell him how desperately you’ve missed him.

You think of Ricky. You’ll have to apologize to him, you won’t be able to play the game because you’ll be joining him in the stars. You won’t be parted for long, and you two were so joined at the hip that it was almost inevitable. He’d laugh at you now, call you cheesy, and you suppose in some twisted turn he could be alive, but if he was, the pit in your stomach wouldn’t feel so bottomless, now would it. He really did keep you sane, rooted, always reminding you to laugh since the first time he met you. You never saw him take life as seriously as everyone else. He’s the only one who grew up next to you, the brother you never had, the last one left from the veteran Scouts, dying to protect his home. A sad intuition tells you he knew how today would end up for him. You’ll have to smack him in the arm for not warning you earlier.

You think of Millie, and wince at the mental image of her learning what happened. Though she doesn’t look it, she tends to get emotional. And you know what you’re doing to her. Not only are you her single competent dance partner, you might just be her favorite one (and if you said you were her best dance partner but she wasn’t yours, then what). All the people in your life you have an understanding with you’ve worked to make it so. Millie, though, you think was born just so the universe could show you that soulmates did exist. There is no other explanation for how another girl could meet your gaze from across the room at a party and understand just from a nod of your head that she should meet you outside so that she can talk your ear off about all the constellations. When people fell asleep during a rant, most people who were doing the ranting would take a hint that the other wasn’t interested. Not Millie, though, she would seek you out the next day with two books in her hands to drive the point home further. She was always the best, just so that you wouldn’t have to be.

You think of Levi. Oh, Levi Ackerman. How could you even begin to explain what Levi Ackerman was to you? No possible words or phrases could describe it. Nothing could capture the sensation of you and him in his office, straddling his hips as you settled down on his lap and kissed his soft lips. Nothing could accurately sum up the feelings you felt when he would cup your cheeks, nodding along to whatever tangent you were going off on, and stealing kisses in between. The novels that he would read with you as you cozied yourself in his arms. His breath at the back of your neck. The kiss he’d place at your nape to signal that he was done reading and you could flip the page. The way you would pretend you weren’t finished yet so that he could keep going, until you were a humming mess and the book would slip from your hands as he whispered in your ear. Lovely, sweet nothings that would be replaced by gruff commands that you adored no less in the morning. You’d let yourself get so, so greedy with him last night, marrying him for your own fantasies and having him confess his dreams—you’ll never see the tea shop. But you hope to Maria, Rose and Sina that he will. That he’ll gaze upon it and think of you and smile, knowing that a few lifetimes will be well worth the wait—and that you plan to love him even more the next time you get the chance.

Lastly, you think of yourself. With all this thinking, you haven’t been keeping track of how many titans you’ve killed, but it’s nowhere near a low amount, and you have to give it to yourself—you’re good. Like, holy shit, really good. There’s so many of them lying under your feet, and you did that with your last set of blades. Now, to cross one more thing off your bucket list…

With only a few titans left, you reel back and fire the Thunderspear straight at the ground. With a stunning spin, you fly away from the explosion that so many of the titans get caught in, up, up, up so far it seems the blast is propelling you, until the last bit of your gas runs out, and you fall back downwards, where a large flailing hand crashes into you and sends you flying towards to the ground. The grass approaches, closer and closer, your hair flies out of its bun and sets itself free, and then you think no more.

Mikasa has felt utter despair only twice in her life. Most would assume one of those moments was when her parents had died, but she’d been so confused and so scared in that moment that there wasn’t time to feel despair. 

Someone else would guess one of the moments would be just now, when she’d stared at Armin’s burnt corpse in front of her. And she’d felt it all, horror, repulsion, like her very life had just ended, but it wasn’t despair. Maybe she knew deep down who the captain would choose, or maybe her denial had been so strong that the unlikely decision only coincidentally happened to be the one he made.

One of the times was when Eren died. She’d felt it then, a hand wrapped around her throat and squeezing, asking her how badly she really wanted to live. Asking her how much she could really pretend to care when the world had taken back the person who made the sky look a little less gray. 

That was the second time.

The first was when Shiganshina fell. She wasn’t confused then, nor was she in denial. All she’d been was defeated, left wondering how she could have so much bad luck to not only lose her home once, but twice. How it was possible that Wall Maria had stood proud for a hundred years, but fell in her lifetime, in her childhood. 

And the only thing that comforted her, in the next few days and months and weeks, as they watched Armin’s grandpa leave them and were put to work in freezing fields with nowhere near an adequate amount of food provided to compensate for their work, was an orange jacket and the memory of a soldier smiling at her.

She’d known she was going to join the Scouts, because Eren was going to. But to see a soldier do something other than drink or fight, to actually try and ask for her name and to sacrifice something to give her any kind of warmth, reassured her that even besides her small family, there was still something to smile about in this world and still someone to fight for those smiles. 

So when she sees the captain staring out where all the bodies are lying, she speaks up. They are still waiting for Armin to wake, after all, and she needs to know, wants to see…

“Is the lieutenant with the others?” she asks boldly, knowing the captain may not want to speak with her right now. She knows she caused him pain. She knows that she is his most stubborn soldier. But she also knows that she told the lieutenant she’d find her once she’d confirmed Eren and Armin were alright, and well, they’re alright.

“No.” He points with his sword, newly stocked in his gear from one of their supply wagons just in case. “There’s still more titans there. That’s where she is. I’m going to go get her.”

“Let me come with you,” she requests. They have an understanding. There is a reason he knew about her feelings for Eren. As much as she hated it in the past, there is a connection there that goes beyond just them being family, and she can acutely imagine what he must be feeling. The commander, and the lieutenant—the lieutenant, of all people. She saw the way the captain stared at her. Mikasa was no fool. Even before the rest of them had the information revealed to them a month ago, she’d known. Underneath that supposedly apathetic look was gratitude, and love. The same gratitude she had to Eren for wrapping her scarf. The same love she had to Eren for simply living and breathing. Captain Levi looked at his subordinate like the world would stop turning if she wasn’t with him.

That’s exactly how it feels now. Like a crucial axis is broken, and the way of the world has cracked.

“Alright,” he agrees stoically, and they both make their way down the wall.

It’s a long walk, with no horses to rely on. As the titans approach, both she and the captain get their swords ready. A second after he attacks, she does too. It’s an easy fight. Neither of them are running low on swords or on gas anymore, and it actually feels…not good, but relieving to simply take down a regular titan, one that won’t go down until they blow him up or until someone burns alive. And there are so few left—the lieutenant may not have been an Ackerman like them, but she was still the only person who could keep up to her when it came to speed, something she assumed came with lots and lots of practice.

As Mikasa lands, she spots her. The lieutenant looks…small, not a word that would have ever been associated with her before. But there aren’t any obvious injuries on her body, no burns or limbs missing, and suddenly a surge of hope fills the girl’s chest. The lieutenant really is strong, so maybe she’s simply fallen unconscious. Maybe she’ll need some patching up, but she’ll survive. Maybe she’ll live, and Mikasa will get to find her as promised.

Captain Levi lowers himself onto his knees. With more care than he looks capable of demonstrating, he reaches for the lieutenant and pulls her into his arms tenderly, like she’s the most precious thing in the world. One of his hands cradles the back of her head, while the other closes over her wrist.

She can hardly breathe. Please, please, please.

There’s a small pause; maybe that’s the sound of the world creaking back to life?

“She’s dead,” the captain murmurs, and Mikasa feels that utter despair once again.

[adashoflavendermelancholy]

Graveyard Dare

It all started because of a story. The one where the brothers, Ace, Sabo and Luffy ran away from home. Built a tree house and lived in for three months before Garp showed up and told them off for it. The others wanted to see this tree house. Nami claimed there was no way that it was safe. Children built it, after all. Sabo took offense to that. He wouldn’t let Luffy stay in a place that wasn’t safe! Sanji wondered how they cooked things. Zoro didn’t believe the story, it was just too wild. Sure, Luffy might try to do something like that but to runaway. Robin wondered about what the house looked like. Franky and Usopp wanted to see it to find out how well built it was. Or if it leaked all the time.

Here’s where the problem came in. To get to the tree house, you first had to go to the old graveyard. Cut through the center of it and then into the forest behind. Their tree house was not too far from there. Everyone caught on the graveyard part.

“You can not be serious!” Nami and Usopp yelled. Just what kinds of kids put their hiding place behind a graveyard?

Sabo laughed, “That’s why we did it. Because of all the stories about ghosts showing up there, would make it hard for people to bother us.” He had thought this through. He wasn’t like the other two, who didn’t think before moving.

Things changed a bit now that it was October, though. Ace smiled with a wicked idea. “What are you, scared? You can’t handle being alone in a graveyard for a little? Man Luffy. I didn’t know your friends were so weak.” Ace taunted.

Luffy turned to look at his eldest brother, confused why he was saying. Ace knew how strong his friends were. He had seen all the pictures from the adventures they had been on together. The others tensed with the taunt. It was obviously a taunt. One they shouldn’t fall for. Sabo, who caught on, sighed dramatically? “I know! And we did it when we were so young.” He looked down at them from his nose.

Nami glared at them. They smiled back. “Fine! what do you want?” She said, sitting back. What was the harm in this?

Turned out it was horrible. Monstrous of them, really. They told them they would time how long they were in the graveyard. Longest won the little game, and would get money from it. Everyone began placing bets on how long they would last. Who would be the first to leave and who would be the last? It was done in a way to help them gain a bit of confidence before doing it.

Walking to the graveyard late at night, they waited. Ace would walk them in, Sabo would walk them out. If you left the graveyard, you lost. It was all really simple. All they had to do was last.

When they got to the grave, people were feeling a little more scared about this. When Nami got the best answer. “Well, go on.” She said, looking at Ace and Sabo.

“Huh?”

“You don’t expect us to believe that you could stay in there now, right? Go on, set what our time should look like,” Nami said, smirking. If they wanted to torture them, she could do the same thing.

Ace and Sabo looked at each other. Looking more like twins with every glance. Even if they could be nothing alike. “Okay. I’ll go first.” Sabo said, walking into the graveyard. He stayed for a while as Ace timed it. Sabo would time it when he left.

“Okay, I’m leaving now.” Sabo said a while later.

Ace went in next, letting Nami hold his walky-talky and timer. She watched the seconds pass. Waiting for Sabo to reappear, but he didn’t.

“Sabo, aren’t you coming back?” She asked, but go no response. “You know it’s against the rules to hang out with Ace.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not. Just can’t tell you where I am yet,” Sabo answered.

Ace eventually returned. Smiling, the whole time. “22.33” Nami said, with a roll of her eyes. She knew they would try showing off.

“Bet you won’t last a minute.” Ace said, smirking. It was a joke, but you never joke about betting on Nami.

“Deal, you owe me a new purse.” Nami said, before the other could take it back. Ace blinked, then sighed, knowing that he walked into that one.

First person to go in was Luffy. Went in and waited. But it was boring and nothing was happening. He started singing to pass the time, but even that was getting a little much. When he spotted a beetle on a stone. It was one that he couldn’t quite figure out because of the light. Then it tried to fly away from him.

That wouldn’t do, and Luffy gave chase to the little beetle. Promising to take good care of him, or her if they let him look at them. Just for a little while. Just long enough for him to know what they were. Beetles were so cool, after all.

“Luffy lost.” Sabo’s voice cut in. Luffy looked up to see Sabo standing at one end of the graveyard. Looking rather impressed at Luffy.

“Really? Lasted longer than I thought.” Ace’s voice said, over the walky-talky.

 The next to try it was Nami. Ace walked her into the graveyard. She waited to hear anything after he was gone. There was a crunching sound. She didn’t know where it came from. Still, she counted the amount of money there would be if she won. When something touched her arm. “AHHHHHHH!” She screamed, running away.

Two arms grabbed her. Nami turned, punching them in the face. Screaming again at the person who grabbed her. “Whoa! It’s me! It’s Sabo!” Sabo said, letting go. He rubbed his nose where she had landed a punch. Nami took three steps back and collapsed to the ground.

“Sabo?” Nami asked, looking at him through wet eyes. She swore never to go to a place like this again. It’s too scary to return again.

“Nami’s out. Send in the next one.” Sabo said, helping Nami to Luffy. The two waited in the tree house for the others to arrive.

What the bothers hadn’t told them was that Garp saw the tree house they built, bought the land and made a proper house in the tree next to theirs. A little get away he called it.

Nami, upon seeing the soil structure of the house, muttered, “You two are asses.” Knowing that Luffy didn’t know to mention this to them. After all, he remembered nothing. Sabo laughed before leaving to get to the next person.

Usopp went next, and just about ran out the next moment. Screaming and yelling as each thing scared him. He somehow ended up at the tree house with Sabo on the ground laughing. He couldn’t breathe breath he was laughing so hard. Nami took the walky to tell Ace, “Usopp lost.”

There was a moment of silence before the other side clicked to life. “Figured from all that screaming.” Ace said back. Though she could hear his laughter over the static.

It was now Sanji’s turn. He stayed out there for a while. Until he was running, screaming about spiders the size of hands. Sabo stopped him and smiled. “It’s okay, it was just a weaver spider. They almost never hurt people.”

That, of course, did not stop Sanji from being terrified of the place. Though he was glad to be with Nami now. Though he wished he could be there for Robin.

Robin went next and was found reading with her phone light. Thanks to that, she was docked points and her time was cut by four minutes. Not that she cared about it. She waited for the last few people to arrive.

Franky wanted to get this over with. Having heard the crew yelling or just silence had upped his expectations. There was the added bounce of him wanting to see where the others were. While sitting on a grave, he waited. Nothing happened. A few bugs walked by, but he wasn’t interesting in them. After some time, he got up and walked out. Bored out of his mind.

“Franky lost,” Sabo said, as the other walked up to them. He smiled as he approached.

“I thought you would stay longer,” Robin said with a slight frown.

Franky laughed, “I got bored. With nothing to do, just sitting and waiting isn’t much fun.”

Chopper was next. Though he was shaking as they walked into the graveyard. He looked around alone, with all the sounds of the forest and graveyard. Was a graveyard supposed to make this much sound? Something brushed against him. “AHHHHHHH!”

Sabo waited but Chopper didn’t come out of the graveyard. “Ace, is Chopper back with you?”

“No, has he still not showed up?” Ace asked.

“No.”

Ace sighed. That wasn’t a great sign. He didn’t think that he would lose one of Luffy’s friends. ”I’ll go look. Stay where you are.” Going back into the graveyard wasn’t too hard. No matter how dark it was now getting. When Ace spotted something on the floor. Using his phone’s light, he spotted the boy, passed out on the ground, with a piece of grass on his arm.

Last was Zoro. Ace put him there and then walked to the others. It was better to wait with them. Then again, they should probably have someone waiting for him in case he got lost. Time passed, and they got bored. Ace went to check a few times to see Zoro working out in place. Not bothered at all by what was happening around him.

“Come on, let’s go,” Ace said, knowing they would be docking time from him for doing other things. Not that it mattered much, because there was an obvious winner here. Ace and Sabo were a little pissed it wasn’t them.

Ranks from least amount of time to most

Chopper- disqualified passed out and Ace had to go get him.

Usopp- 00.50 sec screamed and ran out.

Nami- 01.03 Minutes stayed just long enough to win a bet.

Sanji- 04.34 Saw a weaver spider and ran.

Franky- 06.20 got bored and left.

Robin- 10.23 started reading at some point.

Luffy- 15.45 found a beetle and left the graveyard trying to catch it.

Ace/Sabo- 20.33/ 20.34 tried to show off by staying the longest.

Zoro- 67.34 his place looks just like this. (Goth sister and Father.)

[alba8688]

Wicked game

Warnings:18+ no minors 🔞

After an hour of walking the guys arrived at Saddle up .

They stop at the entrance noticing it was packed for a Thursday night .

Eddie was the first one to walk in and he was glad he did because the fresh Ac  felt so good on his face after that long walk on the summer heat .

He looked around and he knew right away his band and him didn't belong there .

They where all wearing black with ripped jeans or jean battle vest .

While everyone had a cowboy hat or boots they really looked out of place .

The bar had a nice ambiance it was something Eddie wouldn't usually go to because all they where playing was country music .

Eddie wasn't a big fan of country music but for now I guess it was ok .

His uncle Wayne would ave love this place maybe one day he will bring him here .

The guys sat down at the stools near the bar and waited for someone to take their order .

"Deb will be right back she is kind of busy right now ." An old man dressed like the guys from one of the movies Wayne watches told the guys .

The old man pointed to the girl riding the bull she was wearing a black cowboy hat with a glittery dress and long boots that went up to her knees .

Eddie felt like cupid had hit him straight on his heart.

He had never seen a girl so fucking beautiful in his life.

He thought he might be in love maybe he was just overreacting but that's how he felt .

Well he has never been in love once in his life I mean if you count the hook outside the bar then yeah he has never been in love.

The girl riding the bull had a beautiful smile and dark brown short hair .

Eddie felt like it was love at first sight.Thats what he always said she he met a beautiful girl .

"Here we go ." Gareth noticed Eddie  staring at the girl dumbfounded.

Gareth imagined him floating all the way till where she was .

"I think I'm love Gare."

Gareth just rolled his eyes he knew where this was going .

Eddie was going to flirt with that poor girl until she felt for him and when he felt that he was falling he would push her away .Like he always did.

Gareth knew Eddie was always such a hopeless romantic but always afraid to fall in love  because always thought he wasn't worth it coming from a trailer park and from parents that never wanted him that's why he live with his uncle Wayne .

His father and mother being drugged addicts his mother afraid to leave her father because he was the reason she will get her stuff .His dad an asshole a cheating asshole who cheated on his mom while she was at the same house high as fuck sitting down on the couch watching her husband fuck Some other chick.

While little Eddie was locked in his room

With the stereo so high up that he couldn't hear anything he would fall Asleep to whatever song was Playing.

Eddie thought he could never love and be love because he thought he would Be the same way his dad would be with him .

That's why he always pushed people away especially any girl that wanted something serious that's why he only went for one night stands .

But something about that girl riding the bull made him Feel something funny inside his little

Cold heart it felt like it was beating or trying to beat ..or maybe he was having a heart attack.

Nah it wasn't that .

He was too lost in thought that he didn't realized that Deb the girl riding the bull was already taking his friends orders .

Gareth was already asking for any mechanic available right now .

"So what's gone to be your order handsome?" Eddie spin around on the stool when he heard the voice .

"Dude she is talking to you ." Gareth smack Eddie's arm getting him out of the trance he was .

"Here's the menu for the food and here's the menu for drinks." The Bartender name Deb Place two different menus in front of Eddie .

Eddie felt his cheeks reddened by the eye contact they where doing know-one has ever done that before always to afraid to look a the freak .

"U-umm what do you recommend?" Eddie finally got the guts to speak up because right now he was like a sophomore all over again when he tried talking to that cute girl in his science class .

It's like he was going back in time all that confidence had gone down the drain the minute the pretty bartender talked to him .

"Well for me my favorite is the Tacos I make them myself so they are delicious ." Eddie just heard her speaking and he knew he was smiling like an idiot right now .

"I'll take that ." Eddie smiled at her passing the menu back at her.

"With Everything!" She asked him

"Yeah ." He responded ,not knowing what everything was.

"Ok,I'll be back to take your drink order if you still need time ,so I can get started on your orders .

Yeah ,all the guys had asked for tacos but they thought there where Taco Bell tacos .

They where in for a surprise .

After a few minutes Deb came back with there orders pulling a plate in-front of each boy .

"Ok ,here you go ." She told Eddie

Eddie smiled like the hopeless romantic he was .

"Thank you ." He hadn't even noticed the plate infront of him .

"Are these tacos?"Jeff asked  Deb

"Yes ,what kind of tacos where you...oooooh you guys are not from here are you ." She chuckled "You where expecting Taco Bell tacos ." The 3 boys and Eddie nodded yes all four mesmerized by the beautiful girl talking to them .

"Well im sorry to burst your bubble but this are the real thing ,now can I get your drinks ?" She asked them

They all asked for beers except for Eddie he asked Deb to give him whatever she would drink .

So she did ,she made a strong Dirty Martini right infront of him.

"It's my favorite ,I like my Martinis to be the dirtiest ." She winked at him .

And Eddie thought he melted right at the spot from the inside little ole him Was jumping from excitement but from the outside he had a tough guy facade .

And Deb Was falling for it so hard she always fell for the bad guys but they always broke her heart .

And she always fell for them over and over again and here she was once again falling for a guy she barely knows, that look like a rockstar,she knew that  One day she was gonna  regret it but tonight she knew she wanted him .

As the night went on Deb stayed with the four boys letting the other bartender attend the other customers .Deb was completely lost in those pool of brown eyes .

"So how long have you been working here ?"Gareth asked her .

"January of this year "

"And why this job?" Eddie asked her ,he wanted to know everything about her he was fascinated by her .

"Well ,I was actually in college but decided it wasn't for me ,my parents weren't that happy about there youngest Daughter being a college drop out and kick me out of the house and I found this place and Javier the owner of this bar offer me a job and with the job came the apartment ." She pointed upstairs with her index finger .

"You're parents suck." Jeff blurts out

"Yeah they do ." Deb chuckles because indeed they did .They where embarrassed of her being drop out when all the family had a college degree mostly phds they wanted her to be a doctor but she wanted to be a bartender and a chef and that wasn't a job that was good for her .

But she didn't care it was what she love to do and what she was going to do .

"This tacos are amazing!!" Gareth moan his mouth full of food.

"I know they are ." Deb winked at him making choke on his food .Eddie hit him the back to help him passed the food .

"Holy shit this salsa is spicy ." Jeff chugged his beer.

"Yeah the read one is the spiciest ,green one is meh."

Now you tells us Eddie had his lips inside the martini.He was holding up the glass to his lips.When he put the glass down Deb bit her bottom lip.His pretty plump lips where red and a bit swollen and she wanted to kiss them to make him feel better .

What is wrong with me?

She thought getting those damn thoughts out of her head she couldn't do that .

She just met this guy not that long ago and she wants to get in his pants .

Well one night stand wouldn't hurt.

She thought again.

"Deb get those thoughts out of your head ." She told herself .

But she couldn't.

Eddie was just there eating looking so damn cute.

Fuck she was gonna get in his pants tonight .

She told herself .

She sounded so desperate but is not her fault she hadn't slept with anyone since January.And now her hormones were going crazy when seeing a cute metalhead .

As the light went by the boys decided to ask Deb for information about a mechanic and also they told her that they had nowhere to stayed and that there van had broken down and they asked if she knew of a close by hotel but  she told them she had an extra room in her apartment plus  and a comfortable couch.

"A-are you we wouldn't want to be a bother ." Eddie told her .

Is not that Eddie didn't want to stay with her but he knew himself he wasn't going to be able

To sleep knowing there were in the same place .

"Yeah it's just me so I don't mind some company plus some nights are lonely." She winked at Eddie making him choke on his drink Coughing and spluttering all over the bar making Deb and the rest of guys laugh.

"Ha ha really funny that I forgot to laugh." Eddie rolled his eyes getting a napping and cleaning his mess .

"I'm out in 30 if you guys want a place to crashed ."Deb knew it was a crazy idea she just met this guys for all she knew is that they could

Be murderer and she was over here

Letting stay at her place .

they all agreed so fast because they weren't planning on staying in the van in the middle of nowhere.Plus they where so fucking tired they just wanted to sleep .

"Ok so it's settled after my shift I'll take you all boys home." She winked at them making all the poor boys blushed .

So when Deb's shift ended the boys followed her upstairs to her apartment .which was just upstairs of the bar pretty hidden for anyone to find .

It was right next to the main office hidden from everyone and there was a door to go upstairs and Eddie was glad for that because he fear for Deb's safety from all these drunks .Even though just had met her his uncle always thought him to treat women with respect and he did.But sometimes girls didn't want to be respected .

"So this is my apartment ." Deb tells the boys opening the door .and getting Eddie out of his thoughts .

"Holy shit !" The guys gasped ..

"Yeah the living room is nice it's the only big room the rest are small ." Deb takes her boots off by the entrance and the boys followed her lead .

"The room is over there and well here's two couches whoever wants to the take bed is a full size bed so two can sleep there ." Deb tells the boys .Eddie is not listening to anything she is saying because he is not thinking correctly right now well he is thinking with the wrong head .He doesn't know how he is going to be able to sleep

In the same apartment as Deb.

He was use for the girls to be jumping on his bones but Deb was making everything so hard if you know what I mean.

"Yeah the living room is nice, it's the only big room, the rest are small ." Deb takes her boots off by the entrance and the boys follow her lead .

"The room is over there and well here's two couches. Whoever wants to take the bed is a full size bed so two can sleep there ." Deb tells the boys .Eddie is not listening to anything she is saying because he is not thinking correctly right now well he is thinking with the wrong head .He doesn't know how he is going to be able to sleep

In the same apartment as Deb.

He was used to the girls jumping on his bones but Deb was making everything so hard if you know what I mean.

"So the bathroom in down the hall the third door at the end of the hall there's some shampoo and conditioner also body wash if you guys want to shower .towels are in the closet inside the bathroom.Make yourselves at home." She told them before going into her room to shower and get ready for bed .

Eddie watched her go into her room and he waited quietly to make sure to hear the clock sound of her door meaning she locked it but she never did .

Eddie punched the air silently .

"What was that for ?." A sleepy Anthony asked

"N-nothing I-I was stretching my arm ." Eddie lied and Anthony just shook his head and lay down in the sofa covering himself with the blanket and turning the other way with his back to Eddie .

Later that night while Deb was laying down in her bed wide awake not being able to sleep thinking about the boy who was sleeping in her couch .She kept moving around changing positions in her bed .She couldn't get him out of her head or maybe it was because she hadn't had sex in a while and her body was asking for it.

She knew what she was doing when she decided to get up from bed to grab a bottle of water when she had a mini fridge in her room.She wanted to be notice by Eddie especially with what she was wearing she decided to wear a pink over sized tee with only panties.Yes she wanted to tease Eddie.She open the door to her room and look to both sides to make sure know one else was awake it was a small apartment .She step out and made sure not to turn on the lights to the kitchen because it was right next to the living room where Eddie and Anthony were sleeping .

She tiptoed to the kitchen, her heart beating faster. She didn't know why ,well maybe she did it was because of the metal head sleeping on her couch right now.

She opened the fridge to grab a bottle of water and chugged it all .She needed to cool herself down.

Her body needed to behave .

Meanwhile Eddie was laying down in the sofa not being able to sleep as well thinking about Deb he had never been attracted to anyone like he is to Deb.

Suddenly the door to Deb's  room open getting Eddie out of his dirty thoughts.There she was walking out or her room,Eddie couldn't see her correctly because everything was dark but when she open the door to the fridge she saw her she was wearing a pink oversized shirt Eddie couldn't tell if she was wearing shorts and that made his dick twitch in his boxers .

Then to make things worse for Eddie when Deb was drinking the water her shirt raised up showing that she was only wearing panties and something broke in Eddie .He got up from the sofa slowly trying not to wake up Anthony and slowly walked to the kitchen .

He was on a mission .

"Hey." He whispered ,Deb Gasped putting her hand on her chest .

"Jesus!" She blink too many times trying to

Adjust her eyes to the dark .

"S-sorry." Eddie stuttered ,he thought he could be tough but as soon as she saw her pretty eyes he became Eddie from sophomore year .

"It's ok ."Deb closes the fridge door leaving them both in the darkness .

There was an awkward silence for what seemed like hours but it had only been like a minute.

"Can't sleep." Eddie said in a low voice breaking the awkwardness.

"Yeah me Either." Deb said softly, her heart beating faster and so did something else .She didn't know what was happening right now .

She didn't think it was the right idea to be alone with him.She knew herself ,she knew she would fall easily and she didn't want to.

All she wanted was just one night stand of good sex that's all she wanted, no strings attached .

Just some good sex.

So One thing lead to another Deb invited Eddie to her room to watch a movie .yeah at 3am .They chose some scary movie The conjuring to be exact .The thing was that Deb wasn't scared and Eddie was waiting for the moment to protect her but it never happen.She wouldn't even get close to him to at least feel her arm or something she was so far away from him .

Eddie was going crazy. He wasn't even paying attention to the movie; he kept  moving around trying to find a way to hide his boner .

He didn't think he could pop a boner while watching a scary movie but Deb had to stretch and he saw her panties and  it was driving him mad .He kept shifting uncomfortably.He kept thinking of things to make his boner go away.but nothing worked .

She was fucking wearing white lace panties !!

How can he forget about that .He couldn't get that picture out of his head he beaded to see what was under those panties .

"Jesus Christ." Eddie said under his breath .

"Huh?" Deb asked when she heard him say something.

"Oh Jesus Christ that was scary ." Eddie chuckled awkwardly .

Deb giggled "you can scoot over so I can Protect you from the bad guys ."Eddie blushed and scooted over just a tiny bit .

"I don't bite ." She smirks "unless you want me too ." Eddie gulped .He didn't know why he was feeling so damn shy right now .I mean he just met this girl and she was driving him crazy.

He tried to concentrate on the stupid movie but he wasn't interested in it anymore, not when he had seen Deb's panties.And he was right next to her his bare leg touching her soft leg .

Deb stretched one more time and Eddie couldn't help it. He looked down wanting to see what was in between her legs yes he knew he looked like a perv but there was something about her that was addicting. He wanted to know what she tasted like on his lips.

Why was she teasing him?

Eddie close his eyes and tried to contain himself counting

"1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi .." but he stop when he felt Deb's small hand on his thigh so close to his raging boner.

He gulped keeping his close.

Play "Wicked game "Chris Isaak

"Eddie." Deb said in the most flirty voice,distracting Eddie once again from his dirty thoughts.

"Yeah." Eddie gulped turning to look at Deb .

She didn't say anything her legs move on their own and the next thing she knew she was straddling Eddie and kissing those damn soft plump lips .pressing down on Eddie's hard cock.Giving him the friction he needed.

Eddie grip her thighs hard probably leaving a mark for Deb to see tomorrow but she didn't seem to mind she was enjoying herself too much at the moment.She started rubbing her clothed pussy against Eddie making him go completely crazy.

He didn't think that just the smallest friction would have him rolling eyes to the back of his head .She had him so lost in pleasure that he was so close to bust in his boxers.

Eddie stopped her movements and kissed her lips biting the bottom lip .

"If you keep doing that I'm not gonna last much longer." He said in a low voice that sent shivers down Deb's spine .

Eddie didn't know what had gotten into him he needed her bad he wanted to taste every single part of her .Eddie lean to kiss her jaw and down her neck looking for that soft spot that would make Deb crazy .A little moan escape her lips when Eddie found that special spot on her neck totally making Deb a mess.

"Right there huh?" He smirked ,Deb couldn't respond back .She was too lost now the damage was done ..

It all started from a kiss to a little bit a grinding and the next thing they know they were both naked .Eddie was in between Deb's legs Eating her out like a starving man .She was glad she had shave down there.She was glad she had also shave her legs maybe it was a sign from the sex Gods .

"Fuck baby you're so wet ." Eddie groaned, his mouth still on Deb's clit, his voice vibrating, sending wave shocks all over her body .

Deb was trying her best not to be too loud because she had company and she didn't want to be heard.But it was so hard when Eddie knew exactly what to do with his tongue.Eddie was enjoying the moment he didn't give a fuck who heard him he was loving the sounds she was making just for him.He wanted everyone to hear who was making her feel this way .

"Oh fuck Eddie im .." Deb wasn't even able to finish her sentence because her orgasm hit her like an electric shock all over body .It was by far the best orgasm she has ever had in her whole entire life .

"Fuck baby that was hot ." Eddie grinned his mouth glistening with her arousal.He crawl over on top of her attacking her lips .Deb could taste herself on his lips and for some reason that made her even more wet .There was something about Eddie that drove her crazy maybe it was the fact that he made her have the best orgasm ever .Nobody has ever made her feel the way Eddie does..But she reminded herself it was only sex and nothing else she couldn't let herself get hurt once again.She couldn't get attached because that what she did .She tends to fall easily then gets hurt.

"Please." She begged.She needed to feel him inside her .

"Please what sweetheart?" Eddie coo teasing her by rubbing the tip of his dick on her clit.

"Fuck." Eddie moaned

"Eddie please fuck me ." She rolled her eyes. She was used to getting what she wanted but Eddie was making it hard for her because he loved teasing her.

"Only because you ask so nicely sweetheart ." Eddie smirks and gently pushes himself inside until he bottoms out both moaning in uníson not caring who was listening .

Right now they were both too lost in the euphoric feeling that they had totally forgotten about the other guest who had woken up by all the noise they were making .

Gareth chuckled knowing dam well this going to happen with the fuck me eyes Eddie and Deb kept making to each other the whole night .

Jeff just out on his earphones putting his music so loud to cover the moans coming from the room next to them.

Anthony opened the door to the room and walked in with the blanket "they are too loud ." He grumbled laying down on the bed with his friends.

"It won't stop ." Jeff said

"It's worse out there ." Anthony pointed to the living room.

"Guys just tried to rest ." Gareth told his friends

"We are trying but they make it hard ." Jeff groaned ..

The next morning Deb woke up sore her whole body ache but in a good way .Memories from last night flash back to her making her smile so hard .

"Goodmorning." Eddie said in his morning voice making Deb feel things she wanted because it was supposed to be a one night stand and here she was cuddling with Eddie the morning after the events that happened last night.

"You have a mini fridge here ?" Eddie smirked knowing that Deb had a reason first having gone to the kitchen and it was to get his attention.

"Shut up ." Deb pushed him away..

"Get up!!!" Gareth knocked on the door freaking them out .."we got to look for a damn mechanic Eddie so our your clothes on cause I'm

Coming in to dragged out !!!"

"Yes we know !!." Jeff shouted

"You didn't let us sleep." Anthony shouted

Eddie and Deb looked at each other and laughed .

They knew it was just a one night stand.And it was never going to happen again.

While getting ready Deb gasped realizing that she hadn't taken her pill last night and they didn't use protection.

I mean nothing could happen right ?

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