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ramblinganthropologist · 3 years ago

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MER Week 6 - Pets

Summary: Saren is the cutest little hamster in the world if you ask his owner. However, he is also territorial as fuck and he WILL bite. Grunt’s about to learn that one the hard way. Rule for the wise kid: don’t stick your finger in a hamster’s face.

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“Shepard.”

“Grunt… hello there.”

Ok… he’d bite. Who brought Grunt up?

Honestly, Alistair was more than a little confused right then. He had expected once they got back to the shuttle that he and the young krogan wouldn’t see much of each other. After all, he was pretty sure he bored Grunt – except for that first time with the gun. Yet there he was, standing in the entrance to his quarters, looking rather uncomfortable.

Was he being punked?

“Still in the elevator, Grunt.”

Bo’s voice called from over his shoulder. Much like a good son would, he shuffled to the side to allow her entrance. Even as large as she was, she was a little on the small side compared to the krogan. That didn’t matter of course – she was well versed in taking them down. It was why she had gone 25-0 in the ring back on Omega.

Well, at least that answered who let him up. Still didn’t answer anything else, mind you. Alistair was left watching as Bo sidled past her son and entered into his quarters. Luckily for him, his sister was direct: whatever was on her mind, he’d hear about it soon enough.

She looked around the room for a second. “Surprised Mandibles isn’t up here. Aren’t you two planning to- “

“He had calibrations to run.” Alistair’s cheeks flushed as he rushed to cut her off. Grunt snickered behind her – asshole. “Anyway, what’s brought you two up here? Everything alright after Tuchanka?”

Nothing like a krogan puberty ritual to get the blood pumping after all. Alistair was going to be having nightmares about that thresher maw for weeks, and that was if he was lucky. On the bright side, he was pretty sure it counted as exposure therapy. That was fine by him; he hadn’t done his therapy homework yet and with his workload he doubted it would happen at all. His therapist was understanding, but she was also a stickler. At least he had something to turn in the next time he saw her.

Much to his surprise, Grunt looked uncomfortable. He shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting around. Dare he say it, but to him he almost looked embarrassed. Apparently, krogan could do that as well as anyone else.

“I could have just looked on the extranet, Shepard…”

Bo shook her head, clearly amused by this. “What’s better than a real-world example? You asked about him anyway.”

She turned back to Alistair. “Grunt wanted to meet Saren after hearing you talk so much about him. Is the little guy awake or do we have to come back later?”

…

“You want to meet Saren?”

His gaze slid from the embarrassed krogan teenager to the wall on the far left. Even before he looked, Alistair had known. He knew the sound of bedding shifting anywhere, practically heard it in his sleep. That alone made him get up and take the trip to what at one time had been an aquarium.

Good thing for him he hated fish – it was perfect to make a hamster enclosure out of.

The theme that month was jungle. Among the scattered green bedding and wood chews, he found a little ball of white sitting next to his food dish, digging through the contents. At the sound of his footsteps, two red eyes focused straight on him, and some food went right into well-adapted cheek pouches.

Saren was a practical hamster like that.

“Hey, little guy.” Alistair smiled as he opened the enclosure and put his hands flat. A few moments later, the hamster was climbing up to rest between his palms, just like they had trained to do. Then he was out, held close as the Spectre returned to his desk. “Someone wants to meet you if that’s ok.”

Saren of course didn’t answer – much as breeding had improved, sentience wasn’t on the list of traits – but his eyes were bright and he seemed calm enough as he sat there, chewing at a seed from his pouch. These were good hamster introduction traits, especially considering who the interested party was.

Grunt didn’t look too impressed though. He gave the hamster a rather blunt look, then glanced over at Bo. When he didn’t get the reaction, he might have been hoping for, it went from pink to red Shepard.

Talk about being in the hot seat.

“Is it supposed to be so small?”

Alistair chuckled as he stroked Saren’s tiny head with his thumb. “Well, the European wild varieties back on earth are much bigger, but they max out at about a foot long. Saren’s a Syrian male, so he’s a fairly decent size all things considered.”

Grunt probably didn’t care about most of that – it wasn’t exactly new. However, his eyes never left the hamster. Saren either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care; he was too busy on chewing away at his seed to pay attention to the krogan. It was a feeling Alistair knew well.

He loved the little guy, but sometimes he ran hot and cold with affection.

“If you want to see him up close, come over slowly. Hamsters are prey animals, so he’s easily spooked.”

Much to his surprise, Grunt listened. He approached the desk slowly, eyes never leaving the small ball of fur in his commanding officer’s hands. He was interested, even if he wasn’t showing it on his face. No surprises there – kids loved hamsters, didn’t matter the species or the fact they were born fully grown and ready to kill. They just did.

“Why did you name it Saren?”

Now Alistair was chuckling again as he watched the hamster continue to chew. “You’re going to have to ask Bo about that, she’s the one who got him for me.”

Bo’s answer came quickly as she observed the introduction. “They said he was a biter and ate a cage mate. Made me think of the real Saren.”

Well, made sense he supposed…

“They eat each other?” Grunt’s tone was definitely more interested with that. Now they were getting somewhere. “That means they fight.”

Alistair nodded as he made sure Saren stayed in his hands. “Yep. They’re fiercely territorial. It’s why you have to house them separately. Hamsters kept together can fight, sometimes to the death even. This little guy had some healed scars when I got him, so he’s been through it. I guess Omega and the Citadel gift shop share husbandry tendencies…”

His voice trailed off. Grunt hadn’t taken his eyes off Saren the entire time he had been talking. There was curiosity there and a raw interest. That made the Spectre smile as he slowly brought his hands within range, eyeing his hamster’s body language the entire time.

“You can say hello if you want, he’s pretty calm right now.”

To his credit, the krogan didn’t retreat. However, there was some definite anxiety there. He briefly glanced back at Bo, and then he returned to keeping his eyes on Saren. Finally, he managed a brief nod and came a little closer.

“Do I just stick my hand out?” A finger got a little too close to Saren. Before Alistair could warn him, the hamster eyed it and did what he always did when someone got into his space without proper caused. Tiny teeth were soon chomped down hard in the classic signs of hamster bite.

It probably wouldn’t hurt a krogan, mind you. They were tough.

“Grunt, don’t pull your hand away. He’ll go with you and he’ll fall.”

The krogan shot Saren a dirty look as he watched the hamster bite down. “That does nothing to me, rodent.”

Saren, naturally, didn’t care. Alistair’s hands were part of his territory. More importantly, Grunt was big and round. Honestly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the hamster thought he was an overgrown member of his species. Add a little fur, and he could honestly see it. He’d never say that of course – Wrex would hate it.

“He’s just defending what’s his. All he has is his teeth.” Alistair kept his voice level as he gently rubbed the hamster’s head with his thumb. “Come on, buddy, he’s not going to hurt you. You can let go now.”

After a few more moments, Saren let go. He went back to his abandoned seed, but his eyes never left the krogan. Grunt was in a similar mood, eyeing up the hamster with a rather brutal gaze. At least he had the good sense to take his hand back, the offended digit tucked away.

Bo’s voice carried over the chaos. “So… what did you learn, Grunt?”

“Don’t stick my finger in an animal’s face…”

There was a definite sulk to his tone. It was strangely cute, in a weird sort of way. Meanwhile, Alistair was just glad he hadn’t pulled back. Saren may have trusted him, but he would’ve gone for a ride. Then he would’ve had to eject Grunt out the airlock if anything happened.

Was he biased towards his hamster? Absolutely.

“It’s his way of making sure his space is safe. I used to get bit a lot when we were establishing ground rules.” He stood, crossing the room to return Saren to his enclosure in case he was overwhelmed. Much to his surprise, Saren didn’t burrow under the substrate as he often did to hide his food. Instead, he stayed on top, eyeing Grunt. “Huh… how about that.”

Grunt gave Saren the exact same look. “Your hamster’s hungry for battle.”

In another surprise, the krogan smirked. “Shepard was right, Saren is appropriate for a warship.”

Well… there was a stamp of approval he hadn’t seen coming. Maybe pigs would start flying…

Alistair at least managed a nod. “He’s territorial, it’s part of the breed.”

“Don’t sell the little guy short, he took a krogan on full force.” Bo was definitely amused as she surveyed Grunt’s finger. There was a definite scuff there – Saren had left his mark. “Damn, little guy bit down hard. The hell are you feeding him, concrete?”

Oh… just lab block, some seeds, extra protein if the mix didn’t come up right…

“He’s got a nasty bite; I’ll give him that.” And he was also done with the room – Saren was soon digging back under the substrate. “He’ll be out for a while; he has food to hide and some sleep to catch up on.”

His gaze found Grunt soon after. “Well, I hope he lived up to your expectations. If you want to come visit again, just let me know.”

“As long as you don’t try to convert him to the gospel of hamster.”

He made no promises there. Anyone who could be swayed, he would sway. That’s what it meant to have a hamster as cute as Saren.

Still, at least Grunt didn’t seem too upset about the bite as he nodded. Maybe it had taught him not to fuck with small animals -a win in his book. At any rate, it felt as though things were ending.

“I might.” And then he was heading to the door. Soon he was gone, leaving Bo and Alistair alone. As soon as he was out of hearing range, the larger of the two Shepards slumped down on his cough, doing her best not to laugh.

She did alright, but he failed miserably.

“God, that was fucking adorable.” Alistair wiped a tear from his eye as he chuckled. “I mean, apart from when I thought Grunt was going to toss my hamster.”

Bo nodded, snickering a little. “Yeah, he’s been wanting to come up for a while but he couldn’t figure out how to ask you. I agreed to be a buffer after it took him a half hour to spit it out. You might have just converted him to the dark side.”

Apparently, he was a sith now. Just because his face glowed red…

But still. Alistair nodded as he glanced back at the enclosure. He could see Saren’s tail from a gap in the bedding – he was pressed against the glass, no doubt making himself comfortable for a long nap. He’d had a long day after all – he’d just taken on a krogan.

“I think if he’s a little slower next time, they’ll get along just fine. Maybe I’ll give him a couple seeds to try.”

Baby steps, after all. Rome wasn’t built in a day and becoming friends with a hamster was just as detailed and complex. If Grunt put the effort in, he could see them getting along great. Hell, he might even get a new Saren sitter out of it.

He needed one of those. His normal ones went on missions went with him half the time.

“Thanks for letting him try. I knew Saren would be tough enough to handle him, little dude’s from Omega after all.”

Terminus system, born and bred – it was in his DNA. He’d never be as sweet as some hamsters, but that was part of his charm. It made their moments together even more special in his mind, honestly. He’d managed to get an Omega resident to let him pet him – that was a win in his book.

“Just let me know the next time he wants to come up.” Alistair returned to his desk – he still had work to do. “Now, unless you want to work on these reports…”

And just like that, he was alone as Bo beat a quick retreat out the door. He shook his head, chuckling once more as he went back to his reports. Still, he kept an eye on the glass enclosure across from him. Somewhere inside, the toughest hamster Omega ever bred was enjoying his rest. Maybe he was dreaming of fighting krogan, who knew?

One thing was for sure – they had definitely started on Grunt’s conversion to the dark side. Excellent. He had wanted an apprentice one day.

#ramblinganthropologist's writing #merweek2021 #Alistair Shepard #Bo Peep Shepard #grunt mass effect #Saren the space hamster

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seasonsofeverlark · 4 years ago

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you & I (just meant to be)

Author: @rosegardeninwinter

Prompt: This silly, silly ditty was inspired by two (count ‘em! two!) lovely prompts which are as follows “Peeta can’t stop staring at Katniss in her costume :0” and “Everlark meeting at a fancy dress party dressed as a ‘matching’ pair, although they don’t each other - maybe a famous couple but who don’t need the other … Joker and Harley Quinn, Batman and Robin or my favorite: Anna and Elsa from Frozen … Peeta would make a wonderful Anna” - I thought these two went well together, and took a couple of creative liberties to make them jive. Hope you lovelies like! [submitted by @deardiaryithinkiamaghost and @wendywobbles]

Rating: T, for implied Everlark shenanigans

Author’s Note: Thank you to my dear @archersandsunsets for her second pair of eyes on this one and to all the lovely moderators and coordinators of @seasonsofeverlark, the true MVPs. It’s been a busy month, so I apologize for any incoherence. Sometimes, the heart just wants goofy modern AU fluff. Alrighty, Chatty Cathy is done … enjoy!

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“Katniss, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Prim exclaims, though it sounds pretty pathetic with her congested, pinked nose. “You make the perfect ice queen!”

“I don’t think that’s usually a compliment,” Katniss says dourly, plopping down on the couch where her sister is situated with several fuzzy blankets, a box of tissues, and a large bowl of ice cream. She can’t taste it very well, but it’s the spirit of the thing that counts. Prim is in denial.

“I wish I could go,” she whines, holding the “o” in a long, dramatic note.

“I wish I could stay,” Katniss shoots back, holding the “ay” just as long.

“No you don’t,” Prim shoos. “You love our friends.”

“I do,” Katniss sighs, plucking at the silver sequined sleeves of her—well, Prim’s—Elsa costume. It’s too long on Katniss, with her sister’s good half inch on her, but it’s all they’ve got. Her original plan was to pull the classic black top and pants plus cat ears, but when it became apparent Prim wasn’t budging from the couch this Halloween, the real snowy blonde princess of the family had insisted Katniss take her outfit.

“You can’t show up to Finnick’s in a slapdash, last second costume, Katniss,” she’d said. “The man lives for Halloween. Don’t insult his extravagance with plastic headbands and tails.”

“I do love our friends, but … I don’t want to go out tonight. I’m tired.”

“Just half an hour,” Prim says. “Snag me some candy, make some pleasantries” — “okay, Jane Bennet” — “and then come home. At least one of us needs to show up. Just pretend to have a social life for thirty minutes, okay? For me.”

Katniss rolls her eyes as she gets up from the couch in a twinkling of blue overlay and snowflake hair pins in her braid. She does a quick once over of her shadowy makeup in the hallway mirror as she grabs her car keys. “What do you want?”

“Chocolate. Anything with chocolate and peanut butter. I’ll save it for when I can experience taste again,” Prim calls back. “Oh, and if Delly’s cousin is there, all of the cupcakes he brought.”

“Mmkay. All the chocolate and cupcakes, coming right up,” Katniss says with a resigned smile. On her way out, she clicks on her phone. It’s just now eight. She resolves to be firmly ensconced in bed by nine at the latest. She gives her sister a wave, keys jangling. “I’ll be back. Soon.”

At ten thirty, Prim looks up from her Harry Potter induced doze to find she’s received a text from her sister.

Staying a little later. Fifteen minutes maybe. Have the treats.

Prim checks the time stamp. The text was sent forty five minutes ago. This might be cause for alarm were it not for the text underneath Katniss’s, from Finnick. It’s a photo, taken in front of a makeshift photo op with purple and silver and orange streamers in the background and cutesy little bat and pumpkin and vampire fang cardboard props for people to hold up. It’s captioned “You can’t marry a man you just met!”

Prim brings her hand to her mouth to catch a laugh before it turns into a cough. Her sister, Elsa costume sparkling in the flash, is pretending to shake her finger disapprovingly at her “Anna” counterpart. The laugh breaks free this time. Prim grabs for her tepid tea to soothe her throat as she cracks up over the really incredible image of Peeta Mellark, Delly Cartwright’s stocky older cousin, in a red braided wig, and strikingly accurate green rosemaled gown, sitting quite comfortably, if amusingly, over his athletic build. He’s pretending to gripe back at Katniss about why exactly he can marry Hans of the Southern Isles. Their mock scowls barely contain smiles.

Prim quickly fires a text back to Finnick: How??? Did that happen???

Finnick’s text comes through a second later: The Lord works in mysterious ways! Idk!

Okay but like?? Yes??

I know!!!!

Some people are worth melting for????

Her cold never bothered him anyway? *finger guns*

Omg.

Katniss arrives back at the house at five to midnight, and Prim pretends to be asleep, watching with one eye cracked half open as her sister unstraps her silver heels and dumps them by the front door, drops her keys into the bowl. Sets down a full bag of what Prim can only guess are cupcakes and sweets.

She’s humming under her breath. It sounds like the chorus of “Love is an Open Door.” Prim wonders if it’s possible that her folk and indie music loving sister actually listened to a Disney album on the way home. Katniss unbraids her hair and shakes it loose, dropping the pins on the side table as she sinks into the squashy chair kitty-corner to Prim’s couch. She curls up, knees to chest, making her look like some sort of ice mermaid as she takes out her phone and taps something on it, still humming. Prim watches her chew her cheek pensively, as if deciding to send the text. She takes a deep breath and taps one final time on the screen, then drums her phone nervously against her lips for a moment. Prim’s nerves are firing with anticipation.

They wait a silent minute. Two. Three. Three and a half —

Katniss’s screen lights up again and she flips the phone up to stare at the reply. Her whole face softens. Eyes, brow, edges of her mouth. Katniss bites her lip and closes her eyes, letting her head fall back onto the chair cushion with a contented sigh. “‘You know what’s crazy?’” she sing-songs in a mumble under her breath. “‘We finish each other’s sandwiches … I’ve never met someone who thinks so much like …” She yawns. “Me.”

“You know,” Prim says, and Katniss shrieks, sending her phone flying to the carpet, “Peeta Mellark strikes me more as a Kristoff than a Hans.”

“Prim!” Katniss yelps, going red. “Wha — what? What do you mean?”

“So we’re done with stupid plastic cat ears for Halloween then I take it?”

[the very next Halloween]

“Whoa. Okay.” Peeta sits up from the pile of cushions at the head of their bed, eyes wide and staring in approval, pupils gone dark. “Katniss Everdeen in cat ears is not something I knew I needed until this moment.”

“Oh sure,” Katniss laughs. “Because it’s definitely the cat ears that are doing it for you. Not these.” She hoists one stockinged leg up onto the bed like a mountain climber posing for a magazine.

“Well, those are certainly part of the appeal,” he teases, reaching for her leg, running his hands up and down the silk tights. “As is this lovely number.” He toys with the hem of her dress, a strapless black velvet thing that falls just above her knee. “Where’s this from?”

“Jo,” Katniss sighs. “She says if I’m going to be a cat, I need to be a Gretchen Wieners level cat.”

“For whose benefit, I wonder?” Peeta muses, cheek nuzzling gently at her lower thigh.

“You wonder?” Katniss laughs, taking her leg away and flopping onto the bed. She glances over at him, eyes sly and somehow soft at once. “I don’t.”

“I can’t help thinking,” he muses. “that this is something of a counterproductive plan on Jo’s part. Because now, I have a sudden and distinct interest in staying in tonight.”

“Oh?” Katniss raises a come hither eyebrow and pushes up on her elbows to accept the kiss he plants on her lips as he crawls over her, urging her back to the headboard. “Is it the cat ears?” She reaches up to give the (already molting) plastic and faux fur ears a flick.

“The Kat ears,” he says. He nips softly at her real ear and she shivers. “The Kat nose.” He kisses that too. His nose nudges her head back, inclining her neck at the perfect angle for him to plant a stretch of kisses down it. “The Kat neck.” His mouth wanders down the front of her dress and he scoots down the bed with it. “The Kat’s cradle.”

“You have that,” she says, hiking her legs up to hug around his middle because her arms can’t reach to hold him. “You’ll always have that.”

“A piece of that Kit Kat bar.” He kisses her stomach. “The whole Kit and Caboodle,” he teases and she laughs loudly, but on a dime his tone is changing, from silly and playful into husky and dangerous, as he moves lower. “Kitten,” he murmurs and her fingers curl in the bedsheets at the name. “Grab my phone,” he tells her, hooking his fingers around the band of her tights, “Tell Finnick we’re going to be late.”

An hour or so later finds the cat ears lost somewhere among the remains of their costumes and a hasty snack of pepperoni rolls cooking in the convection oven. Peeta, festooned in boxers and an old apron, presides over the food like it needs a baker’s supervision. Katniss perches on the counter, wrapped chest to toes in the white sheet she pulled from their bed, feet batting absently at the cabinets.

“This is a good look too,” he tells her, gesturing with the salad tongs he’s using to handle the pepperoni rolls.

“What is? This sheet?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of sexy ghost.”

“Or sexy Roman senator,” she laughs, tossing one edge of the sheet over a bare shoulder. “Sexy Julius Caesar.”

“You’d make a good Julius Caesar,” he says.

“Why?”

“You’ve got that “came, saw, conquered” vibe. Least that’s how I felt that night at Finnick’s party.”

“Conquered?”

“I was gonna say seen, but — yes. Conquered too. I couldn’t stop looking at you.” He snaps his fingers. “Sexy ice queen? Definitely.”

“I’m not exactly sure what kind of Freudian analysis one could make on falling in love with the guy dressed as your fictional sister but — ”

Peeta shrugs as the timer beeps, and he sets to fishing the pepperoni rolls onto a plate for them to share. “I choose to think of it as a metaphor for how the two people you love most in the world are your real, actual sister …” He sets the rolls beside her on the counter and sets his hands gently on her sides. She lets the sheet fall and pool slightly around her waist to cup his face as he leans in to kiss her forehead, very gently, thumbs rubbing circles on her hips. “And some loser who has the luck of … oh, I guess having the same first initial and hair color as she does,” he jokes.

“And the same beautiful heart,” Katniss corrects in a whisper. “I mean that.” She’s rarely so sentimental to anyone except him. She smirks. “And I haven’t even started drinking yet.”

“Well, my pretty kitty,” he starts, wrapping both his arms around her middle and hoisting her off the counter. She rolls her eyes, even as her hands card through his hair. “The night is still young.”

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #autumn #autumn 2020 #rosegardeninwinter #submission #octoberlark 2020 #octoberlark

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5-secondsofcolor · 4 years ago

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Te Guardo || A.I.

Warnings: None? a bit of odd angst? This is unedited so tenses are funky

Length: 2K

Prompt: “Kissing you is all I’ve thought about since the moment we met.” & Ashton x Airport

AN: This is a part of @h0tsos and @maluminspace second fic event. Thank you so much for organizing this again!! I’ve linked the event masterlist below if anyone wants to go check out other folk’s work.

EVENT MASTERLIST

_____

Ashton shuffles through his glove compartment of his car, he should’ve registered the car months ago when he first moved to LA but lies of ‘next week’ let him go on far too long. Now he slowly pulls out old ticket stubs and memories of nights passed, looking for his title and registration in the parking lot of the DMV.

He pauses when he finds himself gripping a smooth plastic paper, pulling out square Polaroid. All of them tossed in there unceremoniously after his moving away party. By the look of the pictures, it’s clear they’ve survived a few seasons, fading in the time spent in his glove compartment.

A smile breaks out as he plucks one out and tucks it into his wallet before he continues to pull out crap. Finally, a piece of pink paper peaks out, a sigh of relief coming alongside it as he joins the appointment line.

After an eternity, he gets to the attendant, the woman doesn’t look up from the last form on her desk before asking “What’s the reason for your appointment?”

“Registering a vehicle”

“Can I see your license and registration?”

He pulls out his wallet, as the attendant finally looks up at him giving him an irate look for not being fully prepared, he returns an apologetic smile as the top of his ears warm. Shuffling through the wallet for his license produces the polaroid first, he tucks it back down and grabs his license.

“Here it is,” he announces as he hands it over, the attendant giving him no response. A couple of moments later, the woman hands back his forms alongside a small ticket with ‘B36’ stamped across the top.

“Take a seat and wait for your number to be called,” The attendant says excusing him to the waiting area.

With little else to do, he pulls the polaroid out and allows his mind to remember the night it was taken. Vanessa had done her makeup in the way that made her brown eyes pop, the bright colors complementing her brown skin. He always liked the way her highlighter made her look so golden. The darkness of her hair blends slightly into the dark background but he remembers her soft natural curls and the way they always smell like coconut oil and soft flowers.

They’ve spoken since he moved but it held an awkwardness and it’s all his fault. Truly, he’s replayed that night over and over so much so that he wonders if he’s remembering it right. It was nothing but a moment stolen but it put them on a different path.

“Kissing you is all I’ve thought about since the moment we met,” Ashton said as he cupped Vanessa’s cheek.

In the poorly lit backyard, it all felt rushed, childish for Ashton to use their only moment’s alone all night to make half declarations of love but it’s what it boiled down to as the timer on Ashton’s big move nearly hit 0.

Her breath caught in her lungs as he pressed his lips to hers. She tried to commit it to memory, feeling it was the start of something. The way string lights gave everything a warm light, the chatter pouring out of his— well now Luke’s apartment, the way was just cold enough for goosebumps to raise on her skin, and the softness of his lips. Instead what’s committed to memory is the sadness, the reality that he was driving away in 2 days.

“Ashton! Andrew’s looking for you,” Luke’s booming voice breaks the moment before she has a chance to acknowledge what happened.

“I’ll be right in. I’m just going to walk Vanessa to her car,” His attempt to shoo away Luke is useless, Luke’s too drunk to realize what he’s walked into. Instead running out and wrapping an arm around Ashton’s neck. “Can’t believe he’s all grown up. Leaving us for LA. Can you believe it?”

“Don’t worry about walking me, my car’s just a house over. I’ll just text you when I get home, promise.”

“Please,” it sounds like a plea as Luke turns him around, shouting about one thing or another as they rejoin the last party, leaving Vannesa with a blank mind and absolutely too much to process.

She pulls into her driveway quickly. Surreal feelings hitting her as she sits in her car a moment after turning it off. That couldn’t have really happened, she shakes her head as she collects her things. Habitually pulling up Ashton’s contact as she turns on her living room light. Her mind still blank as she opens their conversation.

After a moment, she presses on Calum’s contact and quickly types, “Home safe! Let Ash know please.” and tosses her phone on the couch.

Ashton waited for that text message. Holding on to the promise made in passing, he got her message from Calum but nonetheless, he called her, wanting to hear anything from her but got her voicemail and waited for her to call him back.

____

After a dinner with, Vanessa finds herself down the street from her apartment at a little brewery. It’s the one that always reminded her of Ashton. Countless afternoons spent meeting up. He used to make these walks down the streets with her on lazy afternoons.

Her friend’s saved a booth, as is Friday tradition. Except today, an acquaintance won’t stop chatting her up. He’s cute, kinda interesting, she knows he’s a good guy, Cameron, their mutual friend, won’t stop talking him up.

Talked up or not, Vanessa can’t remember his name as she nods and gives a polite chuckle when a change in cadence indicates a joke. It also doesn’t stop her from glancing at her phone the moment it vibrates. “A. Irwin” it reads with a familiar contact picture popping up.

She all but jumps out of her skin the second she sees the name. Grabbing a jacket and excusing herself, “I’m sorry. I need to take this.”

The brisk fall air hits hard after her being inside the warm bar. She nestles her phone between her shoulder and ear as she wrestles her jacket on, breathless she gives a small, “hi.”

“You busy?”

“No, no not at all,” she says. Only half a lie she thinks as she turns around and gives her confused friends a reassuring thumbs up and smile, “What’s up?”

“Not much, just heading to bed and I was hanging with Calum, he did the you thing for the first time in a while,” Only kind of a lie, he thinks to himself as he eye’s their polaroid now balanced in the corner of a larger frame. He couldn’t force himself to toss it into another drawer to get lost with time, the same way he couldn’t ignore the way he felt all day.

They’ve texted for months, catching up at odd times but the overwhelming feeling to hear her voice pushed him to call her after the day at the DMV.

“The me thing?” She laughs, forcing him to elaborate just which odd habit he is referring to.

“The fidgeting thing-- bouncing on your heels.”

“I don’t do that,” She argues, planting both her feet firmly on the ground.

“It’s not exactly the same but you gotta admit it’s pretty similar,” Ashton argues, he can picture her doing it now, holding her phone to her ear.

“Whatever,” She breathes a laugh through her nose and with that Ashton can see the accompanying head shake. He tries to find an excuse to keep her on the line. Does he bring up the Polaroid? Does she remember that day the same? Did he make their afternoon melancholy up for himself, in search of an odd comfort?

“I’m gonna need some proof here, Ash.”

“Fine I’ll go get it myself.” Her scoff in response only eggs him on as he promises, “I’ll get a ticket back there right now.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Give me a few weeks. I’ll get the evidence myself.”

“Ok. You can show me,” a wave from indoors catches her eye, her friend beckoning her back inside to collect her things, “I gotta go Ash. It was great talking.”

“Yeah it was. We’ll speak soon, yeah? I’m serious I’ll come up there and show you.”

“Whenever you book that ticket, don’t forget a sweater. It sure as hell isn’t California warm here,” She jokes one final time before hanging up.

She can’t help the smile when she gets a screenshot of his flight. Almost two weeks to the day. Friday, November 15th.

___

Two weeks fly, Vanessa thinks before she rushes out of work. So much for making it on time. Maybe the flight is delayed, just allow her a little buffer. It doesn’t feel real to be picking him up. Excitement and anxiety is all she can feel as she dumps her work supplies onto the passenger seat and hits the road.

A bit of relief hits her as she sees the sign at the gate. Two minutes to spare, she laughs at herself as she pauses at the loading zone. She spent an afternoon cleaning her apartment, forgetting her car but it’s too late now.

“Is this my Uber?” The voice is all too familiar, her heart skipping a beat as she looks over to the passenger window. His skin tanner than she remembers but the smile, it’s always stayed the same. She opens her door with a shriek, running around the car, and into his arms.

“Ashton!!!” She shouts into her chest. Her heart beating so hard he can probably feel it himself.

“Hi,” he breaths her in planting a small kiss to the top of her head. She feels smaller than he remembers but then again maybe that’s just a sign that too much time has elapsed.

“Welcome back,” She laughs. Unable to shake the smile on her face as she bypasses the city and begins their drive to her apartment.

He stares openly, unable to believe how much more he’d missed her. In the car, things feel simplified. She doesn’t face his stare until they’re at a stoplight.

“What?” She gives him a true smile, showing her teeth and he knows he booked the right ticket to visit her.

“Nothing. This place has been good to you,” He’s unsure what it is but she’s different.

“I think you’re just falling for the look of a real autumn,” She brushes aside her compliment as her eyes return to the road. Her stomach does a backflip as she ignores his eyes.

A feeling of regret rears its head as she’s tempted to reach out and hold his hand. Her brain is all shaken up as she tries to focus on the tales from LA. Traffic is and she’s grateful for it.

They get back to her apartment right before sundown, her entire apartment illuminated by the lazy afternoon sun. Ashton’s been here a thousand times but with his time away, its familiar feel isn’t fully there. As his eyes sweep her living room, he sees that the same milk crates hold her records but the tables above it are now natural wood, matching the rest of her furniture. Her apartment looks more streamlined from its previous Craig’s List used furniture charm.

“You can put your stuff on the chair,” She points to a corner of the room, it’s apparent the chair’s been cleared of her own pile of miscellaneous clothes in preparation for him to visit. The entire living room gave a feeling of a deliberate organization that it never gave him before.

Ashton tosses the duffle bag onto the chair and pauses at the same bookshelf from years ago, he recognizes some of the book titles and peruses the new ones before a new picture frame catches his eye. He holds his breath recognizing it as nearly the same picture he’s been carrying in his glove compartment for months. The pair to the one that now lives on his mantle at home.

He knows he can’t toe the line with her anymore, the unknowing drowning him this time around as he gently calls, “Nessa?”

#5sos fan fic #ashton irwin fan fiction #5sos #my-writing #ashton fan fic #ashton irwin #5 seconds of summer #5sos writinf collab

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saiilorstars · 4 years ago

Text

Rise Up

Ch.11: Black Orchid

Previous Story: It Had To Be You || Current Masterlist

Pairings: Barry Allen x OFC

Chapter Summary: Following a tip from a time travelling friend, Belén starts the endeavor to find a way into the Green: a world for all botanist metahumans. She goes in search of a potential ally from another botanist metahuman, Black Orchid, who seems like she would rather work alone.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles [If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

"So...Mom knows about you?" Maritza watched her sister's uncomfortable form on the other side of the glass. Belén gave a silent nod of her head. She'd told Maritza about her mother finding out, in the worst way possible, she was the Azalea. "Gosh, Belén...she didn't take it well, did she?"

Belén shook her head. "Nope. She's moved on from the 'I'm ignoring you' phase and she's onto full fledged anger."

"I think the word 'metahuman' is just tarnished for her after everything that's happened," Maritza said, though in no way did she mean to give their mother a pass on her behavior. "I'm sorry."

"No, this one's not on you. It's on me," Belén sighed. "I thought that maybe after telling her my secret, things between us might start getting better again, but…"

"I'm sorry," Maritza felt the need to say again. After everything Belén had told her, going from their mother's challenging personality to the metahumans hunting them down...Maritza could only say 'sorry'. She wished, wished, that she could do something to help Belén but her past choices have prohibited her from. "I really wish I could help you out there."

Belén found it in her to smile. She didn't know how, or when, but coming to see Maritza had stopped being a chore and more like...a way to relieve stress. She could tell Maritza everything that was going on and not be judged. She hadn't quite forgiven Maritza for everything she did last year, but...Belén could say she was getting there.

Feeling her phone buzz inside her pocket, Belén gave it a quick check and found a text from Iris. She had to say goodbye to Maritza in order to meet back at STAR Labs.

~ 0 ~

Iris had done her job as best as she could and when she wanted to, she could almost be like a spy the way she found information on people. She had pulled up a profile of a woman dressed in a black and magenta suit with an over-sized jacket. Soon as Cisco saw the picture he let out a wolf whistle, along with questions about her specific clothing choice.

"This is why I do the suits, just saying," he raised his hands to show he was just making a statement...a true statement.

"Who are we looking at, Iris?" Belén asked, brown eyes already scanning the woman's picture till it burned in her mind.

"She calls herself Black Orchid," Iris began. She rose from her seat and zoomed in on the picture of woman. "As far as anyone knows, she's a meta with - take a guess - plant-based powers who usually appears in the lower parts of the city."

"The slummy parts?" Barry figured that would be the best place to lay low and still make a name for themselves.

"She's not known for always appearing when needed, but she's still known enough to have search engine results," Iris scrolled through some of her pictures, stopping at a familiar tab. "This is actually from my old blog. People still send me stuff and take a look at the date for this post."

Belén walked up to the screen to find the date stamp. The picture was of Black Orchid holding up one, no doubt, petty thief in her arms in front of a crowd of people. "That's last month." She turned sideways, one finger pointed behind her at the picture. "She's an active meta, then."

"It's been weeks since her last appearance but do you know what's interesting about that too? It's right around the time Datura and you fought for the first time."

"Could it be that's she's scared of Datura, then?" Caitlin's theory made sense since pretty much everyone in the room feared the siphoner.

"It also means she's keeping up with the news and thus still very much in the city," Barry crossed his arms.

"So, why exactly are we looking for this girl?" Cisco made the question he'd been dying to ask ever since Iris made them gather in the cortex.

Belén walked back to the main desk and put her arms over them, nervous for some reason. It wasn't like her friends would call her crazy for what she wanted to do, after all. "Graciela mentioned a place to me - the Green - that I could use to contact other metahumans that are like me. It's a place like the Speedforce, if you will, where I could train and...meet metas like me. Meta who could help me get better so that I can fight Datura and actually stand a chance."

"And you think Black Orchid will be that meta?" Cisco languidly pointed at the picture on the screen.

"With any luck, she's got a better handle on her powers," Belén shrugged. "And I can pretty much use any help I can get."

"It's worth a shot," Barry agreed with her. "We just have to find her and bring her in."

"Like...here?" Caitlin blinked. She hadn't made that connection until now. "Do we think that'd be a good idea? Revealing where the Azalea and the Flash work?"

"She's obviously taking on crime already," Iris gestured to the pictures she'd collected. "She could be a good addition to the team."

"Black Orchid was a villain on my Earth before she disappeared," Harry startled the group from behind. He'd come in as quiet as usual and strode down the room with purpose. He came to a stop in front of the pictures on the screen and gazed at them for a few seconds. "You should be careful. She's as toxic as you, Belén."

"But she's not a villain here, clearly," Belén said. "And I actually need her to be toxic, okay?"

Harry turned sideways, giving them all a look that said 'you're all idiots and are going to get killed'. "Bringing in more metahumans into this is only going to blow up in your face. You want to take Datura down? You kill her already."

"Easier said than done," Belén folded her arms. "And I'm not exactly looking to kill her."

"She is with you."

"Okay," Barry cut in before Harry's imprudence got worse. "Thank you, Harry, for your input but this is something Belén wants to do. I support her and so does everyone else."

Harry scoffed lightly. "Course you do. Cos you're all idiots."

"Do you have a better idea?" Cisco called from behind. "No?" he let a few more seconds of silence pass by before saying, "Then hush!"

"Thanks guys," Belén sent her friends a warm smile. "And thanks Iris for searching. My head's been all over the place, so…"

Iris nodded at her. "Any time. I can keep looking if you want."

"I say we focus on Black Orchid right now," Belén glanced at the screen. "We need to find her, so...yeah. Let's focus on where she appears most."

As the group made plans to continue searching for Black Orchid, eventually dispersing from the room, Harry inched closer to the super suits left on display. He looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone in the room then yanked off Belén's suit tracker. He then gingerly planted a decoy in its place. For Jessie.

~ 0 ~

Datura swiftly caught Belén's suit tracker with both her hands and squealed with genuine delight. "Finally!" She held the small device between her fingers and clicked her tongue. "Now the game can finally start!"

Harry stood across her in the alley, his face blank of any expression. "My daughter is safe, right?"

Datura lowered her hand and offered one sneaky smile. "Sure. I do remember to feed her once in a while." She waited for his reaction but he stood frigid. "Don't like my joke? Fine. So-" she tucked the suit tracker into her pocket, "-what's my dear Belén up to now?"

Harry stayed quiet for a few minutes. He hated this so much. A snitch. That's what he was reduced to by some 25 year old in a leather suit. Not just that but a thief and a traitor.

"Wells?" Datura's voice darkened, as did the part of her face Harry could see with her mask. "I need to know what Belén is up to. I might just forget to give Jesse some dinner today."

The mention of his daughter made the man finally move from his stance. "She's looking for the metahuman, Black Orchid."

Datura snorted. "Killed her off a while ago," she mumbled. Her dark eyes met his surprised gaze and caused another sneaky smile to spread across her face. "What? You didn't know that one? Offed her months ago."

"Why?" Harry asked wearily. He would love to finally know what she was planning, what Zoom was planning...but learning that would mean he'd die seconds later.

"She was in my way and I thought she would be the one," Datura's cryptic answer was almost like she hadn't answered at all. All Harry got from that was it just another fight between criminals. "Anyways," she played with one of her long curls, "Let Belén find the doppelganger. No matter how hard she trains she'll never be better than me. It's just impossible." She turned to leave but stopped to give Harry one more warning, "By the way, Zoom might be requiring something from you soon."

At that, Harry gulped.

~ 0 ~

"I think we got a pretty good location, don't you think?" Iris glanced back at Belén to see the woman staring down at the kitchen table that held all of their information on Black Orchid.

They were in Belén's apartment, scouring through every last detail they could find of their meta. Together, they'd found more pictures of Black Orchid, some even when she was in the middle of some pretty gruesome fights.

"She's pretty much all over the slummy streets but, if I counted right, she's appeared at this intersection more than the others," Belén picked up a picture of an intersection that happened to hold a pretty cruddy-looking bar. "I bet you that bar is where we'll find out more about her."

"You want to go there?" Iris made a face at the picture. It was only a picture and it already scared her.

"It's okay, I can go by myself," Belén's reassurance didn't exactly help Iris because she didn't want Belén going there by herself either.

But someone knocked on the door, preventing Iris from voicing these opinions out loud. Belén let the picture back on the table and went to go open the door.

"Mom?" she blinked in surprise to see Veronica. Of course, when the surprise faded she was pretty relieved - and perhaps partly excited - to see her. "Come in!"

Veronica, in her part, still looked pretty unsure of herself. She walked in and gave a brief, small smile at Iris. "You're busy…"

"Yeah, but, don't worry. You wanted to talk?" Belén's excitement did not go unnoticed by Veronica.

With a sigh, Veronica shrugged. "I would like to, but...I don't know if it'll change things." She walked towards the kitchen and noticed all the papers sprawled across the table. "Were you two working?"

Iris didn't know what to respond with. She looked to Belén for some help, or clues, as to what to say. Would Belén want to disclose what they were actually doing or keep it away from Veronica?

"Yeah, we're looking for someone," Belén came to stand beside her mother, looking pretty unsure herself.

"A meta?" the distaste in Veronica's tone was clear for anyone to pick up on. She picked up a photograph of Black Orchid and frowned. "So you're really deep into this metahuman world."

"I have to be, Mom. I'm one of them," Belén said quietly and with eyes boring onto her mother's face for a reaction.

"Don't…" Veronica seemed to shiver at the reminder of Belén's metahuman side. "I wish you wouldn't say that so openly."

"Why not? It's the truth."

"Yes, but…" Veronica stopped and glanced at Iris. Just as the reporter was about to announce her departure, Veronica caught her off guard with a question. "How do you let her do this? How can you just let Belén go into this dangerous world and be okay with it?"

"Mom!" Belén exclaimed disapprovingly, but Iris was good with quick responses thanks to her line of work.

"Because it's her choice and, to be honest, she's a perfect fit for the job," Iris crossed her arms. "She and Barry are the perfect people to protect us. And people like us-" she pointed at herself then Veronica, "-have a duty to help them wherever we can. That includes being supportive."

Veronica's face was indescribable. On some part, she seemed impressed with the response...but then another part was angry Iris wasn't taking her side. "Well...you would say that," she said in the end in a low mumble, "Barry's your brother...does Joe know about this?" Iris didn't have to say or do anything for Veronica to know. "Course he does because he's your father."

"Mom, I thought we were going to talk…" Belén inwardly sighed. She should've known that Veronica would not get over this so quickly. At least there was no shouting this time.

"Belén, I just don't understand why you are so fixated on this...this world!"

"Because it's my world, mom. And I can't abandon it when there's so many people that could get hurt if I do."

Veronica shook her head. "I-I think we need to continue this another day because…"

Belén didn't want to keep pausing this argument because every time they did, it just dragged on the feelings more. But she also feared that if they kept going in one go, they really would just end up shouting at each other like the other times. At least this case seemed to be so grave for Veronica that she wasn't shouting. She was thinking. She may be thinking the wrong things but at least she was thinking…

"I'm here...whenever you want to pick up on things…" she said quietly.

Iris sympathized for her friend while Veronica walked out. "Bells, I'm so sorry."

"No," Belén sniffed and turned back for the table, eyes flickering from one picture to the other. "I need to focus on this."

"Yeah, but-"

"-Iris, I have to focus on this first. Maybe my mom just needs some more days to process this." Belén wanted to believe this so badly.

~ 0 ~

The pictures of Central City's slum parts did no justice to its reality. There was a lot more graffiti on the walls, a lot more trash on the streets. A lot of people were ruder and definitely looking for something to pick-pocket. Belén kept her arms crossed over her chest as she walked down the street. She found the bar from the picture she and Iris were looking at and went directly inside.

There was a foul odor at the entrance that she wished she could forget.

"Take a seat with me sweetheart," she heard a man say as she walked in.

"Screw off," she spat without sparing him a glance. She came up to the bar counter, which was pretty empty save for two more customers at the end. She pulled her phone out and left it on the counter in front of her, just in case she needed to snap pictures or look at one of the ones she already have.

A tall Asian woman with long, dark hair came by a couple minutes later. "What can I get you?"

"Um…" Belén wasn't that big of a drinker, and much less during the day so she just asked for a mimosa. While she waited, she began to look around the bar with more searching eyes. She didn't see anyone that would necessarily stand out. Everyone seemed to be doing their own things, whether it was legal or not.

"Here you go," the bar tender returned with the bright orange drink in her hand. As she put the glass down, her eyes lingered on Belén for a few seconds. "You looking for someone?" her tough voice startled Belén. When the woman nearly fell off her stool, the bartender smiled. "You're not from around here."

"That easy to tell?" Belén bit her lower lip.

"Yeah. Don't walk alone in these parts."

"Is it really that bad here?"

The bartender nodded her head. She popped a bubble from her bubble gum and smirked. "Not if you know how to take care of yourself."

Belén saw some odd marks on the side of the woman's neck. She was sure there were some stitches poking up from her blouse. "Are you okay?" she pointed at the injuries, startling the bartender for a moment.

"Yeah. Just got into it with someone, no big deal." The bartender seemed to shift from friendly to brief. "My name's Shivhan if you want to leave a tip," she said before walking away.

Belén picked up her mimosa and had a couple sips from it. As she was putting it down, she heard a familiar voice behind her that nearly made her spill the glass.

"You are beautiful but crazy," Barry stood behind her and not too pleased.

Belén turned her stool sideways so she could see him. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Iris told me you were coming here! Belén!" he whisper-hissed as he sat down next to her. "This is a shady place to be at on your own, Bells. How could you come here alone?"

"Um, because I'm a big girl who can take care of herself?"

Barry deadpanned her. That's not what he meant and she knew it. "It never hurts to have backup. Besides, do you even know what you'd say to Black Orchid if you found her?"

"No, but...I'm a reporter. I'd wing it," Belén picked up her mimosa again and smiled.

Barry shook his head at her. "Alright, so what do have? Any clues?"

"Not really. I was just kind of scoping the area out," Belén shrugged and briefly looked back at the room. "But there's barely any people here and those who are, are definitely not Black Orchid."

Barry could agree with that since almost every customer in the building were men. "Maybe we should try later."

"I'm hoping something will happen that would make Black Orchid appear."

"Bit cynical," remarked Barry.

"Desperate." Belén sighed and forgot about her glass as she turned her stool to face the room. "I don't know, maybe we could speed things up or something."

"Like how?"

"Well...Black Orchid seems to appear whenever there's trouble, so…"

Barry was giving her a strange look. "You want us to stage a fight?"

"Something like that."

"I don't know about that Belén...I think we need to come up with a good plan and then-"

Belén was about to cut him off with the fact they didn't - or rather she didn't - have time to sit down and plan, when they heard a loud crash from outside. At once Belén jumped off her stool and tried to peer out into the street from her spot.

"Fight! Fight!" a crowd sitting near the door started to chant, prompting some delirious laughter from the room. It was only a matter of seconds before they rushed out into the streets.

"Creeps," Shivhan, the bartender, spat while she continued to wipe down the counter.

Barry got up as well and sprinted up to the window to see what was going on. Belén soon followed and saw with him that there were a couple of masked thieves making out of a shop with some valuables. Two of them had guns.

"We gotta do something," Barry rushed out the door but just as he was about to leave the sidewalk, Belén yanked him to her side.

"This is our chance!"

"Belén, someone could get hurt!"

"They won't because you'll intervene if she's not here in 1 minute," Belén promised then faced the street.

The thieves were trying to make an escape but there were being confronted with another group intending on taking the stolen valuables. Just as they were about to fire, something purple swooped down and punched the two gunmen from the first thief band.

"I told you…" Belén sounded breathless as she gazed at none other than Black Orchid. Barry had to hand it to her and her precise thinking.

Black Orchid was a feared presence by most of the people outside, judging how they stepped back. From what they could see, the meta had long, dark hair and dark eyes hidden behind a black mask that covered half her face. She wore a one-suit in the colors of black and violet. It was the same one Iris had shown them earlier.

Black tendrils sprouted from the woman's back and captured three of the men. She threw them halfway down the street without regards of where they hit or how hard they hit. She then ducked to avoid being hit by one of the men behind her. She jumped back up and kicked a leg up to knock the man down. As bullets fired towards her, she used her vines to create a shield where the bullets embedded themselves. Once she disbanded the shield, she sent the bullets right back and injured two more men. The last two remaining were from each of band and they both looked equally terrified.

"Drop it and go," she ordered in a rough voice.

The two instantly dropped their stolen things and made a run for it. Black Orchid raised three fingers and when she'd pulled them down, her arm did a boomerang action and released two different black masses that attached themselves to the men.

"Barry, we gotta get her alone," Belén spoke quietly to the speedster next to her.

"But how?" Barry looked around and saw that while the thieves had been taken down - killed, really - the crowd around them was still watching Black Orchid like hawks.

"I brought something with me," Belén admitted. Barry looked down at her and saw her reaching into her purse. She showed him the tip of a syringe. His eyes widened at it but before he could say something she said, "It's a sedative."

"Belén, we can't really do-"

"-I need her, Barry," she told him like this was already decided with or without him. "Datura is going to kill me if I don't up my game. Black Orchid can help me do that."

There was some questionable tactics Barry saw Black Orchid far too comfortable with, but he knew that he could stand there and argue with Belén without making a difference. "Fine." He took the syringe from her and disappeared. A minute later, so did Black Orchid.

When Belén felt a set of arms pull her as well, she smiled. She found herself in an alley where Black Orchid was already down with sedation. "Thank you," she said to the speedster.

Barry gazed down at the unconscious metahuman. "I don't think she'll be thanking us for this."

~0~

Team STAR Labs was never one for kidnapping. So when Barry and Belén brought in a guest, kidnapped and unconscious, they had much to say over the matter.

"This is not legal," Caitlin was the first to say, or scold, at the two metas. Barry and Belén stood in the middle of the cortex, listening to everyone having their go at them. "You kidnapped someone!"

"Well, if I asked she wouldn't have come," Belén argued. "You guys didn't see her out there. She's tough."

"And you think you need to be the same?" Cisco's doubtful stare made her roll her eyes.

"I need to change something and she can help me figure out what."

"Least she's taking initiative," Harry inputted his own opinion, surprising Belén that he was actually siding with her since he originally didn't agree with the plan of finding Black Orchid. "You can't always be soft. Especially when someone's trying to kill you."

"Uh, thanks Harry," she offered the man a small smile before looking at Caitlin and Cisco. "I'm not hurting her. I just needed to get her here so I could talk to her."

"And if she doesn't want to help?" asked Cisco.

"Let's hope she does."

"Well…" Caitlin has looked up from a computer, "... now's your chance. She just woke up."

~0~

Black Orchid was a woman who could be scary. Her balled fists repeatedly pounded against the pipeline pod. "LET ME OUT!" She screamed and screamed the same thing.

Cisco honestly thought the pod wouldn't last if this kept going.

Black Orchid only stopped when she saw someone coming into the pipeline. She straightened up and raised her head to judge if this person was going to help or not. "Who are you?" She didn't have to wait for a verbal answer since she saw clear as day who was on the other side. "The Azalea? Hm. That's a shocker. Would you let me go? I didn't do nothing wrong."

"You did kill people…" Belén reminded, though not as a way to punish her.

"They're thugs! It's kill or be killed!"

"Look, I'm not here to talk about who you killed or how many you killed. I need your help."

Black Orchid dropped her arms to her sides. Her chin raised again and though she had a mask on, Belén swore she was being judged. "Why would the Azalea need my help?"

"Because Datura is a dangerous metahuman that I cannot stop if you don't teach me how to get into the Green."

Black Orchid lowered her head. "Excuse me? The Green? You know about that?" Belén nodded her head. "But you don't know how to get in?"

"Have you ever seen me in there?" Belén made a good point.

Black Orchid crossed her arms and looked around the pod she was trapped in. "And you thought the best way to get me to help you was to lock me up?"

"Not my best idea but I really needed to have a minute with you."

"Here's the thing, I don't trust you. And, let's be honest, you don't trust me." Black Orchid inched closer to the glass wall. "I'm not training anyone. In this world, it's all about yourself. I need to look out for myself."

"Well, that's a pretty way of looking at life," Belén remarked. "But look, I really need your help. Datura is coming back-"

"-then you fight her off. She's your fight, not mine. Why do you think I've hidden for a month now? I'm not looking to get killed."

"But if you don't help me a lot of people are going to die!"

"Better them than me," Black Orchid said so plainly, so flatly, that Belén's mouth almost fell to the floor.

"How could you...how could you say that?"

"Because it's the truth. Self preservation."

Belén was flabbergasted to hear such a thing.

~0~

"I cannot believe she said that!" Belén stormed into the cortex, looking ready to kill someone herself. "How rude! How...selfish!"

"Sorry it didn't work out, Bells," Cisco meant as a true apology but she scoffed at him.

"Are you, though? You weren't even on board with the idea in the first place!"

Cisco made a face but, knowing she was just upset, he kept his mouth shut. He, did, however, give a look at Barry and Caitlin. Someone else needed to step in.

"Belén, maybe we just need to give her some time," Barry's suggestion was also responded with a scoff.

"I don't have time!" She groaned and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Caitlin called after her.

"Out! Don't follow!"

"She's m-a-d mad," Cisco whistled then quickly looked back to see if Belén had heard.

"She's upset, and with good reason," Barry rubbed his forehead. "Let's just keep an eye on her. She took the suit so-"

"-she's really mad," Cisco blurted and received a disapproving look from Caitlin. Barry just sighed.

"She turned off the tracker in her suit," Caitlin informed a few minutes later.

"Not surprising," Barry mumbled and moved over to see the screen himself. "She couldn't have gotten far. I'll go get her. See if I can talk to her."

He zipped out of the cortex with his suit, intending on finding Belén and bringing her back. However, it turned out Belén was very good at hiding. It'd been at least an hour of him scouring through the city before he gave up and asked for some additional help. Caitlin and Cisco were monitoring as usual, but, like Barry, they didn't have a clue where Belén went. It was like she disappeared.

"I've gone through all the places she usually goes to, I'm starting to get worried," Barry admitted. He stood at the top of a rooftop overlooking the busy streets of the city. It was fine that Belén wanted to have some time alone but two hours of no contact felt wrong.

"Uh, we got something, Barry!" Cisco exclaimed.

"Did you find her?" Barry quickly asked, ready to go as soon as they gave him a place.

"Yeah, um…looks like some warehouse off on Third and Carson street."

"That's weird," remarked Caitlin. "That whole block is for warehouses. What could Belén be doing there?"

"Don't know but we're going to find out," Barry said before speeding down the building he was on. He followed the instructions from the two and didn't bother coming in cautiously. He skidded to a stop and looked around the empty warehouse. "Belén?" he called out and received no answer. "Belén!"

"What's going on, Barry?" Cisco asked after the third failed call for Belén.

"She's not here," Barry ripped the cowl off his head and started walking down the left. There was something making a light noise coming from that direction. "But I...I don't think this warehouse is empty…"

"Belén's tracker says she's there, dude," Cisco insisted, though he was going through the tracker's ping just to make sure.

"Well, I don't see her," Barry kept walking forwards, now spotting something silvery round the corner. "Belén?"

"Barry, be careful," Caitlin warned. She was beginning to think there was something wrong with this entire situation. As if the world was reading her mind, she got a different type of alert on her computer screen.

Barry reeled back when a redhead swung from the side. "Hi there pretty boy," Poison Ivy showed off a smug smirk before firing at the speedster with a high-tech gun.

"Barry!" Cisco shouted as the computer stopped getting readings from Barry's vitals, his entire suit's actually. "Everything's gone offline." Cisco leaned back against his chair and heaved a heavy breath.

"Caitlin!" they both heard Belén's voice shriek from the other end of the line.

The two in the cortex did a quick double-take at each other before calling out their friend's name.

"Where are you!?" Caitlin demanded while she worked to figure out how the meta alert was coming from one part while Belén's tracker was pinging from another.

"Downtown! And I'm -" Belén shrieked again.

As it turned out, she was nowhere near close Barry's location. She didn't know how it happened, to be honest. She'd been sulking on her own for a while when she started to see some familiar red energy from a distance. Trained or not, she was not planning on giving Datura a pass. She chased after the energy until it led her downtown…

Datura had sucker-punched her from behind. She seemed to be on a different plan because even though she had a clear, open path to hurt Belén again, she walked past the woman on the ground and moved towards a street pole. Her eyes glowed an orange before shooting lasers at the street pole.

As Belén turned on her stomach, she saw the bottom of the street pole begin to steam as the acid from the lasers melted it away.

"Better, run, run, run!" Datura sing-sang to the people around when the street pole started creaking and leaning on its side.

"Oh, dammit," Belén muttered and scrambled to her feet. She started throwing vines to pull away the people in danger of getting squashed.

Datura boredly rolled her eyes as if saving people was a waste of time, and to her it was. When Belén pulled the last person out of the way, Datura rubbed her hands together and created a sword from her red energy.

"Uh oh," Belén had the good sense to back away. "Caitlin!" she started to call but for some reason, no one answered her. "Caitlin!"

"Where are you!?" Caitlin demanded so suddenly that, if Belén had been more focused, she would've picked up on the fact something was wrong.

"Downtown! And I'm -" Belén shrieked and ducked when Datura threw her sword at her. "It's Datura! She's back!"

"And ready to win," Datura said with a proud smile. Her eyes glowed silver, as did her hands. She radiated in Lunar energy, something Belén hadn't quite seen before and was therefore a little scared. "The power of Eclipsa-" Datura's smile widened, but Belén once again noticed there was a different voice speaking with Datura's, -is mine. Here's a little taste of what I can do!" She drew her hands back and started firing consecutively with lunar bolts.

Belén whipped her hands in front of her and tried doing what she saw Black Orchid doing earlier. She created a makeshift shield in front of her but Datura was going nonstop. "Caitlin, I really need Barry right now!"

"I - we thought he was with you!" Cisco exclaimed. "We lost contact with him!"

That made Belén automatically drop her shield in shock. "What!?" A series of lunar bolts hit her square in the chest, knocking her back on the ground. She shook her head in an attempt to rid her ears of the warped sounds. "Caitlin...where's...Barry?"

"We're working on it!"

"Oooh, are you looking for your partner?" Datura started walking towards Belén who was sitting up. "Yay-high?" She made a gesture of Barry's height over her head, "Red suit? Admittedly good looking?" Belén openly glared at her, making the woman laugh. "Don't be jealous. But, I do know where your Flash is."

Belén paused and gave Datura a look. "What?" She quickly got up and, to Datura's surprise, she swung a vine to throw the Earth 2 meta into a bus stop bench. "If you hurt him-"

Datura raised a hand and delivered a shock of electricity Belén's way. The brunette screamed as her body convulsed with the electric shocks.

Datura slowly got up and felt something over her lip. She took a drip of blood off her skin and scowled at herself. "Great." She walked towards Belén, admittedly feeling wobbly on her feet. "Listen up Azalea, here's the deal. I've got your Flash all nice and unconscious thanks to a speed gun I swept from Earth 2-" she bent down in front of Belén, smirking at the weariness in the woman's face from being attacked, "-and if you want to see him again...you're gonna have to drop this. Poison Ivy doesn't do patience."

Belén blinked rapidly from the electricity still lingering in her body. "I...want to...see him."

Datura smirked. "Thought you would." She raised a hand, making it seem like she was going to wave goodbye when instead she fired one last energy beam to knock Belén out.

~ 0 ~

In the cortex gathered at the cortex after realizing their two leading metas had been taken right under their noses.

"It was a trap," Cisco said quietly, and defeatedly, at his chair. He had his hands put together to the bridge of his nose. "It was a trap and we didn't see it."

"But it doesn't make sense how Datura got Belén's suit tracker in the first place," Caitlin hated the fact she couldn't figure that mystery out. "We didn't even realize it was gone."

From the corner of the cortex stood Harry, still and silent. His jaw was clenched with guilt but he still could not say anything.

"We know where they are," Iris reminded them. She looked at the screen on the wall, displaying the last known whereabouts of Barry. "Let's just go get them."

"First of all, we don't even know if they're still going to be there," Cisco pointed out, dropping his hand to his lap. "Second of all, even if they are still there...what the hell are we supposed to do?" he made a quick gesture at their members. "They'd kill us."

Caitlin set a hand on Cisco's shoulder and gave a smile at the rest. "I think what Cisco's trying to say is that we do not have the...meta-skills to take on Datura and Poison Ivy at the same time."

"Well, we have to do something," Iris walked up to the desk and set her arms over the top. "Can we call in Nina?"

"Even then, taking on these two metas…" Caitlin gave a shake of her head. "She'll need back up."

"Where do we get that from?" Iris looked at the trio expectantly.

Cisco looked up at Caitlin, both apparently thinking of the same thing.

"Wait here," he pushed himself up from his chair. He exchanged a nod with Caitlin before the two walked out of the cortex.

~ 0 ~

After hours of screaming to be released, Black Orchid resigned herself to the fact she may never be getting out of the pipeline. She picked herself up as soon as she heard the pipeline door opening.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded when she was face to face with Caitlin and Cisco.

"Manners," Cisco pointed at her. "We have a proposition for you."

"And why the hell would I care?"

"Because it involves your freedom, smartass," Cisco snapped. Caitlin inwardly sighed. This would definitely infuriate Belén but right now what mattered was bringing her and Barry back.

Black Orchid leaned on her hip. "I'm listening."

"The Azalea and the Flash have been kidnapped by Datura. We need you to help our friend, the Tempest, get them back."

Black Orchid unceremoniously snorted. "You want me to go up against the siphoner this entire city is talking about? She's the reason I stopped showing my face."

"What do you mean?" Caitlin's eyebrows knitted together.

Black Orchid didn't like the fact she'd unintentionally admitted that. "It's clear that this Datura wants to kill anyone in her path. I've seen what she's done to the Azalea. Imagine what she'd do if she found another botanist metahuman? No way!"

Cisco wasn't in a particular mood to remind the woman she was a human being. So, like Belén, he did first and would apologize later. "Fine, then I guess you'll stay here forever. Or at least until you die."

"You wouldn't let me die," scoffed the meta.

"Have you seen any other prisoners here?" Cisco's question made the metahuman pause. "Yeah. What do you think happened to the others in here?"

"You can't do that!"

"Then please help us," Caitlin pleaded. "C'mon. You're afraid and we get that, but if you don't do anything then Datura will kill the Azalea. And, if there's no one left to fight Datura...you're not going to be safe anywhere."

"If I go up against her I'll die right there and then," Black Orchid countered with.

"You said you were hiding from Datura so you didn't show your face," Caitlin reminded. "But the Azalea said you showed your face today after a store got robbed. That doesn't sound like self preservation to me."

"...that was my favorite store," Black Orchid rolled her eyes, attempting to make it all casual.

"Cut the crap, girl!" Cisco exclaimed. "Your freedom's on the table and you're gonna seriously waste it?"

"We can help you," Caitlin added. "We can make sure you're well prepared. We could even help you heal from your past fights." Black Orchid visibly stiffened. "The Azalea told us about some of the stitches she saw on you. And like my friend said, your freedom is on the table."

Black Orchid's dark eyes flickered from one scientist to the next. She knew what her position was and how far she could actually get. It wasn't good. "Fine," she huffed and reached a hand to the back of her head where her mask's tie was. "But I need some stitches to be re-done. So, who's the medical doctor here?" she tore the mask off to reveal a familiar face, though not familiar to Caitlin or Cisco.

Bartender Shivhan Jang stared at the scientists.

Author's Note:

So, first of all, this is a disclaimer for the fact that while I am writing in the character of Black Orchid, I am doing a different VERSION of the character. Black Orchid belongs to the DC world.

Now, the reason I decided to write this character in was because I felt it genuinely wrong she was written and barely got recognition. I never heard of Black Orchid until I started doing research on botanical metahumans for this precise arc. It amazed me she was such a complex character that I just had to write my version of hers.

And a visual reference of Black Orchid, aka Shivhan, would be the Korean singer Sunmi.

#ocappreciation #arrowverseocs #fd: the flash #the flash #barry allen #barry allen imagines #barry allen fics #the flash fics #the flash imagines #oc: Belén Palayta #oc: the azalea #fic: rise up

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spoonhacks · 5 years ago

Text

My Fibro Journey and How I Came Back from Rock Bottom

This not advice. But this is a true story, and it’s time I shared my Fibro journey. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia just as college was ending. This is not to say it began then, but it came to head enough to finally get an answer. This came about a year and a half after my Interstitial Cystitis diagnosis, and I was in BAD shape. I was 90 lbs, deteriorating, and everything winded me. The pain was constant and completely overwhelming. I had thrown every last drop of my energy into finishing my college thesis and graduating from a school I had worked SO hard at. When it finally commenced, I felt lost. I was depleted from the effort and it was 2011 and the economy was in shambles. Having nowhere else to go, I moved into my dad’s spare room in Massachusetts, miles away from the state I had always called home, my precious Florida warmth, and the love of my life. I was, unsurprisingly, miserable, and my health tanked immediately. I was cold all the time. No amount of blankets helped because I wasn’t generating my own heat. I remember spending Thanksgiving eve in the emergency room because an Interstitial Cystitis flare had caused a UTI to back up and give me yet another kidney infection and I had a soaring fever. Things were toxic with my dad. His cure for everything is to get up at 6am and be busy busy busy and I was in desperate need of rest. When it became obvious to me finding a job was not happening, I started an Etsy shop for my crafts with the limited energy I had. It pulled in maybe $200 a month but it felt good to be doing one small thing. A few months later the love of my life arranged to follow me to New England and secured a place for us in the apartment above his father’s house. We were together again but things were tense, his dad is occasionally a monster, and it wasn’t long before we were moving again. My health was awful and we were broke as a joke. I was sleeping 12 hours a day and spending the rest of my time trying to figure out what kind of life I was going to be able to have. I was severely depressed. We moved to an absolute shit-hole of a apartment in a bad neighborhood. Rent was $850/month for 280 square feet. We could barely afford it, and mostly lived off of my partner’s disability check and food stamps. My small savings was gone. We fought about money a lot. The Etsy shop brought in maybe $300 now, but it was clear this was not going to cover everything for a long time, if ever. My health only continued to decline and I felt utterly useless. Some days I was too sore to even get out of bed. The stress was unbearable as I watched everything in my life spiral. I honestly felt like if something didn’t change and soon, I was going to die. I thought back to the last thing I’d done right: my college thesis at art school. It took me forever to choose what medium to do the project in as there were a few I’d been practicing proficiently. I kept asking myself: “What am I the best at? What am I the best at?” and got nowhere. Finally I asked myself “What am I the worst at? What medium am I absolutely shit at that I would love to do but never learned how?” And the answer was pen and ink. A few months later I graduated with a pen and ink portfolio with one of two A’s in my professor’s senior class. So here I was, applying to design jobs and retail jobs and anything else I thought I might be good at with 0 responses for months on end. Then, instead, I asked myself what I was the worst at-- manual labor! After all, grocery shopping would knock me out until the next day. I realized this was insane to even consider and I might literally die. But I was so low it didn’t matter. If I continued wasting away like this I was going to die anyway. I knew this in my heart. Having cared for horses as a kid I started applying for barn jobs in the area. I remember straightening myself up and forcing myself to look energetic and animated for the interviews. I finally got a job. I was terrible at it. Shoveling for hours and pushing around a 300lb wheelbarrow, imagine! I could not lift a hay bale (they are about 65 lbs). But, I got up at 4:45 in the morning and drove to work in the snow before the plows came and always got to work on time. I worked only weekend days and by Sunday night I would have to make sure there was a crockpot meal going because I knew I would collapse at the end of the day. I cried in the car on the way home every single shift. My body was on fire. Mondays I could not get out of bed. The pain was immeasurable and I spent most of the day crying and had my partner help me to the bathroom. I spent the whole week recovering and patching myself up enough to get to my next shift on Saturday. But I promised myself something: that I would never complain, not to anyone at work, and not even to myself in my head. I imagined myself as a monk. Chop wood, carry water. I got fired. Then I got another barn job and got fired. Then I got another one and got fired again. The 4th job was still hard, but I did not get fired. I could now lift the hay bales. I gained 20 lbs (entirely muscle) and my body was completely different. Instead of being carried to the bathroom on Monday, I could transport myself to the couch and do basic self-care activities. I could do my crafts during the week again and between the two income streams I could afford my half of living expenses and was very slowly socking away a tiny, tiny nest egg that would eventually become the start up capital for my business. Two years had passed since mucking my first stall. My Fibro was not cured by any means but my IC was somewhat in remission and I was doing much better. Daily life got easier. After all, compared to hay bales, lifting the pasta pot while making dinner was less of a big deal. I eventually left the barn job and got a job doing landscaping and construction-- more manual labor! My new boss was disabled too and used a walker on the job site. He was also a Buddha in a blue collar. After having kept my illness a secret for 2 years of barn jobs I could finally tell a boss the truth and it was a relief. He understood me and always gave me the jobs I could flourish at. I learned a lot from him, did legitimately good work, made slightly better money, and moved out of the shit-hole apartment to an art community, which was an important step forward on the path toward opening my own business and doing art full time. During the second year of running my shop I realized I didn’t need a second job anymore and that it would be the first year in the last 5 where I wouldn’t have to dig any holes.

I’d risked it all, every last drop of my health. It could have killed me. And the agony was indescribable, but I would do it again. My body is changed forever and even years since I have last worked manual labor I am still improved for it and much more active than I was in those dark years right after college. Everything I have now I owe to that one, insane decision I made at rock bottom. This is not advice. Take what you will from my story. I still despise people who say “exercise will cure Fibro if you just tried harder :) :) :)” or some stupid shit like that. None of them know how dangerous this was or how much suffering I endured. It could have easily gone the other way. There were days my partner saw the condition I was in and begged me to stop. I told him with a roar in my voice if I didn’t keep going I was going to die. I don’t regret it. I have less pain now, consistently, than I did before I went through all that and I still try to keep up my fitness level so I never go back there. Thank you for reading my story. I can’t recommend my path, but if you come away with one thing from this, just know that there is a path forward, somewhere, and perhaps in the most unlikely of places.

#fibromyalgia #chronic pain #personal #chronically ill #disabled

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omg-baeyoung-baeran · 4 years ago

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Maybe I Should Resign: Chapter 2

Not a single person inside the company got past the thorough investigation, yet all the results they got were negative. It was as if the document just suddenly disappeared on its own without a trace. The only evidence in hand proving it was truly stolen was the loop video they found a week ago, resulting in several employees getting fired due to their inexcusable poor performance.

Jumin twirled the pen around his fingers. “Things have not been going on smoothly, I presume?” He stared at the fidgeting man sitting across him.

“We apologize, Mr. Han, but this thief is well-prepared and is quite knowledgeable in hacking to have accessed the system. The only thing we can suggest now is investigation of those who visited the company and those employees that have left the company, from the time the chairman placed it in drawer 7 until the date the document was found missing.”

A suffocating aura surrounded the miserable man while an intimidating silence filled the entire room. Anyone who was familiar with the chairman and his son knew how the latter hated inconvenience with a passion. Jumin Han may be a patient man, but issues extending beyond his expected time of resolve have always been aggravating to his tolerance.

Heaving a sigh of resignation, he waved the employee away. “I want it done three days from now. Provide me a list of possible suspects. Those who get cleared must be reconfirmed thrice, and I expect a complete report about the suspects Tuesday next week. Is everything clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Han.”

As the man’s retreating figure exited the door, his attention shifted to the cat stamp on his desk, staring at him with its big, cartoon-like golden eyes. Things had been hectic lately that he forgot he placed it there. “How fortunate… toys have no worries,” he said, lids drooping from exhaustion.

But what is life to be lifeless?

Unlike objects, he gets to experience life as a social being, and it is freedom which gives life a pleasant taste. It is natural for men to seek freedom when they are under extreme limiting control, since they are blessed with free will; however, it is unnatural for men to seek too much liberation for it causes chaos. There is such a thing as greed for freedom, but there is no such thing as peaceful freedom without restraint; balance is important.

He considered himself to be fairly balanced….

But what is this strange yearning?

“I must be missing Elizabeth the Third.” He rested his cheek on the back of his hand, grabbing the cat stamp with his other and stamping it on a scratch paper. To his surprise, the cat opened its mouth—a message rolling out of its tongue.

“You’re special! Stay happy!”

He scoffed. It was undeniable. The message was just cringeworthy.

Still, for some reason, a small smile made its way to his lips.

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

She was a person of mistake. From touching the iron—when her mother told her not to during her younger days—to quitting a job because of a huge mistake–quitting the job itself was a huge mistake too. Apparently, even smaller jobs do not come easily as well. A long, devastated sigh escaped her pinkish lips.

“I’m sorry, Grandmother, to leave you this soon… but I don’t want to burden you when I’m jobless,” she sobbed dramatically, earning her a chuckle from the elder woman.

“Don’t be sorry now. Your mother needs you at home for sure, so you’re actually doing her a favour coming back.”

“But I need to earn for the family.”

“I know, my dear. But it seems like fate is leading you back home. Everything will eventually pass just as this problem of yours. You’ve gone through so many difficulties before, so why not believe you’ll overcome this too in time?”

Hannah pouted at her grandmother. “I just want to be able to provide enough for my family… I want them to live comfortably,” she grumbled, “Mom has already made a lot of sacrifices for us, and I just want to be able to provide for them, so she could get the chance to use her money and time to spend it on things she wants.”

“Your mother is spending her money and time on things she loves… or rather ‘people’ she loves.”

This made her look up from the ground and gaze at her grandmother’s gentle eyes. She may not have the luck to enjoy luxurious things in life, but she has the luxury of a loving family… and to her, that is more special than what all precious stones can offer. With teary eyes, Hannah stood up from the couch and gave her a loving embrace.

“I’ll miss you.” Those words left her with a smack on the head.

“I’m old but don’t talk like I’m running out of time!”

She left to go back home to her little town the following day…

...unaware of the man in black who came to visit the humble abode later.

Coming back home, she felt the wind brushing against her cheeks; the memories of her past greeted her along with it. It was a small town, so people were fairly acquainted with one another. It would have been pleasant to know everyone in the neighbourhood, but because of the small population, gossips tend to spread like wildfire. Everyone was into each other’s business, and it can be utterly frustrating.

“Sister!” Two kids called from afar, one with chin-length blonde hair and blue eyes, while the other having red hair and green eyes. Before she could even prepare for it, two small bodies crashed against her, their laughter filling her ears.

“We missed you!” Sana, the blonde, squealed and wrapped her arms more tightly around her waist.

“Hey! Sis can’t breathe!” Riri, the redhead, pulled their younger sister away from the breathless brunette. “She just arrived and you’re already killing her.”

The two kids continued to bicker in front of her, but what caught her eye was their approaching mother slowly making her way towards them.

“Sana, Riri, come here and let your sister rest inside. You can disturb her when she has fully settled.”

The whines from the two made her giggle. They had not changed since the last time she was home. She ruffled their hair and led them back into their home, their mother walking closely behind.

People turned their heads to their direction, accompanied by whispers she could barely hear. It was an attention a family with different appearances would garner. She thought she might get used to it, though they were proving it to be difficult.

A crestfallen look marred her face. “Sorry, Mom,” she started, “I lost my job.”

There was a pause. Hannah hung her head down, too ashamed to face her mother who was already struggling to make ends meet.

They continued to walk but no one dared to speak, until her mother let out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know why you’re wearing such a long face. I’m just happy you safely returned home and well. You can always get another job, Hun. Always have hope." The older woman placed a comforting hand on her daughter’s back. “We’ve been struggling for a long time, but look at us… we’re still alive till this day. That should be enough to give us hope, don’t you think?”

Hannah reluctantly nodded, wrapping her arm around her mother’s waist.

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

“She’s not there?”

“Yes. The address written is a temporary address when she was working here, Mr. Han.”

“Where is her current location?”

He scrutinized the photo on the top right corner of the file. The lady in the photo had long brown hair and ash brown eyes. Her skin held a pale complexion but vibrant with life. He cannot recall a time he ever saw her around, but he can vaguely remember the HR manager presenting him details concerning the new recruits back then.

“Odd,” he remarked. “She left just a few days prior to the time we discovered that the document was missing.”

“We will perform the inspection today if you wish.”

He raised his hand which silenced the man before him. “No,” he commanded, his tone holding absolute certainty. “I will personally handle this. You’ve been away from your task for too long. Return to your stations.”

Just like that, they were dismissed.

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

Hannah paused, then rested her palms against her back. She bent backwards, going lower until she heard a few pops. Five hours of having her back hunched forward put considerable strain on her bones that she sometimes considered herself as a 24-year old with the back pain of a 90-year old.

Washing other people’s laundry traditionally is so damn hard… I wish we had a washing machine to do this.

From the corner of her eye, four middle-aged women were gathered together, tirelessly speaking in hushed tones among themselves.

“I sometimes pity that girl.”

“What’s there to pity? It’s justified karma!” The woman huffed, fanning herself with a piece of cardboard. “You see, if her mother wasn’t such a tramp who slept around with men, then their lives would not be like that.”

“You’re right. Poor girls… suffering because of their whore of a mother.”

Knuckles slowly turned white as she furiously scrubbed the cloth between her fists, even when the stains had faded and all. She vowed to never curse out loud as it would set a bad example for Sana and Riri.

“I heard she got pregnant with her eldest... Ha… Han... what’s her name again?”

“Hannah!”

“Ah, yes! She got pregnant with Hannah when she was still in high school.”

“Really?” The woman’s face contorted into a grimace.

“Mm-hmm! That’s why she never finished high school!”

Damn you all.

“Her daughter seems to be following in her footsteps, though. She never finished school too, no?”

Excuse you! Get your facts straight! I graduated from high school but I didn’t go to college!

With Sana and Riri not around, she could scream profanities that would put even the most vulgar mouths to shame.

“And they even have different fathers!”

Jeez. Why bother whispering when I could hear every insult?

“A pretty face won’t hide her utter lack of breeding.”

A little louder! I don’t think the people in the back heard you!

Her imagination showed her the best way to swat the wet cloth on to their faces, yet she chose to clench her jaw instead and hunched lower, twisting the wet shirt with all her might. The onslaught of tears that threatened to spill stung her eyes and slowly blurred her vision.

No. Not in front of them.

For the next hour, Hannah had to turn a blind eye to their gossip, lest she be fired due to misdemeanor. She shifted her attention from them to the next batch of laundry on her left.

Why do they keep assuming the worst out of us? They don’t know the whole story!

When they finally exited the place, Hannah released the shirt with much force back in the basin, the impact causing the frothy water to splatter against her face.

A small whimper escaped from her mouth, yet she managed to hold back her tears.

She hated her small town; she hated everyone in it. If it were not for her family, she would never set foot in that place ever again. But alas, the world would be unbalanced if everyone got what they wanted.

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

“I’m home!”

As soon as Hannah announced her arrival, she placed her slippers on the indiscernible shoe rack. She was careful not to step on the holes where wooden floorboards used to be. So far, its state was the same as the last time she visited. There was nothing to be cautious about.

After all, she had every crooked floorboard committed to memory—

“Ah!” she screeched, her heart stopping from the unforeseen mishap. “SANA! RIRI! WHAT’S THIS?”

“It was Riri!”

Hannah sucked in a huge breath and bellowed, “RIRI!”

Just in time, Riri got out of the bathroom. “Oh, sis, welcome home.”

“Yeah, it was a very warm welcome. Care to explain this?” She pulled her foot out and pointed at the hole where it just fell into.

“Sorry, it gave off when I threw my socks there.” The young redhead scratched her cheek. “I think the wood was ready to shatter anyway. Even the weight of a spirit can break that part of the floor.”

As much as Hannah loved her younger sisters, they could sometimes get on her nerves.

Well, we wouldn’t be sisters if no one annoyed each other.

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

“Hannah, you’re done already?”

“Yeah,” she answered after drinking a bottle of fresh milk she got for free from the old lady she often helped crossing the streets. “Want this? I’m already full.”

Upon offering the partly-consumed bottle of milk, Riri and Sana jumped from glee, only to argue who was getting a bigger portion from it.

Honestly, she could greedily gulp that milk on her own, but fresh milk rarely comes into their lives. Whenever she got the chance to be lucky, she felt responsible to share the things she gained with her sisters… no matter how small the portion was left for her. They were helpless children in a twisted world.

It’s not that she never saw the brighter side—she and her family were together and in good health; they at least had food on the table… that should be enough, right?

Right?

Tomorrow would be the same as any other day; her mother would rise earlier than the roosters’ crows, prepare breakfast, bathe, then go to work.

Working 12 hours a day with only a cracker and bottle of water to get her through…

… Hannah could not help but feel they deserved more.

I don’t need to be filthy rich. Just an average life would do!

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

Another day, another muscle sore….

Something was not right.

High-pitched shouts and boisterous laughters roused Hannah from her shallow slumber. She grabbed the pillow underneath her head, then pressed it over her ear to block out the noise, but to no avail.

What is it now?

She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, then got out of bed. Sluggishly, she dragged herself out of the bedroom.

As she got out, the suspicious feeling that something was off came once again. She was not greeted by the usual scene of Riri and Sana running around.

Her eyes scanned the shabby living room, then stopped at the front door that was left ajar.

Taking brisk steps towards it, she could make out not only her sisters’ voices…

“Go away! Or I’ll call my sister!”

“Oohh, I’m scared! You hear that? She’ll call her sister!”

She pulled the door wide open, “Sana! Riri!”

Their mockery came into an abrupt halt when she entered the scene.

Riri stood in front of a crying Sana, shielding her from a group of grown men.

She felt a vein pop upon seeing the shameless display of immaturity, “Stop that!”

Upon seeing their eldest sister, Sana sniffled, rubbing her eyes as she ran towards her.

“Sana!” Hannah crouched to the young blonde’s height. “Are you alright? Did they do something to you?” She took Sana’s arms and scanned her for any injury.

Fortunately, Sana was physically unharmed.

Gritting her teeth, Hannah stood and glared at the group of grown men acting like 10-year olds.

An insult to 10-year olds all over the world. Being middle-class does not give you the right to step on us!

“Have you lost your minds? She’s just a child! If it’s a fight you want, then sorry. We can’t entertain you.” She faced her two sisters, resting her hands against their backs and urging them towards the front door. “Sana, Riri, let’s go back inside.”

“Aaw, you won’t entertain us? But that’s what your slutty mother does, right? Right?”

The buffoons roared with laughter, nudging and high-fiving each other as though they were a bunch of elementary schoolboys.

Calm down, Hannah. They’ll eventually go tired. Don’t stoop down to their level.

“Stop pretending to be a good girl! You’re just like your mother, I bet!”

Hannah ignored them, lightly pushing Sana and Riri into their house. “Get inside.”

“Aaw, but we were having so much fun! Let them stay! I’m sure your sisters would grow up to be just like you two! Ah, can’t wait ‘til they turn 18—”

“Shut up!”

She snapped her head at their direction. They could hurl insults at her all day, but she will never allow anyone to to treat her family like trash, especially her baby sisters.

“Shut up?” The burliest of the group stepped forward. “Why? I was only speaking the truth! You know what they say—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

She glared daggers at him. “Is that the best you can do? Did you pay your goons to laugh at your dumb joke? Either that or you guys need to work on your sense of humour.”

His face inched closer to hers. She turned her face away from him, nose scrunching as the warmth of his sour breath hit her face. The calloused finger caressing her skin churned her stomach, prompting her to slap his finger away.

The rumours about him were true—he does not take rejection well.

He cupped her chin, pressing his fingers harder against her cheeks. “Well, at least you’re pretty. You want money, right? Right?” Nails dirtied with grime dug themselves deeper into her skin, she was sure it would leave a mark.

The ruckus brought about a crowd of familiar faces surrounding them.

“Come to my house and I’ll give you anything you want, eh? How does that sound?” He leered her up and down, slowly licking his lips as his gaze lingered longer at her chest.

Fed up and fueled by restrained anger, she swatted his hand away and struck his cheek with a deafening slap. “Don’t touch me. And never come near our house again, do you understand?”

His nostrils flared as he rubbed his cheek. “YOU!” he glowered. Sharply sucking in air through gritted teeth, he raised his fist to hit her but was stopped by one of his companions.

“LET GO!” After prying his hand away from their hold, he elbowed the weaker-looking man’s gut, causing him to double over in pain.

“Who the heck do you think you are? No woman would ever put up with you! Want to know why you’re still single, huh?” she taunted, holding her chin up and placing her hands on her hips. “Because no one’s insane enough to settle for you!”

Her charged spiel was met with crumpled bills thrown at her face.

“Want more? Here!”

They showered her with paper bills and coins of varying values.

Although this sort of humiliation was not a rare occurrence, it never failed to rile her up.

She picked some of them up, and threw it back at them.“ I don’t need your money! Why would I, when… when,” she stammered. When what? She needed to act fast to get them off her case.

Then, an idea dawned on her along with the next words her brain scurried to form.

“When?” one man asked.

“Shh, shh, don’t disturb her. She’s thinking about the money.”

“Your money?” she scoffed. “Please! Why would I need it when I have a suitor worth more than all of you combined?”

“Whooooaaa, really? Prove it!”

She expected to be met with disbelief. All she needed was a convincing lie to get them to believe her.

Whispers of incredulity broke the stillness in the air which ironically intensified the situation.

“You seriously believe her? The suitor is obviously a druggie!”

“No, he’s not! H-he’s none other than the heir of… of… C&R!”

Shi… of all the companies you had to say, it had to be C&R!

“Did you hear that? The heir of C&R? This bitch is delusional!”

“I’ve never seen the heir. Is he handsome?”

“None of us has internet, Sweetie.”

Word spread fast, as not even seconds later, the crowd was growing larger.

Hannah wanted to smack herself, not mentally but physically.

Way to go, Hannah! You just had to make things worse… should I call Seven? He is rich and has many cars after all. Ah, but I shouldn’t bother him with these trivial matters.

The heavens must have pitied her and answered her prayers, as she caught sight of a slick black car parked by from a distance.

They were too busy gossiping and throwing insults at her that they had not noticed where her line of vision ended.

A serious-looking middle-aged man in black suit got out of the driver’s seat. He circled the car until he reached the back door.

Hannah kept her eyes peeled open as the chauffeur opened the backseat door.

Bingo.

A tall, well-built man with unkempt black hair stepped out of the car. He scanned his surroundings, a perplexed expression on his face as he whispered something to his chauffeur, who then gave a slight nod in reply.

The man looked to be in his late 20s, and his whole existence screamed that he was not a resident of their village.

I found my new suitor.

“Oh, silly me, I almost forgot!” She lightly smacked her head. “I forgot he was going to visit me! He’s right there, see!” She jumped up and waved her arms at the unknown man.

The strange action caught his attention as he was meticulously folding his long sleeves.

“Hehe, be right back!”

Hannah rushed towards him, aware that the small crowd was staring at her retreating figure.

Then she finally reached him. Instead of introducing herself, she tiptoed, tugging the collar of his sleeve to bring him to her height and whispered, “Please, please, please do me a favour and just pretend to be the heir of C&R! It’s very important! PLEASE!”

There was a slight quirk of his brow as he responded with outright bewilderment, “But I am the heir of C&R.”

Overjoyed, Hannah clapped her hands together and cheered, “Perfect! Just like a natural! Now let’s go!”

“Wait—”

Ignoring his confused face, she linked her arms with his and gleefully dragged him towards the flabbergasted crowd.

They have no idea how the heir looks like anyway!

Once she reached them, she made an exaggerated gesture to introduce the saviour of her current predicament.

“This is my suitor! The heir,” she threw that word with much emphasis, smirking as she savoured the baffled looks on their faces, “of C&R International Company!”

She could take a guess of what went on in their heads: How was Hannah able to snag such a handsome rich man? I wish I was her right now! She’s got to be kidding?!

Having been taught to think twice when unexpectedly faced by conflict, Jumin carefully analyzed the situation, noting every detail he could gather. She doesn’t seem to know me… and neither do these people. His piercing glare landed on the grown men, and this made them flinch from where they stood. But perhaps they know.

“S-Sir… we apologize for causing Ms. Hannah trouble. W-we will be leaving now!”

Oh, shit… he’s such a good actor. He hasn’t said a word at all, but he managed to fool them! Hannah’s eyes darted between the classy-looking man and the direction where the men just ran off.

“Are you alright, Hannah? Did they hurt you?” The woman she worked for the other day came up beside her.

She gave her the side-eye. If memory serves her right, these people had always thrown their knives at her back.

“At least you’re alright,” the lady said before facing the ‘heir of C&R’. “Hello, Mister! I’m Jung Mina!”

“Oho, now you’re behaved?” Hannah’s lip curled at her sudden shift of behaviour. The quintessential social climber. “Scatter along now! Can’t you see you’re making him uncomfortable?”

When the crowd dispersed and went their own way, Hannah sighed in relief. Peace, at last.

Before she could forget her saviour, she turned to look at him then bowed politely. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this ruckus. I really am!” She straightened her posture. “Why don’t I bring you to the market? My treat! It’s usually not crowded around this time of day.”

“I’m not here for such matters—”

“Nonsense! At least let me treat you for the trouble! If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have a peaceful day. That happens only once in a blue moon, so please let me show you my gratitude!” She took his hand and pulled him along with her.

And with an audible sigh, he followed.

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

He’s like a kid on his first exploration.

She tried to stifle her laughter as she watched him attempt to conceal his awe at the surroundings. He looked so fascinated that she felt bad to disturb his musings. His eyes were darting from place to place, but she noticed how they would linger on anything cat-related, especially on white ones with blue eyes.

“So this is the commoners’ mall. It is outdoors?”

“I guess you can say that? I mean, it’s called a ‘market’.”

“Everything here is cheap… are they all safe?”

“Not everything—but most are safe! Sometimes it’s cheap because they manufacture it themselves. Others buy it by bulk directly from the manufacturers. Most items are knockoffs too, not everyone can afford the real thing; although, I don’t understand why people would waste money on expensive bags or watches. If I were them, as long as a bag works or a watch works, it doesn’t have to be… you know… pricey.”

The sudden halt in their footsteps caught his attention. When she turned to look at him, he couldn’t help noticing the glint of mirth that her brown eyes gave off.

“Do you love cats?”

He blinked twice. How was she able to tell?

She chuckled at his stiff nod. For a rich man like him, she surely did not feel intimidated by his vibe. “Here, let me buy this for you—no refusing!” she demanded, her hand reaching to an oversized blue pajama set with cat prints on it. She raised the shirt to his chest, checking if the size fitted him.

His head tilted ever so slightly to the side as he scanned the top’s design. “I have never worn anything like this.”

“Huh? Then what do you wear when you sleep?”

“I wear outfits that are convenient for immediate departure in case of an emergency.”

She scrunched her nose. “I… guess it’s improper to ask further,” she said whilst her eyebrow rose behind her frame. “Maybe I should get you more.”

“There is no need.” When he made a move to bring out his wallet, Hannah immediately stopped him, grabbing his wrist and placing it back to his side.

“No, I will be paying! Don’t pay for anything today.”

The next thing he knew, they were sauntering all over the place with ease. It was not difficult to maneuver around the small crowd given the friendly weather they were under. The sky was perfectly cloudy and the cool breeze was pleasing to his skin. This was not the “appointment” he was expecting to encounter when he came to visit the small town.

Still, with all his frankness, it was a surprise he was willing to spend the day in.

Unconsciously, Jumin let out a soft chuckle.

“Don’t tell me you have never tried this?” she exclaimed in pure disbelief, her hands shaking both paper bags in her hands.

“My nutritionist strongly opposes junk food, and he has been my nutritionist since my childhood; therefore, I never once touched this… fries.”

“It’s not just your regular fries; this is ‘Shook Shook Fries’. A taste of this is a must!”

“It is unhealthful….”

“It’s not like you’re gonna eat this everydaaay,” she dragged for added humour, “just have it from time to time.”

The moment he tasted it, he knew he was missing a lot of things in life.

There it was again, that satisfying sound of her laughter… she was doing it again.

“It’s good, isn’t it?”

He stared at her genuine smile for the third time that day. Was it the third? Maybe fourth? Fifth? His sharp memory could not tell. Have I really been too preoccupied?

His attention shifted back to the young woman waving her hand close to his face…

...and to the next food she was putting on his palm.

“I’m betting my head you’ve never tried this too. Make sure you have this for breakfast with egg tomorrow!”

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

Just as it started, their wandering ended with Hannah paying for the long cat plush pillow.

“I feel like a boyfriend spoiling his girlfriend around.”

“Is that bad?” came his monotonous voice.

“Nope! I had fun. Sorry I wasn’t able to treat you much, but this is all I can offer,” she said sullenly. “I hope you enjoyed it though.”

It was silent for a while, until he could visibly see his car slowly approaching them from a distance.

“Oh! Isn’t that your car? Why don’t you leave now and get some rest?”

She continued to blabber about how he should go home and that she would be fine going home by herself. While she was busy gesturing over the car—her back turned to him—he lifted his hand high in the air to catch the driver’s attention. With one twirl of his finger, the car stopped proceeding before it turned and drove away.

“H-Hey! Why is it leaving?”

“Perhaps my driver forgot something.”

“What? But what about you?”

For a split second, she thought she was imagining things. She saw the corner of his lips quirked up as he shrugged his shoulders.

“I guess I’ll walk you home.” Even though his eyes were as dark as the night that was coming, they were warm like the first ray of sunlight in the cold early morning.

However, her face was probably warmer than his gaze.

The very same night, someone unusually had difficulty falling asleep after realizing something really important.

“I forgot to ask his name!”

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~0 ~ 0

“Yes, make sure all their bills are paid for the entire year. Tell them to contact my assistant if the amount is inadequate.”

“Understood.”

“You may leave.”

Jaehee could not tell which was more perplexing, seeing her boss using a long cat plush pillow or the rustling sound the fries were making inside the paper bag he was shaking.

“Mr. Han, I don’t think your nutritionist will… appreciate that.”

He simply hummed in response.

“Have you ever tried this ‘Shivering Fries’?”

“It’s ‘Shook Shook Fries’, Mr. Han, and I have had it several times. Will this be your first?”

“How bold of you to assume I’ve never had this.”

She swore she felt her energy evacuate her body at that comment. At least I’m paid more than enough to handle this. “My apologies. You just don’t seem to be the type to eat that kind of food.”

There he was, in all his glory, smirking at himself for who knows what reason. She had always found him annoying; but today, he was different on an exasperating level.

Jaehee swore once more that his next words had successfully snapped a vein in the back of her head.

“I am quite a commoner at heart. And can someone buy me this ‘hotdog’ with egg?”

0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0

Hey guuuys, hope you enjoyed this! Since this is kind of a sideline project and this isn't our super focus, Chapter 3 is unsure as of yet!

Anyway, thank you for reading! Love you guys ohohohoho

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger fanfic #mystic messenger jumin #mystic messenger mc #mystic messenger jumin x mc #mystic messenger fanart #mystic messenger au

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ninliane · 5 years ago

Note

Hii! I'm really excited to explore your new blog and I wish you allthe best with it! For startes,could you do headcanons with Karasuno firstyears (i saw you only do 3 max so maybe Tsukki,Kags and Yamaguchi?) with a gg who just loves to bake?Like shes pretty okay at but she just gets more playful whil baking? Thank you (￣∇￣)

ahh first request! i feel like this scenario is so perfect for the very first headcanon of this blog~ also thank so much for being so nice! :DD I hope to do my best writing :>oh, the music that you dance to in tsukki’s scenario is actually the music that plays when fukurodani and nekoma have a practice match in the live action haikyuu play. please watch it its the greatest thing ever. you see akaashi dancing.

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE1isRxRXRg

the time stamp is at 11:00!! i promise you, you will not regret it

————–

Baking with s/o

Tsukishima Kei

surprisingly, this boy immediately agreed to baking!

then again we all have to remember this salty boy has a sweet tooth

but wait

did you really expect him to do all the work with you??

nah this lil shit is gonna sit down on the couch watching an overdramatic nature documentary

he’ll occasionally call out “maam can i follow up on my order” and laugh while doing so

frankly you were a bit annoyed. You two were supposed to be doing this together!

you decided to let it go and just go and go on with your business

you felt most comfortable in the kitchen, and this is your house isn’t it? so why not have a bit of fun to yourself!

you stopped mixing the batter and picked up a remote

several minutes pass and tsukki can hear something in the kitchen that seemed to overlap his documentary

“(y/n) could you turn it down!!”

No response

He sighs and gets up, practically dragging himself to the kitchen

“(y/n) i said turn it do-”

And he stops his words as he sees the sight in front of him

As latin pop plays out of the bluetooth speaker, there you were; dancing while sprinkling whatever the heck that was on the batter

Your actions seemed to match the beat of the music as you grabbed things from the counter

Even at that beat drop when you closed the oven by lifting your foot to left as you laughed to yourself

You spun your way back to the counter with the biggest smile on your face

You didn’t even notice that you had frosting all over your face, or that the counter was a complete mess, or that he was even watching you.

You were just having so much fun that tsukki just stared at you leaning from the door frame, not wanting to interrupt you

“Yeah..” he thought to himself, showing a faint smile. “This is definitely the girl I fell in love with.”

Kageyama Tobio

“But (y/n)..I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”

“It’s fine it’s fine! I’ll help you along the way!!”

There was a lot of deliberation on what to bake as you two looked through a cute cookbook

You two decided to make homemade yogurt in a jar, and considering it was the ‘ber’ moths already, this would be a strange desert to make right?

The setter didn’t care the weather was cold. He just wanted his yogurt.

He was a mess at the start. the measurements and temperature settings were slowly killing him to dust.

You were watching from afar and could tell this was not going to end well.

You then ran over and grabbed the baking thermometer that was about to snap from the pressure from his hands and pushed him to stir the milk instead.

Time passed and he seemed to be doing fine and quiet and calm

He kneaded some dough as a side dessert and you were amazed at his skill!

Kageyama was better than you! (i mean he’s a setter and he uses his hands a lot, what’d you expect ;) )

Suddenly the music changed and you immediately started to get all bubbly

You excitedly pulled him towards you, holding his hand with your left and your right on his shoulder

He was stunned

Like he didn’t have time to process this and his autopilot took over and his body followed yours

Along with the music you were just having so much fun in the kitchen, you always did!

You didn’t care that his hands were filled with powder as you joyfully danced to the music

It was only when you spun holding his hand that he came back to his senses and saw how happy you were

He couldn’t help but smile too

♫ “I need you more than anyone, darlin’. You know that I have from the start. So build me up buttercup, don’t break my heart~” ♫

———–

Yamaguchi Tadashi

Let me tell you now baking with this one is the cutest thing ever

He’ll be the one to come up with the idea of you two baking together as a date and boy you two had so much fun

As you two are mixing bowls of batter your peripheral vision caught him being so serious as he was extremely focused on the batter

So you stopped mixing

Took a teaspoon

Scooped the batter

Swiped your finger on it

And flicked it on yamaguchi’s face

As soon as you had done that he immediately stopped and just stared at you as if you said something unbelievable.

Meanwhile you went back to mixing as if nothing had happened

But you were really trying to hold it all in and maintain a straight face

He had an expression written all over his face saying: “really?”

You ignored him but your mouth was giving you away as it was clear you were trying to hold in laughter

Till you couldn’t anymore and you burst out laughing

It was only when Tadashi took a spoonful of batter and practically threw it at your face, you stopped laughing.

“Oh it’s on.”

You two forgot about your tasks as your kitchen turned into a warzone

Tadashi used an icecream scooper to throw the batter at you while you blocked it with a cutting board

It got to the point where you two ran out of batter and ended up laughing on the floor, mostly about the mess you two made around the kitchen

He got up and carried you out of the kitchen bridal style, both of you still laughing

“I love you (y/n), now let’s go get changed.”

#haikyuu #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #kageyama tobio #kageyama tobio x reader #tsukishima kei #tsukishima kei x reader #yamaguchi tadashi #yamagushi tadashi x reader #haikyuu!!

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lnc2 · 6 years ago

Text

Small Talk

Summary: Marinette and co. get coffee.

AO3

“So how long are we going to ignore that I’m insanely in love with you?”

Marinette choked, her coffee catching in her throat.

She glared through her tears, horrified and coughing, as she looked first at Adrien, then Nino and Alya ordering with the barista, and back.

“Now?” She hissed, reaching for his water without asking because, well, apparently it was time for sharing things.

“So you do remember,” He said, somewhat smugly as he passed a napkin over to her. “I was starting to wonder.”

Marinette wondered at his cool as she wiped at her mouth. Arms crossed and staring at her like she stared at her lucky charms. A puzzle to be solved.

And she thought this would be a simple coffee run.

Not that anything about the last three weeks could have been called simple. Not by Marinette’s standards anyways.

Then again, what did you say to your superhero partner after spending an afternoon playing house?

Nothing, if you were Marinette. Nothing at all.

Because despite what her memories and the Ladyblog and Chat’s quiet but searching glances were telling her, as far as she concerned, the events of that day were to be locked in a lead box and dropped in the bottom of the Seine.

A topic too heavy to be touched.

It figured Chat would have different plans. It figured Adrien would be the one to launch the first attack.

It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for.

“Well?” Adrien said, a little sharply as she continued to stare at her crush-turned-idiot partner in disbelief.

“Well what?” She asked, because, um, valid.

He couldn’t honestly think they would have this out here. Not with a soon-to-be caffeine-fueled Ladyblogger metres away.

“Well what?” He mimicked in a high falsetto. Oooh she could just smack him. “What do you think well?”

“I think,” Marinette said, face red, teeth gritted. “That you picked a horrible time for this conversation.”

“Because you’ve given me so many opportunities to bring it up before,” He scowled, falling back against the booth with a sigh.

Marinette stamped down her irritation. He wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t mean she wanted her cowardice thrown in her face.

“Chat.” She glanced over to their friends who were making their way back to the table. “Please.”

“Fine, fine.” He rolled his eyes before plastering a smile to his face. He almost looked sincere.

Really, the transformation was remarkable.

“Any Ladynoir updates for us, Alya?”

Remarkably infuriating.

She could scarcely afford a swift kick to his shin before Nino slid in beside him.

Alya pouted. “No. I still can’t believe they kissed.”

“It was pretty unbelievable,” Adrien said, nodding.

Marinette snorted.

Alya sent her a look. “And all it took was Nino and I tag-teaming it.”

“In evil and in health, babe.” Nino said, reaching forward to bump his girlfriend’s fist. “Too bad Miraculous Ladybug canceled it all out.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” She wailed, her cry muffled by her arms as she started to beat her head against the table.

Marinette refused to look at Adrien. “Careful, Al. You’re starting to sound like Hawkmoth.”

Alya lifted her head and fell back to the booth with a dramatic sigh.

“I’d take their miraculous myself if I thought it would get those two to admit they’re perfect for each other.”

Adrien shrugged. “I don’t know if Chat Noir would put up much of a fight.”

“Pfft, yeah.” She shook her head and reached for her danish. “Enough fantasies. Tell me something happy.”

“Adrien’s dad almost acknowledged me last week.”

“I thought she said happy, Nino.” Adrien rolled his eyes.

“Fine. How’s Kitty Section?”

“Neutered.” He grimaced. “Officer Raincomprix shut us down after the neighbors complained."

“Don’t the Couffaines live on a boat?” Nino asked. “Can’t they just… float away to new neighbors?”

“Because that worked out so well the last time,” Marinette said. “From what I heard, they’re trying to find rehearsal space at the university but Luka says it’s a long shot.”

She regretted the words almost as soon as they left her mouth.

“Luka says that, huh?” Alya grinned, nudging her shoulder. “What else does Luka say?”

Honestly, she could just kill Alya.

She watched Adrien freeze from the corner of her eye, but coward that she was, she refused to look at him.

“Mr. Guitar Hero himself, huh?” Nino leaned across the table with a mischievous grin. “And an older man too. Marinette.”

She could feel the heat radiating from her cheeks as she stuttered for some kind of response. Really, what explanation could she give for Luka? He was just a friend. In the same way Adrien was just a friend.

Well. Maybe not the same way.

So how long are we going to ignore that I’m insanely in love with you?

It was quickly becoming difficult to breathe in this little booth.

Marinette decided dignified silence was the best response and reached for her coffee–

“Luka could encompass everything Marinette is looking for.”

– and promptly choked.

Alya’s smile was was downright evil as she patted Marinette’s back in faux concern.

Death, slow and painful, was too good for her. She opened her mouth, a respectful fuck you on her lips, only to be cut off by Adrien’s languid drawl.

“I don’t know,” He said, leaning forward to rest one arm on the table. She dared to meet his eyes only for him to smirk at her over his tea. “Something tells me she can do better.”

“Really?” The redhead said, looking at him appraisingly. “What makes you say that?”

Adrien laughed off Alya’s suspicious tone. “Call it a gut feeling.”

The intonation was slight, but she heard it nonetheless. It made her want to scream.

Unfortunately for him, she could gut this feline no problem.

Because Marinette had more than luck on her side.

She had Alya.

Even as the thought formed she felt her best friend’s hand on her knee, squeezing lightly.

“Speaking of feelings. How are things going with Kagami?”

Marinette fought her twitching lips, ultimately giving up on hiding her smirk as Adrien processed the question.

“What about Kaga – Oh. ” His face transformed from cocky to confused to mortified in an instant. His eyes flashed to hers and she batted her lashes right back.

Take that.

Ladybug: 1

Chat Noir: 0

Nino laughed at his stunned friend.

“That good huh? I always knew you were a lady killer.”

Marinette ignored the twinge she felt in her chest as she took another sip of coffee. Okay maybe that hurt her a little too. But she’d be damned if she let him know that.

Not when he started it.

“You should see this guy when he’s on it,” Nino continued, grinning even as Adrien seemed to sink further into the collar of his shirt. “Back before you and I got together babe, when I liked Marinette, he had all the lines.”

“Sunshine’s a smooth operator huh?” Alya said, smiling. She squeezed Marinette’s knee again in a silent question. Marinette nodded to let her know she was fine.

She wasn’t fine.

Not when Nino said,

“You should have heard him. Whispering sweet nothings in my ear like Cyrano or some shit. Urging me to say I love you, Marinette like it was the easiest thing in the world.”

She nearly spit the last of her coffee.

“Okay,” Adrien snapped, practically shoving Nino out of the booth, his face fire engine red. “Enough.”

Nino and Alya laughed.

“Don’t sweat it. Like I said, you’re butter. No wonder Kagami likes you so much.”

Awkward. This was so, so awkward.

The only silver lining to the pit of nausea settling in her stomach was that Adrien looked like he could just die. Served him right for trying to embarass her.

She only wished this conversation weren’t just as mortifying for her.

“Coffee.” She squeaked. “I’m going to– coffee. Yes.”

She could hear Adrien’s halting explanations that things weren’t like that with Kagami as she escaped the table.

Tikki peeked up at her from her purse.

“Do I need to say I told you so?”

“No,” Marinette sighed. “But I know you want to.”

“You probably should have talked to him sooner.”

“Yeah, well,” Marinette muttered under her breath, pausing to smile at the barista and placing her order. Impulsively, she added one of the biscottis near the register. “He doesn’t have the greatest timing either.”

“No,” Tikki conceded, chirping gratefully when Marinette passed her the cookie. “But he doesn’t have to be such a butthead about it.”

“Well it is Chat Noir,” She said, before they both broke into quiet giggles.

Giggles that were quickly cut short by hot breath on her neck and Adrien’s wry voice murmuring, “Talking about me, my lady?”

Marinette yelped, whirling around to glare up at the blonde smirking down at her.

“No,” She lied. “Not everything is about you.”

Adrien glanced down at Tikki who nodded loyally.

The barista called her name and Marinette broke his too-knowing gaze to grab her drink. The drink she nearly spilled when she turned back right into Adrien’s chest.

“Stop doing that!” She hissed, sucking a few hot droplets off her hand.

Adrien didn’t acknowledge her scolding.

“Okay then,” He said instead, taking her by the elbow and turning her away from Nino and Alya’s prying eyes. “You weren’t talking about me just like I wasn’t talking about you. Can we now?”

Marinette frowned. “Can we what?”

“Can we talk about me? And you. Me and you.” Despite his cool demeanor, his words ran together, giving him away.

That and his ears were turning red.

She was loathe to admit it was kind of adorable.

Stupid cat.

“Now?” She asked, again. Again. Her eyes strayed behind him to their waiting friends.

Adrien really did have terrible timing.

But when she looked back to tell him as much, her heart stuttered.

His eyes were wide, a little hopeful, his smile was small, a little pathetic.

And his ears, his stupid ears, were still red–

a lot more than adorable.

God dammit.

“Fine,” She sighed, more to make a point than any real reluctance on her part. “Let’s go talk about how you’re insanely in love with me.”

Just saying the words, even as a tease, made her stomach swarm with ladybugs. But Adrien’s blindingly joyful whoop! bowled over most of her reservations. The enthusiastic thumbs up Nino and Alya were sending from across the room removed the rest.

Absently, Marinette wondered just what exactly she’d missed when she left the table.

She didn’t have much of a chance to ask before Adrien practically swept her up in his arms. Only her indignant swatting and quick-thinking feet kept her on the ground.

“My coffee,” She said, scandalized, as half the contents of her drink sloshed to the ground.

Behind her she heard one of the put-upon staff members call for a mop. Adrien hardly looked repentant as he took the mug from her hands to set it down on the counter.

“I’ll buy you another one,” He said and this time he did sweep her into his arms. Marinette squawked, not at all dainty or ladylike.

Adrien grinned down at her anyways.

“After we talk.”

#post oblivio #miraculous ladybug #plot twist! they remember #everyone else was doing it let me have my fun #ladynoir #adrienette #post reveal pre relationship #flag ship dj wifi sailing strong #lnc2 writes #more humor and fluff than substance but what can you do

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toutallyahoe · 5 years ago

Text

Addicted

Requested By: --

Pairing/s: Sherlock Holmes x [Name] [Last name]

A/N: This week was an absolute hell and I bloody want to die right now.

─────────────────

He was addicted. Bloody addicted to that man. The man who was like a well-made drug just for him to have. It was exhilarating.

Sherlock Holmes was no doubt a genius. People can never deny that despite they wanted too, but can't. Deep in their mind, there was that one tiny voice that says the consulting detective to be, in fact, a genius. Sherlock can solve a case by a snap of his finger, no failures, no cases getting stamped "cold". It was something the man took pride and joy over.

Now, Sherlock may be a genius but he lacks the humanity. The understanding of what people have... emotions. The curly haired man was not empathetic, he was cold, cruel and absolutely and arsehole. He doesn't get the situation right (most of the time) when it is connected to emotions. Where he shows actually interest (by by being elevated) to have a bloody murder hapoen while the other surrounding him look at him in absolute disgust or horror. He, Sherlock, was a man of many things but he wasn't a emotional or even a empathetic person.

So, it was no wonder when he had found someone to his odd and calculative mind to be so... interesting... he loved that feeling of excitement like he gets in his cases when he was near to that person. How his mind tries to calculate ways to solve this person's life by so little or even none he can find on that day. It was so bizarre to find someone he couldn't deduced. It was interesting. It was intoxicating. It was addicting.

Sherlock relished the time he spent with that person in the park. He make use to gather information and play that guessing game that they had suggested for him to help figure them out. It was annoying at first as he was frustrated on why-- how can this person not be deduced by him? Evrywhere he looked he can deduced everything but the moment he layed his eyes back to them, it's like he couldn't do such things.

Sherlock wanted to know more, he was curious and really was interested on how can that be? The guessing game was... alright.

The consulting detective may not want to admit it but it was entertaining. It was so entertaining that he always makes time to go to the park, on exactly two in the afternoon where the sun was not that hot, sit on that very same bench he and they always sat and start a small talk, well, they start a small talk for about five minutes then Sherlock would try to guess something about them.

It was... what was that term he had described it again?

Time wasting, stupid and... fun.

It was fun and the detective enjoyed it immensely. It was addicting to that small game, that person-- that man...

It was addicted. He was addicting. And he was addicted.

The door creaked as the blond had opened it to carry the plastic bags inside the flat, letting out a huff from the pain of carrying heavy bags from the stairs. Did he call for help from his flatmate that he knew all to well was there inside their flat, laying in the living room couch? Absolutely. Did his flatmate answered his calls and came to help? Absolutely... not.

John was tired, really tired as he had a small fight with the self-checked machines... again. The doctor really do have suck bad luck with those machines, it was still a wonder why he goes to check and pay for his groceries there though. Right, it was because most of the employees can either miss scanning an item or scan twice, third if you are unlucky, which had happened to the blond... three times. And let's not forget that they take too long to baggage the ite--

"Sherlock, why are you putting on a coat?" Confused, John had said as he raised a brow at his flatmate who was in the middle of putting on his coat, looking rather... happy? No, it must be the tiredness seeing but the curly haired man seemed to be humming a small and up beat tune underneath his breathe. The blond was confused. Did Sherlock had gotten a case from Lestrade? Probably. And if that was the case, he better hurry to put the plastic bags on the kitchen counter before heading out with the detective. With a groan, John had gone to the kitchen and put the bags on the table, pushing his flatmate's jars of... whatever that thin-- was that an eye? "Stop leaving your experiments on the kitchen table!" The blond had exasperatedly shouted to the curly haired who merely ignored his shout and was too busy looking at his phone (for once not John's) while the blond had pushed away the jars filled with questionable things inside to make space for the plastic bags he was carrying.

As the doctor finished putting the bags and rubbing his sore arms from carrying such heavy bags, he immediately went to the livingroom to momentarily shake his head and rubbed his eyes. The blond blinked for a couple of times as he look back to his flatmate. He swore he saw Sherlock had a smile on his face. Did... was it not real? Jove, maybe he was too tired and needed rest as soon as possible.

Finally getting out of his mini frozen state as he saw the curly haired male slid his phone on his pockets and immediately went to the door to take his blue scarf off the coat hanger and began tying them, giving no mind to his blond flatmate coming closer to him. "So, what is the case Greg had assigned?" John asked as he stopped beside the detective who paused at his question and briefly looking him in the eye with a blank look.

"You mean Geoff?" Sherlock had said, getting the D.I.'s name wrong which made the doctor internally sigh (and the said D.I. sneezing in his office, "Wonder who is talking about me."), he continued, "he didn't," the cutly haired bluntly said as he finished tying his scarf. "I'll be going. If George--" "-- he's name is Greg," John cut off and corrected him. Rolling his eyes, Sherlock continued. "-- that's what I had said," he said which was John's turn to roll his eyes. Honestly, his flatemate and friend is such a stubborn prick sometimes... most times.

But then it came to the doctor, if Sherlock hadn't gotten a case from Greg, why was he so giddy about? The doctor always saw how the detective only express annoyance, boredom, interest, and excitement, the two latter's being getting and solving a case. So, what?

"Whe--" John was about to ask but was cut off by Sherlock abruptly turning to look at him with that blank face of his and then nodded. Raising his hand to look at the time on his wrist watch, the detective's lips twitced upward for a bit. "I'll be off now," came the curly haired man's reply as he turn to the door, opened it and then went out. Not bothering to say good bye to his flatmate who stood there of surprise as he closed the door.

As Sherlock descends the stairs, he shouted his farewell to the old landlord of his and then went out to hail a cab. John stood in frozen for a minute or two after Sherlock left. The doctor blinked a couple of times until his brain realized what his flatmate had done. "Did that bloody git just closed the door to my face?"

Tap

Tapping his index to his ring finger on his lap, the curly haired male sat on the back seat of the cab he had hailed as he patiently wait.

Tap

He continued to tap his fingers on his lap. It was a mannerism he seemed to develope to pass the time other than just going to his "mind palace" to organize his thoughts. It was quite odd, the curly haired fully knew he never did this mannerism before but his early memory of doing so when he had met that man again for the second time. He seemed to tapping rhythmically on his lap with his fingers as he waited for him to come and tell the things he had done on his day. Boring, but the detective was interested.

No matter what the mundane things the man had done, it always seemed to spark some interest in him which was something he honestly quite enjoyed. Tapping his fingers was something he had done to pass the time as he waited to met that man again.

Tap

The cab had stopped to the all familiar park he regularly visited, not even waiting for the driver's announcement that they had reached their destination, Sherlock had already opened his door to get out and closing it. The old cab driver leaned over to the other seat beside him where he brought down the window as Sherlock took out the correct amount of pound and handed it to the out stretched hand of the driver as he then turn to walk to the entrance if the park.

Sherlock continued to walk as he saw the bench he always sat, facing the lake and not to far from the field of green grass where some children and pets of people run and play. The curly haired man had just passed by a sweaty jogging male which he honestly rolled his eyes on. It was two in the bloody afternoon, it was stupid. 'Just like Mycroft.' He had thought as he remembered his older sibling use to exercise and jog to get his fatass skinny.

It was absolutely hell for the younger Holmes when the older exercise because of the smell of sweat lingers in the air and it was just an abomination. Sherlock still felt pity for his older brother though, he remembered how Mycroft was so desperate to be more skinnier because of the sneers and taunts of the others around the older Holmes. It was absolutely revolting how other humans works, so stupid and ignorant. 'But not him thought,' Sherlock's mind had abruptly thought which surprised the man but shake his head as he sat at the bench and looked at the lake where he saw a small family of ducks swimming by with some of the pigeons swooped down and peck the gravel ground to get the bird seeds that old lady was throwing. A pair of two females, a couple is what he deduced when the detective saw how close and sweet the two are. Not to mention from the holding hands and how the other one stopped and placed a peck on the other's foregead while the other giggled on the bridge that was connecting the side he was on to the other. Letting out a breathe, the curly haired man had raised his hand to how look at the watch on his wrist. 2:04, it read.

'He's late.' Came's Sherlock thought as he placed his hand back beside him. It was always kinda like this, he was punctual while that man is late. It was irritating but the man, whenever he gets here was just so... so stupid on apologising that he always forgives him, begrudgingly.

A minute or two had passed until Sherlock looked at the brudge again to see the two girls still there, pointing and giggling to each other on the ducklings playing in the lake when he swe the familar turf of [Hair color] hair passing the two females. The curly haired man's lips twitched upward as he saw the man jogged hurriedly, pausing on the brudge as he he placed his hands on his knees and was panting heavily. He was obviously tired from the running but after a few more breathes he straightened back up and turned to where Sherlock sat.

It took everything in the detective's energy to not smile and instead have a stern look plastered in his face when he saw the [Hair color] haired man had jogged towards him and collapsed beside where he sat as he panted heavily. Trying to gasp for air as he then turned to the detective and gave a tired smile.

"Sorry about that, Sherlock. I am a bit late for our meeting, yes?" The [Hair color] haired man had awkwardly said as the man beside him rolled his eyes. Still, amusement gleam on the other's eyes as he answered, "Obviously," with a sarcastic tone that made the [Hair color] haired man chuckle a bit. "Sorry again, there was a bit of a slight mess in the kitchen and I had to finish some last minute a batch of cupcakes--" the man continued on and on about his day which Sherlock had listened. It was boring, that can be said but Sherlock didn't mind. It was not a murder case, it was not a human experiment, it was not anything bloody interesting other than a man talking about his job and baking. But the detective still listened, he enjoyed hearing the other's voice talk comically about his day, painting a picture on what had happened which in some other cases, the curly haired didn't give a single damn but with him... he cares.

He was addicted to his voice.

"--and then Jeffrey decided to add too much mix off batter in the damn thing and when it was put in the oven-- poof!--" the other had said as he had made an explosion by his hand to showcase what had happened to the curly haired, "-- the bloody thing exploded!" He finished with a grin as Sherlock had his lips twitch upward but this time, he did smile.

"Jeffords seems to be an idiot," Sherlock commented which he had gotten the name wrong but the [Hair color] haired merely hummed in agreement. "Absolutely, but he is a nice young man," the other had said as he let out a sigh and turn to look at the lake with a content smile on his lips. Sherlock look at him for a few seconds until he turn to look at the lake like the other did aswell.

Silence had wrapped around the two as it was not awkward nor comforting. It was in the middle that it was calming yet also uncomfortable as the two had things to say but decided not too.

Tap

He began to tap his fingers on his lap again as the curly haired momentarily looked at his watch to see the time, 2:13, it says. Narrowing his eyes, Sherlock let out a false cough which made the other turn to him. "Since you are finished," the curly haired started as he turn to look at the [Hair color] haired. "I would like for the... game to start, [Name]," the said man lips formed into a smile as he nodded, his eyes gleam in amusement. "Absolutely, Sherlock."

At that being said, Sherlock looked at the other in concentration. Looking from the hair to the shoes. Looking at every single detail but only small thing only pop up onto the curly haired man's mind. Grunting as he focused, [Name] merely smiled at the other's irritation on not getting something out of him. It was actually quite amusing. Sherlock Holmes, Wiliam Sherlock Scott Holmes was left stumped by him and had the latter wanting to met him to play this guessing game of his. Curiosity was something he quite enjoy to pit down on people. He liked to watch others be confused at times but he still was a sweet man. He just enjoys other's puzzlement, especially the self-proclaimed sociopath genuis sitting beside him right now trying to deduce him.

It was fun to play guessing what woth the curly haired man where the latter finally stopped thinking and was looking at him with a triumphant smirk which made him rose a brow. "Did you find something a out me?" [Name] had asked as the other male merely continue to smirk at him. "[Name], love," Sherlock had started as he saw the amusement in the other's eyes. Ah, he loved looking at those [Eye color] eyes but right now, he won this round of the game today. "I found something interesting, I may have won the game today," he said.

"And what's that?" [Name] had hummed as his calm and collected front immediately broken when the curly haired man had scooted closer towards him. "Um... Sherlock?" The [Hair color] haired color softly said, embarrassed he was. Sherlock was a bit close to his liking but the detective merely stayed beside him. "Your voice cracked a bit, recahed a higher octave which showed you ate embarrassed right now," the curly haired had deduced as his smirk grown larger. "Are you embarrassed that I am close to you, [Name]?" He asked.

"I-I... erm... uhh," [Name] awkwardly stuttered as the curly haired had scooted closer which made him back a bit. "I... um..." Honestly, he was like a fish out of the water with him opening then closing his mouth with no works other than incoherent things spout out his mouth. It was amusing for the curly haired who leaned more.

"Your pupils dilated, your pulse--" taling the other's hand and placed a finger on where the [Hair color] haired man's pulse can be felt, the smirk on the detective's lips turned into a smile. "-- elevated," Sherlock finished. [Name] immediately took his hand away from the other as he looked away.

"I may not be well with emotions but, love..." Sherlock let out a breathe as he looked at the other, he continued. "That I can assure, [Name], I understand," he said.

"I... and..." [Name] had found hus voice but he refused to look at the man besude him. Bloody hell this was bad but he wants to know why would Sherlock assume him to be in... to be in love? "And how can you assure that I'm... in love?" He asked which Sherlock merely rolled his eyes and looked at the lake. "Simple, really," the curly haired had said. "Even a toddler can deduced it," he had said which made [Name] snort. This man...

"The dilation of your pupils and the quickened of your heartbeat if a common signs," Sherlock stated. "But the most obvious signs of all is when you thought I wasn't looking," this made [Name] confused. "What?" He softly asked as he looked at Sherlock for an answer which made the curly haired turn to look at him.

"You look... in love... that bloody smile on your face as yours eyes soften, gleaming with that same softness and adoration. It was practically screaming, "I'm in love" very loudly," he had said. [Name] looked away in embarrassment again. Well, fuck.

Silence came the two which this time, it was awkward. Well, for the [Hair color] haired man that is. Will this end their odd friendship? Absolut-- his thought was cut off by Sherlock asking, "Have I gotten it right?" The detective asked. "Well, obviously I am correct but are you going to say it?" He said which amde [Name] let out a tired sigh.

"Yes," he softly said. That's it, it's over. His small odd friendship with this curly haired man is finished. It was fun while it laste--

"Why do you look so glum?" Sherlock had asked as he rolled his eyes at the other's dramatic behavior. Big whoop, he found out [Name] like him, why was this idiot being so dramatic about it? "Oi, are you listening to me?" No answer.

Sighing, the detective had one hand grabbed the other on the shoulder and the other on the face as he made the [Hair color] haired turn to him. "You are overreacting just because I found out you fancy me," Sherlock had said which made [Name] frown. Softly taking the other's hand on his cheek, he shake his head. "You don't understand it do you, Sherlock?" He had said.

"It made things awk--" before he can say anything more, soft lips pressed on his own as his eyes widen. His mind went blank.

As for Sherlock, the other tasted sweet. The taste of vanilla a d small hint of caramel from probably the bake goods he had test tasted earlier was the cause. Even though it was sweet, it was addicted. His lips were addicting.

Parting himself to the other, he let out a huff of breathe as he look at the [Hair color] haired male who was frozen.

"W... what?" Came [Name]'s soft and confused words. Rolling his eyes, Sherlock leaned once more and place a quick peck on the other's lips. "If you haven't noticed, I fancy you too," he bluntly said.

"I... I-I," [Name] finally processed what had happened and his brain went back to blank again. Sherlock had kissed him. Sherlock fancied him too. Sherlock Holmes kissed him. Touching his lips, he was flushed. My Jove, Sherlock's lips were soft and he tasted like chamomile tea...

As the [Hair color] haired lost in his thoughts of how the other tasted or the fact that the other felt the same way too, Sherlock had leaned closer to him. "You need to lessen the sugar on that batch of cupcakes of yours, too sweet."

"W-what?" Confused, [Name] asked.

Sherlock merely rolled his eyes as he stated again. "Your cupcake was too sweet, lessen the sugar on it before you get diabetes on having to taste test everything of those sweet inducement cavities," his words made [Name] nodded. "R-right," came [Name]'s awkward reply as they then kept quiet. The air was still awkward but Sherlock didn't mind.

Were they a couple now? Absolutely. That's what the curly haired had thought as they have stated their feelings are mutual and that they fancied each other.

Is [Name] an awkward man he fell? Absolutely. He was addicted to the man who's hand hesitantly reached out for his and intertwined them together. Softly squeezing his hand in a comforting manner as the detective let a content hum.

[Name] was always like a drug. Sweet inducent drug that always .ade him want more. He was absolutely addicted. Addicted to him.

"Does this mean we are a couple now?" Sherlock asked as the [Hair color] haired male turn to look at him then back at the lake. "I-I mean... if you want too," he softly said as he squeezed Sherlock's hand again.

"I want too," he smiled as he heard those words.

"Then, we are a couple," he confirmed as he brought Sherlock's hand towards his lips and place asoft peck of them making the detective turn to look at him. Lips twitching upward until a small smile formed on the other's lips.

[Name] was drug. A was drug that Sherlock Holmes was addicted too.

And he loved it.

#sherlock #sherlock holmes x male reader #sherlock x male reader #bbc john watson #bbc sherlock holmes #bbc sherlock #holmes #william sherlock scott holmes #bbc mycroft holmes #male reader #top male reader #dom male reader #x male reader #male reader insert #awkward name is life #so tired #im stressed so fuck #bbc sherlock x male reader #fluff

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artdjgblog · 5 years ago

Photo

Innerview: Ercan Ucer / Grafik Tasarim (Turkey) October 2008 Image: Giphy Note: Take #2 of a design magazine interview.

01) How do you name yourself other than being a versatile designer? In the past year and a half I’ve come to realize that I’m not really a graphic designer. It’s definitely in there and will always be because design is a poison, like any vocation or skill can be. But, I’ve always approached the way I work as an artist first, and I don’t fancy myself an artist either. I am what I am, though I can’t always be so selfish. Am I an illustrator? I guess there is a collision of the three. Add this to a love for getting my hands dirty, plus a celebration of youth and American pop-culture mixed with Eastern European and post-WWII American Design – B.C. (Before Computer) and the product is me? “Versatile” is too defining of a word for me and way too classy. I simply like to say I make things. Each day is new and I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do. 02) What is the relationship between marketing and your designing process at different areas? (poster, packaging, logo…etc) A design is a marketing tool, no doubt. I haven’t really worked on a large scale setting with this, but I have in terms of marketing on a small scale for rock concerts and prospective CD buyers. Though, a designer plays eye-grabber, a designer is not really a marketer, but I guess it helps to attract attention or sell something. I had friends in college who studied marketing as well as design and they’d probably be more equipped to answering this question. It’s an area I’m not familiar with other than thinking of ways to attract people to get excited for a musical group, a sound, feeling or expression by way of putting a stamp on a poster, CD or logo design. It is a marketing tool especially when working with a client. It certainly is not only what the artist-designer can bring to the “product” (Though, I do think this can apply at a certain larger level with selling something), you’re also working for somebody and trying to sell an image or an item. In the case of a show poster, you’re selling a concert venue or the place the poster is hanging or even the music scene and the city and environment. I think this can be a tricky walk. I’ve been fortunate to have some small success with great clients and great projects to where things work out well. I guess it helps that independent music graphics kind of start out in left field to begin with, to where they are approached more like an art project than a product? Though, I don’t think that the work should not limit itself to a certain kind of audience. I think it’s great when the work speaks to anybody. There are times though where things don’t mix well, whether under the weather by design, client-wise or consumer. It’s just part of the deal. The work isn’t always going to be a homerun. Another deal is the way people interact with communication in marketing. Today I find that technology has a lot to do with people getting information for a rock concert via social networking sites, musician, ticket and concert venue sites. I don’t think that something like the poster will ever be dead, but technology can almost make a poster feel second-rate, a collector’s keep-sake and more for show than for the actual show. Logos are very interesting when it comes to marketing for bands because they are generally slapped onto many-many products. I’ve worked with a lot of music-related designs, but I’ve also made logos varying from a lawyer to an internet-computer company to a church before. So, these different applications encourage me to find new ways to talk to other audiences who come searching for something that isn’t entertainment, but I approach these designs with the same techniques and tools I use with the music graphics. I try to give something unique, and of a new take, to get a double-take. 03) Can you tell us about your working environment and your different feelings or extraordinary events that inspires you? Ever since I was a child growing up on a farm, my working environment has been outside and especially in my bedroom. Working environments also extended to anyplace I had my eyes open. I certainly believe in a home base or comfort zone of operations, but a lot of my more thorough processing happens while out and about and then I bring it back home with me to make. Currently I work out of a basement in my home. I’ve constructed a work space out of wood found in the street. I call it my “club house”. I love it down there despite my continual problem with having a work space that barely has room for me to work in! I collect and store a lot of things around me and still have a lot of my childhood things around me, along with piles and piles of supplies, research and things I’ve found or see the potential in for a future use. I have a mind-set that if I can’t use it today, I can easily use it in 50 years. I’m a major fan of extraordinary events and tend to find humorous and peculiar ones to be more my taste, and more-so in retrospect of the event. I feel to be blessed with a certain quality that attracts odd circumstances, or maybe it’s all in my head? Extraordinary has its own brand of “something”, but more often I find inspiration in places, events and things that are fairly run-of-the-mill and everyday ordinary for anyone, which can give them an added cushion of “extra” for me. On my website I’ve made a list of my history, the things that have been the everyday ordinary for me, but might seem very out of ordinary to others. It all depends on perspective and where you’ve been. 04) When did you discover the impulse that led you being a designer? This impulse to leave behind a paper trail of some sort on my impression has always been kicking around in me. I didn’t fully know it at the time, but I believe it started when I was young as I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing or making something. It’s a large part of my make-up. Much of it has to do with my farming background and watching my Dad and his Dad and others always doing or working on something whether it was building fences, planting crops or tending animals. I also owe a lot to my Grandma, for her hands-on making skills and to my parents for allowing me to grow-up fully plugged into the American pop-culture of books, toys, music, movies, video games and sports. Now, I just feed off of my former self and continue to feed for the future. It’s not work to me when it truly works and I enjoy myself. 05) Is looking at life always from a different angel, the designer’s necessarily ego? Most any area of most any job, skill, talent, business doesn’t come without some ego hurdling. The ego is amped further within the arts. Inflated achievement comes with ease when your voice gets a little loud in a “scene” or beyond. I’d like to think I’m fairly grounded, but it’s hard not to feel the eggs weight the other side when I’m told I could be sitting on a couple of golden ones. Working a day job can help matters, but it can also be a nightmare with time management. I have to just tell myself that I am a man and a man who happens to make things. Still, that can be hard. It doesn’t mean that I’m better than somebody or am a “somebody” because I’ve found a certain something within me. I just enjoy my life and feel very fortunate to even know what I want to do with it. I think one needs healthy doses of reality and a whole heap of humor to make it too. Besides, I have no answers. If you know somebody with it all figured out, have them call me! What helps me is to find comfort and ease is venturing back into my child manner. I’m much more content and find peace when I’m either looking at the world through a certain lense that I might qualify for, or just making and enjoying the act of celebration in creativity. The moment I start to think too much about it all or answer questions, that is when it can get a little dangerous in the head. I’d like to think gaining wisdom through age and maturity helps. I know that my energy and will-power have died some, and of late I’m leaning on this as a benefit. I think I say and do some dumb stuff today, though I’m positive it’s a little less than yesterday! 06) Can you inform us about graphic design’ s one of the important field, package design and your sketches? / Tell me about the sketching and process of packaging. There is a certain amount of image longevity that becomes attached to packaging. I’m not experienced in much more than musical CD packaging, but I think a long life span especially applies to this in the iconic halls of pop-culture, even on small levels. Though, that’s not the reason to put into making something and/or package something but if you can add some meaty eye candy, then so be it. I love poster design because there are endless possibilities to exhaust, many ways to work reach-and-grab-of-the-moment and intuitive, and if something doesn’t work all-around, it’s throw-away and will die soon like house flies. CDs are so different, at least for me, and they can be quite intimidating and intoxicating. Sometimes another designer’s great CD package makes me not wish to do another one, and in a good way! With my own process, I do a little bit of sketching, but more-so the process and evolution of the CD package is the sketching for me. If I’m rewarded with an ample amount of time to work on a CD I usually make it happen in three different sessions, or what I call “incubation stages”. This allows me time to sit on ideas and to come back to them with fresh perspective and clear head, to play or spin off ideas and avenues. When figuring out an image or “look” for an album, I like to at least digest the music or get a track listing. With the way in which I work, I tend to feed off of my day-to-day (sometimes minute-to-minute) emotional handy work. It can be a little strange though as I can easily obsess over wondering the what-might-have-been with something like a CD package or anything. I think that a CD package for me can be extremely different given what day I’m at. I do believe my best packages have come down on me at the last minute, intuitively and usually on the lowest of budgets. And I mean cheap, major cheap. 07) What are the benefits of making global designs for the designer? I love a body of work, one that breathes and not only serves as a timeline for the maker, but also for views and observations on life itself. Ideas that can extend globally even, throughout time. I think that a great body of work can extend to anybody, anywhere in the world. And even if it is for some other body like a client, it is always from its original body of the creator. Anything that goes global is still connected to that first breath of singular life. Due to technology, it’s so much easier today to go “global” with designs, even if one does operate on a small scale. I think it’s great to put the work out there, to share, even if it’s not marking up or wrapping up a popular product. In today’s fast-paced world of millions and billions of images and things flashing, it really does mean a lot that my meager things have made it in some strange little way. Even, if it’s just a grin or a double-take by someone looking at a little poster on a wall or in a magazine or a global internet billboard or world-wide magazine and book distribution. Though, a part of me still likes to keep some things to myself. And I’m odd because I personally don’t like to attract attention to myself with graphics on the shirts I wear or product logos on bags and things. 08) Can you explain the relationship between marketing and designing? I’m not sure if I was successful, but I tried to answer some of this in question 2. With this one I’ll try to wrap it into the way that I work, to where my designs act as marketing tools for me, as well as the product they are pushing. Until recently I’ve never had to market myself in conventional practice. For the first six years my work itself was the marketing. Everything from a poster to a package and a logo has been on the same level with causing a “Trickle Down / Word of Mouth” marketing effect. And I’ve been fortunate to keep fairly close relationships with my clients due to a small industry I work in. These clients have brought other clients. For my first two years I was living and working with several bands in a house. I didn’t have to leave and would get new work constantly. At times I’d just make things before I was even asked. Some of the best marketing can come in poster making and that is how I started to gather some attention. Posters have a short shelf life in comparison to packaging and logos, so there is always a new one to tack up. And if a poster doesn’t succeed, then it’s easy to just make another one. It’s just a poster and practice is good. After a while people start getting curious and come looking for you. 09) Does any of your designs have an unforgettable story? The “Whatever Makes You Happy” CD package design I made in my basement in June of 2002 for the band Elevator Division, is one of my most memorable moments. It was a special run of 250 handmade CD packages and my idea came at the last minute. I made an image of a hand shooting off its index finger like a missile that married the themes for the album perfectly, with reflections of war and failed relationships. It was the idea of shooting off one’s options and making decisions. It was fitting for the band-music but also for the national-world climate. Each one was hand-cut from cardboard and stencil sprayed and rubber stamped. Inserts were copied, cut, folded and glued. At the last mist of red spray paint, a crack of thunder shook the massive home’s foundation and I bolted from the basement and out the front door to a down pour of rain. I leapt off the front porch and slid head first down the front lawn embankment and into the street flowing like a river current. The drug dealing squatters of the home across the street were on their front step looking at the fire in my eyes and the red paint streaming from my ears, nose and mouth. It was a high much higher than that of chemical substance. -djg

#innerviews

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sign-from-god-complex · 6 years ago

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A Gift From Me To You - Chapter 7

Chapter Summary: Logan talks through some things.

Warnings: Mentions of parental neglect and mentions of the previously discussed suicide.

A/N: Only got a few more chapters to go!!! And I haven’t written them, so I should really get on that.

AO3 Link // Link to Chapter One! // And Two! // And Three! // And Four! // And Five! // And Six!

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“Logan?”

Logan could hear Patton’s voice ring out as he pushed the door open and he wiped at his face again, hoping to destroy any evidence of an emotional breakdown. He’s sure he was unsuccessful, but the effort was still made.

He took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady despite his tears. “I would prefer not to speak to you right now, Patton.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, specs. This is kind of important.”

Roman too. Excellent. Any hopes of getting out of this situation with his dignity intact were utterly destroyed.

Logan scowled, even if he felt it didn’t hold much behind it except exhaustion. “Yes, I am well aware of why you would consider this to be ‘important’.”

“No, hon. You’re not,” Patton sighed.

The two of them moved into Logan’s line of sight, taking a seat on the ground opposite him—Patton with his legs crisscrossed and Roman with his back against the leg of the table. Logan could think of a dozen places he could rest his head against—both laps, Roman’s thigh, Patton’s shoulder, Patton’s thighs, Roman’s chest—but he refused to move.

“You’ve come to congratulate me on my soulmark, on my chance for the perfect relationship, isn’t that right?” He scoffed. “Save your breath.”

There was silence.

Not a comfortable silence either, the kind of silence that forces you to reevaluate your choices thus far, because clearly, you haven’t been making the right ones. If Logan was honest, he’d regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. He doesn’t want to believe the worst will come to pass, but the universe hasn’t given him much reason to believe otherwise—his friends, on the other hand, have.

Maybe he wasn’t giving them enough credit.

“Logan,” Roman said after a moment, “if you think we would ever act so tactlessly about a subject we know you have issues with, then you clearly don’t know us as well as you think.”

Logan looked up from the spot on the floor he’d been fixating on. The two of them both seemed hurt by his comment and Logan tried to stamp out the guilt that was rising up in him, but it was impossible to ignore.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. It wasn’t even reluctant and that alone was evidence of the sort of change the other two had managed to inflict in him.

Logan hadn’t been known in his past for admitting mistakes—in fact, he’d rarely apologise at all—but he was slowly learning to accept responsibility for his actions. Emphasis on slowly, but still, he was trying. He’s certain he wouldn’t have attempted that before he’d met Roman and Patton.

“It’s alright, love,” Patton replied with a small smile, “We understand this is hard for you.”

It was, and that fact alone annoyed him to no end. He should be above this kind of frustration! He should be able to brush this off and accept the change like any normal human being would do but fuck! It wasn’t that easy; why was it never easy?!

“I just- I don’t want this!” Logan waved his arm around, aware his eyes were growing wetter despite his efforts to the contrary. “I don’t want the increased chance to die of heartbreak! I don’t want the manipulation and the lack of choice! I don’t want to attempt to kill myself just because my wife did the same, completely irrespective of the child they were raising, perfectly content to leave him alone if I had succeeded, I don’t want that!”

The expressions the other two boys wore were full of shock and Logan realised belatedly what he’d just said. He threw his head back against the wall, eyes closed and aware that he was one kind touch away from breaking down into sobs.

“Logan…” Patton said slowly, “Did that happen?”

Logan cleared his throat but his voice came out weak regardless. “Yes, but it’s not important. It was a long time ago, it doesn-”

Logan spoke quickly, but not quick enough. As soon as Logan had confirmed Patton’s question he’d begun to crawl his way over until he was slotted in next to Logan, placing a comforting hand on his leg and watching as Logan struggled to hold himself together.

He couldn’t cry, not in front of them. He was Logan. He was logical and precise—giving facts and data to assist others in their decision making, getting impeccable grades due to diligent work, existing in a form outside of 1’s and 0’s purely out of human necessity. He wasn’t allowed to cry.

“Lo.”

Logan opened his eyes to see Roman had moved his way over as well, taking up residence on the other side of him. He was scanning Logan’s face like he could see every insecurity hidden in his expression and it was hugely overwhelming.

“We’re not going to judge you if you cry, you know.” Logan tensed and Roman gave a gentle smile. “You’re a human being, Logan, not a robot; you have emotions. Just… let us be here for you, okay?” He paused for a moment. “We love you.”

There was a soft touch to Logan’s waist and that’s all he could take.

He folded over, hand going to his mouth to muffle his cries and hide his face—shame not quite overtaken yet by the comfort of his friends. He could feel hands against his back, grounding touches in an attempt to mitigate the way he was shaking and it only made Logan cry harder.

He wanted so badly to tuck himself into Patton or Roman’s chest, feel their arms around him, but even still he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It wasn’t his place.

It didn’t matter how willing the two were to assist him when needed, to give him their affection, to… tell him that they loved him, Logan knew he had to keep his distance. If not for their sake, then for his own. He had walls built up for a reason after all, even if Roman and Patton were impeccable at tearing them down.

By the time his tears had slowed to nothing, Logan was exhausted—emotionally and physically. Quite honestly, he felt if he never experienced another emotion again it would be too soon; this was far too many tears for one person in one day, especially when that person was him.

Logan pulled his head up from his knees, glancing up at the concerned faces of his friends.

He wasn’t pleased to see Patton’s were eyes big and wet, like he was struggling to hold back his own tears. There was a smile plastered on his face but Logan knew from experience he couldn’t trust it’s sincerity. Roman, on the other hand, looked distant—his eyes unfocused and gazing at the ground beneath him like it held the key to the universe. Logan’s stomach clenched.

He never wanted to cause any distress, he just wanted… God, he didn’t even know what he wanted anymore. Safety. Control. Something.

“You feeling any better, Lo?” Patton asked, tilting his head to the side in question.

Logan took a moment to consider this—because, really, Patton’s queries usually required at least a degree of contemplation and any less was doing him a disservice. Did he feel better? He certainly felt more drained, but that aching, lost feeling in his chest hadn’t gone away.

“Quite honestly, Patton? No. Not really.”

“Well, you’re grieving, Logan,” Roman said softly, taking Logan’s hands in his—and no, he absolutely was not blushing, that was just the lighting of the room—“It’s not going to be quite as simple as…”

Logan glanced down at his hands in Roman’s for a second and his entire body froze.

The emotions he felt in that moment were reminiscent of how he would imagine a final voyage on the Titanic to feel—trying to stay afloat in icy water and realising, with a sort of existential dread that’s impossible to replicate, that his holiday wasn’t exactly going how he’d planned. And this, to understate it, was not going exactly how he’d planned.

He was aware of the fact that Roman was still talking, but his words were lost to Logan because the only thing he could focus on were those fucking flowers. Those fucking flowers that had absolutely no right being on Roman’s wrist when he saw them mirrored so perfectly on his own.

“Roman. What is that?” Logan’s voice was stiff and sharp and he wasn’t sure if he was breathing anymore but did it truly matter? Roman had his soulmark.

Roman glanced down at where Logan was staring so intently.

“Oh.” There was a slow intake of breath and the sound echoed over and over in Logan’s mind, Roman’s words the only thing he could grasp onto in the shock of this revelation. “...that’s what we came here to talk to you about, teach.”

He blinked, trying his hardest to process but coming up blank. “Bu- but you don’t-”

“We didn’t, before this morning, no.” Roman laughed a little self deprecatingly and rubbed at the back of his neck. Logan felt his entire body flush hot.

“We?”

Patton pressed a gentle hand to Logan’s cheek, tilting his head until he was looking Patton in the eyes though truthfully, Logan wasn’t seeing any of what was in front of him anymore. Everything was a blur— shapes and colours and emotions mixing into one as he struggled to keep himself from shaking. He was failing.

Patton rubbed his thumb along Logan’s cheek—another grounding motion. “Yeah, Lo. We.”

Logan directed his gaze to the arm Patton held up for him, and for a moment he could do nothing but take it in, gaze tracing the thin outlines of the flowers he found there. They were beautiful. He hadn’t allowed himself to examine them—fear overwhelming his rational nature—but now he couldn’t stop.

Then the consequences of that information sunk in.

He had soulmates. Patton and Roman were his soulmates.

Suddenly it was all too much—the kind eyes and gentle touches overwhelming in the best possible way, his skin flushed and eyes squeezed shut as he flinched away from the contact he so desperately craved.

He wanted everything. He wanted warm hugs and forehead kisses and holding hands as they walk along the street. He wanted celebratory dinners after each of Roman’s shows. He wanted study sessions with Patton as he made up silly mnemonics to remember the information. He wanted to take them to bookstores, to coffee shops, to all his favourite, most comforting places because he wanted to share the things he loved with the people he…

He wanted to feel okay surrounded by the love the other two were pouring out to him, he wanted it so badly.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He didn’t know how to let himself.

He pushed Patton’s hand away, moving to stand but Roman placed a hand on his shoulder before he could.

“Logan, wait!” he pleaded, and Logan felt his heart ache at the look of panic on Roman’s face, “Look, I know this isn’t the same, but I- uh, I understand how much parents can negatively influence your view on soulmates.”

Logan’s expression softened slightly. Roman had always steadfastly avoided the subject of his parents, always brushing it off whenever the topic came up (which, granted, wasn’t very often), so despite every inch of his body screaming that he should run, Logan silently leant back against the wall. If Roman was going to open up, then Logan recognised it was his time to listen.

“You know that I’ve always loved the concept of soulmates, and it is because I think they’re amazing and exciting, but um…” Roman inhaled deeply. “It’s also ‘cause my parents weren’t around a whole lot—still aren’t actually. They’re too busy being in love, going on vacations and going out to bars and leaving me at home alone.”

Roman began picking at the skin around his thumb, diverting his eyes away from Logan’s sympathetic gaze.

“And I thought,” Roman continued with a weak smile, “that maybe if I could have a soulmate too then I could have that kind of love. Then maybe I wouldn’t be so alone.”

Patton leant over Logan to place a hand on his boyfriend’s leg, pressing his side up against him. Logan wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t feel a bit boxed in by the two of them, but he also wouldn’t lie and say that he minded all that much.

“But I have Patton now!” Roman grinned brightly despite his clear emotional distress, glancing over at his boyfriend. “And I have you. And, shit, you are so important to me, Lo. You always listen to me, even when you’re pretending you’re not, you’re always willing to help me if I’m having trouble with something and you never ever act like I’m stupid, even though you very easily could.”

Roman sighed, closing his eyes before opening them again, all of the relief and joy at finding that Logan was his soulmate channelled into one look.

“And you… believe in me. Not the way Patton does—Patton’s belief is unconditional, even when I don’t deserve it—but you truly believe in me based on my skills and my work ethic and… I don’t know. That just… it means a lot. You have no idea the courage and determination it brings me knowing you think I have the power to succeed. I wouldn’t have been able to do so many of the things I’ve done if I hadn’t gone into it with the certainty that you give me.”

Logan blinked, absolutely stunned. “Of course, I believe in you, Roman. You’re an incredibly capable individual with a drive to be envious of.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Roman chuckled, turning away to hide his tears.

With only a moment’s hesitation, Logan placed his hand on Roman’s thigh. He could hear a soft, happy sound from Patton beside him as Roman glanced up, eyes wide. The look Roman was giving him was vulnerable, but full of absolute trust and adoration and Logan wasn’t sure what he had ever done to deserve the feelings either of them had towards him, but he only wished, someday, to be able to repay them for that.

“No, I know so.”

“Logan.” Logan whipped his head around to look at Patton. He had tear tracks down his face but his expression was still set in a big grin—the type of smile that generally would have been reserved for Roman, but instead was directed at him. A smile that Logan was almost certain was real. “You didn’t think we just woke up this morning with soulmarks and decided we were gonna fall in love with you, did you?”

Logan didn’t reply. Truthfully, he wasn’t exactly sure what he had thought. The idea of the two of them being as in love with him as he was with them had seemed absolutely inconceivable, the kind of thing he wouldn’t let himself think about for fear of heartbreak or even worse… hope.

Patton’s bright grin softened to nothing more than a quirk of his lips and an affectionate gaze. “We already loved you, Logan, far before the universe told us we should, and we would have asked you the same regardless. Our feelings would have been the same. The soulmark doesn’t create the feelings—we do. And we love you.”

“I… I love you too. Both of you. Of course, I do. But I-” Logan took a steadying breath, biting at his bottom lip. “I’m… afraid.”

Being afraid wasn’t nearly the worst thing he had admitted to that afternoon but even still Logan felt his body tensing up. He wasn’t used to this, to being able to put his trust in another human being, being able to admit his true feelings and not panic at the thought that he would be making a mistake, but he really did trust them. They’d earned that trust through years and years of patience and kindness and it was about time that Logan showed them that.

Roman appeared openly shocked at Logan’s words, but Patton just gave him a teary smile. “And that’s okay. Cause we’re gonna work all of this out together, yeah?”

He nodded, trying to keep his breathing steady. He couldn’t have cried again even if he’d wanted to; he didn’t have it in him. The urge to rest his body against them, let them calm him and keep him grounded was growing exponentially so Logan braced himself before speaking again.

“Could I…” He laughed—breathy and self-deprecating. He’d just confessed his love to them and yet he still struggled to ask for one simple thing. “…Could I have a hug?”

In less than a second Roman and Patton had thrown themselves on top of him and Logan wrapped his arms around them as best he could, burying his face into Roman’s shoulder. He breathed it all in, enveloped himself in the love and warmth he felt radiating from his soulmates.

There was a lot the three of them still had to discuss—there were families to worry about and schoolmates and bullies and relationship statuses—but right now all Logan could think was how safe he felt. He knew he should still be concerned, should be planning ahead and keeping them out of trouble, but he could do that later. Right now, he relaxed completely into his soulmates’ embrace and let himself breathe.

He was going to be okay.

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Chapter 8

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Tag list: @bunny222 @jadedfantasies231 @221b-quote @reinefandoms @i-really-dig-the-purple @bionic-egypt @not-so-innocent-bi-sander @mistress-jinx09 @soijusthavetoask @marshmallow-the-panda @the-writersblock @theunoriginaldaisy @therubyjailcell @sandersfandersblog @hghrules @that-smol-tired-gay @sanders-sides-stuff @inan-sanders @frogdog145 @follow-pheonix-inside

General tag list: @mutechild @super-magical-wizard

#sanders sides #sanders sides fic #lamp/calm #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #lo can write #as always ao3 chapter won't be up until later

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rorydakota · 5 years ago

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Cat back with a new muse and FC. I bring you Lorelai “Rory” Dakota Baudelaire (yes, like the Baudelaire children only I promise her life has less unfortunate events). She’s slightly based off an old muse of mine; but pretty much only two or three things are the same. Otherwise, she’s completely new, which means I’ve not fully developed her yet. I’ve also never played a Dominique Provost-Chalkley FC before; so please be patient with me while I figure out her gifs. Below the cut, you can read a bit about Rory. And like always, don’t hesitate to hit me up for plotting/connections. She could really use them.

[ dominique provost-chalkley, twenty four, cisfemale, she/her ] ━ hey, I just saw [ lorelai “rory” dakota baudelaire ] walking down the streets of crownsville. they’ve lived in town for [ six months ], and you can catch them around town working as a [ travel blogger/activist ]. I hear they’re known to be [ sincere & clever ] and [ naive & reserved ]. if asked, they would say their aesthetic would be [ stacks of old books, elaborate bedtime stories, passport stamps, celebrating deaf culture, fairylights and flower crowns, a warm cup of tea ].

History (TW: Chronic Illness, Ableism)

With a name like Baudelaire, one would think the family to be cursed or something; but in actuality, the Baudelaires are a pretty normal upper class family of old French money from Bristol, England.

Okay, maybe there were a few unfortunate events throughout the years; and most of them seemed to affect the youngest.

Born Lorelai Dakota, Rory is the seventh and final child of Arthur Baudelaire (a cardiothoracic surgeon) and his wife Naomi (a journalist). She was born on September 25th.

At birth, it was discovered that Rory was completely deaf, news that was difficult at first for her parents; but her parents learned that was the lesser of their problems once their daughter was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot.

At only a month old, she underwent her first heart surgery to repair part of defects. Her second heart surgery was performed shortly after her first birthday. This was to fully repair the defects; and while both surgeries were successful, she’d grow up having to be monitored to ensure no complications appeared.

She underwent a third heart surgery at the age of five and a half to fix some lingering issues from the first surgery. It was around the time of this surgery that her parents bought her a stuffed monkey who she named ‘Sunny’. She still sleeps with this monkey every night.

Growing up, her parents were very protective of her, not wanting her to strain herself or her heart too much. She wasn’t allowed to play sports or do anything else too risky. This led young Rory to discover her passion for books and storytelling.

The Baudelaire’s had a library in their home; and that’s where Rory spent most of her childhood days when she wasn’t at school, at a doctor’s appointment, or at a friend’s house.

She preferred the solace of the library. The characters in the books she read never made fun of her speech troubles/lisp or her deaf accent. They just existed and allowed her to live in peace, unlike many of the kids at school who often mocked her (and some of her siblings even mocked her from time to time just to fit in).

Being mocked so much led Rory to leave public school by the age of 11 when her parents enrolled her in a school for the deaf. She thrived there, making friends with many of the other students and become a star in the eyes of her teachers.

One of the things she loved most about books were the many vast worlds she got to explore from the comfort of her home. It made her want to travel the world, visit all the wonderful places she read about.

But travelling outside the British Isles was tough due to her parents’ protective nature. While her family went on a few holidays to countries like France, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany, it wasn’t until she was in university that she was really given the chance to find adventure.

She was fortunate enough to study abroad in Greece for half a year (which her Percy Jackson loving self fangirled over mythology the whole time). It was later blogging about that trip that led her to her current career path.

After coming back from Greece, she began a blog called ‘Diary of a Deaf Adventurer’ which talked about the struggles of being deaf while travelling abroad and facing multiple language barriers.

Her blog caught the eye of one of her professors; and he showed it to a friend of his who ultimately ended up wanting to sponsor it. He offered to pay for Rory to travel and blog about her experiences, highlighting the difficulties of traveling with a disability and potential solutions for improving the issues faced.

After she graduated from university with degrees in linguistics, modern languages/cultures, English, and comparative literature, she began travelling (much against the wishes of her parents who worried it’d be too much for her heart). She’s spent the last few years visiting different countries throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. It wasn’t until a few months ago she found herself stateside for the first time.

Initially, her plan was to travel around the USA for a year while also learning ASL. However, she fell in love with the smalltown of Crownsville, GA and decided she wanted to spent a year in the town while taking a break from the constant travel.

She’s been in town for roughly six months now; and honestly, she can’t picture herself leaving any time soon. It’s started to feel like home away from home. She knows she’s got another six months before she leaves; but she’s hoping something will happen that’ll keep her in town just a bit longer.

Likes: Books; Fairylights; Linguistics; Tea; Honey; Wildflowers; Succulents; Libraries; Scrapbooks; Zero Waste; Greek Mythology

Dislikes: Ableism; Confrontation; Prejudice; Twilight; Cochlear Implants; Plastic; Pity; Slurs

Miscellaneous

She was named ‘Lorelai’ due to her parents simply loving the name; though her middle name of ‘Dakota’ came from a close friend of her mother’s who had passed just before Rory was born.

She got her first pair of hearing aids at the age of 18 months. They were green BTE aids with a glittery clear ear mold. She never changed the style, always opting for green hearing aids when possible. Currently, her hearing aids are silver with a light green glittery ear mold.

She’s never had an interest in getting cochlear implants. As much as her parents tried to push them on her, she’s always declined. She’s fine with her hearing aids, despite knowing a CI might give her slightly more hearing. She doesn’t really want that. She’d rather embrace her deafness given it’s a big part of who she is.

She is a beegan (vegan that eats honey) and has been since she was around 7 years of age. She tried full on veganism for a year in her teens; but she missed honey in her tea too much. If it wasn’t for honey, she’d be fine being a vegan. She’s against eating animals, doesn’t like eggs; and she’s allergic to dairy.

She can best be described as ‘looks like a cinnamon roll and is actually a cinnamon roll’. She’s about as intimidating as a teacup poodle. She’s the type of person who will catch and release a spider instead of squashing it.

She’s gone through over ten years of speech therapy; and while she’s gotten to the point most people can understand what she says more often than not, she was never fully able to get rid of her lisp or the slight monotone tone to her voice.

Whenever she’s lipreading, her responses are always delayed as she has to take a few moments to process what she was able to read and put together what she missed (she tends to only capture about 40% of what she tries to lipread).

She has a deep fear of dogs that stems from being attacked and bitten by a dog when she was six years old. The attack required multiple stitches; and she’s just had an issue being around dogs ever since.

Her not-so-guilty pleasure is watching episodes of the animated Madeline series when she’s sick or upset. It was her favorite show as a child; and it still has the ability to make her smile.

She collects mugs. Given she’s an avid tea drinker, she’s developed quite the collection of mugs over the years. Her favorites are her Doctor Who TARDIS mug, her L-O-V-E in BSL mug, and her CHD warrior heartbeat mug.

She tries to live as zero waste as possible; so she is known for carrying a reusable orange water bottle wherever she goes as well as for having a reusable metal straw in her bag. She’s also notorious for using canvas totes.

So far, she’s managed to travel to the following places: UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Portugal, Turkey, India, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, USA.

Some of the places she’d still like to cross off her list of places travelled include: Romania, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Morocco, Malta, Israel, Vietnam, Madagascar, and Nigeria (though she’d honestly be excited to travel anywhere).

Wanted Connections

Older Sibling(s) ━ Rory is the youngest of seven; so it would be nice for one or more of her siblings to end up in Crownsville now that she’s settled into the small town. I picture her having two older sisters and four older brothers. Their names and ages are ultimately utp; though I picture their age range being between 27-39 and I do have name suggestions. The only one whose name isn’t negotiable is Rory’s brother Wolfgang “Wolf”. I have a lot planned for how their relationship was growing up; and I’d love to see him brought to Crownsville the most. OPEN (1/6)

First Friend in Crownsville ━ This is very straightforward. This connection is for the very first person Rory met in Crownsville and befriended. OPEN (0/1)

Roommate ━ Rory found herself an apartment shortly after deciding to stay in Crownsville for an extended period of time. She found a roommate initially; but things didn’t quite work out. She needs a new roommate to split the rent with as well as someone to become a close friend. OPEN (0/1)

Ride or Die Bestie ━ This person has become Rory’s #1 best friend in Crownsville. She feels like she can go to them about anything; and they will always be there for her. They’re the one person she can truly rely on and loves more like family than a friend. TAKEN (1/1)

Future Love Interest ━ Rory is demisexual and has never been in any sort of romantic relationship before. She’s never had the interest. This connection would be for the individual who makes her feel romantic chemistry with someone for the first time. It would be a slow burn relationship. TAKEN (1/1) *I am up for discussing this plot; but I would prefer to see if the chemistry is there before solidifying the connection.*

Doctors ━ Given Rory’s heart condition, this connection would be for any of the doctors who help treat her while she’s staying in Crownsville. OPEN (0/3)

General Friends; Close Friends; Frienemies; Neighbors, etc.

More to come...

Click here for Rory’s stats page.

#crownsvilleintro #tw ableism #tw chronic illness mention #i will 100% be adding more to this as i develop her character #shoot me a message to plot :D

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theuniversitychallengereview · 5 years ago

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UC 49.7-49.10

Every so often I manifest an incoherent plan to stop watching YouTube, borne out of some inchoate idea to do with productivity, but then I’ll watch a video so mundanely profound and inspiring that gives me more of a creative boost than any amount of time I would save by not watching 20-minute explainers on Game of Thrones lore. On this occasion that video was this, on the toolbox fallacy.

Simply, as the Passion of the Nerd puts it in his video, its the idea that one can’t do (x), until one has (y) - or, the lie one tells oneself in order to put off doing something, whatever that something may be. In my case, as is so often the case, the (y) is time. I haven’t written a blog for early two months, and in that period I told myself repeatedly that I was just waiting for that big long stretch of time where I could sit down and get everything done at once.

But that never happens, and the longer you go without starting, the bigger the pile gets, so eventually it becomes impossible to get through everything at once without a parcel of time so monstrously huge it is terrifiyng in its own right.

And thats where the fallacy comes in - you don’t need everything to be perfect in order to get started, and once you’ve started, you don’t need everything to go perfectly either. You just need to start. So lets get started.

Episode 7 - Jesus, Oxford vs Manchester

I live in Manchester now (aside: before I got my job here I applied for a PhD at ManUni with a guy called Dr Kiss, a sliding doors moment which could have resulted in my failing to qualify for a University Challenge team for a record eight times in a row, assuming it was a three year doctorate), which should make them my second team, but to be honest they’ve probably held that title for a while anyway. Like Michael Schumacher in his glory days, or Roger Federer in his prime, the University of Manchester produced consistent levels of supreme performance in the Challenge between 2005 and 2014 that gained them many fans, myself included.

They reached nine out of ten semi finals in that time, and brought the fight to the Oxbridge duopoly with four series victories. Jesus haven’t had anywhere near as much success in the Paxman Era, but won the penultimate Bamber series against Imperial in 1986.

Manchester are mascotted by a bee, the buzzy symbol of the city; and Jesus are sponsored by a jumper? Thats what it looks like anyway, it might just be a bit of draping with the college logo on it. A lot of the Oxbridge teams do this, but there may as well be nothing there because its pretty half assed.

Its the Jumpersquad who unravel the night’s first clue, with Cashman taking the ten points for the Cashmere Collective. Manchester equalised with the next Starter, and moved into the lead with a full set on the third. A delightful picture round on Premier League football team finishing positions followed, but Manchester could only manage one (I took the hat-trick, naturally). I always enjoy it when the setters put the sports questions into inventive UC formats.

The Mancunians would get into triple figures before Jesus could build on their opening points, but two Starters in a row got them out of the quagmire, and a third, the music round, brought them within thirty points again. However, they were helped out a little bit by Paxman allowing ‘They Must Be Giants’ in place of ‘They Might Be Giants’. I guess accuracy doesn’t matter as much when its merely pop culture.

This would prove the end of Oxford’s comeback though, as Manchester surged ahead with eighty five of the next hundred points to seal the victory with plenty of time to go. They must have known they had it in the bag as well, because at this point they sat back and let Jesus race for a high scoring loser spot, which they may well get.

Final Score: Jesus, Oxford 145 - 185 Manchester

Episode 8 - Durham vs Trinity, Cam

Durham reached the semi finals last series, the third time they have done so since they won their only title of the Paxman Era in 2000, having also claimed a Bamber Trophy in 1977. Trinity won under Jeremy’s stewardship in 1995 and 2014, along with a victory in 1974, making this a match-up between two of only three teams (the other being The Open University) to have won the Challenge in both of its iterations.

Adding further weight to the not-so-mythical myth that Durham is a surrogate for Oxbridge, the Northern team have also got a jumper-y object as their mascot (at this point I have realised that there is a proper word for what those things are, but I’m in too deep with this jumper thing. Is it just a banner? A sigil?). I’m glad to see that Trinity have tried though, and are proudly displaying what looks to be a hand-knitted bear (possibly Sooty from Sooty and Sweep?).

Durham charged out of the blocks with four of the first five Starters and ten of their first twelve bonuses. Trinity would have to wake up soon if they didn’t want to get blown completely away. Fortunately they heard their alarm clock when it next went off and in the blink of an eye they were ahead.

Wait, surely not... *checks notes* No, I was right first time round, following a 90-20 opening stint, Trinity went 80-0 to turn the game on its head. Now it was Durham’s turn to feel shell-shocked, but they took the next Starter and we were level again. A hundred each. The game was being played like rugby, with one team smashing forward until the momentum could be stopped, at which point the tide would flo the other way. Scintillating quizzing.

The turnovers started coming faster, with a frenetic back and forth developing. It was Trinity who finally managed to stamp their authority on proceedings, opening up a significant lead with only a few minutes remaining. Durham would need to work even quicker than in the early stages to add further topsy-turviness to this topsy-turvy match, but they couldn’t manage it. A brief spurt at the death may however be enough to drag them into the play-offs.

Final Score: Durham 145 - 200 Trinity, Cam

Episode 9 - LSE vs Courtauld Institute of Art

Like I said in the introduction, the longer you leave something before starting, the more difficult it is to start because of how much you’ll have to do once you start. Another issue with this blog in particular, is that the more you have to do at once, the more difficult it becomes to not just write the exact same things over and over again. If I do one per week then even if I do repeat myself word for word then I don’t realise because seven days if far too long to remember anything for, and ignorance is bliss etc. With a big batch like this one then it becomes painfully obvious how many times I use the word Starter, even if it is somewhat necessary.

Oh well, lets start with a recap of the two teams previous appearances... LSE made the final in 1996, losing a high-scoring match against local rivals Imperial. They made the semis two years later, and the quarters in 2009, meaning that they’ve been elimiated at every stage of the competition apart from the second round. For Courtauld, it would be a success to be knocked out at that stage, having lost their only two matches, in 2015 and 2018.

Courtauld took the first points of the evening with the amusing fact that the Nobel Peace Prize hasn’t been awarded on a number of occasions due to a lack of deserving recipients (could they do the same with the British Prime Minister?). LSE fumbled a science starter, leaving the board (in this case the circuit board which makes up the buzzers) wide open, but Courtauld can’t even guess, which amuses Paxman no end - “they don’t study a lot of that [at an art institute], do they?”.

They know Shakespeare though, and take the picture Starter on one of his ‘lost rhymes’. The match ambles on slowly, at a far more leisurely pace than last weeks (a good thing about this batching is that I can reference the previous games with the confidence that I’ll be understood), and its Courtauld who are ambling slightly faster than their London counterparts.

With a few minutes remaining, LSE decde to give it a go, with Engels cheekily waving Paxman on after another science Starter was left unanswered. I just spent about fifteen minutes trying to make a gif of this, but the websites kept crashing and the one I did make was only loading as a picture here. So if you can just imagine it that would be great.

Final Score: LSE 90 - 145 Courtauld

Episode 10 - Goldsmiths vs Southampton

Goldsmiths lost on their first Challenge appearance, and made it to the second round last year, the only other time they’ve made it to the televised rounds. If they continue their current trajectory they’ll make it to the quarter finals this time out, which is the furthest their first round opponents Southampton have made it in the Paxman Era, in 2014.

The Southampton mascot, a fluffy deer, has fallen off of the table between the middle players and has consequently gained some camoflague so you have to squint to figure out what it is. I don’t know if it was placed there on purpose, or if they simply didn’t notice that their mascot resembled that scene from Bambi. Goldsmiths have a teddy bear who is wearing graduation robes, indicating that they award degrees to cuddly toys - where will the liberal agenda take us next?

Paxman informs us that Goldsmith’s Sibley hails from the same Canadian town as human PA system Eric Monkman, and when he introduces himself you can detect a similar lilt to his accent, but without the sense that you’ve accidentally sat on the volume button.

It is he who takes the first Starter of the evening, and indeed the second too - perhaps he does bear some more relation to his noisy neighbour. Goldsmiths took two more on the bounce to go 70 points clear. They were unlucky not to be further ahead, having guessed wrongly between both York and Leeds and Southampton and Portsmouth on the picture round (with no other clues its pretty hard to tell the difference between 20 miles on an unannotated map).

Maybe it was the mention of Southampton (and its misidentification) that woke the Southern side up, but they claimed their first points on the next Starter, along with two bonuses on the Lake District that I knew too, but only because I was literally in Windermere at the weekend.

Once they’d figured out that you need to buzz in and answer questions in order to win the game, Southampton were actually pretty good, and their confidence seemed to grow with every point they put on the board (in this case the circuit board which makes up the - hang on, I’ve already done this one, haven’t I? See, I told you this whole repeating malarkey was difficult), and they polish up two of three bonuses on haikus which describe chemical elements (I missed the explanation of the question format when I watched this the first time, so was astounded that they had even been discussing anything with any conviction. “Just doing your job holding plants together. No fireworks, no fuss”. I mean, what is that on about?)

In fact, just as Southampton remembered how to play, Goldsmiths forgot, and they only managed to shake themselves of this malaise twice more for the rest of the match, allowing Southampton to canter away, mostly unchallenged.

Final Score: Goldsmiths 95 - 175 Southampton

Phew! That was a big one - well done if you made it all the way to the end. I still have two more to catch up on, but I haven’t even watched those episodes yet so I’ll just do them as regular posts, hopefully tomorrow.

I’d also like to give a huge thanks to Tough Soles who are supporting me on Patreon! (sorry for falling so far behind - I’ll catch up soon)

#university challenge #bbc2

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