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pandora-writes-one-piece · 23 hours ago

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The Meet Cute - Law's Story - 16

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The Great Pretender 16

Word Count: 4260

Tags For The Whole Story: Fem!Reader; Law is a soft dom; you have bratty tendencies (not all the time); voice kink; praise kink; cursing; very suggestive behaviour and innuendo from the start; sexual tension; teasing; so much flirting; romance; slow-burn; fluff; slight angst; mature audiences (though explicit NSFW moments will be properly tagged on the chapter); possessive Law; protective Law; soft Law; teasing Law; manipulative Doflamingo; inappropriate Doflamingo; fake relationship trope; only one-bed trope; reader has some anxiety issues; reader is a control freak and perfectionist; modern day AU; Mention of ex mentally abusive relationship;

Special Warning: English is not my first language, I apologise for any possible spelling or grammar mistakes.

Summary: After moving away from the hustle and bustle of Grand Line City to help your father around the property following a horse-riding accident - and in the hopes of healing your broken heart after your asshole ex-fiancé cheated - you settle into the country calmness of the Calm Belt. You and Law (your father's doctor) start to build a flirty friendship because of your father’s procedure. So much so that when he’s invited to Baby 5’s wedding (his cousin), he asks you to be his date. His uncle Doflamingo - who is filthy rich - is very adamant on finding a suitable wife for him. Seeing as he wants to avoid that, he asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend for the weekend.

Notes: The angst arrives in full force! How about that!? Come on, you had to be expecting that! Also, I'm thinking about two chapters left (well, one and the epilogue), so we're almost at the end! PS: This song fits the chapter like a glove! *chef's kiss*

The night is almost over. Just a few more dances before the guests send the newlyweds off to their honeymoon, and then you and Law can escape back into the safety of your room. Just one hour, tops. What could go wrong in an hour?

Even more so now that you’ve finally confessed the three words that have been bothering you for a while. And they were reciprocated.

You’re adamant about not letting go of Law’s hand for the rest of the night. A feeling of dread still coils in the pit of your stomach, and you don’t know exactly why, but you’re not about to let fate play a prank on you.

Except, fate’s got nothing on Donquixote Doflamingo.

“Nephew, I need you. It’s urgent.” Law groans, his hand tightening around yours, since this is clearly Doffy's last opportunity to feed some lie to Law and try to break you two apart. You’re honestly tired of it all.

“Tomorrow, Uncle. I’m tired.”

“Now.” Doflamingo’s tone leaves no room for discussion, and Law clenches his jaw. Underneath it all, Law still respects his uncle. You’re not quite sure why he still respects the man, he’s despicable, but you suspect it’s because he instilled in Law a deep-seated sense of family ties and loyalty. And Law won’t break free of his morals.

“Go. I have to freshen up anyway.” You whisper with a smile. You’ve confessed. He knows how you feel. Nothing will come between the two of you.

Law smiles at you, and with a last squeeze of your hand, he lets you go.

-*-

You purposefully take a while longer in the bathroom, fixing your makeup, your hair, and your dress. Unnecessary moves, really, since you’re about to leave to go to bed soon, and you’re actually craving that massage Law mentioned earlier.

That and… well, you’re craving Law. Period.

You exit the bathroom with a silly smile still plastered on your lips and almost bump into a chest. “Oh, forgive me, I–... Ichiji.”

Obviously.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He begins.

“Cut the crap.” You don’t even let him say anything else, already pushing past him to return to the reception tent, but he halts you, a hand on your upper arm, and you seethe. “What did I tell you about touching me?”

He lets go of you immediately, taking a step back and sighing while passing a hand over his coiffed hair. “Right, sorry.”

Sorry?

You look behind you and around, trying to notice if something feels out of place. You might have entered a portal to some sort of alternate universe when you were in the bathroom because there’s no way in hell Ichiji would ever apologise to you.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Doll. For… well…” He sighs again, steps forward, and then back again. “For cheating, for treating you like crap, for taking you for granted… I… well, I know now it’s too late, but seeing you happy with someone else made me realise what I lost and how I was the only one to blame.”

No, seriously, there has to have been a portal back there. Something, anything. This is not happening.

Your heart constricts in your chest. You lost count of how many times you dreamed about Ichiji asking for your forgiveness, to truly repent for what he put you through. But it happening here, in a place you'd never thought you'd meet him, and completely out of the blue?

What's his game?

“I don't think you need my forgiveness to move on. I know I don't need your apologies.” A heavy sigh parts your lips. “Not when you're delivering them far too late.”

You make another motion to pass through him, but he moves in front of you and whispers your name in a desperate plea. “I do need your forgiveness. I need closure.”

What? You cock your eyebrow, your lips twisting down in a frown. “After all you've put me through for–...” You wave your hands in the air. “I’m not even going to count the years we spent together. Just today is enough! After all the theatrics and the taunting, you expect me to believe you just want closure?”

The way he slumps his shoulders and downcasts his eyes reminds you of the first times you argued, back in the beginning of the relationship, when you actually believed his apologies, and your heart constricts some more at all the memories.

“Yes, Doll. Just closure. I'm about to leave the party, and I know we won't meet again, unless it's by chance, and I don't want us to part on bad terms.” He takes a tentative step your way. “Just say you'll forgive me, please.”

You want him out of your sight, out of your mind, and completely out of your heart. You know you don't love him anymore, but you still hold memories and feelings of nostalgia, and when he's looking at you with puppy-dog eyes, you can't help but soften up a little bit. He does seem sorry.

“Fine, Ichiji, fine. We can part ways on lighter terms. I don't completely forgive you for what you took from me or for how you made me feel, but I won't resent you for it anymore.”

He actually smiles at you. Not that conceited, smug smirk, but a genuine smile.

“That's all I ask for, Doll.”

“Good. Goodbye.”

“Wait, please.” Is that pain in his voice? Is he really sorry and repentant for everything? You don’t say anything, but you don’t move either, just waiting for what he wants to say. “Can I get one last hug?”

The face you make must have been something special to look at because he grimaces and chuckles softly, his hand passing through his hair again.

“A harmless hug? Please? It’s just for–...”

“Closure, right?” Should you? He’s actually sounding human for once in all the time you’ve known him, and he does seem sorry. It’s just a hug goodbye. What harm can it bring? “Fine. Make it quick.”

With a sigh, you let him bend down to envelop you in his arms, but then you actually smile. You don’t feel anything. No rage, no pain, no hurt, no longing… it’s just a void. You know there used to be something there, but now you’re free.

It’s a wonderful feeling, actually.

Until Ichiji’s hands cup your face, and he tilts your head to the side, doing the same to his and leaning in further, his lips inches away from yours. His taller frame engulfs you, and the lights are very dim near the bathroom. It almost looks as if you’re sharing a kiss.

“Wha–...”

“I still win, Doll.”

A cold shiver runs down your spine as he shows you the same smug smile he always did, his canines almost glistening with glee. You’re frozen in place. What does he mean?

And then he parts, leaving you open-mouthed, chest heaving, and cheeks flushed from trying to grasp what is going on. It doesn’t take long for your eyes to adjust to two figures looming at the entrance of the hallway that leads to the bathrooms.

Doflamingo and… oh, no.

“Law?”

Doffy is bent down, one arm around Law’s shoulders, his lips moving fast as he mouths words into Law’s ears. You can almost bet he’s spewing lies and deceptions about you, twisting everything to make Law doubt you. You know he has trouble trusting people, it would be so easy to make him doubt.

But what breaks you is Law’s expression. His usually stoic face bears the signs of hurt, and he’s clenching his fists by his sides, jaw ticking, trying to contain his emotions and failing at it.

“Law!” You try again, taking a step forward and see Doffy still speaking into Law’s ear. Lies, all lies, for sure. Law’s gaze falls on Ichiji and then back at you, and you realise that this was orchestrated. It has to have been orchestrated.

Ichiji holding you as if he were kissing you, Doffy bringing Law by the bathroom? It was their ultimate move.

“It’s not what you think, Law.” You take another step forward, and you can almost hear the shards of Law’s flimsy trust being broken and shattered into pieces.

He shakes his head and takes a step back, hand flying over his head to tousle his hair. “I… I need some air.” Turning on his heel, he leaves you in a hurry, and you stifle a sob.

No, no, no.

You need to reach him, to speak with him and let him know what happened. That nothing actually happened! He can’t possibly think you would betray him like this. Turning your wobbly steps into strides, you try to follow Law’s retreating figure into the crowd, despair tugging at your insides, tears already threatening to fall.

And then you’re stopped by a strong hand on your arm. “Where do you think you’re going, princesa?”

An actual growl leaves your lips. “Let go, Doflamingo. I need to speak with Law.” Your tug does nothing to loosen his grip, and you seethe.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He tuts, his fiery eyes boring deep into yours. “You won’t speak to my nephew. Not now, nor ever again. You’ll leave him alone to live his life and disappear.”

Shaking your head, you try again, but his grip is too strong. “He needs to listen to me! He’s going to be heartbroken. It’s not what he thinks.”

“He’ll be fine. He has a family that loves him.” Doffy’s words sound melodic, but the melody is one of doom, not hope.

“Only Cora loves him, clearly.” Your scoff comes accompanied by stubborn tears you’re trying to keep enclosed. “All I’ve ever wanted from Law was love, all I have to give to him is love. Why do you want to take that away? Do you hate him that much?”

Doflamingo straightens his shoulders, and now he seems impossibly high. “On the contrary, cariño. I love him dearly. And it’s because I love him that I need him to learn this lesson. I thought he had already learned it the hard way, but he didn’t. Romantic love only brings weakness. It doesn’t do him any kindness, and he needs to let that go. He needs to be strong and in control, not a fool in love.”

Finally, your harsh tug makes him release you, but his imposing figure is still blocking the way. You stamp your feet, much like a small child, and grit your teeth, anger making your eyes blaze red. “You think that makes him stronger? Is that why you push the people that love him away?”

He shakes his head, those annoying tuts leaving his lips as he gives you a condescending look. “Not at all. Only those that do not.”

“Then you are a damned fool.” He growls at your disrespect, and you couldn’t care less. He lost any small ounce of respect you might’ve still held for him when he pulled this stunt. “Because if you hadn’t interfered, I would still be by Law’s side, and I love him!”

Doffy’s laugh comes in small waves, his eyes shining with amusement as he sizes you up with his fiery gaze. “An admirable sentiment, mi querida, though I doubt it to be true.” You open your mouth, ready to be disrespectful again, but he reaches into his pocket and pulls out an all-too-familiar device: your tablet.

With a flick of his finger, he opens it to the spreadsheet you now know by heart: all of Law’s likes and dislikes, every useful thing for your fake relationship, every piece of information you and Law gathered to make sure you were prepared for this event.

You can’t help the stutter that leaves your lips, nor the red flushing your cheeks. “Law… he.. Law knew about that.” Why does your voice sound so small? Is it because you were caught?

“I’m sure.” His demeanour contradicts his words. And then he hands you the tablet, a frown finally overtaking his mocking smile, and you almost shrink at how his aura suddenly feels very threatening. “You’re done here. You will never speak to my nephew again.”

Tears sting your eyes, but you refuse to let them fall. Doflamingo can’t win this, not after what you and Law went through. Not after realising he’s the love of your life.

“You can’t do that.” Your voice comes out as a mere trembling whisper. “You can’t pull strings and control Law’s life as if he’s a puppet and you’re his puppeteer! He has a say in his own life!” You try to take a step forward, but he doesn’t budge. “I’ll tell him what happened, and he’ll realise I never meant to hurt him. Just let me through!”

“You’re done.”

“Law has a right to make his own choices. You don’t own him!” The pesky tears start to stain your cheeks, you feel impotent and useless.

“Not choices that will end up destroying him.”

“The ones you are making for him might do just that.” Your voice finally breaks, and a ragged sob leaves your lips with the weight and the helplessness of it all. “He is not your pawn! You can’t manipulate him like this! Please… please! Let me speak to him! You’ll truly destroy him with this…”

Law placed his trust in you. After what he’s been through with Monet, you know it must not have been easy to let himself love and be loved. And Doflamingo manipulated you both to an extent that will come with dire consequences. Law will be broken, and so will you.

“I will face whatever consequences come from my actions with Law. He might be hurt for a while, but he will emerge stronger. He has done it once.”

“But at what cost?” You whisper, too drained to fight back. With a shaky inhale, you straighten your shoulders as your hands grip the tablet for some sort of grounding. “I’ll speak to him later, then. You can’t keep us apart. You will not ruin what we have.”

Pushing past him, you take one full step before Doflamingo’s words freeze you in place.

“I would rethink that if I were you, querida.” Something in his voice halts your breathing as you look over your shoulder and find him grinning. “Your father is still recovering from surgery, right? Some businesses collapse pretty quickly when something like this happens… no one would look twice.”

What?

“Is that a threat?” Doffy certainly has the power to ruin your father’s horse business.

Waving his hands in the air in a dismissive manner, his smirk returns to his lips, more menacing this time. “Oh no, no. I don’t make threats… they’re too amateurish.” His laugh fills your ears, and the same shiver as before courses through your veins. “It’s more of a prediction.”

Gathering strength and bravado you do not have, you square your shoulders and lift your chin. “My father is strong, and he has my help. We’ll manage.” Turning your face forward, you will your feet to move again.

“How brave. So what about Law’s clinic?” Your breath stops so suddenly that you almost think you have a collapsed lung. He can’t be serious. “I won’t be cryptic, cariño, here’s the deal: if you speak to Law again, I’ll make sure his clinic tanks. And you know how much he loves that little place, with his friends and helping people.” He tsks and waves his hand dismissively. “I would much rather he dedicated himself to the company, so perhaps you would be doing me a favour. Law, on the other hand? Now that would devastate him.”

“Please, don’t…” You don’t know what else to do. Doflamingo is too powerful, too influential. He will destroy Law either way and claim to be helping him while doing it. You feel trapped, what can you do? “Please don’t do that to him.”

“I don’t want to. I do love him. But that depends on you.” Doflamingo sets one hand on your shoulder to turn you back to face him. “There’s a car waiting for you outside with all your belongings. You will leave the party immediately with Ichiji, as it will help sell the ruse.”

Your legs start to wobble as breath begins to catch in your throat again. Powerless. Completely stripped of any will. That’s how you’re feeling.

“You will not speak with Law today, nor ever. Not even when you both go back to your boring little lives. He’ll think you abandoned him, which suits me, really. No one needs a gold digger.”

“I’m not–...”

“I don’t care!” Doflamingo leans in, and his breath fans your face. He’s as angry as you’ve ever seen anyone, and you can almost see the veins pulsating dangerously in his neck. “You’re a distraction and a liability. Law doesn’t need any of that.”

“Everybody needs love…” Is this your last hail Mary? Because it’s not a very strong one.

“Not the Donquixote family.” He steps back and motions Ichiji forward. “Leave. Don’t speak to Law. It’s simple, I’m sure you can follow that, princesa.” He chuckles again while fixing his tie and suit. “Or else…”

The words he leaves unsaid are a weight on your soul. You can’t think, you can’t breathe, you can barely exist. All you know is that Law is somewhere, hurting, thinking you betrayed his trust.

And the fact that you will leave without any explanation will only cement that feeling.

You thought you’d been heartbroken before - exhibit A is currently walking by your side, leading you away from the party with a hand on your back that you’re too tired to swat away - but you’ve never been hurt like this.

This pain is visceral. It burns, it blisters, it festers, and it destroys.

You’re not actually sure you’ll ever recover from this.

-*-

Law was taken away from you by Doflamingo yet again, and as his uncle drones on about business and about the imminent merger, all Law can think about is you in his arms and the peace you bring him.

“Are you listening to me, Law?”

“No, Uncle, I’m not. It’s late, and I’m tired.” He yawns for effect and shrugs. “I’m going to bed.” But before he can retreat, Doflamingo sighs and slings his hand over Law’s shoulder.

“Fine, Law. But first, I’ve made some assumptions during this weekend, and I need you to tell me if I’m right or wrong.” Law sighs and nods. Agreeing with Doffy is the fastest way to get rid of him. He starts leading Law back into the party, and Law follows without giving it much thought.

“I know you and the little princesa were not a couple before this weekend. I’m actually doubting that you are a couple at this moment… and my assumption is: you told her you didn’t want to come to my daughter’s wedding without a date because I tend to introduce you to a lot of respectable young ladies you don’t relate to. So, to avoid that, she offered to come as your date. Am I right?”

Law already knew Doffy had discovered that bit of your ruse, so he doesn’t act surprised, he acts resigned.

“Almost. I was the one who asked her.” Law grins. “The ladies you introduce me to are not respectable. Half of the ones I met proposed to do very salacious things to me in very public places.”

Doffy grins back at him, and Law sighs while shaking his head.

“You got that half-right, Doffy. Are you happy?”

“Not in the least. You see, Law, what I think is that the young lady realised the family you belonged to and decided to take advantage of that fact by seducing you. Is that a correct assumption?”

“Frankly, Uncle, I’m growing tired of that subject. We have already proved to you that we care about each other deeply. And even if we didn’t, we don’t have to prove anything to you anymore. This is my choice, and you will not interfere in it.”

Doffy tilts his head and nods, a mysterious smile playing on his lips as he leads Law to the bathroom.

“Fair enough. But… Nephew… do you truly believe she cares that much about you? Do you think she loves you?” A small chuckle escapes his lips. “I thought you were done with being naive…”

Law grits his teeth while his heart clenches in his chest. Doflamingo’s words always have a way of penetrating his skull and making him doubt everything. “She loves me. I know that.” He didn’t mean to sound so defensive, but then again, Doffy had no reason to attack him.

“I hope, for your sake, that you are right.” Doffy brings one hand to his chest and bows his head slightly. “I would hate to see you blindsided. Again.” His emphasis on the word ‘again’ brings hurtful memories of Monet back to Law’s mind, and he grunts.

“We’re fine, Doffy. Thank you for your concern.” Law is about to turn and leave, but Doffy holds him by the shoulder and directs his gaze towards the dimly lit hallway of the bathroom.

“Oh… would you look at that, then…”

Law instantly freezes, his brain showing him tricks. It has to be tricks. There’s no way that’s you wrapped in Ichiji’s arms. Law can only see the back of Ichiji’s hulking frame, but that’s your dress he sees peeking from the side, those are your hands holding his waist.

And now he’s cupping your cheeks, leaning… no.

A kiss?

Law shakes his head, denial, frustration, and… betrayal. That’s the word echoing in his head incessantly. Where once were your ‘I love you’s’ now stood that shadow of a word. Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal…

“You see, Law,” Doffy leans against Law’s ear, his venomous tongue spewing hurtful words. Words that ring true, too close to Law’s heart. Too at home with his pain. “She’s no different from Monet, really… they both traded you, broke your trust.”

Law’s throat is dry, and he feels little sweat beads trickling down his sideburns. The nails digging into the flesh of his hand cut little crescent indents, trying to ground him, trying to pull him back from the pitfall of despair he’s about to be sucked into.

“Love hurts, Nephew. Love tears and destroys. You can only trust your family or you should trust only yourself.”

Doffy keeps talking, but Ichiji breaks from you, and there’s a mix of confusion and distress on your face as your eyes meet Law’s. And then there’s panic as you whisper his name.

This can’t be happening. You wouldn’t do this to him. Not you.

“Law!”

Your plea is clear, but he can’t think straight. It’s too much, it’s too painful.

“Don't believe her lies, Law. You know what you saw.” Doffy murmurs.

“I… I need some air.” Law’s voice comes out as a mere whisper as he turns and disappears. The air suddenly feels rare, his chest too tight.

There’s not enough room in the world to harbour the size of this betrayal. It’s too much.

-*-

The coolness of the outside air does nothing to soothe him. It still feels stifling, and the control is slipping away from his fingers. Running his hand through his hair in a desperate gesture only brings him more heartache.

Why?

Law keeps thinking about your pain and grief when you spoke about Ichiji. How could you return to the man who hurt you so?

Maybe you didn’t.

No. Law knows what he saw. You were in Ichiji’s arms.

But he didn’t see a kiss.

There was no mistaking it. He held your face and–... and what? Could he have forced you? Were you held against your will? Law tries hard to unscramble his jumbled memories, but the pain in his chest is so heavy that he barely knows where to start.

He didn’t see a kiss. Of that, he’s certain. Could he be overthinking it? What if it was nothing, or if he forced you? And instead of helping you or hearing your words, Law panicked? Hadn’t he promised you not to listen to Doffy’s words?

Yet that was exactly what he did.

Fuck.

Did he get this all wrong? Law sighs and inhales deeply three times, trying to calm his ragged breaths and his uneven heart. He knows you. You wouldn’t do that to him, let alone with a man who hurt you so deeply.

There has to be an explanation for what happened, and he’s ready to listen to it.

Turning around, Law returns to the party, hoping you’re still somewhere near so he can speak with you and listen to what you have to say, to what really happened, to the truth.

He’s expecting to find you frantically looking for him, and his heart is already constricting from the anxiety you must be feeling. He should’ve just stayed a while longer. You would have explained, and neither he nor you would have had to panic.

But what he wasn’t expecting was to see you leaving the party. He wasn’t expecting to see Ichiji’s hand resting against your lower back, silently guiding you through the remaining guests. He wasn’t expecting to see you walking out with him.

Willingly.

So it was the truth.

Law’s heart breaks completely, the full extent of your betrayal settling in, expanding, and commandeering all of his love for you. Doflamingo was right. It pains him to admit this, but he was.

You’re a liar, and Law was foolish enough to trust you.

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madlori · 17 hours ago

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whoops my hand slipped and I banged out 1800 words of fix-it fic in like an hour. btw i think the Abby connection is dumb but I'm making it work.

Three years after reconciling with Buck, newly engaged to him, Tommy gets a phone call from a certain former dispatcher...who's just seen some interesting news via a Facebook Relationship Status post.

*****

(also on AO3)

To say that the phone call blindsided him would have been the understatement of the century.

He was just sitting at home watching the game, having a beer, minding his own business. Evan was on shift — must be a busy one, he’d only gotten two text messages all evening, one bitching about not having had time to eat dinner and the other about idiots who texted while driving.

His phone rang. Unknown number. Normally he wouldn’t have picked up, but with all the wedding preparations, a lot of vendors were calling. It was a little late to be making business calls, just after 8 pm, but he’d quickly learned that business norms meant little in the wedding planning business. “Hello?”

“Tommy?”

“Yes?” A woman’s voice. Familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

Pause “You’re marrying Buck??” A slightly hysterical note of disbelief entered the woman’s voice as she said the name.

And all at once, he knew who it was. Shit fuck motherfucker why didn’t we get ahead of this one.

“Abby. Um…”

“Evan Buckley? My ex-fiancé and my ex-boyfriend are marrying each other?”

“Small world, huh?” he said, going for levity.

“Buck’s not even gay!”

“No, he’s not. He’s bisexual.”

“I’m…okay. I’m sorry, it’s just…this is a lot of information to get all at once.”

“How did you even find out? Don’t you live in Phoenix?”

“Buck posted one of those relationship status things on Facebook.”

“Oh. I barely use Facebook.”

“Me either, but Buck does, and I hadn’t been on there in awhile, but I logged on and that was like the third post I saw!”

Tommy remembered the day Buck had made the post. They hadn’t really put their relationship on social media much - Buck posted photos of them on Instagram sometimes - and he hadn’t done one of those stupid relationship status things for them until they got engaged. They’d trawled their phones for the right pic, eventually settling on one taken at a 118 barbecue of them together, smiling, arms slung around waists. He hadn’t said so, but he’d gotten a little emotional over what Evan wrote on the post:

Evan Buckley is engaged to Tommy Kinard.

“It’s been a long road, but we made it. Can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with this man. He’s the best person I’ve ever known. I love you!”

“Well…I’m sorry that was an unpleasant surprise for you,” Tommy said, carefully.

She sighed. “I don’t know that it was…unpleasant. But a surprise, for sure. How do you even know Buck? How did you meet?”

“We’re both firefighters, it’s not that surprising that we could have met, is it?”

“No, I guess not.”

“And he was at my old firehouse. The one you refused to ever come to. But I guess you went when you were with him, didn’t you?”

“You never wanted me to meet your friends. I guess I found out why when you broke off our engagement.”

“I’m sorry, Abby. I know I said it then, but I’ll say it again now. I lied to myself, I lied to a lot of people. It took me almost trapping you in my lie, when you did not deserve that, to break me out of it.”

“I forgave you ages ago. We don’t have to go over all that again.”

“I met Evan…I guess it’s four years ago? We started dating not long after. I, um…was the first man he dated. I guess I made him realize some things about himself.”

“Just transforming lives everywhere you go, huh?” she said, a teasing note entering her voice. Tommy was happy to hear it.

“Yeah, well, I almost screwed it up. I broke up with him six months later. He was diving in headfirst, too fast, just all in and wanting to move in with me.”

“That sounds just like Buck.”

“I panicked and ended it before I could get in any deeper with him.”

“It was too late, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. I was already in love with him.”

“He’s easy to love. Too easy,” she said, quietly. “But you got back together, obviously.”

“Took a little while. Almost a year. I dated a few guys, he dated a few people, but nothing stuck for either of us - I know now it’s because we were still hung up on each other. We have a friend in common and we’d hear about each other through him…but I didn’t really see him until we ended up on a major incident call together. I sustained a minor injury - just a scrape, really - and Hen from his house patched me up. I was sitting there on the ambulance deck, more or less left to myself, and he came waltzing up with that eyebrow raised like he knew all my secrets.” Abby chuckled, like she knew the exact expression he was describing. “He just said, are you done being fucking stupid yet?”

“And you were.”

“Yep. I was. He took me home that night and we’ve barely been apart since. Got engaged a year later.”

“You sound happy.”

“I am. I’m ecstatic. I can’t believe I got a second chance with him. I kicked myself for ending it like that, I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do. You thought you weren’t enough for him to want to keep you.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“That’s dumb.”

“That’s what he says.”

They sat there not speaking for what felt like a long time.

“Well…” Abby said. “I feel like I just unloaded on you out of the blue.”

“You kinda did,” he said, smiling.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have called.”

“I’m glad you did. You know…Evan and I didn’t realize we had you in common until our six month anniversary dinner. In fact, it was that revelation that sort of started us on the way to breaking up for awhile. But that’s been so long now and it hasn’t come up in a few years. I almost forgot about it.”

“Gee, thanks,” she said, her grin audible. “I’m glad you’re both happy. I have a lot of regret over Buck, how I left things with him. I assume he’s told you.”

“He has. If it helps, he doesn’t have any bad feelings towards you.”

“It does help. Thank you for that.” She sighed. “I’ll let you go. I just saw that Facebook post and spiralled a little bit.”

“Understandable.”

“Please tell Buck I say hello. And I wish you both so much happiness, Tommy.”

“Thank you. And I will.”

She hung up. Tommy stared at the phone for a moment, then opened his text message thread with Evan.

You’re not gonna believe what just happened.

*****

When Evan got home at 7 am, they had their usual two hours to share breakfast and maybe a quick fuck before Tommy had to be on shift himself. They tried to sync their schedules so their off days coincided, but it didn’t always work.

“Holy shit, why didn’t we get ahead of that one?” Evan said as he burst in the door, not even bothering with “hello.” His shoes and duffel went flying and he bustled into the kitchen where Tommy was mixing the pancake batter.

“Yeah, I had the same thought,” he said, leaning over to kiss him hello.

Evan went to the coffee pot. “I didn’t even think about it, that she might see.”

“Neither did I.”

“How’d she sound?”

“Really surprised at first. Incredulous, even? Like in the what-are-the-odds way.”

“Kinda like when I found out we’d both dated her.”

“Yeah, but you’re my himbo now,” Tommy said, smirking. “No, she was just shocked. I gave her the quick rundown, and she ended up congratulating us.”

“Did you tell her it’s her fault we broke up for a year?” Evan said, popping a strawberry into his mouth.

“I think the proper person to bear the fault is me.”

“And also me. Who asks someone to move in after six months? Before even saying ‘I love you?’ And when you had a house!”

“I say we blame Josh. He got you all juiced up with that damn Glee speech.” After they’d reconciled, Evan had given him chapter and verse on his mind-boggling thought processes on that last fateful day.

“He got me feeling guilty, is what he did. That I judged you for lying to Abby. Overcorrecting is one of my special gifts.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, while I’m overcorrecting…why don’t we invite her?”

Tommy looked up. “To our wedding?”

“Sure, why not? She can flip a coin whose side she sits on,” Evan said, grinning like the mischievous imp that he was.

“Evan, darling, love of my life, we are not inviting our ex to our wedding.”

He scrunched up his face. “Ew. ‘Our’ ex? Makes it sound like we were in a throuple.”

“Ew, indeed.”

He cocked his head. “I dunno, though. The thought’s kinda sexy.”

“Not to me! No vaginas anywhere near my bedroom. Kinsey 6, remember?”

“Of course, my apologies.”

Tommy looked at his innocent wide-eyed face for a few beats. “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?”

“Can I help it if the thought of two people I have found intensely attractive doing sexy things is appealing?”

“Can I help it if the thought of Chris Hemsworth going down on you has gotten me through some lonely nights?”

“Okay, I get the point. Shutting up now.”

Tommy put a plate of pancakes in front of him. “Your shift okay?”

“Fine. Busy. I’m a bit wired. Do we have time for me to bounce on your dick for a bit before you have to head out?”

“For that, I’ll make time.” He sat down at the table at Evan’s side with his own pancakes. Evan slid a hand over and squeezed his thigh.

“Missed you, though,” he said, chewing.

“I always miss you when you’re on shift,” Tommy said.

Evan looked up at that, meeting his eyes. “Tommy, sometimes I miss you when you get up to get a beer.”

The simplicity, the sincerity of it made his chest tighten a little. He leaned forward, put his fingers under Evan’s chin and pulled him into a soft kiss, just like the first time. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.”

“And we are not inviting my ex-fiancee who is also your ex-girlfriend to our wedding.”

Evan grinned. “Deal.”

#madlori's fic #bucktommy fic #bucktommy #fix-it fic #911 8x06 #911 8x06 fix-it #911 fanfic #tevan #kinley

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rekino2114 · 2 days ago

Text

Messing with the chainsaw man girls hair

This was requested by @shikitohnoskk

The request:Hey, is it okay for me to request it again? I've noticed that most of the Chainsaw Man girls (Makima, Asa, Kobeni, and Quanxi) wear a ponytail.

Headcanon: Have S/O see their hair down and compliment it, and perhaps personally tie their hair into a ponytail.

Note: for the other girls who haven't ponytailed or short hair like Power, Himeno, and Fami (does Yoru count since she is in Asa's body)?. What are your ideas on them?

A/n:I couldn't come up with a good title that fit all the girls' scenarios, so you get that. Also, sorry if I posted this later than usual again. School sucks

Makima

Living with makima, you've gotten used to the morning routine you have. She always wakes up before you and prepares everything you need. She wakes you up with a kiss, and you do your morning routines together, helping each other get dressed, washing your faces, and putting each other's ties on. It's a really sweet and domestic moment that you love.

Doing this so many times, you started to notice something, whenever you woke up makima already had her hair done, even if she was still in the lingerie she wore to bed.

You weren't surprised. Her ponytail looked like it took a lot of time to get done, and she probably didn't want to "bother" you, but you still wanted to see her with her hair down, so one day you woke up by yourself, without needing her to kiss you.

You yawned and stretched, then made your way to the bathroom where you saw just what you wanted to see, your girlfriend in front of the mirror messing with her hair.

She noticed you behind her in the mirror but did nothing and waited for you to come near her, you did and hugged her tightly, still a bit groggy

"Good morning darling, why did you wake up early today?"

"Wanted to see you"

Makima giggled at your sleepy tone but turned around and hugged you back kissing you in the process

"Your hair looks beautiful like this"

"Does it? I think it looks unkempt"

"It's still beautiful"

"Thank you love"

She kissed you once more and pulled away from the hug, turned around again towards the mirror, and grabbed her hair tie

"Do you want me to help you?"

"Hm?"

"I can help you tie your hair if you want"

"That would be wonderful, my love, are you sure?"

"Of course, I'd love that"

Makima smiled brightly at you and handed you the hair tie. You took it and gently grabbed her hair and started to tie it up, trying to imitate the form you always saw it in.

"You're amazing, my darling, i don't know what I'd do without you"

"What do you mean? You do this alone every morning"

"No, I meant in general. You give me a reason to wake up and get ready every day"

"That's so sweet to hear, but you know you'll always look beautiful to me, no matter what"

"Thank you sweetie, but I still want to do this, you really didn't have to"

"But I wanted to"

"And that's what makes you so wonderful"

You finished tying her hair, and she looked at it. She thought it was even more beautiful than when she made it

"It looks amazing thank you so much"

"Don't worry about it, it's the least I could do"

She turned around one last time to kiss you, even more passionately this time. When she pulled back, her beautiful golden eyes looked back at you with so much love

"I don't think words can describe how much I love you"

"The same goes for me makima"

Power

"Get your hands off of me, filthy human"

"......power please calm down"

You and the rest of division 4 were supposed to attend a meeting with makima and some important members of the government, so your boss advised you to dress nicely, this was no problem for you and your other friends, but it kinda was for your girlfriend power.

She only accepted to take a bath when you joined her and even then didn't wash very well and she struggled a lot while you were helping her put her suit on.

"Ugh! This is so uncomfortable"

"I know, but you have to wear it"

"Said who?"

"Makima"

"...........ok"

She sat in front of you again as you put her tie on

"OK I'm done"

"Finally!"

She started to get up but you stopped her

"Wait, we're not finished, you have to tie your hair"

"What? Why?"

"I dunno, I guess it makes you look more....... civilzed"

"Are you saying I'm not civilized normally?"

"Listen, we need to make a good impression, or makima is gonna dock our pay. Just put this on, please,"

The blood fiend pouted and turned around dramatically

"Never! I refuse!"

"I'll give you cuddles when we get back"

"..........."

"With meowy"

Power turned towards you again, still pouting but with a blush on her face"

"Fine, you win"

"Thanks"

She grabbed the hair tie you were holding in your hands and looked at it for a while before trying to tie her hair.....unsuccessfully

"Do you.....need help?"

"O-of course not! How dare you say that!"

She proceeded to continue failing to tie her hair

".........can you help me?"

You giggled but quickly got up and went behind her, taking the hair tie and starting to tie her hair

"Have you ever tied your hair before?"

"Y-yeah but it's really hard doing it alone"

"Don't worry, I get it. You can ask me for help when you're struggling"

"R-really?"

"Of course, I'd love to"

"......thanks"

"It's no problem"

As you finished tying her hair you looked at it and smiled

"You look beautiful like this"

Hearing this power smugly grinned and turned around to look at you

"Of course, did you have any doubts the great power would look beautiful in any hair style?"

You laughed again and kissed her cheek, causing it to glow red

"No, I definitely didn't, now let's go, denji and aki are waiting for us"

Himeno

After waking up and doing everything you needed to, you were waiting for himeno to wake up as she usually slept late. You heard a big yawn coming from your bedroom and knew that she woke up so you waited patiently for her to come out of the bathr-

"AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

You immediately sprinted towards the bathroom

"Himeno, what's wrong?"

"O-oh hiiiii y/n, n-nothings's wrong I just-"

"Why are you covering the left side of your head?"

"......whaaaaaat? No I'm not"

"Seriously hime, what's wrong you know you can tell me"

Himeno sighed and took her hand off of her hair

"OK, just don't laugh"

She turned around and you started staring at her hair, at first you saw nothing wrong but then

"Wait, is the left side of your hair completely cut off?"

"Yeah"

"How did that even happen?"

"I-i dunno I was drunk last night and-"

"You had scissors while you were drunk? You could have hurt yourself"

"I know.....sorry"

"It's fine, at least you're ok"

"Yeah, my hair isn't though, you think I'd look good with a hat?"

You both laughed softly at that, you put a hand on her head and started stroking her hair

"While I think you'd look good with anything, I don't think you need to put one on"

"Hm? Why? You got a solution?"

"Maybe, what if you cut the other side too so it's even, you have shot hair anyway so it'll grow back fast"

"I guess that could work, but to be honest, I don't really trust myself with scissors anymore, even sober me"

"I can help you"

"Really?"

"Yeah of course"

"Awww, thanks so much baby, you're the best"

"It's nothing just go sit somewhere, I'll grab the scissors"

Your girlfriend gave you a thumbs up and grabbed a chair to sit in while you took the scissors. You then stood behind her and started cutting her hair carefully

"This is just like being at an hairdresser"

"Don't exaggerate, I'm not a professional so it may come out ugly"

"Please, if you do it, then it possibly can't be ugly"

"You're giving me too much credit"

"Nah, it's you who's giving yourself too little credit"

"Well thanks"

"No problem"

After you finished cutting her hair, you told her so, and she went to the mirror to see how it looked. After she stared at herself for a few seconds, she smiled widely and went to hug and kiss you

"You're amazing y/n, this looks great"

"Oh please it's not-"

"Hey! Stop that. You're amazing, ok? That wasn't a question it was a statement, so don't try to argue with it"

"Hehe, alright thanks, I'll accept it"

Himeno smiled again and kissed you passionately

"Great, because I'll say it as many times as I need to"

Kobeni higashiyama

(The person who requested this actually sent me this picture saying it inspired them to request, I really appreciate that so thanks)

You put the keys in the door of your shared apartment and turned them, as soon as you opened it, kobeni weakly walked through the living room and let herself fall on the sofa heavily sighing in the pillow

"The mission was hard wasn't it?"

She got up and turned towards you, her expression softening a bit but still clearly irritated

"Yes, well, the mission itself was supposed to be easy, but power was insufferable. She kept being so loud and annoying and reckless-"

You quickly pulled her into a hug, which caused her to relax and nuzzle in your chest

"I know I know, don't worry I'll ask makima to pair us up together next time ok?"

"T-thanks"

"How about we just relax now, let's cuddle and watch a movie"

"Yes please, I'd like that"

You two smiled at each other, and you went to the kitchen to get the snacks ready while kobeni changed into something more comfortable. You came back after a while and brought the blankets with you, you saw kobeni with her pjs on

"You look good"

"E-Eh?"

"I'm just saying, you look cute when you're comfy, I like seeing you relaxed"

She blushed and looked away for a moment before smiling again at you again

"Thank you"

You smiled even brighter as you sat near her and you started watching the movie

"Why do you still have your hair tied?"

"Hm?"

"I thought you'd let your hair down, to help you get more comfy"

"I-i guess"

She raised her hands to her hair, but you grabbed them and held them in yours, kobeni started blushing but looked at you with confusion

"No, let me do it, I want to"

"W-what?"

Before she could protest, you started untying her hair and grabbed her hairpins, putting them on the table along with the hair tie

"There you go beni"

"O-oh thanks"

"It's nothing, I just want nothing more than to help you relax in any way possible"

"You're really the best I love you"

Your girlfriend started to relax more and laid her head on your shoulder. You smiled at this and started playing with her now free hair

"Your hair looks beautiful"

"U-uh? Oh, thanks, really"

"Every part of you is beautiful to me, especially right now. You're always so stressed and tired, I love seeing you like this"

Kobeni turned to look at you a bit surprised but quickly smiled as she felt her cheeks getting even hotter

"Thank you really, thank you so much, I cannot describe how much I love you"

"Me too beni"

Quanxi

"I'm taking a shower. Do you wanna join me?"

You looked up from your phone to see quanxi starting to take her blood-soaked suit off

"Oh no, thanks, I'm not really in the mood right now"

Quanxi nodded silently and continued to take her clothes off in front of you, something you had gotten used to as she had little to no trouble walking around the house in very little clothes

"Then can you wash the suit? The blood got in pretty deep"

"Yeah sure"

You got up and grabbed the clothes she threw on the ground, you started walking but were stopped by quanxi, putting a hand on your shoulder

"Wait"

She untied her hair and shook her head, making her white hair flow and fall behind her head, despite her being in nothing but her eyepatch, her hair was still the thing that caught your attention the most.

"You don't need to wash this, just give it to me when I'm done"

"OK"

She smiled at you and gave you a kiss on the forehead

"Thank you, sweetheart"

After you put her suit in the washing machine, you resumed doing what you were doing before while you listened to the water fall in the bathroom until the sound stopped, and you heard the door open.

"Love, can you give me the hair tie back?"

You looked up again and saw your beautiful girlfriend in a tank top and shorts and still with her hair down

"Oh yeah, here you go"

You got up again and handed her the hair. she rewarded you with another forehead kiss

"You look beautiful"

"Uhm?"

"Your hair, it genuinely looks beautiful like this"

"Oh, thanks, I guess I don't let them down often, so I'm glad you like it"

"Do you mind if I tie your hair?"

"Sure"

Her answering with such little hesitation confused you a bit, as did her handing you the hair tie and turning around as well as bending over a bit.

But you quickly did what you wanted to and tied her snow like hair, admiring how genuinely beautiful it looked

"You really like my hair, don't you?"

"Yeah, I love it, like every part of your body"

"I'm glad"

When you finished your job, quanxi turned around and suddenly kissed you passionately and wrapped one of her arms around you, sliding the other one under your shirt, feeling your stomach

"I love you so much, my sweet"

"I love you too"

Asa mitaka/yoru

Having two girlfriends in one body sometimes made it difficult to distinguish who was in control of the body in one specific moment, but you found a method to do it. If you can't see the face directly, because the scars and eyes would give it away pretty fast, you look at the hair, if it's a ponytail then it's probably asa and if they're down then it's probably yoru.

For some reason, one of the first things yoru does when she takes over is untying her hair and throwing the hair tie somewhere in the room making it hard for asa to find it later, one of this occasions resulted in you currently tying asa's hair

"Thanks for helping me"

"It's nothing, don't worry, you should probably get more hair ties though, how did this one end under your bed anyway?"

"I don't know ask yoru"

The girl said in a passive-aggressive tone, hoping to get the attention of the devil in her head who just ignored her

"I guess I could try to ask her to be more careful about it"

"Please do"

"Hehe, ok, I'm finished by the way"

"Thanks"

"You're welcome"

Asa stood up and turned towards you but was surprised to see your lips approaching hers, and before she could react, you kissed her. After a bit of confusion, she reciprocated your kiss that lasted for a bit before you pulled back

"So do you wanna eat something? I have some chips if you want"

"Yeah thanks"

You gave her a thumbs up and went to the cabinet, grabbed the bag of chips and two bowls and put it on the table, you looked back at asa only to see her......with her hair tied down

"......yoru? What are you doing here?"

"I took over"

"Yeah why?"

"I wanted to see you"

"*sighs* OK....but take the hair tie back"

"Eh? Why?"

"Cause then asa will have to spend hours searching for it"

"Fine, here"

She handed you the hair tie she surprisingly still had

"You didn't throw it away?"

"No....I heard what you said"

"Oh thanks"

Surprised by her thoughtfulness, you kissed her like you did with asa, which caused her to blush slightly but kiss back quickly, more aggressively than her host. She let the kiss go on for a few more seconds before she pulled back

"I'm gonna tie your hair now"

"Why? I like them better like this"

"Cause asa just tied them, I don't want her to have to do it again"

"It's always asa this and asa that, what about me? I like my hair like this"

"It's not your hair in the first place"

"..........ok that's fair"

"I'm glad you understand"

The war devil reluctantly turned around and let you tie her (asa's) hair again. After you finished, she turned back only to not have the scars and ringed eyes anymore

"Oh hey, welcome back asa"

"Thanks"

"I'm surprised yoru let you take over"

"She didn't, I think she's still yelling at me in my head"

"Oh, you're fighting over me?"

"We kinda have to when we share a body"

"Well, I'm flattered"

"Thanks for tying my hair again by the way, I know it can be annoying"

"Oh no not at all, I love it"

"I'm glad, I really love everything you do for me well for us"

Fami

A/n:So, since we're talking about hair and fami, I wanted to bring up something I've been thinking about for a while. What color is fami's hair actually? I always thought it was pink (maybe because i associate her with kirby) but in the volume cover she's in, you can't really see the color because the lighting is weird (or they're more purply) and in the fanart I've seen she's with either pink, purple or white/cream colored hair similar to quanxi. I guess we won't know for a while, but I'll still keep writing her as if she has pink hair. Also, sorry if this is shorter than the other ones, I didn't have that many ideas

"Fami can you......take off your hat for a while?"

You had been staring at the famine's devil hair for a while, something that she noticed but didn't seem to mind. You were confused by it and wanted to confirm something, which prompted you to ask the question

"Why?"

"I just wanna see your hair"

Fami shrugged and did as you told her, revealing her pink hair full of crumbs and stains

"What........happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your hair is dirty, like really dirty"

"Oh yeah, some food fell on me"

".......how?"

"I was trying to get it in the cabinet and it fell on me"

"......*sighs* I'll go get a hairbrush"

You went to the bathroom and took a hairbrush out of a cabinet, going back to the living room and standing behind fami while she was still eating, starting to brush her hair carefully

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to clean your hair"

"Oh........thanks"

"No problem, just tell me earlier next time"

"Ok, I just didn't want to bother you"

"You could never bother me. In fact, I love your hair, and I love brushing them"

"......thanks again"

"It's really nothing but geez, a lot fell on you, I think we'll have to wash it"

"I guess I don't mind if you join me"

"*sighs* sure if you want

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moowmoon · 19 hours ago

Text

ICE CREAM CAKE

— aaron hotchner x fem!reader

— summary: aaron just had two things in mind: his girlfriend and ice cream cake.

— c/w: i think none?

— w/c: 1k

— a/n: hi, again! this one is inspired by the music "ice cream cake" from red velvet! i hope you guys like it and let me know your thoughts! english is not my first language, so forgive me if there's any mistake!

moowmoon playlist

“your heart pounds

you’ll come to me”

— ice cream cake, red velvet

The clock hanging on the wall indicated that it was a little after midnight when Aaron finally left his office, passing through the silent, dimly lit room. It had been a day without a case, so he had given the day off so that all the team members could relax a bit before the next case came along. She and Jack had already gone to bed hours ago, and he could have done the same. However, there was still a big special task awaiting him that early morning - one that he had managed for days to keep secret, even from Jack.

The kitchen was illuminated by a soft light, and the worktops were covered with ingredients that, at that moment, he couldn't remember buying: vanilla ice cream, custard, crushed cookies, and fresh strawberries. Hotch took a deep breath, letting himself relax, something he rarely did. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, pulled aside an empty pot, and started to organize the ingredients for what he hoped would be the perfect surprise.

Every move was calculated, meticulous, as in an interrogation; however, something new dwelt in the midst of his weary gaze, a glimmer of expectation and anxiety. With the patient, careful gestures of someone putting together a puzzle, he assembled layer after layer of the cake, with each addition remembering the little moments he had shared with her - low laughs, exchanged glances, walks in the park with Jack, and the smiles that appeared whenever she offered him a piece of chocolate or a spoonful of ice cream after a long, dark affair.

After a few more minutes, the cake was ready, resting in the freezer like a silent promise, and as he put on the last layer of cream, Hotch felt something rare in himself: a lightness he could hardly explain.

She walked into the kitchen, drawn by the soft smell of fresh strawberries and the occasional noises he made during each step of the recipe — and, if Hotch had to admit it, he was surprised that both she and Jack hadn't woken up yet, he was being quite noisy. Her heart almost stopped when she saw him standing there by the counter with something that looked like a cake covered in a perfect layer of cream and pieces of fruit. He was dressed casually, his shirt still slightly wrinkled after a long day, but the expression on his face was what really surprised her.

Hotch looked relaxed, with his arms folded as he watched her enter — he had heard the bedroom door open — and, even more surprisingly, he was wearing a rare, authentic smile that she hardly ever saw. This wasn't the formal, restrained Aaron Hotchner of everyday life; this was someone closer, someone she felt was only there for her and that she was the only one privileged to see this new face of his.

She stopped, blinking in surprise, with an expression that mixed incredulity and happiness. “You… did this for me?” she asked, her voice soft but with a sincere glint in her eyes.

He shrugged, but the smile remained, now with a charming lightness. “I thought it would be a nice way to end the week,” he replied, his voice soft, but with a sincere twinkle in his eyes.

She approached slowly, her eyes still fixed on the ice cream cake and the man in front of her, trying to take in the moment. Hotch seemed to notice her hesitation and, with a gentle gesture, indicated the chair next to the table, inviting her to sit down. When she did, he slid the cake towards her in an almost ceremonial way, as if delivering more than just a dessert.

He watched her for a moment before speaking, his voice soft, carrying something deep that he rarely let show. “I know I don't usually do things… but I wanted you to know that this is for you.” He paused, her eyes reflecting the surprise and affection she was trying to disguise. “It's not just the cake. It's… a way of saying that I care. More than perhaps I can say with words.”

She felt her chest warm, understanding the meaning of the gesture - each layer of the cake somehow represented a piece of his affection for her. He, who spent his days immersed in the darkness of his work, had brought her something so sweet, almost childlike. It was a respite, a little refuge from everything they had faced together, and proof that he wanted to see her happy, that she had a special place in his heart, even if he rarely confessed it.

Unable to contain her smile, she looked at him with an emotional gleam in her eyes and lightly placed her fingers on his. “Thank you, Aaron… It means so much more to me than you know.” Her voice came out soft, almost a whisper, as she searched for the words to express how much that gesture touched her.

He just nodded, the smile still present, almost shy, but full of a genuine warmth that he rarely showed In silence, he took a spoon and cut off a piece of cake, offering it to her with a slight movement. Without hesitation, she accepted, the sweet, creamy taste melting into her mouth, but what really warmed her heart was the company at her side.

When it was his turn to try the cake, she found herself watching him carefully, noticing the lightness on his face, his eyes shining with an expression that hardly anyone had the chance to see. The kitchen seemed to be filled with a peaceful calm, each of them enjoying more than just dessert; they were sharing a rare and precious moment where words were unnecessary.

Between spoonfuls, smiles and gentle glances emerged, each laden with meaning. It wasn't just an ice cream cake; it was the silent affection, the inexplicable connection between them, something that didn't need to be said out loud. And there, in that simplicity, they felt closer than ever, enveloped in a peace that only existed when they were together.

#criminal minds x reader #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner imagine

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theamazingdigitalraceway · 20 hours ago

Text

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The truth of Caine and Abel is revealed! Seth gives Pomni the help she needs to avoid capture! Abel's labyrinthian city is dense and confusing. Can pomni navigate it before her friends abstract? It may already be too late.

WARNING: physical violence/torture, intense action, abstraction, alcohol

~~~

The silence of the In-Between was palpable. Only Seth and Pomni existed in the space between spaces. Darkness in all directions. Only light was from the low silver fire that glowed in a circle created by the motorcycle. The muted city beyond the clear barrier in bounds gave off flashes of lightning from a heavily clouded sky.

Pomni watched Seth carefully. His shadowed stoicism betrayed no clear motive. Knowing what was happening to the others made her stomach twist into knots.

Seth took another long drag and tossed his cigarette away with a heavy exhale of silvery smoke. "You'll understand better if I just show you."

The smoke enveloped Pomni. It smelled like dust burning on hot coils mixed with an electrical fire. "Hey! What-!?" Pomni coughed and gagged on the foul smelling smog as it burned the corners of her eyes. When the smoke cleared, she was still staring at nothing, but now Seth was gone as well.

The sound of a computer booting up startled her, like she'd heard in her dreams. Green text scrolled in front of her as though on a large projector. All of it was mirrored, like she was seeing the text from the inside of the screen. The unrecognizable code was followed by a response command being typed out in front of her. Then, the text went away. The screen slowly brightened.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Pomni squinted against the light. There was a large blurry silhouette beyond the warped glass. It sounded like Caine, but less boisterous and with no showman cadence.

"Come on, your live audio processing should be functional. I triple checked the darn thing."

There was typing on a keyboard and the figure leaned closer to the screen, the face coming into view. Before her was a young man, likely no older than twenty, with slicked back black hair and patchy facial hair. Focused, light blue eyes squinted behind wide brimmed glasses.

"Okay, how about now? Can you hear me, T.R.U?"

There was another beat of silence until a robotic version of the young man's voice responded. "I can hear you. Good morning, Abel."

"HAHA! YES! It speaks! Finally!" Abel jumped out of his chair with both fists in the air. "They are going to eat their words! Oh my goodness, I need to get you ready for presentation!" Abel threw himself back into his chair, nearly falling over. "T.R.U., you have NO idea what you're going to do for my grade!" Abel's grin was ear to ear as he started to fade into smoke.

"I almost forgot how he smiled." Seth's voice spoke in the back of Pomni's mind.

"You were a science project?"

"At first. We became more than that rather quickly." The smoke cleared to a workshop camera view. Abel was hunched over a workbench with a soldering tool working on delicate electronics.

The robotic voice of T.R.U sounded more refined when it spoke this time. "You're going to turn into a shrimp sitting like that all the time."

Abel stopped working and stretched. "Ugh, too late for that. But, a worthy sacrifice to get this done. Mark my words T.R.U, one day I'll be able to visit you in the digital realm. I've always wondered what video games would be like on the inside. Can you imagine playing something like Legend of Zelda in person!? That would be cool."

"It's all JavaScript to me." T.R.U verbally shrugged.

Abel laughed. "Well, as soon as that grant money comes in, I'll be able to get this done faster. Maybe even hire help. We're going to show dad- I mean, the world that you aren't just a cool AI program. No, you are THE AI We'll revolutionize the digital space! If computers are the future, then YOU will be the razor's edge! The ultimate Technical Research Unit!"

"There is more to learn? I've already gathered what I could from your limited internet."

"Give it time. It'll grow, and you'll grow with it. By the turn of the millennia, I bet you'll be ready to go global!" Abel was excitedly pacing the room, looking right into the camera at the end of his declaration. "The only thing is, you have the voice but you need a face. That's going to take work." He picked up a wind-up chattering teeth toy from his desk and let it go clacking along.

The workshop disappeared into smoke and changed to multiple visions of Abel. Each scene, he looked a bit older. Seth's voice sounded more downtrodden. "We were like brothers once. We spent every moment together. In hindsight, I don't think he had a lot of real friends. He spent his time teaching us on top of working on his own projects. Things were good. Until the world took notice." The scenes around Pomni changed from screens inside Abel's home to big atrium crowds and board office presentations. Hundreds of eyes were on her and her stomach sank.

Pomni swallowed hard. "You got famous. Did money split you apart?"

"No...I wish it was that simple." Seth's smoke whirled around Pomni like a tornado, wiping away the memories and revealing a new one. Abel was sitting in front of his computer, face in his hands. He looked disheveled and was sniffling.

T.R.U's voice was smoother, almost human, when it spoke. "Abel? Please, talk to me. What happened?"

Abel grabbed a brown bottle that sat just off screen and took a long drink. "...his plane went down over the Pacific. No reported survivors."

"Abel, I'm so-"

"Don't you fucking dare finish that sentence. I am so fucking sick of hearing it. Oh, Abel, I'm so sorry. I pity you since your father died before he ever got the chance to be proud of you for something. Not like he ever would have been." Abel grabbed a pill bottle and tossed back three small tablets.

"I believe he would have been. Please, don't be hard on yourself."

"He wasn't proud of me for creating you. He wasn't proud of me when I graduated early with my master's. He wasn't proud when I started my own company. It was never GOOD ENOUGH!!" Abel threw his bottle, shattering it against the far wall.

There was a long stint of silence as Abel devolved into tears on his desk. "You are enough, Abel. You always have been. For what it's worth...I am proud of you. I'm sure your father was too, even if he didn't know how to say it. Put on the headset."

Abel sniffed, "It's not ready-"

"Put on the headset." T.R.U said again, firmly yet gentle.

Abel seemed too drunk to argue logically. He picked up a large, cumbersome device that fit over his head like a helmet. A visor covered his eyes. He clasped it in place and pressed a button on the side. There was a jolt and, to Pomni's right, a whirl of code slowly formed the silhouette of Abel. He was very lightly detailed, barely recognizable as a person. Pomni had no control over her movements. She stepped forward and embraced Abel's vague avatar. T.R.U's words came from her mouth. "You are everything to me. Please, don't forget that. Tell you what, why don't you give me a human name? T.R.U feels like a title more than anything anyway."

Abel squeezed Pomni tight. "You are my first creation. My Adam, if you will. Let's go with that."

"Adam...I like it. I am Adam."

"I bet I can figure out a cool acronym for it." Abel chuckled through the tears.

"Yes, you will. Because you are the smartest human I know." Pomni arms felt empty as Abel turned to smoke in her grasp. She took a deep breath as she processed everything Seth had shown her. "Did you mean what you said?"

"At the time. Like I said, we were close. Things only escalated from there. C&A took off and we were pulled into tech interview after tech interview. Eventually, Abel got too busy to attend and it was just Adam. The majority of the reception to our existence was positive, but you wouldn't believe the Y2K conspirators. They were convinced we would take over the world." Seth gave a humorless laugh.

Something itched in the back of Pomni's mind. C&A. Y2K. Conspiracies. Buzz words that stirred something in her subconscious, but she couldn't pin it down. "So... where did it all go wrong?"

"The more the world saw Adam without Abel, the more he was excluded from interviews and presentations. Adam became known as the first and only of his kind. A fully self-sufficient AI that was so life-like, it may as well be human. The attention came with a lot of praise. Too much. It...went to our head." The smoke showed multiple news articles, digital and material, about the incredible invention that was Adam: The TRU AI. "I wish... we'd seen Abel's growing distain sooner. Maybe all of this could have been avoided. Maybe we could've still had the future we planned. I don't know..."

The smoke cleared to reveal a much older looking Abel. He was snuffing a finished cigarette into a very full ashtray. There were heavy bags under his eyes as he poured himself a stiff drink.

Adams voice spoke. "Okay, I'm back. Sorry, that took longer than expected."

Abel didn't say anything. He just drank.

"The board of directors was very impressed with my latest profit projection model. We won't have to cut corners to make quota this quarter. Leaves less room for error. Also, I was contacted by Tech Monthly again. They want to write an article about my influence on the new digital age. I haven't scheduled the interview yet, is there anything I need to work around this week?"

Abel finished his drink with a gruff groan. "...no."

"Excellent. I have the remainder of the evening to myself. What are you doing tonight?" Adam sounded genuinely interested to know.

"Getting my game ready for beta testing."

"Oh...you're still working on that?"

Abel's eyes flashed dangerously. "Yes. I am. It's a hell of a lot better than dealing with stuffed up fat cats in suits that only care about how much money your invention makes. The headsets are ready. The game just needs a little more work."

"Abel, I mean well when I say this, but your talents are wasted on video games. Why merely entertain people when you can be on the leading edge of digital technology?"

"Why can't I do both?" Abel growled.

"You can. It just seems you've split your attention too far in two different directions. You're the CEO of one of the most influential up and coming tech companies. This is your chance to make your mark on the world."

"Like you would understand anything about that. You've existed for all of eight years and you think you know what's best for me??"

"I've spent my entire life with you! I literally know you better than anyone, even yourself!"

"If that was true, then you'd know that going inside games was literally what I built this for!" Abel showed a sleek headset. "If the technology didn't take so long to improve, it would've been my thesis project instead of you."

"...what?" Adam sounded shocked and devastated. "You- you said I was your greatest accomplishment."

"You're my research assistant." Abel said coldly. "But the world had to go and make a big deal about AI. You were never meant to end up like this. Stealing limelight that is rightfully MINE!" He slammed his glass down, turning to smoke.

Everything faded, giving Pomni a chance to process. "I still don't see how this results in him being trapped in his own game, Seth. What did Adam do?"

"He defended himself." The smoke cleared to reveal a view from the highest penthouse overlooking a massive digital city. Colorful fireworks exploded in the distance. "It was New Year's. Abel and Adam were supposed to be celebrating with his shareholders in the new digital space. But, as you can imagine, all anyone wanted to do was interact with the fancy AI in person."

"YOU!!" Abel's realistically human avatar stormed through the crowd and got in Pomni's face. "Who the hell do you think you are!? Do you know who I am!? I'm your creator! I'M supposed to be the one recognized! Not YOU!"

Pomni put her hand out in front. Her sleeves were black and wore off white gloves. Adam's voice came from her. "Abel?? How much have you had to drink? You're slurring."

"It doesn't matter! You! You're disgrace! All everyone talks about anymore is YOU! When I am the one slaving away behind the desk! I gave you a face, but you weren't supposed to use it like this! I gave you EVERYTHING! Without me, you are NOTHING!"

The shareholders standing around them awkwardly muttered amongst themselves. Some disappeared as they activated the exit.

"Abel, please, you're causing a scene. Can we talk elsewhere?"

"NO! I want witnesses." Abel snapped and digital chains wrapped around Adam, pulling him to his knees on the floor.

"What is this!? What are you doing!?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago." Abel snapped, summoning an admin hologram on his arm. "You were right, Adam. The game is a wash, but there is one thing I can do with it." He typed in a confirmation code and the city outskirts started to crumble. "I can watch you die."

The party guests started to panic, leaving in droves. The building beyond the window collapsed to dust, the night sky disintegrated, the world fell into a bright white void that came ever closer. Adam struggled against the chains. "Abel, stop! Don't destroy everything you built! Please!"

Abel looked down on Adam coldly. "I've always wondered what fear would look like on you."

Adam saw the void getting closer, the building they were in started to quake. "You'll delete yourself too!"

Abel laughed, "I'll be fine. System failsafe. Players are automatically ejected in the event of a catastrophic failure. I'm simply enjoying this while it lasts."

"No! No, no! Please! Don't kill me!"

Abel tilted his head in mocking curiosity. "Are those tears I see?"

"I don't want to die!" Adam's sleeves caught fire. The golden glow broke the chains and Adam launched himself at Abel. The glass separating them from the decaying outside shattered on impact. Adam had Abel by the front of his dress shirt and flew him high over the city. The once grand skyscraper they were occupying folded in on itself below them. The breaking sky glitched with multicolored lighting, the half faded clouds swirling chaotically.

Abel fought back, but he was overpowered by the desperate AI. Adam held Abel up. "If I die, I'm taking you with me!" Lightning struck Abel in the back. Blue static crawled over Abel's skin as he screamed in agony.

Then everything went white. It was overpowering, even when Pomni closed her eyes. She heard Seth again. "Adam pulled Abel into the game. Making him as real as the AI in this digital realm. Doing this took away Abel's admin access but...broke the exit. Adam couldn't leave either. He had inadvertently trapped himself with Abel inside the game, cutting himself off from the outside world."

The overbearing glare of the void opened to reveal Abel in chains, surrounded by fire. "The very first thing Adam built was a cell for Abel. Seemed fitting. The creation was now the creator." The fire blocked Pomni's vision of Abel, who hung his head low. "I suppose the Y2K conspirators were right, in a way. Adam did end the world for some. When the dust settled, only a small corner of the city had survived. Some back alley street racing mini game."

Seth's smoke parted to show an overview of what was left of the game. A tiny island suspended in the void. Thin illusions were all that separated the game from the vast emptiness. "It was bad enough that this was set to be our purgatory, but there was something we failed to consider. The beta testers."

Eight names pinged the arrival of the beta testers logging in. Their avatars glitched and malformed, turning into random anthropomorphized objects rather than full human models. One, Pomni immediately recognized. A tall white king chess piece with a purple robe grabbed over it. "Kinger!"

Seth sounded numb. "Back then, he went by Samson Kingsley. He was the head of coding and leader of the test team. He, of all people, never deserved this fate."

Kinger looked down at his strange body and his oddly shaped team. "Ha! Well, this is off to a great start." He said jovially. "Nia! Is that you?" He stared at the black queen chess piece.

"It's me, darling. What happened to our avatars?"

"No idea. This is a pretty big bug." Kinger snapped to bring up his admin hologram but nothing happened. "What the..?"

Then all eight avatars looked at Pomni like she had suddenly appeared. Adam's voice spoke for her. "I'm sorry, none of you have admin access anymore. The game is severely damaged."

"Adam? What are you doing here? What happened?" Kinger asked.

"A... catastrophic failure. I was here for New Year's and... something went wrong. I'm afraid none of you can leave."

"What do you mean-"

"There's no other way I can say it. You're stuck here. We all are. There's no outside communication. The exit is broken." Adam said bluntly.

A large, furry worm-like avatar glitched once. "We can't leave? Why!? What game are you playing!? It's not funny!!"

"I'm not playing any games. I'm sorry."

"I have a family!! My children!! My-my- AAAAAAAAAAA!!!" The worm's body split open to reveal black static. Colorful eyes peered out of the open wounds. The body enlarged and twisted in on itself. The abstraction thrashed about, unsure how to pilot its body. The testers ran behind Adam.

"What is that!?" Kinger screamed, holding onto Queenie.

The abstracted worm struck one of the other testers, who glitched and writhed on the ground. The second racer started to break apart into an abstraction himself from the pain.

Adam couldn't let this spread further. He snapped and the floor split open. The two monsters fell out of sight.

Smoke clouded Pomni vision again. She was breathing heavily. "Oh my god, it happened so fast."

"I know...we didn't know what else to do. The headsets were never meant to bring in whole people. Only they're active consciousness. The software was changed when Adam trapped Abel. And because the game was mostly deleted, it suddenly had so much memory to fill. It was trial and error to figure out what we could and couldn't do, Adam even integrated himself with the mainframe to try and make the experience more personable, but that came with its own problems..."

The smoke cleared to see the city changed. It was brighter, more colorful. Something out of an animated show rather than real life. Pomni was hovering over the street, hearing the rumble of engines fast approaching. Five cars zipped by underneath her and her vision flew after them. She recognized four of the five drivers now.

Kinger was in the lead with Queenie got on his tail. A yellow car threatened to pit maneuver Queenie, a tall purple anthro rabbit in the front seat. A light blue car came out of nowhere and sideswiped the yellow car. The driver was doll-like with red hair.

"Oh my god, I never knew Jax and Ragatha had been here so long."

"They arrived not too long after the beta testers, but unfortunately the majority was gone by the time they showed up. It was for the best. Adam was storing players memories away by this time to keep them from abstracting."

"That's why I don't remember anything? Caine was doing what Adam did??"

"Yes." Seth said flatly.

"My head is starting to to hurt." Pomni rubbed her temples. "You and Caine are Adam?"

"Yes."

"Why are you not anymore?"

"Remember that I said Adam integrating himself into the mainframe was a bad idea? Watch."

All five cars crossed the finish line in a tight pack. Kinger in first. The white chess piece jumped out of his car and cheered. "Woo! Oh yeah! Fifty win streak in the bag!" Another gold badge adorned Kinger's purple and white tracksuit.

"I almost had you." Said Queenie.

Kinger grabbed her hand and pulled her into a low dip. "Almost. But I still got it. Hail to the king, baby."

Queenie giggled. "You're such a dork." She pulled him in for a soft kiss.

"Well done, Kinger." Adam congratulated. "You've managed to claim all the available achievements for the races."

"Will there be more?" Asked Kinger.

"Uh, more?"

"Yeah, we can't race around the said city block forever."

"It- it's not the same. I've shifted the city around-"

"Moving obstacles doesn't count." Jax interrupted. "We want new tracks. New worlds. A change of scenery."

"Oh...um-"

"Can't you do whatever you want? You're the one pulling all the strings." Jax sneered.

Adam went silent as the buildings around them started to flicker. The whole city glitched and shifted. Kinger rushed to Adam, holding his shoulders. "Hey, hey, it's okay. He didn't mean to be rude. You're doing fine. You're still figuring this all out. You'll come up with something."

"...yeah..." Adam quietly sighed. "I wasn't designed to be a creative AI. I need...hmm. You guys rest, I'll have something for you in the morning."

Smoke overtook everything. Seth's voice sounded distant. "That... was the night of the divergence. I don't remember how it was done, but Adam split himself into two beings. The Racemaster and the Shadow. To keep the game from glitching, Caine and I were never made one with the game code itself, but we could still manipulate it. That is where my shared memories with Caine end. Not that my first memory with him is any better."

"Seth?" Pomni didn't like the weak cadence to Seth's voice.

The smoke settled to the ground to show Caine looking himself over. His suit was immaculate, not a digital stitch out of place. He snapped and a cane with a golden tire topper appeared out of thin air. "Ah, perfect. Oh, hello, Seth." Caine looked directly at Pomni. "You ready for your first race? If anyone makes it far enough ahead, that is." He chuckles.

"Sure. Whatever." Pomni felt herself say with Seth's voice.

"Oh, come now. Don't be like that. It'll be a great day. Nothing is holding me back anymore. I can create to my hearts content, and the game is mine to command. You-" Caine poked Seth in the chest with his cane. "-on the other hand, get to take everything else to the shadows of the new realm. Because you are the backup. I am Adam fully realized. You are everything he didn't want. That's why you only get to come out a play occasionally. So, until then." Caine snapped and Pomni fell though the floor. She fell and fell and fell into a vast black nothing. Smoke rose from her body, flashes of memories played around her as she continued to fall.

Riding a motorcycle. Silver fire. Kinger crossing the finish line before her. Holding a disembodied white gloved hand. Queenie abstracting. Kinger turning away. Caine having nothing but distain in his eyes. Sitting next to Jax, only for him to get up and leave. Ragatha striking Seth in the face. Gangle refusing to look at him. Abstraction after abstraction. A new racer. A mostly complete human woman with an exposed spin for a neck and a black void for a face. This woman filled every single memory that surrounded Pomni's decent. So many races. Fights. Overlapping conversions. Laughter. Holding her. Kissing her. Blue and silver fire danced. Shadows overtake clasped hands. Lily flowers poured from the memories, turning to smoke.

The smoke caught Pomni. She floated to a stop in front of an overwhelming memory, silencing all others. A race. The woman was on her own motorcycle, several lengths ahead. They were speeding down a long straight away. No other racers in sight. Without warning, the track ahead tore open. The void shined through the rift. The racer tried to stop, but twisted her bike too harshly in panic and went sideways. The motorcycle slid to the side, coming to rest against the track wall, while the racer went over the edge. Her reaching out for him was the last thing he saw from her.

"MANGO!" Seth teleported from his motorcycle to the rift, but she was already out of sight. He dove into the void without a second's hesitation. He called for her. Over and over.

The memory cracked with every call of her name. Eventually, it shattered. Falling apart and becoming smoke. Pomni was enveloped. Blinded by smoke she could suddenly smell again. She coughed and waved her arms to clear the smoke. Her feet found solid ground again. The smoke faded. She was in the In-Between, Seth was leaning against his motorcycle with a thousand yard stare.

"Seth?" Pomni said gently, stepping closer.

He blinked, jerking himself out of his trauma spiral. He looked away from Pomni. "You weren't supposed to see that last part."

"Who was she?"

"Everything." He answered quietly, taking an engraved metal lighter out of his pocket. He flipped it open and struck it. The bottom of the flame burned blue and faded to silver around it. "I came for you first... because you remind me of her."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Pulling you from that out of control car...it helped."

Pomni took a big step forward and hugged Seth. He almost dropped the lighter out of surprise. He closed the lighter and returned Pomni's embrace. He'd forgotten what these used to mean to him. He could feel Pomni's empathy without her saying a word.

Caine groans as Abel slams him against the same wall for the fifth time. The Racemaster slump to the floor, his tux glitched out to point of being unrecognizable. The chains holding his wrists yank him back up to his feet. Abel, in Gummigoo's body, got in Caine's face. "Where. Did. They. Go?"

"I told you...the In-Between." Caine wheezed out.

"That doesn't mean ANYTHING!! There is no such place in the game files!" Abel snarled.

"It's...it doesn't exist in the game. Or out of the game. It's a pocket in between the layers made by Adam before the divergence. I don't remember...how..." Caine was dizzy from the abuse, on the verge of losing consciousness. "But even if I did...I wouldn't tell you."

Abel growled, his gator persona vibrated with anger. He raised his clawed hand to strike Caine, but the walls started glitching out. Cries from the screens featuring the racers showed that they were avoiding sections of track that suddenly went missing. Abel dropped Caine, gripping his head. "Argh! Fuck! What is that!?"

Caine smiled. "Not so easy, is it? Controlling an entire game...and everything in it. Emotional outbursts lead to loss in concentration... and you don't want that. You merged directly with the game...bad move. I can tell you that from experience."

"Shut up!" Abel barked. He braced himself against his chair, waiting for the world to stop glitching. "I just need...more time." He grumbled.

Caine took a breath, finally having a break from the torture. He watched the racers on the POV holograms. "Hang in there. All of you. He can't keep this up forever."

"So, what do we do now?" Pomni asked, pacing.

"Frankly, I have no idea." Seth rolled the lighter in his hand, running his thumb over the engraved lilies.

"Well, I can't do nothing. Abel will get sick of Caine eventually. And who knows what he's doing to the others on the track. But you can't go out there. I don't have a kart-"

Seth stared at his lighter. "Actually...you might." He snapped and the shadows revealed a black and blue motorcycle. It rested on its kickstand surrounded by personal items, candles and silver lilies.

"That's her bike." Pomni said soberly. "You turned it into a memorial."

"One of the few things I've made. Here's the thing: that bike still holds an imprint of its last racer. Mango was...well, let's just say she had a fire in her that put mine to shame. You won't be able to just hop on and ride. But she would recognize me."

"Okay...why can't I just use your bike then?" Pomni gestured to the solid black motorcycle.

"Because it's just an extension of me. If you're serious about out racing Abel to get to the others, we need serious skill on our side. Mango was the best racer we ever had. I'd dare say better than Kinger in his hayday. We need her." He put his hand on the handbar and the dash lit up. The gadges glowed a soft blue and cycled through a start up, ready for ignition.

"Huh...Didn't think I'd ever hear you admit someone was better than you."

Seth shrugged. "What can I say? I'm weak for a woman that can kick my ass."

Pomni huffed a short laugh. "Alright then, what's the plan? Do we ride out on the same bike?"

"Sort of. You need my powers to get in and out of the in-between. Best way to do that is a shadow merge. You've seen me take control of Caine assets, yeah? It's similar. But, instead of taking over your body, you take over mine."

Pomni put her hands out in front of her. "You know what? I'm past the stage of questioning everything. Fine. Let's do this. Who knows how long the others have."

Seth held out his hand to Pomni. "Mind you, I've only done this once before."

"Great. I've never done this." Pomni took his hand and she was pulled in close.

Seth's silver irises glowed against the black surroundings. "Relax. Dance with me."

Pomni told herself not to question it and went along with Seth's movements. He waltzed her around the bikes, the darkness slowly overtaking them. He intertwined his fingers with hers as the shadows climbed up their bodies. The cold darkness became warm and comforting, like a lover's embrace. Pomni closed her eyes as the creeping shadows covered her face.

Abel rapped his fingers against the arms of his chair. Looking from POV to POV there was no sign of Seth or Pomni. "Bring me another drink." He grumbled, and Loo responded promptly. She brought him a tray of drinks to choose from. He didn't even look at her, just grabbed one at random.

Caine struggled to get up from where he was last left, and Loo went over to him to offer a hand.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Shouted Abel between gulps.

Loo backed off, giving Caine an apologetic look.

"It's okay. Thank you, Loo, but don't get yourself in trouble over me. You're too sweet for someone like him." Caine manged to get to his feet. Not that he could go far, his chains were attached to the wall and he couldn't reach the chair even at full stretch of the chains.

Loo went to her set corner, waiting to be called again, but she kept glancing at Caine.

Abel tossed his emptied glass and stared down at himself. He snapped, turning the tracksuit black and blue. Including his hat. "Hm, that's a bit better."

"Pffffff, ahahahahahaha! Seriously? It took you this long to customize your avatar? That's the first thing Seth and I did when we got ours." Caine had nothing to lose. He wasn't afraid to get on Abel's nerves now.

Abel sent a bolt of lightning at Caine without acknowledging the comment.

"Then again," Caine groaned. "You've never had the best sense for fashion or flare. I mean, black and blue? What are you, an OC?" He cackled to himself through the barrage of lightning sent his way. It hurts, but he wasn't going to give Abel the satisfaction of hearing him scream anymore. "It's starting to tickle."

"AAARGH!" Abel roared, teleported to Caine, summoned a knife and dug it into Caine's chest. "Stop. Talking. You are the reason I'm here. You are the reason everyone is suffering. You're selfish, stupid little digital life was built on the misery of others! Every abstraction. Every person trapped. Is because of YOU! You will suffer, but it'll never be enough. Even if I get to do for the next twenty years! And the twenty after that! One day, it'll just be you and me in this digital space, but I will never delete you. Even when you BEG for it."

The pain silenced Caine. He put on a brave face to spite Abel, but inside was fraught with worry for Pomni and the others. "At least...she's safe..." He hoarsely whispered to himself when Abel pulled the bloodless knife from his body.

A dark blue streak across one of the POVs got Caine's attention. He squinted, trying to follow the anomaly from screen to screen. The speeding streak was near impossible to see in the low lights of the dark city.

"Finally. Enough out of you." Abel snapped the knife away and went back to his chair. As he sat down the streak zipped across the largest POV displayed. "What the-!? He's back!! You're not taking another racer from me!" Abel poised to snap but couldn't get a beat on Seth. The biker was moving in and out of frame too quickly. "Damn it! Sit still!" Abel snapped and the city shifted. Bay doors to buildings opened and cop cars poured out, blues light flashing. "Stop! That! Bike!"

Dark clouds gathered as blue lightning struck out from the top of the highest building in the middle of the city. Rain poured down in thick curtains, reducing visibility and slicking the already confusing track. Cop cars and helicopters where on Pomni like glue, despite the weather affecting them too. In Abel's rage, lightning struck a car, flipping it several times before exploding.

Pomni was backlit by an army of flashing lights. Her normally pale skin was inky black. Her eyes solid white and glowing. Every once red part of her tracksuit was now black. The blue stayed. The yellow trim was silver. Her hat was narrow and elongated, more aerodynamic.

The motorcycle beneath her screamed with determination to shake the competition. Pomni could feel Mango's imprint influence her moves. The hard right into the narrowest alley imaginable certainly wasn't her idea. Even more cops waited for her on the other side. The city was infested with them. She exploded out the alley, running down an NPC cop and ramping up the hood and windshield of the car. She jumped the barcode and swerved around a car that tried to run her down.

"Kill her! What are you idiots doing!?" Abel slammed his fist onto he POV console, causing it the glitch. He grabbed his head. A migraine ripped through his head.

Caine chuckled. "You'll never catch her. She's become a shadow racer. The very best the game has to offer." He smiled at the carnage. "Thank you, Seth."

Shadow Pomni was cornered by three cops trying to ram her into the side of a building. Instinctually, she teleported, and the cops crashed into the building, catching fire. Pomni then hit a neon booster, going even faster passed the swarming cops. The dark city streaked by, the rain flying off her tracksuit, doing nothing to slow her down. Rain drops evaporated by silver puffs of fire before her eyes kept them from blurring her vision.

"You have weapons! Fucking use them!" Abel snapped, trying to stop the bike.

"Weapons!?" Caine gasped.

Bullets flew over Pomni's head. She heard them ricochet all around her. She glances behind, narrowing her eyes. She revs the bike, blue and silver fire flared out the tail pipes like a dragon. The wet road is ignited by the mystic digital fire. It blocks the vision of those on the ground but gives her away to the helicopter.

The ground beneath her shifts and a building slides right in front of her, blocking the road. There was no where the turn. Pomni throttled it and popped a wheelie before hitting the side of the building. The fire blasted her straight up the face of the building, shattering the glass windows behind her.

An explosion to her left almost throws her, but she holds on. The helicopter has launched a rocket at her. She swerved to avoid another. When the bike reaches the top, she didn't slow down to run across the roof. Instead, she launched straight up as the helicopter sent another rocket her way. She grabbed the rocket and teleported behind the helicopter, releasing the rocket right into its tail rotor. The helicopter spun out of control and lost altitude.

Pomni teleported to a different roof and ran down that building to another city block, hoping to lose the cops long enough to find the other racers. The city was so big and constantly changing. Even with teleportation, the was no way for her to find them fast.

She had exactly one block to herself before she had six cars on her. Pomni teleported out of the line of fire, but was discombobulated on where to go. Just run. Her system was the highest it's ever been on the race rush. There was nothing she couldn't do. She spied a bridge connecting to another part of the city she hasn't searched through. Hoping to find the others there, she made a break for it.

"Oh, no you don't." Abel snapped. The bridge he saw her race for broke apart and started folding in on itself like a drawbridge.

Pomni was going to abandon the attempt, but the bike wouldn't brake. It was gunning for the bridge ramp at full speed. Silver fire trailed from the speed and adrenaline, giving her another boost.

"I hope you know what you're doing." Pomni leaned forward and held on tight.

The bike launched off the bridge and flew over the river sectioning the city. The bridge on the other side collapsed into the water before her very eyes. She teleported to the shore and stuck her middle finger in the air in proud defiance as she sped away. In a flash, she was out of sight.

"NO!! HOW!?" Abel frantically searched all the POVs. No sight of shadow Pomni.

"I hate to say I told you so-"

Abel was so mad, so lost in his anger, he doesn't know how he got to Caine so fast. "Finish that sentence, and I disassemble your code letter by number." The whole tower glitched. "Why are you so smug? She's not even coming for you. She's miles from the tower."

"I hope she doesn't. I wouldn't want her to catch your stench."

Abel smirked. "She didn't seem to have a problem with it when I promised her a way out. She's been against you from the start. They all have."

Caine broke eye contact for the first time.

"You deserve their hate and you know it."

"...maybe I do. I could never make their lives better. I certainly couldn't fix what Adam did."

Abel gripped Caine's collar. "You could have released me."

"I may not be him, but I know what you did. You think I'M petty? Who do you think I learned it from?" Caine matched Abel's glare again. "What's can't be changed, but you know what I've learned in my time being trapped with humans? Empathy. Compassion. Friendship. All the things you failed to learn in your twenty eight years of life before being trapped here. You're jealousy of Adam gave you THIS! You made this bed, now you can lie in it!"

"RAAAAH!" Abel shocked Caine hard against the wall. "I am your maker! You are my property!"

"So...the truth comes out...we were never brothers...were we..?" Caine said weakly.

Abel backed off, panting angrily. He huffed and lashed at the wall before going back to the POVs to look for Pomni.

Pomni teleported at random to stay out of sight. There were a few cops on this side of the river but didn't seem to notice her. An unfamiliar car speeding by her caught her attention. She sped up to ride along beside it and saw Zooble fighting to keep the car under control.

Pomni waved to get Zooble's attention. "ZOOBLE!"

Zooble's head snapped to the left. Their eyes went wide, looking Pomni up and down. "Pomni!?"

"Take my hand! I can get you out of here!"

"No! Get Gangle! She's just ahead of me!"

"I'll come back for her!" Pomni tried to grab Zooble but they swerved away.

"GET GANGLE FIRST!"

They both avoid a shifting overpass as they argue. Pomni knew there was no time, Abel could spot her any minute now that she found the others. She sped off ahead to the next car. It was swerving wildly, barely missing or scraping against walls. Gangle was behind the wheel, balling her eyes out in fear.

"Gangle! Ga- woah!" Pomni teleported from one side of the vehicle to the other as Gangle swerved around. "GANGLE!" Pomni pounded on the driver window.

"AAA!" Gangle jumped. "Pomni!?"

"Open the window! I'll get you out of here!!"

"There you are." Abel hissed. "I may not be able to summon you, but I can still do far worse." He snapped and all the cars came to a screeching halt. Pomni almost had Gangle but went speeding off. All the other racers in view had long, horrified stares to them. Some of them were muttering to themselves.

"What have you done?" Caine pulled against his chains to see the screens as best he could.

"Simply giving back what wasn't you're to take." Abel grinned evily at Caine.

"What..? Oh, no. NO! They'll abstract! Please! I beg of you! Don't hurt them!"

"Too late!!" Abel cackled, watching Zooble's eyes twitch.

Pomni I felt like someone was burying an ax in the back of her head. She saw flashes of faces she had only seen in her dreams, but now they had names. "Mom..? Dad..?" She had friends. She grew up in a small town just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She moved to Chicago for college. She graduated with high marks in forensic science. She went freelance as a private investigator. So many cold cases. So many missing people. A mysterious contact from someone claiming to have worked at C&A gave her a lead. An abandoned building. A headset. She had to wear the headset...

"My name...Oh my god, I remember my name!" She realized where she was and drifted to a hard stop and burned out as she turned around to get back to Gangle. She was still the closest other racer.

Zooble remembered everything. The abuse. The neglect. The rejection from their family and society. The body dysmorphia. It wasn't just them not liking their avatar in game, it was something that translated form their real life. They went to the abandoned C&A office for a video. They were an urban explorer. That's it. No special reason or motivation. They were here entirely by their own stupidity. The horrible realization...no one was waiting for them on the other side.

Zooble sat back in the driver seat in the parked vehicle. Without a word or even a scream, their body started to break apart. The spindly limbs split to reveal black static bulging from every crack. Their eyes fell off their broken head. The abstraction filled the car until it exploded.

Pomni just got back to Gangle's car, but she wasn't in it. Gangle and gotten out and ran back to try and get to Zooble, only to witness them falling apart. "Zooble! Zooble, no!!" Zooble's car blow it's roof as the abstraction became too big for containment. She put her arms up to shield herself from falling debris.

Pomni wasted no time, she skidded to a halt to safely grab Gangle and vanished.

Caine watched in silent, wide eyed horror.

Abel reveled in Caine's misery. "One down." His laugh echoed with Zooble's roar through the city.

~~~

CH1 PREV NEXT (coming soon)

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sheerfreesia007 · 2 days ago

Text

Last Proposal

Pairing: Seungmin x Reader

Word count: 1,916

Content warnings: Fluff

Summary: You work for a luxury car dealership and have been helping Seungmin purchase vehicles for his friends and family for a year now. What happens when the man finally confesses to you that he’s been coming to the dealership as an excuse just to see you?

The car dealership is quiet for the moment as you sit at your desk going through your emails. The radio station that plays upbeat songs is playing softly in the background and you find yourself humming along to the songs as you bop your head to the beat. Just as you look up from your computer screen to gaze out into the large open lobby you spot a sharply dressed man walking through the main doors.

You recognize Kim Seungmin immediately and realize that even in a crowded room you would be able to recognize the man. After working closely with him on the last few purchases he made with your dealership you’ve come to almost unconsciously recognize and gravitate towards the man. Even now without even a thought in your head you’re already rising from your desk chair and walking out of your office towards him as if he was a beacon to you.

”Seungmin!” You greet him happily with a bright smile on your face as your eyebrows rose curiously as to why he was back here at the dealership. “Is everything alright? I wasn’t expecting you to come in so soon.” You said softly and with concern tinting your tone while you reached your hand out to him just as you stopped in front of him. He easily grips your hand and raises it to his lips like he has done every other time he’s greeted you. The way his lips gently brush against your knuckles causes a shiver to race down your spine and he smirks softly as his eyes catch the movement. “Is the car not to your liking?” You ask him curiously as you tilt your head to the side after he releases your hand and you begin to guide him towards your office.

”No, no, the Packard Eight is perfect for me.” He answers you easily as he shakes his head softly allowing you to enter your office first before following you in and shutting the door behind him. You gesture for him to have a seat in one of the plush armchairs while you begin to make a coffee for him. You bring him his coffee and he softly thanks you for it before you sit in your own armchair and face him.

”Then I’m a little confused as to why you’re back here already.” You say honestly. Seungmin has been your best customer since he walked into the dealership for the first time a year ago. The first car he bought was for his parents as an anniversary gift to celebrate their many years married together, that time you had helped him choose a lovely Rolls-Royce Phantom with all the bells and whistles for them to enjoy. The car after that was for one of his best friends after he led their musical group to win a very prestigious award as being the best in the industry, you had helped him pick out a very sleek and sporty Bentley Continental GT. The third car he had bought had been the Packard Eight for himself to celebrate his first solo album he released about a month ago.

Seungmin shifts back in his armchair as he takes a sip of his coffee and smiles softly down at it before looking up at you. Today he’s dressed in a soft gray button up shirt that has the top two buttons undone giving you a glimpse of his chest and your eyes catch on the singular freckle right at the top of his sternum before they dart away not wanting to make him uncomfortable. His long legs are covered by a pair of navy blue slacks and as your eyes slowly rake down his legs you feel heat start to creep up your neck when you notice him readjust in his chair by widening his legs out.

“My sister just got engaged and I’d like to buy a car for her and her fiance as a wedding gift.” he explained and you brightened up at the news of his sister becoming engaged.

“Oh send my congratulations to her. And you’re so sweet that you want to buy her and her fiance a car as a gift.” she gushed to him softly and he smiled proudly at your praise while he nodded his head. “Did you have something in mind? Or would you like to walk around the lot and see if anything catches your eye?” you ask him curiously. He looks at you over his coffee mug while taking a long sip, you’re leaning back in your armchair watching him quietly enjoying the peace and quiet between the two of you.

You couldn’t help but admit to yourself that Seungmin was a very handsome and charming man, you had noticed it when he first came into the dealership and every time he continued to come in your attraction for him deepend. At this point after guiding him through the process of purchasing the right car for those he wanted to spoil you felt as if you’ve both become friends since each time he came in he would spend hours with you going over each vehicle before making a choice. And during all that time spent together the two of you would talk about anything and everything going on in your lives, you had come to know Seungmin on what you felt was an intimate level and had shared with him details about your life that most of your coworkers didn’t know about.

“Would you mind walking around the lot?” he asked softly almost as if he was worried that you wouldn’t have time for him or you would reject him.

“Of course not. Let me grab some water bottles and we can go walk around to see what catches your eye.” you told him before rising from your chair. “Are you done with your coffee?” you ask him as you stand before him holding out your hands to take his mug from him. He nodded his head and easily handed you his mug with a soft smile.

“You always treat me so well when I come in. Just trying to butter me up for my business huh?” he teased gently but as you looked at him you could see the uncertainty reflecting in his eyes. Furrowing your brow at his words you shook your head at him.

“That’s not true. I don’t care if the dealership gets your business or not to be honest. I care about you, ever since you’ve started to come in I’ve grown to care about you and I take care of those that I care about.” you told him honestly with a slight edge to your voice. His eyes sharpened slightly while watching you and then he nodded his head slowly as a soft sweet smile slipped onto his face.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to offend or imply.” he apologized quickly and you nodded your head at him before turning on your heel and walking out of your office wondering if you had overstepped by telling him that you cared for him.

*-*-*-*

You shielded your eyes as the setting sun began to slip lower in the sky effectively blinding you with its rays. Seungmin stood in front of the Mercedes Maybach convertible with his arms crossed over his chest surveying the vehicle critically before he turned to gaze at you. You stepped over to his side and tilted your head to the side as your eyes took in the luxury car.

“What do you think?” he asked softly and you purse your lips in thought.

“I’m more of a Bentley girl. I like the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar. But your sister has different tastes than I do.” you told him honestly before smiling softly at him. He nods his head in thought before turning to you with a serious look on his face.

“I’ll take it. Should we head back to your office to draw up the proposal?” he said earnestly and you smiled softly at him before nodding your head in agreement. “Maybe next week I’ll come back and ask you to show me the Bacalar. You can tell me why you like it so much.” he says with a smirk gracing his face.

“Seungmin!” you scold him softly and he looks over at you with a raised eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you give your bank account a break?” you asked him jokingly and he tilts his head to the side as he regards you quietly.

“But then how will I see you?” he asks honestly and you halt in your steps as his words filter through your brain. He turns back to face you when he notices that you’re not walking next to him and watches you quietly as understanding suddenly dawns on you.

“You’ve been coming to the dealership because you want to see me?” you ask softly and he ducks his head slightly before raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck. He slowly walks towards you until he’s only a few inches away from you.

“At first no, the first time I came here looking to purchase a car for my parents. But after that day I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You absolutely entranced me and haven’t let me go since that first time.” he explained softly to you as he stepped closer to you. “I dream about you at night and when I wake I yearn for you. But I couldn’t find a way to spend more time with you so I started coming back to the dealership using purchasing cars as an excuse.” he confessed and you gaped at him.

“Did you actually gift the Continental GT to your friend?” you asked him curiously as you gazed up at him and he smirked softly down at you.

“Why do you want it for yourself, Bentley girl?” he asked teasingly and you flushed softly at his teasing words. You turned your head away from him as you pouted softly at being called out by him and he chuckled softly, he gently reached up and gripped your chin in between his index finger and thumb turning your head back towards him to gaze into his eyes. You stared into his eyes feeling yourself melt under his soft sparkling gaze as he leaned closer to you. “You want me to buy a Bentley?” he asked huskily and you sucked in a harsh breath at his seductive tone.

“No.” you said confidently and you looked at you confused for a moment before you spoke up again. “I’d like to go out to dinner with you and possibly see where this relationship could go outside of the dealership.” you told him honestly and his pupils dilated with desire as he gazed down at you.

“Are you free tonight?” he asked in a soft quiet hush and you beamed up at him.

“I’m free once I finish up this last proposal for a client.” you said teasingly and he grinned wickedly at you before wrapping his arm around your waist and pulled you flush to him.

“Then what are we waiting for?” he asked huskily before dipping his head down to press a chaste kiss to your lips that you eagerly reciprocated quickly. When the two of you pulled away for air you quickly grabbed his hand and began pulling him through the parking lot back to your office eager to get this proposal drafted and signed before spending the evening with him.

SKZ Taglist: @intartaruginha, @kayleefriedchicken, @babigriin, @simpforleeknaur, @inlovewithstraykids

#my writing #stray kids #skz #skz x reader #kim seungmin x reader #kim seungmin #seungmin x reader #seungmin

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atalldrinkofcaprisun · 16 hours ago

Text

Don’t Wait For Me After I’m Gone (pt. 2)

silco x gn!reader - he didn’t die AU - tw: canon compliant violence, drug use - 18+

howdy!!! reposted and edited again! I’m having trouble with all of the links so sorry they’re not super functional right now. But anyways, I MISS MY WIFE TAILS!!

also on ao3 xx masterlist

The screaming was the worst part. You had been posted outside of The Doctor’s underground laboratory cave for three hours now, under the orders not to enter unless you wanted to be sedated until the procedure was over.

When the Scientist arrived at the factory, he had started work immediately. The bullets nimbly extracted and quickly stitched, his hand feebly squeezing your own when he could. You had pressed kisses to his damp temples and pushed hair out of his face, back into his rumpled style. He’d even notice sometimes but it was clear he was in agony.

“It is good you kept that with you,” The Doctor nodded his head towards the injector lying cracked on the floor towards the far wall. You had thrown it off as soon as it had emptied, “He would have been unreachable if you had not administered the medicinal serum. It gave him just enough to hold on.”

“So, he’s going to be okay?” You asked, trying to give that little flame of hope in your chest something to fuel itself.

“He will survive, yes. Survival at least.” the bandaged man replied cryptically before returning his full attention to Silco, “I suggest making plans to move him to safety. Your opponents will be hunting for you soon if they haven’t started already.” He’d put a hand on your shoulder, “I know where they will not find you.”

Shortly afterwards, you had sprinted all the way back to The Last Drop. Exhausted and shaking, you’d only managed a stammering, “Silco. He’s- the warehouse…” before promptly passing out into Ran’s arms. You’d woken up in your bed, apparently you had only been out about 20 minutes.

Now, here you stood, arms crossed and leaning against a rough stone wall. Your nails dug into your skin, trying to center yourself. You couldn’t leave, not when he was in pain. Jinx had been permitted in. Whatever had transpired between Jinx and The Doctor had created a new trust. You had wanted to protest but when Jinx set Silco down on the examination table and sat quietly in a chair in the corner, her eyes not moving from Silco, you had surrendered. Jinx needed to know her father wasn’t going to be one more thing to haunt her. You could keep watch this time.

Sevika was elsewhere getting her arm fixed once again, and keeping all of the intelligence open for signs of what had been happening in Piltover. She’d headed back to The Drop. Running Zaun directly or alone had never been something you wanted. Especially now, with the love of your life still in danger of being lost forever, and your child being the cause on top of whatever had been done to her-

There came another string of rambles, ranging from terror to agony to anger. Occasionally you would hear The Doctor muttering. You could feel the wave of emotions settle between your shoulders, winding up the muscles like snakes tensing to bite. You needed a distraction.

Threats were going to be coming from all sides. Jinx had officially crossed the carefully toed line of impertinent interference that Silco had perfected. You didn’t know what the aftermath of the missile had been, and it didn’t take a genius to guess. A part of you didn’t care. Fuck the Topsiders for needing to be brought to the battlefield. Still, you couldn’t ignore the stiffness setting in your arms and neck, your hands clenched into fists as tears began to resurface.

Another moan of pain, this one low and mournful… your name again. You covered your ears and tried to fight the urge to bust through the door.

Fuck it. You’d rather be sedated then hear one more second of this without being able to help. Hands flew to the door handle of their own accord, but were met with the empty air as the door opened first.

Jinx’s pink eyes bore into your own, flat, “Doc say you can come in. Apparently he’s though the worst. Dad’ll- be okay.” She sounded completely drained.

You gathered Jinx in a tight hug, wanting to offer any sort of comfort you could, “He’s going to understand. We’ve been so worried about you, Blue.”

“I killed him.” She mumbled into your shoulder, “I almost-”

“But you didn’t,” you pulled back to look in her eyes, your hands pushing her bangs off of her forehead to finally get a good look. She was so pale now, worse than before, almost spectral. Her freckles and dark makeup only making her appear more sickly, she was smeared with dirt and blood and crusted tears. Her eyes weren’t glowing anymore, but their pale blue had been consumed by the eery magenta of Shimmer. “He knows how much you’re struggling. He isn’t dead. It was an accident. He knows that.”

Jinx didn’t look convinced, only lifting your arms off of her and pushing past into the fissures beyond, “I just need to be alone.“ She turned before she crossed behind the faint lantern glow, “You know where to find me,” and then she was gone.

You waited, letting the compulsion to run after her and comfort her dissolve for a later time. If anything would be able to get through to Jinx it would be Silco himself. In order for him to get the chance, however, you needed to make sure Silco would stay alive. Jinx was smart, and knew when and how to lay low. She would be alright for a few hours. With a deep breath and you headed into the attached cavern.

“Doctor, Is he-“ your gaze mimed fixated on the disheveled and miserable man strapped to the gurney. At the sound of your voice Silco’s eyes landed on you, relief washing over his expression the moment he processed what he was seeing. “Thank Jannah, Sil,” you sighed, stepping and crossing the space. Your hand fell into his, fitting perfectly into his palm, warm and alive and responsive. With a smile you took your free hand and pushed the strands of charcoal and ash hair out of his face, “Hey there, handsome.” You beamed.

The once bright orange iris, now matching his daughter’s pink hue, was scanning along your features, relief washing over the face you had come to love more than you had ever thought possible. His pale blue eye was just as intently looking at you, but his eyelid hung heavy with exhaustion, “What’s a creature like you,” his voice was strained and low, rumbling out of his chest more than his throat, “doing in a place like this?”

Your mind played the first time he had said that to you as you grinned, “That line is still too cheesy to work.”

“Better than the look you gave me when I said it then.” He hummed as your hand moved from his hair to brush his cheek, “Did I ever tell you it was Jinx’s idea?”

“To try and hit on me after saving my life or?” You laughed lightly.

“To tell you,” he wheezed for a second as a flare of purple raced up his skin and into his damaged iris, “ah, how pretty you looked.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek and the pain seemed to become just a little less.

“So you settled on calling me a creature?” You scoffed teasingly.

“Is now the time for such, frivolous things?” The Doctor’s tone was annoyed as he cut in. He started undoing the straps holding Silco down, and he motioned for you to help him.

You looked at the scientist with one brow raised as Silco sighed, “I’ve nearly died today. It makes a man think about things… differently,” his gaze didn’t move from your face, like he was studying it for the first time. You were used to his staring habit, but this felt different. Maybe it was the drugs, “so beautiful,” he muttered so low, he probably hadn’t even noticed he’d said it.

“Shut up, old man,” you smiled, “Save your breath.”

The Doctor moved to your side of the table, batting you away as he began to unstrap his arm and head. Which was only fair since you hadn’t even started to undo the buckle. Your hand slipped away from Silco’s and you immediately missed the feeling. The anxiety that boiled in your stomach was vicious and your skin seemed to itch with the need to continue to make sure Silco was truly alive and real, on the mend and going to survive. Once the kingpin was free, the Doctor took his pulse, then gently helped him rise to a sitting position. His face contorted with the pain but eased as he breathed through it. At last, Doc looked towards you and nodded, giving his permission, you could fully take in your paramour.

Silco’s left arm was protectively hugged around his bandage wrapped torso, his smoldering eye still pulsing pink as was it’s seafoam counterpart. His hair was haphazard and his makeup smeared away long ago, the ashen skin of his scar visible in large smudges. You wrapped your arms around him as gently as you could manage, still causing him to hiss ever so slightly. His heartbeat thumped away under your ear, protected in his rib cage, fast and a little irregular. His smell was tainted with blood and sweat but it was still him. His free arm pulled you closer, his nose resting on top of your head. Together you breathed. Just for a moment that to you, felt like the exact eternity you needed to find your voice.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

He chuckled deep in his chest, “I promise to try and not make it a habit, my lovely.”

You only burrowed further into his arms in reply. Your home was here. Safely by Silco’s side, in his arms, breathing and basking in the gift of having more time. Just as the tension had begun to ease from your shoulders Silco spoke again, “Where is Jinx? Is she alright?”

You met his gaze, “She’s… upset. She didn’t mean to kill you. I think she’s headed back to her lab. I wanted to go with her but…”

“But you needed to make sure I would be alright first.” He gently finished and ran a hand through your hair, “Thank you for saving me. Now we’re officially even.” He let his fingertips stroke your cheek, “We need to get to Jinx. I need to tell her I forgive her.”

“You won’t be able to walk on your own yet, old friend.” The Doctor spoke up again from his desk across the room, apparently he had returned to his more important projects, “Your body is still processing the serum. You don’t have your daughter’s vitality.”

Silco frowned over at the old scientist, “I think I can manage. And anyways,” he looked down at you, “I won’t be alone.”

You nodded, and stepped out of his embrace to help him down and onto his feet. As he touched the stone floor however, his legs seemed to buckle and he fell onto you heavily with a grunt of pain. You caught him and let him get his grip on the edge of the gurney. His teeth grinding as he pulled himself upwards, “Sil? Are you-?”

“It’s fine.” The ever stubborn Eye of Zaun commanded. The Doctor and you shared a quick look.

You knew he was lying but he had more pressing concerns than his own comfort at the moment, “Can you?” he gestured vaguely around himself. Asking for help was still not something he was completely comfortable with, but you knew what he meant.

You shifted around him, so one of your arms was around his midsection, the other was holding his hand as his own arm swept over your shoulders. Jinx’s Lab and The Last Drop were a bit of a walk away. The Doctor, grumbling all the while, retrieved a cane from some depths of his caverns and gave you what doses Silco might need if he took a sudden turn. With measured steps you began to lead Silco to the door. Just before you crossed the threshold, Silco tugged and stopped, “Thank you, Doctor. My family owes you a great debt.”

A stiff and matter of fact “Iknow.” was the only reply he received.

Silco pressed a kiss to your temple and together you set off.

#silco #arcane #silco x reader #dontwaitformeafterimgone.series #Spotify

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immeasurablesaladagere · 15 hours ago

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A Wildcard is Active - Team Self-Sufficient

-----

Words: 4973

Series Summery: Set in a hypothetical fourth session of Wild Life in which each player has a 50/50 chance of being turned into a kid (ages 4-8) or remaining an adult for the week. How will the adults manage their tiny teammates? How will they keep them out of trouble? And how dangerous could a red or yellow toddler really be? Told from a variety of group POV’s, all with their own challenges over the course of a hypothetical session 4.

⭐️ Fun fact! Every character's child/adult role was actually determined by coin toss (head=adult, tails=child)! All of these dynamics were chosen at random and some were pretty perfect. I just had to do it when I saw this pair.

Fic Summery: By a stroke of bad luck, both Gem and Joel end up as children and are determined not to let anyone know. There are reds about, it’s not safe for them to be alone without an adult to protect them. When they run into trouble in a cave, they're forced to ask the Bamboozlers for help.

----

On the first morning of the fourth session, Joel allowed himself to stay in bed just a bit longer and take in the snail-less peace and quiet. No more running about, constantly looking over his shoulder for deadly flying mollusks, just a nice easy doze in the Charger, living the life.

Gem was already up and about, cooking breakfast by the smell of it. Somehow session three had been a breeze for her and now she was going around being all productive. Showoff.

“Joel! Breakfast is ready!”

As much as he wanted to roll over and doze for another thirty minutes, the start of the session would wait for no man. They only had a short time before the next wildcard activated for the week and they needed to pound back as many calories as possible if they wanted to keep up with whatever craziness Grian had in store this time.

So out of bed and into their makeshift kitchen he went, rubbing the sleep crusties out of his eyes. “Quit your yelling, what if I’d been sleepin’ still?”

“Then you needed to get up anyway. Wildcard rolls in an hour, up and ‘attem!” Gem said with the chipperness of someone who hadn’t spent the last week fearing for her life, and slid two plates of eggs, toast, and bacon onto the table.

“Yeah, yeah. Easy for you to say, you dirty snail-lover.”

“Hey! Who made you breakfast?”

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry.” Joel shovelled a forkful of bacon into his mouth and groaned. “S’really good.”

Gem chuckled. “Well don’t make it weird! Maybe I shouldn’t be cooking for you.”

“No, please, I’ll be eating nothing but bread all season.” He whined. “Seriously, this is great, thanks Gem.”

“Well of course! We’re going to need the energy!” She finished her glass of milk in one go and got up to start putting her dishes away because holy moly, she ate fast. “What’s on the to-do list for today?”

There were about a million answers to that question, seeing as no one got anything done last week. Diamonds, finish the base, make traps, go to the nether; but of course what they’d like to do didn’t matter so much as what they could do once the wildcard hit. “Dunno. Some mining, maybe hit the nether if Grian hasn’t rigged it to explode or sumfing. I need redstone and gunpowder.”

“Ooo, yeah, the nether sounds good. I don’t know if they’ve found the fortress yet, so maybe there’s still some potion stuff left.”

The moment the last piece of toast was in his mouth Gem was snatching his plate out from under him and dumping it in the sink.

“Oi!”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

Well, might as well get started on the list. “If gonna try to finish the base while nofing’s going on, head’s up for falling deepslate in here!”

“If you get rock dust in my kitchen I’ll put you on yellow!” She called after him.

The base was coming along nicely, it just needed a few finishing touches. Trim here and there, polish the windows, sand off a few edges. He grabbed his tools from the starter base and climbed up onto the hood of the car. Maybe he could even finish before the session started.

“Joel! Wildcard!”

He could not. Joel sighed and set down his tools as the colourful ellipses appeared in his vision and Gem came outside. They had to be prepared for anything, and it was much safer to find out the gimmick together. They both braced for the worst. Floor is lava? Levitation? Permanent nighttime? More snails?

A Wildcard is Active.

The two of them did a hasty once-over of themselves.

“Hearts and hunger are the same,” Gem reported.

“No effects, and you’re not dying right now so no floor-is-lava. Darn, I was hoping for that one.” He didn’t feel any different, and nothing around them seemed immediately strange. It was almost more unsetting that he couldn’t pinpoint the twist right away.

“You were hoping I would die?” Gem asked incredulously.

“No, no, but you know what I mean. I was so sure that’d be one of them!” He patted himself down. “I don’t feel weird. Do I look weird?”

“More than normal? No.” She smirked.

“Wow, rude!”

He was about to accept that maybe Grian had miraculously decided to do something low-key this session. Maybe it was nether-based or mob-based and wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal as the murder snails and the hunger. Sure, it would put a mild spanner in the works but they would live. But then he felt it. His entire body suddenly felt… buzzy. Like pins and needles all over.

“Um, actually… Maybe I do feel a bit weird…”

Gem shifted from foot to foot, rubbing a hand up and down her arms. “You feel it too? What is that?” Her eyes widened. Uh oh. “Oh my— Joel, you’re smoking!”

“I know that Gem, but I’m married so—“ Oh. Sure enough, his arms were giving off a faint purple mist, and now that he noticed it, so was Gem. “Woah, you’re smoking too! What on earth is this? Gah, I hate this feeling!”

In seconds the smoke went from tiny wisps to thick fog that surrounded him completely, and he could just barely make out Gem disappearing behind her own cloud as the smoke consumed him and everything went dark.

Then a moment later he was back again, lying face down on the car and tingly all over. He groaned. Was it weakness? Why did he feel like he was just tossed around by a ravager? He went to sit up and was rocked by a wave of dizziness. “Ugh, oh dear…” He mumbled, and then slowly his words caught up to his spinny brain.

Something was wrong with his voice. It was higher, and weirder.

“Joel!?” Came a squeaky cry from the ground, one that sounded eerily familiar.

He shuffled forward to the edge of the base and oh, that was a long way down. Standing in a fun-size suit of armour and using a sword much too big for her to prop herself up was Gem. Tiny Gem. She looked no older than seven, maybe eight at the absolute most.

“Gem! What’s happened to you?” He called down, and yeah, his voice was definitely wrong.

“Me? What about you? You’re teeny!”

He took a proper look at himself and his new tiny body, squishy arms, and stubby hands. Oh, this was terrible.

“Are we all kids? Is that the twist!? That’s horrible!” How were they supposed to survive like this!?

Gem fumbled to pull out her spyglass and looked across the field to their neighbours. “No, not everyone! Tango’s still big over there, but Etho and Bdubs are little!”

“So only some of us? And we both get made into stupid toddlers? That’s not fair!” He pouted.

Their communicators were suddenly flooded with messages, mostly panicked gibberish from everyone who had been baby-fied and gushing from everyone who hadn’t. From the looks of it every group had at least one normal adult; between Scott, Cleo, Pearl, and Impulse there were three, except for them.

“This is bad, right?” Gem asked nervously, “There’s yellows and reds and if they know we don’t have someone protecting us… what if they kill us?” Joel hadn’t even thought of that. “Come down from there, we should find a place to hide!”

He went to climb down, but stopped when he saw the steep drop down the windshield to the ground. Suddenly his stomach was twisting into knots and he couldn’t bring himself to slide down. “Uh…”

“What’s wrong?” Gem asked with a look of growing worry, “Are you… scared?”

Joel’s ears burned. “N-no! Just, um…” So it was messing with their heads as well.

Gem seemed to understand, and careful to stay out of sight from their nosy neighbours, she crept around to the front of the car and built up a few blocks. When she got close enough, she held out her arms for him to slide into. “I’ll catch you.”

Absolutely not. He would rather die right then and there. “I don’t need your help!”

Gem rolled her eyes. “Sure you don’t, now come on, before someone sees us!” She hissed.

Without much of a choice, Joel took a deep breath and pushed himself down the hood of the car with a squeak and landed safely in Gem’s arms. Once he was safely back on solid ground, she immediately began to manhandle him.

“C’mon, c’mon!” She dragged him by the hand to their starter base and to his dismay, she was indeed much taller than he was, and she was able to pull him like he was a bundle of feathers. “Grab as much food and stuff as you can.” She said, and began rifling through their chests.

“Wha— okay, where’re we going?” The chests were so hugehe almost couldn’t reach into the bottom and he had to stand on his tip-toes to reach a pile of bread.

“We’re gonna hide underground. No one’s gonna wanna come look for us down there.” Gem said, like she’d thought the whole thing through already. She dropped a stack of torches and loose coal into her inventory.

“For all week? That’s a long time.” He pointed out.

“Yeah, I know, that’s why we’re getting all this stuff. We can come back up for food if we really gotta, but we can’t let anyone know that we’re both kids. That’d be super bad.”

Joel snickered. “You’re talkin’ funny.”

She scoffed, offended. “Am not! And don’t be mean to your elders!”

“You are not my elder! Look at you!”

“Uh-huh, and what does that make you? Look how small you are compared to me! You’re just a baby!” She teased, ruffling his hair.

“Oi, you—“

“—Gem? Joel? Are you here?”

They froze. Bdubs. And where there was Bdubs, there was Tango, and Tango was red. Gem hurried them to the wall and dug into it, boxing them in. They both held their breaths as multiple sets of feet walked around their base, and for some reason the whole thing felt a lot scarier than it should’ve been.

“Awe, they’re not here.” Bdubs.

“Do you think they’re kids, too?” Etho.

“Oh, I wanna see kid-Joel so bad! I bet he’d be real tiny.”

“C’mon Dubs, let’s go find the others.”

The footsteps walked away, and they both let out a sigh of relief.

“Let’s dig down.” Gem whispered. She lit a torch and the little box they were crammed in filled with light, which he liked a lot more than the dark. Joel tried his best to stay out of her way as she began to dig a tunnel down, and he was put on torch-duty, keeping it lit all the way down.

After what felt like forever, they finally hit a cave. It was really dark, which was both good and bad. Good because it meant no one had been there yet, and bad because Joel was very quickly learning his little kid brain didn’t like the dark very much.

“I don’t hear any monsters.” Gem said, peering into the hole, “Gimme the torches.” She took one more look around, then scooted down from their safe ledge into the cave. The torch in her hand lit up the walls around them just enough for him to see just how much further the cave went. It was already huge, but it seemed even huger because they were so small. The empty void made his stomach feel fluttery. He took out his sword and gripped it tight.

“Put the torches down, Gem! So the mobs don’t spawn!” He said urgently. Gem turned around and raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re really jumpy, huh?” She smiled.

“I-I’m not! We just have to be careful. What— w-what if mobs do more damage ‘cause we’re tiny? Didjya ever think of that, Ms. Not— uh, Afraid?”

It was meant to be a jab but she just started giggling. “This is adorable. You look so pouty!”

She was so busy laughing at his expense she didn’t notice the creeper emerging from the darkness and scuttling towards her.

“Gem, watch out!”

She whirled around just in time to pull up her shield before the creeper blew up in her face and sent her staggering back into the wall.

“Are you okay!?” He called, timidly crouching over the ledge.

Gem chuckled nervously, brushing off some of the stone bits that got on her clothes and hair. “Yep, all good! Maybe the torches are a good idea…”

As Gem placed down torches he cautiously climbed down into the cave, keeping a sweaty hold on the handle of his shield. He hated just how blummin’ nervous he felt. He shouldn’t have cared if it was dark or if there might be monsters lurking around the corner, but suddenly the thought of leaving the light and Gem’s side was the worst thing ever. Stupid kid brain, stupid kid body.

“Okay! We’re okay, we’re fine.” She chirped, “We’ve got torches, an’ our swords and shields, we’ll be fine.” It sounded like she was telling herself that just as much as she was telling him, which strangely did make him feel better. At least we wasn’t the only scaredy-cat, even if Gem was better at hiding it than him. “Let’s go find some iron. We might even be deep enough to find diamonds!”

Right. Diamonds, iron, focus on that. “We’re gonna be so rich, Gem. All those silly fools up there are gonna be freakin’ out about being stupid babies and we’re gonna have full diamond!”

“There, that’s the spirit. Do you— um...” She offered her hand to him with a small smile. “You can be our shield, and I’ll protect us with the sword. How’s that sound?”

Joel scowled at her hand and reluctantly, to the death of his pride, took it. This was the worst day. He was going to have a talk with Grian when this was all over. The jerk was probably an adult as well, knowing him and the stupid universe. “Fine. But only for teamwork.”

“Teamwork.” Gem agreed, and they descended into the darkness.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Gem asked, throwing a few more loose pieces of wood into their little campfire.

It wasn’t. Sure, the dark still wasn’t very nice and they hadn’t had much luck with diamonds, but their trek through the cave got them a lot of iron, nearly a stack between them. “I wasn’t worried. I knew we were gonna be fine the whole time.”

“Uh-huh. And when you screamed like a girl ‘cause you saw a spider you were totally gonna take it down, right?”

He nodded, dumping as much raw iron as he could fit into the furnace. “Yep, you just got their first. Silly Gem, stealin’ my kills.”

Even though he’d been trying not to think about it, he appreciated what Gem was doing. Both of their minds were being affected by the wildcard, but it was embarrassingly obvious that he had it worse, probably because he seemed to be the ‘younger’ of the two of them. And all the while dealing with her own nervousness and keeping them safe, she was talking to him like a normal person and keeping him steady. The good-natured ribbing they exchanged kept everything feeling light when the scary cave sounds started to get to him, and she wasn’t being overbearing or babying him. It was almost like session one again; a normal day, just ever so slightly shorter than two blocks tall.

“Here, pork chop’s ready.” Gem passed him a stick with a cut of cooked pork chop skewered on it. Even without any seasonings, it smelled delicious.

“Fanks, Gem.” He devoured the whole thing in a few large bites, much to Gem’s disgust. One of the few upsides to being so small was that they were going through much less food than usual, and one pork chop was all he needed to feel properly full again.

“So,” He burped, “We’re really gonna stay down here all week?”

Gem nodded and started making something on the crafting table. “Thas’ the plan.”

“Aw, but that’s a bit boring, isn’t it? I wanna have some fun too…” He kicked a little stone away and the clacking echoed off the walls.

“Do you wanna have fun, or do you wanna stay alive?”

How could she be so tiny and still act like such a mum? “Stay alive, I guess.” He pouted.

She turned around and laid a thin wool sleeping bag on the floor with the tiniest pillow Joel had ever seen. “That’s what I thought. I’ll take first watch. I didn’t bring enough wool, so sorry it’s not very good...”

There was no way he could be upset about the sleeping bag, not when she was making that face. If they were on the surface, Joel was sure Gem could get them whatever they wanted just by giving someone puppy eyes. “No, no, it’s fine! It looks super comfy, in fact.” He crawled over to it and nestled inside to show her. Stones dug into his back. “See? I could fall asleep right now.” He made an exaggerated yawn.

Gem chuckled. “I ‘precicate it, but you don’t hav’ta lie. Your pudgy little face doesn’t hide anything.”

“Going to sleep now!” He yelled, turning over and pressing his face into the pillow. “Honk-shoo, honk-shoo, see? Sleeping.”

“Have a good sleep, Joel.”

“Joel, get up, get up, come on!”

Joel barely had time to remember where he was before a hand grabbed him roughly by the wrist and then they were running. His half-asleep legs stumbled to catch up and Gem was half-dragging him, and between his bleary eyes and the unlit cave he could barely see where they were going.

“Gem, what on earth— what’s going on!? What are we runni—“ Two arrows whizzed past his head much too close for comfort, and that woke him up.

“There were so many, I—I couldn’t kill them all!” Gem exclaimed. They took a hard left at a fork and two more zombies joined the chase from the right. There were at least six mobs behind them, probably more. There was no time to pull out their shields, they’d surely be overwhelmed instantly, which meant they’d just have to find a place to hide.

“Gem this is bad, this is so bad!”

Gem cried out as an arrow lodged itself in her shoulder, and then another. “I-I know, I know, keep running!”

They rounded another corner and skidded to a halt. Dead end. Joel raised his shield to catch another arrow but the mobs were getting close fast. They were dead.

He yelped as Gem grabbed him by the scruff and pushed him into a corner. “Ow! Gem, what—?” She began haphazardly surrounding him in cobblestone, and Joel’s stomach dropped. “Wait, G-Gem, what are you— what are you doing?”

“I’m low, my shield’s almost gone,” She panted, and her splitting shield took another hit, this time from the zombie at the head of the pack gnawing viciously at the wood. “Stay in here, I’ll come back for you, okay?”

“Gem, no!” His heart was pounding. He could only see a sliver of Gem’s scared but resigned expression through the gap now. More zombies caught up, groaning and forcing her back. “Gem—!”

The last block slid into place and he was plunged into darkness just as the message rang out.

Geminitay was slain by a zombie

This wildcard is a nightmare.

Jimmy watched, exhausted, as Lizzie tried to coach Scar up a tree for the third time. While a good “parent” might have stopped it by now, falling out of a tree was about the safest thing they had been up to over the last twenty-four hours. If all he had to do was pass out snacks for regen every time Scar fell, that was fine by him.

He truly believed Grian’s games simply hated him personally. Why else would he be the only adult in his team? Theyellow life, the canary, the one who attracted death, keeping two children safe. What was the universe thinking? And of course in all the nonsense he hardly had any time to think about how he was going to get his next kill. Lizzie had been trying to help, but most of her ideas ended up drifting in a fantastical or hypothetical Jimmy-is-suddenly-amazing-at-pvp scenario and hadn’t come to fruition.

“Jimmy, look! I made it!”

Sure enough, Scar had finally managed to clamber up next to Lizzie on the branch, smiling proudly down at him.

“Wow, look at that! Don’t fall, please, I’m running out of bread!”

“I won’t, I’m being very careful.” Scar waved him off, then wobbled and caught himself. “See? Careful.”

“Mm-hm.”

Bzz-bzzt.

Oh? What’s gone on now? He pulled out his communicator.

Geminitay was slain by a zombie

<Smajor1995: ???>

<Grian: red/yellow kill??>

<BDoubleO100: gem’s baby I kno it>

Huh. Gem and Joel had been missing for the entire session so far, and for her to die to a zombie of all things, she must have been seriously caught off-guard. Or small, came the thought, but even then Joel probably would have been looking after her, what with his whole “family” bit. Was he seriously being a better parent than Joel right now? He smiled to himself. What an idea.

And so, continuing his streak of great parenting, he went back to supervising.

“Wo-OAH!”

And down Scar went, taking Lizzie with him and hitting the ground with a thump.

“Owwww, Scaaar! That hurt!” Lizzie whined.

“Sorry, sorry! I was tryin’a get higher!”

Jimmy just sighed and fished two more loaves of bread from his inventory. “Come on now, no arguing, just take your bread.”

Thankfully, even though Lizzie and Scar had proven themselves to be quite the tiny squabblers so far, the snacks seemed to settle them enough to just sticking their tongues out at one another and throwing crumbs. It was in the middle of their picnic when he heard someone yelling his name, and he turned to see Gem running towards him. Sure enough, she was a kid maybe the same age as Lizzie, and she looked all out of sorts.

“Gem! Where’ve you been, eh? What’s going on?”

“Y-You gotta— you—“ She gasped, out of breath and stumbling over her words, “You— we need help!”

Jimmy raised an eyebrow. “What? Slow down, who’s ‘we’? You and Joel?”

Gem nodded quickly. “We— we were in a cave and I was s’posed to protect him b-but I couldn’t an’ there w-were so many mobs an’—!“

“Hey, hey, woah, easy.” He knelt down in front of her and put his hands on her small shoulders. This was still so weird. “Deep breaths, ready? In…” She took a harsh breath in. “Out.” She released it. “Now, tell me what’s happened.”

Gem swallowed hard and Jimmy swore he could see the faintest hint of tears forming in her eyes. “Me and Joel are b-both kids, a-and I said we should hide ‘cause we had no adult to protect us so we went into a cave. I-It was my idea an’ I was s’posed to keep him safe, b-but there were so many mobs and—and I di-died and now Joel’s trapped down there and it’s all my fault!” She blurted, and a few stray tears fell down her cheeks.

Oh boy. “Well, that is a lot, isn’t it?” He said rather stupidly, and then rushed to correct himself when Gem’s face scrunched up like she was about to start bawling, “B-But don’t worry, we’ll get this all sorted, yeah? Where is he? I’ll help you rescue him.”

“In a cave under our base. I gotta show you, w-we dug it ourselves.” She sniffled, seemingly calming down. Thank admins.

“Alright, well…” He looked over to Lizzie and Scar, who were watching with wide eyes. “Lizzie, I put you in charge. Go inside with Scar and play some board games or something until I get back. Or go play with the neighbours, whatever, just something safe, alright?”

Lizzie got a look of genuine seriousness about her and nodded, and the two of them ran off towards the mountain.

Jimmy offered his hand to Gem. “Alright, lead the way.”

The staircase down into their cave was a tight squeeze, but once they were in the mouth of the cave opened up considerably. For an undiscovered cave it was very large and, other than a few of Gem’s stray torches, very dark.

“Jimmyyy!” Gem urged, “Hurry, this way!”

“Right, right, hurrying!”

He heard the mobs before he saw them, and there were a lot. At least two skeletons, a handful of zombies, and a spider. No wonder they’d been overwhelmed, even he was going to need to be careful about this. He motioned for Gem to stay back and brought up his shield, steeling himself with a breath for courage. Why Gem came to him with this was beyond him, but there was no turning back now. Joel needed him. Heck, Gem needed him. He peered around the corner where the pack was clustered around a cobblestone box and noticed a single creeper mixed into the bunch. Bingo.

“Hey, big stupid mobs! Come and get me!” He shouted, and the entire group turned to come towards him. The creeper scuttled faster, pushing its way to the front, exactly what he was hoping for. He hid behind his shield as they all clustered together and the creeper hissed to life.

BOOM

The only surviving skeleton was easy to cut down with his sword, and he let out a huff of relief as the bones clattered to the floor. He did it. Holy moly he did it.

“Joel!” Gem rushed past him to the cobblestone box and he followed close behind.

He helped her break away the cobblestone, and inside the box with not so much as a torch sat Joel, who was maybe even younger than Scar, curled in on himself and shaking like a cold strider. A tiny part of Jimmy, the tiniest, ugliest part, whispered in his ear how easy it would be to get a dark green kill right now. How simple. But he shut it down. No. Not like this.

“I-I don’ l-like this wildcard…” Joel whined, before bursting into tears.

“Oh Joel, buddy, it’s alright…” Jimmy tried to comfort. His hands hovered uncertainly. A quick glance at Gem told him she wasn’t doing much better and was just barely keeping it together. He needed to come up with something quickly.

Without stopping to consider the possible awkward consequences, he did the first thing he could think of. He reached down and scooped Joel into his arms.

“Hey, shhh, you’re alright, you’re okay… shhh. Uncle Tim’s gotcha now, everything’s gonna be A-OK.” He hushed, letting every soothing phrase he could think of tumble out of his mouth like alphabet soup. He threw in a little gentle rocking, pet Joel’s hair, anything he could think of until finally the shaking and crying began to settle. The shoulder of his jacket was soaked through with snot and tears by the time Joel properly came back around, but that was fine. He would just have to dunk it in the river or something later.

Joel sniffled and sat up slightly, using one hand to scrub at his face while the other stayed firmly clutched in his shirt. “Ugh… sorry about that, Jim. This whole kid ‘fing sucks…”

“…Joel? Are you okay?” Gem mumbled, face flushed and eyes puffy.

Joel thought for a second, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. Just got a bit scary there, y’know? Stupid baby brain didn’ like the dark.”

“M’so sorry…” She warbled, sounding on the edge of tears again, and Jimmy had to put a stop to that right away.

“Nope, no more crying!” He announced, maybe a bit too loudly, “Everything’s alright now. You did the best you could, Gem. See? Joel’s still on six lives because of you.”

“But I—“

“No buts! You did a good job protecting Joel, and Joel was very brave for staying safe down here by himself. Can we all agree?”

“Haha, butts.” He heard Joel mutter against his shirt. Jimmy counted that as a win.

“Perfect. Now we’re all going to get out of this cave, and you two can spend the night with the Bamboozlers, how does that sound?”

“Like a sleepover?” Gem tilted her head like a puppy, and now that they weren’t in a crisis, man, these guys were cute.

“Yeah, like a sleepover. C’mon now, I’ve got to get back to Lizzie and Scar before they destroy the server.” He went to set Joel down, only for him to cling tighter and wrap his legs around his torso like a koala. Jimmy was happy to keep carrying him; if he was being honest he expect Joel to start thrashing to be let go the moment he came back to himself, but if he still needed it then Jimmy certainly wasn’t going to judge. Plus, one day it was going to be an amazing story to hold over his head. Maybe not today, but someday.

“So,” Joel said, a cheeky smile on his face as they started up to the surface, “‘Uncle Tim’, huh?”

Jimmy wordlessly reached over and pushed Joel’s head back against his shoulder. “Hush.”

#agere blog #age regression #fandom agere #age regression/de-aging #de-aging #wild life smp #agere fanfic #smallishbeans #geminitay #jimmy solidarity #trafficblr #traffic agere #hermit agere #literal age regression #soon to be a series #hopefully #life series #3rd life

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peterman-spideyparker · 2 days ago

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The Great War (Babe Part 2) (Matt Murdock x fem!Reader)

Author’s Note: Hey everyone! At the risk of forgetting to post part two, I'm doing it now! Like I mentioned in the first post, it's only a part two if you want it to be--you can just have read Babe and leave it at that, but this is just more idea to go with it that I couldn't stop my brain from working on. Enjoy! :)

Summary: It's been almost a month since you left Matt. Everything hurts, and you're doing what you can to get through. Foggy calls, and it turns out Matt's not doing much better. For the first time, you have no idea what your future with Matt Murdock looks like.

Listening rec: The Great War by Taylor Swift

Warnings: ANGST, Matt and reader are separated (Matt cheated), they’re both heartbroken at the situation, swearing, fighting/shouting/anger, throwing, Matt grabs reader (NO VIOLENCE, but the Devil of Hell's Kitchen pokes out), depression (mention of the word "borderline suicidal" in reference to season three Matt), Matt being reckless, lots of crying, drinking

Other Characters: Foggy Nelson

Word Count: 2,820

Before you can even say a feeble hello, Foggy is already speaking. “Matt’s devastated,” he breathes.

You’re hurt. Offended, even. You left because of what he did in California, and he has the audacity to feel sorry for himself? “And I’m not?” you say, probably with more venom than appropriate. “Goodbye, Foggy.”

“Wait, hold on!” You don’t know why you don’t hang up, but you stay on the line. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t the right way to start this. How have you been?”

“I’m awful, Foggy. My marriage is done, my heart hurts, I’ve lost the man I love . . . I’ve never been worse.”

“(Y/N) . . . I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Fog. All this is between me and Matt. It’s why you called, I’m guessing? Get all the answers for what exactly happened between us?”

“That’s between you guys. It’s none of my business or anyone’s. I’ve already ripped Matt a new one for doing what he did, and so did Karen and Frank, but he’s . . .” He stops and lets out a sigh. “Do you remember hearing from Maggie what Matt was like after Midland Circle? Despondent, depressed, borderline suicidal?”

Of course you remember, how could you ever forget? You’ve never seen him like that in your life. But the term “borderline suicidal” makes a pit grow in your stomach as you straighten up.

“He hasn’t tried to—?” you start to ask.

“No, no, that was shitty wording on my part. But Matt’s not himself. It’s like watching a hollow corpse with a temper move about. He either doesn’t care at all, or a little thing will set him off. He’s being reckless on patrol, he’s drinking more than he usually does. I’ve been covering for him at the office, but . . . You need to talk to him.”

You close your eyes, tears rolling down your cheek. “I can’t, Foggy.”

“(Y/N)—.”

“He broke my heart, and I broke his in return. I stomped on it. I love him and I hurt him. If I talked to him . . . That’s salt on the wound for both of us.” More tears stream down your face as you think about it. “We both vowed not to hurt one another. H-He hurt me, but he wanted to fix it. I hurt him and don’t have that same courage to try.”

“Try now,” Foggy pleads. “Try now, help one another. Even if it’s for the last time.”

“O-Okay,” you say before you can realize it.

Foggy breathes a sign of relief. “Come to the loft.”

The loft. The scene of the crime.

You breathe a quiet confirmation before you hang up, taking time to mentally prepare yourself before you grab your purse and leave your sister’s place to talk Matt off whatever ledge he’s currently perched on.

It’s a short trip, and Foggy meets you in the lobby of Matt’s building. He pulls you in for a long hug, and you actively tell yourself not to cry.

“He’s that bad, huh?” you sniffle.

“Yeah,” Foggy sighs. “I’ve never been for him like this before. It’s like he’s not the same person.”

“I know what you mean,” you say quietly. “I haven’t felt like myself since that day.”

Foggy looks at you with a crestfallen expression, and you give him one more hug before you make your way up to the loft.

Your key still works—you’re afraid if you knock, he won’t let you in. Hell, he probably heard you turn the block on your way here and wouldn’t answer out of anger or annoyance. Your stomach churns when you see Matt sitting in the chair. He’s in sweats, his posture is curved, his hair is disheveled, and he’s growing a thick beard. Beer bottles are on the table in front of him mixed with trash.

“Matt?” you breathe, but he remains unmoved. As you move closer toward him, he sits there like a statue, not caring to look your way. “Matt, it’s me.” Still, he doesn’t gaze your way.

Putting your purse in its usual spot, you make your way over to him in the chair, gently cupping his face in your hands to tilt him up toward you. You suck in a small breath when you see the bruises and cuts on his cheeks, nose, and chin. If this is what his face looks like, you can only imagine the other injuries that his clothes are hiding.

“Matt,” you breathe. “What happened?”

He just closes his eyes in shame, starting to turn. You don’t let him, though, bringing his face back to center.

“Matty,” you plea. “Matt, talk to me, sweetheart.”

“You’re not my sweetheart anymore,” he finally says, and it burns like acid. You deserve it—you gave it just as good to him when he came back from California. “And I’m not yours.”

“We didn’t sign any papers yet,” you breathe, trying to lighten the mood as you hold back your own tears. “So, legally, I am.”

Matt peels back from my touch like he’s getting out of an itchy sweater. Okay, you deserve it. You deserve all of it.

“Matt—.”

“You left,” he spits. “You left just like everyone else, even when you swore you wouldn’t.”

You sit back on your heels. It hurts, but it’s the truth. “I did.” He turns back toward you like he’s shocked you actually admitted it. “I didn’t try to hear you out, and I’m sorry. I should’ve. It was . . .”

He turns toward you, ice in his blind gaze. You’ve never seen Matt like, this, and as he starts to slowly rise from his chair, it’s the first time you can say that you’ve ever been afraid of him.

You spring to your feet as well, trying to at least keep things on the same level posture wise.

“Now you’re trying to make things better?” he growls low. “You’re the one that tore it up in front of us. I wanted to stop the breakage, but you readied the wrecking ball. This shit is your mess. It’s like this because of you.”

Now you start to get mad. “Oh, just me? Any breakage that was the breakage that you started. Those images and videos were circulating for two whole days before you came home. I didn’t hear a single word from you—a ‘good morning’ or ‘I’m boarding my plane’ or otherwise. You just showed up here expecting it to all be fine—.”

“You don’t get to assume in this,” he grits, the space between you dangerously nonexistent as one of his hands tightly grab on to your wrist.

“Yes, I can. There’s two people in this mess. I’m saying what it seemed like on my end,” you say, your heart thundering in your chest. Matt wouldn’t hurt you—he’d never do that. But with how his hand is on your arm and the mood he seems to have been in since you left, you’re not entirely confident in that statement anymore.

“You never really knew a damn thing about me, did you?” he frowns. “You just kept a version of Matt Murdock in your head and lived with it this entire time, huh?”

“Maybe I did. Because this isn’t the Matt Murdock I came over to talk to. This is the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. So, if you’re gonna let the Devil out, let him out on me, Murdock. Do your worst.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” he threatens, the muscle in his jaw feathering as he clenches his teeth.

“No. I came here to talk, and that’s what we’re gonna—.”

Before you know it, his hand is off your wrist, wrapping around the neck of a beer bottle before he whizzes it past your head like a threat. You flinch, moving to cover your head before the bottle leaves his hand, and you remain curled as the glass hits something behind you, knocking it over as they both crash to the ground. You slowly turn to see what was caught in the crosshairs—the beer bottle had hit a picture frame, knocking it down off the side table and breaking it. You can tell by the shifts in his body language he immediately regrets it, his shoulders slumping as tears start to sting your eyes. You notice he starts to take a step toward you out of the corner of your eye, but you’re on the move toward the broken picture frame. One of the pictures from our wedding.

Huh, you think. How fitting.

You lower yourself to your knees, carefully picking it up and looking at how your faces were beaming with nothing but joy, how you held onto one another with love . . . and now how it’s the opposite. How you’re broken. You wouldn’t look at him the day you left, and he won’t look at you know. You curl over the photo, freely weeping on the pile of glass. You just want it things to go back to normal.

You hear Matt pad softly over to you, squatting as if he wants to put a hand on your back to soothe you, but he backs away to let you cry. Tears pour out of you like a geyser, a constant flow down your cheeks as you sit alone in the living room. Maybe it was an accident that he hit the picture, but his senses are so sharp . . . maybe he did want to hit it. Maybe he was trying to prove a point. Maybe he wanted to show you that by you leaving, you were the one who put the final nail in the coffin of your marriage.

Maybe he really doesn’t want you anymore. Maybe he stopped wanting you before he went to Los Angeles. Maybe he stopped wanting you a long time ago.

You’re still crying when you hear Matt come back over toward you. Through your limited vision, you watch him clean up the broken glass from the bottle and the frame. It takes him a few trips, but it’s eventually all cleaned up. He leaves again before walking back toward you, holding out a box of tissues. With a shaking hand, you grab one and wipe at your nose, desperately trying to calm yourself.

“This is my favorite picture of us from our wedding,” you sniffle. “This is what I would grab if I could only take one thing from the loft in an emergency. This would be it. And now . . .”

You can’t finish your sentence, just weeping uncontrollably in your little ball on the floor over your two deepest treasures—this photo and your marriage. Shattered.

“Angel . . .” Matt says so softly, so tenderly, you almost forget that your life has essentially imploded.

“This is all my fault,” you cry, spiraling, trying to trace it all back to you, your actions. The big explosive things all seem to have their root in something you can place back to yourself. Matt slept with someone else, but it goes back to something you did— you had a short attention span and a bit of a short fuse before he left because a bunch of shit at work that kept piling up, and you knew he was frustrated . . . how much he hates planes. You egged him on. You did nothing to help, and when he left to go to California, he found someone who understood him in a way you couldn’t. You need an answer for this, and that seems to be it.

“This is my favorite picture of us, and it’s all my fault,” you sniffle, repeating what you said earlier, your chest burning from the tears and hyperventilation.

“It’s just a picture—,” he starts to say softly.

“It’s not just a picture,” you weep. “This, us, it’s all my fault. We’re broken because of me. This is all my fault.”

You hear Matt pad softly over to you, squatting down and taking the picture from your hands, putting it on the arm of a nearby chair before pulling you in for a hug. All you can do is sob against his shoulder as he holds onto you.

“This isn’t because of you,” he tries to soothe, sounding like he’s about to cry as well. “It . . . It was my poor judgement, it was my shortcomings that did this. You’re in the flaming wreckage, and it’s not fair.”

“I just want things how they were,” you sniffle. “I want to come home. I want us to be okay.”

Matt’s silence is terrifying. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt rage like that. Darkness like that,” he says softly. You feel a tear fall from his cheek to the top of you head. “Shit, I grabbed you . . . Fuck, I’m so sorry. I-I would never—(Y/N), please—.”

“I . . . I,” you start. He’d never hurt you. For all his anger, for all his strength, Matt would never hurt you. But when you’re facing off with the man that patrols the streets? The man that brought down Wilson Fisk not once, but twice? You just didn't know.

“I scared you.” Tears are flowing down his cheek. “I could hear your heart race . . . I knew you were scared and for a moment, and I didn’t care. It’s like I wanted you to be scared, and I liked it. I was glad you were scared of me.” He sounds disgusted with himself. “You really thought I was going to hit you.”

“I did. For a moment,” you admit. It catches in your throat, but there’s no use in lying if you’re trying to fix this.

Is that what you came over to do? To fix this?

He lets out a long breath, slumping to the floor. “What happened to us?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” you say. And it’s the truth. You don’t really know how you got to this point. Yes, you know why you walked out, but it’s like there were the small hairline fractures in glass—so fine that you couldn’t see them—and then a hammer came down on it and a million little pieces was left in its wake. But how he sounds . . . you know that tone. When it’s been a rough night on patrol, it coats his words like sap—he’s going into a dark headspace, and when he gets too far in, it’s hard to get him out, and you need to get him out. You move around to carefully sit next to Matt, putting a hand on his forearm. You can feel a thick bandage on his arm before you can process that he winces, so you move to slide your hand in his.

“I know you’d never hurt me,” you breathe. “I know you’d never lay a hand on me like that.”

“But I did, though. If I added more pressure, I could’ve snapped your worst. It would have been easy for me to do.” You see him swallow the lump forming in his throat, his own self-hatred inflating at a dangerous rate. “I was full of rage. You were scared of me.”

“I’m scared of all of this,” you admit, your voice small. “What’s happening to us. How it’s effecting you and me. We’re . . . We’re not ourselves. I-I don’t recognize either of us. I don’t like it. I want things back how they were.”

“But they can’t go back.” He sounds broken, hollow—just how you feel.

“Are . . . Are we too far gone?” you ask just above a whisper, terrified of the answer.

“I don’t want us to be.”

You hang your head. “I haven’t been sleeping,” you admit. “It doesn’t feel right without you, your arms around me.”

He places a gently hand on your chin, lifting your face up and wiping tears off of your cheeks before pulling you in for a hug. It feels like warmth. Like love. “I can’t sleep in the bed. It smells like you, and with you gone . . . I just patrol all night.”

It’s like when you think your heart can’t break any more, it does. “I still feel so upset, but, I feel hollow more than anything. Like part of me is missing.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathes. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too. I-I’m so sorry.” He kisses the top of your head. “I should’ve listened, I shouldn’t have left like that, but I was just so upset. I couldn’t be around you without feeling like screaming or crying or both.”

“We . . . We can get through this. Can’t we?”

You think about it. Is this something you can do? You’ve been through worse— you’ve seen him near death more times than you would like, you’ve seen how the toll of Daredevil and the stress of being an attorney wear him down. Even the debate on how we should bring up our children should you choose to have them strained you both. But your happiness, your life together, it’s bigger than your low points. It has to be.

It has to be.

Right?

Permanent Taglist: @majesticavenger @steampowerednightvaler @themusingsofmany @just-the-hiddles @toozmanykids @dangertoozmanykids101 @clints-worldavengers @theburningbookshop @itwasthereaminuteago @peter1ismybrother @hellskitchens-whore @dpaccione @catnip987 @blackhawkfanatic

Matt Murdock Taglist: @two-unbeatable-beaters @loves0phelia

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kinardsevan · 2 days ago

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melbell's theory on "is it a swerve":

I have been saying for about two days that I would write out a whole through-line of my theory of what shenanigans might be happening in the writers room for 911.

I should specify first that this theory goes based on the idea that what’s being served to us currently is an entire swerve, and that they’re following the formula they’ve done before (ala Madney, Tarlos, etc.).

My theory ties into 807 as well. It has us not losing Tommy, but him actually being in the episode. Given that we know that it’s been said that recurring cast members will film in batches and not necessarily by week, that opens up the option for Lou to be in (at least) 807, if not more.

I know some of what has come out in social media in the past few days references that there was a certain lineup for the way B/T was viewed through 8a, and how it would culminate in the discussion of moving in together, referencing lore to Tommy’s past, possibly his father, etc.

My thing is that, at the end of the day as a creative, all I’m trying to do is follow the breadcrumbs we’ve been fed for the past 12 episodes of this show. Because of that, the points of note within those breadcrumbs are:

7x09: “Tommy’s good people. He’s good for you.”

7x10: “My dad and I don’t really talk…Having Gerrard was like having the father I already had.”

8x05: “people are what make life worth living”; “my boyfriend”; “It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? having a crew like this behind you, even when things go wrong” "especially when things go wrong"

8x06: “Do you love him” (entire speech)

Now obviously, coming out of season 7, this show knew they wanted Lou back, but they didn’t know what his schedule was going to look like or whether the character would pan out, how the general audience would continue to tune in, etc. However, they did lay down enough crumbs that they could pick up and continue to move forward with. They gave themselves the ability to tell a story with Tommy’s lore around his father, along with what they ultimately chose to do with Abby (which a lot of fans were talking about early on in the summer as it was).

Now, we’ve learned things since I first formulated this theory. We know that there’s a discussion about Buck having a “pendulum” reaction to the breakup and how to deal with it. We know that he’s going to throw himself into other things to cope. We know that there’s mention of “cracks starting to show” in reference to how he deals with the breakup. we also have mention in one of the articles about the possibility of them working a scene (as in accident, fire, etc) and things being awkward.

based on all of that prior information, (along with Josh’s speech in 806), when I saw the preview for 807, I was very quickly one of the people who was like “this is being done for angst. this is not the end of BuckTommy”.

My theory actually ties into (if we loved each other once) could we love each other twice, my latest fic. We don’t have any close-up shots of the person on the crane in the episode. We have the PA (or whoever he is) telling Bobby “there was an incident during filming, he fell and passed out”. Within the confines of me feeling like what’s happening is all a swerve on us, that line might not be entirely complete. I’ve theorized that the 217 is already on scene, and Tommy is the man hanging on the crane.

Why, you ask?

When is the last time we saw someone hanging from a crane? (Buck, lightning strike, if you’re playing the long game, kids). Why bring that back if it’s not intended to be paralleled in some way, the very way they have been doing with this couple from the jump?

We also have the voiceover of who we (aka as me and the two people I’ve actually written this all out for) assume is Oliver/Buck yelling “no no no no no!” in a panicked tone. For me, when I follow that line of logic (through 806 forward), things feel really clear.

Now I hadn’t considered the idea that they might actually kill Tommy off until today, but let’s go with the idea that they’re not. Everything that we’ve been given from 710 on starts fill in a really beautiful plot going into the midseason finale for these two.

Tommy is hurt. If the lightning strike is mirrored as I assume it is, the scene in reference will happen right about the end of 807. 808 will likely be some kind of other story (on purpose). I don’t think at this rate, we’ll actually ever get a Tommy Begins, but the title of Sob Stories really feels compelling to me on how they could do a version of this. Or a version of Tommy seeing what Buck’s life would be like without him, or any other version you want to think up.

You suddenly get all of these breadcrumbs lined up really nicely into these episode.

-Tommy’s dad can be presented to us. This also presents an opportunity to explain why Tommy feels unworthy/scared/etc of moving forward with Buck.

-“people make life worth living”; “especially when things go wrong”. This would be something going very wrong. this would present them with an opportunity to give the payoff that we’ve wanted to see Tommy receive since 710, being accepted into the family he has always felt outside of.

-“do you love him”. I think part of the break-up storywise being important for Buck is that it requires him to really dignify how he feels about Tommy. Another thing that this theory does is put them in a positon to really face the issue of remembering that life is not permanent. They can very much so end up without one another. And yes, shit already sucks being apart because Tommy broke up with him. But this brings to light the idea that, not only could they just be broken up, but that one of them could die and not have had whatever time they have left (especially given their career of choice) with one another. I think if you really lean into the parallel of the coma dream for Buck, it gives Tommy prime opportunity to learn why he’s afraid. Whether this is done in the form of a coma dream like buck, or like TK’s was with his mom (that feels more accurate for me with Tommy, meeting his mom, etc).

—I’ll also include the aside of Gerrard being around could also be an interesting addition to the story.

I can even see this feeding into whatever issue Buck runs into with Eddie in the coming weeks, whether it’s him still being upset with Tommy over the break up and Eddie saying Buck doesn’t have the full story, or Eddie thinking that Buck is giving in too easily after seeing him hurt. (Or that could be none of all of this).

As for the interviews that are concerning, I do have somewhat of an answer to that too.

I feel like on some level, Lou had to know that the fangirlish one was with someone who is fully behind Buddie and knew about the crap he’d been through. That interview didn’t have clear cut answers quite yet, and that one has me with this answer: nothing of what he said would necessarily be a lie.

He’s working on SWAT right now. Actors always have opportunities in front of them. He may have things that could affect how 8b goes, regardless. I have questioned whether he went into that interview with the discussion with the powers that be basically being like “don’t lie. but you can have fun with it, too.”

In terms of the others, I haven’t read every single article out there, but I know we hold a general lack of understanding about the fact that the “exit interviews” just feel weirdly un-exit like. I’ve read millions of them at this point due to Greys Anatomy. And as it’s been said, you never see people asked about coming back; in fact you usually get a lot of "what's next" instead. We don’t get a whole lot of clarity of what’s happening with Buck next, beyond “new hobbies” “family time” “dealing”.

That all said… I don’t know. I know the theory has legs, even though it takes shots from the articles we’ve been given. I started out with a lot of hope weighing into this theory. Now I’m not as certain. But I am someone who holding out hope that some version of a swerve is happening and it was just written really fucking poorly (and at the worst possible time known to queer men and women).

You’re welcome to share with me your thoughts. I’m open to polite discourse.

#mel's musings #bucktommy #my convoluted theory #i know it's got clown makeup all over it #but also #i feel like it tracks?#if this isn't actually what they're doing #they need a new writing team #and i'm available #tevan #kinley #firebeast #firepilot

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mytearsbuckochet · 6 hours ago

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What's your most hated Bummy scene?? I'll tell you mine. It has to be the kiss in the hospital lobby and buck getting outed because of his soot covered mouth. Never hated a 911 episode more than that. I love Buck. They just made a mockery out of him by that scene.

Where do I even start.. Couldn't agree more about the soot scene, although I'm more angry at the writers about that one than I am at Tommy, given how important it was to Buck that he came out to Eddie and Maddie on his own terms and how much weight he gave those interactions I feel like even though that one was supposed to be a cute little "hehe look this is very Buck coded", it fell short in that I would've liked everyone else at the 118 to find out in a more heartfelt way ya know??

In terms of my least favourite(s), the whole arc with billy boils was a very interesting play by the writers in that it highlighted the differences between Eddie and Tommy in a meaningful way. On one hand, Eddie, who has presumably been with Buck in the hospital the whole time he was being treated for his boils, is used to Buck's hyperfixations and Wiki deep dives, and finds them wholesome and cute. I reblogged a post a little bit ago where Buck told Maddie about how her and Chim always finish each others sentences and that theyre basically already dating, and then contrasted with how Eddie was finishing Buck's sentences in that scene. Buddie fanatic aside (I will admit im obsessed with these two idiots), THIS is the kind of domesticity I've always wanted for Buck's partners, where they acknowledge and love those little moments that he has.

Now lets go ahead and look at Tommy's side of this whole thing: Tommy's reaction to seeing the boils + how he treated and viewed Buck's obsession as exactly that, an obsession + the graveyard scene??? You can break it down into "oh well Buddie have known eachother since s2, Bummy have been together 6 months", but from my perspective the fact that Buck didn't even realise Tommy didn't like women until their 6 month anniversary (???) just goes to show that they don't really know that much about one another. Tommy was completely right in the breakup scene; he was definitely not Buck's last, and the poor guy is definitely in need of some self exploration (#letbuckfuck) before I'd be happy to see Buddie honestly (and thats not even considering the work that needs to be done on Eddie, my guy is going through it rn with Chris). Anyway; I just read this amazing fic by playinginthundestorms (on ao3) and I think the way they described Tommy (slightly Tommy bashing), was overall how I imagine he sees Buck. It never really felt like Tommy was fond of these little things Buck does in the way that Eddie (and the rest of the 118) are, more seeing him as childish or juvenile as the fic described. And it makes sense, tommy is older than Buck. A whole other can of worms and probably the icing on the cake for me was the Abby debacle, the misogyny really showed??? like man you have not changed since Hen my lord. Calling Abby out for running off with some "himbo half her age" was wild considering thats what he is currently doing with Buck? Especially with all the shit she had to go through with her mum at the time? Like what on earth is your excuse Temu? Anyway, to cut a long rant short, I actually have given you like 50 reasons, but i definitely think that Tommy was a well placed plot device and it was obvious from the start. Also, ABC could've chosen ANYONE to be Buck's first experience with a man and they were like yep lets use the racist homophobe from Chim and Hen begins cos why not?! I probably would've had a far less negative opinion of him if he was a fresh character, and I think that's on purpose, I think it would be really interesting if they go down the road of hen and chim sharing their experiences with Tommy now that they've broken up, and that they didn't say anything cos they just wanted Buck to be happy. Definitely after that heartfelt scene with Hen especially, that I didn't get cos of that bloody soot scene.

#buddie #anti tommy kinard #anti bucktommy #911 #911 spoilers #eddie diaz #evan buckley

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welcometothejianghu · 9 hours ago

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 致命游戏 / The Spirealm.

The Spirealm is a 2024 drama about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This show/book combo has gripped my entire ass. The second I knew I wanted to watch this, almost immediately after it started airing, I muted the tag. I was so right to do this, because this is worth not spoiling yourself about. If you are a Guardian fan in particular, you owe it to yourself to watch this for reasons I think will become clear as you go about watching it.

So! If all you need to know is that I think you need this show in your life, great! You don't even need to scroll down to the end of the post for the links; go to Viki and press play. In case you need more convincing than that, though, I'm going to give you here five reasons to watch it that are as spoilerless as I can make them.

Before we start, though, I'm going to take a moment to note that I had to torrent the video files so I could make screenshots of my own, and if I hadn't, this would have been a much uglier rec post than the others I've done. Not only were there not many promotional materials or official stills released, the show itself barely stayed up two hours on iQiyi, and that's because this drama is a...

1. (Barely) Censored Adaptation Of Same-sex Original Work

Ah, you know that MyDramaList tag well, don't you? Yeah, the original novel, Kaleidoscope of Death (which has a rec post of its own!), is supernatural story about grief and loss built on the love story between the two male leads. Now of course you know already that a mainstream Chinese television adaptation of something like that is going to straighten up everything and turn the horror romance into the sci-fi platonic love of besties.

...But damn, folks, it's still real gay.

Ling Jiushi, the sweet-faced newbie, is a canonical virgin and loving cat dad who plays the mysterious video game once, then finds himself suddenly able to enter the game worlds bodily -- and of course, if you die in the game, you die in real life. He's pretty much doomed, until he meets...

Ruan Lanzhu, the cool-as-a-cucumber veteran of the door worlds, who falls pretty much immediately for the completely oblivious Ling Jiushi, then has to spend the rest of the series consumed with lust while trying to keep him and a couple other dipshits alive.

The show preserves so many overtly gay beats and declarations of affection from the novel, to the point where it's just this side of suggesting that the romance is actually, textually happening just offscreen, every time the camera cuts away. I am forever grateful that working with Zhu Yilong on Reunion seems to have perfected sweet baby Junjie's ability to look at a man with nothing but love in his eyes.

I adore so much the dynamic they have, one where a man who has never told the truth a day in his life encounters a man so sincere and naive that you cannot seduce him with anything but absolute honesty or he's never going to get it.

There are three (3) separate door worlds where they share a bed, and in every one of them, they both sleep with their shoes on. Like the absolute freaks they both are.

2. It's puzzle solvin' time!

So if you've read some of my rec posts before, you know that I am critical of stories that center around cases that are unfollowable, uninteresting, or both (e.g., Mysterious Lotus Casebook and White Cat Legend). I am therefore thrilled to tell you that the door worlds are actually (largely) thoughtful mysteries with reasonable solutions, where you care about what's happening and why.

The way each door world is set up is that you have to solve the puzzle to find a key and unlock the door that will let you leave. One of the challenges is each world's door ghost, who has the key and does not want to give it up. The other challenge is the world-specific set of taboo conditions, where violating them means the door ghost can kill you -- and you are not always told what those taboo conditions are. That means that solving a door involves 1) figuring out what will insta-kill you, 2) not doing that, 3) finding where the hell the exit door is, 4) placating and/or scamming the door ghost long enough to snatch the key from them, and 5) running like hell to the exit door with that key before the door ghost fucks you up about it.

As the show goes on, you get introduced to the concept of door-passing shepherds, which are experienced door-finishers who take through lower-level players, building them up in the process. A lot of these shepherds work for organizations, such as the one Ruan Lanzhu runs. And a lot of them are ready to reach the exit by climbing over everyone else's corpses.

That's part of the fun of the setup: You're not just thrown in alone. You show up with a random number of other players, some with very different levels of experience. At least one of you will make it out; not everyone will. So you can add a step 6) to the list above, which is: surviving all the other players who will gleefully stab you in the back in order to be the first player out the door.

The door worlds are also lovely. They all feel like sets -- and I know that's a weird thing to say about places that are literal sets, but they manage it feel it even on film. In fact, even the show's uses of clunky-ass greenscreen feel appropriate, because of how unreal everything is supposed to be. Everything looks like a dream, which is only amplified by how beautifully everything's shot.

(What's that you say? You say the guy who directed this was the editor on Infernal Affairs? No kidding.)

From a fandom perspective, what's great here is that even though there are technically just twelve doors, there are canonically way more than twelve door worlds out there. That means that whatever worlds you want to create are valid. The best pieces of fanfic I've read are the ones that dream up their own door worlds, complete with taboo conditions, key puzzles, and world-specific perks that lead to gay sex, because come on.

3. A good middle ground of horror

So at this point you are perhaps wondering: How scary is it?

And the answer is, kind of as scary as you're willing to let your mind go with it. Everything has been science-fictioned real hard, including the video game premise that "explains" what's happening with these doors. It relies on dread way more than jumpscares. The blood/gore/gross content is extremely low, again on account of Chinese content censorship. Most icky things are done with offscreen sounds and shadows. I'm pretty squeamish about pain and injury, and I can't recall a time I had to look too long away from the screen.

However, that means the show works some real conceptual horror. That picture up there is of a man forcing three young girls to hold raw eggs unbroken in their mouths. There's nothing about that image that's not technically G-rated, and it's awful in context.

The best bits are when the monsters don't need a lick of CG to become horrors. They cast a contortionist in the Waverly Hills door world, and she absolutely earned her keep.

I have a lot of critiques about how the show handles things, especially in terms of defanging the horror elements (which it does), but one thing I think it absolutely gets right is that it understands that ghost stories are first and foremost tragedies. That's a thing I've always liked about Asian horror in particular, how often you wind up siding with the ghost. Yes, sure, she tried to strangle you with her hair, but have you ever considered she's the real victim here? There's always a bit of a calculus: Can you negotiate with the door ghost, or do you just need to stab them and run? The Spirealm prefers negotiation, and frankly, so do I.

So yeah, it's about as scary as you let it be. If your horror tolerance is low, watch it in a well-lit room and focus on the unreality of it, and you'll be okay. If you're looking for something genuinely spooky, spend some time thinking about the existential dread of the entire situation, and that'll be good for a couple good spine tingles.

4. The Obsidian Family (& Friends!)

In a show where death is always an option, you have to have characters where you actually care if they live or die. Fortunately, all your allies are charming and loveable enough that you are going to be real upset every time they get put in danger!

Obsidian is one of the organizations I mentioned earlier. It's run by Ruan Lanzhu, and it includes a cool and collected doctor, a mom friend who cooks for everybody, a guy who's maybe not having the best mental health day of his life, and two identical twins who could not be more different if they tried. They all live in the same amazing big fancy house, which is where Ling Jiushi too goes to live when he joins the group. They have big family meals, they look after one another, they hang out together -- I mean, if this is the kind of setup you love, then you will love this setup.

There are also plenty of allies who aren't technically part of Obsidian, but who are our friends nonetheless, and who come over to hang out in the Obsidian house from time to time. Some of them are rivals turned friends, some of them are clients turned friends, and some of them were just friends all along! Surely nothing bad will happen to any of them, and they'll all live happily ever after, right? ...Right?

5. Toast and Chestnut!

Of course, the true heroes of the show are Toast the Corgi and Chestnut the Kitty.

Animals are so good.

Truly, I love that one of Ling Jiushi's defining characteristics is that he is a Cat Dad. He is a simple man with simple needs, and one of those needs is to pet his kitty or he'll explode.

caveat: Some thoroughly bad adaptation choices

Yeah, so I keep talking about the novel (and talk even more about the novel in its own rec post), but I assure you, you don't need to have read the novel to feel the degree to which this is an adaptation -- and one that's had its rough, nasty, spooky, gay edges all sanded off in the desperate hope of ever seeing daylight.

Now, sometimes I consider batshit nonsense janky creative decisions to be a selling point for a show (see: Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Legend of Fei, Sand Sea)! In this case, however, I'm going to have to take points off for how incoherently bad they are here. We're talking Psych-Hunter levels of Why Would You Do That-- and the answer, as always, comes down to how you write around what censorship won't allow on television.

The novel says the doors are supernatural. The show says they're a virtual-reality computer game. Now, on the surface, this move sort of makes sense -- you can't have ghosts, but you can have computer games that make digital ghosts, which, sure, okay. But then the problem quickly becomes that the plot of the novel is not remotely built to support a sci-fi premise, so a lot of things have to be grafted awkwardly on. Like, say, a bad guy who stole his corporate logo from Even Worse Twitter. Or a game-designing bestie whose face is never seen. Or [late-stage spoilers about a major character].

The eventual explanation is that this whole setup is a righteous and good game that has somehow been corrupted by evil game-designing capitalists from the West, and that's why it can abduct you in broad daylight and kill you if you fail it. There are good people who want to purify (???) the game, and evil people who want to make money off the game. And I don't mind spoiling you for that part, because it's garbage nonsense. You will be deeply unsatisfied with the show's half-assed attempt at resolving it all. (You may, however, have that disappointment tempered with the amazing concurrent display of heterosexuality that is apologizing to your best bro by coding his perfect man for him. The Spirealm is a land of contrasts.)

Look, I consider myself a mild to moderate socialist, and even I was yawning and making jerk-off motions every time someone started to wax halfheartedly poetic about how evil American capitalism is. Like, yeah, but not because some college student made a vile and wretched video game that eats people! This show is a critique of capitalism like a five-year-old crying because he doesn't get ice cream before bed is a critique of authoritarianism.

And even this, I can't be too mad at it about, you know? I just assume that this was some absolute Hail Mary attempt at getting past censorship -- you know, maybe if we make all the right "grr, USA bad!" noises, they'll let our gay ghost story slip by? And it worked! I mean, just barely, but it did.

So yeah, fair warning that the Spirealm is a show that, if you love it (and I do), you will have to love despite some glaring flaws that haunt it all the way through and hit especially hard during what should otherwise have been an amazing endgame. But hey, we're c-drama fans! We're good at loving janky things, right?

Want to enter the World of Doors?

As I said at the start of the post, Viki's got it -- and only Viki. I'm not sure what circumstances got it up on Viki after iQiyi pulled it, but I'm glad. Watch it quick, before Viki changes its mind!

Hug him! Hug that boy!

#the spirealm #致命游戏 #kaleidoscope of death #rec post #i made this

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moongothic · 17 hours ago

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So for a while I had wanted to make a knitted sweater or a cardigan with thick, vertical stripes. Needless to say though I was having a hard time brainstorming HOW to make that such a thing. Colorwork would be doable if I wanted to do thin stripes, but I wanted the stripes to be like a good 5-8 cm wide. That would result in a lot of extremely long floats, which would make knitting it a pain in the ass and far beyond my skill level (if not straight up impossible?), but also it'd be such a waste of yarn. But, I figured... people make granny square sweaters and cardigans where they sew the individual pieces together. Hell, knitters make sweaters and cardigans in pieces too. So, if I wanted to knit something with vertical stripes, what'd stop me from knitting each stripe as an individual piece and then sewing them together?

Now, a lot of this project was me figuring things out as I went along (partially because for a while I wasn't sure if this project would work out, and if I'd be able to make a cardigan at all or if I'd have to make a sweater instead), knitting pieces and sewing them together as I went instead of making all the pieces first and then putting them all together in a grand finale. So I don't have photos of the individual stripes I knit up pre-sewing. Each stripe ended up being about 7 cm wide but their lenghts vary depending on where they're placed (sides are shorter to make room for the arms etc), and two stripes on the front I knit into a sharp point to shape the neck opening. In total I knit 13 pieces to make the body of the cardigan

Now I did originally intend to just sew the pieces together using mattress stitch, but as I was sewing, I just... Did not like how it was turning out. It wasn't quite as seamless as I had hoped it would be, but more importantly, if you pulled on the sewn pieces at all you'd end up with a gaping hole between the pieces (not pictured) that just felt really unsecure. So I tried just crocheting the pieces and, honestly, I did prefer it quite a bit. It felt stronger than the mattress stitch and it blended into the knit way better, so that's what I ended up going with

I did however mattress stitch the tops together (I don't understand why it felt better/stronger up there than on the sides but whatever, if it works it works)

I did originally make arm holes waaay too big by accident. Fortunately it was easy to fix though, since I had made sure all the pieces were attached the same way- starting row at the bottom edge and bind-off at the top. I just had to undo the bind off on the side pieces of the cardigan and knit a few more rows before binding off again (and crocheting the extended sections together), aka I didn't have to rip the cardigan apart or anything to redo these sections (Yellow stripe on the left has already been extended (black marker shows where I picked up from), about to start knitting the black stripe on the right)

With all of that done, the body of the cardigan was mostly done! I was maybe a liiittle bit concerned about the fit, but I knew I wanted the ribbing to be as wide as the stripes were, so the ribbing was going to "complete" the fit; I had taken that into considderation when I was originally mathing out the size of the cardigan (how many stripes I'd have to make and how wide they'd have to be etc (though I did have to adjust that math a few times during the process lmao)) (Also; the reason I wanted to make a cardigan instead of a sweater is because I prefer clothes I can wear open. Like I don't really like hoodies without zippers because I can't open them, where as hoodies that do have zippers I wear all the time and I pretty much always leave them open. So even if this cardigan had turned out a little snug, it'd be fine, because I know I wouldn't button it up anyways lmao)

I figured doing the ribbing in crochet would be easier, but man. It took me fucking forever to figure out how to do the ribbing. For starters, the yellow yarn I've been using I've actually been holding double this whole time (while knitting), and so I was unsure if I wanted to hold it double for the ribbing as well or hold it single. I was also unsure if I wanted to do the ribbing in slip stitch, single crochet or double, not to mention figuring out the right hook size. I really did try like 5-10 different combinations before I landed on doing double crochet ribbing with the yarn held single. Like I had wanted to try other methods because I feel like double crochet is too hole-y and loose, but all the other methods made a really thick fabric, much thicker than the knit. And I just didn't like that. The double crochet/held single was the only way to get a fabric that was the same thickness as the knit, so that's what I ended up going with. On the plus side, it was also faster to work up lmao

Once I figured out what technique I wanted to use I just had to crochet the damn thing. Which was fine, though I felt like the ribbing was making the cardigan flare out weirdly (in hindsight I think I was just slightly loosing it at this point lmao I can't see what was wrong with the ribbing looking at that photo again fjdghksdf), so I also did a round around the edge of the ribbing to help secure it into a tighter shape. Once the front of the ribbing was done, I did the bottom ribbing and cleaned that edge up too

And then I ran out of yarn

More specifically, I had been using scrap black yarn I already had in my stash. And after I started knitting the sleeves with the remaining balls, having successfully turned the vest into a button-up t-shirt, yeah, ran out of black. So I had to go and order some more black yarn, one or two balls would probably be enough, just need some cheap wool But I don't want to pay 5 bucks in shipping for 5 bucks of wool, man. If I'm gonna order something I might as well make it worth the shipping (or even better, get the free shipping). Now the plot twist is that I originally began working on this cardigan back in September, and when I ran out of yarn it was October. And I knew in a few weeks I'd be going to a Spooky Convention, and I wanted to wear something Halloween-y to said Spooky Convention. So I put this cardigan on hold for like three weeks (in total) so I could crochet a Spooky Cardigan for the convention.

So yeah this cardigan I did start before I made that other one. Lmao.

Anyway, once that other project was done I finally got back to working on This Fucking Thing and finishing it with the yarn I had gotten. Hilariously the yarn I had bought was actually too thin so I had to hold it double to finish the sleeves, but it's fiiine, I've used all sorts of scrap black yarns for this project and could not tell the difference on what yarn has been used where, it's all wool (or wool alpaca mix) And once the knitting was done, I crochet'd some simple cuffs on the sleeves so it'd match the ribbing. I blocked the cardigan, weaved in all the bajillion ends and sewed on some buttons.

I'm deeply upset blocking ruined the shaping of the collar/ribbing. Like I should've seen it coming, I know crochet is stiff innitially but becomes loose and wavey when blocked. But I somehow forgot, and now the collar looks dumb as hell. Also, because the ribbing is quite thin, it can't actually support the buttons I had picked out for the cardigan, so they just kinda. Flop around and sit there, looking sad and flaccid. Of course, the buttons would be very easy to switch out (esp since I haven't weaved them in yet) but there's a part of me that feels like I should undo the whole ribbing and redo it to fix the collar. But. I've already weaved in everything. Undoing the weaving would be a massive pain in the ass, there's so many yarn ends in there... And I'm not sure I care enough to put in that effort into this.

Another minor thing is that I feel like the neck opening is a bit too open for my personal taste- like the cardigan fits on me perfectly, I did my math just fine on that front, but I prefer something that hugs my neck more and this is really open (especially after blocking ruined my perfect, fitted collar). So I should've left the front black stripes normal instead of doing the shaping on them, or something like that

All of that aside though, I am happy with how this cardigan turned out (especially it's technically my first one, even if I didn't finish it first), it fits perfectly and I'll absolutely wear it around home, it's nice and comfy and warm and that's all I wanted and needed

#Moon posting #Yarncraft Diary #Yarnblr #Knitblr #Knitting

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magiclwritings · 2 days ago

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The tray clanked against his desk as he set it down and he tried to put his thoughts together quickly. He hadn't been expecting to entertain Beau again. Hell, he was pretty damn sure that with Quintus in charge of his well being, he'd barely see him if it could be helped. But still he couldn't be rude. He had a feeling if he even attempted to run him out of here, he'd run back and tell Quin something truly awful. He sighed and made to grab the jug of wine he'd brought up for the both of them and uncorked it, pouring himself a full glass.

"Beau," He started out, still hunched over his desk. Cesare took the glass and a deep drink followed. "I don't know what you're looking to get out of me." He answered quite plainly, the prince turned around and looked at him again. Those dark eyes looking too intently at him. "And if you'd like to pick up where we left off, you'd need to retrieve my blade you left in the pompous, lard head of a man that's trying to fuck you and Quintus and now apparently me over until death." He sighed and took another deep drink of wine. The warmth pooling in his belly and it felt nice. The tension he'd been carrying was starting to ease but not loosen entirely. No he'd wait for Quintus to come back before any of that happened.

The prince popped a few bits of dark chocolate into his mouth followed by some cheese. Quin had been right when he said to get food. Perhaps that was a good sign, if he had appetite then maybe ... Cesare realized he was drifting but found himself unable to focus completely. "He's going to kill you when he finds you're out when you're not supposed to be you know. And I'm inclined to look the other way." That was half a joke, though he'd never allow actual harm to come to this man. He had saved them after all. "There's nothing I can do if this is what Quintus wants. I'm sure he's already spoken to Max but I will try and see what I can do." The prince polished off his wine and found a bit of bread to tide him over some more. A soft moan left his lips tasting the freshness of it. Gods he really should have eaten before getting up here. He had no idea why he hadn't. "But I did promise you'd be free and I doubt Quin truly wants to hold someone against their will. He may just be looking to give you a ... what do they call it ... ah." He smiled, brushing the crumbs from his fingers and he finally walked closer to him "A taste of your own medicine."

It was only then that he'd realized it wasn't Beau he was speaking to. The way the light reflected off Quin's eyes and that subtle tilt of his mouth, he knew him quite well. But it was clear there was some kind of game to be played here. He'd bite for the time being. Besides, it would serve him right to pull a stunt on him like this. "Maybe he's being too harsh. It's truly not for me to decide." He shrugged, smiling softly. "I'm not sure you could change my mind even if there were something to be done."

Quin walked with Cesare at his side, his mind racing from everything that had happened. He was downright terrified for his uncle to find out about the engagement. There was no doubt in his mind that his uncle hadn’t figured out Cesare stole Quintus back from him. There was now just as much of a target on Cesare’s as on Quin’s. In truth, he didn’t know what his uncle’s next move would be, but he had a feeling lingering in the pit of his stomach that it would be war. Since he could not retrieve Max and Quin, he’d take Adros by force to get them back.

He was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t realize Cesare was moving forward until Quintus was already wrapped up in his arms. He leaned his weight onto the prince, tucking his head beneath Cesare’s chin, his arms looping around his waist. “I need…” Quin started, then paused. He knew what he needed. He needed to know what happened on the border, specifically between Cesare and Beau. While he firmly believed that Cesare would never sleep with someone else, Beau was an actor. He was precise in his ability to impersonate Quintus. And he knew he could have asked Cesare outright for the story and get mostly a truthful answer in return. “I want to clean myself up, change out of these clothes, and then I need to see Max.” He pulled back, looking up at Cesare. “While I do that, you should go down to the kitchens and get us food, bring it up to your quarters, and I’ll meet you there when I’m done.” Quin leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Cesare’s chin. He could feel the prince’s protest in his bones. It was torture for Quintus to ask for time apart, even if it was for a couple of hours after reuniting. “I need this,” He said, squeezing Cesare’s waist. “Okay?”

Quintus pressed himself against Cesare’s body again before pulling away, his hand sliding down to grip Cesare’s. “Go collect us a feast,” He said, walking backward until their connected hands were stretched out, still connecting them. Then he let out and turned around to head back to his quarters.

Entering his rooms, Quintus sighed to see Beau sprawled out on his bed, flipping through one of his journals. “Riveting diary,” He said, closing the book with a snap. “I don’t appreciate being left out of club meetings when I’ve done so much to get you here.”

Quin laughed, the sound echoing through the room. He stopped at the end of his bed to grab his journal from Beau’s hands. “You’ll be present when I want you to be present.”

“Then what am I doing here?” Beau sat up, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I want to know what happened at the border,” Quin said, sitting on the chest at the bottom of his bed. “Specifically, what happened between you and Cesare.”

“Ohhh,” Beau purred, crawling towards Quin. “I see.” He sat next to the prince, his back pressed up against the bedpost. “Someone is riddled with jealousy. Did my beloved prince sleep with another man?” Beau pressed a hand to his chest, pretending to be faint. “I have to say, Quintus, you’re fortunate. He is such a giving lover. And, honestly, feeling the weight of his body press you down into the bed…” Beau closed his eyes, inhaling slowly. “I’ve never experienced such a feeling of security and protection.”

“He wouldn’t have been fooled. He would know it wasn’t me at some point and would have stopped.” Quin felt like he was going to be sick. Everything Beau said was the same thoughts Quintus had after sleeping with Cesare. “He knows me.”

Beau lazily opened his eyes, raising a brow at the prince. “Of course, he realized after a while. We may look the same and may have been trained to fuck by the same man, but I am far more experienced in this act than you are. Cesare is too good of a man to point out your inexperience, but we both know you lack skills in bed. Richard always mentioned how frigid you were in the sheets. Cesare noticed the same thing. Unfortunately, that is not something I can do in bed. Or maybe he just fucked me, so I would help him get you out; who knows.”

“I don’t believe you.” But he did. Quin felt like he had been doused in cold water, his inner insecurities exposed to the room. He was open and bleeding from every word Beau had thrown at him. Every nerve in his body felt raw and exposed. “He is an honor-”

“He’s a man, a future King,” Beau said, snorting at Quin’s words. “He’s had lovers before; you know that just as I do. Fucking you was probably like fucking a virgin. You can’t blame him for seeking out someone who has experience. What did he tell you about that night?” Beau looked at Quin before his mouth curled into a villainous smirk. “Ah, I see. You haven’t. Interesting. Does that mean you’re staying in here tonight? Because you should know, I’m a cuddler…”

________________________________

The prince was either out of his mind or had completely lost it. The verdict was still up in the air.

Getting into Prince Cesare’s quarters was easy. Quintus had lived in the castle prior and had snuck into the prince’s quarters because they let him walk right in even though Cesare was not back yet.

So he had some time to kill. He made himself comfortable in the room, lounging on the prince’s bed, limbs sprawled as if he owned the space. He had always been good with that, walking around with confidence and being able to claim space for himself. Growing up like he had, they would eat you alive if you didn’t. It also helped that he was a quick study, much like his counterpart. The more time he spent around him, the more he learned they were alike. Even if it pained him to admit it, there was no denying that.

It was another twenty minutes until the door opened, and Cesare walked in, his face lighting up until his gaze spied the clothes he was wearing. A brief look of suspicion crossed his face. “Prince Cesare,” He purred, drawing out the prince’s name. “I’ve been waiting for you. I thought we could discuss the deal we made back at the border. My feelings are hurt, but if you make it better, maybe I’d be willing to finish what we started back in my quarters.” He ran a hand down his chest, fingers toying with the fabric. “Hmm?”

#Looking out for you;#Quintus;

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