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highqueenofelfhame · 3 years ago

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rowaelin month day ten

rowaelin month day ten -- single parents. masterlist // buy me a ko-fi // redbubble

The morning truly couldn’t have been going worse. Aelin had woken up to the nanny telling her she’d come down with the stomach flu. Aelin wasn’t cruel enough to tell the poor girl she had to work through it; instead encouraging her to drink as much water as she could and get some much-needed rest. Evangeline had apologized profusely, but Aelin was having none of it. She reassured her that she could figure it out.

It turned out she couldn’t. Her mother and father both worked sixty hours a week. Aelin knew that her mother would take a day if Aelin called, but she couldn’t bring herself to make the call and disrupt her week. Evie’s father had died in a car crash before she was even born. Everyone who was a viable option worked full-time jobs, leaving her three-year-old in her hands. She could call out, but she had a mountain of a workload that she’d left last night, reassuring herself she would get it done today. Everything she needed was at her office, so working from home was out of the question. All signs were pointing to an impromptu “bring your child to work” day.

The CEO of the company was a good friend of hers, and Aelin knew that Dorian wouldn’t mind seeing his goddaughter toddling around the office. In fact, she knew that he would eventually steal her away for a snack time at some point so Aelin could get some work done. It would likely be a snack that wasn’t mommy approved, but she would give him a free pass today.

It would be okay, she reassured herself as she struggled to get Evie to cooperate with getting her tiny arms through her yellow long-sleeved shirt. She was mumbling in an indecipherable language as Aelin nodded along, chiming in here and there like she understood every word. The reality was that she only understood a handful of words. One of them was juice, so Aelin made a mental note to make her a full cup of juice for the car ride to the office to keep her happy.

It didn’t take long to brush her hair into the tiniest pigtails to exist, with two little orange bows holding them in place. By the time she was fully dressed in her fall garb, complete with a tiny gray vest so cute that Aelin wanted to cry, she looked like a baby Gap model. Without a doubt, everyone at the office would be cooing over how precious she looked the second they walked through the door.

“Where going?” Evie inquired, her little head tilting to the side as Aelin packed her go-bag full of snacks and an outfit change just in case.

“Momma’s gotta go to work today, baby. You get to come, too. Do you want to see Uncle Dorian?” At the mention of Dorian, Evie’s eyes lit up as a broad smile pushed her chubby cheeks up until her eyes squinted closed. Aelin grinned and kissed her cheeks until she giggled wildly. Thank the gods that Evie was in a good mood today. Some mornings she woke up on the wrong side of the bed, fussy as all get out while Aelin tried to push along their morning. Thankfully today, she was full of smiles and giggles. It would make everything much easier if she cooperated.

After grabbing a sippy cup full of apple juice and shoving the bottle in her bag, making yet another note to put it in the fridge in the break room when she arrived at the office, she swooped Evie into her arms, and they were on their way.

Upon arriving at the office, Aelin was right. The two receptionists immediately fell in love with Evie’s tiny pigtails and her outfit. They cooed over her bright eyes, twins to Aelin’s own. It took longer than usual to make it to the elevator, where even several men commented on how adorable she was. It brought a smile to her face, but it dropped when she thought of her office neighbor.

Rowan Whitethorn was the hardass of the office. She was pretty positive that he hated her, and there was nothing she could do to change his mind. They spent their days arguing back and forth about anything and everything. Some days she was sure that he only did it to get a rise out of her.

Aelin had never seen him smile-- he only scowled. His assistant was constantly rushing around, losing his damn mind trying to meet all of Rowan’s demands in a day. More than once, she’d caught tidbits of his conversations with Aelin’s own assistant, the poor boy begging to swap just for a single day. Aelin could only imagine what Rowan would say about Evie being such a workplace distraction. She was positive there would be complaints about her squeals and giggles that he would hear through the wall.

There was truly nothing she could do, though. Too much needed to be done at work to take a personal day, and Evie was typically well behaved enough to be occupied until her mom got off work and could pick her up.

As she made her way down the hall, everyone oohed and ahhed over Evie. Aelin thanked everyone for their compliments, her heart spilling over with joy. Until she saw Rowan in the kitchen while she put away the juice. He was making coffee and, upon noticing Evie in her arms, an emotion she couldn’t quite place flickered over his face.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” he said, eyes going from her pigtails down to the boots on her tiny feet.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” She closed the fridge door and left the kitchen, gone as quickly as she had come. When she arrived in her office, she shut the door and put Evie down, watching as she ran straight for the couch and flopped over the side with a giggle bubbling out of her lips.

The single mother took a few minutes to take Evie’s toys out of her bag, even laying a few puffy snacks out on the table for her to snack on while she played. She went straight for them as quickly as Aelin sprinkled them out of the container. Aelin chuckled as she watched her for a moment, hands on her hips while she decided she was okay to sit at her desk and begin her work.

Evie was surprisingly self-sufficient while Aelin started her daily tasks. She played with the toys her mother provided and munched on her treats. Aelin heard a lot of babbling and a slew of giggles, a loud squeal pulling her from her work as her door opened.

Dorian leaned in the doorway, giving her a running start until he followed, darting across the room to scoop Evie into his arms. He spun her in circles with her legs flying behind her. She was laughing in a way that she only did with Dorian. Aelin seldom got that sound to come out of her daughter, but somehow, she wouldn’t change it for anything.

“I heard tales of a little princess fighting dragons in my office,” he said to no one in particular, but Evie seemed to understand that she was the princess. If there was anything that she liked in this world, it was being called a princess. She understood that word more than anything because Aelin read her fairy tales of princesses every night. Tangled was constantly on their TV, only to be replaced by Beauty and the Beast. They utterly enchanted her, and everyone in her life was constantly calling her a princess. She loved it.

The giggling continued while he tickled her sides and blew raspberries on her belly until the shrieking got so intense he made a face at Aelin and merely brought her into a tight hug as he said, “Sorry. Nanny out today?”

“She’s got a stomach bug. I had no other options; I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. You know I love any chance I get to see her. I’m not going to penalize you for being a mother, Aelin.” Evie was chomping her teeth near Dorian’s face, causing her best friend to laugh and hold her at arm’s length. “I’ll even take her across the hall for a bit so you can get more done.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” she replied, sighing and leaning back in her seat. Aelin really did have so much to do, to the point that she couldn’t even bring herself to tell him he didn’t have to do that. She would take whatever help she could get.

Her door was left open as he took Evie out into the hall, Aelin noticing that they weren’t going in the direction of his office but rather toward the kitchen. Her eyes rolled as she swiveled in her chair to face her computer and really dive into her work, leaning forward and exhaling a deep breath, willing herself to focus.

Quite a bit of time passed, and she was able to get a considerable amount of work completed. All of her emails had been caught up when Dorian edged into her office and cleared his throat. Aelin looked up, half expecting Evie’s outfit to be ruined by chocolate, but her little ray of sunshine was nowhere to be seen.

“Where is she?”

“I… may have taken a phone call and looked away for two minutes, and she vanished.”

“What?” Aelin was on her feet in an instant, rushing across her office and out into the hall. “What the fuck do you mean? How long has it been?”

“Since I lost her and started looking for her? Half an hour. I was scared to tell you.”

“My daughter has been missing for half an hour, and you’re only just now telling me? What the fuck, Dorian?” She hit his chest rather abrasively as she shoved past him, eyes scanning every room while she ran down the hall. How she was able to do it without toppling over in her heels, she wasn’t sure. All she could feel was the panic from her heart pounding in her chest to the shaking of her hands. The roaring in her ears made everything else sound muffled and distant, like she was standing at the edge of white water rapids. Even with her hands in fists so tight she could feel them shake, nausea building up in her chest.

“Evie?” She called out, a tremor rising in her throat that caused her voice to sound shaky and weak. Tears were pricking in her ears as she turned to run back to her office. She would call down to security to see if they could scan the cameras, and call reception to see if anyone had carried her out. From there, she would--

Her heart stopped beating when she glanced into Rowan’s office. It was the office directly next to hers, and behind his desk, Rowan held a snoozing Evie. Her little fist was gripping the lapels of his suit jacket, and he seemed relaxed while he flipped through papers with one hand.

“What are you doing with my daughter?” Aelin asked, stepping into the door. A few tears of relief slipped down her cheeks, and she was quick to wipe them, lest he make an asshole comment about it.

“I told that little shit to let you know I had her,” he murmured, barely glancing up from his papers. “I think that’s the final straw. He genuinely can’t do the most basic of tasks, I--”

Rowan paused when he looked up from his work. Something soft flashed in his eyes for a split second before he continued, “She was laying on the couch by the kitchen when I found her. She babbled something about Dorian, I think, and when I looked in his office, he was on the phone arguing with someone. You looked busy, and I know you have a lot to do, and when I picked her up, she let out the biggest yawn I’ve ever seen. By the time I’d walked back to my office, she was asleep. I told my assistant to let you know. I’m sorry that he didn’t, and I’m sorry that I didn’t follow up with an e-mail or a phone call. You just seem like you could use the help so you could get work done. I’m sorry.”

Not only was it the most that Rowan had ever said to her in a single conversation, but it was the kindest she’d seen him be to anyone. He wasn’t complaining about the little bit of drool coming out of the side of Evie’s mouth and soaking into his jacket. He was just holding her like he was so at ease with the situation and truly didn’t mind.

“You don’t wear a ring, and I’ve never heard you mention a significant other. Divorced?”

“Widowed,” she replied, sitting in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. Again, his face softened as he looked down at Evie.

“She looks just like you. She’s beautiful.” Ignoring the implications of that comment, Aelin smiled softly.

“Thank you. She is… everything to me.”

“I… I have a daughter, too. Briar. My wife died two years after we were married. Briar is six now, but Evie is… so much less temperamental than B was.” Aelin tried not to let the shock show on her face. Shock that Rowan Whitethorn was a father and shock that they shared a sad history. The curiosity to ask how she had died was strong, but she wouldn’t ask. Sometimes she hated it when people asked how Sam died. It was like opening a wound all over again.

“Oh, she has her days. Don’t let this fool you,” she laughed, dragging her fingers through her hair. “I didn’t know you had a daughter, either.”

Rowan flipped his computer screen so she could see it, and she was welcomed by a smiling little girl with stunning green eyes and brown ringlet curls. Her heart squeezed at the image, Rowan holding her in his lap and grinning so wide he had dimples. Rowan Whitethorn had dimples.

“She’s absolutely adorable.”

“She is.” Aelin smiled again, looking down at her hands and twisting the ring on her left finger that her parents had given her when Evie was born. It was her birthstone.

“You can keep working if you want to. I’ve got her.”

“She’s not bothering you?” There was hesitation evident in her voice as Rowan looked down at the sleeping girl in his arms. He smiled, brushing a few wild strands of hair back against her head.

“Nope,” he said firmly, looking back at Aelin. “Really. You must have a lot to do if you didn’t just call in a personal day. She’s sleeping. It’s okay. I’ll bring her back when she wakes up.”

“I-- okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m positive.” Aelin chewed on her fingernail for a moment before she nodded and stood, walking across his office and toward her own. Aelin paused in the door, looking over her shoulder at the man with such a harsh reputation around the workplace. This man seemed entirely different, a man that was brushing his thumb against her daughter's side while she slept with his shirt in her tiny fist. He seemed so utterly relaxed while he adjusted their position in his chair to keep working. It was almost out of character, his offer. But she wasn’t going to complain.

Rowan Whitethorn may have been the hardass of the office, but maybe he had a soft spot after all. @rowaelinscourt

#rowaelin #rowaelin month #rowan whitethorn #aelin galathynius #tog #throne of glass #throne of glass fanfic #tog fic #tog fanfic #fluff #fluffy #rowaelin fluff #single parents au #briar whitethorn #evie galathynius #writing #my writing #masterlist

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thedistantdusk · 3 years ago

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Arcadia, Chapter 3

Thanks to everyone who followed along! Things are heating up with this chapter! Most of the referenced triggers from chapter 1 apply in this chapter specifically. Here's the link to chapter 2, if you're just seeing this now :)

Thanks again to @secretkeeper13, @accio-broom, @remedialpotions, @jamezbot, @jenoramaca, @not-steve42, @ginisbetterthanfirewhiskey... god, I'm forgetting people, and I'm sorry! But you're all amazing <3

___________________________

D A Y + T H R E E

As fate would have it, Ginny wakes before 0-700.

Not that she sleeps.

Nightmares, the likes of which she hasn’t experienced in years, torment her throughout the night. They leave her scared. Miserable. Guilty. Around 3 AM, she finally reaches for her Dreamless Sleep potion with shaking hands. For more reasons than one, she’s pleased that Harry’s slept on the couch.

She knows now just how stupid this entire mission truly was. The longer she analyzes it, the more she accepts that her bloody pride got her here in the first place. A chance for a promotion, however small, gave her false confidence in her ability to disregard a decade of sexual tension, all while trapped in close quarters with the person she wants the most.

She hopes Harry makes himself sparse today, though she knows that sounds cruel. But the longer they spend together, the clearer it becomes they’re on the cusp of something… and not something that would look good on a performance review. He’s been kind and understanding so far, even when she’s fucked things up. She just hopes she can ignore the most human parts of herself until they’ve dealt with this.

So at half-past 8, Ginny — Jenny — emerges from the house in a bright floral sundress and nude pumps. Were it not for the secret weapon clutched in her right fist, she might have fit in quite well... but Jenny has no intention of fitting in. Not anymore. In three confident strides, she marches across the front lawn, bends down, and spears the prongs of a lurid pink flamingo into the grass.

Yes.

She grins and takes in her work. How ghastly against the backdrop of earth tones! How repugnant!

Ginny steals quick glimpses over each shoulder, only to be met with the eerie, blanketed silence that’s defined Arcadia since their arrival. No activity at all. Which means she’ll have no issue with the next bit…

She strides to the mailbox at the end of their driveway and gives it a sharp kick. The post slides out of alignment, leaving it askew. Perfect. She returns to the house with a bounce in her step. Living with the twins taught her a thing or two about how to infuriate complete strangers.

She just hopes it’ll be enough.

___________________________

As luck would have it, it is enough. Her efforts receive reward more quickly than she thought— more quickly than she’s been conditioned to expect.

Scarcely an hour passes before she finds the warning she needs. And to be honest, it could’ve been there sooner; she just figured she’d give it that long before she checked.

Still, it’s not even 10 AM when she opens the door and sees it on their welcome mat: a folded paper with Pee-tri scrolled on the front. She can’t help but admire the sheer cheek as she unfolds it; this is the closest they’ll get to a public call-out for the way Harry insists on correcting everyone’s pronunciation. The message inside doesn’t surprise her, either.

Be like the others before dark. Or else.

Ginny glimpses out at the lawn, just to confirm— and yes. Sure enough. Just as she’d suspected, the flamingo's gone. The mailbox is straight. Everything’s back to normal.

She kicks the door closed with a smirk and wonders if they’re aware of how easily they’ve exposed themselves. How—

“What’ve you got there?” Harry calls from the sofa in the living room. He looks up from his laptop with bleary, dark-rimmed eyes. A wave of guilt washes through her; that sofa clearly didn’t get more comfortable overnight. Not that he would’ve accepted the alternative.

“Erm. A letter.” She waves in front of her and walks into the living room. “I’ve done a great job annoying them!”

He offers a gentle smile. “Any chance you’ll let me know who this ‘them’ is that you’re so worried about?”

Ginny rolls her eyes and settles on the other end of the couch. “You know I can’t—”

“Talk about your work,” Harry finishes, turning back to his computer. “Right.”

“Mm. Not exactly that I can’t… talk about my work,” she ventures, putting her feet up on the white ottoman. “More like I can’t give information until it’s essential knowledge for all parties involved. Based on criteria that I also can’t share.”

“Sounds like a fun job,” Harry deadpans, still looking at the computer. “But anyway, if I were to suggest something like… I don’t know…” He casually tilts the screen in her direction. “The fact that Oliver Skinner definitely has a criminal record, and maybe that’s worth looking into. You couldn’t confirm or deny that?”

Ginny just shrugs. “That’s correct. I can neither confirm nor deny.”

His theory is wrong, of course. Dead wrong.

They wouldn’t have sent an Unspeakable and an Auror into the country if this were a simple Muggle murderer. Harry would be able to suss this out, she reckons, if he had more sleep. Poor bloke.

He groans and cracks his back. “I’m starting to understand why King’s always so frustrated.”

“Probably because he has to deal with you all the time,” Ginny quips, reaching for a magazine on the floor. Ugh. Of course, it’s only the TV guide, Radio Times. They don’t even have a TV, but it came with the Daily Mail on Sunday.

Harry reaches for a glass of water on the coffee table. “Fine,” he relents, in between sips. “I’ll stay in my lane. But if I get bored, I’ll get tetchy.” He gestures to the computer. “And since they’ve given us this laptop, I’ve had time to do a bit of—”

“They’ve given me a laptop,” Ginny corrects, arching a brow. “As you’re well aware, Auror Potter, that is technically the property of the DoM.” She returns to the guide with a shrug. “I just don’t care if you use it, mostly because I don’t expect you’ll be looking up tits all day.”

He chokes on his water; Ginny just laughs and turns the page. Ooh, lovely! Eurovision looks particularly flamboyant this year…

“You’re absolutely right,” Harry says, once he recovers. “I’d never look up tits on government property!” He looks affronted as he hands over the laptop, but she knows he’s not done... not when he’s set that up so perfectly. Annnnd sure enough…

“You of all people should know I'm an arse-man, Ginny.”

Now it’s her turn for an unattractive snort as he winks over his shoulder and marches upstairs.

When he’s gone, Ginny rolls her eyes and opens her laptop. He’s an incredible liar on the arse-man front, but it was a good joke. A simple joke…. one that didn’t deserve looking into.

It’s just unfortunate that can’t stop these stupid fucking butterflies from erupting in her stomach like she’s ten years old again.

___________________________

He launches into the air again, the gardens of his neighbors spanning out in front of him. Each perfectly manicured. Each disturbing in its performative precision. None of this is real; none of this is life.

He pulled out the trampoline after dinner, when Ginny okayed it. He’s not used to that— checking before he does things. This whole exercise has been a great reminder that his teamwork skills are rusty, especially when he’s in a subordinate role. Ron left after their first year to work in the magic shop instead, which only made sense after… yeah. Harry draws a deep breath and jumps again. Ron and Hermione haven’t been problem-solving in his head for ages. There’s been no one to share the burden of choices or—

“OI!” Oliver’s voice thunders across the garden.

Harry smiles and takes another huge leap into the air. Just in time…

He rips open the fence door and stomps over, hands balled into fists. Harry’s never seen anyone look quite so furious while dressed in cashmere. And standing beside a trampoline.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Oliver hisses, eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you trying to make enemies, Henry? Is this entire estate a bloody joke to you?”

“Of course not!” Harry lands on his bum before he jumps up again. “This is very serious!”

“Oliver!” Sharon wails, hurrying over. “Oliver. Please! This really—”

“Keep your nose where it belongs, woman,” Oliver snarls, looking at her like she’s scum on his shoe. “No one wants your opinion!”

Sharon flinches… and this, more than anything else, gets Harry’s back up. “No need to take it out on her!” he snaps, climbing down from the trampoline. “Talk to me if you’ve got a problem, Ollie. Why not—”

But just as Harry’s feet touch the grass, something very weird happens: A dull buzzing fills his ears. Sharon and Oliver hear it too, but unlike Harry, they aren’t looking around in bewildered confusion. In a flash, the rage on Oliver’s face transforms into something much different: fear. And as the pressure grows, Harry can only watch as Oliver grabs Sharon’s hand, yanking her from the garden, when—

An unmistakable sound replaces the buzzing. A large piece of glass from somewhere in the front of the house shatters on the pavement. And with that, the buzzing stops.

Birds chirp again. Someone laughs in the distance. Harry jabs a finger in his ear, trying to clear it, but it seems Oliver’s returned to his furious state. He lunges towards Harry, a vein ticking in his neck, his hands outstretched as if to push him over— but Harry doesn’t have time for this. He’s already running around him, bolting towards the source of the sound, his hand inching for his pocket…

Because whatever they’ve got going on isn’t related to Oliver, is it? No… definitely not. That buzzing was too creepy to be muggle. Harry hadn’t really been convinced of the Oliver theory in the first place, even if the wanker has a criminal record for drunk driving. He mostly suggested it to Ginny to see if she’d give him any information.

Harry spots the broken glass the second he reaches the pavement. The lamppost right outside their house has shattered, light bulb and all. Bits of glass sparkle on the street, but the lamppost is at least 10 feet high. Harry scans around for signs of a ladder, or some form of a projectile… any method someone might’ve used to— oh! A baseball rolls around in one of the open garages across the street. He’s about to march over and collect it when his conscience stops him.

Because that’s the definition of circumstantial evidence, isn’t it? Harry sighs, rubbing his forehead. Snatching the baseball while working alone is one thing, but it’s not worth risking Ginny’s job. Especially because he reckons these thoroughly unmemorable homes are each equipped with monitoring systems. At absolute best, that would be… awkward to explain to the muggle police, especially without an obvious connection between the ball and the shattered lamppost...

Harry’s just about to turn back inside and write it off a freak occurrence when—

Shit.

His breath freezes in his throat.

What the...

He blinks a few times to make sure he’s not imagining it, but no...

There’s no weird buzzing this time… but something else is happening instead. The grass on the far side of their yard is bulging and curling, right in front of his eyes. The soil creaks as this… this mass — a huge sphere of some sort — passes through; bits of dirt fly into the air before settling back.

Harry’s veins turn to ice, his stomach churning. Work has introduced him to new, vile varieties of ghouls and nasties. He’s been bitten by a leprechaun. Stalked by a vampire. He’s encountered every disturbing otherworldly menace that one could imagine.

But he’s never seen anything like this.

His only solace is that it’s headed towards Mike’s empty house… this massive, rolling boulder that travels beneath the soil. ‘Boulder’ isn’t exactly the right term, though; he’s never seen a boulder move with a slinking, predatory grace. He’s never gotten gooseflesh from a rock, no matter how large.

And try as he might, he can only stand there, wide-eyed, his heart racing. Because now he knows for sure what Ginny only alluded to before: whatever they’re chasing isn’t human.

And it’s aware of them.

___________________________

The door creaks open less than five minutes after the glass shatters, but Ginny’s prepared.

She’s standing in the alcove just off the entryway, wand in one hand, fire poker in the other. It’s probably not the best strategy she’s ever had— but she reckons that if a Muggle were to catch sight of an altercation, it would be an easy memory supplantation. Wands and fire pokers don’t look that dissimilar, and—

“Ginny?” Harry calls. Directly into her ear.

Shit! She jumps into the air, the poker clattering to the ground.

“When did you learn to move like a cat?” she demands, turning to face him. “You nearly—”

“We need to talk,” he says brusquely. It’s only then that she takes in his wide, haunted eyes. His white pallor. The way he hasn’t even commented on the ridiculousness of her fire poker.

Oh.

He’s scared.

Scared in a way she hasn’t seen him in ages. Maybe ever. Which means he heard…? Shit. She’d might as well ask.

“What do you erm…” She toys with her wand handle. “Want to talk about?”

Harry heaves a tired sigh. “I’m only going to ask you this once,” he says flatly, rubbing his hand over his forehead. Then he blinks up at her, his eyes pulsing and stern. “What the fuck was that?”

“The… shattered lamppost?” she hedges. “I’ve no idea. I just—”

Apparently, that was the wrong response.

Harry groans. “You know damn well I don’t mean the bloody lamppost!” he snarls. “I mean that… that thing! First the weird buzzing, then whatever moved through the grass! It was like some creepy worm, or—”

“—not a worm,” she amends, staring at her cuticles.

This, too, was the wrong reply; she’s never seen him go from bewildered to enraged quite so fast.

Harry lets out a furious roar and kicks at an empty box. “This is why Unspeakables are so fucking annoying!” he shouts, tossing his hands in the air. “You never fucking say anything — even if it might help someone!”

Pfft! He can do better than that...

“Not sure what you expected,” she deadpans. “Would it help if I were a Speakable instead?”

Harry rolls his eyes and throws himself on the couch. Ginny just leans against the door… and waits. She can’t say she blames him for being angry. It’s probably made him feel vulnerable in ways he hasn’t in ages.

“The least you can bloody do,” Harry says, cutting into her thoughts, “is to let me know how to kill it.” He glimpses up at her, his chest still heaving. “Because if anything happened to you….” His hand curls around his wand, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “We both know I’d never forgive myself.”

Fuck.

Her heart clenches; as embarrassing as it is, tears sting the backs of her eyes. She wasn’t expecting that… but it makes perfect sense. He’s not angry because he’s vulnerable; he’s angry because he doesn’t know how to protect her.

Because he’s Harry.

Her Harry.

And try as she might, she can’t deny that. He’s hers… even though now he’s broken and angry and scared and alone. Which is probably why she loves the fucking fuck out of him.

No.

She stops herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Mission. Mission. They’re on a mission.

Right. She clears her throat and steps forward, two papers clutched in her hand.

“What’s that?” Harry grumbles as she hands them over. He scans the pages, brow furrowing. “Sugar… engine oil. Red Dye 40. What am I supposed to do with—?”

Ginny smiles and tries to make this easy. “It’s the report from the necklace. The thing that was on Mike’s medallion… it’s rubbish. Not blood, not some ghost slime. It’s just a weird mixture of types of rubbish.”

She should’ve figured he wouldn’t find this significant.

“What a brilliant scientific discovery.” Harry tosses the paper to the side. “Hermione would be thrilled.”

Ginny gnaws at her cheek, choosing her words carefully… but if he’s already seen it, if he’s already heard it, surely there’s no harm...

Harry rises to his feet and takes a step closer until he’s towering over her, all warm and brooding. They aren’t touching… not exactly. He’s just hovering close enough to give her strength, whether he knows it or not. When she finally gets the nerve to look up at him, his green eyes are swirling with more pain than rage. Truth be told, she prefers the rage. “I deserve to know,” he says thickly, like he’s suppressing something in his throat, “what the fuck is going on.”

Ginny breaks their eye contact. Some of this she hasn’t even shared with Attica yet. She’s violating about a million protocols by telling Harry first, but if they’re together on a mission…

“It’s… not what we thought. Not what I thought,” she admits softly, after a moment. “We came out here under the assumption of chasing something from the Thought Chamber. Something that erm… may have escaped. During a routine experiment.”

He’s not impressed, though. “Yeah,” he says, arching a brow. “I gathered all of that from your intro with the camera, thanks. Do you ever plan on telling me anything new?” He jerks his chin towards the window. “Because you’ve sure as hell never mentioned Evil Grass Monster Experiment #6, and that may have been helpful to fucking know before I saw it.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

His attitude is more infuriating than his actual words, but she lacks the patience for dealing with either. The bloody nerve, to act all impatient with information that’s kept secret for a reason...

“I don’t have to tell you shit, actually,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And in case you’re unaware, I can protect myself.”

Harry pulls back with a laugh, but this one is cruel. Dark. The sort she’s never heard from him before. “Makes sense,” he says with a fake grin. Then he taps her on the nose. “Because when that thing outside inevitably kills someone else, we all know how well you’ll manage the guilt.”

Ouch.

She reels back, stung. He’s got to know that’s a low blow. Younger Ginny would have Bat Bogeyed him into oblivion, but she’s better now. She’s changed.

At least that’s what she tells herself as she glares at him, her hands fisted so tightly they turn white. “Say what you mean,” she manages several moments later, when rage isn’t clawing at her chest. “If you’d like to rehash our breakup, Auror Potter, I’m all ears!” She gives her best impression of an icy smirk. “This isn’t exactly professional… but then again, when have you ever been?”

Harry looks like he’s going to respond, but a loud vibration starts in his back pocket. “Fuck!” Now it’s his turn to leap into the air before he realizes it’s just his wand. And really, she’s tempted to laugh— but the look on his face helps her put the pieces together.

Because if his wand’s vibrating, that means it’s an emergency; only department heads can summon their employees like that. They’re the only ones with access to that sort of technology, not that she’s really interested either way.

“It’s King,” he mutters. She’s about to get on him for stating the obvious, but when he peers at her again, his face is filled with such timid yearning that she can only see the 11-year-old boy on the train platform. “Can I…erm. Use your mobile?”

Fine. Ginny nods towards the bedroom, her head still spinning. She’s still a bit angry with him, but he’s so fucking broken. They both are. And besides, they’ve got bigger problems. What could possibly have King so worried that he’d call Harry from a mission? The man is unflappable.

Harry returns a minute later, his face stony, jaw set. In another life, she might’ve seen the bulge in his pocket and asked if that’s just her mobile, or if he’s happy to see her.

Instead, she tucks her hair behind her ears like the seasoned professional she is. “There’s no reception inside,” she points out. “I’ve had luck calling Attica from up the street, right at the corner. Just watch out for…”

Harry smirks. “Grass monsters?”

Ginny draws a breath to consider her options. She could keep him in the dark forever, but isn’t that the whole point of this assignment? To learn? It’s time for the truth, she reckons...

“It’s erm. It’s called a tulpa, actually.”

His eyes light up at this. “A tulpa?”

Ginny shifts her weight and searches for the right words. “It’s a… it’s sort of like an evil imaginary friend, created by a group of people to do their bidding,” she explains, reaching for the discarded papers. “They come from the material of whatever’s underground. I’ve only heard of creatures made from clay or water, but since this village was built on a rubbish tip”— she flicks the papers with her fingers— “that’s our guy!”

She can almost see the gears spinning in Harry’s head as he studies the far wall. “So…” he says slowly, still peering off, “it’s basically an evil dump monster, made of rubbish, that can murder people.”

A laugh slips past her lips. It sounds a bit dumb when he puts it that way. She clears her throat and continues. “I was wrong because it’s not something that’s escaped, more like something that’s—”

“Formed,” Harry finishes quickly. For the first time all week, he sounds intrigued. Like he’s happy to be here. “So… they’ve made it to keep order, then?”

“It would seem so.” She shrugs. “I… honestly don’t know. But between the weird buzzing and the rubbish, it’s the closest match we’ve got. According to the system database, anyway.”

There’s another pause as Harry mulls this over. “So, how do we get rid of it, then?”

How fucked up is it that her heart warms at the way he says ‘we’?

Ginny brushes that aside. “Considering the mask in Gogolak’s house and the way they’ve made a point to tell us he’s in charge, I’d say he’s the one we need to get rid of.”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t object.

“Or at least… knock him totally unconscious,” she adds, swallowing; Gogolak’s a wanker, but she’d rather not kill him, either. “Beyond just being asleep. Because he sleeps at night, but the tulpa’s still here, which means he needs to be down for the count. Comatose, even.”

Harry’s wand buzzes again. Ah, shit; in all the hubbub, she’d forgotten about that.

Concern floods Harry’s face. “Give me five minutes.” He blinks. “Ok?”

She waves towards the door. “Duty calls.”

He gives her a weak smile and turns away; she begins the trek upstairs to send Attica an email update.

“Ginny?”

She stops to look down at him. Harry’s paused, halfway out the door. “Thank you,” he says softly, meeting her eyes. “And… I’m sorry. For everything. Ok? I’ll always, erm…”

But she can’t right now. She actually fucking can’t.

“Later,” she whispers, nearly begging. “Please. Let’s do this later.”

Because of course she loves him.

She’s always fucking loved him, even though that’s changed forms. It’s shifted. It’s evolved. He feels the same way… she knows he’s bloody feels the same way. She just doesn’t have the resources to deal with whatever this fuck is reigniting, right in front of her eyes, as the tulpa dances in the back of her head.

Luckily, he understands. Harry just swallows again, nods at her, and heads out into the night.

___________________________

As it would turn out, he was wrong about the identity of the summoner.

“Great news!” Hermione announces on the other end of the mobile. “MLE found Yaxley. He was hiding in a cave in Romania, just like you said.”

Harry snorts; he wishes that gave him more pride. “Well, if you’d listened to me months ago, then—”

“The important part is that we have him,” Hermione says, cutting across. “We need you back ASAP to prep for witness questioning. You’ll take the stand, of course. The trial’s set to start next week!”

He can practically hear her bouncing with excitement. Very little brings her more joy than trials of former Death Eaters.

“Erm… about that.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. “We’re actually right on the cusp of something here. I’m gonna need a couple more days to wrap things up.”

“Really?” Hermione sounds surprised. “Kingsley and Robards said you’d be pleased. Said you found this mission as useless as they did.”

Fuck, he was such an arse.

“Well, things… changed,” he offers lamely. “It’s going really well. This mission is so important to her. I’d just hate to leave at the last minute.”

“Ohhh?” Hermione draws out the word in a way that suggests she finds herself quite clever. Even before she asks, he knows what she’s on about. “How’s it going with Ginny, then?”

Harry rolls his eyes. Her coy prodding is obvious, even over the phone.

“As I already said, it’s going well,” he replies flatly. “We’re a great team. Always have been.”

But she can’t let him have that one, can she?

“Well… not always,” Hermione allows. “After Percy—”

Harry groans. For fuck’s sake, what’s her obsession with stating the obvious? “Yeah, well,” he retorts, “I’d like to know who you think did well after that, especially since…”

He trails off with a sigh.

Especially since what, exactly?

He toys with the fraying ends of his hoodie string.

Especially since Ginny was the last to speak with Percy? That she still carries the weight of the guilt for what she said that night? That she’s never admitted it, but that he suspects her choice to become an Unspeakable was influenced by the things she wishes she could un-say?

Harry makes a face. That’s corny as fuck, isn’t it? What a thing to pull from his arse...

Hermione interrupts his thoughts for a bit of bragging. “Well, Ron and I have done just fine.”

He can almost imagine her staring at her engagement ring in dreamy affection. The mental image makes his reply sound more bitter than he intends.

“Well,” Harry snaps, “Ron wasn’t the last person to speak with Percy. So I’m not sure how you could compare the two, really.”

Shit.

The silence on the other end tells him he needs to apologize, even if it’s true. Fortunately, Hermione gives him an easy out. “Anyway.” She clears her throat. “I’ll give you until tomorrow night, but we really need you the following day. If you haven’t settled this, we’re swapping you out. Got it?”

Harry sighs. He’s exhausted, but this couldn’t possibly take much longer. Ginny’s more or less got the proof she needs now. They just need to confront Gogolak, knock him out, and—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Harry cranes his neck towards the source of the noise. Huh… weird. Far up the street, flashing lights tip him off. That’s definitely Oliver’s Audi, the one parked in the driveway directly beside theirs. It’s in utopia blue with a metallic finish, a detail Oliver probably mentioned at least fifty times the other night. Then, while Sharon and Ginny were out walking the dog, Oliver began a mind-numbing lecture on the car’s exact miles per liter. Harry was a bit drunk, which is probably why he interrupted to ask a much more important maths question: How many blow jobs per week is too many, exactly?

Even from a distance, Harry can tell that Oliver’s nearly the same shade of murderous red now; he storms from the house and turns off the alarm with his key fob. But then he pauses, glancing around like something’s spooked him. He must decide it’s not that significant, though, because he huffs back inside soon enough. Fucking wanker...

“....Harry?”

“Sorry!” Harry shakes his head. “Yeah, sorry, that works. See you then, Hermione.”

“Can’t wait!” she trills. He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s smug and grinning.

___________________________

Two minutes after Harry leaves, Ginny feels it again: that same sensation she experienced while walking Captain Bone.

She’s sitting at her laptop when it starts… this deeply unsettling shift. It stands the hair up on the back of her neck. She rushes to the window on instinct, but just like before, everything outside looks the same. There’s no “moving grass monster,” as Harry called it. Not yet, at least.

Still, she can’t deny it’s growing louder. Getting stronger. And now that she’s felt it for a bit longer, she can put more words to it. It’s like she’s plummeting through the absence of sound; like all the wind’s been sucked from the air. It’s a building pressure, a mounting unease, and before she knows it, her whole body starts to shake.

Then two things happen in quick succession: that weird feeling stops, and a car alarm begins to blare in the distance.

Weird.

She shudders. This whole thing is so fucking weird. Weird is her job, and this place is still Very Fucking Weird. Seriously, who enjoys living here? She’s reaching for her wand, just in case, when the front door slams open.

In retrospect, it’s a blessing she knows Harry as well as she does… because she can tell that those heavy, clobbering footsteps don’t belong to him. She knows he’s not the one drawing deep, ragged breaths as he marches up the stairs.

She hides around the corner of the bedroom, her heart racing, and goes through a mental list of spells she might use. Shield charms. Enchantments. The buzzing’s stopped, so this probably isn’t the tulpa… but who else would be here? Gogolak? It sounds more human than—

“Jenny?” a deep, soothing voice asks. “Are you in here?”

Her breath freezes in her throat. She’s only heard that voice once before… but it’s so similar to her former life that she identifies it at once.

“Mike?” A wave of relief washes through her. She shoves her wand into her dress as she comes around the corner. Sure enough, there he is, in the flesh. Mike Snodgrass. A man she presumed dead days ago.

“Hi!” Mike pants. He cracks a smile. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but.” He winces, wiping a palm on his ripped khakis. “Been hiding!” Fuck. His whole outfit (yellow Polo, khakis) is the same he wore days ago to unload their boxes, except now it’s filthy. Stained. Like he’s been living beneath cars and inside drains. He’s just missing his Saint Julian medallion, which she’s sent to the Ministry.

Ginny feels sick. She wrote him off as dead so carelessly...

“I’ve been trying to take it down,” he adds earnestly, peering at her. His cheeks are caked in something red and grimy, the same stuff she stuffed into her bra. He’s been tailing the tulpa, she realizes, her stomach plummeting…

Except he’s got no clue what he’s doing.

“I was about to leave the development, to just run away, but that’s when I figured out it was coming for you two!” He shudders, closing his eyes. It feels like he’s been waiting a long, long time to say this. “And I’ve been aimless without Jess in the first place. So what was the point in leaving, really, if I could save…?”

He trails off, clearing his throat; when he looks up at her again, there’s a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I’ve been leaving clues, though! Why didn’t you listen?”

“Clues?” Ginny sounds like she’s a million miles away.

Mike’s nearly pleading now. “You had to go and kick the mailbox and stick the flamingo in the grass, didn’t you?” He raises his pointer finger. “And even though I left you a note, you had to make it even worse! It only attacks when the sun goes down, see.”

“You… you left the note?” she whispers. She was so certain that it was from Gogolak...

But Mike proceeds in such a rush it’s clear he hasn’t heard her. “It was about to get Henry by the trampoline, so I threw the baseball as a diversion. I broke the lamppost, too— which worked. For a second,” he adds hastily, glancing over his shoulder.

“How did you also set off the car alarm— oh.” Her head’s still spinning. “Buddy system. Right.”

Mike dangles a keyfob. “Covenant rules. Stole the spare off Jane.” He glances into the hall again before whipping back to face her. “It’ll need a sacrifice tonight, though,” he adds grimly. “And every night, until you all have perfect behavior. It was coming for you earlier, see. We aren’t meant to be outdoors after dark without a permit for dog-walking, so.” He shrugs. “If there’s an unapproved disruption like a car alarm, it knows just where to hunt.”

It’s then that the final pieces of this dreadful puzzle slide together in her brain. “Captain Bone,” Ginny breathes; she swears a feather could knock her over. “He was the first since we arrived. Punishment for us sticking out.”

“I couldn’t save him,” Mike laments. “It came up and snatched him. So I threw in my medallion, right after his collar, just to make them think I was already gone.”

“That’s… that was brilliant,” she admits, biting her lip. “Thank you. You didn’t have—”

“Nah,” he says firmly. “I did. For starters, you remind me so much of…” He stops mid-sentence, an odd expression on his face.

For a second, she thinks he’s being sentimental, but then she feels it too.

Shit.

The hairs on her arm stand up. It’s back… that weird way she felt before. Like the air’s sucked from the room. That creeping, clawing silence. This time, though, it only gets louder, louder, louder, until she’s throwing her hands over her ears, all hope of self-defense forgotten.

But Mike knows what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. She doesn’t have the chance to object or get her wand before he’s ripping open the closet door and throwing her inside. Ginny opens her mouth in a startled cry, but it’s like she’s screaming underwater, the sound distant and distorted. Mike slams the door closed with her inside and stomps to the center of the room— but now the thundering, roaring wind is causing her physical pain… it’s so loud now that it reverberates in her chest, so loud that her hands shake as she reaches for her wand at long last, but fuck fuck fuck, it’s too late…

It’s too fucking late.

Because Mike’s made a choice. One he can’t take back. He just stands in the middle of the room, puffing out his chest, offering himself as the proud sacrifice, even as the noise grows so loud that Ginny screams her throat raw.

She feels it enter the bedroom, this looming, shifting mass— but by then, she’s certain her ears are bleeding, her eardrums bursting. Her whole body rattles and shakes as she peers through the slats in the closet door, but she’s frozen. Stuck. Miserable. She couldn’t cast a spell if she tried… even as the tulpa oozes into the room, lunges itself back, and swallows Mike with a sickening squelch.

Even though the slats of the door, Ginny’s sprayed with blood. Covered. And she’s dizzy now… so dizzy. A drop of blood trickles into her eye; she reaches up to wipe it from her face, and it’s only then that she hears her own screams again. They reverberate through the small space, anguished and pleading, so loud that she’s certain someone up the street could hear, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t fucking care. She just screams over and over and over, her nails clawing at the walls, until the world slips away into darkness.

___________________________

Blood.

It’s the first thing he smells as he charges up the steps. His chest squeezes, his eyes water, his head pounds over and over again with one word: No.

No. No. No.

Not Ginny. It can’t be.

But almost as soon as he smells the blood, he hears her screaming, and yes! His heart soars. Screaming is good; screaming means she’s alive and breathing and—

Fuck.

His dinner rises in his throat as he steps into the bedroom. He smelled the blood from the steps, he hadn’t expected… this much. It always takes him aback, exactly how much blood is in one human body, and he’s certainly never seen it sprayed, all over the floor… covering the walls. Covering the closet, even, where Ginny’s still screaming.

He flings open the door, thinking he’s prepared for what he might see. Somehow, though, none of that measures up. Because he’s dealt with tears in his line of work… but he’s never, ever seen her so broken. His chest clenches when he takes her in. Her perfect suburban dress — the yellow floral one, the one he liked so much— is now red and grimy, caked in blood, as Ginny rocks back and forth on the floor, sobs wracking her body.

Blood’s covering her face, too, and her arms. Dried trails of it have crusted around her eyes, like she’s fallen asleep wiping them away… or perhaps lost consciousness. The thought is too terrible to bear. He kicks the door open completely and brings her into his arms in one fell swoop.

She melts against him, her voice raw and broken. “H-Harry!” she manages. “P-please! I need-I need!” She begins to shake, pressing her face to his chest.

“A shower,” he says firmly, stepping into the en-suite. “You… you just need a shower. Ok? And maybe some calming draught, I’ve got some in my luggage, and—”

“No!” she cries, shaking her head. Her eyes are wide and filled with horror. “Don’t… don’t leave. Don’t leave me, Harry, please!”

“I… ok,” he allows, carrying her to his luggage to retrieve the bottle. She clings to his neck as he reaches for it, but she weighs next to nothing. Fuck, she’s so thin… he’d just been too busy eyeing her up to realize exactly how thin. What a complete wanker.

It’s not difficult to unzip the suitcase with one hand and pass her the bottle. “Take this,” he urges, thrusting it into her hands. “Please, Ginny. You’ll feel—”

She’s already downed it before he gets to the end of the sentence. She tips her head back, drawing air into her lungs. “Thanks.” Her voice is still hoarse. Ragged.

“Shower, then,” he murmurs, walking her into the bathroom. He feels her start to relax against him, her body growing looser, as he opens the curtain and turns on the tap.

“Thanks,” she whispers again, her head tucked beneath his chin. His fingers itch with restraint; he’d do anything, he thinks, to hold her against him. To press a kiss to her temple. To tell her he loves her and that she’s beautiful and perfect and he’s sorry, so sorry, that any of this happened and—

She peers up at him, her eyes more focused now, less wide-eyed and horror-struck. “Would you stay here?” she asks, biting her lip. “While I shower? Just so I’m not—”

“‘Course.” Harry swallows, putting her on her feet. She lands with unintentional grace, one foot after the next.

“And can you… erm.” She turns her back to him, lifting her hair above her zipper. His hands shake as he reaches for the clasp. He knows the exact shape of her back as he slides it down, over the middle bump of her white bra strap. He nearly unstraps that for her, too, before he catches himself. It reeks of intimacy, doesn’t it? All of this…

His eyes linger on the soft swell of her bum before he turns around, self-disgust hammering in his throat.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he adds feebly. He balls his hands into fists as her dress hits the floor… followed by her bra. And her knickers.

“Not your fault,” she croaks, stepping into the shower. He smiles, his glasses fogging up as he moves to sit on the closed toilet seat. Even covered in blood and traumatized, she can't bring herself to blame him.

She finishes several minutes later.

“Erm… towel?” She shuts the water off. “Could you?”

“Sure,” he soothes, thrusting one through the curtain. “D’you want me to leave, or…?”

Ginny manages a weak snort. “Nah. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

He chuckles at the door as he turns around again. She’s right, of course; he knows every bloody inch of her… but it’s not quite the same now.

There’s a tap on his shoulder. He whips around to face her. Admittedly, she looks… better. The blood’s gone. Her eyes are still red-rimmed from sobbing, but she’s looking a bit less like a woman who witnessed a death. Which reminds him…

“Erm. Give me a second to get it all cleaned up?”

Ginny shudders and settles on the toilet seat; he immediately kicks himself for asking. “Yeah,” she says a moment later. “Just… come get me, ok? When you’re done?”

He nods.

___________________________

It can’t be later than 10 PM when he finally carries her to the bed, still wrapped in a towel.

He’s exhausted from the nights on the sofa, but he knows she’s worse off. He’s cleaned the bedroom fairly well, he thinks, considering. There’s a rust-colored stain above the closet that he reckons won’t go anywhere anytime soon. He just hopes she doesn’t see it.

He rests her on the duvet surface, fully prepared to head downstairs for the night— but the pleading look on her face informs him he’s got other plans, instead. So without sharing a single word, he spreads his palms, lies beside her, and waits.

It comes eventually, as he knew it would. One person can’t deal with all that, see all that, without eventually cracking. And as a fellow fucked-up individual, he would know.

It starts as simple tears, ones that he wipes away. It progresses into sobs… full-body sobs. The sort he heard coming up the stairs. He’s surprised she’s got any left, but Ginny’s always been the sort to keep him on his toes. And just as her water-dark hair starts to dry and sprout red tendrils, he faces the thing he expected least of all: a kiss.

She starts softly. Slowly. Her lips so tender and soft that he forgets everything. She moans against his mouth, her whole body leaning into it; he’s instantly reminded of how much he’s fucking missed her. How lonely he’s been. How could he have forgotten the tiny mewl she makes in the back of her throat as her tongue parts his lips? He must’ve blocked it out, he realizes, as she begins to slide her body against him, panting, as she tips her head back. His lips trail down her neck, nibbling and biting, as she grips his arms and hair and bum. Because if he’d remembered all of these little details, he’d have gone mad long ago.

He’s throbbing hard by the time he gets to the tail end of her towel, which brushes the tip of her thighs. He tries to adjust himself, to—

“You can take it out, you know.”

Oh. He blinks up at her, his breath freezing in his throat. She’s peering down at him, her lips red and swollen.

“I know you’re hard,” she adds, her voice still raw. “So if it’s uncomfortable… take it out.”

He arches a brow from his position at her thigh. He’s about to retort with something snappy. Something that might keep them bantering for ages. But Ginny has no patience.

“Please.” It’s nearly a command. She blinks down with glassy eyes, her lips swollen. “I want you, Harry.”

Fuck. He groans, rubbing his cock against his palm to relieve some of the pressure. It doesn’t help for long, not that it matters; he’d rather focus on her, anyway. So with a slip of his fingers, the towel opens. She releases a breathy moan, tipping her head back.

Naked.

She’s finally naked. In front of him. His breathing grows ragged, his eyes scanning the territory somehow both totally familiar and completely new. She is thinner; he was right. Her hip bones jut out now, her stomach more sunken. But most of her is the same. The smattering of freckles on her chest. The way her breasts have puckered and darkened, the way her chest is rising and falling so fast. The thatch of dark red hair at the apex of her thighs.

“Well,” she quips. He blinks up at her as she reclines on her elbow. “Are you going to fuck me, Harry, or just stare all day?”

With that, he removes his glasses and gives her a smirk— her only real warning— before he kisses her one more time, just as his fingers spread her thighs.

She opens beneath him with a breathy sigh. Fuck, she’s so wet… he groans into her mouth as he dips his fingers further and further down. She’s dripping by the time he finds her clit… by the time he begins to swirl in tight circles. Clockwise. The pattern that screams of such intimate familiarity that it’s as if the years never passed.

He’s scarcely done anything, but she’s already writhing against his fingers, arching her back. “Please,” she slurs after a minute, “put them in.”

He’s never been one to deny her, has he?

It’s like muscle memory how quickly he finds his face between her thighs instead. He spares a moment of self-indulgence as he closes his eyes, breathing her in. She smells like home. She always has. It’s comfort… but more than that, it’s proof. Proof she wants him as much as he wants her. It’s why he stuffed his face in her knickers whenever he got a spare moment on the Horcrux hunt: one hand on that black lace, the other pulling at his cock. It’s bloody erotic, seeing proof of how much she wants him… but it’s more than that.

It’s love.

And despite all the things he’s forgotten tonight, he’d never forget this. He presses two fingers inside her, his hands shaking, and lets his body do the rest. Fuck, he’s missed this. She cries out above him, her hands grasping at his hair, tugging him closer. He’s never forgotten this… the way she tastes. The way she smells. The right way to run his tongue against her clit. Exactly how many fingers she needs, pressed against her just there… crooked in a certain position… just as she begins to thrust herself up and down on them, her cries growing louder, more insistent… and yesssss, there it is, she’s right there, right fucking there—

“Harry!” Her hair rubs against the pillow with abandon. “I’m… I’m so close,” she pants, her body starting to shake.

“Come for me,” he commands, his cock fit to burst, his face slippery. “Come for me, Ginny.”

He returns to her clit for a split-second before she says the words that change everything.

Her whole body tenses, a blush spreading up her chest. “I love you!” she cries, her voice strangled… and with that, she’s coming, clenching around him, her body shaking as he rides her through it.

What he doesn’t tell her is that he comes, too. The second those words wash over him. Those fucking words that prove he’s fucked up, fucked up, fucked up… but he can’t exactly help that, can he?

He just shoves his face into the duvet, thrusting his hips once, twice, and with a grunt, he’s off. His cock tightens and bursts, filling his boxers. Soaking through his jeans. He pulls back, dizzy, when the clenching finally stops.

Luckily, she seems too distracted to notice. Ginny’s half-asleep as he rises from between her thighs, pulling the blanket over her. He presses a kiss to her temple and makes quick work of removing his soggy clothes. Fairly embarrassing, this. Like he’s 16 again and rutting on the lawn.

He mutters a quick cleaning charm and changes into basketball shorts before settling down beside her in bed… making sure he’s on top of the duvet.

But as he drifts off, there’s something far less sentimental that hammers through his chest: They need to get their shit sorted.

Before he ever, ever lets that happen again.

#harry/ginny fanfic #harry x ginny #harry potter fanfic #harry potter fanfiction

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quazartranslates · 3 years ago

Text

Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH41

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

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Chapter 41: Star Death Reality Show (XXIV)

For a long time, Qi Leren couldn’t find the ability to think.

He seemed to be a poor man petrified by magic, just sitting in a chair, watching the system prompt gradually disappear from the screen.

Ning Zhou was dead?

Dead. Qi Leren couldn't put this cold word on Ning Zhou. Even if it was just in his imagination, he couldn’t accept it.

His trachea seemed to be blocked, and Qi Leren felt that he had returned to the sea, feeling the pain caused by suffocation in the increasingly strong water pressure. He couldn't breathe and couldn't escape. The oppressive darkness and death surrounded him, tormented him, and made him unable to endure for even one second.

He had to go to Ning Zhou! He had to bring him back from Purgatory!

He had always been used to waiting passively, indulging his interia and dependence as he waited, comforting himself. This was the best way, but he didn't expect that some people, some things, he couldn’t wait for. The anxious sense of urgency weighed heavily on his shoulders; just like when he had used the Prophet's Heart, a huge clock kept counting down behind him.

Counting the seven days after his death, today was the twenty-fourth day after his resurrection. There were only five days left for him. He had to hurry back and bring Ning Zhou back, otherwise...

Qi Leren couldn't think of what followed.

Don don don— When a knock on the door sounded, Qi Leren was startled and hurriedly closed the laptop. At the moment it closed, it disappeared out of thin air. Thankfully he had turned off the invisible camera that followed him, otherwise he really didn't know how to explain all this.

A skill card was lying quietly on the computer desk. Qi Leren had no time to think about it. He put the skill card in the item bar and asked loudly, "Who’s there?"

When the door opened, Du Yue stood outside looking surprised. "You’re really here?"

This was a strange question. Qi Leren felt strange when he heard it: "How did you know I was here?"

Du Yue scratched his head, a little muddled and a little confused, and said, "There’s a very strange gentleman... I don't know where he came from... He showed me the way and said that you were here."

A chill penetrated Qi Leren's back and cold sweat flowed down. Qi Leren's hand was shaking. If he didn't deliberately control it, his voice would tremble. The familiar fear returned to him; even if he just thought the name of that person, he would feel terrible.

A person who suddenly appeared and knew him like the back of his hand, a person who could access and even interfere with the copy, a… terrible person.

He had come here again for the secret hidden in this laptop.

"Where is he?" Qi Leren asked slowly.

"He said he would be at the lowest level of the institute. Qianbei, is he a survivor of this planet? Did they not leave here, but lived underground or something?" Du Yue, who didn't know Su He, never thought of the man’s real identity, but thought he was a part of this copy.

Qi Leren took a deep breath, shook his head, and got up and walked out of the room.

"What about the others? Have you spoken with them?" Qi Leren asked.

"We split up just now," Du Yue said in a depressed way.

Qi Leren didn't ask any more questions and walked quickly towards the safe corridor. Since Su He wanted to see him, he had to bite the bullet and go, but this time he had no Easter Eggs. If Su He made him choose between life and death again...

I should make an agreement with him, Qi Leren thought. He absolutely couldn’t die here. If he died, Ning Zhou would be fated to follow that terrible path, leading to the abyss of death. He couldn't watch Ning Zhou die.

If Ning Zhou became a demon, he would accompany him.

If the world wouldn’t let them be together, then they would go to hell together.

He wasn’t afraid, because nothing was more terrible than losing him.

But if Su He insisted on killing him... Qi Leren stopped on the stairs, turned to Du Yue, and said, "I have something to ask of you."

"Qianbei, please say it, I’ll do it!" Along the way, because of Qi Leren’s dignified expression, Du Yue felt nervous, thinking he may have made some big mistake. Now that he heard that his qianbei wanted to make a request, all he had to do was clap a hand to his chest and promise.

"Don't follow me later, do everything possible to protect your own safety. If I die, go back to the Village of Dusk and find a woman named Chen Baiqi..." As Qi Leren spoke, he took out a pen and paper and quickly wrote about Ning Zhou, then handed it to Du Yue.

Du Yue opened his mouth and looked ready to cry. "Is it that dangerous? Qianbei, don’t go!"

"There are some things that can't be escaped," Qi Leren said. Su He had come in person, and it would take him only minutes to kill everyone in the copy. He didn't even have the cards to negotiate with him. It was simply a fantasy to avoid him. "If you find Dr. Lu, don't get separated from him. Although he’s often confused, he’s still very lucky. That person should not be interested in killing you... I’m leaving, you should be careful."

Du Yue gawked at Qi Leren. He really was crying. A big and strong boy who was only eighteen years old could not hold back his tears when faced with life or death, and he took Qi Leren's hand with a face of snot and tears and refused to let go.

Qi Leren had to comfort him with a white lie: "Don't worry, this is only the worst case. Generally, I’m lucky and won't die."

Du Yue was dumbfounded: "But Dr. Lu said that your luck level falls below the alphabet."

“………………”

Qi Leren, who had been exposed, finally just pushed Du Yue out of the stairwell and continued to go down. As the floor numbers dropped, he entered deeper and deeper underground, and the surrounding air became colder and colder. Even wearing temperature regulating clothes, it still made Qi Leren feel stiff all over.

As he walked, Qi Leren looked at the skill card that had been left after the laptop disappeared.

[Sophisticated Lawyer: A cunning lawyer should avoid the traps in the contract and do everything possible to help their client, who has paid enough in legal fees to avoid contracts that are not beneficial to them. If you sign a contract with anyone after equipping this skill card, that contract can't bind you, but a payment of 130 survival days will be consumed. Remaining usages: 1/1]

Qi Leren's face turned green. He worked hard with the Devil of Fraud to save 147 survival days, but this would take 130 days at once?! If this skill card was used and his identity was revealed in this copy... Very good, he would be directly obliterated because of insufficient survival days.

But he knew in his heart that if "it" would give him this thing, it was already hinting that he�� he would need this skill card.

Just like the Easter Egg.

Qi Leren looked at this skill card with mixed feelings and inserted it into the card slot.

He had already reached the 13th floor underground. The depth of this underground research institute was really shocking. At present, he faced the exit of the stairwell. Qi Leren hesitated outside the door for a while before fearfully pushing it open.

Ahead of him, there was a cold and featureless metal corridor, dark and lacquered, and the range of a flashlight was limited. Where light couldn't reach, the deep darkness was like a beast's open jaws, waiting for him to trap himself.

Qi Leren let out a mouthful of hot air that condensed into a thin cloud of white smoke in the extremely low temperature air.

He stepped out of the stairwell.

Light suddenly hit his eye, and the sudden light blinded his eyes with whiteness, but the fresh air and warm temperature from the tip of the nose made him realize that he was no longer in the cold underground research institute.

Sure enough, when his sight returned to normal, the ethereal and clean world around him made him hold his mouth tightly shut.

The blue sky was endless, and there was one white island after another floating around him, unable to discern if they were white clouds or floating islands. Pigeons flew from the direction where the sun was rising, and the whole world was immersed in the hope of dawn. Who could have guessed that this was a Devil’s field?

Qi Leren stood on the tower of the floating island, where he had once come and had a friendly conversation with the Devil of Fraud.

At that time, Su He had said that this was the Village of Dawn in his memory, and he had projected the ideal hometown into his own field. Qi Leren didn't know whether this sentence is true or not, but if he thought deeply, he couldn't help but feel fear for the truth of the Village of Dawn—was the so-called Village of Dawn itself not this Devil’s field?

"Good morning, lost lamb." A hoarse and charming voice came from behind Qi Leren, which scared Qi Leren into turning around quickly.

On this terrace that had been empty only a few seconds ago, there appeared a woman holding a white porcelain tray, as if she had appeared out of thin air.

This was the sexiest woman Qi Leren had ever seen. This was so even though her hair was tied in a meticulous bun and she was dressed in a high-necked black dress, her whole body covered—only her face was exposed, and even her hands were wearing a pair of black silk gloves. Even if a naked woman was standing there, she would not attract more attention than her, because no one would have the same reserved yet affectionate smile as her.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Ruth. It's a very common name, isn't it? In the demon world’s capital city, if you shout Ruth casually, at least ten women will turn around. So I prefer others to call me the Witch of Lust." Ruth walked lightly to the round table and sat down, waving to Qi Leren again. "Sit down, the little pet His Majesty is in charge of keeps causing trouble again. If you ask me, it really needs to be changed to a bigger cage."

"What pet?" Qi Leren asked cautiously.

Ruth crossed her hands under her chin—this action was really like her master—and hesitated: "A goldfish."

A goldfish? Qi Leren was at a loss. What trouble could a goldfish make? Jumping out of the goldfish bowl? It was worth Su He handling it himself?

A goldfish bowl? This word suddenly awakened Qi Leren's reluctant memory. It suddenly occurred to him that Su He had been called away by a voice when he had revealed his identity and killed him. At that time, Qi Leren had lost blood and couldn’t see clearly, but his ears had still heard the voice. What were the exact words? They seemed to be...

[...The goldfish bowl has raised an alarm. It’s very likely that it will escape again...]

Wasn't what lived in the goldfish bowl a goldfish?

It was going to escape, and again? That is to say, it had escaped before?

What on earth was this thing?

Lust calmly poured tea for Qi Leren, and there were three tea sets on the table. Her and Qi Leren’s cups were already filled, but the empty one still waited for its bearer.

"He always makes us wait so long. If you don't mind, we can talk casually." Lust stirred the black tea in the porcelain cup with a delicate silver spoon, but her eyes never left Qi Leren for a moment.

"...What is there to talk about?" Qi Leren asked warily.

"Let's talk about men. Women like me and men like you always like this topic," the Witch of Lust laughed.

"..." What do you mean, "men like you"? Qi Leren was a little depressed.

"What do you think of His Majesty?" the Witch of Lust asked wistfully.

Could he say that he thought he was a deeply-scheming pervert? After Qi Leren learned Su He’s true face, it made his hair stand on end when he recalled the little things from when they used to get along. This feeling was probably like if he had found out an old friend of many years was actually a serial murderer, and that he was his next target.

However, Qi Leren couldn't make such comments to the witch about her boss, lest she become angry from his impudence and teach him to be a man in 10,000 ways. He had to breathe a sullen sigh, consider the sentence carefully and thoughtfully, and after deleting a few-hundred-word-long negative review, provide a small truth that wouldn’t offend anyone: "He’s very handsome."

Lust giggled with joy and reached out to touch Qi Leren's cheek: "You’re so cute, I like you a little."

A sigh came from behind Qi Leren: "Ruth, I asked you to dress properly and take care of the guest, not flirt with him."

The voice struck Qi Leren's head like thunder and lightning. He suddenly jumped up from his chair, then felt that he had overreacted, so he sat back down in embarrassment. The footsteps behind him were getting closer and closer, passing his seat and sitting down in the empty chair opposite Qi Leren.

Su He wore what appeared to be a riding suit, as if he had just arrived by horseback, and he took off his white gloves and held them in one hand. He looked like a human being, handsome and gentle. He didn't seem to notice Qi Leren’s blunder, and he forgot his former unhappiness. After sipping a mouthful of black tea that Ruth poured for him, he put down his cup and smiled, saying to Qi Leren who was on pins and needles:

"On this beautiful night, are you interested in making a deal with me?"

-----

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finalgirlbuffysummers · 4 years ago

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okay here it is. The rest is below the cut.

You would think that living on a Hellmouth made the nightmares worse. That every night would be screaming torment, but really, the hollow earth below never really prowled the dreams of its lesser citizens. Sure, the vampires and their teeth made appearances, dead classmates, the prickling curent of the wind, but waking up and knowing your neighbor heard the same bump in the night, knowing you survived to see the sun: that’s your bitter reward. Your comfort. It’s normal here, perched on the lip above the sharpest tooth.

No, the nightmares get worse ten years down the line. You’re out of highschool. You wake up alone. You wake up in a city that doesn't understand you, strangers who want to prescribe you medicine or tell you to mediate. So you end up alone, and you know alone is how they like you. You’re not sure if demons lurk in your new city. You thought once that a man standing on the corner lit his cigarette with massive purple claws, and you ran, your feet echoing like gunshots through the streets.

You never did learn to shoot a gun. You keep it in your nightstand drawer, but you know it wouldn't stop anything that's followed you out of California, out of Sunnydale. Once, you had a girlfriend. Rummaging around for a hair tie she discovered your small handgun, your safety blanket. She picked it up with her forefinger and her thumb, like it was filthy, like she didn't understand. “Why do you keep one of these awful things?” You couldn't answer her.

There's no girlfriend now. No one to make you coffee in the morning, no one to rub your back when you wake up with the feeling of teeth in your throat, tight grips on your ankles. She got tired of you, you poor, novel thing from the west.

So it's been weeks. So it's been grocery shopping at 3am, staring at the wilting vegetables, trying to stay out of your apartment. It's been staying longer at the museum you work at. No, you don’t work there just to read the old books for some kind of answer, you lie. At your highschool, there was a librarian who kept swords. You think about sending him an email: Hey, Mr. Giles, do you sleep at night? Does it get easier? Where might I acquire a sword such as yours? You draft hundreds before you realize you have no idea where to send them.

Your classmates don't keep in touch. there is no Facebook group, there is no reunion. There can’t be: Sunnydale is no more. It collapsed in itself. This should be comforting: but all you can think of is the beasts who crawled out of the pit, who remember the stink of your fear. Some folks stayed local, moving just a town over, the low thrum from the throat of hell enough the lull them into a stupid haze of breakfast, lunch, and getting eaten for dinner. The rest left. There are two hundred, give or take, Sunnydale immigrants scattered around the country, waking up alone. Waking up with a gun in their hands. Waking up dead. Your school newspaper had an obituary page. The boy who ran it wrote well, you thought, if cynical. Who the hell can blame him? Mr. Giles, you write. How come it didn't get us? Why are we still left? Mr. Giles, can you tell me if it's following us?

Last week a friend of a friend called you to say Dennis had died. Dennis… you remember now. He was the lead singer in that band, what was it? Something about Dingoes. You ask how he died. Sunnydale habits: You keep an ear out for the signs. The friend says, puncture wounds, on the neck. Police suspect it was inflicted by a barbeque fork. You drop the phone. You sharpen stakes, get splinters in your palms. Buy crucifixes by the dozen. More than once, you’ve slept in a church pew, under the painted ceiling. At work, your boss asks with some concern about the dark circles under your eyes. Long night, you say. You are starting to hate this city. In this city, there’s no hero.

Yes, you remember her. You know everyone else does, too. Buffy. One time, you saw her sparring with the librarian. No swords, just fists. Another time, she crawled out of your biology classroom window at the arrival of a dark haired girl who blew her kisses. One time, she slammed the computer science teacher against her own desk. Wacky shit. You knew, though. That Sunnydale High had to be the safest place in town because of her. She killed things, probably. Definitely. Then she left. Sometimes, there are whispers: “I heard Buffy’s in Rome.” “I heard she lives in a castle.” “I heard she’s dead.” God, please, no. After every long night, you pray she still lives. That she hasn't let her guard down. It's midnight. You draft another email. Mr. Giles. Buffy’s still alive, right? Please tell me she’s okay. People keep dying, Mr. Giles, and we’re not even in Sunnydale anymore. Can you tell me what happened there? Why can't I stop dreaming about the destroyed graves of everyone who died? Can you tell me anything at all? Mr. Giles, Dennis is dead. Oz’s friend. I hope Oz is alive, too. I hope you’re alive. I hope you’re well. Take care. This time, you call a colleague in London. You track down Gile’s email through a stroke of luck, and you hit send. You don’t hear back at all.

Three months later, you receive a response. You’d almost forgotten about the message you sent. Your museum opened a new and successful gallery You received a promotion. You’ve been successful. (Yes, you’re even sleeping more. Shh, don’t say it too loud). You open the email.

Greetings and glad to hear from you- it’s wonderful to hear from old students. I do hope you’re well.

There is no easy way to answer these emails. Yes, you're not the only one who’s managed to reach me. I won’t disclose my location, or hers, but I can tell you that Buffy is safe, and alive, and I think she’s happy. She’s been happy for a while. I’ll tell her you asked, she likes to know that old classmates are doing well. Yes, Oz is alive. He’s been in Tibet for some time, though we do hear from him on occasion. He heard about Denis’s passing. Truly a tragedy.

I’m quite pleased to hear you’ve entered museum studies: a deeply satisfying and enriching work. I hope that you are finding enough answers with it. I know that living on- Well, where we lived is disorienting, confusing. I’ll try to answer you as best I can.

The swords I kept in the library (do never tell anyone I did that) I received as a present form a collector friend, who is long dead and whose collection is long scattered. The rest of the blade I received from my employers. I do not recommend keeping swords in your home as a safety measure. Invest in a good lock. Invest in protection charms found in books of the dark arts. I checked: your museum has some in collection. (Since you are emailing me, I can only guess that you’ve accepted explanations beyond those from the metaphysical realm).

I do sleep at night, thank you for asking. It gets easier. I don’t say this just because I’ve put an ocean between myself and Sunnydale, no: time does heal. It helps that I’m with people who understand. It helps to name the thing in the dark. I’ll put you in contact with a colleague of mine- he’s in your museum network- and you can begin to build yourself a circle, if you wish.

There is no reason that we live, my friend. There's no reason why any of our friends died. Your life is not a curse, I can promise you that. This isn’t borrowed time.

If you were being followed it would have gotten you by now. I apologize for my bluntness.

Oh, the ageless question of what happened. All the time in the world and I couldn’t give you a satisfactory answer. What would I say? That vampires haunt the sunniest part of California? That hell is real, and it can speak? I believe you already know the outline. What I can comfort you on is that yes. There are people who find evil, and they stop it. They haven't gone away. But that's not the point: don’t worry about them. Sunnydale is gone, dear student. It’s up to you to name the thing in the dark, keep it at bay. Be watchful, be wise. The world is bigger than most people know.

Sincerely,

Rupert Giles

You close your laptop. You stretch your legs. You go into the bedroom to retrieve the handgun, then place it on the kitchen counter. You stare at it. It doesn't move. You stare. The apartment is still, like the city is holding it in its throat. The clock strikes 4 am. It’s just a clock. It's just a gun. In your apartment, you’re just you, waiting for the sun to rise.

END

#well. here it is #reviews appreciated :)#btvs #buffy summers #btvs fanfic #btvs fanfiction #buffy #rupert giles #giles #vampires #daniel osbourne #sunnydale

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tiramisiyu · 4 years ago

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【恋与制作人】MLQC: 【天堂福利院】Kiro’s Heaven’s Home for Children R&S Translation

The cruel truth about a sham of a “heaven”, to be torn apart by a real angel.

Translation Masterlist: here

See under the cut!

When Kiro rubbed his dry eyes and lifted his head from the computer, it was already midnight. He yawned quietly, looking indifferently at the clock hand that had stopped at 12-o’clock. His face was awash in the cold light of the screen, looking pale white.

Today was the third day of superstar Kiro’s “creative retreat”, and it was also the third day of hacker Key’s “ubiquitous re-emergence”.

Kiro wasn’t sure which of his identities was more famous. Of course, no one would link these two polar-opposite identities together.

Superstar Kiro was a little angel who received the love and respect of thousands and thousands of fans. What hacker Key sounded like was someone with malicious intentions.

Thinking about this, Kiro laughed, reaching his hand out to grab the nearby coke – until he noticed that the coke had been completely drained a long while ago, leaving only a few feather-light cans. Kiro wrinkled his brows, randomly grabbed an empty can and tipped it towards his mouth, just managing to shake out a few drops of brown liquid. In the end, he was still dissatisfied.

“Savin’s gonna kill me… Savin’s gonna kill me…” While repeating this, Kiro covered his face up completely with a facemask and a hat, put on a coat, and headed out.

Midnights in early spring were very cold. The dim lights on the sides of the street lit up the pavement. A stray cat passed by, its sharp cries shattering the silence.

In the convenience store, the clerk was sitting on the side, dozing off. Hovering at the convenience store door, Kiro hesitated for a moment, ultimately choosing to use the automatic vending machine. If the clerk recognized how he looked, he would be screwed.

Good thing that the vending machine had coke. Kiro pulled out a few pieces of spare change, yawning as he stuffed the coins into the coin slot. His had slid off to the side, and the coin fell on the ground, rolling underneath the vending machine.

“What’s up with that… seriously…” Kiro felt all over, yet was still unable to find another coin, so he could only squat down and pick… suddenly, a dirty little hand stuck out, speedily snatching away that coin!

“Who!” Startled, Kiro nearly fell on the ground. A dirtied little boy stuck his head out from behind the vending machine.

Kiro stuck out his hand: “Give the money back to me.”

The little boy looked at Kiro in a daze, then suddenly pointed towards behind Kiro: “Whoa, what’s that!”

Kiro abruptly turned around – there was nothing at all behind him. When he turned back, he noticed that the boy had already run off with a dollar.

“Dammit! I got tricked!” Kiro gritted his teeth in anger. As he ran, the boy stuck his tongue out at Kiro: “Lelele, big dummy, who told you to be so stingy, wanting to get back even just a dollar!”

The boy sprinted desperately, not paying attention to the ground beneath him. In that moment of carelessness, he tripped and fell on the ground. In panic, the boy turned around, continuing to run in a limping manner, paying no attention to his wounds.

Kiro drooped his head down.

Was one dollar that important to the boy?

The boy ran forward desperately, his knees burning with pain.

“Stop running! I’ll invite you out to eat.” He heard a yell behind him.

The boy turned back in astonishment.

Kiro took out some money and waved it towards the boy, speaking casually: “Make a trip for me to the convenience store, and the rest of the money is yours. How about that?”

The boy froze where he was, at a complete loss.

Kiro and the boy sat in a row on the steps near the convenience store. The boy took large bites out of his bread.

Kiro opened his coke and took a gulp, then turned around, seeing how the boy was wolfing down his food. He couldn’t help laughing slightly and shaking his head: “Eating bread like this – are you Jean Valjean?”

“Who’s Jean Valjean?”

“He’s… he’s…” Seeing the boy like this, Kiro had a hard time saying “Les Misérables”. He just quietly said, “He’s… a very amazing person.”

“Really? Then he must have a lot of money.” The boy forcefully swallowed down the bread, licked his lips, and looked at Kiro. He had only paid attention to getting himself bread just now and had forgotten to buy water. Now, the dry bread was clogging up his throat – it really was hard to swallow.

Kiro laughed and handed the coke to the boy. The boy took it and fiercely gulped a few times, then let out a long burp. He touched his mouth in satisfaction, then said “Thank you” to Kiro with embarrassment.

Kiro asked him, “Why have you become hungry to this point? Where are your parents?”

“Dead.” Indifferent, the boy said, “I grew up at an orphanage.”

Kiro’s heart trembled when he heard the word orphanage, his hands and feet becoming ice-cold in an instant. Memories burst out in his mind.

The boy didn’t notice Kiro’s discomfort and continued chattering on. “…The orphanage is very poor. The orphanage director has us go out every day to pick up trash. If we don’t sell it for enough money, he doesn’t allow us to return.”

Kiro looked at the boy, his heart aching for him. Not so long ago, he had also worn tattered, old clothes and looked at the moonlight through the orphanage’s little window. One night after another, he never knew if he would see the moonlight the next day, and he also never knew when the friend beside him would stop breathing.

The boy kept talking.

“I’ll pay you back. I’ll be eight years old very soon. The orphanage director said that when we hit ten years old, he would send us to a very good place. We’ll never have to worry about going hungry when we go there, and we’ll have new parents to love us.”

“What’s the name of your orphanage?”

“Heaven’s Home for Children.”

It was already dawn by the time Kiro returned home. He gave the small amount of cash he had to the boy, then ran like mad home, where he supported himself on the sink as he retched. He then rushed into the bathroom to pour cold water on his head. Only then did he manage to calm down.

In his mind, a blurry-faced man once pulled his hand, walking in the dark, damp hallway. He held the worn-out teddy bear, agitatedly clutching at the man’s fingers. The man crouched down and kindly said to him, “Don’t worry, that place is as happy as heaven.”

Can it also be called heaven when they break the wings off angels and shut them in together?

Kiro looked at his sorry-looking self in the mirror, noticing that he had bitten his lips bloody at some point when he wasn’t aware. Kiro laughed quietly, using his fingers to rub the fresh blood evenly on his lips – no big deal, the “him” in the mirror was as good-looking as always, and that was enough. Now, there was no one that could hurt him. No one.

When Savin arrived at Kiro’s house, Kiro was holding his computer and sitting on the sofa, his eyebrows pinched tightly, his hands flying nonstop over the keyboard. He heard the sound and tilted his head up to give Savin a smile. His hands did not stop moving in the slightest.

Savin supported himself against the doorframe, talking to Kiro with a smile:

“What are you doing?”

Kiro didn’t even raise his head.

“Games.”

Savin was a little surprised.

“Why not use a mechanical keyboard if you’re gaming?”

Kiro laughed and closed the laptop with a “pa”.

“No big deal. I can beat them even with just a trackpad.”

Savin looked at Kiro, faintly feeling the drive in his expression – but in the space of an eye’s blink, Kiro went back to his smiling face, changing fully to a harmless appearance.

He must have seen wrong.

So Savin thought, as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Put on your jacket quick. We’ll be late for the fan meet today!”

Savin grabbed a jacket hanging on the side, planning to throw it to Kiro. “Eh? Why is your jacket soaked? Did you go outside yesterday?”

Kiro became panicked in an instant. “Ah, I didn’t… how could I have…”

“There are also coke stains on the clothes… Kiro, you drank coke behind my back!!”

“Hehe…” Kiro laughed awkwardly. “I just drank one mouthful… just one…”

Today was the day of Kiro’s fan meet. Savin took care of everything for Kiro with ease. Taking advantage of Savin’s inattention, Kiro hid himself into the lounge, carrying his computer, and locked the door. He then opened the computer.

Materials on Heaven’s Home for Children covered the screen. Ever since he arrived home yesterday at dawn, he had been continuously investigating this so-called specially approved private orphanage. The boy had not lied – all children ages eight and above at the orphanage were all adopted to foreign countries.

How could this be, Kiro thought to himself. Younger children typically have higher adoption rates. He wrinkled his brows, thinking for a while, and suddenly reacted. His fingers danced quickly over the keyboard, the intense tapping sounds never stopping in the slightest.

Savin’s voice sounded from outside.

“Kiro, time to prepare to get onstage!”

Kiro did not respond to Savin. His entire attention was focused on the laptop. Rows and rows of code rushed past, like a rapidly-moving train, driving past his pupils. His expression was no longer like the ignorant ones of a little fawn – it was the expression of a hunter.

The knocking sounds outside the door became more intense.

“Kiro? Kiro?”

Kiro remained silent, his hands moving with increased speed.

Sure enough, this orphanage was no simple operation. On the surface, it looked like a charity organization, but they had been continuously doing underground human trafficking work. Kiro looked at the “prices” of the children on the website – none of them costed more than one of his clothes.

He revealed an anguished smile. The lies from back then have actually appeared here again. This world was already hell – how could it have a heaven?

The knocking outside the door became more and more intense, and Savin raised his voice. “Kiro! Open the door! What are you doing inside?!”

Kiro did not respond. He just bit hard on his lips, his gaze never leaving the computer screen for a second. After all, it was a site on the dark web, so it was harder to break into than the average website. Kiro thought about the tattered clothes and smiling face of the boy from yesterday, feeling a pain like someone had grabbed his heart.

It seemed like there was someone putting up a tenacious resistance on the website’s side. Kiro accurately set a trap, waiting for the person on the other side to relax their guard and step in…

One second, two seconds, three seconds… up until ten seconds.

Faster, faster. Kiro hung down his eyes, reciting this silently.

Savin could no longer wait outside the door. He found security guards, planning to ram the door open. Several sturdy security guards pulled up their sleeves, aiming to ram the lounge door together.

Kiro balled up his fist, his expression not wavering in the slightest. Following the passing of time, the site seemed to gradually lose its guardedness. Like a wild wolf on guard, stretching out its paws to carefully scout the road in the dark night, while the trap that Kiro had laid was right on the side. Step by step, it explored, on alert, and one front paw poked into the trap…

“Caught it!” Kiro cried out quietly in surprise, his two hands tapping away again on the keyboard. This time, he wouldn’t let his prey run away again!

“Bang!” The door was ferociously rammed open! Savin pushed aside everyone else, agitatedly rushing in, but all he saw was Kiro reclining dazedly on the sofa, seeming to just have woken from sleep.

Savin immediately froze. “Are… are you alright?”

Kiro yawned hugely, stretching under the gaze of everyone, and lazily said, “Sorry, I fell asleep just now.”

Savin looked at Kiro with suspicion. The latter then squinted, revealing a large smile.

Kiro was not late. He got on the fan meet dance stage as promised. He wore a black jacket, warmly waving to his fans, bursting with life.

Screams like a tsunami sounded under the stage.

Amid the screams, a female fan lowered her head and looked at her phone, then tapped the friend beside her in surprise. “An anonymous hacker revealed that Heaven’s Home for Children was doing human trafficking.”

Her friend didn’t even turn around. “Kiro’s right in front of you, so how can you pay attention to some hacker!”

The female fan thought about it, feeling that it made sense. She immediately put her phone away, waving her light sticks to cheer for Kiro.

Kiro looked at all the fans under the stage, holding onto Key’s ring through his pocket. The edges and corners of the ring rubbed against his palm through the clothes, inciting stabbing pains.

Under the slight pain, Kiro smoothed out his brow, took the microphone and revealed a smile.

Good thing that the world can be at peace after the storm has passed.

The Heaven’s Home for Children issue had already gotten on headlines before the fan meet ended. The Loveland police headed in very quickly. Within three days, this orphanage built on all the children’s blood and tears was destroyed thusly, and all involved people were caught. Many large forums were discussing exactly who hacker Key was, but no one could give an answer. No one knew over ten years ago, and still no one knew now.

Five months later, the Angel’s Orphanage completed construction. As the main sponsor, Kiro arrived at the scene – bringing 50 boxes of coke.

“You’re going to ruin the children’s teeth from drinking this,” Savin complained on the side.

“This is called satisfying them by proxy, don’t you understand?” Kiro shot impatiently at Savin, then casually called over the little boy near him.

Seeing Kiro’s somewhat familiar face, the little boy froze on the spot. Kiro laughed, handing the boy a can of coke.

Savin had already been called to the side to help. The boy took the coke in a daze, hesitantly saying, “Big brother… exactly who are you?”

Kiro laughed, shushing the boy and revealing a mysterious smile.

“Hello, I’m a hacker. I’m called Key.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you.”

#mlqc #mr love queen's choice #mlqc kiro #zhou qiluo #mlqc translation #this really hits even harder after Top Experimental Subject #sucks that we won't get these on global server #since this adds so much depth to kiro #same for the other boys and their respective dream heart lake R&S

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impaladolan · 4 years ago

Text

Control Freak - Grayson Dolan

summary: after Choff production lines CEO (finally) retires, a new boss makes his way into Y/N’s world..

warnings: sexual references/undertones

a/n: another Grayson series, i can’t help myself :)) enjoy!! also, ily <3

Ugh, he was in one of his moods again.

The office cubicles were hastily bustling with nervousness and terror. At any given moment, the infuriated man, so-called boss, will be bursting through the double doors with a dark red tint across his cheeks and maybe even smoke out of his ears, if you're lucky.

Mr. Kidman has never been good with the whole "patience is a virtue" thing, he's a ticking time bomb at all hours of the day. Nothing ever satisfies him, nor remotely excites him, he just finds something to yell and scream about at some poor unfortunate soul and then continues his merry day. But today, he was furious. He had no empathy for anyone, even his favorite two little secretaries that wear push-up bras like a side-job. Apparently someone had brought him the wrong breakfast order and everything just went downhill from there.

Unlike all the others, you seemed calm and composed amongst all this mayhem, but only because you, and maybe two others, knew that 'Old Angry Kidman' was finally retiring. Yep, freedom at last. Well, unless the new guy, or girl, has terrible anger issues.

So you just sat at your clean and pristine desk, typing another draft and adding it to the plentiful piles saved on your work computer, while soundlessly chewing on a mint piece of gum that substituted for the absence of a tooth brushing the morning of. But your quick finger movements were hushed once Mr. Kidman, as predicted, flew straight through the doors with his signature fiery red face and sweat droplets dotting his thinning hairline. "Every body fucking up! I've fucking had it with all of you." He demands, majority of the room raising from their seats with caution. With his teeth tightly gritted and his lips in a fine line, he swirls his index finger in the air, motioning to all of his terrified workers.

"If it were my fuckin' decision, I'd have each and everyone of you pieces of shits fired and on the streets in point ZERO-TWO seconds. You all are fucking lucky that this is my last day here, son's of bitches." A man of few nice words, that he is. The nicest thing you've ever heard him say was thank you, and that was two years ago. His vulgar and aggressive attitude truly brings the worth of working this job down. If it weren't for the good pay and lack of any other remotely feasible company jobs, you would've quit a long time ago.

But alas, you still endure the inevitable fiery reign of his obstructive wrath on the daily.

Dolan is his name.

The new boss, that is. That's the only information you and the rest of the staff knew, besides that he's a male. He hasn't shown up for work yet, or even formally introduced himself. Hell, you don't even know what he looks like. But you were certainly nervous for his arrival.

What if he's just like Kidman, or worse?

It most certainly made you nervous to think that this new guy could ever be worse than Kidman. You were hoping and praying that the he'd at least value his workers and employees.

Everyone, on your office floor, was anticipating the days and hours of his big arrival. No one was certain of when he was going to show up, or if. But nonetheless you were one of the most nervous ones. You held the highest title among your coworkers, except CEO of course, but you were pretty up there when it came to business standards. Everyone seemed to like you as well, your kind nature and natural non-brutal attitude sure did make up for other people's. Of course, you didn't really have an office of your own, because you enjoyed the time spent with the people around you. You truly loved the relationship and humbleness you gained from it. At least you weren't a snotty bitch, right?

There were plenty of little rumors around the workspace that you'd become the new (and improved) owner of this whole entire manufacturing company. Specifically a well known fashion line, Choff. The floor that you, and many of the other leading workers, were on was basically the information database. But from time to time, you'd find yourself strolling through the other, more clothing/model filled areas. Just to see how things were flowing.

Which is actually what you're doing in this moment; running your fingers along the racks filled with hangers that held all the fitted clothing items. It seemed like fun to be down here, measuring and sewing the different outfits to the men and women, but it also seemed stressful. Everyone's always in a rush, with their exploding New York accents and their flailing around all over the place. It's pretty amusing to watch from afar, but you'd be scared to get in anyone's way. They'd probably just run you over and continue their day unaffected.

With that thought in mind, you abruptly come to a stop when you run into the muscular backside of someone, startling you from your stare on the tiled flooring. You uttered a few apologies, taking a step back and straightening your pencil skirt from its newfound wrinkles.

"Lost, darling?" Your eyes trail the floor before you until they're stuck on a pair of shiny dress shoes, attached to a pair of long legs and a broad chest. Your eyes finally landed on the remarkably handsome face, of someone you didn't quite recognize. It wasn't uncommon to stumble across unknown employees, but could it be him?

"Frankly, no." You shortly answer, studying his jaw-dropping features. He was indubitably perfect, without a doubt. With a nicely trimmed beard decorating his beautifully shaped jawline, and big hazel eyes that stared right back at your own, he seemed unearthly. Like he was God's favorite angel sent down from heaven, just to show you a glimpse of what it'd really be like inside the pearly gates. "Are, um, you?" You weren't exactly nervous, just mystified. His recent smile grew into what seemed to be a smirk, while his right side's dimple grew more prominent.

"I'd like to say that I'm not, but I sadly am." He shrugs with a chuckle, sending a wave of unbeknownst pleasure through your ears and fluttering down your spine, until the ends of your toes were satisfied with his deep and raspy voice. "Could you maybe show me around this gigantic place? I've been in need of assistance for the last hour or so." He questions you, dropping his shoulders back and letting his eyes roam your stature before drifting to the interior of the long hallway the two of you are currently standing around in. "I very well could, but I have a dreadful meeting to attend to within the next five to ten minutes." Actually, the meeting was in fifteen minutes. You just simply wanted to see the man's reaction, which wasn't what you though it'd be;

"Perfect, I'll be in attendance for that as well. If you'd so kindly lead the way, I would most appreciate it." He smoothly negotiated, stuffing his right hand, which was tightly wrapped with an expensive looking watch, into his pocket with another grin. He seemed very eloquent with his words and the way he addressed things, it has to be him?

"Do you mind me asking of your name?" You began as you started your trek back to where you came from, your heels quietly clicking from beneath you as you lead the way, him following close behind. "Dolan, Grayson Dolan." He quickly answered. Indeed you were right in thinking he was the new (and maybe improved) CEO of all Choff productions. "New head guy?"

He only nods, to yet another one of your endless questions. "And what's your name, darling?" He asks as the two of you stop at an elevator, his quick hand beating yours to clicking the slightly worn down button. "Y/N Y/L/N, direct head management under you." You relay before boarding onto the empty elevator, the doors closing moments after the two of you were stood side by side. You fidget with the ends of your skirt, staying as calm as possible under his stare that you couldn't help but shrivel under.

"Under me, huh?" You almost gulped at the sound of his double meaninged phrase. Smart guy, hm? Your heart started beating a bit faster the more you thought of his little statement. Your mind became a whirlwind of visuals and fantasies before you could even stop it. Just those two little words had made you all sorts of a mess, and he hasn't even done much of anything. "Don't get too worked up darling, we have a meeting to attend." He chuckles as he steps off the elevator that had opened only seconds ago. You just scoff, your cheeks reddening as you stride right past him, maneuvering through the expanse of people that had just left the staff room, in order for the upcoming meeting to advance.

The moment you were sat in the room and time had passed to where everyone had finally shown up, you felt that lingering feeling of eyes on you. A pair of hazel eyes to be exact, who was sat far from you at the end of the long table. For meeting him not too long ago, he sure did seem comfortable around everyone. It was entirely too soon for you to be liking him already, better yet imagining different scenarios with him as someone boringly rambled. You decided that you'd forget him for the time being and focus on your job, as much as possible.

Though it would be granted as difficult as time moved on..

"That's the conclusion of this meeting. I thank everyone for being here, and I especially appreciate your appearance, Mr. Dolan. I'm happy to say that things around here will continue a lot smoother than it did in the past. And I know most others would agree." Burt Wallace, one of the coordinators, concluded after standing from his seat to dismiss everyone with a nod. While everyone dillydallied in conversations with one another, you in the other hand, hustled straight out of that room and towards the same elevator you had used earlier. The moment you clicked the button, the doors opened wide and you hopped in, tucking yourself in the corner while you gained your breath. You smile to yourself at the successful 'escape' from any questions or perhaps a witty comment from a certain CEO on the loose.

You sigh happily to yourself, watching the doors close again until a hand is stuck between them, pushing them straight back to reveal the man you were somewhat avoiding. "Care if I join you again?" He asked, but he still entered otherwise, clicking one of the many buttons to make the door close. "Did I have a choice?" You almost scoff, feeling his shoulder brush against your own as he stood in the same spot he had previously stood in. "Nah, not really, but I like to seem like a little bit of a gentleman." He answers, the roll of your eyes substituting for the internal scoff that you hadn't let out. The two of you rode in silence for what seemed to be eternity, only the faint sounds of your breaths being heard. As soon as the elevator door clanged and opened, you made a beeline out of there and hustled toward your organized workspace like there was a snake chasing you.

"What's the rush?" Ana Rita, one of the only tolerable women in this entire building, asked as you ducked under your desk. Even though you hadn't looked back to check, you had a feeling he'd follow you, or worse, ask you to meet him in his office. You weren't exactly sure why you were hiding from him, he seemed pretty nice. But he truly intimidated you. Not in a competitive way, more so a physical way. "And why the fuck are you down there?" The redhead crinkled her brows as she looked down her long nose at you. "Just, shhhh!" You bellow quietly, covering your pursed lips with your index finger.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. Hot man, six o'clock! Get your ass out of there!" She violently whispered at you, frantically tidying herself for the "hot man," presumably Mr. Dolan as you had predicted, approached your desks. You tightly hug your knees from under your desk, praying to god that he wouldn't somehow see you. "After noon, sir, may I help you?" You cringe at the seductive tone lined in her voice, something that Mr. Dolan unfortunately probably gets a lot of. "I'm looking for Ms. Y/L/N, I have some issues to discuss with her." Yet again, his girthy voice made you sigh with comfort. It's extremely calming to listen to.

"She's actually right here—" Ana, the little asshole she is in this moment, points straight at you as you plead with your eyes and shake your head vigorously. You suddenly see his handsome head peer over at you, his brows scrunched with confusion. "Uhm, cords were messed up, gotta fix them." You awkwardly chuckle, patting the outlet box stuffed with all your monitor's cords. You bring yourself out from below your desk as the two stared at you, dusting your front side and settling down in your office chair with a nervous smile.

"I'd like to have a word with you, in my office."

(masterlist)

#dolan twins #dolan twins smut #dt #dtfan10m #ily #ethan dolan #ethan grant dolan #grayson dolan #grayson smut #grayson dolan smut #grayson fluff #grayson dolan fanfic #Grayson #grayson x reader #graysonbailey #dick grayson #grayson blurb

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ezgithechaotic · 4 years ago

Text

The Parent Trap | Chapter One; two sides of the same coin

pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

AU: The Parent Trap, dad!harry

series summary: Identical twins Benjamin and Edward, separated at birth and each raised by one of their biological parents, later discover each other for the first time at summer camp and make a plan to bring their wayward parents back together.

chapter summary: Benjamin and Edward tries to convince their parents that they aren’t children anymore, but it’s harder than they think.

author note: I’m sorry in advance if I have any fault. English is not my first language. But please let me know if you see anthing that doesn’t seem right. And an important note about Harry and Y/N; They probably won’t see each other for a long time. But I plan on mentioning their thoughts about each other from time to time as I did in this chapter. So, buckle up, It’s gonna be a long way :)

Please leave a comment about what you think, love you.

The Parent Trap Masterlist

Between all the paperwork, Y/N was feeling like she could go crazy any minute. When she had decided to work from home, she didn’t think that anyone could reach her at any minute. It didn’t matter whether it was weekdays or weekends. She was either answering some phonecall from her customer or choosing the right fabric for her designs. Well, except the times she was with her son, Edward.

Y/N loved her job. She started at a very early age, it would even be proper to say that she had nothing or no one but her family when she had started this job. Now, she was one of the best designers across the world. She truly loved her job. But if there was one thing she loved more than her job, it was her son. The only person who could brighten her after a long day in her study room. He was the best thing Y/N had. So, when he brought her a cup of hot coffee while she was dealing with her job's most boring side, paperwork, he brought the sunshine inside the room with him.

When Edward knocked on the door she was so focused she didn't even hear it. So little boy quietly sneaked in and gently put the cup on the big desk. When Y/N realized, she looked up and saw her son, smiling at her. With his bright green eyes and long brown locks, Edward reminded everyone of his father. At least, the ones who knew him. Y/N was very cautious about her son’s and her private life. He was her treasure that she kept away from the whole world.

"Since when are you serving coffees, young man?" Y/N smiled as she raised an eyebrow to her nine-year-old son.

Edward shrugged and made himself comfortable at one of the leather sofas. "I thought you could use some break. I know you wouldn't stop if I didn't come in."

"You know I don't need you to be the mother, it's my job."

"It's not like I'm the mother every day. I'm okay with being the mother every once in a while. I know you love your job." Y/N got up from her chair as her son kept talking. Watching him talk was like watching a flower bloom. She would give everything to stop him from growing old. "Plus we have Nate to be the mother, I'm more like, the cool aunt of family."

"Don't ever let Nate hear that. Poor guy would be devastated."

"I think he would prefer my sassy remarks rather than yours."

Y/N sat beside Edward on the leather sofa and raised an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean?" She couldn't help but laugh as her son giggled. "Well, you can be very mean sometimes, mom."

"Ouch, I'm bruised, Eddy."

Y/N hugged her son with one arm. He laughed as he let his mother embrace him. Edward loved physical contact even though he didn't show it. He loved resting his head on his mother's chest as they did nothing. He wasn't a very social child, he liked staying inside and being alone. He didn't have friends at his age and was never a team player unless he trusted the people around him. But with Y/N, he felt safe.

"I haven’t seen you around today."

"Well, it's because you spent your whole Saturday trapped in here. I planted those flowers in the garden with Nate today. It was fun until he started to give me lectures about being responsible."

Y/N knew her assistant could be a bit much sometimes. But he still helped her a lot, not just as her assistant, but as her friend too. Edward loved him. He was one of the best friends Y/N had. Y/N knew growing up without a dad was hard for Edward. So she was grateful to him because, after her father, Nate was one the father figures for Edward.

"You know he loves you."

"Yeah, I know."

They sat there in silence for a moment. Y/N closed her eyes as she stroked her son's hair and listened to his breathing.

"Mom?" Edward said as if he was checking his mother.

"Yes, baby?"

"You know, my birthday is coming..." Y/N frowned but still kept her eyes close.

"There are still two months until your birthday, you know. Not two days."

"I know, mom." He rolled his eyes. "I was thinking... Since I'm turning ten this year maybe you could buy me a computer. I'm not a child anymore."

"You will always be a child for me. Your age doesn't matter."

"Moooom."

Y/N laughed at his son's reaction. "I thought we talked about this before, honey. I'm not comfortable with you interacting with social media. People can be cruel."

"I'm not saying I want to have a social media account or something. But, you know, it would be good to have a computer."

Y/N took a deep breath. "I will think about it." She said and smiled. Edward hugged her with joy and thanked her for even considering it. Y/N knew people on the internet could be cruel. All she wanted was to protect him but she knew she couldn't keep him to herself until forever. He was already homeschooled and didn't have as many friends as children of his age. People were eventually going to find out. She knew it was inevitable.

"If you want to be more social, you can always think about that summer camp that Zayn was talking about."

"Mom, I don't want to be social. I don't need friends."

"Friends can be very helpful. I had a lot of friends when I was your age."

"We both know that they were Aunt Abby's friends." Edward laughed when he saw his mother's face. It wasn't wrong. Her big sister, Abigail, had been her best friend through childhood. And she was still her biggest supporter. "Plus, I have Becky. She's my age."

"Becky isn't always around."

"Yeah, because Aunt Abby isn't always around."

Since Abigail was always traveling her daughter, Becky was traveling with her too. Becky was two years younger than Edward. And Edward loved his cousin like a sister. He was happy to be her big brother.

"They won't be here for summer. So, you can always take the opportunity and go to that summer camp." Although Edward wasn't eager about it, his mother wanted him to have friends. "I will think about it."

With that, Nate stuck his head through the open door and eyed two of them. "Sorry for interrupting your mom and son time. But are you guys hungry? Because I'm dying over here."

Y/N groaned as she rested her head against the sofa. "I'm starving."

"So, tacos?"

"You know I will never, ever say no to tacos," Edward said.

Y/N laughed but before she could answer her phone started to ring. She got up and found her phone inside the whole mess. "I need to answer this. Why don't you guys go ahead and order?"

Before he got up, Edward looked at her mother with meaningful eyes. "You will think about the computer, right?" Y/N smiled and planted a kiss on top of his head.

"I will, baby."

While Edward made his way to the kitchen, Nate stayed back.

"How long are you planning on keeping it secret from him?"

"As long as I can, Nate."

"He deserves to know."

Y/N took a deep breath. "I don't need a lecture about it. I know he will eventually ask. I will just let future Y/N deal with it."

"This is one of the worst answers you've ever given."

"You're being very helpful, Nate, thank you."

"You're welcome." Y/N shook her head and answered the call as Nate returned to the kitchen.

At the same time, Y/N made her way to the kitchen, Harry was walking towards Benjamin's room to wake him up, in a completely different country.

Harry knocked three times on his son's door. Even though he knew it was going to take more than three knocks to wake Benjamin up, Harry still had faith. But Ben was still asleep at the other side of the white-painted door. After a second or two, Harry opened the door with a sigh.

"It's time to wake up, buddy!"

Benjamin was tangled between his dark blue sheets. His short curly hair lying on the pillow, his green eyes shut. It was still mindblowing how much he looked like his father. At times like these, Harry never wanted to wake him up. If someone looked at him from where he stood, they would think that he was an angel. The only thing was that his son was the devil himself. And he didn't know if he should be proud or disappointed.

"Benny, breakfast is getting cold," Harry said as he opened the curtains. "Get up, now."

Benjamin groaned into his pillow. If there was one thing he hated most, it was waking up. He was never a morning person. The resemblance between Benjamin and his mother always made Harry a little bittersweet. It was like the universe didn't want him to forget her. As if forgetting her was an option. She was in every song he heard or wrote.

"Why can't I sleep more?" Benjamin asked, his eyes still closed. "Why do you have to be so cruel to wake me up at the crack of dawn?"

"It's almost noon, Ben."

"Well, still the crack of dawn."

Harry laughed at his son's reaction. Benjamin had always been sassy, but he always found a way to people's hearth, especially Harry's. He was something Harry couldn't explain. Benjamin was everything Harry had and he would give everything up for him without a doubt.

"So, should we let Jeffrey eat all the pancakes?"

Benjamin peeked through one open eye with a smile on his face. "Pancakes don't sound so bad. I like Katty's pancakes."

Katty was Benjamin's nanny and she usually helped Harry around the house with chores and dinner. She was one of the exceptional people around Benjamin. He liked her, and she helped him when he needed some woman influence.

Benjamin never held back what he thought about the person across him. Whenever Harry found some nanny he either scared them with his pranks or his remarks. But Katty was the only nanny who could have fun with him rather than running away from him. She was more like a sister to Benjamin. And Harry was happy that Benjamin could trust Katty as much as he trusted Gemma.

"Sorry, pal, you have to settle for my pancakes because Katty won't be here today."

Benjamin sighed. "So we're eating burnt pancakes, again?"

Harry acted like he was annoyed. "You weren't saying that before Katty."

"Because I didn't know chocolate chip pancakes existed."

"You always have something to say, don't you?"

Just like your mother.

" And I'm not even awake, yet. Think about the things I would say if I was awake."

"You sound pretty awake to me, buddy." He let Benjamin free from all the sheets. "Time to get up."

After five pancakes and two glass of orange juice, Benjamin was awake more than ever. While he was playing a game on the big television, Harry and Jeffrey were talking about upcoming projects.

"...for June we'll be recording the album and then you have that project with Gucci in July."

"I thought we were going to go to Holmes Chapel and see grandma this June," Benjamin questioned, suddenly not so interested in his game.

"I don't think we'll be able to do that, buddy. We'll be in Los Angeles."

"Will Camille be with us?"

Camille was Harry's current girlfriend. And Benjamin did not like her at all. After Y/N, Harry didn't have any relationship for a long time. Not just because he thought it would be hard for Benjamin if it didn't work out, but also he wasn't ready for getting heartbroken again. Camille was his longest relationship despite Benjamin's dislike for her.

"Yeah, probably."

Benjamin grunted with vexation and let himself fell on the couch again.

"Do I have to be there?" Benjamin looked at his father with hope. "Can't I just stay with grandma?"

"A month is a long time Benny."

"Yeah, dad, I know. That's why I don't want to spend it with Camille."

"I would appreciate it if you just tried to like her."

"Or you could just send me to the summer camp I've been talking about."

Harry took a deep breath. "We talked about this, Benny. I can't send you somewhere I've never heard before."

"But Freddie is going too." Benjamin whined.

"What's up with this summer camp?" Jeffrey asked when he couldn't help his curiosity.

"Something he heard from Freddie, I guess. He's been talking about it non-stop."

"Why don't you just let him go?"

"You know why, Jeff."

"You're just being paranoid, Harry. Let him have some fun. It's already hard to be the son of a famous pop star."

Jeffrey made Harry hesitate. He was right and Harry knew that. It was just scary to be away from him for more than a month. And since Benjamin wasn't a calm kid, it made it harder for him to decide. He wasn’t going to be there when things were going to go bad. But when he saw his son sitting there not even giving attention to the game all devastated, he couldn't help but say yes.

"You can go as long as you promise to be nice."

"Really?"

"Really."

"You're the best, dad!"

Benjamin hugged him so tight and smiled so bright that it made every bad thought Harry had, vanish. He hugged his son back. Apologizing to him without words for everything he took away from him, for everything he could have if he and his mom hadn’t been so stubborn.

If he only knew that Benjamin would take everything back with a simple summer camp.

#harry styles #harry styles au #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #one direction imagine #the parent trap au

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fangirlings-things · 4 years ago

Text

The Border Control Project [Part. 1]

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

Fandom: Extraction

Pairing: Tyler Rake x female reader

Summary: you're Tyler's next mission and turns out, you need him more than you want to

Word count: 1.4K

Warnings: curse words, mentions of violence and kidnapping

Based on this imagine

Gif credit: @thoresque

A/N: let me know if you guys want a part 2 or to be tagged like @posiemax asked to (it was sweet, thank youuu). I have many ideas to this series, so let me know what you think!!

Part. 2

Theme song: Shameless, Camila Cabello

Right now I'm shameless

Screaming my lungs out for you

Not afraid to face it

I need you more than I want to

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

It had been what? Two, maybe three days?

You had lost track of time. After so much time in the dark, it happens. Your mind just washes away and it seems like you're floating in space, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

The blindfold in your eyes kept the light away and the restrains in your arms, made your whole body ache. The matress under you was actually soft, but even fluffy clouds could feel like a stone after being kept in the same position for so long.

Your throat was dry and hurt because of how you had screamed. Screams that were muffled by the gag you had in your mouth.

Every single spot those men had touched burned like a small fire and threatened to explode you. You were pretty sure you had marks all over. They hadn't been gentle when kidnapping you from the middle of the bloody street.

You was tired, scared and wanted to leave. Go back to your life. But you knew you couldn't. There was no getting out of there.

Taking a deep breath you tried to steady your heavy breathing, moving your hands against the restrains, to get maybe just a little more comfortable. Just a little.

That, was all you could do.

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

"Something new is up?"

That was the question Tyler had made when he got a call from Nik. It was unexpected, surprising. After what happened in Bangladesh many months ago, he had done a few other jobs, but none of them with her. Now, though, she seemed pretty determined to get him on board of whatever was happening. It intrigued him, made him frown while holding the phone against his left ear.

He had been laying low since his last mission, the elimination of a target that he completed successfully in Greece. That mission had been fast, too easy. Since that, he had been wasting all the money he got in alcohol and cigarettes. Living each day with the usual boredom of loneliness and headache due to the all the booze. The opportunity to get into some action and do something useful, sounded really good. Truth was, the idea of being fired at excited him, as twisted as it was.

That and all the cash that Nik said was at stake made him get into a plane two days later and land on Guadalajara, Mexico, where Nik had told them to meet. Now he found himself in the back of a rented apartment in a simple building, located in a poor part of the city. Description was a thing Nik valued a lot, and one of the things that made her so good at her job. The room was filled with people he didn't really know, although some of those faces were familiar from previous jobs. Over tables and armchairs ultimate technology they frequently used on missions had been gathered up, just waiting to be used when the operation began.

"Listen up people, let's begin" Nik said out loud, bringing all the attention to herself as everyone instantly stopped talking by hearing her voice. She was a natural leader, no doubt about that. Pressing a single button on the control of the projector that had been installed hours before, she made a photo show up there for everyone to see.

It was the image of a twenty year old girl. She was smiling to the camera as someone took a picture of her and the park she was in. She looked calm, happy. If her image was being shown there though, Tyler knew that something really bad had probably happened to that girl.

"Her name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N)" Nik said, after taking a step to the side to give everyone on the room a good view of the girl's face. "Her father is a US senator who's been a big name on the Congress for almost ten years" someone whistled, and others nodded in agreement. With only that being said, they already knew it would be a great case to work on. "Four days ago, she was kidnapped here in Guadalajara" she pressed the button again on the control, and a video started playing on the projector.

It was a security footage obviously, due to the black and white image and low resolution. In it the girl was walking on the street camly, carrying a backpack and wearing headphones. It was late at night, the corner of the footage marked 21:37. She was alone, and there was no one else on the street. That was the perfect opportunity for a kidnapping, Tyler thought to himself, and the response to that came seconds later.

A van approached the girl suddenly, apparently coming out of nowhere. Stopped by her side and before she could even do anything, the back door was opened and three masked men stormed upon her. She tried to run, but they had no trouble in grabbing her violently by her arms and legs and throw her on the inside of the van, leaving behind only her now destroyed phone. The whole thing happened in less than twenty seconds. No one noticed a thing, no one saw anything. That had been extremely well planned.

"Do we know who they are?" a guy with glasses Tyler had never seen before asked, analyzing with full attention the video that started playing again in replay.

"Negative. We couldn't get anything from the security videos and the family doesn't know specifically who could be behind it, but five hours later the Senator recieved a call" as Nik pressed the button again, an audio file started to roll and filled everyone's ears.

Senator (Y/L/N), we have your lovely daughter. If you don't drop the Border Control Project on the presentation day, she dies.

And then the robotic adapted voice was gone. That was it. Short, harsh and objective.

"What's the Border Control Project?" Tyler was the one who made the question, before anyone else did the same. With his arms crossed over his chest, his mind was working fast in taking in all the information he was receiving. He knew he would need them in the future.

"A project created by Senator (Y/L/N) to expand the police activity in the mexican-american border. If this project is approved on the mentioned presentation day, trafficking rotes will be affected, illegal transportations will be extremely lowered" Nik explained, dropping the control on the nearest table with a sight. "Dealers, politicians, traffickers, a lot of people could be behind it"

"So our only approach is to go after the girl herself" Tyler stated firmly, and the others agreed.

"Yes, we rescue her. And possibly in the meantime, figure out who did this. Senator said he will pay three times more if we do" some of the team members started clapping and Nik rolled her eyes, but had a smile on her lips. They were mercenarys, money was their greatest worry and desire.

"What was she doing in Mexico?" a middle aged woman with blond straight hair that was in the other end of the room across the australian, was the next one to make a question.

"She got a six month transfer to the local University. Student exchange happens at least twice a year between Mexico and the United States" Nik answered and then crossed her own arms over her chest. "We start the operation within two days. Tyler will do the field work, were going to give him all the support he needs. Meanwhile, we prepare yourselves. Got it?"

Everyone agreed and started to go to work, opening computers and printing files. Tyler didn't move, just looked around in complete silence. Nik was the one who approached him.

"You're good with this?" she asked, inspecting his features for any sign of denial.

He nodded, averting his eyes back to the projector where someone had again projected the picture of the girl smiling. Looking deeply into her eyes, Tyler sighted.

"I'm gonna need a whole file on her, anything you can find. When I get to her, I have to know or have something that will make her trust me"

He had no doubt. He would find her.

#imagine #x reader #fanfic #imagines #extraction #extraction fanfic #extraction imagine #tyler rake fanfic #tyler imagine #tyler x reader #tyler rake x reader #tyler rake imagine #tyler rake #chris hemsworth #chris hemsworth imagine

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antiadvil · 4 years ago

Text

Somebody to Love

summary: Dan and Phil’s first meeting in 2009, loosely inspired by the song Somebody to Love by Queen

rating: PG13

wc: ~3k

notes: for the @phandomreversebang! art provided by @anironsidh and betad by @awkwardest-sam. writing this fic was... a journey, and they were a really great and supportive team the whole time and I really appreciate them <3

read under the cut or on ao3

Dan’s train was running late, and he couldn’t stop his anxiety from running absolutely wild. He hadn’t missed it, had he? Maybe it had showed up early and left before he got there. Maybe it had showed up while he wasn’t paying attention and left already. Maybe it had-

The train pulled into the station. Dan relaxed his shoulders. He wasn’t going to miss his train. He managed to stay calm for a few minutes after he boarded until a sudden new thought hit him.

What if he missed his stop?

He groaned, letting his head drop into his arms. He couldn’t even get a ten minute break from his ridiculous thoughts.

He took a deep breath, trying to focus on something else. To try to distract himself, he pulled out his pen and notebook to work on a few video scripts.

He had finally gotten into a groove, allowing himself to forget his worries, when the train lurched as it approached its first stop, sending Dan’s pen and notebook spilling to the floor. He picked up the notebook, but his pen had already slid out of sight.

Great. Looks like he was going to have to find some other way of passing the remaining two and a half hours of his train ride.

He stared out the window, trying to calm his nerves, but his leg was bouncing up and down almost uncontrollably. He put his hand on his knee, forcing it down.

It was hard to believe that after months of nonstop texting and skyping, he was about to meet the boy from his computer screen in person. He still remembered the first time they had spoken, when he had finally gotten up the courage to message that cool youtuber on twitter.

He had sent him a message about a Queen song, and was shocked to receive a reply. He still was a little bit shocked every time Phil messaged him. Every time, he thought Phil would get tired of him. Every time, Phil kept coming back.

They had talked about their favorite band for hours that night. Then the conversation had shifted to themselves, their families, their hopes and dreams.

They still talked about music sometimes. It was a nice excuse to be in constant contact.

His fingers itched to text Phil, the way they always did when he was anxious, but he and Phil had been trying to stick to Skype lately. Last month’s phone bill had not been fun to pay. He shouldn’t text Phil until he arrived, to tell him where he was so they could meet.

His leg was bouncing again. He sighed in frustration, wishing he hadn’t lost his pen.

He bought a magazine to flip through. It was surprisingly entertaining. He managed to lose himself in it for nearly half an hour before he checked the time again.

Fuck the phone bill. Dan gave in and pulled out his phone. nervous (^_^;), he sent.

good, Phil sent back nearly instantly.

good?

im nervous too and im not allowed to be the only one

Dan laughed. His phone buzzed again

in a few hours we can be nervous 2gether

Dan couldn’t think of anything to send in response to that other than a smiley face.

now go away u spork remember ur phone bill

Dan let a smile break across his face. Phil did that to him frequently. fine, Dan sent quickly.

He returned to his magazine, calmer this time. It was silly to be so worried. It was just Phil. Phil, who he had known for months now. Phil, who he wanted to meet. Phil, who wanted to meet him.

Everything was going to be alright.

When his train arrived in the station, Dan climbed out, letting his eyes search for Phil. Quickly, they landed on a tall, pale boy with dark hair wearing a green plaid shirt. “Phil!” he shouted.

The boy brightened, looking to find the source of the noise. “Dan!”

“Phil,” Dan said again, running towards him, and the other boy was running too, and suddenly they were in each other’s arms, finally, after all these months of imagining.

Phil was holding Dan tighter than he’d ever been held, but it didn’t hurt. It was one of the nicest things Dan had ever felt.

After what felt like an eternity, Phil pulled back. “How was the train ride?”

“Good,” Dan said, his smile so wide he thought his face might split in two. “How was your bus ride?”

“Someone recognized me,” Phil pouted.

Dan laughed. “You’re a proper celebrity now.”

“I don’t want to be a proper celebrity,” Phil whined.

“You’d be a good celebrity.”

“How is someone a good celebrity?”

Dan shrugged. “You’re cute.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “Is that all?”

“Yes.” Dan giggled, though he hadn’t meant to. It was silly, he thought, a nineteen year old giggling over a boy.

Phil was smiling, too, though, and a bit of pink was showing through his pale skin on his cheeks, so he must not mind.

“Where to first?” Dan asked.

“Starbucks,” Phil said, bouncing up and down. “Starbucks, Dan, we have to-”

Dan laughed. “You’re such a sugar fiend.”

“C’mon!” Phil tugged at his hand.

Dan looked down at their hands in shock, surprised to find them tangled together.

“Sorry,” Phil said sheepishly, dropping Dan’s hand.

Dan wiped his hand on his jeans, then immediately cursed himself. He didn’t want Phil to think it was because of him, his hand was just sweaty. “No, you’re good- um.”

“Yeah. No. We’re in public, I should have-” Phil stuffed his hands into his pockets. “So, uh, Starbucks?”

“Starbucks,” Dan agreed, gesturing for Phil to lead the way.

“Right,” Phil said, heading down the street. Dan followed. “What are you planning to get?”

Dan shrugged. “Whatever you get. You’re the expert.”

“Well, I haven’t actually decided what I’m getting yet,” Phil explained.

“Oh really? What are the frontrunners?” Dan asked.

Phil spent the rest of their walk explaining his various drink options, each sugarier than the last. “So I think maybe the caramel macchiato. Maybe? I can’t decide.”

Dan interrupted before Phil could go through his list again from the beginning. “You should get the caramel macchiato.”

“You think so?”

“I think so,” Dan confirmed, opening the door to the starbucks.

Phil bought their coffees, over Dan’s protests. “You’re the one who came to visit me,” he said. “Let me do this for you.”

Dan gave in. “I’ll buy you coffee if you ever come to Reading.”

“Deal.” Phil took a long sip of his coffee and let out a long, relieved breath afterwards. “So good.”

“The caffeine or the sugar?”

“Yes,” Phil said.

Dan took a sip of his own drink. It was good. Maybe not as good as Phil thought it was, but good.

“I’m trying to cut back on coffee,” Phil said mournfully. “I only had three cups this morning.”

Dan snorted. “Only three?”

“Yes.” Phil stared glumly at his already half empty cup of coffee.

Dan shook his head in mock sympathy. “You poor thing.”

Phil finished his coffee with disturbing speed. Dan did his best to keep up, but to avoid burning his tongue, he had to finish about ten minutes after Phil.

Phil’s tongue must be nearly burned off from how quickly he had

Dan should stop thinking about Phil’s tongue.

“Where do you want to go now?” Phil asked, saving Dan’s mind from going to some places it really shouldn’t be going right now.

“Can we just walk around for a bit?” Dan asked.

“Sure!” Phil was bouncing on his toes, already ready to move.

Dan wondered if he was as thrumming with nervous energy as Dan was. “Lead the way, then.”

Phil knew his way through Manchester better than he let on, pointing out a few shops and landmarks he recognized along their walk. “There’s so much to do here. We’ll have to come back sometime.”

Dan absentmindedly agreed. It was nice, the thought that this would happen again. That he could come back. That Phil didn’t seem to hate him yet.

Dan almost missed the apple store when they walked past, but he saw it out of the corner of his eye and stopped. “Wait,” he said, “I want to post a selfie.”

“Ooh,” Phil said. “Good idea.” He opened the door and gestured for Dan to follow him.

They got lucky when they were immediately able to snag a free laptop. Phil opened photobooth and messed with his hair in the camera. Dan did his best to straighten out his hair, and struck a pose.

Phil put on a (ridiculous) facial expression and took a photo.

Dan stepped up to take a look. “Wait,” he said, stepping back. “My hair looks wrong. Can we retake it?”

Phil rolled his eyes, but stepped back into his pose to take a new picture.

About 20 pictures later, they had finally taken one Dan was satisfied with. He logged into his dailybooth account quickly, doing his best to ignore the line of people growing behind him.

“There,” he said, pressing post and logging out of his account.

He did his best not to make eye contact with anyone in the line behind them as they left the apple store.

They found a bench in a nearby park and spent the next few hours people watching, making up stories about the people they saw.

“She’s in an unhappy marriage,” Dan whispered. “She’s having an affair with him.” He pointed to the man across the playground from her, where her daughter was playing.

Phil took a bite of the sandwich he had bought from a nearby cafe. “Does her daughter know?”

“Of course not, Phil. She’s like, five.”

“Just hoping for maximum drama,” Phil said around another mouthful of sandwich.

Dan grimaced. “Stop chewing with your mouth open. It’s gross.”

Phil swallowed. “Your mum’s gross.”

Dan hit Phil on the back. “Take that back.”

“You first.”

“No.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.” Phil looked almost sad.

Dan snorted. “Let’s disagree to disagree.”

“How does that work?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t put much thought into it yet.”

Phil laughed, taking the last bite out of his sandwich and brushing a few crumbs out of his lap.

Dan checked the time. “Is there anything else you want to do before we go back to your place?”

“Well,” Phil said. “I, uh. Have a reservation for after dinner.”

“A reservation?” Dan looked down at his clothes. He hoped it wasn’t too nice.

“The sky bar,” Phil said. “I don’t know if you know it, I’m sorry, I-”

Phil looked so anxious. “No,” Dan said, doing his best to sound reassuring. “It’s fine, just… unexpected.”

Phil smiled in relief. “We should get going if we’re going to make it on time.”

When they got to the sky bar, Dan looked at the menu and tried not to panic at the prices.

“I’ll pay,” Phil said quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”

That only made things slightly better.

Phil must have noticed that the worry didn’t fall from his face, because he tried to reassure Dan again. “Really, it’s fine. Get whatever you want.”

Dan nodded, but he scanned the menu for the cheapest items and ordered those anyway. Phil had just graduated uni; he wasn’t exactly rolling in money, and Dan didn’t want to feel like any more of a burden on him than he already did.

It didn’t matter. His drink tasted incredible.

“Is it alright?” Phil asked, still anxious.

“It’s perfect,” Dan said. It was. The sun was beginning to set, and the view from this high up was beautiful. The view next to him was even prettier.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring out the windows and watching the sun bathe everything in a warm, golden glow.

Dan reached for Phil’s hand under the table. Phil reached back.

***

It was dark when they boarded the bus back to Rossendale. The bus was nearly empty, but they chose two seats in the back, as far away from everyone else as possible.

“Busses are weird.” Dan yawned.

Phil giggled. “It’s not even late. Are you tired?”

Dan glared. “Shut up.”

Phil stuck out his tongue. “Make me.”

Dan hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “Shut up,” he managed to squeak out.

Phil sat back in his seat, smiling in satisfaction.

“Shut up,” Dan whined, poking him.

“You sound like a broken record. Do you say anything other than shut up?”

“Shut-” Dan stopped. “Yes,” he insisted.

Phil smirked. “Prove it.”

“I’ve said so many things other than shut up today.”

Phil shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I do.” Dan leaned back into his seat, trying to project confidence.

Phil shrugged again. “I believe you,” he said, with the air of someone who absolutely did not believe the person they were talking to.

Dan sighed, and changed the subject. “How long is the ride?”

“About half an hour, hopefully,” Phil said.

His train ride had been much longer than that. He could survive this. Especially with Phil with him.

“I met a boy on the train once, you know,” Phil said, startling Dan out of his thoughts.

Dan looked up, slightly confused. Why was Phil telling him about some other boy? “You did?”

“Yeah,” Phil laughed. “He was really cute, too. We spent the whole train ride talking, and it turned out he actually lived really close by. This was when I was in uni. But anyway, at the end, he asked me for my number, so I gave it to him, and then-” Phil paused to hide his face.

“Then what?” Dan asked, perplexed.

“I texted him,” Phil said, muffled.

“What’d you say?”

“I asked him if he was asking me out,” Phil said, still with his face hidden in his arms.

“Was he?” Dan asked, though he suspected the answer by now.

“No,” Phil whined, lifting his head up. “He wasn’t. He was straight.”

Dan couldn’t help a horrified giggle.

“It’s not funny,” Phil said, though a smile was starting to peek through his carefully composed sulk.

Dan wanted to stop laughing, he really did, but he just couldn’t. His giggle grew until it was the dumb hyena laugh he always felt self-conscious of, but with Phil sitting next to him, he didn’t mind.

Phil was starting to laugh a little bit too. He buried his head in Dan’s shoulder to hide it. “You’re the worst.” He landed a half-hearted punch on Dan’s ribs.

Dan just laughed harder. “That’s awful, oh my god.”

“So stop laughing!” Phil whined.

Dan finally managed to quiet his laugh. “It’s a good thing, though, really. Because now you have me instead of stupid bus boy.”

“You’re so much better than stupid bus boy,” Phil whispered, reaching for Dan’s hand to give it a quick, reassuring squeeze.

The warmth of his hands lingered even after they were gone.

***

Phil’s house was dark and quiet when they finally arrived. Dan didn’t know what else he had expected. Phil’s parents weren’t home; that was the whole reason he was visiting right now.

Dan declined politely when Phil asked if he wanted a full house tour, instead choosing to dump his backpack on Phil’s bedroom floor without asking first. He thought, halfway through doing it, that maybe he should have checked first, but Phil didn’t seem to mind, so he just left it.

Phil’s bedroom looked different than it did on Skype. Less grainy.

Phil dropped himself onto his bed, gesturing for Dan to follow him. “Wanna play some music?”

“Sure,” Dan said, sitting down next to Phil. “Queen, probably, it’s the least we can do to thank them for bringing us together.”

Phil laughed. “Not because they’re good?”

“No. Just because gay.”

“Freddie Mercury would be proud,” Phil said.

“He probably would be,” Dan admitted.

“What song?”

Dan thought about it a bit, chewing at the inside of his lip. “Somebody To Love,” he finally said.

Phil grinned. “Excellent choice.”

“Thank you,” Dan said, basking in the glow of Phil’s approval as the piano started playing. “I can play this on piano, you know.”

“You can?”

“Yeah. I can play most Queen songs.”

Phil tilted his head. “You’ll have to show me sometime.”

“But you don’t have a keyboard.”

Phil tilted his head. “Guess I’ll have to visit you sometime.”

Dan couldn’t help the nervous thrill that ran through his stomach. “A shame, really. You have no other option.”

“I’ll survive.”

Dan hummed along to the chorus.

Phil poked him. “Just humming? Coward.”

Dan startled. “What?”

“I want to hear you sing.” Phil’s eyes were twinkling with the slightest bit of mischief.

“No. Absolutely not.” Dan crossed his arms.

“Fine,” Phil said. “I guess I’m going to have to sing myself.”

“That’s almost worse,” Dan said.

Phil pouted. “I’m a great singer.”

“I’m sure.”

Phil began to sing along, his voice warbling.

“Shush,” Dan said. “I want to hear Freddie Mercury.”

Phil sighed, but switched to dramatically lip syncing instead.

“Much better,” Dan said, trying to control his facial expression so Phil couldn’t tell that he was being a little bit cute right now.

Phil’s performance was so over the top it was honestly funny, until he reached the end of the song. He sang along, softly this time, looking directly at Dan in a way that gave him goosebumps.

Dan couldn’t help but look away.

“How was my performance?” Phil asked.

“It was alright,” Dan said, leaning back on his elbows.

“Oh yeah?”

Dan sat back up. “Not too relatable, though.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve already found somebody to love,” Dan said, smiling at Phil.

“Really,” Phil said, teasing. “Who?”

Dan felt his cheeks warm. “You probably don’t know him. He goes to a different school,” he managed.

Phil laughed. “I like you too.”

Dan didn’t think it was even possible for his cheeks to be any warmer. “I guess you’re kind of cool too.”

“Shut up,” Phil said, pulling Dan closer.

“Make me,” Dan said.

“Okay,” Phil said, promptly kissing him.

Dan shut up for quite a while after that.

#my writing #phanfic #phanfiction #prb #2009!phan

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marawritingstuff · 3 years ago

Text

SUNSHINE

Finally, I would like to thank my fellow classmates. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for you.

Valedictorian speech written. Come on, Amelia, no sleeping. Time to write the memoriam. Everybody would have completely forgotten about Sunshine, aka Jennifer, if those idiots stopped talking about weird stuff.

On this day as the Class of 2008 celebrates our graduation, our Sunshine isn’t here. Jennifer Halloway sadly took her life seven months ago.

Couldn’t someone else give this speech? Heaven knows, we weren’t friends. Sunshine didn’t have any friends. I didn’t even know her! Well, maybe a little bit.

Sunshine always lit up a room with her distinctive style. She brought laughter wherever she went.

My first encounter with Sunshine occurred the first day of fifth grade. Jennifer stumbled through the homeroom door dressed in a jumper that was falling apart at the seams with a sun patch centered slightly below her large breasts. The tall, overweight girl, with a haircut that even a discount barber wouldn’t admit to, clutched her books closely to her chest. As a chorus of “You are My Sunshine” sprang from the mouths of a group of students near the back, a storm of spitballs flew through the air. Sunshine didn’t even look up amid the commotion but headed to a corner desk at the far side of the classroom. A wave of sympathy overcame me, and I began to get up to greet her, only to be met by Susie, my best friend’s hand. I looked at my friends. Some were laughing while others had wrinkled up their faces as if Sunshine had a communicable disease that could be passed through the air by her mere presence. There is not much I can say now. Then I was a ten-year-old girl who wanted to be liked so I wrote off Sunshine’s life, joining in my friends’ laughter and jeers that would last for nearly seven more years.

Her intelligence and compassion did not go unnoticed by teachers and fellow students.

Sunshine remained on the periphery of my universe. We were both smart, extremely smart. Advanced placement classes cluttered our schedules; at least for a while, but she lacked the social graces to stay amongst the “gifted.” Group projects were the new fad in education. My peers pretended to let Sunshine be part of the group during class, but everyone knew the real discussions, work, and fun happened afterschool. Nobody ever told her where the meetups were happening. When it came to the division of work, the group inevitably responded: Jennifer refused to help. Some of the teachers would try to elicit a defense from Sunshine, but she remained silent. I guess she never got over the fear instilled in her in elementary school. Supposedly, she told on some bullies for calling her “Cabbage Patch Kid” and they slammed her in the mud and kicked her bad. Of course, there were some teachers who were just as ruthless as the students. I heard Ms. Reardon, the sixth-grade science teacher, tell her that despite her intelligence, social problems meant that she would never succeed in life and Mr. Pearson, the seventh-grade English teacher, said someone as poor as her shouldn’t have hope. I wish I could say that I acted differently, that I tried to include her, but I didn’t. By the time we reached high school, the group project grades had dropped her out of my academic circle. However, the continued bullying kept Sunshine burning bright in my orbit.

Jennifer’s grace was an example to us all.

The whole cheerleading squad threw me a welcome party the day before my freshman year began. They even brought me the cutest outfit and a junior offered me a ride. At 7: 15 a.m., she pulled into the driveway in her clunker. Fifteen minutes later we screeched into the parking lot, just as the buses were pulling in. The unmistakable sound filled my ears. “You Are My Sunshine.” Mud balls flew knocking Jennifer from the stairs of the bus onto the concrete. She pulled herself up dredging her splattered sunshine jumpsuit with her. As she stepped through the entrance doors, Sunshine disappeared from my mind again.

Though she wasn’t one of the more outgoing students, she was beloved by everyone.

That first year our paths didn’t cross much as our classes were clearly different now and extra-curricular activities weren’t her thing. At times, I would hear calls of “fatso”, “creepy”, and “not so little Orphan Annie” coming from the halls, and witness Sunshine being thrown into lockers. At lunch she sat alone, while some kids threw food at her and most...okay, all…of us just sneered. Gossip went around that her grandmother, her sole living relative, got cancer and the water in her house was turned off. Her hygiene suffered, ostracizing her even more. One morning I really had to pee, so reluctantly ran to the gross bathroom on the first floor. That giant jumpsuit was in a sink with Sunshine scrubbing it with a bar of soap. Laughter exploded from me. She just stood there scrubbing…I am sorry I did that now.

I, for one, enjoyed Jennifer’s contributions in the classroom.

A language class was required for all students and, unfortunately, I lacked any skills in this area, so this meant mixing with all the other sophomores. As I walked into class, I noticed the name cards carefully placed on the desks. Señora Amelia Brantley. Cute. Assigned Seating. I scanned the desks. Señora Jennifer Halloway right next to Señor Harry Hankel, the quarterback, who later became captain of the football team, a notorious bully. Everyone thought Harry would make it to the NFL someday bringing fame, and money, to our school. Thus, his pranks were largely ignored, especially by the popular teachers, like Ms. Garcia. Throughout the semester, every time Ms. Garcia turned her back, he would take hold of Sunshine’s desk and throw it into the wall leaving her reeling. Ms. Garcia refused to discipline Harry, instead admonishing Sunshine for moving her seat. The worst day came on Cinco De Mayo. There was a buffet of Mexican delights contributed by the students and Ms. Garcia. A decorated piñata hung from the ceiling. At the end of class, Ms. Garcia had us start a Conga line. When Sunshine tried to join in, no one would touch her back. They called her a dirty pig and made oinking sounds. Rather than discipline the class, Ms. Garcia simply broke up the line and we went back to the Cinco De Mayo feast. Sunshine went to the back corner of the room, sat down on the floor, and for the first time ever, I saw her cry. That was the beginning of the end, even though I neither knew nor took any steps to stop it.

She was the picture-perfect student.

To be honest, SAT’s, college applications, and maintaining my 4.0 kept me too busy after that to think much about Sunshine. I jumped on the chance to assist with developing the year-book pictures, not only since it would add another line to my Ivy League applications, but also because I loved watching the blobs slowly transform into images of happy people. Cheerleaders forming pyramids. Football players making touchdowns. Even Susie’s mug, now a beautiful young lady, smiling at the Junior Fall Dance. After school one day, I stirred the solution as the last picture appeared. My arm grew limp as the picture came in focus. Sunshine was sitting in the corner of the gym at a pep-rally, all alone, grasping her knees. She looked so miserable, like a puppy that had been hit too many times. Gently, I moved the image towards the trash when the Senior Editor came in and stopped me, laughing and pronouncing that this would be a highlight. I didn’t say anything. The centerfold of the yearbook was Sunshine’s picture with the caption, “You are the light of our school.”

As we are here to celebrate our own accomplishments, I know the Senior Class wishes they could throw Jennifer a ceremony that could honor her alone.

Unlike my freshman year, I walked through the school doors on the first day of my senior year with confidence and pride; head of the cheerleading squad, member of the student council, editor of the yearbook and a shoo-in for valedictorian. Frankly, this was just a distraction from the wait on the responses of the Ivy League schools. December was the traditional month that early applicants received an acceptance…or rejection. August. September, November, were all a blur.

December 12th, I arrived home and opened my inbox:

NEW MAIL

HARVARD: APPLICATION STATUS

SUSIE: SPECIAL CEREMONY FOR SUNSHINE, DAWN

Clicking the attachment of the first message, my hands shook uncomfortably. The Harvard Crest sat cleanly at the top of the letterhead. My eyes scanned the document.

“Congratulations. You have been accepted into the incoming Class of the Fall Semester of 2008.”

The next few hours were a haze. Screams and tears. My mother hugging me. Calling Susie. It all seems like a huge mess of emotions now. Later that night, Susie called to remind me that she was picking me up at 6:00 a.m. for the ceremony. The excitement of the day had overwhelmed me. I assumed it was another award for one of the teachers. The second e-mail remained on my computer unopened as I dreamed of Harvard crimson sweatshirts.

The alarm rang all too soon, I threw on a hoodie and my Northface winter jacket and lumbered down to Susie’s car. The window made a perfectly good pillow and blocked out most of her jabbering. Later, I learned that Susie was explaining that Sunshine’s grandmother had been missing for a few days. One of the idiots from the football team called Sunshine impersonating the police luring her to the flagpole in front of the school, our destination, with a promise of information regarding her grandmother. If I had only listened to Susie. Or opened the e-mail. Or done…anything.

Susie screeched to a stop a few blocks from the school where several other cars loaded with seniors had assembled. I struggled from the car, joining a group of twenty-five in a steady creep. As we came over the hill, I could see Sunshine standing beside the flagpole in her old, scantly patched coat, shivering in the cold. She kicked the snow around her, weakly mouthing, “where are you Grandma.” The group pounced on her. Harry Hankel seized her by the arms forcing her to face the flagpole. From under the snow, two other blindsiders began to pull ropes causing a pair of bloomers and a bra to ascend. The sunshine patches left no doubt of the owner, though I had no idea where the mob had obtained her private items. The group broke out into a chorus of “You are My Sunshine” as they blasted her with ice balls, several striking her square in her mouth causing teeth to be knocked fully out. Seconds seemed liked hours until someone opened the front doors of the school. Everyone scattered. I stood there for a second watching Sunshine lie there on the ground. Blood dripped from her mouth staining the snow. Susie pulled me by the arm, and I turned away. This would be my last view of Sunshine.

I wish I had a chance to know her more personally.

The incident occurred one week before the holiday break. Sunshine didn’t make an appearance in school that week. Holiday cheer soon made me forget the horrible event as my family overwhelmed me with gifts of Harvard paraphernalia: sweatshirts, mugs, anything you could imagine. When I finally stepped back on the grounds of the school, I shivered. My eyes turned up to the flagpole resting on a shadowy image of one of Sunshine’s patches waving. Susie dismissed it as an illusion due to stress. Only a few hours into class, the principal called us all for an assembly in the auditorium. Despite my heavy sweater, I hugged myself tightly trying to keep warm. ��Mr. Lumbre, our principal, stepped on the stage, but I could barely see him despite all the theater lights. A shadow seemed to be engulfing him.

“Jennifer Halloway took her own life on New Year’s Day. She is survived by her grandmother. Funeral arrangements will be announced. Grief counselors will be made available in the main office. School is dismissed for the day to allow time for mourning and processing.”

The senior class sat still. I don’t know what they were feeling, all I know is no one said a word.

We really didn’t have the opportunity to say a proper good-bye. However, even after she was gone, Jennifer still seemed to be with us somehow.

No sunshine came through the clouds the day they put her in the ground. Only her grandmother and the church pastor watched as the casket descended into the earth. I sat in Susie’s car staring. I read in the newspaper that Sunshine had shot herself with her grandfather’s old gun. Her grandmother, finally recovering from a bout of dementia, returned to find her in the garage a few days later. Some of the other seniors said they were going to come to the funeral. Susie backed out but let me take the car. Only the hearse and the pastor’s beat up Chevy kept me company in the cemetery parking lot. I couldn’t bring myself to get out and drove away in perceived silence, though I thought I heard the faint sound of Nat King Cole’s “When Shadow’s Fall.”

The grief counselors only stayed a few days as no one sought their services. Sunshine never left. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, every morning the sunshine shadow enveloped me as I crossed under the flagpole. As the temperatures rose outside the school, they fell within. The furnace was replaced, but the temperature didn’t rise a degree. They tore apart the ductwork, vents, and changed all the thermostats. Nothing worked. Soon things…well…they started getting scary. Senior girls were randomly being thrown into lockers. Books flew from students’ arms. The darkness and “When Shadow’s Fall” were everywhere. Most of the students, and staff, for that matter, were unfamiliar with the song. My grandmother adored Nat King Cole. Though I used to love hearing that smooth baritone, I shivered as it creeped from every Ipod, car stereo, and even the PA system. No other music has been heard in the school since Sunshine’s death.

I walked into a biology class one day on a mission to deliver notices of the upcoming teacher and student council cooperative meeting. There sat Harry Hankel snoring away as a film on protozoa projected over him. I stared at him and sighed, sick of the whole damn school. To my shock, an invisible force picked up his desk and relentlessly banged him back and forth into the wall. I saw nothing touch him but some in the class maintain that a sunshine shaped shadow passed over the film screen before the accident. Harry’s dreams, and the school’s dreams, were over. The doctors were unable to repair the damage in his right leg. He will never play football again.

We wish she could have partaken in the many happy activities of Senior year that are captured forever in our memories.

The final grade announcements confirmed my valedictorian status. I wanted to drop it all and drive off to Massachusetts, never to look back. However, the yearbook distribution had to be done. On the penultimate day of school for the seniors, I walked into the student council office and watched my junior editor sliding receipts into each book. She abruptly stopped, something seeming to catch her eye. Flipping open the book, she let out a shriek and bolted from the office. Drifting over to her workplace, the pages of the yearbook flipped back in the constant cool breeze that pervaded the office. I covered my mouth in horror, looking down at the faces, or lack of faces, of the senior class. Susie should have been smiling back at me. Instead, there was a black spot in the shape of a sunshine. Book after book, page after page, the same. Black blotches smeared out any faces of seniors. Slumping down in a chair, I began to cry. I wasn’t sure then, or even now, who or what I was crying about. Was it for our lost happy year? Was it for the loss of my hard work? Or was it finally for Sunshine?

We are all sorry for the tragedy that befell Jennifer. I can only hope that Sunshine can find the peace she was seeking. Goodbye Jennifer.

There will be no yearbooks to sign this year. Mr. Lumbre cancelled the prom. No one objected. Soon there will be parents wishing many of us well as we head off to our respective colleges and universities. The question is will Sunshine be with us? Will she stay at the school? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know that she is here now as I type these words, shivering, in the dark, a sunshine shaped shadow looming over me.

I…am…. sorry….

#writers on tumblr #my writing #fiction #short story

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astrelan · 4 years ago

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London Rising

So hey y’all, I know I haven’t been active lately. I’ve been working on something different for my D&D group for a little bit now. We’re about to start a campaign using the Genesys gaming system, actually, and I wanted to share the setting details with you all. It’s a completely homebrewed fantasy/steampunk setting, which Genesys is amazing for. I’d love to hear any feedback if you want to PM me about it.

Here goes:

London Rising is a dystopian version of earth, where magically-powered airships the size of cities dominate the skies. On the ground below, magical war has rendered most areas of the planet unlivable. It has been almost three thousand years since the outbreak of war drove humanity to live in the sky, and, despite constant maintenance, ships are starting to break down. More frequent landings have been made, even going so far as to stop in dangerous territory. Refueling and refit stops in safe zones take longer. Fear that the great ships will falter and stall is rising. It is impossible to tell if the great era of the air will end soon, or if this is just a hiccup along its path.

Tensions between cities are rising, leading to more than one skirmish between cities. Air piracy has been on the rise, and cities have taken real combat damage for the first time. It's only a matter of time before one falls from the sky. City ships are separated into three major levels: the officers' quarters, which is nearest to the top decks; the engineers' quarters, which is firmly in the middle, around the flight crystal; and steerage, which is the lower decks. The officers' quarters are where the elite stay, while the engineers' is where the skilled laborers and middle class live. Steerage is for the poor or useless crewmembers, and is cramped and dangerous to live in.

Currency is the cubit, abbreviated as a bit. A cubit is a small brass square with a hole in the middle. Twenty-five cubits can be exchanged for a thruppenny bit, which is a small square of sterling silver with a hole in it. Four thruppenny bits can be exchanged for a dollar, which is a round copper coin with a hole in the middle. The coins are lightly engraved, and are accepted in most civilized places.

Magic is a thing, but must normally be focused through an implement, most commonly a crystal glove.

The two major religions on most city ships are the Temple of the Everlasting Cog and the Order of Skysingers. There is also the Cult of Beth'Shalot, but they are illegal in most places. The Temple is an atheist order that reveres order and solidarity, and despises chaos. They sing hymns called shipsongs five times daily, and worshippers are permitted breaks during these times if they do not work on essential functions. The Order worships the sky and its magic. They have a church on the ship's deck, and all members have free access to it. The Cult worships a sleeping old god who will devour the world when he awakes. There are mechanical walker machines that are piloted by humans and some that are controlled by rudimentary machine intelligences. These vary in size, but some of the larger ones have built in rocket engines to allow them to fly. Those owned by London are piloted by the Knights of the Silver Cog, a nearly-religious order that is sponsored by the Temple of the Everlasting Cog.

The city is led by Queen Ileein Southmoreland, who handles the city's foreign affairs. The Archchancellor handles day to day affairs and the Captain handles everything about the ship itself.

Day to day affairs are run by Archchancellor Valeria Hightower. The Archchancellor is elected by popular vote, but most of the steerage doesn't really have a chance; the votes are weighted by class. Elections are held every ten years.

The Captain is elected by the Captain's Council, an elite group of ten men and women that run the ship itself. The Captain is a position for life, as when the elected takes the post, they give up their name to bond with the crystal that runs the ship. There is always a captain shadowing the current captain, whose lifespan is drastically reduced due to the taxing nature of their crystalline bond. The Cogbound are a race of mechanical men created by the Temple of the Everlasting Cog. They are created without inherent sentience, but it can evolve. Those deemed sentient are known as Cogborn, and are revered by the Temple. Every year, all Cogbound take a series of tests called the Sentience Tests, which consist of a large number of empathy-related questions. This happens over the period of a week, which is aptly called Sentience Week. Keeping a Cogbound from their testing is punishable by death in some cases, though whipping and hefty fines are more common.

While mostly human, the populace of London and most other city states has grown varied over the years due to immigration from the surface and a steady stream of emigrants from steerage looking for a better life.

There are three arcane universities in London: St. George's Academy of Sorcery, which is the most elite; Lord Wimbley's School of the Arcane Arts, which is of middling prestige; and the Alderman's House of Spellcraft, which is the state-funded school to make sure all spellcasters have some education. Most of the world is covered in dark grey wasteland. Only dead plants remain there as far as flora. They are crawling with mutants and monsters, and magical storms are common. Crystals can sometimes be found here, though not very big ones. Mostly big enough for lithospats. Areas of wasteland include much of Europe and Asia, parts of Africa and Russia, and the entire Mediterranean coast.

Magical storms ravage some areas constantly. These places are absolutely filled with monsters and mutants, and what plants do grow there are warped, evil things that grow fat on magical energy. Crystals are abundant here, often being big enough to fly city ships with. Those places include all of north america, most of Russia, and parts of South America.

Most safe zones have isolated themselves, all trade being done via the air. These include India, Japan, Cuba, parts of Scandinavia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and some areas in the Himalayas and South America's mountain ranges.

Australia is the only country to emerge almost completely unscathed, and is the world's largest trade hub.

Greenland is partially covered in storms, but its safe zones are widely visited trading ports.

Most of the long-lasting technology that exists is ancient crystal-based technology. Newer technology is normally steam-based or more primitive crystal technology, cobbled together by mechanomancers.

City ships are primarily kept aloft by their lift crystals, but are also kept aloft by a variety of other technologies depending on the city, including balloons and steam-powered machines. Propulsion is partially achieved by lift crystals but is mostly provided by steam-powered propellers. Most of the internal systems and living areas are steam-powered, but the officers' quarters are normally crystal-powered.

Smaller airships are normally kept aloft by balloons and steam-powered machines, but some ancient or well-financed airships use smaller lift crystals. Propulsion is almost always provided by propellers.

There are two primary types of small aircraft: gyrospats and lithospats. Gyrospats are little more than a wooden open cockpit, a steam engine, a propeller, and normally some sort of weaponry. Lithospats are separated into ancient and modern lithospats, both powered by lift crystals. Ancient lithospats are elegant, aesthetically pleasing aircraft with no visible means of propulsion. Their crystals are tucked into a protective shell. They are normally made of materials that are now impossible to reproduce with modern technology. Modern lithospats bear more resemblance to gyrospats, but made of steel or iron. Their crystals are normally only protected by a thin hemisphere of metal.

Weapons technology ranges from single shot weapons to clockwork loading mechanisms to weapons firing crystal charges. Melee weapons are fairly standard fare, but also include chainswords and other mechanized weapons.

Advanced locks can either be steam-run transaction engine locks, or crystal-board locks similar to highly tuned modern electronic locks.

Thinking machines are normally run off of crystal-boards, ancient technology that is similar to a modern computer chip or motherboard. The art of making these has been diluted but not lost; with the tools available, it is not possible to make high quality crystal-boards anymore, but the Temple puts out reasonable facsimiles for the Cogbound they make. The quality varies from city to city.

#campaign #setting #genesys #fantasy #steampunk #magipunk #magic #d&d #dungeons and dragons #dnd #dystopian roleplay #dystopian fantasy #dystopian #dystopian steampunk #writing #london rising

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twentyninetynines · 4 years ago

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empty as a car coasting downhill // self para

summary: After experiencing and investigating a sudden end to her archives, Lyla has some bad news for Miguel. Miguel is not a fan of bad news. trigger warnings: death, violence, brief implications of domestic violence and abuse featuring: miguel o’hara, lyla, brief mentions of other characters word count: 2049 (god i wish it was 2099)

“Miguel.” Lyla’s voice echoed throughout the apartment, pulling Miguel from his slumber, and he sighed as he pulled the pillow over his face to block out the dim yellow light of her hologram.

“I told you not to wake me up early on weekends,” he grumbled, swatting towards the light as if he could disperse the hologram with his hand. The light flickered and, when Lyla spoke again, her voice came from the other side of the bed --- a telltale sign that she’d grown irritated enough with his swatting to move, even if there was no physical effect of his efforts.

“It’s ten in the morning. That isn’t early.” Miguel groaned, shoving the pillow further against his face as Lyla continued. “Additionally, you told me to provide updates on the timeline as they became available. If you don’t want to hear it…” She trailed off, leaving the threat hanging clearly over his head and Miguel cursed, removing the pillow from his head and sitting up in bed.

“This is some form of emotional abuse,” he told her seriously, rubbing his eyes. His hair was sure to be sticking up at all angles. Dana always used to say his bedhead rivaled that of the messiest people.

With Miguel upright in bed, Lyla seemed marginally more pleased. She flashed him a smile which he returned with a glare, crossing his arms over his chest to further sell his displeasure. Lyla sighed, rolling her eyes and flickering out of sight for a moment before reappearing at the foot of the bed.

“You win,” Miguel said, leaning his head back against the headboard. “You’ve bullied me into consciousness. What’ve you got?”

Lyla didn’t usually hesitate. She was programmed with remarkably human reactions, but the negative aspects of humanity had always been toned down as far as artificial intelligence was concerned. People liked perfection, even if it provided a poor imitation of humanity. Lyla didn’t usually hesitate, but she was hesitating now. She was staring at Miguel and sucking in her lip, as if debating whether or not to continue. It set him on edge, made him nervous. “Lyla…” His voice was steadier than he felt, but Lyla seemed to catch the nerves anyway. She offered him a tight smile before nodding.

“My archives stopped.”

A beat followed. The gears in Miguel’s head started turning, and he’d blame his sluggishness on the fact that he just woke up but he knew there was a hint of denial contributing to it as well. “Your archives stopped,” he repeated, eyeing her carefully.

“My archives stopped,” she confirmed.

Another beat. And then, “That makes no shocking sense. Your archives don’t stop unless I fail to update them, and I happen to like knowing what the shock is going to happen in this stupid shocking decade.” Lyla shifted. Holograms shouldn’t be able to look apprehensive or guilty or upset, but Lyla was all three and Miguel narrowed his eyes. “Whatever you’re thinking…”

“There was… an article. At the end of the archive.”

“Thrilling. What was it? The classifieds? I could probably use a new job.”

“An obituary.”

Miguel’s heart dropped to his stomach, and his mind began moving faster, anxiety working to spring it forward. “An obituary,” he repeated, throat dry. “Whose?”

And he knew the answer. He knew it before she gave him that apologetic look, he knew it before she tore her gaze from his to look down at her hands folded in front of her, he knew it before she spoke. “Yours.”

“No.” The word was out of his mouth before she’d even finished speaking. “No, because if it was mine, then who updated your archives? Who sent you back so you could upload them? No. It wasn’t mine.”

“It was yours, Miguel.”

“Bullshit.” It was harsher than he meant to be, and Lyla flinched but he didn’t care. Anxiety was replaced by rage so suddenly that it might have terrified him if the anger hadn’t drowned out everything else. “That’s bullshit, Lyla. I’m not --- I don’t die. I can’t die here, I’m --- I won’t even be born for another fifty years, and I’ve got --- That’s bullshit.” He was out of bed before he realized he was moving, was pacing around the bedroom and trembling. He picked up the only thing within reach --- a coffee mug with a cold, stale brew still settling in the bottom. The mug went through the hologram, shattering against the wall, and Lyla blinked out of sight momentarily.

When she popped up again, she was next to the bed again. She’d changed the appearance of the hologram, gone from the mashup of every pinup Xina had ever seen all mixed together they’d set as her default as a joke because you’ve gotta have something nice to look at when I’m not around, sweetie to an old familiar face, to warm eyes and long hair and a smile that was too tight around the edges and the fire in Miguel’s chest turned to ice in an instant. “I’ve told you not to do that,” he said, choking on the words. “Don’t --- Don’t do that. Please, don’t.”

Dana’s face smiled back at him all the same, gentle and cautious. “It’s the only thing that calms you down when you get like this, honey. You know that.”

And he did. Miguel was an angry man, had inherited George O’Hara’s temper even if he’d never shared an ounce of the man’s DNA. Some things were taught, he supposed. Some things were a part of you no matter whose blood ran through your veins, became twisted up within you, became all that you were. His anger was one of them. “Well, I’m calm now. And I don’t --- I can’t look at her and hear this.”

There was a pause, another hesitation that shouldn’t exist because Lyla was a computer program and not a person and somehow she was the only one who’d ever loved him anyways. There was a pause, and then Lyla was Lyla again, picture perfect without a hair out of place. “What do you need to hear?”

“Do you know how it happens?” His voice was quiet and defeated and he was looking anywhere but the new coffee stain on the wall, anywhere but the shattered glass on the ground.

“That’s not really the type of thing they put in obituaries in this decade, Miguel.” And that made sense. This decade was gentler than the one he was used to. It was softer. Death was a tragedy here instead of a warning. Miguel nodded, slow and uncertain.

“Maybe I wrote it,” he offered, looking for any kind of a way out. “Right? Maybe I wrote it to start us on some --- some kind of solution. To get me back to 2099. That could be, right?”

Lyla looked almost sympathetic. “But you haven’t been trying to get back to 2099, have you? Not for a long while now.” She was right, she was always right. In the beginning, he’d been desperate for a ticket home, but after a while… “You’ve built something here. Friends. Peter, Tony, Bart, Sharon… You’ve got people here, don’t you?” He nodded again, not trusting his voice enough to speak. “And you’ll have more. They were mentioned in the obituary, you know. You don’t have any family here, but they were… You have people. More than you did before.”

“I had Gabri,” he argued. “And mom, and Xina, and…” He trailed off before he could tack her name on the end, before he could pretend Dana was anything more than a name carved in granite by the time he left.

“They hated you, Miguel.”

He huffed a laugh at that, a strangled sound that was more of a gasp than anything resembling a humorous response. “Well, yeah. Of course they did. But the people here… I mean, they do too, don’t they?”

She gave him a look at that, and she didn’t have to speak for him to know the answer but she said it anyway. Lyla always spoke, even when he didn’t need things said aloud. Miguel had never been able to decide if he loved or hated that. “You’re projecting a little bit there, Miggy. There’s only one person here who hates you. You know that.”

Miguel closed his eyes, nodded again. There was one person in this decade who hated him, one person who despised him more than anything and he couldn’t get away from that. No one had ever hated Miguel more than he hated himself. He didn’t think it was possible. “Okay,” he said, eyes opening again. “Okay. So, I do it on my terms, then. I take out Tiberius Stone. I mean, I’m dead either way, right? So I take out Stone, and the future’s better.” She didn’t say anything. “Lyla, the future’s better, isn’t it? Do an analysis.”

“Analyzing,” she replied, voice a tinge more robotic than was typical. Her eyes went blank for a moment, program constructing a future in which Tiberius Stone died in the year 2020, a future in which Alchemax’s rise to power became stunted very early, very definitively. When she came back to herself, it was with an apologetic shake of her head.

“What happens? Just --- Break it to me quick. Alchemax?”

“Stone’s shares are bought out by another company. They go on to develop the public eye policing and build to a justice system very similar to the one you experienced in 2099. That seems to be a fixed issue, regardless of Stone’s involvement.”

Miguel shut his eyes again, throat tight. “What about Dana?” Lyla went quiet again, and Miguel grunted lowly. “She still dies?”

“No,” she replied softly. “Dana D’Angelo marries young. She has two sons and a daughter, and she grows old. When she dies, it’s surrounded by children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. She lives a full life.”

“A happy life?”

“I don’t know, Miguel. I don’t know that.”

Miguel swallowed, nodding numbly. “Who, uh… Who’s she marry? Shock, is it… I mean, without me getting in the middle of it, it’s probably Gabri, isn’t it?” Silence. Miguel opened his eyes, looking at her until she sighed.

“George and Conchata O’Hara have no children. Conchata dies in 2070, a few years before Gabri would have been conceived. A year after you would have been born.”

“How?” He asked the question the moment before his mind provided the answer, and he shook his head. “No. No, don’t… You don’t have to say it. Let’s… We can move on, yeah? Where’s Xina end up?”

“Xina Kwan is employed by this timeline’s version of Alchemax shortly after her graduation. She goes missing in 2095.”

“She was never good at rules. I can’t imagine any version of Alchemax liked that.” He went quiet again, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I can’t do this, can I? Nothing’s better. I kill Stone, and the future is still shocked. I let him live, and I still die. I don’t… I don’t get a good option, do I?”

“I’m sorry, Miguel.”

And Lyla was just code. She was an old Alchemax program that he and Xina had altered in a dorm room, she was ones and zeroes and a healthy dose of teenage rebellion and Miguel loved her so much that it ached sometimes. She was his best friend, the best friend he’d ever had, and she wasn’t even real. She wasn’t even a person. What did that say about him?

“It’s okay, Lyla. It isn’t your fault. It’s probably mine, right? I mean, I’m the one who pisses somebody off enough to make them off me.” Lyla’s laugh was out of pity rather than humor, but Miguel accepted it all the same. “Look, we’ve got time. Don’t we?” He opened his eyes and she nodded, slow and careful. “We’ve got time. So I’ll… I’ll figure something out. A way to not, uh… not die. Should be easy, right? I mean, I’m great at not dying. I’ve been doing it for thirty years now.” Another laugh, soft and gentle and meant to placate, to comfort. “Yeah,” Miguel nodded. “Yeah. We’re gonna be fine, Lyla. I’m gonna be fine.”

(If he repeated it enough, it would start to sound true eventually. The alternative couldn’t be an option.)

#self para tag tbd #p: empty as a car coasting downhill #death tw #violence tw #abuse tw #domestic violence tw

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thatfanficstuff · 5 years ago

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The Light in my Darkness - 22

Pairing: Clint x Reader ???

Warning/Note: Still angsty and shit.

***

The thing about loving someone was the pain that so often came with it. You knew from the beginning that this agreement with Clint was a risky proposition. That there was the chance it would all go to hell and you’d be left picking up the pieces of your heart. What you didn’t realize was just how deep that pain would go. Your chest ached with the loss of him. This wasn’t heartbreak, this was pure devastation. He had become such a part of you that his absence was a physical thing you felt deep in your soul.

God, it hurt. You laid on the floor of your studio for hours and wept. The coolness of the wood beneath you seeped through your clothes and your skin grew tight with dried tears, but still you cried. Grieving for the loss of the man you loved and for the love you were so certain he’d felt for you even if only for a moment.

Eventually the tears stopped but you remained curled up on the floor not willing to move just yet. You ran your eyes around the room taking in the photos that lined the wall, the sketches you’d drawn, the paintings you’d created. You hadn’t been wrong. He loved you. The proof was all around you. And nowhere could it be seen more clearly than the photographs still in your computer.

You sat up with a sniff and ran the sleeve of your shirt over your face to wipe away some of the tears. You reached up and pulled your laptop from the counter where you’d sat it when you’d first entered the studio. After firing it up, you went immediately to your photos to scroll through them again. The images that had brought you such joy earlier now only served to hurt you more. You took a deep, stuttering breath, trying to center yourself.

You opened one of the images in your graphics program and, after making a couple of tweaks, sent it as an attachment to Steve. The email you sent with it was lengthy and detailed and perhaps a little rambly but he responded almost immediately. He loved every rambling thought you’d typed out.

This was it. This is what you had been missing. That central theme Steve wanted your show to have. Love. Loss. Him.

***

Clint woke the next afternoon with a dry mouth and throbbing head. He might have had a drink or five too many after returning home from your apartment. How had everything gone so colossally fucking wrong in such a short period of time? He’d taken the day off intending to spend it in bed with you. Well, your plan had been to do some prep work for Thanksgiving the next day, but that wasn’t what had been on his agenda at all. Shit. Thanksgiving. At least it was only supposed to be the two of you and Wanda. His girl wouldn’t give a shit what her old man whipped up for the holiday. If she even showed. She would probably be too pissed at him to even come.

And he deserved it. He knew he did. He should have stayed well the fuck away from Y/N and continued to admire you from afar. Instead, he’d just had to have a taste. He had just wanted to know for a moment what it would be like for you to be his. God, he was an idiot.

Natasha was right. This had been different from the beginning. Hell, if he was honest, he’d been in love with you before he ever had Loki write up the damn contract. But you were supposed to be stronger than him. Than all of this mess he was now in the middle of.

You weren’t supposed to fall in love with an old man like him. And as much as he wanted to toss all of his worries and concerns aside, he couldn’t. He already knew what would happen if he did. He’d become even more tangled up with you. Until he couldn’t function—couldn’t live—without you.

And then you’d realize that behind the success, behind the money, he was nothing. That deep down he was still that dirt poor soldier with nothing more than a good aim. And he wasn’t sure he could survive that look in your eye when it happened. That utter disappointment and regret. Not from you.

He swung his feet off the bed and sat up with a groan. He dropped his head into his hands and tugged at the strands of his hair. He’d lived his life the way he had for years to avoid this bone numbing ache that settled deep in the core of him. He sucked in a breath and released it in a sob. He was so, so broken without you. But if he let himself love you, let himself live the life he so desperately wanted, it would end him when you finally left.

***

Clint was more than a little surprised when Wanda showed up late the next morning. His head was buried in the fridge trying to decide what to make when her happy hello announced her arrival via the kitchen door. He straightened with a jerk, his eyes finding her immediately and taking in her happy expression.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said hesitantly. Surely, you had called her. Texted. Something. She was your best friend.

Wanda frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?” She looked around. “Where’s Y/N?”

Clint groaned and let his forehead fall against the fridge.

“What did you do?”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, otherwise not moving. “Who says I did anything? Maybe she did something.”

She placed her fists on her hips and stared him down, waiting for him to break, to admit what he’d done.

With a sigh, he opened the fridge and pulled out a beer before sitting at the table. “Things just didn’t work out, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay. Go fix it.” She stomped her foot and for just a moment, Clint had a flash of the girl she used to be.

“I’m sorry. I know she’s your friend, but there’s no reason that has to change.” He meant the words. He really did, but he also knew that there would be no more casual swims at his house or holiday dinners together.

“Why did you start this if you weren’t going to see it through? Why her?”

“Come on, Wanda. You know you can’t predict how a relationship is going to turn out. You just jump in and hope for the best. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t.” He leaned back in his seat and ran his thumbnail along the edge of the label on his bottle.

She dropped into a chair across from him. “I’m not stupid, you know. I know you didn’t care about any of those women that you went out with. That’s why I thought this would be different. I thought maybe you were finally ready to give yourself a chance to be happy.”

Clint wasn’t surprised to hear that she’d figured him out a long time ago. She was always smarter than him anyway. He kept his eyes glued to the bottle in his hand.

“You are allowed to be happy, Dad. You know that, right?”

His gaze found hers but still, he said nothing.

After the silence stretched for too long, she sighed and got back to her feet. “As much as I love you, I’m not going to let my best friend spend the day alone. Especially when it’s your fault.”

He nodded to let her know he heard and watched her walk to the door.

She stopped in the doorway to look back at him. “By the way, you look like shit.” With that she left, slamming the door behind her.

***

“Y/N?” Wanda’s voice called surprising you. She had apparently let herself in with the key you’d given her. You hadn’t been expecting her to just show up.

“Back here,” you called back and returned to your project.

“What are you…” her voice trailed off as she stepped into the doorway. She sucked in a breath and the corner of your mouth kicked up in a smile. “You’ve been busy.”

You hummed in agreement but didn’t quit working.

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” you asked in an attempt to dodge her question.

“Besides the fact that I know what happened? Well, sort of.” She stepped into the room and walked over to the large canvas you’d finished earlier. “If I’m not mistaken this is a hand crushing a heart made of love poems.”

You glanced at her. “Don’t you like it?”

She blinked at you and you grinned before turning back to your current piece.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t think that’s really the point here, Y/N/N.”

You didn’t respond as you kept painting.

Wanda stepped closer to you. “How long have you been working like this?”

“Since he left.” Your voice broke a little and you reached over to grab your coffee from the counter. A long swallow of the lukewarm brew and you leaned on the counter to look at your friend.

Her worried gaze ran over you taking in your paint spattered appearance. “And when was that?”

You scrunched your nose in thought before shaking your head. “When I came back from the photo lab.”

She tilted her head and her gaze sharpened. “Tuesday?”

You took another sip of the coffee and nodded.

“That was two days ago. Have you slept at all?”

You ran a hand down your face. Of course, you hadn’t slept. You were too afraid you’d see him in your dreams.

“Have you eaten?”

“Sure.” You’d had a bowl of cereal sometime the day before and enough coffee to keep you fueled for days.

Wanda plucked the paintbrush from your hand before pushing you toward the door. “Go get in the shower. I’ll make you something to eat.”

You wanted to argue, to tell her that you had work to do but she was right. You needed food and rest and you weren’t going to get either until you were clean. You stumbled into the shower and started to scrub rich, blue paint from your hands.

By the time Wanda appeared in your room ten minutes later, you were already curled up on your bed sound asleep.

#clint barton x reader #hawkeye x reader #jeremy renner x reader #sugar daddy au #avengers fanfiction #series #the light in my darkness

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years ago

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Why I won't buy an Ipad: ten years later

Ten years ago, Apple released the Ipad. I was in a hotel room in Seattle, jetlagged and awake at 4AM while my wife and daughter slept.

I had been thinking about Apple's impending Ipad release and what a reversal it meant for everything I loved about tech: taking away your right to decide whose code you'd run -- even your right to change the battery! I wrote about my feelings and many people read it. It even rated a mention in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs.

A decade later, the Ipad is ten years old and Apple has killed 20 state Right to Repair bills, in part to lock out third parties who might change you batteries for you.

I just reread that piece, and I still stand by it.

Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)

I've spent ten years now on Boing Boing, finding cool things that people have done and made and writing about them. Most of the really exciting stuff hasn't come from big corporations with enormous budgets, it's come from experimentalist amateurs. These people were able to make stuff and put it in the public's eye and even sell it without having to submit to the whims of a single company that had declared itself gatekeeper for your phone and other personal technology.

Danny O'Brien does a very good job of explaining why I'm completely uninterested in buying an iPad -- it really feels like the second coming of the CD-ROM "revolution" in which "content" people proclaimed that they were going to remake media by producing expensive (to make and to buy) products. I was a CD-ROM programmer at the start of my tech career, and I felt that excitement, too, and lived through it to see how wrong I was, how open platforms and experimental amateurs would eventually beat out the spendy, slick pros.

I remember the early days of the web -- and the last days of CD ROM -- when there was this mainstream consensus that the web and PCs were too durned geeky and difficult and unpredictable for "my mom" (it's amazing how many tech people have an incredibly low opinion of their mothers). If I had a share of AOL for every time someone told me that the web would die because AOL was so easy and the web was full of garbage, I'd have a lot of AOL shares.

And they wouldn't be worth much.

Incumbents made bad revolutionaries Relying on incumbents to produce your revolutions is not a good strategy. They're apt to take all the stuff that makes their products great and try to use technology to charge you extra for it, or prohibit it altogether.

I mean, look at that Marvel app (just look at it). I was a comic-book kid, and I'm a comic-book grownup, and the thing that made comics for me was sharing them. If there was ever a medium that relied on kids swapping their purchases around to build an audience, it was comics. And the used market for comics! It was -- and is -- huge, and vital. I can't even count how many times I've gone spelunking in the used comic-bins at a great and musty store to find back issues that I'd missed, or sample new titles on the cheap. (It's part of a multigenerational tradition in my family -- my mom's father used to take her and her sibs down to Dragon Lady Comics on Queen Street in Toronto every weekend to swap their old comics for credit and get new ones).

So what does Marvel do to "enhance" its comics? They take away the right to give, sell or loan your comics. What an improvement. Way to take the joyous, marvellous sharing and bonding experience of comic reading and turn it into a passive, lonely undertaking that isolates, rather than unites. Nice one, Misney.

Infantalizing hardware Then there's the device itself: clearly there's a lot of thoughtfulness and smarts that went into the design. But there's also a palpable contempt for the owner. I believe -- really believe -- in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can't open it, you don't own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better. If you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you bought her an Apple ][+.

But with the iPad, it seems like Apple's model customer is that same stupid stereotype of a technophobic, timid, scatterbrained mother as appears in a billion renditions of "that's too complicated for my mom" (listen to the pundits extol the virtues of the iPad and time how long it takes for them to explain that here, finally, is something that isn't too complicated for their poor old mothers).

The model of interaction with the iPad is to be a "consumer," what William Gibson memorably described as "something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth... no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote."

The way you improve your iPad isn't to figure out how it works and making it better. The way you improve the iPad is to buy iApps. Buying an iPad for your kids isn't a means of jump-starting the realization that the world is yours to take apart and reassemble; it's a way of telling your offspring that even changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the professionals.

Dale Dougherty's piece on Hypercard and its influence on a generation of young hackers is a must-read on this. I got my start as a Hypercard programmer, and it was Hypercard's gentle and intuitive introduction to the idea of remaking the world that made me consider a career in computers.

Wal-Martization of the software channel And let's look at the iStore. For a company whose CEO professes a hatred of DRM, Apple sure has made DRM its alpha and omega. Having gotten into business with the two industries that most believe that you shouldn't be able to modify your hardware, load your own software on it, write software for it, override instructions given to it by the mothership (the entertainment industry and the phone companies), Apple has defined its business around these principles. It uses DRM to control what can run on your devices, which means that Apple's customers can't take their "iContent" with them to competing devices, and Apple developers can't sell on their own terms.

The iStore lock-in doesn't make life better for Apple's customers or Apple's developers. As an adult, I want to be able to choose whose stuff I buy and whom I trust to evaluate that stuff. I don't want my universe of apps constrained to the stuff that the Cupertino Politburo decides to allow for its platform. And as a copyright holder and creator, I don't want a single, Wal-Mart-like channel that controls access to my audience and dictates what is and is not acceptable material for me to create. The last time I posted about this, we got a string of apologies for Apple's abusive contractual terms for developers, but the best one was, "Did you think that access to a platform where you can make a fortune would come without strings attached?" I read it in Don Corleone's voice and it sounded just right. Of course I believe in a market where competition can take place without bending my knee to a company that has erected a drawbridge between me and my customers!

Journalism is looking for a daddy figure I think that the press has been all over the iPad because Apple puts on a good show, and because everyone in journalism-land is looking for a daddy figure who'll promise them that their audience will go back to paying for their stuff. The reason people have stopped paying for a lot of "content" isn't just that they can get it for free, though: it's that they can get lots of competing stuff for free, too. The open platform has allowed for an explosion of new material, some of it rough-hewn, some of it slick as the pros, most of it targetted more narrowly than the old media ever managed. Rupert Murdoch can rattle his saber all he likes about taking his content out of Google, but I say do it, Rupert. We'll miss your fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the Web so little that we'll hardly notice it, and we'll have no trouble finding material to fill the void.

Just like the gadget press is full of devices that gadget bloggers need (and that no one else cares about), the mainstream press is full of stories that affirm the internal media consensus. Yesterday's empires do something sacred and vital and most of all grown up, and that other adults will eventually come along to move us all away from the kids' playground that is the wild web, with its amateur content and lack of proprietary channels where exclusive deals can be made. We'll move back into the walled gardens that best return shareholder value to the investors who haven't updated their portfolios since before eTrade came online.

But the real economics of iPad publishing tell a different story: even a stellar iPad sales performance isn't going to do much to stanch the bleeding from traditional publishing. Wishful thinking and a nostalgia for the good old days of lockdown won't bring customers back through the door.

Gadgets come and gadgets go Gadgets come and gadgets go. The iPad you buy today will be e-waste in a year or two (less, if you decide not to pay to have the battery changed for you). The real issue isn't the capabilities of the piece of plastic you unwrap today, but the technical and social infrastructure that accompanies it.

If you want to live in the creative universe where anyone with a cool idea can make it and give it to you to run on your hardware, the iPad isn't for you.

If you want to live in the fair world where you get to keep (or give away) the stuff you buy, the iPad isn't for you.

If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you're going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the iPad isn't for you.

https://boingboing.net/2020/01/27/nascent-boulangism.html

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in-class-daydreams · 5 years ago

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Parlay (Kuroo x Reader) | Chapter 5

-Pairing: Kuroo Tetsurou x Reader (ft. Roommate Kenma)

Word Count: ~2,300

Genres: Fluff, angst if you squint, general buffoonery

CW: Some more swearing, secondhand embarrassment lol

Summary: (Y/N), a first-year student attending Tokyo U, is living with her best friend, Kozume Kenma. Little did she know, her life would be turned upside down after being exposed to Kenma’s volleyball teammate and close friend, Kuroo Tetsurou. One wrong move, and the parlay’s stakes only get higher each time.

Chapters: First | Previous | Next

Grandmother had nearly given herself a stroke from agreeing so fast to (Y/N)’s request for a half shift that day.

“Is it for school? Is it for friends? Oh, (Y/N)-chan, is it for a man or a woman?” the old woman bombarded the girl she treated like a grandchild with questions. It was rare for (Y/N) to take a day off, much less request one. She shook her head.

“Nothing like that, Gran. My friends invited me to watch their volleyball game. Our school is very highly ranked.”

“Ah, your Tooru-kun plays on that team, doesn’t he?” (Y/N) watched as Grandmother cut a mango into slices and presented them on a bed of sticky rice. The young girl served the dish to a table by the window: a young father and his young daughter.

“The usual, for my favorite father-daughter duo!” she smiled sweetly at the pair. The father looked up from his computer.

��Thank you, (Y/N)-san. Look, Miki! What’s this?” he asked his 2-year-old. The little brown-haired girl looked away from the window to meet her father’s gaze. She had plump little rosy cheeks streaked with dried milk.

“Mangey!” she chirped. Before her father could react, the child had taken a fistful of mango and shoved it mostly into her mouth, though, the majority ended up on those round cheeks of hers. The man sighed, but not without a nonetheless adoring look at his daughter.

“I’m glad she likes it, “ (Y/N) giggled, “I’ll be back to check on you two in a few minutes, Suzuki-san.”

Making her way back to the kitchen, leaning against a side table covered in clean glass cups, (Y/N) took a moment to bask in the warm embrace of the place that felt like her true home. The kitchen was smaller than most tea houses of that size and of that popularity than the average place would normally have. Grandmother, however, made sure the place was immaculate. (Y/N) looked over the small plastic bins of ingredients, each one placed based first on health code requirements, then by frequency. Filling for songpyeon took up the largest bin. Continuing her conversation with Grandmother, she said, “Yes, Tooru is on that team,” she chuckled, “They practically begged him to play for them.” Grandmother dried her hands on a dish towel.

“Well, if you ever manage to pull him off the court, feel free to bring him around. That boy’s always neglected to eat,” the old woman griped.

Opening her mouth to reply, the ringing of the front door bell interrupted (Y/N)’s reply. With a quick swipe her hands over her apron, she swung out of the kitchen and greeted their new guests.

“Welcome in-- Oh! Hi, you two! Welcome in.” Before her stood her best friend and roommate and his tall, stressfully attractive childhood friend. Kenma’s dyed-blonde hair was mostly grown out - he’d been too busy (and too lazy) to get it redone. Kuroo’s catlike eyes crinkled as he smiled at her.

“Good morning, (Y/N)-san.”

“Hi, (Y/N).”

The female led the two boys over to a booth across from the kitchen entrance. Away from the volleyball players’ line of sight, the other three servers working today poked their heads out from the kitchen doorway. Chisato, Grandmother’s actual granddaughter, was fanning herself dramatically, while Shusei and Tamaki were busy ogling Tokyo U’s handsome spiker. (Y/N) rolled her eyes at them. The boys took the menus she handed them.

“Can I start you two off with anything to drink?”

“Water, please.”

“Just a water,” because they were in college, and broke ass college students can’t afford not-water.

Kenma didn’t even open his menu before handing it back to her.

“Something with pork,” he said, after which he pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his emails.

Without batting an eye, the server girl replied, “You got it!” Then, she turned to Kuroo.

“Would you like something specific or if you want, you can give me a general preference like Kenma did, and I’ll give you something you’d like.”

The menu was somewhat thick for a tea house, which Kuroo noticed was because they didn’t just have one country’s dishes, as Chisai’s selection contained an incredible variety.

Now, Kuroo wanted to say either, ‘I trust your judgement’, or ‘I’ll enjoy whatever you put on the table in front of me.’ Sadly, the poor mess of a boy was so preoccupied with thinking about how the girl in front of him was definitely not super adorable in her white collared-shirt and her totally not endearing plaid apron, much less how absolutely unlovable it was that she had flour in her hair from tucking it behind her ear so often. He ended up making a strangled choking sound and saying, “I table.”

Everyone blinked. Forget being a cat, Kuroo fought to repel his inner badger that wanted to dig a hole, crawl inside, and never come out. Kenma was turning red keeping his laughter contained, and as if the universe hadn’t decided it wanted to be a complete dick to the wild-haired boy, he accidentally glanced up at (Y/N)’s cute expression with her brows furrowed, and her lips puckered in confusion.

‘Ahhhhhhhh,’ he thought as his brain short-circuited. Finally, finally, (Y/N) smiled at him gently.

“It’s alright, I do that a lot. Try again?” Oh sweet Karasuno’s resident Jesus, what a sweetheart. Desperate to redeem himself, Kuroo cleared his throat.

“Ahem, I-- Uh-- What’s your favorite dish here?”

‘Amazing job, Tetsurou. You fucking nailed that, Tetsurou. You, sir, are a smooth criminal,’ he told himself. (Y/N)’s bright expression from his question was almost worth making a fool of himself. Almost.

“Ah! Well, I love everything here, and I promise I really do, I’m not contractually obligated to say that, hehe, and it really depends what you prefer personally - everything is delicious.” Kuroo’s soul left his body when she shuffled to his side and leaned over him slightly to point at specific dishes on the menu. She smelled of fresh linen and of fresh baked goodies.

‘Hngggghhhhh, smell good, good smell,’ the poor boy’s brain cells were failing him at the moment, and had been for the past couple of minutes.

“So, if you like shrimp, the har gao comes in orders of 4 and they’re more filling than they look--” (Y/N)’s voice faded away as Kuroo’s brain kept trying to figure itself out like a computer with too many open tabs and had a software virus called, ‘(Y/N) Smells Divine And It’s Not Fair.exe.’ Kuroo knew he was better than this. He knew he was charming and likable. There was no reason for him to totally crumble like he was. From knowing Kuroo so long, Kenma could tell he was struggling, and, out of pity, he lightly kicked his ankle so the girl above him wouldn’t notice. Luckily, that little jolt woke him up enough to catch the tail end of her explanation.

“--you can get it with egg noodles, which I love personally, and Gran gets the duck from a nearby vendor, so you know it’s fresh. It’s especially popular around this time since it’s getting a bit cold,” she finished. It looked like he hadn’t been zoned out for too long. Steeling himself, Kuroo shifted in the cracked burgundy seat.

“That last one sounds great, thank you,” he croaked. Taking the menu from him, (Y/N) told them their order would be out “in a jiffy,” and Kenma’s wheezing stopped him from short-circuiting again.

“What-- Hah-- What was that?” he cackled. Kenma didn’t laugh very hard. Even when he watched Plant compilations or looked at memes, he mostly just blew air through his nose, at best, but here, Kuroo was starting to worry about the shade of blue his friend was turning.

“I--uh” Kuroo started, ‘got distracted by the way she was being adorable and the way her perfume--NO! Tetsurou! BRO-CODE!’. “I’m just a little out of it today I guess.”

“Clearly. You stumbled your words in front of (Y/N) like a panini-head.”

Kuroo couldn’t deny that statement one bit. How had he managed to look like such a panini-head? Why now of all times? Was he nervous? God forbid if he thought he might have a slight crush on this girl because for heaven’s sake he wasn’t about to break the sacred Bro-Code. Before he could go off on his own tangent, (Y/N) walked over to their table carrying a couple of plates in her hands.

“Alrighty, so I’ve got the house cha siu bao for Kenma, and the egg noodle soup with roast duck for Kuroo-san. Is there anything else I can get for you guys?”

“I’m good for now thanks, (Y/N)” Kenma replied as he quickly began eating the fresh, hot pork buns.

“It looks great!” Kuroo responded, his face gleaming with excitement and anticipation of how the food will taste. His expression suddenly changed to a sly smirk, “but you know (Y/N)-san, this meal would be much better if you join us~”

‘Nice, I’ve redeemed myself. Ten points to gryffindor.’

“I’m sorry Kuroo-san, but my shift doesn’t end for another couple of hours. If I end early, I might not be able to make it to the game like I promised.” (Y/N) smiled back innocently.

Before Kuroo was able to say anything, he heard Kenma let out a small, “Pft, rejected”, from beside her.

‘Aaaand, just kidding’

Kuroo miraculously recovered, somehow, and managed to say, “Ah I see. Well thanks for the food, I’m really looking forward to it!”

“Of course! Please enjoy, and let me know if you guys need anything else.” And with that, (Y/N) went back to the kitchen to get more food to serve to customers.

Kenma was deep into his second pork bun when Kuroo dug into his own meal. The duck was perfectly moist with a savory skin. The egg noodles were boiled to a perfect texture. He could’ve wept. The exquisite flavor of the egg noodle soup distracted him from his horrific failure as a human being just a moment ago. Once he’d sated his appetite, he leaned back in his chair. The setter across from him looked totally boneless, a satisfied smile on his face. Kuroo rolled his head over towards the window.

There, the young lady that had been messing with his mind all day was squatting in front of an adorable little girl while the girl’s father laughed heartily across from them. The little girl clapped in delight at the funny faces the waitress was making for her. Kuroo’s heart beat a little faster.

“You’re staring.” Kuroo jumped. Kenma’s intelligent eyes were boring into his soul. Suddenly feeling even guiltier than he already was, Kuroo looked away.

“Kenma, I swear I—“

“Relax. She’s cute. Flirt, stare, call yourself a table, I don’t care.”

Kuroo spluttered at the reminder of his royal screw up. Then, he was puzzled at how Kenma could be so nonchalant about anyone looking at his girlfriend like that, especially his own best friend. He knew for a fact that if Kenma truly didn’t like his ogling at his super cute girlfriend, he would have said something. Maybe they were one of those open relationship-type things? Sounded pretty odd for Kenma, but Kuroo supposed that people change in college. If he were in Kenma’s place, though, he doubted he’d be so willing to share (Y/N)’s affection. Not that he wanted it, of course. Nuh uh, no ma’am.

When (Y/N) gave them their check, they tried to politely decline taking her generous discount, but once she threatened to bring Grandmother from the kitchen, they ended up just tipping her a little extra to make up the difference and exiting the tea house.

“HEY, HEY, HEY.” The ace spiker with the interesting hair crowed as he landed after a vicious spike that went untouched by the other team. Tokyo U’s other team members came together and gave a quick cheer before quickly resuming their positions.

“Damnnnn, how the hell is this entire team so fine?” Shusei moaned.

“Mm, especially that number 6. He’s so pretty,” Tamaki nibbled on her thumb nail.

“Ooh, the handsome guy from this morning is up!”

(Y/N) blushed as Kuroo rotated into the front row. Gone was the stuttering, flustered mess from earlier, and he was replaced by Nekoma High’s scheming captain, all fire in his eyes ,and supported by skill and years of experience. (Y/N) leaned against the rail. Something about that focused look in his eyes captivated her completely.

Kuroo was an excellent blocker. He was smart and had the technique to support it. But despite this, the other team had powerful spikers and was starting to close the gap just enough to make the crowd uneasy. The coach leaned over and whispered something to one of the managers, who scurried off through the door to a side gym.

(Y/N) had already been a little (a lot) thirsty since Kuroo stepped on the court, but Akaashi tossed the ball into the air, Kuroo jumped up, and hit a straight right by the blockers. Suddenly, the gym air felt too stale, her cardigan too hot.

“Ohhhh my goddddd.” (Y/N) shushed Shusei and Tamaki’s moaning.

“Jealous much?” Shusei sassed.

“Wha—? Just— Just stop being weirdos!” she said louder than expected.

Tamaki wiggled her eyebrows, “Oh, so you admit you were jealous?”

(Y/N)‘s face felt hot. Her retort was interrupted by squealing all around them.

“Kyaaaaaa!”

“Omg he’s here!”

“I want his babies!”

…yeah, people get weird when they’re thirsty.

Shusei cheered and clutched Tamaki’s shoulders, “Whooo! What are we screaming about?”

“Some things never change,” Tamaki mused.

“Bitch, what?”

They stopped their bickering when their friend chuckled. She had a fond look in her eyes, but they also held something else they couldn’t quite place. (Y/N) smiled softly. She turned to them, “The Grand King loves making a grand entrance.”

(A/N): You know who’s coming soon, and I’m really excited about this next chapter! Thank you all for the support you’ve shown us so far in the series, and please look forward to the next few chapters as well! Chapter 6 is planned to be released in about two days or so. See you guys soon!

- Admin Kiwi-Chan

Kuroo, honey, I’m so sorry to do this to you lol. I make this boy do stupid stuff in this series, but it’s fiiiine.

- Admin Mango-Chan

Taglist: @joyful-jimin @nekomas-kuroo

#haikyuu kuroo #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #kuroo x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo tetsurou #bokuto kotarou #ushijima wakatoshi #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi hajime #nishinoya yuu #akaashi keiji

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