#not me picking up dangerous men on the street like they are orphans

[aennasan]

Me to Task Force 141 after I seduced them to come home with me.

- Ghost will do it but you have to understand that he will live with you from then on

- Price will be surprise at first, will nag you, and you will be forced to quit your job so you can focus in doing the housework while he is away

- Soap will grumble while doing it because there is no sex. Expect a couple of lace panties missing

- Gaz will do everything in his power to resist but yeah, he will surrender either way. You have to watch your back though after tricking him like that

- Konig doesn't understand why you have so many clothes, not in the same color, that need folding. You don't even need clothes in what you two were about to do

[eternalglitch]

Can you give us the name of those novelas that you bought please? 👀💖

Sure!! Note that I cannot say if they are actually good yet, as I have only just started reading Archive Undying. So if you pick it up and it's terrible do not blame me lolol

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon:

WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to life: its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines. The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies. Come get in the robot.

(glitch note: I started reading this one and I am obsessed so far. Pacific Rim and Evangelian vibes. Does have a LOT of cussing and mentions sex not an insignificant amount, so warning if that's not for you, but the characters so far and world building are very fun.)

Translation State by Ann Leckie:

Qven was created to be a Presger translator. The pride of their Clade, they always had a clear path before them: learn human ways, and eventually, make a match and serve as an intermediary between the dangerous alien Presger and the human worlds. The realization that they might want something else isn't "optimal behavior". It's the type of behavior that results in elimination.  But Qven rebels. And in doing so, their path collides with those of two others. Enae, a reluctant diplomat attempting to hunt down a fugitive who has been missing for over 200 years. And Reet, an adopted mechanic who is increasingly desperate to learn about his genetic roots—or anything that might explain why he operates so differently from those around him. As a Conclave of the various species approaches—and the long-standing treaty between the humans and the Presger is on the line—the decisions of all three will have ripple effects across the stars.  

Dragonfall by L. R. Lam:

Long ago, humans betrayed dragons, stealing their magic and banishing them to a dying world. Centuries later, their descendants worship dragons as gods. But the 'gods' remember, and they do not forgive. Since they were orphaned, Arcady has scraped a living thieving on the streets of Vatra, dreaming of life among the nobility - and revenge. When the chance arises to steal a powerful artefact from the bones of the Plaguebringer, the most hated person in Lumet history, they jump at it, for its magic holds the key to their dreams. But the spell has unintended consequences, and drags Everen - the last male dragon, who was once foretold to save his kind - into the human world. Trapped, and disguised as a human, Everen soon realises that the key to his destiny, and to regaining his true power, lies in Arcady. All he needs to do is convince one little thief to bond with him completely - body, mind, and soul - and then kill them . . . Yet the closer the two become, the greater the risk both their worlds will shatter.

(glitch note: lots of reviews mention sexy dragons which admittedly I am a little nervous about because that kind of romance can be very much not my cup of tea, but I believe the author is not cis and the main character is gender fluid so I decided to give it a read anyways... Maybe I'll be surprised with how the romance goes.)

[ladyeliot]

Fragile [1/3]

Part Two

Based on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Summary: Who would have thought that fate would bring you face to face with your father's killer? 13 years old, an orphan girl who was taken under the protection of the United States, who was educated to serve the nation and who was now assigned by the CIA to guard what was once one of the most dangerous men in the world.

Warnings: Mentions of murder, psychological problems, violence.

Word count: 2463

A/N: Post Endgame. Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

You are waiting for a plane, a plane that will take you far away. You know where you want to go, where you need to go, but you really have no idea where that plane will take you. But it doesn't really matter now, nothing matters because you've lost everything, you have nothing left. Whatever fate throws at you you are willing to accept it, after all you leave nothing behind. That's what you told yourself when in 2009, at the age of thirteen, you boarded that plane that took you out of Iran, when your nuclear engineer father was brutally murdered by someone you could never put a name or a face to. It was not until much later that you discovered the truth of that moment that marked your life forever.

Call it fate, call it chance, but that plane paved your future path. Your destination was the United States, specifically the city of Washington. At the age of 13, when you were a minor, you were detained by the government, assigned to a foster family, preparing you for your future, which already seemed to be written. At 18, the CIA had your position waiting for you, you had been educated and trained for the job, you never had a different opportunity in front of you, but you didn't really want it either.

Your first years within the Central Intelligence Agency you had to learn and live with all the events that that group, called the Avengers, dropped on the nation and the whole world. However, you were not a part of it until it was all over, for like the vast majority of humanity your body vanished from the face of the earth and did not return until years later. That's when it all began. When your superior assigned you a case, his case, to be the shadow of James Buchanaham Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier, who was going to rejoin society after being pardoned by the government. You didn't know what that meant, what that entailed.

Your move to New York was sudden, the neighbourhood the man had selected to live in was in Sunset Park, a New York borough of Brooklyn, one of the best known ethnic Chinese enclaves. It was really nice, but the building was far less comfortable than the neighbourhood. When you arrived with barely any hot water, you figured that assuming the building looked like it might collapse at the drop of a hat, the plumbing would be no less so. But at least your CIA team had been able to provide you with comfortable furniture and the necessary equipment to do your job.

You had a plan, the plan, you had been analysing Bucky Barnes, his exits from the building, the places he frequented, which were pretty scarce apart from the therapy sessions and the restaurant across the street, and his social relations, which were even scarcer, however he had forged a small friendship with a neighbour in the same building, Yori Nakajima originally from Japan. You didn't have to work out your first meeting, any self-respecting neighbour would help a newcomer to the building during the move.

A dozen cardboard boxes were scattered around the hall of the building, you looked at them with a thoughtful gesture while biting your nails waiting for your dear neighbour to arrive from the laundry next door. You had kept track of the time, and just as you predicted, he came in through the front door with a basket of clean clothes. You continued to look at the boxes, took a breath and exaggerated your gesture of concern, just as he focused his gaze on you.

"Do you need help?" he asked, putting down the laundry basket and approaching you.

You turned your face, still biting your nails, but pretended to be surprised to find him there.

"Oh, don't worry, I only just realised that this building is so green it barely has a lift," you said with a smile, causing Bucky to grin.

"Yes, we like to do our bit for the environment," he said, putting his hand behind his head and then offering it to you in greeting. "Bucky."

"Susan," you smiled and shook his hand, then returned your gaze to the stacked boxes. Evidently that wasn't your real name, it was the name of the person you had invented yourself.

"Come on, let me help you," abandoning his laundry basket he approached your belongings and with barely a reproach he picked up two stacked boxes.

"Oh, God, don't you think you should...?" you began worriedly as you looked at the weight he had taken into his arms.

"Don't worry," he added. "Do you think you could take my clothes?"

That was how it all began. Maybe it could have started some other way, perhaps a chance encounter at the laundromat next door, or when you came out of your government-assigned therapy, or maybe a night at the Japanese restaurant, but no, it was that way. You had no idea how things were going to develop, you had no idea why you were assigned to the case, you were so innocent that you thought it was because of your positive attitude, your willingness to do something relevant, but there was too much hidden behind it that you had hardly a clue. You and that young man were connected, a blood-soaked red thread linked you, but it wasn't until some time later that you discovered it.

Before you knew it, the boxes had gone from being stacked in the hall of the building to being in your small living room. You barely had to feign the surprise you felt as the young man had climbed all four floors in record time.

"OK, who are you? You don't work for a moving company do you?" you laughed and headed towards the small kitchen that was connected to the living room. "If so leave me your card because you'll be the one I call."

"No, not really," he put his hand behind his neck and looked away, he seemed nervous as you tried to start a conversation with him.

"A beer? It's the least I can do," you said, opening the fridge. "Well, and it's the only thing I have apparently."

"Better another time," he commented looking at the basket of clean clothes you had left in the middle of your living room and approaching it to pick it up.

It was at that moment that you noticed the black leather gloves covering his hands, you guessed the fact, surely they were to cover his left hand which complemented his vibranium arm.

"Oh, of course," you closed the fridge the same way you had opened it and leaned against the kitchen island to watch him in the middle of the room with the laundry basket offering you an awkward smile. "Then it only remains for me to thank you again."

"It's been a pleasure," he said without moving from the spot, which made you bite your lip smiling at his awkwardness. "Uh... welcome."

"Thank you," you added, watching him clumsily walk out the door and close it behind him.

The image of Bucky Barnes you had formed in your mind collapsed as soon as you met him. Everything you had seen, read, heard about the man had nothing to do with what you found that morning. Who was this person and what had he done with the Winter Soldier? As soon as you closed the door you opened the box marked 'FRAGILE' and extracted all the archival material that the CIA had compiled for you, and opening your laptop you began to generate your first report on Bucky Barnes, totally contrary to what you had expected to do.

The following days you took it upon yourself to generate spontaneous encounters in the most common places the two of you might frequent. The laundromat or the supermarket were the best selected, you discovered that his lifestyle could be that of any ordinary New Yorker, there was nothing strange, nothing out of the ordinary. You had explained to him the story you had created for Susan, a young immigrant girl who had been adopted at the age of 5 by an American family and had left her small town in the state of Ohio to come to New York looking to live the New York dream. Bucky didn't really talk much, but he was a really good listener. He tended to be quite expressive with his face and as we met, it wasn't so often that he looked away from you, only when you stared at him, which was quite common as his blue eyes tended to evade you too much.

Two months later you received the desired psychological analysis that the therapist had been working on during her sessions with Bucky. Throughout your years of life you had been trained not to engage in any kind of emotional relationship with the cases you were assigned at the CIA, you didn't realise it at first, but it was too big for you. When you opened the envelope, sat down on the couch and began to read each of the reports you felt it, a slight sigh propitiated what was happening, you had felt compassion for him. But who couldn't feel compassion reading that? Session after session, talking about the numerous nightmares that kept him awake, endless lists of his victims he had killed, the tortures HYDRA put him through... it all made your insides churn.

You dropped the papers on the table and thoughtfully paced around the room biting your nails. You had been longing for a case like this for a long time, you had practically begged for it, and now that you were inside it you didn't know if you would be able to face it with a cool head. It was a difficult two weeks, where every conversation with Bucky provoked associations with what you read in the therapist's reports and that made you think too much about what you were doing.

But something happened, one Saturday like any other, your doorbell rang while you were preparing a report to send to your superior, you closed everything running and approached the entrance. As you opened the door the figure of Bucky stood in front of you, while behind him loomed the small body of Yori Nakajima.

"Hey..."

"Come on we don't have all day!" exclaimed Yori tapping Bucky's back with his particular cane.

"I'm coming..." chided Bucky turning his face towards his friend and neighbour.

"Come on!" exclaimed Yori again.

The situation was quite peculiar even for you, who were used to encountering all sorts of situations in your work. Your eyebrows were arched as you leaned against the doorframe waiting for what Bucky was supposed to say. Your two neighbours made a comical but endearing pair. Bucky seemed hesitant to speak, being rather nervous as he fiddled with his gloves, so Yori tapped him again with the cane to push him aside.

"What he wants to tell you is to go on a date with him," Yori said bluntly, to which Bucky exasperatedly sighed and put his hand to his face.

"A date?" you asked arching your eyebrows even more and blinking rapidly.

"Well, it's not exactly that..." began Bucky but again he received another blow from Yori's cane, "Hey! Stop it," he refocused his blue eyes on yours. "I'm sorry..."

"For what, needing help asking me out on a date?" you asked smiling slightly, causing him to do so as well. "Had you come up with any concrete plans or did Yori have to find it for you?"

Your question caused Yori to laugh and leave the place alluding that his work had already been done. You continued to watch Bucky with your arms crossed as you slumped against the door frame. The whole situation was getting too out of hand without you even realising it. You lied to yourself that it could be good for your mission, but none of it was good. At that moment you were just a young girl getting carried away, being asked out on a date by a guy you found really attractive.

"Maybe... tomorrow at eight o'clock? If not..." she asked, putting her hand behind her neck, causing her white t-shirt to ride up and reveal part of her naked lower body.

"Why tomorrow? Why not tonight?" you asked showing complete confidence in your voice.

"Or... sure, tonight," she rectified, nodding.

"All right," you said, smiling, and closed the door, leaving Bucky standing there.

In the back of your mind you were trying to convince yourself that this would be helpful to the investigation, that what the CIA really wanted was for you to maintain contact with him, that he was under your control, that he wouldn't do anything that the government would regret offering a pardon for, and apparently he was. What you didn't know is that it was you who was falling under his control.

Your love life is not what you could call it, you were not someone of long realizations, someone who opened her heart easily, you had never really opened it to anyone, apparently at the age of 13 your heart was broken and of that loving and shy girl there was hardly anything left. Relationships, yes, you had had them, but they were based only on physical contact, no feelings, no emotions, only physical contact. You were stubborn, obstinate and sometimes a little presumptuous, a trump card you played with Bucky, but the innocence was still inside you even if you could hardly notice it.

But believe it or not, those months you were spending in that practically ruined building in the middle of that Brooklyn neighbourhood were changing the course of your destiny, they were connecting you with the loving girl you had once been. Something inside you prevented you from writing reports providing the information the CIA was asking for, it seemed really absurd, but for the last two weeks you had offered details of the conversations you had with Bucky, you were just giving ordinary data, useless to the government, who expected you to relay everything the former Winter Soldier said or did. You would never have thought that anything, or anyone, would have limited your ability to tackle an investigation, but there it was, Bucky had done it in just a few months. You felt so empty, it was easy to connect with someone as empty as you, him.

To be continue...

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[themaribatpit]

Jasonette July Day 20: Then Perish

Written by: The Maribat Pit @jasonette-july-event​ Prompt: Then Perish (Part 1) Rating: M (violence, minor character deaths) A/N: We wanted to finish Jasonette July with a bang.  The second half will be posted tomorrow for the Saturday Challenge.  We’ve appreciated all your comments and kind words, we really do read every one. It genuinely means a lot to us and encourages us to continue writing together.  As a fandom you have been nothing but kind and supportive, and we enjoy bringing you fics great and small with a wide variety of genres, dynamics, and iterations.  Also blame DC fanboy for the memes in this fic. Marinette loved to travel, she had traveled all over the world from New York to Shanghai. Today, she traveled with her parents to Gotham City to visit her parents' friends, whom they had not seen in many years. Sabine was initially afraid to visit Gotham City, due to its crime rate and ever-growing list of criminals. Tom reassured his wife, saying that his big stature would scare any would-be criminal from harming them, that the trip would be short and they would visit Metropolis afterwards. Marinette wore the Ladybug Miraculous, just in case something were to happen. As the family got off the taxi at Park Row, everyone felt something was off. "Park Row really has...changed." Thomas muttered. Sabine held on to both her husband and her daughter, "I think we should leave." she said. Soon shadows began appearing around the corner, then came the yelling, and soon after came the gunshots. Thomas grabbed his wife and daughter and ran to find shelter from a hail of bullets. Marinette looked back to see many civilians, men, women and children caught in the middle of this gang war.  She needed to be a hero, her father could take care of her mother, she needed to save those in danger. She freed herself from her father's grasp and ran behind a corner, she whispered "spots on" and transformed into Ladybug. Diving and flipping across streaking bullets everywhere, she flung her yo-yo to drag any unfortunate bystanders into an abandoned building. While in a building with innocent civilians, she peeked her head out the window to see a monstrous man.  Wearing a blood red helmet and wielding two pistols, he systematically killed everyone before him. His flips and kicks were graceful yet brutal, the cries of pain and pleas for mercy made her shudder. She couldn't fight him, no, she was afraid to. It would be best to find her family, she did all she could and got bystanders to safety. She quietly transformed back into Marinette and went to look for her family. She ran back to where she last saw them, she scoured the streets shouting "Maman! Papa!" hoping that using her French would help her parents find and identify her. She soon ran into the Red Beast, as she began to turn and run back before she saw the two people at his feet. “<No, no no no, please god no.>” she whispered to herself, tears building in her eyes. There lay her parents, in a pool of their blood with bullet holes between their eyes. Marinette dropped to her knees, silently crying. The Red Hood either didn't see her, or chose to spare her and decided to walk away. Marinette ran to her parents, grabbing them both and shaking them. "<Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me>” she wept. Later, she was picked up by the GCPD. They escorted her on the flight back to Paris along with the remains of her parents. When she arrived, she was approached by the Aide Sociale à L'enfance (ASE).  They told her that she'll be staying at a nearby orphanage until after her parents' funeral. Then she would then be sent off to live with her only remaining relative, her Great-Uncle Wang in Shanghai. On the night before the funeral, Marinette was unable to sleep.  She curled her legs to her chest while she sat on the mattress.  She has spent the past few days researching the mysterious Red Hood, crime boss and self-proclaimed Prince of Gotham.  She read article after article of his meteoric rise to power, first conquering Black Mask, then The Penguin. Nightmares plagued her whenever she closed her eyes, she saw the Red Hood tower over her parent's lifeless bodies, covered in their blood. She was worried about being sent off to a foreign country tomorrow evening, while barely even speaking any Mandarin. All the while knowing that once she is on that flight to Shanghai, her parent's killer would without a doubt walk free. Morning comes, yet Marinette still thinks of what she should do. Could she really go to Shanghai to start her life anew, not knowing the language and allowing her parents’ killer to go on unpunished? At the funeral, while standing over her parents’ graves, she remained silent. The priest, ASE agents and her friends all came to pay their respects. Each of her friends approached her to give their sympathies, but she did not listen to a word they said. The Red Hood weighed heavily on her mind, and she made her fateful decision. To run, run and never look back. She had prepared a backpack containing the Miracle box with all the Miraculous, along with a few essential supplies and money. She turned into Multimouse to sneak on board a passenger aircraft to make her way to Gotham City.  Jason knew, better than Batman, that fighting crime sometimes meant getting your hands dirty.  What started as a petty squabble between two rival gangs grew into a bloodbath.  He missed Roy at times like these, Artemis and Bizarro were still missing, but he held out hope that they would one day return to this Earth. A teenage girl with an impressively sturdy yo-yo had burst onto the scene, trying to get civilians to safety.  He was a bit too preoccupied with the battle to get a good look at the girl.  Knowing Bruce, the next time he’d see her, she’d be under his wing.  Sadly, there were two civilians that neither of them could save, a large, burly looking man and a tiny woman.  The person who shot them with frightening accuracy had got away, moments later a teenage girl had arrived on the scene.  There was a brief flash of fear in her eyes when she saw him, and she would have just scurried away if only he hadn’t been at the very spot where her parents lay dead.  The girl was inconsolable as she fell to her knees and wept, pleading with them in French.  Red Hood walked away, thinking it would be best to leave her to grieve.  There wasn’t a whole lot he could say in English that would make her feel any better, never mind in French. He watched from a distance as the GCPD arrived to pick up the pieces, Red Hood watched from the shadows as police officers and an interpreter tried to get the girl’s side of the story.  From what he gathered, the girl’s name was Marinette Dupain-Cheng and her family owned a bakery in Paris.  Her next of kin was a relative in Shanghai, and it sounded like the best option for her would be to go and live there.   The plan was to ship her and her parents’ bodies back to Paris, and let child services take it from there.  He would have probably told her to get as far away from Gotham as possible, away from the clutches of a certain someone who was also orphaned in Crime Alley.  He saw her cradle what looked like a small pink doll to her face as she wept, before he turned and walked away. A week later, Jason had a break in the case.  This was all caused by some low-level members of the Falcone and Maroni families continuing their decades-old battle.  As far as everyone knew, the crime families swiftly executed the men responsible and went about their business.  Two crime families were unable to keep their lackeys in check, and now the people who weren’t lucky enough to be whisked away by Yo-Yo Girl, were now either dead or wishing they were.   He thought back to poor little Marinette, wondering where she was now. Bruce confronted him at the Iceberg lounge shortly after the incident, to which Jason explained that the perp had got away.   He had killed people before, and that wasn’t stopping anytime soon, after all it wasn’t that long ago that he tried to kill the Penguin.  “This may surprise you Bruce, but the Red Hood isn’t the only one who uses guns in Gotham '' he snapped.  There were some lines that even he did not cross, lines that he had drawn for himself. Judging by the accuracy of the gunshots, this was no accident.  Their daughter was probably starting a new life, probably on the other side of the world.  Still, he wished he could have said something to the girl, a simple “Hey, it’s gonna be all right” probably would have sufficed.  Little did he know that Marinette was making her return to Gotham City.  She would have her revenge on the Red Hood, and this time she had nothing to fear and nothing to lose. After her very uncomfortable 10 hour flight from Paris to Gotham City in the cargo hold, Multimouse quietly sneaked out of the crowded airport without alerting anyone. Marinette wandered around Chinatown, thinking of her next step. She was thinking about how she would have to go through the city with a fine tooth comb to search for a lead, likely starting small with his men in the streets.  Before she could put the earrings back in her backpack, Tikki begged her to reconsider what she was doing.  “Please Marinette, you need time to heal, to grieve,” she pleaded, but Marinette didn’t need the powers of healing, luck and creation. If and when she encountered the Red Hood, she wanted to bring him death, misfortune and destruction.  After all, that was exactly what he had brought her.  With a stroke of luck, she overheard someone getting a beatdown.  "You get your ass outta here, this is Red Hood's turf. If you wanna sell that shit, you gotta give the boss his cut."  Marinette whispered "Plagg, claws out" and transformed into Lady Noire, before sneaking up behind one of the Red Hood’s men. He released the person he was beating, and chased him out the alleyway.  She took this opportunity to swing her staff,  hitting the back of his neck and sending him face first into the ground. He immediately tried to stand up, as he stood on wobbly legs he took out his knife from his jacket. "Oh shit, Catwoman?!" he yelled. Lady Noire used her staff to sweep him off his feet and slammed her staff onto his face.  "Where is the Red Hood?" she growled.  "Screw you bitch!" the goon retorted. Lady Noire had a feeling that he wouldn’t tell her the location of the Red Hood, so she decided to try a different approach. "Fine then, why don't you give your boss this simple message…" Before she could finish her sentence, she heard the telltale click of a gun being loaded. She turned around and started spinning her staff, creating a grey shield to deflect the storm of bullets that were being fired at her.  She moved her hands at a rapid pace, and frantically pushed back against the hail of bullets.  As the bullet storm subsided she looked up and saw, up on the fire escape, was the Red Hood with an assault rifle. The Red Hood casually tossed his gun aside and asked "So, what's this message you have for me, Catwoman?" He gracefully did a forward flip and landed in a crouch.  "Wait a minute..." he said, the first thing he noticed was that this person was tiny, 4’11 or maybe 5’ on a good day. Her eyes were a bright acid green with dark slits like a real cat’s pupils.  "You're not Catwoman, you're too short to be her, for one thing.” he remarked “also she usually has a whip instead of a staff, who are you?" Lady Noire gritted her teeth, "You killed my family" she answered with a low growl. "Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down Kitten?" Red Hood's taunts made her snap.  She screamed "YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME!" The Red Hood stared at her, as he crossed his arms.  "I don't even know who you are, what's your beef with me?" He asked, Lady Noire lunged at the Red Hood with her staff, she swung wildly to try and hit him.  He dodged most of her strikes with ease, “Is that the best you’ve got?  You’re gonna have to try harder than that.”  Where she might have lacked in skill, she made up for in determination.  She wasn’t pulling any punches, he had to give her that.  He caught the staff under his arm, and punched Lady Noire with his free arm.  As he went on the offensive, he slapped her staff aside, and came at her with a series of punches and kicks.   “So, what do you want Kitten? Money? Jewels? A very big ball of string?”  he joked.  “All I want is revenge,” she spluttered. “Get in line Kitten, you’re in the city that runs on vengeance” he retorted. Marinette was lucky that the suit gave her enhanced speed, strength and endurance. She always loved how the Lady Noire suit felt a lot lighter compared to the Ladybug suit. Though she shuddered to imagine what her opponent would do with this power.    He raised his leg to end his combination with a forceful downward kick, Lady Noire raised her staff up to a horizontal block to stop the kick. Upon contact with the kick, the staff split into two, and then Lady Noire launched into her counter attack. She was striking the Red Hood with a flurry of blows with both halves of her staff.  "Escrima sticks too? Looks like we have a Nightwing fan here” he smirked under the mask; this new girl was just full of surprises.  He brought his arms to the sides of his head in a defensive posture, blocking the onslaught of strikes from the escrima sticks.  Red Hood then grabbed Lady Noire by the back of her head, placing her in a Thai clinch. He launched a powerful knee to her face and sent her reeling back. He drew his pistols and fired a torrent of bullets at her. Lady Noire had to dodge, weave and use her staff to deflect incoming bullets. One bullet even grazed her cheek. She then pointed her staff at the Red Hood and extended it with so much force it slammed him against the wall of a nearby building. Without giving him any breathing room, she then retracted the staff. She launched herself towards him and then dropkicked his face straight into the wall. His helmet cracked against the tremendous pressure. "It's now or never” she thought, as she cast Cataclysm and swiped at one half of the Red Hood’s helmet. She saw the helmet dissolve and reveal the target beneath.  She noticed that underneath the helmet he wore a red domino mask, not unlike the one she usually wore.  She would have time to think about how overly dramatic that was later, as she used her other hand to pick up the knife on the ground that the other goon left behind.  She jumped on top of the Red Hood, “Now perish!” she cried out as she thrusted the blade towards the exposed part of his face. Red Hood recovered quickly and caught her hand holding the blade. As the two struggled for the knife, Lady Noire tried to swipe at him with Cataclysm again.  Suddenly, she felt the power of 50,000 volts coursing through her, as the Red Hood activated the taser hidden in his chest piece.  She powered through, running purely on anger, grief and adrenaline. She was only able to struggle for about a minute, before passing out from the pain.  Red Hood flipped Lady Noire’s unconscious body aside, before he took off his helmet to inspect the damage. "The hell?." he pondered, "So, indestructible staff that can do double duty as a shield, and the ability to disintegrate things with one touch. Let's find out who you really are."  He slowly stood up and looked down at her unconscious body. He tried to peel away her domino mask, yet it would not come off. He tugged on the mask, even to the point of lifting the unconscious girl off the ground. He released the mask, and let the body drop with a small thud.  The Red Hood began talking to himself "She either superglued the mask on or it’s something else. Considering all that she can do, I'd say 80% chance it's magic and 20% a lantern. Either way a 100% pain in my ass".  He heard a small beeping noise and gingerly lifted her hand up off the floor.  As it emitted black and green energy, he noticed that she had a ring on.  The beeping came from a small picture of a paw print, which was missing a few pads.  If she was a lantern, that ring was going to run out of charge any moment now.  He took out his phone and called the Iceberg Lounge. He requested that they send for a van to pick him up and his new guest.   He requested that the Su Sisters get her cleaned up and ready. He needed to find out who sent her and who she worked for. He took out the special handcuffs that Batman designed when dealing with metahumans. As he walked towards Lady Noire about to cuff her, he heard some more beeping, followed by a bright light surrounding her.  Her suit and mask disappeared, leaving behind a small girl in pastel pink clothes who was probably no older than 15 or 16.  Her long braid changed back into a couple of shoulder-length pigtails, and she had a pink backpack on her back.  Jason looked inside the bag, there were a few sets of clothes, a wallet and an antique Chinese jewelry box.  He wondered if that ring was just one of many tools in her arsenal.  Jason's eyes widened, he recognised her as the girl he saw a few weeks ago when the turf war in Crime Alley broke out.  "What’s she doing here?" he said to himself aloud, “ Idiot” he muttered. He remembered following the girl and her GCPD escort to make sure she boarded her flight back to Paris.  She was supposed to be with her remaining family. Yet she came back to, no, ran away to Gotham City.  All for revenge.  He checked her wallet and saw the name printed on it, he sighed, this just confirmed that she was the same girl. When she had her revenge, what would she do then?  He wasn’t the undisputed master of thinking things through, but even he thought she was a fool to come back here.  Gotham City didn’t have the best track record dealing with orphans.  He knew this from personal experience, but there was that time where many were rounded up and sent upstate to juvie, for the crime of trying to survive on the streets.  He would have been in the same position, had it not been for his own fateful encounter in Crime Alley. He shuddered to think what her other option would be in a place like Gotham City, becoming a Robin.  Part of the reason he wanted her out of Gotham was so that Bruce wouldn’t get any ideas about taking her in.  When the car arrived, he scooped up the girl in his arms and carried her towards it.  Marinette woke up with her heart beating frantically in her chest, the first thing she saw was a bright light.  She was dead, she had to be, the last thing she remembered was confronting the Red Hood and now he had killed her.  She slowly sat up, she looked down to find that someone had changed her clothes, she was wearing light blue pajamas.  She started to look around, to her left there was a large floor to ceiling window where she could see a city at night with bright twinkling lights.  On the table next to her was the Miracle box, she quickly grabbed the box and looked through it. She gave a sigh of relief when she saw that all the Miraculous she brought with her were still there.   Suddenly, Marinette heard someone clear their throat.  At the foot of the bed, stood a rather large woman who had a bundle of clothes in her hand.  Next to her was a blonde woman with pink highlights who had a tray of food. “Oh good, you’re finally awake” the large woman said gruffly, she set the clothes down on the edge of the bed.  The blonde girl set a tea tray down in front of her, along with a couple of pastries.  Marinette’s heart sank at the sight of the croissants, they reminded her of her parents and their bakery. “Eat up and get dressed, the boss wants to see you later” the blonde woman told her, before skipping to the larger woman’s side.  Just as the two were about to leave, Marinette piped up, “Um, where am I?” she asked, “Who is your boss?” “You’re in the Iceberg Lounge in Gotham City”, the large woman told her gruffly.  “The name’s Suzie, this is one of my sisters, Candy. Our boss is the owner.”  Marinette gave an awkward wave as they left, and Candy returned it with a more cheerful one.    She took a bite out of the croissant, it tasted cold and dry. However, if she was going to defeat the Red Hood, she’d need all her strength. She put Plagg’s ring back in the box and reached for Ladybug’s earrings; she needed a new tactic.  When Tikki appeared in front of her, she also quickly looked around the room before looking back at Marinette with a concerned look on her face. “I couldn’t do it,” Marinette explained “he managed to stop me and I ended up back here”. Tikki’s eyes were sympathetic as Marinette held her closer to her face, “Are you sure you still want to go through with this?” Tikki asked.  “For now, I have to get changed and go upstairs to meet the boss.  Maybe he’s the one who found me after the fight was over” Marinette theorized as she gave Tikki the cookie from the tray.  While Tikki quietly nibbled at it, Marinette stood up and walked over to the edge of the bed.  Inside the small bundle of clothes were a simple white blouse and black skirt. They were a little big, she would probably hem it if she had her sewing machine.    Moments later, a tall woman with dark hair led Marinette into the penthouse, a large room with a desk in the corner.   A tall man in a suit stood with his back towards the door, overlooking the sparkling city skyline.  She slowly stepped inside, looking around the room as she walked towards the man.  “Um hi, who are you?” Marinette asked as she apprehensively walked towards him.  She couldn’t help but feel small in that grand high-ceiling room. “I am the owner of the Iceberg Lounge,” he explained. “I guess the question I should be asking is…” he turned towards her and Marinette saw he had a domino mask over his eyes and a red half mask covering his nose and mouth, “who are you?” He threw something at her and she caught it.  She looked down and saw the Red Hood’s helmet, half of it looked as though someone tried to tear the metal open.  Then she remembered everything she had researched about the Red Hood, and the fight that took place not long after she arrived back in Gotham. “You…” she hissed. To be continued...

[professorrw]

All I Want, Remus Lupin Fanfiction

Chapter Ten

Warnings: eventual smut, death, violence, swearing, age gap, slight angst, major spoilers for Deathly Hallows

A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed this! If you did, like, comment, and reblog! If you would like to be added to my taglist (permanent or for this series) tell me and I’ll put you on there!

As you had guessed, the weather quickly became cold in the following months. You didn't know the exact date but it had to be around December. Things were the same between you and Lupin. Light flirtation sometimes, but just friendly chat for the most part. You were trying to ignore, or at least not mention, your growing feelings towards him. Sometimes when Remus wasn't paying attention you would watch and admire him.

You had not heard anything from Harry or Hermione so you assumed everything was going fine. It had been multiple months since your departure from the Burrow. It had also started snowing outside so you assumed it was nearly Christmas. This particular morning, the snow was packed thick and coming down heavily. There was no way you were going to be outside.

You decided to light a fire in the fireplace the miscellaneous chairs were gathered around. It gave the tent a very cozy atmosphere and made it feel like Christmas. "Good morning!" Remus greeted you. He was strangely cheerful even though the full moon was approaching. "Good morning. I thought I would make a fire because of all the snow. It's around Christmas time I believe."

"Yes, Christmas. Your first without your parents. How are you doing?"

"I'm... okay. It hurts but it is getting better. They didn't want me to dwell on their... death."

"I imagine they were very proud to have a daughter such as yourself," Lupin smiled.

"I would like to think so. What about your parents? You never speak of them."

"My mother died a few years ago and my father... I have not seen him in many years. I would not want to burden him with my condition."

"Remus you are no burden," you assured him.

"Well you may not think so but I do. There are many downsides to being what I am. Too many."

"Does it make it worse to be alone?" you asked.

"At times it was. But I was alone for a long time. I got used to it."

You nodded and went to fix breakfast, leaving Remus to his thoughts. You wanted to do something for Remus. But you weren't sure what. There was not much you could do or give him. Maybe you could convince Remus to let you go to a store and you could get him something.

That thought danced around in your head all day. You knew it was unlikely he would let you go anywhere by yourself. When you woke up the next morning you decided to ask him. "Remus. Can we go to a store? There is something I would like to do."

He eyed you suspiciously. "What is that you need to do?"

"I cannot tell you."

"You make a very compelling argument," he laughed.

"Please? I know it's dangerous but it's Christmas and we haven't left this tent in a while."

"Well... how about this, in a week or two, when the weather is cleared up and the full moon is over we can go somewhere."

"Alright then it's settled," you smiled.

It was a week and a half later when you finally left. You decided to go to a small town that was a few miles from the forest. It had a few muggle stores. Surely you would be able to find Remus something there. He asked you a few times what you were looking for but you wouldn't confess. You wanted his gift to be a surprise. The bookstore was the first place you decided to look.

You had Lupin wait outside for you, which made him very curious. You picked out a book of mysteries by a muggle writer. He enjoyed muggle stories. When you walked out he tried to ask what you bought but you hid the book in a bag and kept your mouth shut. Just a few doors down there was a clothing store that sold items similar to what Remus wore. You once again told him to stay outside. You found a nice sweater that you thought he would like and returned outside.

When you stepped outside you found that Remus was not there. You looked up and down the little street and didn't see him anywhere. A flood of relief came over you when he stepped out of a shop across from where you were standing.

"I thought you left me," you confessed on the walk outside of the town.

"I would never. I just wanted to look around."

"Did you see anything?"

"No not really."

You nodded and continued to walk side by side. Your thoughts drifted to your parents. They would be glad you were happy. They would like Remus. You liked him. There was no denying it. They would be ecstatic that you had found someone you liked and that Voldemort would possibly be defeated soon. Maybe you could tell Remus that. He didn't need to know all the details but you could trust him.

"Remus?"

"Yes Y/N?"

"What Harry and Hermione and Ron are doing... and what I will possibly be doing, it's to defeat Voldemort." Not a second after the word came out of your mouth there were three loud CRACKS! You immediately saw Fenrir Greyback. He had two other people with him. Why are they here? It definitely wasn't anything good.

You and Remus drew your wands pointing them at the men. You were too late, they already had their wands out and had stunned both of you. You fell to the ground and the men approached.

"What do we 'ave here? This one is in the Order. One of Dumbledore's. I don't know who this lovely lady is," one of the men said.

"I know this one," Fenrir said, pointing at Remus. "I bit 'im"

"Ohoho a werewolf too! The Dark Lord will be proud!" One of the men had gripped you by the arm and jerked you up. "What do we do with her?" the man asked.

"If she's with 'im she must be important. You two take 'er back. I'll deal with this one," Fenrir said looking at Remus.

"Alright. Ready?" the man holding you said to the other. The bigger man, the one not gripping your arm, nodded. With another CRACK you appeared at a mansion. It had a large gate right in the front.

"Hey! We got someone! Might be important!" the smaller of the two men yelled. The gate turned into a mouth-like shape and spoke, "Come in. It better be good." You couldn't mistake that voice. It was Lucius Malfoy's. Your parents despised him and so did you.

They pulled you into the manor, not even looking at you. It was large and dark. The two men dragged you all the way to a sitting room, where none other than Draco and Lucius Malfoy were. Draco avoided your eye and instead looked at the floor.

"You said she was important so who is she?" Lucius asked impatiently.

"Well we aren't sure. But she was with a member of the Order!"

"Really? How curious." Lucius got up from his velvet chair and walked over to you. He grabbed your chin and forced you to look up at him. "What's your name?"

"Y/N Y/L/N" you spat out.

"A Y/L/N. Fenrir killed your parents not too long ago. How dreadful. You're an orphan," he laughed. "Draco, do you know her?"

"I don't know father."

"Well get over here and take a look," Lucius ordered. Draco walked over and looked at you. He knew who you were. You were a Slytherin Prefect. He knew you were friends with Harry too. He was going to tell Lucius you would know something about Harry's whereabouts.

"I know her. She was in Slytherin. She's two years ahead of me." Draco said flatly. You were astounded. Why didn't he say you were friends with Potter? You weren't friends with Draco and you never spoke to him either.

"Anything else?"

"No father."

"Take her to the cellar then."

Draco looked at you. He looked sad. He hoisted you up by the arm and pulled along some stairs to what you assumed was the cellars. He opened the door to one of the cells and pushed you in then left.

Taglist: @bellamy1998 @sxsalvatore @ottjord @lina1945 

[xo-cuteplosion-xo]

The Ending of The Everlasting Sun.

Soukoku angst: will have 2 parts, one is Chuuya pov another is Dazai pov (Dazai is part 1 aka this piece. I'll start chuuya's tomorrow)

I’ll do a version for Dazai after (not pov but version so Chuuya can have the dose of Dazai’s pain T_T).

Warnings: Death, gore, violence, angst with just more angst. (idk if i consider dazai ooc but towards the end is mostly how i feel the situation would happen, so kinda ooc)

TBH, I don't know why I wrote this but hey I love feeding peeps and myself angst so, here you go.

The Ending of The Everlasting Sun. | A Soukoku Angst one-shot |

words: 4264

Dazai’s pov- (it swaps between third and first. I know my writing style is weird af)

The sun, a forever gleaming light in life. They say even in death, the sun won’t fade from your view. For light, something that brings reason to a life so pitched in black is everlasting. There is a place that resides within a person the sun that will never leave. Like the memories that one left behind shall forever hold. Memories will not fade, even as the deceased are placed within mounds of dirt, their body left to neatly decompose.

They say it is natural to feel your heart so heavy. To feel so pained when death washes over. Death can change a human, they say, death is rebirth, something shall always come from it. In some ways, Dazai knew the truth of such words. For he’s experienced the death of his light. At least he had thought the brunette, who’d stuck by his suicidal tendencies, his cruel ways, he thought that man had been the light. He had changed, he’d moved on into the light of this world. His heart may still be shadowed in the darkness the mafia left. The memories of those he left may never leave, but he was in the light. He was the light for another now. Still, dark himself, he’d help lead his news pupil to the light. He repeated this so often, yet why, why did his mind travel back to those days, the days when he was alongside that small ginger boy? The boy with anger issues could be heard a mile away, was he important? Why must he feel as if he left behind something important when he’d listened to a friend's dying wish? Surely he was better off now? He felt better, life wasn’t as black or as unlit as it had once been. So why? Why was it always that ginger that popped into his head on those restless nights? He worried so much if he was okay. If he was out there using that uncontrollable side without him. Ever since he left, he’d worried that ginger would do something as stupid as that. So maybe, just maybe, this world had blessed him with two lights. A light to change, that light had left him to save him. Then the second light, the light that showed him he could love and be loved. This world could take both lights to make such a realization, and eventually, this world, so cruel and dark would. Not by fate, but by the hand of an enemy who sought out Dazai’s weakness.

I stood beneath pelting rain, my mind held within it one thought, where was he? Never had the small boy I'd fallen for in my early teens missed a chance to torment me as I had tormented him. Never had he let the phone, to which we still held each other's numbers unblocked, reach the full number of rings before the voicemail kicked in. I had never felt this before. Nor had I the courage to admit such a thing. For feelings were only a danger to men like myself. I am undoubtedly cruel. Even now, in my early twenties, I stand beneath the rain alone. The mistakes of my past hanging over me for somebody to eventually discover. The past profession I had tried to hide and had hidden well for many years was creeping to my heels. The man whom I'd sought help from was gone, his final words my reason to be in the light. If neither side means anything, he told me to help the defenseless, to help the orphans. That is what I did. I left behind the ginger-haired boy whom, I now say with hesitance, I loved. It is a fine point that I was able to decline such things until after I left the mafia, for otherwise, I may have tried to do good whilst in the mafia, so I could stay with my final light within my life. Many have shed their light on me. The orphan I took in has shocked me many times, reading me in a way I thought only Oda, my extinguished light, could. He knew I was mourning that past friend when he found me at his grave. He continues to shock me to this day, the only one who can occasionally see past the mask I've worn since I was 14, since Mori found me. Kunikida has taught me responsibility and morals. There is still a bottle of things I shall never change. Some people can’t change. My mind prevents me from collecting such information about being human. My ability says it all, does it not? It is a perfect description of myself. The intelligence I share with Dostoevsky is merely one of the many things that keep me behind the wall of change. I may do things for another reason, but I am still a shadow over the people around me. I curse them all, I have brought heavy burdens onto the agency, I harm all of those around me. Love is a feeling I'm incapable of. At least, I can not recognize true love, only conclude that is what this pain is. It is a pain like no other, it is not physical, but no sense of being can push away the tangent throb of every beat. It is my mind, and the way I was brought up so young, that initially warped me beyond repair. That is why I am here, running in the rain despite my coworkers protesting to stop me.

Dazai understood the trap he was headed for, but he knew the trap would result in a fatality either way. If it was his death that waited for him, then he was alright with that. If it was painless, and he died a quick death before his mouth could run to say final bidding words to Chuuya, then he’d die. If this taunt was to break him, if he were to be late, he would drop to his knees and beg his old friend, who lay watching over him, to be forgiven for his actions tonight. If some awful being really did oversee this world, let it give Dazai one moment of peace. Let him have one good light stay until he is gone. He couldn’t do it again, the pain of holding a bloodied body within his arms, it would be hell. He knew not of true mourning, the pain of losing the one, who in a storybook, could be considered a soulmate. He knew it, others knew it, so many people knew the way he stared at Chuuya was not a friendly matter. There was lust within his soft chocolate hues, a hidden cave behind closed doors. Secret thoughts hidden in his mind. The things he wished he could have done before he left, the way he wanted to fix things, to regain what he had lost by leaving the mafia.

With every soft patter, Dazai flew between streets and yards. With every step, he grew closer and closer. With every new step, he felt his heart sink. For the area around was brittle and frail. The ground was crushed and indented. Some buildings lay in tattered pieces. Holes the size of beds lay stretched in the buildings and grass. The worst began to form in his head as his legs picked up into a pace he thought he could never take into. His lungs burned with the inhaled drips of water that turned to flames within his lungs. He pushed past the pain, the burn, the tired flail of limbs. His legs grew numb, but he refused to stop until his arms were flying open doors to a building that looked so horribly damaged.

As if I were the show that night, I could remember the lights. My lungs felt like fire, and my legs were ready to buckle beneath my frail body. I had not eaten a proper meal for weeks, my pockets empty from money spent to cover the scars I had littered my body with. The night is a haze within my mind. An unwilling nightmare I wish to set aside and to never look at again. A night I wish could be rewritten. It was a night that even I had thought the same way as Destoveski. My mind was no longer set right, that side of me to which was feared, had ripped from its confines and torn through to confine me to my own mind. I had truly wanted to tear a sheet from the book spoken about so much in this little town of Yokohama. If it meant my lights could come back and this world could change, then I would, I would do it without a blink. I’d make myself the villain to free my light. I would do it for the right reasons. Yet, I could never ruin the lights of others. There would be too many sacrifices to do such a thing at that moment. To this day, I curse myself for thinking like that man, thinking about such things would make me like him. Dostoevsky was no man I wanted to be.

The light pulsed for a moment before illuminating the room in a sharp glow of white. Dazai stood blinded before the room came into focus, the empty space warm in comparison to the pelting rain. For a moment, the world had paused, allowing his mind to make a sharp halt and think. Though his thoughts were not something he wished to hear. The thoughts inside his head screamed an equal verse to the night he’d lost Oda. He had no more time to pause, as soon as he’d adjusted to the blaring lights, he was scanning the room, finding the spots of blood, the corpses littered on the ground. Then, he was running against his will again. The next thing he knew, he was diving forward too quickly brush against the ginger, who’d consumed his thoughts since they reunited all that time ago.

The first thoughts I had when I felt the cloth of his jacket, the same one I had sown hat-rack into when we were 15, were thoughts of panic. I was always the type of man who wore a mask, but that mask only masked my depression. I yearned for death, I lived to be human, and that feeling you have right as you fall victim to death may be my only chance at life. My co-workers were never worried about me. At first, I had shocked them. I remember the way Kunikida halted with his trust, how on my first job he watched me with a hawk's eye. Never once did I not feel the burning gaze of his judgment. I never blamed him, I was a man with an erased past. There was nothing to tell whether I was good or evil. The day I entered the agency, I would have said I was that darker gray that wisps on the side of black. Today, I would tell you I wanted to be the light, to be good, but I am far from it. It shall always be my nature to look up into another and dive within their soul. My hands are skilled in ways of torture. I could shoot down an enemy with my eyes closed. These pieces of me still exist, even though I had locked them to the confine of my mind, a faraway nightmare that haunted me. The faces of the victims who plead because they had family, haunt me. It’s not remorse I feel, it’s a haunting reminder that I shall never see that friend again. When I die, I shall not meet him in the afterlife, if there is one at all. I like to believe that one can look up and think there is such a place. These thoughts, wishes, all suddenly reappeared the moment his body fell to the floor. Yet, even coated in his own blood, his breathing so unsteady I feared he was only a few breaths from death, he remained beautiful. How could I, a genius strategist with an inhumane IQ, let this happen? Why had I not called him, this ginger, ocean-eyed slug? Chuuya, he’d always be those names to me. I still wonder why we call each other such things, but it makes us both feel alive. With him, I could act like a child, as I never had a true chance to be a child. Even now, if I could muster up the courage as I write, I'd twist the narrative so it looked as if I did not care. If I did that, I would dishonor the words we had shared that night.

Dazai rushed over the pavement to grab hold of Chuuya. His hands sliding over the boy's body to pull him over his lap. His eyes are a sea of worry and panic. One of his hands grabbed the boy’s wrist lightly, his pulse was so slow, his eyes were already slowly dropping, but Dazai stayed confident. “Hey Chibi, you’re an idiot.”

The frail form of the boy beneath him cracked a small smile. “You’re the idiot you- his body racked itself with a spurt of coughs, his lips dripping crimson to join the stains on his perfectly pale skin.- d-damn mackerel.”

Dazai dropped the boy's wrist with a chuckle, pressing his hand to the boy's lips. “Yeah, I know Chibi, I know. - The ginger's eyes began to flutter shut.- No Chibi, your eyes have to stay open. Look, I've got people coming to fix you up. So just try to keep yourself awake.” Dazai’s hand moved to cup the other's cheek. “You’ll be okay.”

Chuuya’s breath staggered a wheeze interrupting the shallow breaths he’d been going through. “I’m dying, aren't I?”

Dazai shook his head, feeling his chest sting with the familiar pain of grief. As if somebody took a microscope over the feeling, it continued to grow. By now, he was sure the pain exceeded the total amount of grief he’d gone through with Oda’s passing. “No Chibi, you’re not… you're not dying.” He paused in that sentence looking down at Chuuya, who laughed dryly.

“So fucking optimistic.” They sat in silence, and Chuuya's eyes fixed on Dazai. Though it was unnoticed by Dazai, his clouded tired eyes were on his lips. He was taking into memory the parts of wishes he’d never get. Every passing second, Chuuya felt his eyes threaten to drip shut. He was trying to listen to Dazai, but his eyes were bricks; sleep a melody that sang to him. With the fear of never waking up again, Chuuya lifted his hand from his side to reach Dazai’s cheek, his blood leaving a mark. “Hey, Dazai.” His voice lacked anything but sincerity.

“No Chuuya. No, you’re okay! Just a few more minutes and Yosano will be here! Fuck, just stop moving, keep your eyes open, keep breathing because you’re alright.” Chuuya had never seen Dazai act like this before. So as Dazai’s hand warmly wrapped around his, his head pressing into the cold touch of Chuuya’s, words were spoken.

“Dazai, I. Never. H-hated… you. I. lov-” before those words could finish, his body was shaking. Tears were forming, he was still conscious and very much alive, but his entire system of organs and cells were rejecting him. The use of corruption had been at its limit long before Dazai had touched him. Before his ability had been canceled out, he was beyond death. The way he coughed his hands, flailing out to grab Dazai’s shirt and press their bodies together, made even Dazai emotional. Dazai managed to still the boy's movements. His eyes half-open as he tried to hold onto whatever string was left. “Lo-” this time he was cut off by Dazai’s hand. His head shaking, hearing Chuuya speak would make this far too real.

He wasn’t ready to let him go. For the first time, he wanted to be far from death, far from the pain and suffering of humankind. So as Chuuya smiled and looked to the ceiling, his hand continued to stroke Dazai’s cheek. A reminder he was still alive.

That moment ended all too quickly when Chuuya took a final staggered breath and looked to Dazai. “Loved you.” He finished his sentence before his eyes dropped shut. His hand slipped into a limp state within Dazai’s hold.

It took the brunette no time to jump to compressions. He continuously screamed. A voice that had never once mourned, or shed a tear, now sat in a contorted expression between agony and doubt. His mind was static, for the first time nothing clear could form within his head. He shrieked out for Chuuya. Open your eyes, he had chanted and begged before he no longer had the strength to continue. He simply fell on top of Chuuya, his ear to his chest praying to hear a soft thud. Three minutes passed before his body, devoid of any, and everything was yanked away. Had he been shown a mirror, one would not have recognized Dazai. His clothes were bloodied, his hair disheveled and wet from the rain he’d run in only a handful of minutes ago.

Dazai sat numbly as his co-workers looked around trying to find if there was any danger left. When the scene was clear and Yosano made the final statement, the world truly crumbled. Still, despite having started CPR and rescue breaths, despite having felt the cooling touch of his skin, Dazai had held onto the hope that Yosano would fix this. He watched as she put on a work face. Her heels clicked across the ground as she walked over to Dazai with a doctor's approach, not a friend's approach. She bent before Dazai and began to speak. “Dazai, I need you to focus your eyes on me, alright?” Dazai could read her mind like an open book. His mind, in his numb state, had returned to his 17-year-old self. Devoid of any real feeling, bent on causing pain and suffering. He tilted his head like that child-self would in this situation. For once, he genuinely felt human. “I understand you were close to Nakahara-san. You were also here at the scene. It’s with much regret-” before she could finish, Dazai’s eyes grew cold and clouded, his lips a snarl as he shoved her.

“He’s okay! Chuuya is okay, he’ll wake up! He always does, even when I have to change things in a second advance because I fucked up. He's okay! We’re soukoku, double black. We can’t be put down. We’re partners, we need each other." even Yosano froze at the sudden outburst. The way Dazai cried without realizing the tears were falling. The way he tried to look happy as if he hadn’t watched Chuuya die within his arms. “Right… he’s okay right?” Dazai hardly knew what he was saying, his head foggy, his mind trying to stay collected.

If one could compare him to anything, one would say that moment he'd looked like a child, no older than fourteen, who’d watched a death before their eyes. Yosano collected herself before shaking her head. She decided to take the approach she’d have with a child instead of an adult. For in this moment, Dazai was experiencing what one could call his first-ever truly emotional loss. This was the first time his mind was catching up with him. “Dazai, Chuuya cared very much for you. You know that right?”

Dazai seemed to calm slightly at the thought as he focused on Yosano. “Yeah, he loved me… he said he loved me.” Suddenly, the situation became worse than she’d thought.

“Mhm, and you loved him too?” Dazai took his time to slowly nod before gulping and shrinking down.

“And now… he’s not coming home. No more loud, annoying comments. No more nights at the bar…” Dazai’s voice choked before the sounds of more footsteps followed in.

A high-pitched female voice screamed in a shrieking roar. “Where is he!” Dazai knew that voice. Kouyo, his Ane-san. At least, at one point she’d been his Ane-san. But his eyes stopped looking at Yosano and instead took a glimpse at Chuuya, whose corpse still lay there.

Once more, Dazai’s emotions took control, and he placed his hands over his eyes and shut himself away. Yosano swore under her breath and stood up. “Which one is he?” Yosano stood up rather angrily. She disliked her conversations being so rudely interrupted, even if it were somebody she had a small connection with.

“Chuuya…” the red-haired female stormed over before spotting Dazai first. His body cradled in like a child. A position she’d never seen him in. Her heart could only lurch to the worst. Hesitantly, she looked off to the side and saw it. The bloodied corpse. She spent no more time looking, she couldn’t.

She shoved Yosano away from Dazai, a boy she had once helped to look after and almost raise. Though she resented the boy for abandoning his role as an executive, she knew how much the pair had been connected. So she’d be a mother or older sister for a bit. Something Dazai had never seemed to have. “Dazai, it’s Kouyo, can you look at me? I just wanna make sure you’re alright.”

Dazai peeked from his arms, sniffing in his delirious state as he lunged towards her. Not in a hostile way, but an embrace. Something he never thought he’d need. He felt so human, so alive, but at the same time, he felt so dead inside. He felt as if his life had been torn and replaced within seconds. This feeling he couldn’t place a name on. “I was too late… I couldn’t, and now he’s and I… it’s all my-'' Kouyo was quick to shut him down, muffling her own sobs as she rocked Dazai in her arms.

“Hush child, these things happen. The fault is never that you could not make it in time. The fault lies within the bastard who did this. He always took extremes to protect you, Dazai. So hush now, let yourself grieve.” There was a slight pause as the agency starred in shock. This woman, who most of them knew as a vengeful woman with no remorse, sat cradling a grown man from an opposing organization as if he were her child, no more like an older sister cradling a younger brother. “Dazai, I won’t criticize your reaction, I've seen it many times in the mafia. Little children who witness death at such a young age think they are immune to it. They find another blame or they say they are monsters. You were 14 when Mori took you in. You never had somebody to teach you to grieve. You never needed to, not until now. So listen to me child, you’re going to let it all out, the years of pain and suffering, the years of grief for lost friends, even I have cried in my life. Nobody is immune to pain, some of us just think we are.” As Kouyo spoke, she noted Dazai’s breathing reached a slowing point. He was fast asleep before she finished her words. Her touch was gentle as she brushed a lock of his hair behind his ears.

Next, she walked over to Chuuya and hung her head, murmuring words of mourning. She walked off quickly, but came back moments later with his hat. “He’d want somebody to have it.” Yosano stood beside Kouyo, who choked back her own tears.

“I think it should go to Dazai. He always mocked his hats, even though he loved seeing Chuuya in them. They really were meant for each other. It’s unfortunate such a great pair ended up… in a life like this. Perhaps they will be reborn in an era where they are nothing but students who fall in love. I like to think there is always a second chance for lives that end too short.”

With a nod, they both looked to Dazai, who looked at peace sleeping on the ground.

~

When I woke up that day after, I could hardly remember anything. I had lost myself completely to the side that was human. I truly did try to live on, but it was difficult. No matter where I looked, I could see his laugh, I hated it. The pain that constantly wrapped around me. Hence, why I sit here with a pen. I never took myself to write my thoughts down. Oda had once ruminated about being a reader, he died before he ever could. I miss them both. I say that, but when I look down at the tear-stained paper, so many of them were for Chuuya. A love I never got to kiss or truly love. Today, I will not wake up. I no longer care about things like making my death overly complex and comfortable. I shall go to sleep with Chuuya’s hat at my side. I shall die with him at my side. That is how it should have been. Chuuya should have lived that night. I shall never know what sparked him to use corruption without me there. All I know is the worst person in the world, Destovesky, who now lay in a ditch from my own pistol, threatened the ginger to such an extent he felt the need to use it. In a way, I have solved several problems with one action. I killed the criminal, and I'm killing the single person whose blood runs more mafia black than any other.

Tag list If you want to be added when I upload fics/HC etc., just shoot me an ask: @jadegreenimmortality

[chandelier-s-notebook]

Welcome to Chandelier does another fucking prompt list!!!!

And it’s in addition to consistent story uploads. Y’all gonna get something at 9am everyday of June, and something at a random time later in the afternoon.

This time I'm using @crowfootwrites' June List Day 1: Suit

*A note to Crow. Hello! I am an MCYT Writer. Feel free to stop by my tagging of your whenever you feel like it.

Set in a Villain AU created by @olde-scratch their original post

If anyone wants to be part of a taglist of the Villain AU, feel free to message me/send an ask.

Taglist: @sleepysnails

“Klupa” means “Bench” btw, I just tossed it through Google Translate.

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

Hero Report

Page 1

Date: June 1st, 2021 Hero Reporting: Nightmare Patrol Time: 22:00 to 6:00

Had a run in with one of the Klupa boys, they were at the 24h Cupcakery on 6th street, and were harassing the employ, Nihachu, for something to eat. I spared Theseus twenty bucks and told them to keep the change. They even bought me a cupcake before I went on my way.

Does anybody know their real world identities yet? They look on the young side; I’d rather nothing bad happens to them. It hurts to see kids so young needing to resort to petty crime to survive.

I also bumped into SBI. They picked up their deposit left by 404 in the prior patrol. I managed to grab the briefcase, but the money was already taken and presumably dispersed among the men. I wasn’t able to apprehend them.

I got close to Burr but he let go of the briefcase to get away. And The Blade proceeded to smoke me, so I wasn’t able to give chase. But I was able to retrieve some of the money back, and they are one smoke bomb poorer.

The rest of the night was uneventful. I stopped a robbery on 9th Street.

[CONT]

- - -

Time: 21:30, May 31st, 2021

Tommy was having a good day. 404 had made good on his promise. He had left a briefcase with one million dollars in the homeless shelter’s food stores.

Tommy had watched 404 come in and leave it. The personal information Tubbo had managed to siphon was good enough blackmail to get them this. Ranboo hadn’t actually ever gotten a buyer lined up, but it was the threat that counts.

“How much are we leaving again?”

“Twenty-five hundred thousand.”

Tommy dropped to the floor once the coast was clear and unzipped his backpack. He separated out three quarters of the cash and left the briefcase right there.

“Do we have to leave it?” Ranboo asked over the frequency. “We could really use that money.”

“You know if we weren’t so charitable we wouldn’t need the extra cash.”

“Shut up man.”

“I’m just saying.” Tommy takes out a fresh smoke bomb, and places it next to the money. “Do you ever feel back for those guys?”

“Who? The Sleepy Bois? No not really.”

“But like. What did they ever do?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly! Why do they get all the credit?”

“Because we’re orphaned high schoolers,” Tubbo said dryly. “Because if we aren’t even on the suspect list then we aren’t gonna get caught.”

“Okay,” Tommy relented. “But those are like, super incompetent, what’s our plan when they finally get caught?”

Silence washed over the comms as Tommy yoinked a bag of chips and got out of there.

“Is keeping the three of them out of jail even worth it?”

“Yes,” Tubbo said. “It’s worth it. Investing in their safety is beneficially to us.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you guys at the Cupcakery. Theseus out.”

 Time: 22:47, May 31st, 2021

Tubbo and Ranboo are in the Cupcakery on 6th Street when Tommy walks in knives out. “I want a French chocolate swirl lady!”

Niki took a moment to process the demand. Here she was having a lovely conversation with two of her most favourite late night customers, and now the third was threatening her with a knife. “Excuse me?”

“French chocolate swirl. Hand it over. I’m in the mood for some sweets. Don’t make me ask twice!”

Niki finally put her hands up. Tubbo and Ranboo were in their civilian clothing and played the part of worried shoppers. “Do you have money?” she asked, scared.

“I have a knife.”

And that was the moment a hero walked into the building.

Ah.

Tommy had spotted Nightmare on the way here.

“Theseus.”

Tommy whirled around. Backing into the counter, acting more scared than he actually was.

“What are you doing kid?” Nightmare asked exasperated.

“M’ not a kid!”

“Yeah yeah.” Nightmare was already reaching into the back pocket for his wallet. He took about a crisp twenty. “Put the knife away kid. Buy yourself the cupcake.”

“Oh.” Tommy reached out for the twenty; eyes shifting looking around for the trap. He had a 750k ransom in his backpack, and there was always a chance Nightmare had found them out. Even with the SBI decoy. He snatched the cash. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome kid. Stop harassing Niki here, and keep the change.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Nightmare, clearly satisfied with his diffusion of the situation, nodded to Niki.

“Would you like a cupcake?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nevermind.”

“I mean if you’re offering.”

“Two French chocolate swirls please!”

Niki pulled out two cupcakes stiffly and took the twenty. She put them and the change on the counter.

Nightmare tipped an invisible hat to Niki before leaving. “Think you’re suit needs some dry cleaning Theseus.”

“Because I can afford it!” Tommy bantered back. The door bell rung as the hero left. “Oh of these days my comments are going to get me killed, I know. Shush Tubbo.” Tommy lowered his green bandana and took a bite of his cupcake. “Sorry for pulling a knife on you Niki.”

“It’s fine. I know you won’t hurt me.”

“What the fuck Tommy!”

“Oh shut up Tubbo. I had it under control.”

“You’re going to be our downfall,” Ranboo said.

“You guys are the ones telling Niki!”

“Yeah but it’s Niki.”

“Yeah Tommy. I’m just Niki.”

“You’re right that was rude. I’m sorry Niki.”

Niki took out a cloth and wiped Tommy’s crumbs away. “You boys get home. Isn’t it a school night?”

The three fourteen year olds groaned.

“Bye Niki.”

“Don’t get caught.”

Tommy handed Ranboo his backpack.

Tubbo and Ranboo packed their homework into Tubbo’s backpack and their loose stationary with the money in Ranboo’s. They waved to Niki and walked back to their shotty little apartment.

Tommy put his bandana over his mouth and nose, and readjusted his red blazer. He left through the front door back towards the trade cite. He was needed to save SBI’s assess from Nightmare.

He flicked his steel throwing cards around his hands. He hoped it’ll go well. He needed this to go well.

- - -

Time: 23:00, May 31st, 2021

Wilbur read the instructions he had written on the inside of this arm one more time. “There is a briefcase with 250k. Disperse it among the three of you. When Nightmare arrives at 23:15 for the meeting time of 0:00, hold the briefcase and run like hell. You should have the money on your person, don’t let him catch any of you and ditch the briefcase if need be.”

“I still don’t get how we managed to get this money,” Philza said on the way to the homeless shelter’s food storage facility.”

“Don’t question it.”

“But, like, it said it was a ransom for blackmail. We don’t have any blackmail on anybody.”

“Don’t question it.”

“Guys can you focus? We have a mission to accomplish.”

“Techno, you gotta admit that we’re shit.”

“We are shit. But Nightmare doesn’t know that. And I’m not turning down 250k.”

- - -

Time: 23:58, May 31st, 2021

Shit. Tommy had need to graze Nightmare’s ankle with his ace of clubs for Burr to escape.

Nightmare was clearly put out that he hadn’t been able to catch the SBI. He left the storage facility empty briefcase in hand, and clearly put out.

Nightmare bent down and picked up the throwing card from under an aisle.

If there was one thing Tommy hated the most out of this whole, pretend the SBI are the ones doing the things that the Klupa Boys are doing, it’s that Burr gets credit for Tommy’s amazing feats.

“In case either of you are awake and on comms. The SBI had a clean escape, but I’m down a card.”

- - -

[CONT]

Notes: The SBI are still at large and are a danger to the people of Braidingston. Be advised that they might still ask for more money depending on the contents of their information. Order French chocolate swirls from the Cupcakery on 6th Street at the next office party.

[generalfoolish]

Jate'kara

Rating: 18+ (minors take a hike)

Warnings: lots of bad space language, talk of Bo-Katan and Death Watch, sleazy g-pa Greef

Word count: ~2K

Pairing: (eventually!!!) Din Djarin x F!reader

Summary: A Mandalorian is searching for Mando.

A/N: Hey babes! This is number four of the #mandomay2021 prompt list. I promise they'll keep being longer! Enjoy 💕

Masterlist | Aru'e | Cyare’se

Piloting in hyperspace didn’t require you to interact with the controls. For longer flights, this allowed you to sleep and recharge. But on this flight, you longed for something to do with your hands. You were jittery. You couldn’t sleep. You could only pace. Zek’s words crashed around in your mind. You had left Echi there, with a stale promise on your lips to return. He had slowly shaken his head in disagreement and muttered that it wasn’t your jate’kara. You had only scoffed, your destiny was what you made it.

Except in the deafening silence of hyperspace, the crushing truth was suffocating. You had long decided that your jate’kara was to die fighting the Empire. You had mused and waited, hunted and paced, you were tired of plotting. You would give your life, gladly, to see even one Imp fall.

Why did it have you reeling now?

It was the covert. You told yourself. Placating and smoothing the crinkles that so much life had created. Beyond Echi, you hadn’t talked to another soul in ages. You were well and alone. However, now, you had a place. Zek had offered, insisted, and almost begged, you to stay. They needed more hands for foundlings, they needed more income to sponsor them. The group had moved from Zanbar after a deadly battle had broken out, and there had been no shortage of orphans in the wake.

You had turned the offer over more than you wanted to admit. You had stayed the night. You shared their meals, their home. They were far from the reaches of Mandalore, and they seemed free to live without the stifling rules you had known on Krownest. You had felt seen and accepted there. They didn’t even notice your armor. Their kindness reminded you of your own covert.

You wouldn’t have fit in. Your darkness would have been their destruction, your inner voice reprimanded. You shuddered the thought down. The images of prone children, faceless for their helmets with pools of blood gathering underfoot, were too quick. You fisted your eyes, rubbing your knuckles in harshly.

Before you knew it, the children were your own. The destruction of your own covert. Your buir crawling to his blaster, stopped with a crack from another faceless stormtrooper. You gasped and tried to think of anything else. There was nothing else. Only death, and the lull of deep space. You tried to calm your breathing. It only worked marginally, the panic attack at bay, but the paralyzing fear still lingering.

A shrill ping brought you back to life. You made your way over to the panel, and dropped from hyper. The ping was a message, a holo sent from an informant, and the message was simple: go to Nevarro. You wondered what good the volcanic planet would be to you. You drummed your fingers against the datapad, before punching in the coordinates to the port on Nevarro. All you knew was that there had been a Guild on the planet, but you didn’t know much else.

With no other leads, you hoped that the Guild might have a puck or a location on some of the men you sought. It was close to Mandalore, too close to not have ties, so the locals might not immediately view you as a danger.

The T Visor of your helmet stared back at you, your reflection searching the inky wells and finding nothing. The helmet was the most important piece of armor, it protected you the most, but you couldn’t help but feel separate from it. You felt stripped every time you took it off, and you wondered how much of your humanity was retained when you slid the metal in place. You hoped most of it, but you knew it was likely none.

~

You maneuvered your ship down, a ring of dust blurring your windshield. Volcanic planet, indeed. You made your way through the streets quickly. The main street appeared to be under construction, and you wondered why they would bother. The whole city seemed on the brink of falling in on itself. You found the market easily, and veered opposite it. You had expected the town’s leader would be across from the most populous spot, and right you were. You crossed the open threshold, and looked around.

“Ah, here for Mando?” The human woman was leaning over some paperwork, but sat up straight when she saw you. You tilted your head slightly, but remained silent.

“Sheriff Dune, at your service. Who’re you?” The woman’s short hair curled into her eyes, but she swept them back with a broad hand. You noticed her bulging arms under her long sleeves. She was far from just a sheriff. You had no idea why you were sent here, or who you were actually looking for. You decided to take the chance. Mando, short for Mandalorian?

“Yes, Sheriff Dune. I’m looking for Mando.” She stretched her lips in a thin line and nodded.

“Your business with him?” You swore her eyes narrowed as she spoke. She was friendly with this one. You worked fast to think through a sufficient lie. A mandalorian not sharing his name would likely be a bounty hunter, and of course, the guild was on Nevarro, not too far from Mandalore. You needed more information, but you could work with what you had so far.

“Heard he was the best, and I need some help tracking someone down.” You released the stance you held, to look more at ease, and tried to lighten your voice to a self-deprecating tone. You hoped she would buy it. It was plausible enough.

You didn’t worry long. She visibly relaxed.

“He’s off world at the moment. Want me to send him a holo?” You tensed back up, and paused. You had no message for him. Dank farrick, you didn’t know if he was even who you were searching for. Cara seemed to pick up on that.

“I’ll just ping him, tell him Greef needs him back.” She waved it off, and disappeared behind a door. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to think. What if he was Death Watch? What if he was with...you swallowed it. You couldn’t afford to think about that. If he was against you, you’d deal with it when the time came. You had handled yourself against mandalorians before, and not that you were itching for that fight, you could do it again.

“You always wear that bucket?” Cara asked as she walked back in. Your mind raced again. The lies piling on, the hole you were digging seemingly too far to return from.

“Only if I want to put it on again.” You told her, terse. She nodded, and chuckled.

“Yeah, you and Mando will get along fine. He’s only a few hours out. You caught him on a return trip.” You swallowed hard, knowing that the metal would hide your nervousness.

“Good. Guild?” You asked, not knowing anything else to add. She nodded.

“Karga, got a guild member up front. Another bucket head.” She flashed a grin at you, and slumped down heavily into her chair.

“Welcome to Nevarro! What can I do for you?” A darker human entered, holding his arms far apart. You knew the tactic, he was afraid of mandalorians.

“I’m looking for someone.” You started slowly, hoping to gain more information than you lost.

“Not really my expertise.” He raised his hands in a shrug.

“No, I’m wondering if you have any Imp pucks?” You asked, hoping to cut through the game.

“You guild?” Crik. You hadn’t thought about the guild requiring status. No sense in lying here.

“No.”

“Doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.” You bite your cheek. Hard. Hard enough to draw blood. Anything to keep from grinding your teeth more.

“You can keep the bounty.” You reasoned, hoping he was greedy.

“Like I said,” he glanced at Cara who was doing a bad job at hiding her interest. “Doesn’t work like that.” Greedier. Great, you thought.

“I’ll pay you for the puck, and you keep the bounty. I’m assuming you do have a puck.” You had struck a chord.

“It’s an Imperial job, and I can give you the chain code.” You nodded at him, and brought your vambrace up, ready for input. He was silent. You raised your helmet to him, and he shook his head.

“I can’t. It feels...wrong now.” You ground your teeth down hard enough to make your jaw click. The sooner this Mando was here, the sooner you could blast a hole through this Karga.

“Who is it on?” You asked, trying to keep your voice steady.

“Bo-Katan. She helped Mando, and well, seems wrong sending another one of you after her.” You dropped your arm, not caring if your hand was played. It couldn’t be true.

“Bo-Katan? The mandalorian?” You asked, the modulator picking up your shock with ease.

“Yes, she is not an enemy here.” Dank farrick.

“She fought with us. I can’t believe you even thought about it, Greef.” Cara reprimanded, but you barely registered it. You were spinning out.

“I...I have no quarrels with Bo-Katan.” You told them, hoping they heard the sincerity. “I...I’m sorry, is there a covert here?” They looked at each other before looking at you.

“It was destroyed.” Cara told you gently. It felt like too much. “I can show you.” You nodded numbly, and followed behind her through the dusty streets. She took you to a tattered curtain, and you slipped in.

“I’ll send Mando here when he arrives.” Cara told you, her tone more concerned than anything. You nodded tightly and disappeared down the concrete steps. When you were away from the landing you tugged your helmet off and threw it against the wall. The beskar clanged loudly against it, but it tumbled to the ground unharmed. You cursed under your breath at yourself, and grabbed it to inspect the paint. As expected, there was a gash under the eye, where the black had chipped away. The silver shining through broke what was left of your resolve.

“Bo-criking-Katan? Who is this guy?” You grumbled and collapsed to the floor. Dust swirled up and around you, and you couldn’t help but think of Jeculan. The swirling snow had been beautiful. Echi had bounded through it easily, hunting for some unsuspecting prey. You laughed, you had released a menace on that planet. You wondered what Zek was doing, and how the foundlings were liking playing with their new pet. Your lie wasn’t unsustainable. You could keep the helmet on, that wasn’t a problem. But you didn’t know enough about the Death Watch to play pretend with a member. If Mando was in bed with Bo-Katan, they’d kill you before you made it off this crikking dusty planet. You laid your head back, and rolled your neck. You hadn’t even got any leads from the guild guy, what was his name, Karga?

You groaned and looked around. You hadn’t noticed at first, but the covert was wrecked. The clan living here had left in a hurry. Cara had said it was destroyed. You wondered if they had lived in secret, like some. You wondered about the foundlings who would have made their way here. You wondered about this Mando.

Not the most original, you scoffed. Mando the Mandalorian? You supposed it would be helpful in bounty hunting to be nameless, but a fake name would have inspired more fear.

You were so entranced in your own thoughts that you hadn’t heard the footsteps ringing down the steps. You barely registered a man clearing his throat. You whipped your head around to face him before you thought about it; before you remembered to put on your helmet. He turned his head quickly, and you realized your mistake. You slid your helmet down into place, and you mumbled an apology.

“You’re Mando?” He nodded tightly, turning to face you again. Your heart was seizing with fear. You had seen other mandalorians, you knew that they could be broad, even massive. The armor helped. But Mando seemed giant, looming over you, no paint, glinting in the dusty sunlight.

“Cara said you needed me?” He sounded tired. You felt, even amidst your fear, guilty for this.

“I’m looking for someone, but I didn’t realize that…” You fell off, not sure how to continue. He waited, his head tilting slightly when you hadn’t continued after a moment. “You were with Bo-Katan.” His helmet seemed to tilt further over.

“What does this have to do with her?” He asked, a hand landing on his hip.

“Nothing, actually. I just don't want her attention.” He snorted, and held his hand out. You took it, and he helped you to your feet.

“I’m not with her. I’m actually trying to stay as far from her as possible. Who are you after?” He asked softly. You breathed a sigh of relief.

“Imps.”

**Translations

Jate'kara: destiny, luck

Crik: expletive

Dank farrick: expletive

[cryingcow]

Character Story - Tanimura [RGGO]

. . . Yeah, I gave up on Ryuji’s. Sorry, it was frustrating  >_<. Instead, it’s time for the Mr. Gambling Turtle!

I find it funny that Tanimura’s dad/s go to all the trouble of naming him “Masayoshi” for justice and whatnot, only for no one to ever use his first name XD But “Ma-chan” is cute tho! Also, never figured Tanimura as a detective could be so idealistic, especially when compared to someone like Yagami ┐(￣～￣)┌ .

Story: Tanimura and Date work together to solve a robbery. Tanimura learns like 3 moral lessons from his senior at the end of it, and proceeds to completely misinterpret said lessons.

Date: “Little Asia. My god, just look at this place.”

Tanimura: “Okay can you stop dissing my home now and get back to the case?”

Note: “Continental descent” just means “Chinese”. I wanted to put “mainlander” because that’s the accurate term, buuut idk if it would be more or less confusing like that esp with Westerners. (Also, the way we use “mainlander” in our country is Not Very Nice. Not sure if the connotation is the same in Japan.)

.

CHAPTER 1

.

|2010. Tanimura Masayoshi, along with Kiryu and others, uncovered and resolved a big conspiracy involving the Metropolitan Police Department. After resolving the incident, Tanimura was transferred from Community Safety Division to Criminal Investigation Division One. Life goes back to normal.|

[Mahjong Parlor]

Youth: “Damn it! Ma-chan’s probably going to win again!”

Tanimura: “Heh. I’m on a roll lately.”

Friendly Youth: “Hey, Ma-chan. Is it okay for you to be here? Didn’t you move from Community Safety to Criminal Investigation Division 1?”

Tanimura: “Well, I’m a detective who deals in murder now. They gave my achievements from the recent incident a high evaluation.”

Friendly Youth: “In that case, isn’t this bad? Then your boss will come here to yell at you . . .”

Tanimura: “Oh, you mean Date-san? Yeah, that would certainly be dangerous. I should get back to the station before he finds out.”

Friendly Youth: “One of these days, you’re going to get yourself fired . . .”

----

[Little Asia]

Mister: “Yo, Ma-chan. Playing hooky as usual.”

Tanimura: “I’m at work. Patrolling. I’m here to protect the safety of this area.”

Child: “Ma-chan, let’s play!”

Tanimura: “Sorry, I’m at work. Later~.”

Tanimura: (Well, if I play hooky too much, Date-san will find out. I should get back to the station fast.)

Tanimura: “Hm?”

Lowly Gangster: “It’s not a bad idea. And more than that, I don’t think we can wait any longer!”

Weak Middle-aged Man: “H-Hii! It-It hurts! Please stop hitting me!”

Tanimura: (That’s . . . the manager of Smile Heights Ni Hao, Hao-san . . .)

Tanimura: “Oi! What are you guys doing?!”

Lowly Gangster: “Ah?!”

Hao: “Ma-chan!”

Lowly Gangster: “Don’t butt in!! I’m working! I’m collecting this guy’s debt!”

Tanimura: “You’re a debt collector? Hao-san, how much did you borrow?”

Hao: “500,000 . . . I should have won the horse race . . . I lost a lot of money. Haha . . .”

Lowly Gangster: “The interest has ballooned to 5 million! Pay up 100,000 for this month!”

Tanimura: “Hey, stop! 500,000 to 5 million, that’s obviously an illegal interest rate!”

Lowly Gangster: “Bastard, didn’t I tell you earlier not to butt in? What are you, a cop?”

Tanimura: “. . . Tanimura of the Kamurocho Police. You do know if you keep doing that, you’ll be guilty of assault, right?”

Lowly Gangster: “What? There’s 3 of us here. Bastard, don’t think you can do anything on your own!”

Tanimura: “Well, that’s why I called backup.”

Police Officer: “Sir! I received your request for backup!”

{The policeman takes the yakuza away.}

Hao: “Tanimura-san, thank you!”

Tanimura: “Hao-san, if you can’t stop yourself from gambling, why did you have to borrow from that guy?”

Hao: “Because I thought I could win . . .”

Tanimura: “Aren’t you teaching children? A teacher shouldn’t be showing that kind of example.”

Hao: “Ah . . . you’re right. I should set a good example as a teacher.”

Tanimura: “You’re a good person, Hao-san. Isn’t it a shame you lost sight of that because of debt? I asked Mei-Fa recently, and I heard you were picking up orphans and putting them up in your apartment?”

Hao: “Yup. It wouldn’t be fair to push the children all on Omomuki-san, and I like kids anyway.”

Tanimura: “That’s good. That’s why you shouldn’t lose yourself in debt.”

Little Boy: “Ah, there you are Hao-sensei! It’s time for cram school!”

Hao: “Ah! Is it already time?”

Tanimura: “Oh, Hao-san, wait a moment. Here, take this.”

Hao: “Eh?! Money? Are you sure?”

Tanimura: “Yeah. This is the money I won from gambling. Use it to buy the children clothes and teaching materials.”

Hao: “Th-Thank you!”

Little Boy: “Hao-sensei! Let’s go! Everyone is waiting!”

Hao: “Tanimura-san! Again, thank you very much!”

Tanimura: “Go already. And don’t use it for gambling!”

{Hao leaves with the little boy.}

Tanimura: “Teaching children for free, and feeding them on top of that . . . He’s a good person. If only he didn’t have debt and a gambling habit . . .”

Date: “Are you talking about someone else? Because I know a detective who plays mahjong.”

Tanimura: “. . . guh. Date-san . . .”

Date: “I finally found you! Your paperwork isn’t finished yet, you truant demon!”

Tanimura: “Th-This time is different! I wasn’t playing hooky! In fact, I was helping people with their troubles . . .”

Date: “That’s no excuse! If a subordinate of Sudo is skipping out on work, it’s up to me to drag him back. Now, let’s go!”

Tanimura: “I understand . . .”

----

|Several days later . . .|

[Mahjong Parlor]

Tanimura: “Hehe. Oh, this tile . . . I’m on a roll today~.”

Friendly Youth: “Ma-chan, you’re skipping work again to play mahjong. You’re going to get disciplined again.”

Tanimura: “I just can’t stop. Anyway, it’s noisy outside. Is something going on?”

Friendly Youth: “I don’t know. Why are you asking me, you’re the detective. Haven’t you heard anything on your comm device?”

Tanimura: “Hm, I wonder. I was focused on something else today. Oh, this tile . . .”

Date: “Tanimura!! I knew you’d be here . . .”

Tanimura: “D-Date-san? Uh, you see . . . I wasn’t skipping . . .”

Date: “There’s been an incident.”

Tanimura: “Eh? Incident?”

Date: “A bank robbery. Happened just a while ago.”

Sudo: “A man wearing a full-faced helmet broke into the bank, stole 5 million in cash, and escaped on a scooter. It seems that he fled to Little Asia.”

Tanimura: “In Little Asia?”

Date: “You’re very familiar with Little Asia, correct? So you’ll be on this case.”

Tanimura: “. . . Understood. What did the guy look like?”

Date: “There was one perpetrator, a 170cm tall medium-sized man of continental descent.”

Tanimura: “Continental descent . . .”

Date: “There’s only one way in to enter Little Asia. All the other exits have been secured.”

Tanimura: “Wait, are you suspecting someone who lives in Little Asia?”

Date: “Given the situation, I have to be suspicious.”

Tanimura: “Is . . . that so . . .”

Date: “Why are you upset? People who are born and raised in this city can be suspects.”

Tanimura: “It’s just . . . I know everyone in Little Asia, but I don’t know anyone who’d be a thief . . .”

Date: “Hey, Tanimura . . . you know you should look at the facts and not get distracted by personal feelings, right?”

Tanimura: “Alright . . .”

.

-END-

.

CHAPTER 2

.

[Little Asia]

Date: “Little Asia. Narrow streets tangling with one another . . . Foreign signboards in a narrow space lined up in front of suspicious stores . . . It’s the perfect place to hide.”

Tanimura: “Haa. Yeah, maybe you’re right . . .”

Date: “Alright. Tanimura, now listen up.”

Tanimura: “I don’t feel like I’m suitable for this . . .”

 {Date and Tanimura presumably discuss their gameplan and go find residents to interrogate.}

Youth: “A man wearing a full-faced helmet?”

Tanimura: “Yeah, and he escaped into Little Asia on a scooter. Did you see him?”

Youth: “. . . You know, I think I did. He went inside a tobacco shop.”

Tanimura: “A tobacco shop, thank you!”

Youth: “Tanimura-san, are you suspecting one of us?”

Tanimura: “No, no. That’s not the case . . .”

Youth: “Is that true? Ren-san of the tobacco shop said he was also interrogated . . . You and that tough-looking detective are going around checking everyone’s alibi.”

Tanimura: “Tough-looking detectives . . .”

Date: “. . .”

Youth: “We may be poor, but when we’re in trouble, we help each other out. We’re not robbers.”

Tanimura: “I-I know. I don’t suspect everyone here. Thank you for giving us information. {to Date} It seems the guy went this way.”

Date: “Even so, this is a complicated place. If you weren’t with me, I’d have gotten lost.”

Tanimura: “Well, at first glance it’s just a dilapidated town.”

Date: “If the suspect is someone who doesn’t know the land, he’ll get lost. But if he does know the area, it’ll be easy to lose the police.”

Tanimura: “Um. Do you still suspect someone in Little Asia?”

Date: “I don’t want to doubt them, but as always we should.”

Tanimura: “‘Prejudice in the investigation is strictly prohibited’.  . . . I understand.”

Chinpira: “Oi!”

Chinpira: “You’re the ones who’ve been swaggering around Little Asia, aren’t you?”

Date: “Hm? Who are you guys?”

Tanimura: “Do you even live here?”

Chinpira: “Dunno. But you’re really annoying. Get out of here now.”

Tanimura: “Are you headaches working for the criminal we’re investigating? Getting in our way like this, maybe . . . you’re the robbers?”

Chinpira: “What did you say?”

Tanimura: “You see, Date-san? The culprit is an outsider all along.”

Date: “. . . Tanimura. That doesn’t seem to be the case right now.”

Chinpira: “If you don’t get out now, I’ll kick you out myself!”

{Tanimura and Date defeat the guys.}

Chinpira: “U-ugh . . .”

Tanimura: “Oi! Are you the robbers?!”

Chinpira: “What the hell are you talking about?! We were just ordered to get in your way!”

Tanimura: “Ordered? By who?”

Chinpira: “I-I don’t know. A bunch of unknown men. Probably yakuza, based from how they dressed . . .”

Tanimura: “Is that true?”

Chinpira: “It’s true! If we disturb your investigation, we’ll be paid . . . is what they said.”

Date: “You guys . . . where were you and what were you doing at around 5:30PM today?”

Chinpira: “We were playing at the arcade at that time.”

Date: “And you’re not lying?”

Chinpira: “I-I’m not lying! We even took pictures at the arcade . . .”

Date: “The crime took place at around 5:30PM. If you have an alibi, it should be the timestamps on those arcade pictures.”

Tanimura: “If that’s the case, do you think the yakuza who ordered them are the real robbers?”

Date: “It’s suspicious, sure, but its relevance to the robbery is still unknown.”

Tanimura: “Is that so . . . so what do we do with these guys?”

Date: “They obstructed a police investigation. Call for backup and let them handle it. We can go back to our investigation as soon as they take over.”

Tanimura: “Got it.”

----

Tanimura: “According to the testimony, the criminal escaped around here . . .”

Date: “It’s a straight road. What do you think lies ahead?”

Tanimura: “It’s a dead end. But . . .”

Date: “But?”

Tanimura: “There’s an apartment here. A place managed by a person named Hao . . .”

Date: “Hao?”

Tanimura: “Yeah. He’s a good person who takes orphans in and teaches them for free.”

Date: “Oh. That may be your impression of him, but it’s possible the criminal escaped into his apartment.”

----

Tanimura: “! That thing lying in front of the apartment . . . is that a scooter?”

Date: “That’s what the criminal was using, and it’s even the same color.  . . . hm? The license plate has been peeled off.”

Tanimura: “Is it the getaway vehicle?”

Date: “Seems like it. The engine is still warm. Thinking that he got away with it, the criminal made a mistake.”

Tanimura: “Following the footprints leading away from the scooter . . . it looks like the criminal escaped into the apartment.”

Hao: “Oh. Tanimura-san?”

Tanimura: “Hao-san? Are you in there?”

Hao: “. . . Yup. I was in the caretaker’s room. Tanimura-san, is this an investigation?”

Tanimura: “Yeah. In fact, I’m chasing down a robber. A man wearing a full-faced helmet escaped down here.”

Hao: “Eh!”

Date: “This hut in front of the apartment that looks like a lottery counter. Is this the caretaker’s room?”

Tanimura: “Yeah. Children live here, so he keeps an eye out for suspicious people from over there.”

Date: “So in other words, the criminal wouldn’t have been able to get pass without the caretaker seeing them.”

Hao: “. . .”

Date: “Hao-san. How about it? Looking at the situation, it is likely that the culprit disposed of the scooter here and fled into the apartment. Did you not see the criminal run by? If you really were in the caretaker’s room, you should have seen him.”

Hao: “. . . th-that is . . .”

Date: “. . . Did you see him?”

Hao: “I-I didn’t see anyone! No one passed by here!”

Date: “And there’s no mistake?”

Hao: “There’s no doubt! No one escaped to this apartment!”

Date: “Is that so . . .”

Hao: “. . . um. Can I go now?”

Date: “Yeah. Understood. Thank you for your time.”

{Hao goes back inside.}

Tanimura: “Hao-san didn’t see the criminal running away. So where could the culprit be?”

Date: “Something stinks.”

Tanimura: “Eh?”

Date: “It seems like the caretaker is hiding something.”

Tanimura: “Just because he doesn’t want to talk to the police all of a sudden? Maybe he’s busy.”

Date: “Maybe so. But . . . can’t you think of another reason? Like the caretaker protecting the fleeing criminal.”

Tanimura: “Date-san. Hao-san is a good person who takes care of orphans for free, isn’t he? He can’t be covering up for a robber.”

Date: “What if Hao-san knows the criminal? Wouldn’t that be reason enough to protect him?”

Tanimura: “Th-That’s . . .”

Date: “Hey, Tanimura. Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way of the investigation. You shouldn’t dismiss the possibility.”

Tanimura: “I know . . .”

Date: “Alright. Then let’s keep an eye on the apartment from the opposite building. If there is a criminal in there, he’s sure to come out eventually.”

Tanimura: (Hao-san protecting the criminal? That’s stupid . . .)

.

-END-

.

CHAPTER 3

.

|About an hour after Tanimura and Date started watching Hao’s apartment . . .|

[Little Asia]

Date: “There’s no movement. The caretaker still continues to watch TV in his room. The probable criminal hasn’t come out.”

Tanimura: “Yeah, he’s done nothing but watch TV the entire time. But, there is something strange about him . . .”

Date: “Strange how?”

Tanimura: “Hao-san has been fidgeting the entire time. Like he’s wary of something.”

Date: “You think he’s aware he’s under surveillance?”

Tanimura: “I wonder. But there’s something even stranger . . .”

Date: “What?”

Tanimura: “I told you that Hao-san tutors children, right? He should be teaching at this time. The study room is on the second floor . . .”

Date: “And yet he’s been in the caretaker’s room the entire time.”

Tanimura: “Yes. It’s supposed to be his daily routine . . . On top of that, I haven’t seen any of the children. The lights aren’t even on, and normally they should be switched on at the second floor . . .”

Date: “Tanimura . . . do you think your observations are related to the robbery case?”

Tanimura: “. . . I . . . think so . . . If we believe that a robber is in the apartment . . . it makes sense why the cram school isn’t open. The criminal could be using the children as hostages. That might be why Hao-san is protecting him. But . . . if that’s the case, it’s puzzling why the room isn’t lit. There’s no reason to turn the lights off and tell everyone otherwise.”

Date: “Heh. Tanimura, it seems you finally understand how to observe without letting your personal feelings interfere.”

Tanimura: “I’m not . . . I’m still not doubting Hao-san.”

Date: “. . . Alright. Let’s end this stakeout.”

Tanimura: “What are we going to do?”

Date: “You said things felt strange. It’s time to confront the caretaker. Doing so may move this situation from its standstill.”

Tanimura: “. . . Understood.”

Tanimura: “Hao-san. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Hao: “T-Tanimura-san? What’s wrong?”

Tanimura: “Where are the kids?”

Hao: “! W-We-Well, that is . . .”

Tanimura: “It’s time for cram school, right? But the lights on the second floor are still off. Hao-san, what on earth is going on? Where are the children?”

Hao: “. . . uh . . .”

Tanimura: “I’m going to look inside the apartment room. Is that okay?”

Hao: “. . . Tanimura-san! I’m sorry!”

{Hao grabs a bag and pushes past Tanimura.}

Tanimura: “Ah! Hao-san, where are you going with that bag?! . . . ! The scooter?”

Date: “Tanimura! He got away! Let’s go chase him!”

Tanimura: “O-Okay!”

Tanimura: (Hao-san, is this a joke? There’s no way you . . .)

----

Date: “Haa . . . haa . . . damn it! The alleys are too complex and our target is on a scooter! Haa . . . haa . . . this is . . . we have to keep going!”

Tanimura: “Date-san! Here! Please follow me!”

Date: “H-Hey, that’s the opposite direction . . .”

Tanimura: “This is a shortcut!”

Tanimura: “Haa . . . haa. There you are, Hao-san.”

Date: “Haa . . . haa. Tanimura, you were right.”

Tanimura: “Haa . . . haa . . . Hao-san got off the scooter and entered that building!”

Date: “Alright! Let’s catch him!”

 ----

Tanimura: “Hao-san!! Haa . . . haa . . . haa . . .”

Hao: “T-Tanimura-san?”

Tanimura: “What’s in that bag? Is it money?! Are you the robber?!”

Hao: “Th-That’s . . .”

Tanimura: “Show me what’s inside!”

{Tanimura grabs the bag and forces it open.}

Hao: “Ah.”

Tanimura: “Th-this is . . .”

Date: “The 5 million that was stolen. Judging from the number of wads, I’d that’s probably it.”

Hao: “. . .”

Tanimura: “Hao-san! What is the meaning of this?! Why did you become a robber . . .”

Hao: “. . . i-it couldn’t be helped.”

Tanimura: “What can’t?”

Hao: “The yakuza were claiming my debt! They took the children!”

Tanimura: “What did you say?”

Hao: “They . . . if you’re an orphan in Little Asia, it’s hard to go to the police . . . If I didn’t pay off my debt, they’d kidnap the children and sell them off . . .”

Tanimura: “I see. Since the parents of those children were here illegally, then those kids don’t exist at all in this country.”

Date: “in other words, there is no one who’ll sue them. They’re free to do human trafficking.”

Tanimura: “Hao-san, is that why you did the robbery?”

Hao: “They ordered me to. If I steal the money, they’ll return the children.”

Tanimura: “Is that so . . .”

Yakuza: “There it is! That money is ours.”

Tanimura: “! Who are you guys?”

Yakuza: “It can’t be helped now that he’s talked. I’m taking all that money. Hand it over in exchange for the children’s lives, or we’ll sell them to get the money.”

Tanimura: “I won’t let you do that. I’m not paying, now hand over those kids.”

Yakuza: “Kekeke. There’s only two of you against us. You’re going to die right now!”

{Tanimura and Date defeat the yakuza.}

Tanimura: “Where are the children?! Answer me!!”

Yakuza: “S-Second floor of the opposite building . . . they’re tied up there . . .”

Date: “Tanimura, watch these guys and Hao-san. I’ll call for back up and pick up the kids.”

Tanimura: “Got it. Hao-san, are you okay?”

Hao: “Yup. Tanimura-san, I’m sorry . . .”

Tanimura: “Hao-san, if you’re ever in trouble, please don’t hesitate to contact me. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Hao: “Tanimura-san . . .”

 ----

Date: “Tanimura. The children are safe and protected now.”

Tanimura: “Um. Does the police know about the children’s complicated situations . . .”

Date: “Yeah. I sat that out. It would be confusing when it comes to the police.”

Tanimura: “Thank you very much.”

Date: “About Hao-san . . . as expected, there’s no easy way to handle his case. Even though he was threatened, it was still a robbery. They might give him a lighter sentence.”

Tanimura: “The situation is what it is. I hope they do . . .”

Tanimura: “. . .”

Date: “What’s wrong? That’s not the face one wears when a case is resolved.”

Tanimura: “. . . This case went exactly as you said. I was too caught up in my personal feelings, and my eyes were clouded. I should have known from the testimony that Hao was suspicious, but I didn’t want to doubt him. I didn’t want to believe my friends from Little Asia could do that.  . . . No, I didn’t want you to think they’d do it. Letting such thoughts distract me from the facts . . . I should be kicked off the police force.”

Date: “. . . You’re right. It’s not a very flattering side of you. But Tanimura, I think there are two kinds of people in the police. The kind who upholds the law . . . while the other kind fights for their idea of justice. There are people like you who learn once they bounce back from their mistakes. Remember that.”

Tanimura: “. . . I will. Thank you very much, Date-san.”

Date: “Besides, solving this case would have been impossible if it wasn’t for your keen eye and familiarity with the streets of Little Asia. It seems your truancy turned out to be useful this time. Heh, if everyone was just like you, the world would be a better place.”

Tanimura: “Haha, I can’t say anything to that.”

 ----

|A few days later . . .|

[Mahjong Parlor]

Tanimura: “Alright! I win again this time~!”

Friendly Youth: “Wow! You beat me again!”

Tanimura: “Hehe. Looks like I’m in great form today as well.”

Friendly Youth: “But Ma-chan. Is it okay for you to be skipping out on work again? Your boss is going to get angry at you.”

Tanimura: “It’s alright, it’s alright. I had a chat with my boss. It turns out my truancy is useful.”

Friendly Youth: “Is that true . . . Oh, that’s right. It seems like Hao-san got off with a light sentence.”

Tanimura: “Yeah. They took into consideration the fact that he was threatened by the yakuza.”

Friendly Youth: “If Hao-san is gone, there’ll be no one to take care of the kids.”

Tanimura: “Yeah. I’m glad all the loose ends are tied up.”

Date: “What loose ends are tied up?”

Tanimura: “Guh. Date-san . . .”

Date: “Tch, you! Are you playing hooky again?!”

Tanimura: “N-No, because you gave me permission to skip, didn’t you? You said skipping was good!”

Date: “You idiot! I didn’t give you permission! And I’m not cleaning up your paperwork! Sudo told me off because of your truancy! Get back to work!”

Tanimura: “Y-Yes! I’m sorry!”

{Tanimura runs off.}

Date: “Good grief . . .  Heh. To be young with such energy.”

.

-END-

Masterlist

[legends-lover]

“There's no time to waste In this famous goodbye There's Angels landing on the shore” This is the last goodbye of Jason Grace. Jason warns, screams to Apollo that he must go and take Piper, that he must remember. As he goes limp with Caligula’s spear jutting through him, he vaguely remembers the words of Michael Varus, Tempest bringing him to the shore.Born a Roman, die a Roman. “So lay down with me Let the river run dry It's Sunday in the six-day war” Jason’s been many things in his life. A soldier, an orphan, a commander, a Greek and a Roman. But he was now a Pontifex, because he had enough fighting to last a lifetime. He set down his sword and picked up the robe of the priest, and he was happy as Pontifex. But always the white knight, danger called and Jason came running. “Smile darling don't be sad Stars are going to shine tonight” Jason supposed he died young. I mean, 16 years isn’t a long life, but for demigods, for Jason it was long. He could be at peace, because he had the adventure of a lifetime, and he had love and everything else. A life, however short, is still a lifetime. “There's a children's choir in perfect parade Singing like they found the Lord I can't say it they'll let me in But we can dance the way we did High above up the seventh floor” Kisses on the rooftop, under the stars. When Jason flew for the first time, he never wanted to come down. The feeling of flight felt like Church for a pagan teenager. He wondered often if Zeus saw him, if he ever realized that the boy with the golden sword in the sky was his. “Father hear your Son Do the good die young Did I raise you up, raise you up Make you Proud” To bear a legion upon one’s back as a son of Jupiter was never easy in New Rome. Especially not since the age of 3. Jason spent 13 years of his life praying to his father, who seemed nothing more than a marble statue in a cold stone temple that was more a mausoleum than a home. When he first met Jupiter, Zeus, he was gutted. A simple 5 minute chat did nothing to relieve a lifetime of wondering if he was really good enough to be the son of the king of the gods. “Let the sun go out Tear the bridges down I'm on my way, on my way I'm going home” As Jason Grace watched the sun set over the Burning Maze, he knew very well that this might be his last time. Even if the good died young, Jason would rather die young and heroic than old and jaded. Leo never came back, so Jason was at peace with finding him first. “Tell me where the good men go Before I wash away Walk me down the old brick road So I can die where I met you Hold me like we're going home Turn your tears to rain Bury me beautiful Heaven knows how I loved you” As Pontifex Maximus and a friend of the son of Hades, Jason knew what happened after death. As he had walked through the brick-layered streets of New Rome with his fellow legionnaires, with the Seven, hand in hand with Piper once upon a time, he wondered when it would be his last. He broke up with Piper before the Burning Maze, not having the heart to tell her it might be his last time holding her, his last time at home. One last fight for Jason Grace. Would he go out with a bang or a whimper? Jason hoped he had finally completed his line in the play of the Fates. As he mounted Tempest and readied his spear, he wanted not only Apollo to remember. “Heaven knows how I loved you” Jason Grace wished to never forget what he had and how he loved. ◦

[the-storyteller-and-her-soldiers]

Dragonborn S/I

So as I mentioned yesterday, my newest f/o is a man named Bishop from that Skyrim follower mod... But since he is a follower to my Dragonborn, I figured I'd write her backstory out a bit!

My S/I was orphaned when her mother died in childbirth and her father is unknown. So she got sent to Honorhall Orphanage. But after receiving horrible treatment there, she ran off and decided it'd be better to live on her own on the streets as a beggar than rot there. So among the beggars, she picked up pickpocketing, lockpicking, and a sliver-tongue. The other beggars used her as a scapegoat since if she was caught, the guards would go easier on her and send her back to Honorhall. But my S/I never wanted to return to Honorhall.

Although one day when trying to find a target to pickpocket, she came across this dark elf covered in jewels. She thought they were just a noble and an easy target, if they were flaunting it around without any guard. But they were a mage... And they were quick to notice their soul gems missing, so my S/I didn't even make it around the corner before she gets caught.

But since the mage admired the gall of this child to go for the soul gem instead of their other baubles, the mage doesn't get the guards involved and instead takes my S/I in. Not so they can have a child, or even an apprentice, but to have her be their ingredient collector.

This situation isn't much better BUT there's a roof over her head, a warm bed, and steady amount of food, so my S/I doesn't mind going back with them to Cyrodil. Through the years though my S/I bonds with their mentor enough for them to teach her the BASICS of magic. Destruction for self-defense, healing for my S/I's own wounds and theirs, and alchemy so that my S/I can make potions of stealth for more dangerous gathering missions.

My S/I has such an aptitude for it that the dark elf convinces her to go study at the college. This is so that she can then come home and join the mages guild along with her mentor in Cyrodil

So it's time to head back to Skyrim! But my s/i of course, stops to gather the flowers, and ends up in the imperial ambush.

So after escaping from Helgen, my S/I goes on the run thinking she's still wanted for her childhood crimes and uses her newfound magic skills as an advantage to retreat to her old life of being a thief while trying to get to the college.

But as she's running through Riverwood, happy she's found a safehaven in Ralof's family, she's catcalled by two nord men. She figures she'll hide in the Sleeping Giant Inn since she can't kill them in broad daylight. She's got issues with men catcalling her since she's had some issues with creeps ever since her own childhood. But as she's heading in the tavern, Bishop is leaning against the door and is surprised that someone so pretty and frail ignored them.

So he questions her like, "You a noble who turns her nose up at this kind of thing?" And my S/I kinda hates the rich and being affiliated with them since she was taken advantage of by them before she met her dark elf mentor. So she replies, "No, I, uh, really didn't hear them..."

So the two banter back and forth while getting drinks and that's when he mentions his wolf Karnwyr got lost then taken by some bandits for pit fighting and of course, my S/I is like "Pubby? There doing that to a poor pup??? LEMME HELP!"

Bishop's taken back but since he's also got ties to the ubandit life he knows it's best not to go in alone so he agrees to let me tag along. Bt as my S/I goes to sell some of her baubles since she really needs the gold, and finds out that the poor general store was taken advantage of... My S/I wants to help them too.

And thus begins my adventure with Bishop following me on my adventures. In doing so, he gets more attached, falls in love with me and my selflessness (I just want to help everyone in Skyrim!) to the point where he cares about me and my safety more than his own. Plus even though he knows as the Dragonborn it’s my duty to save everyone but he just wants to steal me away where nothing could ever hurt me or steal me away again since I'm the only one he's ever let into his heart...

[diminuel]

Back during the hiatus before S15 I started my SPN rewatch but only got into season 11. Some time ago I picked up my rewatch again to be ready for October. I’ve been very positively impressed by S11 and S12 so far.

However... The British MOL... An an European I just always find SPN’s approach to UK’s supernatural world very odd. But that’s just American weirdness, I get it. And it was sort of tolerable until I reached yesterday’s episode 12x17 The British Invasion. It was so bad. 

- We learn that Kendrick, this super school for future Men of Letters where MOL probably send their offspring to, demands that kids kill other kids to prove they can follow orders? That they won’t question this elusive “code”? A) what a waste of potential if you have half of your class killed instead of training them. And B) What parents will send their kids there? Yeah, Mick is an orphan so whatever, but the other kid? What’s Hess gonna tell his parents when he gets home for Christmas in a body bag? “He just wasn’t cut  out for Kendrick, the other kid was willing to murder and your kid has morals” and the parents are just gonna say “sure, make sense”? Ridiculous

- Mick was in Kendricks in 1987 and apparently before that he was living on the streets, pickpocketing to stay alive. It’s like BL confused 1980s England with 1880? Some Dickens like portrayal of a pick pocketing street urchin...? Kids certainly did fall through the cracks but that’s just a weird vibe...

- Mary and Ketch having sex. Mary sleeping with a guy who says stuff like “Oh I thought I’d kill you when I first saw you”. That’s totally normal? What the hell were they thinking there? “Oh Mary is attracted to danger, so she has to bang Ketch~” (Mary’s attracted to danger? John was a softie when she fell in love with him. Come on. The most edgy thing the guy did was buy an old Impala instead of a VW Bus)

- Hess deciding that the recruiting of American Hunters project has failed. That due to the nephilim thing they have no time to try to try to recruit hunters. And because they have no time they decide it’s best to spend their time identifiying all American hunters (which they have failed to do beforehand and good luck doing it now considering how we know Hunting works in the US) and killing them. So they can then implement their way of working. What a complete waste of their resources! They have no time so they do something useless and time consuming? That’s not efficient at all? Urgh, it annoys me so much.

- Hess deciding that Eileen has to do because her star student Rawling was collateral damage? She has no trouble killing kids at Kendrick but that’s a loss they can’t take? Ridiculous. Killing Mick because that’s of course also a good use of their resources.

- Don’t get me started on Crowley and Lucifer. Lucifer says once that Crowley managed to “break” him and that Lucifer will accept his lot and Crowley believes it? He not only believes it but also parades him around his demons like that, just setting himself up for disaster? It makes Crowley look so bad. He’s not an idiot like that. Stupid.

- Lucifer again says that Michael’s his younger brother. I guess all the angels and lore before late S11 and S12 were mislead. Like... This is very obviously different than before and SPN has NEVER given an explanation for that. It’s too big of a thing to just miss while checking a script for inaccuracies. And it’s the second time we hear it. And it’s both BL episodes. Can they just alter canon like that and nobody says anything about it?

I’m so annoyed, help me. >w<;;;;;;;;;

[ladyeliot]

Fragile [2/3]

Part One

Based on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Summary: Who would have thought that fate would bring you face to face with your father's killer? 13 years old, an orphan girl who was taken under the protection of the United States, who was educated to serve the nation and who was now assigned by the CIA to guard what was once one of the most dangerous men in the world.

Warnings: Mentions of murder, psychological problems, violence.

Word count: 3981

A/N: Post Endgame. Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

The city of sin is empty, and so are you. There is no one around you to judge you. The rhythm of their heartbeat seems to take over your body, it seems to lure you into the darkness, into which you have already entered. You have been alone for so long that you can barely remember when you felt a caress. The lights seem to blind you as they fall on your skin through the window panes, you can't see clearly where you're going, or what your next move is going to be, but there's something that grabs you, that compels you to kiss his skin. You look into his eyes, offering yourself, inviting him to love you. You look around you, drowning in the night, but there he is, the only person who can ignite you with a caress.

The Japanese restaurant across the street from your building was the place selected for the date that Bucky had worked so hard to set you up with, but after you saw him show up on your doorstep with the most charming bouquet of orange tulips you'd ever seen in your life you didn't care where he planned to take you. The place was quite popular in the neighbourhood, so that night most of the tables were packed with diners, a fact that seemed to make your companion uncomfortable as you walked into the establishment.

"Would you rather we went somewhere else?" you asked when you saw his gaze sweep over the place.

"No, it's fine," he stepped forward, heading to a free table that was quite far away from the others.

"You know, I don't remember ever having tasted Japanese food," you said, sitting down across from him. "I guess you'll have to walk me through this."

A complicity intensified as Bucky flashed a smile, lowering his gaze in response to the comment you had just made. Your eyes lit up, creating a visual conformity as he raised his countenance again and focused his eyes on you. It was at that precise moment that you discovered that beneath the blue mantle of his iris were small greyish flecks. You had arrived in this place almost three months ago, in this Brooklyn neighbourhood full of charming Asian culture, and you had never felt more at home than you did at that moment. You knew every detail of the life of the boy sitting in front of you, every detail that the government had wanted to give you, but you realised that you didn't really know anything about him at all.

It was a long two minutes in which you spent inspecting the person in front of you. He was wearing a black denim-style jacket, a black T-shirt that seemed to match the jeans you remembered he was wearing, and of course his black leather gloves, the ones you assumed he wouldn't take off all night. You rested your elbow on the table and dropped your chin into the palm of your hand without taking your eyes off his for a second. Bucky's jaw was slightly stiff, his lips were pursed waiting for you to say something and his expression was highlighted by a frown. You held it in for a few seconds until again your mouth curved up in a smile causing laughter to erupt from within you, causing a blush to rise up Bucky's cheeks.

"What's wrong?" he asked doubtful of the cause of your smirking laughter.

"Nothing," you said sincerely, shaking your face as your laughter died down and you took the menu of dishes in your hands. "What do you recommend?"

"I don't know," he said repeating your same gesture and hiding his face behind the paper.

"I thought you were a regular," you commented ignoring the variety of dishes and put the menu down so you could look at him again. "What about the nigiris?"

"The truth is that whenever I come here it's always Yori who decides what to eat," he commented pulling the paper away from his face leaving you to stare at his uneasy countenance again.

"Wow... do you think we should call him for dinner recommendations?" you whispered making Bucky blush again as he chuckled.

"I think we can manage," he commented looking back at the list of dishes.

But really your attempt to make a varied selection of Japanese cuisine was in vain when the young waitress approached you both and you decided on a random selection based on the most curious names you had found, so that after she left you were once again alone in front of each other. You noticed that in those long weeks that you had unexpectedly coincided Bucky had never made a comment about his past, it was obvious that he took it for granted that you knew who he was, everyone seemed to know who he was.

"Can I be frank with you?" you asked, playing with the small vase in the middle of the table.

"Please," he replied, giving way to your question.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you seem nervous enough to have dated girls before, you know," you commented in a delicate tone avoiding scaring him away. "Is this your first date in... this long?"

Bucky's nostrils flared as he averted his gaze to the side and took a breath.

"Well... yeah, you could say that," he replied turning his focus back to you as his fingers played. "I've been trying... God, what's the name of the app?"

"Tinder?" you suggested arching an eyebrow.

"Yes, that," he nodded as his eyes widened in surprise. "It's crazy, that's not meant for me, it's like how am I going to find someone there? I don't know."

"I know," you laughed at his facial expression. "I tried it once, but I had a bad experience."

"What happened?" you inquired curiously as the waitress brought the first dishes to share along with the two beers you had ordered.

"I was supposed to meet a blond guy, curly hair, strong build, light eyes, about thirty or thirty-five, supposed to be British," you began as you took a sip of your beer. "All right, I was in the bar waiting for him to arrive, obviously we were meeting in a public place, we said to wear specific clothes so we could easily recognise each other, although I thought it was a bit absurd as I had seen pictures of him. By the time a completely different guy from the description I just gave you stood next to me, wearing a red tie and introducing himself as Matthew, I picked up and left."

"Are you sure that app is legal?" he asked when you finished telling the story.

"Sometimes I ask myself the same question too."

The atmosphere seemed to envelop you over the course of the dinner, Bucky tilting his face whenever you recounted any of your experiences, which were yours, not the character you had created to conduct your research. The comfort was so pleasant inside you that you even felt guilty on several occasions that he didn't know who you really were, a CIA agent sent to keep him under control. Even though it would have the worst consequences for you, for your career and you could never be willing to throw it all away, at least you had never been willing or thought about it until now. Although it had also been a long time since you'd felt like this.

"So...?" you arched your eyebrows with a lopsided smile, waiting for his honest answer.

"A hundred and six," he replied finishing his second beer.

"And I was complaining about the guy who showed me up on that Tinder date, because he was fifty-three," Bucky ducked his gaze somewhat nervously, as you shrugged. "You really are a fascinating guy, Bucky Barnes."

Those words were the most sincere thing you'd said since the night began, plus they brought with them a fresh batch of knowing glances between the two of you, where seconds ticked by, no one said anything and the din of laughter and surrounding conversations seemed to subside above you. You discovered that you weren't curious to find out if everything in those documents was true or not, if he really was the monster they were trying to make you believe. What really mattered to you and why you were curious about him, you wanted to find out for yourself who he really was, his experiences, his future plans, if he was lost, if he was afraid, you didn't want answers to the morbid questions they used to ask him, you wanted to know Bucky Barnes, not the Winter Soldier.

That was the first time you had ever been on a date, with all its letters, rarely had you reached dessert before you had slept with the guy in front of you, rarely had you felt so comfortable chatting with someone, rarely had you laughed so much and stayed until the place closed.

"You're in the 21st century, do you know that women can pay for dinner and we can buy if we want to?" you said approaching the bar and taking your wallet out of your purse.

"Please," he determined almost in a plea as he pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his trousers.

"All right," you raised your arms, heading for the exit door. "I'll pay for the drinks.

As you stepped outside you could feel Bucky's eyes on you through the glass of the restaurant as he was waiting for the extra money/change. It was a pretty cold night in March, but no one really seemed to care because it seemed like everyone had gone outside to enjoy the Saturday night. You heard behind you the tinkling of a little bell and Bucky was perched next to you, putting his hands in his jacket pockets.

"Well, where..." you started to say before a voice cut you off.

A whistling sound coming from somewhere near you tried to get your attention, but it wasn't until you looked up that you saw a tiny face peering through a window on the first floor of your building.

"Hey!" you exclaimed, tapping Bucky's chest and pointing at Yori who was waving at you.

"Oh gosh..." commented Bucky raising his hand in greeting.

"How was the date?" your neighbour asked raising his tone so he could reach you.

"Great Yori!" you exclaimed trying to let him hear you from the first floor of your building. "Bucky is such a gentleman! They don't have men like that these days!"

You didn't see it, but your companion had no idea where to put himself at that moment, his hand on the back of his neck and his uncomfortable glances around as he blushed gave him away. You raised your arm to wave goodbye to Yori who was saying goodbye as he said something, but it barely reached your ears. Bucky simply nodded showing an awkward smile on his face.

"Come on," you laughed tugging on the lapel of Bucky's jacket causing him to start walking aimlessly.

"Where are we going?" he asked walking beside you.

"I don't know," you shrugged without stopping walking. "I'll remind you that I'm just a tourist, I've been in New York for three months and I've barely left the neighbourhood. But I think you know it a lot better than I do," you bumped his body with yours in a friendly way.

"I don't agree. You may be a tourist in New York, but I'm a tourist in the 21st century world," he commented, hitting you back with his elbow.

"In that case... let's discover New York together," you smiled, and he smiled back, letting you know that he was enjoying the evening as much as you were.

"There," your companion raised his chin, gesturing slightly towards the narrow building looming above you.

"There?" you asked, arching your eyebrows in surprise at what he was telling you.

"Fourth floor," he continued speaking without looking at you, resting his eyes on the place he was describing. "It was a tiny flat, I could get from the kitchen to the bedroom by just jumping up and down. If I opened the window at night, the smell of mozzarella from Nicollini's came in. It was an Italian restaurant," he paused thoughtfully, perhaps wistfully. "Wow... I didn't come here until now."

You stood parallel to Bucky, his eyes seemed to appear brighter than usual, the light from the streetlight allowing you to take in every feature of his face. You were silent for a couple of minutes while he seemed to be distant from the place, obscured in his thoughts, in his past. The time you had spent with him had not allowed you to see him like this at any time, he used to keep his emotions very much in check, not allowing anyone to glimpse them, only letting you see the shame or confusion when he spoke to you.

"So... when was the last time you were here?" your volume was soft, trying not to interrupt him too much, but upon hearing your voice, he fell into your presence and began to pace.

"Maybe... in 1943, just before I left for Europe," he cleared his throat, undoing the knot that had formed in his throat.

It was in that precious moment that you realised how hard and complex his situation must really be. Bucky Barnes was all alone in the world, all his knowledge of his old present was of little use to him now, it might be the city where he grew up but nothing was the same anymore. He also had to live with his legacy, the legacy HYDRA left him. Silence flooded around you, however, it was not a complicit silence, it was an uncomfortable silence, caused by the situation you had just lived.

"My father died when I was thirteen," you didn't know why, but that confession came from inside you, Bucky turned his face and focused his attention on you. "My mother had abandoned us when I was five, so when my father died I was all alone."

"I'm sorry," Bucky whispered making you realise he was really sorry when you looked at his face.

"It happens," you shrugged. "I guess that makes us feel luckier when we find someone we connect with."

That was the first time you looked away blushing as you met Bucky's smile, but he kept his eyes fixed on you. The two of you had made your way to an aimless spot, letting the night fall on you by the riverbank.

"Answer me something, when was the last time you enjoyed the New York night?" you said looking at him, as behind him you could see a wonderful view of the island of Manhattan.

"New York night..." he said looking down thoughtfully. "Well, I remember the last night I spent in New York, my best friend Steve and I went to see The Stark exhibit along with two girls," he turned his gaze to the horizon, "Connie and Bonnie, I think their names were."

"Your girlfriends?" you asked curiously delving into the story.

"Not exactly," he laughed looking at you, "it was like a double date, but they weren't our partners. Those times were more complicated, you know," you nodded and waited silently for him to continue the story. "I had planned for the four of us to go dancing, but Steve was not very receptive, he had other things on his mind, so I ended up going dancing with the two of them by myself.

"Wow, what do you know..." you arched an eyebrow causing Bucky to blush with laughter, gazing at the lights coming from Manhattan. "That means you're quite the expert dancer."

"Not exactly, I mean, maybe in... in the past, it's possible, but..." he didn't know how to express himself, his words were hindering him.

"Show me," you interrupted taking him by surprise.

"Uh?" he asked stopping his steps and frowning.

"Come on, it's time for me to be the one to get out of your time. I have no idea how to dance..." you pointed out, making him understand that you didn't know how to dance in a couple. "Please."

Your companion took a breath as you presented him with the palm of your hand inviting him to take it right in the middle of a small riverside park. Bucky was hesitant but your lower lip bitten by your teeth and your pleading eyes made him definitely decide to hold your hand and accept the challenge. The triumph was depicted on your face, which made it easy for Bucky to oblige by flashing you a smile.

"You're really testing me tonight," he murmured, slowly approaching you.

You first felt the roughness of his leather gloves as his left hand took yours to mark a closer position. Your bodies were close, too close, you could hear his raised breathing and see the mist of your breath connecting. Bucky gently placed his hand on your waist, but nothing else happened, you looked at each other, with a very uncomfortable smile.

"This is weird," he muttered, wrinkling the expression on his face.

"Why?" you looked around you, it was lonely. "There's no one."

"I know," he looked up. "There's no one, there's no music."

"Sing," you said quickly with a laugh, making Bucky laugh too as he shook his head. "I would, but I don't know any songs of the time."

"I don't plan to sing," he decreed without barely moving an inch away from you.

"Then use your imagination," you whispered lowering your gaze for a second, meeting his neck at eye level.

As if time had rushed backwards you were caught in a completely different place, the yellowish light of the street lamps above you and behind you a Manhattan skyline set the perfect mood for the moment. The hand that was perched on your waist began to subtly exert pressure, guiding you to imitate the movement of his feet that he had begun. Embarrassed by your clumsiness you quickly lowered your gaze to his feet to try to imitate what he was doing more accurately.

"Look at me, don't look at my feet," he sentenced with a small laugh. "Look at my eyes."

And you did, so much so that you did, letting yourself be enveloped by their blue, making you blush because of the proximity to them. It was strange, perhaps it was much stranger to you than it was to him, as you bit your lower lip hard trying to escape the awkwardness and embarrassment. How could a moment that could look completely ridiculous from the outside feel so intimate on the inside?

"When was the last time you danced with a girl?" you whispered, trying to keep the situation not too intimate.

"I think it was in London," he replied without stopping his movements. "When I was on leave."

But as he finished his answer you again found yourself under those piercing blue eyes trying to maintain eye contact with you. Again you caught your lower lip between your teeth, thinking of a new question to ask him. Bucky had taken control of the situation, something you weren't used to, and that made you feel alert, he knew it, for the first time he seemed to be in control of the situation, and that was your fault, you had given it to him when you said to teach you to dance.

"Are you alright?" he whispered in front of you with a half smile to which you nodded forcing a smile.

Just as you finished your nod you felt Bucky press harder against your waist and pressed his body against yours leaving your forehead pressed against his cheek. His scent wafted into your nostrils, drifting into your brain, projecting a pleasure that made you close your eyes and let yourself be completely carried away. You accepted that you wouldn't last an hour in the 40s in a dance hall, the second you'd fall at the feet of any young man like Bucky. You didn't know if it was your imagination, because right now you had entered an alternate universe, or if Bucky was humming some tune, but you heard it, you heard how your subtle movements had music.

"And..." you parted your lips, pulling your forehead away from his cheek, trying to formulate a question that didn't come because you felt the melody stop, realising that it was Bucky who was asking it.

His face with a sweet smile on it paralysed you, making you come out of the bubble that had been created around you, feeling guilty for the situation that you yourself had provoked. What the hell were you doing? He was your mission, everything was getting out of context, it had gotten completely out of hand and you needed to stop it as soon as possible. You shook your face, trying not to be too rude to him, and you broke the proximity between the two of you. Bucky didn't understand what had happened, because within a second the happiness was wiped from his face, showing some concern for your actions.

"I'm sorry," he said, raising his hands subtly by way of caution. "If I've done anything inappropriate..."

"No!" you exclaimed shaking your head smiling at his apology. "It's just... I think we should get back, we still have a long way to go and I wanted to get up early tomorrow."

"Of course," the disappointment you saw on Bucky's face almost broke your soul.

The walk home was too stealthy, and that made you uneasy. You couldn't stop replaying over and over the moment in your mind, the feel of his hand on your waist, the proximity to his body, your scent, and the warmth of your forehead against his cheek. It was torture, because on the other hand you felt extremely guilty for violating all the clauses of your job by entering into this kind of relationship with Bucky. It was suffocating, you felt almost breathless inside. Firstly, you should have started by refusing the proposal to go out for dinner, and secondly, if you did go out for dinner, you should have gone straight home, no dancing and no further conversation. In the midst of all these thoughts, you arrived home.

"Please," he said, offering you first the way into the building.

"Thank you," you mumbled without looking at him.

The walk to the third floor began, you had never realised that there were so many steps and so steep until you reached the door of your house, it seemed like a climb up Mount Everest and the worst thing was that Bucky lived right in front of you, on the same landing. You amused yourself rummaging through your purse for your house keys, avoiding having a conversation until you arrived right in front of the door.

"Well..." you started to say by way of an awkward goodbye.

"Again, if I've done anything to upset you..." Bucky repeated again with a gesture of concern.

"Really, Bucky, it's been... great," you concluded, smiling kindly at him. "I promise."

"All right," he ducked his face, not entirely convinced by your answer. "So, good night Susan."

"G-good night Bucky."

Susan? Of course, that was you to him, all a lie.

Taglist Open (DM)

MAIN MASTERLIST

[carriagelamp]

~ Queer Lit 30 Day Book Challenge ~

I decided to do this challenge I came across for June! Originally it was designed as a “day-by-day” thing, but my June was way too hectic to do a write up every single day… so I decided to make a nice compilation for the end of the month instead!

This is perhaps not the “purest” form of the challenge but I wanted it to be personal for me. Growing up when I did and where I did, I had very little exposure to queer books, especially age-appropriate queer books. That being said, there’s some books on this list that are really only “queer” by technically, or through a secondary character rather than the main character. I debated whether to include these but finally decided that, yes, I would. I owe it to myself. Even though some of these books that aren’t “as queer” as other, they were (or are) really important to me as a queer person and my journey is understanding that, so I wanted to acknowledge them!

More info about the books and the challenge under the cut!

Day One: First Queer Book You Remember Reading

Color by Taishi Zaou and Eiki Eiki

Remember how I mentioned a lack of available, age-appropriate queer books? I was one of those kids who was definitely exposed (probably too young) to queer manga/yaoi. It wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, especially as a wee ace teen, but it was the best I had at the time and it meant the world to me at the time, to see same-sex relationships even if looking back on them is very “YIKES”.

I’m sure I read others before this, but Color is one of the first that I really remember and which I a) actually owned and which b) wasn’t completely repellent in hindsight! I haven’t reread it in probably over a decade so I have no idea how it stands up, but at the time it read like a much more “realistic” account of two teenagers developing a crush and starting a relationship and as a questioning teenager it really helped me realize that this was a real, viable option.

Day Two: Queer Book That Reminds You Of Home

The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag

I hummed and hawed about this one for a long time because honestly I tend to read books that make me feel far from home. I decided to go with The Witch Boy though because it’s a story that challenges gender norms and stars a large family out in the woods, running wild and exploring magic, and honestly it gives me vibes that remind me of vacationing with my extended family. We’re also partially ginger and inclined to run wild in the woods. If we knew magic we’d have used it for sure.

This book is about 13 year old Aster, who lives in a family where the women all become witches and the men all become shifters. Aster, however, has no interest in shapeshifting and instead finds ways to study magic and learn the arts of witchcraft while constantly being pushed out by his female relatives… though everything might change when a new danger, that may or may not be connected to Aster studying magic, begins to appear.

Day Three: Queer Book That Has Been On Your TBR Too Long

Beneath The Citadel by Destiny Soria

That was an easy choice, this has been sitting on my bookshelf for months, staring at me accusingly every time I enter my room. I’m really excited to read it (Magical heist? Rebellion? With an asexual protagonist? Yes please) but for some reason I have not gotten around to it. Some day, baby, some day.

Day Four: Queer Book With A Name Or Number In The Title

George by Alex Gino

George is an absolutely charming middle grade novel about a child named George who the world perceives as male… but who knows she’s definitely a girl. The novel begins when her class decided to put on a play about the novel they had just read: Charlotte’s Web. George is desperate to play Charlotte, her favourite character, but isn’t even allowed to try out because it’s a “girl’s role”. George and her best friend struggle with how to handle this problem and manage George’s secret amid elementary school and home drama.

This book is really adorable – it was a nice, easy, cozy read for an adult, and would also make a great read aloud to elementary-age children if you want to introduce them to transgender characters.

Day Five: Queer Book Where The Protag Has A Fun Job

The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris

Not actually a queer protagnoist, but a queer side character who plays a major role in the series. Mister Vernon, one of Leila’s fathers, has arguable the coolest job: he’s a retired stage magician turn magic shop owner, which is complete with large rabbit, hidden room, and tons of fascinating gadgets to help a young practical magician learn their trade. He is hands down one of the neatest character in the series and is a major catalyst throughout the series.

The first book follows Carter, a runaway orphan who practices street magic to get by, as he runs away from his horrible uncle and winds up meeting a gang of magic-loving friends in a small town. Hiding from his uncle is only the beginning though, and the mysteries surrounding the town and Mister Vernon become thicker and thicker as the series goes on.

Day Six: Favourite Queer Graphic Novel

Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu

There’s lots of fantastic queer graphic novels out there, but I have to name Check, Please! as my favourite (and not just because I’m Canadian and am legally obligated to at least show interest in a hockey story). Check, Please! is the friggin cutest story about Eric “Bitty” Bittle, former figure skater and avid baker, who joins the Samwell University hockey team. The story is told in the form of Bitty’s vlog as he recounts the bizarre quirks of the Samwell hockey team, his struggle to overcome his fear of checking, and his growing crush on the team captain, Jack. Seriously guys, this is cavity-inducing sweetness and you can read it all online for free, here on tumblr @omgcheckplease or at its own website, checkpleasecomic.

Day Seven: Queer Book You Often Reread

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Another book I haven’t reread in years, but this was the first queer novel I ever read (and owned!) so I read it obsessively, first the copy from the high school library and then my own copy (which is, let us say, well-thumbed by this point). It was pure fluff, in an aggressively diverse, relentlessly accepting, rainbow-coloured high school and it was exactly what I wanted in high school, and it still makes me happy whenever I remember it. It’s a straight-up high school romance, pretty traditional to the genre, but it has the most delightful supporting cast you could ever ask for. Maybe I should reread it again this summer…

Day Eight: Queer Book With A Happy Ending

Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

This was a bit more of a “yeah it was fine” book for me, but honestly… queer people deserve some average, run-of-the-mill YA fantasies. As far as my normal reading preferences go, run-of-the-mill YA fantasies are my bread and butter. And this one has a cute sapphic romance to go with it. It’s about Denna, a princess with a dangerous secret: she has a magical Affinity for fire, despite being betrothed to the prince of a kingdom that aggressively prosecutes and fears magic-users. So now Denna is in a strange land, trying to hide her increasingly volatile magic, solve an assassination that rocked the kingdom, and deal with the growing connection between her and the prince’s wild sister, Mare. It has court intrigue, a murder mystery, horses, and lots of confused sapphic pining so it’s totally worth picking up if you want a light summer fantasy adventure.

Day Nine: Queer Book With (Over) 100 Pages

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

I decided to try to get as close to 100 pages as possible! River of Teeth is a 114-page novella that I haven’t quite finished (work and covid stress happened) but which I am fucking losing my mind for. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s peak alternative history, about queer hippopotamus-riding cowboys in Louisiana during the early 20th (late 19th?) century. Like… I don’t know how to emphasize how unbelievably cool this book is. Genderqueer demolition expert with a giant crush and a penance for making things blow up and attempting to poison guests when they’re bored?? Check. Gay gunslinging hippo-riding cowboy with an angsty backstory (and also a giant crush)? Check. Sexy, fat, badass lady con artist with an albino hippo that she spoils? Check. Like damn guys. I’m not done the book and I’ve already bought the sequel because I know the second I pick it back up I’m not gonna stop until I’ve ploughed through it all. This book is the epitome of “refuge in audacity” and “rule of cool”. Is it over the fucking top? Absolutely but that’s the point.

Day Ten: Favourite Queer Genre Novel

The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare

I’ll be honest, I’m a little shaky on what counts as a genre novel (isn’t… everything… a genre??) so I decided to interpret it as “slightly trashy YA supernatural fantasy” because that sure is a hella specific genre I’m weak for.

I really thought I was done with the Shadowhunter novels, I thought they were a goofy series I left behind in teenagerhood that I could look back on with amused indulgence. And then I found out that there was a novel specifically about Alec and Magnus and! Oh no! Ding dong I was wrong. I fell back in hard because listen… I love them. They were one of the first canonical same-sex relationships I ever read about in an actual novel, they meant a lot to me then and still mean a lot to me now. I have nothing to say to defend myself here except that this book wrecked me and I can’t wait for the sequel.

Day Eleven: Queer Book You Love In A Genre You Don’t Read

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connel

I am very rarely a slice-of-life / romance genre sort of person. I like my stories cut with a heavy dose of fantasy, scifi, action-adventure… something. So a graphic novel that’s not only a romance, but one about an unhealthy relationship and infidelity is like… super outside my usual range of reading material. But it was very much worth the read! The art was stunning, and the complicated emotions it tapped into really touched me. I’m very happy to have read it, and was so damn satisfied by the end.

Day Twelve: Queer Book With A Strong Sense Of Place

Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller

Linsey Miller is one author I very actively follow, I love her works and they always have very distinct, complicated worlds with unique societies and magic systems. Belle Révolte was her latest book and followed a prince-and-the-pauper type of story, in which wealthy Emilie des Marais is determined to learn noonday (magical) arts in order to become a physician, someone who can actually work to make her home a better place… but this is not something a proper lady would ever be allowed to do. So she flees her finishing school and meets poor, but magically gifted, Annette Boucher and offers her the chance to switch places. Annette goes back to school as “Emilie” and gets to hone her skills at the midnight arts while Emilie will use her name to sneak into medical school and fight her way up the ranks to physician. This is a challenging enough task, with rebellion roiling just beneath the surface and the country about to slip into a arrogant war that threatens the lives of hundreds…

Day Thirteen: Queer Book That Really Made You Think

Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani

This is a four book manga series that is completely breath-taking. It’s touched by magical-realism and completely drowned in visually stunning metaphors and symbolism. Seriously, I’ve reread these books multiples times trying to digest how the wide variety of symbols overlap and contradict and compliment and challenge each other. I still haven’t really gotten a solid handle on it, it’s very fluid, so yeah… definitely makes me think.

The story starts with Tasuku Kaname who believes he may have just been outed as gay by a high school friend, and feels like he’s watching his entire world crumble around him. He is seriously considering taking his own life, when he runs into the mysterious woman “Someone-san” and winds up leading him to a drop-in center that’s run by a local non-profit, and is also a hub for a number of queer people in the community. The books follow Tasuku as he grows, learns, makes mistakes, and confronts his feelings, along with a number of other members at the drop-in center. It is completely beautiful, optimistic, but also quite stark and harsh at its look at homophobia and transphobia in modern Japanese society and how it can effect people in different ways. I just bought book four and can’t wait to read it and see how everything ends.

Day Fourteen: Queer Book That Made You Cry

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Holy shit guys. Listen. Listen. If you don’t read any other book on this list, please consider reading The Marrow Thieves. It is hands down the best book I’ve read so far this year. Another book that doesn’t have a queer character as the protag, but as one of the main supporting characters and listen, his story fucking destroyed me as a person. That romance just… aaaaaaah. AAAAAAAAH.

Anyway. The Marrow Thieves is a Canadian dystopian novel. It takes place in a post-climate change world in which society has been ravaged – partially due to the wildly different and extreme weather patterns, but also through a strange disease that has spread through the population that has left people completely incapable of dreaming. Now unable to rest, process their lives, and dream of a future, people are being driven insane and only one group appears to be immune: North America’s First Nations people appear to be unaffected. And so they begin to be harvested, rounded up and collected in “school” in order for people to suck the marrow out of them to give to white people afflicted by this disease. The Marrow Thieves follows a First Nations boy named Frenchie as he flees the recruiters and tries his best to survive in this post-apocalyptic like wilderness, banding together with other First Nations people who are heading north, where they hope to find communities of their own people with whom they can shelter and start to rebuild their lives.

It’s a YA level novel, not very long, and such an insanely good read. I cannot emphasize enough PLEASE GO READ THIS BOOK. 

Day Fifteen: Queer Book That Made You LOL

Mostly Void, Partially Stars by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Nightvale always makes me laugh and it was a lot of fun to get to read the transcripts of the episodes. I’m a sucker for novelizations/transcripts of shows. It was a nice nostalgia trip and gave me an excuse to go back and relisten to some of my favourite episodes too! If you’ve never gotten into Nightvale… hey, it’s a classic! Podcast is fucking stunning if you’re into podcasts, and if you’re not but would enjoy a weird, queer, eldritch horror comedy then try the book! It’s the first “season” compiled in text form, exactly how it’s heard in the show.

Day Sixteen: Queer Book That Is Really Personal To You

Jughead volume 1 by Chip Zdarsky et al

Including this one because gee golly it sure did make me want to fight a lot of people for quite a while. It was one of the first stories I ever found/read that had an explicitly asexual main character… (and a character I already really loved! Which I now got to feel an even stronger connection to! It was so fun and validating!) so it was super awesome how like half of tumblr decided for a year there that this was apparently a cardinal sin. Imagine… one single version of old, long standing comic series deciding to retcon a character to represent a heavily under-represented community… imagine being so fucking angry about that that you decide to start a hate campaign on the internet. So much fun to live through that as an ace person. Anyway, these comics were nothing amazing but I sure do love them aggressively out of pure spite, even now that the aphobia on tumblr has died back down I will hold this to my chest and adore it.

Day Seventeen: Favourite Queer Book Sequel or Spin Off

The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

Honestly do I even need to say anything here? Is there any queer person who hasn’t read Mackenzi Lee’s The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue series? If you are someone who hasn’t read it yet… go do that?? Absolutely stunning, one of my all-time favourite book series. It’s the perfect combination of hilarious and goofy, intense action, heartfelt character development, and a dash of “wait was that supernatural or??” This sequel was fantastic, this time focusing on Felicity, Monty’s sister, and her quest to become a physician despite being a woman in the 18th century. Awesome look at femininity, feminism, asexuality, and race. (Also… OT3? OT3.)

Day Eighteen: Favourite Queer Book By A Favourite Author

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

One of those “ehh is this technically queer? Not really but close enough, it is in my heart” books. It was one of the books I read as a teenager when I was still beginning to seek out and try to explore queer lit in so much as I could.

Terry Pratchett is, hands down, my favourite author, and though he doesn’t tend to write explicitly queer literature, his exploration of gender through allegory is top fucking tier. Everything to do with the dwarves in his series is fascinating, and a really great challenge/critique/exploration of gender, and this is the book that takes it to the next level (and brings in at least implicitly queer characters). It’s about Polly Perks, who lives in a small, war torn nation, choosing to join the army in order to find out what happened to her brother. However, as tradition dictates, she can’t join as a girl… so she disguises herself as Ozzer, a young man. There’s a lot of twists and turns, and as always Pratchett delivers fantastic humour and just absolutely delicious satire.

Day Nineteen: Queer Book That Changed Your Life

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

This was the book that made me realize that I, as a queer teacher, could have queer kid lit in my future classroom. Maybe a comparatively small revelation, but a really important one to me. It made me realize that this didn’t need to be something I kept a secret in my professional life and which could really positively influence children, especially queer children. It was the first queer children’s book I ever bought.

Day Twenty: Favourite Queer Book Series

Candy Color Paradox by Isaku Natsume

Alright… I’ll admit it, this isn’t actually my favourite series, but I’ve used my favourites in other spots. And this is a good one! Definitely more of an actual “yaoi” than the other manga I’ve included (here there be sex) but it has a very different vibe that what I’m used to from that type of manga. The main pair are actually both capable, mature adults, with careers they actively care about, and who get together in the first volume! 

The rest of the series is less about them angst-ily toeing around their relationship, and much more about them learning to grow as a couple and balance their work and relationship and society. It’s funny and sweet, and I really enjoy these two losers. It’s a very low-stakes enemy-to-friends-to-lovers story, in which Onoe (a reporter) and Kaburagi (a photographer) are paired up on a news story they’re supposed to dig into together. What starts as a bickering rivalry gradually becomes respect, friendship, and love~ Onoe is a gremlin of a protag, so he’s a treat to follow.

Day Twenty-One: Queer Book That You Recommend A Lot

Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

To repeat myself: Linsey Miller is awesome! This is my favourite book of hers, the first of a duology. It’s kind of like an intense, edgy Tamora Pierce novel with murder. In this world, the Queen has a team of assassins known as the Left Hand. They’re an elite group that keeps the Queen safe and does the dirty work that needs to be done to protect the kingdom and keep the encroaching nations at bay. When the assassin Opal is killed, a contest is announced to find the new Opal. People from all over come to complete for the honour of being one of the Queen’s royal assassins, including gender-fluid thief Sallot Leon. Sal has some deep motivations to become Opal that go beyond a loyalty to their kingdom, but they’re going to have to survive their competitors if they even wants a chance at it… (Sal generally goes by either she or he in the books, but I’m using they in this instance since it’s in a more general sense.)

Day Twenty-Two: Queer Book That Made You Take Action

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Uhh, I don’t really have any books that made me take action per se, but this one sure gave me a lot to think about. It’s about deep sea mermaids who originated from the pregnant slave women tossed into the ocean to drown during passage to North America. From those dying women, this race was born and were taken in by whales, raised and protected until they could descend into the deep ocean waters, to form their own safe society. Their collective past is so painful though that as a species they’ve developed a very short term memory. But a people can’t live without any ties to their roots and so one of them, the Historian, holds all the memories for their entire species and shares it with everyone once a year so that the community can be connected to their ancestors before once again returning the memories to the Historian for safe keeping. Yetu, the current Historian, is so overwhelmed by these memories, that she can no longer take it – she flees her people, her responsibilities, and her pain and escapes to the surface instead...

Day Twenty-Three: Queer Book By An Author Who I Killed Is Dead

Cybersix by Carlos Trillo

I cannot emphasize enough, this is not actually a queer comic, it is in fact a very homophobic, transphobic and sexist comic written by a horrible person.

That being said, he’s dead and I own it now the TV series was essentially about a genderqueer superhero and a very confused bi biology professor who has a crush on both personas. I had a passionate crush on both personas as a child, and I will cherrypick this comic until I die in order to enjoy the only kickass genderqueer/genderfluid noir antihero I’ve come across. I am valid and I am not open to debate or discussion. Do not read this comic it’s horrible (but consider watching the show).

Day Twenty-Four: Queer Book You Wish You’d Read When Younger

The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang

This is such an incredibly soft story with the nicest art. There’s so much understanding and compassion in it and its exploration of gender and self-confidence and being true to yourself would have been very reassuring to me as a child, especially by late elementary/middle school. 

Day Twenty-Five: Queer Book In A Historical Setting

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

A retelling of Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship from childhood to the Trojan war. So yeah, you can imagine that this was also a candidate for Day 14 :’) I haven’t read this one in years but god it was lovely and emotionally destroyed me as a person.

Day Twenty-Six: Queer Superhero Book or Comic

Overwatch: Reflections by Michael Chu and Miki Montillo

I don’t really read superhero stories very often (the comics have always driven me a little bonkers, trying to find a way to enter the totally unapproachable Marvel/DC canons, and the MCU burnt me out years ago for every other sort of superhero story) so this is the closest I can get. Tracer’s a superhero yeah? Anyway, I, like every other queer person in the Overwatch fandom, lost my fucking mind when this dropped for Christmas a few years back and officially declared Lena Oxton not only the face of the entire franchise but also a lesbian. It’s an adorable little comic and Tracer’s girlfriend is a sweetheart.

Day Twenty-Seven: Favourite Queer Children’s Picture Book

Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack

There’s a number of sweet queer children’s books that are popping up these days, but this is my favourite just because it’s less about “explaining the gays to children” (though those books also have their place) and more of a cute little fantasy adventure in which the actual protagonist is gay. It’s about a prince who sets out to find himself a bride who can help rule by his side, but it quickly becomes clear that he isn’t interested in any of the girls. Instead, when a fire breathing dragon threatens his kingdom, he meets a brave knight who fights along side him. It’s very supportive and the art is lovely.

Day Twenty-Eight: Queer Book That Made You Feel Uncomfortable

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

This is a book with an asexual protagonist that I was originally really excited for. I know there are a lot of people out there who really enjoy this book and connected with it, but it didn’t do it for me. Maybe because my expectations were too high, but the protagonist’s experience with asexuality was vastly different than my own and the narrative voice ended up rubbing me wrong (and let’s be honest, slice-of-life romance is NOT my usual genre at all). So it’s not “made me uncomfortable because it’s Bad And Wrong” more just… totally vibed wrong with me. Maybe the perfect book for other people but definitely not for me, I had to return this one unfinished because it’s portrayal of asexuality just made me so deeply uncomfortable.

Day Twenty-Nine: Queer Book That Made You Want To Fall In Love

The Gentleman’s Guide To Vice And Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

This book had to make it on here somewhere, and honestly it could have gone in a lot of different spots, but I chose to put it here because the relationship between Monty and Percy is so incredibly sweet and authentic it really does make you want something like that. TGGTVAV (for anyone who has somehow not heard of it) takes place in the 18th century, and is about Monty, his best friend (and crush) Percy, and his sister Felicity going on a final “hurrah” tour of Europe before Monty's father finally tries to pin him down in England and force every part of Monty that’s deemed “unacceptable” out of him. So Monty intends to live this summer up… until everything goes off the rail and the three of them are suddenly fleeing across the continent with assassins at their heels and a strange, stolen artifact in their possession.

Monty has a lot of growing to do in this novel, and that’s one of my favourite things about it. For his and Percy’s relationship to ever have a chance, Monty needs to learn and change and actually communicate with other people, and it makes the relationship feel strong. Not a fluffy, surface level romance that often happens in YA but something built from the ground up by two friends who really want to make it work. Ahh, it’s lovely. One of my favourite novels.

Day Thirty: Queer Book With Your Favourite Ending

My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame

A two-book manga series that was completely stunning. It deals with queer relationships and homophobia in a very stark, real-world manner that you don’t often get in manga, while still being incredibly loving and sympathetic. The book is about Yaichi, a single father whose estranged brother (Ryoji) recently died. One day, a Canadian named Mike arrives, introducing himself as Ryoji’s widower. Mike had come hoping to visit his late husband’s homeland to try to get some closure, and Yaichi ends up inviting Mike to stay. The whole story looks Japan’s societal biases, through Mike’s experiences, Yaichi’s thoughts, feelings and prejudices, and those of his daughter who adores Mike. 

Seriously, this is one of the kindest, most earnest looks I’ve ever seen to internal prejudices that critiques them without demonizing the person who feels them. Instead it lovingly embraces grief, growth, and love. This series made me cry multiple times, was good enough that even my straight brother practically ordered me to go out and buy the second book when he finished the first, and the ending was just *chef’s kiss*

Honourable Mentions

A few books I really wanted to fit on my list somehow but couldn’t quite manage it, so here: All Out an anthology of historical fiction short stories about queer teens. The Tea Dragon Society series and Princess Princess Ever After, graphic novels by the amazingly talented Katie O’Neill. Heartstopper a webcomic turn graphic novel by Alice Oseman about a pair of rugby players. The Different Dragon a cute picture book in which the boy has two moms and which is about accepting different ways of being. And Lady Knight a part of Tamora Pierce’s Protector of the Small series because because Kel is word-of-god aro(and/or ace) and I’ve adored that series and Kel since I was about thirteen so by god I’ll take it.

- 

Now for those that wanted to do their own challenge, I found it on @gailcarriger’s blog.

[aroaceslytherin]

Fairytales Always Have a Twist

Hope Howell had always believed in fairy-tales. She loved reading about them in big chairs at the library close to the motel room she called home. She grew up lonely. A wallflower with the nickname “anti-social bookworm” with no parents to turn to. They abandoned her when she was six years old. So she was told.

Hope ran from the Christian orphanage at sixteen, found a minor job as a waitress in her favourite cafe, found a home in motel rooms, and shopped at farmers’ markets. She went through guys like no one’s business; making out with them under the bleachers at school (she was forever grateful of the family she lived with for two years for keeping her in school even if they could not keep her any longer), or finding them in the libraries, at the farmers markets, or even bars. Yet she struggled to find one that accepted a poor and orphaned weirdo.

That all changed when she was being chased down an alley-way at twenty-two by an inky black shadowed figure.

“STOP RUNNING!” Someone yelled from in front of her.

It was too late, she barrelled into the person and tumbled to the ground with them.

The stranger jumped to their feet, shielding her under his arm as he blasted some sort of light at the thing that was chasing her. Hope clung to the stranger as she breathed deeply to calm her adrenaline. It was a huge mistake as this was the best smell she had ever smelled in all of her life.

He took a firm grip on her shoulders and held her upright, his amber eyes looking into her dark brown orbs with worry. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Diolch.” She answered. “What was that thing?”

“Boggart.” He answered firmly and confidently. He chuckled at her confused expression. “Amortal shape-shifting non-being that takes on the attacker or observer’s worst fear. In your case, just an inky blob as I assume you are non-magic?”

Magic?! Oh my God! That explains the light. She chuckled half-heartedly. “Your kidding, right? Who are you? You're a wizard?”

He extended his hand. “Proper introduction, I see. Right, pardon me.” He cleared his throat, squaring himself. “Lyall Lupin.”

She shook his hand firmly with a nod. “Hope Howell.” She giggled. “Should you be telling me this?”

“Aye, I graduated not that long ago. I am cleared. Anywhere ‘round here nice enough to chat and tell you my story?”

“Asking me out just minutes of meeting?”

Lyall shrugged, hands in his pockets, looking around the alley-way.

I would suggest my home, but that would be weird with a stranger and… well… would he judge me? He seems like he comes from a wealthy family. Take a risk, Hope. This could be it for you! Fairy-tales, remember? And damn does he look like a prince! Don’t forget magic… okay, this isn’t just about that. He’s a nice guy, shouldn’t go after him just cause’ of that. Off topic… oh! Answer him, Jesus! “Uh, yeah. If it isn’t too weird we could go to my place?”

He nodded. “Sounds fine to me. I won’t bite.” He joked. “Happen to have a car? I wouldn’t want you to leave it around here.”

Nice, considerate, and funny. How the hell did he get here? Why was I fated to meet him? She nodded, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. “Yeah, just a short walk that way.” She pointed to the left where they had entered the alley from. “I had just ended my shift when that thing chased me from my car. Boggart, you said?” She looked up at him as they walked, his eyes darting across the dimly lit streets like he was looking for something.

“Uh, yes.” He answered, sprinting to the driver’s side and opening it for her. “M'lady.”

She blushed softly, minding her head as she dropped herself into the seat. Gentleman. No guy has ever held doors for me, not that I mind because I can do it myself, but it would have been nice sometimes.

She started the ignition as Lyall got in her car.

If I wake up in the morning and this is all a dream, I will hunt him down. This is way too real like to be a dream, but yet he is so chivalrous that it seems like a dream. Dreams can be realistic. Although reality can be like a dream as well.

She pulled into the motel parking lot, her heart pounding as she thought of all the worst-case scenarios but when she looked over at Lyall, he was getting out of the car like nothing was unusual. He bent over to look at her.

“Expecting me to know which one’s yours?” He smiled.

Hope smiled back, turning off the ignition and grabbing her bag as she threw her keys in then grabbed her motel key.

“Just over here.” She answered, guiding him to the stairs.

The dim light did little to aid her, and she growled in frustration, blindly guiding the key into the slot with growing frustration as the nighttime air became colder, nipping at her bare arms.

Lyall looked around before pulling his wand from his sleeve and giving her light. Hope glanced up at him with a blank expression before looking back at the key and jamming it into the slot before forcefully turning it and kicking the door open with her heeled foot.

“Damn door.” She grumbled, throwing her bag to the floor and her keys in the dish on her counter. Lyall shimmied the door shut and locked them in. Hope let her light brown curls cascade down her back as she headed to the bathroom. “I’m just going to get comfortable. Make yourself as comfortable as you can, if you desire.”

Lyall looked around from where he stood to take in the room; a queen bed just a few inches from touching the wallpapered walls, a green couch with a coffee table in front near a small kitchenette, and the small closet next to the bathroom sink and small bathroom Hope was in. He made his way to the couch and took a seat when the bathroom door squeaked open and Hope emerged.

“It’s not much-” she started.

“It is completely fine. I am just telling you my story.” He chuckled. “I just met you. What kind of blokes have you been with?”

She sat on the cushion farthest from him and sat with her legs crossed. “Childish men. I would not even consider calling them men.” She scoffed. “Every chance they get they would be up a bird’s skirt.”

“Well, I would never take advantage of a woman.” He smiled softly at her, kicking off his shoes and pulling off his blazer as she became more comfortable and uncurled from pulling into herself.

He told his story to her about how he came from a pure-blood family in Leicester, England and went to a magical school named Hogwarts in Scotland. She asked him what he was doing in Newcastle Emlyn Wales and he told her he was exploring.

“...anything to get away from my parents' pressure on finding a kind woman.” He chuckled softly. “It seems to be this big thing in pureblood families.”

“What happens if you do not comply with the one they choose?” Hope asked.

“You get disowned.”

***

Six months in of them dating, she had asked him to pinch her one night. He chuckled and complied. Afterwards asking her why. She pulled him in for a kiss and whispered; ‘I need to make sure this is still real.’ He smiled and entwined their hands together as they walked around the pond another time. From then on he had always made sure she knew this was real by holding her hand, hugging her, kissing her, making her smile. He loved her smile and making her laugh. He had never had that with a woman coming from the life he had previously lived. Now all he wanted was to live in her world.

Three years later she found herself in Hogsmeade trying different things, learning about a whole other world she could only imagine in her dreams. She had never been this happy in her life. Lyall had told her that once she shared all her favourite shops and foods with him, he wanted to do the same. This man was unbelievable to her. Hope still couldn’t believe they had met that fateful night. He listened, he acknowledged her interests and even tried to learn more about them; he was funny, kind, sweet, and caring. He protected her, loved and cherished her, and after the fifth year she knew there was no turning back.

Lyall had proposed to her and they got married a year later. He ignored his family’s outlash and ran away with her to Newport, Wales where they bought a small home with three bedrooms. After two years of being married, she found out the most exciting news. Lyall came home that day from work at the Ministry and she leapt into his arms. He dropped his case to the ground, catching her and wrapping his arms around her.

“What’s got you all happy?” He chuckled, kissing her neck as he held her around her waist.

She giggled. “We are going to have a baby.”

He looked at her with surprise. “Really?” He asked, slightly nervous but mostly happy. Then the fear kicked in.

“Yeah.” She slid her legs down his, standing on her toes to place a kiss on his lips. “What’s wrong, Lyall?” She caressed his thick, chestnut coloured, wavy curls.

“Nothing, I’m happy.” He picked her up and spun her around, kissing her again with a chuckle at her worried expression. “Honest! It is just a slight shock is all, as for everyone.”

“Well, I guess I am just happier as I haven’t really had a proper family.” She pat his shoulder. "You would tell me if we were in danger, right? There is nothing you are hiding from me?"

Lyall squeezed her into a soft hug. “Hey, darling. I’m thrilled, I just struggle with my emotions sometimes. You will make a wonderful mother, and we will have the family you always dreamed of.” He kissed her softly again. “Now, let me make that recipe you love so much, will that cheer you up?”

She smiled, kissing his cheek. “I don’t deserve you.”

He dipped her, kissing her deeply. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Nine months later she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She held the fragile bundle in her arms, looking up at Lyall with tears in her eyes. “He’s so beautiful.”

“Welcome to the world, Remus.” Lyall smiled as Hope placed their baby in his arms. “I love you so much, no matter what.”

Hope smiled up at her boys. She would never leave her baby, show him the world is dark and dangerous, or make him feel unloved. He would get everything she never had. She would make sure his life was happy, bright, and loving.

However… that didn’t last long.

[lyansi]

Dulce periculum

Summary: Kagome isn't too sure how she found herself in this position. She often tells herself not to take on too much, not to allow herself to be deluded, and to not involve herself unnecessarily in every issue she comes across.

But how could she not? It was in her very nature to be compassionate. And, it was because of this disposition that she found herself in the middle of the night, on a Friday no less, deeply consumed with the sweet taste of danger.

Author Notes: Although Day 4 is an exploration of the sin greed, I have actually decided to explore its virtue: charity/generosity. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi is responsible for the Inuyasha series, I only lay claim on the story I have written.

The whispers of raindrops are the only sounds she hears as it thrums against her umbrella.

Pitter-patter.

Pitter-patter.

Pitter-patter.

Light sprinkles turn into a rhythmic beat as large droplets begin to splash on the parasol, against the sidewalk, and soak into her sneakers. Hopefully she can make it home before it soaks through to her socks. Pastel-pink lips part and blue eyes gaze over the lip of the umbrella, careful to avoid dripping rain onto herself. Street lights flicker to life with the setting sun. Higurashi Kagome sighs and closes her eyes, shivering underneath the too-big raincoat as a breeze passes.

Luckily, Miroku spared an extra umbrella and his raincoat for use— he insisted, in fact, to drive her home but Kagome was quite reluctant. She kept insisting that she preferred to walk the twenty minutes between the clinic and her house. That it was merely going to sprinkle. Anyway, he was leaving much earlier than she was and she still had much more medical paperwork to look over before calling it quits.

Early on during her undergraduate degree, Kagome began to volunteer at shelters geared towards at-risk youth. Although trained as a spiritualist and miko, where she  helped her grandfather at the family shrine her spare time, she was much more invested in the community outreach programs. The human-youkai war had ended a century ago and although the larger more industrial cities lived in peace, there was still dissent in many rural parts of Japan. Often times, skirmishes lead to orphaned youkai and hanyou in foster care.

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In the last year of university, she had begun to look for outreach opportunities that would better prepare her for medical school. At the same time, Miroku, a graduate student, was looking for volunteers to help with his community project. She wound up spending many weeknights and weekends shadowing alongside the spiritualistic physicians who gave medical attention to young youkai and hanyou.

After Kagome started medical school, his small community project became a thriving medical clinic and shelter for those same at-risk youth. Thankfully she was able to choose his clinic in her pediatric rotation for her medical training, and often where she found herself working late on Friday evenings.

It was only after a few more hours of intense scrutiny over her clerical task that she realized that the sun had begun to dip into the horizon as streaks of orange and pink began to paint the sky. By the time she cleaned up her desk, and slipped into the large raincoat, even the last rays of sun began to wane.

And, what would have been a normal humid September evening was threatened by thick, gray clouds drifting overhead. Although rain was typical during this year— the weather app made no notice of such dark looking clouds that had begun to roll in as she locked up the clinic.

Using one hand, the woman grips at the neck of her coat, checking to ensure the fasteners are secure. When satisfied, Kagome quickened her pace. The office was not too far off from her home luckily. All she had to do was turn the corner here, walk three blocks up the street and—

Upon turning the corner, Kagome’s steps began to falter.

Standing underneath the stream of a street lamp and without any type of cover from the rain, a tall man stands with his back towards her. He is deep in conversation with an unseen person. The rain soaks into his shirt, clinging against his muscular form. One sleeve is rolled to reveal bright blue lotus flowers, woven alongside a slithering golden snake that wraps around a tanned forearm. Hands, balled up at his side, look bruise and stained with blood, washing away as the rain soaks him. Black hair drips with water, coming loose from its plait as it hangs down the expanse of his back.

Kagome’s eyebrows come together in confusion and immediately she senses that something is wrong. The man possesses no discernible jaki, so he must not be a demon, but he did not seem to hold reiki either leaning to the fact that he was just a regular human man.

It was his stance, however, that put her on edge. With feet spread wide and fists balled at his side, it was more than enough to make her shift with unease. She couldn’t see his face but knew for certain it must be contorted in anger. Feelings of anxiety begin to bubble in the pit of her stomach. Should she turn around to take a different path home?

Before she could make that decision, the man turns to her. She stares back in shock. Blue, angry eyes glare at her before Kagome notices it. Etched across his forehead in purple is a diamond star. A mark she recognizes belonging to a distinct fraction of criminals: the yakuza.

The man turns back down the passage, making a gesture as he does so. Kagome watches as he walks in the opposite direction casually and, not even moments later, another man emerges from the alley.

Like the first man, two vertical stripes emerge from the bottom of his chin and extends to his eyebrow line. In the middle of his forehead, a pointed mark was stamped. Unlike the first man whose hair fell to his waist, this man was completely bald. Beady eyes stared at her for a moment before he, too, walked away in nonchalance.

The young medical student lets out a breath she had not even been aware of holding. Kagome eyes the alleyway wearily. What exactly were those two men doing there? Maybe she should just turn around and find a different road back home after all.

Instead, she finds herself taking steps closer and closer to the entrance of the alley. At that moment the sky decides to opens up entirely and, what began as a slow drizzle, picks up speed and force. As she approaches the entrance, her heart begins to hammer against her ribs, lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub, as she remembers the stain of blood bright against tanned skin.

As Kagome peers with hesitance into the alley, her shoulders fall away from her chin. On the left side, the building wraps around with the entrance facing into the alleyway. Standing across the building were color coded trash receptacles. Nothing unusual stood out: she misinterpreted the scene for something more nefarious. It was, after all, a completely normal alleyway. Including the figure leaning precariously on the opposite end of the receptacles.

A soft gasp leaves Kagome’s lips and she rushes forward, the umbrella falling from her hands, forgotten. Soaked to the bone, a man is thrown carelessly against one side of the bin. Dark hair forms a curtain around his frame, matted against his skin and clothes. From her angle, she is unable to see his face.

“Hey! You— are you okay?” Kagome reaches out carefully and tries to rouse him. With his head tilted back in an ungraceful and seemingly uncomfortable way, Kagome can only assume him to be unconscious. She blinks away the suddenly onslaught of rain, wiping at her face as it presses her fringe to her forehead.

When Kagome presses a hand against his chest to check for a heartbeat, she feels a sudden warmth. Quickly pulling back her hand, Kagome is astonished to see her hand dripping in bright, red blood. He was injured!

“Oh no, oh no…” Kagome looks behind her. She is certain that no one would be walking around in this weather. Furthermore, walking in a residential area, there were few businesses that are still open this late. Biting her lip, Kagome decides the best solution for this situation is to get him to a place that could help.

“Hey— I’m going to help you… if you don’t want me to, you have to tell me now.” She bites her lip, knowing she is making a useless gesture by asking for permission. Even if he were conscious enough to deny her assistance, she would still insist upon it. She was compassionate, after all.

When the man makes no response, Kagome slides an arm underneath his back and works to lift him up. The sudden movement causes the man to rasp for breath, his head and chest leaning forward against her shoulder.

Using her strength, she pulls the two of them straight up. The man is definitely much taller than Kagome and she has to lean the both of them against one another.

For a moment, she wonders at the repercussions of taking this stranger to a hospital. Obvious reasons plainly indicate that taking him to the hospital might be the better place however, it may lead to some unsavory questions and refusal to assist in gang violence (because, honestly, what other situation could this be?).

Anyway, if he didn’t have his health insurance card on him, Kagome feared she would be stuck with the cost of his medical care. While she was generous to a fault, paying for a strangers very expensive medical bill helps to separate the line between generous and stupidity.

So, she makes the decision to take him back home with her. It didn’t seem like he had a weapon on him and, regardless, he was too injured to even think of hurting her. She makes a mental note to call Miroku in the morning, already knowing the firm lecture she will receive.

Thankfully, she works in a high-volume hospital and had come across her fair share of gang-related victims. This would not be the first time she patched up an injured person. And, at least it was a human this time. Some of the demons and hanyou she worked with were much harder to care for alone due to their naturally aggressive temperament when under threat.

She isn’t sure how she did it, but somehow she was able to make the trek back home. Kagome is surprised by her own strength to make it up the steps to the shrine, over the courtyard, and into the house. The rain was quick to pass through and she was able to avoid slipping through puddles.

Upon arriving, she lays him on the dining table, grateful that one of the entrances opens into the kitchen.

“Mama!” Kagome calls out, exhausted and soaked.

No answer.

“Mama? Oji-chan?” Kagome calls out again, frowning. Were they not home?

“Souta?”

Still— no response.

She walks around the kitchen as if to look for some clue. Finally, she finds it: taped on fridge door is a note written in her younger brothers handwriting (Oji-chan wanted to visit the Gero Onsen Town in Gifu. We will be back on Sunday. Mom says to lock up!).

“Great, just great Kagome.” She mumbles to herself, eyeing the unconscious man. His breathing has become harsher, and a sweat is beginning to break out across his forehead. At least she wouldn’t have to explain to her family why she brought an unconscious, wounded man back home.

With measured speed and accuracy, Kagome begins to move around the kitchen. She grabs scissors from a drawer, several clean dishrags, and fills a bowl with water. She rummages through several cabinets before finding her emergency first aid kit. Immediately, she begins working.

The first thing she does is to remove his shirt with care. Seeing how she was unable to determine where his wound was or the extent of it, cutting his shirt down the middle was her best option. Once the cloth gives her an unobstructed view of his chest, Kagome dips the dishcloth in the water and begins to dab away blood.

Had the situation been different, Kagome would have bashfully reveled in the expanse of skin. Whoever this man was, he definitely cared for his fitness. Muscles pulled taut at his abdomen and his Adonis belt dipping below the waistband of his pants.

Once Kagome cleans the blood away, it becomes easy to see the knife puncture below his false rib. Maybe due to the fact that she had put unintended pressure on the wound dragging him down the street, it was not bleeding as heavily as it could have been.

It definitely is not as deep as she originally thought and the location is not nearly as severe as some of the other injuries she had cared for in the past. With rest and care, she was certain this man would make a proper recovery.

What shocks her more than the knife wound is the number of bruises that mar his body. Lesions of different sizes and hues of purple smear themselves up his chest. She isn’t sure what warranted such an attack on this man but she was sympathetic to his pain.

Kagome works to dump the soiled water and the rags into the kitchen sink. Filling a saucepan with water, Kagome places it on the stovetop to boil. She scrubs her hands and underneath her fingernails clean and moves to remove the suture kit.

As the water boils, Kagome throws her instruments into the water. After a few minutes and using a strainer, she removes them and places them on a napkin. Kagome irrigates his wound with fresh water, before she begins to suture up him up. While working, Kagome is unaware of the passage of time. She isn’t sure whether the stitching takes her ten minutes, or an hour. When she is finally done, she throws herself down into one of the chairs closest to her and stares at him.

Reaching out, the young woman pushes away hair from his face. For the first time, Kagome actually takes a good look at the man.

Thick, dark eyebrows frame over heavy-lidded eyes. A prominent, straight nose protrudes from the middle of his face. The young woman’s eyes follow down towards full lips and a thick, muscular neck. Had it not been for the current situation, Kagome would have blushed at staring at him with such earnest.

At the top of his chest, Kagome realizes that a tattoo adorns his skin. The ink wraps around his pectoral, upper shoulder, and down his bicep. She leans closer to examine the design. Along the upper part of his chest protrudes the figure of a large canine, as if emerging celestially from the heavens itself. Golden eyes with flecks of red and yellow stare back at her. The dog vanishes in hues and shades of blues clouds that trail down his shoulder and along his bicep. Cherry blossom petals cascade around his elbow.

Reaching out a hand, Kagome traces the canine figure along his bicep. She fingers the clouds along his shoulder, and follows the path of the sakura petals. For the briefest of moments she questions if she did the right thing to care for his wound.

Exhaustion answers her, instead.

Getting up, Kagome begins to clean. She throws dirty rags in the sink, she wipes down dried blood from the table and counters. After cleaning and putting away her first aid kit, she checks the time on her phone. The backlight flashes back at her, 12:37 AM. Sunrise would be happening soon enough and she was expected to wake early in the absence of her grandfather and brother to start Shrine duties.

Should she leave him on the table then? She isn’t sure she has the strength to take him up the stairs to one of the rooms. “He may be more comfortable on the futon, though…” Kagome mumbles to herself. She slides open the shoji that separates the kitchen from the living room.

The young woman rummages through the cabinet space in the living room and pulls out the spare futon. She pushes the chabudai out of the way and throws the zabuton to the side before walking back into the kitchen.

Pulling the man off of the table, Kagome is careful to not tear open his stitches. Already exhausted between her long day and now treating this stranger, she relies heavy on the wall for support as she makes her way into the next room.

She successfully avoids the chabudai and manages to all but drop him on the futon. For the first time, a weak groan emerges from him.“Oh— shoot! Sorry, sorry.” She kneels next to his prone figure, checking over his stitches.

Satisfied with her results, and fatigued from the day, she decides to lay down on the tatami next to him.

She’ll lay only for a minute.

Kagome sighs and closes her eyes.

One minute to recharge herself.

Her breathing begins to slow.

Only a few more seconds and she’ll get up to go to her room.

Kagome is sure she must have fallen asleep as she imagines a pulling under her neck and below her knees. Her neck tilts to the side as she feels herself pressed against a firm torso. Her arm falls away from her chest and, although she should expect it to feel the tatami underneath her, she does not. In fact, she feels nothing as it dangles.

As if someone were carrying her.

Kagome startles awake, her entire upper half jumping up from her horizontal position. Heart hammering in her chest, it takes her a moment to clear away the sleep and confusion. She immediately recognizes her desk, the curtains, and her bed. Her comforter falls away from her, thrown back upon her sudden wakefulness.

When did she get in her room?

Kagome thinks to the night before: the tattooed thugs, the injured man. At some point she must have fallen asleep and awoken again to climb the steps to her room. She decides she should go check on the man.

As she begins to spring out of bed, Kagome sees her curtains flutter. Frowning, she realizes that for whatever reason, she decided to open the window. She approaches it and shuts the window tight, pulling the curtains open. The sun is beginning to peak over the horizon.

Kagome turns and begins to make her way downstairs. She decides to check on the man before she changes into her miko uniform. Although her family’s shrine has served the area for five centuries, it was not a huge tourist attraction. Usually, on a weekend, there would only be one couple who bothered to come before mid-morning. This gave her ample time to check on the man, change, and even fix herself (and him) some breakfast foods.

As she makes it to the last landing of the stairs, she full expects to see a dark-haired man laying down on the futon. What she does not expect to see, is an empty futon when her fingers flip on the living room light.

If he was awake and moving, where could he be?

Oh man, bringing him back home was a bad idea. What was she thinking?! Her family was definitely going to come home to see her mangled body thrown on the tatami. How could she be so selfish? And here she thought she was acting with genorisity.

Kagome swallows, glancing behind her, as if expecting to see him standing on the stairs above, like some axe-wielding murderer. He isn’t though. Nor is he in the kitchen or any of the rooms, or bathrooms.

“Hello? Hello! Come out please!” She calls out as she moves around the house from room to room. The man isn’t there. Nothing seems to be out of sorts either. Hands on her hips, Kagome huffs and glares at the empty futon.

After searching the house twice, she decides to give up. Either he was hiding too well for her to find (not that there were even any hiding places in the house) or he got up and left.

No note or anything! Not even a thank-you!

As she stares down the empty futon, Kagome notices a thin, string-like object thrown across the bed. Frowning, she kneels to get a much better look, noticing the droplets of blood that stand out against the cot. Frowning, she immediately recognizes the suture thread stitched into his skin hours before.

Did he rip out his stitches? How could he be so ungrateful and do something so careless! He must be bleeding all over again— wherever he was. In the end though, Kagome recognizes that there was nothing she could do. For whatever reason, this man decided to refused to accept her help. She hopes he would seek medical attention elsewhere, if needed.

But Kagome knew she couldn’t allow such thoughts to plague her. Shaking her head back and forth, she balls her fist. By doing so, her fingers tangle in long, silverly threads of hair. She pulls her hand up to examine the fine tresses, eyebrows furrowing together.

Was her Ojii-chan using this futon to sleep in? It would make sense, but the hair seems way too long. As she lengthens the threads to asses the size, she knew that it could not have been her grandfathers hair. With a span this long, it would fall down to her knees. Who else could have such long, thin silvery hair?

Was it possible that her grandfather had a lady friend?

Shuddering, Kagome balked at the thought of her grandfather being that friendly. It definitely did not fit his personality. Anyway, her mother was always home— the older woman would have mentioned it to her that he had someone stay the night. Maybe she should ask them about it when they returned— it’s possible that her mother was sworn to secrecy with this matter.

Chuckling to herself, Kagome begins to fold the futon. She returns it back to the closet and begins to straighten the room. Once she decides the living room is clean, thrown the dirted rags in the wash, and wipes and disinfects the kitchen, Kagome begins to prepare for her day, suddenly more excited than normal.

She couldn’t wait to find out exactly how her grandfather would react to his secret being revealed.