#on a serious note I feel kinda smart for that title. the story makes me cry | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gumnut-logic · 4 years ago

Text

Dear John

@purfectpurple asked for question number 8.

(why won’t Tumblr tag you????? Aaargh! Stupid program!)

Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

I have written far too much fic. It took me a while to work out which fic to choose, but then I remembered this one.

This is built almost entirely out of text messages so it is almost all dialogue. The back story is that Virg was seriously injured and due to reasons, he can’t see his brother John without a serious negative emotional reaction to his presence. But Virgil loves his brother and tries to reach out and talk to him anyway, even if it is only through text messages. And John loves his brother too.

This one was both painful and hilarious to write. It is one of my very early fics and part of a series that is kinda special to me. I’m particularly happy with this one because, honestly, for what it was, I think it works really well.

I’ve posted the whole thing rather than a snippet because I think it needs to be read as a whole to get the effect.

It should also be noted that at the time I was still terrified of writing John :D

-o-o-o-

Title: Dear John

Tales of Sotto Voce

Author: Gumnut

9-10 Sep 2018

-o-o-o-

Message from OntheVirg.

Dear John.

I don’t really know where to start other than to say that I am so sorry. This is not your fault and I know I’m hurting you. If I could stop I would.

I miss you, little brother, please don’t doubt that ever. This thing that bastard has done to me has come between us, but I still love you (yes, I said it, you can now poke fun) and we will get through it. Somehow.

I’m having a hell of a time talking at the moment, so even if I could bear to be in the same room with you, having a conversation would be difficult. Would you mind if we swapped words using the message system? A little odd to be pen pals when we are only a couple of rooms away, but I’m hoping it will help. And I miss you.

Your brother, Virgil.

John stared at the message and something inside him broke. He knew the state his brother was in. He was still confined to the infirmary, could barely walk due to dizzy spells, could barely speak, and was wracked with emotional instability, his brain struggling to right itself after the attack.

Yet, he had managed to write this?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Certainly, Virgil.

I think it is a good idea. It is likely to help us regain our relationship.

It is also great to see you able to write so well, considering your condition. I am very happy to hear from you.

And yes, I love you, too. No poking required.

I am also so sorry this has happened to you. I would offer some regrets, but I cannot see any way that we could have honestly prevented it. Looking back reveals so many opportunities, yet given the same situations with the same information at the time, we would have acted in exactly the same manner. It appears the Hood planned well for once in his life and he almost succeeded.

The only element that he didn’t plan for was you. It is you we have to thank for his failure. I have never been more thankful for your stubborn streak in my life.

I’m am so proud to have such a strong big brother.

John.

He hit send and bit his lip. He wouldn’t list personal relations in his list of best skills, but Virgil knew that. He just hoped he was good enough.

Several hours later, John was startled out of the sub-function he was writing by a chime from his tablet.

Message from OntheVirg.

John.

Thank you for your vote of confidence. To be honest all I could think of at the time was that I couldn’t let you have my ship. You yelled and screamed, but no, you couldn’t have her. Then you hurt me, tried to force me, but no

Sorry, wasn’t you.

It was to be expected. John was surprised the message had even been sent and not deleted. Perhaps Virgil had hit the wrong button. Or perhaps he was trying to explain.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Virgil.

There are no words for the extent of the anger I feel for the violation made against you. There is no need to apologise. I understand, big brother.

Please if you need to talk. I am here.

John

He swallowed and hit send.

Message from OntheVirg.

Do you remember that deer Dad found on the side of the road that had been hit by a car? How it looked up at us desperate for help, but somehow knew it wasn’t going to come?

It felt like that.

It hurt so much. I couldn’t do what he asked, so he just hurt me more. And then I think he just hurt me because he could. There wasn’t any way out.

And he looked just like you. I think that hurt the most.

He had to resist the urge to run down the hallway and hug his brother. He rubbed his eyes instead.

Message from GuyintheSky.

I really wish I could hug you right now. Tell Scott to give you a hug from me.

Do you know why he looked like me?

John

Message from TheFlyingScottsman.

Hug delivered.

You okay?

Message from GuyintheSky.

As well as I could be considering the circumstances. How is he?

John.

Message from TheFlyingScottsman.

Struggling to type. We’re going to have to call it quits soon. It is taking everything he has to hit those keys. But I think he needs this.

Thank you for being there.

How goes the programming?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Don’t let him overtax himself.

Where else would I be? He is my big brother.

Slowly. Whoever did this really knew what they were doing. It is cutting edge work. I can guarantee that the Hood outsourced it. Far too smart for him. I recommend we set Penelope and Kayo on their tail. I dread to think what else this person could be capable of doing. Brains has already started the groundwork to protect our systems. We have a long road ahead to get our equipment up to a level I will be happy to let out on the field without fear of compromise.

I’m afraid International Rescue is down for the count for the foreseeable future.

John.

Message from TheFlyingScottsman.

Damn. I still had hope for a magic wand. Do your best. I know you will.

Oh, and if you need to talk, let me know. Virgil isn’t the only victim here.

Message from OntheVirg

Gonna have to stop soon. Tired.

I have thought about that and I’m not sure. Have you ever met the Hood? I don’t think you have. So I’m wondering how on Earth he knew what you looked like.

But then perhaps he didn’t have to know. Perhaps the program just needed to source the most likely person in my head it could use. You are unique, little brother. Because you spend so much time on TB5, I mostly see you as a hologram. That would be extremely convenient for a mole.

In any case, I fell for it.

Message from TheFlyingScottsman.

He’s asleep.

You know, watching him, I can see why the Hood didn’t win. He won’t give up. By the end of his last message his hands were shaking so badly, I had to help him tap the right keys. Wouldn’t let me do it for him, no, he had to do it himself.

We are so damn lucky to have him for a brother.

Message from GuyintheSky.

I know.

Message from TheFlyingScottsman.

Johnny?

He was still sitting, staring down at his tablet when Scott entered the room behind him. He continued to stare as his brother’s hands took away the tablet and placed on the shelf beside him. When a hand was placed gently on his shoulder he finally looked up into those caring blue eyes.

It was enough to break him again.

For the first time in many years, his biggest brother drew him gently into a hug. John let his forehead drop to the soft material of Scott’s shirt and simply clung.

-o-o-o-

Message from OntheVirg.

Roses are red We wear blue I look groovy And so do you.

Message from OntheVirg.

There once was a flyboy named Scott Who used to fly around a lot He flew so fast He kissed his own ass And completely lost the plot.

Message from OntheVirg.

And then there was one named John Whose appendages were quite long In space he was ace Full of delicate grace But in gravity everything went wrong.

Message from GuyintheSky.

GORDON, GET OFF VIRGIL’S TABLET!

-o-o-o-

Message from GuyintheSky.

You there, Virgil?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Yeah.

Message from GuyintheSky.

How are you?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Been better.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Scott with you?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

No. I sent him to bed. He looked awful. Please make sure he looks after himself. You know what he is like when one of us is injured.

Message from GuyintheSky.

I’ve been trying, but he is slippery. Any tips?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Don’t take no for an answer and, if necessary, manhandle.

Message from GuyintheSky.

I don’t exactly have your physique, Virgil.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Out logic him then. He does see sense occasionally.

Message from GuyintheSky.

I’ll try.

Virgil, I had an idea about how we could see each other. Do you remember my prom?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Really?!! You’d try that again?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Do you think it would help?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Honestly, John, I don’t know. Maybe. It is certainly a fond memory, for me, if not for you. Would you really do that for me?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Of course. It will grow back and maybe that could help you ease back into seeing me?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

You would really go that far?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Wouldn’t you?

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Maybe.

Message from GuyintheSky.

I know you better than that.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

It is asking a lot. Are you sure?

Message from LittleSpaceballs

John.

Can you please give Gordon access to his tablet. He is driving me insane.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Yes, Virgil. Give me a moment. Alan is throwing a hissy.

Message from GuyintheSky.

No, Alan.

Message from LittleSpaceballs.

Then at least change my username for me. He’s locked me out of my settings and his sense of humour leaves much to be desired.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Sure.

Message from TheShortestOne.

Thanks, John. Yours isn’t much better.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Now you lack the balls.

Message from TheShortestOne.

You’re not safe on your little satellite at the moment, John. Remember that.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Go and see Virgil. He needs the company.

Message from TheShortestOne.

How is he doing?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Go and ask him. I’m sure he would love to see you.

Message from TheShortestOne.

I guess.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Have you gone to see him at all?

Message from TheShortestOne.

I’ve been busy.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Alan.

Message from TheShortestOne.

Okay.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Alan.

Message from TheShortestOne.

I hate seeing him like that.

Message from GuyintheSky.

We all hate seeing him like that. This isn’t about us, it is about him. He sacrificed so much to protect us, the least you can do is visit him while he is recovering. He’ll be missing you. You know what he is like.

Message from TheShortestOne.

I know.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Get Gordon to go with you if it will help.

Message from TheShortestOne.

Maybe.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Alan, do you have any idea how much I would like to walk in and see Virgil right now? But I can’t. Move your ass and go see him.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Everything okay?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Yeah, Alan is just being Alan.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

He tends to do that. Being Alan and all.

Message from GuyintheSky.

Ha ha.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

So you are going to try it?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Yeah.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

I’ll owe you big time, Johnny.

Message from GuyintheSky.

No, you won’t.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

Do I get to keep proof?

Message from GuyintheSky.

I’m sure Gordon will oblige - at a factor of approximately one thousand.

Message from LikeaVirgil.

It will be painful. You have my sympathies. Speak of the devil, the terrible two are here. Speak to you later?

Message from GuyintheSky.

Of course. And you have my sympathies too. Yell if it becomes unbearable.

-o-o-o-

Message from EatYourVirgetables.

Fgxzs

Message from GuyintheSky

Virgil?

When his brother didn’t answer, John pulled up the video feed from his room. Virgil was not in his bed, the covers ruffled and discarded.

Frowning John scanned the room. For a moment he thought it was empty, but no. Right on the very edge of the camera field, a hand lay across a discarded tablet on the floor.

He hit his comm. “Scott, get to the infirmary, now!” And he was moving.

He didn’t know exactly where in the building Scott was, but John was close. He dashed down the corridor, tore around the corner...and Scott had beat him to it.

Virgil was on the floor, distressed and disoriented, struggling to get up. Scott knelt beside him, his hands on his brother’s shoulders muttering reassurances.

John slipped back into the shadows. He could not be seen. Certainly not when Virgil was in this state.

“It was a nightmare. Only a dream.”

“It h-rts. G-d, it h-rts.” There were unshed tears in his brother’s voice, a shaking hand fumbling at his temple. “Mk it g ‘way.”

“I-I can’t, Virg. I’m so sorry.”

Virgil let out a sob. “Why? Why d-s he w-nt to h-rt m?

“Because he was a self-serving bastard who would do anything to get what he wants.” The venom in Scott’s tone startled Virgil.

“J-hn?”

Oh, god.

“No! John would never-“

“H-rts.”

Scott drew his brother close, rocking him gently, desperately trying to calm him down.

John slipped back into the corridor and headed back to his room, heart in pieces.

-o-o-o-

Message from TheMightyFish.

John?

Message from TheMightyFish.

Johnny?

Message from TheMightyFish.

Jooooooooohhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyy.

Message from TheMightyFish.

I really don’t like being ignored. You haven’t answered your comms and your door is locked. C’mon, John. We’re worried about you.

Message from TheMightyFish.

John. John. John. John. John.

Message from TheMightyFish.

Please John. I really don’t want to have to deploy Scott, he looks like shit.

Message from GuyintheSky.

What do you want, Gordon?

Message from TheMightyFish.

You okay?

Message from GuyintheSky.

I’m fine.

Message from TheMightyFish.

Don’t believe you. This all sucks big time. Let me in, pleeease.

Message from TheMightyFish

C’mon, John. We need each other in this.

John sighed and walking out of his bathroom, opened the door. Sure enough, Gordon was standing outside, tablet in hand, worry on his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“I should be asking you that question, bro. You look almost as bad as Scott.”

“Well, plenty of reason.” He sighed. “Is he okay?”

“Who?”

“Scott. Virgil. Pick a brother. Everyone is hurting.”

Gordon looked at him for a moment as if he was going to say something, but then decided against. Instead he took the opportunity to push past John and into his room. “What are you doing in here anyway?”

“Gordon-“

“What?! You’re going to dye your hair???” His little brother let out a laugh. “This will be good.” He grabbed the packet. “Blond? Do anything to be me, huh?” The humour in his brother’s eyes was definitely infectious.

“I’m hoping it will help.”

Gordon immediately sobered. He looked down at the packet. “Prom?”

“Yeah.”

“That sucked.”

“Yes, it did.”

Gordon reached up and patted his shoulder. “Hope it works better than it did last time.”

John looked down a moment. “Hey, Gordon. Do me a favour?”

“Anything, bro.”

“Can I borrow one of your shirts?”

Gordon cracked up. “Anything to be me.”

-o-o-o-

Message from EverVirgilant.

You ready?

Message from LongJohnBlondie.

Are you?

Message from EverVirgilant.

Scott’s here, and Gordon. Dunno where Alan is. We have enough troops should I lose it.

Message from LongJohnBlondie.

You are not going to lose it. Do me a favour and cuff Gordon about the ears for me. I don’t know how he has changed my username this time, but even I’m locked out now.

Message from EverVirgilant.

Cuff deployed. Consider yourself scowled at. I’ll speak to Brains later. See if I can get his font to appear pink with flowers and fairies.

Message from LongJohnBlondie.

Sounds great.

Message from EverVirgilant.

Now get your ass in here.

-o-o-o-

Scott was tired. But that seemed to be the permanent state of affairs since his brother had been injured. He was wary of this experiment, but agreed that it was worth the try. Virgil missed John, and John was going through his own version of hell in this, so if it helped just a little, it would help a lot.

Gordon dashed back into the room, a grin on his face. “Awesome. Totally awesome.”

Scott glared at him, but his grin would not be subdued.

He reached for Virgil’s hand. Simple reassurance.

Virgil’s voice was hesitant. “C-m in, J-hn.”

The middle brother edged around the doorway, and Scott felt Virgil tense.

Oh my god.

His tall lanky brother had cut his hair short and dyed blond. He had obviously shoved a pile of product into it and it stood up in messy spikes. On top of that he was sporting a pair of John Lennon sunglasses, conveniently hiding his eyes.

One of Gordon’s just a little too small, blindingly colourful shirts hung from his shoulders, leaving just a hint of bare skin at his waistline. Low hung burgundy linen pants and leather sandals finished off the ensemble.

So far from their John that a new man stood in the room.

“J-hn?” Virgil’s voice cracked.

John attempted a grin.

Virgil succeeded. “Yu l-k gr-t.” Scott started as Virgil suddenly pushed aside his covers and clambered out of bed. He steadied him as he wavered predictably, but let him go as he hesitantly approached his little brother.

His shoulders were tense, but he reached out and laid a hand on John’s chest. “H-w r yu?”

Quiet and still tentative. “Getting better by the minute.”

Virgil looked up at him, a mess of emotion on his face.

“How are you, Virgil?”

Whispered. “G-ttig b-tter b the m-nut.” He swallowed, then leaping in, closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his little brother. “M-ssed yu.”

John gently returned the embrace. “Missed you, too.”

Scott swallowed as something caught in his throat.

They stood there for a moment before Virgil broke it off, stumbling a little and backing off. Gordon caught him and led him back to the bed.

John stayed where he was standing as his big brother sat back down on the bed. Scott grabbed a hand. “You okay?”

Virgil smiled up at him. “Ye, I th-k I am.”

The biggest brother in the room broke into a grin and tightened his grip. He looked up at John and finally saw a hesitant smile on the man’s face.

They had made a beginning.

-o-o-o-

Message from ScottyWantaCracker.

GORDON!

Message from TheVirgilQueen

What has he done now?

Message from HeWhoLooksUpSkirtsBecauseHeisTooShorttoLookDownShirts

What the hell?!

Message from BlondHippyandLippy

He’s in the pool.

Message from ScottyWantaCracker.

I’m going to drain the damn thing!

Message from SleekSilverandFoxy.

I’ll take care of it.

#Username reset

ScottTracy

VirgilTracy

JohnTracy

AlanTracy

GroovyGrandma

GordonisGrovelling.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

The rest of the series can be found here.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #John Tracy #Virgil Tracy #Sotto Voce

27 notes · View notes

ves-is-writing-bnha-again · 4 years ago

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You Are My Sunshine

Title: My Only sunshine

Description: You make me happy

Warning(s): :) angst :)

Pairings: Bakugou x reader, eventual Todoroki x reader

A/N: Listen for the sake of story we’ll pretend the dorms already existed shhhhh. Anyway, this is part 1.

“Why are you being so mean? You’re making him cry Kacchan! If you keep on hurting him I’ll- I’ll uh- I’ll stop you myself!” Midoriya cried, raising his hands in the air, forming fists as he stood in front of the boy Bakugou had been bullying just moments before.

Bakugou scoffed and looked down, “You want to pretend to be a hero?” He said, punching his fist into his hand, activating his quirk, “You don’t stand a chance without a quirk, Deku.” He said, with an overconfident smile. Y/n stood off to the side, watching the two boys fight yet again. They watched as Midoriya got beat up yet again, knowing that if they tried to step in their ice quirk wouldn’t stand a chance against Bakugou’s explosions.

It was only after Bakugou left that they approached Midoriya, creating a little block of ice and applying it to the bruises and brushing off any dirt. Neither of them said anything, but they both shared a knowing look that said ‘Why was he so mean?’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Members of the agency Bakugou- Ah!” Y/n watched as Bakugou slipped and fell off the log, into the river below. They followed after Midoriya who immediately ran down to where he was, and held his hand out to Bakugou, asking if he was okay, and Y/n got upset when Bakugou rejected his help, and instead insulted him, “Why are you so mean? He’s just trying to help you!” They said, crossing their arms and huffing. Bakugou simply stared at them, not answering, so Y/n huffed again, and stormed away, back up to the log with Midoriya chasing after them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/n was sitting in class, staring out the window, at least they were until they heard Bakugou being cocky, again. “I ace all the mock tests! I’m the only one at this school who stands a chance at getting in!” He said, Y/n tuned him out, as they usually did. Bakugou and Y/n were friends, sure, but that didn’t mean they wanted to listen to his “I’m the best” speech over and over again. They looked over at Midoriya and made eye contact with him. They rolled their eyes at him in a joking manner and he smiled, about to laugh until he heard the teacher say “Oh yeah, Midoriya don’t you want to go to UA too?” and his face went red. Everyone turned to look and laugh at the green haired boy as Bakugou froze in place. Y/n would have laughed at him if they weren’t concerned for Midoriya.

“Hey, what’s so funny about Midoriya wanting to go to UA? I’ve helped tutor some of you and I can tell you right now, that with the way some of your test scores are, he has a better chance than any of you. There’s plenty of people that get into UA that don’t have flashy physical quirks like Bakugou or have mental ones. Who’s to say he can’t get in?” Y/n snapped, people got quiet after that, and class continued on as normal, but Y/n could feel someone��s eyes burning into the side of their head.

~~~~~~~~~

“Hey!” Y/n paused when they heard someone shout at them. Turning, they saw Bakugou heading towards them, “Bakugou I just want to go home, what is it?” They asked, once he reached them.

He looked them in the eyes, but then averted his gaze. If they didn’t know any better, they’d think he was nervous.

“Um, you’re not as annoying as everyone else, y’know? Easier to tolerate you and shit. I like studying with you, and you’re pretty good at fighting as well.” He said, causing Y/n to raise an eyebrow at him. And his face flushed a noticeable shade of red. He shut his eyes and clenched his fists at his sides, “Go out with me?” He asked, or said? Y/n wasn’t sure whether it was a question, but they assumed it was.

“Uh-“ They hesitated, but Bakugou cut them off, “Listen I know I can come off aggressive or whatever, but I genuinely like you. I have since we were kids, when you stood up to me in the river, but didn’t get all scared like Deku.” He said, still refusing to look them in the eyes, “You’re really strong, and smart, and I like that. You’re also kinda cute, and I guess I like that too. I’d been wanting to ask you out for a while now, but didn’t know how, but if I’m gonna be number one I can’t be scared of these things can I?” He finished. He finally opened his eyes, and looked at them.

Looking into his eyes, they could tell he genuinely meant what he said. He started to look desperate, but hid it immediately, and it was only when they saw the desperation that they realized they had been silent for a while.

“Bakugou.” They started, and he looked hopeful, “You’re a hard headed asshole who gets cocky over the smallest of things and acts like he’s better than everyone. How we even became friends, I’ll never know.” They said, and he looked devastated, as his shoulders slumped, “But,” They continued and his eyes lit up again, “I’ll give you a chance.” They finished. The grin that appeared on Bakugou’s face was a grin Y/n saw rarely, only when he was truly genuinely happy. Next thing they knew, he pulled them into a near bone crushing hug. Other than training, in which Y/n specifically asked him to not hold back, he was always careful with them. Even though he knew they were strong, he was always careful to not hurt them in any way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Katsuki! Katsuki! Guess what!” Y/n exclaimed the moment they were let into the house. Running into his room, and jumping on his bed, they shook him awake. He grumbled a bit before pulling the blanket down and glaring at them, “The one day I choose to sleep in.” He said, but they knew he was joking, “Guess what!” They said again as they climbed off the bed, having successfully woken him up. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and stretched, “What?” He asked.

“I got into UA!” Y/n cheered, and that woke Katsuki right up, “You serious?!” He asked and they nodded, grinning. He practically jumped out of bed and grabbed their wrist, smiling, and pulled them into a tight hug, spinning them around before setting them back down, both of them laughing cheerfully.

“You and I are gonna be the strongest couple UA has ever seen!” He said, pumping his fist in the air, “Yeah!” They cheered, giggling. Pulling them closer to him, he kissed their forehead. Bakugou wasn’t the most affectionate person, only when he was in a really good mood, but Y/n didn’t mind, it hasn’t been long since they started dating so they didn’t expect any big changes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking up to the entrance of UA, Y/n paused. This is something they had wanted for ages, and now it’s finally happening. They were going to UA. On top of that, they would be attending with their best friend Izuku, and their boyfriend Katsuki. What could be any better than that?

“Y/n!” Someone shouted, and Y/n looked to see Izuku running towards them, waving with a grin. “Izuku!” Y/n cheered, opening their arms for a hug. Running into Y/n’s arms, he gave them a tight hug, excited to see his best friend. “Oh it’s so good to see you!” They said, making Izuku laugh, “We saw each other last week.” He said and Y/n smiled, “That doesn’t mean I can’t miss you.” They said, and Izuku’s face flushed a light pink.

Pulling away from the hug, Izuku looked at the UA building before looking back at them, “You ready?” He asked, and they nodded, nerves creeping up, but they pushed them down, refusing to let nerves keep them from their dreams.

“Get out of my way before I set you on fire.” A familiar voice said, and both of them jumped. Looking behind them, they saw Katsuki approaching with that typical scowl he always had on his face.

“Oh hey, good morning!” Izuku said, flustered at Katsuki’s sudden arrival and threat. Scoffing, Katsuki merely glanced at him before grabbing Y/n’s hand and tugging them along. Y/n looked back at Izuku, an apologetic look on their face. Izuku smiled softly at them, a look of understanding on his face. “I’ll see you later!” he called, and Y/n smiled and gave a thumbs up.

They arrived at the classroom about five minutes later, where Katsuki immediately went and took a seat towards the front. Y/n took a moment to look around the room, noting the people already there. A girl with pink skin, and pink hair immediately approached them, smiling widely.

“Hi! I’m Mina Ashido! What’s your name?” She asked. Y/n was taken aback by the energy she had so early in the morning, but it was a nice change from Katsuki’s constant grumpiness, and Izuku’s shy, quiet nature.

“Uh, Y/n. Y/n L/n.” They said, Mina grinned, “Are you excited to be here at UA?” She asked and Y/n nodded, “Me too! I can’t believe I got into 1-A! I thought I would have been in 1-B or something, but I’m glad I’m here!” She said, “Oh! You should come sit with me! I feel like we’ll be great friends!” She continued, grabbing their hand, and tugging them over to where her desk was, and having them sit at the desk next to it. Y/n looked over at Katsuki who was watching out of the corner of his eye. He looked annoyed that Y/n was so far away from him, but before he could say anything, a tall boy with glasses came over and started lecturing him about how he shouldn’t be putting his feet on the desk. Y/n rolled their eyes, not surprised at his smartass responses.

“That blond guy seems like kind of an ass don’t you think?” Mina asked them, quiet enough so he wouldn’t hear, but loud enough so Y/n could. Y/n laughed lightly, “That’s my boyfriend.” They said, and Mina’s eyes went wide, “Oh!” She said, “Sorry, I didn’t know he was your boyfriend!” She exclaimed and Y/n smiled, “No, you’re fine. He acts like that a lot, I don’t blame you.” They said reassuringly.

More people came into the room, and among them was a boy with red and white hair split perfectly down the middle, and one grey eye while the other was a turquoise color surrounded by a red patch of skin, a scar of some sort. Mina gasped quietly, “Oh my god he’s in our class?!” She whisper yelled causing Y/n to look at her in confusion, “Who is he?” They asked and Mina turned to them, shocked, “You don’t know who he is?!” She asked and Y/n shook their head.

“That’s Todoroki Shouto. He’s Endeavor’s son, got in on recommendations.” A girl with short, dark hair replied as she sat behind Y/n, “Yeah! He’s like, really strong and stuff. He didn’t even have to take the entrance exam.” Mina said as Y/n turned to face both her, and the girl that arrived just now, who nodded to confirm what Mina said.

Glancing around the room, Y/n saw him sitting in the back. He looked rather reserved. He looked up for a moment, scanning the room, and briefly made eye contact with Y/n before turning away, facing his desk again.

“I’m Jirou by the way.” The dark haired girl said, snapping Y/n’s attention back to the conversation. “I’m Mina.” Mina replied, “Y/n.” They said. The conversation continued as more people came into the room, up until the bell rang.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Katsuki, do you want to help me make dinner?” You asked, knocking on his door, “Can’t I’m busy studying, maybe tomorrow.” He said, his voice muffled by the door. Y/n sighed, walking back down the hall to the stairs. Reaching the common room, they entered the kitchen where Kaminari and Kirishima were grabbing drinks, “Hey Y/n! You making that classic soba you usually do?” Kirishima asked cheerfully, making Y/n smile, “Of course! What else? Don’t worry though I’ll be making other stuff with it as well so you have options.” They said making Kirishima smile, showing his sharp teeth, “We’ll get out of your way then.” He said, grabbing Kaminari’s arm and dragging him out of the room, drinks in hand.

Y/n got started on cooking and after a while, someone came into the room as they finished the soba. Turning to see who came in, they saw Todoroki in the doorway, “Hey there.” They said, and he just looked at them for a moment before looking at the food.

“Could you make it cold?” He asked, throwing Y/n off for a moment. He had never spoken to Y/n directly before outside of training, so this was new.

“Um yeah sure, I can make yours cold, it’ll just take a bit longer to finish in that case.” They said and he nodded, “Thank you.” He said before grabbing a drink from the fridge then leaving. Y/n went back to cooking. They felt nervous for some reason, but didn’t know why. They only had this feeling around Katsuki, but that was because they love him, and felt butterflies. They had only known Todoroki for a few months so that couldn’t be possible, especially since they had barely ever spoken other than training and just now. So what was this?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/n: Katsuki are you free right now? I need to see you.

Katsuki: Busy, about to go train with Kirishima. Can it wait?

Y/n huffed, dropping their phone next to them on the bed, not replying. Katsuki had been busy every time they texted him lately. Always training, studying, or doing pretty much anything else with someone else. They had a terrible day at school that day. They woke up late, didn’t have time to eat breakfast, almost forgot their uniform jacket, showed up late to class, pretty sure they bombed the test they had second period, forgot their lunch and didn’t have money to buy any, and Katsuki was nowhere to be found for them to ask for help. Their only meal was a granola bar Momo had given them during class after lunch when she noticed how exhausted they looked.

After about two and a half hours of moping around in their room, Y/n left their room to go downstairs since dinner would be done any time now.

Arriving in the common room, they saw Kirishima and Kaminari sitting in front of the tv playing a game while Sero sat on the couch next to… Katsuki. Katsuki, the one who said he was too busy to spend time with them when they clearly needed him. He was on his phone, scrolling through social media.

Y/n approached him. They didn’t know if they were going to cry from anger or sadness but either way, they could feel the tears building up with every step they took.

“I thought you said you were busy training.” They said, interrupting what Sero was saying about plans for the weekend. Katsuki turned to look at them, annoyed, “Huh?” He said.

“I asked you if you were available and you said you were busy training and asked if it could wait. Well I waited. And waited. And waited. But you never showed up. Never checked in. Only for me to come down here, and find you on the couch with your friends! You didn’t even tell me you were back!” Y/n shouted.

Katsuki groaned, “Listen, I’m sorry okay? It slipped my mind.” He said, standing from his spot on the couch to face you. “Katsuki I clearly needed you! I told you I needed to see you! I had a terrible day today and all I wanted was to see you and just cuddle and maybe watch a movie, but you blew me off again!” They shouted. They could feel the tears building, but refused to let them show.

Kirishima paused the game and stood from his spot on the floor, “Bro if Y/n wanted to see you, you could have just told us man, we would have understood.” He said, but Bakugou ignored him, focusing on Y/n.

“I shouldn’t have to put everything on hold for you! It’s not my job to baby you whenever you have a shitty day! Grow the fuck up Y/n! We’re training to be heroes, if one bad day is what gets to you then how the hell are you gonna be a real hero?!” He shouted back.

The room went silent. So silent you could hear a pin drop. Katsuki looked furious. Hands clenched into fists at his sides with sparks popping off every few seconds, eyebrows furrowed, and a look in his eyes so intense Y/n was surprised they hadn’t burst into flames already.

That was when the tears came out full force. The second the first two fell, Katsuki’s face softened, but by the time he had even realized what he had done, Y/n had already ran out of the room, long gone.

~~~~~~~

Making their way up to the roof, Y/n just wanted to get away for a bit. They usually only came up to the roof in the early mornings when they couldn’t sleep, so whether someone else was there at the moment they didn’t know.

Opening the door, they didn’t see anybody at first. After making sure the coast was clear, they made their way to their usual spot. Sitting down, they wiped the tears away and watched the sunset.

It had been only a few moments since they got there. A few moments of peace and quiet. Away from their friends, away from Katsuki. Away from the noise.

“Heard you and Bakugou had a fight.” A voice said, causing Y/n to jump slightly. They turned to see Todoroki approaching. “Sorry, did I scare you?” He asked. His face remained stoic, but his eyes looked apologetic for a moment.

“A bit yeah.” Y/n mumbled, turning back to face the sunset as he sat next to them. It had been a few weeks since the first brief conversation they had, and since then they seemed to be talking a bit more. Not like they were best friends or anything, but enough that he felt comfortable sitting next to them.

“Sorry, that wasn’t my intention.” He told them, and they hummed, “it’s okay.” They said, reassuring him.

They sat in silence for a moment before he spoke up again, “I only had a brief explanation from Midoriya of what happened. Do… do you want to talk about it?” He asked, and Y/n shook their head, “Not really. Not right now at least, maybe later.” They replied and he nodded. They didn’t say much as the orange and red sky turned to black as the sun went down. They didn’t really need to. A lot of the time they spent near each other was a comfortable silence. It was a nice change from Katsuki’s constant ranting about whatever it was that Izuku had done that week. After a little bit they made small talk about classwork, and whatever training had happened in the past week. Eventually Y/n told him about the day they had.

“If I knew you didn’t have a lunch I could have got you one.” He said, and Y/n shook their head, “No, it’s okay. I couldn’t ask you to do that.” They said and he looked at them, “Next time you forget one, you can ask me.” He told them and they gave him small smile, “Thanks.” They said.

Eventually Y/n’s phone buzzed with a text from Mina saying dinner was done. The two of them got up, and made their way to the common room, continuing the conversation until they reached the first floor, Y/n having said they’ll continue it later knowing he wasn’t comfortable being as open in front of the others.

Arriving in the common room, they both grabbed a plate from the kitchen and got their food before sitting together at a table, Y/n being unaware of the red eyes that followed their every move. Todoroki, however, was well aware of Bakugou’s gaze, but chose not to tell Y/n, not wanting to potentially upset them. He didn’t want Bakugou hurting them further.

#katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x y/n #mha bakugou #bnha bakugo katsuki #bakugo #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou #bnha todoroki #todoroki #todoroki shouto #todoroki x reader #mha todoroki #todoroki shouto x reader

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anotherbeingsworld · 4 years ago

Text

The Happiest of Birthdays

Book: Open Heart

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x F!MC (Casey Valentine)

Characters: Keiki Lahela, Bryce Lahela and Casey Valentine.

Rating/Warning:G/ Fluffness overload.

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything ,except for the story line. All rights goes to Pixelberry.

A/N: Its a new fluff and I really enjoyed writing it! I have a few stories coming sooon with both Bryce and a new pairing that I am writing! *winks*. A special shoutout to @jaxsmutsuo for the idea! I adore you.💕 (Although, its not close as the one you give, it has the same base to it hehe) I hope all of you like this as much as I am writing it. Enjoy! 💖

PS: I don’t have a gif I wanted to use, and... it kinda somehow have relations to this story! (Side note: It’s one of my fav movies, still is now. 🥰 Also, that title is still undecided since... its just.. hard. So, that is the title for now!

Tags: @bitchloveskcbaseball , @storyofmychoices , @jaxsmutsuo , @mvalentine , @princess-geek , @lahellacute , @kacie-0156 , @simp-for-villains , @annekebbphotography , @brycelahel , @mrsbhandari , @dcbbw , @choicessa , @choices-confessions , @aylamwrites , @fantasyoverreality98

LINK TO MY MASTERLIST

It was the night before Keiki’s birthday and, Casey decides on throwing a Disney pre-party celebration for her with Bryce. Keiki was thrilled when she delivers the news as she engulfed them in a tight hug. Casey and Bryce were in the kitchen as they get the food ready… by, ready it means… they place their take-out orders into a nice plate and a cake from the bakery down the street for Keiki. Meanwhile, the birthday girl herself is getting the shows ready as she collects every pillow Bryce ever owned and place herself shotgun in front of the television with a blanket wrap around her body. Casey lets out a laugh as she made her way to the spot followed by Bryce from behind.

They placed the food in front of them consists of take-out from Donahue’s and a mini chocolate cake from the local bakery nearby. Keiki smiled at the sight of the food, feeling excited for the night.

‘I am so so excited! I have pre-picked all the movies we are gonna watch!’ Keiki said happily as she browses the Disney+ catalogs for all the movies.

‘Hey, slow down there! Do we have any say in this?’ Bryce said with a serious tone that made Casey laugh.

‘Nope, it's my birthday Bryce! My choice!’ Keiki said excitedly as she settles in her seat with the remote in her hands.

‘We need to surrender Bryce, it’s the birthday girl’s wishes after all.’ Casey backs away slowly making both of the Lahela’s siblings laugh at her.

Bryce surrenders as he raised both of his arms as if he was arrested. But, they both get themselves comfortable once more. Keiki is suddenly lost in thought, as both Casey and Bryce looked at her weirdly.

She was brought back into reality as a small smile crept on her face, she looked at both Bryce and Casey with new happiness inside of her.

‘I think… let’s pick something together.’ She gestured towards the tv making both of them with eyes filled with confusion.

‘It’s okay Keiki, you can choose!’ Casey encourages her, but… she shook her head with a suddenly huge smile on her face.

‘I insist… it would be much fun to pick something together.’ Keiki said happily as both of them smiled at her.

They ended up picking ‘Toy Story 3’ as it was one of Casey’s favorite movies growing up. Bryce and Keiki are debating on Lotso being a villain, and Keiki won in the end (Or… he already knows the answer, but giving the chance for victory to the birthday girl) ! Casey laughs at their antics, as she happily watched her favorite childhood movie with two of her favorite people in the world. She paused the movie mid-way as she lit the candles for Keiki.

‘Its cake time as its finally….midnight!’ Casey glances at the clock above the television as she gestured at the cake that has three candles on it. The candles lit the dimmed room, as Keiki straighten herself to blow the candle.

‘Make a wish Keiki!’ Bryce exclaims happily, as Keiki grins.

There was silence as Keiki made her wish, before blowing out the candle. Bryce and Casey let out a whoop, as she bows in return.

‘So, what did you wish for?’ Bryce nudges her little sister, as Casey resumes the movie.

‘Not telling!’ She said as she stuck her tongue out at him.

Bryce gives up, as he lays back as they continue to watch the movie. It was almost the end of the film, as Casey starts to cry.

‘This part gets to me, I am so sorry.’ Casey said, as she took a napkin and wipe the tears away as the toys are in a mission to go back to Andy’s room.

Several minutes later, Both Casey and Keiki were watching with full concentration as they heard sniffles coming from the other direction.

They turned their heads and saw Bryce sniffling and a few tears coming out from his eyes, making both of them laugh as Bryce turns red from embarrassment. Keiki felt her tears falling as well, as Andy leaves for college leaving Woody and the gang behind.

‘That scene… Andy and Woody. Why?!’ Bryce lets out a huff as his tears started to flow slowly.

Casey smiled, as she wrapped her arms around him pulling him into an embrace.

‘Its okay Bryce, let it all out.’ She held him a few moments before, he pulled away feeling composed than before.

‘I am okay, and… no one should ever know about this! I have a reputation.’ Bryce said with a serious tone in his voice.

‘No promises Lahela.’ Casey said as both Keiki and herself high-fived at his request.

After the movie had entered its credits, the three of them are finishing a few of the take-out as Casey gets the cake ready to be put in the fridge. After everything is done, the three of them sat down silently as the credits rolled in the background.

‘I know its jinxing to reveal a wish, but… I wish for more times like this. It feels good, and… it really feels like family.’ Keiki’s voice is soft, as she lunged forward and pulled Casey into a sudden hug.

Casey was taken aback by the whole situation but, she didn't push the hug away. She hugs her back, as Bryce smiles knowingly a few feet away looking at them with a certain gentleness in his eyes.

‘What was that for?’ Casey asked after Keiki pulled herself away from her.

‘It’s a thank you… You are like the sister I never had .. and I felt very lucky that Bryce decides to do something smart once in his life.’ Keiki replies with light in her eyes as she felt the happiest right now eventhough, he earns a glare from Bryce who immediately stifles into a laugh as he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug from Keiki herself . Bryce ruffles her hair as he returned the hug. It felt good to hug Keiki, as both of them haven’t had the best relationship with everything that went down with their parents and the fact, the last time Bryce had seen her was before he left for college as he was trying to find an escape from his family. But, at this moment… being a big brother to Keiki felt amazing. He is glad that, he has the chance to reconnect with her. Bryce glances up and saw Casey smiling at the tender moment before her.

Bryce smiles back at her, as he makes a mental note to thank Casey for the encouragement she had given to him.

They pulled away from the hug as Keiki felt herself getting emotional from all the love she is receiving.

‘I am glad we got to spend more time together Bryce.’

He ruffles her hair once more, before replying.

‘Right back at you sis.’

Keiki beams at the two of them as she muttered to herself,

‘Best birthday ever!’

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

After clearing up the whole mess from their mini celebration with Keiki. Bryce and Casey settled themselves on the couch, as Bryce offered Keiki the room, courtesy of being the birthday girl.

It was almost 2 in the morning as Casey and Bryce finally settled on the couch-bed. They took the pillows from earlier, as both of them gets themselves comfortable. Bryce turns towards her, as their faces were a few inches away from each other.

‘Hey.’

‘Hi.’ Casey felt flushed, as he gazes into her eyes.

‘Thank you for everything Cas.’ Bryce said as his eyes softening.

‘I didn’t do anything Bryce, it was all you.’ She replied at his statement, making him shook his head.

‘You did a lot. From the moment Keiki stepped into my life once more, you were there for me. Thank you.’ Bryce said softly as he places a kiss on her forehead.

‘Both of you mean a lot to me, and… I would have helped either way Bryce.’ Casey stated as she nestled into the crook of his neck.

Bryce wrapped his arms around her, as they stood silently that way.

‘I love you, Casey.’ He said quietly, as he held her in his arms placing another kiss on her forehead making her glance at him.

She replies it with a sweet peck, before getting herself to sleep as they had an early day at the hospital. After a few moments, Bryce lets out a chuckle as he heard small snores from her. He smiles happily at the sight before falling into a deep slumber as well. At that moment, he felt happy. Happier than he ever felt before and, he wouldn’t change it for anything.

He is aware that life can change in a moment from his job, but for the night.... he knows that everything is perfect and moving ahead, with Woody’s words from the movie,

‘You’‘ll be fine, partner.’ and it’s gonna be fine after all for Bryce, Keiki and Casey.

THE END.

#bryce x mc #open heart fics #open heart #bryce lahela #casey valentine #anotherbeingsworldwrites #toy story 3 #keiki lahela #bryce x casey #fluff

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hwanuels · 5 years ago

Text

n.jm: where were you?

summary: y/n does not know what the fuck is going on half of the time.

pairing: highschool!fboi!jaemin x fem!reader

warning: a lot of cursing, drug usage reference, crackheadness, maybe a lot of grammer error. this is my first bullet-scenario au so yeah. also! this a collab with the lovely @huangsren in out nct dreamies alternate universe teehee. she has a lovely, fluffy renjun one up so go read it!

part two!

you okay let’s get this collab with @huangsren

so at NCT High if you don't know Na Jaemin who the hell are you? like everyone knows this kid from lunch ladies to the freaking janitors

its not a surprise since the dude is literally dead drop gorgeous and has a shit ton of social skills. like the boy deadass can swindle his way out of detention (which he did) with just a wink

typical fboi but instead of it being a huge turn-off, girls still throw themselves on him even when he WARNS them beforehand that he isn't looking for a serious thing

still, they get attached and heartbroken when he tells them “this isn’t working out”

his friends (aka art-hoe!renjun and student-athlete!jeno) always rolls their eyes when jaemin rolls up into the lunchroom with his arms wrapped around a new girl’s shoulder

“bet she’s not going to last two weeks”- renjun slapping down a 10$

“knowing him, this isn’t going to last more than a week”- jeno said but still sliding over a 10$ bill

AND SUPRISE it doesn’t

both renjun and jeno don’t approve of his philandering, but they stick w jaemin cause he’s still their best bud cause bros before hoes ya know what i mean?

this is especially true with jeno cause they’ve been bffl since they were like five but that doesn’t mean that jaemin is anything like jeno.

nah man they both are the complete opposite of each other

like jeno is a quiet reserved student-athlete boi but jaemin out here acting like a little thotty

nomin is like a package deal, no one can separate them

here where out little y/n comes in

surprisingly you’re childhood friends w nomin

both u and jeno are neighbors and your families have been friends since before you were even conceived

your moms’ have weekly tea times where they’d gossip about everything and anything while your dads would be watching the weekly soccer/football games drinking a cold one

you and jeno would be playing with some legos or barbies

jeno had a minor (major) barbie obsession which was probably induced by you

don’t tell anyone but jeno still binge-watches barbie movies;;;his favorite really be the princess charm school one

like i said nomin is a package deal so expect jaemin to be taging along to yours and jeno’s weekly playdate

imagine you being the princess while jaemin pretended to be the prince and jeno was the dragon,,,yeah man it was so lit

this isn’t a jeno fic btw keep in mind its still jaemin

all of that stuff before was when the three of you were like kids

once highschool came around all three of you found ur niches: jeno was the student-athlete, jaemin was well that guy that was wanted by all the girls

and you were just a regular mundane student ya know,,,you weren’t extremely talented nor smart you just floated around

u still hung around jeno tho but your friendship was really lowkey

like both of y'all would wait until the other one was completely alone or do some ridiculous actions to deliver the simplest messages

jeno would look both ways before slipping you a note in class that said “can your mom drive me home today?” and you would make sure no one was looking before nodding secretly

or the two of you would hide behind bushes to say that y'all parents wanted to have dinner together tonight

tbh yall could just text each other but where’s the fUN in that?

jaemin, on the other hand, was someone you haven’t a solid conversation with since sophomore year bc of an incident

basically, you had helped one of your friends into a relationship with jaemin that lasted for about two months,,, which was considerably a long time considering that it was jaemin.the two of them were a fat power couple

ur friend, let’s call her ella, was probably one of the more popular girls at school. she was well-known for being the prettiest, kindest girl that everyone LOVES

anyways, things didn’t end so well bc he stood her up at hoco even though he was gonna be crowned homecoming king and her queen.

no one knows why jaemin just ditched but he did.

didn’t stick well with your friend tho cause she stopped talking to you as well not really giving you an explanation

and this led to everyone in your friend group to kinda put all the blame onto you

this is also when jaemin picked up his heartbreaker reputation and began living up to that title

at first ur were hella mad and sad, but you got over it cause being outcasted and kicked out of that friend group led you to befriend the local stoner boi!haechan

honestly, you got over it but after ignoring and avoiding jaemin for a whole year it just stuck.

yall never talked again

here comes SENIOR YEARS BITS

u were so done w school at this point, you had suffered and labored through junior year,,, SAT and ACT were the biggest bitches you ever faced in your lifetime and this is coming from someone who was friends with the resident shithead lee haechan

so it’s lunchtime and you’re listening to haechan’s wild story about some shenanigan that he and his weed dealer/ older college friend mark had gotten up to the past weekend

“so like we were just hitting a blunt this weekend in mark’s car and this cop pulls up next to us.mark rolls down the window and all of the smoke just hits the cops in the face”

“you're a fucking idiot, haechan”

“listen bitch, i’m not done”

“so the cop is doing the regular illegal drugs bullshit and asked mark a question. understand at this point that mark is high as fuck so i kid you not the crackhead says quack. nothing else just quack. honestly, i still don’t know how we got out of that but we did and lee haechan is still in school.”

you want to slap your friend with a big smh at this point

but it so ridiculous and so haechan that you can’t say anything else

and you don’t have too! bc someone taps ur shoulder pulling you out of your convo and boom it’s ella

“hey, y/n” she starts out sweetly and you could feel haechan’s bitch face directed towards the girl, who seemed to just ignore the boy

“what’s up, ella?” you were hella fucking slightly irritated and highkey suspicious bc like this was the first time that she talked to you in like two years

“this out of the blue, but you know how prom is coming up soon? we need extra hands on the planning community,” ella explained with a bright smile “we need another person to work on making the centerpieces for each table, but we only have one person on that”

“okay, so what does this have to do with her?” haechan’s bitchy tone soaked in each word

ella’s smile faltered slightly at his words, but it was so subtle that only people with keen eyes could notice

“i hope that i’m not imposing anything on to you.” ella trying to reassure “but Mr. Moon told me that you still need some community service hours for our graduation requirement so I just assumed that this would be a good opportunity for you.”

oh shit

you completely forgot about that and you still needed like another 10 hours to complete

“ummmm”

“i wouldn’t ask you this but my workload is completely swamped” ella added “it would be a big help if you can help. haechan, you can help too!”

haechan let out a loud gag that seemed to baffle her

“oh hell no, i already got my community service hours done like freshmen year.”

you gave haechan the most incredulous face you could make cause like this druggie who gets high every other week and vapes in the bathroom really finished his community service hours before you????how??

“don’t look at me like that.” haechan kicked you underneath the table “it was before i learned how to roll a blunt”

“drugs aren’t good for you, haechan,” ella chided

haechan made a mocking face,,you know the one he does like that one,,”not all of us can be little miss goodie-two-shoes like you”

oKAy time to do some damage control before your shithead friend gets himself into more shit

“i’ll do it. just text me the details.”

“thank you so much y/n!” ella said before bouncing off

“i hate her” haechan stated

“you hate everyone”

CUE aFTerschool when you follow ella’s text to go to the art building where everyone was gathered

the minute you walked in you realized that you should have just said no and done some other community service activity cause jaemin was present standing in the corner and other people who you once called your close friends that turned out to be fat snakes

now you gotta deal with them again (aww shit here we go again)

ella is motioning you to come into the classroom which you obliged cause you figured that you possibly could survive w ur rbf on as you made your way to the other unoccupied corner

there was some whispering in the background but you ignored it cUASE like hyuk always says: “you just gotta get high and block out all the haters”

well, he was right about the second half, not so much the first.

“alright everyone! thank you so much for volunteering to help set up for our senior prom! we only have about three weeks so we have to get all of the decorations done as soon as possible!” ella said in a chirpy tone

a lot of people looked motived by the girl’s bubby short speech on how everyone needs to put in 100% of their effort. you zoned that out as you caught the sleeping figure at the teacher's desk

“goddamn you mr.moon forcing me to be here” you grumbled in your head almost missing your assigned duty,

“y/n!” your head snapped in the direction that your name was called

you saw ella standing with jaemin and the sirens go off in your head

FUCK THIS

you let out a loud sigh before trotting over to the two

ella gave you a piece of paper that had the centerpieces’ picture on them along with a long list of decorations “all you guys have to do is make about 300. all the directions are on the sheet and the supplies are in the other room. it’s really simple, just have it done by next friday.”

you nearly popped a blood vessel

300 by next friday? today was wednesday so that meant you only had ten days to finish all 300 of them

so you and jaemin are walking to the classroom next door to get the supplies y’all needed,,, in your head, you were just cursing everything in existence for putting you into this position especially mr. moon

“so how did she rope you into this?” you heard jaemin say from beside you as you both carried boxes out to the parking lot.

you two came to the good conclusion to split the load so that he would do half and you would do half

150 it’s not that bad

15 a day

hell yeah

it was so strange and foreign talking to him since it’s been about two whole years.

he had a nice voice tho ngl maybe that’s why he got out of that detention that one time

“she somehow found out that i still needed to complete my community service hours before graduation” you murmured, praying that haechan remembered you telling him to wait for you after school

he probably ditched you to get high or hang out with one girl he liked

all jaemin said was “oh” and the rest of the walk to the school’s parking lot was quiet

the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and the knife would break

“hey can i ask you a question?” jaemin asked when the two of you were about to go your separate ways

you could see mark’s old beat-down car meaning that haechan, in fact, did ditch you but had the decency to call up mark to pick you up

“yeah, go ahead”

“how come you still talk to jeno, but not me?”

i shit you not this was the quietest and deepest voice that you ever heard jaemin project

you didn’t know how to reply so you looked down at the large box in your hand, mumbling some incoherent excuse

“can you repeat that?”

“ i said, we don’t really have any other reasons to be friend's unlike me and jeno”

“is that all?” jaemin asked, probably catching onto your bullshit

you were probably delusional but you could’ve sworn you heard some sadness in the tone he used

you nodded quickly trying to get to mark’s car hoping to avoid further conversation

but boy was jaemin stubborn

“that wasn’t a good explanation,y/n! ” jaemin called out after you.

this time he sounded more lighthearted than before

you turn around to face jaemin who had a fatass smile on his face

damn was he good looking smiling like that

“give me a better reason tomorrow or else i’m taking you on a date!” his dazzling smile nearly blinding you as he made his way to his own car

inside your head little y/n is going whattheactualfuck?

“what’s with that shook face?” mark ask as you climbed into the passenger seat

“what the fuck?” you say

“huh?”

you look at mark “what the ACTUAL fuck?”

poor mark is like wtf is wrong with her,,,did haechan get her on some type of crack?

that night while you were making the little centerpieces you were still going over what jaemin said

you looked at the last centerpiece you finish making

was he flirting with me? or was he serious?

he sounded sad when i said that tho?

at the same, this was jaemin, a boy who is well-known for having flings left and right.

he’s probably just flirting

until next day! jaemin pops up next to you as while you get your shit from your locker for your first class

“did you come up with a good explanation yet?

his sudden appearance startled you causing you to subconsciously let out a yelp

“cute” he said, and you forced down the blush that was about to show

“i thought i told you already?” causing jaemin to shake his head like a cute little puppy

“i don’t accept it.i want a better one,” he said sounding like a spoiled toddler

you gave him the “wtf do you mean look” and he was about to reply until you saw haechan walking through the school doors with a pair of sunglasses on which can only mean one thing

that little shit head came to school high again

you pushed passed jaemin and stormed towards haechan pulling him to some vacant hallway to lecture him

leaving jaemin standing there staring at your backs as the two of you left

jaemin’s smile dropping significantly as he nearly glared over at the two of you leaving, specifically at the back of haechan’s head

“dude, why do you look like you’re going to murder someone?” jeno asked as jaemin sat next to him at their lab station

you weren’t in this chemistry class but haechan was,,,and it was his naptime

“how is y/n friends with him?” jaemin stared directly at a sleeping haechan

jeno follows his line of sight, letting out a sigh once he notices it was haehcan

“she never really told me, but i assume it was because she stopped being friends with ella and that group” jeno said honestly. he raised an eyebrow in question at his bffl “why do you need to know”

jaemin didn’t answer him, continuing to glaring at the sleeping male

jeno rolled his eyes at his friend's antics

but in a serious tone, he warns to his friend, “don’t pull your games with y/n.”

except jaemin’s head wasn’t registering this warning,,he was solely focused on how lee fucking haechan the biggest stoner of NCT High managed to take a girl’s attention from him, na jaemin....it was simply ridiculous

maybe he really was an attention seeker bc he made a beeline for your table during lunch instead of his regular one once he saw just how loud you were laughing at haechan’s joke

“what’s so funny?” jaemin asked sliding into the seat next to you

now both of you and our boy hyuk is like wtf

immediately you’re on defense, “what are you doing here?”

“you never gave me a good explanation!” jaemin pouted, giving you fat puppy eyes

those aLMost worked

“uhhhhhh” you try to find a good excuse but jaemin quickly cuts you off

“it’s okay if you don’t have a good explanation,” jaemin reaches over and steals a fry from haechan’s tray eliciting a hissing sound from the boy “you just have to go on a date with me”

then he winks

and he's gone

“what in the holy fuck just happened?”

the amount of time that y/n has said wtf is unbelievable

haechan’s sunglasses slip down the bridge of nose and you could see his red eyes giving you a look of disappointment, “and you say i have issues”

“stfu before i slit your throat”

the rest of the day wasn’t any easier on you tbh. you learned that jaemin was really really stubborn and very very clingy

the boy deadass scanned the whole hallway to find your face so he could tag along with you to your next class even though you could have sworn that his class was one the other side of the school

he kept on bombarding you with questions on what you wanted to get after school and if you like roller skating

by some means, you were able to hide in the library for the rest of the study hall period which meant that you could probably avoid jaemin until school ended

you spotted a familiar boy huddled in the corner reading a book that made you squint your eyes.

marching over to jeno, your eyes just say “explain”

jeno looked at you with like those wide eyes he does when he’s shookth bc the two of you never interacting in school so puBlicly

“what the hell is na jaemin trying to pull?” you whispered-yelled plopping down in the wooden seat next to the athlete

jeno is all like????wydm

and you explain your whole situation to him and he just lets out the biggest sigh

“he doesn’t like being left on read”

“what do you mean?”

“i mean, that’s what you basically did to him sophomore year. he was kinda depresso about how you just stopped talking to him out of nowhere. by the way, why did you do that?”

tbh you really didn’t know at first you were mad at him

was it bc his actions caused all your friends to blame you for his inability to commit to a relationship,,, but it’s been two years since that incident

you got over it, so why were you still avoiding jaemin?

“i dunno after him and ella broke up, i didn’t have a reason to talk to him.”

jeno looked at you like “really? is that your answer?”

“think about that question again because i’m sure that that's, not the whole answer.”

now you’re more confused but also very mad about how both of them weren’t accepting your reason as valid!

so as you were furiously making the stupid centerpieces that ella forced you into volunteering to do

angry y/n really got through a solid 50 of them

you pondered on jeno’s words and you thought back to sophomore year

you remembered still joking around lightheartedly w jaemin until he started dating ella

he actually spent a lot of time and effort even ditching jeno sometimes for her which was okay cause jeno would chill w renjun or even you (mostly bc he could watch barbie movies w no shame)

everything was alright until homecoming came around and jaemin flaked on ella leading them to breakup the next day

and ella to stop talking to you which made everyone mad you or think that you were the one that caused the breakup

WHICH YOU DIDN”T

you were the one that hooked the two of them up too! so it was really unfair!

it's like 2 am and you don’t know what came over to text jeno but you did

y/n: why didn’t jaemin go to hoco sophomore year?

you felt instant regret after sending that text bc like it probably made it seem like you were interested in jaemin,,,, which you were totally not!

seconds later jeno slaps you with the ”ask him yourself”

fattest facepalm

so that’s how you spent the entire night finishing all of your centerpieces that you were assigned to make cuz of your frustration

wow we love a productive y/n

alrighty this is where shit goes down

now that you were done with all of your centerpieces you took them to the art room the next day before school where ella was there doing her stoof

she looked up with a giant smile when you came in with a giant box

“you finished all of it?”

“nah just 150. jaemins finishing the other half” you set the box down

“oh okie,” ella nodded returning to whatever she was doing beforehand

since it was just the two of you in the classroom and you’ve been dying to know the answer since sophomore year

so fuck it

“hey ella, can i ask you a question?”

the said girl looked up with that same friendly smile that she gave everyone “of course!”

“why didn’t jaemin show up to hoco sophomore year?” you blurted out

in an instant, ella’s smile dropped and there was a sudden cold look in her eyes

“you already know the answer to that, y/n, you don’t need me to answer you. now if you excuse me, i have things i have to do” ella said in a very unlike-ella-way

her answer made you even more confused than ever bc how were you supposed to know the answer to THAT

confused!y/n is even more confused

however, all your questions were about to be answered, not really tho

you’re on your way to the third period with the same burning question in your head: why the hell did jaemin not show up to sophomore year hoco??? someone help?

tbh you didn’t even notice someone yanking you into the janitor’s closet until you were surrounded in darkness and someone's hands were clasp over your mouth

“it’s me, jaemin” his soft whisper sent tings down your spine

he let go of your mouth to switch on the light

“are you fucking insane?”

“yes, but it’s only cause i’m madly in love with you”

you rolled your eyes “cut the bullshit, jaemin, what do you want?”

“our date. you never gave me a solid explanation, so i want a date”

you were about to reject him but then an idea formed in your head

“fine”

and with that one-word jaemin’s eyes glowed 10x brighter with his smile almost blinding you

cheesy i know.

“let’s go now!”

the boy was really about to skip class just to go on this stupid date w you

is he that bored? did he really run out of girls to date?

but then again you really don’t want to go to math bc you’re pretty sure there's a test today that you haven’t studied for yet

so that’s how you found yourself with jaemin at the local ice cream parlor

jaemin INSISTED that y'all share a sundae, which he also fought you to pay for

there a silence that falls upon you for a little bit

jaemin breaks it though like he breaks heart (okay minnie that’s kinda mean)

“ella told me that you finished your half of the centerpieces in two days. that’s pretty impressive,” he comments

you nodded staring at the ice cream drowned in chocolate syrup

“to be honest, i haven’t gotten much done yet,” he admitted, continuing to ramble on “it’ll get done. i might even pay renjun to do it, but i’m pretty sure he’s too preoccupied with this girl that he’s been pining over for a while”

“speaking of which, are you seeing anyone right now?” jaemin asks out of nowhere.

“lol i could be doing other things with my time.”

jaemin observes your face closely taking in the faint blush on your cheeks from his direct gaze, “so what about that haechan dude?”

“what about him?”

“are the two of you a thing?”

you nearly gagged

“there no way in hell i’d ever get with haechan. besides, he’s having some of his own girl problems right now. he was being a little bitch about it too”

“good” jaemin says really contently.

“why didn’t you go to hoco sophomore year?” you finally asked

taken back slightly, jaemin softly smiles down at the half-eaten sundae

instead of answering you, he asked another question “why did you stop talking to me?”

you gulp, but eventually, you had to tell him the truth even though it was kinda dumb and immature

“because ella was mad at me after the two of you broke up.”

he shifted his gaze up to your own eyes

“do you know why she was mad at you?”

you shook your head

jaemin smiled again

this time it kinda looked sad :(

“because she knew that i was in love with you”

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royallyprincesslilly · 5 years ago

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Title: Arranged {4}

Yahya Abdul Mateen II x OFC Nyorie Kane

Warning: Mild Cursing. Plot

Words: 2.7k

Summary: Yahya is thirty-three, and his friends and family all seem to believe that it is long overdue for him to have a wife. He’s been set up more times than he can count and with his busy schedule and rising Hollywood star, it is becoming even more difficult to meet people, well people who aren’t looking for a come up. In the beginning, he said he didn’t want anything serious; his motto was “I’m was here for a good time not a long time.” Then it became he didn’t want anything that would distract him from where he wanted to go and what he wanted to accomplish. Now that his fame is rising and he’s approaching a sweet spot in his career he decides what the hell the time might be right.

In comes “A Match”, an exclusive matchmaking company run by his best friend Ramel’s wife Tamika. He gives Tamika and Ramel free rein and all his trust to find him, someone, he’d mesh well with. Instead of going through her clientele Tamika has just the right woman in mind, her best friend, Nyorie. Things are done a little unorthodox at “A Match” though. This unconventional route is credited for a near-perfect success rate.

Note: I’ve only tagged those who have expressed to be on a forever tag list.

***None of the images are my own***

**Loosely Proofread/Edited**

**Interactive**

Need To Catch Up?| Chapter one | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

✧*.。:。✧*.:。✧*✧*.。:。✧*.:。✧*✧*.。:。✧*.:。✧*

-Chapter Four-

Three days later he was staring at a stack of papers that was the contract agreement. Included in the agreement was also the usual fee for services. Tameka was making bank especially if this was the standard fee for every client. Among the papers was an extensive explanation of what she did, what she didn’t do, how she did what she did and what was expected. There was a code of conduct as well as termination policies. Inside the welcome packet there he found all the information about the different stages and the steps in each stage. This was very detailed and when he assessed it all, it wasn’t a completely illogical way to approach dating.

Yes, it was absolutely nuts to agree to marry someone without seeing them, but the saying love is blind was coined for a reason. No, it probably was never meant to be taken so literal, but the truth was the same. Love was blind, love should be found and established with the purest cornerstones. His only hang-up was if this was something that was logical for him and who he was now. He wasn’t some local baker, or a teacher or even a city planner anymore. He was an actor. Now most places he went, he was recognized, approached and watched.

Yeah he could go incognito eighty percent of the time and he was glad for it but he’d come to accept the luxuries of life before were not his luxuries now. He’d traded privacy for paparazzi, and traded clipboards for scripts. He still hadn’t gotten over the differences in his life from a year ago to today.

The more he flipped through the papers and read them over carefully he thought more and more about what the road would look like moving forward with this. He thought about the kind of connection he would want with a woman and the likelihood of finding it like this. He went up and down and around it for what felt like hours. He talked himself into it ten times and out of it ten times. He’d even written a pros and cons list and had thrown it out and done it again too many times. By the time he’d come up with a decision he was fed up with thinking about it. He knew it was the fear of the unknown at this point. The only thing that was in his head at this point was doing the damn thing. So that’s what he told himself as he tapped out a text to Tameka.

MSG: Let’s do it Meeka. Let’s do the damn thing!

He shook his head and tried to shake off how ridiculous he felt. He knew he was ready for it, but he just had to get out of his head with it and allow whatever was meant for him to freely come.

MSG Tameka: All right then. Fill out the paperwork, bring it back, fax it, courier whatever you choose. Once that’s processed we’ll start your screenings. Be mindful we’re going to be digging deep into your personality. Truthful answers are the only answers acceptable, especially if you want success.

MSG: Got it. Thank you Meeka.

MSG Tameka: You’re like my brother Ya. Anything I can do to help, I’ll do it.

He’d known Tameka for over ten years. They were similar. In the beginning stages of Ramel’s relationship, he took it upon himself to get to know her to be sure she was right for his best friend. It didn’t take him long to be convinced she would be a good fit for Ramel. Since then they’d gotten closer and she really had turned into someone he considered a sister.

He sat there in his living room filling out the first page of information.

“Name; Yahya Abdul Mateen II. Nicknames; Ya, Hya. Date of Birth; July 15, 1986. Gender; grade A man baby. Family; mother and one brother, four sisters. Ethnicity and Race; Black and Proud. Height; six-three. Religion; Muslim. Gender you are seeking; female. Marital Status; Single. Income.”

It was there he first paused as he tried to think of a response. Was he supposed to put his current net worth, what he had in the bank, what he was averaging per movie? He was probably thinking about too deeply, but he didn’t know what to put, so he put something basic and carried on.

“Comfortable.” As he got to the second page it got a little more personal. There was a question asking about his family history then another inquiring about his blood type. After that, it went into physical illnesses or mental illnesses. When he saw the big leap from there to asking about communicable diseases he blinked because it wasn’t even page six and already things were getting real.

He spent the next forty minutes or so answering the second, third and fourth pages that asked everything from STDs to medications currently taking. It was pretty detailed which he understood. These were important questions to know before matching someone. He zoomed through the questions about the reason for his decision for matching, and what his expectations were. He’d set the bar pretty low. He wasn’t sure what to expect so he decided to expect nothing spectacular. You can’t be disappointed if you never really set your hopes up, right?

By page six the real hard-hitting questions began. “What are you looking for in an ideal match?” He thought it would be a difficult question, thought he would have no idea what to write but that wasn’t the case. He found himself writing away.

“A woman who is down to earth, funny, honest and smart. A woman who knows what she wants from life and isn’t afraid to go out and get it. a woman who is caring, understanding, passionate, supportive, ambitious. Someone who is silly and has a silly sense of humor and doesn’t take themselves seriously. Confidence is major for me, someone who loves music as much as I do, has a great attitude, positive, classy but definitely kinda hood.”

He reread it and nodded his approval and continued.

“What’s your type?” A wide smile spread across his face because he knew his type. He’d imagined her several times over the months. “Curvy and thick in all the right places, meat on the bones, beautiful lips, expressive eyes, nice smile, shorter than me, fashionable, black and proud in everything that means.”

Thinking about his ideal woman and had him thinking what if Tameka actually pulled it off and found someone that was just right. What if in a few weeks his ass found a wife and not just another ex. That tripped him up and had him stepping away from the paperwork for a few minutes to collect himself and his thoughts with a glass of Henny. It wasn’t that he wasn’t ready, or he was reluctant for change, it was the reality of a possibility.

When he returned to the papers he earnestly answered the remainder of the questions that ranged from a full six pages about him and his dreams, wants, desires and another six pages about his ideal mate and what he would want her dreams, wants and desires to be. When he was finally finished it was almost three in the morning and he was exhausted. He’d felt like he’d done a mental marathon. There were questions in this packet he hadn’t thought about in years and at all. he took that as a good sign. The more in-depth the questions the better the outcome, right?

~~~~~~~~~

A day later he was sitting in an office with a couple Tameka introduced as Dr. Rachel Abramson and Dr. Martin Abramson. They were in charge of mental and emotional screening and preparedness. His first impression was that he would sit in a comfy chair and discuss his thoughts and feelings about beginning the process. For the first hour that is exactly what happened. They had him begin and assured him now was the time to get all his questions out. So, since they wanted him to ask questions he did.

“Are the two of you really that good to have so many success stories? There has to be one story of complete failure.”

The two of them looked at each other and then back to him before they busted out laughing. After a few moments, they finished and Martin spoke first.

“Tameka said you’d be a little apprehensive about the process.”

“She sure wasn’t lying,” Rachel added.

“Ha-ha-ha, very funny. You can’t blame me, can you? This is pretty peculiar.”

“Okay here’s the thing. On a scale of normal and insane, this is insane when you think of it from a societal norm perspective. We’ve all been taught and conditioned that we have to do things one way in order to find the love and happiness we want and deserve. So we go our entire lives on this hamster wheel trying it over and over and over no matter how many times we fail. No matter how many times we don’t find that love or happiness we want but heartache or loneliness. At what point do you change your perspective? At what point do you start to wonder what are societal norms doing for me? Here we’re changing up the norms. There is no reason why a different approach cannot work,” Rachel finished.

“We’re doing a different approach for the same goal. The only difference is our approach actually works and it continues to work. We’re that good at what we do because of the process and the screenings, these chats. We now know you want to be a believer, but you have to be shown the way. That will go into your profile and into the decision for those we cross with you for a match,” Martin explained.

Taking a few moments for their words to register he nodded then shrugged. “All right. I’m here. Let’s do it.”

That was when they began to dig deeper pulling him to talk about his entire life story, relieve every decision he’d ever made, every experience. He thought about things he hadn’t thought about in years. They had a way of bringing deeper meaning to his experiences, his struggles. They gave him worst-case scenarios and stressful situations, questioned his decisions in relationships and life. They dissected everything and the whole time they wrote note after note and exchanged look after look. After another two hours, he realized just how deep this process got. He felt like he’d just gone through the most extensive counseling session he’d ever had.

“How do you feel?” Tameka studied him with a slight “yikes” face.

“Damn that was intense.”

“Yeah, Rachel and Martin really get in there and tear you apart and put you under a microscope then put you back together. Usually, everyone who sees them says they feel refreshed leaving.”

“Refreshed? Meeka I feel like I just got a soul cavity search.” She laughed and shook her head.

“Boy, you so stupid. Seriously, it’s all right. It’s like this for everyone,” she assured.

“Are all screenings like this?”

“I wouldn’t say that. This one usually puts everyone through a wringer, you’re facing a lot of things, it makes you doubt yourself; it’s supposed to. It’s part of the process. The worst is behind you. You have three more screenings and then we’ll move on to the fun stuff.”

“What exactly is the fun stuff?”

Tameka smiled widely and zipped her lips. He didn’t have a good feeling about whatever it was she was talking about.

Sure enough, four days later he’d felt like he’d actually gone through the wringer. He’d completed the following screenings that focused on his potential mate love languages and expectations, and sexual expectations and intelligence. It was definitely an intricate process. From what he could tell those he’d dealt with really knew what they were doing.

After a quick trip to New York for work and a trip with his brother and sister to Vegas for some downtime, gambling and silliness he felt refreshed.

Today he dribbled the ball around the court with Ramel and crew he tried to keep his mind off of things. Tameka said they would go through his responses and screenings and put together a complete assessment that they would then use to go through their database of potential women he would mesh well with. He knew the processes couldn’t be rushed but he was getting a little anxious after three days and no notification on the status.

He was a little off his game and Rashawn was taking advantage of that. He stole the ball and dropped a perfect fadeaway bucket. He stood there shaking his head.

“What the hell has got your mind so outta the game you let Rashawn of all people steal your ball?”

They laughed at him together and he had to admit he deserved it. He walked to the sideline and dropped onto one of the bleachers. His boys sat around him taking sips of their water.

“Is this about this matchmaking?”

Rashawn and Tyrell both sounded off. “Hold up, matchmaking? Are you getting set up?”

Dropping his head back he rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want them all to know in case it didn’t work out and he was in fact unmatchable.

“Yeah, I was trying something different, thought why not.”

“Okay. We didn’t even know you wanted someone. Why you ain’t say something?”

He shrugged and rolled his head around. “No reason.”

“So that’s why your jump shot is shit and your ball handling is even worse,” Tyrell chided. He laughed at the insult to injury, he was already feeling like crap.

“Man kick me while I’m down. Great.”

“Leave him alone. Tameka’s process is tough. In the early days when she was giving me the run down, she blew my mind with how detailed everything is,” Ramel defended.

“Right. Damn, I had no idea. After four days I felt like she’d unlocked a whole nother level to my personality I didn’t even know I had.” They all laughed but he wasn’t joking. He was woke before but now he was third eye woke.

“So you’re waiting for results now?”

“I’m waiting for them to finish analyzing my assessments. I think they’re screening me with potentials. I don’t even know.”

“You ready to meet someone? I mean you could have yourself a girl in a month’s time,” Rashawn voiced.

“He could have himself more than a girl in three months’ time,” Ramel corrected.

“Yeah, I’m ready. The interesting thing is throughout the whole process of them analyzing me and asking me every question ever invented it had me really seeing how empty my life has been and how stuck I was. It opened my eyes to show me what I had to offer and that I was ready to offer it.”

They all nodded fulling understanding what he meant. He was glad he wasn’t friends with men who ran from commitments and dogged out their women. He was glad he was surrounded by levelheaded mature men who sometimes acted like complete idiots behind their wives’ backs.

“Well, I hope Tameka can work some miracle because it will have to be one hell of a woman who keeps your attention cause God knows you got that ADD,” Tyrell piped up.

Again, they all laughed together, at his expense.

A few more days passed with him working even more. He went on more and more auditions and his name was being kicked around quite a lot. According to his agent and manager, his name was brought up a lot for different projects. The ones that had him super excited was the fourth installment to The Matrix and a Candyman remake. He grew up on Candyman and damn near tripped down the steps when he’d read the email about it.

The days passed quickly, and he traveled between NY, Miami and LA all for auditions, meetings, interviews, and photoshoots. he was busy but in the back of his mind, he wondered where he was in the process with A Match. The longer he went without hearing something, the more he worried that he was unmatchable.

As he was pulling into LAX from his recent trip to London Tameka’s message caught him off guard.

MSG Tameka: Great news. When can you come in?

His nerves went into high gear as one thing repeated in his head.

“So it begins.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

***If you want to be tagged please SEND AN ASK SO IT WILL BE EASIER FOR ME TO KEEP TRACK OF. Thank you for reading!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#arranged fic #yahya abdul mateen ii #yahya abdul mateen ii fanfiction #Yahya Abdul Mateen ii x reader #Yahya Abdul Mateen ii x you #Yahya Abdul Mateen ii x black reader #black fanfiction #slow burn fanfic

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sumeshi-t · 5 years ago

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the idea of making hc’s of children is sosososo cute. i’ll follow ur steps chloe @akaashit-baeji lolol this is gonna be really self-indulgent buuut my excuse is that it’s my birthday so here it goes... i'm writing the last half of this with a hangover and a bad case of dysmenorrhea... sucks 2 be me

Oikawa Teru (及川輝)

his name “輝“ means “bright”, and this boi lives up to it because, let’s face it, he’s gonna be like his dad. he embodies this “brightness”, in a way that he’s smart, and he makes sure he and his team’s (or whichever team he’s going to be in) will shine on the court

wavy/curly hair and a victim of my and his dad’s astigmatism. always has this cheeky smile, and he gets my brimming energy so he’s really approachable and charming

very good with words; it’s like he always knows what to say

when he plays he also wears contact lenses

but don’t be fooled. in their generation, it’s him who has to put iwaizumi’s son in check. he knows everything about his teammates too, he knows more than what he lets on (which sometimes, they find creepy, but they all know he means well)

anyway, unlike his dad, he doesn’t really mind having geniuses around. instead, he watches them very closely; something like “mutualism”. he knows what he lacks and he knows he can learn from them too, vice versa.

is into horror games. in his free time, he and his sister take turns playing. and they decide it by seeing who can last the longest without flinching/screaming. he’s annoyed because his sister’s better at it

has fans, ngl. i mean look at him. however, the female fans especially, are pretty on guard. he’s approachable, but anytime they see him with his sister... they back out. he doesn’t mind, he loves his sister and it actually amuses him. he’s the same when it comes to the boys who hang around her too!

basically protective siblings who are always there for eo

is very neat. can’t concentrate when something is out of place. he keeps his nails short, has a somewhat flowery scent. yes, he uses female perfumes because he despises strong smells.

bug-catching was his childhood hobby just like mine’s was. used to sneak beetles in iwaizumi’s son’s backpack back then

he will never admit it but he actually asks his sister for fashion tips because his taste sucks ass so bad

basically his major problem or issue in life is getting compared to his father (he’s also a setter). he hates that so much, being hidden in the shadow of his dad, and when people just recognize him for being oikawa tooru’s son.

something he and ushijima’s child relate to so strongly. they’re friendly rivals; might end up being teammates in their career hmm

so when he’s the one stressed, he skips practice for a day just so he could recollect his thoughts. usually stays in the library to read books he picked up based on the titles; might either open up to iwa or his sister later on, it depends. then when he’s okay, he doubles the amount of training

Oikawa Rie (及川麗恵) it’s /ri-ye/ oki

so the kanjis are: "麗" meaning, beautiful and "恵" is blessed. tooru thought of this name obviously

also has curly hair like mine. has that tiny mole below her eye just like i do. actually has lots of moles over her body; one time she fell asleep on the couch her brother drew connecting lines between the moles on her arm and called them constellations. it was nice she thought but still, the next day, teru had to wear a band-aid over his nose bridge.

she’s just a year younger. is less “vibrant” than her brother, a bit more serious. has a resting bitch face and she’s not even sorry about it and i love her for that

she’s actually relieved she looks like that, or else she knows the girls in her class would flock to her just to get in her brother’s pants. usually brushes them off with “ask him, not me” or “do you think that’s any of my concern?”

her tongue her words damn never get to this baby girl’s bad side she’s gonna burn you alive. like fr when she’s angry, oh she’s gonna show you that she’s angry. but tbh she's very sweet, leaves little notes or little gifts to her friends every now and then

she just doesn’t want her brother’s heart to be broken (she’s heard stories from her mom about her dad’s many hs exes), and she knows teru’s struggles

therefore

doesn’t really like volleyball that much. it’s because she didn’t get to grow up with her dad around, she felt like it separated her from him. she’s not mad at him though. she’s very supportive of him and her brother.

used to play vb though when they were kids. but that’s all it was for her

she’s the team’s honorary manager lol the occasional “i brought you guys sumn” or “something-kun, a girl from my class says she likes you so do your best” etc

the team’s lil sister how bout that

despite being tolerant of horror games, this girl is vvvv squeamish. she cries at the sight of internal organs or blood. biology lab was the worst time of her life

when she dug up my hs videos she was shook to discover i once did theater. and thus begins her interest in theater too

and??? baby girl is actually???? really really good????

the girls she used to shut down nicknamed her “prima”, short for “prima donna” she hates it. hates it more when her closest theater buddy was the one who spread that around

immediately went to the gym to spike some balls from her brother. baby girl was crying because she was just so pissed.

she was given ice cream and sweets afterwards. ugh it’s so cute idk she’s baby to the team skksksk they protecc

in that upcoming play, her first ever performance, the whole team got front row seats and howled when she came on during curtain call; it was vvv sweet and memorable even if the guys were kinda reprimanded afterwards lmao

which is why, in return, boiis also have a hard time approaching her because damn??? the vb team as your knights???? excuse me???

oh have i mentioned she has a sweet tooth? mygod. she has a stash of sweets in her room. teru has had to sneak some away because she might get tooth aches or diabetes

her pastel nail polish is arranged by shade, her body clock is fucked up lmao she hates the mornings; has succulents by her window which she names after various characters from books/plays etc she’s for sure gonna be a theater actress tho

asks help from iwa’s son for math. even her brother’s 0% help. teru is smart but a terrible teacher. she’s an above-average student and that’s all that matters for her. she can leave the spotlight to her brother because she only craves one type of spotlight

Miya Seiichi (宮聖一) and Miya Seiji (宮聖二)

their names literally mean “聖” sacred then “一” is one, and “二” is two

atsumu thought it was funny. when they were kids, seiichi’s nickname was “juan” and seiji’s was “tutu” (i gave them the nicknames)

when the twins discovered the meaning behind the nicknames, they hated it. especially seiji, he despises it vvv much

so when they were hs, seiichi = chi, seiji = ji for the people they're close with

as we can see here, the twins unfortunately got my curls. seiichi likes his hair as is. he doesn’t like the thought of dyeing his hair just to be differentiated from his twin. in fact he enjoys twin jokes, enjoys tripping people up about it. seiji on the other hand, grew tired of his brother’s jokes and by the time hs started, he sacrifices his soft hair.

between the two, seiji is the one who has my ugly eyesight. add to the fact that he reads a lot (once he starts he can’t put it down. so he reads in the dark, in a moving car etc)

the piercings was a thing that happened between them, and their cousins (which were also twins wtf)–it was a 2v2 vb thing and they lost

surprisingly, the cousins weren't pleased bc atsumu didn't scold them for getting piercings (but for playing half-heartedly). seiichi wanted the piercings tho tbh it was the perfect excuse. ngl, seiji also wanted them.

first let's talk abt seiichi, aside from the fact he also got my mole (he feels it makes him look cuter tho)

seiichi's into vb, but not a setter. he's the ace. may or may not push through with it as a career. he hasn't decided yet. is actually a bit sad that seiji didn't join the vb club in hs, he wanted them to be like his dad and uncle.

seiichi doesn't have any uh, quirks like shutting the whole cheer squad up like his dad does. but he usually dribbles the ball five times before any serve (this is something i did before) and he likes the 'ooooh hey' thing the crowd does when he goes for a serve

his side of the room doesn't have much stuff going on except workout equipment. he follows what exercise plan i give him as da PT mom that i am, and he is very strict with his diet and with what he eats–he's close to not needing a calorie counter anymore; but not a picky eater. he loves his uncle's cooking very much and he is jealous he can't cook even if he tries

he can do beatboxing, he learned it through youtube lmao his spotify playlists are da bombest; he learns a lot in youtube tho in his free time. his current interest is magic tricks and french (he thinks he can use it to woo that girl from class 4)

he hates insects, and hates mess. he has had to scold his twin about it that it escalated to them having this imaginary line in the middle of the room

anyway, he's straightforward. but not rude. he just doesn't like any pretenses so he says what he thinks or feels is right. may or may not have led to some misunderstandings, but he owns up to his mistakes if he crossed a line

next, seiji

even if he looks like a nerd with his glasses tbh he is not he actually hates studying. you can love reading without having to love studying right? he's that dude

the only time that he regrets dyeing his hair was when he realizes couldn't change identities so his brother could take his exam for him

his side of the room is littered with his sketches, notes from books, pencils everywhere – he drew a bunch of ants one time on a paper and made it look like they're real ass ants and placed it on seiichi's pillow

to solve this problem, atsumu has planned to give him a tablet for his next birthday

quits vb in hs because he kinda lost interest? he still finds it fun but he doesn't wanna be put under the pressure that his dad and uncle left for them lmao

he's in art clubs tho

he designs banners/posters for the team anyway. they use his strategic mind from the shit he's read for any plays and stuff so when he's not drawing, he's thinking

he might look like he has no emotions, but tbh he is more emotional and empathetic than his brother. he cries easily over the simplest things, like those grandparents vids, or rescuing animals and stuff

and thats why he doesn't let people in too much bc he knows he'll be hurt (dw seiichi knows this vvv well, and even if they do have arguments, he loves his lil bro and helps him about this)

has once begged to have a cat at home–seiichi didn't want bc he knows his twin is gonna leave him for clean up lmao

he can cook period.

he's gonna either be an architect or an animator, still hasn't decided.

his music taste sucks lmao. his youtube recents are filled with cooking stuff; in constant conversation with his uncle abt cooking lol it be cute sometimes atsumu is jealous bc he feels his son is closer to his brother than with him

he is forgetful that's why his stuff is messy lol he keeps misplacing stuff, sometimes it's literally in front of him and he's just 'where????'

but remembers dates well, remembers plays well. he's good at nitpicking tiny nearly insignificant details. just anything outside studying? he's good. dw he passes his classes but he hates giving effort for that shit lololol

#haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #saleeta

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mxliv-oftheendless · 5 years ago

Text

The Bridge of the Demonic Goatman (Part 1)

I thought of this a while back (specifically in the form of a hilarious mental image), and decided, “What the hell? I’m gonna write this.” It’s basically me combining two things I’m currently trash for (KISS and Buzzfeed Unsolved) into an AU, where my target audience is... well, me. On a side note, if you haven’t watched Buzzfeed Unsolved, I would definitely recommend it! It’s a great show, and they do episodes on true crime as well as supernatural cases. Here’s the link to the original episode if you want to watch it. Hope you enjoy!

Due to the sheer length of this story (it’s twenty fucking pages in the Word document), I’m going to have to post this in two parts. This is Part 1. Part 2 will go up tomorrow because it’s 11:30 PM rn and I’m too fucking tired to deal with this crap anymore.

Basic AU summary: It’s Buzzfeed Unsolved, but hosted by Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Vinnie Vincent. Gene is the believer of the supernatural, Paul is the skeptic, and Vinnie is the neutral third party (although he does like to join Paul in messing with Gene when they’re on a ghost hunt).

Commentary text:

Paul

Gene

Vinnie (apparently Tumblr doesn’t offer yellow as a color)

Something said in unison (who says it will also be in parentheses)

----

[cold open: camera is in the backseat of a car between the driver and passenger seats, looking through the windshield at the twilight sky. GENE is driving while PAUL is in the passenger seat. Soft haunting piano music plays over the footage]

PAUL: Almost there, Gene… you nervous?

GENE: I’ll probably be more nervous when we get there. How about you?

PAUL: [gestures out at the sunset] How can I be nervous with a sunset like that?

VINNIE: Ah, but remember, Paul. [camera cuts to VINNIE, who is sitting in the backseat] Eventually, the sun will be gone from the sky, leaving us in the foreboding dark of night. Then you’ll be nervous.

PAUL: [turns to look at Vinnie] How poetic.

VINNIE: Thank you.

PAUL: What about you, are you nervous?

VINNIE: Uh… [shrugs] kinda. I mean, we’re potentially going to see a demon.

PAUL: Potentially.

GENE: Don’t worry, Vin. I’ll protect ya.

VINNIE: You say that now, and yet if we actually see it, you’ll probably be cowering behind me and reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

GENE: How can I do that when you’re such a midget?

[Paul laughs. Vinnie leans forward and smacks Gene’s arm.]

[Smash cut: it is now nighttime. Gene, Paul, and Vinnie are now walking through a forest, the only light being from the flashlights coming from the night-vision cameras they are holding. Camera focuses on an old-looking wooden bridge with newer-looking red metal ledges. Gene shines his flashlight on a nearby sign that has text and the Texas state government symbol. The title reads OLD ALTON BRIDGE.]

GENE: Well, here it is. The bridge.

[Cut: Gene, Paul, and Vinnie are now standing at the foot of the bridge.]

GENE: Ready?

PAUL: Yep.

VINNIE: Yep.

GENE: … Paul, you go first.

PAUL: [scoffs at Gene and steps up onto the bridge] Okay.

VINNIE: [steps up onto the bridge and turns to Gene expectantly] C’mon, Gene.

GENE: [sighs then mumbles] God dammit… [slowly steps up onto the bridge]

VINNIE: [grinning at him] See, that wasn’t so hard.

GENE: Shut up, Vinnie.

[camera follows the three as they walk across the bridge, swinging their camera flashlights around. It is so dark that the only parts we can see of the bridge are what shows up in the beams of the flashlights; the rest can only be vaguely made out. Haunting music continues]

PAUL: I’ll be honest, I was kind of expecting something more… I dunno, intimidating, I guess? But no, this seems like a pretty standard bridge. [jumps up and down on it] Sturdy, too.

VINNIE: It’s a little scary, I guess. Though, the fact that we’re here when it’s nighttime probably has a factor in that. In the day time, this probably wouldn’t be scary at all.

[they reach the middle of the bridge]

GENE: Well, now that we’re on the bridge, I guess I should tell you why this bridge is so notorious.

[Vinnie nods]

PAUL: Okay. Enlighten us, Gene.

[haunting music stops. Gene stares at Paul, who looks calmly back at him]

GENE: Can you even look a little bit worried? Or just… you know what, never mind.

[Intro sequence, then title card]

[Gene, Paul, and Vinnie are now sitting on the foot of the bridge. From left to right: Gene, Vinnie, Paul]

VINNIE: This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we investigate Old Alton Bridge, aka the Goatman’s Bridge, as part of our ongoing investigation into the question, “Are ghosts real?”

GENE: [nods at the camera]

PAUL: [shakes his head at the camera]

VINNIE: [shrugs at the camera] Well, we may find out tonight. Gene?

GENE: Although that is our overall question, this bridge and the woods surrounding it are said to harbor something much more sinister than ghosts.

PAUL: [sounding maybe too light given the context] Demons!

GENE: [rolls his eyes but nods] Yeah, demons. As we’ve stated before, I will only consent to one demon episode per season, and this is that episode.

PAUL: You look pretty nervous. [looks to the camera and points at Gene] I dunno if you guys can tell, but Gene is looking pretty nervous right now. He’s just good enough of an actor that only Vinnie and I can tell.

VINNIE: I think we’re all a little nervous, to be fair. Just sitting on the foot of the bridge is making me feel slightly nervous. [pause in which he looks over at Gene and laughs] You’ve got kind of a glazed look, Genie.

GENE: I just—okay, I am getting kind of nervous. Let’s just get this over with.

PAUL: All right. Let’s get to the background stuff so we can dive right into the summoning part and see if any of us get possessed and/or murdered.

[Gene and Vinnie stare at him]

GENE: … Please don’t put it like that, Paul.

[Paul laughs]

[screen cuts away from the three to a black background with the shape of the state of Texas in white. Text and images appear on screen as Gene’s voice narrates]

GENE [voiceover]: In 1884, Old Alton Bridge was built in Denton, Texas, to connect the town of Alton to Denton. Alton was an extremely small town that consisted of only one person when it was established in 1848.

Wait, there was only one person in the entire town?

Yep.

Seriously? One person? And that was enough for it to be a town?

Yeah. One person.

*wheeze* Ha ha, that’s great.

Also, isn’t Denton the town from Rocky Horror Picture Show? The one Brad and Janet are from?

Oh yeah, it is! Oh my God, what if we did the Time Warp on the bridge?

Oh hell yeah, let’s do that!

*sigh* Dammit.

(Paul and Vinnie) Janet!

It was chosen as the legal center of Denton County. After the county seat was moved to Denton, residents of Alton moved to other towns, and Alton eventually disappeared. Today, the bridge is no longer permitted for vehicle use. But lucky for us, the bridge is available for pedestrian crossing.

*snorts* “Lucky for us”… the sarcasm.

You’re a master of sarcasm, Genie.

[Paul, Gene, and Vinnie are standing by the parked car. The trunk is open, and Gene is rummaging through the contents of the trunk while Paul and Vinnie watch]

PAUL: I swear I’m not trying to scare you, Gene, but… I genuinely am getting a bad feeling about this place.

GENE: I am not listening to you, Paul.

PAUL: No, I’m actually serious this time! Vinnie, you can tell I’m serious, right?

VINNIE: I mean, I am getting kind of a bad feeling as well…

GENE: Don’t worry, guys. [straightens up] I came prepared tonight. [starts to unbuckle his belt]

VINNIE: I’m flattered, Genie, but I thought we were hunting down a demon. Plus, Paulie’s with us. And what would Shannon think?

GENE: [stops and stares at him in confusion] What would she think about… [he slowly realizes what Vinnie means] No! Not like that, Vinnie!

[Paul laughs. Vinnie smirks at Gene]

GENE: Both of you shut up, that’s not what I meant at all! I mean I brought protection!

VINNIE: [grinning] Oh, well at least we won’t have to worry about that. I still think the setting is rather inappropriate, though.

[Paul continues to laugh]

GENE: I mean—I didn’t—shut the fuck up! This is what I’m talking about!

[Gene holds up a leather holster. In the holster is a squirt gun made of blue plastic]

PAUL: [stares at it, then bursts out laughing again] What the hell, Gene?

VINNIE: [trying not to laugh] Gene… why do you have a squirt gun?

GENE: [talking as he attaches the holster to his belt] It’s filled with holy water. I thought of it yesterday. It started out as a joke, but then I thought about it, and it’s actually a pretty good idea.

PAUL: [still laughing] You’re going to protect yourself against a dangerous demon… with a squirt gun filled with holy water?

GENE: Laugh all you want, Paul, but at least I’ll be safe from any demon that tries to sneak up on us. Just think, our backs will be turned, the demon’s sneaking up on us… [acts out this scene] I’ll just go, “Hey, guys, look at these bushes—[whirls around and whips out his squirt gun] freeze, demon!”

VINNIE: Smart.

GENE: I know, right?

GENE [voiceover]: Obviously, we didn’t travel all the way down to Texas to observe just a plain old bridge. What brings us to Old Alton Bridge is the meaning of its nickname, “the Goatman’s Bridge.” There are many legends of bridges acting as gateways to another realm, and perhaps this bridge is one of those gateways. Old Alton Bridge and the surrounding woods are said to harbor a dark entity: a demon, that is half-goat and half-man. The Goatman is said to have, quote, “glowing empty eyes” and goat-like horns. The reason for this entity’s existence is unknown, but has many iterations. One common story is that Satanists have carried out rituals on the bridge, that opened the door for this demon and perhaps many others.

There are actually records of people practicing rituals in the forest and on the bridge.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, so your kind of people.

My kind of—how am I a Satanist?

Because you believe in all the crap they believe in.

Yeah but—I don’t go around performing rituals to summon demons. I respect it, and stay away from it. That’s completely different.

Okay, you’re right about that. That’s fair.

You also go to the synagogue.

*snorts* Yeah, I also go to the synagogue.

GENE [voiceover]: Another popular story is that a successful African American goat farmer was lynched and hanged on the bridge by Klansmen, returning from the dead as the Goatman.

Fuckin’ assholes…

Do we know why they lynched him?

Yeah, because he was African American and he was doing better than them. That’s it. That’s why.

… Okay, fair enough.

Yeah, that’s fair.

GENE [voiceover]: If this story is true, then it would explain why the Goatman looks as it does, since once again, the African American was a goat farmer. However, there are no records of an African American goat farmer living or even existing in that area anywhere in the 1930s or in prior decades. Furthermore, if this story is true, then the Goatman would simply be the ghost of the goat farmer, instead of a demon like the Goatman has been claimed to be. Additionally, demons are preternatural beings, and therefore not human.

So you don’t think the Goatman’s the goat farmer.

Uh, no, I don’t. See, the thing is, if it was just the ghost of the goat farmer, then the Goatman would be just…

A man.

Yeah, just a man. There really wouldn’t be any reason for him to become some version of a Minotaur.

Yeah, that makes sense.

However, the fact that it’s half man and half goat makes it more likely that it’s a demon.

Plus, aren’t there medieval drawings showing Satan with goat legs?

Yeah, that too.

I just have to object to one thing you said. You said it was some version of a Minotaur.

And?

And that is a false statement. A Minotaur is half-man-half-BULL.

Oh—Oh, well excuse me—

Then it would be the BULLman.

—Mr. Greek Mythology Expert.

Paul, you don’t even think the GOATman is real, why are you so stuck on details?

I’m just trying to make sure everything that’s said is accurate.

You wouldn’t think it was real even if it WAS the Bullman.

That’s true. I wouldn’t think it’s the Bullman. I’d think it’s BullSHIT.

*laughter*

GENE [voiceover]: But tonight, our goal is not to find out why this demon exists. Tonight, our goal is to make contact and try to catch footage of this elusive and dangerous demon, as proof that it is real. We can only hope that this evidence does not come at a great cost…

[cut to Paul, Vinnie, and Gene walking on the bridge]

PAUL: Are there any demons here with us? Perhaps a demon formerly known as the Goatman?

VINNIE: Prince reference?

PAUL: Yeah, thanks for noticing.

GENE: Let your presence be known… say something… make a noise…

PAUL: Throw us off the bridge…

GENE: Shut up, Paul. [speaks aloud] Why are you on this bridge?

[silence]

GENE: One of you ask it something.

PAUL: Why are you on this bridge?

[Gene rolls his eyes at Paul while Vinnie snickers]

PAUL: [in a dramatic voice] Goatman! [still silence] Nothing’s happening.

VINNIE: Well, obviously.

PAUL: What if we try yelling at it?

GENE: What?

PAUL: I mean, what if we try and agitate it? To try and bring it out?

VINNIE: Like, egg it into showing itself?

PAUL: Yeah!

VINNIE: Yeah, that could work! Can I do it with you?

PAUL: Yeah, let’s do it. Gene—

GENE: I’m just gonna… gonna let you guys do it. I don’t wanna be part of what you guys are doing.

PAUL: Okay.

VINNIE: Yeah, you stay out of it, that way if anything happens to us you can call our families.

PAUL: You want to go first?

VINNIE: No, you go first.

PAUL: Okay… [a few beats of pause] Fuck you, Goatman!

GENE: Oh my God—

VINNIE: Oh, we’re just gonna go all-out? Okay, let me try. [shouts] Hey! Hey, Goatman! You’re no good, Goatman!

PAUL: You’ll never be shit!

VINNIE: You’re just like your father!

GENE: Oh for fuck’s sake—

PAUL: Goatman! [starts dancing in place] See that? I’m dancing on your bridge!

GENE: Paul!

VINNIE: [also starts dancing] We’re dancing on your bridge because we don’t believe in you! Fuck you, Goatman!

PAUL: This is our bridge now! We claim this bridge for ourselves!

GENE: Jesus Christ, we’re gonna die—

VINNIE: You want us off this bridge? You’re gonna have to kill us! Whatcha gonna do, throw us off the bridge?

GENE: He did throw someone off the bridge once.

PAUL: Nah, he’s not gonna throw us off the bridge, y’know why? [shouts] ‘Cause he’s a CHICKEN! [starts clucking like a chicken]

GENE: I swear to God, both of you…

VINNIE: Paulie, c’mere. [they start doing a tango] See that, Goatman? We’re dancing on your bridge!

PAUL: We disrespect your bridge, Goatman!

GENE: Oh, for Christ’s sake—he’s taking names right now, you two.

PAUL: You ain’t shit, Goatman! We own your bridge now!

VINNIE: You hear that, Goatman?

PAUL: Me, Vinnie Vincent, and Gene Simmons own your bridge!

GENE: Paul, don’t you dare loop me into your shit. Stop it.

PAUL: Well, tell him you’re not part of it!

GENE: [speaks aloud] I’m not part of this! Okay? They’re just being assholes.

PAUL: You’re talking to Goatman now. [Paul and Vinnie grin at him]

GENE: … You son of a bitch—

VINNIE: Goatman entrapment, Genie, you’ve been caught. [high-fives Paul] Goatman!

GENE: Guys, stop it.

PAUL: This is our bridge now, Goatman! [Paul and Vinnie continue dancing and jumping up and down on the bridge]

GENE: I swear to God, you two—

VINNIE: They’re gonna write OUR names in graffiti!

GENE: If something appears and kills you, I’m not giving your eulogies.

PAUL: People will come here and tell tales of US!

PAUL and VINNIE: What do ya say to that, Goatman?

[silence]

GENE: I hate you both.

GENE [voiceover]: People have reported a growling voice telling them to “get off the bridge.” One person said that after he and his friend heard the voice, he ran off the bridge while his friend stayed. He then watched as his friend was seemingly dragged off the bridge and thrown into the river below. People have also heard hooves following them across the bridge, as if they were being chased off. It’s often said that the Goatman can be conjured by knocking three times on the bridge.

[on the bridge, Gene goes up to one side of the bridge and hesitantly raises a fist]

GENE: All right. I’m gonna… knock three times on the bridge… and we’ll see what happens.

PAUL: What if the Goatman bites your hand off?

GENE: Paul—

PAUL: And then he stuffs it in your mouth and makes you eat it?

[Gene and Vinnie stare at him]

VINNIE: … What the fuck, Paul?

PAUL: What? He might do that. He’s a demon.

GENE: Fuck you, Paul. You’re making this worse.

PAUL: Fine, sorry.

GENE: [turns back to the side of the bridge] Okay… here we go…

[Gene knocks on the side of the bridge three times. They all stand back]

GENE: Now it’s said that when you do that, you can see his glowing eyes. [glances around]

PAUL: [laughing] What a load of horseshit…

VINNIE: Quiet, Paul.

[silence. Nothing happens]

GENE: Well, I’m not doing it again. Either of you want to?

VINNIE: [shrugs] I’ll do it. [goes up to the side and knocks three times. Steps back.]

[silence again. Nothing happens]

VINNIE: All right, Paul, now you do it.

[Paul goes up to the side and raises his fist. Then he stops and looks around in a theatrical way]

GENE: For fuck’s sake, Paul, just do it!

PAUL: [shrugs] Hey, Goatman! [knocks three times]

[silence again. All three look around. The camera passes over parts of the bridge]

PAUL: You know, if you want me off this bridge, you’re gonna have to throw me off.

[still silence. Nothing happens. There is a long stretch in which none of them move or speak]

GENE: Okay, we’re done with that. Let’s go into the woods.

VINNIE: We’re going into the woods?

GENE: Yep. Let’s go.

[they all turn and start to walk off the bridge. Paul turns around and looks out into the darkness]

PAUL: We’ll be back, Goatman. After all, this is our bridge now.

VINNIE: Yeah, remember that, Goatman.

GENE: Would you both shut up?

PAUL: That’s how you get them to come out, Gene.

GENE: That’s not how you get them to come out, that’s how you get them to kill you.

PAUL: Assuming you don’t kill me first, right?

GENE: Exactly.

To be continued in Part 2!

#kiss unsolved #kiss unsolved supernatural #that's what i'm calling this au #so just to recap their roles #gene is the believer #paul is the skeptic #vinnie is neutral #originally I was going to have heather as the third one instead of vinnie #but then I got to thinking and decided vinnie would be better #paul likes to troll gene #mostly because again he's the skeptic and doesn't believe all of that is real #gene is exasperated #and also in denial about being scared #but we all know he was scared the entire time #vinnie likes to join paul in trolling gene #lol I stg writing the 'dancing on the bridge' sequence was my favorite part #once again I definitely recommend watching the actual buzzfeed unsolved #ryan and shane are hilarious and they do a great job on their true crime episodes #if you think I should write another thing for this au then let me know!#though it probably won't be in the near future #the entire episode is in script style and it ended up being twenty pages in the word document #hope you enjoyed!#paul stanley #gene simmons #vinnie vincent #kiss au writing #my writing

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sultrysirens · 6 years ago

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Please just go off and rant about your OCs! I just love them all so much (even the ones that haven’t been introduced yet) and want to hear more about them!

I hope you’re prepared for what you’ve just unleashed~!!

JOCELYN was the start of this avalanche. When I first conjured her up, I had just a few points in mind: I wanted her to be colored (though I hadn’t decided yet what her ethnicity would actually be), I wanted her to be a ballerina, and I wanted her to not be drop-dead fucking gorgeous.

One of these things did not hold up. X’D

My original intent was to just make a short story -- 10 chapters or so -- in which she gets with Raphael and they bang. That was the literal long and short of it, which you can kind of see considering how rushed the first few chapters were.

I didn’t mean for them to get so into each other and fall in love. They did that entirely on their own. And, to be honest, it’s been an amazing experience; I’ve learned a great deal and feel like my creativity has gone through the roof.

Considering I’ve always been crazily creative anyway, that’s saying something.

Initially I picked Raph for this story because I thought (in my ignorance) that he would have the least amount of love and sex-related stories. Oh, how foolish I was, lol. But I was also thinking he would be the easiest to write just falling into bed with someone, and while that is something I commonly see, in my story he very much did not do that.

It was really weird. X’D

While I was writing The Dancer, I was also writing a then-untitled sister fic/epilogue (which I later titled The Dragon). It was quite a few years down the line, so I went ahead and conjured up some future scenes and events. Among them: Lisa.

This fic started in Mikey’s POV for a few reasons, one of them being that I really wanted to write something from his perspective. Lisa was introduced to my story this way, and I quickly took a liking to her and started development on her character. One of the things I did first was write pieces of the first chapter of The DJ, just to get the start’s setting down.

Then all I had to do was get The Dancer to a point where I could connect the two. At the time I was only around chapter 20, so...yeah, it took a while. XD

With Jocelyn, one of the key decisions I made was to make her very unlike Raphael -- she’s flirty, often relaxed, has an incredible love for ballet, has almost no family (just a mother; no dad, no siblings), and has such a crazy obsession over shoes that she literally picks out what shoes she wants to wear before picking her clothing for the day.

With Lisa, I went in the opposite direction: be just like Mikey. She has low intelligence and knows it, yet is brilliant in an unconventional way; her sense of humor is one of her biggest traits and she laughs to defuse situations and deal with problems; her genre is 100% hip hop in nearly all ways; and I made her athletic pretty much entirely so she’d be able to keep up with the master of movement, Mikey. (Say that five times, fast.)

It wasn’t until after I really got into writing Lisa that I noticed something interesting about my two fics: the couples both view each other in the same light.

Jocelyn and Raphael think one another is sexy and bad-ass.

Lisa and Mikey think one another is cool and cute.

This is, of course, not the rule -- Raph has thought Jo is super cute before, and Mikey finds Lisa sexy as hell, too -- but it is their primary mindsets. And it makes me wonder if my remaining two couples will have the same kind of viewpoints. I can’t say for sure yet because I haven’t gotten to the part in either story where they’re actually dating, but it’s fun to consider.

Then again, maybe for Leo and Donnie’s relationships they’ll have opposite viewpoints as their lovers do. It would definitely be an interesting twist.

Progress with The Dragon is going very slowly, which is understandable given I still have a lot of world-building in The DJ to do first, but I do very much love the story. In fact, so far if I were to rank my fics based on my own favorites, it would go Dancer > Dragon > DJ (I have literally nothing written on the final fic yet cause I still haven’t even finished designing the final girl, lol).

As much as I love Lisa (and I freaking do holy shit), I just don’t quite love her the best. This is actually kind of weird considering just how close to being a self-insert she is -- an unintentional self-insert, yes, but the parallels are definitely there.

For example, Lisa is a white girl of mixed white heritage (like me) with a particular pair of beauty marks on her face (same as me, just in different places), she has brunette hair (like me) and blue eyes (mine are actually green, but my parents’ and brother’s eyes are blue and I’ve always been jealous of that), she’s a huge gamer (just like me; she’s just better at competitive games), she dislikes swearing (I swear a lot now, but at her age I was much more sensitive about it), she has an older brother (I technically have two, but one’s very distant and the other was always close), she has a distaste for meat (I’m not vegetarian but as a whole I dislike meat) and some serious compassion for life (same), she loves piercings (I’d have more but I’m seriously forgetful), and she has incredible ears for music (can name almost any song within seconds -- just like me).

Oh yeah, and she’s a Mikey girl. ♥

And more pointedly, I named her mother after my sister (deceased) and her grandparents after my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother.

I named Jocelyn based on the character of the same name from A Knight’s Tale (it just occurred to me that they have the same tits lmfao); after seeing the movie I kind of became enraptured with this character and her smart tongue and haughty attitude and incredible elegance -- not to mention I freaking loved her name.

Lisa, by comparison, I named based on one thing: the Mona Lisa. Yeah, that’s right, y’all -- I named her after a famous painting by an Italian Renaissance painter. Hurr hurr. XP But though I never mentioned this, Lisa’s mother, Brandy, cites that she named her ‘Lisa’ based on The Simpsons, as Lisa was Brandy’s favorite character.

This cute, incredibly good-hearted and brilliant young girl? Yeah, Brandy loves that character and was hoping Lisa would take after her.

Hmmm, what else...

Well, I had a completely different story set up for Cecilia at first. I’m honestly really glad things didn’t go the way I’d planned, and here’s why: Cecilia was supposed to catch a glimpse of Jo and Raph having sex one day (before meeting him) and go kind of nutso.

You see, at first she claimed diabetes but was not diabetic -- she was doing cocaine, and saying she had diabetes was her explanation for when Jo would catch her shooting up. And with the cocaine in her system, Cecilia’s mind went right to demons and witchcraft.

Terrified for her daughter’s immortal soul, the original plan was for Cecilia to attempt to burn them both to death. To everyone’s surprise, however, Jocelyn didn’t burn -- only Cecilia.

This was the original way Jo discovered she’d been taking on Raph’s mutagen. It’d made her fireproof.

As you can see, I’m super glad I didn’t stick to that, lol.

As for Lisa, me making her a cutter was a spur-of-the-moment decision during that scene where she examines her reflection in her undies. The boob thing, though? That was planned from day one -- because I wanted her to very much be Jo’s opposite, and this included general color palette, skills, likes, personality, and body type.

Jo: tall and willowy, grace incarnate, dark skin and blonde hair, super thick lips, generally thin but with a killer ass, rounded face, freckled, minimal piercings, crazy flirty and confident to no end.

Lisa: barely taller than average, kind of stocky and curvy, shapely lips, wide hips and heavy tits, shapely lips and face, zero freckles, tons of piercings, jittery and mousy but also immature and raucous.

By comparison, so far Mei and Pinky are just people. (Note: Mei’s faceclaim so far is Lucy Lui, but Pinky doesn’t have one just yet.) Mei’s also skinny, but that’s cause she’s 100% Chinese and as far as I can tell that’s just how they are. I’ve done a lot of googling and pretty much all young people I’ve found that way are, in a word, skinny. X’D

I’m leaning towards Pinky being the shortest of the girls, maybe in the 5′1″-5′3″ range, but I’m worried about making her too short. The concept is still very much up in the air, lol. This is also the character I once said I was considering being half Puerto Rican, and while I still like that I’m not sure it’ll stick. It might be more fun to make her like Indian or something.

We’ll see. (I’m very much open to suggestion about her, btw, if anyone has any thoughts...and I know it’s not much to go on yet but there’s a reason for that.)

And then there’s Cassie. My redheaded best friend of my best girl, Jo. I really don’t have much to say about her; I introduced her almost entirely to expand the world a bit and give Jocelyn more ties -- a girl like her would damn well have ties, y’know.

I don’t know what it is, but I have a really hard time writing her. She feels very bland, and while that was kind of the intent, it makes it really hard to get a feel for her. Only a few things remain strong when it comes to her: she’s kinda weirded out by the turtles, she supports Jocelyn completely, and she’s just as much of a ballet-enthusiast.

These girls have been friends for almost their literal entire lives. And I think part of the reason why I wrote them like this was out of jealousy -- I’ve never had that kind of a friendship. The oldest friend I can recall was Jenny, when I was five, and she was a BITCH.

I only have two memories of her anymore: 1, she used to invent games for us to play then change the rules on a dime so she’d always be the winner, and 2, I once tried to leave her home and she slammed the door on my fingers.

I sincerely hope she grew out of that, man.

Suffice to say we were not friends for very long. And since then I’ve seen a constant pattern: I can’t keep friends for longer than a few years, and not because I don’t want to.

Because something always happens. They move, I move, someone’s interests shift, we lose contact, a misunderstanding occurs, etc.

I wanted Jocelyn to have something better than a constantly-shifting sea of semi-friends. I wanted her to have best friends, and then THE best friend -- the one who will remain her best friend for the entirety of her life. The one who was there through all the biggest troubles and best celebrations, the one who will be there for all of the troubles and celebrations to come, and the one who knows her better than anyone else ever has (at least until a certain mutant comes into her life).

Lisa, on the other hand, is...me.

Her friendships flagged, drifted, dissolved, changed, and so on. The only constants in her life have been her family. And even then a good portion of her family has never been there, a fact that hurts her whenever she pauses to think about it.

She hurts, she yearns, and there are times she feels completely alone, even in a full room. She’s constantly scared no one understands her or cares about her, and she gets through this by laughing -- at others, at herself, at that one missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes it kind of look like a penis, and so on.

Lisa has always had the support of her family while needing true understanding and affection. Jo has always had affection and the understanding of her closest friend while needing support.

It’s amazing to think about. And while there’s a lot here that I never put into my fics, these are threads and pieces of my characters that have either always been there in the background or have developed as I wrote them. Maybe I never said Lisa was terrified of being alone, but it was in my mind every time I wrote her.

And I just want to take this moment to thank Anon for giving me this opportunity; I’ve always wanted to rant about my girls but never thought anyone would care, so what was the point, y’know?

Thank you, babe. ;)

#sfw #the dancer #the dj #the dragon #characters #oc #original #lisa #jocelyn #mei #pinky #long #super long #long long long post #rant #character development #Anonymous #siren nightshade #ask

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bugheadjones-the-third · 7 years ago

Text

Title: The Return of the Serpent Prince . Summary: Jughead Jones is back in Riverdale High, and seeing all those guys around Betty leaves him extremely uncomfortable. He knew it was none of his business anymore, but—Why the hell were they flirting with her? [ Note: In this story, neither of them kissed other people. I don’t feel like adding to this drama with this one-shot, so… Don’t worry about that.] . A/N: Initially, this was something that I felt like I had to get out of my head, but I guess it turned out longer than just a small idea… Nonetheless, I’m quite happy with the result, and I think you guys will have a good time while reading this one! Have fun, and please, tell me what you think! . . . That guy was certainly an asshole.

Jughead didn’t even know him, but he was already listed as an asshole amongst some other dudes that had dared to do the same asshole-ish thing about 30 minutes before. That guy— a tall, blond jock, whose name didn’t matter for the history of Riverdale, therefore would be called The-Third-Period-Asshole— was leaning against the locker just across the hall, with a silly smile plastered on his face. He had his right arm lifted in order to show off his muscles, and apart from all the things that made him worthy of hanging with the likes of Reggie Mantle, that asshole was openly flirting with Betty.

All those flirty smiles, fake giggles and the whole showing off was all an attempt on getting the girl’s attention, and if he didn’t know her better, Jughead would say she was even falling for that.

Betty was smiling back. She was giving that guy one of her polite, Alice-Cooper smiles, and even if Jughead couldn’t actually hear their conversation, he could tell she wasn’t really interested in that guy or in any of the others who had approached her that day. They had all tried many kinds of approaches, and apart from the lack of creativity, he was really impressed by the number of guys that had come to her even before the 4th period.

Was there some kind of bet among those idiots? Or perhaps had she started some kind of study group again? He certainly didn’t know, but to say he was happy would be a serious misjudgment.

Jughead knew they weren’t together anymore, and logically, he also knew he didn’t have the right to be bothered by any of those guys, but that whole thing was a lot easier said than done.

He didn’t break up with her because he wanted to, after all. He broke up with her so she would be safe from him and from that emblem on the back of his leather jacket. He forced himself to walk away from her on that dirty parking lot, and from that day on, his heart feels heavier than ever. And now, as he watched The-Third-Period-Asshole hitting on her, a mix of anger, impatience and hunger started to take over his body.

Jughead had to do something. He had to calm himself down, and he had to find out why the hell those guys were gathering around her like flies around a piece of rotten meat.

Betty Cooper is certainly not rotten meat. She’s the finest piece of filet mignon of the market, and if not for the sight of Kevin Keller walking in front of him, the Jones boy would’ve definitely walked over to the girl to compliment her in meaty ways.

“ Kevin!” He called, lifting his hand up as to make himself seen. His sweet friend turned his eyes towards Jughead, and he looked quite surprised to actually be called by the raven haired boy. “ Can you come here? I kinda need to ask you something…”

The Sheriff’s son still had a confused expression across his face, but walked over to where Jughead was standing, nonetheless. The Jones boy was leaning against the gray lockers, his arms crossed over his chest and a pout plastered on his lips. The Keller kid couldn’t help but notice a certain uneasiness in his broody friend, as blue eyes constantly drifted to glare at something— or rather, someone, as he eventually discovered— while they both stood together on the hallway, and at that moment, the brown haired boy knew even his father could tell where that talk would take them.

Jughead was jealous. And— oh, that was reverting.

“ Well, it’s not like such a commoner like me can say no to the young serpents’ leader, right?” Kevin said, shifting his position as to lean his weight over his right leg. He was holding his books against his hips, and his lips were pressed into a thin like before he resumed talking. “ How can I help you, Jughead?”

“ You see… You’re Betty’s best friend, so you should probably know…” Jughead started, bitting his lip as to try to hold back the annoyance in his voice. “ Why are all those guys around Betty? Is she somehow helping them study or something?”

Kevin’s expression remained blank for a while, as he simply studied the Jones’ face. His brows frowned, and soon, he was offering Jughead one of his famous, judging— yet sweet— stares. “ Helping them study? Are you serious?”

“ Well, I don’t know…” He shrugged, a pout still on his lips. “ That could be the only explanation why they’re all after her, right?”

“ Oh my god… Straight guys are so obnoxious.”

“ Knock it off, Keller! Did she join any group or something like that to explain all those douches?”

“ Oh, she definitely joined the Single Students group."

“ Excuse me?”

“ Oh, come on, Jughead. You can’t seriously believe there are guys around Betty only when they need help with their studies.”

“ If not that, then why are they—“

“ Because she’s hot, Jughead!” The Serpent’s lips parted in awe at the way Kevin voiced those words, and suddenly, was as if something hit him really hard in the stomach. " You better than anyone should know that. She’s hot, and mostly, she’s available!”

His blue eyes widened, and Jughead could feel his heart beating faster in a feeling he couldn’t quite explain. For the first time in years, Jughead was left speechless, as nothing came up in his mind for him to contradict his friend. He was shocked, and mostly, he didn’t like hearing his own thoughts being said by someone else in such a straight way.

Apparently, Kevin really is his father’s son.

“ I-I still… I don’t…”

“ Oh, lord, I didn’t pick you for a guy of looks instead of brains, Jones.” Kevin sighed, massaging his temples. After taking a deep breath, he calmed down and decided to go easier on Jughead. It was not like his life was allowing him to ratiocinate lately. “ Look, I’m sorry for saying it like that. I know you guys have been going through a lot lately, so let me try to rephrase it all.” He scratched the back of his head, as he watched Jughead’s face getting sadder at the sound of the blonde’s laughter. “ You see… Even if she’s not aware of it, Betty is the most beautiful girl of this school. She’s smart, she’s sweet and she’s gorgeous with those green, baby-doll eyes of hers. Every boy in school would’ve died to have a chance with her, but she never paid any attention to them. Not when she still believed in that whole Archie thing and— well… Not when she had you.”

Jughead nodded at Kevin, finally following his words. He didn’t like to hear that last part as a past sentence, for, regardless of anything, Betty still has him. She always will. The writer placed his hands inside his pockets, and waited for his friend to continue. “ You guys got together, then, and people respected that. I mean, you guys were Bughead, aka the cutest couple of Riverdale. Always sleuthing together, solving Jason’s murder and being there for each other. It was really sweet, and everyone respected that enough to leave her alone, even if you have always been a loser— no offense.” He said, apologetic, to which Jughead simply shrugged. It was the truth, after all.

“ None taken…”

“ Good, uh… Well, and then everything happened and you moved to the South Side. The douches of this school even thought about bugging her, at first, but then you became a Serpent and they were all kinda afraid of you and your new, dangerous friends.”

“ And why aren’t they afraid anymore? I’m still a Serpent and I’m closer than ever now that the schools have merged. Following your logic, shouldn’t they leave her alone?”

“ Well, they should if you guys were still… You know, together. After the rumors that you broke up with her because of that pink haired chick, they all figured it would be safe to go after our beloved, girl next door.”

“ What!? Toni was not the reason why we broke up! That’s ridiculous!”

“ Well, I know that. You know it, too, and so does Betty, but they don’t. They should, because, you know, you’re not Archie, and you wouldn’t be that much of an idiot to choose that disrespectful girl with weird hair and—“

“ Kevin. Focus.”

“ Oh, sorry… It’s just that she insulted THE ponytail. Still, my point is: You guys are not a couple anymore. And even if I totally shipped Bughead and got pretty sad when Betty told me what happened, I’m glad she’s receiving all this attention now.”

“ What the hell, Keller?!” Jughead placed his hands on his hips, clearly feeling all that anger boiling up inside him. He suddenly started to get mad at Kevin for his words, and he knew there was no logic behind his reaction. Still, it was not like he could hold it back. “ You know all these guys are douches! She’s so much better than all of them!”

“Oh, I know… Betty is a lot better than all of us, but… I like the idea of my best friend feeling appreciated and wanted. She looked like shit when you guys broke up, and as a friend with protective instincts, I can’t not be happy to see her better. So, as her friend, unless you’re willing to solve things and make her happy again, Jones, I won’t let you hurt her anymore. Nothing personal.”

The confidence and firmness on Kevin’s voice shook something inside Jughead, and suddenly, the amicable atmosphere around them became serious and the tension was so thick that it could be cut with a knife. The Sheriff’s son was definitely showing how intimidating he could be in front of the serpent’s prince, and the way he didn’t even flinch when standing up to Betty was certainly admirable.

Kevin has always been a god friend to Betty. They’ve always been together, and if there was one opinion that mattered to Jughead at that moment, it was certainly that boy’s. He only wanted the best for Betty— they both did— but unlike Jughead, Kevin certainly had a clearer vision of things.

Even if it kinda sucked to have heard his words, better than anyone, the raven haired writer knew he had no right to ruin her happiness after what he did to her. He wanted her to be happy— Damn it, he wanted to be the one to make her happy, but perhaps, that was not up to him anymore.

Perhaps, it was now up to The-Third-Period-Asshole.

“ Okay! I’ll see you later, Betsy!”

Tch, as if.

How could that asshole not know that she hates being called Betsy? It reminds her of a cow’s name, and there was no way a guy like that would be able to make her smile. No, that guy could not be the one. Even the one from the 1st period was better with his weird, cuticles fetish.

Honestly, what was wrong with that school?

The bell finally rang and after muttering a ‘thank you’, Jughead let Kevin go to his class. A sigh escaped his lips, indicating he was certainly not excited about biology at that moment, and he finally turned to open his locker and grab his books. He span the combination, giving the locker a little bump in order to open, and took the green book that was lined next to his edition of Huckleberry Finn, which, for a moment, made him consider skipping classes so he could read a couple of chapters.

It would certainly help him calm down a little and help him think about what to do next.

A smirk crossed his face at the memory of Betty scolding him for hiding at his emergency closet under the stairs so he could avoid going to gym. She looked incredibly cute with that angry pout, and it was as if he could still hear the words she told him that day. She said something lik—

“ Jughead Jones, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

His eyes snapped in shock. He certainly had that memory fresh in his head, but he didn’t know her voice would sound so clear in his head, as if she was standing right next to him. He tried to ignore it, at first, but the sudden poke he felt on his shoulder told him that, apart from being inside his head, there was a very mad blonde standing right behind him.

Oh, well…

It certainly took him some seconds to turn, but when he did, his eyes didn’t miss the angry features of her face. Her green eyes were glaring at him, her hands were on her hips and even if he tried not to think of how beautiful she was, Jughead didn’t miss the scold she was holding in her throat. He certainly didn’t know what he did in order to bring such reaction on her, but he couldn’t help but think it wasn’t all that bad. “ Betts… Hey, what’s wrong?”

“ What’s wrong? Oh, don’t play dumb on me! You know exactly what you did.”

“ Okay… If you’re talking about that time I glued Archie to his seat in first grade, then, I guess you can be mad. Though I gotta say he was trying to steal one of my stickers!”

“ So it really was you!!”

“ I was just a kid!” He threw his hands up in defeat, as the small girl glared at him furiously.

“ And so was Archie! God, Jughead! Though I-I’m not talking about this!”

“ You aren’t? Then why are you mad at me this time?”

“ Why do you keep glaring at them?”

“ What?” His expression went blank, as he really had no idea of what she was talking about. He knows he tends to glare at a lot of people, but at that moment, she would have to be a bit more specific.

“ You’ve heard me! Look, you broke up with me, remember? That takes away your right to be jealous, therefore you can’t keep glaring at every single guy that comes talk to me!”

“ Jealous? I’m not jealous! And I’m not glaring at all of the guys that talk to you! I-I didn’t even know there were guys talking to you!”

“ Jug, you’ve glared at the janitor yesterday.”

“ That guy looked like a predator. This school has a historic with these people.”

“ He was asking me about the recycling, trash cans!”

“ Well… At least he’s a green guy.” He smirked, certainly not missing the chance of making one if his trademark comments.

“ Jughead!”

“ Okay! Okay… I can’t help it, okay? Logic tells me I shouldn’t be acting like that, but I just can’t stop it! It’s stronger than me, Betty… Stronger than us.”

“ Tch, you’re impossible, Jughead!” She let out a sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers. Her eyes were adverting his, and after trapping her lower lip in between her teeth, the Cooper girl finally allowed her anger to die from her face. She looked calmer, now. She looked like she was feeling nostalgic and even a little mad at herself for not being mad at all, and even if he wanted to hug her at that moment and say something that would make her laugh; Jughead held back. He couldn’t make things worse, after all. “ Look… You’re gonna set the school on fire if you keep glaring at them. They fear you and the Serpents, and it won’t tale long before Reggie and the others decide to start a fight. People will get hurt and you—“

Betty stopped herself. She bit the insides of her mouth to keep any embarrassing word to leave her throat. She wanted to continue that phrase. God— she wanted to finish so many other phrases around him, and tell him she worried about his safety in the same way he worried about hers, but she knew she couldn’t. Not that time, and certainly not until he made the first move to fix things between them.

There was no denying he still held her heart, and she never made that a secret between them. He knew she still loved him and she knew her feelings were reciprocated, yet, they needed more than just love to take the next step on their relationship. They needed to get back their mutual trust and perfect connection, and that wouldn't happen until he brought back that courage he seemed to have lost.

This time, it was going to be up to him.

And he would better be fast, for she was already getting tired to pretend to like all the attention from those guys on her feet. She didn’t know for how long she would be able to keep up with that act, especially not when she could clearly see him there, with those beautiful, blue eyes and that provocative jealousy she somehow became to find hot.

God, that weirdo was going to be the end of the perfect, girl next door.

“ Betty… I—“

“ Ms. Cooper, we’re waiting for you.” The firm, judging words that came from her math teacher were enough to bring both of them back to reality. The middle-aged teacher was looking at her from the entrance of his class, and by the look on his face, he was certainly not happy to see his best student talking to a Serpent. He was tapping his foot on the floor, and at that moment, Betty realized she could not escape her destiny.

She finally shook her head, taking a deep breath before turning to face her teacher. “ I’m sorry, sir. I’m on my way.” Her eyes turned to meet his one more time, and at that moment, something different lit inside both of the teens. It was as if their eyes could talk, and they were definitely provoking and forcing each other to step out of that stupid comfort zone they had both entered after the beginning of that civil war. She nodded at him and he nodded back, and soon, she was walking away towards the classroom. He watched her all the way, and was impressed when she suddenly turned to face him one more time before entering the class. Her glare was back, but that time, it felt warm and kind just like it used to when they were together.

“ And don’t you dare skipping class, Jughead! Your book can wait!”

And so, as the teacher closed the door behind her, he allowed his lips to turn up in a smirk. He was impressed by how she had managed to use the same words from before, and even if that brought him a warm nostalgia, Jughead knew he couldn’t simply ignore all that had happened during that break. From his own feelings while he watched her with another guy, to Kevin’s words and, especially, the way their eyes met in that silent talk; Jughead knew there was something new and important there that neither of them had dared to say.

Damn it— there were so many things they had yet to say to each other. So many things being repressed and ignored, and by two hearts that were so pure and young like theirs. It was too much for them to bare, and— fuck, they were both too tired of that.

Tired of acting like the adults their parents never were, and tired of sacrificing everything in order to keep the peace between two sides of a small town. They were tired of believing they would actually be safer if they were sadder.

Betty and Jughead were tired of keeping each other apart.

And at that moment, as he rescued his Huckleberry friend from his locker, Jughead Jones knew exactly what he was going to do.

Josh Summers was back. He had approached her the day before during the third period, and god— how she wanted him to shut up.

For the past 10 minutes he had been talking about all the different kinds of exercises to work his biceps, and all the times he called her ‘Betsy' made her feel like vomiting. She had already given up on paying attention to his words for a while now, choosing, instead, to smile and nod like a polite girl her mother once trained her to be. Her fingers were thumping against the cover of her history book, her ears were trying to find a different story on the hallway, and her eyes were desperately searching for him.

It had been over 24h since their intense conversation, and Betty was dying to spot that beanie in the middle of the sea of students that was now Riverdale High. She found herself looking for him the entire day, going to places she normally wouldn’t go, until she decided to simply wait for him to cross her path in the hallways of their lockers. When she got there, things were calm and silent around her, but it didn’t take long until Josh came around to ruin her peace.

Jocks, she thought.

How could she ever keep up a long conversation with a guy like that? The things he loves are the ones she despises, and she had lost count on how many grammar mistakes or slangs he had said so far.

There was no passion. There was no charm. God, there was no sarcasm in his words, and at that moment, she was begging for a literature reference to fill her ears like music.

One of the things she missed the most after their break up was definitely that intelligent way he handled the words. They would always be talking about important issues, their book discussions were thrilling and whenever he left her a note, she would spend hours admiring his lexical choices.

Jughead had certainly raised the bar too high in her life before he left, and she couldn’t help but hate him a little for that.

Fortunately, he was ready to come back and take the responsibilities over his actions.

“ So, Betsy, are you free this Friday night?”

“ Oh, Josh, I’m sorry, I—“

“ She’s kinda busy, man.” Jughead suddenly showed up from behind the girl, lazily resting his arm on her shoulder. There was a sly smirk on his face, and she couldn’t help but feel flustered when he winked at her.

Oh, that boy…

“ Excuse me?” Josh started, trying stand up for his ground. “ Who are you to answer for her, Jones?”

“ Well, I’m the guy who will be taking her out this Friday Night. Just for your information.”

“ Yeah, right…” Josh smirked, not believing the raven haired boy’s words. “ Betty is a good girl. She would never go out with a thug like you.”

“ Hey, Josh!” She started, her cheeks puffing in anger. “ He’s not a—“

“ It’s okay, Betts. He’s right. I’m a thug. I’m the future leader of the Serpents, and that certainly makes me a bad guy.”

“ Of course it does. You’re no good for her.”

“ You’re probably right about that.”

“Jug…” She whispered in concern as her eyes were looking for his.

“ I know I’m no good for her, but hey… It’s not like you’re not making any progress here, Ol’Mcdonald.”

A giggle escaped Betty’s lips, and Jughead couldn’t help but smile at that. They were both exchanging those secretive looks of theirs, and seeing how lost Josh was just made things a lot funnier at that moment.

When it comes to Betty Cooper, no one can beat Jughead Jones.

Especially not The-Third-Period-Asshole.

“What's so funny, Jones?”

“ Oh, don’t worry… It’s probably too much for your brain.”

“ You… You don’t know who you’re messing with, you freak. I can—“

“ You can what?” Jughead started, leaning forward to glare at the jock. His eyes suddenly turned colder and intimidating, and it was as if the entire hallway went mute. During those past few weeks, he had certainly learned a thing or two from the Serpents, and if anything, he was never going to let people intimidate him again. He was not afraid of that guy.

That guy was afraid of him.

“ I-I… I will—“

“ I can’t hear you, man… Try using simple words like 'I’m sorry’ or just ‘okay’. And keep your voice down. Serpents don’t like loud noises.”

A drop of sweat ran down the back of his neck, and Jughead didn’t know exactly what changed his mind, but after muttering a really low ‘okay’, Josh walked away without even saying goodbye to Betty. He figured others wearing leather jackets had showed up behind him, and that image only made him hold up that smirk he had plastered on his face as they simply watched Josh walking away in such a hurried pace. All the other students that had witnessed the show were left confused, but ended up minding their own lives in fear of being tracked by one of the gang members.

Apparently, Kevin was right. The students really were afraid of him, and even if he wasn’t a fan of that situation, it would have to do for the time being.

If they were afraid, then, at least, they would keep him alone. And after that little show, they would also keep her alone.

Oh, but she wouldn’t keep him alone, for sure.

“ Jughead Jones, what did I tell you about scaring people!?” She was mad at him, her brows knitting down as she sent him the famous Cooper glare.

“ Oh, Betts…” His expression softened, and after taking his arm from her shoulder, he used his hand to scratch the back of his neck. “ What else was I supposed to do?”

“ I don’t know. Maybe being polite? God, that guy is terrified right now.”

“ Well, at least he won’t keep calling you Betsy anymore.” He smirked at her, and he could see how hard she tried to hold back her own smile after that.

“ That’s true, but scaring him felt a little too much.”

“ Trust me, Betts. He’s a big boy who knows how to clean himself. I’m sure he will be fine.”

“ Gosh, Jug…” She sighed, her lips finally lifting up a bit as she leaned her back against the locker. Her eyes searched for his, and at that moment, it was as if the whole threatening words had simply lost their importance for her. There was a soft expression on her face, and as she looked at him, he could feel himself slowly being pulled towards by her sweet magnetism. “ Why did you even do that for? I mean, I know you were bothered by him yesterday, but why suddenly changing into attacking mode?”

Jughead suddenly felt something changing inside of him. He hadn’t noticed before, but she was looking extremely gorgeous that morning. Her golden ponytail was as tight as ever, her eyes were shining with a kind spark, and her heart shaped lips looked especially soft as she stood less than an arm-length away from him. He could feel his eyes drafting from her eyes to her lips, and before he knew it, he was standing a lot closer than before, for her perfume was invading his nostrils now.

She smelled like summer, in a pure scent of vanilla and strawberry, and suddenly, he found himself lost in that game they’ve been playing for a while now. The words wouldn’t form in his head, and again, Jughead didn’t know how to actually answer that question.

Well, at least not with proper words.

The boy took one, deep breath before finally leaning in to press his lips against hers. It was soft— as he had expected— and he could feel a bunch of emotions rushing back in into his heart at the long lost touch. Even if he had been the one to make the move, the blonde answered that kiss almost immediately, and he could feel her smiling against his lips.

Betty was kissing him back. Damn it, he was actually kissing Betty after so long.

It was a chaste kiss for he was very aware of the eyes that were set on them, but it was still a kiss he wouldn’t forget that soon. Their lips moved in synch, and he didn’t really know when his hands found their way to her waist. He was pulling her closer with a certain pressure on his fingertips, and he knew if they didn’t stop that soon enough, he would certainly need to use the janitor’s room.

Sigh Hormones…

They soon parted that kiss, but their faces still remained pretty close to one another. Soft smiles were gracing their lips, and if not for the bell ringing on the background, neither of them would’ve moved from that incredibly comfortable position.

“ Finally…” Betty whispered. His lips turned into a smirk, for he knew she was not talking about the history class she would have up next.

“ I guess I needed a little push.”

“ You certainly did… Who would’ve thought all you needed was some competition, right, Juggie?” She teased, still not able to drop that silly smile that had taken over her lips.

“ Competition? Pff.. As if. None of those guys have a beanie as awesome as mine.”

She chuckled, taking her fingers to his face so she could play with his loosened lock of hair. She looked at his crown shaped beanie, too, but suddenly returned her gaze to his eyes. “ I guess you have a point… You know I’ve always had a thing for hats.”

“ That’s elementary, my dear Watson.”

Her cheeks turned redder, and at that moment, Betty could certainly say she was happy. Having him there, with her and making all those comments felt just too good and natural, as if he had never really stopped. She had missed his lips so much, and oh— she couldn’t wait for school to be over so they could make up for the lost time.

They were both happy at that moment, for they knew they were exactly where they should be. They were together and in love, and at that moment, nothing else mattered.

No Black Hood. No Serpents and certainly, no Third-Period-Asshole.

#bughead #bughead fanfiction #bughead fanfic #riverdale #bughead fic #mybugheadfics #unbeta'd

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langernameohnebedeutung · 7 years ago

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Ask the Author

I was tagged by @78669! Thank you! ok!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

A third installment for Un/Hurt - I have a pretty good idea what it would be about, but I started about five times and I was never. quite. happy. I feel a bit guilty because I hinted at a third one. I think the longest version I’ve written about it is about 2k words so. not much.

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

Aaah. aaaaaaaah. That one. Snow White.

ok. So if I ever critise other writers - professionals or friends or anyone ever - I do so in the full knowledge that I gave life to a monstrosity.

Okay, let me talk about Snow White (a title that - in retroperspective, also describes the main-cast pretty well)

One story I started writing in 9th grade.

It basically ticked all the edgy-teen stereotypes. Little village: check. Edgy teen protagonist who’s Not Like The Other Girls: Check. Dumb parents who JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND: Check. Lots of casual drug use and alcohol: check.

I guess the only strong point was that she didn’t have a love interest (because she was Too Smart for anything but casual sex with her best friend). Oh and her neighbour was a murderous, torturous rape-y cult member and if I had finished the thing she would have killed him and gotten arrested for it and stayed quiet about her (pretty valid) reasons for killing him because in prison she would be away from her parents who I don’t think ever did much wrong except tell her that she’s got issues. Oh I think one of her teachers was a spy or something. Also there was a lot of references to Japanese stuff in there because again. I was in 9th grade and I loved to plaster Kanji on things. (Although now that I looked at the document again, WHICH I DID, I ACTUALLY OPENED THE KURSÉD DOKUMENT FOR YOU) the Kanji chapter titles are gone. So I came to my senses about that one.

So far you’re going to say: Wow so you wrote an annnoying, slightly problematic story when you were That Age we all did, big deal. That doesn’t make it a monstrosity.

Well.

The thing is -

The whole story might even have had potential if I had thrown out some of the bullshit and given the main-character some sort of personality, but unfortunately it’s also basically almost unreadable. Like. At that point of my writing, every tip I ever gotten from teachers and advice books was: “Take your time, don’t rush! Describe!” Because that’s young writers tend to do - rush - but unfortunately they didn’t expect Josie’s dumb ass, who quickly concluded:

The Longer The Story - The Better!

and that was the downfall of the entire story. Because bitch, I can talk for ages without saying anything and the result was:

464 pages of Word Document,

Times New Roman 12pt, smallest possible spacing. 257k words. And it wasn’t nearly finished. There hadn’t even happened much.

Just to give you a sense of how unreadable it is. I’ll allow you (if you speak German) a peak at my greatest shame. Or at least the opening.

What 9th grade me wanted to say: “It was warm outside.” What 9th grade me actually wrote, because she’d been told not to rush and to describe:

The entire scene is just about Protagonist and Friends being angst-y in the garden. Literally nothing plot-relevant happens (like in most scenes). Aaaah.

Just to make you realise the extent of this catastrophe, I randomly just scrolled for a while and then here we are at page 264.

What 9th grade me wanted to stay: “Main Character is lying on her bed. She’s looking at the ceiling. Probably looking for a personality.”

What 9th grade actually wrote:

(Did I mention that this goes on for almost 300k words? Like. These days I’m proud when I write 20k words. Ninth Grade me, where did you find this much energy and why was this what you invested it on??? this giant chunk of text with no content - like yeah there’s characters and stuff happening but it’s mostly just...endless mind-numbing descriptions of things happening in metaphor)

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Usually chronologically, but ever so often I jump ahead to a scene that I really look forward to writing. The problem is that sometimes when I get there, something changed inbetween - because I’m a bit too spontanous and I love details - and then usually I have to re-write it anyway.

4) favorite character you’ve written

Usually the current one. And at the moment I’d probably answer the story from my latest original work - because they’re pretty fun and feral and also pretty simple. But with some distance this Victorian Demon Detective who gets hired by the murder-victims to avenge them was pretty fun. Was a giant dick. I enjoyed the entire 20 pages I wrote with him in them, before my attention wavered and I moved on.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

I’m pretty much suprised every time I write a nice, likeable character.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

I wish I’d ever really bothered to learn how to right good transitions. Mostly it’s just: Scene SMACK Next Scene SMACK Another Scene. Also I wish I could describe the passing of time more naturally.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I don’t talk about it with strangers much. Except you people on tumblr.com. Depends on how it’s going. When I got a project I’m excited about and it’s going well, I’ll talk about it. If it’s not going well, I will pretend I haven’t ever written aything.

8) favorite genre to write

I don’t really have one. Although I don’t do Romance much and Crime/Thriller isn’t my cup of tea either. Mostly I beat the trope: Unlikely partners forced to work together - to death.

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Buy notebooks and scribble into them.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I usually have music on - I got a Spotify playlist for my current story and listen to it on Shuffle - but I can write anywhere, university - even on the underground I type on my phone (when I’m in the mood). In school I got called out for writing in the lessons so often I learnt to write Kurrentschrift so that the teacher wouldn’t be able to tell what I’m doing lol.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

I feel like I used to be better at some point in the past, actually. But mostly the characters?

12) your weaknesses as an author

I can never really stick to an outline, so I will go into one direction with the plot and then I’ll have another idea and I sometimes worry there isn’t enough of a red thread.

13) your strengths as an author

Hmm...I can throw a lot of problems at my characters at an astonishingly efficient rate?

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

For the last one I did, as I said. It’s a very weird mixture of Viking music, Electro-Synth, Opera and pop-songs.

15) why did you start writing?

I just always did, I think?

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

Most of my major characters while I’m writing them, but it’s usually the current one. So at the moment it’s Nith, the main-character of my current story, because they deserve so much better and everyone fucks my magic child over and they just want to be accepted but at the same time the thought of living around actual...people terrifies them, because they’ve been considered cursed and were rejected for the biggest part of their life and now they’re kinda twisted and due really dubious shit so that they don’t have to be alone in their icy wasteland. Then they met a literal prince and they were forced to work together (because that trope is my jam) except Nith panicked and poisoned him so they’re in even deeper shit now.

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

YOU CAN’T WRITE COLD CASE FANFICTION IF YOU NEVER WATCHED THE FUCKING SHOW AND DON’T EVEN KNOW THE CHARACTERS’ NAMES oh, ok you already did. And they go to Mars. ofc.*

(No, but serious advice: Don’t let anyone ever tell you it’s useless. As long as you enjoy yourself, just keep writing.)

*yep that’s a thing 11 year old me did. I liked the blond woman in the trailers on Kabel1 ok?

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

When I was about 18 we had Tauben im Gras in school and I got obsessed with writing like that. I got pages after pages just filled by me writing in that style. It’s like a dubstep remix of what my 9th grade self wrote, but I won a price for one of those so there’s that.

But usually, whatever I’m currently reading influences me. Like, not even because I want it to. For example I was once switching to and fro reading fanfiction and writing something of my own. But the fanfiction was in English and my writing in German and I first adopted the same tense, then the POV and suddenly my brain insisted I need to write this in English. fuck.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

- I take a lot of notes in a document which are mostly written as me dragging and insulting my characters

- then I split it up into scenes and write down plot-points for every scene

- I also note what it does for the characters individual storyline.

- then I start writing and ignore all of that because the character saw a butterfly and it sparks an entire dialogue with another character and they decide not to save the princess at all but to start an ice-cream truck.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Little spurts are usually draft-versions of scenes. Long sessions happen when I’m really inspired. What works best for me is putting a bowl of snacks in front of me and having a chip or a peanut every 100 words and to keep writing until the bowl is empty (at that point, usually there’s a sunrise outside)

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

I don’t ever do that much. but since you made me look at The Cursed One, I was actually surprised that it was not quite 100% as horribly cringy as I made it out to be in my soul. I didn’t want to spoon my eyes out of my skull.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Not really. Nothing I would want to write in the first place.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

not really obscure, no

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

At the moment a lot of norse mythology stuff

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

I’m never really proud of anything I write, but I’m kinda fond of the opening for one of my story-ideas, because I think it’s pretty efficient when it comes to world-building and setting the scene and explaining how the people in that place tick:

#nonfandom #personal #writing #WHOEVER WANTS TO PLS FEEL FREE!

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izzy-b-hands · 7 years ago

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K screw it we’re talking about the TV show. I have an idea of a title, but it isn’t set in stone, but maybe I can tag it with that, so if you don’t wanna see this stuff you can blacklist it?? Y’know what, let’s go with this one: ‘aly’s show in progress’. I searched it first to make sure it doesn’t coincide with anything else on here as a tag, lol.

If you guys read this all (and it is a lot, lol) and wanna talk about it, have thoughts, or just like the idea of it and wanna let me know, please do. Any feedback on this baby of mine makes me so happy.

Also, I’ll throw the rest of this behind a cut so if I ramble it won’t take up as much room for y’all.

Guys if I had a way to make this now, I so would. I even have bits of soundtracks ready to go (orchestral backing tracks--the theme song I keep hemming and hawing on who should create it, but probably not me, lol.) I know they say don’t share your stuff in progress, but right now this is such a far shot from ever being produced that I feel safe in talking about it (also because like with all my other works that I have planned to sell or produce, I’m getting copyright on just to be safe.)

So to be honest, I can’t recall how much I’ve written about it on here, and it is 12:30 AM and I can’t be bothered to search my own blog so we’re starting from scratch.

Working title is Liminal Space--a show about people who have no reason to be together in the place they are, but that’s where they’ve ended up. For now, they can’t seem to leave (that’s elaborated on further in the series) and why would they--when food is somehow replenished, and money isn’t a concern to survive. Sure, the woods sometimes glow and strange people and creatures keep showing up, but every place has something weird, right?

Specifically, we focus on a set of adult characters-names come about within the first few episodes, but in the credits they are noted as their roles in what is essentially a drive thru town-an abandoned school, a two-level hotel/restaurant set up, a wildly unnecessary car sales lot and building, an abandoned cabin, woods, and a haunted house that magically appears one day. All of this facing a highway (the haunted house on one side of it, everything else on the other.)

Our main cast consists of:

The Kids--A boy and a girl, about six and ten respectively. They are literally found by the Waitress one day near the highway, and since no one appears to claim them, the town just sort of adopts them. This means everything from home schooling them about a world that no one else really remembers for sure, plus keeping them safe from the weird shit that goes on in the town. Is it a lot for two kids? Yeah, but they could have been dead on the edge of the highway, so things are pretty good overall for them. Not sure on who to cast for these either, since young kids might outgrow the roles pretty quick--plus they might not be in every episode, if only to allow for some scarier plot lines and more serious topics to be addressed. They end up rooming in the haunted house, via a secret tunnel and a plot line in one of the very first episodes.

The Waitress--unsure of cast member. It keeps rotating between various actresses and musicians, to be honest. She works at the restaurant/hotel, despite it never really having customers (except for a few episodes with guest stars.) Nobody questions how or why they keep it running--it gives her something to do, and she gets to chat up the Pianist (which is a big Plot Point later on in the series so I will only elaborate so far here lol.) Rooms at the restaurant/hotel, in whatever room will open each night (the keys to all the rooms aren’t always there.)

The Pianist--Johannes. In part because I have no clue if he can play piano or not, but if he can’t then we get a silly in-joke here that the Pianist is supposed to play at the restaurant/hotel where the Waitress works...but then we never see him play it. This character is a lot of dry wit, and I feel like he’d carry that well. Rooms in the restaurant/hotel, sometimes in an actual room, sometimes under his piano on the floor if he’s writing music and no one (read: the Waitress) puts his ass to bed.

A quick key thing to note about any cast members--they don’t have to change how they look outside of the show, aka no band members have to chop off their hair or anything like that to play their role. What they look like outside the show, is how their character appears.

The Teacher--Henrik. He’s a little bit quieter a person, just like this character. He also seems to have a knack for reactions (aka every photo of him making a face or video of him rolling his eyes dramatically suggests he’s someone who can actually use his face to act and not overdo it.) That’s what I want from this character--when shit’s going down, he’s the book smart person in the room; he’ll help look up and figure out a solution, but we get to see him rolling his eyes or giving us some reaction that suggests he isn’t doing this passively (I also have some choice sarcastic lines for him--the ones that aren’t supposed to hit you until a beat has passed, then you and the other characters realize they just got burned horribly.) He is the one who gets to try and home school The Kids, despite only have a few books to work with--but he’s smart enough to teach them a lot of things without text books, and generally dislikes the ones they have since a. half of them are out of date and incorrect or b. show info from a universe that isn’t theirs and so aren’t useful. Rooms in the abandoned school, which he often makes repairs to himself (because they can’t exactly call out for a contractor to do so, and because he’s got the brains to not just fix but improve the building with what he has on hand.)

The Man Out of Time (aka yes, a time traveler)-- John. I can’t quite explain why he feels like the best fit--the character came into my head, already as John. I can’t explain this character’s full deal without giving a full ep synopsis, but to give some summation--to save the town, he sacrifices his ability to travel back to his time. He’s a straight up good guy; he wants to help these people even though he ended up in their time and town on accident and barely knows them. He ends up residing in the abandoned cabin, as a happily accepted new neighbor. He’s a nice guy, plus that’s one more person to make sure The Kids aren’t accidentally killed by like, an inter-dimensional squid or something--that’s a nice bit of stress alleviation for all the other adults.

The Car Salesmen--Jack Black and Charlie Day. A set of very panicky brothers, selling cars that have never worked (like, they literally have no engines or wheels...) But they insist that they are needed, and that the cars will work, when It comes for them. What is It? Why should they fear It? All anyone gets is panicked laughter as an answer, so they just roll with it all. Besides, who doesn’t like window shopping, even if the cars aren’t necessarily something you could ever use or buy? Everybody tries to be accepting and calming towards these two, who are almost always convinced that It is on the way. They mean well, the poor things. They room in the building of their car sales lot--there aren’t any display cars in it, so they can keep sleeping bags on the floor.

The King--I swear to god, I thought up this character before Avatar Country came out. It is a pleasant coincidence that Kungen is who I chose for this role (in part because I mean...his nickname literally means The King. As of Avatar Country’s release, we have proof he is a good king. Why not keep a good thing going?) And he is literally a king--who shows up one day, claiming to be king of their town (that is really barely even quantifiable as a village.) No one knows what to make of it, so they roll with it, because he doesn’t actually make them act like much of subjects--he might ask for food randomly during the day from the Waitress, or ask them how the ransacking of neighboring towns is going (it isn’t, because no one ever leaves the town, but he never seems bothered by that.) Otherwise, he just likes to hang out and ask everyone what they’re doing and educate them on the Royal History--how and why he became king, what he’s done as king, etc. For a king, he’s down to earth and just likes to visit with people. Maybe he’s lonely--they’ll never know for sure. Rooms wherever he feels for each ep he’s in--but ends up a lot a the hotel/restaurant, as it has the most rooms of any building in town. Technically a series regular, but yet not--kind of like the Kids, in that sense. This is subject to change as I keep writing though; he’s ended up in a lot of eps so far, lol.

The Waiter--Tim. Can’t fully reveal this character’s deal without major spoilers, but he plays a big part in the Waitress’ story arc (a no duh, per the character title, lol.) I needed someone who has good natural humor, good comedic timing, and can do good impressions (for a few episodes particular story arcs.) That, and someone who seems like they’d be up for a character with a weird backstory--not a bad one, The Waiter isn’t a villain, but it is a complicated one. Once he’s in the town though, things are good--and his character is well-liked, for a whole variety of reasons that again, if I elaborate on more I give away a bunch of Big Ass Plot Points. So maybe later, lol. Rooms at the hotel/restaurant, and works there too once his character is introduced.

The Doctor--Brendon Small. Catchphrase is “I dunno, I’m not a doc...wait, I am. Still, I dunno.” A very tired physician who drove in one day to catch a cup of coffee after driving all night, then found after he left the restaurant his car was gone. One of the only citizens who isn’t wholly chill with being perpetually stuck in the town--he can sense something’s up with this place, but he can’t quite explain it. Despite his catchphrase, is actually a very good doctor--sometimes possessing knowledge of how to heal things he’s never seen or dealt with before, which kinda freaks him out. Rooms in the abandoned school with The Teacher--which leads to occasional shouting arguments between them, if only because you can’t always put two very smart and active minds together like that with time to spare to talk, and expect them not to argue over some things (like what the town would do if a plague rolled through, why don’t the Kids seem to grow at all, etc.) Despite this, they do enjoy each other’s company, really.

Guest Stars consist of so many--like so many you guys. I can’t fully explain these all without giving away full episodes, and some I can’t even mention yet, so a lot of these are gonna be a bit of a mystery unless any of you guys want to message and talk plots:

The Drifter--Rob Zombie

The Pianist’s Brother--Ville Valo

The Fixers--the McElroy brothers, because these characters require chaotic weird energy and a variety of personalities, and I think they would have all that covered very well. What do they fix? Well, if I told you that I’d be giving something important away.

Slash--as himself. Yes, really. He’s baffled as to why he was given directions (incorrectly) to this place, when it was supposed to be directions to a regular gig.

The Skeleton in the Closet--Tobias, but in Papa I gear (provided he agrees to ‘reanimate’ the papas for this lol.)

The Priest--Tobias, but in Papa II gear. Shows up to try and fellowship with them (for Lucifer, of course.) Ends up a bit disappointed and confused--not because they refuse to believe, but because he’s informed he just missed Lucifer by about five years. Its a fun episode, this one.

The Flirt--Tobias, but in Papa III gear. Literally just Papa III being lost and utterly useless at reading a map to find his way elsewhere. Takes a liking to all the adults, aka all the adults are getting hit on (but will he actually sleep with any/all of them? That’s a secret for that particular plot synopsis.) Eventually gets on his way, but is missed.

The Pied Piper--Tobias, as the Cardinal. Playing along with the Rats thing here a bit. But he doesn’t lead the Kids, nor rats out of the town--what is it then that he takes with him? Another Plot Point to remain hidden for now.

The One of the Woods--Doug Jones.

The Trickster--Taika Waititi. This isn’t even really a role, I’m more or less just asking Taika to come have fun for an episode and vamp it up.

There’s more guest stars I’d love to note here, but if I do I again risk major spoilers that I’m not quite ready to give up, lol. More to come later, perhaps.For now, yes, three out of 12 are technically the same person. Tobias would hopefully be up for all of that, lol.

Setting: Ideally, somewhere in Sweden, since by the time I get this anywhere near production I’ll hopefully have been living there for years. May as well keep it local, plus there are certain locations out there that I have in mind and want to use. But I’m open to other places--so long as it is appropriately creepy and deserted like. That is to say, the highway this town is by is only rarely busy. Otherwise they barely see cars, and the few they do see rarely stop. So essentially an abandoned highway is what I need, lol.

I could go on here (even just about the soundtrack I’m working on) but I’ll stop because I think this is getting long. Like I said before, if anyone has feedback, or any interest in this and wants to talk about it--you’ll make my year if you let me know! If not, that’s cool too, but I’m sick of letting all this rattle about in my head--I want to share it and talk about it, even if I can’t make any of it happen right now!

#text post #Alyssa talks about her writing #aly's show in progress #Avatar and Ghost fans that follow me #hit me up on this lol #I doubt any of my dream cast would ever agree to this show #but I can hope right?

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1800-seungshine · 7 years ago

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ludic.

member: park woojin. genre(s): high school!au, hoobae!woojin summary: ludic. (adj) - full of fun and high spirits. in which park woojin finds himself entangled in the antics of the school’s troublemaker sunbae. (requested - bullet point format) word count: 1.6k

note: the very first request ever on this blog! thank you so much to the anon that sent this ;; i was going to format it in paragraphs but somehow i ended up going bullet-point format and and i don’t know i feel nervous presenting this bc i fear that it won’t reach your expectations but i hope that you’ll like it anon! btw, thank you so much for all the reblogs, likes and follows that i’ve received throughout the week. it means a lot to me heheh! i’ll try to continue working hard ;; i really, seriously, truthfully, completely, thank you all! < 3333

you were known around the school as the school’s lucky trouble maker

notorious for pulling light-hearted pranks, sleeping through classes or completely skipping it, and occasionally picking fights (which fyi is often bc of something you find injustice and for students can’t stand up for themselves so you just butt in and use your fists as a representative)

and for majority of the trouble you cause, you usually escape the consequences and get out of it with light warnings and punishment

hence the ‘lucky’ bit in your title

basically you’re the definition of the ‘c package’

authornim what in the world is a ‘c package’ - well obvs you wouldn’t know cos i made it up duh.

cute, charming and cool. (it’s as lame as me i know but i’m proud)

everyone just loves you okay

well,,, not really everyone bc there are a few students (mainly the ones you picked fights with) who hate your guts and a few teachers who don’t know what fun means

but somewhere within the school, there’s one person who doesn’t really get the memo and is confused on why everyone’s whipped for you

introducing park woojin everybody

the first time he heard about you was from a conversation one lunch break when his friends were fanboying talking about you. “who are you talking about?”

inserts daehwi’s dramatic gasp “oH mY gOd YoU dON’T knOW?!?! lol bye you’re deleted. idk who you are.”

he earned a lot of insults from his friends in one sitting that day

“have you been living under a rock” - park jihoon

“how dumb are you to not know who y/n sunbae is, you’ve been here for as long as she has.” - bae jinyoung

“hyung, are you sure you’re not the foreign student, like wth even i know who y/n is.” - lai guanlin

he felt so attacked, “well i didn’t know it was requirement to know who this person is to be socially accepted here.”

but dw his ass was forgiven after he got forced to listen to the four of them educating him about you, “don’t you feel enlightened now?” cue woojin’s eyes going 360 into the galaxy bc he done w/ their crap

aNYWAYS BACK TO THE STORY

woojin just hears numerous stories about you like how you once won this verbal fight against this rude popular senior and her clique who were bullying a tenth grade student, or the time you pulled a prank on this serious teacher that no one saw laugh until you placed a whoopee cushion on his seat (you still got detention for that though smh), or when you were the matchmaker for pdhpe teachers, mr. park and ms. kang who are now the school’s couple goals and just other great things about you

so apart from that one time when he was zoning out in maths class and out of the window he saw you climbing over the school’s fence to skip class (he finally understood why some students refer to you as the cute fence girl)

woojin has never really encountered you before

which is really strange bc he’s developing a slight crush on you after hearing what other people say and also seeing you from afar during lunch breaks

like the sound of your personality is like making his heart go ‘!!!!’ and he can’t even explain what he’s feeling

but he’s blaming his friends for it

and so this all changed when a classmate of yours pranked you by pouring a bucket of water at you one lunch break and in return you started a water fight in the cafeteria

the principal heard about the chaos and started to quickly head that way

so he witnessed you pull the fire alarm and he calls your name with pure rage that you were damn sure he was gonna hulk smash you

“HEY MR. KIM. BYE MR. KIM.”

you made a run for it

mEANWHILE woojin just left the library and was walking towards the school canteen

from afar he sees this girl coming closer and closer, running as if her life depended on it (cos it lowkey actually did) and he had this feeling that it was you

so as soon as you came close enough that his eyes could make clear of your appearance, he was proven right

but further along the distance, he also sees the teachers who suck up to the principal and the principal himself trying to catch up to you

and being the smart kid he is, woojin moves to the side so he doesn’t block your way

however, you weren’t exactly the brightest during that moment and thought that he’d have to snitch on where you were gonna go and get you in more trouble

hence why you grabbed his hand and woojin’s now running with you.

rip woojin

you two manage to pass the school gates, cross the traffic light and hide into an alleyway seconds before the teachers reach up the gates

so you’re both heavily panting, he’s sh00k and awkward bc wth he didn’t even sign up for this crap but he immediately forgives you once he hears you break into laughter, causing him to do the same

“sorry for dragging you.” you say sheepishly as you send an apologetic smile, “in my head, i was thinking you could have snitched and you could put me in more trouble but now that i realise, you wouldn’t have known where i was going in the first place.”

“and now i got you into trouble too.” you mumbled to yourself sadly before your bottom lip juts into a pout

legit his heart started to parkour in his chest when he saw you pout bc he didn’t know you could be this cute??? like he expected it but he didn’t really expect it yknow

“ah, no..uhm...” he replies with a shy smile, “it’s..uh...it’s okay. i don’t mind.”

what a shy awkward bean omg omg dONT YOU JUST LOVE HIM

you let out a chuckle as you look at him, casually going on your toes to pat his head, “you’re pretty cute, park woojin.”

woojin was sure he was gonna melt into a puddle after that like he doesn’t even know if he’s breathing or nah but whatever- he’s standing next to his crush who just called him cute. hE GOT CALLED CUTE. BY HIS CRUSH.

w a i t

“uh...h-how did you know my name?” he says in a confused manner bc he doesn’t seem to remember telling you-

you point at the right side of his chest, “well the name tag says park woojin and i’m assuming that you’re the park woojin that the younger students are talking about.”

“o-oh.”

w a i t p t 2

“what?” he says after recalling the second bit of your words.

“you don’t know?” you say to him before you clear your throat and begin to imitate one of the ninth grade girls you tend to overhear, “park woojin - cute snaggletooth oppa. the most adorable awkward bean with reversal charms; he’s super shy but really sexy when he dances. ah, he’s so dreamy.”

you end your acting as you clasp your hands together and you start to laugh as you notice the dark shade of red on his cheeks, paired with his red ears.

“i didn’t know i was seen in that kind of light.” he shyly mutters to himself causing you to grin even more bc damn this boi is kinda really cute.

“well, i can kinda see why they think of you that way.” you reply back with another grin as you notice his cheeks becoming red once again, “you just don’t know about it since the younger grades are good about keeping it lowkey from the seniors.”

you look out of the alley, knowing that the teachers would have given up looking for you and you turn back around to him with another breathtaking smile.

“well, you’re not really going to get any punishment apart from a detention since i’ll take all the blame for today, so mr. reversal charms how about i make up for causing you trouble by spending the rest of the school hours, skipping classes with me?”

woojin remains in silence, almost as if he’s deciding your offer

but lmao he’s just freaking out internally bc you’re making his heart beat even faster than usual and it’s unhealthy for his kokoro plus how will he act cool around you?!?!?

however you considered his silence as a yes and you take his hand into yours, gently dragging him causing his heart to flip. “i won’t take no for an answer, park woojin and even if it’s my first time to use it to be authoritative, you should say yes to your sunbae.”

“o-okay, sunbaenim.” “good.”

so now you’re just both walking wherever your feet may lead you like what you usually do when you skip classes

but his eyes are fixed on both of your hands and you look at where he’s looking before you flash a grin at him, “let’s just say that your hand looked heavy so i’m here to help you with that.”

“wow she’s pretty cheesy. more emphasis on the pretty bit though.”

he hears you burst into laughter and he instantly covers his mouth with his free hand, realising that he didn’t just think it but he said it too.

“d-did i say that out loud? god, i didn’t mean to. i swear- i’m so sorry ahh...this is so embarrassing.”

but you’re just there laughing and quite close to tears which makes him lowkey satisfied bc even if he embarrassed himself in front of you, he’s making you smile (ong my goodness this is so pure and cheesy idek)

after you calm yourself down, you shake your head in amusement. “don’t be sorry, if anything, i’m kinda glad that my dumb ass dragged you, park woojin.”

and so for the rest of the day, woojin finds himself falling for you harder than he had imagined.

maybe getting into trouble will be worth it after all.

#park woojin #woojin #produce 101 #produce 101 season 2 #wanna one imagines #wanna one scenarios #wanna one #woojin imagines #woojin scenarios #im wheezing #woojin getting me bent #im so whipped for wanna one #i told myself that ong would be the ongly one #hahah get it #anyways im being unloyal but im proud

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buybromantanesolution · 5 years ago

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waveridden · 8 years ago

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FIC: good is better than perfect (juno/peter)

The Penumbra Podcast, Juno Steel segments. Rita&Juno, Rita&Peter, and Juno/Peter. 8.5k. cws: canon-typical alcohol use and gun violence, kidnapping, implied torture (nothing serious)

Five times Rita didn't meet Peter Nureyev, and one time she did.

[read on ao3 | title lyric]

The thing is, there are expectations that come with being a private eye’s secretary, all sorts of things that people expect you to be able to do or know at the drop of a hat. Rita’s not good at most of those things. She’s really good at the ones she’s good at, like the note-taking and the people-watching and the pattern-finding, but it took her a long time to figure out that there were things that she was bad at too. A lot of people expect secretaries to be organized and all prim and proper and probably not watching streams while they work (not that Mister Steel really cares, no matter how much he pretends to) and Rita isn’t… well, Rita isn’t any of that.

The other side of that, though, is that when people try to figure her out they do it wrong, and that’s what Mister Steel calls an asset. That’s what Rita calls annoying, but she has to admit, it’s always fun to see the look on a sucker’s face when they realize they’re a sucker. So maybe she plays up the parts that she figures people underestimate, so what? It’s their own stinkin’ fault if they think she’s dumb, or that Mister Steel would hire a dumb secretary. And there’s a time and a place to be dumb on purpose, anyways, and that’s not all the time, even though the place normally is always at work.

So the point of all this is: when the doors slide open and that Dark Matters agent from a couple months back walks in smug as ever, Rita doesn’t bother with the simpering or looking all moony. She taps her pen against her mouth and turns her eyes up to him. “The boss isn’t in right now, so if you’re looking for him you’d better come back some other time.”

Agent Glass falters, just enough that Rita can see it. Good. “I suppose that’s the risk of stopping by unannounced,” he says. He sounds not quite confused, the way most people are, maybe a little curious, like he wants to know what’s going on.

“Guess that’s the risk of leaving my boss all alone after facing down the Kanagawas, Agent Glass,” Rita answers - snaps, a little bit, but come on, could anyone blame her when Mister Steel had moped around so much after that case? - and settles back in her chair.

Agent Glass looks even more thrown off. “I didn’t think you’d remember my name,” he says, a little more halting this time.

Rita cocks her head. “Well, then, that’s on you, ain’t it?”

“It is, yes.” He takes a step forward, and Rita nearly scoots her chair back a couple inches, just in case. “It seems I’ve underestimated you, Rita. My apologies.”

Rita flaps a hand in the air. “You’re not the only one, Agent Glass, and you’re not gonna be the last one either.”

“And that’s the way you’d like it,” Agent Glass guesses. His mouth is curling up into a smile. Rita likes it, it makes him look more like a real person. “I don’t know why I expected any less.”

Rita doesn’t want the guy to beat himself up over it - at least, not too much - so she decides she might as well stroke his ego now, make it a little better. “Aw, Agent Glass, everyone expects less of me. I bet you didn’t think I’d figure out that you’re not a real Dark Matters agent either, but nobody ever thinks I notice things, and they’re right a lot of the time but they’re wrong a lot of the-”

“You could tell that I’m not a real agent?” Agent Glass says. He looks thunderstruck, like he still hadn’t quite put it together that Rita’s smart when she wants to be.

She blinks at him. “Well, yeah, look at you. Isn’t it obvious?”

Agent Glass stares for another second and shakes his head. “Where on earth did Juno find you?”

“Not on Earth, on Mars,” Rita says exasperatedly. “Honestly, Agent Glass - or maybe it’s Mister Glass, if you’re not really an agent, but I don’t know how that all works - you’d think you’d remember what planet you’re on, what with you not being from it. And anyways, Mister Steel is out on a case, and he tells the story about how we met better than I do, so you’ll just have to ask him when he gets back.”

Mister-Agent Glass gives her the driest little smile she’s ever seen. “I have a hard time believing Juno could tell any story better than you, Rita,” he says, like it’s some kind of conspiracy.

Rita narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to butter me up?”

Mister-Agent Glass holds his hands up in the universal gesture of don’t-shoot, I-come-in-peace. “Not at all. And I unfortunately don’t have the time to stay until Juno returns, I just found myself in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop in.”

“Mmmm-hm.” Rita bares her teeth again and taps her pen against it once, twice. “And why are you popping in? Don’t you got plenty of other places to pop?”

“Of course I do,” Mister-Agent Glass says, just patronizing enough that Rita narrows her eyes at him. He folds his hands behind his back. “But since I’m here, and it’d be a shame not to ask - how is our Detective Steel? I haven’t had the chance to check up on him since we - how did you put it? - faced down the Kanagawas.”

Rita throws an arm up in exasperation. “It’s about time you came and asked that, it’s been months, I was beginning to think Mister Steel was so mopey because you died or somethin’.”

“Mopey? Was he moping?”

“Yeah, a couple months back. These days the boss is as fine as ever.” Rita tilts her head at him. “But I’m guessing you don’t want him to know that you know that, because if he knew that you knew then he’d know you’re here, and you’re not the kinda guy who would show up on accident when the person you wanted to see wasn’t there to get seen.”

Mister-Agent Glass blinks at her. “Could you… run that by me one more time?”

Rita sighs. “You knew he wasn’t going to be here,” she says patiently. “And you want me to keep Mister Steel from knowing that you knew that, or that you were here at all. But he’s doing as fine as ever, and if that’s all you came to find out then you can leave, right?”

“I could,” Mister-Agent Glass agrees, and tips his hat, not as deep of a tip as Rita would like but she figures she has to take what she can get with this guy. “Miss Rita, it’s been more of a pleasure than I expected.”

“And you’ve been less of one,” Rita retorts, and Mister-Agent Glass gives her what might be the realest smile he’s smiled since he walked into her office. “Till next time, Mister-Agent Glass, or whatever your name is.”

“I like the sound of Mister-Agent Glass,” Mister-Agent Glass says agreeably. “Until next time, Rita.”

Rita waits till he walks out and the doors close behind him, and then another three seconds for good measure, before she sighs as loudly as she can manage. “What an idiot,” she says to the rest of the empty office, and even though the office doesn’t answer she’s pretty sure it understands her. After all, the office is probably the only person, place, or thing that sees Mister Steel more than Rita does, and it knows as well as she does that saying that he’s “as fine as ever” isn’t the same thing as saying he’s okay.

But Mister-Agent Glass is gone, and Rita thinks she’d be more surprised if she sees him again than if she didn’t, so she turns back to her stream and waits for Mister Steel to call. (Mister Steel would never believe it, but she actually does wait for him, with mansion maps ready to be traced and a whole galactic-wide web ready to be hacked. Or maybe he would believe it. Mister Steel might be the only person who never took Rita at face value.)

The improv classes are Mister Steel’s idea. Or, well, they’re kind of a joke that he makes, after she nearly botches that case pretending to be a detective - “if you’re going to pretend to be me, at least learn to act,” he says, and Rita figures, she might as well learn to act anyways. She’s been doing it so long, it’d have to be fun to find out if she’s actually any good at it.

She’s on her way home from an improv class, one all about starting every line with “yes, and” (a little limited for Rita’s taste, but hey, she’s a student, not a teacher) when she passes by the QuikStop near her apartment and remembers she’s out of shampoo.

“Do you need shampoo? Yes, and I’ll go buy some,” she mutters to herself as she walks in the door, feeling pleased. It might not be what the teachers meant in improv class, but she’s still improvising, right? Improvising her way through the front door and into the shampoo aisle, and she figures she might as well improvise her way into a bottle of champagne when she gets to the liquor aisle and stops dead in her tracks.

Mister-Agent Glass doesn’t seem to notice her, which is almost as surprising as him being there, in the QuikStop near Rita’s apartment, looking not-freshly-shaved and not-smooth, and looking at the bottles of hard liquor like they’re going to either eat him alive or stop the eating, and he’s not sure which one he wants to happen more.

Rita drops her shampoo and points at him. “You!” she shrieks.

Mister-Agent Glass jumps and spins to face her, eyes wild. It takes him a moment to focus on her, but as soon as he does, he almost leaps towards her, arms wide open. “Miss Rita, oh, Miss Rita! ”

Rita’s not sure why she doesn’t step away. It might be because Mister-Agent Glass looks like he could use a real good hug, and lucky for him, Rita’s a real good hugger. So she lets him sweep her into his arms and squeezes back in return, feeling a little lost, but he at least seems to relax a little bit.

“My name,” he whispers, mouth directly next to Rita’s ear, “is Duke Rose, for the moment, and I’d appreciate it if nobody heard any differently.”

“I don’t know anything about Duke Rose,” Rita whispers back, panic rising. “What am I supposed to say?”

“You’ll just have to improvise,” Mister Rose says, and steps back.

Rita gasps. Improvise. She knows how to do that!

“What’re you doing on my side of town, Mister Rose?” she asks, because that bit is easy to improvise, what with it being an actual question she has.

Mister Rose smiles, a little bitterly. “Trying to avoid your boss,” he says, and Rita frowns at him. “I suspect my ex-wife is still at work.”

Rita’s eyes widen. Ex- wife? That’s gotta be Mister Steel, but if it is - boy, he sure didn’t tell her anything about getting married, especially not to any Mister Rose, but then again he hasn’t said much since… well.

“He’s been at work a lot more since the, uh, the eye surgery,” Rita says, and Mister Rose grimaces just enough that she can tell that it really is Mister Steel. Gosh, she’s going to have to ask why come she didn’t get to go to the wedding, or maybe not, since Mister Steel probably won’t be too happy that she ran into Mister Rose. “I think it was real hard on him, you know?”

“Yes, well, it was… a trying time for the both of us.” Mister Rose’s shoulders slump, and he looks back at the liquor. Rita peers at it, trying to guess which bottle Mister Rose is looking at. He seems like a flavored liquor type, something sweet. “I haven’t seen him since then.”

Rita folds her arms. “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have left him,” she says, because he shouldn’t have.

Except maybe she shouldn’t have said that, because she can feel the moment Mister Rose decides to freeze her out, going all cold and steely and setting his jaw like it’d hurt to loosen it. “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed,” he says, voice all strained like how the movie heroes sound when they’re trying to act all tough. “He left me.”

Yeah, Rita should’ve guessed that. It sounds like Mister Steel.

“Oh,” she says, trying to keep her guilt tamped down. “I didn’t know.”

Mister Rose sighs, and all the solidness seems to go out of him. “No, he wouldn’t have told you,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s talking to Rita. “Of course not.”

“I’m sorry,” Rita says timidly. She doesn’t do timid much, but Mister Rose looks like he’d break if she weren’t timid with him right now.

He gives her a tired smile. It doesn’t look real at all. “It’s not your fault, Rita, darling. I’m afraid I must be on my way.”

Rita nods and bends down to pick up the tampons off the ground. “It was real good seeing you, Mister Rose,” she offers. She’s not sure how true it is, but it’s only polite to do.

Mister Rose doesn’t seem to know how true it is either, but he nods at her anyways. “You too. Take care of him for me?”

“Course I will,” Rita scoffs. “Not like Mister Rose to take care of himself, anyways.”

“No,” Mister Rose agrees. He looks at the liquor one last time and starts down the aisle without grabbing a bottle. Rita doesn’t know if she should be glad about that or not, but since she’s here, she grabs the first thing she sees with the word “cherry” on the label. She she has a lot to think about and a lot to worry about, and besides, she’s improvising.

The Lysithea prison colony is almost impossible to get out of. Legend has it that only one person’s ever managed it, and nobody really knows who they were or how they did it, not anymore. They keep things locked down tight there. It’s the solar system’s overflow jail, where they stick everyone that they can’t stick anywhere else. Mister Steel hates it, complains about it all the time. Something about it being a human rights violation to stick anyone on that damn rock, although Rita can’t keep up with all that.

All she knows is it’s far away, near Jupiter, and that Mister Steel is trying to break in. Or, well, he’s trying to break a guy named Mister Bruzzone out for a case, or maybe for a favor for Cass Kanagawa, Rita can’t keep track anymore and Mister Steel is telling her less and less besides. But he does tell her she’s going to have to be his eyes and ears in Lysithea.

Lucky for him, there are cameras and blueprints everywhere, so Rita can be both eyes and ears. “Alright, boss, you’re gonna turn left here.”

“Are you sure?”

Rita lifts her hands for the fourth time to do the L trick, because you can’t ever be too sure, especially not on Lysithea. “I’m sure! Right is the 48 block, and that’s too far. You just gotta get through that door on the left.”

“I can get through that door,” Mister Steel says, like he doesn’t know perfectly well that Rita could get through that door for him. “How’s our distraction coming?”

“I’m still working on it,” Rita says, and spins back to the cameras in the K-47 block. Mister Bruzzone is in cell K-47-IBG, and Rita needs to come up with something in the K-47-I’s that’ll cause a big enough ruckus, but the place is so boring. It’s all financial criminals, low-level ones, people who set up pyramid schemes that fell flat or got caught selling something illegal or, in the case of Mister Bruzzone, skipped out on paying taxes. They’re not exactly a ruckus-y crowd.

“Work faster,” Mister Steel says, like he does every time Rita isn’t ready to swoop in and save him at the drop of a hat, but really, boss, she’s working on the fly here too. Rita rolls her eyes and opens up the prisoner log again, scrolling through the faces. There are couple hundred people in the cell block, so one of them has to be-

-wait, that’s--

Rita clicks on the picture. The name is Arthur Mneston and he’s a suspected criminal fence, and he’s smiling in his picture, and it’s just as fake as Mister Rose and Mister-Agent Glass’s smiles were: almost real enough that you don’t have to think twice about it. Whoever Mister Mneston is, he’s in that cell block barely a dozen doors down from Mister Bruzzone, and if experience says anything it says that she can’t let Mister Steel see him. Things don’t tend to go well when those two run into one another.

“Boss,” she says, mind racing, “y’know how we were trying to figure out avoiding a manhunt for one guy? What if they can’t figure out what guy it is?”

“You’re gonna have to explain that one, Rita,” Mister Steel says, sounding winded, like he’s running down a hall. He probably is.

Rita starts typing. She can find Mister Mneston’s cell on the camera feeds, make sure he’s in there and that nothing goes wrong. “What if we let go a dozen guys? They won’t know which one we were aiming for, and cause a little chaos besides. I got all their profiles here, I can pick a good group.”

“Can you do it fast?”

“I can even get on the intercom, let them know we’re coming.” Rita pulls up the camera feed and Mister Mneston is there, sitting on the cell in his bed, watching a stream and somehow looking even more tired than Mister Rose had looked. “I can pull the locks on twenty-some cells right now, just say the word, boss.”

“You’re sure it’ll work?”

Rita chuckles. “Aw, Mister Steel, we’re never sure any of this is going to work, but we can always try it anyways.”

“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said,” Mister Steel mutters. She can picture him smiling at that, no matter how hard he tries to stop himself from smiling. “Unlock the doors as soon as I’m in front of Bruzzone’s cell.”

“Got it, boss.” Rita hits a few keys and decides that oh, what the hell, she’s earned something nice. “I’m still gonna get in the intercoms, though.”

“Fine,” Mister Steel sighs. He’s still maybe ten cells away from Mister Bruzzone, so Rita has to move quick, tapping keys and finding weaknesses and hel- lo there, intercom system!

Rita leans in towards her computer. “Hey, is this thing on?”

“It’s on, Rita,” Mister Steel says into the intercom, but Rita’s barely listening, because one Mister Mneston just nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of her voice. He seems surprised to hear from her. Rita doesn’t blame him, it’s probably a hell of a shock to have your ex’s (maybe-ex’s, she’s still not sure how that all shook out and it’s still barely her business, but at least ex-business-partner’s) secretary’s voice beaming down out of a prison intercom. In Lysithea. Gosh, Rita’s hacking Lysithea, isn’t she? Most people couldn’t do that. Mister Steel is so lucky to have her.

“All right, if it’s on, let’s see…” Rita isolates the cell block that she needs on her screen. “Attention, everyone! If your cell number begins with K-47-IB, this is your lucky day. Doors are gonna spring open in about a minute, so grab anything you’re gonna need and head for the exits. We don’t have a way for you to get off the moon, so you’re gonna have to work together - you know, if you’ve ever seen The Larissa Redemption, but only the remake, but only the first one, that sequel was just awful, you all know what I-”

“Rita,” Mister Steel says, as full of fake patience as he can probably manage. She glances at the monitor and sees him about to skid to a halt in front of Mister Bruzzone’s cell.

Rita clears her throat. “Right! Anyways, if you wanna get off here, you’re gonna have to do it together. It looks like your best chances for leaders are the Misters Mneston and Vidakovic, so try listening to them, except for you- you know who you are by now, right?”

“He knows, Rita, open the doors,” Mister Steel says.

“And doors are opening in three, two-” Rita hits a key with all the drama she can muster, and twenty-six doors open up. “C’mon, you money criminals, go and get outta here!”

When she looks at the feed, she sees two things, the only two things that matter. First, she sees Mister Steel grabbing a guy by the elbow and running, sprinting back the way he came from - she’s going to have to make sure Mister Steel keeps up with his cardio, with all the running he’s been doing lately. And second, she sees Mister Mneston look up at the camera in his cell, eyes shining, and mouth the words “thank you” directly at it. At her.

Rita beams.

The terraformed beaches on Venus are one of Rita’s favorite spots in the solar system - one of the only places she’s ever been off Mars, sure, but they’re just beautiful, sparkling oceans and green sand and a real nice feeling that she could be there forever and never get tired of it. Rita doesn’t take vacations often, which is a side effect of Mister Steel also not taking vacations often and her not trusting him to take care of himself without her there, but sometimes a lady needs a break. And she has definitely definitely earned this break.

She’s lying on a chair on the beach, thinking idly about green sand and which soap operas have had episodes here (not enough, in Rita’s opinion) when someone settles into the chair next to hers, and there’s a clink of a glass settling on the table between them.

“The beach ain’t big enough for you to get your own chair?” Rita asks, but there’s no real heat behind it.

Her new beach-buddy laughs. “And of all the beaches on all the planets, I walked into yours,” he says, and it’s all Rita can do not to sigh out loud.

Then again, he wouldn’t blame her if she did, so she sighs as loud as she can and turns to look at him. “That drink had better be for me, Mister…”

He flashes her a smile, a real sharky smile, the kind that makes her want to scoot her chair away from his. “Springer. And of course it’s for you, Rita dear, I owe you a good many drinks after what you did for me on Lysithea.”

“Aw, don’t sell yourself short, Mister Springer, I’m sure you would’ve gotten out of there eventually.” Rita picks up her drink. “What is this, anyways?”

“Mai Tai. It’s an Earth classic, although I’ve always preferred appletinis.” Mister Springer gestures at her. “Go on, drink up, I paid good credits for that.”

“You want something,” Rita says suspiciously.

Mister Springer smiles that sharky smile again. “I would be terribly obliged, if you weren’t busy.”

Rita takes a long, long drink of the Mai Tai and wonders if normal secretaries get harangued like this on their first vacations in years. “You know, I have a date tonight.”

“Mazel tov,” Mister Springer says.

“I don’t go on dates very often, kind of a side effect of the job, but I met a nice girl here. She works for a shoe store in New Topeka, and she’s real cute, and I don’t want to be late when I take her out for dinner.” Rita swirls her Mai Tai in her glass. “So this’d better not take long.”

“Oh, certainly not! I could just use your skills.”

“I get the feeling you don’t mean my charming personality.”

“Only if you’re offering, Rita dearest.” Mister Springer’s smile gets curly at the edge, and this time Rita actually does shift away from him. He must notice, because it drops off a little bit, like he’s pulling himself back to normal, whatever normal is for him. It’s more of a Mister Glass smile than a Mister Springer smile, but Rita thinks she might like Mister Glass better anyways. “No, I’m referring to the fact that you’re evidently quite the hacker.”

“That?” Rita scoffs. “Anyone can be a good hacker if they try, and I ain’t even that good.”

“Lysithea is one of the biggest prison colonies this side of Pluto,” Mister Springer reminds her. “And their security system is profoundly complicated. You still got in.”

“I’m not getting into Lysithea again, they’ve probably closed up all the holes I crawled through by now. Security folks tend to be paranoid like that.”

“Paranoid indeed.”

Rita sips at the Mai Tai. “Hey, this is pretty good, what’s in it?”

Mister Springer gives her a smile that Rita would place more in the wheelhouse of Mister Rose - gosh, it’s getting hard to keep all these guys straight, maybe she should ask for a single name as payment instead of Mai Tais, although the Mai Tais are pretty good too. “Mostly rum, I believe.”

“I should drink more rum,” Rita says thoughtfully. “What’d you need me to hack into?”

“I just need you to help, ah, liberate a few items from another guest of this resort, by way of unlocking his doors.” Mister Springer produces a tablet out of nowhere and hands it over. Rita takes it and examines it warily. “I know the basics, of course, enough that I’ve found the uplink to the digital lock for his room. But I could use your expertise in surpassing it.”

Rita sets down her drink and gives him her best suspicious look, eyes narrow and lips pursed. “And what exactly am I liberating?”

“Just a couple of artifacts from a gentleman who’s not particularly nice.”

“How not particularly nice?”

“You know Min Kanagawa?”

Rita nearly drops the tablet. “We’re stealing from Min? ”

“ We’re not stealing from anyone,” Mister Springer says, with more finality than Rita expected. It doesn’t sound like Mister Springer - it doesn’t sound like any of the names she’s seen him put on so far. Maybe it’s the truest version of whoever this is. “You’re solving a problem for a friend. And that friend happens to be after Min Kanagawa’s nephew, who might be just as much trouble as her.”

“Hey, you had me at Min.” Rita turns to the tablet and starts typing. “You know, it’s easier to do this with a real computer. Call me old-fashioned if you want, I know plenty of people can hack with just the screen, but me, I always liked feeling the keys under my fingers, you know? Course, Mister Steel can barely type with all his fingers, he thinks I’m a genius for being able to, but he barely understands how comms work. Not that I’m much better, at least with the comms, or with monitors and streams, all that wireless stuff goes-” she swipes a hand back over her hair- “ whoosh, just right over my head, but gimme a keyboard and I’m good to go.”

She pauses to take a sip of her Mai Tai - gosh, she’s really going to have to find out how to make these - and then keeps typing. “Ma used to say I came outta the womb typing, but me, I think I came out screaming like everyone else and the typing made me stop screaming. Or maybe I just get computers. Coding is all just patterns, you know? It’s like how soap operas, they all use the same stories and hope nobody notices, but I watch enough of ‘em that I always notice, and all the places that lock doors use the same ways to get into those doors.” She hands the tablet back to Mister Springer. “Speaking of, you’re good to go, I added you to the access list but that’s going away in about an hour, so you’d better hop to it.”

Mister Springer looks kind of like someone clocked him in the head, but he takes the tablet anyways. “You are truly one of a kind, Rita darling,” he says.

Rita waves him off. “C’mon, Mister Springer, you don’t need to be fakey with me, my name’s Rita. Just Rita.”

Mister Springer nods and looks down at the tablet. She gets the feeling that he’s mostly just trying not to look at her when he says, almost shyly, “Juno can’t type?”

Rita grins before she can help herself. He’s cute. “The boss is good at a lot of things, but computers ain’t one of them. Why else did you think he kept me around, because I’m so organized? It’s because without me he wouldn’t know how to email clients their invoices.”

Mister Springer laughs, eyes still fixed on the tablet. Rita can see enough of his face to know that he’s tearing up, or maybe trying not to. “He’s… he’s a hell of a lady, isn’t he?”

Rita softens. “He’s something else,” she says softly. Mister Springer doesn’t move, so Rita polishes off her Mai Tai and wonders if maybe it’s in bad form to show up for a first date tipsy. Maybe it doesn’t matter. If there’s one thing she’s learning from Mister Springer, it’s that it’d probably be better to hold on to something that she thinks could be good.

After a minute, Mister Springer slides the tablet back to wherever it came from. Rita watches him roll his shoulders back and lift his chin and suddenly he’s right back in full-on Mister Springer mode, all sharky and sharp and nothing shy about him. “Thank you again for your help, Rita d-” he stops and tilts his head at her. “Rita. I’ll send you another drink.”

“Oh, don’t bother, you can pay me back next time you see me.” Rita pauses and flashes Mister Springer a grin that she hopes is sharky enough for him. “Or you can pay for my dinner tonight, whichever you’d prefer. I’ll be seeing you around, Mister Springer.”

“I do hope so,” Mister Springer says. He sounds like he means it, too.

(Rita was joking about dinner, honest, she was, but after an hour and a half of tapas and nice conversation with the saleslady, a waitress comes over and tells them that their bill has been paid for by a gentleman by the name of Tory Springer, and he left enough extra creds that they can get dessert, if they’d like? And Rita laughs so hard that her date almost looks worried.)

Now, there’s one part to this whole private investigator thing that Rita refuses to get used to. Oh, she can deal with the cranky clients and the mysteries, and the boring work and missing her streams sometimes, and the bombs and getting shot at. She can even handle Mister Steel’s bad days like it’s second nature these days.

No, the part that Rita hates more than anything is that she gets kidnapped from time to time. It’s a risk she doesn’t mind in theory, since this is only the fourth time and that’s not half bad for as long as she’s been doing it - it’s a better track record than Mister Steel, at any rate, and that’s something to be proud of - but being at risk is different than being kidnapped.

Rita’s never been good at measuring time but she figures they’ve had her for about two days by the time she starts getting bored with the interrogations. They slap her around a bit, sure, kick her in the ribs once, but it’s not the worst she’s had to deal with. She’s not even sure what they’re asking her about, some case that Mister Steel hadn’t told her much about. He said it’d be dangerous for her to know too much about it. Rita’s not one much for irony, but she figures that if this isn’t irony it’s close enough for her to be mad about it anyways.

But the point is, it’s either the end of the second day or the beginning of the third when the door opens into where they’re holding her (warehouse, maybe? old factory? the kind of place that Mister Steel can and probably will kick a few doors down without hurting himself) and one of the masked folks walks in, someone new trailing behind him.

Rita cocks her head at them both, shifting in the chair she’s tied to. “ The Martian Prince, ” she says, just to watch the masked guy’s jaw clench. “ Dana Versus, Part Three - not the best one in the series, but you know, still okay. Dana Versus, Part Four - probably actually the worst one in the series, but-”

“Stop listing movies,” the masked guy growls.

Rita scoffs. “ The Martian Prince was a TV series. Honestly, mister, you’ve gotta keep up with the times.”

He slaps her. Rita juts her chin out. “I’ve been hit harder than that before.”

“Oh, we’re done hitting you.” The guy points at her. “You, you know something, and this isn’t working, so Kingsley here is gonna get you to talk.” He slaps the new guy on the shoulder.

Rita examines the new guy. He’s real tall, with a big coat and a big hat, face in the shadows. She frowns. “You gonna impress me, Mister Kingsley?”

Mister Kingsley grins. She can’t see anything but the quickest flash of teeth, and she’s afraid for the two seconds before he says, “I hope I will.”

Rita tilts her head and flips through her mental list of movies and soaps. “Huh,” she says, and she smiles, maybe the realest smile since this whole mess started. “How about that? Can’t think of one where this happened.”

“Where what happened?” masked guy demands, before Mister Kingsley shoots him.

“Was that on stun?” Rita asks suspiciously.

Mister Kingsley already has a plasma cutter in his hand, and he’s moving behind her chair. “Do you really care what the answer is?”

“I mean, from a moral perspective, sure, we can’t just go around killing guys.”

“Even guys who hire shady men to torture you?”

“Hey, a fella’s gotta make a living.” The ropes slide to the ground, and Rita turns to look at Mister Kingsley. “What were you doing here anyways? I barely know what these guys were after, something that Mister Steel was looking for but oh he’s gonna go nuts when he finds me, or maybe them - anyways, Mister Kingsley, I hope you didn’t have to blow your cover for me-”

Mister Kingsley chuckles, although it’s a little strained by the effort of him pulling Rita up and out of her chair, and if she leans on him real hard then that’s just a side effect of being kidnapped and nothing to do with him being a friendly face. “Certainly not! You were what I was looking for.”

Rita gasps despite herself. It makes her ribs ache but sometimes that’s the price you’ve gotta pay for a good gasp. “Aw, really? Mister Kingsley!”

“Can you walk?”

“Dunno,” Rita says thoughtfully, and takes a step forward. Her legs don’t give out, which has happened to her before and ooh that’s no fun to deal with, so she’s a step or two ahead of where she could be. “I think I can, and I think I’d like to get out of here now.” They start hobbling towards the door behind Rita, moving slower than she’d like but still moving. “Mister Kingsley, how’d you hear about this anyways?”

“Oh, I keep up with the chatter,” Mister Kingsley says lightly. “I have a couple of friends who owe me favors who keep an ear out in Hyperion City, all the better to-”

“You’re keeping tabs on Mister Steel,” Rita says, trying to keep all the awe out of her voice. “Gosh, this is just like in The Prince of the Dunes, or maybe the end of The Larissa Redemption , oh!, or I know-”

“There’s no secretary in the end of The Larissa Redemption, ” Mister Kingsley points out.

Rita gasps, a real good one again, and this one throws her into a coughing fit so bad that they have to stop moving. Mister Kingsley says something all nice and concerned that she can’t hear over the sound of her hacking a lung out, but as soon as she catches her breath she beams up at him. “Mister Kingsley,” she says, still a little out of breath, “you’ve been holding out on me!”

“ The Larissa Redemption is an incredibly popular film, you must know that.”

“Yeah, but think about who I spend most’a my time around. He doesn’t-” Rita coughs, and waves off a worried look. “He’s not one for the popular films.”

They start moving again, a little slower. “Well, at any rate, there was no secretary in The Larissa Redemption, and for that matter no thief either. I can’t think of a single stream that has them both.”

Rita smirks up at him. “I think that just means you and me are one of a kind, Mister Kingsley.”

Mister Kingsley smiles at her. “Didn’t we both know that already, Rita?”

Rita opens her mouth to say something cutesy and clever, but she hears the shouting before she has the chance. It looks like she was right about being in an old factory, maybe, because the yelling is echoing so badly that she can’t tell which way it’s is coming from. Mister Kingsley tugs her closer towards him and maybe a little behind, like he’s trying to protect her, which would be real sweet if she hadn’t already been kidnapped. As it is, she thinks she might just be pissed off enough that she could fight her way out of here herself, so long as she doesn’t have another coughing fit.

“Rita,” Mister Kingsley says, voice low, but then there’s the sound of gunfire and more shouting. He squeezes her even tighter, but Rita frowns, because there’s only one reason she can think of someone breaking into an abandoned factory to start a gunfight, and she thinks she might know the lady who would do it, too. Maybe that’s why Mister Kingsley is holding her so tight. He might need something to keep him steady.

From somewhere else in the factory, footsteps are pounding, and she hears “-ita, Rita!” and she knows. She knew he’d come for her.

“Mister Kingsley,” Rita says, surprised by how steady her voice is, “if you need to go so you don’t have to see Mister Steel, that’s fine, you know that? I won’t even tell him you were here if you don’t want me to.”

Mister Kingsley takes a deep breath. Rita can feel it in his chest, the way it swells up, like he’s hoping it’ll pop him like a balloon. “No, Rita, I think it’s time I saw him again,” he says. He doesn’t sound as sure as he could, but Rita figures it’d be hard to be sure about this.

She nods and takes the deepest breath she can manage, then pitches forward. “We’re here, Mister Steel!” she shouts as loud as she can manage, and then immediately launches into even more coughing. Maybe she should ask Mister Steel to take her to a hospital - not that he wouldn’t have done it anyways, just on principle, but maybe he’d take her to a nicer one if she asked him.

The footsteps get louder, and so do the gunshots. Rita looks up one more time. “Mister Kingsley-”

“Rita.” He meets her eyes, doesn’t say anything else, and Rita huffs out a little breath, turns to back just in time to see Mister Steel run around a corner and skid to a stop, and everything in the room seems to freeze. She can see him look at her, and then at Mister Kingsley. She can see the exact moment he realizes what’s going on.

And then Rita decides, hell with it, she’s had a worse day than Mister Steel is having and he’s just going to have to live with that for once, so she unlatches her arm from Mister Kingsley’s shoulders and says, voice wavering, “Mister Steel?”

Mister Steel looks back at her, and she can almost see him snap back into himself. “Rita,” he says, in this awful ripped-up voice, one that she’s only heard a couple of times, one that she’s never heard her name said in and she hopes she never does again. It’s almost enough to make her knees buckle as she takes her first step towards him, and then another. Mister Steel makes a choked-out noise. “Oh my god, Rita- ”

“Mister Steel,” Rita sobs, and she nearly trips over her own feet but he catches her and tugs her close against his chest, he has his arms around her shoulders and he’s not a hugger but right now he’s squeezing her like he’s afraid she’s going to vanish again. “Aw, boss, no, I’m right here, I’m-” she coughs, can’t help it, and Mister Steel’s grip loosens, probably to let her breathe, but she doesn’t let go of him. “I’m right here, boss.”

“We’re getting you a tracker,” Mister Steel says, like he does every time she gets kidnapped. Rita nods and buries her nose in his jacket, and he doesn’t even complain. “Two trackers, in case they find the first one.”

“Whatever you say, Mister Steel,” Rita says, muffled by her face in the fabric. Scared has never been a good look on him, and she’d rather have him back to normal, and if that means pretending everything’s normal then she can do that. “Can… can we go home now?”

“Of course we can,” Mister Steel says instantly. He pulls away and slides one of Rita’s arms around his shoulders. “Do you need me to carry you?”

Rita shakes her head. “Oh, no you don’t, I’m walking out of here on my own two feet.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mister Steel says. Rita has just a second to wonder what he’s waiting for before he says, casual as can be, “You coming?”

“Of course,” Mister Kingsley says, something too complicated tangled up in his voice for Rita to even begin to understand. A second later his hand is at the small of Rita’s back, a good few inches below where Mister Steel’s hand is but just as sturdy. “Let’s go.”

They’re perfectly civil to one another the entire time Rita’s in the hospital - probably specifically because Rita’s in the hospital, and as much as they probably want a shouting match, they want to make sure she’s okay. It’d be real sweet if it weren’t the worst thing in the world to be in a room with the both of them, Mister Steel trying to act like nothing’s broken and Mister Kingsley acting like there’s nothing there to break.

The hospital lets Rita go the next day, and the lady and gentleman even stay civil all day long. Mister Kingsley gets Rita groceries and cooks dinner, and Mister Steel sits and watches movies with her and even asks questions about what’s going on and what story it reminds her of. Rita would feel patronized if she had it in her, but apparently kidnapping takes a lot out of her, because she’s just happy that they’re both there.

And dinner is fine - Mister Kingsley is a better cook than Rita, and by extension way better than Mister Steel - and Rita dozes off on the couch and they both let her. Which is really their mistake, and hers, too, because she wakes up when the fighting starts.

The thing that wakes Rita up is the sound of a glass hitting the counter, followed by Mister Kingsley saying in a low, steady voice, “I understand that you wanted to stay here, I always understood that.”

“Then we don’t have a problem,” Mister Steel says, sounding a little hysterical. “We don’t have to talk about-”

“About you leaving?”

“You said you understood!”

“You didn’t even say goodbye. ” Rita dares to open one eye; they’re both standing in Rita’s kitchen, on opposite sides but angled towards each other. Mister Kingsley looks sadder than Rita’s ever seen anyone look. “That’s all I wanted from you, a goodbye, an ending, and instead I got nothing, Juno, nothing at all.”

“And-” Mister Steel takes a deep, raggedy breath, shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry.” Mister Kingsley looks away, back towards the wall, and Mister Steel lifts a hand like he could reach him, like he wants to try. “Nureyev, I am, I’m sorry, it wasn’t fair to you.”

“No,” Mister Kingsley - Mister Nureyev maybe - agrees, “it wasn’t.”

Mister Steel takes a step forward, and Rita holds her breath. “You deserve better than me, Nureyev. You always did.”

“I don’t think it’s for you to decide what I deserve, Detective,” Mister Kingsley grits out.

“But you do,” Mister Steel says, with this awful kind of earnestness that he only ever has when he’s convinced that he’s useless. “You deserve someone who can stay with you, and I can’t be that for you.”

“Then don’t,” Mister Kingsley says, and turns back, looking desperate. “I won’t ask you to, Juno, I’ll never ask you to leave again.”

Mister Steel stares at him, throat working like he’s trying to swallow something thick. “And what if I’m asking you to leave?”

Mister Kingsley’s mouth opens, just slightly, and he looks away, except this time he doesn’t look towards the wall, he looks towards Rita. Directly at Rita. And she can tell the exact moment he realizes she’s listening, because he sighs. “Rita.”

“If you didn’t want me to listen, you should’ve gone in the hall,” Rita says primly, and wriggles around so she’s sitting upright to glare at the both of them over the back of her couch.

Mister Steel pinches the bridge of his nose. “Rita, goddammit, it’s none of your business-”

“None of my business?” Rita repeats hysterically. “Mister Steel, you were gone for weeks! You went away, you called me telling me to sell your things, and you came back missing an eye, and you think it’s not my business what you did? It’s always been my business, whether you wanna share it with me or not!”

Mister Steel’s jaw twitches. “Rita, this job is dangerous, I don’t want you any more involved than you have to be-”

“Involved?” Rita shrieks. “Mister Steel, I got kidnapped! And it ain’t your fault and it ain’t mine, but it’s not up to you to decide how involved I get to be in my own job! I’m doing this because I want to be here, and you don’t get to tell me what I want, because I like what I do, and I like you an awful lot too, and you’re not gonna change that by wishing me away! And I think he-” Rita points for effect- “Mister Kingsley or Nureyev or Mneston, or whichever it really is, I think he wants to be here too, and you don’t get to pick what’s good for other people, boss. You don’t. If it hurts us it’s because of what we did, not because you couldn’t stop it, okay?”

“When did you get so smart?” Mister Steel says, looking a little dazed.

Rita smiles. “I’ve always been smart, boss, you just forget to notice it sometimes.”

Mister Steel starts to nod but then stops himself, looking suspicious. “Hang on, did you say Mneston? I haven’t heard that name before.”

Rita lifts her chin. “I’ve run into Mister Whichever a few times without you. He’s a perfectly nice gentleman, you know. Except-” she rounds on him, and she can see his face drop as he realizes she’s coming for him next- “Mister Whichever, and I really don’t care which name but I’d prefer if I only had to remember one, you need to either leave or stay.”

Mister Whichever blinks. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“You said you’re keeping an eye on Mister Steel, and that’s really sweet, except for the part where he left and then it’s not your place to keep an eye on him anymore. You’ve gotta listen to Mister Steel and leave if he says leave.” Rita tilts her head. “Or maybe show him that you really wanna stay.”

Mister Whichever nods slowly and glances at Mister Steel. “Juno, dear, I know you’re not one for gestures, but I’d like to make one now.”

“Yeah?” Mister Steel folds his arms across his chest, looking small. “What’s that?”

And Mister Whichever turns on his heel and strides over towards Rita, still sitting on the couch, and sticks his hand out. “Rita, my name is Peter Nureyev,” he says, and then smiles like he actually means it.

Rita shakes his hand without hesitation. “It’s a real pleasure, Mister Nureyev. I’m happy to meet you after all this time.”

“And you, Rita.”

Rita looks back at Mister Steel, who’s staring like he’s been punched, like he can’t look away. “It’s okay to have nice things, boss,” she says quietly. “We love you already. You just gotta let us.”

Mister Steel takes a deep breath. “Thanks, Rita,” he says, quite but still real genuine, and then he looks at Mister Nureyev, who’s already looking at him expectantly. “Nureyev, what do you say we get out of here and let the lady rest? We can talk back at my place.”

Mister Nureyev smiles. “I think I’d like that,” he says. “Rita, it’s truly been a pleasure. I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

“I do too, Mister Nureyev,” Rita admits. “Mister Steel, you gonna come say goodbye?”

“I don’t think you’d let me leave without it,” Mister Steel says, but he comes over and leans down and kisses Rita’s forehead, the way he’s done a few times, only when he’s real happy with her. “You need anything, you call me, okay? Right away.”

Rita waves him off. “I’m going right back to sleep, boss, don’t worry about me. Worry about you for once.”

“I’m working on it,” Mister Steel says, and turns to look at Mister Nureyev. And sometimes, sometimes life is like the streams, not a specific one but all of them, and the way Mister Steel is looking at Mister Nureyev is something out of every stream Rita’s ever seen. Like he’s looking at the world. “You ready, Nureyev?”

“Always,” Mister Nureyev says.

Rita settles back in on the couch and finds her remote. She doesn’t watch them leave. She doesn’t need to. All she needs is to be by herself, knowing that they’re going to be okay, and lucky for her, she’s pretty sure by now that all of them are going to be okay.

#the penumbra podcast #juno x peter #jupeter #tpp rita #waveridden.fic #hi this was fun and i hope to write more penumbra fic one day #dunno how this one got so long tho it was twice as long as i expected

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