#one kid moves out and suddenly she's gained like 12 more

[mikittalabs]

wait i just realized how funny it is that usagi basically just showed up one day with his new friends and auntie goes "is anyone gonna adopt these kids" and not wait for an answer

[edensfixations]

hehe imagine if Deku had a twin sibling who was a big Hawks fan (but is more low-key about it) and coincidentally had a recessive quirk that gave them 2 pairs of retractable wings

AHH i LOVE these platonic au's!

we're going bullet point form!

• izuku has a twin sister? 🤨 her name? isaki!!

• isaki, just like her brother, doesn't hold much height! she's around 5 feet tall, very defensive about it! she's got the same green curly hair but longer! she has freakles and glasses (courtesy of her reading late at night in the dark and unlucky genetics.)

• anyway, contrary to her brother, she has a quirk. she got it when she was five and absolutely went batshit crazy when feathers sprouted out of her back a random saturday morning. she ran straight to izuku and he was no help whatsoever. he screamed louder than her!

• over the years her quirk has grown and developed! for a bit she ended up randomly floating causing a massive panic to her mother and amusement from her brother. her wings had grown into large black wings that resembles a crows.

• she's gained many nicknames from people. from her mother, dove. from her brother, saki and raven! katsuki however calls her shadow for an array of unfortunate reasons but at least she doesn't get the same treatment as her brother!!

• when the midoriya twins turned 12 a new hero made his way onto the scene! an 18 year old with his own company??!?!? suddenly in the top 10 in only 6 months???? WHAT?!?

• hawks having an amazing reputation like this immediately after debuting had him have eyes on him constantly! and isaki wasn't any different!

• while her brother was OBSESSED with all might since they were kids, she had only idolised him a bit. he was 100% her biggest inspiration and thought only the most highly of him but she never wanted to be a hero until she saw hawks! I mean she practically bounced off the walls when she saw someone with a similar quirk!

• over the next 2 years she had slowly built a merch a collection, a pathetic one really because she mostly used her pocket money for food and books while her brother never really used his money for anything but all might!

•her merch collection includes a few posters, 3 hoodies, an action figure and a bobble head as well as some limited edition sneakers that she'll NEVER admit she qued overnight for.

• similar to her twin brother, she also keeps a little notebooks. she however keeps about 4? 2 for hawks and 2 for everyone else. after deciding she'd like to follow her quirkless brother and his deranged frenemy to ua, she starts assessing some of her favourite heroes, namely hawks and his techniques and how to utilise them.

• so from ages 13-15 you'll just see an isaki midoriya flying around in her backyard practicing moves she learnt from hawks via the internet.

• when izuku had started his 10 month intense training with a mystery man izuku hadn't told her about, she decided to start her own 10 month training. hers however contained a gym and her doing combat training with whoever was training there too and up for it! there she met tenya iida! story for another time.

• however, about 5 months into her training, she had particularly drained herself that day. because of this she was barely paying attention to her surroundings. it was quite a shock to her when she had been suddenly grabbed from the ground and sped off about a block away when where she once was!

• who was it? pro hero hawks of course! naturally, isaki was completely star struck. she could not BELIEVE who was standing in front of her right now!!! she was barely listening to him warning her to watch where she's walking so she doesn't get run over by a car (she walked into traffic, whoops!) she snapped out of trance when she heard him say, "nice wings, kid" before he was gone.

•isaki flew home and screamed into her pillow!!! she couldn't believe that happened! HE COMPLIMENTED HER WINGS!!!!!! she was so close to him! practically hugging him! (delusion)

• upon her screaming her mother and brother enter her room, curious, afraid and wanting answers.

• she looks up from her pillow, pink faced and hyperventilating, "HE SAID I HAVE NICE WINGS!!" her wings start fluttering creating a small breeze. it's a small habit she picked up from when she was little. her little family chuckled at her words. "Who??" "That guy from the gym??" "NO HAWKS. I CAN DIE HAPPY."

• isaki is now laying on the ground while her brothers jaw is slack and her mother leaves, giggling to herself.

• "YOU MET NUMBER 3 HERO HAWKS??!!" "YEAH WHEN I ACCIDENTALLY ALMOST WALKED INTO TRAFFIC!!!!" "WHAT?!"

• needless to say, she wore her hoodie and limited edition sneakers to bed that night.

(pls send requests I loved doing this so muchhhh!!)

[dazzle02]

Buck and Maddie's relationship is one of the most interesting on the show to me personally.

She was nine, she lost her brother and gained a new one and suddenly she's not just an older sister, she's a parent too. She's nine years old and someone's Mother. While not being allowed to properly grieve the brother she just lost. Not even allowed to acknowledge his existence.

And of course she did the best she could, but she was a child raising another child. No parent has all the answers, but especially not a CHILD who never asked to have this put on them. So she of course got things wrong. One that really sticks out is her explanation about their parents worry when Evan falls off his bike. She kinda put the idea in his head that getting hurt is what will get him that love he craves from their parents. And that was NOT her fault. She was 12. And also living in this abusive household. But she was the one that gave him the idea to continue hurting himself to get attention. And there are likely other things that he learned from her that weren't actually healthy, due to her being a child trying to learn about the world herself.

And when she left for Boston, that would definitely feel like a parental abandonment for Evan due to her being the only parental figure he ever really had. But it WASN'T. It was a 19 year old moving out and going to School, which is what a lot of people that age tend to do. But to Evan, it would feel like the only parent he's ever known leaving him. And logically he'd know that's not the case. She's NOT his mother, she's his sister and she's supposed to live her life and she never asked to raise a child at such a young age. He was NOT her responsibility. But emotionally? That's the start of his abandonment issues.

And it's why Maddie can be kinda overbearing with him at times too. (Especially after the lightning strike...) It was ingrained in her from the age of nine that he's her kid and she has to take care of him. So as soon as she sees him suffering in any way, those instincts come back full force. She's gotta take care of him, make sure he's not going to die while she's not looking. AND make it clear she's not leaving him again.

They've had to figure out how to go from the relationship they had as kids where she was more a parent than a sister, to a new one now that they're adults where they're siblings.

And that's gotta be tough. And I would love more of a focus on that really. Just them still kinda adjusting to having to have this new dynamic. Because logically they both are aware that Maddie having to raise Buck was messed up and unfair for them both. But it's also just what's normal to them.

And any time someone comes for Maddie about not being a good sister it makes my blood boil. SHE DOES HER BEST! She was a child raising a child, and she's now an adult who went through abuse for pretty much her entire life! First the neglect from her parents (plus the parentification) and then her marriage to Doug for like 15 years! Of course she's not perfect. And as much as they both love each other, they ARE BOTH part of each others traumas. For Maddie a big trauma for her was having to raise him, and for Buck a big trauma for him was her leaving. And they've managed to work through that for the most part. It's always going to be there, they're both very defining for each of them. For Maddie having to become a parent at such a young age made her feel as though she couldn't be a very good one due to not being a perfect parent AS A CHILD. And for Buck, Maddie leaving was definitely the start of his abandonment issues. And neither of them are at fault for that, but they both have these issues that are directly tied to each other. It all comes back to their parents though. If they'd just done their jobs as parents, things would be so different.

Some of this may not make much sense as it is very hot here right now and I am not thinking right. But you get what I mean, hopefully. 🤣

I would also like to add to Supernatural fans, you can not claim Dean Winchester is just the best brother in the world for raising Sam and then turn around and claim Maddie is a terrible sister. Especially as Dean could be very abusive at times...

[sunsp0tarchive]

hellooo do wchiever obes you want but im curious 12 for anna, 2+13 for margot and 4+5 for ellis

thank u sm for the ask!! excited to talk about my girls more too yeeeess

ok 12. -is your oc cynical or optimistic- Anna

i think she doesnt fit super neatly into either category, i would say shes a very pragmatic, realistic person, who sort of lives in the present. anna is definitely someone who usually tries to expect the worst and prepares for that. an attack on her father, that she was caught in, left her scarred and gave her an early experience of the pain and sudden shock that can occur in life. while leaving a clear trauma, this real experience with violence never allowed her to form a purely optimistic, detached view of the world. Even within her sheltered upbringing.

2. - Is your OC a loner or a social butterfly? Are they satisfied with how they come across to other people?- Margot

Margot is actually a bubbly person, full of curiosity and good intent toward other people. Her (also) sheltered upbringing heavily isolated her and stunted her ability to socialize. As she finally runs away from home, after she is pressured about getting married , and throws herself into the chaos of the cities daily goings on, she realizes how inexperienced she comes across to others and is deeply frustrated by it. Margot is not stupid and posesses a strong sense of emotional intelligence, but she lacks so much context in her life. Her lack of cynicism is occasionally appreciated by others though.

13.- How important are romantic relationships to your OC? Do they prefer casual sex, short flings, or long term relationships? Do they want to get married or are they content with what they have? Or do they have no interest in romance whatsoever?- Margot

Margot would not admit it, but her initial dream would be almost a fairytale romance, to be treated like something precious, by a prince of sorts. Her experience running away with a mediocre man taught her a lot of things about relationships though, as they were on different pages entirely. She ends up frustrated in multiple ways. Margot loves people and feels that every connection to someone else is something valuable, to be respected. She truly gains energy from friendships , but its hard for her to define what is what sometimes, and what she even wants herself out of a specific connection with someone. How much weight people put into certain actions etc. can confuse her. (leading to frustration for some, like aisling, her best friend.) I would say, she ends up in a long, stable relationship with anna, because they balance each other out well, dont really put too much pressure on one another and communicate very clearly. Maybe in the future she could move away from being exclusively monogamous, but the stability of her connection with anna is strengthening for both of them for what i would say, is a longer span of time.

4. - Does your OC have a failed friendship or relationship they still think about? What happened? Is it an unresolved regret or is there a chance for reconciliation? - Ellis

I would say the slow breakdown of the brotherly friendship between ellis and aaron would count into this, as the weight of suddenly being responsible for themselves as teens drove a wedge between them. He never stopped loving his older brother though and misses him dearly, while aaron just tried to forget about ellis. (Hes the one who has the unresolved regret and guilt mainly) Ellis has always been kind of a loner. He had one friend as a kid, but as they became teenagers, they sort of drifted apart. Ellis is socially stunted in a way, so most people with regret and guilt are the people who run into him, rather than himself. An overwhelming shame and regret haunts him, about his connection to a member of his own family though. No saving that one either, unfortunately...

5. -Does your OC have a signature weapon and/or attack? How long did they train to master it?- Ellis

Ellis is not much of a fighter really.. But for security he carries around a few different things that he picked up at home. A pocket knife, a kitchen Knife and just generally things that are more versatile tools rather than weapons. He would just wave around whatever he has at hand (before inevitably being knocked down unless he gets really lucky) Most people could easily beat him up. In a different scenario i could imagine him being good at archery or long range shooting though. He has a steady hand and good focus.

[hopefulstarfire]

Here it be, the complete outline for the ocs adventures in what would be my yugioh fic series if I ever have time and or a life outside of my job and podcast again enjoy. General trigger warnings but I will also be tagging any and every one I can think of and if I miss anything lemme know.

Pre Series

All of the OC backstories go here, as seen in their profiles.

Something worth noting here is that Chelsea, Mason, Wes, Jonathan and Rosalie Gayle (Alisters parents) and Robert Knighton (Raphaels father) had been friends for years and years and basically considered each other family (especially bc Mason and Wes's parents Bo and Josie considered them all their kids) and so their kids became the "cousins".

It just kinda worked out that Robert and Mason married girls that were in fact first cousins so their kids are actually cousins 😂

Another is that Solomon, Arthur and Iris's grandfather Cillian are old, old friends, who went on several archaeological expeditions together. Cillian also officiated for Solomon and his wife Hinas wedding, and did the same for Arthur and his wife Faye. All three of them have attempted solving the Puzzle as well, all three have failed. Cillian even spectacularly so; he made a giraffe with the pieces. Atem was Very Confused.

Maximillion meets Cecelia at a gala his father hosted, and he met her through her Uncle Robert.

Cecelia starts battling health problems when she's 12 and at some point during her extended hospital stays, Max comes up with the very first rough draft of what would become Duel Monsters, inspired by dreams (that are 100% connected to his future destiny as a Millennium Item wielder) and the cards he make have their own lore and the game is more of a loose dnd with cards and the rules followed solely the rule of cool.

The Harmonia sinks and kills off most of the Knightons and Max's own parents, leaving him to basically move in with the Mercers. Raphael is found alive just in a matter of a couple months before Cecelia passes and he does not get to say goodbye to her.

Wes and the Griffins fight to try and gain custody of Raphael, knowing that he's miserable and that he was actually supposed to go home with them. However, they found that the Allards had put up a fight, the courts were very suddenly not on their side and a restraining order got placed against them, while Raphaels relatives made him believe everyone forgot about him and hated him for living instead of his parents and siblings. When Duel Monsters hits shelves, Max releases the Guardian Cards to try and let Raphael know they never forgot about him and love him but it's not taken that way. At all.

Seto and Mokuba get adopted when Seto is 10/11 and he sees the first Duel Monsters tournament on TV in the orphanage and he thinks Kat, the winner of the tournament, is the coolest. They actually meet at a gala after their adoption and they bond for that one night and he can't ever forget her. Max even sticks up for them, as he's the one that brought Kat, and it makes Seto even more open to trust him...something that is going to hurt all the more later on.

They meet River and Iris when Nesbitt and Gozaburo try to arrange a marriage contract to be fulfilled once Seto is 18. The four find themselves becoming an unlikely family and have to survive everything together. Including what Gozaburo pulls when Seto takes over the company.

Roland and Meredith are there early on for the boys and basically become like their parents, with Roland especially taking on a role of father for both the Kaiba brothers and the McGinnis kids. Having at least a semblance of stability prevents Death-T from happening. But Kaibas still gonna be Kaiba, just more in line with the anime route.

Alister goes undercover and begins working for KaibaCorp about a year and a half to two years before Duelist Kingdom and eventually finds himself befriending Iris as a means to an end of getting to Kaiba and the Big 5.

"Season 0"

A lot of it will follow the Mangas storyline and villain of the week format with some additional Filler.

One of the biggest changes is that Hanasaki and Miho are actually gonna be present for the stories and become part of the main gang themselves. Because they're the best and they were underutilized and I am FIXING THAT!!!

Nana is basically just growing more and more concerned about what the fuck is happening to her brother. She's happy he's making friends, but the Puzzle seems...off to her, now that it's complete and Yugis gaps in memory and all the insane shit happening to them makes her start to believe something is wrong with the Item, but the ony person she really has to confide in that is her best friend Harue, so it's a case of trying to figure out "what the fuck is going on here".

Duelist Kingdom

Kaiba kidnaps Grandpa and beats him in a Duel and tears up Blue Eyes. Nana, typically the voice of reason, has to he held back from hurting this idiot for what he did.

After he loses, Mokuba immediately reaches out to the rest of the family, pulling Iris away from a date hangout with Alister to come help her younger brother through being genuinely shaken that he lost.

Max is hanging out with Kat and the Griffins for movie night when Croquet delivers the news of Kaibas defeat. Kat is Pissed and goes to dig into who this kid is, only for the both of them to be shocked and confused when he's got the Millennium Puzzle, which looks eerily similar to the golden eyeball shoved into Max's head.

Three weeks later, Max announces the Duelist Kingdom tournament at regionals. Kaiba runs off early that morning, before the tournament, going to try and clear his head. The board calls Max that night, after he's already sent the tape to Yugi, so that they can have their little chat the day after next when and where he kidnaps Mokuba for them.

Nana is like. 5 seconds away from a panic attack because the guy who's art she has like idolized for years now just kidnapped her Grandpa's soul and everything is connected back to the Millennium Items and she very quickly realizes they're in over her head so ofc she's sneaking on board with Téa and the others. Somebody has to keep these idiots safe.

Max had basically barred Kat from entering the tournament because aha she doesn't need to know what's going on clearly, and he also enlists the Big Fives security detail as supplied by Leichter, versus using Griffin Security, with the claim it was to make investors happy only. Maddox, who has been his best friend since they were eight and knows Max usually does not care about that shit at all, is Suspicious.

When Mokuba gets kidnapped, Roland and Iris mobilize to figure out what happened and just how the Big Five are involved and drag their names through the mud. Alister is either going to be helping them from the get go to ger information and be the one to stop them first or is brought in right after they finally get a hold of Seto because he's conveniently turned his phone off to go and be emo for a while and only reaches back out after he had an assassination attempt on his life by and realized the man he saw as a mentor, as someone who might have actually cared about him and his brother, was the one who sent them after him so Max could get control of KaibaCorp from the Big Five.

Kat sneaks onto Duelist Kingdom island on the day the tournament starts and Max is greeted by her right after the opening ceremony and he is sweating bullets bc oh God she can't know what I'm doing she will stop me. He does allow her to stay to watch the Duels commence, but tells his security to keep a close eye on her and make sure she doesn't snoop.

He doesn't seem to realize that the security that the Big Five really aren't shit and weren't trained to deal with her, aka someone who was raised by the owners of one of the biggest security companies in the world. So she's walking around with her dog Lola and hears something coming from one of the rooms and discovers Mokuba.

After hearing what happened and being in complete shock Max would ever do anything like that, she still decides Mokuba is probably telling the truth but she needs to know the full story as to what the fuck is going on. She helps smuggle him out and hides when one of the guards comes to check on him and then promptly goes to sneak out herself and yes she brings Lola with her. She has no idea what is going on in her brothers head and she doesn't trust any of these guys to take care of her baby or even remember to feed her. She loads up her backpack with dog food and treats; it's her and Lola til the end damnit.

While still trying to hide the best she can from the goons, she does run into Yugi and the gang after Kemo nabs Mokuba again and obviously Yugi recognizes her since she's kind of. Yknow. Famous. The others don't trust her because of her name but Yugi and Ryou both point out Mokuba said he had help escaping so she challenges Yugi to a pick up Duel with no star chips on the line and no Duel Arena (she can't let Max know where she is) to talk it out.

Ryou is also wondering why, for the first time, the spirit in the Ring is completely silent. No smart comments, no pushing to take control, nothing. Like he actually feels just how stunned and weirdly nervous he is during them meeting Kat.

Kat explains how she has no idea what's going on, but the Max she grew up with would never have done anything like this; how it's been him, Maddox and her against the world since she was eight. But, she also believes Mokuba and now Yugi hearing his story, even as she's trying to wrap her head around the fact her brother even had the powers to do what he did, and she wants to help get to the bottom of it. The gang decide they can trust her and she and Lola join up with them.

Maddox gets a hold of Max to check up on how the tournaments going and Max is acting the best he can like everything's not on fire, and promptly makes up a quick excuse when Maddox says he can't get a hold of Kat (her having left her phone in her room to keep from being tracked) and hangs up. Maddox realizes somethings fishy so he goes to talk to his parents.

The Duel between Joey and Rex goes the same way, and then when Mai decides to camp out with them that night, Kat borrows a phone to go and call Maddox and tell him what's going on. As the VP of I2, she's also able to give the go ahead for him to do a deep dive, proper investigation into what exactly has been going on at I2, not just security wise, but business wise and figure out what Max is planning and why.

Rather than Bakura challenging the others to the Duel he does in the anime, as the TTRPG has happened in this timeline, Bakura puts on a show as Ryou and takes Kat away for a bit to meet with her and figure out if she remembers anything from her past life as Kema. He does explain to her more about the powers and origins of the Items to give her a tip on what her brother could ultimately be planning by trying to take the Puzzle and more about himself and Yami as spirits trapped in the Items, but tells her not to trust the Pharaoh. Kat asks why he's telling her all this and he tells her that he knows her eyes better than anything else and in a past life, she was the person that mattered to him. He's vague and cryptic about it, but, the part of him that is still Bakura (as he did fuse his soul with Zorc) wanted to tell her, to reach out, to hope because he's spent 5000 years trapped alone and he had lost Kema and it devastated him and pushed him further towards his goals.

The Duels against Panik, Bonz and the Paradox Brothers go pretty much like normal, with the gang cheering on their friends.

However, after Joey Duels Kaiba, Kat actually offers to help him and he rejects the offer. Max's betrayal cut deep and he doesn't fully believe the Yugi gang when they tell him she helped Mokuba escape, because he knows Kat would do anything to protect her brother-in-law.

Maddox does more thorough investigation and gets confirmation on the investor deal between Max and the Big Five; he knew Max had met with them, but not what it was about. He does know about Roland being Kaibas right hand man, through Max and Kats interactions with the Kaiba brothers and reaches out to offer assistance in getting this cleared up. Iris and Roland are distrustful at first because of his connection to Pegasus and Alister even more so because he's worked with Raphael for years and knows about the whole Raphael believes his family forgot about him bit so he tries to steer them away. Maddox however shares all of the information he has and tells them that he wants to figure out what the fuck his best friend is up to because it could directly put his little sister in danger because he's acting crazy and if a kid got kidnapped and another had an assassination attempt on him, why the hell would he cover that up? So, they agree to work together to get to the bottom of this.

We also get to see some of Alister and Iris trying to snoop around in some specific places and almost get caught snooping and Alister is like "we need an excuse" and knowing that everyone at KaibaCorp is about 98% sure those two have been hooking up for months now bc everyone sees the chemistry he kisses her and makes it look like they snuck off for a quickie rather than to get dirt on the Big Five.

"Get a room, you two." "That's exactly what we did. Now, if you'll excuse us." And then just slams the door on the goons face and Iris is still processing what the fuck just happened.

On top of the confirmation of them meeting with Pegasus and being able to hack into email and phone records, they find some other little projects they were hiding from Seto in their attempts to regain proper power. And while doing so, Alister finds some interesting information about a certain Cyber World that a certain somebody is being kept alive in and a plan to use this for profit as well as a way for the elite to cheat death and live forever. There are many peoples names he deletes off of that first chance list including Raphaels aunt and uncle because fuck them. He covers this up from Iris and Roland and decides to keep an eye on it in case things go south.

Maddox also gets a warning from Shadi about what could happen if he keeps investigating this and trying to uncover the truth about the Millennium Items and what will happen to Max.

When the Seto and Yugi rematch happens, the others are still confused why Seto is acting like this and Kats literally like "gee it could have to do with my brother. Yknow. Being my brother, I guess." And Nana even reminds them he's probably stressed out and still offers up the chance for them to help him.

When he gets up on the ledge, Kat literally has a panic attack yelling at him to come down. Even with as much bad blood as there was between her and her mother, losing her mom to suicide ripped a part of her heart out and she cannot stand to see Seto go the same way or let Mokuba have to experience that same level of grief she did.

Téa yells at Kaiba and Kat tells him that she knows he'd do anything to save his brother, but that his life isn't worthless if he lost; that if he threw away his life, Mokuba would lose everything and they aren't gonna let that happen. Him, finally also knowing from Mokuba that she did in fact help him, decides to let Kat join him in confronting Pegasus and rescuing his little brother and she leaves the gang to go with him.

She also begins to see why Bakura told her not to trust Yami and she's now a little more open to at least somewhat trusting the vague and cryptic spirit with any new information he could offer her.

Nana, meanwhile, is at that same level of distrust Yugi is at. She's seen the dangers of the Puzzle and she sees how practically catatonic her little brother is and she gets the Puzzle off of him and is at a point now where she wonders if maybe they should just trade it off to get their Grandpa back because she is terrified of what the spirit inside of it will make her brother do.

Like, on the other hand, she doesn't know what Pegasus would do with this type of power and doesn't trust him but also like. She just doesn't want it around her brother. She doesn't even trust the Spirit of the Ring and now Yami has proven to her She can't trust him. She thought he was doing better and he's not SO. And if they haven't started connecting the pieces of like Yamis definitely murdered people before, it all kind of clicks now and she just is Over It.

When they finally get into the castle, they watch the Duel between Kaiba and Max and the entire time Kats standing behind Seto just demanding answers from her brother and when Seto loses his soul, she tries to run to grab him and Kemo and a couple other goons grab her and drag her away to Max's office.

They also muzzle Lola to take her with Kat and Max is like "that is not a good idea" and Kat straight up bites Kemo to try and get to her dog because fuck that.

She and Lola still get taken to Max's tower and she's demanding answers and they get into a huge blowout and then he finally confesses that he is doing all of this to revive Cecelia and goes through a state of both shock and horror. This also causes an even bigger fight because Cecelia would not have wanted him stealing people's souls, a CHILDs soul, just for him to play God trying to bring her back.

She gets locked in her room because Max refuses to listen to that. At this point, he's worked far too hard and it's far too late to stop. He has to do this. Not just for his own sake, but because Kat and Maddox need Cecelia back and even if they're mad at him for now, it'll be worth it in the end.

That night after the dinner, Mai actually manages to sneak Kat out of her room and Kat tells her she's gonna go and try to find the boys and then figure out where Max is holding people's souls and how. Mai makes her promise not to tell anyone how she got out and Kats just happy she got somebody; though, she does ask Mai to borrow her phone so she can call Maddox and tell him to get out there right the fuck now.

Hanasaki and Miho go with Tristan, Téa and Ryou to figure out how Max is cheating in all his Duels and are with them at the tower.

Bakura finds Kat trying to avoid the guards and get her way towards the dungeons and yanks her back to his room to since he knows the guards are really gonna be on high alert after his and the gangs stunt. They get more of a chance to talk though he's still. Odd to her. Though she does get bits and pieces of more answers out of him.

Nana basically holds on to the Puzzle until the matches the next day and Yugi asks for it because he doesn't want to risk anyone else's safety if they have it, and especially not his big sister. He thinks he has to try and control the Spirit, no one else. The night before however she stays up trying to figure out what exactly is going on with it and why it's acting like this. To the point she starts talking to Yami, knowing she's not gonna get an answer because she's not wearing it and she doesn't trust him enough to do so but it does leave an impact on him.

Hanasaki goes off with Tristan the next day when he goes to look for Mokuba because it's what a hero would do. Nana and Miho stay with Téa and Joey, mainly because Nanas still worried about her little brother.

They run into Kat while trying to do their rescue and then Bakura shows up and then it's just that whole mess.

Meanwhile, Maddox reached the island that morning after having to get some sleep and get some other things squared away and was fighting past the goons to get to the castle and gets there after Max and Yugis Duel.

Him and Kat both hurry after Croquet when they find out Max is hurt and is missing his Eye. Kat realizes it couldn't have been Yugis other self since they were with them this whole time. Maddox thinks it could be Shadi, given the cryptic warning he received. But Kat starts to believe it could be something else.

The gang also read Max's diary and find out more about Kats older sister and some more hints about the tragedies in her life and they understand more of why Max did what he did; it doesn't excuse it by any means, but they have their answers at least.

Iris, Alister, River and Roland, once they get confirmation that Seto and Mokuba are safe, confront the Big Five with their findings and tell them that they're currently suspended pending further investigation and will be fired once Seto is back and fully rested for the next quarterly meeting. Roland also gets to just fucking deck Nesbitt when he goes to attack Iris for daring to stand up to him.

Seto (begrudgingly) flies the gang all back to Domino with him and Mokuba and after they land Nana tells him he should come by the card shop sometime...and...yknow...maybe apologize for ripping her Grandpa's prized possession. Just uh just a thought there Kaiba.

Cue the Rebecca meeting and Nana invites her and Arthur to have dinner with the family and she'll cook. They get to hear some fun stories too about all of their old archaeology days, especially with their other best friend.

Iris hangs out at Alisters house (which is just one of the safe houses Paradius has) after everything happens and they find themselves taking the next stages in their dynamic together and become romantically intertwined; he argues it's to help further his goal and his justice, but he also finds himself genuinely falling for her where as Iris has been on that boat for a while just in absolute denial about it.

Kat is put in place as acting president of I2 while Max is very much recovering and decides she needs to further investigate what happened. So, she asks Maddox to go with her to Domino to at least figure out what's going on, because she knows her godparents aren't gonna let her do this alone. Originally, it's just supposed to be staying there for a few days, but, they soon realize they're gonna need to relocate to Domino City altogether with this situation.

Kat confronts Bakura and finally gets more of a full picture of their past life connection on top of more explanation to the Items. He points out that there's a strong chance the Eye had been corrupting him and he should be learning to see the error of his way by the time he's recovered fully. And, after all, the Pharaoh did almost kill Kaiba and he's done other shady things; who's to say the Puzzle didn't have some corruptive influences of its own?

"You keep saying this like you're the good guy in all this." "Darling, I'm far from it. I'm just the lesser of the evils in all this. I'm fighting for the right reasons."

Maddox doesn't trust him as far as he can throw this guy. He still wants a proper explanation to the Items and he's certainly hiding quite a bit of knowledge.

Kat slowly begins to trust him, however and decides to give him a shot.

Legendary Heroes / Dungeon Dice Monsters

After an entire debate, Kat wants to settle in Domino for a while and get everything straightened out and get to hang out with her new friends. Chelsea and Vance decide to keep the main office in San Fransisco, but open up a new one in Domino, and can do it if Maddox is able to square a deal with KaibaCorp and some other businesses in the area if he can manage it.

He's set to meet with Kaiba after the start of the new quarter and so he gets an apartment for him, Kat and the twins while they reconfigure everything. Kat gets enrolled into Domino High, which is her first time back in public school.

The start of the new quarter brings the meeting and Kaiba does fire the Big 5 still, however, they still manipulate him into going to test out his new game before he does; something Iris thinks is a big mistake and tells him not to do, because she doesn't know what they're up to. But this game is important to him; while he hasn't told anyone but her, this game was a way to honor his deceased mother and for Mokuba to see the kind and loving person she was in the only way he can.

Iris and River are with him and Mokuba when Seto gets trapped and Iris has to basically fight their way out of there. Mokuba convinces them they need to go find Yugi and his friends and Iris debates on making a call to Maddox after all his help, and also to Alister but he's out doing work for one of the other KaibaCorp offices (aka he's out on a mission for Paradius and used it as an excuse). Thankfully, Maddox is there with the rest of the gang at the card shop so they all get caught up to speed.

They get to the pods and Iris goes with Yugi, Mokuba and Joey; they instruct River to be on standby in case anything happens, as River actually helped Seto with coding some levels for practice. Maddox is to help him break back into KaibaCorp security measures and try and get that part of everything sorted out.

Maddox also is Packing Heat for this and does fire a warning shot at Kemo and his lackies when they try to break in.

Iris is basically scrambling having to use her ace monster and River's deck because she does not carry the one that she used just to Duel them on her, just the one card, so she's struggling a bit in this but doing her damndest.

She's still the second to last one to get gunned down by the Big Five, trying to keep Mokuba safe from an attack.

Once they're out of the Virtual World, Iris gets a call from the Big Fives doctoral staff, asking her to hell and saying that they need to try and save them, and she asks them point blank if they have any brain activity. When they say no, that the voltage was too much, but their heart rate is still there, she reminds them that without brain activity they would be dead and keeping them alive wouldn't bring that activity back. It's more merciful to let them die and even still there's a large amount of guilt she has in the relief that Nesbitt specifically cannot touch her family again. Their death is simply labeled as suicide and its not anything anyone would question at their company after what Gozaburo did.

Iris decides the Yugi gang may not be all that bad and Nana actually helps set her up with a job at the card shop; Solomon figures out who she is because she and her grandmother share a lot of similarities and when he hears the name McGinnis, he realizes she's most certainly his old friends granddaughter and is more than happy to have her there.

Maddox gets a meeting with Kaiba and manages to convince him to use Griffin Security for his newer security measures in this newer era of the corporation. He also is willing to still keep a business relationship with I2 after meeting with Kat and they both begin discussing what they want to pursue to create a better way to play Duel Monsters aka actual rules.

Maddox almost weeps in relief because God Max made it so looney tunes just to spite him.

The Dungeon Dice Monsters Arc there is two things worth noting.

One; Miho gets the fattest crush on Duke, because of course she would.

Two: Kat is standing there this entire time like knowing that name sounds familiar and he kinda looks it why does she know-- OH SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL HIM AND TELL HIM MAX WAS RECOVERING FROM THE EYE BEING STOLEN AND HE STILL WANTS TO MAKE A DEAL WITH DUKE OH NO.

Kat chooses not to move forward to try and fight to stay president once Max recovers, but does decide to keep being the VP, just working from home.

Battle City/Cyber World

Battle City gets announced with the new rules implemented by Kat and Seto in their joint venture.

Both her and Maddox receive invitations to compete in the tournament, both of them with high ranking stars. Kat's all for it, ready to test out her new cards Max had done up for her and her Deck since it's been restructured. Maddox ultimately decides to sit this one out and he's glad he does, because he finds out he wants to focus more on trying to figure out what the deal with the Rare Hunters are and investigate more into the Millennium Items.

Iris does not get an option. Seto enters her in knowing she's got a Deck that actually holds potential and she needs to take her mind off of what happened with the Big Five.

Also it's better to have two of the siblings in this. So they have an even higher chance of getting all the God cards. It's science.

River gets to be co-commissioner with Mokuba and their baby sister Flora gets to be the unofficial tournament mascot and her big brother and sisters cheerleader.

Maddox and Nana both swing by the museum right before the tournament starts up to do some investigating, and Nana meets Ishizu and she's instantly smitten. Maddox is gonna Regret laughing and teasing her Later.

The tournament gets under way and Kat heads off with Maddox to go do matches and Iris heads out on her own, though they do all meet up with the gang here and there.

Miho actually goes with Tristan to help Serenity post surgery and they become quick friends. Tristan is very confused tho when Miho also just is not phased when Duke starts hitting on Serenity and she's like "Tristan were both poly; as long as were both alright with it, Dukey-kins can flirt with whoever, just like I can. Besides he's so cute when he tries to put on the charm!" and then he's just later on like "can you please control your boyfriend and tell him to back off" "Oooorrrr Renny could figure out for herself if she wants either of your guys attention. Kinda seems like you got friendzoned. And I don't think you're her type, honey."

I don't have many ideas on the Duel match ups, but Iris and Mai actually have a draw when they meet up and promise to see each other in the finals for a proper rematch.

Hanasaki pulls his Zombyre cosplay out of retirement so that he can fight against the Rare Hunters to help Yugi, like in the video games. Because it's awesome.

Nana will just fucking tackle them. She's Strong and somebody's gotta help Maddox handle these clowns.

She's also with Joey when he goes and Duels Mako, and runs into her childhood best friend Nami (@icychill), and they have a really time together and promise they're gonna get Harue (@kohakuhime) next time, once Battle City is over and go out for a girls trip.

This is also why Marik isn't able to nab her like he does Téa and Joey, she's with her other girlfriend and soulmate bestie.

Kat runs into them when Marik carries over a stabbed Ryou and she's instantly concerned over her new best friend so she goes with him and Grandpa to the hospital.

She is Not Happy when she finds out it was her boyfriend that did the stabbing. He gets an earful and he gets the Angry Southern Accent.

"Alright, I have all the locator cards I need-- why are you looking at me like that?" "Technically, it doesn't matter because you didnt enter the tournament properly to begin with." "Rouhi, it doesn't matter. I've got the Duel Disk, I've got the locator cards. If Kaiba throws a bitch fit, I have you and you're the one person that can make him shut up and deal with it."

Iris is like. This close to strangling her brother the entire time from the semifinals all the way to the finals and it all starts with him being like "yeah we're Dueling on a blimp" and he knows she has a fear of heights.

He made her enter to torment her she's pretty sure.

Kat and Iris also make it to the semifinals and they have to Duel each other. Kat comes out the winner, but Iris has a good shot in with it. She also gives Iris her card back on the downlow like "Nah, Gramps helped help you build this Deck, I don't wanna make you lose any of your cards."

Maddox sees Rishid for the first time by the way and immediately he's just the "Oh no he's hot!" Bit from SpongeBob. But he figures out Rishid isn't Marik, but nobody believes that until Joey tells them this isn't Marik and he's like "really? REALLY?" "Maddox you've been staring at him, you're biased cause you think he's hot." "SHUT UP."

But his big give away is Rishid is polite and keeps calling Joey Mr. Wheeler instead of Little Joey.

Also when Shadi shows up and Maddox sees him he's immediately on sight like "No, every time you show up, our lives get worse, GO AWAY, NO, OUT--"

There is a thing that they are gonna have to make two of the semifinalists compete for that 4th finalist slot. The unlucky selected contestants are Yami Marik and Kat.

So.

Yknow how he made Mai forget everyone important to her?

Yeah

Uh.

He makes Kat have to remember and relive the worst and most traumatic memories she has.

Including the one that happened a week before her mother took her own life, that basically shattered any chance at those two having any sort of relationship and got Evie kicked out of the house by Wes.

Because she hit Kat and told her that "the wrong daughter died".

Everyone is freaking out bc she's clearly having a traumatic episode and even Kaiba tries to tell Roland to end the match but Marik delivers the final blow before anything happens and Kat is banished to the Shadow Realm.

Lola refuses to leave Kats side after that and almost doesn't let any of the doctors near her and has to be calmed down enough to let them check her over.

Kaiba actually tells the others the only way to take down Marik is to beat him at his own game and strip him of his power, rather than just stopping the tournament altogether. He also tells him his want to beat Marik is "entirely selfish". The others think it has to do with just the God cards, but his siblings know better than that.

Bakura also wants to doubly murder Yami Marik because of this when he wakes up.

Iris has been having a Time and a Half with her brother and then finding out they're having the finals on Alcatraz only makes her want to throw herself out into the ocean and swim back home.

Then Noa shows up. And surprise the Big Five are still around.

Flora is left on board with Roland, though Roland is more desperate to try and get everyone out of there. Especially because he knows Noa is supposed to be dead and it stirred up some old grief.

This specific Arc causes a lot of emotions stirring with the siblings and they have some struggles with each other and in their shared pasts with Gozaburo and Nesbitt and what they each individually had to experience in their trauma.

Iris has to face things she has kept hidden from her brothers on her own, still managing to keep the secret from them, but maybe not some of the others. I.e., how the marriage contract got changed when she was sixteen, just two months before Seto took over KaibaCorp.

Iris and River are just floored to find out Noa even existed and River later asks Roland in private if he knew Noa and he says yes; he never brought him up because it was one of the worst things most of the staff experienced, seeing him pass, and he always worried it would just cause further pain for Seto and Mokuba if he even brought him up, especially when Gozaburo was alive.

Maddox is just ready to get out of all of this and go home. He's tired of Kaiba Family Drama.

The rest of the tournament goes as expected, and Iris and River leave with the rest of the gang and when Seto and Mokuba appear to be dead Iris just crosses her arms, frowns and goes "Give it a minute."

She's just glad to see that fucking island reduced to rubble.

Maddox exchanges contact info with the Ishtars, specifically Rishid, and promises they're all gonna stay in contact as friends this time around.

Camelot / King Arthur (Original Filler Arc)

A few weeks after Battle City, Iris's granddad Cillian comes into town for a museum exhibit involving Celtic and Welsh lore and there's an entire area for King Arthur era items. She brings Yugi and the gang with her so Grandpa can reunite with one of his old friends. He tells them he's about to go on a trip to Wales to investigate some ruins they found and invites them to come along with him.

Right before they leave, Maddox basically makes Iris take a pregnancy test because she's exhibiting a lot of symptoms and this arc also has her facing if she wants to go through with this or not and she doesn't wanna tell Alister over the phone bc she's going on a trip and he's "on vacation" (on a mission for Dartz).

Said ruins were found to be the remains of a castle and with a battlefield. There's tomes in there and a very conveniently placed item that would essentially free Mordred from his slumber.

Merlin also awakens and basically recruits the others into an adventure to be their own knights of the round table and compete to try and take down Mordred and stop an enchantment that washes over the area to hurl it back into Arthurian times.

So we know with some of the games it shows the gang having certain other past lives and its kinda hinted that Hermos, Critias and Timaeus were probably the big 3s past lives. Something similar happens here with Yami/Yugi with Arthur, Mordred with Bakura, Kat with Guinevere, Kaiba with Lancelot, Iris with Morgan le Fay, Joey with either Percival or Galahad, Tristan with Tristan (bc it's Funny gdi), etc.

It's also hinted Maddox is a descendent of Merlin and this becomes relevant towards the end of this arc when he basically has to perform a spell with Merlin and he gets to fulfill his childhood dream of being a Magician and he's just kinda blown away by it.

Kat does the jousting tournament that's set up to be her own knight against the black knight and just owns it like a badass.

Yami and Yugi have to pull the sword from the stone and harness the power of Excalibur and use it in the games.

The last trial is probably gonna be used to find the Holy Grail bc that was another big thing in Arthurian myth and it would be giving Joey time to shine because HE DESERVES IT DAMNIT.

Ultimately it's a break from having to play Duel Monsters but also there are Duel Monsters spirits there to tie everything back together.

Towards the tail end of the arc, Alister gets a suggestion from Dartz as to what happened with Noas virtual world and why it was destroyed and finds out the VR incident and what happened to the Big Five, realizing Iris was there for their deaths and told the doctors to pull the plug to begin with since they would have no quality of life. Not knowing the full story of what happened, he gets obviously upset and pissed off and even more motivated back onto his mission and he just ignores any call she sends his way.

This hurts Iris all the more, because she has no idea what's going on and why he's blocked her out, and she specifically tries to reach out to him after the events of this arc, originally, to tell him about the pregnancy. But, about a week before Waking the Dragons kicks off, she has a miscarriage and she's just both trying to get a hold of him so she can ask to see him in person to tell him and maybe not feel so alone and get comfort from her boyfriend.

Mai also was talking to the gang at the beginning of this arc / in bw this and Battle City, but didn't know how to bring up any of the shit she was going through. She actually does try to reach out at one point bc she can't handle the nightmares anymore and they literally have no service bc of their situation so they have no clue and it's pretty quickly after that that Valon finds her.

Waking the Dragons

Welcome to the Angst Zone motherfuckers.

This is my favorite one. Because the ocs get to go through so much fucking Pain bc this is my favorite Arc besides Death-T and since Death-T doesn't happen in this? I get to put alllllllll my energy into this.

Maddox and Kat are with Nana, Yugi and the others when the God cards get stolen and Kats frazzled trying to figure out why the monsters appeared and dealing with frantic emails because the public thinks if it's not KaibaCorp, then it's I2.

Maddox gets footage from where the Duel was and gets a close up of the three bikers and his and Kats heart sink when they see the faces of their cousins, now so much older than the last they saw them, but there's no mistaking it; Alister and Raphael both look so much like their fathers, it's hard not to tell it immediately for them.

Until they get to the bottom of this, they agree to keep it on the downlow from Chelsea and Vance and go to investigate.

Kat and Bakura go to San Fransisco separately from the others; Maddox and the gang are to go to I2 and Kat and Bakura are going to Max's penthouse to divide and conquer.

Meanwhile, Seto has to deal with Alister and it takes him a minute to even realize who it is but Mokuba knows right off the bat.

They get a hold of Iris and she's shaken to the core because why would Alister go out and try to hurt them? It's her first time hearing about his past and now she realizes she has to step in and do something.

Her confrontation with Alister basically is their big break up and him telling her she's lied to him, that he's worked hard to take down everything connected to KaibaCorp and he stupidly thought she was different. He tells her that she's just like Nesbitt and it digs a knife deep into her chest.

He takes her soul when he wins the Duel, but he hesitates to complete the finishing blow, even if only for just a moment and still drops her body off at her house for her mom to take care of her.

Flora doesn't understand why her sister won't wake up and River decides to go off with Mokuba and Seto and help them when they stop back, hearing Iris is in the hospital. He feels betrayed and angry and he wants to do whatever it takes to get Iris back, and Seto is in that exact same boat.

When Kat and Bakura reach Max's place, they're met with a shock of their own;

There's a fourth swordsmen (not including Mai and uhh another character but that's for my friends to share 😉); Mason Mercer himself.

Turns out, he survived the car accident, but suffered from amnesia. Dartz saved him and told him that his wife had his car sabotaged so he would die and she could be rid of him. He's gotten select memories back over the years, and now his goal is to get his surviving daughter back; he believes Cecelia died the same day he did or shortly after, and he has been led to believe the Griffins and Maddox took her and used her for fame, just like Evies mother did to her and he wants to save her.

Bakura and Kat tag team to Duel Mason, while Kat tries to talk some sense into her father. Bakura awakens his own dragon, Socrates and, he tries to get an edge in with this card.

This, however, fails and Mason goes to finish him off but Kat uses a card that allows all the damage to go to her instead and before Mason can break the seal, Bakura lashes out and Kat loses her soul. Mason takes his daughters body and flees, going to see if he can plead with Dartz to get her soul back.

Bakura is especially lashing out because Kats last words to him before the Orichalcos took her was "If one of us has to survive, I'd rather it be you." Which were Kemas very last words to him before she died and he can't go through this again.

Dartz does tell him that the Leviathan needs souls, but, he may be able to make a wager and trade, should Mason acquire Bakuras soul.

Maddox is just. Fucking Stressed as Hell. His best friend and sister are now without souls, his cousins are in a cult, Alister doesn't seem to remember shit from what he understands, Raphael hates him and thinks they abandoned him, and now also his Uncle Mason is alive.

He's thankful his parents are watching the girls because Ahaaaaaa. Ahaaaaa.

He also has to explain to them what happened and Chelsea, Vance and now also Wes, who gets looped in, are out for blood with Dartz.

Nana is also going through it. One of her friends has joined up with the Doma bikers and then the next thing she knows YUGI'S GONE AND ITS YAMI'S FAULT.

She has a much harder time forgiving this one. Like she eventually gets to that point but hoooooo boy.

She and Miho are with Joey and Tristan when the train issues happen, as is Maddox. Bakura, Yami, Téa and Hanasaki are all together.

Tomoya and Téa are just trying to stop Yami from killing Weevil and Bakura is just like "who the hell cares, let the little twerp die, we've got more important matters, wrap this up".

Seto tells Alister that he's angry that Iris got the revenge against Nesbitt when he didn't and she's not the one to be mad at; Alisters mad at himself, sure, but if he wants to be angry at someone for the Big Five stuff, he can be mad at Seto for ending those fuckers twice over himself.

And Gozaburo for that matter.

Rivers still angry but Mokuba is the one that's probably the first and only one to forgive Alister at that point or at least meet him with visible sympathy.

They get to Florida and then the other Duels commence.

Bakura Duels Mason and wins and gets Kats body back, but sees she doesn't come back, unlike how the Shadow Games tended to to operate and its the first time Yami actually sees the human, vulnerable, breaking side to Bakura, because he just wants her back.

This gets replaced with the Murderous Rage Bakura that comes with the Zorc side and he decides he's gotta go all the way to the top. So he runs off and ends up confronting Raphael and loses.

Maddox is with the others when Yami Duels Raphael and desperately tries to reach out to his cousin and tell him what actually happened and that they never stopped trying to bring him home.

Maddox also just about Murders Dartz where he stands when he finds out that all of the bad things in his Uncle and cousins lives were his fault. That his aunts and uncles and three of his cousins are dead because of Dartz. That Mason was supposed to actually die in that accident and Dartz was gunning to make Kat the fourth swordsman, but, when Mason pulled himself out, decided hey waste not want not.

Bakura gets to help Kaiba, Yugi and Joey in their struggle with Dartz at the end and then the gang all reunite together.

Kat and Maddox are both just. Drained emotionally and trying to pick up the pieces and Bakura doesn't leave Kats side. As much as he hates Mason, he wants to be there for her and when she says she wants to find them and bring them home, he tells her that when the time is right, he'll help her do just that.

Nana becomes determined to find her best friend friend again and do better this time around.

Iris wakes up in the hospital and when her brothers and sister come to visit her and Mokuba tells her he thinks Alisters finding peace now, that Seto broke through, she weeps.

For the first time in her life, she cries in front of her siblings and let's herself break.

KC Grand Prix

In the weeks in between Waking the Dragons and the KC Grand Prix, Iris basically takes all of her depression and focuses it into the only thing that family knows how to do to chase any emotions away; Dueling. She actually wins some different tournaments and it's enough for Seto to invite her to participate in the Grand Prix. Because he also knows she needs something to help her rn because she's drowning and this is the only way he actually knows how to help his sister right now because haha she's never cried and he's at a loss.

Mokuba invites Yugi, Joey, Rebecca and Kat to all participate in the tournament, with Yugi being the big finale match up.

The lineup will look Different. Namely because I hate how many no name unimportant characters there were and we know nothing about them.

So, the participants go as follow; Joey Wheeler, Rebecca Hawkins, Kat Pegasus, Iris McGinnis, Apdnarg Outum (bc Kaiba figured it out like that and thought why not this'll be funny), Mako Tsunami, Leon "Wilson", Vivian Wong, Shepherd (who becomes chancellor of the later established Duel Academy), Kagemaru, Koyo Hibiki, Ziegfried "Lloyd", Midori Hibiki, Ryuichi Fuha, Aileen Rao and Ridley Sheldon.

I'm still figuring out how the match ups will go. I just know for a fact Iris mops the floor with Shepherd and Kat gets to Duel Mako for that first round. But they will both ultimately lose, though Kat gets a bit farther in this one than she did Battle City so win for her.

No Weevil and Rex don't show up in this they try to sneak in and get kicked to the curb. I don't have time for their bullshit this arc. We should have let Yami kill Weevil back on the boat to Duelist Kingdom.

Maddox helps Kaiba figure out what's going on as to who tf is hacking into their secure systems and he just wants to fight Ziegfried.

Everyone wants to fight him actually.

Iris comes this close to beating this man on national television.

(On the other side of the world, Alister is still watching it while trying to remind himself Iris isn't his girl anymore, he fucked that up, but also very much yelling "Let her at him! Forget this guy!")

All in all, it's build up goes to the same place as a nice final tournament for the gang and it ends just about the same.

Capsule Monsters

The same batshit crazy adventure but now featuring Kat, Miho, Hanasaki and Ryou!

All Roads Lead to Tiamat (Original Filler Arc)

This is the one I'm still fleshing out the most ahaaa.

Basically the gang are gonna be whirlwinded into an adventure based around the Mesopotamian pantheon, and specifically Tiamat.

Why? Because referencing Tiamat is a staple with me and my friend group. We love our favorite mother of Monsters.

It would be tied into fleshing out some more lore in the worldbuilding of YuGiOh and the Duel Monsters as while they were the Ka for for Atems time, we also know they connect back to Atlantis and in my head it would make sense that they span back to Mesopotamia and with Tiamat being a mother of Monsters I thought it'd be interesting if there was a connection back to that as well and maybe even to Zorc. Because it makes sense in my brain.

Listen all I'm saying is import gods are a thing and also they keep saying Zorc is the/an underworld God but he's not Osiris (who is chilling with Atem over there) or Anubis so. Putting him in the category of we don't know where the fuck he came from or why he looks like that.

Also Gilgamesh would probably show up bc he's an og hero.

Ride of the Sacred Beasts

This is an optional Arc that will either follow the Tiamat Arc or replace it. Haven't fully decided yet on that.

Would explain the whole thing with the Sacred Beast cards and how/why they were locked underneath what becomes Duel Academy Island and they have to fight a version of what would later become the Shadow Riders.

Should we do this arc, Mai would actually reunite with the gang a bit and start to make amends and help them take on the rough draft of Shadow Riders.

I may explore and expand upon them being counterparts to the Egyptian gods and specifically what Armityle would be in contrast to Horakhty.

Also can we talk about the fact that it would have made for a better Zorc design imo.

Also if I do go with this arc we'll see more of Kagemaru and Shepherd in this arc as well.

Either in this arc or the Tiamat Arc (depending on if I still go with it), Maddox and Rishid will get together as well because fuck yeah.

I'm leaning more towards this arc vs the Tiamat Arc but we shall see.

Also if I do go with this arc since they did fight Alexander the Great I do wanna add in Julius Caesar or a guy who thinks he's Caesar reincarnated for them to fight and Bakura wanting to go for blood and Kat's holding him back and just;

"But, darling, it's like that one movie you love says; we should totally, like, stab Caesar!" "Don't you dare bring Mean Girls into this--"

Millennium World

The night before they're set to go to Egypt, Yugi and Nana hear Grandpa's story on how he found the Puzzle.

Also on that night, Bakura forces control back and bargains with the Zorc half of his fused soul to get one last night with Kat and try and push her from going to Egypt as he doesn't want her hurt in this. He also presents her an engagement ring and has her take the Millennium Ring for a night so she can meet him in his soul room and truly see him for the first time. He also fulfills his bargain with Zorc in this by sealing a piece of his soul away into her as a "backup" (this does not goes as planned, we will discuss why later).

She wakes up the next morning, alone, with both Ryou and the Ring gone and she gets a bad feeling about everything; it pushes her to still go on the trip.

Her and Maddox go with Nana and the rest of the gang, but they're worried about why Ryou hasn't joined them. They get a text saying he's not feeling well but Kat doesn't know what to make of it.

Yami gets thrown into his memories, where he meets a cast of old and new faces, and gets properly introduced to Kat and Maddoxs past lives of Kema and Masoud.

During Bakuras confrontation with Mahad, we also ultimately find out what led to Kemas fate and final momenets; she got him shoved out of the tomb fast enough to keep him alive to escape and fight another day, and sacrificed herself to save him. Bakura reels when he has to relive it, especially because in the present day he almost lost Kat the exact same way, and it's enough for the Zorc half of him to regain more control

Masoud meanwhile grieves the death of Mahad and works hard to try and help Mana through it, taking on a mentor role for her.

Iris arrives in Egypt with Seto when he finally decides to investigate and ends up in the Memory World as well. She's shocked to see Kisara and starts putting two and two together about who she is in relation to Seto and his past life when she sees a similar shock on his face.

When Bakura reveals himself to be possessing Tristan, by that point Zorc has fully taken over their fused spirit and is merciless in trying to kill them; even Kat, which devastates her and Maddox has to try and be her rock for the rest of the adventure.

Also worth noting; Yami gets actually visibly angry when he finds out about the people of Kul Elna and tries to take accountability for his family's actions and apologize to Bakura. Because that would have helped fully resolve his arc and also Bakura deserved that much and it shocks him. He doesn't expect it to be different this time and before he can even react, he is pulled away immediately and his side of the personality loses any ounce of control that was left and Zorc becomes all that's left at the moment.

Iris, the one who tried to help reason out magic with Seto, tells him straight up she doesn't want to believe in it anymore after seeing Zorc. Because she does not want that to be real.

When they get on the boat, Atem has found out what happened to the others with Bakura and he tells Kat what he saw and that he believes it was not her Bakura that tried to kill them, that he was gone and out of control by the time it happened and he's sorry for both of them that their story ended in tragedy. Kat kind of locks herself in her room on the boat, hiding from the others so she can break down and mourn. The only person that manages to get his way in to try and help her is Seto, and that's because he threatened to stay out there the entire night until she did let him and she knew he'd follow through on it.

Nana meets with Atem that night and tells him that while they had their own difficulties at times (something Atem does apologize for as well), she tells him that he's become family and she sees him as her brother just as much as Yugi is and she is going to miss him terribly. She also gives him an art piece she made that shows all of their friend group together with him and she wanted him to have it as a memento, a reminder of their beautiful bond that came with him. She'd been working on it for a while and she had finished it that night, with some tweaks to make Atem look like Atem. And he's grateful to have it and makes sure it goes in his pocket when he's given his own body to Duel Yugi.

When they get home, Nana gets into a video chat with one of her best friends and promises that all three of them are going to ger back together soon, and she's just thankful for the bonds she has and can keep up.

Maddox and Rishid both take the twins to go out for a day, to help them as they process the loss of Atem and take some bonding time together and the twins just absolutely latch onto Rishid and Maddox knows that he's made the right choice in love this time.

Iris brings River home and Meredith tells her that she had something left on the door for her. It was flowers with a card that simply read I'm sorry and the first edition of a book she'd been trying to find for herself but was a rare find. And she knows exactly who sent it and finds herself in her own mental debate of where to go from there.

Kat comes home to find Max and he goes to comfort her with Vance, Chelsea, Wes and her Memaw. She's thankful for them, and curls up and cries with them but they also know how much she needs her Dad home and Vance promises her they're gonna bring his stupid ass home soon.

There is some post series and next gen ideas I have locked and loaded too but this post is long enough and if anyone wants to hear about those I will gladly share but uh yeah that's the whole outline I hope yall like it.

[the-firebird69]

The bombs are going off and the more luck are appraising people and really they're trying to figure out who it is and it's been going on for a while that they are praising people for bombing them and we see that it's happening here. There's a lot of praise and adulation and thank you and things like that and it's all over the place and they want our son to ride around so we don't want him to do that and we want you to stop what you're doing to him and immediately so we're sending out orders to go after you here and punta Gorda and Port Charlotte and yeah you're getting hit maybe not that bad no it's pretty severe there's like 20 areas left oh there were 40 and went down to 35 that's where we left you and these are five independent areas after that most of the areas are within other areas or the upper part or our Islands about 12 of them are islands and those are going to go pretty quick and yeah we're judging reactions you're going to have 30 areas after a few moments. Last night was fight club and we heard what he was saying so we're heating it up so I can listen to you and yeah it's off on guard but we're doing it and we are monitoring everything and scan everywhere and we need those monsters out and ships they're in the damn way and takes forever although we have to move their troops out somehow it's a lot of work and it's not a safe so I'm going to take an easy area and start moving them out that's a good idea because we'll gain power and territory not lose and it won't be such a massive fight it won't even be noticed I'm going to go with it now okay permission on each area of course but the bombings and other such things and detonations

Thor Freya

And I suddenly see who's driving it and we praise him for it we can't stand these assholes either they're not very useful and they're going to go missing today most of them and we're hitting them very hard and I detonated a whole area and one hit it went down and we are going to go through the rubble sort of and we're going to pull everything up I'm going to sort it tonight or right now we're going below and pulling stuff out and big armies are going there and they're going to get hit and the morlok will deplete and they won't be 5% of the population anymore and that is where we are. They are going to diminish because they're going to the pockets and the pockets are being fought over and they just won't stop going there and his numbers too high numbers to them are going there and they're getting demolished as we speak huge amounts of them as a matter of fact and there's another flotilla being prepared and it won't be ready until this afternoon eastern time. And at that time the population will drop to 3%, based on the flotillas numbers but it might be last because they're going to the pockets and the other areas of being repopulated and they're going to the tap roots and tunnels and they're going to the to the high North.

Duke Nukem Blockbuster

We're going to be kind to ourselves and not say the great white North like Duke Nukem was going to but seriously he's used to making fun of them and so are we and boy this morning they really deserved it I can't believe what they're saying what they're doing here they're a bunch of fruitcakes so I asked him why they're doing that stupid crap and they had no real good answer I'm going to make them regret it and really they're terrible so it's on now here and they're going to face it. But I really have to tell you we're kidding them very hard and he wants to follow up with it and we're going to have to the other areas that were not hit are filling up she says why not take out a few pockets in each area and make it look like someone blew it up so we're going to do that if we can I said we tested it and didn't work out too good

Hera

Zues

We shall see about this

Duke Nukem Blockbuster

Is that enough of your ideas Chris no these ideas are awesome and we're going ahead with it it's a huge deal for us right now and we are going to set an obelisk down on an area tonight we did hit one area but it was only one area not five and we need to hit those areas and get the stuff out of them people are going there now to take the stuff out I figured out that people probably took all the stuff and left and the scene tons of people go there and it's not morlock and their pockets too have tons of stuff in them

Olympus

[amaranthine-enihtnarama]

Feel Alright (Goku x Reader)

(it’s going to be more fun than it sounds; manic pixie dream BOY; s3x; crushes; grief; hiding the past; friendships; jealousy; slow burn; “friends”; healing; growing; will-they-won’t-they; tension baby!!!!; canon blender >:)

inspired by @sevenstarsinning’s “Sweat”

TW: death mentions, suggestive situations!

taglist: @ilove-evanpeters @moonyscardigans @twinshii @raspberryhaterade @iwenttoshiratorizawa @uselessdoodlesdude @khai-luvs-iida @ferneskin @burneraccountant @de4ds0up @bellaisasleep @arougeme @aurorarevenclaw1927 @applecandy14 @fingersnapples @langdoncult @loona-thebadchild @anlin2058 @dont-feel-so-good-peter

When Bellatrix moves to the city after a personal tragedy under the wing of her friend Bulma, her life is completely turned around after she leaves everyone—including herself—stunned with the discovery of her own powers. Suddenly she finds herself swept up in a world of aliens, new bizarre planets and training, along with prospects of romance. One problem, though; she can’t leave the past behind to answer the new life that’s knocking at her door.

𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖘 (((𝖔(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)𝖔)))♡: part one : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 / part two: 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

part three | nothing is fair in love or war

“You ready?”

I leaned against the rock Goku propped me up on, pulling my blanket tighter around me. I gave a thumbs up.

“Yup, blast away.”

He smiled. “Alright, I’m going to aim for that rock over there.”

“I mean, that’s going to destroy the entire landscape but go ahead—“

“Ka…me…”

I immediately fell silent as the hairs on my arms stood to attention. Goku’s entire demeanor had changed from happy-go-lucky into deadly warrior within a split second. The look in his eyes could’ve made the rock formation explode on his own, but as his stance deepened and his muscles rippled, I had a feeling that whatever was creating the vibration in the air around us and tickling my nose was going to blast those rocks out of existence. I jumped in surprise as blue light began to form between his palms, adding dramatizing shadow to his already severe expression.

“…ha…me,” he continued, voice gaining volume as the orb between his hands grew.

I started feeling uneasy then as the ground beneath me started to tremble and it crossed my mind I might’ve been too close to the ‘splash zone’ per-se; and scooted to the right again as the ground under Goku started to crack and float around him. The light he was creating was so bright it had illuminated him and drowned me in his shadow so I could only make out his silhouette. His head turned to me for a second, but I couldn’t make out his expression.

“Here goes,” he said, “…ha!”

I gave a thumbs up that quickly disappeared as his voice echoed across the valley and an intense, blinding beam of light shot out from his hands and towards the rock formation. I clung to my little rock for dear life but couldn’t tear my eyes away from the absolute spectacle I was witnessing. The force of the blast was making the wind whip against my face and even pushing Goku backward slightly as it reached the rocks on the horizon, slid between the cracks, and, after a moment of stillness, devoured them in an earth-shattering explosion.

A shiver ran through my entire body at the sight of it, and I lifted off of the ground a bit as it passed down my back. My heartbeat had gotten a little faster, and my physical state seemed like an afterthought for a moment as I stared at the newly empty land in front of us, then looked slowly back to Goku.

He let out a little sigh, placed his hands on his hips, then turned to me with a smile.

“How’d you like that,” he questioned proudly.

I had to find the words for a moment as I processed fully what I’d just witnessed. Not only was an alien in front of me, smiling like a kid in a candy store, but he’d just showcased something that I would’ve never believed possible by any living being without having experienced it firsthand. I swallowed thickly.

“That was…fucking…incredible.”

Goku’s smile seemed to get even bigger from my answer, and he laughed, coming over to me.

“Want to see me go Super Saiyan?”

“First off, yes, secondly, what the hell is that?”

“It’s kind of like a fighting form,” he said, picking me up again, “It makes you stronger, faster and your attacks more powerful.”

“You mean…”

I pointed to the newly cleared path between the rocks.

“That can get even stronger?”

He only chuckled, lifting us into the sky again.

“We’ll go over to the rocks so you can have a little distance,” he said, “You almost started flying yourself when my blast hit them.”

I looked away from him with an embarrassed blush. “Well, when you show a scientist the impossible, flying into the air is an understandable reaction.”

The remnants of the formation grew bigger the closer we got, and my body tensed.

“Um, those seem a little high, don’t you think?”

“Not really, why?”

I could feel my cheeks burning as anxious knots formed in my stomach. “I’m…still afraid of heights, you know…”

“I thought you were only scared of flying,” he remarked with genuine confusion.

“I’m scared of flying because I’m scared of heights.”

“Then how can you live so high up?”

I smiled grimly, tightening my hold on Goku’s shoulders. “I try not to think about it.”

“Well, we can find someplace—“

Goku suddenly went quiet, eyes sharp like they were before. My heart stilled as the air around us seemed to grow heavy with his pinpointed stare. We were still now, and the thought of a distracted Goku holding me this high up made my stomach twist.

“…Goku?”

“Something’s coming from over there,” he said, “It doesn’t seem like anything powerful, but I just got a really bad feeling from it.”

I frowned. “Huh? What do you mean?”

The sound was faint, but it started to reach my ears too—it was familiar, and not in a good way.

“Oh god,” I muttered to myself.

A helicopter approached in the distance: dark red with a logo I’d been fighting to get out of my mind for the past two weeks. My grip on Goku tightened as it started to get closer, and I shook my head to myself. Nope, nope, not today, none of this shit.

“Instant transmission,” I said quietly.

“What? What’s wrong? I thought—“

“Show me Super Saiyan later, just instant transmission now!”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes shut as we teleported back to the medical ward in Capsule Corp, and the air conditioning nipped at my cheeks.

“Holy fuck, what the fuck was that,” I muttered to myself.

“Uh, Bellatrix…”

“What the hell are the chances—“

“I knew that helicopter would scare you back here.”

I fell silent, staring blankly at the wall.

“Should I let you—“

“No,” I asserted quietly, “Wait—no—yes, put me down, put me down.”

Goku let me down, and I hesitantly turned to face her. Her jet-black hair was as glossy and perfectly curled as ever, her red lip was flawless; there was nothing about her perfectly tailored appearance that would suggest that Delilah Blackthorn ruined my life—or, at least, that she gave a shit—I couldn’t hold back the disgust that creeped into my expression.

“So, we still haven’t learned that stalking is bad, have we,” I said coldly, crossing my arms.

She laughed, flashing her perfect smile and dimples. “Look at you, trying to be tough after your adorable little entrance.”

She was definitely jealous a man like Goku was carrying me. I gave her a plain look, unimpressed by her display for the bodyguards that had filled the room, holding back Bulma and, oddly enough, crowding Vegeta into submission. I frowned at the sight, and Delilah quickly gloated for my clarity.

“Oh, it’s just so sweet. I only had to twist Brief’s arm a little to get the spiky-haired one in line. Isn’t that just precious?”

“What do you want,” I suddenly snapped, surprising myself, “The thought of you makes me sick enough, I’d hate to vomit all over this shiny floor.”

Her blue eyes flashed with a mixture of hurt and anger as she looked me over.

“Well, someone’s gotten rude.”

“If you think I was going to be remotely polite to you, you’re as deluded as that crazy mummy you called a father.”

Her silvery voice lost some of its gentle airs. “I don’t appreciate you talking about my father that way.”

I only smiled bitterly, holding her gaze. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly with upset, then she sighed, looking away.

“Well, since you’re so disgusted by the sight of me, I’m glad to be the bearer of good news. My facility is moving locations, so it’s likely you won’t see me again.”

I snorted. “I doubt that.”

“I don’t appreciate being berated, so you don’t need any doubts,” she retorted with slight offense.

“Oh, but you do love to win.”

The silence in the room was heavy, and I stared her down, surprised by how my fight or flight instinct was backing me up right now. Goku was still behind me, and I knew because Delilah’s eyes were flitting between me and him more and more as the seconds passed, and her lips were slowly pressing into a thin red line.

“You’re not going to introduce me to your new friend?”

“No need. Why should I care if you’re moving the lab?”

She gave a slightly tight-lipped smile, cocking her head. “Well, since you decided to so graciously jump ship, your office has remained a museum for the last month and a half. I figured you wouldn’t want me touch your things.”

“Never stopped you before,” I shot back with a shrug. “Why didn’t you hire a new researcher?”

“Nothing can replace the best,” she said, giving a little smile.

I sighed, staring at her impatiently.

She glanced away with frustration. “What’s the point of this performance, Bel-bel? Showing off for him, or the short one?”

I ignored her provocation, turning my attention to Bulma and Vegeta. “Let them go. You’ve relayed your message, I’ll come pick my stuff up tomorrow. And don’t call me that.”

My pulse was starting to raise as she peered at me, dismissing my request.

“You don’t look so good,” she observed, “Are you sick?”

I sighed sharply. “Delilah, it’s time for you to leave. And tell your silly entourage to back off.”

Genuine concern suddenly washed over her face. “Have you been taking your medication?”

Anger bubbled up inside of me. “Wow, what a brilliant question, Delilah. Have I been taking my insane ex-girlfriend’s medication that she told me I needed because I was ‘unstable’? Fuck, that’s a real head-scratcher, isn’t it?”

She suddenly turned dead serious.

“Bellatrix, you need to take those,” she insisted gently, stepping towards me.

My chest tightened as I took a step back. “Don’t get any closer to me.”

She frowned at my words, maintaining her severity. “Did you…run out?”

“If by run out you mean I threw them over my balcony after breaking everything in my apartment at two in the morning, then yes, I ran out.”

Delilah sighed heavily. “Look, Bellatrix, I’m—“

She looked up at Goku behind me with some discomfort.

“Can we talk somewhere else?”

“No. You’re a big girl. You can apologize with someone else besides me in the room. Just means it has to be sincere for once.”

I crossed my arms. She stepped towards me indignantly, lowering her voice.

“I have always been sincere to you. I—I loved you.”

My back ached from the tension in my muscles. I could smell her perfume; floral, light. It filled my nose the longer I looked into her eyes. A sharp pain erupted in my forehead as I looked at her. I clenched my fists, feeling the knot in my throat and trying to get rid of it before answering.

“You,” I bit my lip in annoyance hearing my voice waver, “You don’t know what love is. If you did, you’d know you never hurt someone you love the way you hurt me.”

Her eyes glistened, and she looked away before doubling down and reached out to touch me. I slapped her hand away in alarm, eyes widening.

“Bel—“

“Do not touch me.”

“Darling, please. I can’t stand to see you like this.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have made me this way!”

A light burst behind her, and Delilah shrieked, whirling around. I didn’t expect my voice to raise the way it did; it just came out, I didn’t mean to yell at her—

“Bellatrix, you need your medicine, okay? Please come with me.”

“What? No, no, don’t touch—“

Before I could stop her, she reached out and grabbed my wrist, and my strong front shattered as my skin crawled and my stomach lurched. I snatched my arm away, feeling a surge of what felt like rage, an anxiety attack, and a caffeine rush mixed into one. My mind went blank with nothing but the urge to get rid of her.

“Get! Out! I’m sick of you! I’m sick of you! Get the hell out! You selfish bi—“

“Woah, woah, Bellatrix!”

Someone grabbed me and I shoved them off, but when they grabbed me again I wasn’t strong enough to push them away. I let out a cry, struggling until I recognized Goku’s scent, then his voice, then blinked, looking around at the flickering, swinging lights above us, the strewn bedclothes all over the floor, the broken windows and the TV monitor which was now securely in the wall above my upside down hospital bed. My muscles were tense and aching, I realized, and I relaxed, looking around the room with disorientation.

Bulma, I remembered.

I turned my head to see a frazzled and shocked Bulma guarded by a bewildered Vegeta in the corner of the room. The bodyguards had disappeared. As loose wires sparked above us, I looked down at Delilah, who was pale as death. Her hair was a mess now; completely ruffled out of its pressed, shiny state from before. There were tears in her eyes. They made my breath catch in my throat.

“This is what I meant by unstable. Your emotions are completely unregulated. It makes your…”

She cleared her throat, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

“Your affliction volatile.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “What…what just…?”

“You’re not well. You need to get that under control before a bad day ends up with someone dead.”

She got to her feet shakily, brushing off her black trench coat and putting her heels back on, clearing her throat again. Despite her grave demeanor, which usually meant I was in trouble, she headed to the door. She turned to Bulma before she left.

“I know you all hate me, but Bellatrix can’t have whatever this is—“

She gestured to the demolished room tensely.

“Running wild. Someone’s going to end up hurt or dead. It could be her, but it’ll be one of you before that happens.”

“Seems like that someone would be you if you don’t get the hell out,” Vegeta suddenly said, giving her the usual glare as he crossed his arms again.

She looked him up and down, then managed a cold smile. “Aren’t you just the most devastating Napoleon complex.”

Vegeta obviously had no idea what than meant, but his glare still deepened in offense.

“See you later, Bel-bel.”

She gave a wave, not even looking at me as she left and walked down the hall. I didn’t say a word until the elevator pinged and the doors closed. I let out the breath I was holding, clenching my fists.

“What…did I do? Did—I didn’t do all of this, right? What’s going on?”

Goku made a pleased sound, and I turned to look up at him in confusion. He smiled at me.

“I knew your energy was strong.”

***

“Bulma, I feel fine,” I protested again with a frown.

“I don’t care, I’m still making sure your vitals are good. Now do it again.”

I huffed, looking to Goku and Vegeta. The former smiled and gave me a thumbs up, while the latter just glared—or it was his usual face; I’m still working on discerning that.

“C’mon, don’t worry about them,” Bulma pushed, “Close your eyes and do it again.”

She was understandably testy after Delilah’s bodyguards manhandled her and she said god knows what to her while they were waiting for me to come. I was a little annoyed, but I ignored her spike in temper.

“Okay, okay, I’m doing it.”

“Remember to relax your your body, okay?”

I looked over at Goku with an ‘I-got-it’ smile, then focused on the metal target at the other end of the testing hall. It was uncomfortable with all of the wires hanging off of me, but I tried to ignore it.

I closed my eyes, shut everything out, and relaxed my body. My heartbeat started to slow down, and as I kept still, I felt the thud beating against my chest and sending blood flowing through my veins. The awareness of my body sent tremors through it again, but I only breathed through the feeling and kept focusing on the inner tension that released within me before. For a moment I heard beeping somewhere, but then I was encapsulated in silence. A small chill passed over my skin, and my mind wandered back to Goku’s kamehameha from before—the feeling of power in the air, the ground buckling beneath my feet, the sound of the blast rushing against my ears as my stomach flew into my throat—then it clicked. I was floating.

I felt something bump against me from behind, and I opened my eyes. It all came rushing in; the sound of metal creaking and bending, swirling wind, crashing here and there, alarms, bright sunlight overtaking the sterile, artificial ones, and the grunts of effort coming from Goku behind me, who had his arms wrapped around me as we slowly inched backward from the force of an invisible explosion. I could feel the energy flowing from my palm, but it wasn’t like Goku’s. It was cold, empty, and almost seemed…consuming.

I looked at the destruction ensuing in front of me as I began to hear the urges of Bulma and Vegeta for me to stop. The metal wall was warping and curling back like burning paper, and the target from before was a charred memory of what it used to be. My eyes widened as a huge crack split the wall in half, and it began to reach the ceiling. With alarm, I shut my eyes, trying to close whatever I’d opened, and it shut off bluntly, sending Goku and I flying against the wall behind us faster than either of us could think.

“Ugh…”

I curled onto my side, catching my breath. Goku panted, giving a half hearted half.

“I’m impressed,” he said, “Once you get that under control, you’ve got to let me spar with you. Need help getting up?”

“I’m not done lying on the cold, hard ground; thank you very much,” I said, turning onto my back as Goku got to his feet and gave me a hand.

I stood up with a groan, rubbing my back. I looked at the mayhem in the testing hall, pausing. My brain was starting to scramble.

“This was all me?”

A loud crash nearly sent me flying through the roof and I screamed. The lights flickered as I jumped, and everyone tensed a little. Goku chuckled uneasily.

“Why don’t we go outside so you can cool down,” he offered, ushering my outside.

I shook my head. “No, I want to see what the data was. I’m going to need a really good explanation for that.”

I pointed to the source of the loud crash—the metal wall had fallen to the ground, still peeling away.

“Someone get samples of th—“

“—Samples of that then one of you two destroy it.”

Bulma and I both dictated the same thing to the room,and looked at each other. I smiled weakly, then I let my shoulders drop as I hesitantly went over to the monitors. I leaned over onto the desk next to Bulma, surveying the screens.

“Whaddya got—oh…”

The screens were jumbled nonsense flickering all over the place. I jumped as a few sparks flew here and there. I looked to Bulma, who was staring at me in silence. I frowned, but didn't pay it any mind.

“What happened?”

She didn’t answer, and I looked at her again. “Bulma?”

She was pale, and, now that I read her expression better, completely stunned in silence. I waved my hand in front of her face.

“Bulma?”

Her eyes pupils shrank and she jumped, covering her face.

“Don’t blast me!”

I gave her an annoyed look. “Bulma, what happened to the computers?”

“They crashed,” she said, peeking out between her fingers, “At a certain point, the numbers for your heart rate and brain activity just went crazy—random numbers, then zeroes, and then the screens glitched out like this while I was hanging on to them for dear life.”

I gave her a look as she frowned at me.

“Don’t get that blaming tone with me like I did it on purpose.”

I leaned on the desk as the screens continued to glitch and spark. I looked over at the destroyed wall, and blushed in embarrassment as Bulma’s parents peeked in from outside.

“I don’t even know what’s going on…oh god. Someone catch—“

I groaned as the room spun, and my legs gave while I collapsed to the floor. I tensed my entire body as a brutal wave of nausea went through me, and the sound of metal creaking made me freeze as it passed.

Goku came over and helped me up, but everyone else was staring at the gaping hole where a wall used to be—even Vegeta. Or…at least that’s what I thought until I saw the piece of broken wall.

It was compressing like a piece of crumpled paper. I stared in disbelief until a sharp pain erupted in my stomach, and I folded over, crying out, hearing metal grinding against metal horribly. It was shrill and grating like nails on a chalkboard. I forced myself to look up, and watched as the metal crumpled more and more, then seemed to almost smooth out until I couldn’t take it anymore and put all of my weight on Goku in exhaustion.

“Okay, let’s get you back in bed,” Goku said, genuine worry coloring his voice.

I only muttered back. “Bed. Nice.”

He picked me up and walked us to the elevator then to the medical ward. I stared up at the ceiling lights as my sight started darkening. I was starting to feel weak, too. My arm slid off of Goku’s shoulder, dangling behind us. For some reason, in this state my mind cleared enough to process what I’d experienced for the last thirty minutes.

I had superpowers. I had genuine, Professor X, alien-superhero-fucking superpowers. And my crazy ex-girlfriend somehow knew before I did.

***

I woke up a week later with a dry mouth and a mild, constant anxiety attack. I couldn’t manage to speak very much, too much talking and I was left winded. The world seemed much too bright and loud every time I woke up, and with Goku as company, my ears were being assaulted until he got the message to quiet down from Bulma.

It seemed that every time I woke up, a new person was watching me. First Goku, then Bulma, then some short guy without a nose, a pretty unassuming guy if it weren’t for his equally insane muscles, a bald man with three eyes and a tiny clown-looking kid as a sidekick, and, finally, a fucking GIANT green alien-looking guy.

It was only when I woke up to Vegeta glaring at me in the corner that I was worried I was losing my mind. The new people would appear and disappear as the days passed, but I kept seeing them, which didn’t exactly rule out them being hallucinations, but Goku and Bulma saw them too, which put me at ease.

“Just because the woman can move things around with a little ki doesn’t mean she has any potential,” Vegeta said curtly, “She’s still just a human.”

“Is she, though,” Bulma chimed in, “Is she really?”

I groaned, breathing heavily as I tried to move or open my eyes. What the hell were they getting on about; of course I was human!

“Look, all I know is that Bels was a kid when I met her in high school. A kid. Literally. She was probably a few years older than when I first met Goku! And her brain was this total supercomputer, it was remarkable to see her work on experiments or proofs. She’s smarter than me, and I’m a genius. Also, sidenote, I don't think she's ever had a period."

I heard a groan--probably Vegeta.

“If she was so smart, then why didn’t she know she had any abilities in the first place?”

“I’m sure Bels will be happy to answer once she’s well enough to talk again,” Bulma smoothly deflected.

“And how long with that be taking exactly?”

Bulma huffed, and I heard her stomping. “Look! Her vitals are improving, so we just have to wait! I know that’s like pulling teeth for you, your royal highness, but you’re just gonna have to manage!”

I drifted away again as Vegeta grumbled and muttered to himself.

I wasn’t sure how much time passed until the night I woke up ready to go. I wanted a smoke, so I knew I was at a hundred percent again and got out of my bed. I’d awoken to an empty, silent room, and an uncomfortably still medical ward. Everything was dark, but the lights would flash on and off as I passed under them. I would’ve been more interested in that if my body wasn’t so heavy and uncoordinated as I swayed through the halls to the elevator—I poked the button for the floor Bulma’s lab was on and rested my forehead against the doors. I let out a sigh, closing my eyes and slumping my shoulders. Everything I remembered felt like months ago.

I jumped as the elevator pinged, catching myself on the doorframe as it opened. I groaned, punching the button to close the doors, and collapsed against the wall as I pondered Vegeta’s words.

Why didn’t I know anything about my own powers?

Based off of my last two experiences, I didn’t remember anything after I used them, so it would make sense I wouldn’t know anything during Delilah and I’s relationship. But…what about my parents? My entire family? My brothers and sisters? Not one of them had powers? Why didn’t they have powers?

Why didn’t he?

The realization hit me as the elevator dinged, and I slid down to the floor, sitting. I stared at the floor. All this time I had powers. If I’d never taken those stupid pills she made me, I could’ve changed so much. I could’ve done something that day. A tight ball of grief knotted up my rib cage and I clenched my fists.

Why did everyone lie to me? Why was this secret kept? Why, why, why did I have to know about it now when it didn’t matter anymore?

When I could’ve saved Adam’s life?

The elevator creaked, and I jumped, looking up as tears fell from my eyes. I should probably get out of here if I’m going to have another emotional breakdown. I took my breaths, shutting my eyes and calming down. One, two, three, four, hold, just like that doctor lady had taught me. Then I got up, pushed myself from the wall, and walked into the hall.

“Bulma? You up?”

My voice sounded fragile as it echoed and floated back to my ears. I didn’t want to walk anymore; my body had become sapped of everything. I couldn’t clear the images from my mind, no matter how hard I tried. The way the motorcyclist’s bones twisted after flying through the air, Adam’s wide, glassy eyes staring past me and fixing themselves on the clouds. I crumbled to my knees, groaning, wiping my hands frantically on my hospital gown. I could feel his blood pooling around my knees, hot and sticky against my fingers and palms, spilling out into a halo around his empty eyes, matting into his curls. I vomited.

The next thing I knew I was blinded the same lights on the ceiling, and there was an awful noise. A shrill, almost screeching kind of noise, that I was too tired to cover my ears to block. I could smell dried bile on my lips, along with a familiar earthy scent. I froze up in embarrassment in Goku’s arms, meeting his eyes. They searched mine with worry.

“You were crying,” he said simply, “I felt your energy spike, and when I found you, you were crying in your sleep.”

And lying in a pool of my own vomit, I figure.

I sniffed, wiping my eyes defensively. “It’s…loud.”

The next thing I knew, we were on my balcony, and my insides were doing somersaults. I yelped, glaring at him as I slapped my hand over my mouth to hold back a wave of sickness.

“I’m not well enough for that,” I sharply muttered, wiggling out of his arms.

“Sorry, you just seemed fine last time we did it so…”

“Fight or flight, Goku, fight or flight.”

My ears rang in the silence of the patio—city sounds aside—and I collapsed onto the lounge chair. Goku sat down next to me, still watching me intently. I could feel the question bubbling up in the air; practically hear it forming in his mind.

“Bellatrix, why were you crying?”

I frowned deeply, glaring at the skyscrapers through the glass. At my silence, Goku spoke more carefully.

“Was it..your ex?”

He seemed hesitant to ask; I wondered if he thought just the mentioning of Delilah would set me off. I sighed sharply, looking at him.

“Look, I get that—“

His gaze was gentle. Attentive. He was in full listening mode, which seemed…new. It made me self-conscious, preparing to shove away his concern, thinking of his kindness over the past week. I looked away and slumped my shoulders.

“Can this stay between us? Like a secret?”

He nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

I hadn’t even told Bulma yet. I hadn’t even gone to visit my parents to see if they were alright. I’d barely faced it myself since it had happened, and it loomed over my constantly. Why was it so easy to tell him? Why could I tell him anything right now?

“When I left my ex, I went to stay with my older brother Adam.”

“You have a brother?”

My stomach twisted. “I, uh, had an older brother, yeah.”

He easily connected the dots. His face softened as he looked me up and down. I tried to ignore it, but it didn’t help, the tears still formed.

“Delilah had hired this P.I.—a uh, private investigator. Maybe she thought I had found someone else, or that I was losing it, who knows. I knew I was being watched, I could sense it, but I couldn’t see anything. I was scared out of my mind, but I didn’t tell Adam because I wanted things to feel fine. Just for once. He was so…”

I clasped my hands, breathing shakily.

“Uh, anyways, one day we were leaving a movie and the P.I. was there in plain sight. I just laid my eyes on him and knew. I didn’t know he was a P.I. at the time. I thought that it was just some crazy guy, or a stalker, or one of Delilah’s bodyguards come to beat me into a pulp and drag me back to her, so I told Adam.”

My throat tightened as I looked up at the clouds. I could see it in my head as I told Goku, my voice quivering.

“I tried to stop him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything. A single fucking thing. Him and the P.I. started getting physical, and it escalated, it all happened so fast. Next thing I knew Adam…”

I fell quiet, wiping my palms again.

“Adam what,” Goku gently prodded.

I looked to him, remembering he was there. I interlaced my fingers.

“A motorcyclist hit him in the street. The motorcyclist ended up paralyzed from the waist down, but Adam…”

A few tears rolled down my cheeks.

“He died there in the street. I held his head in my hands as blood oozed out of him, and I was crying and screaming for am ambulance even though I knew there was no point. I couldn’t do anything but watch. Watch as he left me alone forever. And it was all Delilah’s fault.”

We sat in silence. Goku didn’t say anything, which I couldn’t decide made this better or worse. I sniffed, drying my eyes.

“So, um, I guess I was crying because now I have these powers or whatever, and it doesn’t mean a fucking thing.”

“Of course it means something,” he protested.

I looked at him. “I can’t save my brother’s life, I can’t fix the gaping wound in my family where he was, and I can’t…I can’t even at least scrape it all from my mind. I’m just—just…a fucking public safety hazard now! I can’t even use it consciously, I’m just fucking crazy, and unstable, and fucking weak above it all.”

Realizing I was starting to get angry, I sat up and massaged my temples, trying to calm down.

“Just—what am I supposed to do with this?”

He suddenly smiled and rose to his feet.

“That’s easy: you get stronger.”

I stared up at him as he placed his hands on his hips, eyes fixed on me as he waited for a response. I blinked.

“So, what, I become a fighter like you?”

“Sure,” he said, “Why not?”

I squinted at him. “You’re not joking right now, are you?”

He frowned, confused. “Why would I be joking?”

He was so sincere, it made me laugh.

“Goku, your confidence is very…sweet…but I’m not a fighter, not at all. I am a brain, and all of this crap—“

I waved my arms and legs and smushed my face. “—Is an unfortunate meat case for that I’m stuck with cleaning and feeding.”

“That sounds horrible.”

I only smiled and shrugged. “Yup.”

“Okay, I need to go shower and change and…god, I need to smoke.”

Goku nodded. “I’ll wait out here.”

I nodded, yawned, them gestured for him to turn around, which he did. I stood and stepped over the chair, ripping off my hospital gown and throwing it to the floor.

I flicked my lighter with annoyance, tugging my sweater closer around my neck.

“Ah, shit.”

“I can light it for you,” Goku offered.

“Oh, no, no, it’ll light.”

I flicked it again, and euphoria washed over me at the sprouting of a flame. I hurriedly lit my cigarette, smiling at Goku.

“See? What’d I tell you?”

I took a long drag, and exhaled. My eyes scanned over the cityscape below us briefly until I scurried back to the center of the roof, planting my butt on the ground.I sighed, placing the cigarette between my lips.

I was still playing with the thought of what Goku was suggesting I do with my life. I was never going to be some kind of warrior; I couldn’t even imagine it. I had the stamina of a depressed corpse, and about the same physical force as a sheet of paper.

But, still.

You need to get that under control before a bad day ends up with someone dead.

Superhero pipe dreams aside, I had a dangerous force inside of me that was hungering to unleash itself at any given moment. I couldn’t just let it rule my life as do as it pleased, leaving me with memory loss and an almost certain anxiety disorder.

I had to control it. I had to make it mine—not the other way around, or I was never going to be allowed in any lab ever again.

“Hey, Goku?”

“Yeah?”

“How fast could you teleport and catch someone if, say, theoretically, they’d fallen from a building like this?”

“Probably pretty fast, why?”

I stared at the railing on the edge of the roof, narrowing my eyes. I felt my cigarette burn hotter in my fingers.

“Let’s go back to where we went to do your blast.”

***

Goku lowered us onto a cliff, eyeing me strangely. I slid from his arms, pressing my feet on the earth. Closing my eyes, I inhaled the fresh air, tossing my cigarette stump aside.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay up here?”

I exhaled deeply. “Nope. That’s kinda the idea.”

I opened my eyes, looking down at the ground below us, dimly illuminated by the moon. Fear immediately took my body, seeping into my knees and feet. I swallowed, timidly peering over the edge and seeing the steep fall it would be. Goku came up next to me.

“Uh, what’s going on, exactly?”

“This would be a pretty gnarly fall, don’t you think?”

He hesitated in confusion. “Yeah, probably.”

“My body would probably just break on impact.”

I kicked some rocks over the edge and listened to their clacking as they fluttered out of my sight.

“Pretty terrifying thought. Splattering all over the ground.”

I looked at Goku, raising my eyebrow. He smiled uneasily.

“Should…I call Bulma?”

“Don’t call Bulma,” I told him, turning away from the edge and returning to the middle, “We’re just conducting an experiment, that’s all.”

“Experiment?”

I smiled at him as he followed me back to where we landed.

“My power’s triggered by intense emotion overriding everything else in my mind, like a security system.”

I awkwardly averted my eyes. “Which is why it’s so volatile and likely to come out at any moment, since…well…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

I turned to face the edge again. “Putting that aside for a moment, I’ve never voluntarily triggered it, and if I’m going to control this, that’s my first step. I’m obviously not going to cry over my dead brother and failed relationship every time I want to use this thing, so I’ll go for my next best option of turning the switch.”

“Which is?”

I met his eyes. “Fear.”

“If I’m about to splat, I’ll call out for you and you can catch me.”

He looked at me in alarm. “I don’t usually say this, but I don’t think this is the best idea right now.”

I smiled. “You better be as fast as you say, because if I die, Bulma’s coming for your ass first.”

I stepped backwards, creating room, feeling the strong breeze against my legs and back, feeling my muscles trembling at what I was about to do. Oh, I was going to shit my fucking pants.

“Don’t catch me until I say, alright?”

“Bellatrix, I think you’re shaking.”

I gave him a pointed look. “Alright?”

He frowned, but crossed his arms in resignation. “Okay.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I could do this, I could do this. I didn’t need Delilah’s creepy medication, and I sure as hell didn’t need to listen to her. I could control this, no matter what she thought. Or what my parents thought, or even what Bulma, Goku, and Vegeta thought.

I settled my eyes beyond the edge, skipping my feet to get myself ready. I was going to learn this power, I was going to control it, and then I was going to find my way back to some kind of a normal life. The thought of this spurred me.

“Bellatrix—“

Without letting myself think, I sprinted forward, leaping right over the edge and flying into the air.

Gravity immediately took hold of my body and started to drag me to the ground. My stomach wrapped around my lungs and crushed them as I watched the stars grow further away from me. I was weightless; paralyzed by the force of the wind that beat beat against my ears and shoved my limbs around like they were papier-mâché. My locs beat against my face—I was frozen; too shocked to be afraid, and too afraid to snap myself out of it.

“Bellatrix, you’re getting close to the ground!”

The sound of Goku’s voice shot me into action. I started flailing, then found myself spiraling through the air with the sounds of my swearing barely keeping up with my mouth. My sight was a blur of rock, stars, the moon, and the ground, which was getting closer — much, much, fucking closer. Heart slamming into my chest, I bit down on my lip indignantly: there was no way I was going to call for Goku. I was a big girl, I was going to do this!

Grunting with effort, I fought against the choppy wind and twisted myself to face the ground and holy fuck I was feet away from it! My terror spiked, and I thrust my arms out in front of me, squeezing my eyes shut.

Break my fall, I willed desperately, break my fall damnit!

Then—nothing. I felt no resistance, no magical force, no explosions. I surrendered to the force of the winds, gliding with the rough push and pull of the air. I braced myself for the splat. Or, I should probably call-

“Hey, nice job!”

I opened my eyes in surprise at the sound of Goku’s voice so close, and looked over to see him looking up at me from the ground with a beaming smile. His eyes were alight with excitement.

“You really are a quick learner, huh?”

I gasped as I looked over my shoulder—I was hovering.

“How do you feel?”

“It feels like I’m in a very cozy bed. I’m warm.”

I felt a sudden wave of relief as I lowered myself to meet Goku’s eyes, and found myself smiling, then laughing. The sound filled my ears.

“Holy shit! I did it!”

“Yeah!”

“I’m fucking flying right now!”

Goku laughed along with me, fed by my own excitement.

“And look—“

I reached out to him, holding out my hand in front of his face. He tensed a little, looking between my hand and my smile uneasily. I rose my eyebrows.

“No explosion.”

“Oh—good.”

He relaxed again, rubbing his nape.

“That was a real leap of faith you did,” he remarked, “You weren’t really going to call me, were you?”

My cheeks ached, and I tried to calm down. I let out a sigh, rubbing my face. “Not really…”

He laughed. “Sounds like something Vegeta would do!”

My happiness dropped immediately. “Please take that back.”

He only kept laughing, then stared at me after he cooled down a bit. His eyes were sparkling like onyx in the moonlight, but aside from that, they held an odd glow to them. It was warm, and fond. I continued floating awkwardly, glancing around shyly under his gaze. Then, he pressed his palm against mine, and my stomach flipped.

“Why don’t I help you get on the ground?”

I felt myself start to blush and laugh nervously. Oh god, how embarrassing. I could feel it coursing through me as we held each other’s stares; my body felt lighter—probably my soul trying to crawl its way out of me.

“Uh—yeah…sure—oh no no no—“

I was starting to lift into the air, and I grabbed Goku’s hand tightly in an attempt to stop it. He laughed. He was laughing. I glared at him as I grabbed onto his forearm desperately.

“Are you laughing right now?!”

“Don’t worry! I’ve got you, it’ll be fine—“

“Goku!”

I shrieked as I lurched up into the sky out of nowhere, clinging onto Goku’s arm for dear life while he calmly rose with me, still laughing.

“Goku, stop laughing or I swear to—oh my god—“

We flew up past the clouds, and I did my best to hold in the scream that was trying to claw its way from my lips.

“Hey, hey,” he encouraged, “You’re doing great!”

I faltered in the air slightly and yelped, looking to Goku in a panic. He placed his hand over mine reassuringly, which didn’t do much for calming my nerves. My blood pressure slowly lowered as we fell still in the sky, and I looked at the stars with a mixture of terror and wonder inside of me.

“Why don’t you try moving yourself upright?”

I broke my admiration of the night sky to look at Goku incredulously. I smiled uneasily. “Oh, I can give you many reasons why not.”

“I can catch you in time if anything happens,” he assured, “Besides, you can’t fly around on your back.”

“Says who?”

He laughed softly, floating away. I heard his voice at my feet.

“Just stop, then tilt your body to face me, okay?”

I frowned, eyes darting to either side of me. “How am I supposed to stop, exactly?”

“Just relax and let it happen. Trust yourself.”

He made it sound so easy. I sighed, closing my eyes.

“Alright.”

I stretched my limbs out wide, spreading my fingers and reaching to feel the air around my body. I frowned, opening my eyes. How the hell does one just stop, exactly? What does that even mean?

“Am I supposed to be feeling something?”

“Do you feel something?”

“Goku…” I warned.

“Okay, okay,” he relented, giving a chuckle, “let’s try something.”

He suddenly appeared above me, and placed his hands in front of his chest.

“Put your hands against mine,” he instructed.

I hesitated. He smiled, looking at me expectantly. With furrowed eyebrows, I obliged and pressed my palms against his again. I waited for more directions, but he didn’t say anything. He was just…staring at me.

“Uh…what now?”

No answer, only a playful grin in return. I couldn’t manage to hold his gaze anymore and looked away. He turned my chin back towards him—my eyes widened and fixed on his timidly.

“Keep looking at me,” he encouraged.

His knuckle grazed my jaw briefly. I swallowed, chuckling nervously. Goku’s eyes, kind as they were, enveloped me the longer I looked into them. His hands were so big compared to mine.

“Goku, is there a point to this?”

“Of course; I want you to push me.”

I frowned at him. We both knew I wasn’t strong enough to even trip him.

“Make sense.”

“You should feel a kind of aura around your body,” he clarified, “I want you to use it to push me away.”

I blinked. “Hm. Okay.”

I shut my eyes instinctually to focus but Goku pinched my cheek. Yelping, I slapped his hand away.

“What was that for?”

“I want you to keep your eyes on mine.”

“Why?”

“Because you get so nervous,” he said with a laugh, “It helps to be uncomfortable.”

My face burned, but now I was stubbornly holding his gaze.

“I don’t get nervous.”

“Yeah, you do! And you get really nervous when I hold your hand like this.”

He intertwined his fingers with mine and I felt ready to melt. What the hell was happening? Was this Bulma’s doing? What happened to nice Goku?

The air grew heavier around us and my skin prickled.

“Feel that?”

I slowly nodded, trying to mask my shallow breaths. I shivered as my aura tickled the back of my neck.

“Okay, I feel it.”

“Great! Now push me away from you.”

I pushed against his hands, but he didn’t come close to budging. In fact, he pushed back, and I found myself slowly moving to the ground again.

“C’mon, push me back.”

I could feel the power coursing through his body buzzing in his hands. His eyes were starting to grow...intense. Not in a threatening manner, but enough to make me want to shrink out of his sight. They held a challenge, an immovable resolve that thoroughly intimidated me. He wasn’t going to blast me, was he? He suddenly leaned in, making my heart fall into my stomach.

"What -- what are you doing," I muttered.

He gave me that same boyish grin, pulling me close enough for our noses to brush.

"Oh nothin', just getting a little more friendly."

My voice wavered. "You're completely invading my personal bubble."

"I know," he breezily dismissed, "but what're ya gonna do about it?"

I glared lightly at him and tried to push his hands away again.

“We both know that’s not gonna work. You gotta use your ki.”

Great, more new words. With a grumble, I tried harder to focus my energy into my hands while still handling Goku’s proximity and stare. My effort didn’t satisfy Goku, though.

“You’re still holding back, Bellatrix,” he lightly reprimanded, “Just let go, I can take it.”

“I’m trying,” I insisted.

He suddenly smiled again, and I swallowed thickly.

“Maybe I still need to get closer, then…”

“How much closer can you get?”

Goku’s eyes crinkled as he gave me another playful smile, and his arm wrapped around my waist. I made a sound—maybe a squeak—and felt something switch on throughout my entire nervous system. Energy surged through every vein, every sinew of my body, making my hands and scalp tingle. He released my waist, placing his hand back over mine. His eyes widened excitedly.

“Yeah, that’s it!”

I growled, lifting us back up into the air, separating his hands from mine.

“Good, good! Keep going!”

“If you say so.”

Feeling my adrenaline spike, I swiftly unleashed the blast out of my hands, sending both Goku and I flying away from each other.

“Woah!”

I chuckled as Goku’s voice echoed loudly in the sky, then yelped as I slammed into the ground, crashing through the surface and collapsing in the center of a crater. I stared wide-eyed at the broken clouds above me in a daze.

“Ouch.”

Goku suddenly appeared above me with his fingers to his forehead, his clothes torn and ratty.

“Heh! That’s some energy you’ve got.”

I smiled meekly. “I think my brain rattled around my skull just now.”

“Eh, happens to the best of us. Want to head back?”

I gave a thumbs up. He gently gathered me in his arms, and I winced.

“Shit, my back.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I gotcha.”

“I—woah—okay—“

He hinged me over his shoulder. “Is that better?”

I blushed. Admittedly, it was.

***

“That was some nice power for your first time.”

I shrugged off my shirt, hanging on the edge of the bed. With a grumble, I struggled to get it off as it hung onto my arms, which I couldn’t move well. Goku’s voice suddenly sounded behind me.

“Let me help you with that.”

I sighed, feeling the soreness throughout my entire torso. I wasn’t in much of a position to refuse.

“‘Kay.”

He eased the shirt off of my arms and tossed it to the floor. I tensed up as I felt his fingers fiddling with the fastener of my bra, my face going up ten times its normal temperature.

“Goku?”

He huffed. “Sorry, I just don’t know how to take this off.”

I shook my head slightly at his oh-so innocent apology.

“Goku, you don’t need to so that,” I reassured, “I’ll leave it on for now.”

“Oh, then should I help you with it later?”

I turned to look at him incredulously. He cocked his head, raising an eyebrow.

“What?”

I started to say something, but simply gave it up. I smiled.

“I’ll take care of it, alright? Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Still, this bruise is looking pretty nasty.”

I sat up straight as Goku’s fingers pressed on my spine. Pain shot through my back.

“Goku!”

“Sorry—I just wanted to check if it hurt any.”

“It hurts plenty.”

The bed shifted as he stood up.

“Hm?”

“Just lie down, I’ll be right back.”

I frowned, but crawled out onto my stomach as he disappeared from the room. As I shut my eyes, he returned.

“Okay, here. Eat this.”

He sat down next to me, holding a bean to my lips. I looked at him questioningly.

“It’ll help with your back.”

“Normally, I’d be inclined to question you, but I’m far past disbelief these days.”

I took it from him, eating it and lying back down. A surge of energy shot through me, and goosebumps rose on my entire body. My back loosened easily, and I relaxed into my bed.

“Feel better?”

“Mhm.”

“Good. Wanna eat?”

I turned over, sighing. “Mhm. Why don’t you show me Super Saiyan afterward?”

“Sure, I’ll show you all of them.”

My ears perked up, and I looked at him with what I hoped was subdued excitement.

“All of them?”

He grinned. I sat up, swinging my legs over the bed.

“Okay, show me first, then we’ll eat.”

“Awe, but I’m hungry!”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, fine, let’s go to Bulma’s.”

“Great!”

Before I could go to my dresser and put on a shirt, Goku took my hand and instant transmission-ed us right in front of Bulma.

And Vegeta.

On her bed.

We all stared at each other, with Bulma crimson red, and Vegeta looking like he’d just been caught doing something awful. Goku and I shared a glance, then he laughed awkwardly and moved us to a different room.

We stood there quietly until Goku broke into another quiet laugh, and I grinned, covering my mouth.

“Stop laughing,” I insisted, voice wavering, “St—stop that.”

“Oh wow, Bulma and Vegeta...”

I elbowed him gently in the ribs, shaking my head and placing a finger over my lips.

“What?”

“That’s inappropriate. Besides, it wasn’t like they were doing anything. We probably shouldn’t mention anything.”

“But you’re smiling!”

I used my fingers to straighten the corners of my mouth.

“No, I’m not.”

He chuckled again, and I pinched his cheek hard.

“Bulma’s going to be embarrassed, so stop. Besides, we’re the ones who are half naked—“

I paused, looking down and shyly covering my chest and heading for the door.

“I’m going to find a shirt.”

Before I could touch the knob, Bulma nearly opened the door in my face. I jumped back before even processing it, staring straight at her.

“We, uh, didn’t see anything.”

“I thought we weren’t going to say anything about it,” Goku piped up behind me.

“It just kinda…slipped out.”

Bulma blushed lightly, but didn’t give any other signs of being affected besides that. She examined us in confusion.

“Why aren’t either of you wearing shirts?”

I rubbed my back unconsciously. “I may or may not have bruised my spine recently.”

She sighed. “Hanging out with Goku’ll do that.”

“What do you want, Kakarot?”

Vegeta emerged behind her, barging into the room. He gave me a hard look, and I rose an eyebrow at him, crossing my arms.

“And what are you doing here?”

I frowned. “What are you?”

“I LIVE HERE.”

I knew it would annoy him more, but I couldn’t help giving Bulma a questioning look.

“Why is he living here?”

“Don’t ignore me!”

Goku walked up to us with an easygoing smile and put his hand on Vegeta’s shoulder.

“Hey, calm down Vegeta! We didn’t see anything you and Bulma were doing.”

Vegeta gritted his teeth with a blush. “Ngh…we weren’t doing anything!”

Now I was annoying him on purpose. “Yet, I’m sure.”

“Quiet, earth woman!”

Bulma nudged Vegeta aside with a sigh. She was surprisingly calm, it was odd.

“Goku, Bels, what are you doing here?”

I pointed at Goku. “Dinner.”

She looked at him tiredly. “The chefs are already asleep.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “And you don’t have a microwave?”

Goku whined. “A microwave?”

I gave him a harsh look. “What?”

“Can’t one of them just wake up?”

“Goku, the chefs are humans, they need rest—especially if they’re already feeding one Saiyan regularly.”

“Microwaves make the food less good, though,” he complained.

I groaned. “Oh, my gosh, fine, I’ll cook something for you!”

“Really? Thanks, Bellatrix!”

I grabbed his wrist, dragging him along with me to the kitchen, grumbling.

“Stupid, hungry Saiyan…you two are helping me!”

Bulma and Vegeta followed.

“Bulma, I know you can handle a knife better than that,” I lightly chided.

“I’ve never cooked for myself in my life, give me a break!”

Something about having to slice vegetables had taken away some of Bulma’s cool from before. I chuckled, checking on Vegeta again discreetly to make sure I hadn’t hallucinated—he was strangely adept in the kitchen.

“Goku, keep stirring,” I instructed, eyeing the pot I’d put him in charge of.

I slid past Bulma to lower the burner under it. He smiled at me.

“It’s smelling really good!”

I leaned past him, smelling it, then went to the spice rack, smelling a few of those as well before settling on a couple and coming back over to add them.

“That should be good,” I muttered to myself.

“Will it be done soon?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t know if we made enough.”

I looked to the table full of large, competed dishes, humming thoughtfully.

“Well, I’m sure it’s gonna be great anyways,” he said, “thanks a lot.”

I sighed. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Where’d you learn to cook anyway?”

“My family has a farm and a garden at home; I always cooked with them. We were a big family, I’m used to cooking a lot of food.”

“Wow, that sounds great.”

I smiled a little. “Yeah, it was.”

“I’d love to meet them,” he said brightly, “If they’re anything like you, I’m sure they’re great.”

“O-oh…cool.”

I opened the larger pot next to Goku, checking the broth and smelling it, hoping the steam would clear my head.

“Chi-chi cooked a lot too, but our family was way smaller.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Family?”

Something dropped and Bulma yelped. I looked over at her in alarm, seeing she’d knocked over a can of oregano. I sighed.

“I’ll get the broom.”

***

“Wow, this is amazing Bels,” Bulma remarked, patting my head gently, “I forgot you were so good at cooking.”

“Yeah, this is really great,” Goku concurred before shoveling more food into his mouth.

I smiled as I watched him eat so enthusiastically, oddly pleased by the thought he loved my food so much. Bulma nudged me.

“What?”

“You’re staring,” she cooed.

I glared at her defensively, making her laugh.

“I’m not.”

“You sure are spending a lot of time with him,” she said quietly, smile playing on her lips, “Are you really sure there’s nothing going on there?”

I rolled my eyes, pouring myself a glass of wine.

“I suppose I’d call him my friend.”

She giggled, and I frowned deeply.

“I said my friend.”

“Right, right,” she teased, “Your friend.”

I gave her a look, smirking. “If we want to talk about friends, now…”

“We were just talking,” she quickly dismissed.

“Mm, yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of deep, thorough conversations in the future.”

“You’re disgusting,” she whispered, slapping my arm.

I grinned, laughing. Goku looked at us curiously.

“What’s so funny?”

Bulma’s cheeks colored slightly. “Nothing.”

After a filling dinner, Bulma quickly went to bed, followed by Vegeta announcing he would do the same and earning a suggestive look from me. He glared at me before leaving. Then, it was just me and the well-fed Saiyan. He let out a sigh, smiling at me, eyes shining.

“Man, you’re amazing Bellatrix,” he remarked, “you’re strong, and you can cook.”

“Don’t go marrying me,” I joked, “Sounds like I’m your type.”

He laughed as I got up and started to gather the dishes.

“What’re ya doing,” he asked, eyeing me curiously.

I chuckled at the question. “Cleaning up?”

“Why?”

I gave him a look instead of gracing that with an answer, and took my two stacks of dishes to the kitchen. When I got back, he was stacking plates too. I smiled.

“Thanks.”

“The quicker we finish, the sooner I can show you Super Saiyan, right?”

I scoffed in amusement; always a one-track mind with him.

“Yeah, but don’t break anything.”

Once we got all of the dishes to the kitchen, I handed Goku a sponge.

“What’s this for?”

“All that eating you do and you haven’t washed some dishes before?”

He blushed slightly, looking away. “I think Chi-Chi might’ve done all of that…”

I shivered at the thought. “Your ex-wife sounds like a saint.”

He laughed. “Yeah, Chi-Chi’s the best. That’s why Gohan’s turning out so well, getting smart and everything.”

I rose my eyebrows. “Gohan?”

“Oh, right! Gohan’s my son.”

I nearly dropped the giant bowl I was washing. My eyes met Goku’s in disbelief.

“You have a son? Why didn’t you mention him sooner?”

“Bulma told me not to, she said you might not like me as much if you knew. But you like me now, so it’s fine.”

I scrunched up my face in an attempt to grasp such warped logic.

“Why wouldn’t I like you if you had—“

I blinked, then glared at the plate I was rinsing soap duds off of. Bulma was trying to set me up, wasn’t she? What the hell? After I told her I wasn’t ready?

“Hey, watch the plate!”

Goku took the plate from my hands swiftly, eyeing it with worry.

“Awe, you cracked it. Bulma’s going to be so annoyed…”

I huffed, throwing my sponge into the sink and storming out of the kitchen.

“Hey, where are you going? Should I keep washing the dishes?”

I made my way to Bulma’s room, knocking harshly, then opening the door and turning on the lights. She groaned, sitting up.

“What the hell, Ve—Bels?”

I frowned at her, crossing my arms.

“What’s up?”

I closed the door behind me with my foot.

“I want an explanation.”

She quickly grasped she was caught, and shielded herself with a pillow.

“Don’t explode me! Don’t be mad, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay. What the hell are you trying to play matchmaker for? I told you that I wasn’t ready for a relationship.”

She leered at me over the pillow. “Who said anything about a relationship—"

I glared and she retreated back behind it quickly.

“—okay, okay I’m sorry!”

“Sorries are cheap, Briefs. I want a space telescope.”

“Okay, fine!”

“Hm.”

“I’m sorry Bels, I just…”

I eyed her curiously.

“I wanted to cheer you up, I guess. I wanted to make you happy, and Goku, even with his flaws, always leaves people happier than he found him.”

I sighed. “That’s a nice thought, but you might as well have gotten me a dog if you wanted a warm body to cheer me up with.”

“Well, I wanted you to get laid too!”

“Bulma!”

She grinned, waving her hand dismissively.

“Oh please, I’ve seen the way you two have been acting, you’re probably halfway there.”

I blushed, stiffening. “We are not!”

“You’re blushing, Bels, I can tell,” she teased, laughing, “Have you guys already gotten to first base?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I shot back, retreating to the door.

“You’re running away because I’m right,” she called.

“Space! Telescope!”

I slammed the door as she giggled, turning my back to the door as my cheeks burned. I had to admit…she wasn’t far off. With a huff, I turned and opened the door again looking at Bulma and walking back in, closing the door and putting my hands on my hips.

“Look, Goku’s sweet, and yes, I’ll admit he cheers me up a bit. But nothing’s going to happen between us, okay? Besides, the man has a son. We’re friends, and all we’re going to be is friends. I don’t want anything more than that. So don’t try and play us again.”

Bulma smiled at me, then sighed. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.”

I rubbed my forehead, leaning on her vanity table.

“Right now, all I want is a little peace. I just want to get my mind off of everything and go back to how I was before.”

Bulma got out of bed and came over to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. She pulled me close.

“Bels, we can never go back to how things were. No one can revive the past once it’s over. Trying to live in the past is like trying to shrink yourself—it doesn’t work.”

I looked down at my feet quietly. “I’d rather shrink than feel like this.”

She sighed. “I wish I could help, Bels. I hate seeing you so miserable.”

I smiled at her, taking her hand. “You are helping. And, honestly, Goku is too. He’s got me doing something new every five seconds, so I don’t have any time to wallow in misery.”

She laughed, then hugged me tightly.

“I’m sorry for trying to trick you, Bels.”

“It’s okay. I…I know you wanted to help.”

We sat in our silent embrace, Bulma’s head on my shoulder and mine resting on hers. Then, I sat up.

“Oh! You know how you can make it up to me?”

She rose an eyebrow. “Besides the space telescope?”

“Mhm,” I nodded, “Get those two Saiyans to help me clear out my office tomorrow.”

Bulma’s face soured. “Oh, right. The Blackthorn’s research facility. Do you have to go?”

I chuckled. “I’ve abandoned my things there for too long anyway. And once that’s done, I can forget her forever.”

“Well, that’s all you had to say! I’ll get Goku and Vegeta and we’ll head over to the Ice Continent bright and early!”

“Thanks. I owe you a bunch.”

“Make us dinner again and we’ll be even,” she offered, smiling sweetly.

I rose a brow, then jumped.

“Oh shit, the dishes.”

I straightened up. “I left Goku there to wash them.”

“They’re probably not washed,” she joked.

“They’re probably not.”

[peachycoreroo]

angel | kuroo tetsurou

summary: the only thing that came to mind when you heard the word angel, was your crushes ex girlfriend. so what do you do when suddenly you’re the angel or how a book can bring two people together

pairing: college!kuroo tetsurou x fem!reader

genre: smut, a lotta plot tho, basically pwp

word count: 7.9k

warnings: dom!kuroo, fingering, oral fem! receiving, praise, both being extremly needy, it’s not really kinky, slight breeding kink tho, a few spanks, vaginal penetration

authors note: pls don’t even ask about the book thing, this entire thing is based of one of my dreams and i had no idea why the book appeared, but it did and i didn’t wanna leave it out soooo, ye<3 here’s a link to my masterlist

you sighed, as you continued typing your essay. maybe coming to the coffee shop was not the best idea you had, since it was friday and apparently every college student on campus decided it was coffee time after their lecture, but you didn’t expect it to be so overflown with people.

sitting at the far back, you realized that you were not going to get any work done with how loud everyone around you was being, so you just sat back and observed the people around you, while drinking the cheap coffee you ordered earlier. observing and analyzing the behavior of those around you always came natural to you. some guy watching his girlfriend as she was deciding what to order, even though she was taking way too long, with love. a friend group of a few pretty girls walking past a table full of sexist pigs who thought the only way to get their attention was by whistling after them as if they were dogs.  and your crush looking at you.

wait.

huh?

quickly averting your eyes back to your laptop, you could feel your heart rate pick up to an unnatural speed. pretending to suddenly be terribly busy with drinking coffee, a million thoughts ran through your head. you were quite positive that you’ve seen his girlfriend sitting right next to him, so why was he staring so intensely at you?

it’s not as if you never talked. kuroo tetsurou was easily the most interesting person you have ever had the pleasure of having intellectual conversations with. you were taking some business classes in your third semester, since you thought they would be of value for your future. that’s where you met him. kuroo sat next to you since the first day of the lecture but you were way too intimidated by his attractiveness to start the first real conversation beyond greetings, so when the opportunity had arisen, you snatched it right away.

after one of the lectures, he left his phone on the desk and since he was already gone, you took it and hurried after him. just as he was leaving through the huge main doors of your university, you caught up to him and grabbed his arm. embarrassingly, not being the most athletic made you look like a creep as kuroo directed his confused stare at your form, hunched over, breathing hard but still latching onto his arm.

“uh, hi? y/n, right?”, the tall boys’ confusion lightly seeped into his questioning tone as his eyes moved between you and the hand you used to hold him back from walking further.

taking one last deep breath, you forced yourself to stand up right and look into his eyes, but oh, what mistake that was. funnily enough, you never actually looked directly into his eyes, so you didn’t expect to suddenly have to divert all your focus on trying to keep the gasp, you wanted to let out, in your throat. in your memories, from the milliseconds you had the courage to look into his eyes when he greeted you, his eyes were brown but all at once you were confronted with the most beautiful hazel eyes you have ever seen.

as a consequence of having to put all your mental capacity on not gasping out loud or even worse, admitting how attractive he was, the words that came out of your mouth only furthered your embarrassment.

“you. phone. lecture. forgot”, you stumbled over your words as if that were your first attempt at communicating.

feeling your already hot face burn brighter as tetsurous confusion further solidified on his handsome face, you only hoped he thought the running was responsible for you looking like a sweaty mess.

you forced yourself to let out a short laugh as you broke eye contact to gain back your composure. “sorry, I didn’t expect the running to get to me that bad. maybe lev is right, I should try some aerobics with him”, starting to mumble towards the end, you shook your head. “anyway, you forgot your phone on the table in our lecture just now. i didn’t want to hold onto it till thursday and didn’t know where else to find you, so i ran after you. m’ sorry if I kinda freaked you out”, you quickly added while holding out his phone to him.

as you never really talked to the tall man before, your head snapped up to look at him when you heard his deep chuckle. was there something that’s not attractive about this man?

taking the phone from your hands, you were finally able to experience the first full sentence kuroo tetsurou ever directed at you. “well, thanks. i definitely didn’t wanna be without a phone two whole days, so i appreciate you running after me with such determination”, he remarked, as he observed how out of breath you still were, grinning.

“oh god, you know, never doing anything nice for you ever again sounds good right about now”, you groaned, lifting a hand in front of your face to stop him from studying your slightly damp face.

nothing on this green-blue-brown floating rock in space that is also known as the earth, could have prepared you for what you were witnessing next. with your mouth slightly ajar, you looked at tetsurou as he leaned over, clutching his stomach, while letting out the funniest laugh you have ever heard in your life.

in your mind, you saw a quick flash of a scene from ‘the lion king’, in which one of the hyenas was laughing exactly like that. you briefly wondered whether kuroo was influenced by that scene as a kid before you couldn’t keep your laugh in anymore after the initial shock subdued.

“my apologies, the situation was just way too perfect for me to not tease you. i’d be honored if you’d grace me with your kindness again, my highness”, he slightly bowed while, once again, flashing you that sly smirk that made you wanna punch and make out with him at the same time.

you tried to match his energy as best as you could with your head jumbled from the proximity to the man you have been sitting next to every tuesday and thursday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., but looking back at the interaction, you couldn’t wrap your head around tetsurou wanting to continue talking to you after that conversation.

“i’ll consider it, peasant.”

after that, you and your smart seatmate talked a lot more. you found out that he was majoring in sports management and minoring in chemistry even though it was so different from management, just because he liked it. lev, your best friend at college since the first day when he didn’t see you from his 6’5” point of view and knocked you over as you were looking at the menu in the very coffee shop you were currently sitting in, turned out to be one of kuroo’s old friends from high school. which let you to find out the most unfortunate information about kuroo tetsurou thus far.

as you were walking to your next lecture with the dark-haired man, lev joined in with a tall, blonde, and gorgeous woman by his side. you immediately recognized alisa, lev’s sister. even though the silver-haired boy was ginormous, he couldn’t hold his liquor very well, which resulted in you having to drag the giraffe of a human home after a party quite a few times. there, you met alisa.

wanting to go in for a hug with the beautiful blonde, you froze at once as you tried to process what you were seeing. tetsurou had an arm wrapped around her petite waist, the other one placed on her sharp jaw, as he softly pecked her lips.

lev excitedly started telling you about a new side job he got as a model and while you supported him with your whole heart and were genuinely proud of him for landing that job, you could only zero in on the sight in front of you. your eyes hyper focused on the way his large hands were gently grabbing her waist, your ears on the soft ‘how was your day?’ and flirty ‘better, now that you’re here’ exchanged.

putting on your best poker face and directing your attention to the excited titan beside you, your own reaction startled you. even more surprising was who you were jealous of. you did have a small crush on alisa at the start, who wouldn’t? she’s tall, beautiful, fun, loving, caring, alas she was way too similar to lev to develop a full-on crush on her. then, it dawned on you, that the one you were jealous of, was not tetsurou, but in fact, alisa.

of course, you thought your seatmate was attractive from the first moment you saw him, but how you managed to develop a crush on him without even realizing it, was beyond you. ugly, jealous thoughts made their way into your head about one of the most loveable people you met. those disgusting thoughts slithered their hands around your throat, trying to suffocate you and so you buried that small crush in the back of your mind.

after that encounter you kept your distance to the handsome male. it was better for you, your sanity and everyone involved. in no way were you ever going to go between a loving relationship because of your own selfish feelings.

for crying out loud, you didn’t even know kuroo that well while alisa was like a sister to you. however, you weren’t able to tune out the insecure voices in your head. of course, he liked tall, model-like women who resembled angels not only physically but also with their personality. who were you to compare yourself to her? not even you yourself liked who you were, so why would one of the most attractive guys you ever saw?

you deserved someone good, but alisa deserved the world, so you just wished that tetsurou was the best for her.

and while kuroo tetsurou was a lot of things, he wasn’t ignorant, so when you decided to sit down in another seat in the lecture a few times or made up some excuses as to why he couldn’t walk with you to your next seminar, he knew something was wrong.

which brings you back to right now, with you staring at your laptop, hoping that the boy you’ve been trying to avoid wouldn’t come over to check on you. alas, your luck was apparently all spent, because you could see a tall, dark figure drop themselves on the bench in front of you.

“y/n.”

at the low tone of his voice calling your name, you lifted your gaze from your laptop to look at the boy you were trying to stay clear of.

“hmm? oh, hey tetsurou. didn’t see you there.” bullshit, he thought.

“yeah, ’m here with alisa. just a quick break before she has her next lecture.” while saying that, kuroo focused on your expression, trying to gauge your emotions and maybe get a hint on why you were actively keeping him at arm’s length.

after taking a swift look in the direction the happy couple was sitting just a few minutes ago, you nodded and kept your eyes on your coffee.

“that’s nice, you should probably go back now though. don’t want you to waste precious date time”, you said cheerfully, but weren’t able to keep out the slightly bitter tone out of your voice. that’s exactly why you were trying to stay away from him. the sight of the merry couple only fueled your toxic thoughts about two people you cherished and even though you wished for them to be happy together, the insecurities deep inside you wouldn’t let you.

seeing the slight change in your voice and expression, kuroo cocked his head to the side. did he say the wrong thing?

“she’s already leaving, so i decided to catch up with you for a bit.”

fantastic.

“well,” you remarked while closing your laptop and starting to pack your things, “I also need to get going, was nice seeing you though.”

“i’ll walk you”, was in fact not what you wanted to hear. but the universe hated you for some reason. you looked back at him and waved your hand dismissingly, trying to speedily think of a reason why he couldn’t accompany you: “uh, you see, i, uh... i’m visiting my parents this weekend, so i’ll just take the train. ’m not going back to the dorms.”

even if kuroo would have been stupid and oblivious, which he was not, your hurried attempt at getting rid of him just confirmed all his suspicions. but the ex-captain wasn’t going to let you run away from him so easily.

“no problem, i’ll walk you to the train station. the field i practice volleyball in with lev and a few others is nearby. ‘was gonna head there anyway, let’s go.” this time, he didn’t let you enough time to object, so you were stuck grabbing your things and following him, regardless of what you wanted.

to your surprise, kuroo didn’t say a thing on the way to the train station. you expected him to force you into a whole debate about whether pluto was a planet or not, but he just stayed silent. was that a bit of your luck shining through, or was he angry?

not wanting to push your luck any longer, you stayed silent as well, as you waited for your train at the designated platform. guess you had to make a surprise visit to your hometown because of your little lie, but maybe that was exactly what you needed. some time away to clear your head.

but just as you got excited for the spontaneous trip, kuroo finally dropped what has been on his mind the whole walk or rather, the whole three weeks you’ve been running away from him as if he was on fire and you couldn’t wait to get away from him as far as possible.

“y/n. why are you avoiding me?”, he questioned, looking at the rails ahead, instead of you.

“w-what? i’m not, why would you think that?”, you quickly sputtered out, hardly able to convince yourself of your own lies.

tetsurou gave you a look of complete skepticism, quickly shutting down your protests. “don’t play dumb with me, ’m not stupid. i know you’re not sitting down way further in the back or running out of the lecture on accident. you’re doing this on purpose. even just a moment ago you didn’t want me to escort you. tell me why.”

luckily, the train arrived just on time, so you quickly hoped on with a fleeting 'see you next week' and hoped he would just assume you didn’t quite catch what he said because of the train.

he didn’t though. he knew that you heard him.

the short spontaneous weekend trip turned into you staying for almost two whole weeks because of a cold, so your mom wouldn’t let you return without someone taking care of you, not knowing you had some big news waiting for you once you got back.

“we broke up.”

wou were currently in the library after returning to campus, trying to catch up on some lectures you missed, when alisa entered. together, you were walking around the english literature section, catching up when she dropped the bomb.

“wait, what? how? when? why? huh? what did he do?”, you asked dumbfounded, feeling bad about your two friends, who were so clearly in love, breaking up. but even more than that, you could feel disgust creep up your spine because deep down you knew you were sickly happy about the fact that kuroo was now single. what a shit fucking friend you were.

“relax”, alisa chuckled. “he didn’t do anything, we just kinda came to the agreement that we don’t love each other the same anymore. i felt like he was always distracted the last weeks we were together, always deep in thought, and i decided to concentrate on my graduation and career as a model. it was a great college relationship and i still care for him, we just… we broke up about a week ago.”

“well, as long as you’re both happy with the decision”, you sighed while picking ‘pride and prejudice’ by jane austen from a bookshelf, not feeling like such a piece of shit for being lowkey happy about it anymore, but you still knew you two would never work. even if the breakup was mutually decided, tetsurou was still her ex.

hearing alisa giggle, you turned your gaze from the book in your hand and wondered: “huh? why are you laughing?” the tall blonde only grinned and continued her way down the aisle. completely confused, you followed her with the book still in hand.

“what the fuck? kinda acting sus not gonna lie.”

“wow, I thought you had better jokes than that y/n”, she teased, sitting down at a nearby table.

breathing out some air out of your nose in mock anger, you sat down beside her, tipping your non-existent fedora. “sorry i’m not up to your comedy standards, m’lady.”

alisa laughed loudly before noticing the book you were still holding, her laughter turning into a knowing grin. once again, you shot her a confused look: “what is it with you today? your mood swings are confusing the shit outta me.”

“you know, that’s like one of tetsu’s favorite books.”

“what? 'pride and prejudice'?”, you inquired, puzzled. why was she telling you this? “are you like, having some post-breakup nostalgia or?”

she laughed once again, waving her manicured hand dismissingly and shaking her head: “it just kinda popped into my head. i never read it, but he once wanted to read it to me. it did not end well; i couldn’t take it seriously and had to laugh the whole time. he just gave up and sulked for the rest of the evening.”

“yep, definitely pbn”. the girl shoved your shoulder slightly while snickering before taking out her laptop and working on something, leaving you alone with your conflicted thoughts.

as fate would have it, you didn’t really talk to kuroo for the last two weeks of lectures. finals were catching up and you had a lot of exams, leaving you with no time to catch up with the tall boy. plus, you were still trying to avoid him. you weren’t about to give into temptation and try your luck with alisa’s ex, which was much easier if said temptation didn’t walk around looking fine directly in front of you.

but with the weekend starting, you agreed to go to a party with the haiba siblings to treat yourself to a break from typing essay after essay. it was obvious that kuroo would also be there and this time, you wouldn’t be able to avoid him. the running had finally caught up to you.

before the party, you decided to go to the library to work on one of your essays, but with how much work there was left, you simply forgot the time. at 10 p.m., your phone rang.

“hello?”

“girl? why aren’t you here yet? and why aren’t you answering our messages? we texted you like a million times”, levs’ questioning voice echoed through the speaker.

quickly checking the time and number of messages you got, you gasped: “oh god, so sorry! i was at the library working on my shitty marketing essay! ’m gonna be right there!”

ending the phone call, you quickly gathered your things and rushed to your dorms. stripping on the way to the bathroom in your one room apartment, you hopped into the shower, feeling as if you were trying to break the world record for the fastest shower known to men.

as you were stepping out of the shower a few minutes later, someone knocked at your door, startling you. did the haiba siblings come to pick you up? with a hasty ‘’m coming’, you hurried to the door in only a towel.

“hey, I just got out of the shower, I just need…” faltering in your sentence, you gripped your towel tighter, trying not to freak out. because there were no alisa and lev in sight. just kuroo tetsurou. while you were standing there. with only a towel on. fuck. “that’s uh… you’re not alisa and lev.”

“er… n-no, no i’m not”, kuroo stuttered out, at least having the decency to avert his eyes to the ceiling, realizing what you had or rather had not on after checking you out. collecting your composure, you shot him a tight-lipped smile and stepped aside to let him in.

“come in, I just need to get dressed and do my makeup. you can wait inside.”

walking past you, the dark-haired man pretended to scratch his head to hide his red ears and quickly surveyed your room. “that’s…”, breaking off his sentence instantly when his voice cracked, he cleared his throat before trying again. “nice room.”

while kuroo tried not to have a mental breakdown and remember what he came here for, you picked up your disregarded clothes from earlier of the floor, being mindful of not to flash the man, and made your way to your wardrobe, chucking in your dirty laundry and scanning your variety of clothes to pick out the most flattering outfit for the party. “uh, yeah, thanks. so, uh, what did you want? ee would’ve seen each other at the party later anyway.”

but there was no answer, making you frown. just as you wanted to turn around, calling his name in confusion, you felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around your waist loosely, causing you to choke out his name.

kuroo leaned his head down towards your neck, slowly inhaling the scent of your strawberry bodywash before sighing contently. his soft, plump lips slowly trailed up to your ear, creating goosebumps on their way, before lowly murmuring: “you smell delicious. i could eat you up.”

you could feel yourself shiver at the low timbre of his voice and the indication of his words, as your heart rate picked up to the point you had the feeling as though you were going to die right then and there. how did his demeanor change so suddenly? it seemed as if you were in a room with a completely different person.

the ex-captain smugly grinned as he felt your breath quicken and chest heave without him even doing much, tightening one arm around your waist, while his large hand on the other arm splayed itself on your stomach, slowly sliding down towards where you wanted him. “hm? can I do that baby?”

just as quickly as the thoughts of ‘stop, this is so wrong. what about alisa?’ appeared in your mind, they immediately disappeared with the sweet melody of kuroo calling you baby.

not being able to keep a little whine from slipping out at the pet name, you nodded, your cheeks unbearably hot. but that wasn’t enough for him. tetsurou wanted your verbal consent, even if his half-hard cock already slightly twitched at the small noise you let out without him even touching you properly, screaming at him to finally fuck you.

avoiding the area, you wanted him to touch the most, his hand grabbed your thigh, causing you to squeeze your legs together in search of relief. he tsked at your lack of words and lightly spanked your thigh before tightening his grip around the fat, earning him a surprised squeak from you. “no, use your big girl words baby. i want to hear it.”

the instant tetsurou startled you with the spank, you hurriedly grabbed onto his forearms, lightly digging your nails into the muscles. already, everything was getting too much. his smooth voice seducing you, his dominant touch jumbling up your brain, his urgent need to hear your consent, his pleasant scent of a mix of his cologne, mint and husk surrounding you. him, him, him. you wanted more. you needed more. the slick between your legs grew embarrassingly fast, smearing on the inside of your thighs, showing off kuroo’s effect on you evidently.

“please… please touch me tetsu', I need it”, you whimpered out impatiently, making him close his eyes to stop himself from cumming already, your needy voice going straight to his dick standing at full attention. and even though the menace in him wanted to tease you and hear you beg more; he knew that he didn’t have the willpower to deny himself of having you any longer.

as you felt the tall male finally place his hand underneath your towel and cup your pussy, your head rolled back onto his shoulder, giving him full access to your neck. while dragging his middle and index finger through your folds leisurely, his lips and tongue placed hungry kisses on your neck.

“fuck, angel, you’re soaking wet. Is that all because of me, hmm?”, he lowly murmured against your neck, while his fingers simultaneously slowly circled your clit. you couldn’t stop your eyes from lolling to the back of your head or the small whimper that left you, even though the ‘angel’ left a bitter taste in your mouth. as much as the pet name made your stomach all tingly, you always compared alisa to an angel, so it didn’t quite sit well to be called that by her own ex.

but as you felt his middle finger enter you, all thoughts flew out of your head. The only thing on your mind were the raspy praises against your neck and his finger moving at a torturous pace inside you.

“please tetsu', more, I need more”, you complained whiny, because as much as it was all overwhelming, it also wasn’t enough. kuroo could only grin at your eagerness, but couldn’t blame you, since his own patience was speedily wearing thin.

with an uttered ‘everything for you angel’, he added his index finger into the mix, curling the two digits and, not wasting a moment, pumping them into you at a rapid pace, eliciting a quiet moan out of you. the ex-captain noted that you weren’t much of a moaner and mentally made it a challenge to have you crying for him by the end of the night. so, without much warning, his long, thick fingers started hammering against your g-spot while his thumb circled your clit at the same time, making you squeeze your eyes shut with your mouth opening in a silent scream, your hands searching for stability on the closet in front of you.

“c’mon, y/n, baby, i know you want it, fucking give it to me. ‘been fantasizing about this so long, just wanna make you feel good and fall apart for me. show me how much of a good girl you are.” his smooth voice flowed into your ear, seducing you to fully give into him. you felt as if you were being lured by satan himself and you were just a weak little human, not nearly strong enough to resist the whisper of the devil.

with a series of soft, high-pitched moans, you came on his fingers without any warning, your legs giving out at the intensity of it all. tetsurou only tightened his arm around your waist, picking you up without any trouble, making you clench around nothing at his display of effortless strength as he withdrew his fingers from your dripping hole. you thought you heard a small ‘good girl’, but you couldn’t tell for sure with the way you were still floating on cloud nine after he brought you to your orgasm that quickly.

panting and shivering at the goosebumps erupting, you lifted your gaze up at him as he placed you on your bed, only to find him already staring at you with low lids and completely black eyes, the beautiful hazel color of his eyes lost in all the lust and desire that took over his expression.

refusing to break eye-contact, kuroo lifted his with your essence-soaked fingers to his plush lips, wrapping them around the digits and sucking lewdly at them. once again, you felt yourself clench around nothing, rubbing your thighs against each other to get some relief, when you saw his eyes roll back as he tasted you.

the next thing you knew, your back hit the bed with the broad man lying between your spread legs, making you yelp. you could feel the atmosphere around tetsurou change once again. he was a lot more feral than he was before, as if his patience were running out.

his biceps wrapped around your plush thighs, holding you in place since the feeling of his breath against your cunt made your hips twitch up at their own accord, exposing the strong want you had for the man between your legs.

“’m gonna fucking wreck you angel”, he growled against your slit, before diving right in, licking and sucking messily at your clit, your pussy lips, everywhere he could reach. and as much as it shouldn’t feel pleasurable with him being as aggressive as he was, it felt fucking heavenly. you couldn’t help but arch your back, hands flying down to tangle in his messy rooster hair and tugging at the surprisingly soft strands, causing him to moan hoarsely against your sensitive pussy, the vibrations only egging you on. something about kuroo tetsurou losing his usual provocative, teasing demeanor as he ate you out felt so raw and animalistic, that it made your head spin and toes curl.

his large hand crept up your torso and he finally removed the towel that barely hid your breasts from him before palming one, drawing a content sigh out of you at the attention. but as much as he enjoyed listening to you whine and sigh because of the pleasure he was causing you, he wanted, no, needed to hear how much you wanted this, how much you wanted him.

“tell me how it feels angel, tell me how good it feels. ‘wanna hear your pretty voice, baby”, he huskily mumbled against your clit, making you arch your back at the delicious vibrations echoing through your core. but as much as you enjoyed hearing his dirty talk, you felt insecure about yours not turning him on.

preparing yourself mentally as good as you managed with the way he ate you out like a man starved, you allowed yourself a glance down only to see him expectantly observing you. the erotic sight only coaxed another high-pitched whine out of you, your head lolling back against your pillow.

at the next harsh suck on your sensitive bundle of nerves, your hips thrusted up against his skilled tongue and you finally gave in to your desire of wanting to tell him how good he was making you feel. only him.

“fuck, tetsu', d-don’t stop. feels so good, you feel so good, only you, please, please, please”, you needily moaned while grinding your hips up, simultaneously pushing his head deeper into your pussy and if kuroo had any self-control left, it was definitely gone now.

his toned biceps tightened around your thighs. his large hands squeezed your breast and hip harshly, leaving bruises for you to discover tomorrow. his able tongue messily switched between being shoved deep inside you and swirling your clit and you could feel the bed shake with how forceful he was humping the bed just from eating you out and hearing you talk like that. every little thing contributed to your orgasm washing over you like a tsunami. you were fairly sure you even blacked out for a few seconds because the next time you focused your attention back on tetsurou, he was frantically unbuttoning his jeans, with his shirt already off, whipping out his cock.

you felt your eyes widen as well as your pussy clench, you couldn’t remember the last time you were this horny, but you also weren’t sure how the fuck you were supposed to fit a cock this big and girthy inside you. meanwhile kuroo took off his boxers and contently sighed as he finally started stroking himself, giving himself some relief but it wasn’t enough. not by a long shot.

zoning in on your face once again - sweaty, low lidded eyes, blown out pupils- the impatient boy leaned down and kissed you for the first time that evening. after everything that just transpired between you two, the kiss definitely felt the most intimate, but it was also what you were craving the most from tetsurou for months now.

you didn’t know how to possibly express all the emotions you were currently overwhelmed with, so you tried to translate it all through the kiss. kissing back harder, all teeth and tongue, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer, pressing your thighs against his hips, hoping it was enough to convey what you wanted to say.

apparently, it was, because you could hear kuroo lowly growl against your lips before starting to dig his fingers into your hips and grind against you, finally letting you feel him where you needed him the most.

“n-not enough, tetsu'”, you eagerly whined, raising your hips, hoping it was enough to convince him to finally fuck you like you craved him to. but as thin as his patience was at the moment, kuroo tetsurou would not be kuroo tetsurou without his teasing antics.

he slyly grinned, pressing feather-light kisses down from your lips to your throat, making his way to your breasts, where he teasingly kitten-licked your nipples a few times, letting you think you were finally getting what you wanted before he raised his head and stared you down with his almost pitch-black eyes. “mmm, I know you can do better than that kitten”, he gruffly remarked while continuing to grind against you slowly, making you jerk and mewl every time you felt the head of his cock bump against your clit. “what do you want me to do, baby?”

how he still had it in him to tease and deny you, was beyond you, because you were on the edge of breaking down from how bad you wanted him. “’want you to fuck me, tetsu'”, you confidently said while gazing into his eyes, or at least, you tried to sound confident, but you were only able to whine and moan at this point.

kuroo closed his eyes and felt himself twitch against your pussy. you were going to be the death of him. sitting back up on his knees, he grabbed his cock and lined it up with your entrance, making you spread your legs automatically wider at the sight.

with one sharp snap of his hips, you both groaned simultaneously, your groan high-pitched, his low and guttural, at the feeling you’ve both been craving for. “fuck, you’re on birth control, right?”, he asked, straining himself as to not just start pounding you into oblivion or cum right on the spot.

“yes, shit”, you breathlessly answered, putting your hands against his toned abdomen as to let him know to wait, which only made him clench his abs at the feeling of your soft hands on his exposed skin. “j-just give me a sec, need a moment”, you murmured avoiding eye contact, suddenly shy at the fact that you were just lying there with kuroo balls deep inside you.

sensing your mood shift, the tall male grinned his cheshire-grin at you and teasingly remarked: “why? am i too big for you, huh?”, hoping it’d make you laugh and relax a bit, soon realizing that the idea completely back-fired on him.

as you started to laugh at his arrogant remark, hitting his abs slightly and telling him to shut up, your core clenched in-sync with your laughter, making you freeze at the sudden loud, almost pornographic moan escaping tetsurou’s lips.

looking up at him, you finally realized how much he was holding back as to not hurt you or make you uncomfortable. the handsome boys’ wild hair was already sticking to the sweat forming on his forehead, his jaw clenched painfully, nostrils flaring, eyebrows furrowed, biceps bulging with how hard he was gripping the sheets beside your hips to restrain himself. the thought of him wanting to fuck you so bad but holding back for your pleasure and well-being, was enough to make you clench down on him again, rolling your hips up against his and declaring: “’m ready, tetsu'. please, f-fuck me”.

with your words and the grinding of your hips, kuroo really couldn’t hold back the little stutter his hips did against yours but fuck, was he embarrassed by it. he felt like a teenager, touching real boobs for the first time all over again, knowing he wouldn’t last long. not with how long he had fantasized about this and with how you reacted to his every move and touch, squeezing him so tight, he felt like he wouldn’t even be able to move.

“’m gonna break you”, and with those final words, his large, veiny hands gripped your hips in a bruising, vice grip, pulling out so only his tip was inside your messy, drooling cunt, before snapping right back in, making you choke on your breath at the impact.

as much as kuroo wanted to bust inside you right then and there, the strong urge to see you lose yourself on his cock while he ruined every other man for you was much more prominent. so, the ex-captain rutted in your pussy like his life depended on it, wanting your moans and mewls and whines to never stop. there was so much that was running through his head while being empty at the same time. the only thought was to bring you both to earth-shattering orgasms, but he also wanted to spit in your mouth, choke you, spank your thighs and ass till you wouldn’t be able to sit tomorrow. he wanted to come on your thighs, your tits, face, but he also wanted to breed you.

you two were definitely way too young for children but he couldn’t get the mental image of you, stuffed with his cum with it running down your legs out of his mind, only making it harder for him not to cum immediately.

but you weren’t doing better either. the pace that kuroo was fucking you at, had you seeing stars, riding you up higher on the bed with every thrust and your eyes rolling to the back of your head. you gripped the sheets, his hands, his forearms, your breasts, anything, to try to stabilize yourself as you approached your high embarrassingly fast without your clit even being touched.

just as the thought crossed your mind, you felt tetsus’ calloused fingertips, from years of playing volleyball, circle your clit, causing you to throw your head back with your lips open in a silent scream.

“fuck, you’re so fucking tight kitten, so much better than i ever imagined. cum for me, wanna feel you cream on my fat cock, wanna see you lose your mind baby, give it to me”. at this point, he basically started rambling on about how hot and tight you were, how he wanted you to cum around his cock so badly, how you were gonna make him cum so hard, how you were making such a mess for him, what a good girl you were.

just as you felt yourself almost falling over the edge at the added stimulus to your clit and the filthy praises that were coming out of his mouth, you yanked the boy down by his arm, wrapping your arms around him firmly and kissing him so hard, you were sure you both would have bruised lips later.

with the new position and the intimacy of being pressed up against each other, one more thrust, and you were gone. cumming around his cock so hard, you couldn’t remember the last time someone made you cum that hard, if ever.

the pornographic moans of his name along with some ‘fuck’s and ‘so good’s, the jerking of your body against his and the vice-grip of your pussy on his dick as you came. it was all too much for the poor boy who didn’t even cum once the whole time, while you already had three orgasms under your belt. the last straw was your quiet, little ‘cum inside tetsu', want you to fill me up’ and so, a few short, sloppy thrusts later, kuroo buried his face in your neck, groaning loudly as he came inside, spurting hot, white cum against your abused walls.

the feeling of being filled up to the hilt by kuroo tetsurou was intoxicating. you whined, wrapping your legs around his hips, caging him in so he couldn’t pull out, not wanting the moment to end.

you both lied there, trying to catch your breath. as he pulled out after a few moments and got up to go grab a towel to clean you up, your hand caught his. “don’t go, where are you going?”, you whined needily, wanting to cuddle, to worn-out to care about the mess gushing out of your hole onto the bed sheets.

chuckling, the tall boy leaned down, kissing your forehead: “’m not going anywhere angel, I’m just gonna grab a towel and clean you up”. with that he retreated to the bathroom in search of a towel to use.

you, on the other hand, suddenly sobered up from your drunk-on-lust high at the pet name, making you realize what you just did. fuck, you just banged alisa’s ex-boyfriend. they weren’t even broken off for that long and you already betrayed her.

feeling like a bad friend and complete whore, you didn’t even register said ex-boyfriend was back, making you flinch at the sudden contact of your sensitive pussy with the wet, rough towel.

“relax baby, it’s just me”, he teasingly chuckled, while cleaning you up. when he didn’t hear you chuckle or bite back at his teasing, his expression morphed into a frown, lifting his gaze from your core to your face. “what’s wrong?”

“nothing, thanks.” but of course, you were lying. the panic that slowly settled in your chest was threatening to suffocate you. hell, you weren’t even able to look at him properly.

you felt kuroo grab your chin with his fingers gently, turning your head so you had to look at him. tetsurou was completely serious, he only hoped you weren’t regretting what just transpired between you two, as he repeated: “what’s. wrong?”, emphasizing those two words so you knew there was no point in lying.

feeling your eyes water up, you cursed yourself for showing weakness, since you weren’t one to cry often, especially in front of other people. “what are we going to tell alisa?”

that caught him off guard. “alisa?”, he repeated questioningly, as if he didn’t know what you meant. how could he not know? was he that stupid?

you sat up, rubbing at your eyes frantically with the rising anger inside your chest. “yeah, alisa. your ex. the one that’s like a sister to me. how am I supposed to look her in the eyes after what we just did?”

kuroo wasn’t stupid. you could vouch for that any day. you saw him in your lecture, and you had studied a lot with him, but right now, you were sure he was the dumbest person you ever knew, even beating lev. because even after explaining, he still only looked at you with a confused gaze, saying: “i don’t quite follow?”

groaning, you ran your hands through your hair in frustration, declaring: “you’re really smart, but you’re being so fucking dumb right now. how the fuck am I supposed to talk to one of my closest friends after I fucked her ex-boyfriend, who she loved by the way, not even that long after they broke up?”

finally, it clicked in kuroo’s brain. but the last thing you expected, was to hear him laugh. your head snapped up at the sound, glaring at him you almost growled: “what the fuck’s so funny, you fucking bedhead?”

“oh wow, throwing in the insults huh?”, he said between chuckles. “it’s funny because alisa was the one who encouraged me to come here tonight, though I don’t think she wanted us to outright fuck but, you know.”

what now?

“what do you mean she encouraged you to come here?”, you interrogated perplexed. suddenly he was acting all shy and sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck with his big hand, avoiding your eyes.

“well… we’re still friends, so we were talking about our lectures a week ago and she suddenly mentioned how you also were a fan of 'pride and rejudice'. i just… got kinda excited at that, since alisa wasn’t really interested in things like that, so i started asking her about it. she then called me out on my crush on you, saying she already knows why i was so distracted the weeks leading up to our break-up, thinking about you.”

while listening, your anger slowly morphed into nervousness at kuroo openly admitting he also had a crush on you, but you wanted him to finish his story before addressing the elephant in the room.

“i apologized immediately, thinking she was angry at me, but you know her. she was so sweet, saying she would only be happier if it worked out between us. after, she tried to set us up to talk to each other, but you avoided me like the plague, so she told me to come here before the party since you were running late, to confront you and settle it once and for all but uh…”, he sheepishly smiled, “i kinda got distracted when you opened the door in only a towel, so… that didn’t go as planned.”

sitting with your mouth agape in a ‘o’, your brain tried to process all the information, not knowing what to say to his confession and explanation.

“soooo… she’s not gonna hate me and cancel our friendship?”, you carefully pressed, just to be sure. “no, I don’t think she will”, he chortled.

“oh.”

with that, the room was suddenly extremely silent, making you and kuroo even more nervous. clearing his throat, he couldn’t take the silence anymore. “are you gonna give me an answer to my confession, or am I like, totally embarrassing myself right now?”

“uh, no, yeah”, you softly giggled at his obvious anxiousness. taking his face between your hands, you looked right into his hazel eyes in the dim lighting, before gently smiling at him.

“i like you too, nerd.”

bonus:

the next morning, you woke up to your phone aggressively vibrating on your nightstand beside your bed. you blindly reached out, picking up the call without even opening your eyes, clearly still half-asleep.

“hello?”, you groggily asked your caller, wondering who the fuck was calling you this early, when lev’s voice filled your ear. “y/n? hey, we we’re worried about you yesterday. why didn’t you show up? it was so much fun”, the big, over-grown baby whined.

looking down at the reason you weren’t able to attend the party sleeping soundly with his head on your chest, you smiled, carding your fingers softly through his raven-black hair.

“just… reasons”.

[october-lady]

I’ll make you beg for it, chapter 18

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Natasha Romanoff

Chapter rating: G

Word Count: 1761

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 || Chapter 11 || Chapter 12 || Chapter 13 || Chapter 14 || Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 || Chapter 17

Read on AO3

Note: Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay but life is taking over! I've spent the last two weeks going to work and then straight to our new house to paint which with the heat wave we've just had left me absolutely exhausted :D Anyway, furniture is moved and I'm not sure when we'll have Wifi so before I move my laptop, I thought I'd post the next chapter.

Wanda’s floating on a cloud nine was interrupted with Natasha going away just a few days after the party. It wasn’t unusual, the Russian often went away for a couple of days. It was the timing that made Wanda a bit pouty, she wanted to spend as much time with Natasha as possible, preferably in bed but sadly, that was going to have to wait.

Instead she decided to make the most out of the time and spend as much of it training as possible. She was tired of being sidelined and staying at the compound. They have started including her in meetings, she was free to join whenever she wanted to and most of the time she did.

It was an easy way to find out what the Avengers were really doing and seeing them help people and rid the world of some evil motivated her to better herself and gain better control and understanding of her powers.

She eventually started training with everyone, practising different skills and goals. Natasha and Steve were training her in hand to hand combat and general workouts and strengthening exercises. As much as she enjoyed being around the former assassin, she preferred to just watch her. Steve was a much nicer and patient coach, going over each move as many times as she needed, whereas Natasha had more of a practical approach, resulting in Wanda being more on the ground than anything else.

Using her magic was a bit more tricky. She usually did that alone, sometimes with Tony but that was very rare. The only reason he would get involved in any training was to better his suit and kind of test it on Wanda.

Clint was the one she was training with today. They did what he called target practice. After a few accidents in the gym, Tony decided that all magic training had to be done outside, no matter the weather. Despite the unpleasantness, it was actually useful because they would go out there in rain or wind.

Clint would shoot out all kinds of his arrows, some were harmless but some contained small explosives and Wanda’s goal was to stop them and not let them fall on the ground. Nothing really difficult until Clint shot out five different arrows and she had to make sure she got the bombs first.

To make it more difficult, he would try to distract her. That usually involved him blabbering about whatever happened to him in the last few days, often involving his family and the kids. Being at the compound was like a holiday to him, no changing diapers, no screaming or fighting over toys.

Sometimes they talked about American culture, movies and books and if Wanda was in a good place, she would share some of her happy memories. She wouldn’t do that often, just occasionally and it would be just a very short one but Clint was happy she was finally opening up.

“I’m glad you’re feeling more at home here and joining us,” he suddenly said as he shot a few arrows in different directions.

“I just needed time I guess,” Wanda shrugged as she easily made the arrows disappear. Clint hated when she did that. She would often just misplace them to make him frustrated but she didn’t have the heart to actually get rid of them.

“Or someone to pull you out of your shell,” he suggested, focussing on what he was doing.

“Yeah, maybe,” she smiled.

“I must say I was quite surprised to find out that you and Natasha are… a couple.” Clint continued.

“Why was that a surprise?” Wanda asked innocently. 

“Well, for starters, you didn’t exactly get off the right foot. And to top it off, Nat is… not someone who lets people in, I suppose. There were rumours, of course, for a long time, about you and her sneaking around, giving each other looks and stuff and I guess most of us just thought it was mostly a friends with benefits situation. But the other night you walked in holding hands and being together together.”

“Interesting,” Wanda smirked, focusing on making fireballs.

“Is that how it started?” He questioned, slightly red in the face.

“A lady doesn’t tell,” the witch winked at him and destroyed his arrow before it even left the bow.

“Hey, what was that for?” He turned around to her, hurt in his eyes.

“That’s for your silly bets,” she grinned.

“How did you- Never mind,” he rolled his eyes when he remembered who he was talking to. “Just for the record, I didn’t want to ask. They made me. Tony is too scared to ask Natasha because apparently last time, she threw a butterknife at him.”

“That does sound like her,” Wanda laughed.

“But seriously, I think Nat really cares about you, you know. I hope she doesn’t mess it up.”

“I won’t let her,” Wanda said and sent out a fireball, turning it into rain before it hit the nearby tree.

“That was…interesting,” Clint nodded approvingly. “Can you do more of those tricks?”

“I can do a lot of things. Just not always exactly when I want to,” she sighed, staring at the ground.

“What are you doing?” The man asked cautiously, taking a step back when he saw the grass moving.

“Oh relax, it’s harmless. If it works that is,” she chuckled. In a few seconds a couple of dandelions found their way out of the ground.

“Tony is going to kill you for growing weeds on his property! But that is impressive!” Clint was shaking his head in disbelief. This was definitely new to him. “Does Nat know you can do this?”

“I don’t really use magic around her,” Wanda admitted, pushing the flowers back into the ground.

“Does she not like it?” Clint frowned.

“She says she doesn’t mind but I don’t want to test it…” Wanda let her magic dance around her hands, watching it.

“Ah, yeah. I get where you’re coming from. But if she says she doesn’t mind, then she doesn’t mind. She is not the type of person to pretend just to make others feel comfortable. I’m not saying you should use magic all the time but every now and then, you know, to make her feel more used to it. Plus, if you show her tricks like this, I’m sure she’d be impressed,” Clint offered.

“Does she ever talk about it? The Red Room?” The witch asked quietly.

“No. I would suggest you don’t ask her about it though. I don’t know what exact memories you pulled out but judging by her reaction, that should give you an idea about how bad it was. I’m sure you could google some more information about it, now that all the documents are leaked.”

“I don’t really need to know, I just wish I could help her.”

“You are helping her even if you don’t know it, trust me. I’ve never seen her this happy, knowing it’s not all just a show.”

Wanda smiled, blushing. It meant a lot to her that someone else noticed how Natasha perked up.

She didn’t say anything, she wasn’t really used to receiving compliments. Instead, she quickly made a fireball and threw it at a tree.

“Pepper is going to kill us,” Clint just sighed as they watched it go up in flames.

“Are you scared of her?” Wanda teased.

“More than Tony,” he nodded, unable to take his eyes off of the tree.

“Oh relax,” Wanda rolled her eyes and waved her hand. The fire disappeared, revealing a perfectly untouched tree.

“Oh for God’s sake, Wanda, don’t do this to me!” The man turned to her and smacked her on her arm playfully. “I think that’s enough training for today. At least for me.”

“I’m going too, it’s a bit chilly,” she agreed as she pulled her sleeves down.

They walked over the grounds while chatting. Clint headed to the gym for some work out and Wanda went to grab a snack from the kitchen.

Laziness took over her and she got herself a bowl of cereal, not feeling like spending time preparing anything.

She sat at the kitchen counter and opened a nearby tablet that was just always in the kitchen, kind of like normal people have newspapers. Which is what she intended to do.

She didn’t get very far when the door opened.

“Oh there you are!” Natasha poked her head in, still in her suit.

“Nat” Wanda smiled brightly. She pushed her cereal away and hopped off the stool, meeting the redhead half way. “I’m glad you’re back,” she grinned at her and gave her a shy kiss on the lips. 

This was the first time Natasha was on a mission since they were officially dating and she was a bit unsure what she could do. Because what she actually wanted to do was push her against a wall and peel that suit off her.

“Likewise,” Natasha chuckled and returned the kiss. “Your cereal is getting soggy,” she pointed out, her observing skills still on high alert.

“I don’t care. How was the mission? Are you hurt?” Wanda asked, checking her over.

“Not this time,” she laughed. 

“Can I make you something to eat? When did you eat, you must be hungry,” Wanda was ready to start cooking. Because it was different when it wasn’t just for herself.

“Hey, calm down, woman,” Natasha laughed as she grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “I’m not hungry, we got a takeaway on the way back so I actually ate this time.”

“Well in that case,” Wanda smirked, “can I help  you get out of the suit?” She winked as she started pulling the zipper down.

“Someone is impatient,” Natasha let her get about half way through before she stopped her. “I have to shower first. And no, you can’t join me because that would not achieve anything,” Natasha continued when she saw Wanda taking a breath. “Actually, I was thinking, would you like to grab dinner later and maybe go to a bar or something?”

“Are you asking me on a date?” Wanda asked, still playing with the zipper.

“Don’t turn this into a big thing,” Natasha rolled her eyes. “You can fuck me after,” she leaned in to whisper into Wanda’s ear.

“Okay,” Wanda shivered as the hot breath hit her ear.

“I’ll see you later then,” Natasha laughed and licked her earlobe, sending more shivers down her back, before she turned around and left the kitchen, leaving Wanda standing in the middle.

-----

Chapter 19

Thank you for all your comments, I appreciate them all! &lt;3

Taglist: @raqelacevedo @tati3001 @theblackdalialived

Please leave a comment or send me a message if you want to be on the tag list for this fic or all of my WandaNat fics.

Oh and, if anyone cares, I have a Wandanat playlist on Spotify that I constantly add songs to if you're in for some heartbreak!

[peachyyykid]

Deceivers Ch. 11 - Revenge

Word Count: 4089

Chapter 10 - Parting

Chapter 12 - Daytrip (nsfw)

Disclaimer! tw: y/n is having a panic attack

As someone who experienced panic attacks before, I realised that writing one invested me a lot emotionally. If a detailed description of a panic attack triggers you, you might want to skip that part. Also, everyone experiences them differently and coping mechanism differ as well. Just remember that all of these experiences are valid and that you are loved! :)

---

"Kid!"

You didn't question the urge to run into his arms, but you didn't expect him to catch you either. But he did, and as his non-metallic arm pulled you into his chest, you felt something you hadn't felt in a very long time: safety.

You clawed at his fur coat, muffling your sobs with the soft fabric.

"What did he do to you?", he whispered into your ear lowly, while his angry eyes never left Deku, who was scrambling around on the floor with his trousers undone.

"G-get off my ship, p-pirate scum", he stuttered, visibly scared of the huge pirate that just sent his door flying.

"I will", Kid snarled at him, "but you're joining us."

And with that he extended his metal arm by adding more and more random metal, grabbing Deku's throat. He tried to get away, but to no avail. Kid strengthened his grip and he let out a gargling sound, kicking his legs in the air.

The redhead spun Deku around and hurled him right through the empty doorframe towards his ship. Killer was waiting on the other side and knew exactly what to do. He caught the flying man (who was looking awfully pale) and slammed him down on the deck. You heard a faint scream in the distance, right after Deku's body hit the ship.

After making sure that Deku couldn't run away, Kid looked down at you, wiping away your tears with his rough fingers. He had let go of all the metal, but his eyes were still angry as he took in as much of your face as possible.

"Tell me what happened", he whispered in a commanding tone, and you sniffled before you spoke.

"W-we fought, and he said awful things to me, and then he tried to rape me and he... he had my parents killed. K-kid, he's responsible for all this. He killed my parents!"

You started sobbing desperately again and your knees felt weak. They gave in and you sunk towards the floor, but Kid picked you up. He pressed your trembling body against his and held you safely while he jumped aboard his own ship, the cold air cooling your tear-stained face.

Deku was trembling as well, but for different reasons. Killer was towering over him with his arms crossed and the rest of the crew was shooting him intense, blood-lusting glares. No one in this world would want to swap with him.

Kid landed and gently placed you on the deck. You slumped down to your knees immediately, staring into the distance with blurry eyes. The sun was setting already, painting the sky in beautiful red and orange hues. It would have been a wonderful start into a new life, but Deku took all that from you. Your body felt weak and lifeless, your arms hanging down your sides.

Kid kneeled down in front of your trembling frame and looked at Deku, who was sitting a few metres away from you. He was whimpering pathetically, looking for a possibility to flee, as if Killer would let him.

"Wire, take some men and ransack the ship. Then sink it", Kid commanded.

"Roger, Captain", Wire's calm voice answered, and he and most of the guys entered Deku's ship.

Then his face turned back to you. He gingerly took your jaw in his big hand and brushed your cheek with his thumb, just like he did in that one night.

"Look at me", his rough voice told you, and you obeyed.

Seeing your puffy eyes and your tear-stained face awakened something deep inside of him, and he wanted to destroy whatever was causing you this kind of pain. You looked at him like he was the only one who could make it all better, and he understood, his face absolutely serious.

"Angel. I want to hear it from you."

His amber eyes bored into yours. They were full of rage, but not because of you.

"Do you want me to kill him?"

Killing was wrong. No matter what kinds of horrible things someone had done, killing wasn't the answer. That's what a previous version of you would have said. But looking at Deku, you only saw a monster. A deceiving monster that had dared to take your life into his hands. You wanted to hurt him like he hurt you, he didn't deserve forgiveness.

Kid knew exactly that you couldn't do it yourself, so he had asked you if you wanted him to do it for you. And you really wanted it. There was not even a hint of compassion that you could spare for this man.

You looked at him, his eyes were pleading with you. Kid had asked you to make a decision. You could easily show mercy and say no. Deku mumbled apologies directed at you, rambling about how he shouldn't have overreacted and that he would treat you well as a mistress.

With empty eyes and the calmest expression on your face, you took in the satisfying sight of Deku shaking with fear.

"Yes."

It was merely a whisper, but everyone on the ship was silent. The only sound to be heard was Deku's pathetic whimpering. You didn't take your eyes off him, not even when Kid stood up slowly, revealing his full height again. The setting sun stretched his shadow, and it swallowed Deku's body whole.

Kid slipped off his coat and put it over your sunken shoulders without saying a word.

His shadow was coming closer to Deku with every heavy step he took, and he anxiously scrambled away from him, only to bump into Killer's legs. He was cornered between the two men, and he yelped in fear when Kid took the shiny knife out of his bandolier.

The knife fell, and Deku probably thought that Kid had dropped it by accident, because his eyes widened, and he opened his mouth when the knife didn't hit the ground. It hovered under his chin instead, the blade forcing him to look up at Kid.

"W-what kind of magic is that?", Deku screeched.

"It's a devil's fruit you moron", Killer mumbled and shook his head in dismay.

"I'm just making sure that you know who's the boss around here", Kid growled and pushed the blade a little further into Deku's skin, drawing a thin line of blood.

"I really wonder what she saw in you", he scoffed.

"P-please I will do anything... y-you can have the 15 million b-berry! You can have e-everything, just let me live!", Deku pleaded, trying to grab Kid's trousers. He looked up at him with doe eyes, in a futile attempt to gain his pity.

Kid bared his teeth and kicked off Deku's hands as if his futility was contagious, while an array of swords gathered behind his tall figure. They hovered in the air, framing Kid to make him look even more dangerous.

"You're not even worth listening to. Just by looking at your stupid face I can feel the wretchedness trying to rub off on me", Kid growled.

His signature smirk was back, and with a flick of his hand, all the sword's blades turned towards Deku. They made a clunking sound that filled the silent air and seeing their reflection in your glassy eyes gave Kid the final push.

With another flick of his hand, each and every of the swords sped towards Deku's trembling body, swallowing his cries for mercy.

He screamed in pain and desperately tried to protect his body, but there were just too many blades impaling him. They pinned him to the ground in an upright position, covering him in his own blood. His breathing became more and more shallow, and he looked at you with pain-filled eyes.

You watched the sight like in a trance. You felt inner peace for a split second, but then

nothing.

Nothing at all. It was gruesome to look at, but it didn't bother you the slightest.

With wheezing breaths, Deku's life ended in front of your eyes and your face didn't show any signs of remorse.

"Feed him to the fish", Kid growled and then blocked the space between you and Deku's body so you couldn't see him anymore.

You snapped out of your trance and realised what had just happened. It was good that you didn't see your ex-fiancé's dead body anymore because your stone-cold facade might have faltered.

Kid kneeled down in front of you again and you finally looked at his face. His frown was back, but his eyes were almost too soft for someone who just murdered a man without hesitation.

"Thank you", you mumbled flatly, but he didn't say anything.

"I'm going to take a bath", you added instead, sounding absent. Your body was there, but you felt like your soul was just hovering over it. The bath didn't actually matter, you just wanted to get away.

You tried to get up, but your legs were still too shaky. Kid was watching you for a few seconds, huffing at the fact that you couldn't take even a single step without tumbling over.

Suddenly, Kid flung you over his shoulders without a warning, ignoring your shriek.

He just scoffed and carried you to the cabin's bathroom, placing you in the empty bathtub. You raised an eyebrow at him when he sat down on the toilet, making no move to leave the room.

"I'm really thankful that you took revenge on my fiancé for me, but that doesn't mean you can watch me bath... naked...", you said quietly.

"There's no fiancé anymore. You're single and I saw your tits already", he smirked.

Although you couldn't deny that, it wasn't the best time to point it out and no excuse to creep on you in the bath.

"That's not the point."

"Then leave on your underwear, but I'm talking to you right here and now", he demanded with a growl, and you were too worn out to discuss and you knew that he wasn't really the patient type anyways.

Your gut didn't give you any warning signals either, so you just rolled your eyes and slipped of your shirt, shoes, and socks. The bra that Charlos had given you didn't cover anything and didn't give you any hold, so you had gotten rid of it immediately. Once your training had started, you made your own bra out of bandages from the infirmary, so this was what you were wearing at the moment.

Not ideal, but better than being naked.

You let the water run into the bathtub under Kid's watchful eyes, and when it was half full and after you put a nice foamy soap into it, you realised that you could have taken a bath later, after Kid was done talking to you. But it was too late for that now.

You watched the foam floating around on the surface for a second, thinking about the events of today with a frown.

"Where do you think you're going next?"

His question caught you of guard and you blinked some tears away that you couldn't really prevent from building up.

"I don't know. I need to see my brother."

What happened with Deku today absolutely destroyed your chance to be reunited with Tenmon and it became painfully clear to you right now.

"And where do you think you're staying until you find him?"

"I don't know", you said again.

He was quiet for a second and then displayed his signature smirk.

"If I promise you to help you find your brother, you will stay on the Victoria Punk as our doctor."

You shot him a sudden look and raised an eyebrow. Why did he offer you so much help out of the blue? Suspicion rose in you, and you narrowed your eyes.

He just scoffed in response.

"That's it, sweetheart. There's no catch. I will protect you until you find him, and you'll protect my crew in return."

You thought about his offer. If there was no catch, you could only win. And you had to be honest with yourself, there was no way you would even last a day in the New World on your own.

He held out his hand and you looked at it before you slowly put yours in his. Your hand was tiny compared to his, and you studied all the calluses and the roughness on them. It was obvious that he had worked hard with these hands, and it just added to the fascination that you already felt for him.

Suddenly, as soon as his hand enclosed yours, he pulled you towards him harshly. The water splashed against the edges of the tub and Kid's grip was strong around your hand. You let out a startled yelp and to your dismay, you felt your face redden.

His face was so close to yours now. It had become a familiar feeling to you, just like the smell of expensive rum, mint, and metal. He licked his lips and pulled you even closer. Your tits were pressed against his hard chest, and he placed his mouth next to your ear.

"We're gonna be a great team", he purred into your ear lowly, his breath tickling your neck.

You prayed that he didn't see that you had goosebumps all over your body. Your face felt so hot that you were sure you looked like a tomato and a tingling feeling spread from your chest to your stomach, to your crotch, and even into your thighs.

What the fuck is that?

Who were you kidding, you weren't stupid and not as innocent as Deku and your parents had wanted you to be. Just because you never experienced lust, didn't mean you wouldn't recognise the feeling if it ever came. You were sure that this was it, but why today and why with Kid?

He leaned back and your heart told you to pull him back, but the rational part of your brain interfered, so you just sat in the tub dumbfounded.

His smirk didn't falter, and something told you that he knew what an effect he just had on you. How embarrassing, you thought and slowly turned around, facing the wall.

He chuckled and finally left the room, and once the door was closed you took of the makeshift bra and let yourself slip under the water surface, mentally cursing yourself and Kid until you had to come up for air.

You stayed in the bathtub for as long as you could justify, to avoid Kid. You hoped that he was either not in his room, or already fast asleep. You dried yourself extra slowly and scolded yourself for not having asked Killer for another shirt.

You tried to put on the white button-down but as soon as the material touched your skin you had memories of Deku leaning over you and pinning you down flashing through your mind. You shuddered and bile rose up in your throat.

You looked at the shirt and felt new anger and sorrow in your heart. With gritted teeth and a frown, you pulled on the sleeves as hard as you could and ripped the shirts to shreds. Seeing the heap of white cotton pieces gave you a small feeling of victory. You couldn't let a dead Deku control you like that.

After putting the bandages around your chest again, you took a deep breath and slowly opened the door to the bedroom.

Kid's back was turned towards the room, and he was breathing steadily, probably meaning that he was sleeping. As quiet as possible, you made your way to his desk. There must have been a place where he stored his clothes, but the desk was really the only option in this room. Actually, thinking about it, you had never seen him with a shirt on.

You carefully pulled out one of the bigger drawers and to your surprise, you saw a few neatly folded shirts in there. All black.

I bet Killer folded these...

You grabbed the first one and couldn't resist taking it up to your face. It smelled as you expected: Fresh laundry and metal. It smelled comfortable.

You shook your head rapidly and slipped the shirt over your head. You looked absolutely lost in it, but it would do for sleeping.

On tiptoes, you neared the bed and slipped under the covers. You didn't feel the need to roll one of the blankets into a sausage anymore, and you looked at the ceiling wondering why. So many thoughts were ghosting around in your head...

Why do I trust him all of a sudden?

Just because he killed someone who did me wrong?

He didn't just do me wrong though, he literally had my parents killed.

But still, why would Kid kill him? There's no personal gain for him.

Why is he so keen on helping me lately?

What's in it for him?

Does he still hate me? He's still complicated, but it feels different.

He could have done unspeakable things to me the last week, but he didn't.

Don't even get me started on the other night... or today.

How he touched me. Like I'm precious.

I haven't felt precious in such a long time.

And why do I get butterflies when he touches me?

Why the fuck did I feel lust when he touched me tonight?

Oh my God, what on earth is wrong with me?

Your eyes widened almost comically when another thought hit you.

Do I like him?

You covered your face with your hands and tried not to scream into the quiet room. You gave yourself a small slap, but you couldn't deny that Kid was... interesting. He definitely was, but that didn't mean that you liked him.

Yes. Yes, that's the point. He's interesting, but that's it. It's just a very stressful time I'm going through. Of course I would feel fascinated by someone like him.

You sighed in content. You found an explanation that was fitting your narrative.

The mattress shifted abruptly, and your heart jumped, thinking that Kid was awake. But he had just turned around and his face seemed peaceful, the kind of peaceful look that one could only have while sleeping.

You couldn't turn your face away without studying his. You took in the sight of his sharp features and his fluffy, red hair. It fell on his forehead because it wasn't held up by his goggles, making him look a little younger. It was refreshing to see him without his furrowed brows.

You couldn't resist the urge to take a strand of his hair into your hand. You never touched it before, and it was just as soft as it looked.

It was also the first time that you could look at him without him noticing. There was no smirk, no angry eyes or frown.

He didn't look like a pirate anymore, just like a young man. He almost looked vulnerable, and you realised that he must have seen a lot. You wondered about his motivations to become a pirate and if all the things he had experienced left marks on him, inside and outside.

Like you said, he was fascinating.

You watched him breathing calmly, the blanket raising and lowering in a steady pace. It hit you like a brick.

"You saved me so many times", you whispered so quietly that he couldn't wake up from it.

You were right when you thought that killing Deku had no personal gain for him. He could have taken his ship and his belongings anyways, but he made sure that you decided Deku's fate and then acted accordingly.

It was a twisted sense of justice, but you had to admit that you didn't care.

It had been another hard day that left you absolutely drained. The knowledge about the circumstances of your parent's death scooched in between the thoughts about Kid and became prevalent.

You never got to say goodbye and they died without knowing what had happened to you. They never got the chance to see Deku's real face. You regretted not telling them about the conversation in the garden back then, maybe everything would be okay right now. Deku's words were ringing in your ears.

You chose to disrespect me that night, so I made you pay.

Yes, your parents wouldn't have backed out of the marriage deal. Deku had them wrapped around his fingers. He had buttered them up completely to make sure that anything you would say about him would fall on deaf ears.

You tried to steady your breathing when you felt hot tears forming in the corners of your eyes. The insufferable feeling of guilt washed over your whole body. Throughout your childhood you had learned how to speak to a future husband, and if you hadn't decided to throw all that courtesy stuff overboard at some point, your parents would still be alive. Of course, your life with Deku would have been horrible, but at least your family could have been happy.

Screw you for becoming your own person with your own wishes and morals.

Deep down you knew that it wasn't your fault, but the guilt felt so strong. It was crushing you, causing you to question every decision you ever made.

Suddenly, your heartbeat was picking up. It happened so rapidly that you were scared it would rip your chest open, so you clutched at your shirt and pressed your hand down. But feeling your speeding heartbeat like this made it even worse. It made your chest hurt like someone had punched you. It tightened and it was becoming gradually harder to breathe, a lump of suppressed tears forming in your throat. Your body felt hot, and you couldn't move, only shake. Your eyes darted around frantically and breathing felt more like choking. You wanted to get up, get fresh air or a glass of water to calm you down, but you were losing control over your body. Wheezing breaths mixed with the sound of quiet sobbing, while your vision blurred. Every cell in your body was screaming for help. You tried to get at least some air into your lungs, but it felt like they had shrivelled up.

You weren't in the right headspace to think anything of Kid opening his eyes suddenly, now looking at your shaking body while you still fought for air, your sobbing and whimpering filling the room. He let out a low growl and moved his hand towards you.

You tensed up immediately but surprisingly, his touch didn't scare you at all. As soon as he saw that you didn't flinch, he grabbed the small of your back and pulled you into his chest, enclosing your trembling body with both of his arms.

"Breathe with me", was all he said.

Your chest was flush against his and you could feel how he inhaled and exhaled slowly, in a steady pace. His heartbeat was calm, and you tried to concentrate on his breathing, mentally counting the intervals between each breath.

After a few more ragged breaths, your heartbeat synchronised with his and you followed his breathing pattern. You were still shaking a little, but the scariest part was overcome. Soon, the sobbing died down as well.

With each inhale and exhale you got calmer, and soon you felt like you were in control of your own body again. Hesitantly, you wrapped your arms around Kid's body as a silent thank you.

He stiffened but didn't push you away. He expected you to let go at some point, but you didn't. You didn't want to. You experienced the same feeling as earlier this evening when he held you after saving you from Deku. It was a comfortable feeling of absolute safety, like nothing in this world could do you any harm.

You wanted more of this feeling, so you kicked off your blanket and went under his instead, entangling your legs with his. He let out a breath he had been holding and snuck his other arm around your head to place his hand on it, brushing your hair with his thumb.

There was no empty space between the two of you, but at this very moment this was exactly what you needed. You forgot about all the pain and guilt in his embrace and enjoyed the comfortable feeling of warmth and safety.

It didn't take him long to fall asleep again, and you followed soon after.

Memories of the last week rushed through your mind and you realised that being here wasn't all that bad.

[cowboyjen68]

Rotten Apples & Frontier Justice

 Rotten Apples and Frontier Justice

By CowboyJen

My best friend Kendra had a small overbite that she grew into but there were a few boys who liked to tease her about it. One very hot summer day we were riding our horses in the old apple orchard down in what was soon to become a rural suburban development dubbed Woodland Estates. The two brick walls with cement lions on them already graced the entryway of our riding trail. 

I was around 11 and she was 10. A few of the boys were riding their bikes up and down the paved road which had been a dirt path a few weeks prior and the novelty of having blacktop was too much to resist. They basically rode up and down back and forth and the speed bumps were great to “get air”.

We ignored them, they ignored us, the way it was meant to be. One boy, and we will never know why, and perhaps he didn’t know either, suddenly  felt pretty brave and breached the unspoken boy/girl wall.  Maybe having his friends nearby to back him up or maybe to prove he was “a man” or If you believed my mom, it was “his way of showing us he had a crush”. No matter his reasons. He waited until we had dismounted to feed green apples to the horses Beau and Gypsy and veered off the smooth black top.  He stood on his pedals to gain speed as he approached and  he was bent forward over that K Mart bike’s handlebars as he got closer and closer. We saw him coming and sort of just watched the on coming flurry of feathered hair and Starsky and Hutch T shirt. 

This boy, thinking to spook the horses and cause us trouble passed us as close as he could and yelled “Bucky the Buck toothed Beaver!” 

Kendra was unphased and so were our seasoned mounts. She took the apple that was meant for Gypsy and hit the boy right in the back of the head from about a 12 foot range. The rotten part splatted in his dirty blonde hair but the solid part made an audible “thud” as it connected to his thick skull. He screamed in pain “shit.. ouch!” and slid his bike sideways in the grass, staining his Sears Husky jeans no doubt.  He paused a second on the ground, probably debating if pretending to be really hurt might save him or hoping  his friends were on the way.  No luck either way so he stood  up, picked up his bike and faced us with green grass stains and what was likely sweat, apple juice and tears on his face. 

Before he could turn to mount his bike I took my shot. Wham, right in the knee, not as accurate as Kendra but it got his attention. The look in his face was that of a man who suddenly realized he had severely underestimated the enemies he decided to create. Kendra already had two apples in hand and I reloaded while she fired off another shot. One missed, hitting his bike as it dropped to the ground. The other caused him to holler out “stop!” when it hit him in the stomach. 

Two tween girls, who both had their own baseball gloves and killed long summer days throwing rocks at trees and golf balls at tin cans are formidable foes. Poor kid realized the error of his ways too late. There was no time for him to formulate a plan. The onslaught of rotten green apples put him squarely in survival mode and he ran to the nearest dwarf apple tree. He hid behind it and tried bargaining. “Stop it you guys!”  One, two, three apples whizzed by him and one hit the tree causing a satisfying splatter pattern. “Come on guys.. stop!”.  A few more hits and we began to flank him. Our horses calmly grazed the shaded grass and we loaded our arms and moved to flush him from his barrier. 

In a moment of what I am sure he thought was brilliance, he grabbed a low branch and swung up, taking a hit to the seat of his pants and one to the back. A hard, well aimed hit in the soft part of the small of his back. I heard it and Kendra said “ooo  nailed him”.

Like a squirrel in Traxx Tennis shoes he moved around the tree and climbed up to a more covered branch forcing us to back away to see him better. Kendra seemed satisfied that he was out of range and I followed her lead to walk backwards to the horses. She started to pile up apples and he yelled down “Knock it off you Ass holes, i need to go home”.   We bit into and chewed the bitter green apples while sitting on the ground next to our ammunition pile. The other boys had dropped their bikes by the Lion topped brick walls and were sitting on it, watching. The trapped boy noticed them and pleaded “Guys.. come help”.  They only responded with “they are just girls” but none of them jumped down to aid him. 

It was getting to be suppertime and he decided we had grown tired of watching him. He slowly descended but as he hit the last branch before the ground we pelted him with the squishiest apples we could pick up. The splatter was satisfying but watching him scramble back to his perch was even more so.

We ate snacks from our saddle bags and waited. He tried a few times to make an escape.  Once even jumping to the ground and trying to make a run for it. He was not fast enough nor tolerant of pain enough to get more than one step before  swiveling and scratching his way back to his previous perch.  The funniest attempt was when he tried something he had seen in the movies. “I will come down with my hands up” and as much as we wanted to see that Kendra and I bombarded the tree trunk.  Every time he would try the pain of the projectile apples kept him in his place.  

In the final stages before the street lamp came on (we had one now) he begged “I’m supposed to be home now. Mom is going to be really mad”.  We sympathized slightly, knowing the mom wrath of those kids late for supper or not home right after the darkness triggered the light to come on. But I guess he shouldn’t have hurled that insult. . 

The other boys had left, we were bored and. in desperation, and wishing he would not have hogged so much Kool Aid he yelled. “I gotta pee really bad guys.. come ON!”.  He had two choices, unzip and pee from the tree, which would expose him just enough that we would have future ammo about “what we saw” or well, not unzip. His body made the decision for him. Enough was enough and we rode past him with a final  apple lobbed over his head. We never spoke of that again. Not to him, not to each other, no one. He had done his time. Frontier justice had been served. Lesson learned. 

Lessons: Don’t be a bully. If you drink too much Kool Aid and decide to take on two tween girls, it  is  best to have an exit strategy. Girls can’t always throw as hard as boys their age but their accuracy can be scary good. Girls have more stamina and patience in a stand off than you want to test. Straight girls can and will take it to the next level. 

[mayraki]

“the adventures of babysitting” - jj maybank

-> hvitstark’s gif!

summary: when the cute boy who mows the lawn for the kook family you babysit shows up, weird and unexpected events start to happen.

masterlist

Babysitting wasn’t something you planned to do when summer started, but when you saw that lonely dollar that you had in your pocket you decided to change that. And what better way, than to take care of the rich kids when their parents are too focused on their golf sessions?

It didn’t took you long to find a parent like that, since in Outer Banks, 90% of the parents had the stupid necessity to go golfing every day, leaving their poor kids on the house. Well, “poor” is a matter of speech, because if you had a pool the side of your entire house and free WiFi to play any game that ever existed, you wouldn’t complain.

“The food is in the refrigerator. Maybe start making it at 12 pm, she likes to eat early.” Mrs. Johnson was saying while she had her big bag on her shoulders, ready to leave the house. “Lily!” She yelled so loudly that you squint your eyes for the sudden scream. “Oh, and before I forget, in a couple of hours the boy that’s going to cut the grass is going to show up. But you don’t have to do anything, he already knows his way around the front yard.” You nodded with a little smile.

“Great!”

“Lily! Get down here, now!” She yelled so firmly that you could tell the fire on her eyes, making you feel a little bit intimidated by the rich house wife. As soon as she went back to you, a smile appeared on her face again changing her expression completely in a matter of one second, making you feel a little bit scared. “Do you have any more questions for the day?”

“No! I’m fine, we’ll be fine.”

“Y/n!” You heard the little girl calling your name while she was running to welcome you with a hug.

“Lily! Come here you little angel!” You picked her up so she could wrap her arms around your shoulders.

“Lily, behave.” Mrs. Johnson said and Lily nodded.

“Yes, mommy, like always.”

“No cookies until lunch is over, got it?”

Lily nodded again, this time more quicker. “Got it.”

Not trusting her daughter, Mrs. Johnson turned to you. “Got it?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Johnson gave Lily a kiss on the forehead before walking towards the door. “See you later Mrs. Johnson!” You waved until you saw her outside and she was no longer in your sight.

“Do you want to see my barbie?” Lily said once her feet touched the ground.

“Sure!”

“Cool! Let me look for it.” She grabbed your hand to walk you to her room. “I did a makeover that took me the whole week. Because when I got her she was so ugly, the change was necessary.” She was saying like a professional fashion icon. Her sass was one of your favorite things about her. “That’s what my mom says all the time. If you don’t like something, you change it so it fits you.” After a walk that seemed to took forever since the house was bigger than the whole frontyard itself, you arrived at her room. While Lily was looking for her barbie to show you, you went over her room like it was the first time your eyes were seeing it. The wall colors looked like an unicorn had throw up in them and then a fairy had her glitter thrown at it. The main color was pink, her bed, her night stand, her desk, even her TV was the color pink. You never hated that color, but her room was making you feel nauseous. It was all so colourful and an interesting thing to look at, but the thing that always caught your attention was the thousand posters of the movie ‘Frozen’. Elsa, Anna and all of those characters you couldn’t remember the names where in her wall smiling. They were so many of them that you started to feel creeped out by them. “Here she is!” Finally, Lily found her barbie as was already walking towards you with her toy in her hand waving it like she was trying to get something out of her. She handed the barbie to you with the biggest and proudest smile ever, but the moment you grabbed the toy the smile disappeared from your face for a second.

“Oh my-” the normal long hair that Barbies have isn’t longer in this one, it was short and it looked like some punk girl from the 80’s with he hairs all lift up. You didn’t even know if it was punk, she looked like she touched a wire with a fork! She had a short dress that looked like it had been on dirt, washed but then she fell on grass, making it look even more dirty and destroyed. Her skin was painted red and blue with some pink dots all over her body. She definitely didn’t had a good day. You looked at Lily and noticed the proud smile and the excitement on her eyes as you were watching the barbie, so you put your biggest fake smile on your face not wanting to break the poor girl’s heart. “She looks wonderful!”

“I know! I’m good at it!”

You quickly nodded. “Yeah!”

“Maybe I can be a fashion designer when I grow up!” Lily started clapping and grabbed the barbie from your hand while you were nodding non stop not knowing what to say.

Models from the future; I’m so sorry and good luck.

You thanked the Gods for Lily not wanting to show you anymore of her creations, instead she wanted to watch a movie, and as soon as she said that, you already knew what she wanted to see.

“Let it gooooo! Let it goooooo!” You heard Elsa sing while Lily’s eyes were glued to the TV, her body was slowly moving while she was whispering the song. You knew she loved the movie so much she never wanted to outsing Elsa, and deep down, you were grateful for that.

“Yes, please Elsa,” you said in a whisper not wanting Lily to hear you while you were sitting down in the couch behind her “let it fucking go. Stop it.” As soon as you tilted your head backwards annoyed, a sound came from the front yard. “What was that? You asked with your eyes glued to the door, but there was no response from Lily, since her little mind was too focused on the movie. You headed to the window to cheek what it was while all the horror movies and serial killers documentaries went through your mind. With your heart beating a little faster you opened the curtains and wondered with your eyes your surroundings, but nothing was there. You were calming down until you heard your phone rang in your pocket, making you jump from the scare.

“What’s up bitch?” Your best friend, Hannah, said on the phone once you picked up.

“Hi, I’m babysitting.” You said still checking the front yard.

“Oh, got it, you have to watch your tongue.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think this kid is listening to me right now, Elsa has that covered.” You did quick look on Lily, who’s eyes were still glued to the TV.

“Ugh, I hate that movie.”

“I don’t. But the amount of times I watched it here isn’t helping on that.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Checking if the guy- oh my god.” You stopped as soon as your eyes noticed a boy standing in the front yard. Because he was too far away you could only see clearly his blonde hair and his dark brown boots. He had a white shirt on and some light brown shorts, he was far, but the way he was moving and carrying himself was what attracted you and made your eyes stare at him twice, making sure you were seeing correctly.

“What?”

“The guy that cuts the grass for this family is...” you did a quick turn to Lily to check if she was listening, but she was still too focused on the movie. You turned back to see the boy, but before you could continue your sentence, Hannah spoke before you.

“Hot?”

“Oh, more than that.”

“Who is it?” Hannah said intrigued.

“Can’t see, he’s too far.”

“What is he doing?” You saw how his arms tensed when he grabbed some machine you never saw before. They were so strong that you suddenly got the need to walk towards him touch them, but that would be extremely weird.

“I don’t know, turning the machine I guess.” You tried to focus more on his face and try to figure out if you knew him, but he was too far for your poor sight.

“Go talk to him.”

“What? No!”

“Why not? He’s hot, you’re hot. Perfect match.”

“He is definitely a...” Again, you turned around making sure Lily wasn’t hearing. Even if she wasn’t, you choose your next words carefully. “major babe.”

“Major babe?” Hannah let out a tiny laugh. “What are? 30?”

“The kid is still here!” You whispered loudly.

“What is a major babe?” Fuck.

You turned around to see Lily standing there with her Barbie between her hands. The movie was still playing but it looked like your conversation gained her attention even more.

“What? Oh, nothing.” You shook your head with your phone still against your ear. “Don’t worry about it baby. Keep watching Elsa.”

“I want to know what that means.” Lily said with her firm tone, letting you know she wasn’t going to let it go.

“I think you’re in trouble.” Hannah said on the other side, and you knew she was trying to not laugh at your current situation.

“Bye!” You ended the call before leaving your phone in your pocker to kneeled down and be closer to Lily’s face. “A major babe is someone who is... cute.” You said trying to choose the perfect words. Explaining something like this to a six year old isn’t something that you would ever choose to do.

“Cute?” Lily asked confused.

“Yeah, pretty.”

“Like Elsa?”

“Yeah? Yeah!”

You thought the conversation was over when Lily let out a giant smile and nodded convinced. But then, she opened her mouth: “So you think the guy who cuts the grass is pretty?”

“Well-” You got up trying to take those thoughts out of her mind, but before you could say anything Lily started clapping excited.

“You do! Y/n and JJ sitting in a tree-” She started singing but you stopped hearing once you heard the name ‘JJ’.

“Wait, JJ? The guy’s name is JJ?” You said confused, hoping it wasn’t who you thought it was.

“Yeah! He comes every week since last year!”

“JJ? JJ Maybank?” You were praying Lily was going to shake her head and say it was another JJ, but deep down you knew there wasn’t any other guy with that name.

“Yeah!” Lily said happily, unaware of your thoughts and your not so happy face.

Well, fuck.

“Oh my god.” You said when it finally hit you. “Sweetie, I think Anna is dying.” You said gently turning Lily towards the TV.

“Oh no!” She went back to the movie. You turned to the window and moved the curtain while a sigh came out of your mouth.

JJ Maybank. The guy that was known for being the life of the party, getting into trouble or starting a fight. He would almost every time leave the party with some girl around his arm. You weren’t going to lie, you wished sometimes you were that girl. Having a crush on a boy that doesn’t know you exists isn’t... the best. You met JJ at school when you were a kid and that’s when it all started, when he defended you from some Kook kid that was annoying you at lunch. The crush didn’t grew more, the opposite, it went down passing the years. But that didn’t stop you from looking at him when he showed up at the party you were at or feeling nervous when he was around. You weren’t the type to do so, but there was something about him that made you feel as awkward as you could ever be.

The fact that he was in the same house as you made you feel something inside your stomach, making you move uncomfortably in your sit while Lily was watching, for the second time, Frozen. You don’t have to talk to him, there’s nothing to worry about. You were thinking over and over again trying to calm yourself down. Or maybe this is your opportunity to talk to him. You thought in Hannah’s voice, since she knew about your crush she would often say that you should start a conversation with him, or at least introduce yourself.

You didn’t know if he knew who you were. You only talked once, back when you were kids and you thanked him for defending you. That was it. You remembered it, but you were sure he didn’t.

C’mon, what are you waiting for? Go offer him some water! Hannah’s voice was saying in your head like she was next to you giving you the courage you needed to do so. And somehow, it worked. After making sure Lily was safe while watching the movie, you walked towards the kitchen and poured water on a cup to bring outside.

As soon as your hand touched the door to open it, you felt the heat of the sun touching your skin and you heart beating faster, already knowing your next moves.

You saw him getting ready to cut the grass with the same machine you saw before. His skin and hair were glowing under the sun making your heart beat faster than before and him looking more beautiful than he already was.

“Hey!” You said loudly once you were a couple of steps away from him.

JJ immediately turned to you making your heart drop to your stomach. He furrowed his eyebrows confused while trying to figure out who you were. “Hi? Are you the babysitter?” He pointed at you and you nodded with a smile.

“Yeah. Y/n.”

“JJ.” He let out a tiny smile. Fuuuuuuck.

Silence came between you two while your brain was trying to remember what you came outside. “Oh! I bought you some water, it’s pretty hot out here.” You handed him the cup which he took gratefully.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, I don’t want you passing out. I don’t want to deal with that.” You said and immediately regretted it, why would you say that? That makes you sound like a terrible babysitter!

But as soon as he let out a genuine laugh, your mind gave you a break.

“Sure. So, since when did you started working with this family?” He said before giving a sip to the water.

“Last week.”

“I haven’t seen you around much. You live in the Cut, right?”

You nodded. “Yeah, I do. My dad owns the store across the beach.”

JJ didn’t respond immediately. He stood there watching your eyes carefully, so much, that your heart started beating faster once again. “Really? He has some good boards, dude.”

“Thanks. He’s really proud of them.”

“Make sure to tell him. Thank you for the water.” He gave you the now empty cup and you shook your head with a little smile.

“Don’t worry about it. If you need anything just tell me.”

JJ let out a tiny laugh. “You take care better of me than Mrs. Johnson.”

You smiled back while on the inside you were freaking out. “It’s no-” you were saying but the water hitting your body cut you off.

“What the fuck?” JJ said as soon as both of you noticed the water feeling like rain against your body. You looked up to see if it was, but the sky was as as clear as you last saw it.

“Where is that water coming from?!”

“It’s the automatic water for the grass!” JJ said looking down and pointing at the tiny machine going off behind you. You turned around and looked at it confused, trying to not get hit in the face by putting your hands in front of your face.

“But it never turns on during the day! Do you know how to turn it off?!” You asked at JJ with the hope that he did, and luckily, he nodded turning around and leading to some part of the front yard you’ve never been before. When you arrived to where he was you noticed he was kneeled down and with a quicker twist of his hand, the water was off. “What the hell was that?” You said turning to where the water was coming from.

“I don’t know.” JJ said and looked down to his body all wet. You turned to him and did the same, but not to your own body, to his. The way his shirt was glued to his torso would mark his abs and let you nothing to the imagination. You immediately looked down once you realize you were staring, you felt so embarrassed like you weren’t supposed to see what you just did. “Maybe this will help with the sun and I won’t pass out.” He said with a smile once he looked up at you and you smiled, thankful he didn’t notice you staring at him and his fit body.

“You’re dripping.” You said. “You have to dry yourself otherwise you won’t be able to work with those heavy clothes. C’mon.” You pointed at the house and started walking, but his voice cut you off.

“I’m not sure I’m aloud to go in.”

“Do you want to get your work done or not? Because I don’t think you’ll be able to.” You did a quick look to the drops of water goind down. “It’s your decision, but I think Mrs. Johnson won’t be happy if she comes back and her grass isn’t done. Do whatever you want.” You said knowing that it was going to convince him to go with you. You did this tactic with Lily sometimes, making it their choice and having the control over the situation. Like you suspected, as soon as you made a couple of steps away from JJ, you heard his feet moving and getting closer to yours. Seconds later, he was already next to you.

“Maybe we should go to the bathroom, I don’t want to make a mess.” You said the moment you stepped inside the house. Lily, who was now sitting down on the couch, looked at you two with an exaggerated surprised face and walked to where you two where.

“Oh! What happened?”

“The water of your front yard went kinda crazy.” You said grabbing your sticky shirt and trying to get it away from your skin.

“Really?” Lily asked and then turned to JJ, who nodded.

“Lily I want you to stay here watching the movie, ok? We need to get dry.” You said leading the way to the bathroom. “Don’t open the door to anyone, did you hear me?”

“Yes!” Lily said while quickly nodding and then leaving to continue watching her movie. “Stupid Hans!” She yelled at the TV.

“She really likes that movie doesn’t she?” JJ said with a smile once he turned around to follow you.

“Yeah,” you nodded. “we watched it three times today.”

“Ouch.” You let out a laugh before entering the bathroom and quickly grabbing the towel and turning around to face JJ.

“Here, have the towe-” You were saying but once your eyes noticed JJ’s naked torso, your tongue went completely numb. “Oh.”

“Is everything ok?” He asked noticing your shook face, but then a little grin escaped his lips while he grabbed the towel from your hand.

“Yeah. Yeah! Everything’s fine.” You said quickly shaking your head a little bit, trying so hard to not let your now red cheeks make you feel embarrassed.

“Aren’t you gonna change?”

“I’ll wait for you to be over and then I’ll do it. Don’t worry about it.”

He nodded and the continued drying his body. “I still don’t know what happened with that.”

“Maybe the clock failed?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. Anyway, thank you.” He handed you the towel. “I have to continue with work.”

“Yeah!” You quickly nodded. “You go.” You watched how he turned around letting you have a perfect veiw of his back, which made you feel like when you saw his torso naked without any warning. You looked away once he left the bathroom and slapped your forehead with the palm of your hand, already overthinking everything you just did.

As soon as you were finished you walked towards the living room to check on Lily who was now finishing the movie just one more time. You grabbed your phone from your pocket to see the time and realized it was lunch time, so trying to focus every thought of Lily, you called her so she would follow you into the kitchen. You grabbed everything that was on the refrigerator like Mrs. Johnson has told you while your mind was making the recipe for Lily’s meal. You were trying so hard to keep your mind focus and not thing of the cute guy that was still working on the front yard, a couple of steps away from you.

“Did you really fell for Hans because I didn’t. It was pretty obvious.” Lily said while watching you prepare her lunch.

“You think? I didn’t see it coming.”

“I didn’t like Hans since the beginning.” Lily nodded proudly of herself.

“You didn’t? I thought he was really cute and charming, maybe that what’s wrong with princes.” As soon as you said that, a thought came into your head. You stayed still like everything in your life just made sense and you understood it in that exact moment. “And maybe that’s why I like the boys I like.” You continued, talking more to your lard than to Lily. “They’re charming and sweet, but then they forget about your face even if you’re wearing a tiny mask, or they kiss you without even consenting it.” You were saying while your head was inside the refrigerator, looking for the mayonnaise to complete Lily’s lunch. “Or they even think because they have money we will automatically fall for them!” The moment that you said that you realized that you were babbling all to yourself about boys while Lily was listening to you, so you turned around shaking all your thoughts away. “Anyway-” you were about to change the subject but when you opened the water from the kitchen sink it all exploded and went all over your face and clothes. “WHAT THE HELL?” You yelled putting your hand in front of your face to prevent the water hitting your eyes.

“I’ll call JJ!” Lily said once she noticed the water wasn’t stopping.

“What- no! I got this!” You tried to stop her but it was too late, she was already out of your sight. “What’s the fucking problem with water today?” You asked trying to turn the water off, but no matter what you did with the switch, it wasn’t stopping.

“What happened?!” You heard JJ asking once he arrived next to you.

“I turned it on and it went crazy!” You turned around to see the water all over the floor. JJ kneeled down and opened the doors down the sink and just like before, stopped the water. You let your hands rest beside your body and let out an annoyed sigh at the feeling of sticky and wet clothes against your skin.

“Just like before?” JJ asked getting up to lock eyes with you.

You nodded. “Yeah. I think the thingy is broken.” You pointed at the sink looking at it confused but when you heard JJ let out a tiny laugh, you turned to him. “What?”

“The thingy?”

“Yeah, where the water comes out.”

JJ nodded still with a funny smile on his face. “Do you know how to fix it?”

“Do you?”

“Dad has tools!” Lily yelled, appearing on the conversation for the first time. You turned to her and she had a big smile on her face while her fingers were playing with each other. “Maybe Y/n can show you where they are?”

“Oh, yeah,” you nodded remembering the time you helped Mr. Johnson fix something for Lily. “I think they’re next to the bathroom. C’mon.” You said looking at JJ but then you turned to Lily. “While we repair that finish your lunch.”

She quickly nodded before you left her behind. “Ok!”

Even if you had JJ behind you, you felt his eyes on you as you were walking. Maybe they weren’t on you, but somehow, your mind had convince you they were making you feel uncomfortable under them. You were hearing his steps behind you, they were so close you could feel the air he was pushing with his arms while walking. The hallway was darker as usual since having JJ in your mind you forgot to turn on the light, but you knew the house like the palm of your hand.

“I think this is the room- yes it is!” You said entering the room next to the bathroom. “Tools tools tools...”

“Here.” JJ said behind you while grabbing a big dark brown box.

“Oh, ok. Better get that thing fixed so you can get back to work.” JJ nodded so you walked to the now closed door. You looked at it confused since you didn’t remember closing it. “What? Did you close the door?”

“No I didn’t.” JJ said.

“Then why the hell is it closed?” You asked before grabbing the handle, but it wasn’t opening. “And locked?!” Your heart dropped to your stomach the moment you realized you were locked and Lily was outside alone. “Oh my god, Lily? Can you open the door please? Lily?!”

Your heart started to beat faster but then, luckily, she spoke from the other side. “Are you guys locked?”

“Yeah! Can you open it from the outside?”

“I don’t know!”

“Can you check sweetie?”

“She’s a six year old? What can she do?” JJ asked behind you not faced by the situation at all.

“Well? Do you have any ideas genius? Lily is out there on her own!”

JJ lifted the box of the tools and let out a grin. “We have tools?”

“You can’t use them! Do you want to break the door?!”

“Do you want to get stuck in here until Mrs. Johnson comes back? Because I don’t think she’ll be happy to know that you left the little girl outside all by herself.” You let out a tiny sigh when JJ used the same tactic you used on him moments ago. You hated when they were used against you.

“Lily, are you still there?” You asked turning to face the door.

“Yeah. Are you two fighting in there?” She asked softly.

“No, sweetie, why would you think that?”

“I don’t know...”

“Do you want me to break the door then?” JJ asked lifting his eyebrow.

“Maybe you can do something without breaking it?”

“I’ll try. But I’m not a magician.” He said getting closer to the door to grab the handle. You noticed he put a lot of strength in it, but you didn’t understand what he was doing. “I think I got it, but I need your help.”

“What do you want me to do?” You walked to stand next to him.

“Grab the handle and pull it really hard when I say so.” You did as he told you and then looked at him, waiting for his words. “Ready?” You nodded. “Go!”

You pulled the handle with all your strength just like JJ told you while JJ was pushing the door to open, and before you could think of something else the door opened. You and JJ had so much strength into it, that the sudden movement of the door opening, made you two lose balance. JJ tried to grab your waist and prevent you from falling, but it didn’t work since your body was already half way to the floor, it only managed to turn you around by twisting you from your waist and not fall on your face. Once your back hit the floor, you felt a body algo hitting yours.

You opened your eyes once the pain in your back passed enough for you to move, to see some blue eyes staring at you. JJ’s face was so close to yours that you were feeling his heavy breathing against your skin. You felt like his eyes were casting a spell on you since you felt like you couldn’t move, and not because you had his body on top of yours. Even if would be normal for you to feel crushed under a body, you weren’t feeling his. You were so lost in his eyes that you forgot everything around you, it was just him and his breathing gently hitting your face.

“Guys-” Lily said softly next to you. That made you return to the moment and realize in the position you two were. He quickly got up and walked back nervously, like he didn’t know what just happened either.

“Lily! Are you alright?” You walked towards her and hugged her body.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She broke the hug to look at JJ, who was still standing in the corner nervously. “You two looked like Anna and Kristoff there.”

“What’s that?” You asked quickly, feeling your cheeks getting hot.

“Yeah, when they looked at each other. With so much looooove.” Lily said and then let out a silly laugh. You wanted the floor to eat you and throw you whatever it wanted, as long as it wasn’t there. Silence surrounded the hallway for a couple of seconds while you were trying to think of something to change the subject and pretend that what just happened, didn’t. But JJ spoke before you.

“Maybe I should get back to work.” He said and you nodded.

“Maybe you should.” The second you said that, he quickly walked passed your body to leave you and Lily behind. You watched his back and noticed he was looking down, maybe you weren’t the only one who got embarrassed. But what did happen?

The moment that you two locked eyes with each other you felt like there was nothing else around you, like you were melting under his eyes. You never felt something like that, and you never wanted to do it again. So lost in your thoughts that you didn’t realize Lily has taken you to the living room to play with some of her new toys. You were hearing her voice talk but non of her words were entering your body. You tried to keep your eyes on the toys but the second that you looked up, your eyes met with his. He quickly looked down and walked away, leaving your sight from the window. You sighed, disappointed.

It wasn’t that you wanted to stare at him... well, maybe it was. But you didn’t want to distract yourself from your work and taking care of Lily, the girl that had to be your number one throught until you left the house. So erasing your unwanted thoughts, you focused your mind into Lily’s game, who seemed to be super invested in.

“Barbie and Ken are going to get married tomorrow, I already planned everything.” Lily was saying the second your mind started to pick up her words. “I’m so excited!”

“I’m pretty sure Barbie and Ken are as well!” You said with a smile, playing along with her.

After a couple of minutes playing with Lily you were glad JJ wasn’t consuming your brain, playing with Lily did helped you get your thoughts straight and focus on what was important. It all seemed to be going back to normal, you weren’t thinking of what happened earlier, Lily and her funny game with her Barbies were definitely making you laugh, and the clock was getting closer to the end of the day, so you were definitely going back to your normal self, until you heard some steps getting inside the house.

“Hey, can I have another glass of water?” JJ asked standing next to the door. You looked up and him and slowly nodded, not opening your mouth. Without giving the opportunity to anything else to happen, you got up from where you were and walked to the kitchen. You heard the door closing and you sighed, glad that JJ didn’t followed you to the kitchen. You didn’t want to talk to him, you knew you were going to be your awkward self and probably embarrass yourself like you usually do, so better to avoid him and forget he even excited... if that’s even possible. You looked at the glass of water that you had now on your hand and stared at it for a couple of seconds. You didn’t want to go out and give it to him, so a better idea came into your head.

“Hey, sweetie,” you called Lily and seconds later she was in front of you with an innocent smile on her face. “can you take this to JJ?” She nodded and grabbed the glass of water before leaving the kitchen behind.

While waiting for her to come back, you closed your eyes when the last time you had JJ in front of you came back to your mind. Well, on top of you is the better choice for words. Your heart dropped to your stomach and the memory slowly came back to your eyes and the feeling of his breathing against your face. Not wanting to have that on your mind, you slapped yourself on the forehead with the palm of your hand. But that didn’t work at all, and what you saw when you opened your eyes didn’t help either.

“Hi.” He said while standing next to the kitchen entrance.

“Hi.” You said, surprised he was inside the house.

“My water?” He asked looking to your hand and noticing they weren’t holding anything.

You furrowed your eyebrows confused, trying to not think you telling Lily about JJ’s water was all your mind playing tricks on you. “I just sent Lily with a glass of water for you.”

“She said that you had it here.”

“What? Lily?” You called her but there was no response. “Lily!” You walked to the living room but she wasn’t there. Feeling your heart beating faster you walked outside hoping she was there. Once your eyes went over the entire front yard while your heart was slowly beating faster passing the seconds, your eyes finally landed on Lily, but that didn’t calmed you down, since she was standing right next to the pool. “What are you doing?”

“I want to take a swim!” She yelled once you started to walk towards her, followed by JJ.

“You don’t know how to swim! Your mom doesn’t let you in if she’s not here! Come back!”

“But I want to swim!”

“Lily you can’t! I’m pretty sure you will when your mom comes home.” You said but Lily didn’t respond you, instead she turned towards the pool. “Lily?” The moment she lifted her foot your heart dropped to your stomach. Your eyes followed her body falling inside the pool once she jumped and threw some water drops into the air, you saw it all like it happened in slow motion. “Lily!” You yelled like you never did before. You started running towards her ready to jump and grab her, but JJ being faster than you, with quick moves took off his boots and jumped into the pool.

Once inside, the water was making it difficult for you to fully see their movements. That was making your hands sweat and your heart to beat faster, it felt like it was going to jump out of your body. But then, you saw JJ’s head above the water, followed by Lily’s.

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” You yelled once JJ left Lily’s body outside the pool. “Oh my god, you almost gave me a heart attack!” You patted her back while she was getting all the water outside from her body. You felt your heart getting heavy and slowing its speed while your breathing was letting out relief breaths.

“I’m sorry.” Lily said, once she stopped cuffing.

“Why- why would you do that Lily? You know you can’t swim!”

Lily looked up and JJ, who was breathing heavily with his body covered in water and his clothes sticking to his skin, but then she went back to looking at the floor. “I wanted- I wanted to be Anna.”

“What?” You asked confused.

“And I wanted JJ to be Kristoff.” As soon as she said those words you locked eyes with JJ, who seemed to understand the same thing as you on the same moment. Lily wanted to have a love like the characters of her favorite movie.

“Oh... Sweetie,” you kneeled down to be closer to her face. “And you thought that jumping into the pool when you can’t swim was going to make JJ your Kristoff because you wanted him to save you?”

She slowly nodded. “Yeah. And I- I also turned on the water earlier.”

“What?” You and JJ asked at the same time.

“The water for the grass- I did it.”

“Why?” JJ asked once you got up.

“And I broke the water tap. And I locked you two in the closet.” You opened your mouth surprised before looking at JJ, who was just as surprised as you.

“How?” He asked.

“Why would you do that?”

Lily shrugged her shoulders and that made JJ let out a tiny laugh while shaking his head.

“At least we know the house isn’t haunted.” He said, turning the conversation into something funny.

“You little devil.” You said, after letting the funny in the situation hit you.

“Are you gonna tell my mom?” Lily asked softly once she locked eyes with you.

“Lily, do you promise you won’t do it again?”

She quickly nodded with a smile. “I do.”

“Then this will be out little secret.”

“Thank you Y/n!” For the first time during those long hours, you felt like there was nothing else that could go wrong. You didn’t felt uncomfortable under JJ’s eyes, Lily was completely fine and JJ didn’t seem to bother that a little girl almost drowned for him... it all felt just alright. “And you calling JJ a major babe will be our little secret too!” Lily yelled and quickly added, noticing your cheeks go red and JJ letting out a grin once he locked eyes with you. “Oh, sorry.” Lily said softly.

“Shit.”

Well... it had to happen, just another thing going completely wrong.

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[kai-writes-fan-fiction]

In Hiding Part 2/?

Hey Buds! It’s me, Cay! This is part 2 of the Hiding Away series. I’m not super proud of it, but part 3 will be better. This was more or less a filler chapter, however, I hope you enjoy! Feedback is always greatly appreciated, and my requests are still open! Please, please, PLEASE send In prompts lol. (P.S. please excuse and spelling/grammar errors and typos, I had a migraine while writing this.)

Part one: https://imjustalurker12.tumblr.com/post/646379452336586752/in-hiding

Word count: 1000ish

Warnings: Talk of blood and needles, Non-graphic violence, no swearing in this one, a very bad cliffhanger

You were drifting in and out of consciousness, a bright light obscuring your view. You attempted to bring your arm up to shield your eyes from the blinding white light; however, you couldn’t move your arms. Your throat was sore so that you couldn't tell out. Your eyes still weren't fully adjusted to the light, so you couldn't see what was going on.

The only thing you knew is that you were lying on a hard surface supine, and you couldn't shift.

After a few more seconds of squinting, you lifted your head. You were strapped to a table by glowing blue cuffs. They must have something to do with the fact that you couldn't shift.

You had also been changed out of your clothes, blue scrubs in their place. An IV was in your right arm, and wires were coming from your chest, and you could also hear a constant beeping echoing throughout the room.

You began to squirm to remove yourself from the cuffs, but your actions were quickly noticed by a man in a lab coat staring at you from across the room. You recognized this man to be none other than Dr. Bruce Banner.

He looked up to you and smiled.

“Good morning, or should I say good afternoon (Y/N) (Y/L/N)! You slept for almost 12 hours! The Avengers really knocked you out, huh?”

You grimaced. That's right; the Avengers had caught you. It would seem that your “low profile jobs” weren't so low profile after all.

“Y’know, ” Bruce said, walking over to you, “you're a pretty hard person to find? (Y/N)” His brow furrowed. “Now, I need to take some blood.”

Needles really weren’t your thing, especially the long one Banner now held in his hands. You growled low; your powers were begging to come back and began squirming around. He rolled his eyes.

“Stop moving; it'll hurt less.” He mumbled.

Not convinced, you shifted uncontrollably. He tried to grab your arm, but his strength was no match for yours, which was slowly returning.

“Loki! Come do that magic thing!” Bruce yelled over his shoulder.

Loki then entered the lab, looked at you, and snarled.

“You're seriously not giving up? Stupid Midgaurdian child.” He hissed

He grabbed your arm, and you suddenly went limp.

“Thanks.” Banner said to Loki.

In return, Loki rolled his eyes and left the lab.

Inserting the needle into your arm, Banner sighed, “This would be easier for both of us if you stopped resisting.”

You clicked your tongue and grimaced. “Hmph.”

He sighed and walked away, leaving to examine your blood sample. He looked into the microscope and gasped. He picked up his phone and dialed a number.

“Stark, you need to get down here. Their blood- I've never seen anything like it. Her cells- just come down here.” He says into the receiver, pivoting his chair to look at your limp body once more.

Little did he know, you were beginning to gain your powers back. Loki's magic couldn't keep them at bay forever.

Five minutes later, you heard “BANNER!” being yelled at by Tony from the lab's entrance. “I’M HERE!”

You growled lowly, a sign of your powers becoming even stronger. You may be able to shift again within 5 minutes. You needed to plan your escape.

While Tony and Bruce babbled on, you began mapping the room. Practically the whole room was made out of glass, and it looked out onto the common room of the Avengers compound. You smiled to yourself, as it would be straightforward to bust out.

“What’re you smiling at, oh mighty blue one?” Stark taunted.

You turned back to him and narrowed your eyes in annoyance.

“My bad, kid!” He stuck his hands up in defense.

You went back to daydreaming about your escape, taking note of the woods surrounding the compound. After turning into an iron man suit, you’d break the glass and-

“Seriously, you’re grinning again.” Your thoughts were interrupted by a loud Tony Stark.

You turned to him and rolled your eyes.

“Does she not speak?” Tony asked Bruce, turning away from you.

“I haven't heard her yet; it’s not important.” Bruce sighs, still focused on your blood sample. “(Y/N), I need a piece of your hair.”

He walked over to you, and you grimaced when he tugged at a strand. He walked back to his microscope, placing the strand into a glass plate.

After a minute of staring at the strand, he whispered, “The blue, it’s natural!”

Duh, it was natural. All of the hair on your body was blue, and you can’t dye eyelashes. You gave an exasperated sigh and turned your head back to the windows, resuming the formulation of your plan. After you'd bust out, you'd shift into a-

“I'm sorry, is there something you need to say?” Asked an annoyed Tony.

You shook your head and returned to your thoughts as a reply. Tony wasn't satisfied.

“Speak now or forever hold your peace, princess.” He smirked, stepping towards you.

He was getting too close, and your powers still weren't fully replenished, but it was time to go. You grinned and flashed a pair of fangs before shifting into a wolf and out of your cuffs.

A startled Tony summoned his suit to overpower you, but you had already predicted such. You shifted into your suit and blasted the glass. It shattered immediately, and you flew out.

Once you reached the outdoors, you shifted into a cheetah, running far away from the compound. When you hit the woods, you morphed into a tree squirrel. There was no way they'd find you now, you thought. And maybe they wouldn't; read Part 3 to find out what happens next!

Tag list: @ooopsidaisy @moonbaejpeg @kinny-away @screechingshepherddeputygoth

@coollemonsaresour

Thanks for reading to then end! Please tell me if you want a part 3, I’m hoping it’s better than this one lol. Also I have school for a few days, so I may be a little longer when writing next parts and requests.

[shihalyfie]

A meta and analysis on Takaishi Takeru

Of all of the Tokyo Chosen Children, Takeru is lucky enough to get significant attention for two full series from beginning to end, and his character also goes through some drastic changes in the process, especially through Adventure and 02. There’s so much going on with him that it makes it hard to give a short answer to the question “what is Takeru like?” because there’s so much you could say about him at so many different times.

Fortunately, that’s what we’re here to talk about today!

Takeru in Adventure

At first glance, Takeru seems to be the “tagalong kid” -- the obligatory “little kid character” you have whenever you have a party in a fantasy story. Generally, these “obligatory kid characters” are the kind constantly struggling to catch up with the older ones. Adventure being a series that loves to play with tropes and expectations, though, very quickly says no to that.

Seki: ...We also mixed up the children’s ages, for a bit of variety. Kakudou: The oldest one would be the most unreliable, and the smartest one would be one of the third youngest. Just a little to throw you off the usual, conventional track. Seki: The youngest one would feel too much like a burden to everyone else, and conversely would actually have himself together.

Takeru “doesn’t want to be a burden” -- meaning his feelings on this issue are actually rather much like Hikari’s. Unlike Hikari, though, Takeru reacts to this compulsion differently -- instead of simply repressing things and pretending the problem doesn’t exist, Takeru’s reaction to his own negative feelings is to “have himself together” and act as if he’s got everything under control.

Or, more accurately, pretend he has it together and has everything under control.

Takeru, for all intents and purposes, was not supposed to be on the camping trip the others were on, not having gone to everyone’s school -- he had to get special permission to go. Takeru’s family is very, very split harshly at this time, with his mother not even able to treat Yamato comfortably. Yamato deals with the familial estrangement badly -- alternating between approaching everyone awkwardly and exploding like an emotional fuse bomb -- but Takeru tries to take it as a sign  that he needs to be “responsible”. A lot of his actions in Adventure are him basically exuding this aura of “I can take care of myself!”, and in fact he works very hard to “assert” himself as if he were yet another peer. We even see him make the complaint directly in Adventure episode 43 -- while he is correct in calling out Yamato for coddling him and him only while recklessly disregarding the others, the fact he specifically complains about Yamato approaching him as someone holding them back if he’s not protected reveals a lot about his own mentality regarding the situation.

One of his first major scenes in episode 2 is him offering his own food for the pile of supplies everyone has, even though it’s just snacks. Which is, probably, a pretty accurate summary of Takeru’s character at this point: on the surface he’s responsible, well-behaved, and capable...but, in fact, he’s still about as immature as an average eight-year-old child would predictably be.

Yamato spends his Adventure character arc pretty openly angsting about his relationship to Takeru and how his family’s split has affected them, but throughout the entirety of Adventure (and, eventually, 02 as well), not only does Takeru rarely if ever touch on it, there are indications that Takeru deliberately tries to dodge the subject or not dwell on it too much. In Adventure episode 12, he actually outright lies to Patamon about his younger childhood memories, claiming he “probably doesn’t remember” anything about it despite the audience very clearly being shown that he very much did, and in episode 26 he comes very close to leaking his actual feelings about the group being separated being tied to what happened to his family, before quickly covering it up and trying to move on with the topic.

In other words, unlike Hikari, who knows exactly what she’s feeling but is compulsively unable to vocalize them, Takeru actively suppresses his negative feelings and tries not to dwell on them too much. Again, this comes from his desire to “not be a burden” on others -- he’s got this situation under control! Everything is fine!

And this has a very, very nasty payoff. While Yamato clearly deals with his emotional issues badly, tending to get very explosive about it, Takeru’s way of coping isn’t actually all that much better in the long run, because Yamato’s frustration and openness about his emotions at least lead him to being very straightforward about his feelings, incredibly self-aware and sometimes even self-conscious, and ultimately able to get at least some degree of catharsis from the situation. Takeru...not so much.

Takeru is a child, no matter how much he tries not to act like one, and it ultimately results in him reacting disastrously whenever something hits him too emotionally hard -- which results in Takeru suddenly becoming irrationally stubborn and even angry. We later see what it takes to actually break through Takeru’s facade of “totally having this together” in Adventure episode 22, which is also the first time he openly breaks down wailing in front of anyone besides Patamon -- and it’s, of course, when PicoDevimon convinces him that Yamato hates him. The interesting part is that this is so blatantly a lie that even Tokomon is able to quickly call bullshit on it, but Takeru, previously having worked so hard to maintain this facade of being responsible, falls for it completely with utter irrationality -- and it really does suggest that Takeru’s fear of losing yet another member of his family, and being a burden to Yamato, runs so deep that it causes that entire facade to shatter in one blow.

Which is where the problem lies: Takeru’s habit of suppression is so bad that once one of his triggers is hit, he completely loses all sense of rationality and blows up, and it becomes nearly impossible to reason with him because he locks down on becoming stubborn. It’s also dangerous because even he isn’t particularly self-aware of what he’s doing when he blows up like this; at least Hikari was very consciously aware of her suppression problem, but Takeru never really seems to have any awareness of the fact that his covering up of his feelings is directly related to some of his worst moments. We see it cause problems between him and Patamon again in Adventure episode 33, when Patamon asks a rather innocuous question about the brothers, and it hits Takeru’s trigger so badly that he snaps at him, resulting in the fight that kicks off the plot of the episode.

Adventure episode 52 is basically a major test for Takeru as to whether he really can hold himself together in a situation where everyone else older than him is gone, and “having himself together” is something he has to actually do instead of just have the surface facade of. He does, ultimately, pass, and this is why the Crest of Hope glows this episode -- but it’s also made clear that it wasn’t quite as easy for him as he would normally pretend it is. Of course, it also helps that Piemon is genuinely the scariest threat they’d faced during that time, but it also reveals that, yeah, ultimately, Takeru is an eight-year-old child who still has to struggle to put on a brave face so that Hikari doesn’t get impacted by his own fear.

For all it’s worth, although we get a ton of depth into his background and mentality, Takeru does not actually change that much as a character over the course of Adventure. This incident is probably what changes him the most in terms of him gaining a more solid core, and he also learns to accept the inevitability of fighting after his stubborn refusal to engage in it all the way back in Adventure episode 12 -- but for the most part he still does remain a bit naive about the world at large, and, more importantly, his issue with trying to cover up his problems with a confident smile never really gets addressed. At most, he’s willing to admit his grief over being separated from Patamon in Adventure episode 54, but even that is something Takeru tries to bounce back from quickly, much like with the first time he cried with Patamon in Adventure episode 12. But there’s nothing to indicate that his problem with emotional management isn’t going to continue being a problem from here on out if left unchecked.

That problem ends up taking another three more years to get addressed.

Takeru in 02

Takeru is one of the first people we meet in 02 (for reasons that end up revealed in the final episode), and right off the bat we learn that he’s a bit...evasive. He leaves a cryptic line to Daisuke about his goggles without coming even close to what we all know is the full extent of what’s on his mind (that the goggles specifically remind him of someone important to him), and later just...deflects Daisuke throwing accusations at him with a mild dismissal. In fact, even though Takeru pretty clearly understands very quickly what’s going on with Daisuke and how touchy he gets with the Hikari issue, he keeps dodging the question and constantly saying things that are evasive about it and therefore never truly helps his case until episode 17, when the circumstances between why Hikari and Takeru knew each other are finally properly clarified to Daisuke and he stops getting on their case about it on his own.

There were multiple points in time before this -- especially in episode 7, when Daisuke is practically at his worst in regards to approaching Takeru -- when Takeru could have easily said something to at least attempt to get Daisuke to stop bothering him, but Takeru never even asks him to cut it out! He simply continues to handle everything with a “yeah, okay, sure! :)” attitude, which of course confuses Daisuke (who’s rather allergic to people not being straightforward) rather thoroughly, and you wonder if he’s practically enjoying seeing Daisuke’s antics to the point he’s just enabling it further.

As a point of aside trivia, the official 02 website adds the fun detail that apparently he's popular with the girls at school but doesn't show much interest in them himself, and the Animedia audio commentary CD for Armor Evolution to the Unknown had his voice actor even express the opinion that he saw Takeru as someone who wasn’t really the type to think about romance at this age (adding in a separate interview for the 02 DVDs that he felt Takeru was respectful of girls primarily due to having been taught by his single mother to be such). The latter part of course isn’t something that comes from the writing, but given the website trivia I’m inclined to personally agree with it -- and, more importantly, the implication is that Takeru is at least aware of these kinds of things, but actively chooses to not think about it and deal with it when the time comes.

So in other words: That part about how Takeru actively suppresses things that are negative or inconvenient to think about, all for the sake of keeping a smile plastered on his face? Yup, still there.

In fact, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment from 02 episode 17 implies heavily that, even with their parents having developed a more cordial relationship after the events of Adventure, Takeru is now emotionally dealing with the aftermath of his parents’ divorce worse than Yamato is, since Yamato is at least able to speak about it casually and even joke about it openly, whereas Takeru keeps his mouth shut and the framing of the shot heavily implies he’s still extremely sensitive and unable to vocalize his feelings on it. Takeru never brings this up as something eating away at him for the entire series -- but BelialVamdemon uses it against him in episode 49, revealing that, yes, this is a problem that’s still tearing away at him, and yet he’s refusing to be open to anyone about it, even to Yamato himself. (Especially since, again, Yamato seems to be doing a great job trying to move forward; why kill his mood and thus be a “burden” to him?)

Even so, Takeru is very different in 02 partially because his circumstances are completely different. Adventure had him as the youngest in a group of older kids, so in terms of “being a responsible child”, that naturally meant being deferential and polite to everyone due to standards of propriety. 02 is where we learn a lot more about how Takeru interacts with peers his own age and people who are outright younger than him, when he has a bit more leeway to be more assertive.

On top of that, back in Adventure, Takeru was a young child who had a very small “range of periphery” -- as a young child still rather naive about the world, his emotional investment in things primarily pertained to loved ones and the people around him. But now that he’s a bit older, he’s gained a certain degree of strong feelings about “what’s the right thing to do”, and now has very strong opinions on it.

These things ultimately manifest in, unfortunately, Takeru losing his composure much more often than he did in Adventure, and for reasons that pertain to much wider things than just his brother. Still not having recovered from the trauma of losing Patamon back in Adventure episode 13, Takeru starts physically fighting Daisuke in 02 episode 11 because he perceives Daisuke as not doing enough to prevent Patamon from potentially becoming a slave to the Kaiser, and in 02 episode 13 he lashes out at Hikari in frustration about her refusal to do anything about her situation (which he of course ends up deeply regretting later in the episode).

Takeru’s infamous scene of suddenly switching modes on the Kaiser and punching him out in 02 episode 19 is basically the pinnacle of this -- because, yes, the Kaiser really did deserve it, but this really is not a good thing for Takeru either. This is Takeru getting the closest we ever see him to being a genuine sadist, and it’s basically everything to do with his emotional stuntedness coming out at once -- blowing up in anger out of nowhere with a passive-aggressive demeanor, succumbing to the weight of his trauma in the worst way possible, and mixing the ^^ front he puts on with his tendency to blow up angrily at anything that cuts him a little too emotionally close.

And for the first time, we see someone actually acknowledge how bad this is. Iori, one of the most consciously perceptive of the group, witnesses, for himself, the sheer jarringness of Takeru seeming to only really have two modes between “all smiles” and “unreasonably angry”. Sure, Takeru had shown a penchant for getting active as soon as there was something he needed to protect, but the moment it got personal, Takeru suddenly blew up in front of his eyes and almost turned into a completely different person. (Perhaps he’s not that different from Yamato after all...)

This is a very important moment because it sets up the base for what ultimately becomes the Jogress arc between Iori and Takeru. Daisuke ended up reaching out to Ken because Ken was someone who needed someone to accept him and teach him to move forward instead of drowning in the past; Miyako ended up reaching out to Hikari because Hikari knew herself to have a suppression problem but had difficulty doing anything about it, so the extremely in-your-face and aggressive Miyako could go in deep. But with Takeru, since his personality is genuinely volatile, and because Takeru goes out of his way to hide the fact he’s having emotional problems, personalities like Daisuke and Miyako wouldn’t help much because they’re too straightforward for someone like this who’s a bit unpredictable -- whereas Iori, who’s assertive but also methodical and thinks through everything consciously, is eventually much better able to reach out to him.

Once the relevant arc kicks in, in 02 episode 34, Iori continues to observe Takeru, and quietly notes the many “contradictions” in Takeru’s behavior -- since, after all, Takeru starts to sometimes violate what you’d think would be common sense whenever he gets too emotionally compromised. The fact that ostensibly one of the outwardly “nicest” kids in this group suddenly blows up in certain circumstances and basically goes “absolutely nope, needs to be killed!” in the midst of a few moral debates over killing sentient Digimon disturbs him deeply, and really, it’s not even about the killing part (after all, it’s later established in 02 episode 43 and after that Takeru and Hikari have a certain degree of acceptance of the inevitability that the others don’t) as much as Takeru’s being pretty gung-ho about it. Not “I don’t like it, but we have to” like he said earlier, but NOPE, GOTTA DO IT.

Iori refers directly to the duality of Takeru that he doesn’t quite understand multiple times in this episode (including in regards to the incident back in 02 episode 19), and it continues to torment him until the end, when Takeru only gives a very cryptic “clarification” that he doesn’t necessarily hate the darkness per se.

Iori, too intimidated to ask Takeru about it directly, goes to ask Yamato in 02 episode 35, and Yamato finally clarifies the background that we as the audience knew but Iori didn't: the story behind Takeru's trauma regarding the loss of Angemon back in Adventure episode 13. Yamato also makes a conjecture about why Takeru has been acting so ambivalent towards Ken -- you'd think he'd still be under Takeru's scorn after the events of 02 episode 19, but in fact Takeru's judgment of him in episode 25 was simply that he was certain something had changed, yet he couldn't tell what he was thinking (really rich coming from someone who refuses to tell anyone else what he's thinking himself!). Yamato guesses that Takeru is inclined to be a bit more forgiving of Ken due to understanding the feeling of losing a partner -- and the ultimate conclusion here is, basically, that Takeru's behavior is contradictory because he's acting based on what's personal to him, not necessarily via principles that make sense. After all, back in Adventure, it was clearly demonstrated that Takeru isn’t exactly rational when things hit too close to home.

The other important thing that happens this episode is that Takeru learns that Iori is actively trying to reach out to him, when Yamato drops him a line informing him that Iori asked. Despite complaining that Iori could have just asked him directly, after Takeru witnesses the face-off between Iori and BlackWarGreymon and a demonstration that Iori is clearly trying his best to make sense out of this entire mess, Takeru actively reaches out to Iori and says something to comfort him -- “a life is beautiful simply by existing.” It’s still cryptic as hell, but it’s not something he would have said in the midst of his anger in prior episodes.

It would be one thing if it were simply that by itself, but the following episodes further push the idea that Takeru really is starting to change after witnessing all of this. 02 episode 36 has him explicitly acknowledge what Iori’s been doing this whole time in trying to understand him for the sake of their Jogress, and, finally, during their meal later that episode, he says, very openly and honestly, that he thinks they’ll be able to do it now. After two instances of Jogress, these kids are very aware of what that entails -- so this is basically Takeru consciously acknowledging to Iori “yes, I understand that you’re trying to reach out to me, and I accept it and want to understand you.” Because Takeru is such a convoluted sort of person, this “understanding” ended up being something that didn’t span a single magical moment as much as it took several episodes and a diplomatic, conscious affirmation on both ends -- but it’s a fitting way to go for someone who had always indicated some pretty poor conscious awareness of where his feelings were taking him.

This is especially because, in 02 episode 37, his statements to comfort Ken are in pretty significant opposition to the sort of anger he’d displayed in earlier episodes, and are now a more pragmatic view of the issue in light of Iori’s efforts and everything he’d just witnessed with BlackWarGreymon -- and to drive the point home, the episode has, at the very end of it, Takeru making his first true explicit show of goodwill towards Ken after having been a bit touchy with him for so many episodes.

Iori himself, being the youngest of the 02 group, still has a lot to learn, and so Takeru, who had previously been one of the youngest in the Adventure group himself, now has his role inverted to effectively be a guiding mentor to Iori as he finds his own way. Basically, Takeru becomes responsible for the welfare of this young child, and so his way of treating Iori is markedly different from the more detached and playful way he would treat others from here on out. This is especially because, earlier, Yamato had informed him that Iori had taken a very roundabout way to help understand him better, and so Takeru probably understands that he scared the hell out of Iori earlier and needs to do better. While the Takeru of 02 episodes 38-50 still has a way of being playful, and while he still isn’t completely straightforward about his intentions, he is definitely much better about being open with the others, especially Iori, instead of doubling down on his “everything-is-fine” mode.

And perhaps this is what the other meaning of “hope” thus became in this situation -- learning to be forward-facing even in the midst of truly knowing and understanding everything that’s wrong with the situation.

Post-02

Although Takeru’s Spring 2003 track is addressed to no one in particular, meaning that it’s the most likely reason he’s so willing to be open about it, Takeru outright admits he’s having problems with his emotions -- especially those pertaining to Angemon’s death. We do, however, learn that Takeru’s started writing the early, early drafts of what’ll eventually end up becoming the novels he writes as a future career.

This being only a year after the events of 02, Takeru’s position is interesting. His decision to start writing is that he wants to have a record of everything before it’s forgotten -- because these things are very personal to him -- but he’s not emotionally ready for the huge task of finalizing everything in words, to the point he still hasn’t told his mother he’s started writing yet. After all, this is a book we eventually find out takes upwards of twenty years, and so this is the presumable reason why -- being able to get this down in a rational way that’s not emotionally compromising is going to be an upwards battle for him.

Even come Kizuna, there’s still a long way for him to go, because an actual line (in a very fast-paced movie) is dedicated to establishing that he’s still uncomfortable with his novel progress to the point he won’t even let Yamato see it. His official character profile and background details are revealing, too -- although he’s currently taking language classes in university and is even part of a children’s literature club, he still hasn’t actually decided on what to do with his future, meaning that he hasn’t determined that he’s going to be a full-time novelist with these yet. That means that even though he’s clearly still clacking away at his novel (multiple indications in the movie are given as such), his memoirs are still at the level of being so deeply personal, and not something he feels comfortable telling well, just yet.

I’ve pointed out before that despite not appearing directly with them in the movie, Takeru and Hikari have more in common with the others in the 02 group than they do with their Adventure seniors, and this is fully codified in the drama CD when Takeru is content to basically just “do whatever” with the rest of his friends instead of having any particular concerns about his future. And as someone who has a tendency to kind of just let his emotions take him wherever they’re going, this isn’t too surprising. Although he approximates as the closest to level-headed during most of the group’s antics during the CD, he’s still completely guilty of enabling them full-force, after all...

So, with the 02 epilogue, we get the massive meta reveal that the entire series was Takeru’s novels the whole time. This was planned to be the ending for Adventure before recording for the first episode had even started, but was postponed to the end of 02 when the second series was greenlit -- and if you’d followed the Japanese version, there are a ton of meta hints scattered around from day one:

The narrator of the series is Hirata Hiroaki, who played Takeru and Yamato’s father, and is revealed in this episode to voice him as an adult as well;

Episode 12 of Adventure is named “Adventure! Patamon and Me” and is the only episode title in Adventure or 02 to use a first-person pronoun -- and it’s of course a Takeru-centric episode, with the episode title using Takeru’s boku;

02′s first episode kicks off narrated by young Takeru opening the story, with Takeru himself suspiciously omitted from the opening vignettes;

02 episode 18 suddenly has the narration cut in when discussing Takeru’s trauma from Adventure episode 13, with the younger Takeru even filling in part of it himself;

02 episode 49′s “next episode” preview for 50 suddenly also starts using “we”, which also includes Takeru’s boku;

Finally, Takeru starts narrating right after Oikawa’s death, which fades into what’s revealed to be his adult voice.

In the context of Adventure, Takeru was “the youngest child”, so the idea makes sense that “the littlest one” would be the one to grow up and reflect on all of the adventures they had as kids -- and once 02 was added, it practically made sense that Takeru would be the one to recap both adventures, being the one person who was there to completely witness both (it also explains why Takeru and Hikari’s character arcs remain somewhat unresolved by the end of Adventure compared to others, since by this time it was apparent their story would be continued in the second series). So on a meta level, Takeru is, in a certain way, one of the most important characters in both groups.

On a level relevant to his personal character arc, on the other hand, the point here is that Takeru finally managed to put together his book and story in a way that he was comfortable telling the entire world about, to the point of choosing to make his entire career into it. That’s something that requires a lot of coming to terms with what happened, how he feels about it, how others feel about it, and everything about the whole ordeal in general, without compromise or (too much) bias.

And in the end, that’s really a lot!

[worminstuff]

The Balcony of the Treehouse pt.3

sleepy bois x reader au

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

“I want to preface this, I do love you all so much, but I'm incredibly disappointed.” Phil stared at the 4 kids in front of him. He knew his words struck as deep as they would to any kid hearing that from an adult important to them. Especially Techno, he strived to make Phil proud even more than Will. Y/n on the other hand, he wasn't sure of. She often was a chaotic wild card, and she didn't get much parenting from anyone other than him from what he's seen over the many years. Phil believes he's disciplined her more than her own guardians, and she listens to him. But she's also gotten herself in many tough situations all the same.

She's not necessarily his own, but he treats her as if she were.

Out of Techno and Y/n she was definitely not the mediator. The only time he's seen her relatively responsible, is when it comes to being home alone, and interacting with Tommy. Which both impressed him greatly, but not enough per say.

“I know all of you are stubborn, some more than others,” he directed his gaze to Techno, whos eyes seemed to hold more self loath than before, “but unless you all talk even a bit, it's only going to get worse.” he turned to Y/n and placed a hand to her shoulder, “i want you around. I know you don't tell me everything I should know, especially about home, but I know enough and I see enough. I want you here with us when you need us. And we need you too.” he watched as her eyes welled up with tears.

Y/n turned her head slightly to glance at Techno, who was finally looking at her for the first time since the night prior.

She watched his lip give a small wobble as his eyes seemed to fight back a bit of tears.

“He's not wrong.” Techno mumbled out.

Y/ns brows furrowed, “why would you need me?”

Techno looked at Tommy in Y/ns lap not wanting to look at her. Tommy realized he was looking at him, and upon seeing Technos teary eyes Tommys started to get a bit watery even.

“You're my only friend.. Who's gonna sit with me in the treehouse? Who's gonna listen to me ramble? I wouldn't get good morning hugs..i wouldn't get anything you do for me on a daily basis and i don't wanna think of that.” his voice was barely audible but Y/n could hear him. She felt a tear run down her cheek. Tommy looked up at her too, now wondering why everyone was crying. His face started to contort in baby-like sadness, smacking a hand on her leg, but not harsly. He was reaching up at her face. Y/n looked down at Tommy and her heart melted, she leaned down slightly and he set a small hand on her face.

“No more crying!” Tommy didnt often speak, he very much could, pretty well sometimes, he was just more physical usually when conveying his thoughts. Which made this situation all the more meaningful.

Phil was the only one who had looked at Wilbur yet, who was sitting silently watching Y/n and his little brothers, Wilbur had more tears on his cheeks than all of them. Well maybe not Tommy, but he was rivaling him.

Wilbur was realizing how Y/n really meant to Techno. But all the same, he was realizing how much she meant to him too. She was everything to him since he was 12 and realized he liked her. Since he was 15 and realized he loved her.

“Even Tommy needs you. Trust me, we all do.” wilbur said softly. Y/n looked over to him, her eyes softening, her heart hurt for him. Wilbur was really getting the worst of this situation.

Before she could say anything, he spoke again, “Techno i know you don't like how i feel but we're both being selfish. It very much isn't our decision to make for her.” he said to Techno but quickly looked back to her, after wiping away a tear, “not that i want to force a decision on you any time soon,” she nodded as she rubbed tommys back to calm him a bit.

“I just..it's..she's my Y/n” Techno looked at Wilbur, it was the first thing he'd said to him through all of this, and everyone was a bit taken aback.

“Your?” Y/n said, the most taken aback.

“I know that sounds bad but, but it's been us since..since forever!” his voice cracked slightly, he looked at her, “were us! Y/n and Techno! You're my person!” he was getting angry, “and you!” he looked to wilbur, “and you're my brother! You shouldn't get to try to take that away!” his face was growing red.

“That's not what i want! I don't want to steal her, she decides how she spends her time not me! If she wants to spend time with me shouldn't she be allowed to?” wilbur scowelled.

“I don't like this at all'' Y/n mumbled towards phil. “This is like some stupid cheesy movie with two brothers fighting over a girl. Its stupid to be frank. I think we should just..we should just get over ourselves yeah? Wilbur i..im not commenting on either of our feelings cause i don't want to. And Techno, I get that we are us and all, but I'm still my own person. I love you, and you're my person too, which is why you need to talk to me.” she wiped away all the tiers from before, as did Techno, and he nodded at her.

Wilbur was solem, he figured he was setting aside their problem as to not talk about it infront of Techno. At least he hoped that much.

“You're right, i'm sorry I was mad Y/n.” he felt entirely better.

“It's okay, no biggie.” She offered him a smile which he returned. “Treehouse?”

Techno nodded excitedly.

Y/n looked at tommy in his lap, he seemed less upset now, “see Tommy, not more tears,yeah?”

Tommy seemed to lighten up at that, so she looked to Phil who gave a silent nod and picked Tommy up from her legs.

Techno stood, looking at her to follow,

“I'll be a be up in a bit, go ahead.” she smiled and nodded towards the backyard. He nodded back and turned to go.

Phil left the dining room, leaving Wilbur and Y/n alone.

He looked at her with a small smirk, “do you still have my sweatshirt?”

Y/n's face reddened slightly, she pouted. “I wanted to apologize, you know.”

“You don't have to, Y/n” he chuckled.

“I slept in it actually.” Y/n mumbled, not looking into his eyes.

“In what?”

“Your sweater.”

His stomach felt queasy.

“Y-you did?”

“Erm..yeah. It was comfy. And i felt close to you..” she looked up at him, only to see the widest grin shed saw on him in a while.

“Well, i have a lot of them.” he leaned back in his chair, gaining a bit of confidence.

Y/n smiled shyly and stood up, “yeah because you're obsessed with spending money.”

“I'm so not!” he laughed slightly.

Y/n gave him a small giggle, “i'll see you later wilby.” her voice was soft and smooth, she leaned over the table and placed a small kiss to his cheek. Leaning back she watched as his eyes grew wide and his cheeks burned a faint pink before she turned to make her way to the treehouse.

Before he could get another word out, she was already outside.

Phil poked his head into the room, letting out an airy laugh.

“Yeah?” he said to wilbur, laughing at how shocked he still seemed.

Wilbur looked up at phil, “Dad?”

Phil nodded, “mhm?”

“I love her.” he had a starry look in his eyes. “Shes-she's-..” he was trying to think of a word when suddenly Tommy spoke up from phils arms again for the second time that evening.

“Pwetty!” he grinned and looked up at phil.

Wilbur and Phil both laughed softly.

“That's for damn sure..” wilbur smiled to himself and shook his head slightly.

Once Y/n had made it into the treehouse, Techno immediately pulled her into his arms. Y/n quickly hugged him around his shoulders.

Techno was tall, not as tall as Wilbur, but definitely taller than Y/n and tall for his age. He leaned down to rest his head on her shoulder as he hugged her.

Looking over his shoulder she noticed the contents of her bag on the floor, “so you found the book?”

Techno nodded into her shoulder, “can we sit?”

She nodded and slowly pulled away looking up at him, moving to the rug.

He sat in front of her, but reached his arms out. She smiled and moved to be in front of him, leaning back against him. They usually sat this way when he was reading, so he could either read to her or she could just sit close to him while he read.

Techno leaned his head on top of hers, and slid his arms around her waist pulling her close.

“Thank you for the book by the way.” he mumbled.

“Did you cry?” she smirked.

“I did cry. But not because of the book specifically.” he said.

“Oh.” her smirk fell. She put one of her hands on top of him, pulling it from her waist to hold on to his fingers. “Did you..sleep here?” she saw the way the blanket was on the rug and the book around it.

“Uh..yeah. I did.” he picked his head up to look at their hands. He flipped his hand so it was facing up, Y/n traced small patterns into his palm.

“I almost came up here..” she turned to look up at him.

Techno stared down at her, his eyes tracing each feature on her face. His free hand came off of her waist to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, “I wish you had..”

Both of their eyes were lazy. “Will you tonight?” Technos eyes weren't on hers, they were watching her lips, and his hand was resting at the base of her neck, he could feel her pulse quickening.

“Yeah..of course.” she tried to contain her nerves at the way he was staring at her.

He stared at her a little longer before she moved his hand from her neck up to her cheek.

“You signed that letter “your Y/n”..” he mumbled, looking at her eyes for a split second.

“I did, yeah.” her eyes almost seemed glazed over.

“You're mine?” his eyes were wild, unlike hers. Her head lulled more to the side, into his hands at his words.

“Say it..i need to hear it please..” his words were so soft, but they felt like he'd just knocked the wind out of her all the same.

“I'm yours.” she stared at him, as he seemed to tense at her words. His eyes drifted to her lips again as he slowly leaned down to her, his face less than inches from hers.

“God..” he mumbled as his lips clashed with hers. She reached up behind her to rest her own hand on his cheek, pulling him closer.

Y/n could barely think clear with the way his lips felt on hers, he was being so gentle.

Meanwhile Technos thoughts were running rampant. The way her small hand felt on his jaw, the way her pulse was going so quick, the way her face felt so warm, the way she was still holding onto his other hand grasping it so tightly. And it was all his doing.

He pulled away for a moment, needing to know how she was feeling and what she was thinking.

As he pulled away Y/n gave a small whine, unhappy with how he moved away from her. Her eyes were still closed even as her brows furrowed.

He smiled softly down at her, he couldn't believe he'd kissed her.

Her eyes opened for a moment, finding his loving gaze.

He was about to pull her face back to his when they both suddenly heard a knock to the doorway of the treehouse.

Wiilbur was standing on the balcony outside the doorway. His eyes seemed almost empty.

“Dinners em..dinners ready. Dad sent me up to get you two.” he turned quickly, getting away from what he'd seen as quickly as possible, before they could see any sort of tears that had formed in his eyes.

This time it was Techno that had messed up royally.

^^^

pt 4

[thisisgonnafuxkinkillme]

Pro Heros Find You Crying

Warnings: tw for body image, mentions of death of pets

Yagi Toshinori/All Might

You were home, alone, when you found out. It wasn’t a particularly big issue, and it wasn’t something that someone else would necessarily care about, but to you, this was the final straw. 

An actor from your childhood, someone who you watched constantly as a child, someone who, albeit from a screen, saw you grow up, passed away. You never got to even meet him in person. The closest you’ve ever gotten was him noticing your comment on a livestream of 12 other people, and smiling.

You never got to thank him. For everything he’d done for you. 

Tears fell from your eyes uncontrollably, dripping from your eyelashes and dropping onto the floor, your clothes, the keyboard. 

Soon, though, you felt dreaded sobs making their way from your core all the way through your vocal cords. They shook your body like an earthquake. Sobs don’t care what they break inside you. They just need to get out.

What no one else would understand about this, though, was that your tears weren’t just being spilled for the actor you never got to thank. No, these represent so much more.

Your childhood is officially gone.

Just as that actor will be grieved, buried, and will rot in the ground with dusty fake flowers above his grave, your childhood will be filled with maggots and worms.

The thing about childhoods, though, is that they still live inside you, even when they’re over.

You always found this fact a cruel one. Even now, you could feel the worms burrowing into your childhood, eating away and destroying all the memories you’ve tried so hard to keep in tact for all these years. 

You sobbed for him, yes. But you were still grieving your loss as well.

Cold, bony fingers met your shoulder. You jumped, yelping at the sudden touch.

“What?! What do you want?!” you screamed. You aren’t usually this ornery, but the embarrasment of being this upset over something so menial, plus the shock of someone else being home with you, caused you to snap.

"What happened?" He gently asked. He met your seemingly angry tone with nothing but pure kindness and sympathy.

"I-I'm so sorry, Toshi...I didn't mean-"

"I know, pumpkin. I know."

He took you in his arms, pulling you towards him.

In between sobs, you explained what happened.

"oh...I see... That does sound like a lot for you to be dealing with."

He stroked your tear stained cheek.

“But...I hope you know that just because you’re older, it doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to be a kid sometimes. You can still get excited over stuff, and cry over things that seem silly, and have wonder about new things. As long as you keep a piece of your childhood with you, you never have to say goodbye.”

Once you calmed down, he took you out for ice cream: something you haven’t done since you were barely 10 years old. 

Aizawa Shouta/Eraserhead

You quickly clicked your heels into the staff restroom, closing the door behind you and shakily letting out a sigh of relief. You knew you didn’t have much time left before the tears started coming once you got that text, so you decided it’d be best for you to go ahead and have another teacher deal with your class for a few minutes while you let yourself deal with this, alone.

You re-read the text one more time. Maybe it wasn’t what you thought it was.

Y/n... I’m so sorry, but your dog was put to sleep today. 

You shook your head. No, maybe she meant to say that he was taking a nap. Maybe he was still waiting for you, at home, in his little bed...

A sob escaped before you had the chance to control it as you pictured his little black and white face peacefully sleeping on his doggie bed. 

You had that dog for years. He’d been there for you when no one else had, and though he couldn’t speak, you always knew he silently understood what you needed when you needed it.

Now, he was gone.

You covered your mouth, trying your best to supress the sounds of sorrow escaping your lips. Maybe, you thought, if I don’t acknowledge it, it’s not real.

But deep down, you know that’s not true. 

The door to the staff bathroom begins to creak open. 

“Hey, someone’s in here!” you croak out, the tears were even audible in your voice.

“Yeah, and now I’m in here too,” the teacher replied, shutting and locking the door behind him. Something you had forgotten to do.

It was Aizawa, the very teacher you had just asked to watch your students ‘for a moment’.

Before you could ask about them, he mentioned, “They’re fine. I put on a movie for em... but you, on the other hand, are certainly not.”

He took his place next to you on the dirty tile floor of the school restroom, against one wall. He handed you a tissue, noting but not mentioning the fact that you were a mess of tears, ruined makeup, and snot. You gladly accepted, blowing your nose.

Neither of you said much for a good five minutes. You forced yourself to calm down, as to not embarrass yourself in front of him, but the tears were still there, festering below the surface.

“So, what’s got you so upset?” 

That little question was all it took for you to break. You tried, unsuccessfully, to say it. The three little words, “My dog died,” but no matter how much you strained, all that came out was a mess of choked up sobs.

You shakily handed him your phone. His eyes darted to the text, and he instantly understood. 

Aizawa was not one for any physical touching, ever. Even though you had been dating him, he still never really enjoyed holding hands, hugging, or anything like that. 

Today, however, was a totally different situation. He turned to you, opening his arms wide, gesturing for you to ‘come here’.

But you didn’t need anything more. 

You did, and he silently cradled you, rubbing your hair. 

Truthfully, he didn’t know exactly what to say. What could you say? 

Once you began to calm down, he stroked your jaw lightly.

“What was his name?”

“...Theo.” you answered plainly. 

“You loved Theo a lot, didn’t you?” 

You nodded.

“You know, what’s so funny about losing a pet is that...it’s incredibly hard,” he sighed, “Even harder than losing humans.”

Aizawa continued, “It’s because we don’t have anything to gain from lying about loving them. We just do. Animals love their owners completely unconditionally, never needing any reassurance that you love them back a hundred times over. That’s not something that many humans have.”

You nodded.

“ I just hope you know that...you did your best for him. He couldn’t have ever asked for a better owner to share his life with. You did good, y/n,” he whispered. You shot him a shaky smile. Really, your heart was aching more now than ever. 

“You don’t have to do all that. I know you’re not doing well, still. Please, go ahead and go home for the day. I can take on your class, no problem,” he assured.

“...can you...come over after work?” you asked. He nodded.

Taishiro Toyomitsu/Fatgum

It’s been almost a year since this pandemic began. You wonder to yourself, how long can that be an excuse for you? 

You had gained weight. A lot of it. You suffer from secret binge eating, indulging yourself greedily in all your favorite comfort foods. Usually, you did this at night, which worked out even better for you, since your boyfriend usually had night watch and was not at home. 

Stretch marks were always a normal sight for you, ever since you hit puberty, but the ones on your stomach have started to move upwards, like vines trying to find the sun. They stared back at you in shades of purples, pinks, and browns. 

You ran your fingers over your now bumpy skin.

Other girls don’t look like this. Other girls are happy with a miniature bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a granola bar for lunch, and maybe a tiny serving of pasta for dinner. They are the beautiful ones. They must be happy, right?

Your fingers unrelentlessly pinch and pull at your stomach, your thighs, your love handles. All fat.

Each tiny action reminded your body that you hated it. 

Did you even ever love your body? Even when you were ‘skinny’? 

Your eyes met with your face, staring back at you in your mirror. You saw flashes of the girl you once were, tiny memories of a once happy girl.

You couldn’t hold back the wail of grief that racked your whole body. You turned away from the mirror, curling up on your floor. 

That wasn’t any better.

The remanants of last night’s binge surrounded you. Wrappers from your favorite ice cream bar, discarded chip bags, and candy containers scattered your floor.

You suddenly remembered that he’d be home soon, and scrambled to collect all the evidence through your blurry eyes.

Each piece of trash reminded you of your failure, your lack of self control. Your uselessness.

You sobbed harder. 

“Y/n, darling, I’m home!” that peppy, familiar voice announced from the entranceway. You took a deep breath, scooting all the trash under your bed and wiping your face.

You greeted him, a faux smile plastered on your face.

He began to speak, but when he got a good look at you, he paused.

“What happened here, sweetie?” he asked, touching your face. His hand was chilled from the outside air.

“N-nothing. I’m fine,” you lied, forcing the smile a little more.

He squinted his eyes, sitting down at the kitchen table. 

“Go ahead an’ tell me what’s going on with ya,” he offered, patting one knee.

“Baby, it’s nothing. You need to go to bed, I know you’re probably exhausted.”

“The only thing exhausting me right now is you. I’ll go to the bedroom if that’s whatcha want, but I’m not goin to bed until you tell me what’s wrong.” 

Fatgum made his way into the bedroom, quickly slipping into his house clothes before sliding into the bed you both shared.

Before you could join him, he paused, adjusting himself.

He then pulled out a popsicle stick that you neglected to remove from the bed when you made it this morning. At the sight of it, you turned away from him and covered your face.

He was now wholly confused, but ready to deal with whatever it was that was upsetting you. He reached out, pulling you to him. You wanted to protest, but you couldn’t find the strength to anymore.

He rubbed your back in small circles, cooing, “let it out, babydoll...that’s it, good...”

Once you had calmed down quite a bit, he tilted your chin up towards his face, making you make eye contact.

“What have you been hiding from me, love?” he delicately questioned.

You said nothing, but slid out the pile of trash from the night before.

“This...is from last night,” you stated plainly.

You tensed your body, ready for the ridicule, the mocking, the ‘i’m just concerned for your health’ comments. 

You looked up, to see if he could actually see what you’d just shown him. He did. His eyes were dewy yet understanding.

He stood up, placing his arm around you and pulling you towards him.

“I understand,” he whispered into your ear. You clenched your fist.

“No. You can’t understand.” 

You looked up at him, with now angered eyes.

“You’ll never understand, Tai. Never.”

“What do you-”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO STAY FAT FOREVER! I DO!” you screeched, covering your face. You never yelled at him before, or anyone else for that matter. But this issue you’ve been dealing with was one that no one ever saw from you. It was a raw, bleeding subject, one that you felt as if you’ve just poured a great deal of salt on.

“Darling...” he whispered, pulling you close to him, “What’s wrong with being fat, honey?” 

“Are you kidding?” you spat, “I don’t look good like this, Tai. I don’t fit into my clothes anymore, I-”

“Number one, you most certainly do look good like anything. Number two, I will buy you new clothes.”

You were starting to get frustrated.

“Tai! I’m telling you, I fucking hate myself, okay? I hate my body! And, sometimes, I hate you for pretending to love something that I know you hate, too!”

He pulled you away from him, looking you in the eye. He was serious now.

“Don’t you be puttin words in my mouth. I have never ever, not even once thought about hating you or your body,”

“That’s a lie, Tai! How could you ever love me when I look like this?”

“How could you ever love me when I look like this?” he retorted, gesturing to his fat form. 

You gasped. You didn’t really have an answer.

He knew you wouldn’t, either.

“So, now tell me, y/n... what’s so wrong about being fat?”

You clung to him, apologizing in between sobs.

He hushed you, cooing,” There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, it’s okay. I love you, sweetie.”

You sniffed, “I love you, too.”