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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Scottrospective Part 6: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour!

Hello all you happy scottaholics! And welcome back to Scottrospective and we’ve reached the finale.. of the comics. Yeah for those of you who’ve been following this and thought this was just covering the comics, nope! I’m also covering the movie and video game for their anniversaries, with the movie serving as a natural finale. The reason for saving both for last is simple: both pull from all 6 books (though realistically the movie pulls more from books 1-3, a bit of four and the OUTLINES for 5 and 6 that ended up radically changed but hey, semantics).

Point is it just didn’t feel like a complete look at Scott Pilgrim without them and the movie’s anniversary is in part why I dove back into the series leading to this retrospective in the first place, so it’d feel weird not to FINALLY revisit it after a decade you know? If your just joining me and would like to check out the other 5 parts of this retrospective so far here they are: Precious Little Life, Vs The World (Comic), Infinite Sadness, Gets It Together, and Vs The Universe. And if that’s not enough pilgrim for you I have reviews of the bonus comics (Free Scott Pilgrim, Wonderful World Of Kim Pine, Style, the comic strips and Natalie Beetle) all up on my Patreon which you can find RIGHT HERE. For only two bucks a month you get access to all those reviews and more.

So yeah we’re at the finale and for one last time we look at my experince waiting for this book. As you can imagine with how devistating the last book was I was hotly antipcaiting this one. So I fondly and throughly, the last part a rarity for me, remember getting the book from amazon, opening it up, marveling and the cool cover, easily the best of the original run...

And then reading the whole thing, cover to cover. I’d waited a year to find out what happened to my beloved gang, I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

You however will have to wait a second. As a refresher for those who didn’t need to binge the last 5 parts of this, and no shame if you did, as i’ve discovered via youtube it’s sometimes really fucking fun to find an entire series on something you never knew exsited and cram your face with it. Anyways Scott was at his lowest point: his girlfriend left him, his cat left him, Kim left him, Stephen was a dick, and oh yeah Gideon finally made his move now Scott had defeated the other exes, calling Scott to politely schedule a time to die.

Just kidding.. Scott dosen’t have a therapist otherwise this series probably woudln’t exist. So yeah Scott’s in a deep hole. Will he dig himself out or keep digging himself so deep he hits the core of the earth?

You probably expected that so join me under the cut and see for yourself as Scott somehow goes lower only to rise to his highest peak, this is Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour!

Things Stop Happening: So we open with Scott having a nightmare, desperatley trying to go after Ramona and Gideon (The Cat), only to find....

So with that Scott wakes up or something and we fade to him on his couch which he clearly has not left often in months playing his handheld. I’d make a joke at his expense but a good chunk of my time is spent on my bed playing my Switch so stones, glass houses, you get it. Wallace wants Scott to get out of his Ramona induced depression.. and more importantly get laid so he’s less boring to talk to because Wallace while a caring concerned friend who clearly wants Scott to move on, especially since he likely already went through this with Envy. Seeing Scott post breakup also shows a clear vision of what he was probably like back then.

Wallace also wants to take him to Hooters which is apparently his favorite restraint despite being gay. But given his best friend is Scott watching Horny Straight men be really fucking stupid on a regular basis is clearly something he gets off on, so fair enough. Wallace also points out he can’t just.. dodge Gideon forever. With Ramona or not he’s clearly coming for Scott and can’t keep putting this off , forgetting putting uncomfortable things off until they blow up in his face is one of Scott’s pasttimes. Before we move on the conversation has a weird bit of Wallace saying “You still like girls don’t you?” and just feels a bit off with Wallace wanting Scott to randomly bang people to feel bettter forgetting that Scott sucks at telling people things and is already bad at not hurting people. it works for Wallace because he’s good at telling people things are casual and also has game and feels off for Wallace to give such terrible advice.. if somehow still in character because it works for Wallace after all.

So we have an interlude from Stephen inviting Scott to watch his new band, and Scott bringing up the name Shatterband whic his a damn good band name.. also a clear sign Scott likes Shatterstar which means he has good taste. I want to rag on the guy more.. but this time Scott really is the asshole being so out of it he forgets he broke his bass months ago and isn’t aware he isn’t even in this band or Sex Bomb Omb is gone. Or is in denial. Stephen is genuinely being a good friend going to Scott.. even if inviting him to his new band after he broke up the old one is kind of a facepunchingly dickish move. Oh look I was able to rag on him after all. Wishes do come true.

So Scott has another nightmare, this time Ramona stabbing him with the power of love and then Scott being surruonded by horrible creatures.. which come into focus right before he wakes up

Yeah obviously this is Scott’s repressed guilt over his past relationships mixing with his last one having just emploded.. as well as clever setup for the fact all three relationships are about to collide back into his life.

So Scott decides “damn I gotta get out of here if my dreams are getting this horrifying and decides to go tot he show where we meet his band which consists of Joseph and cole, who we’ve never met before but Scott apparently stabbed with a fork thinking he was Gideon...

Coincidentally the real Gideon is opening up a club soon. Also concdentally, for once she’s really not stalking him anymore, we run into Knives, now 18 years old, with Scott wondering if that meant she was 16 when they met. Turns out no she was 17 meaning this story, at least in flashback, all started one year ago, it having been a few months since Ramona left. We then get one of the series most iconic moments

So we find out that Knives will be moving away to UCB soon, with Scott barely comprehending anything as she goes over the fact she will be far away from all her friends.. but she needs a change. Scott.. uhhhhhhhh

Which leaves both just sitting there not sure what to say because .. what the fuck else would this do. I”m not even sure how to grapple with this and I knew this moment was coming.

So we cut to later where Knives .. rejects him.

I really hadn’t noticed how great and impactful this scene was before now. After a year of obessing over scott, not getting the breakup wasn’t her fault or ramona’s fault or anyone but Scott’s, or that Scott in general was kinda a shitty person... Knives has finally grown up. Realizing Scott is not some perfect guy but just a shitty, normal guy finally woke her up to reality and she’s no longer the same wide eyed naive homicidal kid we met at the start of this. It’s really striking just how much she’s like the rest of the cast: a bit cyncial, a bit broken.. but wiser for it. Hell she’s honestly more mature than most of the cast was at the start, hinting she might have a better go of it than they did. Her experiences sucked but she ultimately came out of them for the better. Granted I don’t think Scott should of done anything he did to her in the first place, but I do think Knives strong character arc is precisily why she works in this story: sure Scott dating a 17 year old and tossing her aside is fucked up.. but the narrative never stops showing the damage he did to her and once she’s finally healed, Knives herself even lays into him how bad it is. Though she does offer to make out with him.. but it’s shown as a terrible idea for all parties involved in the most amazing way:

Scott At The Party:

So that scene just ends and next we see Scott he’s at a party for someone he dosen’t know and assumed was Julie who moved to Montreal that Young Neil clearly invited him to tag along with at. What I love is you feel just as disorinted as Scott does: your just dropped into this random party resembling the one from Volume 1 with no real context or reason and help helps really sell just how lost Scott is.. how the last encounter and just how SKEEZY he was, leaning on an ex he’d already horribly mistreated for some support, left him FURTHER lost and further down the hole. This part was hard to read at the time since you know, Scott was already in a hole why push him further but now I see it as Scott NEEDING to sink lower narratively. He needs to hit his weakest point, have lost everything nad be truly lost and alone as a person, with his friends on their last leg with him for what happens next to work.

So Scott finds out Envy’s there and we get.. this

God I feel like i’m back at the start of volume 1. For the record for any impressionable readers who may not get this is bad, it is. it’s called negging and it was primarily touted by Mr. E a pickup artist and giant pile of feces masquerading as a human man who looked like this.

He looks like the kingdom hearts character you wish would stop banging your sister.

So yeah Envy’s back for the finale, and well. look at her introduction..

Eh I duno I think this series already gave us the perfect woman.

Scott tries negging her and it goes as expected: She glares, he fumbles and thankfully the comic itself cuts out before we see more..

So the next day Envy let’s Scott buy her a coffee and they catch up.. or rather she asks questions, he’s evasive and has an actually withering response when she calls him on it.

Okay so while I DO think Envy cares... I don’t blame Scott for not thinking she would as last time she asked him questions about his life she was doing so just to torture him. Why would he assume different? And while as this volume reveals he wasn’t blameless in the breakup.. it was still mostly on her as she slowly pushed him away and dumped her. Also bitch you are some kind of vilianess, you tried to hammer his girlfriend to death a few months and three volumes ago and came back just to toruture him, as well as reveled in your current boyfriend beating his face in. You may have some legitimate beef with him Envy but he has an entire COW with you.

The next day after calling her the devil, as you’d expect, Wallace points out Envy turned 25, then talks about her possibly being with gideon and ramona possibly having a threesome with her and gideon. Yeah while this book is mostly gravy Wallace IS a tad more dickish. Though he did buy Scott sushi. That was nice.

We then get some GOOD news for Scott for once: after getting a call from kim that telegraphs she misses him and sets up for a little bit later in the plot, handling scott with all the grace and subtley you’d expect...

As you can tell Cat Gideon has returned. Scott FINALLY gets a win. Huzzah! He’s still a douchebag but you know HUZZAH!.. .which really sums up the series to this point don’t it?

So Scott talks to Envy, congradulates her and she points out Gideon threw her the party. Scott ignores the obvious red flag and asks if she wants to get back together or have casual sex, with envy rebuffs, asking if he even remmebers the party, and while he counters she broke his heart, she counters with the same. It’s clear though she still CARES about him as he’s one of the only people who knew her before and “he’s only known me as I am now”. Yeahhh as you could probably guess she’s with Gideon.. who after 5 books of ominous build up.. has finally arrived.

After a few more panels of build up Scott prepares to hit him the same way he hit his own brother thinking he was gideon and...

Yeah I can’t exactly blame him. Scott’s in no mental shape to fight. Phsyically he shoudln’t but this is a comic so he’ll be perfectly fine to fight later despite months of atrophy. Look unless said otherwise comic book heroes genuinely don’t have to stay in shape to kick your ass. It’s merley implied but it’s not a hard rule.

Naturally he ran to Wallace, off panel, as the next time we see him Wallace is putting him on a bus to Kim to take a wilderness sabatical: get his head on straight and get ready to fight. Scott does have a point that what if he dosen’t want to fight him and that he has no reason to.. but that point is moot. It’s very clear Gideon wants to kick his ass wether Ramona’s in the picture or not and Wallace knows it. This fight may not have it’s ORIGINAL point but Scott can’t keep running: Gideon is rich, connected and can keep following him and likely only allows said sabatical because he’s both baffled Scott ran.. and because he still has his fallback of his incredibly cool club opening where he can dramatically stab him in front of an audience. This was likely simply Gideon setting up Scott to come to said club opening, so Scott running really dosen’t delay anything in the long run.

A Link To the Past:

So it’s off to the great white north for some beer, back bacon and meeting Kim’s parents:

Yeah that explains why she’s so awesome. Also as it turns out Kim has not gone back to school.. or done much of anything, having kinda lost her way since then. But not so much she still can’t bust Scott’s balls:

Or help perk him up when he truly needs it:

Kim admits she has no idea WHY she’s out here or what she’s searching for. Presumibly she came back with grand plans of restarting school then backtracked unsure of who she is anymore after all the crap she went through last volume and how lost she’s probably felt for a long time. She and Scott sit in a tree and soon K-I-S-S-I-N-G insues.

Like the Knives thing I read through this so quickly the first two times, I didn’t notice just how FANTASTIC this scene is: Scott suprises her, Kim naturally gives in having wanted this for all 6 books and finally having it.. only to reject it. It’s just not right. She realizes their both just trying to fill a void in their lives and this can’t end well on any level. She does LOVE him, but she can’t be with him, not now and not like this. Not while he’s still messed up and she’s still lost. Maybe later once Ramona gets back. All three of them. Now that’d work.

But for the present when Scott tries to say it was always easier with her.. she points out he’s forgetting a few things.. and we soon find out why that flashback was so crucial: Scott edited it. His telling Kim he was leaving for Toronto? Never happened, he told Hollie and she told Kim for him. His epic fight to rescue her from her ex simon? Yeah... about that...

Yeah this is the reveal i’ve been mostly tiptoeing around: Scott has been conciously repressing his shitty behavior. The reason he seems so cavalier about things, was so shitty to kim, to knives to everyone... is that he just tries to forget when he does something bad and act like it never happen, re-write his own history to make him look like an undisputed hero.

Scott tries to avoid things and glows.. which could be taken as this being Gideon’s doing but given Scott’s response to Negascott showing up soon after...

Scott’s likely been fighting Nega Scott his whole life. Nega Scott like the movie isn’t evil. He tries fighting Scott here sure and looks evil.. but he’s really just everything Scott hates about himself. Everything he regrets, every bad and selfish act locked away so he can see himself as a good person. Negascott isn’t trying to beat up Scott for fun.. he just wants Scott to finally FACE HIM, to notice him and own up to his actions instead of running away constantly. As I said in the volume 5 review, Scott and Ramona’s issue.. is that they run. From consequences, from problems, from physical locatoins, and most importantly from how shitty a person they’ve been. Ramona tries to ignore it, Scott avitvely denies it and thus both are in an awful place. But Kim refuses to let Scott dig himself deeper yelling at him ...

Among other things, this is a long scene and I can’t in good concinse just put the entire thing up there. That’s against fair use. He can’t keep running, neither can Ramona. It just keeps piling up and coming back on them. It’s a truth I learned too.. you can’t keep RUNNING from crappy things you did. I’ve come on way too strong with women, assumed frinedshpis were more, had tantrums in chats. I’ve fucked up too... and it was only by stopping and finally letting myself feel that and realize it was my fault did I grow as a person.. and it’s only by stopping, by remembering ramona and remmebering how she made him feel, how she made him WANT to get better and want to be a less shitty person.. that Scott finally accepts this. Then this happens

So with that Kim puts Scott on the bus. Scott feels he’s not worthy of Ramona, even though simply by admitting that and welcoming his full memories back he already is, Kim simply tells him to fight for it, gives him a kiss for Good luck and sends him on his way

Love Hurts:

So we cut away from Scott breifly to Gideon, who finally gets a proper Scott Pilgrim intro.

He does his job well: he dismisses Envy’s concerns of working herself to the bone for him, literally chains people to sewing machines to produce her costumes and outright says he gets off on dressing her lik ea doll, then has the fucking nerve to get angry when she quitely quips back and retracts it, implying he PHYSICALLY abuses her too.

Yeahh. So back to Scott who enters the Chaos Theater looking for Ramona, instead finding Wallace, who gladly greets his buddy and admits he dosen’t know where Gideon or Ramona are but figures this theater has gideon written all over it what with it’s cage dancers, arcade machines clearly meant for Scott and trendy for the 2010′s lightiing.

He next tries his sister whose oddly douchey in this volume, being constantly hostile with Scott for no reason, or some reason here given Wallce told Stacey his threesome theory. Mine’s better. Point is he also introduces Stacey to a friend she’s somehow never met.... a friend who despite being a right dick lately at long last gets his hearts desire:

Look neil has been a right dick for the past three volumes, and at times the entire series. But Look at that face. Your heart cannot withstand that face. He’s just so freaking happy. I’m so happy for him. It also shows him going from one of Scott’s friends because, to a true friend. They’ve clearly been hanging out more, Scott buying his handheld off the guy, and Neil inviting him to a party but this clinches him as a real friend. And really while some of that dickishness was uncessary , aka calling stephen “Captain Homo”, mostly just that, the rest was all brought about by Stephen blatantly abandoning him and the rest of the gorup just kinda doing it because it was easy instead of working to keep him as a friend. So this gesture isn’t just Scott being nice.. it’s Scott honestly putting in the work he hadn’t before and his friends never really did and acknolwdging that Neil isn’t just some kid who hangs around but his friend. That’s true friendship.

He also runs into Julie... because my life isn’t painful enough but thankfully outside of one cameo later this is her last apperance so despite summoning her like Beetlejuice, i’m free FINALLY FREEEEEEE. So yeah not dwelling on that scene.

So after that touching moment Scott talks to Knives and Tamara whose now all in on Envy, and while Knives has neither person she’s look for the show begins soon after, and Gideon naturally reveals himself.. and naturally tried to Sucker Punch Scott from behind, but thankfully Envy warned him in song. And why yes she apparently wrote a song entirely just to warn Scott because she knew Gideon well enough to know his opening move would be trying a sucker punch. Wallace.. is as helpful as ever.

Or rather as helpful as he is in an actual fight. Still love ya bud but for fuck’s sake. Anyways Scott and Gideon spar a bit, with Gideon giving out one of my faviorite lines in the series and one that’s stuck with me in the 10 years since this came out (This came out the same year as the movie and game). It’s anniversary is next month but given how packed that already is and how this was intended for last month but got pushed back I decided screw it. Anyway about that line:

The two fight but eventually both find out something crucial: Ramona isn’t with EITHER of them, and Gideon is livid for a second and takes his rage out by stealing the power of love from Scott.

But he’s not going to gut scott right away.. he has a very Darth Vadery offer for him first

Gideon takes it well...

Yup... Scott’s DEAD. I also love how everyone has a unique reaction with those closest to him, knives, kim, wallace, stacey and yes.. even douchebag, having a shocked reaction. Other little things to note, Joseph has no reactoin yet Julie does meaning Julie somehow has a heart despite all evidence ot the contrary and Stephen SOMEHOW found someone worse than her. The other thing is that Kim, despite clearly still back up north, can sense Scott died because she’s apparently a jedi. Such an amazing woman.

So I guess this ends the review, if you liked this review please consider.. oh right.. there’s like a hundred pages left give or take. So yeah Scott’s not dead but is groaning about about it.. when a certain somebody finally makes her entrance.

Don’t Let it Get You Down:

Also nice work on the call back. So Ramona is indeed back. As for where the hell she’s been, she’s been milling around trying to find herself , leaving becxause she was afraid she’d hurt Scott if she stayed.. and still hurt him by leaving. She came back.. for herself. Scott is naturally a bit upset at that but Ramona’s response is perfect.

As it turns out though her motives weren’t entirely selfish: She came back because he deserved an apology and closure and she was tired of always running. Like Scott she had an emphipany and wants to be better and this was step 1. Step 2 is scott ramming his tounge down her throat because he thinks this is a dream. But nope he really is dead.... until a chekovs gun finally fires.

Yup. All the way back form volume three to save the day. it even took on his new hair’s apperance. Spiffy. So he takes it and comes back.. and Ramona comes through his chest, proving to him that wasn’t a dream. Wallace reacts how you’d expect.

Gideon, who likely expected he’d have to double murder scott anyway given he was there for Volume 3 is glad she’s back.. as he can inact plan a... which he lowers from the celing. And if you already thought he was an asshat.. good.. but you might not of realized HOW much of an asshat.

Yeah Gideon’s been freezing his exes as part of a sick collectoin.. and Ramona’s next. Gideon then Hadouken’s the glow at everyone as it turns out he invented it.. somehow.

Point is it makes Scott and Ramona fight, and Gideon reveals how he founded the League.

Yes really... this may be one of the funniest things in the entire series. This entire series exists.. because some douchebag posted a drunken rant on Craig’s list and happened to find out his ex who he pushed away anyway, had 6 other exes who were like sure why not.. or he bribed or glowed them into it. The specifics aren’t clear. He also argues Ramona must be the common denimotor with her saying they could’ve just turned shitty later. Which really while she did screw over most of them that’s only true for the twins. The twins are GENUINELY the only ones where she’s their super villian origin story. Otherwise Matt clearly just kept on being a douche or became one or is mad over a relationshpi from middle school which makes him a douche by default, Lucas made peace with it, Todd was always an ass and Roxy was killing less because she was evil and more because she was jealous. Sometimes someone just attracts douchebags. We also get a curious look into Gideon’s head.

Yeah as you’ve probably figured out... Gideon is an evil version of Scott.

But unlike Todd he’s a more complex dark mirror of our hero. And as someone who loves evil oppositeis, one of the best i’ve seen. Gideon has Scott’s charm, looks, selfishness, tendency to rewrtie his past, anger, love of music and trouble letting go. But it’s all twisted up into some noxious pretzel: He’s charming but only on the surface and in a way that wears off fast where as Scott is genuinely well meaning and likeable despite his doucheness. He’s handsome and knows it while Scott really dosen’t realize it. He’s selfish.. but while Scott is untetionally greedy and is trying to correct that, Gideon dosen’t care and literally gets off on being controlling. Both rewrite the past.. but Scott stopped doing it to be better while Gideon’s response to it is to call his ex a whore and slice her current-ish boyfriend on chest. Scott’s anger is either impotent or righteous while Gideon kills . Both love music but Gideon is the corrupt industry incarnate while Scott is just happy dinkin around. And finally Scott learned to let go.. and Gideon wants to stuff his exes in cryo because it makes his dick hard> There’s obviously more bu tGideon is just a compellingly vile counter and easily the best of the exes, being the most complex, vile and compitent while his parallels to our hero show just HOW FAR Scott has come. He might’ve been a low rent version of Gideon some day.. but he faced himself in the miror and came out better.

Ramona tries to just bounce to fix things but gideon stabs her to stop it. He also reveals Ramona’s been using it to ride into subspace... and what it is exactly.

He can be two things Scott. He can be a dickish sociopath who seals people in their heads and a music producer. Both jobs don’t require a soul.

We also get a quick flashback of how Gideon and Ramona met and how she left, planning on leaving the letter before accidently porting out with it.

Ramona is weak from you know the stabbening, and tells Scott she’s sorry and he just has a way of getting insider her head... literally. he’s inside her.

So Scott realzes what she’s getting at and uses her magical murder bag to travel inside Ramona’s head to get Gideon out.

Gideon boasts he’s all powerful om jere.. but Scott defies it, not only telling him to look at himself.. but then headbutts him down from his super spooky god mode back to normal. And then gets bisected because the glow does nothing to him.

Things look bleak.. but Scott’s noble save of Ramona has woke her up... and she takes on her real world form and well...

“You know your right part of me does belong to you.. but the other parts of me are finished with you!”

Bad.. ass. Gideon naturally tries to kill Scott on his way out but Ramona blocks with the bag.. somehow and it causes it to rip in the real world spilling all three out.. and Ramona realizing how much she cares for Scott.. gives her a little something.

And as Gideon is a dick to Envy trying to help him he flashes back to all his breakups... and seeing all his friends combined with that gets him somewhere profound. He understands Gideon because he could’ve been him.. and now he has to kill him because he’s not. Because he’s Scott without any of the good, just a douchebag, just who he could’ve been.. and in realizing that and coming further.. Scott gets a new power up:

So you’d think this would be the end.. but Gideon hid a sword in envy’s dress because “that’s just the kind of guy I am!” so we get one final swordfight, with Gideon doing his best villian gloating saying Scott and Ramona will never work and that he watched them.. not as the cat though.. which he didn’t even know existed. He has a parting shot that dosen’t quite go as planned.

Yes they WERE.. but their trying to fix themselves where as Gideon is just a dick and always will be and thankfully gets killed in the coolest way possible. ‘

So with that Envy hugs Scott, he gets closure, and she reveals Gideon never really wanted a relationship and ps get off her stage, having clearly become a better person herself.. and showing it off by singing as she lets Gideon’s captured exes free.

So with that Scott and Ramona sit down with his friend group and Ramona reveals where she’s been.. dicking around, playing games and watching x files at her dad’s place and she tried calling but couldn’t. Or as Wallace puts it...

So with that Scott and Ramona talk things out and she admits she cahnged constantly as part of her whole running thing afraid of getting stuck. Scott tells her they can be stuck together and to not worry if she has trouble with that.. it just takes practice. With that their back together

So Anyway: Time for the epilogue. We start with Scott and Steven at work with Scott having not only got his job back but upgraded to prep cook. And after closing via a casual kiss, Scott finds out Stephen is gay, something I didn’t bother hiding as it’d get in the way of my anaylisis. But yeah Scott knows now, Joseph is a dick about it, and Stephen admits he came out fully in volume 5 but didn’t mention it to Scott because he was going through some shit. Scott’s reactoin is the exact one your expecting.

I’d say that was offensive.. but this is Julie we’re talking about. But no wether he’s covering up his sexuality or not Stephen Stills just has shitty taste in partners.

Next up, ding is Kim and Scott who have formed a new band, Shatterband, because Scott again has good taste in mutants, and perform what turns out to be a shitty cover of i’m a belivier. Knives and Neil aren’t impressed but their happy anyway.

Next is Knives leaving for college with a tearful goodbye.

Finally we end our story as Scott and Ramona jump into a door into subpsace.. and into their future together

THE END Final Thoughts:

This volume is perfect. Even it’s one or two tiny flaws don’t detract from the fact this is a damn fine ending and the golden standard by which I hold all comic book series and series endings in general. It ties up all the loose ends, has a dramatic satsifying payoff that was built up the wole way, and in general is just great. The art hit’s it’s true peak, the color does too for the reprints, and the characters are all paid off in great way. It’s just a wonderful, truly spectacuclar end to a truly spectacular series. Speaking of which

Final Thoughts on Scott Pilgrim Comics and Volume Rankings:

While i’ll again return to the series in july with this the comics are at an end. I’m truly glad I did this, doing a deeep dive into a series I loved but was disconnected from for so long and it only made me love it more. The series has some issues, mostly of the time such as gender politics, not getting bi or pan people exist, the use of the r word, portaying living at home as a loser move when it’s pretty normal now that sort thing.

But outside of that, and Julie as she served no purpose and just grated on me every second and i’m glad to be free of her.. and yes i’m aware she’s in the game and movie but she’s not an ungodly blight on humanity in both versions so I stand by what I said. But yeah outside of that.. this series great. It’s well drawn, has amazing memorable characters, a releatable story, awesome fights, and with the color aditions truly eye popping colors that show just why we need colorists. It’s a truly remarkable work and if you haven’t read it, PLEASE DO.

So like I said, i’ll be back in August for the anniversaries, and until then like I said MY PATREON has some bonus reviews to keep you occupied and any money is appricated. So until then my Scottaholics.. thank you.. thank you for reading all these, thank you for making this one of my most popular series, thank you for your feedback and just.. thank you. I love you all, goodnight and good luck.

#scott pilgrim #ramona flowers #kim pine #envy adams #knives chau #stephen stills #julie powers #tamara chang #gideon gordon graves #joseph #stacey pilgrim #neil nordgraf #other scott #negascott #wallace wells #lbgtq+#pride month

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jeonqqin · 4 years ago

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man up. [m] | pt. 2

h. jisung x reader | netflix teen rom-com au

— ❝Even with classes, annoying brothers, and an unrequited crush, you still figured your first year of college was going pretty well. Until you managed to get your first boyfriend, and suddenly your brother and his stupidly attractive best friend were attached to your hip for the whole damn ride.

or alternatively;

Why did Jisung care about you so much, and had his eyes always been that pretty?❞

WORD COUNT: 5.2k

CONTAINS: brothers best friend au, teen rom-com au, sorta crack fic, love triangle au, college au

WARNINGS: nopee, well ji looking at readers butt?

A/N: are u team Chan or team Han?

▸ request

CHAPTERS: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 +

blog masterlist | ⟲ fic song

After your afternoon class with Jisung, he quickly noted that you were absent for the rest of the day.

Sure, you didn’t have any other classes, but normally you would be hunkered down in the library with your nose stuffed in some sort of book, or wandering around campus with Felix at your heels. You were either cramming due to your procrastination or roaming around procrastinating. Jisung also knew you weren’t a fan of staying in your small dorm room since your roommate loved flaunting the fact that she had a boyfriend and how she wasn’t shy about anyone witnessing their ‘acts of love’.

So he really had no idea where you were, and it bugged him a little more than he would like to admit.

But outwardly, he didn’t want to show just how worried he was. You were his best friend’s sister, it wasn’t his job to make a fuss about something so trivial. It would be weird if he went looking for you… but if Minho just so happened to get word of his little sister’s sudden disappearance, Jisung would have to help his dear friend search for you.

It was only common courtesy.

“Minho, I think Y/n was kidnapped.”

“You WHAT?!”

Okay, starting the phone call with that probably wasn’t the best choice, but what other choice did he have. Jisung was an impatient guy.

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened.” He replied casually, already able to hear the panic on Minho’s end of the call. “She was here and then she wasn’t.”

Not only was he impatient, he was a(n idiot) songwriter; his words articulate and poetic.

Minho was silent for a second before cutting back for the call.

“I texted Changbin and he said she just ran off.”

Jisung frowned. “Do they know where she went?”

“Apparently to beat some sense into me.”

The two friends knew then where you were and a rush of panic filled their chests all at the same time.

“Fuck—”

“—Chan.”

Jisung nearly dropped his phone in the process of hanging up, immediately taking off towards the familiar apartment.

His worst nightmare was coming true—Chan was an unknown in Jisung’s mind. He was handsome, charismatic, and an older guy, so it was realistic to imagine you falling head-over-heels if you were to ever meet him. Unfortunately, it seemed like fate wasn’t in his favor and he was in deep shit if you were really at the apartment alone with Chan.

Alone with Chan.

He shivered at the thought.

The only brightside to the ordeal was that Minho was also aware of the dangerous situation. Out of everyone, he would be the only one to prevent any feelings from sprouting between you. Jisung counted on Minho every time and he never once failed to preform.

Dear god, he hoped he didn’t decide to stop now.

Arriving at the complex, he almost rammed full speed into Minho, who was also going as fast as his legs could take him. They only shared one glance before trampling over their feet to get up the stairs, no doubt bothering the neighbors along their way.

Minho was the one to swing the door open, his head on a swivel as he walked in. He was ready to break up any inappropriate business with as much force necessary—he didn’t care if Chan’s bicep was twice the size of his head, he had leg power on his side. And if he saw your tongue anywhere near Chan’s, Minho was going to be swinging.

“Chan?”

“Y/n?”

Thud.

There was a crash behind the closed door of the office, and both heads perked up at the sound.

Minho hurried forward, arm outstretched to grab the door, “No. No no no—”

Jisung never wanted in his life to see you involved with someone else. With your pretty eyes hooded and shining with desire, and your chest heaving heavily against the tight fabric of your blouse. It had been difficult enough to watch you fill out and grow into an attractive woman, he didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that you were old enough to meet other guys and moan their names.

He certainly didn’t want to hear you moan Chan’s name—of all people, why Chan?

“Shit, Chan—”

Jisung felt his face heat up as Minho pushed the door open, ready to pull his friend away to avoid the scene on the other side.

“—get your head away from my ass! The power strip isn’t even near there you prick!”

“Hey,” Chan defended with a laugh. “In my defense, all you said was it was over here somewhere. How do I know that somewhere isn’t next to your ass?”

The position that the two of you were in was compromising—though not in the way that Jisung had originally expected. It caused the two newcomers to freeze, their brains struggling to really understand what was happening.

The two of you were surrounded by thousands of cables and wires, black foam scattered across the floor as well. You were on your hands and knees, the only visible part of you was your bottom half with your head tucked underneath Chan’s mixing table doing who knows what. As for Chan, he was crawling around same as you, on his hands and knees with an extension cord wrapped around his shoulders.

“Uhm…” Minho gaped, eyes unable to focus on one part of the scene.

Jisung had no trouble at all, his eyes locked solidly on your raised ass.

You turned your head to look over your shoulder, eyes locking with Jisung’s and immediately widening. You couldn’t be in a worse situation—fucking hell.

In your haste to get out from under the table, you slammed the top of your head against one of the sturdy table legs and winced as Chan cracked up from your side.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class—Jesus, ow…” You asked, your hand moving up to rub the forming bump.

“What’s going on?” Minho asked, his eyebrows brushing his bangs.

“Y/n wanted some help with her stats class and I needed someone to help me upturn this room and make it into a recording room.” Chan snorted at your little dramatic groans, completely unfazed by the growing frustration on Minho’s face.

But before Minho could say anything to Chan’s statement, Jisung stepped in.

His lips twisted sourly, “I thought Seungmin was going to help you with your stats stuff?”

You shook your head with a huff. “I will not subject myself to that kind of torture and I refuse to let anyone convince me otherwise.”

“Well you could’ve asked me.”

Defeated and jealous; Jisung could no longer hide it.

The two older boys could see it clearly in the way he looked at you with big sad eyes, though neither of them said anything. Chan’s brows furrowed in thought, it looked like you had someone else infatuated with you.

You laughed. “Uh-huh, because you’re the resident genius here. Jisung, you dropped two of your classes last semester because both professors were minutes away from giving you an administrative failure.”

“Yeah, yeah. Jisung’s head is full of rocks—” Minho dismissed, unsympathetic towards the scandalized boy next to him. “Why the hell are you turning my storage room into a junkyard?”

Chan finally stood, pulling the cord from his neck and throwing it to the side in favor of helping you up.

“It was already a junkyard, bundle-boy.” You said, voice clipped and annoyed. Who wouldn’t be after smashing their head against a solid piece of metal? “We were renovating.”

“Like hell you were. I thought I said no to the recording room?”

Minho’s rage was just about completely directed towards Chan, but to your surprise, the guy gave minimal to no reaction. His face stayed indifferent, wide shoulders relaxed and eyes set.

You’ll be dammed, the fucker wasn’t scared.

Chan wasn’t afraid of your brother.

There was someone on the planet who didn’t go running when Minho looked at them funny, and he was standing right next to you in his beautiful sleeveless glory. If you weren’t currently suffering from a possible concussion you would be dropping to one knee and popping the question then and there.

“Oh, so what you said earlier was a no?” Chan (very unconvincingly) feigned innocence. “Sorry, the phone connection must’ve been bad.”

“I was yelling to you from the other room.”

“These walls are very thick, Minho. It’s your apartment, you should know that.”

“Do you want to be homeless?”

“Define; home.”

That was it, he was your one true love.

As Minho began to cross his arms over his chest, squaring up to Chan with the glare of a certifiable killer, you slid out of the way to avoid the oncoming fist fight.

Or explosion, whichever route Minho decided to take.

But then the unthinkable happened—Minho sighed, dropping his arms to his sides and turning towards you.

Both you and Jisung stood speechless, because you just witnessed someone give Minho an attitude and not get beat down afterwards. Hyunjin had once attempted the same thing and had been chased around the quad for a good forty minutes until the taller man had gotten tired and your brother had become uninterested.

Felix told you that they were both reemed during dance practice that night for being too tired to execute their choreography.

Minho shook his head, “You and Changbin were probably going to convince me anyway. Might as well save the wasted time and get it done now.”

Either your brother had a fat crush on Chan, or the Lee Minho was afraid of someone.

You knew Chan was older than him, but someone had to have some sort of super power to keep Minho from kicking their shins and shoving a knee in their face.

“What is happening…?” Jisung wondered, eyes wide and mouth open.

Chan smiled, striding over to clap Jisung on the shoulder, making the shorter boy jump in surprise.

“Good news. We’re getting a recording studio.”

And you would like to get married to one Bang Chan please.

You joined Chan’s side.

“Now you can finish that song you were working on.” You said, nudging Jisung’s shoulder.

He was just going to ignore the sudden wave of excitement at the fact that you remembered that he was working on a song.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Jisung laughed tensely. “Looks like I’ll be around more often.”

“Yeah, definitely…”

You nodded absentmindedly, eyes locked on the exposed skin of Chan’s arms. Chan himself didn’t acknowledge your stare, but couldn’t help the smug smile that slid onto his face.

Jisung watched the exchange and groaned, looking over to glare at Minho for failing him the only time it truly would end badly for him. Because of course Minho had to be soft for Chan and of course Chan had to be moving in.

Why couldn’t Chan just be ugly?

“Okay,” Chan sighed, placing all the wires he held into a pile on the floor. Suddenly, he turned to you, “You held up your end of the bargain. Let’s work on some stats, huh?”

Your eyes widened for a second, caught in headlights.

“Oh,” was your smart reply. “But we didn’t get to finish?”

Chan waved it off. “The only reason we tried to get it all done was to make sure Minho couldn’t say no. Now that he’s accepted it, we don’t have to rush.”

As much as it bothered him not to finish a project.

You laughed at the little punch Minho threw at Chan’s shoulder on his way out of the room, mumbling something about “going to bed before Changbin comes home to beg for food”. He also made sure to pinch your cheek before leaving.

After swatting at Minho’s hand, you grinned.

“Okay, well… Let’s figure out how we’re going to do this.”

Chan mimicked your smile with a nod.

No way, Jisung thought as you followed his older friend out into the living room, no fucking way.

You just left him without an acknowledging glance his way, and all of a sudden he had a really terrible feeling about leaving you and Chan alone together. Anything could happen—kissing, fucking, god forbid you talk to him. You could become closer and gain feelings for the guy, which would not be a hard task considering Chan was basically the human embodiment of the sun and every damn person seemed to be pulled into his orbit after the first meeting.

Dammit, it was even difficult for Jisung to be mad at him. The guy was too lovable.

Cursing under his breath, Jisung all but ran into the living room to prevent any and all touching or deep talks, because heaven knew how much Chan talked about deep shit.

Ew, he sounded like Minho.

“You don’t have any notes at all?” Chan asked, eyebrows raised. “What do you even do in there?”

You let out a sigh.

“Stats is where I usually do my biology work.”

“Then what do you do in biology?” He questioned bluntly, his eyes skimming all the lost files on your computer that you had given up on ages ago.

“That’s where I write all my essays. The teacher—”

“—never stands up from his chair.”

With wide eyes, you laughed in surprise. Your mouth formed many words but nothing stumbled out, perhaps for a good reason because what you had in your head wasn’t very coherent on its own.

So you just pointed at the snickering Chan, “You…?”

His head shook and your mood dropped.

“I don’t do work for other classes,” he corrected, the mischievous smile slowly sliding onto his lips giving you a little hope back. “I actually produced a whole song in that class.”

Was Jisung dreaming or were you looking at Chan with those big bewildered eyes? Was that what was happening right in front of him? Could he be seeing things?

For once he really hoped he was going insane.

“I knew I wasn’t the only one that slacked off in that class!” You chirped, bouncing a little in your seat.

“And I still got a one-hundred on my exam.” He told you pointedly before passing on the laptop and leaning back on the couch.

Normally, smugness wouldn’t have been attractive to you but on Chan it was something else. His eyes lit up in a way that was almost pretty.

There was a pull towards him as he just sat there and looked at you. It was something that set you on edge in the same way it put you at ease, he just had such a conflicting presence and you really didn’t know how to process it. So your body pushed you forward on it’s own, and with no complaints from him, you felt your hand come to rest on his knee—

But out of the fucking blue, Jisung was throwing himself between you two, his thinner body fitting snuggly in the unfilled space. You sputtered and Chan nearly yelped, holding his hand to his chest to placate his thudding heart.

“Jisung—what the fuck?”

“Did you just jump over the back of the couch?” Chan frowned looking over his shoulder to really determine the path Jisung took to get there.

Jisung smiled obnoxiously, “I just figured I’d help you guys out. Considering I’m also in that class.” He wiggles a little more to separate the two of you even more. “And three brains are better than two.”

“Not when yours is nonexistent.” You quipped, feeling your lips pull into a pout at the intruder.

“Ah, how I love your humor.”

Jisung poked your nose with a tight lipped smile.

Sending Chan a look of apology, he shrugged, falling back further into the couch.

“Sure, why not?” Was his response, shoulders lifting up and falling back down with a huff. “Let me help you set up some proper notes.”

Jisung brought his hands together once to create a near deafening sound that had you even more irritable. His happy-go-lucky mood wasn’t funny when you were on the receiving end of the annoyance.

One nice thing—you couldn’t have one single nice thing ever.

Between your brother and his dumb best friend (that you may or may not have sorta feelings for) you couldn’t do anything. Your prime years were being wasted on sucky romance movies with Felix and Hyunjin and cat fights with Jisung. You couldn’t afford such bullshit for much longer.

“You know I love you, Y/n.”

“Stuff your love up your ass.”

The rest of the week passed by smoothly with minimal conflict on your end and grades that didn’t have you contemplating slamming your face into a wall. On weekends you usually spent most of your time at Minho’s apartment while Changbin dicked around at the gym and your brother slept for the forty-eight hours that he had to himself. You could watch movies and finish your homework with no distractions.

That was until Chan decided to move in and steal your attention every moment he could. You were even starting to suspect that he was doing it on purpose after the time he walked out of the bathroom in only a bath towel and responded with a “oh, I didn’t notice you there”.

You also concluded that Felix was a snitch and no longer deserved your friendship, because once you shared with him your encounter with Chan, everyone in your group of friends was wired in to everything that concerned you and Chan.

Especially Jisung. Which eventually caused—

“Jisung why the hell are you following me?”

The boy in question didn’t bother to acknowledge you, instead he simply continued to walk at your side, hands stuffed deep in his pockets and hair just a little messier than usual, “What do you mean? This is how I get to my next class.”

You snorted. “Last time I checked, you had dropped your two-thirty class. And even then, it was on the other side of the building.”

Jisung couldn’t help but roll his pretty brown eyes.

“Stalker…”

“Says the guy who’s been up my ass all day.” You chirped, taking pride in the way he glared at you.

Jisung threw his hands up in frustration. He knew what he was doing was out of character, sure. But did he want to be called out on it?

“Can I not hang out with you? God, Y/n. We’ve known each other for years, I’d think you’d get used to me being around.”

You merely shook your head with a laugh, continuing forward.

“You’re really something else.”

He snorted, “So you’re being an adult now?”

“When am I not the adult when I’m with you? There’s no room for stupid energy with you around.” You replied cheekily

“Well I’m sorry for hogging all the ‘stupid energy’, damn…”

The way that Jisung held up the air quotes for “stupid energy” had your cheeks aching from how hard you smiled.

“Well, I’m going to lunch with Felix and Hyunjin right now. So unless you want to be subjected to their combined stupidity, I would suggest you go back to your dorm.” You sent him a small smile over your shoulder, just barely missing the way he tripped over his feet because of it.

Felix had called you in a rush right as you were getting out of your last class of the day and asked you to come eat lunch with him and Hyunjin. It was a one sided conversation that lasted almost ten seconds but you figured you had no other choice but to comply. Whatever reason he had for being in such a hurry was enough for you to listen.

“But you can come if you want, Sungie. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

Sungie.

It had been a while since you last called him that nickname—possibly way back when you were in primary school. It sent chills down his spine to hear you call him that again.

Jisung caught up to you easily, slinging his arm around your shoulders just as he used to when you began calling him Sungie. Over the years it had started to put a strain on him since he found it hard to differentiate what was friendly and what was too friendly. He had a girlfriend after all, and there were only so many things he could do with other girls that was acceptable.

But of course you were just Y/n. The little sister that bothered them all day and called him Sungie.

He didn’t have to feel embarrassed to hug you or tease you or hide his insecurities behind stupid pick up lines. Now matter how much it made his heart pound in his chest, you were still Minho’s baby sister—you were Jisung’s baby sister.

“I’d like that, my dear.” Jisung said, stuffing his free hand into his pocket and pulling you closer.

So close that it almost felt domestic.

Y’know, as domestic as it could get with someone who was like a little sister to him. He had a beautiful girlfriend too, so the domestication was more like a… family comfort and less like how it would feel if you were married and he was allowed to hold you as close as he wanted—

“Ah, you’re warm,” you hummed, making a small fuss of tucking yourself further into his hold. “It always looks like it’s going to be nice outside, but it seems like the weather changes its mind just as much as Hyunjin.”

You didn’t notice but Jisung was completely lost to everything you said after “you’re warm”. He just continued to hum and nod as if his brain wasn’t completely fried.

Jisung was in the midst of a mental breakdown when you somehow managed to lead him to the small restaurant right outside of the university. It was a popular place since it was so close and dolled out cheap food in a matter of seconds, which definitely appealed to its main demographic.

You spotted Felix’s head of purple hair immediately, a bright smile etched onto his face as he spoke animatedly to the waiter standing at the ready. The boy was cute, black hair and pretty dimples that made him appear younger. He also looked friendly with Felix with how he spoke with a wide smile that showed his perfect teeth.

You approached the table, shrugging Jisung’s arm off of you and ignoring his whine in protest.

“I made it,” you announced, gaining the attention of your friends—

And fuck.

You met eyes with Seungmin sitting in the seat beside Felix, and felt your shoulders slump as he flashed you a smirk.

“Glad you could come, Y/n.” Seungmin all but sang at your visible distress.

But Felix had a hold on your arm before you could respond with attitude, tugging you dangerously close to the waiter at your side.

“Y/n, this is Jeongin—” Felix gestured towards the boy who lifted his hand to wave. “He’s a school friend of Hyunjin’s.”

“It’s my last year.” Jeongin added with a shy laugh.

Peeling your eyes away from Seungmin, you got a good look at the boy in front of you. The unexpected cuteness both startled you and made your stomach flip. You really had to withhold from squealing and pinching his cheeks. He was so cute.

You smiled genuinely, “It’s nice to meet you, Jeonginnie.”

A small wave of red covered his ears at the sudden nickname, his long eyelashes fluttering in surprise.

Jisung just about combusted in his spot. He was getting pretty sick and tired of keeping tabs on all the boys you managed to hook around your finger, it was starting to get out of hand. Okay, maybe he was the stalker.

In a bout of frustration, Jisung grabbed your hand and interlaced your fingers, sliding into the booth beside Hyunjin and tugging you after him. You made a noise of surprise as your ass connected harshly with the cracked red cushion of the booth, sending Jisung a glare.

Though, he kept his eyes on the table, avoiding the amused looks on everyone’s faces, even going as far as swatting away Hyunjin’s poking fingers. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to release your hand from his.

Jisung’s palm was sweaty in your hold, but strangely enough it was something that you didn’t mind.

Jeongin looked between you and Jisung for a moment before quickly coming to some sort of realization that only Felix seemed to understand. His mouth formed an ‘o’ shape and a small smirk was suddenly on his lips as he asked what drink you would like.

Whatever that was about, you didn’t like it.

“I’ll just have a water.” You answered skeptically, finally managing to pull your fingers free of Jisung’s grip.

“Water for me too.”

Jeongin didn’t bother to write down your orders, instead he just nodded and left with that same goofy smile on his face.

Why did your friends have to corrupt the poor kid?

You sent a glare towards Felix, ready to grill him about what the hell just happened but his eyes were on something else above your head, his lips forming into the same smirk that Jeongin had on. Whatever what’s either above you or behind you was either a stupid compilation video of League of Legend funny moments or your next victim.

“Care for one more?” Came from behind you.

And both your and Jisung’s heads swiveled around at a dangerous speed to see the beautiful image of Chan, and damn was he beautiful. He was dressed for the weather, arms now covered in a long black sweater that hugged every one of his muscles so so nicely, and instead of sweatpants, he was wearing jeans. You could definitely tell the difference between a casual day around the house and one where he was going to be seen out in public—was that makeup?

And Jisung frowned. It had been going so well.

It was his turn to send Felix a glare.

The purple haired boy mouthed something along the lines of “girlfriend”, but Jisung couldn’t (could) really make it out.

“Sit down.” You managed to choke out, motioning toward the table.

“Hey!” Felix greeted, standing up to fully embrace Chan in a hug.

You were floored.

“You know each other?”

Felix’s eyes flickered towards you, “We both grew up in Sydney.”

And you thought your eyes were going to pop out of your skull.

“You’re Australian?” You gaped, watching Chan as if he had sprouted a new head.

He then proceeded to spout off some heavily accented words that you could barely make sense of, and you could feel your heart practically flutter in your chest. After meeting Felix, you never thought you’d ever find an Australian accident sexy as hell—but Chan’s was, in fact, very sexy as hell.

“Wow,” Hyunjin whistled. “What does it take for one to become Australian, because fuck.”

You didn’t think you would ever agree with Hyunjin so much in your life.

Chan snorted. “I think you have to be born in Australia unfortunately.”

“Or you know,” Felix tossed sarcastically. “Live there.”

“Damn. Always the catch.”

You sighed, almost going as far as face-palming yourself and/or slamming your forehead against the table.

Instead you just sent Chan an embarrassed smile. “You can sit down if you aren’t planning on running away.”

“Thanks.” He laughed.

Unfortunately for you, there were already three people in your booth and he wouldn’t be able to fit beside you.

Fortunately for Jisung, there were already three people in your booth and Chan wouldn’t be able to fit beside you.

But when Chan began to slide in the seat next to Felix, Hyunjin suddenly jumped with a yelp, glaring at the suspicious looking Felix in front of him. The two had a very strange conversation with their eyes before Hyunjin was huffing a sigh and maneuvering himself to slip under the booth and (clumsily, you may add) pop out on the other side of Seungmin, ignoring the spectacled boys' complaints as he sends Chan a smile.

Stupid plotting assholes.

“Just wanted to sit next to my… uh—”

“Boyfriend?” You supplied, blinking at him dully.

“Yeah, my boy—hey, fuck you!”

“Sorry, were you waiting to tell people?”

He took the liberty to be the kicker instead of the kickee and sent his foot into your ankle, making you hiss with a glare.

Felix nudged Chan’s hip to direct him into the spot beside you, his mouth open in a wide smile as you are further squished between both Jisung and Chan. With one boy being very broad and the other being very clingy, you barely had any room at all.

“Y/n, you look a little cramped, why don’t you scoot over here a little more—?”

“Jisung, if I get any closer to you, I would be on top of you.”

Hey, he wasn’t completely opposed to that plan.

Jisung certainly would rather have you on his lap than Chan’s. He couldn’t even think about that without grasping for your hand again, though you were too fast and managed to wiggle out of his grip.

“Yeah, Y/n. Why don’t you just scoot over?” Hyunjin sang, his mouth curled up in a coy little smirk that he always had carved onto his face.

“You scheming little—”

But your words were cut off by the clearing of a throat.

Seungmin leaned over the table, and the way his sleeves were rolled to his forearms was suddenly very noticeable. He looked at you with the intention to kill, and had he not been a prudish reincarnation of the devil, you would’ve thought he looked hot as fuck.

“Do you want me to retell the little incident that took place at last year’s Christmas party?”

A collective gasp went around the table, Chan being the only one who was absolutely clueless.

Felix whispered something under his breath about how “that was sworn to secrecy”, and Hyunjin’s wide eyes stuck to the side of Seungmin’s face like glue.

Even Jisung broke out of his jealous stupor to gulp.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would.”

That was the true form of Kim Seungmin.

“What? Do dinners like this happen all the time?” Chan asked. “Do you ever actually eat?”

As if on queue, Jeongin stepped up to the table, notepad in hand and wide eyes sparkling. “Are you guys ready to order—?”

But Felix was dragging the boy down to his height, whispering something quickly into his ear, causing his eyes to widen. After enlarging, his gaze flickered back and forth between you, Jisung and Chan.

“I… will give you guys a few more minutes.”

Jeongin scurried off and you wanted to kill everyone at the table.

“Well, I’m going to answer my own question here and say no. There will be no eating food today.” Chan hummed, tossing his menu onto the table similarly to a petulant child.

You huffed. What did you ever do to deserve any of this?

With both boys at either side of you, it seemed to create a visual representation of the conflict in your mind. And Seungmin looked like he was ready to pass out with how hard he was trying to hold in his laughter as Felix and Hyunjin simply smiled your way.

To say that the two boys were completely clueless, would’ve been an understatement—

With Chan too busy thinking about all the food he wouldn’t be eating and Jisung preoccupied trying to grab ahold of your hand, they didn’t once notice the way that the three little devils stared holes into their heads.

“I literally can’t stand any of you.”

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lady-divine-writes · 3 years ago

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Good Omens - Taking the Cake (Rated G)

Summary: When Aziraphale decides to host Warlock and Adam's 12th birthday down at his shop, he tells Crowley they'll be doing it without magic. That's all well and good until Crowley is called upon to finish decorating the cake... (1551 words)

Read on AO3.

“Ho there! Mmph... angel? Ngk... ” Crowley grunts, stuffing himself through one door of Aziraphale’s bookshop, the other holding stubbornly to its frame. He barely makes it through, lugging copious bags bulging with party gear, his long fingers curled around handles strained thin by the weight.

"In here, dear," Aziraphale replies, giving no indication that he's coming to help. Crowley picks an aisle and starts walking, navigating the narrow expanse between late 18th century classics and Roman philosophy.

“I got everything on your list," Crowley says when he spots his husband. "Goodie bags, balloons, streamers, poppers… “ He pauses inventorying when he comes up behind Aziraphale, deeply engaged in the creation of a buttercream rosette.

By hand, no less.

Aziraphale insisted they throw together this entire party like natives, and that meant no magic whatsoever. Crowley couldn’t understand why. Miracling together a party is literally a snap. They'd done it hundreds of times over the years. It's how they hosted their wedding.

With a snap.

That did, however, create a mountain of paperwork, which led to Gabriel and his henchmen finding out about their shindig and showing up uninvited. Surprisingly, they didn't cause much in the way of trouble. They snickered a little, made a few snide remarks, but they mostly spent their time "observing" from a table in a far corner, mingling with no one as if above it all.

Crowley tensed when they arrived, but having a few party crashers didn't go too badly... until the karaoke began.

“Is that the cake then?”

“Yes. I’m almost done.“ Aziraphale pinches his tongue between his teeth, steadying his hand as he adds a peony this time.

"It's gorgeous," Crowley says in awe. "Truly stunning."

"Thank you, my dear," Aziraphale says, glowing from his husband's praise.

"But... "

Aziraphale's shoulders instantly go rigid.

Crowley hates to do this to him. The cake really is a masterpiece of confectionary construction. But it needs to be said. "Warlock and Adam are turning twelve."

"And... ?"

"Don't you think they might appreciate something a bit more... I don't know.... befitting of a pair of former antichrists? Like a zombie with bleeding eyes? Or a raven with sharp, pointy teeth?"

Aziraphale glares over his shoulder at Crowley as if insanity has finally set in. "Ravens don't have teeth!"

"I know! That's why it would be terrifying! Right up their alleys!"

Aziraphale shakes his head, going back to his peonies. "This is a birthday cake! Not a Halloween cake! Besides, I only know how to make flowers. Anything else would require magic, and you know how I feel about that. Besides, I'm certain they only care about the insides anyway, and it's crammed full of chocolate. I don't think they'll mind a crocus or two."

"Fair enough," Crowley concedes.

The clock in the corner chimes, and Aziraphale sighs. He looks over at it, then double-checks the time on his pocket watch. Crowley checks the time on his watch, too, although he doesn't know what for.

"Three o'clock," Aziraphale observes. "Damn."

"Wot's wrong?"

"I’m afraid I’m running a bit behind.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Crowley asks, piling his sacks on a nearby chair.

“As a matter of fact, I have to pop out for a few," Aziraphale says, handing Crowley the piping bag, "but this cake needs one final touch.”

“And that is?” Crowley holds the bag between his fingers the way he would a dead rat, wary that he might be called upon to construct the same delicate flowers Aziraphale has. Without his magic, Crowley doesn't have anything near Aziraphale's talent with icing.

Warlock and Adam may just get a gruesome cake after all.

“I just need it to say 'Happy Birthday Warlock and Adam'.” Aziraphale bustles about, grabbing his coat off the tree and throwing it on. “The handwriting doesn't need to be immaculate, just legible. Could you do that for me?”

“Pfft. No problem," Crowley says, secretly perceiving a problem. "Piece of… “

Aziraphale stops on his way out the door to give his husband an exasperated look. Crowley snickers.

“Well, you know,” Crowley finishes, shooing Aziraphale out the door. "Ta-ta now. Mind how you go."

***

"Damned antique dealers and their damned negotiations! Ignorant bast---" Aziraphale stops short of cursing. It doesn't matter what happened, which was extremely upsetting. There is no need for bad language. He hurries down the crowded sidewalk, going over the details of the past hour-and-thirty in his head. "I was doing them a favor, and look how I'm repaid! I'm late to the party I'm hosting! There's a fine how-do-you-do! Ungrateful humans! See if I stop another Apocalypse for you, in your tacky grey suits and your cheap pointy shoes... "

Aziraphale stomps up to his door, keys in hand, but stops outside when he hears laughter on the other side. He peeks through the dusty glass, and his shoulders sag.

The party is for the kids. He knows. But he was so looking forward to celebrating with everyone from start to finish. That and he didn't think he'd take this long, so he neglected to relocate his first editions somewhere secure.

He fears for their safety.

Icing is notoriously difficult to get out of parchment and ligament, even through the use of miracles.

He should have never taken that stupid meeting to begin with. He had a feeling it wouldn't pan out.

Oh well.

No need wasting any more time on that than already has, he thinks, bucking up and unlocking the door. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and start celebrating while I still have the chance...

Aziraphale takes a step in, ready to announce his arrival, but stops dead when he hears jazzy scatting in a sonorous voice.

A voice that doesn’t belong to anyone he knows.

Aziraphale walks in further, scanning those gathered, and makes a minor correction to his original assessment - doesn’t belong to any human that he knows. His eyes blow wide, his cheeks burn red, and his husband's name explodes off his tongue before he even opens his mouth.

"Anthony J. Crowley-Fell!"

Aziraphale doesn't say anything other than his name and Crowley starts apologizing. "I'm sorry, angel!" he says, running across the shop to greet him, but not looking the least bit sorry.

"I gave you one task!" Aziraphale bellows, snapping his fingers and slamming the door shut, his no-magic edict flying out the window. "Just one little thing! And you couldn't do it!"

"I'm no good at writing!" Crowley defends with the shadows of an infuriating grin on his face. "My hand gets all wobbly! I didn't want to risk ruining any of your lovely flowers!"

Aziraphale, splotchy-faced and buggy-eyed, glowers. "You couldn't write a simple Happy Birthday, so you enchanted the entire cake!? That was your brilliant plan!?"

"I'm a demon! Of course, that was my plan!"

"Crowley!"

"They showed up right after you left! I had no time! I panicked!"

Aziraphale drops his head into his hands, shaking it slowly back and forth. Crowley reaches out to put a comforting hand on his husband's shoulder until he hears him counting backward from one hundred... in Akkadian. Then he creeps his hand to his side and quietly steps off.

Aziraphale breathes in deep through his nose and out through his mouth, struggling to ground himself. He has no one to blame but himself. That's the painful part. In the back of his mind, he knew something like this might happen.

He's impressed it isn't worse.

He should have never left his husband alone.

Next time, he'll hire a sitter.

Aziraphale continues counting, continues breathing, and as he does, he pays more attention to the goings-on around him.

The cake singing is quite unsettling, but the children are gleeful, the adults joyful. Joking, teasing, and enthusiastic conversation fill the spaces in between.

Much like their wedding reception, except there isn't an archangel in sight.

And Crowley's magic was instrumental in making that day memorable.

Maybe Aziraphale overreacted with that 'no magic' rule. Crowley's face fell when Aziraphale told him they'd be hosting the boys' birthday at his bookshop sans magic, but he'd recovered quickly. The streamers and balloons Crowley managed to toss on the walls look plenty festive, but they don't compare to what could have been had Aziraphale allowed Crowley to tap into his imagination.

Their guests are having a grand time despite the modest decor, but it could have been so much more. They are an angel and a demon! Between the pair of them, they could have whipped up a true spectacle, if for no other reason than they still owe poor Warlock after last year's fiasco.

What would have been the harm of calling upon a little divine intervention?

An alarming thought pops into Aziraphale's brain, and his head snaps up. “They’re going to cut into that, you know. Is that when the enchantment ends?”

“Nope.” Crowley rubs his palms together. “That’s when the fun begins.”

"Uh... "Aziraphale's jaw drops. "Good Lord," he moans, Crowley cackling when Adam runs to fetch the cake cutter. Aziraphale's mind whirls with thoughts of what fun could imply, but there's no time to ask. While Crowley starts laying a drop cloth, Aziraphale puts his coat away and relocates his favorite books into his back room for safekeeping.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley

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andipxndy-writes · 3 years ago

Text

the coffee shop

fandom: alex rider warnings: none requested by: @zixylixy word count: 9.8k

cross-posted to ao3

summary: You knew you should've stayed in bed the moment your coffee went all over your front. Still... that meant you met someone unique, someone different. Someone who was becoming special to you. And if you were being completely honest, now that you were thinking back on it, you wouldn't have it any other way.

the coffee shop

You knew you should’ve stayed in bed that morning the moment your coffee went all over your front.

To be fair, up until that point your morning hadn’t gone too badly. You’d woken up, been tempted to stay in bed for a few hours longer, and then realised you had emails to answer and paperwork to do for work. Granted, you were working from home, so there was no rush to actually complete the work you’d been assigned until the end of the working day, but it was nice to get it all done in the morning. Then the rest of your day was free.

And that was what ended up happening. As soon as you’d got up and ready for the day, you managed to get your work done pretty quickly. All it took was a handful of hours of properly focusing, and you could get everything you needed to do done quickly enough.

Plenty of time for you to do things for yourself.

Of course, doing things for yourself wasn’t the first thing that came to mind when you finished work for the day. First of all there was the dishes (which took all of five minutes), and then the washing (which took a little longer, but you had that all in in half an hour), and then there was the general cleaning of the house that you hadn’t managed to get to last weekend (which definitely took closer to a couple of hours, maybe more). By the time you were done with all of that, it was the middle of the afternoon.

You thought it was about time to actually treat yourself.

So at about three in the afternoon, you had your little backpack packed with your notebook, laptop and a book, ready to keep yourself entertained with a coffee at your favourite local coffee shop. Just to wind down, maybe get back into that reading and writing groove again.

Except, when you got to your favourite local coffee shop, it was filled. Somehow, and you didn’t know how, the place had become everyone’s favourite place to visit in the late afternoon. Which meant that you couldn’t find anywhere to sit. In fact, the knowledge that someone was sitting in your favourite spot on their own and was casually scrolling through their phone was what irked you the most, and it made you very hesitant to leave the place. A small part of you even wanted to kick them out of the seat. But it was crammed, and you didn’t particularly like being around so many people anyway.

So you left. You knew where the nearest Starbucks was, and you also knew that it wasn’t too far to get to, so it would have to do. For once.

(Last time you’d gone there, with the absolute crowding and mess that went on there, you vowed to never go again. But the nearest Costa was too far to walk and the nearest Cafe Nero was even further. So it would have to do.)

As you got your coffee, you had to mentally remind yourself that just because Starbucks was mainstream didn’t mean that the coffee was any worse than what you usually got at your favourite spot. Perhaps the baristas here were decent, and the coffee had to be drinkable for people to regularly get drinks there.

When you took your coffee and sipped on it, your brain and taste buds helpfully reminded you that the coffee was worse, and tasted pretty cheap and generic, but you were going to have to deal. Because the next best places were further out and you couldn’t be bothered to walk that far.

The only other downside to Starbucks was because it was so popular and so mainstream, it also didn’t have any space for you to sit. Luckily, you were less bothered about this, and had been prepared for such an eventuality, so you were heading out to go to the local park – there were some picnic benches there that you could sit on and use to relax whilst you had your coffee, and the day was nice enough that it made sitting outside with your hot beverage and a good book worth it.

Your plans were ruined the moment you stepped through the open doorway.

“Hey!” you cried as your cup smacked into your front and emptied out over your jumper and jeans. As much as you didn’t care about the coffee, you did care about what you were wearing. You just so happened to be wearing your favourite outfit that day.

You were not impressed.

“Hey, I–oh my god I’m so sorry.”

The person who had crashed into you was tall, with fair hair and plain brown eyes. There was nothing particularly remarkable about him, really. Apart from his sharp jawline. And handsome features.

Nope, nothing remarkable about him at all.

Shaking out your hands to get off the hot coffee before trying to peel your clothing from your skin so that it didn’t keep burning you, you huffed, scowling. One small part of your brain decided to remind you that you were glad to be rid of that horrible coffee, but you hadn’t exactly wanted it on you instead.

“I’m so sorry, let me buy you another coffee.”

You looked up at him and raised an eyebrow at the offer. You were currently covered in coffee, sticky and wet, and standing on the pavement in front of your least-favourite coffee shop.

Another coffee wasn’t going to cut it, and you made sure your face said exactly that.

“I need to change,” you muttered, more to yourself than the man in front of you as you looked back at your clothes. “This was my fave… god, I need to do another wash…”

You spared the man a glance out of the corner of your eye. The guy looked a little awkward now, hearing you ramble to yourself, and a small part of you was satisfied in knowing you’d made a grown man feel awkward about not watching where he was going. You didn’t tend to do that often, but when you did it was incredibly satisfying.

“I’m sorry, truly. I’ll buy you another jumper. And a coffee.”

Another jumper and a coffee? Was this man desperate for your forgiveness or something? You looked up at him properly, narrowing your eyes at him.

He offered a nervous smile in return.

The smile melted your scowl.

“I’ll take the coffee,” you mumbled in response, giving a sigh of resignation. “But after I’ve changed, god. I’m not sitting around in coffee-stained clothes.” Your clothes felt hot now, but they were definitely going to get colder and stickier, and that was going to get very uncomfortable. Before he could speak again, you held up a hand to silence him. “I live a ten minute walk away. You can wait for me right here. Right here. Don’t move.”

You didn’t realise how serious the guy was about getting you coffee (and a new jumper, you supposed) when, after you returned in a fresh change of clothes, he was still standing right there waiting for you.

***

There were a few things you learned from that coffee you had with the guy who’d crashed into you. Firstly, and most importantly, you found out that he wasn’t a fan of Starbucks either, and somehow managed to get you both into your favourite coffee shop when you told him about the spot. With seats in your favourite spot.

He’d laughed when you vowed to love him forever.

The second thing you learned was that his name was Alex. You introduced yourself too, of course, but he seemed more than a little reluctant to tell you his surname. You didn’t mind, of course, but that meant that you insisted on being given the same courtesy – first names only, no surnames allowed. And from the way he nodded, it seemed to be a good enough agreement for him.

The third thing you learnt was that Alex was actually single, and had been on his way to meet someone when he’d crashed into you. He then insisted that your impromptu “date” was a lot better than what he’d originally planned to go to. It made you curious about the person he’d been going to meet, definitely, and why he was so willing to ditch them for someone such as yourself – especially when he’d only just met you.

Well, what you two had done hadn’t been a date, exactly, considering it felt more like two friends catching up. Or two friends meeting for the first time. But you realised you’d enjoyed it like one, and the two of you exchanged social media handles before parting ways: you suggested Twitter, he gave you his Insta, and both of you laughed when you realised you had Tumblr.

Neither of you shared your Tumblr usernames.

And then that was it. You pretty much forgot about the guy – any thoughts of him were lost amidst all of the work you were suddenly bombarded with (which you didn’t appreciate at all, and you were frankly disappointed in your boss for) and you were barely even given the chance to breathe.

It made you miss your writing.

That was why, when you got your next batch of free time (and told your boss that under absolutely no circumstances was he to send you more work to do) you packed up your bag with your usual notebook and stationary set and headed down to the nearest park. Since that last time you’d tried to get coffee, you hadn’t even attempted to get out of the house and do some writing on your own. You figured today would be a good day to go out and get some writing done, as well as get some fresh air.

Taking one look outside, though, you realised it was gradually getting darker, and one look at the clock told you it would probably get dark within the next couple of hours. Knowing your habits, it would be dark long before you finished wanting to write.

Perhaps the nearest university library would be best. You still had a membership card for it, anyway.

It took you about ten minutes to get out of the house with everything you needed, and then you were walking towards the library. Your favourite coffee shop was on the way there, so you decided it would be a good idea to stop by the coffee shop and grab something to drink at the library. You had your travel mug with you anyway, and it wasn’t as if the library refused to let people drink in there all the time.

Students practically lived in there anyway. They had to keep themselves alive somehow.

Just as you were walking into the coffee shop, you realised it was pretty quiet inside… but very noisy outside. Not noisy in the sense that there were lots of people walking about, oh no. It was noisy because there was something more than a little hectic happening on the street that ran by the coffee shop. Cars were speeding past, bikes were speeding past. The only thing that didn’t speed past was an ambulance, which (considering the speed those vehicles were moving about) concerned you greatly.

Still, you managed to tell yourself that this wasn’t your issue and you moved on, not even looking back over your shoulder to see what was going on. The distractions would hold you back, and it was getting later and later. You wanted your coffee and your spot in the library.

It wasn’t until you’d grabbed your coffee and were about to head out that you saw a bike – a battered, wobbly motorbike – pull up outside the cafe. It was a no-parking zone out on that part of the street, and you knew this, but you weren’t going to be the one to warn the person about it when the owner was probably out back watching on a security camera or something. They could suffer from that earful themselves.

The rider got off the bike, stumbling a little bit as they got used to being back on their own two feet, before pulling off their helmet. That was when you realised two things.

One, you’d seen that bike before. It had been brief, yes, but that bike had definitely been part of that whole commotion that had gone on outside whilst you’d been walking. You were absolutely sure of it. In fact, you were pretty sure it had been near the front of whatever had gone on, and had been the main one speeding. Which was more than a little concerning, considering it had now stopped outside of the cafe.

Two, you recognised the person as soon as their helmet came off. You didn’t know exactly why you managed to recognise them so quickly, but you hadn’t managed to see them for a while. Not since you’d first met.

It was Alex.

You stood frozen in place, surprised that after so long you were finally seeing him again. It was… strange, to say the least.

He paused himself, standing sort of lopsided as though he was supporting himself with one leg mostly. He was also seemingly surprised to see you, and then he gave you a half-smile. You got a feeling that he actually did kind of remember you, though you didn’t quite know what would really encourage him to do that.

Then you remembered how you first met, and it all made sense.

“Hello,” he finally greeted once he was close enough to you.

You simply took a sip of your coffee, staring him in the eyes. You didn’t know why exactly you did that – maybe it was a reminder of how he didn’t have to make you spill your coffee all over yourself to get your attention. “Hi.”

You both stood there in silence for a few moments, him watching you drink your hot beverage, and then he finally decided to speak.

“Do you want to sit in here and talk for a bit? We should catch up, right?”

You raised an eyebrow at him. Catch up? That was definitely very… forward of him. “We barely even know each other.”

“Then we can get to know each other more.”

You were so tempted to give in and point out how forward that seemed. After all, this was only the second time you were meeting in person. Granted, you’d seemed to get on pretty well the first time you’d met, but that didn’t mean you’d get along this time… did it? But, of course, you knew you were better than that and that you weren’t the type of person to call someone out when you barely knew them.

“Fine,” you sighed. “But I’m not staying here.”

“Then I’ll grab a drink and join you.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Be quick, then.” It didn’t seem as though you were going to get much writing done today either, and it was this guy’s fault.

Again.

***

After that second meeting, where he managed to successfully crash your library writing time and instead had you both sitting in the nearest park chatting over coffee, you began to spend significantly more time getting to know and hanging out with each other. Less than a week after you’d met, you received a message to your Insta from him, and the two of you ended up striking up a conversation via direct messaging that got incredibly long and in-depth, about anything and everything that came to mind. It got to a point where you looked forward to getting responses from him, whether the topic had switched to politics or reading or hobbies. You hadn’t yet decided to tell him that you enjoyed creative writing – in fact, you weren’t even sure you were ever going to tell him, because that was a very private part of who you were – but you spoke about enough other hobbies that you realised you had a wide range of hobbies and skills between you both. There were even some that you shared, whilst others seemed a lot more… obscure on his end. (You certainly hadn’t been scuba diving before.)

Anyway, with the increased conversation came the increased chance to meet up, but every time you planned to meet up for another coffee at your favourite spot something came up. And you meant every time. Whether it was work pushing you again and forcing you to work beyond business hours, or Alex having to cancel for some reason or other (that he often didn’t tell you), everything you organised didn’t work out. It sucked, really. Especially since you seemed to spend more and more time at the coffee shop as the weather changed, whether it was because you were writing or because you wanted a change of scenery to get your work done as best you could.

Well, it sucked until, finally, someone decided to take it into their own hands.

Hint: it wasn’t you.

At the time, you didn’t know why Alex had asked for your address, and you didn’t know why you’d so willingly given it over either. But it wasn’t as though you were particularly worried about him knowing it. He was a decent enough guy, and if he wanted to get you stuff and have it delivered to your doorstep then you weren’t going to complain about it. If he decided to kidnap you instead, you were pretty sure you wouldn’t have a problem with that either. Considering how boring your life had become, you’d probably thank him for it.

You didn’t, however, expect him to turn up on your doorstep, bags of what definitely smelled like your favourite takeout in his hands. You tried not to let your jaw drop too dramatically.

You’d only ever mentioned your favourite takeout once, in passing conversation. How did he even remember that?

“Hi.” His greeting sounded almost suave, as though him going out and getting your favourite takeout after a good while of not seeing each other in person just to have dinner at your place was perfectly normal.

And not… weirdly kind, or borderline romantic.

“Hi,” you responded in an almost hesitant tone, watching him warily for a few moments.

He stood there with the takeout still in his hands, but he didn’t look awkward at all. Not one bit. If anything, he looked like he’d done this too many times before to be doing it again with you.

It made you curious.

“So… are you going to let me in?” The question was asked in a sarcastic drawl, not unlike the one you heard in your head whenever you read messages from him that came as a response to something funny you said, and it made you smile. The wariness and hesitation about him being there melted away immediately.

“I guess I am,” you chirped back, before standing aside and letting him walk past. As he passed you, you couldn’t help but notice he was wearing cologne – maybe he was walking closer to you this time than he usually did, but you could smell it.

And it smelled pretty nice.

You held yourself back from mentioning anything, though.

Soon enough, the two of you were sitting at your small dining table, usually intended for one but actually catering to two tonight, with the takeaway on the table between you both. You couldn’t remember being particularly hungry when Alex arrived, but as soon as you both sat down at the table and Alex began to unload everything ready for you to eat, your stomach decided to announce that it was empty and you were famished. Alex only cracked a grin at the sound your stomach made, and you had to try hard not to let your cheeks heat up in response.

“It’s not funny.”

“Of course it isn’t.” He opened up the food, and the smell was absolutely heavenly. “It’s an indication of how hungry you are. That’s all.”

“Exactly.” And then your eyes narrowed at him. “Are you mocking me?”

He simply replied with a grin as he finished dishing out plates for you both. His lack of an answer was just as good as a confirmation, in your opinion, and you scowled at him playfully as you picked up your cutlery.

You would have to forgive him begrudgingly, if only because he brought you food. And good food at that.

Your meal was pretty nice, you had to admit. The conversations you had were varied, as they usually were, and somehow Alex managed to bring up almost everything that you could have talked about – from politics to art, and science to TV. Even you had to admit that the conversation was a lot more interesting than it usually was, and even if you didn’t share the same opinion on some things, it wasn’t so different that you immediately hated each other and broke off your friendship.

Yes, because that was what it was. Friendship.

You were just friends with this hot guy.

…Your mother was going to have words with you when she found out about this.

By the time you finally looked at the clock, you had both finished dinner a while back and were just sitting at the table, chatting. At some point, you’d popped into the kitchen and made hot beverages for both of you – a tea for him, and a hot chocolate for yourself.

The clock, of course, was almost at midnight. Your eye twitched.

You had work tomorrow.

Alex followed your gaze to the clock, his own eyebrows rising. “Oh, shit.”

“Oh shit indeed.” You looked down into your mug and, finding it was empty, pouted a little. There was nothing there to keep you two talking other than a desire to continue the conversation, and it wasn’t as if you could tell your boss that you were tired because you just wanted to chat with a friend. “I guess we’ve got to finish off, huh?”

That was all it took for both of you to start clearing up, and by the time all of the dishes were washed and everything was put away it was well past midnight. It wasn’t as if washing up was going to go smoothly when the two of you could easily have chatted the night away. In fact, it was almost one in the morning when you and Alex finally made it to your front door, you leaning on the door frame as he stood just beyond your doorway.

It took you almost ten minutes to actually say goodbye.

“Message when you get home,” you called out as he turned to head down the corridor. He gave half a wave over his shoulder, smiling back at you, and you waited until he’d completely disappeared from sight before closing the door, leaning against it with a frown.

Why were you so determined to make sure Alex was safe?

And why, why, did you all of a sudden latch onto just how attractive Alex was?

***

From then on, dinner seemed to happen on a pretty regular basis. Somehow you managed to pry Alex’s home address from his lips, and sometimes you got what you worked out was his favourite takeaway and headed over to his place, surprising him with dinner and a chat. One time, you were pretty sure you walked in whilst he had someone else over – a dark-haired woman, pretty with freckles and blue eyes. She only looked between the two of you before leaving, a smirk on her face, and you narrowed your eyes at Alex until he admitted that she was a childhood friend that he was (somehow) still close to.

You met her a couple more times. She was nice.

But not as nice as Alex’s oldest and longest best friend. He was a riot.

The first time you met him, Alex came over bringing dinner with a scowl on his face. Before you could even ask what was wrong, a smaller, wiry guy burst in with a huge grin on his face. He, of course, immediately struck you as a troublemaker.

You just didn’t know how much of a troublemaker he was.

He spent most of your dinner recounting stories from when Alex was a teen, all the stupid and reckless things that Alex had done that you were pretty sure would have got him into very big trouble if any sort of adult had found out, and you ended up spending most of the dinner laughing as Alex rolled his eyes and tried to correct him or defend his actions. You didn’t really have an opinion on much of what Alex did (that was a lie, you thought he was totally reckless and stupid), but you found it funny watching him squirm and get defensive, and he was fun to poke. This was a side of Alex you hadn’t really seen before.

You liked it.

It wasn’t until the end of the evening that you found out that Alex’s friend’s name was actually Tom Harris. You didn’t know how you’d managed to go that whole evening without finding out his name, but you had.

The next morning, the first thing you did was send him a friend request on Facebook. By the end of the day, you had him on all possible social media platforms and were sending each other all of your favourite memes.

Your favourite meal by far, though, was the one that stuck most in your memory. It would always stick the most in your memory.

Alex, in an apparent twist in tradition, had decided to bring his favourite takeaway over to yours for the evening. You didn’t mind the switch – you actually kind of liked it – but you didn’t hesitate to rib him for it. After all, what kind of gentleman was he if he brought over what he wanted, instead of what you would want?

His response of, “You’ll eat anything anyway,” hit deep, but it wasn’t wrong. You swatted at him with a tea towel for it, and he simply laughed as he moved to unload everything on your tiny dining table.

“I can’t believe you ditched my favourite for yours today,” you whined as you sat down, waiting for him to dish out the food onto your plates. The agreement was that whoever brought over food would be the one serving, but it was weird being served food that wasn’t your favourite. “This feels like a betrayal.”

He just scoffed at you and rolled his eyes. “My place was on the way.”

You raised an eyebrow at that. You knew that your place was on the way from his to yours, you saw it every time and silently longed over it whenever you brought over Alex’s favourite to his place. So the only way for his chosen place to be on the way was for him to be coming from that direction, which was in the opposite direction. Like, if he was coming from somewhere else.

Like work.

“A busy day at work, then?” you asked casually. Alex didn’t usually come from work straight to yours, he usually came from home. At least, that was what you assumed. After all, he was dressed a lot less casually than he usually was. (In fact, you wanted to say that he looked pretty dashing in what definitely looked like a business suit.)

A small frown grew on his face in response to your question, stayed there for a moment, and then he seemed to brush off whatever was on his mind and give you a small smile. “Yeah, pretty busy.” He paused for a moment, finishing off dishing out his food and setting the takeout bowls aside, and then, “I’ve been asked to go on a business trip.”

Your eyes shot up at this, widening as you stared at him. Alex had never really gone into detail about his job before, but… a business trip? You didn’t think he went on business trips. At least, he hadn’t been on one since you’d known him. Not that you’d known of anyway.

“…How long?” you asked eventually, once he’d taken his blazer off and settled in his seat, both of you about to start eating. Your voice was quieter than you expected it to be. You didn’t quite get why you were so quiet all of a sudden – it was just Alex, and you’d had friends disappear for long periods of time before. You were pretty sure you had some friends who went on regular business trips. But you’d gone quiet anyway, and it didn’t seem as though you were going to make yourself any louder.

Alex watched you for a few moments, his fork in his hand and hovering over his plate, and then he put his cutlery down. You got the feeling that this was about to be a pretty in-depth conversation, and mentally prepared yourself.

“Unconfirmed,” he answered, his voice taking on a harder tone, “but maybe a couple of weeks.”

“Where are you going?”

His lips pursed at that, and that confused you. Why was he so reluctant to tell you? “Somewhere in Europe. I’m not sure where yet.”

You just stared at him. Why was he keeping it such a secret? You got the feeling that he knew… but weren’t you close enough friends for him to tell you something like that?

Alex gave a sigh, picking up his fork again. “Let’s… let’s talk about something else, alright?” He offered you an awkward half-smile. “I didn’t come here to talk about me. I came here to have dinner and talk about anything and everything, like we usually do. You know?”

You did know. It was nice to talk to someone who wasn’t a coworker at the end of the day about anything that came to mind, especially over dinner. It meant that you could have varied conversations that didn’t involve getting work done.

But now you felt as though you really should know more about him. What was his job? Where did he even work? He’d never told you that before. And you didn’t think he was ever going to tell you that now.

So you picked up your own fork, looking down at your plate, and decided to focus on your food for a little while. Until you got all of your thoughts together, at least. You didn’t think you would be able to talk until that happened, and there was no way for it to not be awkward if you decided to go and collect yourself in the bathroom or anything like that.

The rest of your dinner was pretty quiet. You did, eventually, manage to collect all of your thoughts and get back into conversation with him, but you couldn’t help but feel that at least some of it was forced, on both sides. You didn’t want it to be – you missed the easy conversation you and Alex tended to have at the table when you were sharing dinner – but it ended up being so. Even as he helped you to wash the dishes and put everything away, you realised the atmosphere just wasn’t as relaxed and easy as you were used to it being.

And it continued that way all the way up to the front door, where you ended up in your usual position of leaning on the doorframe as Alex stood outside of the door. You both stood there in silence for a few moments, taking in the fact that this would be your last dinner together for a while.

“Well,” you started, pushing yourself off the doorframe, “I have work tomorrow, so…”

“Right,” Alex agreed, his hands in his pockets as he nodded. Usually he would at least take some of the food back to his place if he bought it. Today he wasn’t taking anything. “You shouldn’t stay up too late. Or you get–”

“Cranky,” you cut in, rolling your eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

That made Alex crack a grin, and somehow that eased the tension between you both the slightest bit. There were at least some parts of your friendship that wouldn’t change with Alex being away for so long. You’d miss the dinners, definitely, but you had Tom’s number. You could invite him over regularly, and show up at his as well. Sure, he had a girlfriend, but she was lovely and probably needed someone a little more sane around for at least a little bit of time a week.

“I guess I’ll see you when I see you,” you said, trying to sound hopeful, and Alex gave a nod. The situation, the whole him leaving thing, didn’t feel as depressing as it could have been. It was temporary. Alex would be back, right?

“I guess so.” He pulled out hand from his pocket and half-waved in his usual way, before turning to head down the corridor. “See you around!”

You simply smiled, and as soon as he disappeared from sight you moved to shut the door, sighing. Perhaps… perhaps Alex would change his mind and actually tell you where he was going. Perhaps Alex would even message you whilst he was out on his business trip, just to see how you were doing without him around. Those late night chat conversations were always nice, and if those stopped for two weeks you would be sorely disappointed.

You were just headed to the kitchen to make sure everything was tidied away and switched off when there was a knock on the door, and you frowned. Who could be knocking at the door at this hour? You turned and headed back towards the door to see who it was.

As soon as you opened the door, you felt a pair of lips against yours.

You were surprised at first, not sure who it was that was actually kissing you, but then that familiar smell of cologne hit you and you knew.

It was Alex.

His lips were dry, a bit chapped despite recently having dinner, and still managed to feel soft against your own. He seemed a bit hesitant at the start of the kiss, but when you didn’t fight back… when you didn’t fight back, his arms circled your waist, pulling you closer. You simply sunk into the kiss, letting him move his lips against your own, with your arms moving to rest on his shoulders and your hands interlocking behind his neck. You didn’t know how long you even kissed for, but by the time you were pulling away you were starting to feel lightheaded. You blinked owlishly at him, genuinely surprised at what had happened.

Had he just… had he just kissed you?

He stared back at you for a few moments, before clearing his throat. Pulling away from you, he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Then he opened and closed his mouth a few times, clearly trying to decide on the words to say. And then,

“I’ll… see you in a couple of weeks, then.”

You stared after him in something akin to shock as he disappeared down the corridor.

***

The following two weeks were nothing short of torture for you, both physically and emotionally. Work, somehow, got significantly more busy for you, and it meant that you actually had to go back into the office some days to get some work done. You didn’t particularly like the idea of going back and being around so many of your coworkers for long periods of time, not when you were so comfortable in your own space at home and were pretty productive on your own as it was. But it meant that if you had to stay on and do work, you weren’t distracted by the idea of ordering dinner only to realise that there was no one around to have dinner with. Sure, Tom was about, and so was his girlfriend. But Alex was out of town.

It also meant that you didn’t have to spend any time thinking about that last dinner you had together. About how you’d felt when you found out that Alex was disappearing on you for two weeks all of a sudden, or that he actually went on business trips and disappeared for periods of time.

Or how you felt when he’d kissed you for the first time.

You sometimes got butterflies just thinking about it, him placing his lips on yours and holding you close. The way his slightly dry lips felt against your softer ones, how he smelled up close, how warm his embrace felt as he pulled you in close–

You had to pinch yourself to stop yourself from thinking about it, otherwise you’d spend all day pining or crying over it.

Sometimes you even visited the cafe where you first sat down together to chat, where he’d bought you your first coffee and you’d had your first… well, your first technical date. All you wanted was a coffee, and you ended up being assaulted by thoughts of him and the time you’d spent together.

You didn’t want to think about it that way – you’d never wanted to think about it that way, that it was your first date. But that was how you ended up thinking about it. It had been a date, technically. And all the times where you’d gone to each other’s for dinner had also been dates. You just didn’t want to think of it in that way because you’d only ever thought of him as a friend, and you hadn’t discussed anything to imply that you were anything more.

That kiss more often than not made you think of him as something more.

It reached its worse when one evening, you got off work early. You thought you’d be fine, you told all of your coworkers that you’d be fine at home on your own (it wasn’t as if they knew about Alex anyway) and headed off. It was the middle of the week, so it wasn’t like you could join in on anyone’s night out or anything. Because, you know, no one went on a night out right in the middle of the week.

That evening you found yourself craving company, just wishing there was someone there to have dinner with you. That evening, you craved him.

That evening someone knocked on your door, and you opened it to find it was Tom, Alex’s best friend. He had a frown on his face, a genuine look of concern, which quickly wiped away when he realised you were standing there. The look turned into a grin as he held out what was obviously your favourite takeaway, perfectly bagged and ready to eat.

Just as Alex would.

“I hear someone usually gets takeout with Mr. Businessman,” he teased, before heading into your place without even an invitation. You wanted to be mad at him as he started rambling on about how Alex had thought it was best to get a replacement for dinner and how every time Tom had knocked you hadn’t been there, but really you were glad. You hadn’t wanted to spend the night alone.

Well, you wouldn’t.

And really the night turned out to be more fun than even you had expected. Tom was a non-stop chatter, commenting on anything and everything, and he even went as far as telling you stories about Alex that you were very sure he wouldn’t tell you himself. It meant that you spent pretty much the whole night in stitches as Tom recalled his and Alex’s childhood. You knew he and Alex had been friends for a long while, but just knowing some of their history… it made you realise how they had managed to stay so close for so long.

If you had been through even a smidge of what those two had been through together with a friend, you doubted you would have left them behind ever. You were pretty sure you would have been best friends for life.

When it came time for Tom to finally leave, you couldn’t help but feel like you were going to miss him. Sure, having dinner with him didn’t match up to having dinner with Alex, and you were definitely sure there was someone else Tom could have been with that evening, but it was the nicest night you’d had since Alex had left. You appreciated Tom, you really did.

And you made sure to tell him that as you both headed to your front door (you didn’t have the heart to make him do the dishes with you, like Alex did, so he was leaving considerably earlier than Alex usually would).

Tom only gave you a grin as you thanked him. “It’s alright. You’ve done a lot for him. It’s the least I could do for you.”

You frowned a little. What exactly had you done for Alex? As far as you knew, he had done so much for you. He bought you food, kept you company, and had genuinely been a good friend to you from the moment he’d bought you a coffee to make up for the spilled one. You couldn’t really think of anything you had done for him. Instead of dwelling on that, though, Tom was quick to switch the subject to when you’d next have dinner together (and he pointed out that you’d need to bring over extra as well) and informing you of his favourite takeaway.

Part of you didn’t want to feel like he was talking as though Alex would be away for longer… but he was definitely talking like Alex would be away for longer

“Are you going to be alright?”

Tom’s question snapped you out of your thoughts, and you stared at him. Were you going to be alright? You’d spiralled already because one person was missing – it wasn’t as though the world was ending or anything. So you gave him a smile.

“I’ll be alright.”

A small part of you wondered whether that was really true.

***

It was more than a couple of weeks. You’d been busy, and had probably lost track of the time, but it felt like it had been more than a couple of weeks. It had been too long since you’d shared a dinner with that rather attractive fair-haired man, whose first time meeting you involved making you spill your coffee all over your front. You were still really missing him, like you were having withdrawal symptoms, and it felt weird.

You hadn’t ever missed someone like this for so long before – not even your own parents. It felt… weird. Part of you didn’t like it. You didn’t want to feel this way when it took over most of your waking thoughts if you weren’t sufficiently distracted. You wanted to be able to think of and do other things without having to try so hard. And more often than not, you couldn’t do other things unless you were working, because nothing else distracted you enough.

Other than, well, writing.

But you hadn’t had your writing mojo in a while. Mostly because you spent most of your time at work, but also because you didn’t actually have the energy or the time to get out your notebook (or even open up your documents) on most days to actually get some writing done. Perhaps it was about time to kick that back into gear. You had a feeling that hobby would kick your loneliness.

And that was how you ended up packing up your backpack, your notebooks and stationary in there along with your empty travel mug, as you headed down to your favourite coffee shop. You hadn’t been there in ages – not since before Alex had left – and you missed their coffee. You thought you could do with something hot and caffeinated, just to kick you into gear and wake your brain up. After all, you wouldn’t have the usual adrenaline from work waking you up and pushing you through.

The walk down to the coffee shop was rather nice, admittedly. It was a decently nice day, and it was peaceful outside – most people were either at work or relaxing at home for the day, so it wasn’t as though there was anyone outside to bother you or get in your way. Soon enough you managed to make it to the actual coffee shop, and you were more than glad that you hadn’t really bumped into anyone on your way down. It meant that you didn’t really have to talk to anyone at all, not even your neighbours, so you could get into the headspace that you wanted without too much issue.

The only thing was, the coffee shop was decently busy at the time. There was a steady hum of conversation as you walked into the shop, various people sitting on the different tables available. You worried that it would mean there wouldn’t be any space to sit, or that someone would try to strike up a random conversation with you, until you realised that your favourite table was actually free, and you smiled.

This was definitely a sign.

You headed straight to the counter to order your classic usual – an iced caramel latte, even though it wasn’t particularly hot outside – along with a blueberry muffin. Just to treat yourself and get you into the vibes of the cafe. It didn’t feel like it took long at all for your order to come, which was probably helped along by the fact that the barista hadn’t seen you in a while and struck up a conversation with you. You felt a little bad for not visiting as often – you used to chat near-regularly with this guy when you came there on an almost thrice-weekly basis – but you never had the time recently, and you admitted that.

When he asked you how your writing was going, you just felt guiltier.

Either way, you exchanged social media handles before he gave you your order, and you promised to message each other more when you weren’t around. After all, you liked chatting with the guy. You may as well strike up whatever friendship you had going with him. (And if it turned into something more… then what did you have to lose?

It was about half an hour after you sat down, when you’d finally got into your writing flow, when you felt the whole atmosphere of the cafe change very suddenly. What had once been warm and welcoming suddenly changed to curiosity and wariness, and as much as you wanted to ignore it and keep writing, the change was too dramatic for you to ignore. You had to see what was going on. That was why you put down your pen and looked up, curious about what was going on.

And it felt like, in that moment, your breath was stolen from you.

You recognised that familiar mop of fair hair the moment you saw it. You’d had dreams, weird dreams, of running your fingers through that hair, just to see how soft it was. You’d always imagined that it looked thinner and more wiry than it actually was, that you would run your fingers through it as he lay his head in your lap, the two of you relaxing at either of your places or even out on the local park, simply enjoying nature.

You were drawn out of your daydreams about his hair when his eyes suddenly focused on you. You’d always known his eyes were dark, but something was… something was different about them now. You couldn’t quite pinpoint what, but it was something. Something that you had a feeling should concern you.

Still, the moment his eyes landed on you, they somehow lit up, and that was enough to get you to stand to greet him instead of sitting until he came over. You watched him as he slowly approached you, not intending to get any closer to him.

Your feet carried you forward anyway, and soon enough you were embracing him, your arms wrapped tightly around him, and his around you. He felt almost like a lifeline, like someone you needed to survive. You didn’t know when he’d become that for you, how or when you’d come to depend on him so much, but as you clutched him you realised that you weren’t sure how much longer you could have survived without him around.

“I’ve missed you,” you murmured, your lips right next to his ear.

He let out the breathiest of laughs, tickling your ear. “I’ve missed you too,” he murmured lowly. And then he pulled away just enough to look you in the eyes. “We need to t–”

You didn’t know what had come over you, but the next thing you knew, your lips were pressing against his in a soft kiss that you hoped, you dearly hoped, conveyed everything you were feeling right then. Everything you felt about him in that moment. The way he froze up reminded you of how you’d hesitated when he’d first kissed you, but then he was kissing you back, his familiar chapped lips moving against your own. A few moments later you slowly pulled away – not breathless, but satisfied. And he rested his forehead against yours, a small smile on his lips.

“…Okay then.”

You laughed at his words, suddenly very aware that people in the cafe were probably staring at you both. Regardless, you took the opportunity to reach up and run a hand through his hair. You realised that your thoughts had been right – it was softer than it looked, and felt running through your fingers. Idly, you watched as his eyes closed in response to the movement.

So he liked his hair being played with? That was good to know.

“You’re right,” you spoke up, making him open his eyes so that he could concentrate on what you were saying. “We need to talk.”

Alex nodded as your hand slid out of his hair to rest on his shoulder. His hands rested on your hips, holding you close. “Right. Talk.” He paused for a moment, as though he was collecting his thoughts, and then, “Coffee?”

Your smile widened impossibly as you thought back to the first time you’d met. Of how he’d bought you a coffee in this very shop, and had your drinks at the very table you’d been sitting at when he’d walked in. And you were about to do it again.

“Coffee sounds like a good idea. You’re buying?”

He scoffed as he pulled away fully, making you laugh. “Are you expecting me to buy, or asking me to?”

You simply grinned at him as you headed back to your table. As soon as you sat down, you rested your elbow on the table and your chin in your palm, a smirk on your face. “You figure it out.”

He stared at you for a few moments, noticing your half-finished iced latte still sitting on the table, and rolled his eyes at you. “You’ve been spending too much time around Tom.”

“I’ve been spending just enough time around Tom, thank you very much.”

You just about managed to stop yourself from saying how you wanted to spend more time with just him, though. Just about. But that was all that went through your mind as you watched him go off to get his coffee from the barista you’d been chatting with earlier.

Soon enough he was back with his coffee. You swore you could see the barista watching after him with a weird expression on his face, but as soon as Alex was sitting in front of you your focus was on him, and not on the guy you chatted with whenever you came there to get your coffee. Your eyes were glued to him and only him as he took a sip from his coffee, and you couldn't help but realise that there were… purple-ish marks on his neck. At least, they looked that way to you. You didn't get much time to look at them, though, because soon enough he was looking at you again and had put his mug down, his shirt covering up whatever you’d seen.

“So, talking,” he started, and you couldn’t help but glance down at your iced latte, very tempted to take a sip from your drink so that you didn’t have to say anything. But you got the feeling that he would catch that – Alex was very observant – so you decided against it.

“Talking,” you repeated, before taking a deep breath. How did you even talk about it? It was… a lot, but at the same time, so little. Where did you even start? “…Do you want to talk about the first, or the second?”

You could tell Alex was trying to hold back a smirk as he looked at you. “Well, ideally we should start with the first, don’t you think?”

Well, when he put it that way, he made it seem so obvious.

“Okay, then you start,” you pointed out, deciding now was a good time to take a sip from your latte. “After all, you initiated.”

His cheeks flushed pink at that point. “I did.”

You realised that you found the pink flush very cute.

It took him a few moments to seemingly compose himself, and that was the moment you realised that Alex wasn’t as confident or as outgoing as he usually let on. There, right then, you were seeing him as a shy, awkward man – probably the kind of person he’d once been before he’d grown up and started putting on the more confident front.

You liked this shyer version of him.

“I… have liked you for a while,” he admitted, his voice so quiet you almost didn’t hear him. “I say a while, I mean… I mean a month, or so?" He gave an awkward half-shrug. "I just… acted."

You stared at him, blinking a few times. "You just… acted?"

"Yes."

"On impulse."

"Yes."

"Giving into an animalistic desire–"

"I wouldn't go quite that far."

You didn't know why, but suddenly you felt emboldened. The feelings you thought were a one-way crush turned out to be reciprocated, and your heart was bubbling with so much joy. But for some reason… for some reason you didn’t see the same level of excitement in his eyes.

Instead, you saw… was that hesitation?

He looked down at his mug, and then back up at you. And that was when you realised he wasn’t sure whether you felt the same way. Or, at least, that was what you were thinking, anyway. So you rolled your eyes at him.

“Aren’t you going to ask me on a proper date, or something?” you teased. You quickly realised that maybe saying that was a little too bold, but the way his cheeks flushed and he awkwardly laughed made you think that maybe he didn’t think of it as really offensive. Though the longer it took for him to answer made you wonder whether he was actually considering asking you on a date, or was trying to find a way to let you down gently.

“Dating me isn’t easy,” he finally said, his voice quiet. He looked… nervous now. “I’m a demanding person.”

“I know, I’ve fed you,” you responded casually. When he didn’t laugh, you realised he was probably talking about more than just food.

“I can also be absent for weeks at a time,” he pointed out.

“I can work with that, I’ve had a taster.”

“My job is really demanding, and I can’t tell you anything about it.”

That one confused you. Alex hadn’t ever told you anything about his job before anyway, but you knew that if you were getting closer to him that you’d want to know what he did from day to day. Or at least have an idea of what he did every day. But hearing that he couldn’t tell you anything… that sounded like it would be tough to deal with. And it also sounded like it was something that Alex anticipated.

So you reached over and placed your hands on his, watching as his eyes widened and he tensed a little. You gave him a small smile.

“I wouldn’t be dating you for your job. I’d be dating you for you. The job thing is secondary and not as important.”

He stared at you, as though he was actually processing what you were saying and whether you meant it. You hoped that he knew that you did mean it, and that you really did want to date him regardless. Relationships came from working hard at them – the two of you could work past anything you were unsure about now over time.

“Are you sure?”

You rolled your eyes at him. “Do you think I’d still be sitting here with you if I wasn’t?”

He stared at you, seemingly trying to decide whether you were telling the truth or not. So you decided to offer him a soft smile to try and encourage him.

“Do you really want to do this?” Alex asked, and you gave him a definitive nod.

“Yes.”

The smile that appeared on his face… it wasn’t quite blinding, but it was certainly very beautiful and very happy. And it made you smile even wider in return.

“Alright then.” He took a deep breath, still smiling. “Alright.”

“So pick me up tomorrow at seven?” you went on, and he laughed a little.

“Tomorrow at seven it is.” He shifted your hands so that he was actually holding them, and he squeezed a little. A squeeze that marked the beginning of a rather companionable silence as you both stared down at your hands, how they looked as you held onto each other.

Until you broke it.

“Is this the end of our talk?” you asked, looking up and raising an eyebrow at him. “Because if it isn’t, I think we need to discuss the way you alert me before you disappear for weeks at a time. The night before you go is not acceptable and I would like to have words with you about that.”

He grimaced. “Yeah, about that–”

“The next time you do that, I’m punching you and breaking your nose.”

He blinked, and then smirked. “Are you, now?”

“You bet I am.”

You knew you should be offended by the way he laughed at you, but you couldn’t help but smile at his reaction. It had been a while since you’d heard that laughter coming straight from him.

It was nice.

And you were glad that you were getting the opportunity to hear it more. At least, you hoped you were. You just had to wait and see.

#writing: mine #writing: fanfic writings #written for: zixylixy #fandom: alex rider #alex rider fanfiction #oneshot #alex rider

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shiftytracts · 4 years ago

Text

Stop Wanting More, part 1 of 2 (T/M/A fic)

In which season-four Jon tries to quiet his hunger for live statements by gorging himself on paper ones, and Daisy tells him what she used to do when she got shaky between hunts. Part two here.

…For almost ten thousand words (~5.1k in this half, ~4.3 in the other), beeeecause of course I did.

Content warnings:

Disordered eating (mainly of the statement variety, but mentions also the literal kind)

Nausea, and brief descriptions of prior vomiting

Brief but not-ungraphic description of Jon’s (canon) Boneturning incident—so, injury, very mild body horror

Vague discussion of Daisy’s passive suicidality (in part two)

Animal cruelty and death: Daisy talks about hunting rats for sport (in part two)

—

Jon paused the tape recorder, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe. A statement’s second-to-last page was the hardest to get down. The dull ache that had begun under his ribs twenty minutes before now stretched down far enough to converge with the one in his stiff hips. His pulse throbbed in his stomach; he could feel it swell and recede beneath his hand with every beat. Nausea boomeranged up from somewhere under his navel. He reminded himself he could stop for now, finish this later—and, as always, that thought made him feel even colder than the sludge of other people’s fear pooling in his stomach. With his free hand Jon pressed Record again, and turned to 0101702’s final page. Oh, god, there was barely anything on it. Just the rest of this paragraph and then one more. He kept his eyes on the page, didn’t stop speaking its words, but fumbled blindly for another statement with his fingers.

“Knock knock,” Daisy said as she entered. “Christ—you’re still recording?”

In a flash Jon folded his hands on the table, sat up a little straighter, tried to suck in his gut. “Er—”

“Thought you said you were gonna do one more.”

“I’m almost done.”

“You’ve got another one right there.”

“I…” he considered I’m sorry, but then she’d say For what. “I don’t know what to tell you. It is my office.”

“Yeah, and your home,” Daisy scoffed—“and mine. Sort of.”

“D—did you want…? You’re welcome, to. Sit down, or….”

She did, on the arm of his couch. “I know, Jon. That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay.” To show he’d meant his welcome, Jon pushed his chair back from his desk and turned in it to face Daisy. Hopefully she’d remember he couldn’t ask What did you mean.

“I mean, don’t pretend this is work. How many statements have you had today? You don’t think that one can wait til tomorrow?”

Seven? Or would this one be eight. Jon forced himself to exhale out the portion of gut he’d been holding back since she arrived; it hurt too much to keep sucking in anyway. “A lot. I’m just.”

“Hungry, yeah.”

“Even when I’m stuffed I’m hungry.” He snarled a laugh, and set a rueful hand over his stomach like a fig leaf.

At first he’d tried sating the hunger with garden-variety food. That didn’t help much. Way back when he’d first transferred to the Archives Jon had fallen back into the old habit of forgetting to eat—which, yeah, not great, but, it did mean he remembered well how amazing it used to feel to cram down even a stale biscuit after too many hours’ inanition. All the hidden notes he’d found in yogurt and dry toast. He even remembered tearing up once at the taste of a banana, early in 2016. Before that he’d been sure he didn’t like bananas; afterward, for a short while he’d eaten one nearly every day, hoping vainly to recapture the ecstasy of banana after 14-hour fast. No luck, of course. After a few weeks he’d concluded he still didn’t much like banana as final course of healthy lunch. He’d especially disliked peeling them: how sometimes the stems bent without breaking, and the more times you tried the warmer, softer, more flexible they got. How little strings of peel still clung to the banana after you peeled off its main body, like static when you pull off a jumper. Or like the lint it leaves behind on your shirt. And the way bananas bruise, like people do. All these vestiges of its previous life—reminders it had lived to feed itself rather than him.

Since the coma, all people food—er. That was, all food intended for human consumption—tasted like that chase after a faded spark. Cloying and mushy and… organic, reminding him too much of the garden it came from. And the way it landed in his stomach was far worse. The original banana, the one Martin had pressed on him in the Archives in April 2016, had gone down like nectar, ambrosia, manna from heaven, &c.; the ones afterward, like an unwanted dessert always does. (Cloying. Mushy. A biology lesson mildly tapping its watch.) These days, though, eating regular dinner on a stomach empty of other people’s trauma felt like trying to fill up on cake. Not like cake after fourteen hours of nothing; Jon was pretty sure his 2016 stomach would have welcomed that. But like cake at dinner time. When you’re expecting, you know. Dinner. It gave him the brief, fake-seeming energy of a sugar high, and made him sick before it made him full.

Especially when he was otherwise ailing, for some reason? After Hopworth he’d treated himself to a lie down and a sandwich. The rest had helped, but he’d squandered most of the energy it gave him on the effort to keep the sandwich down. At that moment nothing, not even the coffin, had scared him so much as the thought of what it would feel like to throw up when you had only ten ribs on one side. He hadn’t expected losing them to hurt, at least not for long—had expected the rib to flow out of his skin into Jared Hopworth’s hand like an ice cube through water, which in retrospect was stupid given the testimony of Mr. Pryor in statement 0081103, but he hadn’t had time to reread that one beforehand and at the time Jon remembered only that Hopworth didn’t break his victims’ skin when he pulled out their bones. Turned out that wasn’t much comfort: he’d still had to break the ligaments attaching Jon’s ribs to his spine and chest. It had felt like a bad dislocation (four of them, technically), only instead of the feeling of bone pressing on things it shouldn’t there was an equally violating sense of tissue wallowing in holes that shouldn’t be there. He’d had this horror that if he were sick the flesh would crumple and pop where his ribs used to be, like when you try to suck the remaining water out of a near-empty bottle.

A few months after that he’d caught cold. (A point in the still-human column, Daisy had called it.) You know the first day or two of a cold, before the encroaching mucus takes out your ability to smell or taste properly, how innocuous olfactory phenomena like cheddar and laundry soap suddenly become Bad Smells, on par with the olive bar at a posh supermarket? Well, in a similar way, this one seemed to sharpen the dichotomy in his body’s opinions of people food and monster food. His lack-of-ribs had mostly healed by then though, so either vomiting with only ten ribs on one side did not cause the anomaly he’d feared, or, if it did, it hadn’t hurt enough for him to notice it in the cacophony (pucophony?) of other sensations.

(Daisy liked to play on words, so he’d been doing it more lately. This project the Eye seemed happy to help with, though in this case the suggestion arrived in his mind at the exact same moment as a reminder that, technically, the word cacophony can apply to sensations other than sound only by synecdoche.)

And then, a few weeks ago, when the whole Archives went down with norovirus… well, it wasn’t a fun time. He’d at first mistook the lethargy, weakness, trouble concentrating for signs of hunger—the new kind of hunger. Ms. Mullen-Jones’ statement about the Divine Chains cult hadn’t seemed all that bad, when he’d first recorded it. Scarier than if he’d read its events in a novel, of course; that was just how statements worked. He experienced them more vividly than stories, though less so than the events of his own life. (Because the people they happened to thought they were real! he’d told himself when he first took this job. It’s empathy, that’s all. Nope, sorry—evil magic.) When he read a paper statement these days, though, the knowledge it wouldn’t give him nightmares never quite left him. And he’d thought he was growing desensitized to the kinds of horror most people came to the Institute to report. Coming back up, though—maybe it was the fever, but god, the visions he got on that statement’s way out, of Agape and the soft, sticky hivecorpse of Claude Vilakazi’s followers—the way it made the donut he’d shoved down that morning (in a show of team spirit, god help him) come back up tasting like rotten rice wine—it was worse than the dreams. Worse, he could have sworn, than even the first time he ever dreamt Naomi Herne’s empty graveyard.

While hanging over the bowl of the Archives’ toilet waiting to see if he’d got it all up or if there was still more to come, Jon remembered thinking again of the banana Martin had given him. A few days earlier Daisy had made him watch the video of the I don’t understand this meme and at this point I’m too afraid to ask man vore-ing a banana; Jon had confessed to her, in a conspiratorial whisper-laugh, that for him vore itself had been one such meme until that very second, when the Eye had seen fit to inform him. But when applied to a banana, the term apparently just meant eating it peel and all. In 2016 Martin had broken the banana’s stem and pulled back a section of peel before handing it to Jon, so as to brook no argument. Was it really the banana itself he’d cried over? Not the gesture of friendship, when Jon deserved it so little? The thought of someone caring for him enough that when he got hangry at them they handed him a snack. Martin had been living in the Archives then, like Jon did now. Sleeping in Document Storage—a guest in a room owned by pieces of paper. Those bananas may have been the only thing that felt like his.

A Guest for Mr. Spider was about vore, technically. Not an uncommon topic in children’s literature. Some surmised that was where the fetish came from, though others maintained kinks like that were inborn, and the stories merely alerted their hosts to them for the first time. Red riding hood, three little pigs, little old lady who swallowed a fly. The Leitner touch was only the part where he drew you to his real-life lair and real-life ate you.

Looking back, that was probably the first thing he’d ever admired about Martin—how easy he’d made it look to skin a fruit. Not at the time admired, of course, but in those weeks afterward, when every banana Jon ate made him claw at the peel til his finger joints throbbed.

That stomach bug had struck the Archives with serendipitous timing, though. If he’d not found out how thin abstinence from the Hunt had made Daisy on the same day he’d barfed up a statement, Jon might not have pieced together what their combined evidence meant. Until then he’d put down his own post-coma weight loss to the fact he rarely ate more people food than a donut in twenty-four hours. Lots of avatars were scrawny, after all. Jane Prentiss, Mike Crew, Justin Gough, Annabelle Cane, John Amherst, Simon Fairchild. Jude Perry and Jared Hopworth could mold their respective fleshes however they wanted, so he didn’t count them as exceptions. True, Trevor Herbert’s bulk had struck him as odd; surely a homeless man wouldn’t waste cash on food his body no longer wanted. And what about Breekon and Hope? Did butterflies and a quartermaster’s pen and tongue sustain them? But maybe, Jon had told himself, it was like with alcohol. Maybe the avatars with more flesh on their bones had worked to develop a tolerance for (air quotes, heavy sarcasm) people food, for the sake of their physiques, or. So they could, he didn't know, eat socially? Without feeling sick, like Jon did whenever one of the others brought donuts.

Preposterously stupid, this theory seemed in retrospect. The truth was much simpler. It was like Jude Perry’d told him. She was strong and he was weak, because she fed her god with her actions, while Jon’s had had to resort to eating his flesh.

He wasn’t going back to live statements! That wasn’t an option; he knew that. He couldn’t feed his god with his actions. But he could have more paper ones. Maybe they were like the candles poor Eugene Vanderstock used to bring Agnes—the ones she’d sat over for hours. Hours and hours, inhaling the suffering that made them. They��d kept her strong enough, right? At least in body. All those people in charge of her care, all so much in her thrall—if she’d looked hungry one of them would’ve mentioned it in a statement.

During Jon’s school days, back when he was still trying to learn how to be a girl, this brief window had opened up right around age thirteen where the girls around him had enough self-consciousness to start developing eating disorders? But not enough to keep them secret. Thirteen had been this phase of, like, I’m a teenager now, see? I’ve got the teen angst now—SEE?! Where after they’d finished the day’s maths assignment, or while setting up microscope slides, one could overhear girls swapping self-harm anecdotes and tips for how best not to eat. Anne, whom he’d been almost friends with, went through two packs of chewing gum a day for a while. She would shove three or four sticks at a time in her mouth, then spit them back out into their wrappers as soon as they lost their flavor. Eventually they made her sick, and she switched to chain-sucking butterscotch discs. (Most artificial sweeteners, as the Eye now informed him, had mild laxative properties—including those used in gum.) Other acquaintances had brought comically large thermoses of coffee to school every day, and scurried to the toilet between classes. But it was another polyurious crowd that Jon kept thinking of, these days—the kids who would chug water every time they felt hungry. Trying to fill up on paper statements felt just like that.

He’d never understood that urge until now. Hunger was already a bad sensation; why would it help to add the further bad sensations of nausea and stomachache and cold? But now it made sense: feeling better was not the point. The point was to stop wanting more. He couldn’t get rid of the hunger, exactly—not in a way that mattered. Not the shards of glass in his belly, not the itch in his esophagus like a finger tapping behind his gag reflex, not the way simple motions like soaping his hands made his whole body ache. Not the sharpening of his senses to such a fine point that he jumped whenever Thérèse in the office above him shut her desk’s sticky drawer. (He hadn’t known that was what made the squeaky noise until a few weeks ago when the Eye decided he might like some office gossip. Even now he didn’t know which of the faces he sometimes passed up there belonged to Thérèse. She had no statements to make.) Nor the fog in his mind, though he tried sometimes to blame that on the Lonely. He couldn’t sate his hunger with paper statements—couldn’t make himself full, in the rosy way we usually connote that word. All warm and carefree and pleasantly sleepy. But he could cram the hole inside him with enough stale horrors that the temptation to chase down a fresh one momentarily left him.

And that was the new plan—to stuff himself with paper statements.

Tomorrow would mark two weeks since the day he’d first tried it. Brian from Artefact Storage had a statement to give him, Jon could feel—either Stranger or Spiral, it was hard to tell quite which. Something that caused paranoia. Not a great fit for that department. Good fit for a temple of the Eye, Jon supposed, remembering Tim and Michael Shelley. But Artefact Storage? God help him. He wondered if Elias had done it on purpose, hiring a paranoid man to work in a room full of objects that wanted him hurt. If so it must’ve been this one—this purpose. And on Wednesday mornings Brian manned the place all alone. Poor soul was already clinging to this job by a thread, though (so, Web…? That could cause paranoia too, as Jon well knew). Surely if Jon made him relive his trauma that would break it. Though perhaps that’d be a mercy. And but besides, two weeks ago Melanie had still lived here, and sat all morning between Jon’s office and Artefact Storage. Until she went to lunch. But by that time the woman whose laugh Jon could sometimes hear through the walls (Pooja, the Eye had since told him her name was) would have joined Brian. And it’d just be too weird, too risky, to go in and ask him about it with a third person in the room. Even if it wasn’t also evil.

So he’d read 0132210—the statement of Sierra Talbot, regarding a swimming pool whose depth changed every time she entered it—in hopes that’d make him quit thinking about the paranoid man down the hall. It didn’t, not really; paper statements didn’t take up as much of his attention as they used to. But he couldn’t get up and walk to Artefact Storage in the middle of one. When he finished and still couldn’t think of anything but Brian, he dug out another statement (this one from 1938, regarding a bad penny). Just to keep himself chained to his desk til lunch. And then a third (Liza Ho, attack of the killer seagulls). And by the end of that one he felt too heavy and cold inside to want to go anywhere but the couch. It made his stomach swell until it hurt to sit up straight, and the thought of shoving anything more inside made him feel sick—exactly like chugging water every time he felt hungry.

Basira had said maybe the Web just wanted to keep them so afraid of their own impulses they sat and did nothing so they couldn’t be puppeted. Maybe she was right. He’d never felt more like a spider, with his weak, skinny limbs and bloated stomach. Lying on the couch massaging other people’s horrors into more comfortable shapes inside him. Thank god he’d already given up tucking in his shirts, when he came back after the coma. Jon had worn the same trousers for three days in a row, now—shucked them off at the end of the day, hoping if he left them on the floor that’d convince him they were too dirty to wear again, and then slipped them back on over clean boxers in the morning. They were the only trousers he had that stayed up with the button left unfastened.

(Technically, the noun bloat refers to the feeling of weight or tightness in the abdomen. To describe a belly which has expanded beyond its typical size, one should use the word distended. Though these phenomena can occur separately, most people conflate them under the single word bloated. This trivia had seemed worthless when Beholding told him of it. But now he knew better. Every morning he woke up feeling like he’d had his whole torso replaced with the aching void of space, empty but for silver glints of pain that were the stars. And then he’d look down and find his belly still distended.)

Melanie and Basira didn’t know—at least not officially. They both seemed to have noticed how much more often lately they’d walked in on him recording, but Jon was pretty sure they suspected him less of bingeing on statements, more of pretending to record so as to avoid talking to them. He welcomed this misapprehension.

It was also possible they knew but declined to comment, since. Well, it was kind of a pathetic habit? Physically, a bit pathetic. Morally, though, such a big improvement over compelling statements by force that maybe they figured they ought to let him have it. If so he should be grateful, he reminded himself. Their pity, after all, was humiliating only in principle; Daisy’s teasing and concerned questions embarrassed him in practice.

“Enough navelgazing,” Daisy scoffed, but when Jon looked over at her he could see a smile creeping its way onto her face. “Look—finish the one you’re on, then come over here and I’ll. Tell you a story.”

“I—what?”

“Don’t know if it’ll count as a ‘statement,’” she said, with air quotes; “not much fear in it, more just.” She looked at the floor, then shrugged. “But it seems worth a try, yeah? Might make you feel better.”

“I-I, er. I really shouldn’t?” He meant in case it had a taste of human blood effect, but set his hand on his stomach again in hopes she’d think he meant he was too full.

“Yeah, you should. I want you to hear it.” Daisy shrugged again. “Think it might do you good to know.”

Jon turned back to his desk, unpaused the recording and wrapped up the statement. He’d quit bothering to record end notes on most of these—told himself he could add them in later, like he used to when he’d first taken this job. How proud 2016 Jon would have been to see how many statements the 2018 Archivist got through in a week.

He paused for a moment before standing up, to take as deep a breath as he could manage when stuffed full of paper. The end of that statement had gone down easier, since he’d had that few minutes’ break talking to Daisy, but he still didn’t love the idea of standing and walking. Especially since he knew once he got to the couch he’d be glued there by fatigue. If he didn’t pee now, he’d spend most of the night far enough into sleep to be paralyzed, but not far enough to numb his bladder. He excused himself to Daisy, promising to come right back. Then hauled himself up, with help from his cane and one arm of his chair.

Six limbs it took to maneuver this body now. Two more and he’d’ve gone full spider.

Three quarters of the way to the bathroom—that’s how long it took before the ache in his legs outpaced that in his stomach. He arrived on the toilet seat shaky and out of breath, as always. Months ago he’d given up standing to pee. When you sat you could rock back and forth, and cross your arms tight over waves of quease.

Not much came out, as was also usual lately. As far as Jon could tell, his body now required only enough water to keep his mouth from drying out while recording. Dehydration no longer made his head hurt, so, why bother. Good thing, too, he supposed—the last two weeks he hadn’t needed much non-metaphorical water inside for his body to parse that as needing to pee.

He let his trousers stay pooled around his ankles until after he’d washed and dried his hands. Then pulled up his shirt, to judge from his reflection whether they’d stay up with the fly undone. If he kept his hands in his pockets, yeah. Could you tell the difference, visually, once he put his shirt tails back down? Not for such a short distance. They wouldn’t have time to get disarranged.

It didn’t matter; Basira didn’t even glance at him on his way back, and all Institute staff who didn’t live here had gone home.

Jon opened the door to his office, said hello to Daisy but didn’t manage to look at her, and sat himself down on the other side of the couch. From the corner of his eye (or someone’s anyway) he saw her rise to her feet. “I’m gonna pee too,” she told him, picking her way toward the door; “get yourself comfortable, like you’re going to bed.”

“Where will you sit.”

“I’ll squeeze in.”

“I don’t mind leaving room for—?” Finally he made himself look up at her, in time to see her shake her head. Daisy hadn’t been strong on her feet either, since the Buried; she held herself up now with a hand on the doorjamb, elbow bent so her shoulder leant against that wrist. He regretted quibbling. “Never mind; I’ll just.”

“Really? You’re comfortable like that? You look like a sheep in clover.”

The knowledge came to him before he could ask her what that meant—complete with a nasty visual of what happens in cases acute enough to require rumenotomy. Jon swore he could feel himself swelling to accommodate this tidbit. His eye twitched in discomfort.

“Think I prefer ‘windbag,’ if it’s all the same to you.”

She made a face like that was grosser than what she had said. “You ruined my joke. I was gonna say I won’t let you have any more leaves til you look less like you might explode.”

“Sheep in clover suffocate,” Jon frowned; “they don’t explode. You must be thinking of how they cure them when—”

“Leaves. In. A. Book, Jon. That joke.”

“Oh. Yes, I see.” He made himself chuckle.

Daisy sighed and shifted on her feet. “I’ll be right back. Just lie down, alright? Like you’re going to bed.”

Jon agreed to lie down, but couldn’t decide whether to face the wall (as he would to sleep), leaving her to slide in between him and the back of the couch the way she had a few times before when she’d walked in on him catnapping, or whether he should lie on his back, where he could see her as soon as she opened the door. It was important to make sure she knew he appreciated her offer to give him a statement. Or, no—to tell him her story, he meant.

Ultimately he picked the latter course.

“You sleep like that?”

“Sometimes."

“I’ve never seen you sleep like that. You always face the wall.” Daisy crossed her arms, blew hair out of her face. “That for the tummy ache, or for me?”

“Uh….”

“Would it hurt you to face the wall.”

“No, I just.”

“Turn around, then. I’ll squeeze in,” she said again.

“I-if you’re sure.”

He rolled onto his side, gritting his teeth as the cramps in his stomach swirled in new directions. What made it slosh like that, he wondered. While he fought to regain his breath Jon watched Daisy climb up onto the back of the couch on shaking elbows and knees, then avalanche down hands- and feet-first so she fit between him and its cushions. He’d never watched her do this before—always either startled out of a doze at the sound of her thumping down next to him, or simply woken up to find her there.

“You’re just like the Admiral,” he informed her.

“True words spoken in jest,” muttered Daisy. Too quietly for him to hear what she said over the couch’s tortured creaks, but half a second after she finished speaking the words appeared before his mind, in white, all-capital letters with a black background like closed captions on the news. “That’s Georgie’s cat, right?” she said aloud.

“Yes.”

Her knee jostled the cap of his; when it made him gasp she snarled under her breath. “Sorry. Can you move your leg?”

“Yes, it’s fine, just—”

“I mean would you move your leg.”

“Oh.” He did so.

“Thanks. Ugh—you’re cold,” Daisy accused him; “where’s that blanket.” He pointed behind her to the arm of the couch where it lay folded. She shook it out, and draped it over both of them. Reached around behind him to make sure it covered his whole back. Jon tried to ignore the way his stomach lurched every time Daisy’s weight shifted against the cushions. Finally she settled next to him to catch her breath. Their foreheads touched; her stomach pressed into his, though not as tightly as the last time they’d lain like this. “Can you breathe or am I crushing you?”

“Not at all, you’re fine—in fact, if the couch cushions are chafing you too much you can—”

Daisy huffed, and scooted herself in closer to him. “That better?” She set her warm hand down right where his belly diverged from pelvis. Jon tried to keep both voice and tremor out of his exhale. Since the coffin, Daisy’s hands and feet suffered at night and after any exertion from the same excess of heat his sometimes did. So the cold inside him probably felt nice on her hand, if not to the rest of her.

(Like snuggling up to a hotel mattress, she’d described it, after the first time she joined him for a nap when he’d just had a statement. Cold, hard, covered in lumps and dents, and creaks when you roll over on it. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” he’d replied, while praying her elbow wouldn’t come any closer to the crevasse where his ribs used to be.)

“Christ you’re stuffed,” commented Daisy. For emphasis she lifted her fingers, then set them back down on his gut.

“I don’t know what you expected.”

“You won’t pop if I tell you a story?”

“Not literally,” Jon said, blinking.

“Of course not literally,” she scoffed; “you know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Will it make you sick. Don’t want you throwing up on me; this is Melanie’s shirt. If you ruin it she’ll hit us with her cane, and I don’t trust you to hit as hard back with yours.”

“Mine’s shorter and thicker,” he mused. “I don’t have to hit as hard.”

“Stop. Avoiding. The question.”

Jon sighed to show her he capitulated. Then thought about it. He felt cold and sick, but the idea of saying no to a statement made those feelings worse, not better. And the sharp clusters of pain in his belly were harder to sleep through than quease.

“I’ll be fine,” he decided. “It’ll help.”

“Alright. When you’re ready, ask me what I used to do when I got shaky between hunts.”

Read part two here.

#stuffing #nausea #stomachache #hunger kink #a shifty tract #nonsearchable tma tag #other titles i. jocoseriously considered include 'divine chains' (like the cult from 153 get it?);#'too much information' and 'a movable-type feast'.#also for a long time the file on my computer was called 'statement eating: the moive' because alas i was a teenage h/omes/tuck

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cockasinthebird · 5 years ago

Text

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.” -William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 3 Scene 5

Brown and blue both stare up at the many a love declarations on the underside of the bleachers of Hawkins High. Football practice has begun, along with their ever so faithful cheerleaders, and while Robin was here just for how short those skirts went, Steve was here for both those legs, and the sweaty muscles of the blonde haired quarter back; how he shone like diamonds underneath the ruthless summer sky.

Robin hands him the roach, and he has possibly never felt more at peace than now, in the shade with the occasional breeze. But of course, he thought so every time the two of them decided to get high and lie in the grass.

“Tommy + Carol 4 Ever,” Steve reads out loud. “Fucking asshole.”

“Aw, does poor Steve still feel abandoned?” Robin pouts falsely and puts both hands behind her head.

“Shithead was my best friend for most of our lives, and now he's off somewhere licking Billy Hargrove's boot.” He frowns whilst pressing the final embers of their joint into the grass.

“You're just jealous,” she laughs mockingly at him and turns her head to peek out through the seats.

And Steve leans up on his elbows to look past her and in the same direction, to where he sees Billy Hargrove tearing off his helmet with a victorious smile, mullet done up in a low bun, bangs clinging wetly to his forehead.

“Fuck no,” he lies.

“Come on, Dingus.” Robin knocks their shoes together. “You know you can't lie to me.”

“I can try,” he huffs a laugh and looks at how she mimics him genuinely.

“You think I got it any better?” her laugh turns to a scoff and points up. “Tammy Thompson loves John Johnson.” And there's a deep silence for a few short seconds as she keeps her finger in the direction of that etching. “Who the fuck names their child John Johnson?”

Steve cannot contain his chortle, and she is right behind with her usual snort; the one that only comes forth when they're this high.

“It would be like-” Steve takes a deep inhale. “If you were named Robin Robinson!”

“Or you Steve Stevenson!”

“Is that a real name?!”

“Y-yes?” Robin fights against the grin that wants to spread all too wide, and looks at him. “Robert Louis Stevenson!”

“Who?” Steve keeps breathing slowly to try and calm down from something that isn't actually that funny, but when you got bloodshot eyes like these, everything is.

“The famous writer? He wrote Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”

Steve leans up on his elbows again to stare down at her with the most bewildered look this illiterate teen can manage. “Mr Hyde as in... our chemistry teacher?”

“Oh...” Robin's blue blue eyes grow as wide as they can. “My God... Steve... No wonder you're failing literally every class.”

And his expression falls from confused to somewhat offended, but it is the inevitable truth. “It's fine,” he says with nary a worry, “I will get a job at my father's office as... I dunno, coffee guy? Mailman?”

“You really think he'd put you in charge of something as important as their postal service?”

Rather than come up with a sensible reply to that remark, he simply grabs a fistful of grass and throws it at her.

He smiles, she laughs, and the both of them settle down once more with only the loud cheers from the girls in uniform to fill the comfortable silence they find themselves in again, as they continue reading everything that's been carved and written into the far too old wood.

Steve's name can be found numerous times, both in forms of compliments-

“I wish Steve Harrington would notice me.”

“Mrs Harrington is my dream job.”

“Steve Harrington the Keg King.”

All surrounded by hearts.

On one step it reads, “Steve 'The Hair' Harrington” in suspiciously familiar handwriting.

He used to bring girls down here, too, and would have them watch as he reached high above them and wrote his name + theirs.

Steve + Laurie. Crossed out. Steve + Amy. Crossed out. Steve + Becky. Crossed out.

He never got to bring Nancy here. Brought Robin here originally for the same reason as the rest, but she was quick to tell him the truth as he stood too close.

At least they remained friends.

“Is your name up there somewhere?” he asks her, having never actually found it.

“I'm a band dweeb, what do you think?” she sighs but acts like it doesn't bother her.

“Do you want it to be?”

“Nope,” she lies and pops the p.

And of course he doesn't believe her, but he considers himself too nice to press her on any of it.

Silence drags on for what feels like eternity crammed into one minute, and he's got something on his mind, but has absolutely no clue how to work it into conversation all casual like, because it's kinda a big deal, but he doesn't want to seem a fool for thinking so.

So he tries to just flat out say it, “Robin?”

“Steve.”

“You're... smart, right?” He feels himself failing at just saying what he's thinking.

“Smarter than you, although that's not saying much,” she chuckles out and looks to him, but he seems... nervous, and she stops. “What's up, dingus?”

“I... I got a note in my locker today, and I don't really know what it means,” Steve speaks hesitantly and rips small pieces off of a blade of grass.

Robin's brows quirks up. “Oh? And you want me to decipher it for you?”

He sits up far too fast, and even though his body remains still, the world spins for longer than what is possible. “Would you?” There is such a brightness to his tone.

“Sure, what does it say?” She gets up as well and crosses her legs.

Steve fishes out a paper that has become impossibly crumbled up in his front pocket, to a point where the letters written in beautiful cursive is almost unintelligible.

“I love you more than words can wield the matter; dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.”

And while she turns the paper around and re-reads those words, Steve stares unblinkingly so at her.

“So?” he finally asks, bursting with anticipation.

“So, it's a love letter.” She hands it back, and he looks at the paper with such admiration, as if he had forgotten he was worthy of such, just to be reminded of it now. “It's Shakespeare, King Lear. It means that she loves you more than words can describe.”

At that he looks up, beaming with elation as he asks for reassurance, “Seriously?”

“Yup.” She is clearly far less excited, but there's optimism to her tone, to know that he might find what they're both longing for, whether out loud or in secret.

“Someone wrote me a love note...” His smile wide with shocked disbelief.

“Congratulations.” She rolls her eyes although with raised lips, and lies down again.

The very next day, shortly after lunch has begun, he finds another in his locker and runs to where Robin would be eating her lunch alone in the unattended library.

Steve slams down the paper in front of her, and she pauses just before biting into her boring ham sandwich.

“Well well well lover boy,” she mocks lightly and places her food back down on the tray. “I assume you're in need of my service once again?”

The chair next to her screeches across the floor as he sits down with a hard bump. “Yes, and it's the same handwriting as last, so that means it's the same girl, right?”

“Hey now, I haven't agreed to anything yet!” She slaps her hand down on top of the paper, and smirks. “I will help you with this, again, if you buy me pizza after school.”

“Yeah, deal, whatever, just-” He gestures wildly to the neatly folded paper. “Tell me what it means!”

Robin shakes her head and slumps back into her seat; slipping down a bit with her legs splayed out all comfortable and taking up far too much space.

“Love is blind, and lovers cannot see, the pretty follies that themselves commit.”

She nods for a moment in thought, fully ignoring the way Steve's eyes could drill holes in her skull.

“I think it's from The Merchant of Venice. It means... something like, how love makes you act different?”

And since she seems satisfied with that, nods more and lets out a little “Yeah,” so is he.

“Okay, so, someone that acts differently around me?”

Robin taps her temple with a blackened nail and continues nodding like it's all he understands. Still, to ensure he gets her point, says, “You got it.”

Now it is his turn to slump into his chair, but far more confused. “How... how am I supposed to know that they act differently around me? Isn't that how I'll always have seen them, then?”

She raises her brows at that and sits up a bit more straight. “How astute!”

As if he knows what that means.

Through the weekend he waits on his bed, each note in hand and smiling so wide his cheeks grow sore.

Two love letters in two days? They are meant for him, right? This girl didn't accidentally put it in the wrong locker, right?

Steve catches himself briefly hoping she's beautiful, but pushes that aside by the fact that she's so poetically inclined, so sweet and shy that her looks hardly matters, for her choice of words warms his heart and makes it beat in a way that he has oh so missed.

Another thought is what if it's Robin, but he shakes his head violently at that stupid little thing, because no, she's his best friend and that's all they'll ever be, and he truly is happy with that. But everyone gets wrong and bad ideas from time to time, so he won't fault himself for her name popping up, as he mentally goes through a list of all the girls he knows. Or thinks he knows.

And though he tries to distract himself with TV and swimming in his pool and letting Robin paint his toenails, Monday always feels so far away.

It is the first thing he does when he shows up at school; pushes his way through his peers to fling open his locker, and sure enough a little note slips out.

He skims it for just a second before he rushes off to stand by Robin's locker for when she eventually moves to it and shoves him aside.

“Another?” she asks with her head in her locker as she rummages for gum.

“I knew she was gonna leave me another! I could feel it in my body the entire weekend!” his tone pitched high with excitement.

“Ew, gross, I don't need to know that!” she jokes and yanks it from his grasp.

“Come what sorrow can, it cannot countervail the exchange of joy, that one short minute gives me in her sight.”

And Steve folds it, lovingly so, before placing it inside his wallet, and thankfully he doesn't have to wait long for a more modern translation of it.

“Something something about how her pain and misery goes away in your presence; in the presence of a loved one. Romeo and Juliet, which is not a happy love story!” she says ardently and points a stern finger at him for emphasis.

“Okay, but does that mean we have classes together at least then?” Steve shrugs and runs a hand through his shiny hair.

“Probably? Or maybe some extra curricular activity,” Robin's tone careless and she starts down the hall, with Steve right behind.

“But the only other extra whatever I take is basket.”

“So maybe your admirer is a guy.”

He shakes his head with conviction. “Nah, I doubt that completely, I mean you've seen the handwriting! And what guy is into Shakespeare?”

“Anything is possible Steve, don't be so close minded.”

For once he is early to first-period history class, and he sits on the desk Robin usually occupies, to which she responds with throwing her bag into his lap, accompanied by a cocked brow and strong stare.

Steve doesn't say a thing, simply lifts up a fourth note, and she snags with from his fingers with an exasperated sigh.

“I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”

She groans out loud now and pushes him off of her table. “Come on dingus, this one is easy! You cannot be this stupid.”

“Just tell me what it is!” he says as he shuffles into the seat in front of hers.

“She only wants you, no one else, Jesus.”

“Oh,” he breathes out, his wide grin that of pure joy, and although this is a tiring thing to be bothered with every day now, she does appreciate his happiness to some extend.

Wednesday morning Robin is already by Steve's locker, arms crossed and a friendly smile painted across her face.

“Let's see what your stalker has come up with this time,” she says and leans away so that he can twist the lock in the right order.

And today it is a far shorter note.

“Love hath made thee a tame snake.”

She doesn't bother waiting before saying, “Love will humble and soften even the most hardened individual.” And there's a glint in her eyes, so short and easily missed, revealing that she might have an idea as to which hardened individual this could be. Not that she hadn't thought about him before already.

For she had seen his copy of As You Like It by Shakespeare fall from his bag in English Literature, but it is not her place to out anyone.

“That's a weird one, right?” His brows furrowed as he awaits affirmation. “Hardened individual? What does that even mean?”

“Steve, I-” She rubs her eyes hard and nods. “Yeah, it is a weird one. But it probably means someone who's acting tough, but in truth softens around you.”

He folds it back up and slips it into his wallet together with the other four.

“Tomorrow, then,” Robin says and pats his shoulder a few times before heading to class.

Steve stays still for a moment, looking at how the five notes stretches the leather of his wallet. His thumb runs over their ripped edges, all seemingly from the same piece of paper, thinking about the dainty fingers that must hold the ballpoint pen to write him such loving words.

Cheeks flushed, smile tender, eyes soft, he wanders towards class as well.

Months ago when he and Robin became best friends, she took a very slight interest in him and his education, because he very clearly needs help with school, and she's suspicious of the fact that he might be dyslexic, but when asked about it he gets mad.

So instead she demands food and favors from him whenever he starts screwing up in school again, starts falling behind, or shows up late to class. And of course he has slept through his alarm for the first time in weeks on this Thursday, the one day of two where they have first-period together, and now he'll have to pay for dinner at the diner, but he has a good excuse!

Sat up all night with several books written by none other than William Shakespeare that he had checked out at the library.

He's hungry and tired and in a goddamn hurry to get to class ASAP; the hallways empty and silent save for the occasional teacher yelling at an unruly student, but even that he can hardly hear over the beating of his heart, which is just great, because now he'll spend all day with floppy hair and reeking of sweat.

He just has to make a quick stop by his locker to see if there's a new note, the only thing that truly matters and overshadows the importance of getting passing grades or upholding his deal with Robin.

Around the next corner and... and...

And it never dawned on him at any point, even with Robin's constant droning of “Guys can read Shakespeare, too!” that his secret admirer might not be a girl at all. Maybe he was just so stuck in the expected reality of the world, the one he's so used to, before Robin helped him see the light, to help him realize that there's other options than gay or straight.

No he never even bothered thinking that way, till he sees Billy Hargrove slip something into his locker.

#Harringrove #My Writing #Steve Harrington #Robin Buckley #Billy Hargrove #Shakespeare #Fluffy fluff fluff #pining #I got drunk last night and listened to #twelfth night #And was like #Poet Billy? Poet Billy.#I think I've seen some other people talk about their love for that #and altho out of character imo #it was nice and fun #I write a lot of smut so stuff like this is RARE and a breath of fresh air to me #10/10 would write Poet Billy again #Also dumbass oblivious Steve #too much fun

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pandemilkbread · 4 years ago

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paubaya (angst!oneshot)

authors note: hello! i had an angsty dream last night and instead of pouring out my thoughts and using it to write on my story... it made me write a oneshot. also, the new moira song had me thinking— why shouldn’t i make this into an angsty oneshot too... hm.

anyways. please enjoy :>

Bakugo Katsuki x Reader

Paubaya

noun /pa·u·ba·ya/ origins. filipino

summary: You were far from being a pessimist; but you knew, you utterly knew, that loving Bakugo Katsuki would end in heartbreak.

intro.

You loved reading. Your favorite part? The ending. Especially when the villain’s wicked schemes go haywire at the hands of the prince, who in the name of love saves his beloved from their wicked hands.

As a past time, you would imagine the days when your own prince charming would sweep you off your feet; promising his unconditional love for you. Showers of light glistening all the way to your magnificent castle.

But by the tender age of nine did you start doubting those acts of prose in fairytales. Maybe, just maybe, if you believed hard enough he would finally show up.

And by the miserable age of eleven, when your own father left your home for the final time, the only words of assurance your mother could give you were:

“Oh, honey. Sometimes the hardest kind of love is the one you have to leave behind.”

first verse.

You loved writing. Your favorite part? The words. How they instantly relieved yourself of thoughts that lurked deep within your subconscious. Your hands scribbled endlessly on the pages of your notebook, professing your love for the kind boy in class (oh, please someone save your sweet heart).

The contents of your diary will forever remain confidential. The objective? You thought by writing down how you felt for him could you move on from his clutches. He wasn’t necessarily a villain, but to you— a fragile girl at the age of thirteen, he could easily scar you for life.

A bit over the top for someone so young; but you like to think about it this way. To save yourself from the embarrassment of rejection, to save yourself from bawling your eyes out thereof; keeping it to yourself was the best course of action.

When the burden became too heavy, you continued writing every single feeling down until you were left empty to the core. What’s left to do? Rip out each and every page and burn it.

Yet, it was a mishap really. When the gods decided to play you like a fool when the medium of your leaked thoughts disappeared. A joke? Not a funny one at all.

And only on the rooftop of your middle school building did you realize where your missing item went. Into the hands of the person you liked.

By now, you were fuming. How dare he take something that did not belong to him? How dare he—

“How stupid is it of you to believe that any fraction of kindness anyone gives you is equal to love?”

He was right. You were stupid enough to fall for his good looks and kindness, you were dumb enough to be swayed by his charms. Though his angelic persona couldn’t stop you from punching the lights out of his face.

(but the cries of his friends hiding behind the door did.)

pre-chorus.

Bakugo Katsuki was an enigma. It was near impossible to comprehend how someone that attractive could be devil’s reincarnate, you even felt the heat of Hell radiating out of his body.

He was no prince charming; no one convinced you otherwise. And yet, you couldn’t help yourself but fall for the antagonist. The epitome of a fairytale villain right in the flesh.

You first met him in high school, your first year specifically, in the nurses’ office. As a student intern for Recovery Girl, you spent most of your days in her office handling paperwork. Quite surprising really how a quirkless student like you made it into the prestigious school in the first place.

Well, where you lacked you made up for. You had your brains to thank. It made up for the lack of power, good enough to get you in the general department.

Anyhow, if someone came up to you and said ‘you’ll be swept of your feet, baby!’ you’d scoff and retort back in laughter. But when Bakugo Katsuki came into your life, it was a pretty close demonstration of what it felt like to be a princess— one that was blasted of her feet.

(and you didn’t mean it figuratively. nope, he really did blast you off your feet.)

chorus.

How it happened? Simple, a rage visit to the nurse.

The door slammed open revealing an irked pomeranian covered in bruises. Bakugo marched over to your desk looming an irritated expression. For someone who’d look like he could blast you into smithereens, you stared in awe. He was really attractive in person.

You’ve heard of the boy from passing conversations in your department. His name frequently mentioned when the words sports festival and kidnapping popped up. His reputation couldn’t prepare you for his good looks, you would never admit it but, god does he look good.

And with that, he said his first words to you: “What the fuck are you looking at?”

Ah, yes. How romantic. You held back an eye roll and stood up. Predictable. He was probably looking for Recovery Girl to fix that bleeding gash on his temple, but sadly the latter was unavailable. Something around the lines of quick bathroom break or teacher meeting.

“She’s not here. Bear with it for a sec, let me get something to help.” You mumbled.

Being the only intern for the office had its perks, you freely practiced first aid when the paperwork was bearable and no one was around. You cleaned the wounds with an antiseptic, then proceeded to patch them up with bandages and some gauzes.

You found it amusing how the loud boy remained quiet on the chair while you were working on him. You finished your treatment with a pat to his head, “Good boy, you can leave now.”

Your words just seemed to rile him, ending the conversation with a “What’dya call me, ugly!?”

second verse.

By now, you were well-acquainted with Bakugo’s bunch of friends that you call the semi-crackheads and the real-crackheads. It was easy to differentiate the members into the two categories. All you had to do was think: among all of them, who had the most potential to burn down the school in flames?

Bakugo obviously stands at the top of that list followed by Kaminari, and Mina. The other lesser two evils, Kirishima and Sero, were safely sorted into the semi’s.

How you met? Simple, repetitive gestures you did whenever you saw Blasty.

After the events in the nurses’ office you’ve come to notice the boy more at school. Whenever lunch came around your eyes would instantly search for his figure, darting around for any sign. When it ends in vain, you sighed.

The next day however, you found him by the corner of the cafeteria with his friends. You focused your time gazing at Bakugo’s mop of hair, and in turn, he looked up and met your own. You sent him a nasty grin and for some reason, he sent a glare back.

The boy, obviously distracted from the conversation at their table, caused sets of eyes to turn to the source of his focus. Now gazed upon not one, but five sets of faces with undiscernible looks. So this is what being the center of attention feels like.

(you sincerely hoped it would stop. though you only have yourself to blame for it.)

pre-chorus.

Time flies quick when you’re surrounded by people who make your life difficult. And when you mean difficult, you mean constant trips to the nurses’ office when any of the quintet manage to injure themselves. Unsurprisingly, this happened frequently.

Apparently, the pomeranian revealed you worked for Recovery Girl and made his friends intrigued. Especially when he called you “ugly” more times than they could remember.

You were already on your second year of high school when Mina proposed you joined their group study session. Evidently, you had the best grades in the general department, well— except for math, and they wanted to use it to their advantage. You willingly accepted though, with the exchange of having blastboy teach you your weakest subject.

(only after being taunted.)

You felt the rush of heat that swirled in your stomach when Bakugo meets your eyes, grinning. It remained in your thoughts the night after, the feelings rising and falling every second that passed.

By then, you knew you were screwed. Oh god, he was going to break your heart.

chorus.

“Do you like someone?” You muttered one day. The other four members of your so-called study group (more like a cramming team, you’d retort.) missed out on today’s session as they had other things to do.

This left you and Bakugo as the only participants. The silence was unbearable, truthfully you had done enough reviewing to last a year, but you wanted to attend for the sake of seeing his face.

You knew he was a loud one, a potty mouth at that, and it was worrying to see him so... silent. You wanted to break the peace by riling him up and to your disappointment, he remained silent.

He did reply though, minutes after.

“...Shut up, extra.”

His usual snap backs always made you laugh. Even when it looked like he was going to send you into an early grave. But the way he said it right now, made you nauseous. Something akin to dread swiveled within you. No, it couldn’t be?

One of your many talents lie in the skill of perception; and perceptive you were. More so when it involved the people you cared about, and you more than cared for feisty boy.

You reached out and grabbed him by the collar, forcing him to look into your eyes. The tangerine color of the sunset couldn’t hide the pinkish hue that was plastered on his cheeks. Funny as it was, a part of you wanted to scoff. The Bakugo Katsuki likes someone.

With that, a small part of you shattered. The remaining bits of pieces tied together by a string hanging loosely in anticipation, was it you?

“Who is it?” You whispered.

You were far from being a pessimist and you held on to that hope so tightly. Please give me a chance, please don’t break it. In that matter of seconds before his answer, you prayed ever so gently.

And when he breathed out a name that clearly was not yours, all hope died.

(and you with it. if you had just kept your mouth shut.)

bridge.

Her name came up more often than you thought; and to your dismay, you noticed the growing grin that came along with it. Bakugo sported a different kind of vibe the moment any conversation stirred towards the object of his affections.

And more often than you liked; the feelings of anguish mixed with the bitterness twisted ever so constantly in your chest. Like a weighing anchor falling into the sea, an endless rope diving deep into its waters.

As cheesy as it was, you but feel... hurt? For what reason? You hardly knew yourself. Though a deep part of you truly hoped, maybe, even a tiny little bit, that he liked you.

Seemingly, your fondness for the boy must have clouded your senses by the time Kirishima showed up at the library one afternoon. With all knowing look, he sat down opposite of you and mumbled:

“You know, for a guy that’s pretty smart. He can be real dense sometimes.”

Your heart leapt. You took a deep breath and counted. One, he couldn’t know. Two, he shouldn’t know. Three, was it that obvious? Four, does he know? You flipped the pages of your textbook, pretending to be so immersed in the subject that—

“He’s never going to know if you don’t speak up.” Was he reading your mind now?

“How’d you find out?” You sighed, dropping your head into your palms.

“You’re not the only observant one.”

Of course. Besides the dense Bakugo, there were four other sets of eyes in your group. One of them must have noticed how stiff, or how unusual (more like miserable) you’ve been acting. You gotta hand it to them though, they work fast.

“It shouldn’t be like this. Why am I so miserable?”

A pause, then two, then three. Kirishima weighed your options, and like the supportive friend he was, he gave you an answer.

“You should talk it out. Let him know. Because at the end, you’ll be the one who suffers the most. Just try.”

outro.

And by some interference of faith, more like some intervention from Mina and coaxing from Kaminari, you waited outside the 3-A homeroom for the so-called love of your life. You’d prefer to stop the cheesy antics, yet your nerves were all over the place. You needed something to calm you down.

Earlier that day, you sent a message to Bakugo asking him to meet you halfway. 6 PM. Outside 3-A. Don’t be late, stupid. Minutes pass and there was no sign of the guy. Figures.

Just as you were about to call quits the man of the hour finally showed up, sporting a look of annoyance.

“You finally decide to text me back, extra.”

Of course he was mad, you ignored his texts the past week. Avoiding him like the plague.

“Hm. You missed me?” You heart beats frantically in your chest.

“Who would miss you, ugly.”

And there it was, the whomper. Giggles erupted from your mouth and you wiped the almost tears in your eyes. Although his words seemed derogatory, the way he looked refuted his words. He was visibly upset at your attempts of ignoring him.

“I’m sorry. The exams were really difficult.” You consoled. “I missed you too, Katsuki.”

With that, you saw the cogs twisting and turning in his head. His face showing a definite ‘what the fuck just happened’ expression. Of course he did, this was the first time you’ve ever called him by his first name.

You hoped for the best that was enough for you to get your message across. He was pretty smart, but pretty stupid. Oh well.

You sort of realized that even the words pass by his ears and he barely understood a thing, you were happy. Yes, you were still miserable. Yes, you wanted him to love you the same way you did. But, sometimes the best way of loving someone was to let them go.

You didn’t want to burden him with your problems, or even add more to his. So you decided to keep your feelings to yourself. Kirishima must be berating you right now. You laughed.

The journey to moving on would be tough. You knew it. Telling him the truth would be so much easier. You knew it too. Just like your mother said, sometimes the hardest kind of love is the one you left behind.

And no way in hell were you leaving Bakugo Katsuki.

end note: so that’s the end aaaaaa i wanted to keep it as a oneshot but for some reason... part two??? bakugo’s pov??? AAAAAAAAA okay yes reader chan kept her feelings to her self. it’s a bit sad, but you know... that’s life and you don’t always get what you deserve :<

thank you for reading!!

#bnha #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #bnha oneshots #katsuki bakugo #bakugo katsuki #bakugo x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bnha fanfiction #oneshots #oneshot #boku no hero imagines #boku no hero scenarios #angst fic

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deadmomjokes · 4 years ago

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Hey, I was wondering if you'd be willing to share how you came to the decision to have a kid? I'm struggling with it a lot since having kids has been expected of me my whole life and now that I'm married it feels even more like an expectation than a choice of my own to make with my spouse. I guess I'm trying to understand others' reasons for their decision to help me come up with one for myself. Sorry if this is a bother!

Not a bother at all!

For me, it was kind of a slow process. As a kid, it was assumed folks just grew up and would have kids, and at first I just went along with it. Then when I got old enough to realize the amount of responsibility involved, and that it involved *gasp* kissing boys, I was all kinds of NOPE. But I didn’t tell anyone that. I just inwardly figured I’d be the Fun Aunt who never got married, never had kids, and lived with a bunch of dogs and maybe a horse.

Then, after my mom died (I was about 17), something weird happened. Idk if you’re the kind of person who believes in spirits, the afterlife, the before-life, souls, etc, but I started feeling two things very strongly: 1, I somehow felt/knew my mom was looking after my kids until they could come to earth, and 2, I felt a very specific presence that I realized was my first daughter, whom I now have the pleasure of having irl.

Obviously, not everyone is going to have that kind of experience, but for me, it was a big “OH” moment, and I realized that what I didn’t like was the expectation of it all, and also, what teenager/kid is really ready for or ready to accept the responsibilities and realities of having kids? Of course I didn’t want kids, I was too young, and that’s how it should have been!

When I ended up meeting and marrying my now husband, we talked about kids, and we both knew we were waiting on at least our first daughter (fun story: we both independently “realized” her name way before we were ever married. her name is Ivy Marie, and it kind of just came really strongly to both of us. this girl, I tell ya, she’s had some serious Opinions even before she was born, and she wanted to make dang sure we knew what her name was going to be.). But we figured we’d start having kids years down the line, after enjoying just being us.

Then, randomly and totally by chance, I ended up doing my academic internship in Early Childhood Development and Parental Education, and about that same time I started feeling like “maybe I should have a baby?”. It was super weird. I can’t really describe how I knew, except as a “should do” that came from beyond and yet inside me. But it wasn’t one of those, “Oh, everyone says I should have kids or should start having them now” kind of things, it was this really unshakeable feeling that I missed my children. Like I knew them already, and was waiting for them. And that now (then) was the time to go ahead and see what I could do about meeting them, whether that was having a baby naturally, adopting, fostering, etc.

It’s all really nebulous to describe, but for me, it was a real, almost tangible thing. I knew, just like knowing you’re hungry or thirsty or sleepy, that I wanted kids, MY kids, and that I wanted to find a way to get them into my family.

Not everyone feels that way. For some folks, it’s more like a weighing of pros and cons. Or it’s like flipping a coin and suddenly realizing in the air which side you hope it lands on, and there’s your answer. For others, it’s something you pray about (I also did that), something you study (lots of cool parenting classes out there!), something you even practice at (babysitting! so helpful, but also not at all representative, for good or ill).

And the best part is, it’s not a once-and-for-all decision! You can think on it now and decide with your spouse that it’s not something you want right now, and then in a few years you think on it again and realize “oh hey, now we want kids!”

But ultimately, there are some questions that must be asked and answered re:having babies/kids.

Why do I want to have a child/children? This seems obvious, and like the whole question you asked me, but it’s a bit more specific and more complicated than that. This is about the “selfish” reasons, the reasons that tie back to your desires for yourself. In my case, I answer this with “I feel like I’m incomplete/missing family without my child/children” among a few others (but that’s the big one). If your answer to this question involves other people-- because my parents want grandkids, because I should, because my spouse does-- then you need to do some more soul searching.

Why do I want to be a parent? This is about what you want to give to your child/children. This is the “unselfish” version of the previous question. What do you hope your children get from you, and not in a physical sense. My answer to this one is “I want to help my child/children be part of the good in the world, break generational/societal hurts and problems, and give them both the good things I got and the things I never did.”

Are you prepared for a child? I’m not trying to say that you have to be a parenting expert making 6 figures a year with your own home and two cars to have kids. I’m saying there are times and places and situations that would be very detrimental to you and/or your child. You should also have some grasp of the permanence of parenthood, and what it takes to have and raise a baby/child. Practice budgeting, look into how schools work, watch some birthing videos, look up parenting resources. Basically, just learn a bit before you decide, but also, IMPORTANT NOTE don’t let all the info you find scare you off completely. 18+ years always seems insurmountable and impossible when you try to cram it all into a 2am google search. I’m just suggesting you have some idea of the nitty-gritty before you get handed a tiny person and get told to keep it alive forever.

Are you healthy enough to have kids? Not to say that disabled or chronically ill folks can’t/shouldn’t have kids, but that some people might be at serious risk of death or other irreparable harm by having kids (usually talking about birthing them). This includes mental illness. Do not try adding a child to your family-- one of the hugest life changes you’ll ever make-- while you’re in an uncontrolled spiral or dealing with unmanaged mental or physical illness.

Are you prepared to love your child no matter what? It’s easy to say that about a cute little squishy potato child who only wants to be held all day, but I’m talking about the whole child. The baby up through the adult. Are you prepared to love as a conscious choice even when your child is making bad decisions or ‘disappointing’ you? Are you prepared to love your child through toddler tantrums that never end? Are you prepared to love your gay child, your disabled child, your nonverbal child, your catatonic child? Are you prepared to give the same love to your transgender child as to your cisgender one? Are you prepared to love your Down Syndrome child as an adult, or your autistic child as a hormonal teenager who is struggling? Are you prepared to love the child who struggles in school, or who doesn’t care at all just as much as your straight-A’s bookworm who never gets in trouble? The delinquent, not just the angel? The aspiring screamo even when you’re a church-choir mouse? You should never bank on “well my child will never....” It’s not fair to your child. And ultimately, it’s not about you. Yes, parenthood should be fulfilling for you, but it’s really about loving another person so much that you’re willing to dedicate your life to theirs.

I realize this is way long, but I have a ton of feelings about kids and parenthood/parenting. So I apologize for the rant, and hope that something in here has been helpful or has come close to your original question.

Ultimately, this is a choice only you and your spouse can make, and screw societal/family/religious expectations. This is about you and your family, the one you choose to make. You get that choice, and if you choose not to have kids (or not have them right now), you may get flak for it, but just like nobody can tell you what to do with your limbs, nobody can tell you what to do with your life, and the lives you choose to make or influence.

And a tl;dr version, I chose to have kids because I felt like they were a part of me waiting to be “let in,” if that makes sense. It was something my spouse and I both talked about, then thought about individually for a long time, then came together and discussed for a long time. We wanted parenthood, and we wanted to raise children to be part of the good in the world, and we want to be that good for even a few little people. (And also, our daughter was like “BRUH, I’m waiting for you guys to get a move on, I’m gonna be the best thing in your lives. Also here’s my name don’t wear it out.” She was never, nor is she now, subtle.)

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xbrittaniax · 5 years ago

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FNaF: The Rules have changed ch.4

[Last of my posts from dA, From here on out I have to write as I go.]

Ah yes, This was how Scott wanted to spend his night. Crammed In a security office watching over Bat shit crazy Animatronics with a Tickling problem, Re-Explaining every single procedure to Vincent and Mike making fun of him over the phone... He didn't get paid enough for this.

"And make sure you keep the music box wound. I don't want to find out what the Puppet does now." He shuddered at the thought, Of course, Mike intruded on the conversation.

"God Phone guy, You act like he's never worked a night shift before. I'm pretty sure he has the Intellect to keep a music box wound and to keep peeping on Foxy." Mike rolled his eyes, His right door remaining shut, The different Freddy variation's still mad about his swearing last night. It was Only one AM.

Vincent snickered as Scott sent a glare over to the phone. "Listen here, You little--"

"Ah!" Jeremy exclaimed, "Don't swear! You'll be In Mike's position if you do."

"I already am." Yeah, He didn't get paid enough for this. Most of the Animatronics were avoiding Him tonight, Save for Original Freddy, Who had caught wind of his outburst the night before as well.

Mike cast a glare to the phone, Folding his arms irritably. "Need I remind you that You're the reason I'm in the mess In the first place? Mr. 'Let's run to Mike's office and Shoulder tackle him'."

"I said I was sorry!"

Vince grinned at the banter. "Man Scott, I had no idea you ran a Babysitting service on the Night Shift." He leaned back In his chair as The two Bickering Nightguards yelled In protest.

"Hey! I am NOT a child!" Mike complained.

"Me either!"

Scott snorted In amusement. "Yeah, And now I have three kids to watch." He side-eyed the phone as he picked up the tablet to check on Pirate cove.

"Hey!" All three Nightguards exclaimed

---

3 AM

"What's everyone's power looking like?" Jeremy asked to make conversation, Mike had grown unusually silent, Vincent only offered a small acknowledgment that he had understood what Phone guy was telling him, Who was also silent save for the tips he occasionally gave them. "Mine and Vince's power Is at 53%."

"48%," Scott answered.

"I'm bored," Vincent complained, Propping his head up with his arms against the desk. "We haven't had anything happen."

"That's a good thing, Vince." Scott side-eyed the phone for like the fiftieth time that night. "Unless you want to get tickle attacked by one of the Animatronics..."

Vincent shuddered at the thought. "I'm just saying. It's going by so slowly without any incidents."

Jeremy giggled at the two. "What about you Mike? You okay?"

"Not particularly..." He didn't even want to look at the power meter, He knew he was low. "Hey Phone Guy, Is your left door open?"

"For the moment," Scott grunted as he slammed down on the Right door button. "Why? Is something there?"

"Nope." Mike got up and ran out of his office, Behind him he heard the power shut down as he rushed Into the nearest office, Which just so happened to be Scott's. He skidded to a stop just to the left of his desk and doubled over catching his breath. "That was close."

Scott glanced over at him with a bemused expression. "You gonna be alright?"

Mike nodded, Grinning. He sat down on the desk, Checking the Camera's for Scott while he checked the doors. The brunette noted how the Raven haired man seemed to tremble as he checked the Door light's, It reminded him of Jeremy. "You gonna be alright?" He mused, Looking up from the Tablet.

Scott flinched, Opening the right-hand side door. "Yeah, Just a little jumpy I guess."

"Uh-huh, And the shaking? Is that being Jumpy too?" Mike peered at his colleague with amusement.

Scott blushed In response to the question. Had he been shaking? He hadn't even noticed. "Shut up." He muttered, Poking his head out of the Left door, Listening for any odd sound.

"Are you guys breaking up? I was really rooting for you guys too." Vincent chuckled, Jeremy even giggled at that. Mike could tell that Vince was going to be a bad influence on the bubbly Nightguard.

Mike laughed sarcastically. "Ha-ha, Shut up and keep the Music box wound up, Newbie."

Even Phone Guy had to snort at that one, Shooting Mike a grin of approval. But his grin was short-lived when he saw the giant Bear Animatronic standing behind his desk, Oh god. He reached behind himself and hit the door button but It clicked, Locked up.

"Ooh, This coming from the Rookie."

"Who had to be oriented by Scott tonight? That's right, You."

"You better watch It, Mikey boy," Vincent grinned, Having seen Freddy creep Into the office. He decided not to tell them to make things interesting. "If you're not careful, Karma might creep up behind you." He leaned back In his seat, Crossing his arms behind his head as he watched the feed outside Scott's office.

Mike scoffed, Rolling his eyes. "Whatever," He looked away from the Tablet and up at Phone Guy "You sure you're gonna be alright? You're pale."

"He's always pale, He's practically a Vampire," Vince spoke up again.

"What's wrong? Someone out there spooking you?" Mike teased, But when Scott shook his head without a sarcastic retort he knew something was wrong. "Scott?"

"B-Behind you..." Scott pointed, Mike looked over his shoulder and shrieked as he fell off the desk In surprise.

"Not you again!" He yelped, Staggering to his feet as Freddy slowly moved out from behind the desk, Mike grabbed Scott by the arm and made a break for the Right door, But just before the two made It out the door slammed shut. The brunette slammed his hand into the door out of frustration and whipped around. They were trapped in there with him.

"We meet again, Mister Schmidt," Freddy spoke, Slowly approaching the two men. He turned his head to regard Scott. "Mister Scott, Nice to see you."

Mike and Scott both began to inch backward away from the Devious Bear Animatronic. "Freddy..."

"Can't you cut us some slack just this once?" Mike knew this was unlikely, But figured It was worth a shot.

A low and somewhat taunting laugh was his answer. "I must admit, You're amusing, Mister Schmidt..." The bear took a step closer to the two Nightguards.

"Can you stop calling me Mister Schmidt? I go by Mike, Or Mikey, Or M-Dog, Or Mic--" Mike was cut off by a sharp elbow to the ribs, To which he groaned in Pain in response to.

"Can you stop making him mad?!" Scott cut In, Side eyeing Mike.

Freddy seemed to pause, Blinking at the two now bickering Nightguards.

"Me!? You just hit me! You broke another rule!" Mike exclaimed, Pointing his finger accusingly.

"You're yelling, Also against the rules, Jackass."

"I'M NOT YELLING! And you just swore!"

"STOP SCREAMING AT ME!"

Meanwhile, Vincent had fallen out of his chair laughing at the two, Forgetting entirely about his duty of winding up the music box. "Mommy Daddy stop fighting!" Jeremy joked, Making Vince laugh harder.

Jeremy's words seemed to snap the two arguing men out of their ridiculous fight, They slowly turned their heads to look at Freddy who had been standing there with his arms crossed and tapping his foot impatiently. "Are you two finished?"

"Uhh, No?" Mike smiled nervously.

Freddy was not pleased with this answer.

He grabbed Mike by the shirt and threw him onto the desk, Stalking towards him menacingly. Mike quickly rolled onto the floor and tried to move out of his reach but Freddy put a paw on him to momentarily pin him in place, All while Grabbing Scott and putting him on the ground next to Mike. He weighed them both down by straddling their thighs, With one knee to the left of Scott and the other to the right of Mike.

"Now then, If you two are going to keep fighting with each other," Freddy hovered one hand threateningly over Mike's side and the other over Scott's stomach, His fingers twitching ever so slightly. "Then you're going to laugh with each other!"

Phone Guy covered his face to hide his nervousness, And so he didn't have to watch.

"F-Freddy, C'mon... You don't have to do this." Mike couldn't hold back the nervous smile as he caught sight of Freddy's twitching fingers hovering over one of his worst spots.

Freddy ignored Mike, His fingers began dancing up and down his side. His other hand began to poke and prod at Scott's midsection almost experimentally. He seemed to be searching for reactions but due to his face being covered he couldn't gauge which spots were more sensitive.

Through his giggling, Mike had an epiphany.

'Try not to make eye contact, It seems to be some sort of challenge to them.' He recalled Scott telling him on his first night. Huh, So some of his advice still applies even after the update to their A.I. 'They get more aggressive, It's like they think you're taunting them. Especially Freddy.'

Smart. Mike closed his eyes to avoid looking at the Bear any longer. So not only was the other night guard unable to fall victim to any of Freddy's attempts at causing anticipation, But he wasn't making eye contact. therefore Freddy was being easier on--

Laughter interrupted Mike's train of thought. Though It was his own, It snapped him back to reality. "Hahahahahaha! F-Freddy Stahahahap!" Mike yelped as he felt both large plush bear hands attacking his sides, At least his shirt offered some protection.

"I've been trying to figure out why you keep consistently breaking the rules, Can you help me? I'm at a loss." Freddy taunted.

"Shuhuhuhut uhuhup!" Mike complained, His body jumped In surprise when he felt an elbow connect with his arm, Though It was only Intended to get his attention rather than inflict pain. He opened one eye and looked to Scott.

"Stop it, You're only making things worse for yourself." He warned.

"Hohohohow could things get any wohohohorse?! Wehehehehe're stuck here for lihihike two mohohore hours!" Mike shot back, Not heeding the Veteran's advice. Freddy took this as a challenge, His hands slipped under Mike's shirt and he dug his wiggling fingers Into his sides. He screamed in response. "NO! NOHOHOHOHOHO! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" His body revolted against the sensations, his back arching.

"That's how." Scott sighed.

"IT GOHOHOHOT WORSE! IHIT GOT SOHOHOHOHOHOO MUCH WOHOHOHORSE!"

"I tried to warn you."

Freddy's large fingers moved surprisingly nimble against Mike's bare sides, Plush fabric skidding along sensitive skin while occasionally kneading the tender muscles. He seemed to be driven by the sound of the Helpless Nightguards hysterical laughter, And he analyzed his reactions closely to determine the best way to drive him further Into madness.

After a few more minutes the Animatronic stopped, Pulling his hands back to let Mike breathe. He turned his attention to Scott in the meantime. "Mister Scott, I must say I'm a little surprised. You've been avoiding us for years." Scott mumbled In retort, But It was inaudible to the bear due to the muffling caused by his hands. Freddy reached down and pried his hands away from his face. "It's unlike you to be this far off your game..."

"What can I say? Everyone has an off night." Phone Guy answered calmly, trying not to show how nervous he was.

"Under different circumstances, I might have given you a break." Freddy seemed somewhat apologetic, Much to Mike's surprise. "But you did break our rules... So I can't take It easy on you. My Apologies, Mister Scott."

Mike opened his mouth to say something, But quickly stopped himself, For fear that Freddy would start round 2. Scott nodded. "It's okay, I understand." He mentally braced himself, Unsure of how the Animatronic would start.

Freddy kept a hold on Scott's hands so he couldn't hide his face, And he slowly began to lower his hand, His eyes put off a faint blue glow In the dim lighting of the office. He was focused intently on the tense Nightguard.

Phone guy watched his hand for a few seconds before tightly closing his eyes, trying to ease the Anticipation building up. He knew that Freddy was making mental notes of some sort based on their reactions, He had noticed it with how he adapted to Mike's responses. So he hoped by not giving in and giving a reaction, He would get bored and stop.

Then again, This tactic never seemed to work for Phone guy. Not with Purple Guy or Fritz, And Certainly not with Freddy.

After a few moments of 'no selling' Freddy, The bear chuckled In amusement as he stilled his hand. "Mister Scott, Do you honestly think this is going to work? I know you're ticklish." He unbuttoned a few of the buttons on the Nightguards shirt and drug his fingers from his stomach to his ribs. "I already know where you're most ticklish, Too." He teased, Methodically tracing his rib bones.

Phone guy had tried to keep his laughter contained, He managed to do so for all of ten seconds as it shook his frame. But soon he was reduced to a pile of laughter and whimpers. "Nohohohoho...! Stahahahahap!"

Freddy soon picked up that lighter touches seemed more effective, And once he lightened the pressure he was using, Scott began to laugh even harder. "Hm, You seem to be more sensitive to light tickles. How adorable." He teased, Noting the way The laughing Nightguard's face flushed and his squirming picked up. "Interesting. Teasing also seems to work well on you." He observed. Despite his best efforts It seemed that Freddy was learning all of the ways to drive him up the wall.

It only got worse when The Animatronic released Scott's hands and began to attack him with both hands, One hand lightly tracing bones and the other spidering ever so lightly up and down the sensitive ribs. He shrieked. "NNAGH! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FREHEHEHEDDY DOHOHOHON'T!" He squirmed feverishly, Pushing at Freddy's arms as he tried to escape.

Mike was taken aback by the reaction. "Now I know why you tried so hard not to get caught all this time, You're more ticklish than Jeremy!" He chuckled, Emphasizing his point by reaching over and playfully squeezing the hysterical man's exposed side.

"MIHIHIKE!" He yelped, swatting at his hand. "YOU'RE NAHAHAT HEHEHELPING!"

"Sure I am! I'm helping Freddy." Mike couldn't help but grin at the sound of the whine he made.

"YOHOHOHOU'RE NOHOHOT FUNNY!"

"Why are you laughing then, Cutiepie?" He winked.

The Raven haired Nightguard's face flushed, Either with embarrassment or Anger, It hadn't been determined yet. "SHUHUHUHUT UHUHUP!"

"That's not very nice of you to say. I think you should apologize."

"YOUHUHUHU DON'T WANT TO KNOHOHOW WHAT I'M THIHIHINKING."

"Hey, Big bear." Mike turned his gaze to Freddy. "Can I give you some advice?"

What advice could Mike possibly offer Freddy? He's never successfully tickled Scott before, He only tried once and... Oh no. no no no. "MIHIHIHICHAEL SCHMIDT DOHOHON'T YOU DAHAHAHARE!"

"Or what? What are you gonna do? Laugh me to death?"

"I WIHIHIHIHILL KIHIHIHILL YOU!"

Mike grinned mischievously. "I think he has ticklish knees, I never got a solid reaction but he was probably hiding it."

Freddy stilled his hands, Giving Phone guy a chance to catch his breath. Scott didn't wait very long before he grabbed Mike's side and began squeezing it. "You jerk! You're... Not supposed to... H-Help him!" He panted.

Mike yelped and began laughing again, He tried to squirm out of Scott's reach but he followed his movements. "Stahahahap tickling mehe!" He complained.

"N-Not so nice, Is It?"

"That's Ihihit!" Mike snapped, Turning onto his side as much as possible, And he launched his tickle attack on Scott, Blindly attacking whatever spots were exposed. "You asked for ihit!"

Freddy had to admit, He was amused by the two. He abruptly got off of them, They hadn't even noticed. He chuckled to himself and stood up, Exiting the room. Leaving the two to fight each other. Deciding they had enough for the night, And also that they would nearly kill each other anyway. Besides, He had another set of Nightguards to visit...

Jeremy and Vincent had to mute the phone system because there was nothing but roaring static and high pitched beeping coming from Scott's Line. "What's that sound anyway?" Jeremy asked, Having just unmuted it to check if it was still present. It was.

"It's the sound of two idiots who got themselves trapped in an office with Freddy," Vincent replied after shaking his head to get the ringing out of his ears.

"I don't understand." The blond frowned.

"Simple, The microphone we give Freddy is a dud Because if we gave him a live mic, We would be hearing the sound of screaming kids and mechanical whirring. So to cut out any annoying sounds, He has one built-in right in front of his Voicebox." Purple guy explained, Checking the music box just in time to wind it back up. He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw how low it was. "S-So what you're hearing is... Microphone interference. He's too close to the phone."

Jeremy nodded, It seemed to make sense. "You sure do know a lot about the Animatronics."

"Just enough to not get myself killed. Fritz knows more about them than me, I guess he's really into tech stuff. He said something about magnets too, But there's only so much I can listen to without zoning out."

"Fair enough, Fritz tends to get enthusiastic about things, It gets hard to listen for an extended period of..." Jeremy froze up, Locking eyes with Freddy. "T-Time."

"Right." Vincent responded, Completely unaware of the threat in the doorway.

Jeremy tried to close the door, But It locked up. The sound made Vincent snap his head in the direction of the Right door. "Jeremy!" He quickly grabbed hold of the Blond and rushed out the left door dragging him behind him. They just made it out when the door slammed shut. Vincent nearly slammed Into the wall from the momentum but caught himself with his arm, Jeremy skidded to an ungraceful stop beside him. "You okay, Kid?"

He nodded, Adrenaline still coursing through his body. "Y-Yeah... how did you know the doors would close?"

"Fritz." Purple guy answered simply.

"Maybe I n-need to sit In on one of Fritz's lectures." Jeremy joked, Smiling a bit as he did.

Vincent straightened up his posture, Chuckling as he tenderly rubbed his wrist. "You sure about that? If you're not up to technical terms He can put you to sleep real quick."

"I think I can keep up." Jeremy nodded to himself, Then looked at Vince's wrist. "That's the arm you caught yourself with, Did you hurt yourself?"

"Eh, It's just a little sore. I'll live. Hey, Instead of hanging out In the wide-open, Let's go check on our Lovebirds." Vincent suggested, Still holding his wrist.

"Alright." Jeremy agreed. Following after the taller Nightguard.

"Mihihihihike!" Scott was now opting to shield himself rather than get revenge, That was when he noticed Freddy was gone. "Mihihihike! Stohop!"

"No way! You've earned this. Don't think I forgot about the hazing stunt you and Jeremy pulled! I'm just getting you first. Jeremy's dead when I get my hands on him!" Mike responded, Skittering his fingers across the other man's stomach lightly.

When Scott rolled over onto his stomach that was when Mike also realized Freddy was gone. "Oh, Hey Freddy's gone." He commented, Pausing his attack.

"No shit! That's what I've been trying to tell you, Jerk!" Phone guy swore, Curling In on himself to protect any sensitive areas.

Mike narrowed his eyes and scanned his coworker for exposed spots, But no luck. Not even his knees were accessible. "Something tells me you've been tickled Into hysterics a time or two before." He chuckled.

Phone guy just glared in response.

"He has, By just about everyone." Vincent declared as he and Jeremy strolled Into the office. "But I am a pro when it comes to Torturing Scott. Aren't I, Scottie?" Vincent teased, Nudging the heap of a Nightguard with his foot. Who groaned In annoyance In response.

"Wanna help me then Mister Pro?" Mike asked, Partly joking.

"W-What!?" Scott's eyes widened with horror as he uncurled and stood, Quickly backing away from the now evilly grinning Nightguard. "N-No! Don't you dare!"

"Well, Since you put It that way...Michael," Vince chuckled lowly, Taking a step towards the terrified Man. "I'd be happy to help."

Phone Guy yelped and hid behind Jeremy, Who had just finished winding the music box and checking on Freddy. "Hey, You guys might wanna shut the right door. I think Freddy Is out of our office." He was seemingly unphased by what had been going on around him.

Mike slammed down on the button. "Time update?"

"5:45 Am." Jeremy smiled, Putting the Tablet down. "Hey, Where'd Scott go?"

"Behind you. He's afraid of me for some odd reason." Vince chuckled as Jeremy turned around to face Scott.

"It's okay, We're all a little scared of Vincent." He giggled.

"I-I am NOT scared of him!" Scott huffed Indignantly, Crossing his arms stubbornly. "I just don't trust him."

"That hurt me. After everything we've been through." Purple guy grinned in response. He stepped closer to the two, Outstretching his arms. He nudged Mike, silently telling him to play along. "I think we need to hug out our differences."

"I agree. Truce?" Mike mimicked Vince's approach. Jeremy's face lit up, Finally, It seemed his friends would get along!

"You hate hugs! And You--"

"That's a great idea!" Jeremy beamed, Stepping aside.

"JEREMY NO--"

It was too late, The two had launched themselves at the Raven haired Nightguard. The room was once again filled with laughter, Leaving Jeremy to check the doors and the music box. He couldn't help but Giggle at his friends.

All worries about Springtrap escaping had been long forgotten... For the Night.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #freddy fazbear #tickle fic #tickling #mike schmidt #jeremy fitzgerald #phoneguy #purpleguy #nightguard #will springtrap ever actually escape? Who knows.

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thewalkingfanfictions · 5 years ago

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Impromptu Cuddles

"Imagine having to share a bed with Spencer during a case, only to wake up in his arms."

~IMPROMPTU CUDDLES~

Part One // Part Two // Part Three

Description: During a case, Spencer and the reader are forced to share a room with only one bed. Cute fluffy shit happens.

⚠Warning⚠: Mentions of a really bloody case, probably some cuss words. Unless repressed romantic feelings are a problem for you, then nothing else, I don't think.

Genre: fluffy fluff with a tiny bit of angst if you squint your eyes and tilt your head exactly fourteen degrees to the left.

Pairing: Dr. Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds) x non gender specific Reader

A/N: guys, this was supposed to be a one shot, and somehow it turned into nearly seven thousand words. How. I don't even know where I was three quarters of the time, but I love it anyway. I'm breaking it into two or three parts so it'll be easier to read, enjoy! (Also, not my picture, credit to whoever made it :))

Words without A/N: 2006

Masterlist

<—————————————>

"Alright, team, let's head back and get some shut eye," Agent Hotchner sighed in defeat.

We had just found the fifth body. This one just a little boy, barely five years old. The unsub had been on a non-stop murder spree for the last week and a half, and he didn't seem to have a preference point for his victims.

Nobody was safe from this monster. His first victim had been an elderly Nigerian lady, and his second was a body builder from California. He was just killing whoever, or whatever he could get his hands on. Not just humans was he after. We'd found carcasses of dogs and cats, all the way up to cows decorating his path like some messed up Hansel and Grettle bread trail. All with the same or similar COD.

We had been following his path of carnage all around North America and we still couldn't get a lead. Most of us hadn't slept in over forty-eight hours and none of us were in any position to keep working. So Hotch finally decided to step in and get us one night to rest so we could be in tip top shape for the next days of continued hunting. Or, closer to that than we were now, at least.

Right now we were in some little rag-tag town called Prairie, or something of the like. We'd been to so many places in the last week they had all started to blend together.

"The only Hotel I could find on such short notice is a little place called the 'Budget 8 Motel', they've got eight rooms currently open each with either a medium or a twin sized bed. They've got a point six five star rating and do not provide breakfasts, but do have small kitchenettes in the rooms themselves. Oh– fascinating, did you know that the origin of the star rating scale didn't come into prospect by motel owners until well into the-"

"Spence... we got it."

"Oh yeah, yeah, sorry..." Why do people always cut him off like that? Personally I find his rambling to be absolutely adorable. So what he has verbal diarrhea at times, it was better than swallowing all of his feelings and thoughts and letting them eat him from the inside like the rest of the team did. And I almost always learned something new every time. It was good information to know none the less.

I swear the entire ride I could feel his eyes on me. Every once in a while I would glance up at him out of the corner of my eye and catch him quickly looking in some other random direction.

All of us (except Rossi, who would be meeting us at the hotel) had been crammed into one of the suburbans, and with seven people, it was a squeeze.

Hotch was in the drivers seat with a pregnant JJ in the passengers, which meant that the other four of us had to squish ourselves into the three seated back seat. Morgan was up against the window on the right side with Emily pushed so hard up against him that she was practically in his lap. Then was poor Spencer who, despite his dislike of touching people, was trying his hardest not to be shoving Emily any harder into Morgan, which in turn meant he was heavily pushed against me. He was trying so hard not to squish either of us that he was practically folding himself into a profiler taco.

We soon pulled into the car park of the little Inn. If the inside looked anything like it did on the out, we were in for some fun. Heavy sarcasm intended.

It was already dark out and the one street light that decorated the car park was incredibly dull, and flickering dangerously. There were four other vehicles parked around the place, each more menacing looking than the last. The large rectangle garbage bin was overflowing onto the cement and the smell was absolutely rancid. We hadn't even gotten out of the vehicle yet. We all just sat there for a moment staring at it. Tonight was going to be fun...

"Alright," Derek clapped his hands, "I'll go in and get us our keys. Be back in a sec." He opened the door and spilled out of it rather unceremoniously, pausing before walking stiff legged towards the door.

"Finally, some room to breath!" Cooed Emily as she scooted over into Morgans previous sitting space, giving some wiggle room to Spencer and I.

I sighed heavily and flopped back against the seat, closing my eyes and counting the seconds until I could go curl up in a ball and sleep. What I hadn't realized, was that I had fallen asleep right there.

I was awoken by a quiet voice speaking in my fac, and soft warmth across my top.

"Hey, (name), come on its time to get up, you can sleep once we get to the room," a soft voice hushed.

Sighing, I opened my eyes to find Spencer's face above mine, one of his hands on my shoulder gently shaking me back to life. Glancing down i noticed a jacket layed over me like a blanket, how had that gotten there? I grumbled slightly but didn't object as he helped me from the back seat and to the ground. He helped me gain my bearings as we walked towards the office, filling me in that everybody else was already in there talking to the guy behind the desk, Rossi had shown up, and there had been some complication with the rooms that he had only just caught wind of as he was leaving to come wake me up.

It was unbelievably cold, I watched out of the corner of my eye as Spencer shivered slightly, but when I tried to hand him back what I quickly realized to be his jacket, he waved a dismissive hand and laid the jacket over my shoulders. I sent him a thankful smile and listened to him talk, just kind of humming along, not really paying attention to his words, just listening to the sound of his voice.

We entered the office and we both automatically went quiet, listening to what was transpiring between the office manager and the team.

"And you're sure there's no other rooms? Or at least some with double beds?" Came the deeper voice of Morgan

"Nope, sorry, all full," this voice was higher pitched, but still distinctly masculine. It held boredom and irritation.

"I don't think you realize, we are federal agents, we've been chasing a psycotic serial killer for the last week and a half, and we are all very tired. So I'll ask you again. Are you absolutely certain that there are no more rooms available?" That had to be JJ. And she sounded homicidal.

"I... I'm so-rry miss but... there.. There's no ex-tra rooms, I'm sorry..." She scared him into stuttering! If I didn't feel like I was about to pass out I probably would have laughed!

"You guys'll just have to... have to double up?"

Spencer and I looked at each other over their conversation questionably. Finally walking into the room, we were greeted by the sight of a very angry looking JJ, an Emily who looked like she could pass out right then and there, three agitated and exasperated BAU operatives and a tall chubby kid who couldn't have been more than fifteen, who looked like he was about to piss himself.

"What's going on?" I asked in a groggy voice that honestly didn't even sound like mine to me.

"Turns out there is only half as many rooms as we thought were open so, yay, we all get to bunk up!" Morgan said sarcastically in a very humorless tone.

''But there was eight. Who gets to be partnerless?" Asked Spencer, who hadn't left my side since we came into the place.

Of course, we all already knew the answer to that one.

Hotch was the boss, and he had been working quadruple time trying to catch this prick, I'm positive that he hadn't slept in at least three days, if not more, and by the look of his disheveled state—one of which he rarely ever showed—he probably hadn't.

Nobody bothered to say any of it, though, all silently agreeing on it.

At some point during our telepathic conversation I had started leaning on Spencer, needing all the help I could get to keep from falling over. And, to my surprise, he didn't get all awkward and huffy. He actually turned slightly so that I was leaning more against his side than his shoulder, trying to make everything a bit more comfortable. Once I actually realized what I was doing I straightened up some and mumbled slightly through a yawn,

"Mmsorrymmm," when I looked back over at him to see if I had made him uncomfortable, he almost looked upset. Oh, I had been making him uncomfortable, but he is so warm I kinda wanted to lean into him again. I bit the inside of my cheek slightly, trying to keep from doing exactly that.

I barely had the energy to lift my head up from staring at the floor. When I heard the tail end of Rossi and the kid behind the counters conversation, I internally groaned. Our rooms were on the second floor, and they didn't have an elevator. I sighed and slowly began trudging after the waddling JJ. Slowly we climbed up the stairs, the thought of a warm bed gave me a bit of a second wind after a while though. Climbing a bit faster Morgan and I were the first to reach our doors.

We both stood there a moment looking at our surroundings. Everything, and I mean everything was decorated with an unhealthy layer of graffiti, dulled slightly by the thick layer of dust that coated it all too. The smell of mold and the other dark things that hid in the crevices of the walls was almost suffocating. This was really the only place open?

Hotch and Rossi and the rest arrived at the top whilst we were looking. They seemed almost as disturbed as Morgan and I were. While the others stopped in front if us, Aaron kept walking, picking a seemingly random room and calling out a half hearted "g'night" over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him.

"Let's decide this now so I can go to sleep," Morgan spoke. His voice groggy with sleep and sounding almost irritated. "Who's sleeping where and in what room." His question had sounded more like a demand, and when Spencer stepped forward, obviously thinking it would be he to stay with in the room with Morgan, Derek quickly looked over to Rossi who was leaned up against the wall. "I call you," he demanded and headed off to a random room.

Spencer almost looked hurt. But when JJ and Emily went off to their room and it was just us two left, his features lifted slightly. Then tightened down into nervousness.

"Guess its us then," I mumbled, already aiming for the door to the room that Spence and I would be sharing. I heard him mumble something inaudible back and follow after me.

I twisted the key in the doors lock and shoved against the door with my shoulder. I stumbled inside and went straight towards the little bed in the corner of the room. The room was one of those two room things that had the living room, bedroom, and kitchen all in one and the bathroom out to the side somewhere.

The bed was an oddity in itself. It looked to be something like a hybrid between a twin size and the next size up. Just a bit bigger that a twin, and it looked older than I am. I was right. The inside of the building did match nearly perfectly with our first view of the place from the car park.

#Spencer Reid #Spencer x Reader #Bed Sharing AU #Fluff #Spencer being the adorable bean he is #Cuddling #Spencer Reid x Reader fluff #Spencer Reid x Reader Cuddling #Spencer Reid x Reader Bed Sharing AU #I swear #This was supposed to be a oneshot guys #Its over seven thousand words now #What happened #Impromptu cuddles #impromptu cuddles part one

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thehelleniclunarwitch · 5 years ago

Text

Pack Wars (01)

Shit posting continues!

I miss Beacon Hills.

Tagged: @justgrits

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“Derek, are you sure you want to do this?” Boyd asked.

“Yeah, we have plenty of time to turn back around.” Erica added.

“He doesn’t even know that we’re coming. It’s been a year since any of us have seen him.” Isaac spoke up.

Derek looked over to his betas. He had left his sister and her best friend back in Beacon Hills in the capable hands of his family’s emissary and a deputy. Derek had wanted his betas to stay back too, but of course they threw a fit about that suggestion. They didn’t want their Alpha going off by himself even though Derek was more than capable of taking care of himself. However, he gave in and let the three tag along. He needed to get to London and if he had continued to argue Scott would have gotten here first.

“It may have been a year since you three have seen him, but I’ve stayed in contact with him.” Derek explained.

“You have?” His three betas said in unison.

“Yes. He is my beta visiting the London pack. I still have to check in with him and make sure that he is behaving and listening to the local Alpha.” Derek said.

“Is he still that douchebag lacrosse player?” Isaac asked with a smirk.

“Nope.” Derek answered simply as they all crammed into an elevator.

“Being with another pack changed him?” Erica asked.

“Nope.” Derek answered again.

“There’s a girl involved, isn't there?” Boyd asked.

Derek just smiled at his betas.

“We’re not just here for Jackson, are we?’ Erica asked.

“Right, we’re hopefully bringing back two pack members with us.” Derek told them.

The elevator dinged, the four wolves poured out of the elevator, and then started making their way down the hallway. Derek stopped outside of apartment 17B. He knocked and then stepped back to wait for Jackson to answer the door.

The door did finally open, but it wasn’t Jackson standing there. A young teen stood there, brown hair that was tinted with red and blonde streaks. Her eyes were a dark brown, but sparkled as if they were a diamond caught in the light. Derek smiled at her shyly before holding out his hand towards her.

“I’m Derek Hale, a friend of Jackson’s.” Derek said.

“His Alpha.” The girl stated.

“You know who I am?” Derek asked.

“We had a feeling you’d be coming.” She said slowly eyeing the wolves behind him.

“Oh. These are my other betas; Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes, and Vernon Boyd.” Derek introduced.

“I know who they are too. Jackson speaks highly of all of you.” She said.

“Are you Jackson’s girlfriend?” Isaac asked.

The girl cocked an eyebrow before nodding. “I’m Emily Grant.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Derek said with a soft smile.

“Jackson isn’t home right now, but please come on in.” Emily said moving to the side letting the wolves in.

“Sorry to be dropping in like this.” Boyd said.

“It’s okay. Like I said we had a feeling you’d be coming.” Emily restated.

“Why is that?” Erica asked.

“A Scott McCall has been calling relentlessly, but Jackson has been avoiding his calls.” Emily answered.

“Why?” Isaac asked.

“Do you not know anything about me or my abilities?” Emily asked.

The wolves looked at each other before shaking their heads.

“All Jackson told me was that he was in a relationship with an amazing girl. He said that you were supernatural. That’s all he said and I didn’t ask anything else.” Derek explained.

“Why don’t you come sit down and I’ll explain to you my abilities. Jackson should be home soon enough. That way you’re filled in on me and then you can fill us in why you’re here.” Emily suggested.

The wolves nodded and followed Emily into the living room. The wolves packed onto the couch while Emily stood in front of the large window that overlooked London.

“Have you ever heard of Jinxes, Derek?” Emily asked, not looking back at them.

“I have in stories.” Derek answered.

“They’re quite rare, aren’t they? Most supernatural people don’t even believe they exist.” Boyd added.

“Oh we exist. There’s only a handful of us. We can easily be counted on ten fingers.” Emily replied.

“Are you saying you’re a jinx?” Isaac said.

“I’m sorry, but could someone explain to me what a jinx is?” Erica asked, ignoring Isaac’s question.

“Most witches are born with a few magical powers. Never more than two, but I was born with four powers. There have been some rare occurrences where that has happened before, but there has never been a witch or wizard that has had all of their powers connected. They’ve had different powers. Mine are all connected through the mind. Most jinxes are seen as bad luck in the magical community. In history, Jinxes have been known to wipe out their villages, covens, and their own families. Jinxes are feared and usually the coven that the young witch or wizard belongs to kills off the jinx.” Emily explained.

“Because your powers are linked does that make you more dangerous?” Isaac asked.

“Yes.” Emily answered.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why weren’t you killed?” Isaac asked.

“My brother wasn’t born a wizard, but he grew up to be an emissary. He asked his pack to take me in and care for me. The Alpha promised to take care of me, but if I were to go psychotic and kill his pack not only would I be killed, but so would my brother.” Emily explained.

“Your brother had that much faith in you?” Boyd asked.

“My brother was a very loyal person.” Emily said.

“Was?” Isaac asked.

“Unfortunately, my brother couldn’t control me nor my powers. I killed half of the pack before my brother could stop me. He took me away from the pack, changed my identity, gave me a handful of money, and then he told me to run. So I did all the way here to London.” Emily told them.

“Where are you from originally?” Erica asked.

“The south and that’s all I care to say about that.” Emily said.

“Wait, you’re the jinx that took out the Sullivan pack about a decade ago?” Derek asked suddenly.

Emily paled.

“Derek.” Erica hissed.

Derek’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, Emily.”

“It’s fine. I can’t always keep running from my past.” Emily sighed.

“What powers do you have?” Erica asked her to change the subject.

“My first power that my parents discovered was telekinesis. As I grew older we realized that I was answering questions or finishing other people's thoughts without hearing them. Thus leading to discovering that I have telepathy. Not long after that, I started having dreams, no nightmares, and these images came true.” Emily explained.

“Precognition?” Boyd asked.

Emily nodded. “After that, my last power was discovered. It’s a power that I refuse to use. I can use mind control.”

“Cool!” Isaac blurted.

Boyd thumped him on the back of the head.

“It’s not cool. It can be very dangerous.” Emily said.

“Is that how you had a feeling that we’d be coming?” Derek asked.

“Scott’s persistent phone calls triggered the dreams. When I told Jackson of a tall, dark, brooding Alpha coming for us he knew that it was you. He also knew that something horrible must be going on in Beacon Hills if you’re coming to London for him.” Emily explained.

A storm began outside. Emily sighed, flicked her hand, and the curtains closed themselves. She dropped down into a chair and rubbed at her head.

“Are you alright?” Derek asked.

“Yes, it’s been awhile since I’ve been around so many people. Trying to keep my head out of your thoughts can be quite tiring. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do that.” Emily answered.

“Oh.” Derek said.

“Can you hear what I’m thinking?” Isaac asked.

“You’re not saying anything, but you are thinking about a pretty brunette that’s a hunter.” Emily said.

“Yeah, that’s my girlfriend, Allison.” Isaac grinned.

The front door opened, Jackson stumbled in loaded down with bags of food.

“Emily, if you’re so wrong about Derek coming and I went out into that storm for nothing,” Jackson paused when he saw everyone in the living room.

“I told you our guests were coming today.” Emily said.

“Alright, alright, I have to stop trying to say that your visions are wrong.” Jackson sighed.

Emily smiled. “You’re never going to be able to out guess me.”

“Damn you and your magical brain.” Jackson sighed.

“Now you know how I feel when you use your wolfy-senses on me.” Emily replied.

“Alright, you got me.” Jackson said putting the food on the counter.

“Jackson, it’s good to see you.” Derek said.

“Derek.” Jackson curtly replied, shaking his Alpha’s hand.

“I hope you guys are hungry. It was my idea to get dinner. Jackson tends to forget his manners.” Emily said.

“It smells great.” Erica smiled.

“It’s Indian food. I hope you guys like it.” Emily stated.

“Never had it.” The three betas said in unison.

“Well come on up to the bar and take a seat. I’ll get you started.” Emily said leading the wolves into the kitchen leaving Jackson alone with his Alpha.

“Why don’t you try the Neer Dosa and the Chicken Curry first.” Emily said.

“How exactly do we eat this?” Boyd asked.

“Take a piece of the naan bread and then just pick up a chunk of the curry.” Emily said.

The betas watched her tear a piece of the naan bread and pinch a chunk of the curry inside it. She shoved it into her mouth and smiled happily. The betas glanced at one another before quickly following suit.

“Whoa, this is really good.” Isaac commented around a mouthful of food.

“Here try the Rogan josh with the naan bread.” Emily said, pulling out another container.

The betas continued to dig into the food as Emily pulled it out and explained what it was. She left the betas to the food when she saw Jackson keep staring at her. She could hear Jackson literally internally screaming for her to come and join him. Emily wiped her hands cleaned and then moved to join Jackson on the couch with Derek.

“It’s bad isn’t it?” Emily asked as she sat down.

“My home,” Jackson paused. “Beacon Hills is under attack.”

“What do you need from us?” Emily asked Derek.

“Beacon Hills is my home Emily. It has always been my family and my pack’s home. I can’t lose it. Especially now.” Derek explained.

“Why?” Emily asked him.

“I just found my sister again. I want to keep her around. I want her to be able to come home and I can’t do that if I lose our territory.” Derek told them.

“What does a pack war have to do with me? I mean I know why you’re here for Jackson. He is your beta, but I’m not pack, especially your pack.” Emily pointed out.

“Well technically you are my pack.” Derek said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“We’re not married or anything, Derek. Emily can’t be pack.” Jackson replied.

“She’s different to you isn’t she? I mean from anybody else you dated.” Derek said.

“Yes. She’s the perfect girl for me.” Jackson answered sheepishly.

“Is she your anchor? Calm your wolf?” Derek asked.

“Yes.” Jackson said.

“When you first met her did she smell incredible? Make your heart skip a beat? Did your wolf want to claw its way out of your skin?” Derek asked.

“How did you know that?” Jackson asked with wide eyes.

“Because I know that feeling.” Derek told him.

“What does that mean?” Jackson asked.

“It’s rare nowadays for a werewolf to find it’s mate. The whole mate thing is old school especially back in the day when it really was just wolves finding their mates, but a strong enough werewolf can find it’s one true mate.” Derek explained.

Emily looked over to Jackson. He looked up at her, leaned in, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

“I’m glad to know there’s an explanation for all of this.” Jackson said.

“It makes sense. The first day Jackson met me he told me he wanted to run away and get married.” Emily said.

Jackson reddened. Derek smiled. Emily laced her hand with Jackson.

“If you two are serious about this, one day as your Alpha I’d be happy to help you through the mating ceremony.” Derek said.

Jackson nodded. “I like the sound of that, but first it sounds like we need to save Beacon Hills first.”

“Emily, everyone back home knows nothing of you. Peter’s going to know that you’re powerful, but he’s not going to know how. If he finds out about your telekinesis I’d be fine with that, but all of your other powers I’d like to keep those hidden for as long as possible.” Derek said.

“I’ve had dreams, Derek. Of your Beacon Hills, the packs, and the boy you love.” Emily said quietly.

The betas stopped eating and turned to look at their Alpha. Derek stared at Emily with wide eyes.

“How did your pack split into two?” Emily asked him.

“Scott’s a true Alpha.” Derek answered weakly.

“Derek, I’ve done some horrible things in my life. I’ve taken lives. Many lives and I have sworn to never do that again, but my dreams all lead to even more horrible things if I don’t help. If you truly are accepting of me into your pack for my good and my bad then I will do whatever it is necessary to help you.” Emily told him.

Derek reached forward and grabbed Emily’s hand in his. He gave it a slight squeeze. Emily looked up from their joined hands and up to the Alpha. His eyes were glowing bright red. Emily could see the other betas slowly making their way over to their Alpha. Erica reached them first. She touched Emily’s leg, Boyd was standing behind Jackson with his hand on Jackson’s shoulder, and Isaac stood behind his Alpha with a hand resting on his back.

“This pack is your pack. We protect those who are family and you’re our family.” Derek told her.

Emily nodded. She looked over to Jackson who squeezed her other hand letting her know that it was going to be okay.

“Then you now officially have a jinx as part of your pack.” Emily whispered.

“Thank you.” Derek said.

Emily gave him a curt nod.

“I know there is supposed to be a big showdown tomorrow night with all of the packs, right? So everyone can see who belongs to whose pack.” Emily said.

“Yes, we’re supposed to meet in the preserve at midnight.” Derek answered.

“Then you and your betas need to fly out tonight. Jackson and I have some loose ends to tie up here and we’ll take the first flight out in the morning. We’ll be there in time to back you up.” Emily said.

“I can leave Boyd here with you.” Derek said standing.

“No, Derek, you’re going to need all of your pack with you. Plus, we’re going to have to throw Scott off our trail. I promise we’ll be there tomorrow night.” Jackson said.

Derek nodded. Everyone quickly said their goodbyes. Emily left Jackson with the pack to clean up the dinner mess. Jackson closed the door, leaned up against it, and let out a small sigh. He pushed away from the door and trudged over to the kitchen to help Emily clean up. The pair picked at the food and ate as they cleaned up.

“Emily?” Jackson said.

Emily turned away from the fridge to look at her boyfriend.

“When you turn eighteen,” Jackson began.

“Which is in six months.” Emily reminded him.

Jackson smiled. “I’m putting a ring on that finger and I’m gonna wife the crap out of you.”

Emily’s heart sped up as she stared at her boyfriend. She could hear his thoughts rushing through his mind. He was serious about this.

“Your father would freak out if we got married at eighteen.” Emily told him.

“Are you telling me no?” Jackson asked her.

“Absolutely not, Jackson. If I could marry you now, I would.” Emily told him.

Jackson smiled at her. “Don’t worry about my dad. Now that I’m eighteen I have a nice insurance policy and heritance from my birth parents that my dad can’t touch.”

“I will be attending college before I pop any kids out for you. Just an fyi.” Emily told him.

Jackson laughed.

“Both of us will have our degrees before any babies. I promise.” Jackson said as he swooped in to wrap his arms around Emily.

Jackson kissed Emily. Emily wrapped her arms around Jackson’s neck as he picked her up. Emily crinkled her nose as Jackson spun her around several times.

“Play later, pack now. We have to get things settled before we go.” Emily said.

“Right, you call the school and leave a convincing message why we’ll be gone the last week. I’m going to pay the next few months of rent ahead of time along with the bills.” Jackson said.

“I’ll also leave a prerecorded message for your mother to get once we’re actually out of the country.” Emily added.

“Then start packing. I’ll get us on the first flight out in the morning.” Jackson said.

The pair broke apart. Emily grabbed her cell phone and called the school. Using her best distinguished voice to sound like Mrs. Whittemore, Emily left a message excusing Jackson and Emily from school to attend a cruise for their graduation gift. When that message was over, Emily recorded a message for Mrs. Whittemore personally. She knew that the woman wouldn’t understand the truth, so Emily lied about the pair heading back to Emily’s hometown to see her family for graduation. She set the recording to send at eight am on the dot.

Emily could hear Jackson on the phone setting up their bills to be automatically paid. She slipped into the bedroom and pulled out their two suitcases. Emily quickly made work of her closet and dresser. She knew it was warm in California so she packed her lighter clothes. She tossed in some jeans and hoodies just in case. Emily dug out her old spell book and hid that within her suitcase in case they needed it.

She was just grabbing her bathroom necessities when Jackson came to join her in their bedroom. He began shoving clothes into his own suitcase. Once Emily’s suitcase was filled she zipped it up and then concentrated on her backpack. She packed her charger, her current book, her glasses and contact case. Emily threw in a few snacks, she knew that Jackson’s wolf hunger wouldn’t be sated with nasty airplane food for their long flight. She tucked her wallet and sunglasses into her backpack. Jackson was just finishing up himself when his cell phone began ringing.

“I’m not going to be able to lie to Scott, Emily.” Jackson said.

“I can.” Emily said.

“You don’t like using your mind control.” Jackson said.

“I know, but we can’t have Scott knowing that we’re coming.” Emily said.

Jackson sighed, then nodded, and handed his phone over to Emily.

“Hello.” Emily answered.

“Is Jackson there?” Scott asked.

“This isn’t Jackson Whittemore’s number. Please stop calling.” Emily said.

“Are you sure?” Scott asked.

Emily concentrated on Scott’s voice so she could send her thoughts into his.

“Sorry. I must have the wrong number.” Scott said.

“That’s alright. Have a good night.” Emily said before hanging up.

“That’s super creepy, but super hot at the same time.” Jackson said.

Emily rolled her eyes.

“Shut up.”

Jackson smirked.

“Come on, let’s go and have one last meal together.” Jackson said.

“We’re not going to have any more alone time are we?” Emily asked.

“Nope, the joys of the pack life.” Jackson said.

Emily forced a smile as they grabbed their luggage. They headed down to the parking garage where Jackson left Emily at the entrance so he could pull up his SUV. Once the vehicle was packed, the pair headed to their favorite diner to have one last quiet meal together. They were heading out on the three am flight. It was going to be an eleven hour flight. Which would give the couple enough time to drive to Beacon Hills, catch a quick catnap, and plan with their pack before meeting up with the other packs.

Jackson reached across the booth to lace his hand with Emily’s.

“Everything is going to be okay.” Jackson.

Emily nodded, but she was afraid of the visions that would come once she touched foot in Beacon Hills.

Deucalion and his Alphas reached the preserve first. Ennis stood to his left and Kali was to his right. Aiden and Ethan stood behind him watching the rest of the area for the other packs. Deucalion could hear somebody coming from the east. Deucalion grinned as he saw the familiar face walk forward.

Peter Hale stepped through the woods and into the preserve. He was flanked by his pack. His daughter Malia the werecoyote. Kate Argent, the new turned Hunter is now a werejaguar. Theo a born werewolf, with Peter’s made wolves he apprehended during his short time as Alpha. Owen and Sydney were twins and they stood at the back of the pack with the other made wolves Oz and Adam.

Scott ‘The True Alpha’ McCall came next with his rather large pack. His girlfriend, Kira Yukimura, the fox stood to his left. The banshee, Lydia, stood to his right. Liam, Scott’s little pup that he made himself, was joined by Allison and Chris Argent. Melissa, Scott’s mother stood with Sheriff Stilinski and Brett another new beta to his pack. Danny, the pack’s human, stood with the new pack human, Mason. Deucalion could sense a little animosity in the air of Scott’s pack as Stiles moved through the pack to join Scott and Kira up in front.

Finally, from the North came the Hale pack. It was smaller than what Deucalion had expected, but he was impressed to see that Derek had built himself a pack. His old family’s emissary, Deaton stood just behind Derek. Boyd and Isaac his first and second in command stood on either side of him. Erica stood next to Boyd and Derek’s sister Cora flanked Isaac’s side. The new deputy in town who turned out to be a phoenix stood in the back with the pack’s very own fish out of water little mermaid, Jenn.

“Derek, you should just take your pathetic excuse for a pack and run now. We won’t laugh as you tuck tail and run.” Peter taunted.

Derek just smiled at his uncle. “I think you should be the one to tuck tail and run, Peter.”

“Is that a threat boy?” Peter snarled.

“It’s whatever you take it as, Peter.” Derek said.

Everyone froze as sound came from the west. Two shadows could be seen walking through the maze of trees. Eyes widened in realization as Jackson stepped into the middle of the preserve with a brunette clinging to his hands.

“My, my, what do we have here?” Deucalion asked.

“Sorry, we’re late. We got a little distracted.” Jackson apologized.

The brunette slammed her foot down onto Jackson’s. He let out a small growl as he looked back at her to glare.

“Jackson, my boy, are you up for grabs?” Peter asked, he was practically drooling over the thought.

“You and I have a lot of unfinished business, Peter. So don’t even think about it.” Jackson said.

“Jackson,” Lydia whispered.

Jackson set his cold gaze up on his ex-girlfriend and Scott McCall.

“How did you know to come?” Scott asked. “We’ve been trying to reach you.”

“My Alpha came for me.” Jackson simply answered.

All eyes turned towards Derek who was still standing there smiling.

“Jackson, you’ve brought power with you.” Deucalion said as he licked at his bottom lip.

“It’s not power for you.” Jackson told him.

“It is if I take it.” Deucalion said nodding towards Kali.

Just as Emily’s dream had predicted, Kali came flying at them. Emily shoved Jackson out of the way, lifted her hand up, catching Kali mid flight. There were several gasps as Kali just hung in the air. Jackson straightened himself to look back at Emily. Her eyes were already fading to black as they do when her magic comes over.

“Back. Off.” Emily hissed sending the Alpha flying backwards and into a tree.

“How in the world did you find yourself a telekinesis?” Deucalion asked.

Jackson dragged Emily over to their pack. They ignored Deucalion’s question. The pair stood with Derek and they looked amongst the other three packs.

“This is Hale territory. Always has been and always will be. We are joining together as a whole to stop all of you.” Jackson snarled.

“You think your pathetic little pack can stop us?” Peter asked with a laugh.

Derek smirked. “You have no idea who you’re messing with.”

“Scatter.” Emily snarled suddenly.

“What?” Isaac asked.

Emily shoved the smaller brunette down. “Scatter!”

As Derek and the rest of his pack moved out of the way bullets started to rain down. Emily was hit in the shoulder as she pushed the girl out of the way. Emily swore as she tore the bullet out of her shoulder. It was packed with wolfsbane, it wasn’t going to hurt her, but the rest of the pack could be hurt. Emily quickly stood and could see Peter’s pack shooting at the other packs. Emily left the girl by a tree before running out into the middle of the preserve.

Emily swiped her right hand across in front of her sending the twins crashing into a tree. She flicked at Peter and his daughter smashing them into each other. It took Emily only a few more minutes to wipe out all of Peter’s pack. They lay scattered on the ground groaning in pain.

“You weren’t kidding about him not fighting fair.” Emily stated as Derek came to stand next to her.

“I’m so damn happy we have Emily in our pack.” Isaac said as he helped Cora to her feet.

The other two packs were helping each other to their own feet and checking their wounds. Jackson limped over to Emily and sagged against her. Emily tried catching Jackson, but he was too heavy and dragged Emily down with him.

“You’re hurt!” Emily exclaimed.

“It could have been a lot worse if it weren’t for you.” Deaton said, coming to check on Jackson’s wound.

“Derek, we need to get out of here and regroup.” Cora said.

Derek nodded.

“Boyd can you carry, Jackson?” Derek asked.

“I can walk, plus he needs to get Reyes out of here.” Jackson snarled.

Without looking at the other packs, Derek led his wounded pack out of the preserve. Emily left Jackson with Deaton and Derek to go over to the other brunette.

“You okay?” Emily asked.

“Yes, wolfsbane can’t hurt me, but the bullets sure would have.” The girl said.

“Good, now let’s get out of here.” Emily said.

“So are you like a witch?” She asked.

“Something like that.” Emily replied.

“I’m glad you’re not a wolf. I was beginning to feel outnumbered.” She said.

“What are you exactly?” Emily asked.

“Well I’m Jenn, but I’m a mermaid.” Jenn said.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve talked with a mermaid.” Emily replied.

“You know mermaids?” Jenn asked.

“Several of them.” Emily replied.

“Maybe you can help me find my birth parents.” Jenn suggested.

“Yeah, maybe.” Emily choked out.

“Awesome.” Jenn grinned before she hobbled off to catch up with the Deputy.

Another vision had come to mind and now that she met Jenn, Emily wasn’t quite sure if she was going to be able to tell Jenn the truth.

“Come on Em,” Erica hissed as Boyd pushed her into the vehicle.

“Coming.” Emily said as she waited for Jackson to slide in first.

“That could have been worse.” Derek told her. “So thank you.”

Emily nodded. “Of course, we’re pack now.”

Derek smiled and climbed into the driver's seat.

The rest of the pack quickly divided up between the vehicles and headed back towards Derek’s loft. They were going to stitch each other up and then start coming up with the next plan. Now that Emily got a feel for all of the packs she knew this was going to be much harder than she had anticipated and Emily feared the worst.

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tragedybunny · 5 years ago

Text

Empty - An Original Piece of Short Horror

A little bit of something different, here’s a piece I published on Reddit awhile back.

These are the true events we experienced, as best as I can recollect them.

It started off as a fairly average Saturday for the middle of summer, hot and humid, with a light drizzle falling from the sky. Well, maybe not exactly average as for once we didn’t actually have any plans that required leaving the house. As always, first order of business was to get the coffee pot brewing, then I took the dog out.

I stood under the covered entry way of the apartment building and let Pepper do her business, noting that not one person from the complex was out and about. This wasn’t unusual, we lived on the edge of a small city, and there wasn’t a lot of activity most days, let alone a Saturday morning. Most of the kids seemed to stay indoors most of time. Insert your “kids today” jokes as you like.

After we got back upstairs I made myself a cup of coffee and sat on the couch, putting on Hulu for some mindless morning viewing. In the background, I could hear Chris, my husband start getting up, and the rain starting come to down a bit harder. After a bit he joined me on the couch, cup of coffee in hand.

“Morning!” I smiled cheerfully

He jokingly offered only groans in response.

We sat for a couple of hours on the couch, lazily watching shows. At one point I sent a few texts to my brother, but he never responded. I chalked this up to being the father of a one year old and opened my Facebook feed. This is where things began to feel strange. There hadn’t been one single update since the night before, no statuses, no memes, and no vaguely racist relatives talking about Islam.

I poked Chris to break his attention from the TV. “Hey, is your Facebook feed working? I think the last update broke my app.”

“Oh no, the horror, whatever will you do.” He picked up his phone and tried his. “Hmm, nope, must have been the update.” He shrugged dismissively.

“I don’t know, something just feels off.” I got up and stepped into the kitchen dialing my brother. It went to voicemail. I tried my best friend, my dad, and a few other friends. Nothing. “No one is answering.” I reported as I sat back down.

He paused the show. “No one?”

“No one. I mean I didn’t try your mom. See if she answers.”

We had the same luck with his mom and began to dial every number in our contact list until we were down to two, our grandparents’ respective nursing homes. He tried first, only to get the office voicemail in the end. My grandpa had a direct line in his room so I tried that. As it was ringing, I thought I heard someone pick up. I said hello repeatedly, only to be answered by some weird static. “Ok, I’m officially getting a little creeped out.”

Chris rubbed the back of my neck soothingly. “Look, the rain let up. Let’s go knock on some doors and see if we can find a neighbor with a landline. Maybe this is all just network issues.”

“I guess, let me put on some real clothes.”

Our complex has several different buildings spread throughout a pretty decent sized area. I’m pretty convinced the place used to be a condo complex. We knocked on the three other apartments on our side of the building with no luck before moving the other side to knock on the four over there.

I sighed, seeing absolutely no one in sight, and getting slightly wet from the now very light spray of rain. “Let’s go bang on the manager’s door. She said she had a fax, means she probably has a phone.” Behind me I thought I heard something, causing me to pause for a moment. It was some sort of metallic screeching, which was gone almost as soon as I realized I was hearing it.

We held hands on our walk to the other building, which isn’t odd for us, but it felt like we were squeezing just a little too hard. We must have pounded on that door for at least five minutes. Other people should have come out of their doors to tell us to fuck off.

I kicked one of the nearby shrubs. “Well, I’m out of ideas.”

“I’ve got one, let’s get back inside first.”

Chris explained as he loaded one of his rifles, and checked his hand gun mags, that we were going to take the guns, and Pepper up to Wal-Mart, and see if we could find anyone. If there was no one at there, we would know something was horribly wrong.

“And why do we need to be outfitted like a small army?” I started to get the dog ready.

“What if there was an evacuation or something that we missed and the only people left are not the kind we want to run into?”

“Fair enough.” We headed out, the rifle slung over my shoulder, Pepper nose to the ground, and Chris leading the way to his car.

As we left the complex it felt like we stumbled into a nightmare. Every street on the way was abandoned, every business seemed empty, and the rain that had become mist hung over it all. A short while later we pulled into the parking lot, which had a few cars in it, but not nearly enough for a Saturday afternoon. Given the circumstance we pulled up right to the door.

“Alright I’m going to go in, you stay here with Pepper. If anything happens, just get back to the apartment.”

“I know how to shoot this thing Chris, I’m coming in with you.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I know that Mandy, but if something crazy happens, it’s easier for one person to escape than two and a dog. Trust me.”

Reluctantly I let him go and settled in to wait, Pepper whining and panting next to me. I tried the radio, working my way through the stations, only to find nothing but static. And then my phone rang.

It was Chris. I felt like an idiot as I realized up until this point we hadn’t tried to call each other. I answered and was surprised I could hear him, even though it sounded like he was talking under water.

“Holy shit, it’s weird seeing this place empty. You should come in and see it.”

“I’ll bring Pepper, it’ll be like a special family outing.” He snorted as I hung up. I got Pepper and my gun and made sure I locked the door behind me. Which I’ll admit felt odd with no one around, but old habits I guess. As I headed in I thought I heard the same noise as earlier, but it seemed so far off I chalked it up to imagining things. Who wouldn’t be going a little nuts in the current circumstance?

Chris was right, there is nothing like the site of a giant store that should have hundreds of people crammed in it, standing there devoid of life. We met a couple of aisles into the grocery section. He looked a little shaken. “You ok hun?” I asked as Pepper excitedly explored the shelves.

“Yeah, it’s just, what is happening?” His eyes darted around taking in the emptiness all around us before he let his head come to rest in his hands.

I put my hand up to his cheek. “Hey, come on, what’s the rule? We’re too classy for a meltdown in Wal-Mart.” We offered each other a weak smile, and he sniffled a bit. I looked down at his feet to find a partially filled handbasket. “Were you grocery shopping?”

He reached down and picked up a box of frozen crab cakes. “Classy enough for you?” For a moment I felt like everything was somehow going to be ok, and that’s when the lights began to flicker.

We stared at each for a moment and this time I was positive I heard that grinding, screeching, horrible sound, because Chris looked at me mouthed three letters. “WTF.”

We took off for the front doors and the lights flickered at even more rapid pace. I fumbled with the keys until I managed to click the unlock button as we dove for the car. Pepper obediently scrambled into the back. We didn’t say anything a few minutes.

“I’ve heard that noise before.” I finally admitted, staring straight ahead. “At the complex earlier, and then I thought I might have heard it as I was locking up the car. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it earlier”

“Don’t be, it’s a fucking noise. Why would you be suspicious? If you told me you’d seen an eldritch horror and didn’t tell me, I’d be a little miffed.”

“Now what?”

He turned his head to the back seat. “We go home and put away these groceries.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Crab cakes for dinner?”

We did in fact have crab cakes for dinner, as we sat on the couch, attempting to piece together where we went from here. We had closed all the blinds in the apartment, and turned on a few lights as possible. Pepper was close by, laying down but remaining alert. The steady drum of the returning rain did nothing the calm our nerves.

“I think we should get out of here, at least to see what’s going on in other places. Maybe you were right about an evacuation.” I took another bite, but I barely tasted anything.

He shrugged. “We could try, but I’m fully willing to admit something way more out of the ordinary than that is happening here.”

“I’m calling it, we’re dead. Or maybe it’s all just a dream.” I couldn’t even smile at my fake levity. I knew he was right, knew that something was terribly wrong that was beyond conventional experience.

We decided to pack some supplies and head out in the morning, trying to find a trace of other people. We’d take the highway back to our old hometown, stopping along the way to look for people we knew.

As we lay down for the night the rain intensified into a full blown storm, pelting our window and shaking the trees. Chris wrapped his arms around me as we both resolved to try to sleep. The air was thick with what seemed like menace. And I could almost feel something out there, watching us from the distance.

In the morning we loaded ourselves up with food, water, ammo, and a couple of sleeping bags. Outside, without the rain the silence was even more obvious. There was no birdsong, no barking from the other neighborhood dogs, not even a fly buzzing over the dumpster. I shuddered trying to take it in. I almost asked Chris what the point was, it was clear everything was gone but us. I thought better of it as I took in his sunken bloodshot eyes. I knew things were getting to him as well. Pepper and I got in the car and we off in search of signs of life.

We lived about an hour from our old hometown, a winding state highway our usual route back. A turn off that highway onto a county road lead to the nursing home my Grandpa lived in. We headed down the long drive into the complex of buildings, each one a different level of care, and pulled up in front of my Grandpa’s building. As I’d expected we saw no one around. This time we headed in together, armed and dog in tow.

A cursory search told us the situation here was the same as back home, even the birds that usually swarmed the feeders that sat outside of almost every window were gone. We still entered Grandpa’s room, holding to that small glimmer of hope. We did notice that the bed was unmade, as they were in the several other rooms we checked.

“What do think it means?” I asked Chris, gesturing at the covers.

“I dunno, whatever happened was before the CNAs could make the beds.” He shrugged at the end, making it more of a question than a statement.

Pepper sniffed excitedly at the furniture around the room. She’s been enamored with Grandpa when she’d met him. “Sorry girl, looks like he’s not here.”

My eyes caught sight of his phone, sitting there off the hook. “Chris, look, when I tried to call the other day, I thought there was an answer but no one said anything.”

Chris narrowed his eyes. “It could have been someone else too, let’s stay on guard.”

“Ugh, you’re right. I’m going to search the nurse’s desks, and the offices, maybe there’s something there.” I left the phone where it was, not wanting to betray to anyone we’d been there, just in case.

We spent about an hour rifling through any area we could find connected to the staff, desperate for some clue to have been left behind. All we could find were some duty checklists and sign offs, the last of which appeared to be about two in the morning.

I kicked a rolling chair. “Another damn waste of time.” I shouted at the air around me.

“What?” It was a woman’s voice, not whispered, but like it was far way.

“Shit, Chris, did you hear that?” Peppers ears were at attention.

“Yeah, time to go.” He started carefully heading toward the exit.

“But it was like it responded to me.” Soundly, it was like the whole world was filled with the harsh grinding sound that had been haunting us. This time instead of fleeing all we could do was stay frozen in place until it passed and left us gasping for air in its wake.

We made our way back to the car in silence, looking over our shoulders, weapons at the ready. Pepper desperately pulling us along, eager to be out of there.

Once we had made it back to the main road we decided to pull over at the nearest gas station to get some water and food and clear our heads. I pulled a notebook from my bag, and began to make a list.

“This is everything we’ve discovered about what’s going on so far.” I explained to Chris. “We need to make sure we keep track of it all, maybe we can figure this out.”

He looked dubious, and I could tell he didn’t want to say what was really on his mind. You can’t figure something out that had no rational explanation. Instead he asked where we were headed next.

We decided the next closest stop would be my brother Aaron’s condo, and few miles from our current location. We set off again after gassing up the car, glad that at least the pumps were on. Again the overcast skies gave way to a downpour that blurred out the world around us, silence consuming us once again.

This time Chris waited in the car as I ran down the walk way and frantically rang the bell. When no answer came I pounded on the door. I ran to his garage and banged on the door. I rang all the neighbors’ bells. I shouted for Aaron, his wife Lisa, and finally with a small cry, baby Sophie. My world spun, and I collapsed to my knees, sobbing. I hadn’t noticed Chris get out of his car, but he leaned down and put his arms around me.

“They’re gone! Everyone’s really gone. Even Sophie.” I couldn’t stand, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. All I could think was my sweet little niece, my family, my poor old grandpa. Chris finally coaxed me back to the car and we headed back towards home, abandoning plans to keep looking for signs of life and the rest of our family and friends. We knew enough by the point to know we were alone, whatever the cause.

As we headed down the road I looked absentmindedly at my phone out of habit, and then I noticed, I had a blank text from my brother, coming from about the time we’d been outside his condo. After showing it to Chris scribbled it in the list of clues, and tried to detach from everything we’d seen that day. The rain caused the world around us to blur away into indistinct shapes and colors.

By the time we were home the emotional drain left us starving and exhausted. We clung to one another under the covers that night and I prayed, prayed that we’d never wake up.

I honestly couldn’t tell you much about the next couple of days. We spent them in a quiet fog staring at the TV, reading, playing board games, and eating. We didn’t venture outside too often, as the frequent rain had become near constant, now with bursts of thunder and lightning.

We took a trip to a couple of grocery stores, pilfering the fanciest foods we could get our hands on, and stopping by liquor stores for only the highest end booze they stocked. Every time we ventured out, even to let Pepper do her business, we now encountered the terrible shriek, as though its source was drawing closer to us.

“Let’s go to Florida.” Chris looked up from his lobster tail and porterhouse surf and turf. “It’s warm, and we can run around Disney World.”

“But not ride any of the rides. And it’s warm here. Stop being ridiculous.” I snapped, feeling bad instantly. He was just trying to cheer me up. I took another sip of my wine. “Sorry. Just not in the mood for that.”

He was about to reply the apartment was plunged into sudden darkness. I covered my ears expecting the horrendous shriek, instead the room filled voices, our voices. It was like every conversation we’d ever had there was being played back at the same time, fights, laughter, somber tones, and tears. Pepper braked at the other dog she could clearly hear barking. I shouted nonsense into the darkness, I begged, I cursed the universe, I wordlessly screamed. And then the lights came back on.

Chris reached across the table and held my hand. I offered him a weak smile. He sighed. “Every time I think it can’t get weak weirder it does.”

“We’ll at least we’re all together still, it could be worse.” Lightning struck the tree in front of our window, the explosion rattled the windows. “Fuck!” I jumped up to make sure there was no fire.

The tree stood untouched, as though nothing had happened. For the first time in days I truly looked around. There was no evidence that it had rained for days, no pools of water in lawn, no branches scattered by the wind. Everything looked exactly like it was the morning we woke up in this hell.

I called Chris over to confirm my theory but we were again shook by another near lightning strike, this one causing Pepper to whimper from the floor where she was. “Holy shit. It’s getting crazy out there.”

The shriek returned, not deafeningly loud, but it didn’t vanish. The storm began to pick until we were battered by hurricane like winds and blinded by flashes every few seconds. We passed a long few hours playing games and drinking, trying to keep an eye on the storm that would not let up. “What if it turns into a tornado? We’re screwed.” Chris had turned back to watching to storm.

“Well, we’re already screwed. Besides, wouldn’t we have had a tornado by now if we could have one? This damn thing isn’t natural in the least.”

“Still maybe we should put the air mattress in the bathroom tonight, it’s the only slightly tornado safe room in here.”

I conceded the point and we made camp in the bathroom. The floor space just big enough for our mattress and Pepper. We set up our propane lantern and put a movie on our laptop. We could still hear the storm and the now distant screech, but the noise was no longer loud enough to drive us insane.

I laughed as we settled in. “Hey, this is kind of romantic right? Low lights, a movie, fake camping, I feel like we’re on a date.”

Chris playfully rolled his eyes. “Great, now she wants to get all mushy on me.”

Eventually we drifted off, Pepper already snoring away next to us. Sometime during the night we both were jolted awake by the loudest strike we’d heard yet, the whole apartment shaking as though the building had been struck. It stopped a moment later. As hard as a I tried to fight to get up and assess what was happening, I collapsed back into sleep.

The next morning I woke up to the sun shining brightly, I was somehow in the bedroom. “Chris!” I shouted shoving him.

“What?” He sat up and took a moment to register where we were. I realized he hadn’t carried me in here. “What the fuck?”

“It stopped raining at least.” My phone buzzed, and when I picked it up I had about a dozen missed calls and texts. “Chris, check your phone.” I began scrolling through my messages.

Dad – “Heard there’s a big storm coming, hope your windows are shut.”

Aaron – “Hey, take care, it looks bad by you.”

Several friends had sent messages of the same nature.

Dad – “Let me know if you’re ok, they said there’s a tornado that way.”

Aaron – “Not cool, answer, call me.”

I nearly shouted when I noticed the phone told me it was Saturday, it should have been Thursday by now. I jumped up and opened the blinds letting the sun stream over us for the first time in days.

Chris and I spent the next half hour returning calls and messages, assuring everyone we had slept through the giant storm and that we must have left our phones on vibrate. Then we had a perfectly average Saturday.

To this day, I still can’t explain what happened to us. I’ve come to believe we somehow lost sync with time. What caused it and what fixed it, I couldn’t tell you either. I’d chalk it up to hallucination, but Chris has the same memories I do, and in my bag I found my notebook with my list of clues. That and my liquor cabinet and fridge were still incredibly stocked. Sometimes though, when I’m outside and it’s still and quiet, I think I can hear a distant screech.

#original fiction #short horror stories #my writing #short horror #writers on tumblr

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theeeveetamer · 6 years ago

Note

This may be an odd request, but if it’s not too much trouble, may I get a modern ABO leokumi fic where Leo just becomes really obsessed with Takumi’s scent during his first pregnancy? I sorta headcanon that in all ABO verses that omegas gain a sweet milk undertone to their original scent from the time the pregnancy is detectable, and I imagine Leo would just become enamored with it while Takumi is just really weirded out. Again, sorry if this request is a little odd, but thank you in advance.

I definitely thought I posted this, because I finished writing this like two weeks ago but oh well, I finished it now! Side note, but I did not realize Tupperware is a proper noun. Learn something new every day.

Relevant Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Mpreg, Arguing, Making Up, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, Scenting

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305054

That bastard.

He shoved another spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth and grumbled under his breath. He’d been too annoyed to wash the few dishes they’d managed to unpack, so instead he’d spent twenty minutes digging through cardboard boxes to find one clean piece of flatware he could use instead.

Don’t unpack anything! We won’t be living here for very long.

Leo said that six months ago! But his mate was too busy to go house hunting, and he was cooped up in this tiny box of an apartment and crammed in with mountains-upon-fucking-mountains of everything they’d ever owned. He’d already ranted and raved about it over the phone to anyone and everyone that would listen to him, but it was a new city so at the end of the day he was still stuck in this mess by himself. If they’d been moved into an actual house he could have at least occupied himself with unpacking during the day until Leo got home from work.

Speaking of his mate...

Leo promised he would be home by six. It was nearly nine now. He didn’t know why he was surprised; Leo was always late. But it was Friday night and he’d promised he would be home on time to take him out to dinner.

He was going absolutely stir crazy. He wasn’t allowed to leave the house unless he was on suppressants or pregnant, and unfortunately he was currently neither of those things.

Fuck it. Maybe I should just tell Leo to shove it, we can start trying again later.

The little white bottle sitting on the kitchen counter called to him with its siren song of pseudo-freedom. But they were finally at a point in their lives where a baby was possible. Out of school, and Leo was making good money with this new job. More than what they’d been making combined, so he’d quit his job teaching and they moved several hours to the city without a second thought. They’d been able to comfortably bank one of their incomes for the past three years with a little frugal living, and it was more than enough for a down payment on a nice house. Three bedrooms, two baths… White picket fence and dog included.

Well, if either of them were actively searching the housing market. He’d told Leo to just get a real estate agent, but his bullheaded Alpha was convinced he could do things by himself, but he worked far too much to even look at properties. So it was looking like it would be up to him to find an agent.

And although he was itching to get started, there wasn’t much he could do about it until those little pink sticks in the bathroom started reading two lines. There were a lot of things he couldn’t do until Leo finally knocked him up, including going out to a nice dinner without his mate. He was finally going to get out of the damn house for once! He’d really been looking forward to it, too! Leo had made reservations at a little Italian place down the street that he’d been dying to try ever since they’d moved in, but here he was shoveling cold mashed potatoes into his face and watching reruns of some trashy wedding reality show.

He checked the time. It was already ten o’clock, and the sun had long since set, and the only light in the room was the blue glow of the television set.

I’m gonna kill him.

The front door clicked open a little while later. Frustration finally hitting it’s boiling point, he twisted around and chucked the empty plastic Tupperware container in that general direction. It connected -- if his mate’s angry swearing was anything to go by -- though it bounced off relatively harmlessly and clattered to the floor with a wholly unsatisfying thunk.

“Asshole.”

“What the fuck Takumi?”

He slammed the front door shut behind him, rattling the thin walls and probably waking up half of the people on their floor. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to wonder if the neighbors hated them or not.

“You said you were going to be home hours ago! Where the hell were you?”

“Work! Where else would I be?”

“I haven’t left the house in two weeks! You promised that you would be home on time!”

“And that gives you the right to throw things at me?!”

“It gives me the right to be upset!”

“Look, we have this huge deadline and everyone has been working late. My boss wasn’t going to let me leave early just because my mate is grumpy.”

He could practically hear the eyeroll in his Alpha’s voice. Takumi’s fingers curled tighter around his spoon, and his mind went completely blank with rage.

“Grumpy? I’m fucking furious! Why don’t I lock you in the house for a months on end and see how much fun you have with it?”

He got up off the couch and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring straight up into his mate’s eyes. Leo had a good eight inches on him, but it had never bothered him. Even if he had to crane his neck up he never backed down from a stubborn Alpha.

“You’re being completely unreasonable.”

Leo was infuriating. It was always “You’re being unreasonable”, or “You’re too angry right now”, or “it’s not a big deal” but it was! And it didn’t stop being a big deal just because Leo didn’t want to handle it!

The blonde had already retreated under that emotionless mask he’d spent so many years cultivating. Weren’t they supposed to be over this by now?

“I hate it when you do that. With your face I mean, if you’re upset then say something!”

“The only thing I’m upset about is the fact that my mate is throwing a tantrum like an immature child.”

“Fuck you!”

“You started this.”

“Is it so wrong of me to want a mate that keeps his damn word?!”

“Would you rather I get fired? Then what would we do? How the hell are we going to support a baby like that?”

“Ugh! You-- You’re impossible!”

He threw his dirty spoon down on the couch — He hadn’t even realized he’d still been holding it — and stormed into the bedroom. It was pretty impossible to put a lot of distance between them in their little one bedroom apartment. Normally he wouldn’t have minded the tight quarters, but he’d been getting testier the longer they tried for this baby.

He burrowed under the covers, still fully dressed, and tried to cool his head.

Leo only waited a few minutes, just long enough to put his work things away and the dirty dishes into the sink before he crawled into bed behind him. His mate wrapped his arms around his waist and nuzzled the back of his neck.

He sighed. He never could stay mad when Leo nipped at the back of his neck like that.

“Why can’t you just let me be angry? You aren’t playing fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war my dear, and as I recall I still love you.”

“I’m sorry for throwing things at you.”

“I’m sorry, I should have called you when I found out I’d be staying late. I keep forgetting that Sakura and your mother aren’t a fifteen minute drive away anymore.”

They were both so used to operating under the relative freedom that his heat suppressants allowed… Sometimes he even forgot that he couldn’t leave without taking them until he was half way out the door. Before they moved he could call Sakura or Mama up to keep him company, but now he was all alone in this new city.

“I know you can’t help it.”

His mate continued nuzzling along the side of his neck, far longer than he usually did.

“Um Leo? You can stop now, I’ve calmed down.”

“You smell… Really sweet.”

“You’re starting to freak me out.”

“Love… I think you’re pregnant.”

“What?”

He tried to pull away, but Leo’s nose was still firmly planted against his neck. His mate’s warm breath danced over his skin and made him shiver, though it wasn’t a wholly pleasant experience this time. Leo was acting very… Weird.

“You smell different.”

“Are you just saying this because I’ve been emotional? Because I swear--”

“No, really! I think you’re pregnant. Do you still have some tests in the bathroom?”

He shuffled out of bed and practically ran to the bathroom. Leo stood to follow him, but he slammed the door in his Alpha’s face before he could dare. He was still a little upset, and it was always so embarrassing to take these things in front of him.

“Takumi!”

“Talk to me in five minutes!”

He tried to occupy himself until that short amount of time passed, but it was excruciating. They’d been doing this for almost two months, and every time it had ended in disappointment. He could practically envision Leo sitting on the edge of the bed just outside the bathroom door, anxiously wringing his hands and trying to pretend like he wasn’t also worried.

“Leo!” He called out around the three minute mark.

“Yeah?”

“If this is negative and you got my hopes up then I’m going to kill you!”

He wasn’t still mad. Nope, not one bit. It was merely a joke to break the tension...

Gods, five minutes had never gone so slowly before, had it?

The second his timer went off he snatched the little pink stick off of the counter.

Two lines, clear as day.

He tossed the bathroom door open, and before Leo could even stand up he tackled him and knocked him flat on his back. Takumi pinned his shoulders to the bed, legs on either side of his waist.

“Is this a happy tackle or an I’m-going-to-kill-you tackle?”

“Happy, definitely happy.”

Leo beamed up at him with the most brilliant smile. It’d been awhile since he’d seen it, and gods he hadn’t realized how much he missed it. Takumi closed the gap between their lips and kissed him repeatedly, in excited little bursts. When he tired himself out, Leo wrapped his arms around him and drew him flush against his chest, nose buried in his hair.

“I can finally leave this damn apartment! First thing tomorrow we should make an appointment with the doctor… And we can start buying stuff for the nursery! We should probably pick a color scheme…”

“Mhmm…”

“Oh come on Leo! I know you’re just as excited about this as I am!”

“Sorry, love. You just smell so wonderful right now.”

“Stop being weird.” He pushed himself off of the bed and headed for the front door. “Well? Come on, get your wallet! You still owe me dinner.”

“Dinner? It’s nearly eleven!”

“I’m sure somewhere is open. Besides, you’re the one that kept me and the baby waiting in the first place!”

#leokumi #leo #takumi #omegaverse #fanfiction #request #takuleo #fe fates #Anonymous

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