#pls watch this entire thing I swear its worth it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

inkykeiji · 4 years ago

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day 3 ❅ you are my home, my home for all seasons

don’t cry snowman, don’t you fear the sun, who’ll carry me without legs to run?

day two ❅ day three ❅ day four | series masterlist

characters: todoroki touya | dabi ft. todoroki natsuo

genre: smut + angst

notes: WAAAAH okay listen i swear to god this was not supposed to be as long as it is. uhhhh just over half of this is smut, pls pay attention to the warnings below n stay safe! <33 | title credit: snowman by sia

warnings: 18+, pseudo-incest (stepcest), one (1) non-graphic fist fight, tense family dynamics, generally toxic relationships, size difference, drug use, threesome, rough sex, cumplay/snowballing, a hint of mindbreak, slight dacryphilia, slight degradation

words: 7.7k

synopsis:

And the way his eyes glitter as he gazes at you, the way his fingers trace your jaw and then smooth down your hair, melts all of the anxiety and anger that had been building in your chest, burns it all to ash and sweeps it away just like that, with that one look and that gentle caress.

Because his sapphire eyes hold so much love it’s almost suffocating, overwhelming in the best way, has you endlessly craving more, more, more; and his soft touches speak volumes, rough hands scarred and stained with blood he’ll never be able to wash off, so tender when they touch you like this.

I think…I think he really loves her.

And suddenly, none of it matters anymore, Fuyumi’s words and Rei’s worry no longer holding any weight. All that matters is that you love him, and he loves you, and that’s all you need.

❅ ❅ ❅ ❅ ❅ ❅

It storms, the day of December 23rd; a nasty blizzard that has the wooden shutters banging against the outside of the cabin, harsh gusts of air rattling the glass windows as it viciously hurls snow and ice against them.

“God, you can’t see fucking anything!”

“Language, Natsuo,” Rei chides softly, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she stares out at the white, at the nothingness, just endless swirls of deceptively pretty snow, being tossed in every direction by fierce winds.

“We can’t even see the cars, and they’re only a few feet away!” Fuyumi whines. “So much for tubing today,”

“That’s alright,” Rei says, forcing her lips into a smile as she turns towards her children. “We’ll just have to find other ways to entertain ourselves, that’s all,”

And not one of you misses the uneasy trembling in her voice.

❅ ❅ ❅

“Up,”

Black obscures your vision for a moment as Touya tugs his shirt over your head, a shiver coursing through your body as your skin is exposed to the cool air of your shared bedroom.

“You cold?” Touya teases, tweaking a peaked nipple.

“Niichan!” you whine, swatting at his hand, blood rushing to your face, cheeks tingling with embarrassment.

“Cute,” Touya smirks, the tips of his fingers caressing a burning cheek before he turns away, rooting through a drawer and looking for your dress today. “It’s adorable that you’ll let me stick my cock in you, or fuck your throat, or coat you entire body in cum, but you still get embarrassed by those little things,”

He turns back to face you with a stupid, goofy smile on his face, though his eyes are shining with mirth, and you can’t help the soft giggle that bubbles past your lips, sprinkled throughout your shy little shut up, niichan!

It’s routine at this point, your actions entirely automatic as your naked body slides off the bed, Touya kneeling to pull a fresh pair of panties—lavender today, trimmed with lace and ribbon—up your legs, lips scattering a few kisses along your thigh as he does so. Arms raise into the air, almost expectantly, as Touya straightens up again, slipping a long sleeved babydoll dress over your head—crushed velvet and plum purple, this time—helping pull your arms through before smoothing it down your body.

Stepping back to assess you, to admire you, Touya dusts his hands together. “Do you think you can pull on your tights by yourself today?”

Your eyebrows furrow, but you nod anyways. Of course you can, you’re a big girl, you know.

“Perfect.” He turns on his heel. “Then, I’ll be back,” he tosses over his shoulder casually, as if there isn’t a blizzard raging outside. “Stay put, yeah?”

“Wait, what?” tiny finger curl in the material of his sleeve, tugging a little. “You’re going out in that?”

“Just for a moment—”

“Niichan!” the honorific comes out as a gasp, your hand smacking his bicep. “Do you have a deathwish?”

“Baby,” he begins, gently taking your face between two large palms, voice supercilious as if speaking to a child. “I need to smoke, or I’m going to crawl out of my fucking skin, do you understand? Natsuo’s gonna come,”

“I wanna—”

“No.” he says instantly, eyes flashing, your body instinctually cowering from his tone. “I’ll only be a minute, I promise,” he presses a kiss to the tip of your nose. “Relax, it’s just a little snow! I want you to sit here like the perfect little good girl you are, and not move until I come back, okay?”

Lips pulling down into an involuntary frown, you nod in his grasp, watching him go with a little pout. It’s only after you hear the backdoor slam, pulled shut by the sheer force of the wind, that you hear them.

“He’s got her entirely brainwashed!” Fuyumi’s muffled voice carries through the walls.

“I’m not quite sure that’s it,” Rei responds, trying to gently reason with her daughter.

“Oh my God, what are you talking about!”

You creep off the bed, springs squeaking under your weight.

“Fuyumi,” Rei sighs, and you imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose. “When’s the last time you saw Touya smile like that? When’s the last time you saw your older brother this happy?”

Bare feet make the softest little pad…pad…pad… against the hardwood as you tiptoe towards the door.

“Mom…” Fuyumi trails off, her voice softer when she speaks again. “It doesn’t make it right, though,”

The brass knob turns slowly, carefully, silently, and you pull the door open just a crack, just enough to push your ear close to the sliver and listen.

The master bedroom is at the end of the hallway, but the door is wide open, their voices floating through the vacant corridor.

Rei responds after a beat of silence. “Would he stop even if I told him to? Is it even worth the fight, at this point?”

And she sounds so sad, so defeated that it drives a dull, throbbing ache deep in your chest, a hand coming up to press against your body, trying to quell it.

“I think…” Rei trails off, and your breathing halts. “I think he really loves her,”

Her words probably shouldn’t inspire such wicked sparks of joy that shoot through your veins and up your spine, but they do, and you have to press your lips together to keep a giddy smile from spreading across your face. So other people do see it.

“Oh God, give me a break, he’s—”

“I’m serious, Fuyumi,” Rei cuts her off sharply, voice curt. “I haven’t…He’s never stayed with someone for this long, never cared about anyone as much as he cares about her—you can see it in his eyes,”

“But—But she’s his sister, mom!” Fuyumi cries. “It isn’t okay!”

“Keep your voice down,” Rei scolds, sounding exasperated. She’s quiet for a moment. “You’re right. It isn’t okay. But I…” her voice fades, and you think you hear sniffling, the thought stinging your own eyes. “I can’t take that from him, Yumi, I just can’t,”

A tense silence settles, and you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears, body rigid and tight as you wonder if the conversation’s over.

“She doesn’t deserve that, you know. He doesn’t, either,”

Fuyumi’s words, murmured so quietly you have to strain to hear them, light a ferocious fire in your chest, sending scalding fury burning through your veins. How dare she!

Your teeth grind together, hand gripping the doorknob so tightly it begins to jiggle. How dare she insinuate that Touya doesn’t deserve your love. How dare she imply that he isn’t capable of loving, when she barely knows a goddamn thing about him.

Sparkling cobalt flashes through your mind, accompanied by that pearly, lopsided smile and that thoaty, syrupy voice that’s always dripping with just a touch of indifference, and your heart swells.

Touya takes care of you better than anyone ever has in your entire life. Touya makes sure you’re well fed, well groomed, well dressed. Touya ensures your final year university assignments get done in a timely manner, buys you whatever you want, whenever you want it. Touya provides for and cares about and loves you.

How dare she pretend as if she understands any of that, as if she knows anything about your relationship at all, as if it’s any of her damn business in the first place.

“What about her father? What does he think about this whole situation?” Fuyumi asks a few moments later, when it’s clear Rei isn’t going to respond, capturing your attention again, jaw clenching.

Another deep sigh, one that surely has her chest heaving with the force of it, echoes down the hallway. “He refuses to talk about it any time I try to bring it up, so I’ve stopped trying. He’d rather just…not know, I guess, ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist, and just look away. I don’t—I don’t think he can bear the thought, so he just…doesn’t.”

Exhaustion is heavy in your step-mother’s voice, weighing down her words and diminishing the flames raging in your chest to smoldering embers, hand relaxing its grip around the doorknob.

“If that were me and Natsuo—”

“That’s enough,”

“Or me and Shouto—”

“I said, that’s enough, Fuyumi.” Rei snaps, and you flinch—in all the years you’ve known her, you’ve never heard her use that tone of voice. It’s unusual, unfamiliar, unsettling.

Heavy footsteps begin stomping up the stairs, cutting off your thoughts, and you yelp softly, scampering back towards the bed. Touya pushes through the door a moment later, eyebrows knitting as azure eyes dart from your untouched tights, still sitting neatly folded on the bed where he placed him, to your bare legs, then drifting up to your face.

“Why aren’t your tights on, princess?” he tilts his head, a smile playing at his lips, more relaxed now that he’s smoked. “Willfully misbehaving? Or are you not such a big girl after all?”

I think…I think he really loves her.

And suddenly, none of it matters anymore, Fuyumi’s words and Rei’s worry no longer holding any weight. All that matters is that you love him, and he loves you, and that’s all you need.

❅ ❅ ❅

By the late afternoon, you’ve all begun to get antsy, resulting in Rei feeling like her kids are actual children again and wracking her mind for an activity to keep you all occupied. She decides on baking and decorating gingerbread men and then a Christmas movie marathon after dinner, gathering the family in the kitchen as her hands nervously rearrange the ingredients she’s laid out on the table.

Everyone’s already a little on edge, shoulders tense and tight any time Touya and Shouto are in the same room together, and you swear the air is electric, cracking and popping with shocks and zaps anytime one of them bristles at something the other said.

Like a storm is brewing.

The entire family works hard to keep them as far away from each other as possible, and attempts to minimize any type of contact at all: seating them on opposite ends of the table, keeping them sandwiched between moderators—family members who speak cautiously in gentle voices, who carefully and dutifully steer the conversation away from a fight—and even going as far to give each ‘group’ their own mixing bowl and baking tools.

The ingredients, however, they have to share.

It feels like a competition: who can make their dough the fastest, who can decorate their cookies the nicest, who can stay the most faithful to the recipe, who’s cookies taste the best.

And yet, none of these efforts seem to matter, because Shouto’s very presence, Shouto’s very existence, infuriates Touya to no end. They clash like thunder and lightning, silent strikes of white-hot fury that you can almost see flashing through the air—Shouto snickering quietly, or making some snide comment muttered under his breath, or reacting to something Touya does with a roll of his eyes or a scoff—followed by a clap of menacing thunder; rumbling—a tremorous growl deep within Touya’s chest; and roaring—the way his deep voice booms through the space; and rolling—his hand clutching you: your hand, your thigh, your wrist, anything he can latch onto to keep him grounded, to keep him sane.

It only continues to build as the day progresses, explosive magma rising higher, and higher, and higher with each spiteful word spit through clenched teeth, each ridiculing laugh ringing out around the room, each malicious look shot in the others direction, until it finally erupts, spouting blistering lava that scorches everything in its path, that seeps through the cracks, beginning to corrode that mask Shouto has been steadily chipping away at.

It was bound to happen eventually—no matter how hard any of you had tried to pretend, you had all known it. It had only been a question of when.

The answer to that question, apparently, is after dinner.

You aren’t even sure how it began, exactly, busy washing dishes with Rei in the kitchen, but your blood runs cold when you hear Natsuo quietly urging Touya to stop, don’t, it isn’t worth it, and Touya growling at Natsuo to let go of him, don’t fucking touch him.

Rei hears it too, of course, because the plate she was scrubbing slips from her hands and cracks as it collides with the aluminum sink, sheer panic etched into her face, wiping sudsy hands on her cardigan as she hurries towards the voices with you in tow.

Shouto’s barking out a laugh as you both round the corner—a harsh, almost piercing sound that echoes throughout the cabin, void of any humour.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,”

And though his face is harder than marble, eyes positively glaring at his eldest brother, his voice shakes a bit.

Touya picks up on it, of course, because Touya picks up on everything.

“That so?” He asks casually with a shrug, eyes beginning to glitter as Shouto involuntarily shrinks away from him. “Shame. Whaddya say we fix that?”

Touya has always been quick, has always been seemingly one or two steps ahead of everyone else. He reaches around his body, lithe fingers running along the waistband of his jeans, and groans out a curse when his hand meets nothing—Nastuo still has his gun.

That’s fine, he shrugs a little, dangerous smirk on his face as Shouto’s eyes watch his hands with laboured breathing as fingers dip into his front pocket, curling and finding it empty—Natuso still has his blade, too.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Touya hisses, Natsuo’s words from after the snowball incident echoing through his mind. You can have these back, he had said sternly, as if speaking to a fucking toddler, when you’re in your car, behind the wheel, all packed up and ready to go Christmas Day.

Well, that’s alright, Touya supposes, because his fists are weapons in their own right, too, aren’t they?, large hands flexing before curling into tight balls, sapphire eyes glinting in the warm light, teeth bared in a petrifying smile as he cracks his neck.

And it all happens so fast, like a cat pouncing on its prey, nothing but a blur of ivory and black colliding with crimson and cream, a mess of bruised knuckles and split lips and flowing scarlet—so much scarlet, streaming from noses and smeared across cracked picture frames, seeping through little slashes and spit from between clenched teeth.

Something shatters, someone screams, but it all sounds muffled to you, distant and far away as you stare dazedly at the mess of limbs on the hardwood floor a few feet away, watching as brilliant galaxies of periwinkle bloom rapidly on smooth skin, and everything feels numb.

Natsuo manages to catch Touya, receiving an elbow to the stomach in the process as he hooks his arms under Touya’s and hoists him off of their baby brother. Shouto leaps to his feet, ready to lunge at his now incapacitated brother, but your father grabs him before he can, holding him back, arms wrapping around him in an iron grip.

The softest sob sounds, all eyes snapping towards it.

Rei stands with her arms wrapped around herself, gleaming grey eyes darting between her eldest and youngest, and everything stills.

“You leave my sight for two seconds—” she starts, blinking hard as fat tears roll down her cheeks, the rest of the sentence getting lodged in her throat. “Two seconds, a-and—and you—I am so—so—”

She’s unable to force the words through her trembling lips, but she doesn’t need to.

I am so disappointed in you.

Natsuo’s able to haul Touya off to the first floor washroom, curses still spewing from your niichan’s lips as he thrashes against his brothers grip, volatile and malignant and stuffed full of hostility, his rough voice breaking with them. His eyes look glossy, and you think he may even be crying, though it’s hard to tell with his aggressive writhing in Natsuo’s strong arms, muscles bulging under the thin material of his shirt.

Touya’s hands tremble as he taps out those little round pills, as white as the snow outside, a few clattering to the floor during the process. Your fingers knot together in front of your body, wringing and unwringing as you watch Touya toss several in his mouth, dry swallowing them expertly before leaning against the counter, fingers curling around the edge, exhaling a shaky breath.

“Sh-Should he be taking that many?” Your eyes dart to Natsuo, who’s propped up against the bathroom door, your forehead creased in worry. He laughs a little, coos at you as if you’re so cute for worrying about your niichan, like your niichan didn’t just down four oxys at once—before bothering to clean himself up, before bothering to do anything—and wraps an arm around your shoulder, tugging you towards him.

It’s comforting, and you automatically snuggle into the warmth, still shaken up from the events that occurred in the past twenty minutes, burying your head in his chest and inhaling, letting the palliative scent of fresh mint and lemon with a hint of blue raspberry fill your lungs.

He needs them, Natsuo tells you in that gentle voice, in that trusting voice, his thumb rhythmically stroking your back, voice vibrating against your cheek and reassuring you that It’s alright, he’s fine, he just needs a little something to calm him down, to sedate him.

This is the best option, he promises you, stone eyes soothing and familiar when you gaze up at him, bottom lip caught between your teeth. With the snow storm happening outside and all.

He has a point, you guess. Whether you like it or not, Touya’s still undoubtedly trapped in this tiny cabin with Shouto for at least the next twelve hours.

It’s a low dose, he ensures with a kiss pressed to the side of your head, “Gave ‘em to him myself,”

You feel like you can breathe again, Natsuo’s calming words taming the irregular palpitating in your chest, soft fingers swiping across your cheeks, catching glistening tears as he consoles you.

It’s okay. He’s okay. He’ll be okay.

What Natsuo doesn’t tell you, though, is that Touya needs them in more ways than one, that Touya actually ran out of the oxys he had brought for the trip, the ones that were supposed to last him the full five days, and that Natsuo’s pulled from his personal stash to give him more, because the last thing anyone needs on top of this disaster is Touya suffering a fucking opioid withdrawal.

He leaves to check on Shouto shortly after, muttering something about shoving a few pills down his throat, too, to mellow him out.

You pretend not to hear it, rushing towards Touya the moment the door shuts, latching onto him from behind and nuzzling your face into his back, tears threatening to suffocate you again.

Touya turns in your grasp, wrapping large arms around you and squeezing you to his chest, clutching you like a lifeline as his fingers dig into your flesh, head dropping and cheek resting against the crown of your head as he repeats Natsuo’s words.

It’s okay. He’s okay. He’ll be okay—as long as you never leave him.

And you won’t. You wouldn’t. You never will.

❅ ❅ ❅

The movie marathon, to everyone’s surprise, proceeds as scheduled. It’s awkward, and no one actually wants to be there, but Rei’s face is still stained with tears, streaks of sticky salt decorating her cheeks, and none of you have the heart to leave her when she throws on some staticky old cartoon and collapses on one of the couches—not even Touya.

No one talks about it, either. No one talks about the shards of broken glass Fuyumi swept from the floor, or the ugly, weblike crack Shouto’s head left when it whacked off the drywall.

There’s nothing to talk about, you guess, bitterness stinging the back of your tongue, sinking in your chest, as you snuggle into Touya’s lap.

But Touya’s feeling better—Touya’s feeling good, large hands running down your bare thighs, kneading the flesh before he drags them back up, under your dress, the thick quilt draped over your lap obscuring his actions from the others.

“N-Niichan,” you whisper, turning to shove your burning face in his neck and whimpering when he chuckles lowly, a dark sound that has scalding heat pooling deep in the pit of your stomach, that has your thighs clamping together and trapping his hand.

“Shh, behave,” he murmurs into your hair, waiting for your thighs to relax before his hand continues its ministrations, creeping up, up, up until he reaches your clit, flicking his thumb over it once. A gasp spills from your lips, and Touya pinches the sensitive bud, lips at your ear. “I said, behave,”

So you do—or, you try, legs spreading wider for him, molars sinking into the flesh of your inner cheek to keep from mewling. Because that’s all you want, really—to be good for him, to be his good girl, to help him forget, to do anything you can to alleviate his stress and make him feel better.

Touya teases you for the entirety of the marathon, continuously driving you to the edge and teetering you on the cliff, tempting you with the fall, the plunge, the release, before dragging you away from it, only to repeat the process again, and again, and again. Skilled fingers have it down to a fucking science at this point, circling your clit in quick, hard motions, until your thighs are trembling and your hips are pathetically trying to buck into his touch. Such reactions are always his cue to stop, to back off, immediately slowing to unhurried figure eights, sometimes pressing his fingertips into your hole just a little through the thin cotton of your panties. And then, he waits, waits until every muscle unclenches, relaxes, until your breathing evens back out and your whines fade, decreasing in frequency, until the gentle, featherlight touches of nimble fingers against your swollen clit have almost put you to sleep, just to simply begin it again.

The bulge in his jeans strains eagerly against the denim, and it’s hard, so hard, pressed up against your thigh. Long, slender fingers catch your wrist when you try to cup it, to offer him some relief, sapphire eyes flashing as he shakes his head slowly. A deep pout etches itself into your face, you just want to help, but Touya growls in your ear, orders you to stop being a fucking brat, chest rumbling against your back.

And by the end of it, you’re covered in a glistening layer of sweat, legs quivering so bad that you’re barely able to stand, the cotton of your panties soaked all the way through and sticking uncomfortably to your aching pussy, your slick slippery on your inner thighs after having seeped through the thin material.

Everything hurts, muscles feeling like they’ve been filled with sand, Touya chuckling as he stands and stretches his hands above his head, cock still straining painfully against black denim, and murmuring about how cute you are when you’re tired.

“Tired,” Natsuo snorts with a roll of his eyes, just after the rest of your family has trudged up the stairs to get ready for bed, Fuyumi struggling to support a barely coherent Shouto.

You look over at him, head quirking curiously.

“You two were misbehaving,” he smirks, glancing between your faces self-righteously. “You were quite naughty tonight, don’t you think?”

Pricks of humiliation crawl along your skin. He noticed?

Of course he did, how could he not? His voice is sharp, stings like a slap to the face, a tone you don’t hear very often from him, and it wasn’t very fair to make him sit through that and not be able to touch, was it?

“No, it wasn’t,” Touya agrees with a shake of his head, sounding almost solemn, though amusement glitters in his azure eyes, a hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. I think we should make it up to poor Natsuo, princess. Don’t you?

They’re looking at you like a pair of starving jaguars, stone and sapphire eyes glinting dangerously in the hazy yellow light the little lamp provides as they prowl towards you, trapping you between their bodies and the edge of the couch.

“I-I…” your voice dies in your throat, eyes darting between the two men as your heart begins to race. You don’t know, you aren’t sure, is this even allowed?

Then they’re laughing at you, cooing at you as their hands paw at your body, pinching and cupping and squeezing, Touya murmuring about how you’re going to help Natsuo out like a good girl while carrying you up to your shared bedroom and placing you on the bed, Natsuo following close behind, shutting the door with a gentle kick of his foot.

Then Natsuo’s crawling onto the bed beside you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I bet you look so pretty when you cum, baby,” His voice is low, rough, and it makes your stomach flutter.

His words pull an unexpected gasp from your throat and your eyes find his, blinking twice in genuine question. “D-Do you think about that?”

“Fuck,” he nearly whimpers, sharing a look with Touya, who chuckles smugly, leaning against the wall a few feet away, arms crossed casually over his chest.

“I told you,”

Forehead wrinkling as your brow furrows, your gaze darts between the two of them, unsure of exactly what it is they’re talking about.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Natsuo breathes, eyes hooded as they scan your body slowly, working back up to your face as he grinds the heel of his hand against his hardening cock. “I think about it,”

The burning deep in your belly flares at his dark stare, thighs rubbing together as you hold his eyes, sweet little pants escaping your parted lips. Make it up to him, huh?

“I wanna—” you start, looking over at Touya and swallowing thickly. “Can I cum on his cock?”

Natsuo chokes on a whine the moment the words leave your lips. “Christ, niisan, she’s gonna kill me,”

Touya huffs out a little laugh, though his eyes do not leave yours as he considers.

Usually, the answer would be no, absolutely not. Touya has always refused to share your pussy with anyone—that was his and his alone. However…

If there’s anyone he would even think of sharing it with, he supposes it would be his brother.

“You wanna cum on his cock, baby?” he asks slowly, sapphire eyes watching you sharply, analyzing every micro-expression, every twitch of your brow, every quiver of your lips.

You’re unsure if it’s a trick question or not, but you’ve learned that it’s always best to be honest with your niichan—he’d know instantly if you were lying, anyway—so you nod, sucking on your bottom lip. “J-Just once,” you add, after a beat of silence.

“I mean, it is Christmas…” Touya trails off, looking over at his brother, who’s glassy gaze is glued to your face. “What do you say, Natsuo?”

“Seriously?” his eyes fly to Touya’s, wide with disbelief, not nearly as bold as he was in the living room. “I mean—I don’t—I’m not here to overstep any boundaries—”

“I know,” Touya cuts him off calmly. “I trust you,”

Trust. That’s rare with Touya, an honour to be told, and Natsuo’s eyes soften.

“It’d be a privilege to have you cumming on my cock, baby,” he tells you, voice so gentle, so sweet, so sincere, foiling the dirty words spoken.

But your fingers are trembling, tangled in your lap, and your heart is racing, pounding against your ribcage, and your mouth is dry, throat stuffed with cotton. Blood rushes in your ears as you look over at your niichan again, worried, scared. Is this a test? Is he really allowing you to ride someone else’s cock?

A frown materializes on his face and he stalks forward, stopping in front of you and reaching out to cup your cheek and tilt your head up, thumb caressing your cheekbone as he stares down at you.

“What is it, baby?”

“C-Can I really?” you ask, voice barely above a whisper. “You won’t—You won’t be mad?”

Both men coo and Touya laughs, eyes shining in the dark. “No, I won’t be mad, princess,”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he nods, hand moving to pet your hair once. “Now, come on,” he gives you a light slap to the cheek, eyes darting to the bulge in Natsuo’s grey sweatpants. “Can’t wait to see you take that monster, baby,”

Monster isn’t exactly an exaggeration.

He’s bigger than Touya—not by much, maybe an inch or so longer, but considerably thicker. The head of his cock glimmers, decorated with a pearl of precum, thick and veiny and nowhere near as pretty as your niichan’s.

“Look at her,” Touya teases from his spot across from you, now perched on the edge of the other bed. “She’s already salivating over it,”

And it’s true, at least in part, your wide eyes glued to Natsuo’s cock as endless heat gushes, throbs, between your legs, little cunt suddenly feeling very empty. Touya’s been teasing you all damn night, an intense neediness building in your chest, powerless to stop the pathetic little whine that gets caught in your throat when Natsuo shifts on the bed, rearranging himself slightly and patting his spread thighs.

“C’mere, baby,” he’s saying as you climb over him, massive hands clutching your hips as you hover above his cock. “Lemme give you what you need,”

And the high pitched moan that slips from between parted lips as you sink down onto him is nothing short of pathetic. Natsuo emits a breathless little laugh as dark grey eyes watch the way your face screws up in discomfort, little whimpers spilling from your lips as he splits you in half.

“Aw, baby,” he murmurs, never slowing his pace as he forces your hips down, down, down. “We didn’t prep you properly, did we?”

No, they didn’t, neglecting to stretch you out at all, copious amounts of your own slick the only thing aiding Natsuo’s cock as he shoves it into you.

“Your fault, you know,” he whispers in your ear as he finally bottoms out. “If you hadn’t been so greedy, so eager to hop on my cock, maybe I would’ve let’cha cum on my fingers first. But what more could I expect from a slut?”

Your eyes snap open, inhaling sharply, unused to hearing Natsuo talk with such derision, unused to the way it makes your stomach positively swoop. He’s already looking at you, a small grin on his face, and, oh, he knows.

Natsuo doesn’t afford you a second to adjust to his girth, though, immediately bouncing you in his lap like you’re just some toy for him to use, hips bucking up into you wildly, malicious laughter escaping his chest as you whimper out Hurts, Natsuo, i-it hurts, Touya snapping at you to be a good little whore and just take it.

But the stinging fades quickly, like it always does, finally yielding to that heady mix of pain and pleasure, and it feels so good, the stretch is so good, Natsuo is so good.

Natsuo snickers, berating you for your extremely limited vocabulary, and you’re so cute, all stupid and fucked out like that from bouncing on his cock—you’re so fucking easy, aren’t ya?

His degrading is punctuated by his hard thrusts, blunt nails biting into the flesh of your hips as he fucks you, as he uses you, each piston of his hips forcing you closer and closer to that edge, the one Touya has already dangled you off of so many times tonight.

Todoroki cock must really make you dumb, huh? Turns you into nothing but a drooling, senseless little cocksleeve, isn’t that right, baby girl?

You’re having trouble concentrating on anything, really, overwhelmed by sensations and sounds, by Natsuo’s steady stream of words and the smack of your ass against his thighs.

Can’t even answer me, foolish little girl, already drunk with cock and we’re just getting started.

Yes, you whine, nodding your head in lazy little jerks, pushing the word out of your slackened mouth. Yes, yes, yes!

Your skin is crawling, itching, blazing, your head lolling to the side, connecting with glowing sapphire, and you swear you can feel his gaze on your body, leaving a trail of blistering heat in its wake.

His cock is still so hard, but he doesn’t touch it, completely captivated by you. He doesn’t ever want to forget this, he tells you, unblinking eyes searing into yours, wants to see the way your face contorts in ecstasy when you cum all over his brother’s cock, wants to commit it to memory.

And it’s Natsuo’s mean, belittling words, spoken in that saccharine sweet patronizing voice paired with each rough drag of his thick cock, plus Touya’s shallow breaths, little gasps and inhales, the way his dark eyes almost sparkle as he watches you, that have you creaming on Natsuo’s cock embarrassingly quickly.

Your eyes don’t leave his, though, sapphire all you can see as your orgasm tears through you almost violently, the pulsing release almost painful after being edged for so long, little pussy aching as it clenches around Natsuo’s cock.

A pathetic little whimper slips through your lips as your body collapses against Natsuo’s firm chest, head automatically nuzzling into his neck. His cock is still so hard inside of you, twitching as your hips involuntarily shift a little. Strong hands find your waist, a patronizing chuckle blanketing you as they begin to knead your flesh.

“Idiotic little girl, we aren’t done yet,”

The words are harsh, almost spit out with that small chuckle, dripping with condescension and rolled in icing sugar—and his tone is so ridiculing, speaking to you as if you’re so dumb, so silly and God, you really do go so stupid from cock, don’t you?

Another laugh rings out—niichan’s this time, and he’s saying something—something about Natsuo’s cum filling up that empty head of yours, you think—as Natsuo roughly rearranges your pliant body, pushing your head into the mattress and yanking your hips up.

It’s hard to focus on the words being spoken, brain hazy and floating on post-orgasmic clouds, but you’re fairly sure Natsuo’s promising to make good use of your cute, empty little skull, telling you it’s the perfect little cumbucket.

But Natsuo’s arrogance fades, finally, morphs into high, needy mewls and quiet little moans, interspersed with sharp intakes of air, sucking in curses and your name as he repeatedly rams into you, thrusts growing sloppier, massive hands keeping your hips held up.

“Oh, Christ,” the curse leaves Natsuo’s throat in a pitiful whimper. And although they were talking about it, joking about it, a mere twenty minutes ago, Natsuo knows he must still get permission. “Niisan, can I—can I cum inside?”

And his voice is so whiny, as if he’s begging Touya to say yes, harsh breaths ghosting over your bare back, cool against your heated skin and mingled with little half-grunts, ones that hitch in his throat as he continues to pound into you, pace never faltering.

Desperate pleads begin spilling from your lips almost instantly, urgent and uncontrollable, brain mushy with thoughts of ice cold hands on your waist and a thick cock buried within you, intoxicated by the scent of cool mint and tangy lemon.

“Oh, please, niichan, please,” you’re sobbing into the mattress, bleary eyes squinting as they try to focus on the watery blur you assume is Touya, still seated on the other bed. “Please, want his cum, want his cum for Christmas,”

“Holy fuck,” Natsuo’s gasps out brokenly, a loud moan reverberating in his chest. “Please, Niisan,”

Touya chuckles, and if it weren’t for the slight breathlessness to his voice, you would have figured him entirely unaffected. “Yeah, fine, go ahead,” he says passively, as if it makes no difference to him. “She’s a little cumslut, anyway,”

A steady stream of overlapping, practically incoherent thank you’s flow from yours and Natsuo’s mouths, getting lost between pitchy mewls and the slap of skin against skin as his taut hips meet your ass.

“Nat—Natsuo-nii!” you cry, so fucked out that the honorific doesn’t even register in your mind, blissfully unaware in that moment that you’re older than him, little hole pulsing around his thick cock. “Natsuo-nii, please, please, give it to me,”

“Oh God,” he chokes on the words, gurgling them in his throat.

His hips piston into you once, twice, three more times, and then they’re stilling, pressed flush against you as he falls forward, sweaty chest pressed against your back, strong arms caging you in as his cock throbs, filling your little cunt with powerful spurts of thick cum.

It’s like a rush of frost through your veins, not scalding the way Touya’s cum is, sending vicious shivers skittering across your skin. It’s soothing, almost, cool and pleasant and has you pushing back against him, hips wiggling a little as you try to milk him for just a bit more. Plush lips find the back of your neck, pressing kisses along your sweaty hairline, a tongue darting out a moment later to lap at the salty substance.

He stays pressed against you for a moment more before straightening up, pulling out with a hiss and heavily collapsing back on his heels, legs tucked under himself.

“Let’s see,” Touya’s saying, as if he’s asking Natsuo to show him his homework, not to examine his brother’s cum leaking out of your aching cunt. “God, look at that,”

You whine a little, hole fluttering as Touya gently blows hot air against it, and Natsuo groans out a curse, voice raw and wrecked.

Hands—Touya’s hands, you can tell, you’re sure of it—curl around your hips, halting them from their slight swaying. A soft, surprised yelp gets caught in your throat when you feel something wet, something warm, something strong, lick along your slit.

“Aw, niisan!” Natsuo scolds, emitting an indignant sound from the back of his throat. “That’s so…That’s so…” his voice tapers off into a soft whine that has Touya chuckling against your swollen lips, the tip of his tongue flicking against your clit teasingly before he pulls back.

But, wait, that isn’t fair!

“Niichan,” you whimper, hips squirming in his loose grasp. “Niichan, want some,”

“Yeah, baby?” he asks, hands running over the smooth skin of your ass, thumb caressing his scarred name. “You want some of Natsuo’s cum, too?”

“Please,” you beg, hole clenching again at the thought. You can feel it oozing out of you, thick and cold, and hate the thought of it being wasted on the bedsheets.

You expect Touya to swipe nimble fingers along your slit and gather cum to feed you, gasping loudly when you feel his tongue on you again. The strong muscle laps at the cum trickling down your inner thigh, then it’s curling against your cunt, inside of your cunt, collecting as much of the syrupy substance as it possibly can.

A hand fists in your hair, using it as leverage to yank your head up. Your mouth falls open instantly, expectantly, and Touya lets his younger brother’s cum—now watered down with his own saliva—dribble from his mouth into yours.

Natsuo chokes something out—you aren’t sure what, you weren’t listening, hyper-focused on the way sapphire burns into your skull as cream coats your tongue—and Touya’s open mouth molds into a sinful smile, still drizzling the sticky, viscous substance into your mouth, letting his tongue hang out of his mouth as gooey strings of white drip off of it.

“Such a greedy little baby,” Touya says after he’s emptied his mouth, voice almost affectionate. “Now be a good girl and swallow. Swallow for Natsuo,”

And you do, of course, because you are such a good girl, such a good girl for Natsuo, such a good girl for your niichan.

“You guys are nasty,” Natsuo almost pants out, failing to keep the whine out of his voice, gunmetal eyes scanning your little hole, licked clean and now gleaming with Touya’s saliva. “Fuck, that was—hey, wait…What’s this?”

“About time you noticed,” Touya mutters, and your heart sinks.

You know exactly what he’s looking at.

A beat of silence passes, and you keep your head buried in the sheets, terrified to move even an inch.

“What did…Did you…?”

“Yeah, with a soldering iron,”

“Jesus Christ,”

“I deserved it,” you whine out, muffled by the mattress, guilty tears springing into your eyes. “I was—I was very bad,”

Glowing ruby and soft, fluffy tufts of silvery-blue hair flash through your mind, eyes squeezing shut tightly as stinging spears rip through your chest, straight through your heart and right to the core of your body.

No. Now is not the time to think of him. It is never the time to think of him.

A tiny sniffle escapes, your chest hiccupping with it, and you clench your teeth hard, so hard your jaw aches, in an effort to keep any other sounds from escaping. Touya hushes you, large hand warm and heavy and oh so familiar on your lower back, thumb caressing the silky skin just above the swell of your ass. You’re good, he tells you, voice quiet but firm, and you nod into the sheets.

“That is so fucking hot,” Natsuo breathes out, eyes flying to the brand again, his voice breaking you out of the reverie you nearly fell into. “Can I touch it?”

The question startles you—no one else has ever touched it except for Touya. Your mouth stays shut, body stiff and still, waiting for your niichan to make the decision.

“Sure,” Touya finally answers, your entire body flinching when Natsuo reaches out to trace the name with his pointer finger, first forward; T, O, U, Y, A, and then backwards; A, Y, U, O, T, the letters echoing through your mind in Touya’s smooth, deep voice as he does so.

“Holy fuck,” Natsuo whispers as he sits back again, the bed jiggling a little with the motion. “That’s…”

Touya gazes down at it as he blows air out of his mouth, fingers running across it slowly, feeling the slightly raised letters of his name in an almost gentle caress.

He didn’t expect it to scar as bad as it did, his name forever etched into your skin in thin silvery streaks that almost shine when the light hits them right, but you didn’t seem to mind. It’s pretty, you had told him, in that gentle soft voice that makes his chest feel as though it’s blooming its own tiny ball of sunlight. It’s yours, niichan.

He wonders what Shouto would think, if he knew, how he’d feel, if it would make his throat burn and his eyes sting and his chest stutter, if he would weep for you. Touya hopes he would.

“Mine,” he whispers, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to it, his tongue darting out and laving over the entire name once before the tip traces the letters. “Mine.”

“Yours,” you whimper, hips greedily pushing back again. “Niichan, niichan, please,”

He hushes you, tells you he’ll give you his cock now, quiet, quiet, rearranging your body so you’re on your side and bending your legs, pushing them up towards your chest and revealing your little cunt to him. Large hands drag your hips to the edge of the bed, sure to keep the ass cheek with the brand facing upward, facing him.

The gentle clinking of his belt has your toes curling in anticipation, the head of his cock nudging your little hole a moment later.

He delivers one quick thrust, burying himself in your snug little cunt in a singular motion, groaning about how you’re still so tight, how you still feel so good, even after being pounded by his brother.

His pace is merciless from the very beginning, hard and fast and so fucking deep, pulling broken cries and rough little whimpers from your raw throat, one of his hands on the mattress to stabilize himself while the other weighs down on you, pinning you to the surface.

“Niichan!” you’re squealing, Touya’s blunt nails digging into the meat of your thigh as he uses it to steady you, large hand splayed out on your skin. “Niichan, nii-niichan, it hurts,”

It more than hurts—hurts doesn’t even begin to describe the excruciating thorns of pain intermittently racing through your upper body as he slams against your cervix, shooting straight to your core and festering in your throat. You can feel them collecting in the column, wedged tightly between the gummy walls, and you choke on them, gag on them, coughing around them as you urgently gasp in air.

“But you can take it though, right?” he pants out, cobalt eyes wide and frenzied as they burn into your face. “You can take it, because you’re a good little slut for niichan, aren’t you?”

Salt stains the back of your throat, tears and snot mixing as you sob into the mattress, face half-buried in the rumpled sheets.

Yes, yes, oh God yes, you want to be good for him. “Uh-huh,” you breathe out, the noise stuttering past your lips in time with the quick snap of his hips.

And, fuck, you’re so fucking beautiful like this, so fucking hot, taking his cock so well when he’s giving it to you so hard.

“Good,” he gasps, eyes zeroing in on his name etched into your ass, peaking out from between his thumb and forefinger, glimmering when it catches in the pale moonlight. “So fucking good for me,”

Because you are, with your dedication, and your submission, and your pure devotion to him as he brutally fucks you, taking everything he gives you, taking it so well.

And it’s these thoughts, swirling in his mind as you gaze up at him, a mess of sweat and drool and cum, teary eyes dazedly watching him like he’s some sort of god, that have his hips stuttering, filling you with cum, thick and hot and so much, your body going lax under his grip as he chokes out how much he loves you.

Senseless gurgling bubbles past your lips as you try to move, try to roll onto your back or uncurl your limp body, whining softly when you find that you can’t. Two silhouettes loom over you menacingly, the sound of laughter and mingled voices blanketing you, murmuring words you can barely make out. Another pathetic whine hitches in your throat, tongue sluggish in your mouth as you try to speak again, losing the battle with your heavy eyelids a moment later, finally engulfed in darkness.

#dabi x reader #todoroki touya x reader #dabi smut #todoroki touya smut #dabi #todoroki touya #there's one line of dialogue in the smut taken straight from my life no joke <33 #ok ok ok dont expand the tags unless u want a slight spoiler!!! promised anon i'd answer here so!!#this almost murdered me #deadass almost jumped out from my laptop screen and stabbed me in the heart #uuuuh YES ANON FROM BEFORE there's ur answer: rei is caught in a moral struggle and her dad would rather not know #tw pseudo-incest #tw drugs

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ravs6709 · 2 years ago

Text

Won't You Shine With Me (Oh Distant Star Of Mine)- Hekster, Kam, Marelliana, Fedex

Act 1 (here). Act 2. Act 3. Act 4. Act 5. Act 6.

Or read on ao3 here!

Word count: 3.6k words

Okay so! A few weeks ago I watched an anime called Revue Starlight, which is basically a magical girl anime about theatre lesbians swordfighting each other with lots of feels. Me, having feels decided I needed to make an au for kotlc

No knowledge of the anime needed at all! I highly recommend (so good!!!) watching it on general though, it's only 12 episodes, and there's extra stuff i don't even deal with in here

I... know very little of theatre, which is a huge part of this fic, so pls disregard/correct things that don't make sense. (Also pls pretend they're all the same age so they can be in the same class)

There's lyrics! Written "with italics and quotation marks"! "Bold" means that everyone involved is singing, and "outside bracket (inside)" means one party sings the part outside, while the other sings the inside. Lyrics written by me except there's no actual song so they're just mildly incohesive lines but i worked hard!

Warnings: censored swearing

•~•~•~•~•~•

ACT 1

SCENE 1

Keeper Of The Lost Cities. A play about a Telepath and an Empath. The Telepath's arrival in the Lost Cities was a harbinger for struggle and change. Various threats tried to demolish the system that the people lived by—though it wasn't like the system was necessarily as good as the people had believed it to be.

So the Telepath and the Empath ventured to the Point of Purity so they could seek out the best way to save their world. They'd already had the power of sunlight and moonlight, all they needed now was the light of the stars. Once the star and its light was obtained, they would have the power and wisdom required to make their choice.

The Empath turned to the Telepath with a relieved smile, relieved that they had both made it here. However, instead of feeling relief from the Telepath, the Empath could only sense dread.

Before the Empath could voice out those concerns, the Telepath pushed the Empath off the platform they were both standing on.

No one ever saw the Telepath again, nor what the Telepath had done with the light of the stars.

SCENE 2

Keeper of the Lost Cities again? Stina thought.

"Each year, the classes perform two plays. One of them is an original that the playwrights will create, and the other is the play that you've performed last year. By performing it each year in your high school years, you'll all be able to see just how much you've improved."

Mr. Forkle droned on and on about what was going to happen, how the playwrights had already started on their revised script and the auditions for Keeper of the List Cities would start soon.

It wasn't like they'd never done this before. As Mr. Forkle himself had said, they'd performed it last year.

Stina knew that she should pay more attention, that she should care more, she had every reason to care, but honestly, she was having second thoughts about whether coming to Foxfire Music Academy was even worth it.

Was it worth trying to build her entire future based on what she'd decided ten years ago, when she was five years old? What did five year old Stina even know? She was too naive, clung too easily to false promises.

"It's time for practice," Linh said quietly, gently easing Stina from her thoughts.

The class went to have their warm-up stretches before there was any actual dance practice.

"Hey Wonderboy, help me out," Dex said, and Fitz quipped a reply before holding Dex's leg to tilt it upward, while Dex wrapped his arms around Fitz to stay balanced.

Neither of them looked like they enjoyed it, but this usually happened every day.

"Hey, go lower," Biana told Marella.

"Alright, alright," Marella said, bending down even further.

"On three," Tam said to Keefe. "One, two, three."

The two of them started squatting down to a chair pose, arms linked and their backs touching for balance.

"Hey, easy, Bangs Boy!"

"If you couldn't even do that, I'll get the lead role for sure."

With stretches finished, Mr. Forkle had them each take turns practicing some of the dance moves. Those who weren't dancing were singing.

Fitz and Biana went first, completely in sync with each other, because of course, those two Vacker siblings were the best at everything. Dex and Marella were the next duo, not as in sync but they made up for it in flair, incorporating more advanced movements to make themselves look better.

Show-offs, Stina thought.

It wasn't really about them being skilled. They were just upset about how bright the Vacker siblings shined, and they both wanted to prove that they were just as good, if not better. She wasn't sure if it was even worth the effort. Probably not.

Stina went through her own movements on autopilot, and she could tell when Tam dipped her that he wasn't really impressed. Whatever. It wasn't like she was doing this for him.

SCENE 3

"Today, we have a new student who has transferred here," Mr. Forkle said.

Stina, who had only been half paying attention sat up straight. A new student? That was odd.

A short student walked into the classroom. The student was pale with golden-flecked brown eyes and blonde hair was adorned with a clip of a moonlark. Stina's own alicorn hair clip that she used to keep her hair out of her face felt heavy on her head.

"Hi," the student began, "I'm—"

"Sophie Foster."

The student froze at the interruption, and it was only when everyone turned towards Stina with inquisitive stares that she realized that the voice had come out of her own mouth.

Sophie stared at her with wide eyes, looking just as shocked as Stina felt. This couldn't be real, how could Sophie be here in her school? Something like that wasn't possible, because she was supposed to be in an entirely different continent.

"Do you know Sophie, Stina?" Mr. Forkle asked.

"I knew her," she replied, looking at a wall.

The temptation to stare at Sophie was strong, but she also knew that if she did, she wouldn't stop staring, her eyes would seek out all the ways Sophie had changed and the ways that Sophie had stayed the same after so long.

(She couldn't bring herself to look at Sophie and have hope.)

"That's good news. The desk in front of you is empty, and it would be good for Sophie to be able to sit with someone that she is familiar with."

Stina could hardly process those words until her sight was flooded with blonde hair.

This couldn't be real. She probably fell asleep in class again and was now dreaming of Sophie Foster.

Stina pinched herself. Sophie Foster was in Foxfire, was really sitting in front of her.

Mr. Forkle's words as he explained what was going on went in one ear and right out of the other, her body moving on autopilot to the dance room. Her brain felt like a train had run into it.

When Sophie was asked to show what she was capable of, Stina realized that she really shone so brightly. Sure, she fumbled at first—classic Sophie—but once she got going, she was smooth and elegant and it was as if she were glimmering.

So this was Sophie Foster now. She couldn't say she was surprised, because she'd always known that this was going to happen, but actually seeing it happen in front of her was completely different.

When lunch came, Stina thought that Sophie would have sought her out, that they would have gravitated towards each other like friends always did. They hadn't seen each other in ten years, shouldn't they talk?

Stina got tired of waiting for Sophie to come to her, and got up so she could just find her on her own and they eat their lunch together. When she eventually found Sophie, she was holding her lunch with one hand, using her phone with the other, talking to Dex excitedly.

Stina turned around and walked away.

So what? So what? Five year olds were young and stupid and Stina was stupid for thinking that they could continue from where they'd left off ten years ago. Why did she even think Sophie would remember? Ten years was a long time. Whatever.

She walked back to the lunchroom and sat down at the table her friends sat at. Well, they weren't quite her friends, but she didn't hate them either. Fitz and Biana were kind of stuck up, like the privileged rich kids they were, but Dex and Marella made snarky comments that made them seem like normal people. Keefe and Tam bickered all the time, always claiming to want to surpass the other, but it could be entertaining to watch from the sidelines. Linh was gentle, but in a purposeful way that was to never be underestimated, and was probably also the reason why Stina hadn't been driven mad from being around this group.

"So," Keefe began, "you know Foster?"

"Foster?" she asked dryly. Since when did those two know each other enough that he'd use a nickname for her?

"Yeah, Foster," he repeated, "C'mon, answer the question! How do you know the Mysterious Miss F, our transfer student?"

"She was a friend from when I was younger," Stina replied.

Linh hummed, then gave her a knowing smile. "Oh, is she Sophie?"

Marella was next to react. "Oh, that's her?"

"Wait, who?" Keefe asked.

"Ohh," Biana said next.

"Were you snooping in my room?" Stina asked.

Marella closed her eyes. "It's Linh's room too, you know. And if you have the picture on your nightstand it doesn't count as snooping."

Okay, she had to give her that one. Still, it was one thing for Linh to know, because Linh was her roommate, and another for the other girls to know too.

"Yeah, it's her."

"Are you excited?" Linh asked.

"Even if I was, it's not like it matters," she replied, leaning back, letting her legs against the bench seat keep her up. "Things change in ten years."

She revisited the thought that had been in her mind for the past few weeks. Maybe even longer. When Sophie walked into the lunchroom, Dex beside her, Stina thought that it was a good time to voice it.

"I think I want to switch to the stage production group."

The mild chatter from the others ceased, all heads turning to her.

"You want to do what?"

"You know I'm not one for self-deprecation, so I'm fully aware that my acting skills aren't that good. And maybe I do have "potential" or whatever crap Forkle would say when I eventually tell him I want to switch. But does potential even matter if going into acting doesn't feel like it's worth it anymore?"

Everyone at the table looked genuinely concerned. Sophie looked at her with wide eyes, as if feeling betrayed. Stina would be lying if she didn't feel any satisfaction from seeing that expression on Sophie's face.

What reason did she have to feel betrayed, anyway? A promise made ten years ago was never likely to come true.

She could feel Sophie's gaze on her as she ate, searing as if it were a brand. Stina simply ignored her. Even throughout their next classes, singing and theory, she could tell that Sophie was staring.

If she wanted to say something, she should just say it.

After all the classes were over for the day, Stina began making her way to her room, when she was stopped by Sophie.

"Stina," she began, and Stina felt hope surge within her. "Could you... lead me to where the rooms are?"

"The girls rooms are this way, follow me," she said, stamping out the hope. She really was an idiot, huh? "What's your room number?"

Sophie looked confused. "Foxfire hasn't given me one?"

Stina sighed. "How are you supposed to stay in a room if you don't know which room you're staying in?"

Silence. The two kept walking. When Sophie didn't say anything, Stina's mind started running full-force, coming up with an idea that was bound to be awful. Before she could stop herself, she blurted: "You should sleep in m—

"Can you lead me to the office?" Sophie asked. "Wait, what did you say?"

"Nothing." She needed to get a grip on herself before she tried to say anything else that was stupid.

Sophie stared at her, unconvinced. "Okay, I won't press on that." Then her face fell. "About earlier, what you said..."

Stina knew exactly what she was talking about, she was referring to when Stina said that she didn't want to act anymore. But Stina didn't want to talk about that.

"See that door over there?" She pointed to one of the academy's buildings, a blue door that had foxfire mushrooms glowing faintly around it. "In there, first door on your right."

Sophie began walking.

"You can just leave your luggage with me for now, you don't have to drag it everywhere," Stina told her. "My room's number 204, you can get it there."

Sophie nodded. "Thank you."

"No problem."

Sophie dragged the suitcase so she could give the handle to Stina. Their fingers brushed, and all at once, various memories flooded her: the feeling of Sophie's hands in hers as they ran and played; the wide, genuine, cheek-hurting smiles that adorned their faces; the breathless giggling; the heartfelt promises—

Sophie left, and Stina dragged the suitcase to her room, her heart pounding.

"You're finally here," Linh greeted. "And what's that?"

"Sophie's luggage. She needs to go find out which room she's staying in."

Linh nodded, then went to take a shower. Stina sat on her bed and looked out the window. To her surprise, she saw Sophie running.

That is the opposite direction to where I told her to go, where is she going?

Before she could decide otherwise, Stina put back on her shoes and began running after her. She was a fast runner and knew her way around, she was able to not lose track of Sophie, though only barely.

Why's she going back into the school?

Stina kept running and caught a flash of blonde hair going into one of the classrooms. When she got to the door, she realized that it wasn't a classroom. It was an elevator.

Since when did Foxfire have an elevator over here? And it leads to the basement?

She stepped inside the open elevator and pressed the down arrow. It began falling without any warning. She screamed, and was she going to die???

She was launched out of the elevator and landed on a soft, red seat.

"Holy sh*t," she breathed. "What the f*ck."

Once she finally regained her composure, she looked around. In front of her was a large stage, and she was sitting up in the audience's seat. Two large spotlights from opposite sides of the stage. Two people stood in the centre: a girl in red and a boy in black. While the colours and finer details of the outfit were different, they both wore a jacket and a skirt that went down to their mid-thighs. They both wore a pelisse jacket over one of their shoulders, held on to a white sash by a golden aiguillette and golden button.

What? Are they—

"The light of the stars ignites our burning hearts."

The two people sang, facing each other and lifting a hand elegantly. They spun away from each other in a series of chainé turns.

"We've made a vow to become the Top Star."

Those two actors weren't just ordinary people.

What are you two doing here?

Those two dancers were Sophie Foster and Tam Song.

"I'll use this rage of mine to tear the night apart!" Sophie sang, unsheathing a sword that gleamed in the light.

Tam sang next, unsheathing his own sword, "I don't intend to lose here, I call for the dark!"

All the lights turned off, the stage turning black save for the faint light that shone on Sophie, and a series of letters that briefly glowed way above it all.

☆ REVUE OF BEGINNINGS ☆

Then even those letters faded into the darkness.

"Revues..? What is this place?" Stina murmured.

Tam continued singing, but no spotlight shone on him, but she could see him appear in brief glimpses as he charged at Sophie, a ghost in the darkness, swinging his sword. Sophie, who struggled to see, could only barely parry his attacks.

"You're going to f*cking kill her!" Stina yelled.

Not having seen Sophie in ten years, Stina couldn't say much about her, but in the little bit that she knew Tam, she knew that he wasn't so reckless, wouldn't get himself in whatever swordfighting event this was. He was a serious, responsible person. So what the hell was he doing?

"Interesting!" A voice said from beside her.

Stina whirled around and saw a horse. No—not a horse. An alicorn.

"Revue!" The alicorn said cheerfully.

There were swordfighting duels in Foxfire's basement, and there was an alicorn watching it (since when did alicorns exist???).

What the hell.

"Song! Dance! Compete! Shine! Brightest light! Become Top Star!"

"You're telling me that they need to compete in duels to become the 'Top Star?'" she asked.

"Knock off! Jacket! Win!"

The constant pauses between words and the relatively monosyllabic way the alicorn spoke confused her, but she was starting to understand what they meant. As she looked closer at the revue, she could see that Tam wasn't blindly swinging, nor was he aiming for below the shoulders. Each swing was meant for that golden aiguillette that held the blue jacket Sophie wore to her shoulder. The swings grew increasingly precise, Sophie spinning around and around as she tried to guess where Tam would attack from next. She'd grow dizzy at that rate, and that was probably what Tam was intending on.

"She's going to lose!"

"Stina audience! No disrupt! No compete! Only actor compete! You give up acting!"

That was right. Stina had told the others that she was going to give up on acting. Her passion, her desire to act came from a childhood dream that seemed to be long gone.

She's going to lose.

Tam kept singing, his voice growing louder, and now multiple spotlights were shining on him. His swordfighting on the offensive, his singing the loudest, his movements the flashiest; Tam owned the stage, he was the brightest of the two.

Sophie had fulfilled part of her promise, she had promised to come back to Stina. Didn't that mean that Stina had fulfil some of hers too?

She stood up and took a deep breath, steeling herself for what was to come next. She made her way to the aisle, then took a few steps back. She ran and jumped off the balcony, the promise singing throughout every part of her body.

Sophie and I will become stars together!

As she landed, she slammed her weapon on Tam's, preventing him from making the cutting blow. She wore her own purple outfit akin to the other two.

"On this colourful stage of light and dark,

I shine like a shooting star!

Reborn, I am Foxfire student, Stina Heks!

A dazzling night sky will be created!"

Her entrance speech was overdramatic and cheesy, but Stina Heks was on the stage now, so she would fall into the role that she needed to play. All the spotlights were on her now.

"You shouldn't..." Sophie murmured, but Stina ignored her.

Instead, she focused on Tam.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

I can ask you the same thing.

"You have the blaze of your own hopes and dreams,

My passion to act, embers that burn so low."

She swung her axe with a surprising amount of grace, considering that she'd never used weapon like this before. Tam leaped back, for once, on the defensive. The stage lit up, all traces of the shadows that Tam had used as his surprise weapon gone.

Their weapons clashed, again and again.

"Yet in this fight, I refuse to concede,

For I have a promise to uphold!"

She poured more of her strength into her next swing, knocking him slightly off balance. It was all she needed to go in and cut off the aiguillette, his red jacket falling to the floor. She grabbed him by the arm and dipped him, a mirror to their dance practice class yesterday.

He looked shocked and annoyed, wrenching himself from her grip.

Stina twirled to the centre of the stage, looking right up at the alicorn as she slammed the axe on to the stage, the bit piercing the 'T' symbol on the ground.

"Position Zero!" she declared, "I am Stina Heks!"

By putting herself in position zero, she was casting herself as a prominent role—the lead role.

Giant red curtains closed, blocking the view of the audience's seats.

"Audition one! Over!" The alicorn announced. "Stina win! Stina actor! Stina compete revue!"

Stina looked down at Sophie who was hunched down on the ground, looking up at her with wide eyes.

"I saved you, Foster."

Sophie closed her eyes. "You shouldn't have come here."

"Why not? I just saved your *ss, didn't I?"

"I would've won. You shouldn't have come here."

Stina huffed, putting a hand to her hip. "I see why Keefe calls you the Mysterious Miss F. You've got to tell me what's going on, because that alicorn—"

"Her name's Silveny."

"Silveny won't give too many answers, I think. Not in the way I want them at least."

Sophie kept quiet.

"Fine. Just... you don't have to bother going to the office, just sleep in my room."

Sophie's eyes widened. "But there's only two beds—"

"Sleep in mine," she blurted, "it's big enough for two."

"Are you sure?"

Today was a day that Stina kept saying things that would surely turn out bad for her, but she found that she didn't want to actually take back those words. She couldn't even make the excuse that they'd shared a bed when they were younger, because they hadn't.

"Do I make half-hearted promises, Foster?" she asked, then immediately winced and turned away, too afraid to look at her reaction. "Never mind."

She finally gathered the courage to look at Sophie again, only to see that she was gone. "Sophie?"

"Revues secret!" Silveny said. "Reveal secret punishment!"

"Punishment?"

Stina woke up in her bed.

☆ LEADERBOARD ☆

1. — Fitz Vacker

2. — Biana Vacker

3. — Keefe Sencen

4. — Tam Song

5. — Linh Song

6. — Marella Redek

7. — Dex Dizznee

8. — Sophie Foster

...

9. (NEW) Stina Heks

☆ ☆

•~•~•~•~•~•

Kotlc taglist: @keefeinnit @my-swan-song @impostertamsong @subrosasteath

Want to be added/removed from the kotlc taglist? Just let me know!

#stina heks #sophie foster #hekster #kam #marelliana #tam song #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #kotlc fanfiction #ravi writes a thing #won't you shine with me (oh distant star of mine)

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rowansparrow · 3 years ago

Text

Juke Box Hero: A Rose Story

This is SO STUPID LMAO But I hope you guys like it anyway. I’m back on my bullshit and I am here to provide you with a little story based off THIS POST. Anon, thank you for your service, because this was very, very fun.

This snippet takes place during Chapter Seven of BAON, during the flashback when Reader is meeting Rex for the first time and Rose and Co. are stuck cleaning up the barracks. You don’t necessarily have to have read it for this to make sense, but the right context might be neat.

Also, for timeline purposes/in BAON, Tup and Dogma technically never met Rose, as they weren’t part of the 501st before he died, but I’m including them in this because I make the rules and I wanted to.

Also Denal’s here because I think he’s a funky dude and deserves more content.

The clones deserve to dance and have fun and who’s gonna write them doing that if it ain’t me?

Rating: Mature-ish? There are some dirty jokes and swearing but mostly it’s Just fun shenanigans with Rose and Bros.

(Also I spent a TON of time picking everyone’s songs so pls tell me what you think of my selections lmao).

I’m tagging everyone from the BAON tag list in case you’re interested. Enjoy!

In retrospect, perhaps Rose should have put a stop to the loth cat situation – or as Hardcase called it, Operation: P.U.S.S.Y. He claimed it was an abbreviation for “Petting Unusually Sweet Strays, Yeah!”

“You have to call it something else.” Rose had said at the time, staring at the loth cat cradled protectively in Hardcase’s arms.

“But you’re not saying no?” Hardcase prompted eagerly, already bouncing lightly on his heels.

“Just…” Rose pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just… clean up after it? And if it breaks anything, it’s on you, and for the love of Force, don’t get caught.”

Now, as the Lieutenant surveyed the disarray that had befallen the barracks, and the company of very disgruntled subordinates, he was reconsidering his earlier leniency.

“I feel as the acting SIC, you’re the one who should be taking the flak for this, not the entire company.” Jesse grumbled, glaring at Lieutenant Rose over his shoulder as he scrubbed at the floor of the barracks.

“Don’t look at me. I’m not the one who brought a pregnant loth-cat into the barracks in the first place.” Rose replied, straightening up for a moment where he’d been hunched over, his back cracking as he moved.

“Well, you didn’t fight me very hard on it!” Hardcase protested. “And I didn’t know Beans was pregnant at the time! I didn’t even know she was a girl!”

His explanation only earned him several slugs to the arm from nearby vode.

“And just because I’m second-in-command does not make me exempt from the Captain’s wrath.” Rose added. “You didn’t get the dressing-down, you just have to carry out the punishment with me.”

“Hang on, I thought we agreed the cat’s name was going to be Road Rash?” Coric asked.

“That’s unladylike.” Said Denal. “And rude. She can’t help her scars.”

“And Beans is ladylike?” Jesse raised an eyebrow.

“She likes it! And her kits looked like beans when they came out too!”

Rose shook his head fondly at his men as they bickered. At least they weren’t complaining anymore.

In truth, he was surprised the situation had been managed as long as it had been. They’d lasted almost a full three weeks without anyone figuring out they were hiding a cat in the barracks. Of course, the kittens made it much harder, and they could only hide them in overturned helmets during inspections for so many days before the helmets started to mewl.

And once Beans threw a tantrum over not having her kits with her, it was game over. She’d knocked over an entire can of armor paint in her wrath, and blue pawprints and large paint puddles coated the durasteel of the barracks, and a few of the bunks had claw and bite marks in the fabric.

“It’ll take us an hour, maybe more, to clean this whole mess up.” Fives complained, looking around the barracks forlornly. He had a nasty scratch just under his eye from finally snatching Beans up in her rampage. “Kriff. I was excited to go out tonight.”

“Not to mention after we finish here the Captain said we had to go take over latrine and canteen detail from other battalions.”

“Then I guess you better get scrubbing.” Kix said absently, thumbing through medical requisition forms on his datapad and sitting cross-legged on one of the few bunks that didn’t have blue paw prints streaked across it.

“Why aren’t you helping? You’re part of the company too.” Echo said. “Fives and I are ARC troopers, if anyone here should be exempt from company-wide punishments, it’s us.”

“I’m not helping because I didn’t participate.” Kix replied, not looking up from his ‘pad.

“The kark you didn’t, you delivered the kits!” Fives snapped.

“Well, Captain Rex didn’t catch me, so.”

“That’s because you went and hid in the medbay and didn’t warn the rest of us he was coming.” Tup muttered under his breath.

“Not true. I sent Jesse a comm.” Kix said, finally looking up only to shrug and return to his work. “Which he didn’t check, and that’s not my fault.”

“It doesn’t matter who was involved and who wasn’t involved.” Dogma piped up. “Clearly, because if it did, I wouldn’t be here either.”

“We know.” Said Jesse and Fives in unison.

Rose sighed, his eyes drifting forlornly to his bunk. He spotted his footlocker sticking halfway out from underneath the durasteel, and he lit up. He opened it quickly, pulling out a beat-up radio he’d gotten at a market stall during one of his first deployments. He’d had to trade a droid popper and half his rations for it – Rex had not been pleased about it when he found out – but it was worth the two-day latrine rotation he’d gotten as punishment.

He’d already downloaded several songs off the HoloNet, along with a few channel recordings of past BoloBall games. Even if he knew who won them, it was still something to listen to on long stints on cruisers.

“What’cha doing, Lieutenant?” Tup asked, peeking around the corner as Rose straightened back up, fumbling with the little radio for a moment and propping it up on one of the bunks so the music could fill the whole room.

“No. NO! No.” Jesse jabbed a finger at the Lieutenant as he saw him set up the radio. “No. Absolutely not. I have had enough of your osik-brained, Force-forsaken, whack-ass music to last me a lifetime.”

Kix chuckled, rolling his eyes at the other trooper. “You listen exclusively to electronic dance music. Even when we aren’t at 79s. You have no room to talk.”

“This is better than that.” Rose promised, dialing up the volume. “This is the kind of stuff you’d find on the jukebox at Dex’s Diner.” He grinned. Dex was personal friends with General Kenobi, and was one of the few Coruscant establishments that was friendly to clones, as long as they behaved themselves. Rose had gone there with his brothers a handful of times, and even Anakin had dragged his Padawan Ahsoka, Rose, and Rex along once.

“You have a radio?” Dogma frowned. “Isn’t that contraband, sir?”

“Relax, it’s an old prewar-era radio, it’s not hurting anything.” Fives drawled, knocking Dogma lightly on the shoulder. “What’re you gonna play, sir?”

“Let’s see…” Rose filtered through his downloads, and grinned wider, pressing play.

Immediately, soft music rang through the barracks, and Jesse smacked his head against the bunk, groaning loudly.

“I’m begging you, Lieutenant.” Jesse said. “I’m begging.”

Rose was already swaying his hips, bending over to grab Jesse by the chin.

“On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.” Rose serenaded him.

Jesse swatted Rose’s hand away, and Rose turned, swinging around on the side of the bunk and pointing to Fives this time. “Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night.”

Fives grinned, joining in even as he stumbled slightly over the words.

“There she stood in the doorway. I heard the mission bell and I was thinking to myself, this could be Heaven or this could be Hell.”

Kix was drumming his fingers on his datapad, nodding along and singing under his breath.

“Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way. There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say…”

“This is too slow.” Echo griped, rising to his feet and stepping over Dogma, who was still stubbornly scrubbing away at the barrack floors and refusing to engage even as the rest of the clones began quietly singing along with the chorus.

The ARC Trooper fiddled with the dial for a moment, scrolling through Rose’s music and selecting another song, already grinning as the chanting started through the speakers and eventually rippled through the ranks of the 501st.

“STOP.” Jesse barked, trying to kick Fives as the other ARC trooper hopped to his feet, stomping his feet and chanting along. “STOP, I HATE THIS ONE!”

Rose and Hardcase were chanting too, and Coric had started clapping his hands on an overturned bucket, a few shinies clapping their hands together as Echo shook his ass, kama swaying as he climbed up onto a nearby table. He scooped up a mop, pulling the handle to his mouth.

“I can’t stop this feeling, deep inside of me.” He pointed to Kix, grinding against the handle. “Girl, you just don’t realize what you do to me.”

Kix gave him the finger, and Echo pointed to Fives, who was still chanting with the others but was now holding up his helmet, recording the whole thing. Echo amped up his performance.

“When you hold me in your arms so tight, you let me know everything’s alright. I’m hooked on a feeling!”

Tup whooped from where he’d moved to sit on one of the bunks. Dogma shot him a nasty look, which he ignored in favor of watching Echo strut on the table.

“I’m high on believing that you’re in love with me. Lips as sweet as candy, its taste is on my mind. Girl you got me thirsty for another cup of wine.”

“Wait, wait, wait, I have a good one.” Fives shoved his helmet at Hardcase, letting him take over recording as he scrambled to the radio, quickly turning the dial once again and elbowing Echo off the table as fast, loud, angry guitars shredded through the barracks.

Jesse seemed to perk up just slightly, and any of the 501st troopers who were still trying to actually clean – save for Dogma – had abandoned their supplies and had elected to dance instead, crowding the table and forming a makeshift mosh pit.

Fives was nothing if not a showman, and when he snatched the mop from Echo, he performed.

“When I get high, I get high on speed. Top fuel funny car’s a drug for me, my heart! My heart! Kickstart my heart!”

He stomped his foot hard on the table, flipping his head back and running one hand messily through his hair.

“Always got the cops coming after me, custom-built bike doing 103, my heart! My heart! Kickstart my heart!”

Rose laughed, watching as Fives looked at the helmet Hardcase was hoisting up over the crowd, singing into the camera and rolling his shoulders back.

“Ooh, are ya ready, girls? Ooh, are you ready now? Woah, yeah! Kickstart my heart, baby give it a start. Woah, yeah! Baby! Kickstart my heart, hope it never stops. Woah, yeah, baby yeah!”

The clones joined him for the chorus, and then Fives dropped to his knees like he’d seen rockers do on the HoloNet, high fiving the nearest vode. Dogma was still stubbornly trying to clean up the barracks, but had moved on to one of the far corners, only giving the rest of his battalion the occasional side-eye.

“Skydive naked from an aeroplane, or a lady with a body from outer space, my heart. My heart! Kickstart my heart.” He wiggled his hips as he straightened back up, biting his lip through a grin and dropping his hand to his hips and shaking his fist obscenely, as though he was jerking himself off.

“Say I got trouble, trouble in my eyes, I’m just looking for another good time, my heart. My heart! Kickstart my heart!”

Before Fives could do something else profane – or possibly attempt to crowd-surf and give Rose a handful of incident reports to fill out, the music suddenly shifted, and all heads turned to the radio.

Kix was smirking. He’d divested himself of the top half of his armor, instead electing to shimmy his way up onto the table in just the upper half of his blacks and lower armor plates. Fives exited, rejoining the crowd as Kix leveled a sultry look at the camera for just a moment before turning his back on the crowd.

“Clean shirt, new shoes, and I don’t know where I am goin’ to. Silk suit, black tie, I don’t need a reason why.”

He spun quickly, switching his grip on the mop handle as though he was holding a woman in his arms, dipping it low towards the crowd as he sang.

“They come a runnin’ just as fast as they can, ‘cos every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.”

Fives and Echo were howling with laughter, and Hardcase wolf-whistled loud enough that Rose’s ears rang. Even Jesse had finally joined in, nodding his head along to the music and trying to bite back a grin. Tup had left the crowd to instead attempt to pull Dogma in, and Denal had rounded up a few newer members and was trying to push them closer to the front.

Kix unzipped the top half of his blacks, doing a slow strip-tease in time with the music.

“Gold watch, diamond ring, I ain’t missin’, not a single thing. And cufflinks, stickpin, when I step out I’mma do you in.” Kix shrugged out of his blacks and rolled his hips along the mop handle, dropping his ass low and slowly dragging himself back up, grinding against the handle.

“They come a runnin’ just as fast as they can, ‘cos every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man.”

Fives actually pretended to faint, falling backwards into Echo, who was laughing so hard that he fell over with him.

“ALRIGHT!” Dogma shouted over the music, elbowing his way through the crowd with Tup following anxiously behind him. Dogma firmly stopped the music, hands on his hips as he turned to face the rest of his brothers, who’d begun to boo.

“We have orders,” Dogma reminded them. “This is a punishment, not a party. When we finish here, we’re supposed to clean the shower block, and then we’re supposed to report to the mess hall and take over the canteen cleanup shifts.”

“We know the orders, Dogma.” Rose said, putting a hand on the younger trooper’s shoulder. “There’s no harm in having fun while you work.”

“I’m the only one still working.” Dogma grumbled.

“Alright, alright, we’ll turn it low for now, and we’ll finish up in here, then we can bring the radio with us when we move to the refreshers and canteen. Fair?” He asked, turning to the rest of the men. There were a few muttered responses, and Rose raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry, I couldn’t quite make that out.” He said. “We are cleaning this mess up, correct gentlemen?”

“Sir yes sir!” They all answered quickly, hurrying back to work.

Rose chuckled, shifting the music to something a little calmer, the gentle piano wafting through the barracks as they continued to clean up.

Denal’s head perked up as soon as he heard the piano start, and while he didn’t climb up onto the table like his brothers had, he smiled to himself, turning back towards the spot he was scrubbing and singing to the durasteel floor.

“I'm sailing away. Set an open course for the Virgin Sea.”

Echo hummed, closing his eyes and rocking back on his heels for a moment, listening to his older vod croon.

“'Cause I've got to be free. Free to face the life that's ahead of me.” Denal continued, his voice soft but steady. “On board I'm the captain, so climb aboard. We'll search for tomorrow on every shore and I'll try, oh Lord I'll try… to carry on.”

Somebody whistled, a few scattered claps ringing through the barracks. Coric picked up where Denal left off.

“I look to the sea, reflections in the waves spark my memory. Some happy some sad.” He sang. “I think of childhood friends, and the dreams we had.”

Tup glanced to Dogma, who was practically seething as he scrubbed at the same spot on the floor that he’d been working on for the past several minutes. “You like this song, don’t you, Dogma?”

“No I don’t. Shut up.”

“Join in. They won’t mind.” Tup encouraged.

“No.”

“We live happily forever, so the story goes. But somehow we missed out on that pot of gold.” Sang Coric. “But we'll try best that we can to carry on!”

The music picked up, and Jesse shot Rose a look.

“This is a deceptively fast song.” He said.

“It sneaks up on ya.” Rose chuckled.

The barracks devolved into chaos once again, the clones all screaming along to the lyrics, even the ones who didn’t know the words picked it up quickly, encouraged by their brothers.

Despite the distractions, they finally finished cleaning the barracks, and Rose plucked the radio from where he’d stashed it, leading the way down the hallway towards the refreshers. The 501st were especially rowdy in the quiet halls – most of the barracks were empty, the clones who weren’t being punished for loth-cat related shenanigans were taking advantage of the shore leave.

When they opened the door to the shower block, they encountered a few members of the 212th already in there, cleaning up.

“Pack it in, lads.” Rose announced. “We’re taking over for you.”

“What? Why?” Boil asked, leaning on a mop and raising an eyebrow. “Did you get in trouble?”

“Yes.” Hardcase replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“All of you?” Waxer poked his head out from inside one of the refresher stalls, Crys and Wooley pausing from where they were wiping down countertops.

“Yeah, it’s Hardcase’s fault. As usual.” Jesse said, strolling over to Boil and plucking the mop from his hands. “We’re supposed to take over your shifts.”

“Good, I was hoping to get to 79’s tonight before last call. I hear they’ve got purple spotchka.” Boil said excitedly, glancing at Waxer over his shoulder.

“We can help you finish.” Waxer said, immediately raining on his brother’s parade. “There isn’t much left to do anyway.”

“You sure?” Rose asked. “It’s technically a punishment -.”

“Nah, it’s fine, there really isn’t much left, aside from the toilets.” He grinned. “But you boys can handle those.”

“Fair enough.” Rose chuckled, nodding over his shoulder to his men. Fives, Echo, Jesse, and Hardcase were in a heated four-way battle of rock, flimsi, cutters in order to determine who had to clean the toilets first.

“What’s that?” One trooper Rose didn’t recognize asked, pointing to his hand.

“It’s a radio!” Rose said cheerfully. “I’m err… technically not supposed to have it. But we’ve been listening to music while we worked.” He set it up on the countertop. “Do you have a favorite song…?”

“Spitter.” The 212th trooper supplied helpfully.

“Spitter.” Rose repeated, chuckling to himself and wondering how the hell he’d earned that name. “Do you have a favorite song?”

“I don’t know the name of it.” The trooper admitted shyly. “But – but it’s the one they play on the hits channel all the time. I hear it playing in the admiral’s quarters on the Negotiator all the time.”

“I know that one!” Waxer said excitedly, nodding to Rose. “It’s the one Commander Cody likes. You were playing it in the hangar a few weeks ago when our flight detail overlapped.”

“I remember.” Rose smiled, and turned the song on.

Immediately, every head, including Dogma’s, perked up at the familiar tune. Fives clapped his hands together, getting them started.

“When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you.”

The younger trooper, Spitter, lit up and followed it up.

“When I go out, yeah I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you.”

Waxer elbowed Boil, trying to get him to join in, but the other trooper shook his head and crossed his arms, rolling his eyes even as Waxer sang.

“If I get drunk, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you.”

Their voices carried through the refresher’s tiled walls, and Jesse picked up where Waxer left off.

“And if I haver, yeah I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s havering to you.”

When the chorus rolled around, everyone joined in, their voices bouncing off the walls around them.

“But I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door.”

“When I’m working,” Kix began, offering a hand to Wooley and giving him a playful spin. “Yes I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s working hard for you.”

“And when the money comes in for the work I do, I’ll pass almost every penny on to you.” Wooley laughed, shoving Kix away with a grin.

“When I come home,” Tup piped up quickly, before someone else could. “Oh, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who comes back home to you.”

“And if I grow old,” Crys smirked, shaking his shoulders at Fives, who punched him playfully in the arms and joined in, singing the line in unison. “Well, I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s growing old with you.”

The chorus returned, and they sang with even more feeling than before, dancing and tossing their heads back, shouting along to the words and nearly drowning out the music itself as they sang.

As the final verse approached, Waxer sidled up next to Boil, giving him a hopeful look. His brother sighed, scrubbing a hand bitterly over his face and reluctantly joined in.

“When I’m lonely, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s lonely without you.” He sang.

“And when I’m dreaming,” Echo called. “Well I know I’m gonna dream, I’m gonna dream about the time when I’m with you.”

“And when I go out, well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you.” Fives followed.

“And when I come home, yes I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who comes back home with you.” Denal said.

Tup took a deep breath, preparing to finish off the verse, but he was cut off.

“I’m gonna be the man who’s coming home,” Dogma’s voice was shaky as all eyes turned to him, and he finished in a squeak. “With you.”

The room erupted in cheers, Fives catching Dogma under his arm and giving him a noogie as the chorus rang out once again, everyone shouting along to the lyrics together.

When the song ended, and the cleanup was done, the 212th parted ways with the 501st, the brothers patting one another on the back and jeering affectionately at one another now that the song and dance was done.

“If you finish with everything before final call, catch up with us at 79’s.” Boil called over his shoulder. “We can give the vode there a run for their money with our rendition of that song.”

“Count on it.” Rose chuckled, giving the other company a little salute before leading his men on towards the canteen.

The canteen, blessedly, was empty, and most of it was already clean. All they really had to do was wipe everything down, mop, and then make sure the kitchen was well-prepped for the next day.

“I didn’t know you had it in ya, Dogma.” Echo said affectionately, knocking his younger vod playfully in the shoulder as they walked.

“Let’s just get this over with.” Dogma muttered, his ears burning as he pushed into the canteen, grabbing the cleaning supplies from the nearby supply closet.

“Who’s turn was it for a solo?” Fives asked, watching as Rose started to set up the radio above one of the food windows so it could project into the entire cafeteria.

“I think Dogma should go.” Kix grinned. “Now that we know he’s got some pipes.”

“Absolutely not.” Dogma said immediately, not looking up from where he was wiping down tables.

“I can go first?” Tup offered, raising his hand sheepishly. Dogma shot him another stern look, but Tup was already wandering over to the radio, moving the dial and tentatively pressing play.

Upbeat music filled the canteen, and the other troopers cheered as Fives ushered Tup over to the nearest table, boosting him up on top of it and then thrusting a mop into his hands. Hardcase was already fumbling with the helmet again, trying to get a recording as Tup tapped his foot along with the beat, nodding his head as he found his rhythm.

“I get up in the evening, and I ain’t got nothing to say. I come home in the morning, I go to bed feeling the same way.”

Fives was leading other troopers in pounding the surrounding tables in time with the drumbeats while Echo was leading another group to clap in time.

“I ain’t nothing but tired! Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself.” Tup flashed the camera a grin, reaching up and pulling his hair tie out, shaking his wild curls loose around his head. “Hey there baby, I could use just a little help.”

Jesse whistled, and Dogma had stopped cleaning and was watching his brother, the slightest smile pulling at his lips.

“You can’t start a fire, can’t start a fire without a spark. This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just dancing in the dark.”

Tup shook his hair out of his eyes, tossing his head back and jerking his hips.

“Messages keep getting clearer, radio’s on and I’m moving ‘round my place. I check my look in the mirror, wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face!”

He swayed his hips again, and Hardcase shoved the camera at Kix instead so he could join in the clapping.

“Man, I ain’t getting nowhere, I’m just living in a dump like this. There’s something happening somewhere, baby I just know that there is.”

He hopped off the table, instead taking Dogma’s hand and dragging him towards the makeshift stage.

“You can’t start a fire, you can’t start a fire without a spark. This gun’s for hire, even if we’re just dancing in the dark.”

He pushed the mop into Dogma’s hands instead, beaming at him as he scurried off the table, sprinting over to the radio and quickly changing the song.

Immediately, slow guitar started but quickly escalated into heavy drums and fast riffs. Dogma’s cheeks turned a darker shade, and he looked frantically to Tup, trying to climb back down off the stage.

“No, no, come on!” Fives shouted, trying to body block Dogma from getting down. “Come on, you got this!”

The lyrics began, and Dogma sang along, his mouth barely moving, voice almost imperceptible.

“Another head hangs lowly, child is slowly taken… and the violence caused such silence, who are we mistaken?”

“Come on!” Tup called to him. “You LOVE this song! Let ‘em hear it!”

Dogma grit his teeth, his voice gaining strength. “But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family, in your head, in your head they are fighting.”

He stomped his foot on the table, practically snarling out the words. “With their tanks, and their bombs, and their bombs, and their guns, in your head, in your head they are crying.”

He threw his head back, and for not the first time that night, the radio was drowned out by cheers.

“In your head! In your head! Zombie, Zombie, Zombie. What’s in your head? In your head? Zombie, Zombie, Zombie!”

Dogma climbed off the table quickly, his ears and cheeks burning but a small smile was on his face, even as he was smothered by Hardcase, Fives, Tup, and Echo swarming him with hugs and rubbing his head affectionately.

Jesse climbed up onto the table next, picking up the discarded mop and clearing his throat.

“I would just like to dedicate this song to the gorgeous woman I picked up at 79s last week.” He drawled, nodding once to Kix, who was hovering knowingly by the radio. He nodded once to the helmet, which was now stationed on a nearby table, still recording. “Darling, you had the best pair of tits I have ever seen in my entire life, and you had the mouth of an angel and the coochie of a devil.”

Fives whistled, and Coric snickered. Rose rolled his eyes.

“So, babygirl, this one is for you.”

Kix turned on the radio, and Jesse grinned.

“Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame. Darling, you give love a bad name.”

Guitar rang out through the mess hall, and Jesse bit his lip, rolling his hips as he leaned slightly off the edge of the table.

“An angel’s smile is what you sell, you promised me heaven then put me through hell. Chains of love got a hold on me, when passion’s a prison, you can’t break free.”

He dropped into a crouch, singing directly into the camera.

“Whoa, you’re a loaded gun, whoa, there’s nowhere to run, no one can save me, the damage is done!”

He jumped to his feet, the table shaking under him as he landed.

“Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame. You give love a bad name. I play my part and you play your game, you give love a bad name!” He turned his back on the crowd, dropping low again and slowly rising, shaking his ass. “Yeah you give love…”

He looked over his shoulder, tossing the camera a wink. “…a bad name.”

The music changed abruptly, and for a moment Jesse looked pissed. “What the hell, ‘Case?”

But his expression shifted as Hardcase rushed to the table, pushing his brother out of the way and taking the mop from him. The crowd cheered all over again as Jesse climbed down, brothers slapping him on the shoulders as Hardcase’s song started up.

“We finish strong, right vode?” He asked cheekily.

“We still have to finish cleaning!” Dogma called back.

Hardcase only smirked in response, and sang quickly to keep up with the lightning fast lyrics.

“Backstroking lover always hiding ‘neath the cover, can I talk to you, my daddy say. He said, you ain’t seen nothing ‘til you’re down on a muff and then you’re sure to be a-changin’ your ways.”

He cupped his codpiece, bucking his hips forward into his own hand.

“I met a cheerleader, was a real young bleeder, all the times I can reminisce. ‘Cos the best things of lovin’ with her sister and her cousin only started with a little kiss, like this!”

He swung his arms wide, shaking his ass in time with the music and stuck his tongue out, having the time of his life.

“See-saw swingin’ with the boys in the school and your feet flyin’ up in the air. Singin’ hey diddle diddle with your kitty in the middle of the swing like you didn’t care.”

He walked backwards along the table, rolling his shoulders back as he moved.

“So I took a big chance at the high school dance with a missy who was ready to play. Wasn’t me she was foolin’ ‘cos she knew what she was doin’, and I know love is here to stay when she told me to walk this way!”

The rest of the 501st joined in with him, repeating the chorus of “Walk this way! Walk this way! Walk this way!” over and over again, Hardcase taking over again as the next verse began.

“School girl sweetie was the sassy kinda classy, little skirt’s climbing way up her knees. There was three young ladies in the school gym locker when I noticed they was lookin’ at me.”

He ran his hands along his thigh, mimicking raising a skirt.

“I was a high school loser, never made it with a lady ‘til the boys told me something I missed. Then my next-door neighbor with a daughter had a favor so I gave her just a little kiss, like this!”

“Do you think he has any idea what he’s singing about?” Kix asked Rose, leaning back against the counter and chuckling.

He watched as Hardcase went back to grabbing his own crotch, dry-humping the air and hummed.

“I’d say most likely.”

“See-saw swingin’ with the boys in the school and your feet flyin’ up in the air. Singin’ hey diddle diddle with your kitty in the middle of the swing like you didn’t care.”

Hardcase grinned, and to both Kix and Rose’s utter chagrin, Hardcase actually did dive off the makeshift stage and attempt to crowd surf.

“I’m not patching you up!” Kix shouted over the roar of the music. Rose chuckled, turning the volume nod down as the rest of the 501st shouted in protest.

“Alright, that’s enough for now.” The Lieutenant said, taking control once more. “We can listen to it quietly in the background, but we really do need to wrap up cleaning.”

“Why? Got a date tonight?” Jesse asked with a raised eyebrow. Rose punched him lightly in the arm, and they got back to work once again.

They worked in relative silence, the occasional voice humming or singing along to the music, but they remained productive right up until one of the final songs Rose had downloaded cut through the speaker. The piano wasn’t as rich-sounding as it was through a regular speaker, but even through the tinny cadence of the beat-up radio, every single trooper in the canteen bolted upright, eyebrows raised. Rose smiled knowingly, and turned up the volume once again.

Fives beamed, sitting down on top of one of the tables and laying back, one leg bent and the other stretched flat, a hand behind his head as he sang up at the ceiling.

“Just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going anywhere.”

Jesse leaned back against the wall on the other side of the canteen, closing his eyes as he joined in.

“Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere.”

Echo kept mopping, but was grinning as he picked up the next line. “A singer in a smoky room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume.”

Kix grinned. “For a smile, they can share the night, it goes on, and on, and on, and on.”

The rest of the 501st joined in together, their voices carrying in perfect harmony.

“Strangers, waiting. Up and down the boulevard, their shadows searching in the night. Streetlight people, living just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the -.”

“Night!” Hardcase shouted, straining every muscle in his chest and neck as he struggled to reach the high note.

Tup picked up the next verse, climbing onto one of the tables and dragging Dogma up with him once again.

“Working hard to get my fill, everybody wants the thrill. Paying anything to roll the dice just one more time.”

Dogma smiled, nodding his head along to the music. “Some will win, some will lose.”

Tup threw his arm around his brother, and the two of them sang together. “Some were born to sing the blues!”

Rose’s voice carried from over by the radio. “Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on, and on and on!”

“Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard, their shadows searching in the night. Streetlight people, living just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the -.”

“NIGHT!” This time, it was Dogma, of all people, who rang out with the high note, and the explosion of shouts and cheers was deafening. They were screaming along to the lyrics, dancing and jumping and shouting and swaying in time with the song.

“Don’t stop believin’! Hold on to that feeling. Streetlight people! Don’t stop believin’, hold on-”

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?!”

The booming voice was so powerful, it could be heard even over the shouts of all the clones. Echo was closest to the radio, and quickly shut it off as the song and dance stopped immediately, every clone scrambling to stand at attention.

The Jedi that filled the doorway was massive, an imposing shadow in the entrance to the canteen. He zeroed in on Tup and Dogma, who had been standing closest to the entrance, and stormed towards them.

“Who is your commanding officer?!”

“Me, sir.”

The Besalisk Jedi turned, spinning on Rose immediately. He stalked over to the Lieutenant, jabbing a meaty finger into his chest, hard enough to send him stumbling backwards.

“What is the meaning of this?” He snarled.

“Sir, we were assigned cleaning detail.” He explained. “We were just finishing up.”

The Jedi bared his teeth. “Doesn’t look like much cleaning was taking place to me.”

He surveyed the rest of the troopers, but turned his head back to Rose.

“What is your designation?”

“CT-7673.” Rose recited immediately, keeping his back ramrod straight at attention, even though the Jedi was deep in his personal space. He knew this man. General Krell had quite the reputation through the GAR, and Rose had no clue what he was doing outside of the Jedi Temple this late at night.

“Who is your commanding officer?”

“Captain Rex, sir.”

“Not a clone! Is there a malfunction in your design?!” The Jedi bellowed. A few feet behind him, Hardcase flinched at the sudden loud sound, but Rose held still. “Your general, CT-7673! Who is your Commanding Officer!?”

“General Skywalker, sir.” Rose said instead. The canteen was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

He turned his head, noticing the little radio on the table and picked it up, the device small in his massive hands, raising an eyebrow at Rose. “Contraband, disturbance of the peace, behavior unbecoming of an officer, insubordination.” He hissed. “That’s plenty of grounds for a court martial, Lieutenant.”

“Sir.” Fives spoke up, taking a step towards them. “Proper chain of command designates General Skywalker as the one to hand down a court martial order, sir.”

He narrowed his eyes, his voice dripping with contempt. “With all due respect, sir, you do not command this battalion, and cannot order a court martial on the Lieutenant.”

“Fives.” Rose snapped, whipping his head around to face Fives. “Stand down. Now.”

The ARC Trooper shrank back, his hands curled into fists at his sides, and the General turned back to Rose.

“Be that as it may,” he began icily. “You can rest assured this breach of conduct will not go unreported.”

“Yes sir.” Rose replied stiffly.

General Krell pulled back at last, surveying the battalion. “I want this canteen spotless, and not a word out of you in the meantime!” He ordered. “And I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore.”

With one quick motion, he smashed the radio in his hands. Rose heard a soft, hurt sound somewhere behind him, but ignored it. He didn’t look away from the General.

“Dismissed.” Krell growled, turning and stalking towards the doors. “And as for you,” He turned, jabbing one large finger at Fives. “I’ll be mentioning you in my report as well. Pray our paths do not cross again, clone.”

And with those words, he left the canteen.

Rose relaxed, but only minimally so. The silence hung heavy over the 501st, and everyone quietly shuffled back to work.

Rose gripped the mop handle tightly as he worked, his knuckles turning white. His chest burned, a tight, constricting feeling wrapped around his insides. It was a feeling he’d never felt before – anger, sadness, humiliation, resignation – all rolled into one hateful ball, coiled in his gut.

“Finished with the kitchen, sir.” Came Tup’s small voice. He’d put his hair back up, the tight bun back to regulation standards. Dogma was standing stiff beside him, still not entirely relaxed yet. “And the um – the canteen area’s just about wrapped up as well.”

“Very good.” Rose said with a small nod. “I’ll report back to Captain Rex, let him know we’ve finished for the night.”

“Sorry about your radio, sir.” Hardcase murmured, rubbing the back of his neck.

“It’s alright, ‘Case.” Rose smiled, but his eyes were sad. “It was – it was old, anyway. Just a silly thing.”

Fives bristled, his jaw setting as he tossed the bucket he’d been holding back into the supply closet with far more force than necessary.

“We aren’t supposed to leave base for the rest of the night, right?” Denal asked, arms folded across his chest as they finished the last of the cleanup. “Guess we could play Sabacc or something back in the barracks?”

There were a few murmured agreements, and the 501st shuffled back towards the barracks. Rose was still thinking about the General, and had a bitter taste in his mouth. They hadn’t been doing anything wrong, really.

Was it such a crime to enjoy oneself? To simply exist?

Fives and Echo fell into step on either side of Rose, the ARC Troopers bracketing their Lieutenant. “I bet Echo and I could rebuild the radio.” Fives offered. “Might take a little bit, but even if we can’t, Kix is real good at bartering stuff down in the markets. Remember when he got us those HoloDisc movies for just a tube of bacta?”

“We could find another radio for you?” Echo suggested hopefully. “Or maybe,” he lowered his voice slightly. “Maybe Y/N could find you one?”

“Let it go.” Rose said, picking up the pace and pulling away from the ARC Troopers. They reentered the now far tidier barracks, and Rose gravitated back to his footlocker, starting to close it up and push it back under his bed. The metal clacked slightly against the edge of the bunk, and he paused, the tinny sound echoing in his ears.

He knocked the footlocker against the bunk again, listening to the little noise again.

Kark it. He was more than just a mindless flesh-droid. He was a person. A human being. And he liked music.

And he wasn’t about to let anybody take that away from him.

“I never got to do a song.” He announced, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips.

“You can’t be serious, sir.” Dogma said, shaking his head at him. “Haven’t we gotten in enough trouble?”

“I’m sure the General’s slithered back to the Temple by now, where he belongs.” Jesse replied, turning back to the Lieutenant. “We don’t have a radio anymore, sir.”

“We don’t need one.” Rose said, pulling his footlocker back out and propping up one leg on it. He tapped his foot against the metal, the rhythm settling, nodding his head along. He took a deep breath.

“Standing in the rain, with his head hung low. Couldn't get a ticket, it was a sold out show.”

Fives recognized the song, and started tapping his foot along, drumming his hands on an overturned weapons crate.

“Heard the roar of the crowd, he could picture the scene. Put his ear to the wall, then like a distant scream.” Rose climbed up onto the table. “He heard one guitar!”

Jesse slammed a bucket from earlier down against the supports of a bunk, the loud clang mimicking the strum of a guitar.

“Just blew him away. He saw stars in his eyes, and the very next day, bought a beat up six string in a secondhand store. Didn’t know how to play it, but he knew for sure, that one guitar!”

Another clang, this time from Kix repeating Jesse’s motion, and Echo, Denal, Coric and Fives were all drumming on overturned buckets and crates.

“Felt good in his hands! Didn’t take long to understand, just one guitar, slung way down low, was a one way ticket, only one way to go.”

Tup and Hardcase had picked up a brush – typically used for scrubbing their blasters and armor down – and were knocking it against the durasteel wall. Dogma had rounded up the others, a look of sheer determination on his face as they clamored around the bunks and tables, smacking their fists in rhythm with anything they could get their hands on.

“So he started rockin', ain't never gonna stop. Gotta keep on rockin', someday gonna make it to the top!”

Rose stomped his feet, and the rest of the 501st joined him for the chorus.

“And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes. He's a juke box hero!”

“He took one guitar,” Rose sang, while the rest of the battalion echoed “juke box hero, stars in his eyes” around him. “Juke box hero, he’ll come alive tonight.”

The singing quieted down, listening for a moment to see if anyone was coming, and Rose grinned, starting again and pitching his voice low.

“In a town without a name, in a heavy downpour, thought he passed his own shadow, by the backstage door.”

The clones took position, preparing to resume their makeshift instruments as Rose picked up in volume.

“Like a trip through the past, to that day in the rain. And that one guitar, made his whole life change! Now he needs to keep on rockin', he just can't stop! Gotta keep on rockin', that boy has got to stay on top!”

Once again, shouts rang out as his brothers joined him for the chorus, their voices louder and more determined than ever, refusing to be silenced.

“And be a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes. He's a juke box hero, got stars in his eyes. Yeah, juke box hero, stars in his eyes. With that one guitar, he'll come alive, come alive tonight.”

As they finished the song, Rose panted softly, glancing down at his commlink again. He decided he was going to go off base after all. He wanted to see you, and nobody, not his Captain’s orders, and definitely not some karking General like Krell, was going to stop him.

“Dismissed.” He said curtly, and took off out the door without another word.

SONGS USED (because they’re all bangers and you should listen to them):

The 501st (introduction): Hotel California Echo: Hooked on a Feeling Fives: Kickstart My Heart Kix: Sharp Dressed Man Jesse: You Give Love a Bad Name Coric and Denal: Come Sail Away Dogma: Zombie Tup: Dancing in the Dark Hardcase: Walk This Way The 212th and 501st: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) The 501st (Canteen finale): Don’t Stop Believin’ Rose and the 501st: Juke Box Hero

TAG LIST (Aka everyone on the tag list for BAON): @fat-zygerrian @ladydiomede @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @threevie @cheesemachine44 @bubblyacey @fivedicksinatrenchcoat @loverofclones @starwarsgarbage @hockeyjedi13 @crazygirlwithasword @dar-manda-rjct @gotomarvelgal @baba-fett @whore4rex @bubblegumcat229 @generalcannoli @hellothere501stlover @in-the-crosshairs @vaderthepotater @for-the-love-of-clones @babyhowzer @imrealatedtothe501st @chewychewyque @bobafettuccini @baba-fett-writes @chromia7567 @coffeeandtodd @thedomesticatednerd @kirinpl @djarrex @a-c-lee @embarrassedauthornerd @kaorikoizumi @the-girl-of-rain-and-shadows @sammi9498 @theroguesully @salaminus

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cno-inbminor · 4 years ago

Text

domus

a/n: here we have another short drabble dump! i wrote this up very quickly -- i’m still working on that long fic i’ve been talking about! i apologize for taking so long to put it together. pls take this short fic as an apology for now. stay hydrated, wear your masks, and be safe! love you all so dearly <3

plot: when kuroo tetsuro drops the hard-hitting truth that he’s fallen out of love with you, your first thought is to escape. but you find comfort in the least likely person: akaashi keiji, a boy you had grown up with out of forced family interactions, who always seemed so distant from you. yet you probably knew more about him than anyone else.

characters: fem!reader, ex-bf!kuroo, & family friend!akaashi

wc: ~3.7k, will probably have other parts in the future.

genre/warnings: angst with dashes of fluff; mentions of alcohol

pt. 2 | pt. 3

edit: now crossposted to AO3!

When you’re in love, you spend weeks and months wondering why time won’t stop. You sit and ponder over why you’ll have to die someday and leave behind the person you’ve dedicated your entire soul to, or what might happen if your death came early and you didn’t get to say goodbye. You wonder why the seasons seem to pass you by so quickly, that in the blink of an eye, you go from enjoying a cup of iced tea on the porch to holding a mug of hot chocolate inside watching snowflakes swirl in their journeys to the ground.

But when love ceases to exist, time seems to stop. The days drag for longer, the seasons crawl at a turtle’s pace, and the inevitable end feels less terrifying. You no longer fear the eventual sagging of your skin or the spider legs that grow at the corners of your eyes. You no longer cling onto a hope that there will be a lover’s hand holding yours at your bed of eternal sleep. You simply become, just you. Solitary, single, independent you.

It’s no longer you and someone else. The realization stings so badly that it physically hurts you, a whimper leaving your throat. You shakily reach over for the next blouse and fight back the tears, teeth gnawing at your bottom lip. The skin is chapped and broken to the point that you would need layers and layers of chapstick to save any semblance of it, a terrible habit that you wish you hadn’t possessed. It’s muscle memory, the way you fold the blouse in half, fold the sleeves in, bending it over your arm before it lands in a neat stack of other tops in your suitcase. Your eyes take a glance at the clock, and you gather you have about another hour before you needed to leave for the airport and make it on time for your flight.

You ignore the male figure hunched over on the edge of your bed, tuning out his pleas and broken promises. He begs you to give him time, to implore that it’s all his fault and he’ll make it work for the two of you. Tetsuro promises that he didn’t mean to and that it wasn’t anything you did, but you feel so empty inside that you can’t even find the energy to argue, to turn on him and say that he was pretending to take all the blame so it’d be a better explanation to all your friends. A relationship involves both parties, and while there were special exceptions, this wasn’t one of them. Something was clearly wrong with you, and you were okay with that. You were just tired of Testuro attempting to take everything onto himself.

“I thought it’d be best to come clean with you,” he says, throat hoarse from lack of hydration. “I know you would question it and I haven’t done anything, I swear, I know you’re amazing and don’t deserve to live a lie and—”

“Do you want me to say ‘thank you’?” You interjected quietly, morosely. Your hands slide open the underwear drawer and take out a week’s worth of underwear, bras, and bralettes. “Do you want me to express my gratitude in your honesty for telling me that you don’t love me anymore? You can easily buy a trophy online and make the inscription yourself. ‘Most honest man alive’? Is that what you want?” You ask, tone flat and not possessing the least bit of amusement and humor.

“Can’t you give me some time? I’ll try, I’ll try to figure out what went wrong, and I can love you again. We can still get married and everything, but please don’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving forever, Tetsu. I’m just gone for a week, maybe more.”

“Where are you even going?”

“That’s none of your business,” you quickly reply, defenses back up as you make a beeline for the bathroom. You pick up all the toiletries you can, the ones that would be allowed in your carry-on. Strangers won’t care about your missing skincare routine and your complexion not looking its best.

“What if you get lost? Or kidnapped? What if people ask—”

“Easy. Just tell them I had a last minute business trip, family emergency, whatever floats your boat.”

“Can’t you see that I’m trying? I—”

“This isn’t just about you!” You snap, whirling around to look at him for the first time in the last hour or so. Testuro notices with a pang in his heart that your cheeks have sunken in slightly since he broke his revelation to you just last week, the eye circles darker than ever. But your eyes are soulless, dead, no shine or spark that he’d wake up to every morning even muddled with sleep.

“You can’t just expect me to be okay and continue to bend over backwards for you without question. The least you could do is give me my time, give me some space to think about all of it. That’s the bare minimum.”

And with that, you zip your suitcase shut, grab your passport (even though you probably don’t need it), keys, wallet, and phone, and walk as quickly as you can to the front door. The scheduled Uber will arrive in just a few minutes, and as you slip into a pair of flats, you can hear the creak of the bed and Testuro’s padded steps nearing you.

“Just be careful, okay? Call me if you need anything, anything. You’re still one of the most important people to me, so just – text me at some point. Let me know you’re alive at least.”

“You need to rest. You’re on call tomorrow,” you digress while opening the door.

“(Y/n)—”

“I’ll text you. Promise.”

And the door shuts behind you.

Your relationship with Akaashi Keiji is…hard to explain. In fact, you’re not even sure what to refer him as in your life. Anytime you spoke of him or attempted to explain, you’d fumble over words and draw blanks. While it was irritating and aggravating at times, you learned to just accept it.

Akaashi Keiji was the neighbor down the street, two years older, and someone who had known you since you were 8. Your moms were attached at the hip not longer after you moved to Tokyo, and that meant holidays were spent together, impromptu get-togethers and dinners were a common occurrence, and you saw him frequently at school. He was a quiet soul, gentle, but reserved. In fact, most of the things you knew about him were secondhand conversations from your mother talking about the family, because honestly his mom was basically your second mom now, and your mother trusted you with everything. His past, his troubles, his personality all relayed through your mom from his own, and when you saw him in the hallways, he wasn’t much of an enigma to you. Many other girls had found the mysterious air around him to be attractive, that the pretty setter who only ever smiled around his volleyball team and kept a tight circle of friends had something significant beneath the layers.

Keiji grew up with you, playing Smash on the Wii to pass time as your parents gossiped away. Sometimes, you’d play an intense game of Monopoly with him, a game that typically tipped in his favor. He never said much about himself, always relayed more about others that overlapped in your lives. The most he ever spoke to you about was when it came to teachers at school, even giving you some of his old notes and pointers. But even you could tell that he kept his guards up, and you wondered if he even classified you as a friend.

Your go-to explanation of Keiji’s standing in your life was a family friend. But that insinuated you were close with him, which you weren’t at all. No matter how many times he walked home with you (mainly at the pushing from his mother), no matter how many times he was forced to entertain you at dinners and holidays, no matter how many times he gave you a small smile in school, there was such a large gap between the two of you. He always seemed so different around his team, like they had the privilege of knowing the real him, and at times, you felt…jealous.

And the weird thing is that you can rely on him somehow – whether it be because he’d get an earful from his parents if he didn’t help you when you asked it or out of the goodness of his heart, he was simply always there. Sometimes, you were bold enough to text him about a show he talked about in the past, and he would reply quickly as if your unexpected, rare text about something benign didn’t faze him at all.

Yet despite the distance, despite the lack of any semblance of an actual friendship with him, he was the first one you thought of when all this happened. He was the one you wanted to see – maybe it’s because he was the closest thing to home, and you didn’t want to go back to your parents explaining everything. It’s been a while since you’ve been back in Tokyo, ever since you moved to Sapporo for your job and Testuro got matched for a residency at a hospital there.

At 7PM on a Friday afternoon, past the baggage claim with the sunset beaming in through the sliding glass doors, you stare at Keiji’s contact on your phone, thumb hovering hesitantly over the call button. You could count the number of times you’ve called him on one hand, but this was an emergency, right? Is this why your heart is pounding against your chest, so anxious that you feel like you’ll break into a cold sweat any time soon?

You jump into the deep end.

Your hand nervously brings the phone to your ear, waiting with bated breath as the dial tone echoes in the chamber of your brain. Part of you wants him to miss the call so you can avoid this awkward conversation, but another part of you desperately wants him to pick up as if he’ll be able to save you.

Oh god oh god oh god, you panic as the tone stops, there’s a pause, a rustle, and then a hesitant, “—Hello?”

You didn’t plan this out. You’re not ready for this. Shit, what are you supposed to say?

“—hello? (Y/n)?”

“Have you had dinner yet?”

Wow, you’re a terrible conversationalist.

“…um, I haven’t actually. I was about to warm up some leftovers?”

Your eyes focus on the taxis driving by, picking up passengers as they get waved down. Maybe you should just find a cheap hotel nearby, continue this conversation tomorrow.

“Well…I’m in town, actually. I just landed about 30 minutes ago and realized I didn’t have anywhere to go and I don’t really want to call anyone else and I don’t exactly know who else to call so I just, um, thought about calling you and asking if you’ve had dinner? Which if you’re busy and stuff, that’s totally fine, I should’ve texted you beforehand instead of springing this on you and—”

“(Y/n), it’s okay, alright? It’s okay. I’m not busy, so you can stop by. Did my mom ever give you my address?”

Keiji’s brief attempt to calm you down works, surprisingly. You allow yourself to take a deep breath despite the stale airport air, but it was some much-needed oxygen. This is going to be okay, Keiji doesn’t hate you quite yet.

“N-no, she never did.”

“That’s fine, I’ll text it to you. My place is about 30 minutes from the airport, I’d recommend getting a taxi instead of an Uber. I’ll order some delivery—”

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

“You still like the miso ramen from that shop not far from your house, right? They opened up a second store not far from where I live.”

How did he remember that? You’re pretty sure your own mother had forgotten that fact by now.

“Y-yeah, I do,” you smile to yourself. “I still think about it sometimes.”

“Sounds good then. Get here safely then.”

“Okay. Thank you loads again. I’m sorry for all this—”

“Don’t worry about it. Keep me updated, see you later.”

“Yeah, bye.”

Not 30 seconds later, a text arrives to your phone with an address, a keycode for getting past the main door, and other relevant instructions.

Keiji’s apartment is exactly as you expect it to be – prim, proper, neat almost to a fault, with minimalist decorations. The apartment complex he lives in is rather high-end, if the security guards standing outside the main entrance indicated anything. You almost feel completely out of place or like a bug on the wall as you step in after him, a rather comfortable silence between the two of you. His kitchen is spotless and almost sparkles back at you, and the only thing that seems out of place are the containers of your ramen he so kindly ordered for you.

“Your place is really nice, it’s really…you,” you comment, setting your stuff down at the door. Keiji indulges you with a quiet laugh, making sure that there wasn’t anything that would be in your way. His glasses are perched on his head, an old monochrome t-shirt on his shoulders and sweatpants hung low on his hips, yet in this apartment that almost seems like it should be in an interior design magazine, he looks at home. His ethereal beauty, the softness in his eyes, the gentle up-turned strands of his hair – he belonged here.

“The ramen came not too long ago, so it’s still hot. I’ll go ahead and put it together, you can put your jacket on the couch.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Instead, you fold your jacket over your suitcase and quietly make your way into the apartment. Straight across from you are doors to a balcony – darkness had long taken over the city, so you see nothing but your reflection at first. But as you near the plexiglass, the reflection disappears into the view and you almost gasp from the beauty of it.

Blinking lights, flashing billboards, and the brightly lit Tokyo Skytree peer back at you. It only hits you now how much you’ve missed home, and that even though Sapporo was one of the largest cities in Japan, it still wasn’t Tokyo.

“I never get tired of it,” Keiji chimes in while carrying your bowl of ramen to the dining table.

“It’s an amazing view, I can see why you’d live here,” you reply while moving away from it. The table also has two empty wine glasses, and just as you’re about to ask him why they were there, he returns with a newly opened bottle of chardonnay.

“I haven’t had a lot of time to restock the wine fridge, but I knew I was going to kick myself for not having a bottle of that dessert wine we had before you went off to college,” he said with mirth and amusement. “You remember that one?”

“Yeah,” you nearly splutter, almost flushing that once again, Keiji was remembering details about you that you didn’t even know. “Your mom wanted to throw me a graduation dinner and you made it back in time after finals. And she had a bottle of it and between the two of us, we probably drank most of it. Our parents said it was too sweet.”

He nods and sits across from you, elbows on the table as you mutter, “Itadakimasu,” and start eating. You finish your meal silently for the most part, making small talk here and there. Keiji refills both of your glasses and the two of you sip the wine demurely, and while he seems okay with the lack of an explanation, you’re struggling to find the right words.

“So what’s with the impromptu trip to Tokyo? Are you going to see your parents?”

“Should I try to lie to you?”

“It’s up to you.”

Oh, okay then.

But he looks expectant, as if he knows you wouldn’t lie to him – in fact, you’ve never lied to him before. There was never any need to, but did that just mean neither of you ever cared enough?

“Something happened with me and Testuro. I don’t want to bore you with the details, but at the end of the day…I just needed to get away, as cliché as it sounds,” you laugh brokenly. Keiji continues to carefully observe you with a stare that you can’t escape. “I don’t want to tell my parents – you know them, they’ll ask a million questions. Without thinking, I booked a ticket to Tokyo and…now I’m here.”

That was a lie. How are you supposed to tell Keiji that he was the first person you thought of in an effort to run away? You and Keiji have never gotten personal before, he made sure of that. The last thing you want to do is weird him and scare him off.

“…did he cheat on you?” Keiji asked. His voice is darker in his inquiry, deeper than you’ve ever heard before. He has his hands folded in front of his lips and his eyes harden. Testuro may be an old friend to him, but you were in his life longer.

“Nonononono,” you quickly wave off. This isn’t the time to slander your…boyfriend? Could Tetsuro still even be your boyfriend if he no longer has any feelings for you? “Nothing like that.”

“That’s good to hear. If you want, you can tell me another time then. You’re welcome to stay here until you go back to Sapporo.”

You look up at him, eyes incredulous. Could Keiji really be this comfortable with you?

“I wouldn’t mind staying tonight, but I can stay in a hotel for the rest of the week that I’m here.”

“Nonsense,” Keiji refutes, standing from the table and taking your wine glasses to the sink. You follow with your bowl and he starts washing them before you can even offer. “Mom would kill me if she knew I let you pay for a hotel when I have a perfectly functioning bed you can stay in.”

“I mean, if it’s not a bother…”

“It’s not. The futon’s pretty comfortable, I’ve definitely fallen asleep on it plenty of times.”

“We can switch, I would never let you sleep on the futon for a whole week.”

“If you say so then. But for tonight, you can take my bed. Let me grab you an extra towel so you can shower. I’m sure you’ve had a long day,” he says while drying everything off, folding the kitchen towel neatly before heading off to his room. He returns with a large, soft grey towel and you shyly take it from him with a word of thanks, but he stays there in front of you, waiting for something.

“I’m really glad you picked up the phone,” you whisper softly, feeling the effects of the alcohol. You’re entering uncharted territory for the two of you, and this could either kill or strengthen this odd distant friendship. “I meant it when I said I didn’t know who else to call. You were the first person that came to mind and just…I don’t want to make this weird, like you can kick me out,” you begin to ramble. “Don’t feel like you’re obligated to take me in because your mom would be disappointed if you wouldn’t, you’ve already put up with me for over 15 years and it’s fine, I can be on my own and—”

Smooth, calloused hands delicately hold your face, large palms and nimble fingers cupping your cheeks. Your words die on your tongue as Keiji stares straight into your eyes, holding your gaze until your breathing calms down to a steady, languid pace. “You’re my friend, (y/n). So it’s good that you called me.”

“I’m your…friend?” You ask unsteadily, feeling a sense of disbelief.

“Yeah,” he confirms with the corners of his lips turning up slightly. “We’re friends.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Now go shower.”

“Okay.”

You’re fast asleep before Keiji finishes his own shower, his bedroom door left ajar as the hallway light beams through. He pauses in the midst of drying his hair with a towel, letting it bunch and hang off his neck as he cautiously pushes the door open. Keiji notices your even breathing and how much more relaxed you look in sleep. You’re curled up on your side with the blanket pulled up to your face and he can’t lie: it’s adorable and cute, and he shouldn’t really be thinking these things.

He sits on the edge of the bed in the little space that’s provided, lithe fingers reaching out to brush back a few stray wisps of your hair. Watching you sleep pulls him back into a fond memory he’s kept of the two of you, one that might’ve held very little significance to you but meant something so much more to him. He knows you know him well, he knows how much his mother babbles on about him, and adults were more prone to gossip than the rowdiest of teenagers – he’d be painfully oblivious if he didn’t think you knew that much about him, or more than the average friend.

But it’s comforting to him, sometimes. Knowing you, how kindly you think of others, he might not have to explain what he’s feeling in the moment. You would be able to know, and that soothes him to some degree.

Maybe he had a little bit too much wine as well, but ever so subtly, motions steady and unhurried, he deftly leans closer and closer until his lips brush the apple of your cheek. He lingers for no more than a few seconds and sits back up, gazing at you before standing. His hands adjust the blankets and make sure you’re properly tucked in. He pads away, shutting the door behind him as quietly as possible as to not wake you.

And when he’s found a comfortable position on the futon with his most comfortable throw blanket, he realizes, begrudgingly, that this week will fly by too fast for his liking.

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sophfandoms53 · 4 years ago

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So now that you caught up with Amphibia and cause it'd be fun seeing you answer an Amphibia question, do you think it does a better job conveying important information on screen than Ducktales inspite of usually having their episodes at 11 minutes instead of 22 like Ducktales and why?

Oh absolutely.

I cannot stress enough how much I love the way the conflict between Anne and Hop-pop in regards to the music box was handled. My favorite part of that plot was even though Anne said she forgave him at the of After The Rain, deep down she was still hurt and struggled to truly forgive him for lying about and hiding the music box.

The conflict isn’t one-sided either. Both of them have their reasons for what they did, at the end of the day Hop-pop was the one who messed up, but he did what he thought was right to protect his family. He owns up to hurting Anne and that he made a mistake by never telling her what he found out about the box and it’s potential dangers.

Having there still be tension between them during the majority of First Temple was a great way to show how sometimes forgiveness takes awhile to be accepted. Sometimes a simple apology isn’t enough.

The best part of this conflict is at the breaking point when Hop-pop is begging Anne to tell him how he can fix this and help her forgive him and Anne straights up tells him, “I don’t know.”

That type of response is completely believable and real.

And then this wonderful conversation that happens afterwards,

“I just need time... Look, I want things to go back to the way they were but... but...”

“I’m sorry, Anne. You take all the time you need. Maybe it’s enough to admit we’ve still got issues instead of pretending they don’t exist.”

“I think that’d be good.”

Anne knows Hop-pop is sorry, but knowing that somebody is sorry sometimes isn’t enough to fix things. When someone hurts you as badly as Hop-pop has hurt Anne, that’s a wound that needs time to heal.

And the fact Hop-pop is willing to let her take her time and no longer force her to forgive him shows how much he’s grown to love Anne as his own kid and how much he understands Anne as a person. He loves and respect her and he’s gonna give her the space she needs to let herself forgive him.

This show is so good at having people talk and acknowledge their issues and actually work on those issues. Which is more than what DT tried to do.

One of the things I’ve been enjoying about Amphibia is how they aren’t afraid to acknowledge the conflicts they’ve created, they deal with those conflicts and the characters learn from those conflicts and it shows.

This is done really well when it comes to Sasha’s story, who is a really well written character, and how the other characters react to her presence. The constant suspicion the Plantars and Anne have about Sasha the entire time she’s around because of what she did to them back in the season one finale? Completely valid and justified.

Anne continuing to stand up to Sasha and letting her know Sasha can’t push her around anymore? Amazing.

Sasha trying to put on an act that she’s changed and is only following Grimes’ plan but we still have those moments she could possibly be having second thoughts about her loyalty? Again, really well done.

I really adore the way Anne, Sasha and Marcy have all been written, between their personalities, stories, growth, and arcs, they’re all unique and so far been done really well.

Amphibia is such a fun time and it’s so good to watch a show and feel like every episode is worth it. They take time for their silly episodic episodes but they never forget the story they’re telling nor the tensions and conflicts that follow it, and it’s an amazing watch.

One final thing is that I am so happy that the Plantars don’t talk about how they’re family every five freaking seconds. I swear to god DuckTales said the word family every other sentence and preached it like it was some type of religion and it was like omg pls stfu about how you’re family and how amazing your family is and actually SHOW us how you’re a family. The way DuckTales treated its family concept is a whole thing and while I don’t dislike the entirety of how they handled it, we definitely did not need the show to shove its family message down our throats I can tell you that.

The Plantars just are a family. We see how much Hop-pop, Sprig, Polly and Anne love each other, how close they’ve become, how much they would sacrifice for each other, how much they’ve grown, and how much they care for one another. We are SHOWN all that and seeing a family be a family is so beautiful and the found family message of the show is so well done because Anne is just a part of the Plantars. They love her and she loves them.

There’s no preaching, no shoving anything in anyone’s faces, no saying “we’re family” every 2 seconds, none of that, it’s just... A family.

The Plantars are family and we will show you how they are a family.

#hello amphibia essay #can y’all tell I rlly like this show?#cuz I do WHEEZE #amphibia #amphibia deserves better #anne boonchuy #sprig plantar #polly plantar #hop pop plantar #sasha waybright #marcy wu

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fbfh · 4 years ago

Text

I mean, you did ask - leo x reader

all characters are aged up to 18+ for smexy subtext

word count: 2k

pairing: leo x gn child of calliope reader

genre: adventure, romance, hints at a lowkey soulmate au

summary: after a bumpy reunion turned interrogation with your friends, you finally prove to Leo that you’re someone worth catching up with

warnings: swearing, friends hold you at knife point (for good reason) memory loss, dimesion/reality travel, the phrase “horrible sexy little goose” not about an actual animal, moderate time difference between worlds, reader is acting like a cocky piece of shit half the time, you call yourself sexy a lot, annabeth slaps reader and reader is unbothered, reader and leo hae very visceral reactions upon seeing each other, piper picks up on this, moderately aggressive face grabbing, discussing personal info with someone somewhat privately, brief mentions of hand holding and hair pulling during sex, you spill tea about the rest of the demisquad, I think that’s it pls tell me if I missed any

song rec: choke - i don’t know how but they found me

a/n: this is from a very vivid daydream I had so er ah if reader seems op coded that’s cause she is uwu

You were excited to reunite with your friends after so long, but being tied up and held hostage at knifepoint by the people you love who don’t even remember you wasn’t the welcome wagon you were hoping for. Then again, as a child of Calliope, you can’t say you’re surprised.

Apollo has a lot of kids, but demigod children of the muses are exceptionally less common. They’re volatile, really powerful, extremely engrossed in their art, and usually care more about their latest thesis paper or painting or manuscript than going on quests, and more often than not have very specific powers. You, for example, love quests but feel like you never get to go on any, usually because you’re fighting monsters somewhere else. One fun little power you inherited from your mom is - somewhat involuntary - dimension shifting.

A lot of times you just get summoned somewhere else, with a little inherent background knowledge and your weapon, set free into the new world like a horrible sexy little goose. There’s usually some kind of objective you need to meet; find this person, set something in motion, give someone support in a time of need, deliver a package. After that, you get sent back to your family at camp half blood. The catch, one of them at least, is that a few days Somewhere Else could be no more than a few minutes in your homeverse.

Another catch is that because of all that, and the fact that you wouldn’t know how to begin explaining, let alone if anyone would believe you, no one knows you can do this yet. Chiron has an idea, but you’ve never told anyone outright.

You guess now is as good of a time as any to come clean, as Percy holds his sword threateningly close to your neck. You let out a disbelieving laugh, and bite the inside of your cheek.

“Okay, okay… you want the truth?” he starts to back off, and you continue, leaning forward, “I’m not surprised you’d want to know where someone this sexy-” your words cut off as Annabeth’s hand slaps you across the face. You let out a laugh of disbelief, cheek stinging.

“A cheap shot, Annabeth? Wow, I really didn’t take you for the type,” she grabs your face, leaning in close, knife once again against your throat.

"How do you know my name." She hisses, and behind her, the door opens. Messy dark curls peek over her head in your vision and you know instantly who it is. Your heart starts pounding, loud and hard, and something heavy starts swirling deep in your gut. Your eyes lock as soon as he enters the room and an instinctive smile blooms on your face, knowing what's inevitably on its way.

"Hey Sparky…"

Your voice, slow and drawling (and, he'd be lying if he didn't say kind of very sexy) impales him as soon as he enters the room. He watches your pupils expand, eyes locked, immediately swept away by your magnetic aura. A fox like grin decorates your pretty face, and he gets the feeling you know more than you let on. Way more. He's so drawn to you on a guttural level, way more than he's ever been to someone before. His face is hot, and when you slowly wink at him, he feels flames erupt on his cheeks. It takes him a second to put it out, feeling your white hot gaze on him the entire time.

Piper, who's been helping with your interrogation, looks back and forth between you two as this progresses, taking in a breath and mumbling a shocked, "Oh," as she begins to understand.

"How are those repairs coming?" Jason asks, oblivious to everything that's happening between you two.

"Uh… nearly done…" Leo mutters, watching as you hold back an elated giggle at the sound of his voice. You never forget how good it feels to see him again, but the fresh feeling is always better than you can imagine. Jason glances between you two, and walks over to Leo, suspicious of your interest in him.

"I'll walk you back," Jason says, glaring at you. Your eyes stay locked with Leo's until the door finally closes again. Piper stares at you, bewildered by the tension turned to frantic energy crackling around both you and Leo. She can sense it on him even after he's out of the room.

Annabeth finally drops your face, pacing and pinching the bridge of her nose. Percy slams him hands down on the table and levels his face with yours.

"I'm gonna ask you one last time. How do you know us?"

You stare at the table for a second, still thinking about him. You have to see him again. You’ve waited for too long, you just can’t do it anymore.

“H- okay. Um,” You blink a few times, facade falling away almost instantly as you look up in a silent prayer that this doesn’t go as badly as you feel like it will. You sigh, looking back up at the other people in the room, a new, deliberate intention in your eyes that they hadn’t seen before.

“You want to know why I’m here?”

Their answer is the silence that follows.

“You’re not gonna believe me.” They look around at each other, collectively thinking about everything they’ve been through in the last year alone.

“Try us.” Annabeth replies. You sigh again, and introduce yourself. “...I’m a child of Calliope, muse of epic poetry, and I know you all because we grew up together. One of the fun - quirks, I inherited from my mom is traveling into different stories, or realities, I guess. It’s hard to control, and sometimes happens involuntarily. I adapt to wherever I am, and the universe sort of auto adjusts to follow the rules that stories have to follow.

The reason you don’t remember me is because I was gone for a really long time, and your story had to keep going. Trying to find me wouldn’t have moved the plot forward, questioning where I went would have been confusing, so it did the simplest thing and edited me out so you could get closer to meeting your objectives.”

Once again, their silence is your answer.

“Guys, sidebar.” Annabeth says, pulling Percy, Jason, and Piper out of the room for a moment. The come back in a little while later, and she looks you dead in the eye.

“If you really know us as well as you say you do, prove it. Tell us you’d only know if we were as close as you say we were.”

You sigh yet again, having lost count at how many times that’s happened today alone. You roll your shoulders and bob your head, irritable that you’re still restrained and itching to move.

“Is there anything we can do before the whole tell me something really personal thing?”

Percy looks at you, challenging.

“Can you do it or not?”

Another noise of exasperation leaves you, and you agree, resignation all over your face.

“You know what, yeah. Okay, we’re doing this. Someone go get Leo.” An involuntary smile once again launches onto your face at the mention of his name. Jason starts to object.

“Hey, I’m not going to spill something personal about someone when they’re not in the room.” They agree reluctantly, and Jason leaves, returning again with Leo. You look at him again, enraptured by his presence. He can’t say he doesn’t like the attention - a hottie like you looking at him like that? Yes, please - but something about it feels different, and he gets the feeling there’s a lot more going on than they’re aware of.

You nod your head once, indicating for him to come closer. He gets a little closer. You widen your eyes, nodding two more times, and he hesitantly gets within whispering distance.

You turn your head to your left, dangerously close to his face. He can feel his pulse already speeding up. Heat radiates between your faces, your breath fanning over his neck as you whisper slowly,

“You really… really like holding hands, and when I pull your hair during sex.”

He pulls away from you quickly, beet red, bewildered expression obvious to everyone in the room. “H-how-”

“How do you think?” You reply calmly, loving everything about him, “Okay, to be fair…” you nod once more, eyes flaring, and he leans in once again, equally hesitant and curious. Your words tickle his ear, seeming to light up his entire nervous system like a firecracker.

“I really really like when you bite that spot on my neck, just below my ear.”

He pulls away again, trying not to literally and figuratively combust. He stares in your eyes intensely, searching for anything besides the truth. He finds absolutely nothing. He turns around, unable to look his friends in the eye.

“They’re legit, guys.”

“Wait, what did you say to him?” Piper asks, unsure if she wants to know the answer.

“Yeah,” Annabeth agrees, “what if it’s some kind of mind control-” Your deep, burning desire to finally hold Leo after god knows how long is starting to beat your better judgement, and you really, really want to be untied from this stupid chair. “Annabeth! Your favorite show was Cyber Chase growing up, you used to come up with plans on how to defeat Hacker, your best was cutting off his food supply - good strategy, I’ve used it before, myself.

Percy, you feel like you can’t sing because you were forced to participate in an elementary school recital and some kid called you tonedeaf behind your back, it kicked you right in the RSD balls.

Piper, you’re a closet weeb, you watched Ouran High School Host club obsessively and still do sometimes, you fell for Jason because he had, quote, 'Tamaki's looks and Kyoya's brains, the ideal man'.

Jason, that scar on your lip is from biting a stapler as a child-"

"Okay, everyone knows that-"

"-and," you continue, showing no signs of stopping, "the reason you ate the stapler is because you were pretending to be a trash compactor because you saw one on TV.

Nico is totally not right outside the door keeping guard right now, but if he were and you asked him if he likes the diary of a wimpy kid movies he'll ask how the hell you know that - should I continue."

Again, the answers are in the silence hovering in the room.

“I think it’s about time to catch me up on what I missed.”

A beat passes.

“Right,” Annabeth says, blinking and readjusting her ponytail as she sits down across from you, Percy already taking the bindings off of your wrists, “so, about the quest…”

She starts to fill you in on the details you missed, bringing you up to speed. After a little while you all decide to call it a night. Piper senses your energy ramping up in spite of the exhaustion settling in. You finally bid them all good night, but Piper’s not sold by your forced yawns. After what feels like another lifetime, you finally leave the room you’ve been in for hours with one objective.

You can’t stay away from him anymore, you have to find Leo.

After navigating a maze of hallways and doors, you finally push open the right one to see him looking up at you, and find yourself saying for the second time tonight,

“Hey, Sparky…”

His heart is racing, and he gets that heavy, full feeling in his chest again, not having fully shaken it from the last time you saw each other. Looking into your eyes makes him nostalgic for something he can’t quite remember, and he knows with full certainty that you have more history than he’s aware of. He wants more than anything in this moment to remember. He sets down the wrench in his hand, taking a step toward you.

“Hey…”

#leo x reader #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez #heroes of olympus #heroes of olympus x reader

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escapewriter · 4 years ago

Text

until we meet again

request : prince!seungkwan x thief!reader where the king is neglecting the kingdom so reader and atz/skz members form a crew that reader is the leader of that steals unnecessary stuff from the palace so food and stuff can be bought from other kingdoms and y’all are basically keeping the kingdom alive. but reader gets caught by seungkwan one night and almost gets executed cuz he doesn’t believe reader abt the state the kingdom is in, but opens his eyes later. angst and fluff pls! tyty

pairing : prince!seungkwan x thief!reader

genre : fluff, humor, slight angst

type : oneshot

wc : 3.1k (3100)

warnings : stealing, mentions of execution

main masterlist || svt written masterlist

requests are closed

a/n : this is me killing two birds with one stone. i finish a request along with participating in the royal themed writing event for ficscafe. i hope you all enjoy this, i really liked writing this!

You wait silently behind a bush, keeping an eye out for the signal. Watching carriages and wagons pass by and into the gates of the palace, you hear a crunch behind you. You turn your head, watching Jisung munch on an apple, the savory juice trickling down his chin as he hums in content. “Where the hell did you get that?”

He looks at you, shifting in his squatting position before holding the apple out towards you. “Want a bite?”

Your eyes shifted to the market behind him, seeing a display of apples before narrowing your focus back on Jisung. “I can not believe you stole food from them, do you know how hard it is to make money?” Watching him shrug you turn back around to wait for the signal.

“Okay, but we take from the palace all the time, it’s not like this is any different.” You rolled your eyes, spotting Wooyoung a few feet down the dirt road with his wagon.

“Yeah, but the palace has riches that they keep to themselves. Out here, on the other side of these gates, everyone is trying to survive.” You see Hongjoong peak out of the bush on the other side of the dirt road, blanket in his hand. “Jisung, get ready.”

You both get in a better position, bags secured tightly around your shoulder. Wooyoung arrives at the first checkpoint before the gates. He patiently answers the guards questions before they check the items hidden under the tarp. He looks at Hongjoong, giving him the cue. Hongjoong stands up, walking to a campfire close by, and lets the blanket catch on fire. He yells, running up to the guards, distracting them from checking the wagon as he screams for water and help.

Woonyoung pushes the wagon forward and sends you the signal. You grab Jisung, tugging him along as the tarp on top of the wagon opens for you both. “Welcome!” You smack Hyunjin’s head, telling him to be quiet as the three of you wait for Wooyoung’s next signal.

＊＊＊

The wagon came to an abrupt stop. All bags were full of treasures from the palace that were to be sold to other kingdoms for the sake of restoring the kingdom the King has been neglecting. Crops and other resources that were used to survive have not been shipped to the kingdom for half a year, which is what led to the formation of you, Jisung, Wooyoung, Hyunjin, and Hongjoong. The five of you sneak into the palace, taking various items that seem worth hundreds so you could sell them to gain money to pay for the shipment of cloth, pottery, and crops. It wouldn’t have been this way if the King simply looked after his kingdom.

You stepped out of the wagon and into the hut you shared with the other four. Placing all three bags on the table, you watch Hongjoong sort out all the jewels into separate piles. Wooyoung emerged from the doorway, sitting at the table Hongjoong was at. “You know the three of you almost got caught, right?” You rolled your eyes, a small smile making its way onto your face.

“Yeah, but we didn’t. Plus it was worth it,” you picked up a ring, “if I didn’t take the risk, I wouldn’t have gotten this precious jewel.” You examined the ring, deciding to keep it as a souvenir for the adventures you’ve made with your friends.

“Yeah, but Wooyoung’s right,” you look down at Hyunjin who sat on the floor next to the table as he played with a golden tablecloth, “it was really risky with how far you went.” You sighed, not being able to defend yourself before Hongjoong spoke.

“How far did they go?”

“The Princes’ room.” You smack Jisung on the arm for ratting you out, only receiving a wince then a shrug in return.

Hongjoong said your name in a warning tone, “you better watch yourself. You go too far, you may not come out and we won’t be able to save you.”

“I know Hongjoong, I’m the one that enforced these precautions.”

***

Clearly, you should have listened to those precautions more because here you were, hiding in the closet of the kingdom’s Prince.

Your breathing was staggered as you cupped your hand over your mouth. The rest of the guys should be gone by now, but since it was Hongjoong leading the mission that week, he would be too stubborn to leave. You bite your lower lip in hopes that the prince doesn’t enter the room. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on your side as you heard the stomps of multiple feet enter the room.

“Vernon, you have to help me find it,” your eyes widened, the hand covering your mouth attempting to muffle any that could potentially escape, “I swear, the last time I saw it was on my dresser.”

“Seungkwan, I promise you that it’s okay if you lost your ring, we can always buy a replacement.” You swallowed, mind racing back to the ring that was currently sitting on your table back at home.

“A replacement isn’t the same, I need to find it. You gonna help me or do you have other things?” The floor began to creak, the weight walking past the closet before a sigh was heard. “Where the hell could I have put it?”

“I’ll help you later, my mom needs my help in the kitchen. Let me know if you find it.” You heard footsteps leave the room and the door close. You don’t know what the ring is worth and why it’s so important to this Seungkwan guy, but if you got home, maybe you can find out.

Or not because the second the doors to the closet opened and yours eyes connected, you immediately jumped up, trying to cover the mouth of the man in front of you as you tackled him to the floor. In attempts to calm him down, your mind failed to think that this guy is the Prince and probably knows how to defend himself.

He quickly locks both your left arm and leg and immediately flips you over so he’s on top. Your eyes full of fear as he pins your arms to the sides of your body. He narrows his eyes, staring deeply into yours before turning into a sharp glare. “Who are you?” You don’t answer, but instead look to the side, trying to think of some way to escape. “Are you not going to answer me?”

“Well you can probably guess what I do.”

“Sarcastic one, aren’t you. Trust me, you do not want to be on my bad side.”

You don’t know what took over you at that moment, but you just became a new person. “Believe me then, your highness, you’re already on my bad side.”

＊＊＊

You woke up strapped to a chair in a cold room. The small window with the moon shining through was your only form of light. You don’t even remember how you ended up there after telling the Prince that he was on your bad side. And honestly, he should know that the whole kingdom is growing more hatred towards the royal family.

The screeching noise of the metal door took you away from your thoughts as you saw the Prince come into the room with a small candle. He sets it down on the table, eyes trained on you, waiting for any movement as if you weren’t chained on the chair. “So, thief, are you going to tell me why you were in the castle?”

“I’m a thief, why else would I be there?”

He scoffs, leaning against the wall. “You do realize that I can have you executed, right?” You thought for a moment, a little fear rising but pushed it to the back of your head. You shrugged at him. “You’re not scared?”

You shifted in your seat, thinking about what to say, or maybe what any of the guys would say if they were in this situation. Jisung would probably cry, Hyunjin would look away out of nervousness, and both Wooyoung and Hongjoong would be stubborn and refuse to speak. But what would you say? “No not really.”

Clever.

“Well, you should be! I can have you killed at any moment!”

You looked around the cell you were in, the unimpressed look clearly evident on your face, “Yeah,” you humed, waiting for any sign of death machine, but you had this feeling that he could never kill you and you don’t know why, “you’re not gonna kill me, are you?”

“You have my ring! I know you do!” He whined, catching you by surprise as he stomped his foot. “You’re not leaving here until you tell me where you put it.” He furrowed his eyebrows, sitting on the chair next to the table. Your lips formed a straight line. What’s the deal with this ring anyway?

“I won’t tell you where your ring is until you tell your dad that the entire kingdom is dying.” His eyebrows shot up, a disbelief scoff escaping his mouth.

“Our kingdom isn’t dying.” He folds his arms and looks away from you, frustration evident in his actions as he clenches his jaw.

“Dude, any tools, cloth, crops, and other necessities needed haven't been shipped here for half a year,” you look down, trying to contain your emotions as you thought about how everyone has been struggling to just get out of bed in the morning, “why do you think I steal from the palace? Because then I can sell it just to use the money to pay for the shipment of the things that your kingdom needs. I shouldn’t be the one to do it.”

He sighs loudly, slowly turning around and clapping his hands. “I applaud you. That was some acting and a great lie. Our kingdom is perfectly fine,” he walks closer to you and leans down, face inches away from yours, “you have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stands up and laughs, picking up the candle from the desk before heading towards the door.

“Then I guess you’ll never get your precious ring back.” He stops momentarily in hesitation, but ignores you and continues to exit the cell.

＊＊＊

Seungkwan sat on his bed, his mind racing on whether or not the information you’ve told him was true. It couldn’t be because if the castle got supplies, shouldn’t the rest of the kingdom get supplies too? He rubbed his temples as he fell back on his back, groaning in frustration. The door to his room opened with a creak, standing at the doorway was Vernon.

“What’s up with you?” Vernon walks in, taking a seat next to his best friend. “Still can’t find your ring? I’m telling you, the guys won’t care if you get it replaced, I mean, this castle is huge and it’s easy to lose things here.”

“It’s not that this time,” Seungkwan sat up, “it’s just,” he pauses, debating on whether or not he can ask Vernon, “what if I’m not a good King?” He watches Vernon scoff and look away.

“No offense to your dad or anything, but trust me, you’ll be a way better King than him.” Seungkwan tilts his head, confused as to what his friend was talking about. “You don’t know?” Vernon looks into his eyes, surprised that his friend doesn’t know what has been going on. “Your dad is a selfish coward. The people in his kingdom are dying because he won’t pay the shipment of the crops they need to survive.” Seungkwan looks down at his hands and plays with his fingers, you were right. “The payment increased by a few pieces of gold, but the man is greedy, as if he doesn’t have a whole castle.”

“How do you know about this Vernon?”

Vernon places a hand on Seungkwan’s shoulder, a small smile on his lips. “We may be best friends and have grown up together, but I’m still a peasant and in the lower class that works for your family. I have to go out the gates to get resources for my family because we’re not allowed to eat the food in the kitchen,” he pauses, patting Seungkwan’s back as a form of comfort, “if you went out there, you’d see how bad it is.

＊＊＊

Seungkwan stood in front of the gate to the castle, watching all the people scurry by and the wagons pass by. He looks around, seeing markets have a low supply of food, children who have barely any coverage of clothing, and some huts falling apart as men try to repair them. His heart feels heavy at the sight, his emotions going crazy as he thought about how the people are feeling. Is he on their bad side just like how he is with you?

“Sir! Sir!” He watches a young man walk pass a market, dark circles evident under his eyes as he turns around to face the owner. “Do you know when the next shipment will come in? You and your group have been doing so much for everyone, but we haven’t gotten any new supplies in a few weeks”

The man looks down, sorrow and regret on his face. “Unfortunately, Mister, we don’t have enough money yet. It’s been hard as we have lost a member, but please, try to wait a little longer.”

Lost a member? You? Seungkwan’s feet took him towards the man who was walking away. He placed his hand on his shoulder. “Excuse me,” the man turns to look at him, his eyes scanning Seungkwan who has covered his whole face besides his eyes, “I can help with the rest of the payment.”

＊＊＊

Your head lolled to the side, a sigh escaping your mouth as you tried to sleep in the uncomfortable position. Your eyes shot open as a man cleared his throat. You slowly moved your head up as you watched the silhouette open the door. “So I’m guessing you’re the reason Seungkwan has gone out the gates of the palace?” You didn’t know what to say, mainly because you had no idea what this man was talking about. “Or maybe I encouraged him a bit, but it was unintentional at least.”

He walks up to you, a clunking noise coming from his hand, “I’m Vernon by the way,” he lifts up a string of keys and begins to unlock you from your chair, “if you have his ring, please give it back,” he holds his hand up with the same exact ring on his pinky, “it’s a friendship ring we have with some of our other friends.”

You nod your head, ignoring what he said and rubbed your wrists once they were free. “Why did he go out there?”

Vernon shrugged, looking out the small window of the cell, “to see for himself.” He holds his hand out, helping you stand. “Seungkwan has got to pick a better place than the wine cellar, he knows I go in here.” He stops you from leaving, “I’ll let you go after you eat. Mom always told me to feed visitors.”

＊＊＊

You opened the door to the small hut, a breath of relief escaping your lips as you saw your four best friends together at the table. Immediately, you were surrounded and engulfed into a big group hug. It was nice, the feeling of home and back to the way things were. The only difference was that everything won’t be back to where they were because the Prince will freak out now that you have been set free. Part of you wants to go back and maybe talk him into making some change, but you couldn’t focus on that.

“Now that you’re back safe, we have some news.” You sat on the chair, looking at Wooyoung, who signaled to Hongjoong.

“Earlier today, I was approached by a man who said he could help pay for the shipment. We told him what we do, which I know was probably a bad idea, but he gave us payment that would last probably two years.” Part of you wanted to believe it was Seungkwan because no man living in the kingdom had that much money unless they lived behind the gates, so you just thought it was a traveler.

“That’s great news!”

Jisung took his seat next to you, “We thought they…” You snorted, thinking back to the night before and Seungkwan’s paranoia.

“They couldn’t even if they tried.” You look to your room, excitement bubbling in your chest as you couldn’t wait to sleep on your bed. However, your conscience echoed Vernon’s words in your head. “I’ll be back, I have to return something.”

You heard the boys calling for you, telling you to not go as you went to your room to retrieve the ring. “Gosh, shouldn’t you have learned your lesson by now?”

You grinned at Hyunjin, “you know I never do.”

＊＊＊

You went through the back of the garden where Vernon escorted you out. There weren’t any guards there, for no one had known about this area of the palace. Hopping the gate, you walked to the door of the kitchen and peaked through the window. The lights were turned off, the full moon as the only source that illuminates the room. You heard someone clear their throat behind you, deja vu hitting once again. Turning around, you were met with Seungkwan, behind him was Vernon smirking and walking away.

“I can’t believe he let you leave— no, I can’t believe he fed you and let you leave.” He glared hard at you, to which you rolled your eyes.

“Well you’re not the best host,” you took a step forward, eyes focusing on him, “but I wasn’t the best guest either.” You played with the ring in your pocket as you looked at his hands that were missing a ring. “I forgot to bring my gift before entering your home,” you cautiously walked up to him, took his hand in yours and placed the ring on his pinky finger.

His eye scanned yours, the moonlight capturing your features perfectly. He never looked at you like this, nor has he ever seen you in this light. You’re astonishing.

Smiling softly, you let go of his hand, “thank you for paying for the shipment,” you took a step back, bowing, “your highness.” He looked at you with a hint of guilt in his eyes, but before he could say anything, you were walking away. You turned your head as you were about to hop the gate, “until we meet again!”

#ficscafe royalty drabble event #newskynet #caratwritersclub #seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen oneshot #seungkwan #boo seungkwan #seungkwan imagines #seungkwan oneshot #svt seungkwan #seventeen seungkwan #svt #escapewriter.request

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rouiettes · 4 years ago

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raya and the ugliest fucking dragon i've ever seen holy fuck who the hell thought to give a dragon fuckiNG EYEBROWS WHY WHY—

aka the musings of a filo non-binary bisexual who feels victimized by the dragon designs of this fucking movie supposedly centred around THE LAST DRAGON???? MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE STAYED STONE GDI WHAT THE FUCK SERIOUSLY WHY DO THE DRAGONS LOOK LIKE THAT

let's get one thing straight.

none of the characters in this movie. rest assured. not a single straight person was in this movie. trust me.

raya and the last dragon had all the foundations of a good movie

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GREAT

BUT IT WASNT

AND HERE'S WHY

(in my humble opinion okay pls dont come for me)

a disney movie with sea culture at its heart and soul, i was so hyped to finally watch this movie

(not as hyped as i could have been tho bc let's be honest DISNEY DID SHIT WITH RAYA'S MARKETING)

(AND PERHAPS FOR GOOD REASON LOL I SWEAR I DONT HATE THIS MOVIE OKAY)

you had the amazing score, the amazing concepts for plot and characters, the solid solid worldbuilding???

if you just told me about how raya's setting and premise, i'd probably be "wow this movie sound like the whole package"

and then i'll actually watch the movie and have just as much trust issue as raya did :/

but i digress

A DISNEY MOVIE WITH SEA CULTURE AT ITS HEART AND SOUL

do you know how diverse sea culture is??? VERY

and one thing i was very happy to see was how raya handled it

it was by no means perfect but

the subtle shows of culture in the way the characters acted, and the environment of the movie was just CHEF'S KISS

not only that but the ideas the movie had in terms of its world and the people in it felt genuine, it felt alive

a dragon that isn't the typical fire-breathing lizard

characters who look like they could easily be my neighbours or children i've played with

instead of pandering to this movie felt like an actual homage to sea cultures

and for good reason bc seeing all those familiar names rolling in the credits had me feeling some type of way :")

also that fucking soundtrack gave me chills throughout my watch of the movie

okay now that we've got the things i actually like about the movie, let's talk about what i don't like

if there's one word i could use to describe disney's raya it would be: rushed

like i said in the beginning, all the groundwork for an astounding disney movie were already there

but all of it just goes to waste bc the plot and it's characters feel so Unfinished

the movie felt like a bullet-point presentation of the story

WHICH IS SO FUCKING DISAPPOINTING BC THE CHARACTERS SEEMED SO INTERESTING but all we got were shadows of what they could have been

cardboard cutouts of the archetypes they filled

i'm not asking for a bottomless well of depth, but i at least wanted more for the cast than just: angry misunderstood princess, angry misunderstood princess with an undercut, that one dancing kid from moana but with more spice, boss baby, and the mountain

and i get that they had to sacrifice some of their depth to keep the run time of the movie short but you have got to be better than this disney

i hate to compare but it felt like this movie tried to go beyond what moana gave us, and shot so far that it ended up back to where it started, and then stumbled back a few steps

AND IM NOT EVEN SAYING A DRAGON MOVIE WITH A BIG CAST IS IMPOSSIBLE

BC IT'S ALREADY BEEN DONE

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON DID IT THREE TIMES

and you'd think the plot for one of the few disney movies with a non-western setting would have more than just a macguffin considering how batshit sea folk tales can be

but you'd think wrong folks.

GENUINELY IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE ATTEMPTING SOMETHING BUT WERE SHORT OF BRINGING IT TO FRUITION

sure moana had a macguffin too with the heart of te fiti, but the heart itself wasn't the heart of the movie

it was the journey of moana and maui

it was that BEAUTIFUL TWIST WITH TE KA AND TE FITI

ALL DELIVERED WITH A NATURAL FINESSE THAT HAD YOU ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT

YOU WERE ALONG FOR THE RIDE OF THE STORY INSTEAD OF QUESTIONING EVERYTHING THAT WAS GOING ON LIKE I WAS

maybe this was just me but like, i felt so bad for the friend who watched this movie with me bc all i could go on and on was how the plot felt like it was getting in the way of itself

why didn't the different kingdoms (??) kept the gem in rotation or smth, when did they decide that heart would keep it and then get mad at heart for keeping it????

why didn't awkwafina dragon just show herself to the kingdoms bc everyone seems to be in agreement that dragons good right? that they would be the key to getting rid of the druun right??? SO THEY'D ALL AT LEAST HEAR HER OUT OR SMTH RIGHT????????

and yes raya has trust issues but it seems to only spring up at the most convenient times plot-wise, we didn't really see her learn to trust other people again OTHER THAN THE TIMES WHERE SISU WOULD HAMFISTEDLY SHOVE IT DOWN OUR THROATS THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE GOOD SOMETIMES RAYA

we see it with boun, but then she just trusts noi, her monkeys, and tong THE GUY WHO STRUNG THEM UP AND WAS THREATENING TO TORTURE THEM????????

i'm gonna be honest and say that if it weren't for namaari i'd have absconded the moment sisu came on screen

as far as i'm considered the actual plot of the movie is just the entire sword fight scene between her and raya

and finally

we get to the part i will be erasing from my brain for my own mental well-being

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT DRAGON DESIGN

WHY OH WHY TH E FUCK DOES SISU SOUND AND LOOK LIKE THAT

my friend said they looked like the ponies from mlp in 3d AND NOW I CAN NEVER UNSEE IT

THEY HAVE EYEBROWS THEY HAVE HUMAN FACES

HUMAN FACES ON MAJESTIC DRAGON BODIES

THE INTERNET HAS COLLECTIVELY DECIDED THAT SISU IS BASICALLY FURRY ELSA

every time we got a sisu close up i lost 5 years to my life

disney i am suing for damages

if you want me to drop the charges i demand raya 2: electric boogaloo but it’s just raya and namaari enemies to friends to lovers ark

and also for them to never say dragon nerds ever again

AGAIN. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON GAVE US BEAUTIFUL DRAGON DESIGNS. HELL IF YOU WANTED MORE EASTERN LOOKING DRAGONS FUCKING SPIRITED AWAY??? HAKU??????????

AND YKNOW WHAT. SISU WOULDN'T EVEN LOOK THAT HORRIFIC IF THE MOVIE WAS IN 2D

im not the first person to be side-eying disney's decision to keep pumping out these 3d movies but like.

no amount of added dimensions could ever make that dragon design okay

and there so many more points i could go off on to show how this movie was rushed

how the other dragons, and even sisu's siblings whom she had been missing for the entire movie DIDNT MAKE A SINGLE SOUND???? NOT EVEN A FUCKING GROWL DISNEY???? DID YOU EVEN TRY WITH THE DRAGONS AT ALL??? THE SUPPOSED CENTRE OF THIS MOVIE'S PLOT?????????

HOW THE CHIEFS OF THE OTHER KINGDOMS WERE BASICALLY PLOT DEVICES????

THAT ONE CHIEF'S SKELETON WAS MORE INTERESTING THAN ANY OF THEM COMBINED ALIVE

kudos to that one granny chief though

u can never have enough bad ass old ladies

AND GOD THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS JUST FELT SO FORCED

ALONG WITH WHATEVER LESSON SISU WANTED TO IMPART ABOUT TRUST

LOVE THESE CHARACTERS THEY ARE FUNNY THEY ARE FRIENDS FOUND FAMILY

TRUST PEOPLE IF U WANT THEM TO TRUST U

TRUST PEOPLE OR ILL LITERALLY FUCKING KILL U

children aren't stupid disney. if you tell your story well enough, they'll pick up on the messages you want to give them. YOU DONT HAVE TO THRUST EVERYTHING IN OUR FACES

i was exhausted by the time i finished this movie

bc i really wanted to love it. i wanted to feel more for it than just: well, it's a movie :)

i dont hate this movie though like it's not even worth the energy for that

i think that ultimately, despite all my issues with it, this movie was a step in the right direction when it comes to having non-western stories being told by non-western people in big name productions

i'm glad raya and the last dragon exists

i just can't help but be dissapointed though bc this movie put so much effort into putting my people and culture at its forefront but at what cost???

good characters and story for a good setting and design????

does it have to be one or the other?????

DOES THE DRAGON HAVE TO HAVE EYEBROWS??????

#disney #raya and the last dragon #raya #namaari #rayaari #ratld #♡ ☆#posted this without ranting in the tags #i jsut have so many feelings abt this movie okay like gosh #THATS WHY I WANTE D IT TO MAKE ME LOSE IT #AND I DID JUST NOT IN THE WAY I WANTED TO #FUCK YOU SISU

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tarantulas4davey · 3 years ago

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HELLO BESTIE I am currently having Ralbert Brainrot and you're the best person go come to for this, obviously,, so PLEASE share! I would like to hear about ufc albert or youtuber race, or dancing partners!! I love them smm

HI YES HELLO USING THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO WRITE UFC FIGHTER AL PART 2 THANKS BABES

i just witnessed a literal crime and i’m Feeling The Rage (boxing judges at mma events can catch these hands) so here is. my brain on anger.

also the first half of this is pretty fight-talk heavy but the second half is more al/ralbert central so message me/send me an ask if i don’t explain something well enough <3

here is the ask i sent to @we-are-inevitable (thanks jac i’m in love with you mwah) and here is part 1 for this au if you haven’t read that one yet !!

also,,,,, this is fairly obvious. but trigger warning for violence/physical fighting, as well as blood. (it’s a rough gig y’all fjdhdb) oh and swearing but that’s pretty much just me LMAO

here i am, bein mad and writing ralbert. therapy time with chandler ig

OK SO

this is after his debut. duh. continuation

i think he’s probably 5 fights in with 5 wins. he’s been running people through, especially with four full camps after a short notice start, and he’s never even seen a decision in the ufc

let’s just say the hype train is moving FAST and it’s moving LOUD

everyone has to have those people that watch their fights just to see them lose, on top of the majority male fan base that have to have a little bit of toxic masculinity and homophobia in there

so there’s A LOT of people that are waiting for him and his hype train to get derailed. but there’s also a fair amount of fans, so you win some you lose some (the way i would die to see this be a real fighter pls)

now albert’s not always the most confident guy, and he’s never been cocky, but none of this shit gets to him. he’s got his coaches, he’s got his friends and he’s got race behind him. he knows he’s got the skills, and he’s got his support system, so who gives a shit what a bunch of cowards on the internet have to say?

and then they put him against someone known for his grappling and stamina. and the “it’s a wrap for dasilva!” bandwagon starts. it happens every time a rising striker and early knockout artist fights a well known grappler with any semblance of later round power (even if al has a background in wrestling and has gone 5 rounds and won outside of the ufc. it’s a bandwagon for a reason)

and it’s not Upsetting, it’s not really getting into his head in any way that’ll make him do worse, but it’s kinda pissing him off. which is bad for his opponent

the last person on earth you want to be fighting is an annoyed albert dasilva who thinks he has something to prove

he works his ass off in camp, and the press tour is a self-assured albert vs. a loudmouth who thinks he’s hot shit cause a few people on twitter think he’ll sweep

and, to be completely honest? it’s starting to look that way 2 rounds in.

it’s a 5 round fight, co-main event on a big card, and so far all al’s opponent has done is pinned him to the cage and kept him there. a few strikes worth anything - at least enough make al’s cheek bleed, no takedowns, which would at least give him some activity, and so submission attempts, so he can’t even gain any ground that way. he’s just- Stuck. and if THIS is how he loses, he’s gonna be pissed

the bell for the second round sounds, and you can actually see al’s chest heaving on camera as he walks to his corner - not because he’s tired or out of breath, but because he’s MAD, and fuck if he’s not going to do something about it

not only that, but he can not only see race and jack standing up by the cage - plus race’s expression, which is slightly annoyed and super anxious, which hurts his chest to think about - but he can hear them too

jack is yelling profanities, as per usual. he doesn’t that regardless of how the fight is going, but it’s less encouraging when you’re the one losing.

race though,,,, race isn’t really yelling, he’s more talking to himself than anything, but he’s close enough to cage and al knows him well enough to figure out what he’s saying. and if the muttered almost-prayers while he paces back and forth weren’t enough, the shiny gold engagement ring on race’s hand definitely is

round 3,,,, let’s just say it goes a little differently than the first 2 had gone.

he opens with a spinning back kick, of all fucking things, and that truly sets the pace

he’s the taller guy by a few inches, like usual, which makes his arms longer. the only reason crushing his against the cage worked is cause the guy he’s fighting cuts weight like a wrestler, so he’s easily got 20 pounds on albert come fight night

but once he finds his rhythm and starts throwing, he starts connecting too. he manages to stay out of range of his opponent and stay his comfortable distance to start t-ing off

this isn’t a one punch power ending. this isn’t a beautiful head kick, or a giant knee, or even just a clean right hook.

this is albert, who’s arms are starting to feel the 3rd round a little bit, hitting this guy with everything he has cause he refuses to lose this fight.

i mean- everyone watched him get up at the start of the round with a set jaw and a scary determined glint in his eye. he’s not a person you fuck with, and he’s definitely not a person you publicly ridicule before being locked in a cage to fight with

the guy he’s fighting is absolutely battered, but he manages to survive until round 4. the first of the championship rounds, something al’s never seen in a ufc fight before, and it feels like the arena is holding its breath

so when al comes out and does the same thing as round 3 to better results - fight ending results - everyone’s a little shocked, honestly

the commentary team’s in disbelief, cause albert is NOT a slow starter, regardless of what this fight would tell you, and the fact he managed a win at all, let alone such a phenomenal one, is fucking astounding

he gets his hand raised, obviously, but the really interesting part is the post fight interview

“albert, man, what changed between round 2 and 3? what second gear did you find?”

“bro, i just— it was pissing me off, honestly. i don’t come in here to get pinned down for 25 minutes. and, y’know, my team gave me good advice. i had all the pieces, straight from the jump, someone just had to force me to put them in place…”

and then he looks over at race, who gives al one of those half grin, half smirks and winks at him, and al just chuckles to himself and finishes answering the question

“the thing that really forced my hand is race. i won’t get cheesy on you, but watching someone who loves and supports you through everything panic cause he’s scared for you - it’s a big motivator. everyone would figure out a lot more of my motivations if they went and watched race’s expressions back instead of whatever the hell i’m doing in here. he’s always been the brains, i’m just the brawn.”

and that’s a better answer than anyone was expecting, plus he’s just had the fight of a lifetime that’s probably earned him a title shot, so he’s done soon after that and gets to have his little in-cage celebration

he hugs his team and jack, who razzes him a little bit as per usual, and makes some dumb quip about going over tapes later like he’s a coach. and then comes race

he hugs him, all tender and cute and also very sweaty cause That’s How It Works, and the camera’s focused on him, so they can tell they’re whispering back and forth. but there’s no mics on them, so what’s said is missed entirely on the audience, but it’s their usual cheesy, in love mess

“congrats, baby. i’m proud of you.”

“oh please. it was 90% you anyway. i meant what i said, it wasn’t just for the cameras.”

“i know that. i’m gonna have to get you back somehow for telling everyone to go back and watch my awful anxious expression. i’ll think of something.”

“i’m sure you will, sweetheart.”

and then al does that awful, adorable lil nose bump thing, and then kisses race. and then jack covers his eyes and whines until they stop like the actual 12 year old boy he is inside

and then they leave the octagon, race and al holding hands, and al throws his arm over jack’s shoulder and shoves his head down and pushes him, cause even though he was just in a literal cage match he’s still a roughhousing teenager at heart

and he’s got interviews and press shit that separates him from his people, and he’s gotta slide that bulletproof mask back down over all the happy and in love shit he’s feeling so he can not smile like an idiot on camera constantly

but every once in awhile he’ll catch jack giving him the finger and laugh before returning it below view of the camera

or he’ll catch race’s eye from where he’s standing behind all the studio lights and do a little wave under the camera and return the wink from earlier, and the unbothered fighter facade will crack a little bit

but he’s not completely convinced that’s such a bad thing

GOD THIS POST IS SO MUCH LONGER THEN I MEANT IT TO BE IM SORRY

but Yeah. Them.

i love this au a helleva lot more than i should but that’s Fine cause i’ve got thoughts for days on it

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vagrantblvrd · 3 years ago

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Okay, so I can’t stop thinking about the AU where Jaskier somehow ends up working in a Geek Squad-esque department and has to deal with these witchers who bring in mangled/otherwise destroyed phones and the whatnot AU?

Like, the witchers aren’t completely technologically impaired right because the thing about living through who knows how many innovations and whatnot over the years but they really don’t make stuff the way they used to.

(Jaskier maybe sit through a semi-rant on the subject a time or two while processing whatnot for the witchers who have brought him yet another mangled bit of tech orth a fair bit of money and did he know they used to make them of sturdier stuff???)

Anyway.

Geralt is Geralt, all hm’s and hm’s and usually :( although there have been moments of >:( and an especially rare :| which is the closest to the teeny tiny smile Jaskier gets on a good day or when he says something that amuses Geralt enough to visibly show it. (An actual :) is something to be treasured for days afterward and gets Jaskier gentle ribbing from his co-workers because his relationship with the witchers and Geralt in particular is high entertainment for them, but yes.)

Lambert is a delightful asshole who came in all >:(((((((((( after Geralt mentioned there was a new face in the Geek Squad-esque group, one who got him a new phone in spite of the most recently mangled one being out of warranty and suchlike. Didn’t even ask why it smelled of swamp water and may or may not have had bits of swamp...gunk in its insides and anyway.

Jaskier clearly made an impression on Geralt and he’s like but why, though, and comes in intending to be That Customer - and indeed is through the entire ordeal.

Makes Jaskier go over the fine print in the warranty and whatnot when he brings in some horribly mangled bit of shiny tech - a tablet or some such that clearly cannot be saved and is just barely under warranty. A day later and he’d be out of luck, right?

And while it’s covered by the warranty it’s also just old enough the store doesn’t carry it anymore - been discontinued or whatever - which should be fine, right? Jaskier can set Lambert up with the newest model or other equivalent and everything should be fine, but no, no.

Lambert gets this glint in his eye and is like, oh, I’m not going to make things that easy for you, buddy, and goes off on this...whatever about how he liked the version he had - doesn’t want or need the added features on the new one even though they actually are pretty nice, just because he can.

And of course he came in on one of the days Jaskier’s usual supervisor is off and the one who’s had it out for Jaskier since day one is working. Positive Jaskier has done nothing to deserve being moved from overnight stocker to Geek Squad-esque team member and looking for the smallest reason to get him fired. (Or at least kicked back to overnight stocker and then fired for some other reason no one can call them on.)

This supervisor who is hovering, just waiting for Jaskier’s Retail Voice and whatnot to slip so they can pounce and Lambert might not know the details about it all, but it’s pretty damn obvious the supervisor doesn’t like Jaskier.

So he’s like, “Okay, but...” whenever Jaskier brings up a new avenue of convincing the asshole to just say he’ll take the new tablet and gtfo already, pls you asshole, pleasant smile on his face and gritting his teeth the whole time.

Just as the supervisor has had enough of watching Jaskier dealing with this stubborn customer and clearly failing to meet their needs, Lambert is like “Well, I really did like my old tablet, but I suppose this one you’ve been trying to sell me on for nearly half an hour will be adequate, probably,” like Jaskier’s got him at gunpoint or something.

Jaskier is like oh, excellent, sir, what a wonderful choice sir, you are totally my favorite customer sir!!!! :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD while also being like >:(((((((((((((((((( to Lamert’s clear amusement and whatnot.

After the deal is done and the bastard’s on his way out, Jaskier is like !!! when he sees Lambert stop in front of the assole!supervisor sure he’s going to complain about Jaskier. To his surprise though, Lambert’s just, all “Oh, he was so helpful! Answered all my questions!” and so on and both Jaskier and the asshole!supervisor are taken aback because that was not what they were expecting?

And then Lambert’s like “I only want to deal with him when I come in here,” to which Jaskier is ah, okay because he gets Lambert’s game now, and the supervisor is just okay, well, I have no control over that unless you come in on days he’s working, but you can bet I’mm make sure it happens if you do, haha.

Which more or less seals Jaskier’s fate on that angle, and absolutely what Lambert intended, and anyway, asshole.

Later on, after they’ve had enough such encounters that Lambert isn’t suspicious of this oddly helpful person at the store where they buy most of their consumer electronics he’s like, >:DDDDDDDDDDDDDD when he comes in nd Jaskier’s like >:(((((((((((((((((((( if you really wanted to help me out here with the asshole!supervisor you’d buy an extended warranty or whatever and Lambert rolls his eyes and scoffs because those are scams and he’s not an idiot, and anyway, he knows Jaskier doesn’ really want to shank him out back behind the store with a rusty knife the way he threatened one time because Lambert is a delight, okay, an utter delight.

Jaskier side-eyes him so hard for that and is like, oh????? So then Lambert won’t mind meeting him out back on his break? Asking for a friend, you know, no other reason. Strangely, Lambert does not.

(Mostly because of that time Geralt fondly told the others about Jaskier shanking a monster out back by the store’s loading dock when Geralt was a little bit bleeding out and in a bad spot and anyway, yeah, no, thanks, Lambert wasn’t born yesterday okay.)

But you know who is an actual delight that Jaskier loves to see come into the store?

Aside from Geralt???

Eskel.

The man is sweet and polite and holds actual conversations (not a slight against Geralt by any means, it’s just. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone at work who isn’t a coworker or a horrible customer and so on) and otherwise doesn’t give Jaskier headaches.

(Though there was the one night after closing and rare time when the store would be clsoed the next day for a holiday or whatever so no night crew coming in. Jaskier was trying to get his car to start when Eskel showed up all bloody and half-dead and Jaskier was closest. Also his phone was broken and no way to contact Geralt or anyone else and how was Jaskier at first aid, asking for a friend and all.)

Anyway.

Jaskier’s favorite encounter with Eskel at work is when he calls Jaskier asking if he can help with a tech issue. Mangled laptop and files he wants to get off the harddrive you know, but ~sensitive file that have to do with the witchers and their work.

They all pretend Jaskier knows absolutely nothing about any of it, even though he’s patched all of them up at some point or they’ve saved his life from some monster or other and there really shouldn’t be any pretense about it all?

AND YET.

It’s one of those days where work is slow and the other Geek Squad-esque people are out on house calls and won’t be back for a few hours or called out sick or whatever.

And this, okay, this is something Jaskier convinced one of them to teach him or he taught himself through Google and YouTube and anyway, he can do the file transfer magic stuff for Eskel, no problem.

Tells him as such and to come by before anyone gets back from the calls so he can handle it himself without anyone looking on and all, so he does, right?

Jaskier lets Eskel in the back room with him while he works, and they have a nice little chat and catch up on what’s new in their lives and all that.

Jaskier is like oh, ew, gross because some of the files he salvages for Eskel are photo documentations of past hunts - for science!!1! - but also ooh, what was that hunt like???

(Accidentally clicks on some or some other reason for him seeing what the files are or just file names and anyway, shhhh, let me have this.)

Because curiosity and also songs and Geralt enjoys being difficult on purpose and Jaskier’s never sure how much Lambert tells him is complete bullshit, and anyway. Eskel’s the nice one. Usually.

Also, though, also.

There are so many photos of Geralt and Lambert, Vesemir and Ciri and certain sorceresses and suchlike, and it’s adorable and sweet and wholly expected?

BUT.

To Jaskier’s forever joy and delight there are at least two entire album’s worth of freaking goat pictures.

(Well, okay, goat and horse and whatever other animals these withcers have in their lives and so on.)

It’s adorable as hell and Jaskier makes these little squeaky noises of pure awww at the sight of them, okay, because Lil Bleater and whatever little terrors Eskel has known and clearly adores.

He’s like staring straight ahead and all everything’s fine and normal and whatnot while Jaskier is like omg and she’s so cute and omg Eskel, omg.)

Withcers may not be able to blush or whatever, but you can sure as hell bet he would have been blushing up a damned storm if he could and Jaskier also knows that and is just.

Charmed, okay, he is utterly charmed by this big soft dork and swears he won’t tell anyone even though the people who matter obviously know as well, and anyway, anyway, he gets this soft little smile for it and his heart is like oh, oh no, because Jaskier’s kind of gone on these idiot witchers okay.

(After the discovery of the goat pictures Eskel starts sending new ones to Jaskier who always gets that look people get when presented with adorable pictures of animals and this warm squishy feeling because oh, oh no, indeed and anyway, yes, because idk what pairings/ships i even want this to be anymore but just soft feelings all over the place even with Lambert, the bastard. XD)

#witcher nonsense #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #jaskier's adventures in retail au #long post #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#the witcher #pairings? ships? idk anymore friends pick your own i guess???#geralt x jaskier #eskel x jaskier #mayyybe lambert x jaskier #all of the above???#idk anymore #all jaskier knows is everyone thinks he's the wither whisperer #and he's like lolol omg no #they're all assholes #of varying degrees on different days #eskel's the least assholish one #usually #and lambert's an asshole all day every day #but yeah no #he's fully lost control of his life #and they're to blame for it #he has no idea what to expect when vesesmir comes in #but all he does is take one look at this poor bastard who has to deal with his idiot kids #and is like #would you like to know how to keep them from running roughshod over you?#to which jaskier is like dear god yes #so jaskier has running appointment for brunch with vesemir and other assorted asshole wranglers every weekend #it's lovely

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maisymousette · 4 years ago

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Blow Out All The Candles (Snippet)

(real talk - 7k in to my first foray into MDZS on a nmj/jyl fic and 5k is just pure gentle smut of their wedding night. this is them getting to know each other and learning to let their guards down and that its okay to love each other and fuck i could ramble for years. pls give feedback if you got any!!!) ((i also just realised this is 1.5k wtf am i doing))

Nie Mingjue had never peeled a lotus root before in his life, but he was finding the activity oddly soothing in a mediative way. When you added in Jiang Yanli’s gentle humming as she prepared what she needed in the kitchen around them, he was fiercely glad she had invited him to cook with her, to spend time with her in such a meaningful way. It made his heart stutter to think that she truly wanted to spend time with him, to get to know him… it had to be a step in the right direction, surely.

He had minimal knowledge of culinary skills, aside from what he needed to know when out travelling or night-hunting and making your own meal was the only guarantee of food. He knew how to skin and roast a hare, skewer a fish over a stick on a log fire, what basic berries were edible or poisonous, but he had never had the experience of making a complete home meal from scratch.

He watched as she walked with confidence around the kitchen - one he knew she had been sneaking into for a few weeks now – and he felt a surge of affection so strongly he nearly broke the knife in his hand with the sudden clench of his fist. Ah, he thought suddenly, she must feel so comfortable here. He was a fool, he berated himself, for not realising sooner. He wondered how difficult it would be to commission her own private kitchen, instead of her waiting until the cover of night and until all the cooks had left to come to the one place in Qinghe where she clearly felt most secure.

“I was never skilled in cultivation, and I know my mother was always disappointed by that,” She spoke into the still night air quietly, her eyes locked on the soup pot as she checked if the water was boiling correctly. He hummed to let her know he was listening as he kept at his task.

“As a first-born daughter to a powerful Sect leader, I was a disappointment from the beginning. Not that my parents loved me any less,” she spoke in a measured tone, collecting the lotus roots he had finished peeling. “I know my father loved me. My mother loved me too, in her own way; I just wasn’t what she wanted. I was born too small, too delicate, not suited for the exertions that came with a true cultivators life. I smiled too easily, she said, and my voice was too soft. I never spoke back, I always held my tongue, and I was underwhelming in every skill she attempted to teach me.”

She grabbed a package of herbs Nie Mingjue couldn’t name from a woven basket he hadn’t noticed earlier, and placed a small pile in front of herself and handing him a knob of ginger. “Cut it into small pieces, please,” she instructed softly, attending to her own pile of herbs.

“When it came to being a woman in a cultivators world, my mother was the exception. I think she hoped I would be too, and she didn’t know how to handle me when I couldn’t do what she did,” she smiled wanly, taking his small pile of ginger pieces and placing them in the small bowl that was blanching the pork ribs.

“I was everything she wasn’t, and I was fine with that. I was a slow learner, she always said, and it was true. Cultivating my golden core was more difficult for me compared to my brothers, and I was never clever enough with academic pursuits.”

“Everyone has their strengths,” he hedged carefully, feeling oddly vulnerable without a task to keep his hands busy. What she was speaking of was hitting very close to his heart, and his concerns with his little brother.

“That’s true,” she smiled at him with crinkled eyes, sliding him half the peeled lotus roots with a gentle, “slice them about a thumbnail thick, please.” He nodded, observing her first few slices and trying to mirror them, the same way he learned his basic sword formations all those years ago.

“I know I’m not strong, or beautiful, or skilled, but I love my brothers. They taught me nearly everything I know. They taught me patience, they taught me diplomacy, they taught me how to handle a multitude of situations -” here, she laughed lightly, shaking her head slightly at some imagined shenanigans, he assumed, “- and they helped teach me my own value. Not everyone has to be great with a sword to have worth, or have a golden core to be important. Sometimes acknowledgement, love and care, understanding, and a warm meal can be priceless.”

She grasped a pair of nearby chopsticks and fished the pork ribs and pieces of ginger out of their small pot, adding each one into the larger boiling soup pot. She then added the herbs and her sliced lotus roots in next, indicating for him to do the same. He nodded, collecting all his sliced lotus roots in a single handful - compared to the three handfuls it took her - and placed them in the pot too, a strange feeling welling in his chest as she used a ladle to mix all the ingredients together.

“I know I’m not what you envisioned in a wife, and I know others perceive me as weak,” she turned to look at him now, her gaze never wavering from his eyes as she took one of his hands in her two tiny ones, and all he could think was I have never felt hands this soft in my entire life, “but I truly hope I am able to offer something to you in this marriage. Before, I had been promised to another who never chose me and I lived my life knowing it was all my parents ever thought I was fit for. I had watched their own volatile marriage, and resigned myself to my own with a man who didn’t want me. Now we have a choice, and I want it to be the right one for both of us,” her eyes had begun glistening with tears at this point and Nie Mingjue felt his own beginning to water in response. And people call me a brute, he thought with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Lady Jiang, anyone who perceives you as weak or lacking are fools. I saw how fiercely you defended Wei Wuxian at Phoenix Mountain and how politely you tore strips off that Jin boy. You are well aware of my own reputation, I’m sure,” he snorted, knowing exactly what image others had tried to paint of him in her mind, “and to have come here regardless, and bear your heart and intentions to me, I would have to have a head full of rocks to see you as anything but my equal.”

He paused, taking a moment to really think about what he was going to say as he knew this woman would take whatever he said to heart, and it felt only right to return what she had revealed to him tonight. He placed his free hand on the two that was cupping his other, feeling his heart jump at the smile she gave him.

“I can be ill-tempered, uncompromising, and socially blunt to the point my brother has said a blow to the head would be more subtle,” he chuckled here, feeling his chest warm as Jiang Yanli huffed a laugh with him. “You are everything I am not, Lady Jiang, and that is a good thing. You are brave, and beautiful, and something I had never expected I would find in my life. Let me court you, Jiang Yanli. Let us make this work.”

Nie Mingjue was startled as new tears suddenly fell from her eyes, following the near exact same track as the last set from a few moments ago.

“I would like nothing more,” she said sincerely, her smile blinding him as he reached out to wipe them away with his thumb.

Ah, maybe time to lighten the air.

“Now, how long until our hard work bears fruit?” He asked, looking over at the soup they had made together.

“Oh, did I forget to mention that part? We will need to wait until at least morning to enjoy it,” she laughed cheekily as she pulled away from him, turning around to take hold of a small woven basket he hadn’t noticed before. “I suspected you might like something a little more immediate though, so I made something for you a little earlier.” She was blushing as she handed him the box, oddly quiet as he opened the lid.

“Your brother mentioned you liked sweet things, so I hope this suits your tastes,” she bowed slightly towards him as he looked at the delicate osmanthus cakes hidden within, marveling at the fine flower detailing on the top that he could swear looked finer than any detailing he had seen on any cake before.

“Lady Jiang, if I hadn’t asked to court you just now, I can assure you that this would have certainly done the trick.” A laugh startled out of him as he soaked in the situation. A beautiful woman, wooing him with cakes. Truly, had the world gone mad? He smiled wider as she laughed with him, her eyes filled with more joy than he had ever seen in her before.

He already had more than he had ever hoped for.

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multifandombitxh · 5 years ago

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Title: Better Off (Chapter 1) Pairing: Dabi x Fem!Quirkless!Reader Chapter Genre: Fluff with a pinch of angst Chapter Warnings: Blood, mention of MOIDER A/N: This was originally going to be a continuation of In Truth, but I decided to make it its own thing. It’s mostly just more Sweet Dabi, with some Spicy Protective Dabi this time around! Pls enjoy ur meal PS I don’t proofread very well have mercy on me I am so tired

Chapter 1: Weary

By the time Dabi finally walked through the front door, the clock had just ticked over to five in the morning. His legs were sore, his head ached, and all he really wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep everything off. The previous few days had been nothing short of stressful. Shigaraki had been at his throat at every chance he could get, and it was beginning to cause conflict within the group. There was a “small” altercation just before he’d left for the night, which ended the meeting on a sour note.

A yawn escaped his lips as the locked the door, kicking off his boots and peeling off his coat in the process. After a quick wardrobe change, he slowly crept into your shared bedroom, his heart dancing at the sight of you sleeping soundly. He couldn’t help himself from kneeling down in front of you, resting his head on his arms, and watching you snore quietly. A small, love-struck smile was plastered to his face.

Dabi leaned in close to press his lips to the shell of your ear, letting one of his hands cup the base of your neck. By now he was basically hovering over you, and decided to take it a step further by actually crawling into bed. Just as he’d expected, your eyes flew open in shock, but you quickly relaxed once you realized who it was.

“Hey, beautiful,” He said, keeping his voice low.

“Hi,” You replied simply, “When did you get home?”

He silenced you by planting a lingering kiss to your lips, relishing in the moment and breathing in deeply through his nose. You wasted no time in weaving your hands into his dark hair, the sensation leaving him weak. No matter how hard he tried, he could never find his strength around you. His knees always buckled when you kissed him, his heart always fluttered when you called his name, and he could drop dead on the spot whenever you told him you loved him.

“I missed you,” Dabi breathed, breaking the kiss.

“I missed you, too,” You said fondly. After your eyes fluttered open to look up into his, you hands halted in his hair, a confused and concerned look crossing your face.

“What is it?” He asked.

One of your hands trailed down the side of his face and he winced. “Dabi, what did you do? You have a huge cut by your eye.”

Dabi laughed it off as best as he could before shifting to lay beside you. “Must’ve happened at work. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, all over the pillows, actually.”

With a sigh, he hoisted himself to sit upright, touching the tender spot on his face. When he pulled his hand away and saw that he was, in fact, bleeding, a deep groan wormed its way out of his mouth. “Fucking perfect.”

“Stay here,” You said, ruffling the hair on the top of his head as you abandoned your spot on the bed. He watched you as you walked out of your bedroom, laughing under his breath when you nearly tripped over your own feet in your sleepy state. When you returned with disinfectant and a wet towel, Dabi leaned back against the head board and decided to rest his tired eyes. The mattress dipped beside him as you crawled back onto the sheets. He was keenly aware of your close presence, but still winced and grunted when you pressed the damp towel to his wound.

“Sit still,” You said, your unspoken worries lacing your tone of voice.

Deep down, Dabi knew that he was no good for you. He knew that one day, sooner or later, you would find out for yourself exactly what kind of monster he was, and you’d bolt. There was no doubt in his mind about it; he was going to ruin you, whether you knew it or not. A sick feeling settled in his stomach as he pondered those thoughts, the sensation worsening when he pictured the look on your face when you finally realized what he was; a villain.

He often wondered if you would care at all if you knew. You’d told him countless times that some villains can be justified in their intentions, but not their actions. It was entirely possible you might try to turn his life around; to get him on the right path and have a life worth living. No more devious plots, no more late-night League meetings, no more death. Dabi wasn’t sure if that was a life he was ready for, let alone deserved. The idea of stability was foreign to him and always had been.

At the same time, however, he couldn’t help but wonder what you would look like in a wedding gown, walking down a rose petal aisle with flowers in your hair. Or how wonderful of a mother you might be, if that was something you wanted. The idea of watching you hold your child for the first time nearly brought a tear to his eye. It twisted his heart to think that one day you might have exactly that; a normal, stable, human life. Just not with him.

He could never be a father, or a husband. Not like this.

Before he knew it, you were placing a bandage over the gash and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.

“Good as new,” You declared cheerfully, setting down the medical supplies on the nightstand behind you. “Feel better?”

“What? Oh, yeah, much better. Thanks, sweetheart.”

When he glanced over at you, you were sitting on your legs, hands resting in your lap, softness painting your beautiful features. He reached out and placed his palm over your cheek, just like he always did, and let the pad of his thumb caress your cheekbone. You leaned into his touch, just like you always did, and a smile stretched over your lips. It was comfortable, quiet; the early morning sun creeping in through the curtains and canvassing the room in specks of gold. Peace wasn’t a luxury Dabi had the chance to experience often, but any time he managed to get a taste, you were always there.

Most days he wondered if you really were an angel. Compared to most people he knew, you were saint-like. Maybe you did have a quirk, after all; radiating peace.

“Tell me about your day,” Dabi muttered, pressing his forehead against yours.

As you quietly recounted the days events, he let his hands roam as they pleased; over your neck, stroking your shoulders, down your arms, and finally ending the journey with his fingers intertwined with yours. He nodded and listened as you spoke; smiling when you described the peaceful train ride to work, scoffing when you complained about a coworker. Every word that came out of your mouth fascinated him, reminding him that there were so many things in the world he never thought about, or cared to notice. Hell, he never bothered to enjoy a sunset until he met you. Now, he couldn’t get enough of them.

“Something did happen, though,” You said cautiously, “As I was leaving work today.”

Dabi pulled back to look you in the face, frowning when you wouldn’t meet his gaze. “What happened?”

“It’s not a big deal, really,” You began, “But... my ex kind of found out where I work. He was waiting outside the building when I left.”

“He what?”

“It’s not a big deal!” You repeated, holding up your palms defensively. “Seriously, I had it under control, and my coworker came out to help. We handled it, I promise.”

The thought of you having to deal with your ex boyfriend and him not being there to help was enough to make his blood curdle. Anger rose in his chest, a lump forming in his throat as he tried to rationalize what to say next. His immediate first thought was to plot the bastard’s murder, but when he saw the worried look on your face, that impulse disappeared. You were gripping his hands tight, gazing into his eyes to gauge his reaction. After taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and lowered his head, trying to find the strength to calm down.

Your hands abandoned his to cup the sides of his face, forcing him to look at you again. “Dabi, please say something.”

“He could’ve hurt you and I wasn’t there to protect you,” He said at last, a growl lacing his words. “I swear to god, I’ll kill him if he ever comes near you again. I’ll-”

He was cut off by your lips on his, his anger melting away to be replaced by something warm and welcoming. His heart lurched against his ribs as you kissed him, your hands lost in his hair, one of his own pulling you closer by the waist. Kissing you was like the tide; drawing him in and back out again, washing away his fears and worries while lulling him into a hypnotic state. It was addictive, and he could never seem to get his fill.

After several minutes of bliss, you broke the kiss to rest your forehead against his. Silence filled the dark room as you sat, content in each others presence. Having finally calmed down enough to think straight, Dabi decided it best not to dwell on it, and to figure out what to do in the morning. Maybe he could get the League involved, teach the guy a lesson, hit him where it hurts. It would be easier with the others, especially Compress. His Quirk would make hiding a body much easier. Toga was pretty scary all on her own, he could probably convince her to freak your ex out a little... or a lot.

But all of that could wait. For now, he only wanted to hold you close and get some sleep.

“I think I know how to fix the problem,” Dabi declared, opening his eyes. “Temporarily, at least.”

“Oh, really? How?”

As swiftly as he could, Dabi scooped you up in his arms and placed you in his lap, smiling widely at the sweet squeal you let out in protest. He managed to grab the blanket in the process, draping it over your bodies before circling his arms around you completely. After propping himself up against the pillows, he leaned down to press his lips to yours for the hundredth time that night.

“I think,” Dabi whispered between chaste kisses, “You should take today off.”

“I can’t miss another day of work,” You half-whined, “What am I supposed to tell them this time? My boyfriend is keeping me hostage in our own home?”

“Sure, that could work.”

“Or, I could work.”

Sighing in defeat, he let his head fall back against the headboard again and shut his eyes. “I guess I can’t stop you.”

“Damn right you can’t,” You said playfully, shoving at his chest lightly. You both laughed quietly, then settled into the embrace.

“You know,” Dabi said, licking his lips. “If you wanted, I could do something about that guy for you, Y/N.”

You scoffed. “Like what? Abduct him and set him on fire? Yeah, I’d really rather not have that conversation with the cops, babe.”

“I’m just saying,” He replied with a nonchalant shrug, “Sometimes guys like him need to be taught a lesson, that’s all. I’m sure he’d leave you alone if I gave him a reason to stay away.”

“I don’t know if I like how that sounds, especially coming from you.”

After kicking himself mentally for letting his malicious thoughts spill out, Dabi slipped his hand underneath the back of your shirt and trailed his nails over your skin. You immediately reacted to the touch, your body going stiff before melting into him again. As he scratched you back and shoulders, he pressed several small kisses to the top of your head, breathing in your scent.

“I’m sorry, angel. I just want you to be safe.”

“I want you to be safe too, you know,” You mumbled sleepily against his warm chest, “You’re important to me.”

The conversation ended there, leaving you to fall back into a silent sleep, and leaving Dabi to fight back tears.

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