#so seeing any form of accountability from him would be a pleasant surprise

[eggonthemoon]

The important thing to understand about this apology is that the smokescreening was a deliberate attempt to help the artist disappear. They were being dishonest for a feasible reason.

I’m still a lil bit iffy on that part since there are still contradictions but this is still the best response PM has made since the start of this incident.

Either way I stopped being mad a long time ago and I’m tired of feeling disappointed.

So I want to believe that Kim Ji-hoon is being honest, at least to the extent that he is legally allowed to be.

[idontknowreallywhy]

Another instalment of dinky Scott at School - I think there are (as yet unwritten) scenes in between these but I figured I’d get the key ones down then have a look and decide if it’s actually a story to flesh out or just a series of snapshots to leave as is.

Apologies to any actual teachers who may notice I am playing fast and loose with how such things might work in real life.

Disclaimer: Teeny Scooter does not actually appear in this bit, but is much discussed…

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THE Jeff Tracy.

She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t spent most of the night revising the 6 bullet points she wanted to cover in that one 12-minute parent-teacher conference. She’d quietly ensured the slot immediately afterwards was unbookable just in case things… overran.

None of the other teachers had met him, only the mother, who by all accounts was very pleasant. She hadn’t expected him to come, assuming he was probably on the moon or something equally intrepid. But the little box next to the number 2 had been ticked on the form so unless it was a grandparent or something…

The fancier biscuits she’d picked up from the store had just been a whim… sometimes she wanted to bring a bit of luxury into proceedings, that’s all it was…

Oh heck she’d bought fancy biscuits. Just like the hopeless fangirl she was. As if he’d notice anyway?

The first parent had noticed and seemed to enjoy their chocolate dipped Viennese finger biscuit. So it was worth it.

The second set of parents hadn’t turned up at all which left her with an agonising 18 minute wait.

It was fine. Just another PTC with some totally normal parents hoping to hear what a delight their precious offspring was. And she intended to thoroughly emphasise that part right at the outset because he really was.

The other notes she had would also be fine because she had considered every possible way of delivering them and had figured out the most persuasive.

All. Fine.

She needed another word for fine.

A gentle tap-de-tap and the door cracked open to reveal a waterfall of red hair and a very friendly face. Behind, even taller than he looked on tv, towered the man from the all those documentaries she’d binge-watched as a student.

Definitely just a normal PTC.

Felicity Miles, teacher, champion of tiny people, competent human, took a breath and greeted the couple with professional confidence and a welcoming smile.

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In the last five years she’d broken similar news to four other sets of parents, and observed her mentor do similar in her training year. Not a big enough sample to be conclusive but the fact the reaction had been the same each time had lulled her into a complacency about what to expect.

It went something like - shocked faces, initial denial, possibly a little anger, guilt that they hadn’t known, 3 of the mothers and 2 of the fathers had cried. Then, usually, she could see a little relief creeping in…. The hope that it hadn’t been something they’d got Wrong after all.

And then a brief conversation about what could happen next and arrangement of a meeting to discuss further when they’d had time to think. She’d hand them the department of education-approved info leaflets and smile and promise it would all be alright.

This one wasn’t going the way it should.

To start with there was zero surprise. Not even a flicker. In fact they’d looked at each other and smiled, before patiently listening to the rest of her little monologue. Right up until she started outlining the stages in the school’s neurodiversity support pathway at which point Mr Tracy had lifted a hand and cut in:

“There’ll be no need for anything formal. He’ll learn to manage his difficulties and he’ll overcome them.”

Felicity did her best to ignore the calm tone in his voice that simultaneously commanded she agree with him, advised it was a done deal not worth fighting against and reassured her that he was obviously right and it was all for the best. She pictured the desperate little human curled up in the Octopus House and tapped into the protective rage it generated:

“I don’t think you understand, Mr Tracy. A diagnosis would mean he could get that little bit of extra support he needs, perhaps a Teaching Assistant to keep him on track and help with refocussing when he gets distracted. He could have occasional time out on special programs to develop his interests, as I said he really does excel at maths and…”

“Ms Miles, please stop there a moment.”

She did so.

A few seconds later she remembered to close her mouth.

“Are you aware of what Scott wants more than anything in the world?”

She clenched her jaw in an effort not to snark back “a glimmer of self-esteem?” and thought about what seemed to make her zoomy little friend the happiest. The answer left her mouth before she was aware she knew it:

“He wants to fly.”

It was his mother who sighed and spoke next, the slight unevenness of her voice probably undetectable to someone who hadn’t spoken to a LOT of exhausted parents:

“He does. He always has from the moment he realised he couldn’t. Even before he really understood what airplanes were, he’s been fascinated by them and has been determined to reach the sky to join them. He seems to view gravity as a personal insult…” she chuckled then added “Being a parent to Scott Tracy is 90% catching him as he leaps from places he shouldn’t according to all the laws of physics be able to reach.”

Her husband reached over and squeezed her hand with an affectionate smile and added in a much softer tone:

“In his pram he watched the birds, it was the only thing that settled him. You won’t be surprised to learn that all of his bedroom decorations are aircraft-related. He’s not even remotely interested in space travel or what his mother and I do other than that we both flew planes first.”

Felicity could see it all but felt the conversation had gone off on a tangent. She took charge again and tried a different tack:

“But to achieve his goal he is going to need to have decent grades at the end of his education and the foundation of that starts here. He has so much potential and… look, I couldn’t give a damn about the class interruptions, please don’t think that is what this is about. I can handle all that, it’s what’s going on in his head, how he sees himself and I think we need to have something in place so that he and all his future teachers understand that… I hate to say it but for some, a formal diagnosis is the only way to persuade people that a child isn’t deliberately…”

“Ms Miles.”

The sigh escaped this time.

“Yes, Mr Tracy?”

“Do you happen to know the criteria one must fulfil to train as either a commercial airline or a military pilot?”

“Offhand? Not, precisely, no.”

“There is also an exclusionary list. Certain conditions, diagnoses, other events on a medical record that may prove to be a barrier to acceptance. Many people in the field don’t agree with everything on the list, but at the moment it exists. You’re clearly a smart woman, Ms Miles, and I can tell you’ve already worked out one of the conditions noted on that list.”

He wasn’t wrong. She hadn’t released her breath since the word ‘exclusionary’. But it forced its way out now in a quiet groan and then a whisper:

“ADHD.”

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[ngmn2002]

Ch 104: Random thoughts

Alrighty, the new chapter is out. It was kind of fun, but I don't think I have much to say about its events. Alright, let's see how things will turn out. Let's get started...

Alright, the school festival has finally started.

They look cute. And, feels so good to see Nene with her brooch again. I missed it.

I'm a bit confused, how could normal people see him in his 'supernatual' form??? That thing said about him… it gives some bad vibes about him being that way for real.. but I know I'm just overthinking.

Good to see them having fun, but... Hanako's reaction... made me laugh so hard.

Why was he so scared? The leader of the 7 mysteries, the guy who is involved with so much supernatural, unnormal stuff, a supernatural himself and all, for more than 50 years... who laughed at Nene for screaming in fear when they first met...

who is also found of things as...

still fears a 'hunted house', apparently. That's.....

Too cute! More vulnerable Hanako moments, please!

Speaking about that, imaging how it would be if the twins went together into a 'hunted house'... I assume Amane will be scared while Tsukasa... would show a face like this one as he examinates the place...

... up until they get out, and once they are out he would laugh it was so much fun and they should do it again. I also forgot to take the red house experience into account, it helps a lot. The hunted house would feel like child's play in comparison, but it will still be fun to him. As for Amane... I wonder if he would show his fear to Tsukasa or if he would try to hide it and keep cool in front of sweet little brother. Can't imagine him showing being scared or telling Tsukasa so, it doesn't feel proper for the picture of: "cool & amazing big brother". Though, it would be also fun to see him showing his weak side to little brother. I think Tsukasa would love to know about it. He loves all big brother's sides after all. Hmm... does he know about this side of Amane...? Them going into hunted house together would really be so much fun. ~ Hmm... it seems the only school festival the 2 had in kamome was the one in their 1st year, since it seems they died before the one of their 2nd year... it makes me sad to think maybe they didn't have the chance to enjoy it together, since Amane was keen about fixing the clock and strange things happened during that festival... aaah... I hope they at least shared a few fun moments that day!

♪ ~ ♫ ~

Hanako asking for cotton candy eminds me a bit of Tsukasa in here, seems both boys love it. ♡ I do, too~ Feels good to finally get the chance to see Hanako finally actually eating something and normally. The donut thing didn't go that well and I was wondering how a 'supernatural' like him eats normal food.

It's different from here.

Love his reaction in here. Nene... the hot guy you need is right behind you, no need to look for one. Just look at him and only him. He is way better than those you're looking at. You don't need to look for anyone when he is right there.

How is the confession plan going, Nene-chan? Does the name 'Hanako-kun' ring a bell?

......

Sooo... was Kou affected by the mention of real Mitsuba in any way or not? Also... Mitsuba 0.2 seems to have a little bit of a fun time in there.

Hmm... so we discovered what these things do.

Her... pleased face in there looks wired. I'm surprised to see a calm 'lady' like her enjoying watching a fuss like that through the window.

*sigh* anyway, don't want to get into a kokujoudai rant again, I'm tired of that. Really, knowing that he appears a second later... what prevented it from going back to him and reporting what happened to him? That way, it won't be needed for him to ask "Is everything going according to plan" or even... why wouldn't he ask his koku instead... saving time or something? EEEh... I want to see him talking to his koku for once, you know? -Hmm? who is that guy I'm talking about? Well,

Let's welcome Tsukasa back. Took you a year to make a pleasant appearance. ^^ Last time I saw you was in ch 92...

Looking as cool as ever. Now...

You seem to be enjoying yourself and that's cool as well. want to see some awesome things of you later, alrightttt? ♡ Ah... it's a bit funny last time you were there it was near a door, now a window... next time what would it be? ~

He is so tiny. ♡ ~

Anyway, feels like red koku is going on a vocation lately and spends its time with its master's assistant, and the master is more than ok with that. Cool.

Seems our little red koku can't decide where it really belongs. Or it's just too energetic like its master. That would be funny and cute, if that was the case. um...Tsu looks funny in the 3rd shot

Speaking seriously now,

Let's see what we had answered from here. What are you up to... still kind of a mystery, amaze me my dear, alright? ♡ As for the questions that follow. Indeed, you're a part of the plan this time. Good to know. But maybe you're not a part of a bigger plan? Hmm... who knows. Waiting is the key to knowing for sure.

Also, thanks my dear for granting this for me. ~

You really went too easy on me, present Tsu. past Tsu... let's see what you'll do.~ please don't go too easy! try to make things balanced.

Alright, lastly... nat's part.

Fun talk ... Serious talk:

Now these things make sense.

Makes me wonder, while sakura knows about his blood thingy and him being 'unkillable', she still said this:

Maybe she has other standers to who 'stays' in mind? but after her 'reminded' her...

... anyway, his little speech felt funny to me more than anything else. I think this guy only says what would make him look 'cool' during the moment of speaking, whether it came in contrast with things he said before.

So, you enjoy being the bad guy or not? Make up your mind. Don't just use words because they suit your 'cool' image regardless of them being contradictory to other words you said before or not. Hmm... his reaction in here to seeing 'blood as gross' seems pretty accurate.

His 'cool' way of telling his story/rumor... I can give my reaction to it in this little thing.

Past Tsukasa's 'rumor' thing is much more 'cool', captivating and interesting to me.

Speaking about the clock, didn't expect such a 'twist', from Hanako remembering trying to work around it, and then trying to remember why, to Tsukasa telling Nene about its powers, to...? nat actually being the one to deal with it, doing something to it with his blood? .......... So, all this build up was to show us nat's true power? ........... Well, I will stop in here, until everything is clear and solved out. I hope the clock's deal won't be over in there, since it will be too boring after all that build up. Though, what did he really do to it? What will happen to the clock next? What would they get out of doing that? How would No.1 react? I'm looking forward to see these things getting answered.

Until next chapter. ~

[isnt-it-pretty]

Wip #5

So far I've posted Amputee!Cyno, Cyno & Kaveh childhood friends, Cyno's Vision being stolen, and Windblume

This one is set during the event when Lisa visited Sumeru! It's her and Kaveh talking abdout Cyno's not-so-great mental health.

It had been a long time since Lisa was last in Sumeru. Once, she had thought she would never return-- she hadn't thought she would want to. But the Spantamad reunion was rare, and she had missed the last. With all the changes at the Akademiya, who knew when the next would be. 

Her second reason was tucked between the seams of her bodice, hidden from any would-be enemies. The contents were too sensitive for anything less, and Lisa wouldn't risk those mentioned in it by carelessness. Ideally, she would have burned it, but the information was too valuable to dispose of. 

Running into the Traveler had been a pleasant surprise, even if Gafoor's attempts at enticing her back to the Akademiya were less so. Insulting her position as the librarian for the Knights of Favonius? She should have done worse than a verbal lashing. Her work was more worthwhile than anything Gafoor ever achieved, herbad or not. 

She let out a harsh breath and busied herself with the coffee cup on the table before her. A selection of pastries and sweets had been set out for her and her companion-- her treat. Kaveh deserved it after the stress of the last weeks, the events of which Lisa knew frustratingly little about before his letter. Her only consolation was that even Kaeya's various contacts were slow in gathering the true story of the Akademiya's change in leadership-- and even that had differed from the account Kaveh had pried from his friends. 

It didn't take long for Kaveh to arrive, and Lisa stood to greet him with a tight hug. They still shared letters a few times a year, but they hadn't seen one another since she left about a decade ago now. Archons, this entire trip made her feel old. 

"It's good to see you," she said, breathing in the scent of sandalwood and vanilla. It was different from the pardisarah perfume Kaveh used to wear to cover up the smell of cheap soap. 

The Akademiya may have claimed not to discriminate, but Kaveh still encountered much of it when people learned he came from a poor family. (Cyno dealt with even more, his grades always behind hers despite performing at the same level. It was Kaveh who had to explain what being from the desert meant, and why their classmates scorned a boy younger than most of them.)

"You as well," Kaveh responded, pulling away. He held her at arm's length, his eyes roaming her form as he took in her appearance. "You look lovely as ever. How was your trip?"

"Flatterer," she said, laughing, and motioned for him to sit. "Long. The Chasm being reopened made it substantially shorter compared to going through Fontaine, but it still took longer than I would have liked."

They spoke of frivolous things for a while, catching up on all the things that occasional letters couldn't explain. Work, friends, anecdotes. She even learned a few more stories of Kaveh's infamous roommate, some of which she had learned glimpses of from Collei. It was nice. 

Of all the people Lisa knew, Kaveh was one of the few she never had to watch herself around. Even after all these years, their trust was implicit-- a friendship that lasted longer than those she had in Mondstadt. Cyno was another, for all they didn't speak anymore. Anybody else was a member of the Knights, but even they often had their own motives. 

When the coffee cooled and their treats were picked over, their voices lowered and their conversation changed to more serious topics. 

She drew the letter from her bodice and spread it between them, Kaveh's careful hand staring up at them. He hadn't asked her to come, but Lisa had read the desperation between the words. How could she have stayed away when her friends were struggling?

Kaveh picked up the letter, his eyes scanning his own words. Eventually, he put it down and sighed. 

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to worry you."

"You always worry me," she replied, piecing up a piece of baklava. "Is  Cyno really doing that badly?

"He's... struggling," he said after a moment of hesitation. "I can't blame him after everything that's happened, but it's worrying."

"Is it as bad as it was in school?" she asked, her mind drifting back through the years. 

Cyno had always been standoffish. His demeanour was unwelcoming, a blessing and curse when so many people were waiting for him to fail. It meant that he had few friends-- something that was still true today. 

She remembered the days when he couldn't get out of bed, the world weighing too heavily on his shoulders. When she would bring notes from class as she and Kaveh studied quietly with their notebooks spread across Cyno's dorm room floor, hoping their presence eased some of the loneliness. She remembered the jumpiness, the lack of sleep, the days and hours where something seemed off, like Cyno wasn't quite there. She knew more now than she did then, could list symptoms of trauma like a grocery list. 

"I don't know," Kaveh said, sounding frustrated. "He doesn't like talking about it. I visited Tighnari but Cyno hasn't been any more forthcoming with him, either."

Which was a concern in itself. Cyno's previous episodes were always accompanied by self isolation. 

There wasn't much Lisa could do. She didn't know Cyno anymore. Their friendship had deteriorated over time and distance as her letters went unanswered. What news she learned of him was delivered via Kaveh, lines sprinkled throughout his letters that 'Cyno is doing well. He was promoted to General Mahamatra.' All of that aside, she still worried. 

Kaveh's news had been distressing to read. Cyno helped overthrow the Akademiya, his partner was injured by the sages' pet god, and his mentor died all within the same month. Anybody would struggle with that, but Cyno hadn't spoken about any of it, withdrawing into himself as the days passed. 

"Any panic attacks?" she asked

"Not from what I've seen, but that doesn't rule it out," he replied, leaning his elbows on the table. "I don't think he's been sleeping either."

END

...

I was planning on Lisa having a talk with Cyno and dragging him to the reunion event. Probably also bringing him to Gandharva Ville with her to see Collei and Tighnari. Cyno being loved and cared for is my brand.

Also, let me know what you want to see next! I have a polycule, Blind!Cyno, Younger!Cyno finding Collei in the desert after she escaped Dottore younger than canon (pretty short), and a few Kaeya and Xiao centric wips.

[twistedsnake]

Another Arabian Night ~ Jafar Backstory

“My story begins in Agrabah, many years ago. My father was one of the Sultan’s royal advisors. As such, my fraternal twin sister, Nasira, and I were raised in wealth and of a higher breeding and class than the filth littering Agrabah’s streets. But my father was a weak fool perfectly content to kiss the feet of that addlepated twit, the Sultan. It sickened me. My mother, on the other hand, was no one of any real importance. Her name was Fasha, and she defined herself by being a faithful wife and doting mother, never really doing anything for herself. It’s a wonder how my sister and I could have come from those two weak fools.

“As children, Nasira and I would often explore Agrabah, and one day we made quite a fateful discovery: the city of Agrabah was built atop the ruins of the Ancient City of the Witches of the Sand and artifacts of their ancient magic remained behind! The secrets down there had long since been forgotten by the common throng. Though Nasira and I were young, we knew quite well the power of sorcery and what it could give us. She and I snuck down to the catacombs beneath the city to study the mystical arts whenever we could.

“Nasira was a natural, likely because she was a girl and the witches’ magic was biased towards the fairer sex. It was infuriating watching her power grow whilst my spells floundered about unable to compare. Had we a more level playing field, I’m certain I would have surpassed her easily. Surely you’ll understand that I had to put a stop to such an inequity. You see, our mother was a pious woman, devoted entirely to her dull religion, and magic was something she detested and feared. I knew if I let slip what my sister and I were up to, she’d put a stop to it at once. However, I didn’t account for her wrath turning on me as well.

“For punishment, Nasira was kept at mother’s side at all times, a fate so much worse than death by my reckoning. I, on the other hand, was sent away to boarding school far away from the "corrupting” influence of magic. After all, father wanted me to assume his position at court one day, and thus he felt I needed to be more refined and educated. I was quite upset when my fate was determined, and yet my experiences there made me the man I am today. I might never have become the most powerful man in the world had I been leashed to my parents’ side in those days.

“Unfortunately, my time at school was not a pleasant one. In those formative years, my peers treated me with contempt and disdain. No one ever wanted to know me; they were intimidated by my charisma and mystique. I would often be left pondering ‘Why Me?‘ There was one boy who tormented me considerably by the name of Aman; he was the son of a prominent general to the Sultan. By the time I was thirteen years of age, I could take his abuse no longer. I released a cobra into his room at night, and when he awoke with a sudden motion, the snake struck him. He was dead within minutes. That was the first man I ever killed.

"Well, I relished being free of Aman’s torment, yet it did very little to improve my social standing. To my surprise, my peers wept for him and mourned for him. He became a martyr whose adulations were sung constantly. The momentary satisfaction of destroying him was nothing compared to the rage I endured at the realization that I granted him a position of love and respect that I would never have. It was then that I had a sudden onset of clarity: there are things so much worse than death. True vengeance, a true triumph, would only come by forcing my enemies to watch as I elevated myself at the expense of all that they held dear!

”That was when I came to know her, the only woman on staff at the school, Amara. She was a historian who knew much about the legends of the Seven Deserts, and her beauty was unmatched. The other boys lusted after her like ravenous dogs, but it was only I who caught her eye. I was her prize student, and once she learned that I’d killed Aman, rather than having me imprisoned, she invited me to her home. You see, she was a sorceress as well, and she saw the potential for great power within my heart. I became her apprentice, and she taught me much.

“Amara and I studied together in secret for years, and once I was a bit older, we became lovers as well. I never had interest in women, but Amara was after something of great power. Becoming intimate with her allowed me to learn exactly what she was after: a magic lamp hidden within a Cave of Wonders! Whosoever became master of the lamp would be granted three wishes with which she could use to rule this world with me at her side. Together, she and I tracked down half of a scarab shaped amulet capable of opening the path to the Cave of Wonders.

"However, I’ve never been one for second best. I wanted the lamp’s power for my own! One night, I pretended to initiate our usual intimate evening by pouring her a goblet of wine. Amara drank it but soon discovered that something was wrong. I’d put a potion in her drink that would allow me to steal her power and take it for myself! She despaired, pleading that I’d loved her, but the simple truth she’d blinded herself to was that only she loved me. Amara was a great admirer of serpents, and she kept talismans of snakes all around her. It seemed only fitting to transform her into one herself. She became a snake staff, and now I hold her at my side until the end of time!

"I returned home shortly thereafter. My mother had gone to an early grave attempting to keep Nasira under control, and my father now served the new Sultan, a babbling fool even more incompetent than the last. Now that I was back in Agrabah, he was free to retire and to allow me to assume his position in the royal court of Agrabah. I made a vow to myself not to be like my father. I would serve the Sultan, but I would never stop seeking out the other half of the scarab or trying to become the ruler of Agrabah myself.

"Naturally, I was the most valuable advisor the Sultan had at his disposal. I was smarter and more worldly than the other sycophantic relics who inhabited the palace. The Sultan came to know it as well… with a little convincing from the hypnosis spell of Amara’s staff. Once I was appointed Grand Vizier, it didn’t take very long or very much effort to have the other counselors removed from office. I was the only advisor the Sultan ever needed, and thus I was able to operate with near impunity. I built myself a secret chamber in the palace for my sorcerous endeavors and worked very hard to get the guards wrapped around my little finger.

"However, while I’d accounted for my political adversaries, the Sultan’s family proved to be more of a hindrance than I care to admit. The little princess was always under foot, and her disrespectful attitude was nothing short of impertinent! Yet the Sultan’s wife proved to be the bigger problem. The Sultana saw my magical hourglass while she was sneaking about one night. She knew I was seeking the lamp to overthrow her bumbling husband. I wasn’t about to let some self-righteous woman unravel my plans, so I used my staff to mesmerize her and have her throw herself from the guard tower! Oh! But the very best part? The little princess caught a glimpse of us that night. I sent her back to bed and told her it was just a bad dream. And the next morning when she asked me where her dear mother had gone? Why I simply told her the truth: her mommy didn’t love her enough to stay alive.

"Though the Sultan ruled in broad daylight, with the Sultana gone, I became the true power behind the throne. My decisive leadership brought prosperity to Agrabah and ensured that the insane fools lurking beyond our borders stayed away. Yet without Amara, it was a bit lonely at the top. I knew better than to allow myself to fall in love with any of the gentlemen I’d invited to my bedchambers. I needed a confidant who I could trust not to usurp me. I bought a fine exotic bird off a wealthy plantation owner and named him Iago. With a bit of magic, I granted him speech and intelligence beyond his station. I taught him everything I knew, and his foul little mind made him quite enjoyable company.

"Then, one day, my years of searching bore fruit. You see, Princess Jasmine came of age, and it was time for her to be wed. Suitors from all across the Seven Deserts came to call. The miserable girl rejected and humiliated them all, but one prince who came to visit carried with him a marvelous engagement present: the other half of the scarab talisman! I knew I could not allow it to slip through my fingers, so I released a common thief from the palace dungeon by the name of Gazeem and ordered him to steal the scarab talisman.

"Gazeem succeeded and met me in the desert on a dark night. I brought the two halves of the talisman together and found the Cave of Wonders at long last! From there, well, you know the tale. That ragged urchin Aladdin unraveled all of my carefully laid plans of deceit and conquest, but not before I became an all powerful immortal GENIE! … Briefly. My return and my vengeance were also thwarted by Aladdin and the change of heart in my treacherous parrot! No good deed goes unpunished, clearly. Iago destroyed my lamp, killing me.

"I found myself in the Underworld after that. Fortunately, the Lord of the Dead, Hades, was my sort of fellow. We hit it off and became fast friends. Unfortunately, our attempts to have Hercules and Aladdin destroy one another failed and caused me to be lost in the River Styx. Nasira’s attempt to conjure me back was hardly more successful. Yet fate has a way of working out in the end. Hades himself was knocked into the River Styx by Hercules, and though the other souls in the river attempted to drag him down, I came to his aid. With my help, he was able to break free, and for my service, I was resurrected once again!

"Now I am fully restored, and my dark purposes remain unchanged. I shall destroy Aladdin once and for all, and all those fools who he calls ‘friends’ will be made to suffer for their association! After all, this universe is going to be MINE to command… TO CONTROL!”

[sagau-my-beloved]

The Eternal Creator, part 2

Warnings: Again none I can really think of other than just general Sagau stuff

The day was boring, no flowery exaggerated language could be used to describe it in a better way.

Time just seemed to be moving particularly slower than usual, long hours of free time wasted through switching between apps.

You decided, in that moment of true boredom, to find something to fill it with. Which is how you stumbled upon the game Genshin Impact.

Sure, you had heard about it, who hadn't at this point.

You finally gave into the boredom eating away at you, not expecting much. But, to your surprise, it was actually rather enjoyable.

You quickly picked up the role of the traveller, taking great pleasure in completing quests and earning prizes. Admiring the beautiful land of Teyvat. Trying, and often failing, to obtain particularly interesting characters for your team. Going through all the realms and learning all the back stories to attractive looking and deeply troubled characters.

It truly was pleasant, a nice distraction from everyday activities.

But what you didn't know was all the things going on behind the scenes.

They were tired, they were so tired and still so full of love for you. They could feel your presence, the word quickly spread far and wide that their God had returned, just not in the form that anyone was expecting.

Why didn't you take your own form? It troubled them to no end.

Of course, they were ecstatic to act as your hosts, to be your vessels whenever you needed it, to take any hit dealt because they trusted their lives in your capable hands.

But it was exhausting, why wouldn't you just let them see you. Worship you.

Why did there have to be this barrier? It really was almost unbearable at times.

Did you not believe them to be good enough? Or maybe you just didn't have the ability to take on a form in their world yet, you had just woken up after eons of rest.

They tried to help, sacrifice more in your name, offer more, increase their worship of you, all in the hopes that it would help give you power. But still nothing, still disappointment and radio silence.

So after months and months of this torture, they decided they were going to help you.

The Archons devised a secret meeting, away from the prying eyes of others.

"I understand what everybody is feeling here, but we must let them come to us in their own time." Zhongli stated, as calm and composed as ever.

He believed your will to be absolute, it wasn't the right of any of them to try and force you into something that wasn't of your will. He longed to see you as well, but he had waited thousands of years, he could wait a few more if need be.

There were general murmurs of agreement and disagreement amongst them.

Venti, who was fidgeting slightly in his seat, decided to stand, "But what if the reason that they aren't showing up is not because they don't want to, but because they can't? Wouldn't it then be our responsibility to do anything we could to help?"

He was quite restless at your refusal to show yourself, self doubt creep into his mind quite often that it was on the account of the the land and its inhabitants not being to your liking.

Did things change in a way that you had not intended?

Should he had held a tighter rein on his domain like Ei did?

He always believed it to be sacrilege to assume your will, to force what he thought your ideals would be onto your nation, but maybe that's what you would have preferred to this.

"Maybe something has changed, maybe they're facing a problem with developing a form." Venti continued, speaking in the more offhanded way.

That caused Ei to stand up, "Are you claiming that our creator can't make a form for themselves? I shouldn't have to tell you how disrespectful that is." She spat with a cold look pointed directly at him, causing Venti to turn away in embarrassment as to not meet her gaze.

He knew that it could be seen as such, but as much as he hated to admit it, his patience was wearing thin.

Zhongli stood up to ease the tension.

"While I do not agree with that method, he might have a point. Our creator has done little but bless us with their presence. In a situation where they are being held back by something, it would be nothing short of our responsibility to do anything that we could to carry out their will."

Ei looked as though she was about to interject again before he continued, "The problem with that is we have no way of knowing their will."

All the Archons sat in silence, contemplating what had been spoken.

It was true that none of them knew your will, none could begin to even interpret what it was you wanted from them. To do so would be nothing short of blasphemy.

"Maybe we should ask for a sign." Venti finally spoke, breaking the silence. This was once again accompanied by mutters of both agreement and disagreement.

"Tgen let's put it to a vote." Zhongli hesitantly said after the talking had quieted down, it wasn't the best plan of action, but it was all they had to go on right now, and it was better than acting without at least attempting to learn what you wanted of them.

There was general agreement to this course of action, and, by the end of it, the results were in favour of going through with asking for a sign.

Just as the vote had been cast, your presence made itself known for the first time in two months of silence.

They felt the warmth of your being surround them, and it was taken as a sign of your intentions. That's solidified it, they got to work immediately.

You had just logged on for the day, finishing your other necessary activities before deciding to relax, loading into your world and continuing on with your many quests.

You didn't own any of the Archons, but if you had, you would have noticed that they were, for some unexplainable reason, missing from your line up of characters.

But, none the wiser, you continued on from where you left off last night. It was almost a daily ritual at this point, to play once the sun has started setting and you no longer had daily activities to occupy yourself with. With each day being around twenty minutes long, you could only get through a handful of them before it was time for bed.

You suppressed the urge the play further due to lack of progress because you had to be up early tomorrow, and it would be torture to only get a few hours of sleep again.

So, finally choosing to turn in for the night, logging out of the game and setting it aside, and getting yourself situated to fall asleep into a peaceful realm where none of your responsibilities could touch you for a bit, was the course of action you took.

Of course, none of that even mildly prepared you for opening your eyes to find the a cloudless blue sky above you and the soft chirping of birds no longer being blocked out by walls and glass.

[uwusenpaiuwu]

Sleepovers At The Baji Household feat. A Fed-Up Chifuyu

Summary: Chifuyu just wants to sleep, man, but Baji wants to be a jealous crackhead at 2 AM.

Pairing: Sano Manjiro | Mikey x Male Reader

Note(s): I had a little free time and wrote this. So, please enjoy! ALSO, to the anon that sent me a request a few days ago, I saw it and have it filed on my to-do list!!! I will definitely get to it as soon as I get a break in my schedule :)

"Chifuyu, ya wanna see some real discrimination?"

No. No, Chifuyu does not want to see what Baji means by 'real discrimination.'

Does he tell him that, though?

Yes, actually, because it's 2 in the fucking morning and, as much as he respects the other boy, he wouldn't put it past himself to smother him with a pillow after having his dream of cuddling with a sea of puppies suddenly destroyed.

Unfortunately for his sanity, Baji either doesn't hear him or, more likely than not, doesn't give a fuck, because he's already flopping onto his belly and whipping out his phone to do God knows what.

The dial tone that sounds from the speaker a few seconds later makes Chifuyu cringe, especially since it's only ever been a calm silence fit for a good night's sleep prior to Baji bulldozing through it with his absurd question. (At the very least, he's thankful that the latter has half a mind to keep the brightness on the lowest setting, otherwise, Chifuyu would have had to fight.)

On the far end of the row of carefully-laid futons, you shift in your sleep, eyebrows furrowing together at the noise. Rotating onto your side, you unconsciously reach for Baji, and just when he thinks you're being cute and trying to cuddle him, you smack him in the head.

Baji doesn't flinch, instead, takes his pillow and shoves it in your grasp to keep your unconscious self occupied, so that he can focus on getting through to the person who reuses to pick up (understandably so).

Releasing a frustrated groan after being redirected to voice mail for the fifth time, he dials the number again, muttering an impatient, "Pick up already."

Chifuyu feels sorry for the poor soul on the other end. He would've blocked someone following the first call, because again, it's-

The blond has to squint his eyes up at the digital clock on Baji's nightstand, which confirms that it's already 2:22 A.M, further solidifying the fact that he shouldn't be awake right now. And this also applies to the ever persistent first division captain, who insists on bothering who Chifuyu soon discovers is Mikey from the contact ID that flashes across the screen.

Why Baji is so keen on bothering him is a question he doesn't have the mental capacity to ponder over. The most energy he'll expend is to listen in when the call miraculously connects.

"What...?" comes a muffled voice from the receiver, tone laced in an irked grogginess birthed from a slumber rudely interrupted.

There's an absurdly loud, almost angry, roar of Mikey's name, one that has Chifuyu curling in on himself in a futile attempt to escape a sound that should be illegal at this hour.

But you know what else should be illegal?

The fucking whiplash Chifuyu gets when Baji's deep voice takes an abrupt 180°, switching from its normal gruffness to a squeaky, ear-piercing shrill as he screams, "I love you, love you, love you! Do you love me, too, Mikey-kyun~♡?!"

The room is dead silent.

Not a word. Not a murmur. Not a breath.

Just pure, unadulterated silence as both Chifuyu and Mikey process the words that hang in the air, permeating it with a goosebumps-inducing eeriness from having heard such a...a girly, overtly cutesy screech from Baji.

Then-

"What the fuck? He hung on me!"

Chifuyu opens his mouth, thinks better of reacting to the cursed scene he had the misfortune of bearing witness to, and promptly closes it.

Other people may have sleep paralysis demons.

But Chifuyu?

Chifuyu has Baji.

With both hands partially raised in prayer, he begs for the shenanigans to be over and done with.

They are not.

While his eyes remain closed in a last ditch effort to convince himself that it's all a bad dream, he hears a lot of grumbling happening on your side of the room, courtesy of Baji, who's scrambling around in search of...something. One quick peek reveals him fiddling with a phone - yours, to be exact, as evidenced by the distinctive phone charm of your favorite anime character hanging from it.

"(Y/n), wake up for a second," he hears him whisper. It takes a bit of prompting, until he's able to successfully rouse you enough from sleep to elicit any kind of response, which is, essentially, nothing short of an incoherent, slurred mess. Although, Chifuyu is pretty damn certain he heard you call Baji a 'dickhead' for the trouble.

Unperturbed, he continues shaking your limp form, coaxing you into wakefulness with, "Repeat what I tell you, and I'll let you go back to asleep. Deal?"

You squint your eyes at him, only able to make out a vague outline of his visage in the lightless room. "Promise?"

"Cross my heart, hope to die," he automatically responds with the same phrase he's become accustomed to saying whenever you two made a promise, something done purely out of habit, formed when the two of you were just kids and he wanted to get you to do something absolutely ridiculous either for him or with him. And just 'cause he knows you're more susceptible to complying if he does it, he also interlocks his pinky with yours.

"...Fine."

The approval is his cue to proceed, and it's as he's putting the phone on speaker that he turns back to a regretfully wide awake Chifuyu, mouthing a wordless, 'Watch.'

The phone rings, loud and clear, precisely once and only once.

"(Y/n), what's wrong?" It's important to note that even though Mikey still sounds tired as hell, his tone is much lighter, much happier really, than when it was Baji, which is an offense in itself to the said teen that's off to the side, attentively listening to the conversation unfold.

Then, it strikes Chifuyu, what Baji is trying to do, and fuck does it give him an instant headache.

Meanwhile, your mouth morphs into the dopiest of smiles with the pleasant surprise of hearing your boyfriend's voice, chest instantly overtaken by a warm fuzziness that never fails to make an appearance whenever he's involved. Sappy, you know, but it's true!

A light but firm nudge to your shoulder reminds you of your mission. It's too bad that, teetering along the edge of sleep as you are, the words Baji whispers are barely repeated correctly.

The initial phrase from before, the one Baji greeted Mikey with, is shortened to a simple, "You wuv I...?"

But, without missing a beat, you receive Mikey's confident reply of, "Mhm... I wuv you a lot."

There's a sleepy giggle then - a fucking giggle - before your voices drop to sweet whispers that the third and fourth wheels can't fully comprehend from where they are.

"Where the fuck was my 'I wuv you,' huh?!" Baji whisper-shouts, considerate of your conversation even when ranting and raving. "Shit, I would've taken a simple 'I love you,' too! I've known that bastard way longer than (Y/n), and this is what I get?!"

Okay. Toman's president answers his boyfriend's late night calls faster than he does anyone else's and openly expresses his love for him. So what? Chifuyu wouldn't exactly call it 'discrimination,' per se. 'Favoritism,' maybe if you wanna stretch it, but using as strong a word as discrimination, especially taking into account you two are dating; it's normal? Nah.

"You wanna say 'bye' to them? Mm. Baji and Chifuyu." A pause. "Fuyu, Mikey says 'bye.'"

"Bye, Mikey-kun."

The other person in the room waits, and waits, and waits, and when it's clear that there is no intention to address his presence whatsoever, Baji turns to Chifuyu with an almost scandalized expression, making wild gesticulations with his hands, clearly distressed. "See?!"

Blank blue eyes stare back at him, unblinking. Honestly, it's a common occurrence - Baji spiraling in a nonsensical rage - so it's easy for Chifuyu to block out the muted, jealousy-driven temper tantrum as he takes his pillow in both hands, raises it as high as he can, and-

Sigh.

-lets it flop right back onto his face.

He can't suffocate Baji. Shouldn't. Wouldn't. Couldn't. After all, they're best buds, meaning he has an obligation to put up with shit like this once in a while. (Plus, he'd probably get his ass kicked before he succeeds anyway. Totally not worth the beating.)

"Did you hear? Mikey said he wuvs me," he hears you drawl dreamily as soon as you hang up, sounding very close to clocking back out for the night.

"Yeah, yeah. Cute shit. Happy for ya, dude," Baji huffs. Thankfully, he sounds like he's in a similar state to yours, if the yawn that follows his sarcastic comment is anything to go by.

"...He soooo ignored you."

That warrants a punishing punch to the arm, dulled only slightly by the combination of the thick quilt you're swaddled in and the raven-haired boy's fatigue.

"I'll fucking throw you out right now, (Y/n). Don't test me."

"You won't."

"I will."

"Won't."

"Will."

The conversation gradually dies down shortly after, the exhaustion that took its sweet time getting to both of you having reached its peak with the help of the childish bickering. It takes 10 minutes, maybe 15, before two sets of light snores fill the room.

Finally.

Let it be known that there is a lesson to be learned from tonight's events. Really, there is. Y'know, something along the lines of 'Don't agree to a sleepover with Baji, if you plan on actually sleeping,' or whatever.

Alas, Chifuyu's consciousness fades before he realizes what it is.

~~~

"Mikey, be honest. Who do you love more? Me or-?"

"(Y/n)."

"But-"

(Y/n)."

"I-"

"(Y/n)."

Baji is only momentarily discouraged, sharp eyes glaring at the blond that lays his head on your lap after hi-fiving you. He didn't want to do this, but he's left with no choice.

"(Y/n) or Babu?"

From the way Mikey stiffens up, refusing to look at either him or you in the eyes, Baji knows he has him right where he wants him, has him torn between a cute face or a sweet ride.

"Oi! Don't pretend to be asleep! Answer the damn question! OI!"

(After hours of serious contemplation - even though you told him it doesn't particularly matter - it's revealed that, of course, Mikey loves you more. Babu just happens to trail behind as a very close second.)

[maomao-words]

Soo, I recently logged in into my old Tumblr account, @hejer-maomao​, and lo and behold, I found that my poorly-written and extremely short Solo Leveling HCs have reached over 600 notes with more than a few asks wanting to read more. 

So, I yielded! (✿´‿`)  I sat down for two days and finally finished reading Season 2 of Solo Leveling webtoon (I was initially going to wait for it to finish up to binge it T___T) and I’m now back with fresh content to please everyone!

Contains subtle hints to happenings from SL Second Season. It also gets a bit steamy at the end, so be careful~

Sung Jin-Woo as a Boyfriend HCs (Part 2): Dating Jin-Woo as an S-Rank Hunter:

As the world slowly began to fall into chaos and turmoil with hundreds of gates manifesting daily all around the globe, your country finally decided to pool in all of its resources into collaborating with South Korea’s hunter; Sung Jin-Woo.

The plan was quite simple. Your home country would send in its best S-rank hunter; you, to help speed up the clearance of some of the most difficult gates which spread in Korea in return for a promise of help from Jin-Woo if an S-rank gate were to appear in your native lands.

The fact that the governmental officials chose to send you, their best hunter and the sole asset they struggled for a long time to keep hidden, just to be able to form such a thin connection with Sung Jin-Woo testified to how terrifyingly strong the Korean hunter was.

Once you arrived in Korea, the press awaiting at the airport were too shocked to even move at the sheer amount of bodyguards by your side. While it was a known fact that your abilities were of a non-combatant hunter, the details of your powers were kept under tight wraps. As such, you couldn’t accept interviews nor remain exposed in public for too long without proper protection. Without even sparing the countless journalists desperately fighting to catch a glimpse of your face a glance, you immediately disappeared into a black car prepared for you beforehand before being escorted to the Korean Hunters Association headquarters.

 Not even a second ticked by after you placed the tip of your high heel past the building’s entrance, when a suffocating presence enveloped your senses. Your blood boiled within your veins and you could feel goosebumps slowly forming on your arms. Your nearest bodyguard called your name in worry, but you could only concentrate on the intense magic waves slowly getting closer to you, shamelessly demanding your utter and complete submission.

“Hunter Sung Jin-Woo,” Your manager’s worried voice echoed as the demonic presence finally entered the room. “I will have to ask you to tone your magic down. Our hunter is extremely sensitive when it comes to mana, and the slightest amount of exposure to it will bring her powers to the surface.”

You clenched your teeth and dug your nails into your palms, drawing tiny droplets of blood. You raised you head, your eyes already transforming into pools of crimson and fire. In front of you, you could see Jin-Woo’s initially indifferent eyes slowly widen in surprise.

“A Banshee.” Jin-Woo’s voice carried a hint of curiosity as his lips curved in a smirk. “Yes,” you calmly responded as your transformation now enabled you to withstand his powerful presence. You both locked eyes, intense magic waves radiating off of your bodies as you acknowledged each other’s unique strength.

“When your government proposed this deal with us, I knew they were hiding a pretty powerful trump card,” President Go Gun-Hee finally spoke, breaking the silence. “But for you to turn out to be a Banshee! I might say, this is a pleasant surprise!”

You inwardly breathed a sigh of relief as Sung Jin-Woo nodded in agreement. Your country desperately needed this collaboration to work, especially considering Jin-Woo’s world wide fame. The possibility of Jin-Woo rejecting to even try and work with you was too high but your country decided to gamble on his interest in your precognitive abilities as a Banshee to make the deal work.

Working side to side by Jin-Woo was a challenge, to say the least. The man already possessed everything and needed no one by his side as support. Even the most powerful S-rank hunters could be labeled as utterly useless compared to him. 

Once you finished clearing your third joint gate together, you mentally patted yourself. Thank God I’m a Banshee, or else I would have only been a dead weight to him.

With your accurate vision into the future, Jin-Woo’s abilities soared to another level, enabling him to finish clearing A-rank gates in under fifteen minutes. After all, no gate’s interior structure was too complicated for you, nor was the abilities of any of the monsters residing inside hidden to your eyes. The first time both of you emerged from a gate, barely ten minutes after you entered, the journalists waiting outside were stupefied. You remember grinning widely at their expressions, spontaneously turning to catch Jin-Woo looking fondly at you, before turning away with a deep blush once you locked eyes.

Your heart did not stop racing that night even after you parted ways with Jin-Woo and headed to your own hotel.

The first kiss you shared happened a week before your due return to your country. Sung Jin-Woo’s mood has been gloomy ever since you received the notice to return home. 

You have grown closer in the past few weeks that you spent by his side. He has been your trustworthy shield in every single gate you entered to the point you stopped taking any of your A-rank bodyguards with you despite your manager’s disproval. Jin-Woo has been so gentle with you, making sure he constantly has one arm wrapped around your waist in case of any monster attacking you while you used your powers. Due to his protection, you have failed to sustain even the smallest scratch even though the gates you raided daily were too dangerous for hunters below S-rank. 

You shared meals together, stole each other’s desserts and made fun of one another. Jin-Woo even made it a habit or him to escort you to your hotel after your work is done, softly pat your head before disappearing within his dark shadows.

By then, you were fully aware of the love that fully bloomed within your heart but you refused to mutter a word to Jin-Woo. You were simply terrified. Terrified that those eyes that looked at you gently and were filled with tenderness will turn cold at your confession. But one night was enough to completely change your mind.

After escorting you to your hotel room, an unusually sullen Jin-Woo merely nodded at you and turned around to leave without even patting your head. Your heart was torn apart at the thought of him leaving you at that state, so you quickly extended your hand, intending to catch his sleeve to stop him. But your field of vision was quickly filled with Jin-Woo’s handsome face, his fragrance filling your senses as you found yourself pinned against the hallway wall. You blinked in confusion and stared at Jin-Woo, but the man you loved did not speak and simply tightened his hold on your wrists. 

You tried to move your hands but they refused to even budge under Jin-Woo possessive hold. “Jin-Woo,” you softly whispered, your heart aching more at the sadness filling his eyes.

“...Don’t leave. Stay by my side.”

Your eyes widened at the soft words spoken beside your ear. You trembled as Jin-Woo nosed at your neck, breathing in your familiar scent. His lips soon touched the heated skin of your throat, alternating between gently pecks and warm licks. You whimpered at his hungry touch. Your legs were growing weak with each peck he left on your throat and almost gave in when he exposed his teeth and bit down, a low growl in tow.

“Jin-Woo,” you whispered again and again before he finally lifted his head towards you. His eyes were glistening with desire and his lips were slightly reddish, making him even more irresistible to you. 

“Kiss me,” is what you ended up saying instead of telling him to stop. In a heartbeat, Jin-Woo’s lips were on your own, warm and starving for your taste.

You had so many issues to solve ahead, but at that moment, you chose to leave all of the burdens on your shoulders fall and only focus on the man standing in front of you.

Everything else can come second to him.

[moonlitceleste]

marinette dupain-cheng’s guide to picking up cute guys

A/N: Chez Vous is real in the DC universe; it’s described as a restaurant but I decided to use it as the name of the café because I didn’t want to come up with one myself. It translates to “at your house,” which basically implies “make yourself at home.”

thanks to @ramos123 for being my beta reader! <3

ao3

“Bet.”

Marinette slapped a crisp 20-dollar bill onto the wooden table with enough force to slosh around the brown liquid in the cup sitting before Alya’s smirking face.

Chez Vous was the name of the café they had been sitting in for the past fifteen minutes. The place had a nice ambience, the quiet chatter of customers and aromatic smells combining to make what was an unusually cozy atmosphere considering the location.

Gotham wasn’t exactly known for being hospitable, but she supposed the fact that it was clearly fashioned after Parisian cafés contributed to the homey feel. It vaguely reminded her of her parents’ bakery as well, so it certainly lived up to its name.

Perhaps it was this sense of familiarity that had her and Alya reminiscing on how far they’d come. It hadn’t been that long since lycée or université—the two were only 22 and 23, respectively—but recalling the good times they’d shared was always fun to do.

Of course, their friendship had momentary blips (ahem, Lila), but the two had managed to sort out their problems eventually. Now that Alya had become more attuned to Marinette’s boundaries and there were no pressing superhero secrets to keep, they knew how to both ground and challenge each other in positive ways. Which was exactly what had caused Marinette to get herself into this situation.

While chattering about their lycée days, Alya poked fun at her once again for what had transpired on the day of the Animan akuma. How could she ever forget that while secretly masquerading as a superhero and locking her best friends in an empty gorilla habitat together, she had somehow helped them end up in a relationship? And now the two were engaged.

This topic somehow lead to Adrien and the stupid puns he spewed both in superhero and civilian form. Alya was insistent that Marinette was charmed by them at some point, to which she replied, No way! They were horrible. Even I could do better.

It was with twinkling eyes that her best friend asked “Bet?” and well, Marinette was never one to back down from a challenge. So after pulling out some spare cash from her purse and setting it down in front of Alya, she raised a brow.

A wicked smirk grew on her best friend’s face, and any lesser person would have faltered, but Marinette was prepared for anything that could possibly be thrown at her.

“Fine. If you’re so confident, I dare you to use a pick-up line on… him.”

As if on cue, the bell at the top of the glass-paneled wooden door jingled, and Marinette followed Alya’s pointed finger right on time to see a very attractive man walk through.

He had a confident stride, but not an arrogant one—his aura was one of someone who was assured and knew exactly what they were capable of.

Despite his seemingly laid-back disposition, she didn’t fail to notice how his eyes darted around the room cautiously, the same habit she had gotten used to doing after she had been given the Ladybug Miraculous. Then again, this was Gotham, so being on constant guard was only natural.

One thumb was hooked in the pocket of his jeans while the other moved up to ruffle his hair, and wow did he have nice hair.

It was perfectly coiffed, and if she didn’t have experience with hairstyling due to her career she would’ve thought it was as effortless as it looked. Most models would kill for the natural luster his locks seemed to have, and even from a distance she could tell that anyone who decided to run their fingers through his hair would be met with softness.

And she didn’t even want to get started on his face. From his glowing skin to his strong jaw and pretty eyes, she refused to believe someone so attractive could be real. It was unfair, really.

“...inette? Marinette? You good there, girl?”

A snap in front of her face broke Marinette out of her stupor, and she offered an instinctual yelp in response.

“What?”

Alya’s eyes twinkled knowingly, and Marinette shifted anxiously in her seat.

“You sure you weren’t checking him out?”

“Alya!”

Said girl let out a mischievous cackle at her hissed response.

“Now get over there!” she said, waving her hands around in a shooing motion.

Marinette glanced over to the line, where the man was no doubt giving the barista his order.

From what she could tell he was just about done, and she watched as he shuffled through his wallet to hand the barista a bill. But rather than proceed normally as most client-worker interactions would, his payment was met with wide eyes and flailing hands.

Marinette was much too far to discern what was being said, but from context clues she could deduct that he had just handed the barista quite a sizable amount. She had already guessed he was well-off from simply observing the quality of his clothes, but this was near confirmation.

It wasn’t as if status or wealth mattered much to her, but she did have a tendency to be wary of higher-class people due to past experiences with them. Being around them really wasn’t as pleasant as it seemed.

Her musing was interrupted when the man suddenly moved, relocating to the waiting line. There was her chance.

Marinette pushed herself out of her seat, steeling herself and lifting her chin high. This was no biggie. All she had to do was somehow convince this gorgeous man to give her his number by making a crappy pick-up line and a pun on the spot. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before, but this felt different, probably because it was a total stranger she was about to attempt it on.

She felt Alya’s gaze trailing after her with each step, and Marinette reminded herself that she absolutely had to succeed or she would never hear the end of it.

The closer she got, however, the more her confidence died. Apparently she had made a major miscalculation while gauging her probability of success, because she hadn’t accounted for the brain spasm she was currently having. Why, oh why did he have to be so cute?

Marinette had the sinking feeling that she was about to majorly embarrass herself, but she was determined to win. Screw embarrassment—she was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. All the trouble she had gotten into with Alix and Kim as kids had prepared her for this very moment. Nothing mattered besides victory.

So she sauntered up confidently, stopping right in front of her target.

“Hey, you must be Batman’s sidekick.”

“What?”

The man’s head snapped towards her, and Marinette didn’t fail to notice the subtle defensive stance he took. Years of hero experience had made her more perceptive towards these things—it was part of the job, after all. She filed the information away in the back of her mind, making a mental note to dissect all that later. Her priority was winning the bet—and oh, right, she still had to finish that pick-up line.

“...because you’re Robin my heart.”

The quip was accompanied by an uncharacteristically roguish smile, à la Chat Noir. She’d give herself a solid 10/10 points on delivery.

Her target seemed to agree with the verdict, because after a split second of shocked silence, he burst into full-bodied laughter.

The instantaneous shift in demeanor nearly caught her off-guard, but she was too occupied by the bright smile on his face and his melodic chuckle to notice. It was light and carefree, and she couldn’t help but crack a small smile as a result.

The only problem was that the laughter didn’t end, though, and she felt her face heat up more as the seconds ticked by.

Oh, Kwami.

Marinette buried her face into her hands with a soft groan, wishing the ground could just open up and swallow her whole.

She knew it wasn’t the greatest pick-up line ever, but she didn’t think her attempt warranted that much amusement.

The laugher ceased abruptly, and she peeked through her fingers in time to see the man quickly sober up.

“Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you!”

A pause.

“Okay, not exactly. I just—wow, that was a great pick-up line.”

She slowly lowered her hands, though she kept her head down to peer at him through her lashes.

“Did it work?”

He chuckled and offered her a bright smile that made her blush like a high schooler with a massive crush.

“Yeah, you can tell your friend over there that you won your bet.”

If it was even possible, she turned redder.

“What? How…”

At the mention of Alya, Marinette sent a quick glance to their café table only to find that she was doing absolutely nothing to hide her rapt attention. She quickly caught on to the fact that they were looking her way and sent a very obvious thumbs-up and wink.

Oh, I am so going to kill her later!

But Marinette’s momentary vexation made way for embarrassment as the gravity of the situation hit her.

“I guess I wasn’t exactly subtle, huh?”

“Yeah,” the handsome stranger shrugged. “You probably could have been more discreet. But I liked it.”

“Okay, that’s the second time you’ve said that, but I have a hard time believing you. You can’t possibly tell me that you actually enjoy puns.”

“So I’m guessing I shouldn’t tell you that meeting you was a fortuitous aster?”

“Aster? As in the opposite of disaster?” she wrinkled her nose.

“You got it!”

Marinette rolled her eyes in exasperation, though the upwards tug at the corner of her lips betrayed her true feelings.

“Careful there, or you’ll be the one Robin my heart.”

She’d never admit to it, but she flushed a tiny bit before straightening up in realization. Hey, she was supposed to be the one doing the wooing here!

But before she could open her mouth to respond, her companion beat her to it.

“Since you’re stealing something so dear to me, I think it’s only fair that I get my thief’s name in exchange.”

He was clever, she had to admit.

“Marinette,” she proffered.

“Dick.”

She blinked in surprise at the seemingly random obscenity before it clicked.

“Oh, that’s your name!”

The words tumbled forward, and once she realized what she had said, Marinette tried to frantically backpedal. Her spilled apologies didn’t seem to be necessary, though, because that mesmerizing laugh came back.

“No, it’s fine, I get that a lot,” he breathed between chuckles.

She brightened immediately, glad she hadn’t offended him or embarrassed herself too much.

“Well, since I’m already taking something from you, may I steal your number as well?”

“Only if I can do the same.”

Her inquiry was met with a grin, and the two exchanged phones to type in their respective numbers. Marinette’s found its way back into her hand shortly after, and moments after she pocketed it the call of “medium espresso and beignets!” broke the quiet ambience.

“Well, that’s my order,” Dick said, words weighted by a silent apology. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a few things I need to take care of. Maybe we can meet up later this week?”

The end of his sentence lilted up in hope, and Marinette found her chest warming with affection.

“I’d like that.”

She bid him goodbye with a smile and a wave and quickly tacked on an “I’ll text you later!” in afterthought.

She’d forever deny squealing giddily as she unceremoniously dragged Alya out from her seat and through the café doors, but the sound didn’t escape Dick’s attention—or his enhanced hearing, courtesy of Bat-Tech.

As he watched her leave with Alya, a smile slowly spread across his face at the thought of seeing her again.

Yeah, he sighed to himself. She’s definitely Robin my heart.

-

PERMANENT TAGLIST *@astoriaandromeda @avengerthewarrior *@bluesimani @enternalempires @flower-girll @freesportspalacesalad @glastwime859 @h1sss @heart-charming @iloontjeboontje @jayjayspixiepop @jalaluvsu @kitsunebell @maskedpainter @moongoddesskiana @nathleigh @no-username2544 @too0bsessedformyowngood @ultimatetornshipper

[luvdsc]

mark lee sucks at technology.

tap the heart if you have a big, fat, embarrassing crush on your best friend!

pairing :: lee mark x reader genre :: fluff / best friend + social influencer au word count :: 5,883 words warnings :: none playlist :: dumb stuff (lany) ⋆ feeling (coin) ⋆ so far so good (gabrielle aplin) ⋆ electric love (børns) ⋆ love by mistake (bad suns) author’s note :: i was debating if i should post it on his bday instead, but i decided to drop it earlier, so uh, happy (approx. one week early) bday to mister absolutely fully capable (except when it comes to tech stuff) !!!! thank you for blessing us with your god tier raps ♡ ↳ part of the not clickbait series.

In your required upper division business course aptly titled “Essential Marketing Strategies,” you had learned about a concept called personal brands. A personal brand is explained as the first impression a person wishes to perceive based on their own experiences, qualifications, and achievements. Your professor had told you and your classmates to pick three words to define your own brand. For instance, you chose to label yourself as charismatic, fun, and creative.

Your best friend’s brand would be awkward, endearing, and technologically challenged. 

Okay, so that is definitely more than three words, but who’s counting? You might as well tack on “Y/N’s big fat crush” at this rate because everyone and their mother knows that you carry a torch—or more accurately, a blazing wildfire that can easily be spotted from Pluto—for your best friend.

Well, to be more precise, you should probably say everyone, except Mark, knows. And that’s not for lack of trying either. You completely dropped the art of delicate subtlety months ago already. Maybe you should add “hopelessly oblivious” instead.

The rolling end credits to the sixth Harry Potter film are playing on the screen in front of you, signaling the nearing end of your magical movie marathon. You’re seated on the worn down couch in Mark and Donghyuck’s shared apartment, watching the former make his drink with the fancy, gently used Keurig newly settled on the scratched countertop. Johnny dropped it off a few days ago because he had splurged on a better coffee machine (“It even makes Instagram worthy whipped frappuccinos!”) and didn’t want his old, but still perfectly functioning caffeine provider going to waste.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Mark slaps the side of the machine, and it starts to emit a low whirring noise. “Oh, that’s good, right? That sound is good, you think?”

His question is immediately answered by the sad squirt of hot water speckled with coffee grinds falling into his mug for a few seconds before the machine shuts off.

“What the hell?” he mutters angrily, carding his hand through his hair in frustration, and you finally decide to take pity on your best friend. Getting up from the comfy spot you know you sadly won’t be able to recreate perfectly again later, you stride over to where your best friend stands and flip open the top of the Keurig.

“Hyuck didn’t take out his used coffee pod,” you say, pulling out the incriminating evidence of your best friend’s roommate and disposing it in the trash can next to the refrigerator. “Where’s the espresso one you’re gonna use? Why didn’t you put that in?”

His jaw slackens, and he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze and mumbling, “I thought I’d just open it later and pour it into my hot water.”

“Mark,” you start, placing your hands on his shoulders firmly and staring into his eyes with a serious look on your face. “Please know that I’m saying this in the most loving way possible, but you are an absolute idiot.”

You release your grip on his shoulders and grab the espresso pod dangling from his fingertips before slotting it into the Keurig. You remove the mug he placed underneath the spout and wash out the accidental coffee water before placing it back in its original position and pressing the start button on the machine. With a sigh, you lean against the side of the counter, glancing at your friend who looks like a child being scolded for stealing from the cookie jar.

“If you pour the pod into your mug, are you just going to chug all the loose coffee grinds, too?”

“... I didn’t think that far ahead.” His lips start to unintentionally form a tiny pout, and your eyes (and your heart, too) soften.

You’re very relieved that Donghyuck is off filming with your friend because he definitely would be making fun of your heart eyes that frequently make an appearance around a certain Mark Lee. Which you always deny. Because you certainly do not have a gigantic crush on your technologically inept best friend.

You glance over at him again and have to physically fight yourself to resist the urge to kiss his cute pout away. Okay, so maybe you harbor a very respectable, medium sized crush. But it's no big deal. It’s completely under control. Unless you’re counting the fact that your best friend is still unaware, and you’re running out of ideas to try and see if he likes you back before you actually shoot your shot. Then it’s very much not under control because you’re losing sleep over it and you don’t know what to do to be any more obvious without stating the, well, obvious.

“Well, now you know. If you forget, you can FaceTime me and I’ll give you instructions on how it works.” You pat his shoulder reassuringly before pausing. “Wait, you do know how to FaceTime, right?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, sulking even more before confessing in a quieter, defeated tone, “Hyuck showed me last month.”

Mark grabs his finished drink and follows behind you, settling back onto the couch next to you. The streaming service already has Deathly Hallows Part 1 in the queue and ready to go, and your best friend is ready to click play until he notices your attention being focused on the smaller screen in your hands. He wonders if you’re about to post another one of your popular cooking videos on that app that shares a name with the most iconic song of the 2000s (hint: the name of the song’s singer is made up of four letters and a dollar sign).

“Are you uploading one of your videos?” he implores before taking a sip of his drink with a satisfied smile. Somehow, it always tastes better when you make it, and he can’t figure out why for the life of him. When he went to Johnny’s place, his older friend uses the exact same pod and water ratio for his espresso, and yet, it’s never as good as yours.

“Nah, I’m ordering my grocery delivery before I forget. Do you want anything?” You select the option to load your usual grocery items into your cart before debating on whether or not you should splurge on buying several packages of those seasonal Pillsbury sugar cookies that only come in stock during certain holidays. It seems like such an insult to the entire premise of your Tiktok account based on baking and cooking, but you’re an absolute sucker for those soft pastries.

“Yeah, can you get me a Shin Ramyun ten pack? Hyuck ate the last one two days ago and didn’t tell me.”

“You sure you don’t want ten boxes again?” You decide to get those Pillsbury sugary delights, happily adding three boxes to your cart. Everybody has a weakness, and yours just so happens to be a premade one way ticket to diabetes. You’re here for a good, delicious time, not a long time.

“No! That was an accident!” He objects, flailing his hands around, before falling back against the couch cushions in defeat. “But Hyuck does all the online grocery shopping now.”

“Thank god. You guys finally have quality toilet paper again.”

The past month of bathroom occurrences was plagued with scratchy tissue that felt more like goddamn sandpaper from the horrible depths of hell. To be honest, you probably would have rather used actual sandpaper, given the choice. You even made sure not to drink too much water any time you came over, but today, you decided to splurge on a venti passion fruit iced tea with sweetener from that very popular franchise sporting a mermaid logo and fiscally cosmic name. To your pleasant surprise, your trip to the toilet this time was wonderfully padded with Charmin Ultra Soft, not that absolutely awful off brand one with the gross texture of a dried pinecone from inferno.

“Hey, that toilet paper was a good steal! It was a three for one deal,” Mark protests, and you narrow your eyes at him.

“Wow, I wonder why it was priced so low.” You deadpan, and Mark blanches, recalling all those restroom incidents that were rather rough. Literally.

“Anyway, do you think my viewers wanna see me make chocolate crinkle cookies or mochi doughnuts?” You bring up the two recipes you managed to perfect and add your own spin to on your phone, eyes scanning the ingredient lists.

“Both. And tell me when you’re making them, so I can come over and eat them.” He gives you a wide grin, and you let out a snort at that. His smile only grows as he says happily, “I love your job.”

“You only love it because you can freeload off of me,” you jest, but nevertheless begin to start to add all the ingredients for both recipes to your shopping cart. You always film cooking videos on Tuesdays, edit on Wednesdays, keep Thursdays free for last minute touch ups and emergencies, and post one every week on Fridays with other various random videos uploaded whenever in between. With that in mind, you schedule your upcoming grocery delivery for Monday.

“Hey, you need me. I’m the best taste tester.” He puffs up his chest proudly before hastily tacking on a more genuine reason. “And because I’d starve without you. I can’t live off of instant ramen and frozen chicken nuggets forever. Gordon Ramsay already confirmed my shitty cooking skills. I need you to survive.”

“Oh my god, when I uploaded those pics of your scrambled eggs on Twitter, I lost like a hundred followers in less than a minute.” You confirm the delivery and place your phone on the coffee table, picking up the opened bag of Cheeto puffs before settling back in your seat. “My cooking credibility was completely shot. I had to explain to my fans that I didn’t make those.”

“Yeah, but now everyone calls me Eggy Boi online!” he whines, and you laugh. You have to admit, it’s quite a funny play on the whole “edgy boi” terminology. You wonder if Mark will find it amusing if he discovers his roommate is the culprit behind his new online persona (He probably won’t, and you reckon Donghyuck enjoys living in a safe space where he doesn’t have to sleep with one eye open, so you stay quiet about it. You’ll use it as leverage some other time).

“Okay, Eggy Boi, come by on Tuesday because I’ll be baking in the afternoon,” you say casually, grabbing the remote control from your best friend and pressing play. 

You very narrowly avoid a green gummy bear to the face. It lands somewhere behind the couch, lost forever to the dust bunnies and other snacks that missed its target. You know for a fact that it’ll stay there until the boys decide to move to a new apartment. Mark grumbles at the miss, biting off the head of a red cherry flavored gummy bear perhaps a little harder than necessary.

“I hate you. But I’m still coming over next week because I want a doughnut.”

“No cookie?”

“... and a cookie. Maybe two.”

Wednesday comes faster than you expected, and you’re currently holed up in your apartment’s second bedroom—which you had transformed into a snazzy office space—completing the edits to your second video on mochi doughnuts. You already finished polishing the one about the cookies earlier, thank goodness. If you had to stare at your computer screen for another three hours, you would rather eat those pastries Mark tried to make two months ago, but had mistaken salt for sugar. Adding a cup of salt to any baked good is an extremely effective way to make anyone who tasted your best friend’s brownies experience a trip to the beach. Because they essentially just swallowed a mouthful of sand and ocean water. Because it’s salty as heck. Just like Mark was when you told him.

Speaking of your best friend, he’s currently puttering around in your kitchen doing god knows what. He knows better than to try another recipe and possibly blow up your number one moneymaker—your prized oven—in the process. Your heart nearly drops when your ears pick up the faint chopping sounds of a knife against your wooden cutting board. Is he going to try to temper chocolate again? He nearly burned through your entire stock of dark, milk, and white chocolate last time.

After much contemplation and deciding that you deserve a good procrastination break and a fully intact kitchen, you’re about to go out and see what he’s up to when Mark timidly appears in your doorway, clutching onto a white bowl of watermelon cubes with a fork tucked neatly in it. He shuffles in, dropping the snack on your desk before turning to walk out without a word, not wanting to disturb your work mode. 

Your heart warms up at the sight, and you speak up, a small smile slipping into your face. “What’s this for?”

“Knowing you, you probably haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” He pauses in the doorway and adds on sheepishly, “And I can't cook anything, so this is what you get.”

Your heart swells tenfold, and your smile widens even more as you spear a piece of fruit with the fork and quickly pop it into your mouth. “Thanks, Marky.”

His cheeks flush with a pretty shade of carmine, and he fails to suppress the little giddy smile that appears on his face at your nickname for him. He walks out of your office, reddened cheeks still rising up higher than ever. “Y-Yeah, of course. No problem.”

By the time you finish adding the final few touches to your edited video, the bowl of watermelon has been picked clean. You save your video and transfer both of your completed projects to your phone, making a mental note to schedule their uploads and add them to your account’s posting queue later. Shoving your phone in the pocket of your sweats after ensuring the successful transfer of your videos, you pick up the empty dish and walk out towards the kitchen, the silver fork clinking against the side of the bowl with every step.

As you wash the dish and utensil, Mark wanders over from his spot on the couch, leaning forward and casually placing his chin on your shoulder. Almost instantaneously, you feel the heat rising to your cheeks as you briefly fantasize about your best friend wrapping his arms around your waist and how domestic and sweet the two of you would look, like one of those cheesy couples the two of you always made fun of.

“What’s up?” you ask, making a conscious effort to hold your voice steady and not waver over the fact that Mark is basically draped over you. After you place the dish on the drying rack, you turn around to face your best friend, sorely miscalculating the distance as mere inches separate your face from his now.

“I—” Puberty decides to make an ugly appearance in the form of an ill timed voice crack, and he internally curses as he takes a step back, willing the incoming blush to go away. Letting out a small cough, he tries again, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

“I, um, Jisung sent me some kind of dance video. He said it’s a challenge? I kinda don’t know what to do with it? Like do I make a new dance, record myself, and send it back? Actually, isn't it easier to just do a dance battle face to face?”

“Can I see the video?” You already have a good idea on what the video will be, but you want to confirm it. Mark fumbles with his phone, pulling up the video in his text messages. He angles the phone towards you for you to see, and you grab his hand, bringing the device a little closer to you for a better look and clicking play.

“Oh, it’s a Tiktok challenge! He’s doing the Say So dance!” you exclaim, recognizing the song almost immediately as your eyes follow the fluid dance moves, completely enthralled. “So a challenge isn’t going up against someone, like a battle. It’s just some kind of trend or concept that you try to copy yourself. You’re supposed to learn the same dance and record yourself for this one. I can show you some other challenges and help you practice and record this one tomorrow if you wanna drop by after work!”

“O-Oh, okay, sounds good.” Mark stumbles over his words, attempting to focus on what you’re saying and the dance Jisung is doing, but all he can think about is the way your body is pressed against his side, hand comfortably wrapped around his. He freezes up as the tips of his ears grow redder and redder with every passing second, and his face sports a similar color. He silently prays for the telltale crimson to go away by the time the dance is over.

When the video ends, you once again realize the close proximity between you and your best friend. Your face burns at this revelation, and you awkwardly take a step back. Clearing your throat, you hastily release Mark’s hand (He inaudibly lets out the breath he’s been holding in this entire time, yet he also already misses the way your hand felt grasping his).

“Uh, anyway, I’m gonna make a latte. Do you want a drink, too?” You walk towards the other side of your kitchen with Mark trailing behind you. You take out a floral, peachy colored mug from your cupboards before pausing and looking at your best friend. “Wait, do you remember how to use a Keurig?”

“Yes!” He says, slightly exasperated as he picks out his own cup from your cabinet. He always uses the same one—a cerulean blue mug with squiggles all over it—and all of your friends and guests know not to use it because it’s unofficially officially Mark’s mug (And perhaps, you did indeed buy it from that overpriced kitschy tableware shop down the street two years ago with your best friend in mind).

“Really?” You select the latte option and press start after you had already positioned the mug beneath the spout and inserted a green tea matcha pod. He finally relents, shoulders sagging and a defeated expression on his face.

“... No.”

You chuckle, taking the mug from him and carefully putting it on the counter. You grab the espresso pod you know he likes from the drawer below and place it next to the cup. “It’s okay, I’ll teach you again.”

Mark tries. He really does. He tries very hard to concentrate on memorizing the simple process, but he keeps getting distracted. His eyes are focused on the correct button to push before they start to trail up to your fingertips. And then, they go from your hand to your arm, then up to the elegant curve of your neck, and finally, to the way your lashes frame your pretty eyes and how the tip of your tongue sticks out slightly as you concentrate until all he can focus on is you, you, you.

Suddenly, in what feels like a blink of an eye, you’re done and handing him his finished drink, complete with a perfectly whipped milk foam on top. You ask him if he knows how to make it now, and all he can do is lie and nod with a barely convincing smile.

After all, how can Mark tell his best friend that the reason he never remembers is because you’re the biggest distraction?

Mark should be here in five minutes, according to his most recent text message. And in the text message below that, your friend had sent you a challenge. More specifically, it’s the one she completed with Donghyuck a few weeks ago. When you said you wanted bold suggestions on how to figure out if your best friend feels the same way about you as you do about him, you didn’t want one this bold. 

Yet, the video link to your friend’s “today I kissed my best friend” challenge along with a winky face from her is staring mockingly at you. While you aren’t one to back down from a challenge, the mere thought of kissing your best friend causes vast colonies of butterflies to erupt in your stomach and your ears to feel as if they have caught on fire. You’re already tongue tied with your head in the clouds, and he isn’t even here yet. How utterly fantastic.

However, your mother definitely did not raise a quitter, so you spring into action when you hear the faint jingling of a key being inserted into your apartment’s door (You had given Mark a copy of your key almost immediately after you had moved in). You move the pretty indoor fern given to you by Jaemin as a housewarming gift last year closer to the edge of your towering bookcase, leaning your phone against it. You quickly position the device to capture a good view of the couch area in your living room and press the record button, arranging a few of the leaves to hide as much of your phone as you possibly can without obstructing the lens.

You run full speed to your bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief when you’re safely inside and hear Mark finally unlocking the door successfully and shuffling in. When he calls out to you, you try to even out your breathing, walking out of your room with your tripod and laptop in hand.

“Hey,” you greet him in the most casual tone you can muster. You place the tripod down and sit before opening your laptop and setting it on the coffee table. “I thought we could watch a few challenges for fun before trying the Say So one. Have you watched Jisung’s videos before?”

“Um, well, no, not really,” he confesses sheepishly, taking a seat next to you on the couch, leg pressing against yours. He squints at the YouTube video you pulled up earlier before he had arrived, reading the title before clicking the space button to start it. “Savage Tiktok dance compilation part two?”

“Wait, hold up.” You pause the video and then turn to face him with an incredulous expression on your face. “You’ve never watched any of Jisung’s dance Tiktoks?”

“No… I don’t even have an account.” His cheeks are dusted with the lightest shade of pink as he quietly admits, “I watch all of yours though.”

Your eyes widen at his confession, face heating up as you stammer out, “O-Oh, well, I can help you make an account later to upload your video.”

“Sounds good.” There’s a few seconds of silence as you mull over his previous words before he speaks up again awkwardly, “Should I, uh, play the video?”

“Oh! Yes, right! Of course, hit play,” you laugh nervously, twisting and playing with the hair tie around your wrist. He starts the video again, and the two of you watch the compilation, slowly relaxing once more as you tap your fingers to the rhythm of the song and he bobs his head to the beat.

“Do I have to change outfits like that?” he questions a few minutes later, eyes growing round as he sees the girl on the screen switch between four different outfits throughout the dance. His closet basically consists of the same five black shirts that he stole from Jaehyun. Even if he did do an outfit swap, there would literally be no difference at all.

“You don’t have to,” you assure him, clicking the enter key to play the next video that’s recommended: another Tiktok dance challenge compilation. “All you have to do is copy the dance.”

Mark nods, taking a glance at the laptop screen before his hand shoots out and he pauses the video, leaning forward to take a closer look at the little recommended video title banner at the top. “Wait! What’s that one?”

He clicks on it, the new video now loading up. The two of you wait patiently for it to begin, waiting for the spinning disc to stop. But it doesn’t. In fact, the whole chrome page goes blank and then, the little pixelated Google Chrome dinosaur pops up on your monitor, announcing that you have no internet connection. Furrowing your eyebrows, you try to reload the page before trying to re-establish your laptop connection to your wifi. Unfortunately, you cannot find your appropriately named “drop it like it’s hotspot” wifi anywhere to connect to.

And that’s when it hits you. Your landlord had sent out a notice to the entire apartment complex last week about the electricity being powered down today from 4 to 6 p.m. for a maintenance check, and a quick glance at the digital clock on your laptop shows that it’s a little past four.

You groan, closing your laptop and flopping back against the couch cushions dramatically. Mark cocks his head, slightly confused, before he pokes you in the arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I completely forgot about the scheduled electricity shutdown for the entire building. We won’t have any wifi for the next two hours.” You pout, your bottom lip jutting out in the slightest, and Mark doesn’t think it’s fair that you get to be this cute and have this much of an effect on his racing heart rate.

“That’s okay, we can… play some board games?” he suggests offhandedly, pushing away the embarrassing thought and nudging your leg with his, and you smile before a sudden idea occurs to you. 

“Or we can still do some Tiktok challenges! What was the challenge you clicked on?” You quickly sit upright, turning to face your best friend, eyes sparkling in excitement. “I memorized a few of the dance ones already! Was it Renegade? I can teach you that one. Jisung showed me how to do it.”

“Um,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. His eyes dart everywhere, except you, as he lets out a feigned cough. “It wasn’t a dance one. It was about, uh, going up to your boyfriend… and um, hugging him... when he’s playing video games.”

“Oh.” You answer lamely, not knowing what to say. You unsuccessfully try to push away the image of you attempting that challenge with your best friend. “Those are really cute.”

“Really?” He says doubtfully, wrinkling his eyebrows and fiddling with the frayed sleeve of his sweater. “Wouldn’t the dude get mad?”

You don’t know what suddenly possessed you to do this (you’ll have to ask Renjun and his paranormal loving ass later), but you thank whatever demon did for that split second because you find yourself gently grabbing Mark’s arm and slipping your head underneath it. You swing one leg over his lap and settle down until you’re securely sitting in his lap, bent legs on either side of his hips, hands curled around the soft fabric of his sweater on both sides and resting on top of your thighs. His arms instinctively go around your waist, wrapping around you securely.

You tilt your head to the side slightly, studying the flustered boy in front of you with a teasing, albeit a little anxious, smile on your lips. “Are you feeling mad?”

Splotches of red litter his cheeks and decorate the tips of his ears, but your best friend furiously shakes his head at your question, bashfully ducking his head afterwards and muttering a soft “No.”

You swallow hard, heart pounding erratically in your chest as you timidly ask, “Would you be mad if I do this?”

Mark looks up at that, confusion written all over his face. His arms start to loosen around your figure, hands now resting on your waist. “If you do what?”

You take a deep breath. “This.”

You lean in and gently press your lips against his. Mark freezes in shock, and you quickly retreat soon after, gnawing at the inside of your cheek as you wait anxiously for his reaction. Your heart feels like it’s about to fall out of your chest and be buried six feet under.

A tiny noise of surprise belatedly escapes from him and crimson spreads across his cheeks like wildfire. His doe eyes are wide and sparkling, staring at you in bewilderment. Your best friend lets out a small laugh of disbelief before a full blown smile breaks out across his face. He gazes at you adoringly, breathing out softly, “I’m not mad at that.”

You perk up at that, draping your arms around his neck as you lean forward, beaming. “Really? You’re not?”

“Definitely not.”

This time, Mark meets you halfway, his lips slotting against yours perfectly and making you feel tingles up and down your spine. Your eyes are closed, and you are so hyper aware of the way his hands grip your hips, how he tugs you closer, and how his lips chase after yours. The number of butterflies from earlier multiply in your stomach, and you have ascended past cloud nine by now.

When the two of you break apart, your eyes flutter open, and you nudge your nose against his affectionately. The brightest grin blooms on his face once again, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, muffling his little giggles and hiding the awfully vibrant cerise that rapidly blossoms on his face.

“Is this a good time to tell you congrats for completing your first challenge?” you say, resting your cheek against the crown of his head. You pull away when he lifts his head up, surprised.

“I wasn’t playing video games though,” he says slowly, processing your words and thinking back to the challenge that started this all.

“It was a different challenge. It’s the one that Hyuck did a few weeks ago,” you confess, and realization dawns on him, his face lighting up for a split second before a look of horror takes over.

“Oh, no. Is that why you had your phone recording on the bookshelf?” Mark asks, dread beginning to cloud his mind.

“Yes…” you say slowly, a little perplexed. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Oh my god, I ruined your video,” he moans, dropping his forehead onto your shoulder. “I saw your phone when I walked in and thought you were filming earlier and forgot to turn it off, so I turned it off for you.”

When the words finally register in your mind, you can’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of your throat, and he raises his head up to look at you with wide doe eyes at the pretty sound. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

You can’t stop laughing at the situation, and he looks at you worriedly, gnawing on his bottom lip slightly. You force yourself to calm down, a soft chuckle leaving your lips before you beam at him, leaning in and placing the softest kiss on the tip of his nose. “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not mad. That video wasn’t important anyway.”

“But still,” he whines before letting out a groan and slapping his hand against his forehead when the realization sinks in even further. “I’m such an idiot.”

“But you’re my idiot now, right?” you say teasingly, albeit a little shyly as well, as you reach over to tug his hand away from his face and lace your fingers with his.

“I mean, I kinda thought I was always your idiot,” Mark laughs softly and a little embarrassedly, eyes averted and cheeks turning pinker than ever. The largest grin spreads across your face at that, and you turn away slightly to hide it. You didn’t think your best friend can possibly be any more endearing, but he manages to prove you wrong every time.

“Well, then now you can add ‘Y/N’s boyfriend’ to your resume,” you say, and he fails to suppress the pleased smile appearing on his face at your remark, his rosy cheeks rising even taller than skyscrapers.

“So, uh, what sort of job description does that have?” He gazes at your intertwined hands in wonder, still completely giddy at the reality of you being his best friend and something more.

“Sharing hoodies, giving me attention, kissing, holding my hand, going on dates, you know, the basics,” you answer, squeezing his hand tenderly, and his doe eyes instantly light up. Mark feels a little bolder than before, and it shows when he grins widely and says:

“Can we do number three again?”

“Yes, we can, Eggy Boi.”

He wrinkles his nose at the name, disgruntled and unimpressed, as he crosses his arms over his chest, sulking. You let out a laugh before leaning in and crashing your lips against his. He immediately relents at that, enthusiastically responding and hugging you closer to him, and you can’t help but smile into the kiss as you feel his own smile appear as well.

At that moment, you decide that you want to change Mark’s personal brand. Because his should be “absolutely wonderful, positively amazing, a cute kisser, your boyfriend, and your bestest friend.” And yes, that is most definitely more than the allotted three words, but again, who’s really counting?

Certainly not you when you’re too preoccupied with kissing your best friend. Correction: best friend and new boyfriend.

One new notification: donutkillmyvibe uploaded a new video!

moominjun commented:

so you’re saying the reason why we didn’t get the highly anticipated best friend challenge video is because @ marklyrawr turned the camera off?

donutkillmyvibe replied: yes 😔 I’m sorry to disappoint everyone 🤧

nanaislove replied: omg no bby it’s ok 🥺🥺💞💓💓💝💗 you didn’t have to make an apology video for that 🥺💗💓💘💖

goofys.chuckle replied: yeah it’s mark’s fault. he’s the disappointment here 🥴

morklyrawr replied: hahahahaha stfu hyuck

tytrack commented:

mark is going through puberty. I apologize

dobunny replied: @.@

goofys.chuckle commented:

are we getting whip(ped)lash pt 2 by eggy boi?

morklyrawr replied: YOU’RE THE ONE WHO STARTED THAT NAME?????

goofys.chuckle replied: uh gotta blast 🚀

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle does this mean you’re staying over again?

goofys.chuckle replied: @ showmethemonet yes if you want your super cute, mega talented, very handsome boyfriend to still be alive 🥺

showmethemonet replied: @ goofys.chuckle oh my god I didn’t know I was dating bts jin???

moominjun replied: LMFAOOOOO

goofys.chuckle replied: heart 💔 been broke 📉 so many times ⏰ i don’t know 🤔 what to believe 💯 mama 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 said 🗣 it’s my fault 😢 it’s my fault 🤦🏻‍♂️i wear my heart ❤️ on my sleeve 💪 i think it’s best 👍🏻 I put my heart ❤️ on ice 🧊

jenojam commented:

why am I not surprised……

itsmebetch replied: just mark thingz 🍉

suhprisemf commented:

mark your head looks flat af

jungjaeprince replied: 😂😂😂

10vely replied: @ jungjaeprince be quiet don’t cry

letswonwon commented:

whoop whoop

junguwu commented:

OMG CONGRATS ON YOUR RELATIONSHIP SWEETIE 😍😍

takoyaki_prince commented:

MARK!!!!! you look handsome !! 😘

jisungpwark commented:

rip to @ donutkillmyvibe ’s future videos that mark will ruin. press f in the chat to pay respects 🙏🏻

bigheadking replied: F ✊🏻😔

peachyangel replied: f 🥺🥺

yoitslucas replied: F 🤪🤪🤪 but glad you’re happy, man ❤️

donutkillmyvibe replied: F 💔

morklyrawr replied: @ donutkillmyvibe wtf babe????

officialgordonramsay commented:

didn’t i tell you to get back on tinder ?

apado_god commented:

nice 😎👍🏻

[interstellar-changkyun]

SMUT: I.M | im changkyun

no truly this will be pure filth and i blame love killa changkyun entirely

(lowercase and very minimal punctuation basically wrote this like i would write a note in my notes app)

you had been whining and gasping, not trying to be quiet as you grabbed the sheets with one hand with the other inside of you.

changkyun was out late working, your shared apartment was left all to you, and his recent promotion pictures and photoshoots were the most of him you were seeing these days. you let your mind drift off to his oiled up chest and you whined his name as you felt yourself close to your limit.

you and changkyun had been taking it slow, you were a virgin after all but that didn’t mean you didn’t feel horny and well him and his lyrics about being equally frustrated didn’t help. you wanted nothing more than to take him every second he spent him at home but he was always tired and you would rather him rest than tend to your neediness.

you finished and then opted for changing your underwear, knowing he would be home soon. you were only wearing one of his shirts and panties anyways. you had misjudged exactly how soon he would be home because before you had the chance to change the front door was opening and oh god would he be able to tell what you had just been doing?

you hadn’t even had a chance to wash your hand, although you had licked it clean. you were panicking and you just put it behind your back as you went to greet him. fuck he looked like sex, shirt buttons undone, hair gelled back with a couple loose strands falling forward, and chains around his neck and rings on his fingers. you felt yourself blushing as his face lit up at the sight of you, “hey baby i missed you.” his voice sent a shiver down your spine as it was even deeper than usual from tiredness. he was saying that more often than not these days but you missed him just as much.

“i missed you too,” he pressed a kiss to your forehead as he pulled you in for a hug and you had to embrace him back to you let your offensive hand ghost his waist instead of touching it, he didn’t notice. “hmm you smell good,” he was nuzzling himself in the crook of your neck and your body was on fire and you couldn’t help but think maybe he was smelling your arousal.

“let’s get you changed and then i’ll make you something to eat,” he just nodded into your neck and you took his hand and led him to the bedroom. he sat on the bed, not making any motion to change himself and you just raised your eyebrow and he smirked. “help me?” you scoffed and stepped forward between his legs and started to take off his chains, he inhaled sharply at your cold hands touching his skin and you mumbled an apology. he shook his head and took both of your hands in his and rubbed them, even blowing warm air on them. you very suddenly remembered where one of your hands had been minutes prior and felt mortified, he didn’t notice again. when he was satisfied with warming your hands he let them go and you took off his chains and then you had to unbutton his shirt, oh god how would you survive this. of course you had seen changkyun shirtless before, he slept in his boxers after all but it was infinitely more intimate undressing him. he looked up at you, studying your expression and you were surely blushing as you unbuttoned him. he looked back, the cocky little shit, and when you were done and his abs were on display you forgot how to breathe. “my eyes are up here,” you just cleared your throat and went back to helping him out of his shirt. you were leaning into him, pulling his shirt off his shoulders and his head was turned towards you, if you turned yours you would be kissing him but you couldn’t handle that. if you started to kiss changkyun you wouldn’t stop, you’d lose the minutia of control you had over your body. this he noticed.

when his shirt was finally off you knew there was only his pants next so you stepped back and raised an eyebrow, surely he could take his own pants off. but changkyun was feeling especially tortuous today, and instead leaned back to let you pull the pants off of him. he was making you feverish. you felt like your cheeks could cook an egg. but he knew you wouldn’t back down from a challenge so you leaned over his reclined body and unbuckled his belt slowly letting him watch you as you tried to look as innocent and naive as possible, biting your lip in concentration. there wasn’t any speaking, if either of you spoke it wouldn’t alleviate any of the tension in the room anyways. after you had unbuckled it fully you unbuttoned his pants and tugged down gently, he wriggled a bit and you followed his pants as you pulled them down, kneeling between his legs as you pulled them off his ankles as he sat up now in his boxers. he was staring at you with a expression you couldn’t quite understand. it was dangerous, stupid even as you leaned forward between his legs. then he was stretching out a hand and his thumb was pulling your chewed up bottom lip from your teeth, and you couldn’t help the whine come from your throat, you were so desperate for his touch. as if that was all he needed to hear, his thumb pushed against your lips and you took it in, sucking on it, your hands resting on his strong thighs as an anchor. you felt like crying because this touch was the most intimate you had been with him in weeks and it was so much but not nearly enough. he noticed the tears forming and used his other hand to pull you up onto his lap. you were straddling him now, making sure your core was not on top of his member.

you took his hand in both of your hands and pulled it from your lips, with a lewd popping sound. “what’s wrong baby?” his voice was rough, it sent a shiver through you but you found words after a couple of seconds, “nuthin i just miss you so much.” he kissed your eyes slowly as his free hand found it’s way to your waist pulling you a little closer, you were dangerously close to his member and you prayed he couldn’t feel how wet your panties were from before.

“can i make it up to you?” he was kissing your lips now, and then moving to your neck. and you just hummed a little yes and then he bit down, you loved it when he bit you and marked you. you whined a little and subconsciously moved closer to him, unaware of your proximity to his member. and when you did he growled as he bit you again this time closer to your collarbone. “baby you’re too close,” and then you realized what he meant and thought about it a little and decided you didn’t really care. you loved changkyun and he loved you and you trusted him with your life and you weren’t scared to be with him. he was kissing your bite marks and nipping at your neck as you shifted closer, onto his hard member now. his head snapped up looking at you, “you’re sure?” and you knew he would want to hear the words, needed your consent and you said, “yes i love you.” he just smiled and kissed your lips, “i love you too, we can stop any time you want okay?” you nodded and kissed him again. you dropped his hand and it found your waist. he kissed you again urgently, you put your hands on his shoulders, needing something to ground you as he kissed the air out of your lungs.

then he was laying you down on the bed and you scooted up so you could lean against the headboard. he was hovering over you, kissing you, and his hands roamed up your leg past your panties and tugged your shirt upward. you forgot you had been wearing lingerie when you were masturbating earlier but the look on changkyun’s face meant it was a pleasant surprise. “holy fuck,” he gasped before kissing down your neck and chest and you gasped as he pulled down your bra and licked at your nipples, you could have cried from the stimulation. but you needed him elsewhere and groaned and pushed his head down, he chuckled. “someone’s bratty,” his tone indicated that would be revisited and you couldn’t wait. and then he was kissing your inner thighs and you were sure he could smell your arousal (from now or from prior) but it didn’t matter because he was pulling your panties down and revealing how wet you were. in an instance he was licking you up, making your back arch and moaning his name, “changkyun please fuck me please.”

“you have such a dirty mouth y/n i never knew,” he leaned back then and didn’t argue with you as he placed his fingers at your entrance.

“no no i’m prepped please i want to feel you,” you blurted out in admission and he smirked, he was about to finger you and he was smirking over your core. fucker.

“prepped?” you wanted the earth to swallow you whole.

“uhm yeah i was...right before you came,” you covered your face with your clean hand and changkyun must have noticed because he took the other hand in his own

“so that’s why you smelled like sex,” so he had known he was just waiting for your explanation. the fucking tease. and then he was licking your hand clean, he was a demon. “taste so good, i can’t get enough,” you were wet again. he took one last taste making you scream his name as he pulled his boxers down and showed just how hard he was. you wanted to faint because yeah you knew your boyfriend was packing but not to this scale. you felt like you were salivating and it didn’t matter because he was all yours and you wanted to taste him. you sat up and changkyun gave you a pointed look that made you lean back down, he pulled a condom from the bedside table and covered his member and you never took your eyes off of him, you must have been quite the sight, drooling and teary eyed.

all yours, that’s all you could think as he lined himself up with your entrance, he looked up once more and you nodded and then slowly he pressed into you. the stretch was more than your small fingers could have accounted for and you were saying every swear you knew and once the initial soreness had subdued a little you nodded again and changkyun began to thrust into you slowly, the headboard started to hurt your head with the movement so you moved down, directly under him now and he was singing praises for you, “feel so good baby fucking hell i’m gonna be addicted to this fuck.” his voice was so insanely deep and rough and it made you whine even more, “please changkyun harder.” and so he did go harder, pulling fully out before thrusting deep into you and you were screaming his name louder than you had ever screamed and he was drinking it up and then he was kneeling one hand under your thigh and the other found it’s way to your face and this time it wasn’t just his thumb but his ring and middle finger pressing down your throat making you gag a bit and you loved how his cold rings felt against your tongue and the way your eyes were tearing up. you agreed with him, you would get addicted to this too.

you came before he did as he thrusted deeply and hit you in a spot you could never reach with your small hands and then he was coming shortly after. he threw the condom away and changed his boxers before grabbing a towel and a new shirt, one of his for you. changkyun pulled you close to him after cleaning you up, your back against his chest.

“next time you’re ‘prepping,’ send me a vid,” he was not gonna let that go and you felt yourself blushing. but he wasn’t gonna embarrass you much further.

“i prefer your hands,” you turned towards him in his arms and caught his shocked expression. he just smiled and kissed you softly despite the content of your conversation and you fell asleep in his arms.

[michaelmyersmalewife]

it is a very human thing to love

nanami kento x reader

taken from these prompts

A/N: gets nsfw-ish towards the end, nothing explicit tho

He has never pretended that he was above the wants and needs of an average man. It was less of a punishment and more of a mercy - one that he had not been given in his youth, so maybe, somehow, he could spare someone the pain that had driven him to this decision. It was the least he could do. Pushing people away was supposed to be a good thing.

Nanami wasn’t lonely by nature. He wasn’t one to keep a circle of friends, in fact he always found himself more at ease alone. His time spent at a desk and the overbearing coworkers that came with it had beaten what little want for interaction he still had left out of him, and the inherent strangeness that seemed to accompany his fellow sorcerers did enough to repel him. Which isn’t to say he was completely unsociable (though whenever asked to join his colleagues for a night out he would politely decline). When he would visit his regular string of family-owned restaurants and bakeries, striking pleasant but inconsequential conversations with their workers, he was satisfied enough.

He had managed as a businessman, and he was managing as a sorcerer. He was, until you picked him up from a mission instead of Ijichi. You.

You could hardly be considered a sorcerer, barely managing to create a basic curtain let alone having enough cursed energy to do so (though, you had no interest in fighting, you confessed to him once). You were hired as an assistant under Ijichi, who by all accounts was overworked as it is. It was only a matter of time, Nanami supposed. He was used to other man’s skittish demeanor, the tired way he followed orders like a drone. He was not expecting that look in your eyes, two parts concerned and relieved. He was not expecting you to sprint out of the car and insist on patching him up in that dingy alley, even after he assured you that Shoko could handle it. He didn’t feel like arguing after you had already brought out the first aid kit you apparently kept in your trunk.

“She works so hard,” you said to him, cleaning off the blood that had coagulated along the length of his arm where a curse had gnawed off a piece of skin. “I just wanna make it easier for her.”

He hummed.

“Besides,” keeping pressure on the gauze you had wrapped around the wound, you taped it together. “That has to hurt, I just wanna help when I can.”

You’re doing enough, he wanted to say. Nanami only sighed.

.

You had quickly become a consistency in his life - a welcome one, much to his surprise. You would drop him off or pick him up, make some friendly conversation (most times you would share a comfortable silence, occasionally he would be the one to bring something up). It was never anything of any importance until, one day, you happened to mention a restaurant he had been meaning to visit. It was more of a hole in the wall really, but he heard good things.

Asking you out had been an accident. You agreed of course, it was the polite thing to do, he thought. It was just a lunch between friends - no, not friends, coworkers. But one lunch became two, then five, and in no time at all a year had passed. Nanami thought of himself as a man without regrets. He still was. Despite this, he hadn’t realized what was happening until his idea of mercy could no longer be merciful.

He realized this around the same time he realized he liked watching you talk. The way your face would light up when you talked about something that interested you (and you were very open about the things you loved - it didn’t take him long to find that you had a lot in common, much to his surprise), when you would possess a sudden somberness when your conversations took a more serious turn. You tended to talk with your hands, he noticed. He sometimes wondered what you noticed about him.

.

It wasn’t forecasted to rain that day, though the sky was cloudier than it would be on a usual spring day. You had been late to the lunch that you didn’t even need to schedule anymore. Traffic had been particularly bad, you said. Nanami nodded. It happens. Things carried on as usual until a gentle shower draped the city in a fine mist of droplets. By the time you dropped him off at his apartment, it was a thundering downpour.

“You can wait it out inside.” he said. It was the first time he had invited you inside his home, his most personal of bubbles that hardly anyone in his life had accessed. He hated the flinch in his heart when he saw you hesitate.

“It’s okay, I don’t wanna bother you.”

He ached. “Would you rather be out here?” he said with a sigh.

It only took you a moment of thought before you jogged in after him.

He expected the rain to clear out in about an hour, maybe less. When it didn’t, felt a knot form in his chest. He put a kettle on, grabbing two bags of tea - one you had recommended some months back, he hadn’t expected to like it as much as he did.

“I’ll leave in a bit,” you said, blowing the steam from your mug. “It’s getting late.”

There was an unsteadiness to your voice, and you would flinch whenever the thunder boomed somewhere outside. Nanami let out a soft grunt as he pushed himself up from where he sat across from you. When he came back, a blanket and two pillows tucked beneath his arms, you found yourself unable to find the words to question him.

“You can sleep in my room, I’ll take the couch.” He silently thanked you when you didn’t fight him on this.

.

Like most things you had seemingly brought into his life, spending hours at a time in his home had become a regular thing for you. Sometimes you would bring the ingredients needed for a recipe he’d been wanting to try, or you would watch a movie one of you had picked out. Somehow, he wasn’t at all surprised when, one night, you had kissed him on your way out.

He knew what this meant, what it entailed. He wanted to let you go so badly, he didn’t want to drag you further into a world he already believed didn’t deserve a person like you. Loving you meant locking you in place, and Nanami didn’t want to think that he could be so cruel.

But Nanami is painfully human. You stayed the night the next day. You walked across his vision like something bright and burning, blinding him. He didn’t deserve to see you, to have you like this. Not with all the possibilities that he would list in his head right before he would walk out the door every morning.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, rubbing your thumb along the curve of his cheek, as though to coax whatever he was holding in out like a timid animal.

Nanami wasn’t sure what was worse: the possibility that he regretted every action that led to this moment, or the fact that he didn’t. Not a second. Not even close.

Slipping from your grasp, he lay on his side, cradling you against his chest as he rested his head on your shoulder. Kissing your temple, he closed his eyes.

“Nothing.”

[whaleofatjme1920]

Right Back Where You Started

Right Back Where You Started

[Masky/Timothy Wright X F!Reader]

[Warnings: slight blood, slight violence, language]

[AN: Four of my OC's are in here! This was also requested from a friend a while ago.]

The beauty about being able to live a life outside of murdering people and being at the whim of a monster that fancies itself as a god is a variety of your own accord.

For instance, you can wake up whenever you feel like, take a job wherever there’s openings, meet new people and not have to bash their brains in just for asking about your life and only need to pick up a blade to cut food or occasionally packages you impulsively bought on the nights that feel like too much and not enough all in one. You can breathe and not worry about inky black tendrils crushing your throat for doing so without his permission. You’re able to sleep at night knowing that no higher up in your group will attempt to kill you in an act of proxy related hazing. You can clear your mind temporarily of the thoughts of what may come next in trade for semi-normalcy even though you know those thoughts won’t go away anytime soon. The weight of what you’d done was too much to bear, and Atlas can only disappear for so long.

When you first decided to betray your boss, the tall man in the woods, the faerie that steals children away, you acted on impulse. It was an impulse that was born from being all too exhausted with risking your life, committing sin upon sin and other terrible, no good things that should ever be uttered. The decision you made on impulse had no foresight or planning, and when you decided to run, you ran as far and as hard as you could away from him. Away from them. Away from it all. Of course, you know there were going to be repercussions for running like so few others did.

The ire of the Slender Man being the worst.

Most days, you try not to think of him. There’s no point - well, maybe there is a healthy fear you still have - but to worry yourself into a stupor would be silly now. You’ve been free of him for a year. He hasn’t sent you any signs, nor has he sent anyone… Maybe you weren’t important enough to set him off like some of the others had.

These are the things you like to think about as you sit on your couch watching the late night news that’s barely audible as you scroll through your phone. You never really did like the total silence an empty house provides. There’s a simmer cup of tea on the coffee cup and a few snacks laid out that you have little plans of eating while you relax and enjoy the midsummer night. Outside, you can hear crickets sing and cicadas accompany them. It’s peaceful, and while your mind would like to think of it as such, you can’t ignore the ringing in the back of your head. Things have been pleasant, too pleasant. There’s bound to be a storm due to roll in.

Still, you try not to think of these things, and instead focus on the content that scrolls in and out of your vision. It’s nothing particularly interesting, but helps get your mind off the things that often keep you up. And you continue to sit there on the couch, wrapped up in a light blanket to combat your AC as the hours of the night tick by. Your mind is completely off of really, any higher cognitive thought, when you hear something. It’s soft, low, sounds like two, maybe three people and they’re out in the distance. Must just be stumbling onto the borders of your ‘farm’.

See, the funny thing about trying to integrate into normal human life is that you physically can’t. You can follow all their customs, get into their society, look like them, but you’ll never be fully human. You want to know why? Proxies can never go back to what they used to be. They’re forever changed, and no force on heaven of earth can ever get rid of that. He can take your memory and dump you on the side of the road, but your biology has forever been changed. In most cases, it’s a nice thing to have: faster healing, better pain tolerance, heightened senses, and a better sense of problem solving than most people. Other days, it’s a hindrance for reasons you can’t quite explain. Some call it Slender Sickness, and the only way to remedy it is to be under the tall man’s care.

Because you’re not, you’ve found other ways to remedy the sickness he inflicts on practically everything he touches. Pills. You find them in odd, strange places, but they get the job done. So long as you have them, you can be free of his grasp and his connection.

But goddamn, the hearing is mostly a hindrance. On the account of you living on the edge of a college town, you’ve got land and are surrounded by farmer’s fields. You heat it all- critters in the night, teens messing with the patches, arguments, sometimes crimes, and it keeps you up at night. That’s a downside to not having him in your life- he’s not there to dampen its effects when it becomes too much. However, in this specific instance, your heightened hearing is a blessing.

The feeling in your gut only furls together tighter as you hear the three strolling down your dirt road. They’re close, much too close. You know that they’re here for you.

Frantically, you jump off the couch and start to damage control by making the place look like no one inhabits it. The TV and lights are turned off, the mug emptied of its contents, snacks put away and other leads buried. Your heart pounds a mile a minute - you know that if he finds you, it’s all over.

He’ll kill you - the Slender Man is not known for his mercy.

You feel like a chicken with its head cut off as you look around the house for weapons before settling on the kitchen knife. It’s cliché and reminds you of someone you once heard whispers about, but it’s all you can think of in this moment. When you left this life, you left the physical parts of it as well. All your gear, weapons, they’re hidden in a place that’s too risky for you to even attempt getting. Armed with the kitchen knife, you debate running out the back or hiding, then running. You always were good at staying out of sight, hiding it is.

Your eyes dart to the basement door and you slip through right as you hear the three outside your front door. There’s a window that opens in the direction of the town. If you slip out of it, you’ll be able to get a good headtstart through the field. The moment you start booking it down the stairs, you hear your front door get blown open.

“Wallace, what do you think?” You hear a male’s voice ask.

“Someone’s been in here recently,” a deeper male voice responds - must be Wallace, eyeing over your living room.

In the darkness, you quietly maneuver the crowded, cluttered basement, mentally cursing you left your phone upstairs in your haste.

“It feels like someone’s been in here,” Wallace’s voice continues. You can practically hear him smelling the air. “Ruth, tell Nyein to sniff this one out.”

You hear boots scuff against your wooden floor and stop somewhere in the doorway. “You could always just ask them yourself,” the female voice identified as Ruth verbally shrugs. She clicks her tongue, and you hear even more steps. How many of these people are there? You hope it’s just four. That’s a well sized group, come to think of it. “Ny, can you please sniff this one out? Seems like they’ve done a good job at scent covering.”

A beat of silence passes.

“Don’t give us any attitude,” the first male voice hisses slightly. “Do what you’re told-”

“Theo,” Wallace sharply reprimands.

You hear Theo sigh right as you reach the window. You pray to whatever deity will have you that it won’t squeak or make any loud noises, but the thing hasn’t been opened in gods know how long. You use the blade to lightly cut through the layers of off-white paint before the window is free. You mentally smile before attempting to lift it.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Nyein got your scent. Their pupils dilate upon realizing you’re the one the Slender Man has requested alive. You hear someone rapidly padding to the basement.

Panic fills your veins as you struggle to get the window open, not even caring that it’s making all the noise in the world. You need to get out!

“She padlock this thing?” You hear Ruth ask before she grunts. The door can’t hold them back forever.

You frantically push up on the window - it's a quarter open, not near enough for you to slip through. Shit, shit, shit! You need to go NOW.

“Jesus- just break it already,” Wallace sighs.

A few more grunts and you hear the wood splinter. You hear them descending the steps quickly.

“There!” Theo points.

You hold your breath and push the window up with all your strength before hosting yourself up.

“Shit! Out the front! Ny, keep on her,” Wallace commands as he smacks Ruth and Theo’s shoulder, the two quickly following him up the stairs.

You begin to shimmy out the narrow window as the being called ‘Nyein’ eyes you down. You don’t think you’ve ever seen an independent like that before. They look absolutely feral, and the scent of you has them locked on your crawling form.

Their eyes narrow, teeth bared, and they quickly lunge across the space for you, right as your legs reach the windowsill.

You cry out in surprise as their clawed hand digs into your ankle, drawing blood you know you can’t afford to worry about.

“Get off!” You shout in retaliation, kicking at their face. Freed, you begin to sprint into the field.

Nyein snarls and crawls out the window as well, running after you with a speed that has you on edge. You continue to run. Behind you, you can hear the other three quickly gaining on you as well. How badly does the Slender Man want you? Your lungs light on fire as they chase you through the field. Soon, you’ll be hitting the small stretch of trees before you reach the town. With other people, you’ll have a better chance at being safe. But the stretch of woods is an awful mess of brush and loose soil. You can’t afford to misstep now.

You take in a deep breath as you hurl into the small stretch of trees, all too aware of the proxies and independent that are hot on your trail. In the back of your head, you can tell they’re tired of you. Good. They should be. You narrowly avoid twisted roots and piles of mud and grow closer and closer to other people.

It’s so close that you can almost touch it.

Lost in your thoughts and too tunnel visioned in on reaching the town, you fail to recognize the steel jaw trap in the darkness and send your shoe right on it. It clamps down, bites, and holds you. You screech and fall forward, careening into the forest floor. The pain in your leg is absolutely agonizing, and you claw at it in vain to free yourself as your pursuers close in on you.

“Gave us quite the chase, Reader,” Wallace says with a slight scowl as he crouches a healthy distance from you. “Should let you rot here,” he muses. You can’t see his face both from the darkness of the night and the fact he’s wearing a mask, but you can tell he’s upset.

“Or let Ny eat her. Been a while since they’ve last had anything,” Theo adds on, glaring at you through the eyeholes of his mask that’s the head of a pig.

“He said he wanted her alive,” Ruth chimes in, a sigh in her tone. “She’s already fucked herself up enough, let’s not rub salt in the wounds.”

“Put her to sleep then,” Wallace shrugs.

You look up at these people like a caged animal, your eyes narrowing and slightly watering at the pain of the steel jaw trap. You feel yourself inching closer and closer to the earth subconsciously as Nyein eyes you like a prize.

\ They reach their hand out to touch you before you smack them away. Their snarl, their eyes traveling down to your ankle where the blood smells the strongest.

“Do it before they eat her,” The deep voiced man says again. “Though, last I checked, Ny doesn’t eat proxies.”

“She’s a traitor, not a proxy,” Ruth lightly corrects, her gaze alone shushing you from making any noise.

Not wanting to work yourself up, you settle for cursing them under your breath.

Without any other words, Ruth comes up to you, resting her boot on your chest to keep you down. You attempt to grab at her leg, throw her off balance, but she’s stronger than you on account of still being an active proxy. Her dark eyes scan you up and down before she reaches into her back pocket. “Take a deep breath for me,” she murmurs before smacking the rag to your mouth and nose.

You flail about, screaming and cursing before reluctantly taking that breath.

“... Thank you, you’ve done well. Head out to - yes, that’s right, Theo - head there and I will give you further instruction.”

You blearily come to on the carpet of an office you hoped you’d never be back in. The smell of jasmine and incense hangs in the air. You hear a door shut and catch the boots of the people who brought you back to him leave the room. He must be sending them out to their next assignment; it’s probably some poor other bastard that won’t escape like you did. You take in a few timid breaths and allow the light to filter in.

There he is, your boss. He stands in front of you like a god. He has no face, but you can tell he’s more than upset.

“Miss Reader, what a pleasure,” he says in a deep, authoritarian tone.

On instinct, you feel yourself shrinking.

“Really?” He muses, inky black tendrils sprouting from his back. “You have the nerve to run from me, suppress me, and now you do this? You dare show your submission?” He hisses. The tendrils move like bolts of electricity as they wrap around your exhausted, terrified form.

You cringe as the tendrils take over every part of you, squeezing as if they’re threatening to break your bones if you so much as breathe out of turn. Tears well in your eyes as you remember the fear you used to feel rushing back and overloading your senses.

“You’re absolutely pathetic,” he spits as the tendril wrapped around your neck begins to constrict. You notice his body language bristle as he looks at you longer. “I could pop your eyeballs out of your sockets. I could tear you limb for limb,” the Slender Man continues like it’s nothing.

You feel nothing but malice radiate off his form. It’s heat that singes your very soul. “S-Sir,” you gasp out. “Why would you b-bring me here just to k-kill me?” You attempt to reason, eyes watering and vision going fuzzy. You weakly attempt to use your fingers as a barrier between the constrictor and you. You can’t take this low oxygen any longer - not with him physically inhibiting you.

A cold chuckle reverbates in your head while the vision of wolf’s teeth smile at you, as if they’re ready to snap. “You always were smart,” he notes, loosening his grip ever so slightly. “I could rip your head from your shoulders and it would make none of the difference.”

“Answer my observation,” you weakly cough out before he holds you tighter. You struggle to move your limbs. Your blood feels hot.

“Masky,” he suddenly calls out, hand gesturing to his office doors.

You’re barely able to move your head and settle on shifting your eyes instead to those large, oak doors as they open just a crack.In slips a man in a tan coat. He’s got dark hair, bags under his eyes, and he looks exhausted - more exhausted than you feel. He doesn’t look at you but instead focuses on the Slender Man.

“Sir,” he greets, bowing his head slightly in reverence.

The Slender Man hums, clearly pleased. You see the wolf’s jaws smile in your mind’s eye.

“Reader, you will be under his care now,” the Slender Man says. “If you successfully spend half a year at his side, I will reconsider tearing you apart.” He says it so nonchalantly that you feel chills run up and down your spine.

You furrow your eyebrows. “What?”

“Do you oppose me?” The Slender Man asks. “I am being more than generous, aren’t I?”

“Don’t take this offer for granted,” you hear Masky quietly add. Somewhere, deep in the back of your mind, you can hear Masky telling you not to push him too far.

Hesitantly, you nod, voice too weak to say anything physically.

The Slender Man’s tendrils suddenly retract from you, sending you roughly to the carpeted floor.

You yelp as you come into contact with the carpet and slowly gather yourself as you try to push down the aches and pains that bloom on your joints and shins that hit the ground particularly hard. You cough a bit as air returns to your lungs and struggle to stand.

“Do what you must,” the Slender Man waves off, turning his back to both you and Masky.

Masky finally breaks from his stance and moves quickly to your side to help you up.

At first, you try to smack his hand away, but upon realizing you’re too weak to even see straight, accept his hand and his arm when you’re standing upright. He smells of cigarettes and some out of date cologne. It’s not bad.

The two of you hobble out of the Slender Man’s office with Masky’s eyes never leaving your form. After all, you are his responsibility now. He continues to lead you through a mansion you’ve grown to despise and out into the warm summer morning. The Slender Man could never imitate the beauty of earth to its entirety, that much was apparent.

“Where are we going?” You ask in a rough voice, attempting in vain to clear it by coughing.

“Stop that,” Masky sighs as the two of you cross the lawn. “To the parking lot, getting in the car, then driving across the border to Mississippi. We’ve got a temp there,” he murmurs. “You good?” He’s mentally wondering why your healing hasn’t damage controlled this yet. Probably the boss still being mad at you is the best reason he can come up with.

“Do I look like I’m good?” You dryly respond, eyes squinting slightly as the fog begins to kick up. You know you’re reaching the end of his reach. Once the fog clears up almost as quickly as it appeared, you realize the Slender Man’s practically kicked you both out of his realm. The walk was always longer when you truly were his. He must be severely pissed off at you. In a way, you’re lucky he didn’t kill you from the get go.

It’s best not to dwell on that thought though.

The rest of the walk is quiet and you’re in the car before you can count to 100 (your numbers are very jumbled though). You slide into the passenger seat and feel a little better at being able to rest.

Masky slides into the driver’s seat and sighs as he grips the wheel. “You have any questions, you ask them now in the car. I’m not putting up with your bullshit when we get to the temp.”

You roll your eyes and look out the window. “Who are you?”

“Masky, you heard him,” he’s pulling out of the parking lot and mentally thanking the gods he wasn’t killed alongside you. When the boss is in such a questionable mood, there’s no telling what’ll happen.

“You know damn well what I meant,” you cough slightly.

Masky scoffs before reaching into the backseat for a moment. His fingertips brush a water bottle, and upon realizing that’s what it is, grasps it and then tosses it to you.

You nod and take a sip, mentally frowning that the water’s been heated in the morning summer sun.

“I’m a group leader. Probably haven’t heard of us though, we’re not terribly monumental,” he begins as he flicks the turn signal on. “You’ve got three other people to watch out for. Hoodie, he’s the right hand, Toby, he’s essentially our middle child, and Kate. You’re replacing her and the hazing process will start up,” he finishes, now matching pace with the other cars that sparsely decorate the expressway.

You pout slightly and press your lips into a thin line as you gaze out the window at the rolling scenery. You’ve been here before. You’ve brought people back here this exact way before. They’re all unwanted memories. In response, your body language becomes unreadable.

This does not go unnoticed by Masky. “Yeah the attitude isn't gonna work,” he says as he glances over at you. “C’mon, you’ve been through this process before. We all have - what gives?”

With a sigh, you flick your eyes over to him to gauge his mood. He seems genuinely curious. “You do know that I ran away for a reason, right?”

Masky nods. “Sure, it was stupid though.” He takes a hand off the wheel for a moment to open his window. “What did you think would happen?” Sounds like he’s trying to pick at your brain.

“Anything but this,” you gesture angrily to your current situation. “I hoped to never see him again,” you groan, clearly frustrated. You chug some more water.

Masky breathes out slightly, as if he’s judging your answers. “Whatever. Forget about pulling something like that again because I’ll personally come after you if it comes to that,” he claims in a tone that’s far too serious.

You roll your eyes slightly, “sure, like you’ll-”

His eyes shift on the expressway, and after ensuring there’s no one that’ll cause a pile up on behalf of him, he hits the brakes, sending you lurching forward into the dashboard.

“What the hell?” You cry out in an exasperated tone, struggling to peel yourself up from the dashboard. You cry out in shock again as you feel his hand at the back of your head, successfully grinding your skull into the heated polyvinyl chloride.

“Get that thought of your fucking head,” he hisses, raising your head slightly before smacking it back down.

You growl back and relent. Once the pressure from his arm is gone, you shove him off of you. The car picks up pace again and you notice him wave to a person who passes by - they have a mildly concerned expression - and he smiles like he didn’t just slam your skull into PVC.

Welcome back to the proxy life.

You make it to Mississippi by mid afternoon. Masky brings the car down some dirt path where a house lays right on the Mississippi river, and you can smell traces of blood. They must’ve cleared the previous residents out.

There, on the porch in a muscle tee holding a can of coke is a man with his left cheek missing. He twitches slightly as he waves at you and Masky.

“T-This her?”

Masky nods.

“Can’t b-believe she g-g-gave Wallace’s g-g-group the s-slip,” he says in a slightly amused, slightly annoyed tone.

“Word travels that fast?” Masky replies with a slight chuckle.

The proxy before you nods with a small smile, “c’mon. I wanna g-g-get out of this h-heat. It’s a-a-awful out here,” he says with a playful grimace as he slowly rises from the front step where he had been sitting.

“Is Kate happy?” Masky asks as he watches Toby head in, then nods for you to go.

With a small frown, you do so. At least it’s air conditioned.

“Over the moon,” a feminine voice cuts in from the kitchen. She’s stirring a thing of lemonade.

Masky smiles slightly and takes a seat at the table. “We weren’t that bad,” Masky notes as Kate slides a glass of lemonade to the group leader.

She raises a brow at Toby who glances down to his open pop can. “So, this is the one he wanted alive for this term?” She questions as she glances at you, silently asking if you’d like some.

You mouth a ‘please’ before getting comfortable at the table.

“Weirdly, yeah,” Masky replies before taking a languid sip. “Thought he was gonna go for someone with more street cred, but, whatever. She’s our problem now,” he shrugs.

You look down into the pastel yellow liquid and furrow your eyebrows in annoyance. All of this, it was wrong. You hadn’t had to play by proxy rules in a year, and here you were, bottom of the rung, the runt. You hadn’t been a runt in gods know how long.

Conversation begins to flow between the three people around you as glasses of lemonade are poured. You sit in silence, listening because you know it’s not your place to speak. As far as proxy culture goes, you don’t really have any rights. Well, you’re in a better place than independents, but according to other proxies, you’re a glorified errand boy. They say to jump and you’re supposed to ask ‘how high?’ Your group’s word becomes gospel.

Apparently, Kate was this group’s runt before you came in. But, runts only stay runts for a certain amount of time. It’s possible for groups to not have runts - and that’s essentially what this group was doing. Kate had outgrown her runt status and was well considered the youngest (in experience) member of their group but had the same social standing as Toby. While it was a joke to refer to her as a runt, they hadn’t had one for a while.

That’s where you come in. You’re the first member to be considered a runt in quite some time. And you can tell they’ve been itching to take it out on someone.

“Where’s Hoodie?” Masky asks as his fingertips trace the lip of his glass. “Should be thrilled to see we’ve got another one.”

“Only t-thing holding h-him back from h-hurting you is the f-f-f-fact the O-Operator asked f-f-for us to t-take her,” Toby giggles slightly as he crushes another pop can. “He’s h-h-handling something, Should be c-c-coming back now, though.”

“Speak of the devil and the devil will appear,” you hear another man’s voice chuckle as the front door swings gently open.

Standing in the doorway holding a crowbar and wearing a white t-shirt is Hoodie - sans hoodie. It’s much too hot to be wearing one anyways. He haphazardly tosses the crowbar to the floor before closing the front door behind him, then begins walking towards the kitchen.

“This is her?” He asks as he takes a seat next to Masky, silently thanking Kate for the lemonade.

“Disappointing, right?” Kate lightly jokes, making Hoodie smile.

“In this form, sure,” Hoodie observes as his hazel eyes rake over your form. “She looks weak, scrawny, low endurance, probably forgot all her skills, what, with her being missing for a year?” He says it like it’s a game but looks at you like he despises you. “Not training her. Not my problem, and especially not in this heat.”

“She’s part of our group,” Masky replies in a slightly exasperated tone.

“No-Nose goes,” Toby suddenly blurts out.

Everyone presses their index to their nose except for Masky, who sighs dejectedly.

“For fuck’s sake,” he grumbles. “Let’s go, Reader. You’ve been awfully quiet.” The brown haired man says in a less than pleased tone, picking his glass up and momentarily pausing to place it in the sink.

You quietly follow in suit, nodding to your other comrades before following him out.

The nice thing about waiting for Hoodie to stir things up was that it was the late afternoon. The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon, and a breeze was beginning to shift through the air. It wasn’t near as hot due the sun no longer beating down on you. Besides, it was nice to get out of the house for a bit.

Masky and his group must have been staying here for a while, because he walked into the woods on this deer path like it was nothing and led you to a clearing. There were a few training things, but nothing of any substance - just a temporary fix until they were somewhere more permanent. Proxies are nomadic, after all.

“You still have a knife on you?”

“I would’ve stabbed you with it.”

He shoots you a look as if to tell you to watch your mouth and you holds your hands up.

“I’m joking,” you defend. “When I meant I wanted to never look back, I truly, deep down to my bones, meant it.”

Masky’s hand goes to his belt loop where he takes out a knife. It’s… severely dulled. Looks like he doesn’t trust you just yet.

“See that dummy? Show me what you remember and I’ll decide if we’re out here until midnight or not.”

The dummy in question looks gods awful. It’s missing an arm, the stuffing is all over the grass, and the poor thing looks like it can’t support its own weight anymore. You wonder which one of your comrades got it to this state of if this was a group effort.

You narrow your eyes and get a hold of the blade in your grasp. It’s much nicer than a kitchen knife - reminds you of what you used to use when you were but a shadow in the night. You glance at him, then the dummy, and decide to get to work.

There’s no use in running. The Slender Man will hunt you down regardless, and he won’t be as merciful the second time around.

“Stop stalling,” Masky chides.

You take in a breath, and do as told.

To say six months passed with ease would be a lie. It’s been six months of hell - and that’s mostly because you’re a runt paired with the fact you never wanted to be back here to begin with.

It’s been strange, you’ll give it that. The proxy in you took over faster than the human side of you could and you integrated back into proxy culture and society far easier than anyone expected. Of course, there were some moments where your group members would ruffle your feathers and put you in your place, but that was expected. To be a proxy is to be put under fire until you prove yourself otherwise.

You’ve gone on operations with them. Took lives again. Stole things again. You settled back into the life you originally left behind as if you’d never departed to begin with. That’s how deep the proxy mindset and muscle memory is embedded into those it takes hold of. It sets itself out to be the only thing you’ll ever know. You live by it, you die by it.

So, where have you been for the past six months? Well, still in Mississippi. About two weeks after you first arrived with your new group, you and the group moved down south near the ocean and have been staying there the entire time. Luckily, this place was considered a temp house for the people who owned it - they liked spending time in Europe - which left this place as yours. Besides, the Slender Man likes having you close. He was able to periodically check in on you with you being a few hours away as opposed to days. Why he was so interested in you, you’ll never know.

According to both him, and Masky, you’d been making good progress. By the end of your six months (lovingly referred to as a “trial run” by your group), you were half way back to what you used to be. It was disheartening to only hear “half” but it was better than nothing. A part of you wonders why you’re so inclined to get better when you should be focusing on leaving.

It’s not like you didn’t try.

You tried so many times that your group started a tally board and whoever found you first got a mark under their name. Whoever hit five before the board was reset got the next operation (or operation of their choosing) off. For the first few weeks when you were but a stranger with them, the punishments were harsh and unforgiving, like they hate you to your core. But, as the months went on, they went from fists to phrases. Eventually, you stopped trying to run so they no longer had to beat you. Every time you got that far off look in your eye, someone would reprimand you. It’s probably because they cared about you.

That’s common for proxies, bonding with your teammates on a level outsiders can’t understand. It’s mostly to keep you safe while out in the field. And unfortunately for you, you’ve been feeling that way towards your group. You’ve covered for each one at least once, and that gesture doesn’t go unnoticed. You’re in a strange place, if you’re being honest.

Take for instance now, back in the passenger seat of a car and heading back to Rosswood with Masky (he told you his real name is Tim) to talk with the Slender Man face to face. While the others in your group have been keeping up with him regularly, you haven’t seen him in person since well, six months ago. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t have butterflies in your stomach as you draw closer to the woods you once considered home.

“You nervous?” Masky hums as he turns the radio down.

“Yeah,” you reply, gazing out at the rolling fields again. “What if he-”

“It’d be stupid of him,” Masky cuts you off. “Six months of putting all this time and effort only to off you? Just… Just don’t say anything stupid,” he reminds you, a slight teasing tone lingering on his words. He looks at you with gentle eyes.

You scoff playfully. “Eyes on the road, weirdo.”

Standing in the Slender Man’s office this time as a welcome guest is weird. There’s still the scent of jasmine and incense, but there’s also something sweeter - like a memory he’s trying to provoke specifically for you. It’s warm, but not uncomfortably so, and it doesn’t feel near as suffocating as did that first time.

“You’ve certainly changed,” a deep voice says with an audible smile as it reverberates through your head.

“Sir,” you bow your head slightly.

“I’m going to make this short,” the Slender Man begins. “Miss Reader, I am satisfied with your progress these past six months.”

“Thank you, Sir,” both you and Masky reply.

The tall man hums. “However, you have only reached half of what you used to be. I believe the longer you stay in this group, the better you will become.”

You take in a sharp breath.

“Does that bother you?” The Slender Man doesn’t sound mad.

“I…”

Masky mentally clicks his tongue at you, and you glance over through the corner of your eye.

You decide to respond carefully. “I know normalcy… Sir, I don’t know if this life was ever meant for me, but,” you take in a deep breath and ball your fists to ground yourself. “If this is what you want of me, I will do it.”

The Slender Man chuckles. “Timothy, you’ve done an excellent job with this one. Perhaps I should have placed Pariah with you,” he emptily thinks aloud with another slight laugh. “I regret to inform you Miss Reader, that normalcy was never an option. You will go back with your team and you will continue to better yourself until I say otherwise.” He makes no move to stand from his desk, but his hands reach out.

Taking that as a nonverbal cue, you and Masky stand and each take a large hand.

The Slender Man’s fingers close around your much smaller hands before his hand leaves your grasp entirely. Instead of striking you, he gently cups your cheek. “Now go. I look forward to seeing you in six months.” The warmth is gone from his tone but lingers like doused coals in a still simmering fireplace.

“Thank you for your time,” Masky bows slightly, nodding for you to follow.

Without any other words, you nod to your boss and follow Masky out. The two of you trade silent conversation as you exit the mansion and back to the car. You slip in just like you did six months ago, and so too does Masky. The car comes to life, and you begin to peel out of the parking lot, back to Mississippi.

“How are you feeling?” Masky asks as he pulls down the sun visor after squinting at the beams of light.

“Not as bad as I thought,” you say in slight surprise. “Maybe it just hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“Or,” Masky begins. “You were always meant for this.”

You laugh in response and smack his shoulder lighter. “You know you’re not slick, right?” You tease as you stick your tongue out.

Masky chuckles deeply and gets back on the expressway. “I try when I can.”

“Oh really?” You pretend to be shocked. “Where was that smooth talking when I first met you?”

“Out the window because I just met you,” he retorts, a smirk playing on his lips.

“You are literally the worst,” you teasingly scoff.

“Right back at you,” Masky breathily laughs. His dark eyes stay focused on the road as

you get comfortable in the passenger seat.

“Really though,” you say as you stretch slightly. “Thanks for not killing me.” You look at him with such gentle eyes that he can’t help but smile just as genuinely in response.

Masky won’t lie, he was admittedly worried for you in the beginning. What with you running away all the time, speaking ill of literally everyone, almost getting everyone caught by the cops… You were colorful, for lack of better words. It’s been nice cultivating that into something better. Maybe you’d make something of yourself out of this garbage fire of a hiccup.

“It’s nothing,” he shrugs. “It’s my responsibility to watch out for you anyways,” he says as before honking at someone who almost swerved into your lane. “Besides, you’re not all too bad, and as long as it’s me making sure you don’t set shit on fire… Think we’ll be just fine.” He looks over at you and smiles warmly - it feels like the sun - before he turns back to the road.

You hum contentedly as your hand reaches for the radio. You turn up the music and let it play, a serene, comfortable silence falling between the two of you.

[hoodedguitarist]

Think you can Hide from Me?

Gif is not mine!

Pairing: Boba Fett x Reader

Summary: You’ve infiltrated into Jabba’s palace with Lando in order to rescue Han. Even though you hated being here, you were safely undercover as just another random piece of scum and villainy in the underworld… Or so you thought. 

Warnings: 18+, slight knife play, choking

Two Parts! Smut will be in the second part!

Author’s Notes: This is also posted on my account on Ao3! Aena Firestar, that’s me! But yeah, I love Boba Fett. A distraction to keep the plan safe and undercover, of course.;)

Part 2: The Distraction

Part 3: The Regret

Part 4: The Reunion

--

PART 1: The Infiltrator 

It felt like you’d been here for weeks.

Hell, maybe you had been here for weeks. The place was dark, hazy, musty and packed, but you had a job to do. You never thought you’d find yourself longing to see the twin suns of Tatooine but here you were.

Lando was the only thing keeping you sane right now. Even though the both of you could only interact sparingly so as to not draw attention, he would cut his eyes at you from across the room or give you a subtle nod of reassurance.

Han was always in your field of vision, though, and it frustrated you. No matter if you were at the bar, sitting in a lone dark corner, or just stretching your legs, he was positioned just so that no matter where you went, you’d always catch a glimpse of him frozen in carbonite. He was one of your best friends, and you were about half ready to smack Luke for taking so long.

The other issue was the notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett. He hovered like some predator animal, always stalking around the palace and setting you on edge. The worst part was that you liked it. You’d seen Boba Fett twice before, both times in Mos Eisley. You were at least half certain he wouldn’t remember you. Your meetings had been insignificant at the time and you were certain he hadn’t seen your face, but there had been some kind of tension between the two of you… You were a bit scared of him because you knew what he could do, but at the same time you were so damn attracted to him. One of the things you hated, however, was that you couldn’t tell where his eyes were because of the helmet. Whenever you’d be sitting by yourself, looking mean and keeping others away from you… Your (e/c) eyes would always drag over to where he was, and he always seemed to be watching.

You couldn’t deny the slight feeling of adrenaline and even somewhat admiration for him. But then, admiration may not have been the right word. Still, you’d always heard the saying that if someone kept eye contact with you for more than six seconds, they either wanted to fuck you or kill you. The only problem was that you really weren’t sure which one Boba Fett wanted to act on. You were a hundred percent certain you’d stared at each other for much longer than six seconds. He was mysterious, dangerous, and skilled, and even though you had a mission, you wouldn’t mind creating a distraction for the sake of it.

It was another day, and the band was playing. You watched from under your hood as the dancers began to do their best to appease Jabba, but you could never watch for too long. Instead of watching more, you turned and headed to the bar and took an empty seat. Ordering something non-alcoholic was out of the question in this place, so you just did your best to order the weakest thing and nurse it so you’d be ready in case things started to get dicey.

“You’ve been here awhile.”

And things just got dicey.

You tensed only slightly. From excitement or nervousness, you weren’t sure, but you hid it well. The modulator in his helmet did nothing to hide his accent. You cut your (e/c) eyes to the right just a moment and sure enough Boba Fett was right beside you, leaned against the bar.

“So have you,” a simple answer, voice steady and indifferent. You had no idea what would happen if you blew this, and you didn’t want to think about it. You didn’t move, hoping your hood would hide you enough.

“Who are you,” it sounded like more of a demand than a question.

“Name’s Raz,” you already had a cover name ready, “and you’re Boba Fett. Nice to meet you. Now if you’re done, leave me to my drink.”

“I could do that,” he said rather casually, “or you could take a walk with me.”

Now that was tempting, but you had to keep your head in this. There was still a very large chance that he would kill you. You couldn’t help but snort a laugh before you took a drink. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

He moved closer to you, and before you could react, you felt something sharp pressing into your ribs. You tensed even more, a soft, quick breath hissing past your lips.

“I don’t think you will. Come on. Walk with me,” his voice was demanding, but steady.

Well, you tried. Slowly, you abandoned your drink and stood to your feet. He never removed the knife, but pulled you closer against him and led you carefully out of the room. No attention was drawn at all, and you were a little surprised by how subtle he was being. He dragged you through the hallways, and you weren’t entirely sure how many corners you both turned, but you were sufficiently away from the crowd and any curious eyes. He’d led you somewhere he wouldn’t be bothered.

Suddenly, you were slammed against the wall and his knife was at your throat.

“Fuck!” You hissed, pressing back as close against the wall as you could. His knife hovered just above your neck and you swallowed thickly as you looked up into the dark visor of his helmet. Your hood was ripped back and your face revealed.

“Don’t think I don’t know who you are,” Boba warned. “Think you can hide from me?”

“I’m not hiding. I came here for a reason.”

“Then you better tell me quick, sweetheart. I can never forget this face,” he let his knife drag lazily down the soft skin of your neck. It made you shiver, something dark and pleasant twisting in your stomach. “ (Y/N) I know you run with Solo.”

“It’s true, I did ,” you didn’t want him catching onto the plan. “But look where he’s at now? I need to make a living still. I need a job, I came here to see about one… I just didn’t plan on you being here, Boba. You’re a hell of a distraction, you know that?” You breathed out, your eyes running down his form, taking in his armor and the way he still had you pressed against the wall.

Shit , you thought. This was bad. You were foolish to think he wouldn’t remember you, but maybe you could turn this to your advantage.

“Am I?” Boba rasped out, leaning closer. “I remember the way you looked at me, little one. Those eyes following me, so attentive, that soft gasp that left those lips… Why are you so intrigued by me, hm?”

“I’m intrigued, and I’m afraid,” you admitted softly. “I know you could kill me if you wanted to. Your reputation is just something I don’t want to fuck with.”

“What do you want to fuck with, (Y/N)?” He growled.

“Do you really not know?” You smirked. “Come on, Fett…I thought you were more clever than that-” you hissed a breath as his hand closed around your throat. It tightened only a bit. He sheathed his knife and used his free hand to lift his helmet up. Your heart raced as his face was revealed to you. He leaned down and hovered his mouth just above yours, tightening his grip on your neck.

“Think carefully sweetheart…”

“Now where’s the fun in that?” You breathed the challenge out. His dark eyes ran over your face, lingering on your lips.

His mouth was on yours in an instant, dominant and hot. You couldn’t help the moan that escaped as your lips and tongue paid him back in kind. Maybe you were veering a little from the mission, but at least you were distracting one of the best bounty hunters here. That was helping, right?

Your thoughts were silenced as he shoved his tongue into your mouth. You gasped softly and let yours tease him in return. He pulled back only slightly and that gave you the opening to bite his bottom lip and suck on it gently. He pulled away and you licked your lips as you stared up at him. His dark eyes bore into yours.

“You gonna try to put a knife in my back if we do this?” His voice was husky. Suddenly, you felt a knee push up between your legs and it made you whimper and sigh shakily.

“No. But I’d much rather you put something in me .” You meant for your words to come out as a challenge, an order, but they sounded much more like a beg. You grinded against his knee and bit your lip as you felt that heat pool between your legs. Boba was getting into it, he couldn’t help himself. His hand trailed from your throat down to your breast and groped at you, making your back arch and your head lean back against the wall. His free hand had a bruising grip on your hip and pulled you into another grind.

“I can do that, (Y/N). How about we finish this in my room? I can strip you properly and give you what you really came here for…” His hand moved from your breast and dragged roughly down your stomach, making you shiver. He curled his glove covered fingers between your legs, rubbing you through your pants. You gasped and rutted against him.

“I’m all yours,” you barely managed to get the words out.

��Good girl.”

--

Part 2 is Here!

[andraaste]

I am not your enemy - Lance fanfiction part 10

Well finally, chapter 10 is here sooner than expected ! Happy reading my friends 💕

Chapter 10 : You are very far from the account, my beautiful

- I've been doing quite a bit of research on the powers of aengels and dragons since the other night, and there is something I would like to try. But for that, you have to trust me a minimum.

- All right, tell me what to do.

Without warning, Lance grabbed my hand and held it in his, this one made slightly rough by its semi-transformation. He had no say in letting me understand what he was waiting for. Closing my eyes, I focused on the now familiar tingling sensations of the contact of his skin against mine. The latter, still weak, ran through my fingers with a pleasant feeling. It was soft, almost natural, as if my palm had only waited for this contact to finally feel completely itself.

Locked in the cold huge cage of his tanned hand, my fingers began to vibrate slightly as the comforting warmth of my powers began to roam my arm. One against the other, our palms seemed to constantly counterbalance two radically opposed temperatures, struggling to find a happy medium. Strangely, I felt soothed by this sudden contrast akin to a duel of fire and ice. It was a reflection of our interactions, at Lance and me.

Complex, yet intense.

When my light finally diffused through our fingers, I felt its quiver slightly as it gradually grew more confident. I visualized it penetrating his skin, running through his muscles, up to his arm. Exactly like his ice had done on my body two days earlier.

A slight breath escaped his lips, which made me open my eyes again and, for a moment, I couldn't take my gaze from the smile that marked his face.

A proud smile, and above all sincere.

I couldn't stop my lips from echoing his. My powers thus awakened, I felt fully myself, and it was powerful, exhilarating. My light took on vividness, of a color with equally warm hues, marking the skin of the dragon in multiple streaks similar to mine, like a multitude of beams of light. I could see my energy pouring into him, running through his veins, marking every one of his pores.

Suddenly, his ice mingled with my heat. The fine lines of lights that ran through his arm multiplied into new ones in bluish hues, these seeming more vivid than mine. With astonishment, I discovered them running through me in turn. Slowly, as if trying to perfectly marry those already existing, mingling with dissonance on my pale skin.

I was totally hypnotized by the spectacle that presented itself to me, so much so that it took me a while to notice that Lance had loosened his grip to come and let his fingers run languidly over my wrist, thus tracing invisible shapes against my skin. Several shivers ran through me under his slow movements and I wasn't sure he himself noticed what he was doing. Closing my eyes for a moment, I focused on the gentle, yet sure, movements the dragon made. So, as with Leiftan, I thought I felt an emotion that was not mine. A light feeling, close to admiration. Confused, I opened my eyelids and looked into his blue eyes.

Lance hadn't taken his eyes off me.

He suddenly understood what had just happened. Pulling on my wrist, he pulled me closer to him, bringing his lips to the hollow of my ear.

- Who allowed you to enter my head, little human ? he whispered to me.

His voice, both sweet and teasing, sent a shiver running down my spine. So I could feel his breath against my neck and knowing him so close to me made me both nervous and languid.

- It's you who is far too easy to read, I had nothing to do with it.

His weak laugh, with much more hoarse intonations than usual, grabbed all my attention.

- How did you do that ?

- I don’t know how to explain it. It happens to me sometimes in Leiftan's presence since we fought together, but I didn't think it was possible with anyone else.

The dragon imperceptibly contracted its jaws at the hearing of the aengel's first name.

- I see. Again, it's probably because of this exchange of powers, he told me, pausing a little before resuming, a slightly more sullen tone. So does that mean you feel his emotions ?

- It happens sometimes, yes, I answered him innocently.

He let out a much less jovial laugh as he leaned on the dresser behind him, his back arched slightly in my direction. Never breaking the link between our skins, he nonchalantly put his hand that still held mine on one of his thighs, his palm up, leaving me free to withdraw it if I wished.

- I guess he's still overflowing with sweet feelings for you.

I gave him a heavy look, which he answered with a vague shrug.

- Don't look at me like that, you had to be blind not to see what he felt for you. I remind you that I spent a lot of time with him and I can assure you that he only had your name in his mouth.

It’s true that Ashkore and Leiftan had been allies, there was a time.

I realized that, when he behaved so relaxed around me, like a moment ago, Lance sometimes managed to make me forget this tumultuous past that we shared. And I had to admit that these moments, however fleeting they were, were sometimes pleasant.

- Nothing ever happened between Leiftan and me, his feelings have always been one-sided and to be honest, I think he felt that much because I was like him. What's more, I was with Nevra at that time.

My interlocutor observed me for a moment without saying anything.

- Andraste, you can believe me when I tell you that he fell madly in love with you the moment you arrived. It's not just a matter of race, although I can understand that it sounds appealing. I myself was curious as to why you were so important to him, but I came to understand that he was just really infatuated with you. On the other hand, I'm intrigued that you still feel his emotions if this phenomenon dates from the battle, he added.

I pondered his words. Leiftan's feelings for me troubled me, I didn't know what to think.

- I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe spending the last few years together in the Crystal has brought us closer together, who knows ?

Lance winced slightly at hearing the theory that didn't seem to please him much, it seemed.

How was it possible that I could feel their deepest emotions, and most importantly, why didn't they seem to feel mine in return ? I didn't understand a thing. I had convinced myself that this was the result of our aengel powers, but why was this also happening with the dragon ?

Our conversation having distracted me, I realized that my light still continued to shine weakly on his skin, running under the sleeve of his top. And it was... simple. Without any effort to provide. I then remembered a detail. During our training several days ago, when my powers had reactivated as anger had risen in me, their color had turned whitish, totally cold. While at this precise moment, the latter shone a much more orange hue, pouring a pleasant sensation down my muscles. Did my emotions interfere with the process ?

Catching me off guard, Lance pulled on my wrist and pulled me even closer to him. So brought together, I could make out every detail of the scales that dotted her neck and jaw, they bewitching me with their almost unreal shades.

- I don’t hide from you that I don’t hope that it’s the case, he said to me in a deep and low voice, making my heart beat a little faster without me knowing why.

- And why is that, exactly ?

His gaze became more penetrating. He raised an eyebrow as I leaned in a little more, until I in turn came to press my lips close to his ear.

- Oh by the way, if you could stop calling me "little human" when you light up the room with my powers, I added lower.

I felt his lips widen against me as he slid a hand through my hair to reposition it behind my ear.

- A human with two or three powers, at most. I wait a little better to be blown away.

Angered, I pulled back to slap him on the shoulder with my free hand. Lance rubbed the affected area before laughing frankly at my daring.

- You are easily offended.

- And you should avoid letting your guard down in my presence, you know that I tend to get carried away a little.

- I thought I noticed it, indeed. But I guess I tend to like it myself, he said with a mischievous sneer.

We stared at each other for several long seconds, a silly smile stuck on our faces as our hands seemed unwilling to let go. Positioned in this way, our bodies standing far too close to each other to remain conventional, I felt strangely relaxed. And when his eyes suddenly drifted lower, peering down at my mouth with some undisguised curiosity, I found myself wondering what would happen if our lips met. If the simple contact of our skin had such virtues, what would it be in the face of more privacy ? I had the impression that each of my emotions was heightened tenfold in his presence, and like an addiction, I had this impression always wanting more, never to be entirely satisfied.

Lance seemed to recover and I was surprised to see his scales slowly resorbing.

- We're going to stop there for tonight, he said softly as he began to regain his human form.

His skin finally returned to its usual appearance and quickly, no more draconian attributes marked Lance's body.

Cautiously letting go of my hand, he let his fingers run along my skin until only emptiness caught up with me. The broken link, our powers diminished in liveliness, descending the lines drawn on our respective skins in the opposite direction, to the tips of our fingers. Disappearing totally, I felt a cold suddenly embrace me as the warmth of my light and the coldness of his ice no longer caressed me.

I was cold for the first time since waking up, and I felt that as I left Lance's coolness.

The dragon leaned a little more against the edge of the dresser and observed me for a moment without saying anything, as if lost in an internal reflection that he didn’t seem to want to share with me. Suddenly, he raised an arm and came to rub a loving hand through my hair, catching me totally off guard.

- Well done, Andraste. I had my doubts you'd make it, but ultimately I'm impressed, he told me as he slowly pulled his fingers away from my scalp, pouting mockingly.

I crossed my arms, an eyebrow raised in annoyance.

- You really don't have any hope in me, actually.

His soft laughter echoed again as he finally pulled away from his prop. Leaning over me once again, his large figure towering over me completely, he whispered to me, like a secret :

- If you knew what I think of you... you are very far from the account, my beautiful.

(Chapter 11)

[natromanxoff]

22 - Cars & Queenie Days

Hi there Queenie people.

What a strange little weekend this one turned out to be. Let me start by saying that most of my stories seem to have something to do with alcohol, but we were all a hell of a lot younger then, and I for one cannot do that anymore, well not all the time. Although a few days ago an old friend made a guest appearance, the Kurgen was let loose on the streets of Bondi which seemed to start a string of Queen type events. It all started about midday on Saturday when a friend of mine phoned and suggested lunch, what a fantastic idea as it was a lovely hot sunny day, so we met in a nice place with a garden and ordered the first bottle of wine, and it was the Linda Lovelace of vino, it went down very quickly and easily. During the course of the afternoon I phoned my mate Steve and said he should join us, which he did at about 8pm, and we finally moved indoors to have dinner, after sitting in the sun and guzzling wine for the last six hours, and needless to say I'm pissed so we ordered some more food and what turned out to be the last bottle of plonk for the evening.

Half way through dinner Rebecca decided she was to out of it to continue, and wisely went home, leaving the Kurgen and his mate, who has decided he's gonna catch up with me, what a good friend eh, but him getting drunk means me becoming a complete gibbering idiot. After dining we moved next door to the bar where the whisky was flowing very rapidly and the idiot telling one barmaid she looked like a cheap hooker, while swearing his undying love to another. Oh, get me another drink Steve, I think I need one. It finally gets to 1am and time to head home, it's been a long day, and while trying to negotiate the 10min walk I was complaining that my right leg wouldn't work, usual drunken crap.

What has this got to do with Queen I hear you ask, well, apart from the fact that a million years ago I worked for them for a while, not very much. Steve and myself eventually got back to my place and I got phoneitis and I had the need to speak with everyone from my dodgey past, so, phone book out and lets go. Pride of place went to Mr Deacon who was lucky to be speaking on the phone so the Kurgen, after two tries, couldn't get through. Time up for you pal, next. Broughie. He always calls me when he's legless, now it's his turn to try and decipher what I'm on about. When I got through to Trip I can remember saying, "Where the f*** are you?" And do you know what, I have no idea what the answer was, though he did say they cancelled a couple of shows, and everyone was having a great time. This is fun, lets spend some more money. The next call started with, "Mr Taylor, it's Mr Taylor here." Sorry Rog, but you did pick up the phone. I did tell him I'd listened to his new stuff on his website and it's the best stuff he'd done in years, and I have an awful feeling I said that I didn't like 'Happiness,' but he did say that he reads my memoirs, so if you get to see this Mr T. I'll try and be a bit more sober next time I call.

Jacky followed, phone was busy (No it wasn't, we were out, you left a message!!) , gotta move on, I'm on a roll now. A new game, lets try and track down my ex in LA, no luck, thank god, and with that my new accountant Steve took the phone away from me, thanks dear boy. He clears off around 3 and I hit the sack and descend into a coma. Ring ring.....ring ring. Its 9am, who the f*** is phoning in the middle of the night, so, with head pounding I track the phone down and had to raise a bit of a giggle, it's Broughie and now he's pissed and he told me that in nearly twenty years of knowing me, that is the worst he's ever heard me try and talk, to which I reply that this is the worst I've ever felt.

Spandau's Tony Hadley was the next person I speak to, what a diamond geezer, always nice to chat with him. Sunday was a non-existent day with a phone that had no sympathy for me and kept ringing, amazingly it's still in one piece. A wet Monday and I'm still feeling a bit iffy, but come afternoon I receive a package in the post, I like little surprises, so when I walk in and turn the radio on Bo Rap is playing, and when I open my pressie it's from the ever gorgeous Jacky who has very kindly sent me RT's Electric Fire. You know what I mean, his new CD not the electric fire out of his bedroom. I'm glad I told him it was great, cause it is, in my humble opinion, possibly the best thing he's done. That was a hell of a lot of words just to say " go and buy Electric fire and put it in the charts, you won't be disappointed".

I was chatting with Greg Fryer, the fireplace restorer, and we're both looking forward to the Australian convention in a few weeks, although I might be drinking lemonade as I made the idiot promise that "I'm never drinking again". Some time ago somebody asked me a question which went something like, "When you were in the studio with just Roger or the Cross, was it a bit of an anti climax after working with Queen as they were such brilliant musicians." I don't know if I'm missing something here, but as Roger was a solo artist, a member of the Cross and also in Queen, surely that must make him brilliant. Well, whatever your name was, no it wasn't boring it was mostly fun. When he was producing other acts I must admit that I did a lot of sitting around doing bugger all, and I every act were ok as people, though once Jimmy Nail had a hit he did get a rather large ego and changed into a real prat.

Virginia Wolf had two old buddies of mine in the band, Joe Burt and Jason Bonham, so when we went to Ibiza to record it was party time from start to finish, though Jason did go overboard a bit, so to protect us more than him we sent him back to England. I was only involved in one Cross album, Shove It, and that was just going to be another RT solo album so he played all the instruments himself.

I think I've mentioned before that we drove the Bentley to Montreux, well this was the time. The plan was to spend three or four days in Montreux recording then go to Gstaad to write some more songs. That was the excuse because we had a huge chalet there and the idea was to do a lot of skiing and a bit of writing, which is exactly what we did. It was in Gstaad that Roger came up with the idea of forming a band, and after a hard day on the slopes we would sit around at night working out a plan on putting a band together. On the subject of Bentleys and Gstaad I feel obliged to tell you just how much bad luck RT has with his cars.

When he bought his first Range Rover he claimed "You can park them on a sixpence." We had to tow him out of a ditch. His Ferrari burst into flames on his way to the south of France, and his Aston Martin also burst into flames. He hardly ever drove the Bentley, it was my baby and I loved it and never had any problems. Dominique decided she was going to join our little ski trip and was coming to Gstaad, now don't get me wrong, I love Dom, a fine lady, still is, it's just that I didn't fancy the hour drive down the mountain and then the hour along the motorway to the airport. On the day of her arrival RT surprised me by saying he was going to pick her up, that'll do me, drop me off at the chair lift and have a nice drive. A very pleasant afternoon was spent on the piste so when I get back to the house I'm ready for some mindless computer games, and while in the middle of shooting some aliens the phone rings and it's Dominique asking where Roger was as he's not at the airport to pick her up.

The only thing I can say is for her to hang on because he left in plenty of time so he should be there, and I'm back to saving the world. Hours later the door flies open with Roger ranting and raving and saying something about F-in-cars. What's his problem? I look out the window and in the driveway is a VW Golf, so the obvious question is, "Where's the Bentley?" When his lordship finally calmed down he explained that when he got to the motorway there was a blizzard, so he had to have the windscreen wipers on full, but the one on the drivers side came off, so he stopped the car and was groping around in the snow looking for it, and he found it and put it back on. So far so good, except a couple of miles further on it came off again, and this time it was nowhere to be seen. Now try and picture the situation. Swiss motorway, lots of snow falling, very expensive black Bentley and a very famous pop star hanging out the window while driving so he can wipe the snow off the screen so he can see. Not a very good look at all.

On arrival at Geneva he took the car to the Rolls Royce dealer to get fixed, and it wasn't long after this that I said my final goodbye to a trusty friend. Roger on the other hand said Good F***ing Riddance. I have an equally pathetic driving story when we were in Rio, this time it was the two of us, a convertible and one hell of a lot of rain. Next time might be right to tell you how we put the Cross together from the first ad. onwards. Before I go I have a question for Jacky. Do you remember all those bacon sandwiches we had at the auditions? That's it for now Bye

Crystal