#so its pretty easy to dislike at first glance

[ponderingmoonlight]

Geto being forced to kiss you during a mission but shamelessly making out with you instead

Pairing: Geto x fem!reader

Word Count: 1,8k

Synopsis: It was an easy mission like many others before. Get in, find the suspect, free the innocent. Well, if it wasn't for none other than Geto Suguru who has to play your boyfriend. If it wasn't for that fateful situation that forces you into a heated kiss.

Warnings: I swear this is a dream I had tonight and I HAD to write it down with Geto being the main character lol, no smut but it's getting a little heated y'all, enjoy

You’ve been assigned to many missions before, but this one is different. It’s not the mission itself - that’s pretty standard. Blend in, gather the information needed, free their hostages and get out. No, what makes this different is who you’re paired with.

Geto Suguru.

It’s not that you dislike Suguru. Quite the opposite, really. He’s intelligent, powerful, and intimidatingly good-looking. To be honest, you didn’t really get the chance to talk a lot with him. You’ve met him a few months ago at a party, innocently meeting his gaze for the first time. Since then, you wrote a few messages back on forth without him really kicking off a conversation with you himself.

Working so closely with him? That’s a whole different challenge.

You glance over at him as the two of you walk down a crowded street, playing the part of casual tourists. He’s dressed casually, his black hair tied up in its usual bun, dark sunglasses resting on his face. His tall frame and handsome face draw some attention, but not enough to arouse suspicion. Still, you’re hyper-aware of his presence, every step synchronized with his, every breath you take feels too loud beside him.

“You alright?” Suguru questions, his voice smooth as ever, but there’s a hint of amusement hidden behind it.

You realize you’ve been staring a little too long. Again.

“Yeah, fine,” you reply, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Just focused.”

“Good,” he comments, his lips curving into a faint smile.

“We can’t afford any distractions today.”

It’s funny he should say that, given that he’s been the biggest distraction for you all day.

The two of you are currently undercover in the heart of Tokyo, tasked with infiltrating a high-profile gathering where some curses are believed to be in league with a dangerous rogue sorcerer. You’re supposed to act like a couple - just a pair of normal people attending a party, gathering information without raising any alarms. Simple enough.

Except pretending to be a couple with Geto Suguru isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The party venue is just up ahead, a high-end rooftop lounge that glows with expensive lights and laughter spilling out into the cool evening air. You take a deep breath, adjusting the strap of your dress as you try to mentally prepare yourself for what’s coming. You’ve done plenty of undercover work before, but never one so… intimate.

As if sensing your tension, Suguru places a hand lightly on the small of your back, guiding you toward the entrance. The touch sends a jolt through you, far too electrifying for something so casual. You hope he doesn’t notice the silly reaction of your body, how his touch alone sends shivers down your spine.

“We’ll get in, blend, and be out of here before anyone knows we’re even involved,” he murmurs, his voice so close to your ear it sends another shiver down your spine.

“Just stay close to me.”

You nod, your pulse quickening despite yourself.

“Got it.”

The two of you approach the entrance, and after a quick flash of the fake invitations, you’re in. The lounge is just as extravagant as you expected: soft golden lights, chandeliers glinting like diamonds, and elegantly dressed people sipping on expensive drinks.

The air is thick with the scent of alcohol and perfume, a faint buzz of conversation filling the room. You can feel the tension already, a subtle undercurrent that tells you something’s off. The rogue sorcerer could be anywhere in the crowd, and the curses could be anyone. You can’t afford to relax for even a second.

Suguru’s hand doesn’t leave your back as he leads you through the room, guiding you with the ease of someone who’s done this a hundred times before. You find a spot near the back, close to the open bar, where you can observe without being too obvious.

“They’re here somewhere,” Suguru mumbles, his eyes scanning the crowd behind his sunglasses.

You nod in agreement, your gaze sweeping over the guests. You can feel eyes on you too, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Just regular party-goers glancing at the attractive couple standing together, unaware of what you and Suguru are really here for.

Just as you start to relax, a small group of men enters from a side door, catching your attention. One of them, in particular, stands out. He’s dressed sharply, his dark hair slicked back, a predatory gleam in his eyes. You don’t need to double-check him, your palms already starting to sweat.

That’s him. The rogue sorcerer. The man you’ve been searching for.

Suguru notices him too, his posture tensing slightly.

“That’s our target,” he mutters under his breath.

You nod subtly, trying to remain casual, but the moment the sorcerer’s eyes land on you and Suguru, they narrow. He recognizes something. Or maybe it’s just paranoia. Either way, the tension in the air spikes.

“He’s watching us,” you whisper, your pulse quickening.

“Act natural,” Suguru says, his voice low, steady.

He slides his arm around your waist, pulling you closer.

“Just follow my lead.”

Your heart pounds at the sudden closeness. His hand is warm on your waist, his body pressed against yours in a way that’s far too intimate for what should be a simple undercover mission. But you force yourself to relax, slipping into the role.

The sorcerer is still watching, his eyes flicking between the two of you with suspicion.

Suguru leans down, his lips brushing against your ear.

“We need to do something to throw him off. He’s getting suspicious.”

You swallow hard, nodding slightly. The last thing you want to do is causing a scene and risking the lives of countless innocent people.

“What do you suggest?”

There’s a pause, just long enough for you to notice the way his gaze switching back and forth between your lips and eyes. No, he can’t really mean this, right? You, kissing Suguru Geto?

But his eyes aren’t joking around. Not the slightest bit.

“We’re going to have to make this look real,” he continues, voice low and serious.

Before you can ask one more time what he means, his hand slides up to cup your cheek, turning your face toward his.

Your breath catches in your throat as he tilts your chin up, his dark eyes locking onto yours. There’s no time to question it, no time to think. His lips are on yours before you can even process what’s happening.

It’s soft at first, just a brush of his mouth against yours, gentle and controlled. It’s meant to be quick, just enough to make it seem real. But then something shifts. The pressure deepens, his hand sliding from your cheek to the back of your neck, pulling you closer.

You can’t help the soft gasp that escapes you as his other hand tightens on your waist, his body pressing more firmly against yours. What started as a brief kiss to maintain your cover quickly spirals into something else entirely. The kiss grows heated, his lips moving against yours with a hunger you hadn’t expected.

Your hands move on instinct, holding onto the back of his neck as you lean into him, literally fall against him.

You should pull away. The mission. The rogue sorcerer. You can’t afford to be distracted. This is nothing but a cover-up, after all. But the kiss… it’s overwhelming. Suguru’s lips are firm, his breath hot against your skin as he deepens the kiss, coaxing a response from you that you can’t hold back.

The world around you fades. There’s no party, no rogue sorcerer, no mission. There’s just the heat between the two of you, the press of his body against yours, the way his lips seem to know exactly how to pull you under.

Your pulse races, your mind going hazy as the kiss stretches on longer than it should. There’s an urgency now, a desperation in the way his mouth moves against yours. It’s not about the mission anymore. This is something else entirely. Something raw, electric. Something you only allow yourself to dream of.

His tongue brushes against your lower lip, and without thinking, you part your lips, letting him in. The kiss becomes even more intense, your bodies pressed so close you can feel the rapid beat of his heart against yours. His hand moves from your neck, tangling in your hair as he pulls you impossibly closer, his breath mixing with yours as the kiss turns downright needy.

A soft sound escapes you, half gasp, half moan, and you feel Suguru’s grip tighten in response. He’s losing control too. The realization sends a thrill through you, the idea that Geto Suguru, the calm, composed and always in control force of a man, could be folding because of you.

But then, just as suddenly as it started, he pulls away. The kiss breaks, leaving you both breathless, your lips swollen, your heart racing.

Suguru’s chest rises and falls rapidly, his dark eyes staring into yours, wide with something unspoken. His hand lingers on your waist for a moment longer before he finally lets go, stepping back, his expression unreadable.

You blink, trying to clear the haze from your mind, trying to remember where you are, what you’re supposed to be doing, your mind desperately fighting for control while your body still griefs the cold he left behind.

The rogue sorcerer. The mission.

You quickly glance around, realizing the sorcerer is no longer watching. He must have lost interest, convinced by the display. You breathe a sigh of relief, but the tension between you and Suguru remains thick, heavy.

“That… worked,” you manage to say, your voice barely above a whisper.

Suguru nods, but his eyes are still on you, dark and intense.

“Yeah. It worked.”

For a moment, neither of you move, the air between you crackling with something unsaid, something neither of you is quite ready to acknowledge.

But the mission isn’t over yet. You have a job to do, and now, more than ever, you need to stay focused.

Suguru clears his throat, straightening his posture, slipping effortlessly back into his composed persona.

“We should keep moving. We still have to find out what their plan is.”

You nod, trying to steady your racing heart as you follow him through the crowd. But even as you focus on the task at hand, you can still feel the lingering heat of his kiss, the way his lips felt against yours, the way your body reacted to his touch.

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[tallysgreatestfan]

Specials in the book vs the movie

Now, from the way they are described in the book, I am not sure if you could even possibly translate that into a movie, especially not with this budget, but: It is really frustrating what the movie did with the Specials.

In the movie they come across as your garden variety super soldier, but in the book they are honestly one of the coolest cyborg designs I ever saw in scifi (and scifi is my main reading and watching genre).

For starters, yes, they are much stronger and faster than the humans in the setting, but most of all, they are surged to look intimidating. They use plastic surgery to make the Pretties look beautiful, but for them the Cities huge medical advancement is used to design their faces and body type in a way that is not even necessarily visibly non-human on first glance, but the type of facial features one instinctively is afraid of. Which is such a interesting concept.

They also, and I can totally understand that this would have been incredibly hard to get right, maybe impossible, move in a way that is just slightly off. Too fast and too angular. The book describes it as elegant but almost insect-like, like cockroaches slithering across a plate. You see them for longer than a second and instinctively know that that aren't humans anymore. It's taking the uncanny valley and using it for warfare.

It is a bit visible in the way Laverne Cox plays Dr. Cable, even she plays her much more human than in the book. She does emote and she does have body language - but much lesser than most people do, and she uses the majority of it to manipulate people. She also doesn't do all these small, unconscious movements like cleaning your fingernails, bobbing your foot or scratching your face.

Third: They are disturbingly fast. The scene where they invade the Smoke is described in the book as the Specials just casually walking into the complete chaos, and it doesn't looks as if they are doing anything - except that they herd Smokies in front of them and everybody they walk past is tied up on the floor. Which is such a cool visual, but again, not sure if its possible to film that.

Its also, and this is yet another reason why I dislike the changed Peris plotline, much more complicated and disturbing than them just being mindless killing machines. To be fair, it only is explained in the later books, but it is more like an artificially induced personality disorder, carefully tweaked so that they have a sense of superiority towards Uglies and Pretties, but also notice the beauty of the natural world much more intensely than them and are ready to protect them, anger and impulse control issues, and loyalty to the City.

What makes that even more disturbing, and this is not directly canon, but it would make sense from certain events in the later books, they seem to specifically pick already neurodivergent people to mold them into that. Yes, the series has light, but there, neurodivergence themes later on. This aspect is handled surprisingly well and empowering (unlike the eating disorder and self-harm rep, but that is another topic).

There seem to be two ways to end up in Special Circumstances, and its way to easy for Peris to have this happen:

Be with the wardens (they are actually different to Special Circumstances), the firefighters or the doctors, aka the only professions in the City which don't have the lesions, and stand out in some useful way. Likely how Dr. Cable ended up with Special Circumstances.

Be self-destructive and mentally ill in a way that seems useful to be manipulated. Happens with [redacted] and [redacted]

And they actively screen the Uglies for who might a good candidate for Special Circumstances in five to ten years. The Uglies dorms are so easy to trick not by oversight, but to watch who is able to tweak the rules and who not.

They also have fangs in the books. Which would have looked so cool, but also acting with fake fangs is a pain in the ass (ask the Star Trek Discovery season 1 Klingon cast), so I can understand that they left that out.

Another thing the movie sadly dumbs down is just how invasive not just the Pretty surgery is, but the Special surgery even more. Tw for surgical gore for the rest of this.

They skin the person and replace the skin with new, more flawless skin for both operations. They also take out all teeth and replace them with ceramic teeth in both operations. What is unique to the Special operation is that they replace most muscles with cybernetic muscles, and that they replace the entire skeleton with the same much more sturdy ceramic they did the teeth with. No, I do not want to know how this logistically happens.

Also just so many other cybernetic implants. A chip in the fingertips that makes them able to put their fingers on glass and translate the vibrations into the sound happening in the room behind. Various tweaks to the eyes, or maybe they completely replace the eyes, it is unclear, but Specials can see infrared radiation. Software to calculate the time and direction just from seeing the stars.

I do like how Laverne Cox interpreted Dr. Cable, but for the other Specials I would have really liked to see more

[lilacthebooklover]

Why People Don't Like Ozzy (and why they do like other characters)

Every fandom has its favourites, and that of KG2 isn't exempt– just look at all the content of Penny, Ted, Nugget and Felix lol. But if there's one character that Kindergarten fans don't often think or care about, it's Ozzy.

At first glance, it seems obvious why. He's pretty whiny and a big downer, instantly dislikes the protag, and doesn't really have any shown positive qualities. He talks constantly about his allergies and asthma, obsesses over his routine, is willing to strangle Protag without a second thought, and the player is actively encouraged to kill him in Ted's mission.

But really, Ozzy's just, well. A five-year-old. Out of the KG cast, he's the one who acts most his age: he's rude at times, very focused on himself, and sulks about his favourite toy being broken– and those are all traits you'd expect from a kindergartener. He's surrounded by more emotionally compelling and mature characters, making him seem babyish in comparison.

His fears about his asthma and allergies are honestly valid, considering that the world in which he lives contains people constantly trying to off each other. He knows he's not well-liked, that his science teacher would (and does) use his corpse as a cadaver, that he could literally die from either of these things being set off.

Leading on from that, is his apathy regarding killing the protag really that surprising? He, like all the other students, knows what happens when people are sent to the principal's office or Danner gets out his laser gun. It wouldn't be surprising if he's just accepted death as part of his routine by then, unbothered by and desensitised to it just like the other kids.

He has problems with change, as little kids often do, and it's entirely reasonable that he's so upset about his friends getting "transferred". He just lost everyone he cared about seemingly because of the new kids, so his immediate response is to dislike them. He has a right to be worried and angry about Madison & co disappearing, most likely having seen plenty of people die in his school, but there's nothing he can do but take it out on Protag. Heck, if the player gives him the battery, he's even willing to give him a chance at friendship, saying that maybe the new kids aren't all bad and asking if Kid wants to play with him.

So why do people not like Ozzy, but find favourites in other characters? Take Felix, for example (on whom this fandom is typically divided into 2 extremes: loving and despising). He kills his brother remorselessly, is willing to further disable a paralysed child, cares only for himself and constantly belittles everyone around him.

But Felix is also a really fun character. His motives are great to explore, his relationship with Ted equally so, his manner of speaking is wonderful and he has some really good lines (e.g. "the real treasure is the friends we buried alive along the way"). He's so pompous that it's funny, he's always a blast to watch, and there's a lot of potential for angst for him.

Ozzy only murders one person, but that's the player. He's an obstacle, not meant to be liked. Felix murders his twin, but there's a whole lot to read into with that. He's a likeable character with an enjoyable story, and he typically comes with ball-of-sunshine Ted.

Ted is easy to like. People are sympathetic towards him because of Cain's Not Able and his seemingly horrible father. He's nice to Felix and feels had about killing Ozzy. His only motives are pleasing his brother, showing his loyalty and desperation to prove himself and be loved.

But he does kill Ozzy, or at least get Protag to do so for him, and plans the whole thing out independantly despite Felix saying that he would take care of it. He's not as dumb as Felix makes him out to be, can be cold-blooded and strategic when necessary, sticks to his plan no matter who it hurts (e.g. Carla with the gum, Ozzy himself) all in the name of showing he's capable. Ted isn't as innocent as people like to pretend, but he is more considerate than plenty the other characters.

Characters like Cindy and Buggs make Penny & Ted look like angels, and the big personalities everyone else possesses make Ozzy seem pretty boring. He's not particularly compelling, we're not supposed to like him, his only major plot point is that Ted wants the player to kill him, and he only ever shows concern for himself and characters whose only personalities are being experiments.

Even then, he refuses to hug Madison after she comes out of the lab, telling her to take a bath and calling her gross. We know what Madison has been through as the Protag so we feel bad for her, but looking at the situation through Ozzy's eyes is entirely different.

She's covered in something that looks disgusting and he's trying to get on him, and Ozzy hates getting dirty. All he's been told is that it's from the principal's secret lab, which only makes it seem more unhygienic. He's fully aware of the rules in science and labs at school, reminding Danner multiple times, and his mom has clearly enforced these before.

Again, he's five, so his lack of a filter isn't entirely his fault. He doesn't possess the emotional maturity to see that might upset her, he's just glad that she's back and scared of her touching him with her goo. He doesn't know she was kidnapped, he doesn't know what the goo is, he doesn't know why she didn't reach out if she was at school the whole time. He suggests something he sees as perfectly reasonable, and moves on with his life.

One of Ozzy's main characteristics is that he's a germophobe. Getting mad at him for that would be like getting mad at Ted for his arachnaphobia–even if Ozzy's ruder and more blunt about his fear.

Overall, people don't like Ozzy mostly because they don't find him interesting. He's not endearing or sweet, isn't shown as a nice character, and doesn't really have any spotlight moments like Felix or Penny. Nugget, too, is liked because of how new and unpredictable he is as a character, as well as some of his more emotional moments– all of which Ozzy lacks.

This has been on my mind for a little while, and it's been fun to put it into words! Thanks for getting this far into my little ramble, and I'd love it if you shared your thoughts!! Discussing things like this with people is always nice :D

[velvet-dusk]

echo - outtake

(This little scene is an outtake from a fic I'm working on polishing. It didn't fit, because the flow of the conversation meandered pretty far from the way I needed the scene to go, and eventually I cut this section entirely and replaced it with one that worked better. But I liked it enough to want to share it, even though it's short enough that I'm probably not going to post it on AO3. Shadowbringers spoilers.)

Once it had become clear that G’raha had fumbled and was continuing to fumble his summoning spell, he had told himself sternly that the Scions were not his friends. Not because he had any reason to dislike them—far from it!—but because he knew them far better than they knew him, and moreover he had stolen them from their rightful lives. No matter how useful their skills, no matter how generously they offer their help, the fact remains that he had done each and every one of them a painful disservice by bringing them to the First.

After their return from the ruins of Amaurot, though—after the second return of the night—G’raha is startled to realize that the Scions of the Seventh Dawn seem to regard him as… a friend?

“Of course we do,” says Thancred matter-of-factly, as the two of them examine one of the Crystarium’s shield generator nodes. Thancred may be no mage, but the generators are also partially mechanical, and with the Facet of Forging staff busy working on some project they refuse to tell G’raha about, he’s the next best choice for repairing fiddly machinery in the entire city. “Our inauspicious arrivals aside—” G’raha winces. “—you were doing what you needed to in order to defend the people under your care. We all understand that. Indeed, we all respect that.”

“I’m surprised to hear you dismiss your arrival so quickly,” says G’raha.

“Me, of all people?” asks Thancred with a shrewd sidelong glance, and G’raha’s ears go flat with embarrassment. “I won’t pretend it was an easy thing to get over. But, well, I like to think that all of us, I’m on the more pragmatic side of things. It was the right choice, and that’s what matters in the end. Wrench, please.”

G’raha hands over the wrench. “Knowing that someone is in the right and thinking fondly of them for it are two different things.”

“They are,” Thancred agrees, and smacks something in the generator’s guts with the head of the wrench. G’raha yelps in protest, but then the generator buzzes to life, and Thancred grins and tosses the wrench back. G’raha fumbles the catch and has to duck down to pick it up. “But the first can lead to the second. And luckily for you, it has. Though, if I may offer a word of advice?”

“Of course,” says G’raha, slotting the wrench back into its rightful place in the toolkit. 

“Y’shtola in particular dislikes feeling like a piece on the chessboard rather than a player. If, in the future, you ever come up with a scheme that you think might involve her, ask her for assistance in the planning stage and not a moment later, even if you think she won’t be interested, or won’t be able to help. She may have forgiven you for this one, but she’s better at holding grudges than I am.” Said with a playful wink, it would be easy to dismiss as a joke. But G’raha can tell that it’s a real warning—and, also, a real invitation, to be a part of the group and its various social dynamics, rather than an outsider looking in.

“I shall,” says G’raha, with sincere gratitude.

[maniacwatchestheworld]

So I've been working on a thing lately! I kinda sort of want to run a ttrpg campaign that would kinda sorta capture the spirit of Pokemon: Legends Arceus, but that takes place in Meiji Hoenn instead of Sinnoh! I've accomplished quite a bit on the setting, and now I need to design some regional and era-specific variants of some of these Pokemon! So here are some designs that I thought would be pretty easy to pump out!

On the left I designed some regional water-typed variants of Ekans and Arbok because like... Why aren't there any water snakes in Pokemon...????? They are water/poison types and are much much friendlier than Kantonian Ekans and Arbok! They both have rattles to ward off any critters that they don't want to bite, have bright belly colorations, and the belly pattern on Arbok's belly is inspired by butterflies that have eye-shaped patterns on their wings that look like eyes to ward off predators! All of this is to scare other critters away so that they don't have to hurt them when they're feeling threatened! Because when you really think of it, it's actually kinda nice and generous of rattlesnakes to make a sound before biting you as a warning. So this is a much friendlier regional variant that doesn't actually want to hurt anything that it doesn't need to for survival! Also this version of Arbok is indeed skinnier on the top half of its body than Arbok. You know. For fun. :p

On the right I decided to design an organic version of Iron Valiant. I've been thinking of using the name "Glaivant" for it, but I don't know if it rolls off the tongue quite as well as Gardevoir and Gallade as Pokemon species names. >.< In any case, these evolutions are exclusively non-binary/gender unknown! In this setting I wanted to create this evolution variant to kind of make a statement about gender and sexuality before colonization. One of the main conflicts that I want to explore in this setting is that of modernization vs tradition and what is lost when you pursue solely one or the other. In real life Japan, they didn't have the same perceptions of gender roles, and gender and sex in general as western traditions do. The idea of people existing in ways that didn't match stereotypical gender norms of the time, and people and/or creatures existing outside of ordinary gender confines was not unheard of or even necessarily particularly unusual before Japan decided to modernize and westernize itself! Gender existentialism was just not nearly as relevant in Japan before it largely decided to colonize itself! These facts reflect quite obviously in art that was created at the time and in art that comes out of Japan today as well, and Pokemon is no exception! And so I wanted to reflect that with this Pokemon design in this pre-modern Pokemon setting!

Lots and LOTS of impassioned gender ramblings below the cut. >.< (Sorry, it got long FAST because I have A LOT of feelings on Gardevoir and gender. >.< )

In fact that was one of the reasons that I genuinely quite loved Gardevoir when it was created and came out all the way back in gen 3! And it's why I've always had quite a strong dislike of Gallade. Because to me, when I realized that Gardevoir could be female OR male with an even 50/50 gender distribution as a kid, it really made me open my eyes to just how bullshit western ideas of gender were! Because the things about Gardevoir's design that made it look feminine upon first glance to a western audience could be interpreted as masculine from a different perspective! Its "dress" could also read as a kimono. Its "hair" could be seen as a helmet. Where "pretty lady in a dress" was seen by many "young noble Japanese warrior" was an equally valid way to look at the Pokemon depending on its gender and your cultural perspective! It was masculine in a way that is very subversive to western gender stereotypes, and also Japanese in a very interesting way that said something interesting about the culture Pokemon was created in! And while I couldn't express that in words as a kid, I LOVED Gardevoir for it!

And then Gallade came out! And I hated it! Because literally the only thing that I could think of for why Gallade was created was because too many people complained about how girly Gardevoir was while also being an incredibly cool Pokemon and so the boys wanted a Gardevoir too. You know. When the boys already had a Gardevoir for boys. Aka Gardevoir as it was. And so I have always disliked Gallade for this. Also its design looks tacky in some ways, and the fact that people kinda just see Gardevoir as "female Gallade" to the point where some people will only refer to any Gardevoir and the species as a whole by she/her pronouns instead of gender neutral pronouns, even though you can still very VERY much evolve male Kirlia into Gardevoir, has always infuriated me. I thought that Gardevoir's gender ambiguity was SO COOL as a kid! But then that was taken away from me when Gallade was created and could ONLY be male, and to me everything that anyone ever does with Gardevoir and Gallade since then has just reinforced stereotypical western gender norms...

... At least until they created Iron Valiant. Because just... I LOVE Iron Valiant so so SO much! It's SO cool, and SO gender, and the best part about it to me is that it's getting back to what made me absolutely LOVE Gardevoir in the first place by being a species that is entirely genderless/non-binary while presenting as both male AND female at the same time! And so I wanted to make a version of it that was organic and actual flesh and blood like the ones that came before! Because I genuinely think that it would make a LOT of sense and be excellent if it turns out that there WAS a genderless evolution of the Ralts line, historically speaking, but that it went extinct after Poke-Japan modernized, westernized, and started practicing gender in a similar way to the west. This genderless evolution of Kirlia, while rare, was just something that happened sometimes and no one really thought it was weird or commented on it because gender wasn't really thought of in that way before western conceptions of gender came along. And it was perfectly natural for some Ralts to grow up and evolve into this variation and was in fact a sign of great strength. They were admired for their strength and abilities over everything else, and the fact that it didn't fit into male or female in terms of gender/physical sex was maybe a little strange to think about, but perfectly natural! But then western conceptions of gender came along, tried to force this species into a box, and for that, it went extinct. By embracing the western world and abandoning their old thinking of gender and sex, sadly that left no room for this unique and powerful Pokemon to exist, so it went extinct. It's one of the ways that embracing modernization and abandoning the past and the cultural identity that made the area unique causes irreparable harm. In a way, this Pokemon's cultural background and lack of gender was what made it strong in the first place! It's not a Pokemon that can exist as long as a western and essentialist view of gender reigns supreme over the world. And it's a genuine tragedy that it just doesn't exist in the modern world... But it COULD exist again if the traditions that don't view gender as this essential, black and white thing, returns at large! Let's just hope that we aren't all robots before that point happens! And in this setting of Meiji Hoenn? It's here. This species is surviving and thriving. And no one really thinks that its unusual for it to be here and for it to no longer have any gendered sex characteristics because that's just how it naturally has been and doesn't really warrant much comment.

[roppongi-division]

Zakari's Thoughts on Suginami Division

Ryuko Umemoto

"So this is the Yakuza guy that turned into an animator? Huh. ...Is it weird to say that he reminds me a bit of Samatoki? I mean, they kinda look the same if you glance at them from a different angle. But... I guess I shouldn't say that around him. I hear he and Samatoki don't get along all that well. ...Plus, I heard from Lucille he's also got some kind of grudge against the Kito-gumi as well. Sheesh, no offense to the guy, but I don't think it's wise to have so many enemies."

Maki Umemoto

"Ugh, I am so glad I only have Maki-sensei once a week, cause I really do not like his class. It's not that he's a bad teacher! But... well, for one thing, he almost always cancels class cause he can never work up the nerve to teach, much like Rosho-sensei. If that were all, it wouldn't be so bad. But every time he does teach, he always veers off topic and goes off on a tirade about the government. In every lesson! I think he made a mistake signing on to be a professor. Because the way he talks, he'd probably be better suited to be a politician or an activist."

"We get it, teach! You're not a fan of Chuohku, most people aren't either. But try to save your speeches and such for after class, okay? We come to your class to learn about the history of the world, not how much Chuohku is..." Zakari reaches off screen and grabs a notebook, opening it up to reveal his notes. "...'tearing down the globes of society by placating us and making us into slaves for them.'"

Shuu Edogawa

"...Man, I have to wonder if this guy accidentally committed some unforgiveable crime against my mom in a past life or something, because she absolutely despises him. Me, though, I actually find Shuu-chan kind of funny, really! I first met him after I was coming from a date with Lucille in Shizuoka. He was following me and her all throughout our date. I don't know if she noticed, but if she did, she didn't say anything."

"After I dropped her off, I led him on a merry chase throughout the city. I gotta say, for a short, scrawny guy in a suit, he could really move! Later, after I had thoroughly tired him out, I confronted him and asked him why he was following me. I wasn't mad; more curious than anything, really. Turns out someone had paid him to tail me, but he wouldn't say who. 'I'm a professional', he said. 'I can't give away client information.'"

"Most people would be upset after hearing something like that. Me, though, I was a bit flattered. I told him, I don't begrudge him for doing his job. But whoever paid him, I told him he should go back and request double, no, triple the rate, cause I wasn't going to make it easy for him. He understood, and with that, we both went our separate ways."

"We still meet each other now and then, and I even stop and have a talk with the guy. I don't know why my mom dislikes him, but he seems alright. ...Still, he should probably sign up for some karate or gym classes or something..."

Sazanka Zombeez

"I actually like this team name. 'Sazanka.' I don't know why, but I like that word. It sounds pretty, which is a given since its a kind of flower. 'Flower Zombies'... sounds like something you'd hear in a video game. As far as the team, itself, goes, I don't think they're bad. I don't know if we'll ever face them or not. But if we do, I'm going to have fun going up against Maki-sensei. We'll see if all of his speeches on the government have prepared his rapping!"

[rookie-critic]

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022, dir. Joel Crawford) - review by Rookie-Critic

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is, legitimately, one of the best movies of the year. It is pure in its love for animation and easily one of the most enjoyable theater experiences I've had in 2022. I wasn't even going to see it. I haven't seen any other Puss in Boots movies or series and have only seen the first 3 Shrek films (maybe only the first 2), so I thought that would be a barrier for entry, but it absolutely isn't. You can jump headfirst into this movie knowing absolutely nothing and have a wonderful time. I've also never been the biggest fan of this particular franchise, and thought that this would be an easy skip because of that, but then reviews started pouring in and they were all overwhelmingly positive which, of course, piqued my interest. Even still, when I sat down in my seat at the theater I was skeptical; I thought I would have some fun, laugh at the jokes, and go an a quasi-entertaining adventure with a character that I didn't really care a whole lot about before now. What I ended up getting was not only an absolute laugh-riot, but an animated film that digs deep into death anxiety and has a larger narrative about found family, trust, and, as cliché as this is going to sound, the power of friendship.

The cast is great and surprisingly stacked (Salma Hayek, Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, and John Mulaney all have major roles), but the obvious standouts are Antonio Banderas and Harvey Guillén. Banderas has been playing Puss in Boots fairly regularly since 2004, so it's no surprise he is effortlessly perfect as the character at this point, but Harvey Guillén (who you might know as the lovable Guillermo from FX's What We Do in the Shadows) really shines and holds his own as a hopeful therapy dog that Puss comes across early on in the story. They play off each other expertly and contribute to a lot of the film's funniest moments. The humor is second-to-none, with comedic timing and sequences that are some of the most cleverly written I've seen in a long time. I'm pretty sure I was either laughing or grinning ear-to-ear for most of the movie from the moment it started to the moment the credits rolled. When I wasn't laughing, I was slack-jawed and dumbfounded by either the amazing animation quality or the incredibly heartfelt story.

The animation is absolutely bonkers in this film, from CG animation that blows most other modern 3D-animated movies out of the water to stylized animation slightly akin to what we saw out of Into the Spider-Verse back in 2018. The CG, especially when it comes to the unbelievably expressive faces of the animal characters, is mind-blowing. There are times I was staring in disbelief at the screen, not because of any big major action sequence, but because Kitty Softpaws gave Puss in Boots a knowing glance that broke right through the Uncanny Valley to look almost real. Although the action sequences are nothing to scoff at, either, with changes in animation style so subtle and weaved in that you barely even notice it's different, just that it looks amazing. As far as the story goes, I really can't say anything plot-wise because I absolutely do not want to spoil this for anyone, but just know that Puss in Boots: The Last Wish got this 29-year-old to tear up. Multiple times. It's beyond beautiful and I can't heap enough praise onto the film makers and animators for creating a movie that had absolutely no right being this great.

When I got home from the theater and was talking to some friends on Discord about it, I was really trying to find anything, even one thing that I disliked. A single complaint. The only thing I could come up with was that the auto-tune on Antonio Banderas' singing in the opening musical number of the film is very noticeable. That's the worst complaint I can even think to lob at Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. This movie is incredible and everyone should see it. Full stop.

Score: 10/10

Currently only in theaters.

[brassknucklespeirs]

5 / 21 with Ron because You Get It.

Pᴏɪsᴏɴ [Rᴏɴᴀʟᴅ Sᴘᴇɪʀs x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ]

Angry/Jealous Kiss with Ronald Speirs

i wrote this while listening to Poison by Alice Cooper and man did it set a scene for me so we're calling this little ficlet..

To say there was tension between Captain Ronald Speirs and Lieutenant Y/N L/N would be a complete and utter understatement. Both parties made sure to express to everyone that what they held for each other was a sense of dislike, one that took over every sense of their being when they were around each other, which was often, as two officers of Easy Company, but it has always been said to never judge a book by its cover. The two officers were interesting beings and outwardly seemed almost complete opposites of one another, one who hid his emotions so deep in himself that he could be considered heartless, while the other had hers on her sleeve for the world to see. The one thing they similarly shared was their pride, and god did it rear its ugly head when they were together.

Y/N was a woman deserving of her rank, having worked hand and foot to obtain the level of respect she received from the enlisted men and officers alike; a respect she felt was severely lacking from only one man. Ronald Speirs was a man of reputation, and boy did he fight hard to create the image he was viewed as. He wasn’t in it for the name per se, though of course it was certainly an added bonus, yet Y/N made it aware that she found that hard to believe. From the judgey eyes she constantly found loitering in her directions, combined with the numerous times he had snapped at her in front of the men about things such as chatting to them in passing or spending too much time with the enlisted, the woman held bitter thoughts of the man. Perhaps this made her bias towards speaking on his character.

In addition to that, she found the man’s way of doing things unnecessary and down right stupid, meaning she looked for any way to criticise his ability to be praised for the smallest of thing. Perhaps it was simply because she too had worked herself to the bone, putting herself on the line on multiple occasions and yet received nothing more than a clap on the back for it. Ronald Speirs was put on a pedestal for all the world to see and received every benefit from it while she stood below, craning her head just to snarl up at him.

The real problem came in to play that night, and as a lot of acts of chaos begin, it started with a drink. Y/N was much like Buck had been, the labelled rank she had been given was hardly able to sway her from joining those men off duty for a drink while they stopped by in a town in Switzerland. Much to the enjoyment of her soldiers and friends, the woman had let loose for the first time since before the war, the alcohol lingering in her brain like a pretty haze of clouds. 

The woman in question was leaning on Floyd’s shoulder for support as they drunkenly giggled through their shared conversation. Luz held her by the opposite shoulder, worried she might tumble off the bar stool if she tilted any further from her seat, yet a fond grin was pulled to his lips as he rolled his eyes at her antics. Y/N felt free, more so than she had in so long, the weight of the world seemingly falling from her shoulders the more she spent with the men. 

Captain Speirs sat in the corner of the bar, Nixon on his left and Welsh on his right, both of whom were watching the twitch of his lip as his gaze lingered on the two men pressed against her. They shared a glance, a knowing look passing over their faces before they turned back to their friend. 

“You know, one of them just might spontaneously combust if you glare any harder Ron.” Nixon quipped, raising an eyebrow at the man as his head whipped to him, the look of denial in his eyes alerting the intelligence officer of the words that were about to tumble from his lips. Yet no words came as he glanced between his two companions, sensing from the looks he was receiving thst there was going to be no way out of this. He simply huffed, shrugging his shoulders before wrapping his fingers around the lukewarm beer that had been sitting in front of him untouched for a good while. His knuckles turned white and his fingers seemed to flex and twitch around the glass as he turned his glare to the table, and one could say it was almost a pit that seemed to rise to his face, like that of a child getting their favourite toy taken off them.

Y/N was finally starting to settle down from her boisterous laughter, her hand still clutching at her stomach to try and apply pressure to the stitch that cramped her belly. After a moment, she too reached for her glass, though of course hers was much more empty than that of a certain captain’s. She took a large gulp, savouring the crisp drink while her ears tuned in to a new conversation the men had been having that she seemed to be only partially involved in. Luz’s voice sounded from beside her causing her eyes to flicker to him, yet the haze of the alcohol seemed to make her mind fuzzy as she caught a glimpse of Speirs over his shoulder. She quickly looked away from him, but had looked at him long enough to notice his eyes set harshly in the table in front of him while the other two officers beside him cackled away to each other.

The woman let her eyes linger on George’s face as she felt the conflict build up in her, clenching at her mind and trying to take control of her while she thought of Speirs; damn intrusive thoughts. It would seem she didn’t win her battle as her gaze slowly fluttered over Luz’s shoulder and back to the man behind him while she took another sip of her drink. The cup hid her wandering eye, covering the fact that she was blatantly staring at the flexing fingers that had been firmly wrapped around his glass. Her lips left her own pint glass as her bottom one was pulled between her teeth, nibbling gently at the soft flesh. The captain’s gaze hadn’t moved, but she watched as his hand left the beer on the table and moved to his face, his thumb rubbing along his lip while he stared off into space. She couldn’t help it, the man looked so calm and she could even say beautiful when his facial expression softened, showing that fact that his mind was drifting off. Y/N didn’t even realise she had been chewing furiously at her own lip until she pinched the skin a little too hard causing her to jolt slightly. As if sensing it, his gaze flickered to her immediately, taking in the way her fingers brushed gently against her slightly bleeding lip before her eyes moved back to him.

The two almost froze as they stared, like dear in the headlights, yet as people known to be fierce and well put together, they both snapped out of it quickly. They’re faces both held what some could say was indifference, but there was a swirling storm wreaking havoc in both of their heads as they refused to be the first one to back down from this staring contest. What people didn’t know is that there had been a game of cat and mouse going on between the two for a while now, one that even they couldn’t decipher, and though they’d both figured out why, neither seemed to be prepared to act on it; until now.

Y/N almost jumped at the feeling of an arm being wrapped around her waist, her eyes instantly moving away from Speirs to look at Luz, who had stepped closer to her, a look of concern pulled over his face.

“You alright there sweetheart?” He questioned, to which she just smiled gently, her mind clearly sobering up from that short experience of shock she had prior. The woman nodded, twisting her body to the side so she could lean on George, which was the only way she could stop herself from back to the captain sat behind them.

“Yeah Georgie, I’m better than alright.” She replied before tuning back into the conversation with a small squeeze of the man’s hand to show that he acknowledged her answer. What she would have seen if she had turned back was that of a fuming Speirs. His lip was struggling to stay pressed together as the upper one twitched with irritation while his fists curled into themselves, his fingers digging into the palm of his hand as he did. He had had enough as he stood suddenly, ready to walk out and neglect the drink he had nowhere near finished, deciding that the alcohol he’d had prior was giving him enough of a buzz; of course that was a buzz of annoyance and spiked anger. He looked back at the other two officers at the table, both of whom were looking at him in confusion as well as amusement.

“You alright there Ron?” Welsh asked before taking a swig of his beer, hiding the smirk that was pulling at his lips. The man didn’t nod at this, just let out a huff before stepping away from his chair to leave.

“Think it’s time I go and sort some things out before tomorrow.” He almost snarled in reply, the anger gripping at his chest and squeezing so very tight as his eyes caught a glimpse of Luz’s hand on your waist. Nix followed his line of sight, the smirk he already had becoming even bigger as he looked back at Ron.

“Want us to send L/N to help?” The intelligence officer said teasingly, the sentence causing a giggle to rise from Welsh’s mouth beside him. Ron went to snap back at the comment but he stopped himself, thinking it over a bit in his mind. He took a second before clearing his throat, his fists still clenched tightly at his side as he raised his chin up slightly higher into the air.

“Yes, that might be helpful, thank you Nix.” He replied cussing both men to pause their giggling, though the cheeky grins never left their faces. Nixon shrugged before taking a sip of his drink, leaning back in his chair further.

“Alright, whatever you want boss.” The man said, to which Ron just nodded before turning on his heels and storming out. Almost every eye in the room followed him as he disappeared in a flurry of heavy footfall, his gaze as cold as ice as he glanced around the room one more time. He caught yet another glimpse of Y/N pressed up against her friends, a little too close for his liking. His head snapped forward to stop himself from doing something he’d regret, and once he’d exited the door he closed it with purpose, his grip on the handle being extremely firm while another huffed breath left his mouth.

Y/N and the rest of the men continued staring at the door even after it was closed, no sound echoing around them as everyone held a similar confusion as to what just happened. No one would question it though, seeing as Speirs was a very mysterious man, one that no one would ever think of pissing off intentionally. The conversation slowly started back up again, though she struggled to pull her gaze from the door until she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned, coming face to face with one Lewis Nixon who stood behind her with a sloppy smile on his face, one that was clearly created from the several glasses of hard liquor he had consumed that night.

“Hey Nix, can I help you?” The woman asked with a grin, giggling slightly at the drunken man in front of her. He stumbled slightly as he leaned toward her, yet she caught him with her hands on his arms while she too leant forward so he wouldn’t have to.

“Ah yes, you can help me. We’ll actually not me, Captain Speirs. He wants to see you.” He muttered into her ear before giggling. Her eyebrows pulled together in confusion at his words, but a deep pit of worry soon followed as her brain connected the dots of him storming out.

“Uh yeah, I guess I’ll go now.” She replied as she stood, throwing an excuse over her shoulder at the men when they asked where she was going. “I’ll be back soon, promise.”

The air was cold as she stepped out into the fresh night air, the chill nipping at her skin causing a faint blush to cover her cheeks and nose. Her eyes scanned the area outside before falling on the lit up end of a cigarette by the side of the building, and she could make out the shining tank on his jacket as he inhaled again. The woman took a deep breath and squared her shoulders off before walking over to him, her arms crossing over her chest.

"You wanted to see me Sir?" Y/N asked, to which he rose his head to look at her. He took another puff of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and stamping it, rather aggressively one could say, into the stone beneath his feet. He didn’t say anything, only gazed at her while tilting his head, a look of thought crossing over his face again. “Sir?” She called again, confused as to what he’d need her help with, especially when he wasn’t saying a word. She took a few steps closer to him until they were only a metre or so away, his eyes cast on her with every movement she made. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and shimmering in the dim light of the street lamps. They held each other’s gaze for several moments before he looked away with a humourless laugh, one of his hands coming up to run through his hair in frustration.

“You infuriate me woman.” He said finally, his tone seemingly cold yet it held a touch of something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Her eyebrows drew together while her head pulled back towards her shoulders, taking offence to what he had said.

“Excuse me? I don’t quite understand what’s happening sir.” Y/N almost stuttered but she held firm and steady in the end, refusing to let his words take her own from her. He laughed again, this time taking a step closer to her, his eyes set upon her so intensely.

“I said you infuriate me.” He spoke again, taking one more step as he finished speaking, causing her to take a step back as well. The woman blinked several times, too lost in what he had said to realise he was still stepping towards her until her foot caught the wall behind her as they neared the side of the building. Her eyes flickered behind her slightly, realising she had nowhere to go as she refused to take one more step to be backed into a wall. Her eye turned back, looking up at him as she cleared her throat.

“You infuriate me too sir.” She replied defiantly, nudging her nose into the air to try and show her confidence in the matter, even though the growing proximity between them was making it harder to breath. He hummed lowly, but didn’t say anything else as he stopped moving towards her, though his eyes were still set on taking in every detail of her face.

“You’re too friendly with the men.” The officer said suddenly, and she had to control herself when the urge to roll her eyes came in full force.

“Sir, if I may, we’ve been over this before. They are my friends, yes, but they respect me as much as they need to, and maybe even more. That’s more than I can say about some people.” Y/N replied, the anger bubbling up under her skin as she thought of all the times this obnoxious man had tried to tell her to stop being so friendly to the enlisted men.

“And by ‘some people’ you mean me, Lieutenant?” Ron said with the smallest of smirks, his eyebrows raised in mock question as he stared down at her. She readjusted the position of her head as she crossed her arms even tighter over her body and cleared her throat again, her temper ready to boil over.

“Actually yes, I do sir. Because I’m here working my ass off for no reward at all while you could be out there making a cup of coffee and someone will congratulate you on how amazing you are.”

“It’s nice to know I’m so highly thought of.” The man replied, his smirk widening.

“Ugh, this isn’t a joke sir. You need to get off your high horse. Seriously, it’s annoying how you get everything you want with the snap of your fingers.” Her voice held such resentment, though it wasn’t focused on him, merely her lack of the treatment he got for doing anything. Speirs let out a huffed snort of air through his nose and she watched as his pupils blew several sizes bigger while he looked down at her. He took a step forward, almost pressing their bodies together if it weren’t for the fact that she’d stepped back into the wall, a quiet yelp of shock coming from her lips. His eyes were like that of a predator stalking it’s prey as they looked at her so intensely while he took that finally step to her, the space between them now being almost nonexistent.

“Not everything I want.” He practically whispered to her and she couldn’t help it as a shiver ran down her spine at the husky tone of it. His eyes set on her so carefully didn’t help, if anything it made her palms sweat and her heart race, something she couldn’t deny at that very moment.

“S-sir?” She stuttered out in slight shock, completely aware that the game they had been playing was quickly coming to its end. She inhaled sharply as she felt two hands grip at either side of her hips, the same fingers she’d been staring at 20 minutes ago were now digging into her flesh and god did she enjoy it.

“You really do infuriate me. And then you push me even further by letting everyone be so close to you but me. It’s like your taunting me, and it’s driving me insane. You drive me insane.” The man continued his previous remark, and the other officer felt as if the oxygen had left her body, her eyes widening while she stared up at him.

“Well, it’s mutual.” The words had slipped out of her mouth without her thinking, yet she wouldn’t have even had time to cover her mouth and apologise for her out-of-order remark before his lips were pressed against hers. She hasn’t been ready at all but the woman didn’t hesitate to kiss back, pushing against his lips just as harshly as he was to hers, as if they were still fighting this never existent battle between them. Her hands moved quickly to his hair, tugging at the soft strands as she wrangled to pull him as close to her as possible. His own hands were still on her hips, pushing with such force that she should be concerned she might end up falling through the brick wall behind her, yet she relished in the feeling of being handled so passionately.

His hands gave a particularly hard squeeze, his fingers digging into her warm flesh as he savoured the feeling of her being so soft under his touch. She let out a moan when he slipped his tongue into her mouth, the kiss becoming more frantic as they grasped at each other like they were in desperate need of affection. Ron groaned into her mouth when she bit at his lip, both their eyes opening as she pulled away, a cheeky smirk on her face. His eyes glistened at he stared down at her, happy that he had finally shown her why he didn’t like the men being around her so closely.

“I get it now. You want me all to yourself huh Ron?” The woman questioned teasingly, her tongue dashing out of her mouth to lick her lips absentmindedly.

“I honestly don’t care how close you are with the men, with reason of course, as long as I get the attention that I deserve as well.” He replied, his eyes flickering between her eyes and her mouth.

“‘Attention you deserve’? Who would have thought that scary, intimidating Ronald Speirs was needy for a little love.”

“Only if it’s yours, then yes, call me needy.” He confessed, his eyes shining with mirth as he looked down at her, opening his mouth to say something else before he stopped short at the sound of the pub door opening and closing. He glanced at her to stay quiet for a moment as he stepped back out into the light when he heard the footsteps getting closer. The man moved around the corner fully, leaning against the wall to cover any sign of the woman still pressed against the wall around the side of the building, one who was still trying to catch her breath from the dizzying experience she had just had. His hands moved to pull out a cigarette when his eyes found Talbert’s, the latter man walking towards him with a look of recognition on his face.

“Captain Speirs, Sir, sorry to bother you. You haven’t happened to have seen Lieutenant L/N walking around have you?” Tab asked, a slight tone of concern on his voice. Ron lit his cigarette before taking a long inhale, the smoke creating a large haze of cloud as he blew it back out before answering.

“I can’t say I have sergeant.” Tab looked slightly deflated at the comment but he just nodded his head.

“Oh well, thank you sir.” That was all he said before he turned on his heels and wandered off into the night towards the house he knew Y/N was staying in. Ron’s eyes followed him until his figure disappeared into the dark before he heard a giggle erupt from behind him. He took another drag of his lucky strike as he rounded the corner again, his eyebrow raised at the woman who stood laughing to herself, still in the spot that he left her. He took several steps to get back to her, stopping just shy of their previous proximity.

“‘I can’t say I have sergeant’, what a little liar you are Ronald Speirs.” He liked it when she said his name, so much so that he reached out to grab her hips once more, pulling her away from the wall and into his arms, the cigarette abandoned on the floor as he did. His lips found hers again, moulding together like they were meant to be there, made to be there, kissing this exact woman. He smiled against her lips when he felt her melt into his arms, and any tension that was there before had blown away with the wind as she relaxed.

“I could get use to this.” She whispered when they pulled away, their lips still brushing together as her mouth moved. Ron gazed down at her for a moment before chuckling, his hands giving a playful squeeze to her hips.

"Careful there Lieutenant, you almost sound like you enjoy my company."

"Well I mean, seeing as I did just have your tongue down my thro-" The woman didn’t get to finish her words as his hand came to cover her mouth.

"Alright, alright, get your ass outta before your little buddies come looking for you again." Y/N let him hold his hand there as he talked, her eyes flickering to it and back to him on multiple occasions as she thought of them on her, in any way that she could. She popped her own dream bubble to surface back to reality when she realised he’d been staring at he with amusement, a single eyebrow raised in acknowledgment of her flickering eyes. He let her go from his grasp, stepping back to allow her room to walk around him only for her to not move.

"Awh, you don't wanna be seen with me, is that it? How dare I tarnish the great Captain Speirs' reputation by making him soft." Y/N teased with a toothy grin to which he leaned down towards her once again, a mischievous glint in his eye.

"You make me anything but." He replied with a smirk as he nudged his nose against hers, his hands squeezing at her hips tightly. She rolled her eyes at the meaning behind his words, hiding the fact that she was screaming on the inside, her stomach seemingly doing flips within her body.

"Careful there Captain, you almost sound like you enjoy my company." She mocked the words he had spoken to her earlier causing Ron to roll his eyes at his cheeky little woman.

"Unfortunately." He replied with an annoyed look, though the playfulness was clear in his tone. Y/N smiled at him, her eyes trailing all over his face as it shone in the street light, and she couldn’t help it when she leant forward to give him one last gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth. She watched as his eyes fluttered slightly before she stepped back, a warm feeling of endearment cocooning her entire body the longer she looked at him.

"Bye Ronnie." The woman said as she walked back off into the night to find where Tab had run off to, but not before giving one last glance over her shoulder at him. He smiled at her, one that was full of affection and happiness, not at all the same man who had angrily and jealously stomped out of the bar in a huff. She knew then, regardless, she would take him either way. Her left eye dropped in a wink before she looked back towards her destination, a soft schoolgirl smile pulling to her lips as she reached up to brush her fingers agains them, completely and utterly in bliss from what had just occurred.

I should piss him off more often.

[snappleapple]

their favorite types of kisses

people in this - dream, georgenotfound, sapnap, wilbur, punz, jschlatt, awesamdude, quackity

headcanon!

the most disgusting fluff i’ve ever written

warning - cursing, i think that’s all but if there is more please do not hesitate to tell me :)

word count - 2k

a/n: okay okay, i might’ve lied earlier about that being my last post but this was short and easy to make which is why i would like to feed my readers this early haha. anyways, enjoy and please disregard the errors in this post, i hate proof reading anything lol. also, i’ve been very indecisive on the title and i might change it later and ooh, my masterlist will be made soon. i’ve just been feeling very unproductive these days. also, please put in requests, i am so bored and dumb therefore there are no ideas in this brain. and if you’d like a part 2, i might add more people for the part 2!anyways, peace!

dream -

i get the feeling that dream’s favorite type of kisses would be cheek kisses

he just likes to watch as you struggle to reach his height

“aw look at those little legs do their thing.”

ends up with you not giving him his kiss

and mans becomes SO pouty

“y/n…come on. don’t be this way.” :(

if you don’t kiss him on the cheek, will also become SO clingy and whiny

“why won’t you KISS ME!”

clenches his fists and stomps away like a teenage girl during puberty

slamming the door to your room

so then you have to go and give him all the kisses he wants

his face is slammed into your pillow

you sit on the side of the bed and pet his hair

leading him to stare up at you with puppy dog eyes

“i will give you all the kisses you want. so stop being so pouty, you big baby.”

will literally leave zero feet of space between you and him

taps his cheek to tell you he wants kisses

when you go on dates, will literally make you stand on your tippy toes to get his kisses

does not bend down at all and actually lifts his head higher to tease you

in other words, clingy but rude hoe

george -

george is a classic romantic

he loves just lip kisses

pecks or lingering ones

he doesn’t care

mans don’t need too many kisses

nor does he need to be too clingy

total opposite of dream and sapnap *ahem clingy ahem*

if he wants a kiss,

he will come over to you and get it

doesn’t get pouty if you’re busy

just waits patiently

doesn’t enjoy it when you interrupt him when he’s streaming so you do your own thing

when you’re watching a movie with him,

he will literally only stare at you with his cute smile

and listen to your every criticism of the movie

he likes to just peck your lips whenever he feels like it

and you’re just not surprised anymore

just likes to stare at your lips whenever you talk

overall, is very sweet but not to an extent with showing affection

sapnap -

omg

sapnap just vibes with neck kisses

it tickles his neck and he loves them

giggles when you pepper kisses along his neck and flushes a deep red

“y/n. stop.” giggles between each word

but when you do, becomes the saddest person in the whole world

“i was joking.” :(

when he’s streaming and he begins to miss you

would leave his room and find you just to get a kiss

just like dream, would get angry if you give him no kisses

“GIVE ME KISSIES!”

very amusing for you

and you love to tease him

“i don’t want to give you kissies.”

continues to stare at you with a large frown until you give in and give him kissies

lsg supremacy but i’ll get into this later hehe

you better give him kisses or you’ll be dealing with a very sad sapnap

sadnap :(

wilbur -

wilbur, wilbur, wilbur

what can i even say

total nose kiss guy

i bet he’ll boop your nose twenty four seven

asks stupid questions just to get your attention

“y/n?”

“yes wilbur?”

“is a hotdog a sandwich?”

“why-“

“boop.”

“did you just say boop while you booped my nose?”

if he’s streaming and you bring him a snack

he will hold your face still and leave kisses on your nose

not too clingy but not too distant

likes to be just right with you

if its snowy outside and your noses get red

makes dumb jokes about he is rudolph and you’re mrs. rudolph

just a lot of smooches from wilby

takes you to a lot of hidden cafes in the city

and while you read, he balances his head on his palm, staring at you in admiration

if you’re insecure about your nose, you legit can’t be around wilbur because he will go on a tangent about how beautiful it is

substantially, soft boy hours all day bro, besides when he gets mad then you leave the hormonal man tf alone

punz -

i don’t see a lot of punz on tumblr so here we go

punz loves hand kisses

not to an extent where he has a hand fetish

god no but just like

when your holding hands, he’ll occasionally pull your hand up to his lips and leave a kiss

lots of hand holding

and i mean lots

constantly gets mad fun of for being a simp but ignores those comments because he genuinely loves you so much

likes it when you play with his hair and messing it up

also likes to compare hand sizes with you

always has a hand on your thigh or your hand in his whenever he is driving somewhere with you

even when you go on dates, always holding hands

no matter how sweaty your hand gets, he will hold on

sometimes if he holds on for too long, you have to tell him to let go

“punz, my hand is super sweaty. lets take a break from the hand holding.”

would flat out decline so you would have to pry your hand out of his

he would also love it when you would kiss his hand

makes him feel all polite and precious LOL

would also wrap his pinky along yours when you walk together

he once came with you to a family gathering for christmas and was so SHY

shy boy held your hand for security while your younger siblings made fun of you

afterwards, when you were under a mistletoe, he kisses you on the lips before kissing you on his favorite part of your body,

your hand

c!jschlatt -

jschlatt is a whole mess

the first time you met, he confessed that he would hate you for as long as you lived because you made fun of his boots

now he says he still strongly dislikes you but you’re more tolerable

doesn’t like it when you make him soft and HATES it when he blushes

“why must you do this to me, mother nature?”

also “hates” it when you even touch him because he “hates” you

when he actually confessed to you that he liked you with his grumpy usual grandpa voice,

you kissed him on his forehead, after he bent down of course

he is an actual giant and threatens to squash you like an ant if he feels the need to

is an absolute monster to you but loves it when you kiss his forehead because it makes him feel secure and loved

likes to watch the wind blow through your hair and mess it up but gives you his hat because he like you being “all pretty and shit”

gets SUPER jealous when you hug children

like for example, when you went over to a family gathering at his house, his cousins came up to hug you

and when you let go of the child, the man child comes and lugs you over his shoulder

gets yelled at by his mom and gives her a sheepish smile before rolling his eyes and throwing you down on the sofa set next to him

his mom doesn’t approve of the way he treats you but you tell her its fine because he’s cute

when you are far from any type of civilization or in the safety and solitude of your own home, he wants kisses on the forehead

pointing up to it and bending down so you could reach it

“y/n, i only love you because of your forehead kisses.”

“you only love me for my kisses?” :(

“mhm.”

actually feels slightly bad

“and because of your personality.”

“thank you-“

“shut up. we don’t talk about this.”

in conclusion, give him his forehead kisses or perish

awesamdude -

sam just adores it when you give him jawline kisses

not because it’s basically the only place you could reach but because it’s a sweet gesture

sam is all about sweetness

i mean have you even seen this man on his stream

he likes to watch you while you have conversations with your friends

not in a creepy way but more like an adoring way

cause man does he love you

i mean not only does he love you but his whole family does

and when you’re alone with sam, you love to bury him underneath all of your love

“i love you sam!”

“no i love you more y/n!”

“NO i LOVE you more!”

“NO i LOVE you MORE!”

“SAM NO. I LOVE YOU MORE!”

“okay thank you sweet pea.”

leaving you a bit confused but happy that he accepts your love

when you cuddle, omg

he never stops peppering kisses all over your face and vice versa because your relationship is disgustingly fluffy

when he lends you one of his sweatshirts, you sure as hell better wear that shit out or else (i am leaving a blank threat here)

sam loves technology but you guys sort of have a system

a system that involves mailing each other love letters rather than texting them

you guys also go on a ton of walks just about anywhere

hand holding is mandatory even though you probably look like a child compared to him

just give sam lots of love and in return, you’ll receive lots of love

quackity -

mans cannot leave you tf alone

likes to do ANYTHING freaky around you

“i will follow you to the ends of the earth, mi amor.” or

“ayy, back off.” if anyone gets too close to you

messes with you twenty four seven and makes it his job to drive you insane

plays horror games at two in the morning for fun

and when he gets scared, hides in the safety of your arms

“mi amor. i’m scared.”

“shut the fuck up and sleep, alex.”

“okay.” shuts up quickly and snuggles deeper into the crook of your neck

loves you so deeply but HATES your cat

“look at that little dumb thing stare at me. you got a problem bro?”

your cat also HATES alex

scratches him all the time and hisses at him

if you think sapnap is babie, wait till you meet alex

“y/n he bit me!”

when you glance down, you don’t even see a scratch

“kiss my boo boo.”

wtf

“what boo boo? there’s nothing there.”

gasps as if you offended him

“this boo boo that your el demonio did to me.”

this man will do anything to get boo boo kisses

istg, you once found him provoking your cat to get some scratches

in alex’s mind, ouchies = kisses from y/n

always has ouchies from god knows where and shows it to you

even though you find it annoying at first, you grow used to it and it sorta becomes your thing with alex

alex is babie and you need to take good care of him :)

[cinnaminyoons]

( DAFT PRETTY BOYS – PT I. )

ミ☆ taehyung claims to despise you with every single atom of his being, but love and hate are just two sides of the same coin.

⤷ PAIRING kth x m!reader

⤷ WORD COUNT 3.6k 

⤷ TAGS swearing, enemies-to-lovers, reader calls taehyung ‘puppy’, suggestive scene at the end

⤷ SERIES part two

⤷ REQUESTED

helloo !!

can you write a taehyung one shot where it's basically set in college and reader is a pretty popular guy while taehyung is also a popular guy but the both of them are sort of like rivals ?

like moths to an irresistible flame, girls and boys crowd taehyung any time he is on campus. it’s irritating for the kids who come to this elite university for the education and only the education and none of taehyung’s easygoing, party-animal lifestyle. trying to squeeze by a gaggle of ten, fifteen adoring fans in corridors is never an easy task.

because of taehyung’s nature, smiling and laughing carelessly at anything regardless of its consequences, most people think him impossible of anger or annoyance. that simply isn’t true. he may not dislike very much, but he certainly has the capacity to.

except for you. he hates you with every fibre of his body, from the shiny leather tips of his chunky black boots to his blood-red bandana.

now, taehyung thinks himself a reasonable and just person. he doesn’t hate everyone he doesn’t like. but you? something about you, even seeing you, makes his blood boil in his veins, burning their way to his heart and out to the tips of his fingers until his fists clench and his nails carve half-moons into his palms.

maybe it’s the way you’re so nice to everybody you meet. it’s as if you’re friends with every single student who has the fortune of attending the same campus at the same time as you. 

taehyung knows half of the academy and has had more in his bed – that’s the official name for it, snobby little men at the top calling their school a snobby little academy – but he doesn’t make friends with them. he doesn’t want a friends-with-benefits situation turning awkward because the other person messes it all up and falls for him.

or maybe he doesn’t like the way you present yourself. your family is rich, like his; they are giants in luxury fashion and expensive cars. he learnt this from loud whispers floating about, begrudgingly listened to even from his own little fanclub.

where taehyung can be described as wild and rebellious, you are branded sophisticated and classy. he can guess that it comes from the fact that you’re never seen wearing the same suit twice, and that your car can’t be described by model or even colour since it changes every month.

“oppa, oppa! look at me!”

taehyung looks. she practically faints into her friend’s arms.

it’s the end of his lectures – he skipped the first half, too busy rubbing the satisfying ache in his muscles from his nightly activities – and he stands in the campus’ car park, scattered here and there with the occasional shiny, fancy car. he’s done his best to shake off his followers, but a few still remain.

one of the girls – the one carrying her friend – gasps, staring somewhere to taehyung’s left. “oh my gosh,” she squeals to the boy next to her, “is that yn? he looks so amazing!”

taehyung glances left slowly, doing his best to refrain from snapping his gaze over and glaring.

and, lo and behold, there you are, strolling towards them. a large portfolio case made of black leather hangs from a strap over your shoulder, and in your other hand is an iced coffee. long legs are clad in black trousers, and a white shirt tucked into it makes your outline glow from the late morning sun, partially hidden by clouds. you’re chatting with someone, who looks smug and very pleased to be by your side.

the person turns, and taehyung’s jaw nearly drops to the floor. it’s jimin. his best friend, jimin.

jimin locks eyes with taehyung – he’s always had an uncanny ability to know when he’s being watched – and he beams brightly, waving with his whole arm. “tae! hey, haven’t seen you all day – where’d you go?”

he grabs your free hand and drags you over. evidently, he’s very close to you – taehyung never knew this, and it makes his expression sour.

“hi-i,” jimin sings, his blonde hair falling over his forehead in gentle waves. he wraps taehyung in a big hug, giggling, and lifts him off his feet slightly. taehyung pats his back and only relaxes when he’s got both feet on the ground again.

“hey, jimin,” he greets, purposely ignoring you. “i thought you didn’t have classes on fridays?”

“i don’t,” says jimin, and his smile gets even wider. it cuts up into his cheeks and makes his eyes sweet crescents. “i was helping yn-hyung take his finals up!”

“no, you weren’t,” you say good-naturedly, and jimin pouts at you. “my pieces are as tall as you.”

at the sound of your voice, taehyung feels the beginnings of anger coming on. it’s like ocean waves – as you tease jimin, and he pouts more aggressively, the waves turn from turquoise foam lapping at his ankles to big, frothing-white waves crashing down and swallowing him whole.

“fuck off, ln,” he growls. the once-relaxed angles of his body sharpening and the furrow of his dark brows make his anger all the more apparent. “you keep your filthy hands to yourself. i don’t want you dirtying him with whatever bullshit you’re spouting now.”

you raise an eyebrow. nothing physical about you changes – your grasp on your plastic cup is still loose, and your posture is still open and comfortable. yet, there’s something in your eyes – a dark glint, like a blade’s edge – that lets him know what you want him to know.

you’re vexing like that. you show only what you want other people to see in doses so small they feel like they’ve done something important, uncovered a secret feeling they think you’ve tried to hide. it makes them prideful, arrogant, and makes their downfall all the more dramatic.

“stand down, puppy. i’m no threat.” you catch the eye of one of the girls behind taehyung, who stares at you with reverence. her entire face goes pink when you smile at her, and shyly, she hides her cheeks with manicured hands.

all taehyung can do is glare. you smile – frustratingly calmly – and take a sip from your coffee. against his own will, his eyes flicker down to your mouth. his head fills up with images of your smirking lips.

what am i thinking? 

in one sudden motion, he smacks your hand hard enough to make it sound as if he’d slapped your face. taehyung’s little gang of adorers gasp in unison as the lid separates from the cup on contact with the grey concrete, splashing it everywhere in a strangely artistic shape like a river delta. the ice cubes spill out and clatter noisily.

“come on, jimin,” taehyung mutters, still glowering at you. when jimin doesn’t move, taehyung grunts and grabs him by the wrist. he drags him away – jimin trips over himself to keep pace with taehyung’s long strides – without a look back. people stare in acute interest. 

you glance at the ground. the lid, with its straw still in the hole, sadly rocks back and forth. taehyung’s fanclub is still with you, watching cautiously as if you’d explode at them. you suppose that’s what he would do.

instead, you pick up the cup and its lid, both covered in coffee. no littering on campus. you hold it carefully away from your clothes and look around. “does anyone have a tissue i can use?”

three pocket packs of tissues thrust forward.

—

“tae! taehyung! wait up!”

at the familiar voice, taehyung stops in his tracks and turns. “hey – hobi-hyung, jimin.”

hoseok throws an arm around his shoulder, grinning like he’s won the lottery. “we’ve heard rumours.”

“about?” taehyung asks, disinterested. there are always rumours floating around – nothing special.

“you, duh. haven’t you heard?” jimin cuts in. he pinches the sleeve of hoseok’s dark green shirt to not bump into anyone while he looks down into the mouth of his backpack, rummaging around. he retrieves some rose-pink lip gloss. “then again, half of every rumour concerns you.”

taehyung takes a seat at an empty window table and snaps open a sandwich container. the scent of warm bread floats in the air of the quaint cafe. “uh-huh. i stopped listening after the first few hundred.”

hoseok rolls his eyes affectionately and steals taehyung’s green bottle of sprite. taehyung opens his mouth to demand it back, but hoseok’s already cracked it open and taken a sip. 

hoseok waves a slender hand while he talks. “seokjin-hyung told me people are complaining about you and someone called ln yn. the name ring any bells?”

“alarm bells, yeah. guy’s a douchebag.”

jimin sighs, “he’s really not.”

“yes, he is. the bastard never lets me win – always first place in competitions, constantly correcting me, even girls. rubs it in my face, too, with that stupid handsome smirk.” taehyung shakes his head and returns his attention to hoseok. “so? what’s the big deal hyung spoke about?” 

hoseok glances left, right, and leans across the table. he drops his voice. “you’re getting a room change this week. after namjoon-hyung got this petition thing from students, he was forced to give it to the dean due to the sheer number of names. the dean approved it.”

“and where, exactly, am i moving? i like it where i am.” his family paid an ungodly amount of money to get him a dorm alone.

jimin placed a hand on taehyung’s shoulder sympathetically, and hoseok gives him a wicked, giddy grin. “you’re gonna be roomies with ln yn.”

“what?” taehyung’s palms slap the table and his chair screeches painfully. the entire cafe quietens at his shout, looking on awkwardly.

“sit down,” jimin says firmly, “and shut up.”

taehyung sits down. he shuts up.

hoseok apologises to the cafe with a bright, charming smile and a wave. there’s a bit of muttering from disgruntled students, but the chatter returns. 

he faces taehyung, eyes glimmering. “i bet you’re wondering why. well, everyone knows you in one way or another, and some people are really getting annoyed at the ‘another’ part.” he pulls a face that says yikes. “to put it simply, they want you to shut up at night. plus, taming that rivalry you’ve got with yn would be good for all of us, as entertaining as it is to see you bite each other’s heads off.”

taehyung takes a silent bite of his sandwich. it doesn’t taste as good after such awful news. 

“the academy’s full of kids who want to be doctors or lawyers or whatever,” jimin says, smacking his lips in a small handheld mirror. he puts the lip gloss back in his bag. “they don’t enjoy having to cram before an exam to the sound of you breaking the bed.”

“i’m two floors up,” hoseok remarks, “and sometimes i feel like i can still hear you.”

look, taehyung isn’t a whiner. if he had to move rooms, he’d be totally fine with it – if he had been told about it first, and if it isn’t with his arch-enemy.

“with ln,” he says finally, strained. “i have to room with ln.”

“it won’t be that bad,” jimin cajoles, “if you just be nice. i don’t understand why you hate him so much – what’s he done to get your knickers in a twist?”

exist, taehyung wants to say, but he holds his tongue. sullenly, he chews his sandwich.

hoseok checks his watch. it’s a cheap thing from a market store when he went overseas with his family, a plastic gameboy with a digital watch where the screen would be, but he adores it. he’s done everything he can to lengthen its life. 

“my class starts in ten.” he leans back in his seat and cracks his back with a stretch. he sighs in satisfaction and rises to his feet. “i’ve gotta run. jimin, teach him some manners while i’m gone.”

jimin gives him a nod. “aye-aye, captain.”

“wait, can i have my—” 

hoseok whisks himself out the door, along with taehyung’s sprite. he sighs.

jimin crosses his legs and gazes expectantly at taehyung. 

it unnerves him. “what?”

“i’m taking my job seriously.” he clears his throat. “scenario one: you drop something that doesn’t belong to you and it shatters into a million pieces onto the floor. what do you do?”

taehyung groans and slumps to the table.

—

fuck this. fuck this. fuck this.

every step he has to heave his boxes up, he curses you. of course the special little prince has to live on the very top floor of a six-storey building. of course the elevator has to be under maintenance on the day he moves out.

he’s already dragged up half of his room. being unwilling and a little more than lazy, he’d begun with the small stuff – kitchen utensils, hair products, accessories – since he believed the bigger things, like his bed, would be easily taken up through the elevator. 

boy, was he wrong.

in the middle of carrying two big boxes full of very heavy things – he hasn’t labelled anything –  he practically collapses on the staircase. it’s probably wide enough to fit a small car, if a car wanted to go up the stairs for whatever reason, and taehyung plops himself right in the middle of it.

he closes his eyes. his clothes smell like cardboard and dust.

the light coming through his eyelids dims considerably. “you look like you need a hand.”

taehyung scowls. “go away, ln.”

the shadows shift, and he hears the click of your shoes move around him towards his boxes. there’s a brief pause, and then your footsteps pass him from bottom to top.

“come on, pretty boy. you can rest in our dorm.”

taehyung finally opens his eyes and sighs. he gets up and follows you, lagging behind warily. he frowns. “are you wearing jeans?”

you turn, gazing down at him from the landing above him. “yes. stop gaping – close your mouth before you start drooling.”

you continue up the stairs, and it takes a few seconds for taehyung to remember how to walk. you’ve never, ever, worn jeans in front of him before – and is that a cap? 

it feels like he’s walked in on you naked. his face warms and he looks away quickly. he’s never been much of a puritan about anything – really, he’s quite bold and shameless. yet, watching the way your arms shift and strain against the dark material of your long-sleeve shirt, with the sleeves pushed up to your elbows, makes him feel... hot. he pulls at his collar.

have you just been to the gym? your hands are veinier than he remembers.

you nudge the door open with your foot. the room sits at the very end of the hallway, on the short side of the building, which means it gets two walls with windows rather than just one. inside, if taehyung ignores the many boxes sitting like boils in the pristine space, is rather homey.

the small kitchen – you get a kitchen, he thinks in something akin to jealousy, despite now living here too – has a row of potted plants lining the bench. no, not just any plants – herbs. basil, lemongrass, coriander, chillies, some others.

“they’re labelled now,” you call from the area opposite your bed and desk, which you have considerately shifted over to make room for him. a bunch of boxes you’d already helped move in sit around in neat pyramids, biggest at the bottom. “everything is. i didn’t know if you had any allergies and i heard you don’t like spicy things.”

it sets his teeth on edge. where did you learn that?

“why... are you being so nice?”

you look up from near your desk, where you have a box cutter in hand. “nice?” you scoff. “is not wanting to accidentally kill someone because of an allergy ‘nice’?”

taehyung rolls his eyes. “jesus. relax. i wasn’t trying to start anything.”

“yeah, right. your friends tell me you rant and rave about how shitty i am after every meeting.” you look him up and down and he crosses his arms over his chest. you smirk at the defensive posture. 

you continue, “every time we see each other, you speak as if you’ve been practising the words in your mirror. every time we see each other, you bare your teeth at me like a pup at the end of its leash.”

“i—”

“so, which is it, taehyung?” you step forward. you’re close enough that taehyung can smell your cologne – something earthy, woodsy, but sharp and sweet, like pine and jasmine. you raise his chin with a finger. “do you like me, or do you hate me?”

the scent of you fills his nose, his mouth. he swallows thickly. he’s never properly noticed it before, too busy frothing at the mouth with anger, but you’re taller than him – tall enough that he has to crane his neck significantly to look you in the eye. it makes it difficult to stare you down.

when he finally finds his tongue, he says, “what kind of freak mistakes hate for love?” 

he means to say it with a snap, a baring of the teeth. it doesn’t come out like that. the closest thing his voice is to is mild contempt.

you know it. you know what he is. a hint of a smile appears on your lips, and his eyes dart down to them.

your hand shifts from beneath his chin to his throat. gently, like he is a piece of art too precious to break. his throat rides against your thumb as he swallows.

“i don’t know,” you whisper, eyes glittering in the shadows of the late afternoon sun. you lean in, and he doesn’t back away. “what kind?”

your smile widens when his hands – shaky, hesitant, like a fawn learning to walk – unwind from across his chest. he hooks his fingers in the loops of your jeans, the leather of your belt smooth and cool against his clammy hands.

when has kim taehyung ever had clammy hands?

he turns his head slightly to catch your eyes. you’re still smiling that infuriating, obnoxious, and maddeningly attractive smile. you know exactly how he feels, and exactly what to do to rile him up. every single time, without fault, it works.

annoyance bubbles up in him at the very thought. you’ve been playing with him for – how many years now? three, four? you’ve toyed with him, leading him on with the metaphorical carrot on a stick. you may have led him to it but he was the one who took that first bite, and he was left wanting.

he leans in and presses his lips against yours – quickly and lightly, like a hand flitting out to steal a wallet out of a pocket. he goes in again, starving, all tongues and teeth. lips still connected, he pushes you back by the chest until you hit the edge of your bed with the backs of your knees. 

you grip his hips tightly as a warning as he tries to force you down. he growls impatiently into the kiss – pressed close as you are, you feel it rumble through his chest into yours. you part for air and you grin at his red, kiss-swollen lips and his half-lidded eyes, pupils blown wide open. 

“careful, puppy,” you murmur with a chuckle. “don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“shut up.”

he pushes down on your shoulders again, and this time, you allow him. the brim of your cap bothers him. he bats it away and it falls to the bed, forgotten. 

he presses your lips together once more and straddles your lap, pushing you down into the sheets with a sharp grin. he moves his body in such a way that what it is he wants is made crystal clear: the slow, lazy rocking of his hips; his long, slender fingers slipping under your shirt and drawing circles over the warm lines of you.

not many people would be allowed the chance to see you like this, he thinks. him, yes; not you. princelike, you are untouchable.

your hands push at his clothes. they slip off his shoulders like oil on water, revealing a gorgeous golden expanse. he almost seems to glow, rimmed in warmth. his heart races under his ribs with every touch.

muscles shift beneath his skin as he moves, guiding your hands to the favourite parts of him. his shoulders, his stomach, his thighs. everyone likes those parts of him, so physical and devoid of the intimacy he craves. he guesses you’ll be the same, enraptured with them like a bee caught in honey – the cause of its own demise.

but you don’t. 

you stroke the soft inside of his wrist with a thumb, pressing down to feel his pulse quickening. you trace the shallow dip of his spine, fingers bumping gently over the vertebrae until you reach the nape of his neck, where the dyed curls of hair fade to their natural black. 

you brush the pad of your finger over the slight concavity between his collarbones, drawing a straight line down the middle of his chest until you reach his ribs. his heart beats beneath it rapidly – it hammers against your palm.

“are you nervous, taehyung?” you ask quietly, amusement seeping into your voice. “we can slow things down, if you like.”

oh, no. no, no. he has received a chance to love someone properly – and to put an end to this ridiculous rivalry. he forced it there, desperate to put a name to the thing that consumed him. any slower and he may just combust.

“fuck off, yn,” he mutters, and shuts you up with his lips on yours.

[well-its-not-human-anymore]

Hi! Could I get HC from the guys? 👀 How they would always react to catching the reader seeing them "badly", in addition to the fact that he usually avoids them, but with his brothers it is incredible and they feel bad because they think they do not like him.  But she actually likes them and she looks at them like that because she "studies" them to draw them and she is too clumsy and shy to talk to them, that's why she ends up avoiding them. Until finally he catches her drawing them with lots of hearts or maybe they'll find her notebook with lots of portraits of them.

It's kind of funny because when I study people to draw them, they think that I look at them with hatred xd maybe I should increase my glasses prescription

God, glasses are such a pain in the ass but I have to wear them. If I don't anyone within my near vicinity doesn't have a face. But why they gotta get dirty so easily???? Makes me wanna explode or something

TMNT Headcanons

The boys w/ a quiet reader who is fine with his brothers but acts cold around him and stares a lot

Michaelangelo

mikey couldn't describe his disappointment upon realizing that you didn't want to be friends with him

well, you never actually said that to him

but he was pretty sure it was the case

you'd never made an effort to be friends with him

stared at him an awful lot though, but there was always something off about your gaze when you looked at him

like you were sizing him up, scrutinizing him, like he was an opponent

it kinda worried him

to add to that, you didn't even attempt to look embarrassed when he caught you staring

you'd just stare harder

on your end it was quite the opposite

you always found the brothers fascinating and you LOVED studying their anatomy, you'd confessed this to Donnie early on and he happily indulged in your questions

and you loved how easily you got along with the boys

well, except for Mikey

but it wasn't for a lack of trying

whenever the orange sporting turtle came around your normally flamboyant personality crept back into its little corner and hid

any words of excitement that had previously been with you died in your throat

for the longest time you didn't understand it

and you hated not understanding things, so you turned to your only outlet

that's how you ended up with an entire sketchbook full of the youngest brother in vastly different styles and poses

you had a separate book for the others, none of them as detailed as this

and when you stared to analyze you'd fallen into a habit of not looking away when caught

by your logic, if you stared back hard enough he'd look away first or just assume you'd zoned out

he didn't

and on one hectic day you'd left your sketchbook open on the kitchen table in your rush to get to work

you hadn't even noticed the slip up until Leo texted you to let you know during your shift

instant panic

in truth, Mikey was the one who discovered the book upon waking up from his nap and he'd spent the next three hours analyzing every drawing

when you finally dropped in after work to grab your book the turtle was waiting for you with it in hand

he'd asked you if you hated him

you told him no and accepted your sketchbook from him

he was relieved and screaming excitedly, just in his head

"Do you maybe wanna hang out sometime?"

You sighed in relief and nodded

"If you're cool with it- you don't think I'm weird do you?"

"I mean- you are talking to a turtle..."

you lightly shoved his chest and smiled, although it faded within a second

"Oh hush, 10 o'clock tomorrow? I'll bring snacks."

he was so stunned he could only shoot you finger guns in approval

Donatello

Donnie genuinely couldn't understand your unease around him

he'd followed all the proper expectations of holding a conversation

he was polite and engaging

so why wouldn't you talk to him?

this boy has read so many social blogs to try and figure out what he was doing wrong and he just couldn't put his finger on it

you were fine with the rest of his brothers, you'd stay up for hours laughing and gaming with them

you'd even sat still long enough to listen to Leo explain some old Japanese myth that he'd read about in a book

but with him it was always a quick, cordial greetings and farewells with bland small talk in between

Donnie had picked up pretty quickly that you weren't interested in any sort of interaction with him

and he convinced himself that that was okay

but that didn't explain the staring

he'd caught you in the act several times, eyes narrowed and locked on him

especially when you were alone with him in a room or just in the lair

the poor turtle just couldn't put his finger on it

then he caught you drawing, he noticed early on that you always carried a small sketchbook on your person but he didn't think much of it

and it wasn't so much that he caught you drawing, in fact, he wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't snapped at him while he was trying to do a sudoku puzzle

"Damn it Donnie! Stop moving! If I fuck this arm up one more time I'm gonna decompose!"

he'd quickly moved back into the position he was in prior

"sorry?"

but you'd gone silent again, occasionally glancing up from your work and running your eyes along his frame before looking down again

nearly twenty minutes later Donnie had finished the puzzle and it seemed as though you had finished your drawing

"Uh- can I ask what are you-"

"I'm drawing you but you kept moving your arm and making me mess up. You always do that when I draw you so every damn picture I have of you stays a sketch because you always come out looking like a fucking octopus."

He just stared

"Sorry, I uh- I didn't mean to explode on you like that. I'm just- I'm really bad at talking to you okay? It's so easy with everyone else but you've just gotta be so damn smart all the time and I worry that you'll think I'm boring so I just... don't talk to you?"

Donnie is stunned™

You refuse to show him the drawing until you can complete the line art and color it

But at least he knows that you don't hate him

Leonardo

To be completely honest Leo didn't mind that you were distant from him

You created an aura of calm when you were around and you always managed to distract his brothers while you were present

And he enjoyed the alone time

But after a few months that calm acceptance turned into jealousy

Not that he would ever admit it

He would just push it off and ignore it, that usually seemed to work

So why wasn't it?

And your obvious staring problem didn't help at all

Leo didn't spend much time considering his appearance but something about your gaze made him self conscious

And he hated that with a passion

Why was it that you could hold entire debates with his siblings? Even his dad for gods sake. You'd have hour long conversations on almost everything but whenever he tried to say hello you'd make up some lame ass excuse and scamper away

He just wanted an explanation

It appeared that the answer resided in your sketchbook

You'd left it open on the couch when Raph had called you away to spar with him

Leo very delicately flipped through the pages, careful not to disturb some of the polaroid pictures of his brothers

He was admittedly surprised to find pictures of himself among the pages

One of him in a handstand, another of him meditating, there was even one of him mid sneeze that you'd recreated with pencil and paper

The image of his eyes was the most startling, but the book held no polaroid of his eyes

You drew them from memory

And he was shocked when you returned to the room and didn't immediately panic

But that might have been because he didn't try to withhold your book from you

"It took me three months to color them, your eyes. I could never get the shade of blue just right."

"I'm gonna be honest with you y/n, I really thought you didn't like me."

You had the nerve to roll your eyes and follow it with a laugh

"I don't. I mean- I do but no, you just remind me a lot of myself and I haven't exactly figured out why yet. I thought that maybe if I drew you it'd be easier to figure you out..."

"Well did it help?"

You grinned

"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

Raphael

If there was one thing Raph hated it was not understanding something that was right in front of him

which is ironic, as a much younger version of himself probably couldn't care less

and a part of him wishes he didn't care about it so much

he wishes that your blatant avoidance of him didn't upset him

but shit, it got under his skin better than any needle ever could

was it too much to ask for you to just tell him what he said or did wrong?

was he asking too much of you?

but on the same scale you'd never shown obvious dislike towards him, you were never rude and you sure as hell didn't talk shit about him to his brothers

you got along great with them

in fact it was getting more difficult to remember a time before you became a part of his family

he'd become so used to your presence that it no longer put him off when he found you hanging around the lair

but in another sense he was certain that you hadn't spoken more than three sentences to him in your time knowing him or his family

so what was the reason

several months in he finally caught onto the staring, your narrow, glassy gaze locked onto his body and refusing to look away

he stared right back at you

this annoyed you for several reasons

because within five seconds your very peaceful drawing session had turned into a staring contest and your eyes were getting VERY dry

then you exhaled in a half-sigh and looked back down at your paper

"Huh, I guess your head is more of an oblong shape..."

he took offense to this

"What tha' hell is that supposed t'mean?"

now your eyes held more of an amused silent judgement, you begrudgingly held up your sketchbook

"I'm drawing you, you fucking walnut."

"Oh..."

now you rolled you eyes and tossed the book to him, he nearly dropped it and fumbled with the pages

your annoyance was quickly growing

"Careful with that."

He flipped through the pages at a snails pace, assumingly because he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing

you had some real talent

when he looked back up at you he was wearing that crooked smile

"and here I was thinkin' that my eyes were just green."

Hope I was able to get this down pretty well! I really enjoyed writing this one! Thanks for the patience!

-Mars 🌠

[pricklynoodle]

real or not real

Itadori Yuji/Fushiguro Megumi pairing | Squid Game AU | Rated T | warning: implied character death | ANGST

( yes, writing instead of doing school lol, squid game ruined me so if you want to read this then be warned of SQUID GAME SPOILERS. There's no graphic death, but its sad as hell either way TT)

---

“The player who takes all ten marbles from your partner wins.”

Megumi had always kept to himself, never saying anything unless spoken to, never stuck to groups, and never took the choice to attach himself to something. Everything had an expiration date. Unnecessary things like friendships had never appealed to him. He only needed his sister, and it wasn’t like she had the choice to have him as her brother. But the fact that she still stuck around caring for him until she worked herself to a coma.

So honestly, it’s a surprise why he feels his heart drop when the announcement tells him he has to go against … whatever 310 is to him.

He hardly knows 310, and doesn't know anything about his life actually. Other than that he’s crazy strong, has an impressive pain tolerance, but also the loudest kid he’s ever met. He's always around him, sticking to Megumi like a persistent piece of gum stuck to his shoe. But he doesn't dislike him, but he can't say he's thrilled with him either.

But would Megumi kill him?

Stupid, he tells himself.

“Oh, fuck, I honestly didn’t see that coming,” 310 says with a grimace, looking at Megumi guiltily as if he was the cause of Megumi’s inner turmoil. He sits down on one of the stone benches. The whole setup was supposed to mimic a typical neighborhood, something Megumi wasn’t fortunate enough to grow up in. The bastards even made the effort to add in the sounds of cicadas from the fake trees, as if this was a completely normal summer for a couple of teens.

Megumi doesn’t say anything, he feels dizzy. He drops down to the bench, away from 310 as possible.

“I’ve always wanted to say this,” 310 says as he rests his elbows on his knees, looking at Megumi seriously, “This whole thing reminds me of Hunger Games.”

Megumi looks at him with furrowed brows.

“You know, Jennifer Lawrence?” 310 pushes. Megumi says nothing. “...Tall girl, big ass? The one with the arrows?”

“Can you shut the fuck up,” Megumi deadpans, then he shakes his head. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He counts to ten, then glances down at his hand. 10 marbles. “Just tell me how to play this game.”

“I don’t know either,” 310 admits, sounding sheepish. He shrugs carelessly, “This is more of the games my gramps used to play, but he was too busy being sick to teach me though.”

Megumi looks up at 310. He looks tired, but nostalgic. Like he was thinking of a good memory.

310 perks up, grinning at Megumi brightly, “though they said that we can make our own rules. I’ll think of something.”

Megumi nods solemnly. The silence stretches until 310 lets out an ‘aha!’.

“Let’s bet everything and just play one around,” 310 says, even dropping his fist down onto his hand as if it were the best idea ever.

Megumi freezes, staring at 310, was he going to trick him? He doesn’t even know him. They’re not friends. Of course, everything still is a death tournament at the end of the day.

310 seems to pick up Megumi’s reluctance, he jerks his head to the side. He points towards the pair of men competing against each other, looking frantic and panicked.Their faces are sheened with sweat, t-shirts drenched in sweat. It’s… it’s a pathetic sight.

“Fine,” Megumi relents. “What are we playing?”

“Calm down,” 310 chuckles, “are you that excited to kill me?”

Megumi stays quiet.

“We have a lot of time left,” 310 says breezily, pointing towards the timer mounted on the wall. “Let’s do it at the last minute.”

“What do you suggest we do till then?” Megumi asks with a scowl. “Sit nice and pretty, twiddle our thumbs and shove these marbles up our asses?”

“Jesus, man,” 310 laughs, “no just… talk.”

“Talk,” Megumi repeats.

“Talk,” 310 smiles, looking down at his hands. Megumi looks at them too. He remembers the hard calluses on them, when they shook hands. They’re thick and sturdy, and hold a lot of power. He really could have killed Megumi before, just wrap his hands around his neck and it’s all over.

Megumi also shakes away the filthy thoughts of what else those hands could do. Get a grip, Fushiguro.

“Things we couldn’t tell other people,” 310 says, smiling wistfully. “One of us is going to die here anyways.”

Megumi swallows the lump in his throat.

310 smiles wider. He’s always smiling, Megumi notes.

“There’s no reason to feel embarrassed if that’s the case,” 310 tells him, “I promise I won’t laugh when you blush like a tomato.”

“I don’t,” Megumi denies, but he can feel the heat already rising up to his cheeks.

“You do,” 310 says, “but I think it’s cute.”

Cute.

“So, uh, you have someone back home then?” 310 asks.

“Yeah,” Megumi says.

“...like a girlfriend or something?”

“Sister,” Megumi says quickly, “no...never a girlfriend. Impossible for me.”

“Ah, okay,” 310 says, nodding. “Just your sister?”

“I had a dad, but he … never came back.” Megumi confesses, “he was a shitty dad. He was never really home, but he gave us shelter and food. He had a bad temper, but he never hit us. He never liked to be around me especially. I … used to think he hated me.”

“What changed?” 310 asked.

“I… I became him. I understand why he did what he did,” Megumi says, fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket. “Doing dirty jobs, stealing, never at home. Hiding from danger. Hiding us from danger. Protection.”

310 nodded, he slid closer to Megumi. Thighs brushing. Silence continues.

“He came here,” Megumi says, looking up at the ceiling. It’s painted a pink-orange gradient, like a sunset. “I found half of that business card in one of his jackets. The last two digits were cut off. I dialed every possible number until I got here.”

“For what?” 310 asks.

“Find him,” Megumi says, “punch him. I would have killed him, I think, if I found out that he left us to rot. Then steal all his money to pay for my sister’s medical bills.”

“Oh, she’s sick?”

“Coma,” Megumi clarifies. “Some rich bastard from work hit her on her way home. He got off easy because of money.”

“I see,” 310 says, clenching his fists. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah,” Megumi says gruffly.

“You’re still getting money though,” 310 says. He doesn’t say but you don’t get your dad back. “What would you do with it?”

Megumi doesn’t even hesitate, “pay for my sister’s medical bills. Buy a nice house for us to live in. A car, if I can.”

“If you can?” 310 says, “where would you drive your car?”

“school,” Megumi says simply. “I would use my car to drive to school.”

310 blinks. “You know, you can do much more with that 40 billion. You really don’t want anything else? Don’t have a destination?”

“I’d go to Sendai.”

“Wh—Sendai? I’m from Sendai. Are you kidding me? Are you going to drive there with a shiny new Toyota Yaris?”

Megumi blushes furiously, “enough about me, ugh, it’s your turn anyways.”

310 shakes his head, but he’s giggling like a schoolgirl. “You really have to think bigger. Have you ever been to the beach?”

“No,” Megumi says.

“You should, one that’s got nice soft sand and blue water. With palm trees too. And you should get piña coladas.”

“What?”

“C’mon man, you don’t get to be frugal with 40 billion. I’ll teach you how to splurge once we get out—”

Ah.

“Right,” 310 breathes out, laughing to himself all silly. “Only one of us leaves.”

Megumi grunts.

Silence.

“...Ever seen a dead body?” 310 asks.

“...I’ve been answering all these questions. You haven’t answered at all,” Megumi points out, feeling far too exposed for running his mouth.

“Ah you’re right! Uh, I don’t have anyone.”

“But your grandfather—”

“He’s dead. For a while now. My mom and dad. Also dead. My brother is on the run. He’s, uh, killed a lot of people. He got the death penalty, so yeah, haven’t really seen him around.”

Megumi looks at him.

“I don’t think he counts,” 310 says, scratching his face. Megumi realizes the scars on his face aren’t from the previous games. They looked healed, puckered and faded from time.“He looks a lot like me, though. A lot of people can’t tell us apart. He hated that. He’s only a bit taller than me, and he loves to brag about it. He has a huge ego.”

“I see.”

“Yeah,” 310 says, but he doesn’t look awkward about it. Just mildly inconvenienced. “Oh, have we really been talking for that long?”

Megumi looks at the time. They have less than 2 minutes.

310 stands up, swiping the dirt off his pants. He pats around for his marbles. “Okay, so you see that wall over there?”

Megumi nods mutely. It’s quite far, maybe around 2 meters.

“Okay, we throw one marble, and the one closest to the wall wins, okay?”

“Okay.” Megumi nods, easy enough.

“Okay, you go first.”

Megumi scowls.

“added rule, we do it together,” he says, jaw clenched.

“Eh?” 310 looks at him, confused.

“I’ve been doing things first, so it seems rather fair if we do it at the same time, with our best effort, okay? I have the blue marble, you get the red one.”

“... okay.”

“Don’t give me a weak ass toss, alright, that doesn’t count,” Megumi says gruffly, narrowing his eyes at him. “Do your best.”

310 nods, giving him a thumbs up. “Okay!”

“On three,” Megumi says.

“Okay!”

“Three.”

“Two,” 310 continues, positioning his arm.

“One,” Megumi does the same.

They both throw their marbles. Megumi’s heart leaps out of its chest as he watches his marble in the air.

Clack!

Clack!

Clack!

Megumi looks down on the marble that lands right next to his shoe.

It’s red.

“Ahh, shoot, I threw it too hard,” 310 says with a pout.

Megumi sees red.

He shoves 310 against the wall. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Whoa! No, you won f-fair and square, man,” 310 stutters. “I did my best shot, like you said!”

“Any idiot would know that shit would bounce right back if you threw it like that!”

310 laughs, “I must be some one of a kind idiot, then.”

Megumi shoves him further into the wall. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

“You can’t kill me if I’m gonna be dead anyways.”

“THEN I’LL KILL YOU IF YOU DIE.”

“See, that doesn’t really make sense—”

“Shut the fuck up! Why did you do that?!”

310 slumps against the wall, body lax. Not looking at him.

“Answer me!”

“You… you have a lot more to live for than me,” 310 says quietly. He looks up at Megumi, tears in his eyes, “what kind of asshole would I be to deny you for a life?”

“You have a life!” Megumi snaps.

“I don’t, not anymore,” 310 sobs, a wobbly smile on his face. “Before my grandfather died, he told me that I should help others. That when it was my time to go, I would die surrounded by others and not end up like him.

“I should use my strength to help others, that’s what I’ve been doing here. Out there, no one wants me to help them. No one wants the face of a killer to help them. No one wants me to be around them. I can’t go to places, I’ve… I’ve always hated what Sukuna did to me. Made me carry his sins, his crimes. The way people looked at me as if I was him. I can’t move forward, not like you.

“I… I never went to school either, y’know. Or I never graduated. When Sukuna became a wanted man, I became a target. I stayed in my room. The doors were locked. The curtains were always down. It was like this for years. I received no support. The only way I could get by was doing interviews with journalists, feeding the narrative. Making people hate Sukuna more, making them hate me more. That’s no way to live.”

Megumi felt the back of his eyes burn, his teeth aching from being clenched too tight.

“Even if...I had the money. I can’t erase what my brother did. I can’t erase my existence in the world. I would just keep doing the same thing everyday. I don’t… I don’t want a bigger house, not when it’s just me who lives there.”

“You and I are not so different,” he says, looking up at Megumi.. “I think that’s why… I want you to win. You get to experience all these normal things, and feel… happy. You have a chance.”

Megumi wipes his eyes harshly, “Shit.”

“That’s true.”

“... What’s your name?” Megumi asks.

“Itadori Yuji,” 310—no, Yuji says. “My name is Itadori Yuji.”

Megumi takes a shaky breath, he raises his hand for him. “Fushiguro Megumi.”

Yuji grins, he clasps his hand onto Megumi’s. “That means blessing, right?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

“I’m glad then, Megumi. That I’m friends with you even through this hell. That itself is a blessing in a disguise.”

“Shut up,” Megumi punches his shoulder.

A guard suddenly arrives, carrying a gun in his hand. Waiting.

Yuji looks behind Megumi’s head. “Ah, I wish we had more time.”

Megumi bites his lip. “I wish I’d… met you sooner. I don't know anything about you.”

Yuji jaw drops, “Okay, I’ll … summarize this in ten seconds! I’m twenty-years-old, my favorite color is green, my favorite manga is Bleach, my type is tall people with big butts! Uhh, I really like watching action films—”

“Not … whatever, nevermind,” Megumi says softly as he listens to Yuji ramble on about himself.

Yuji pauses from his ramble looking winded, “uhm, Fushiguro, can I hug you?”

Megumi freezes.

“I just haven’t had a hug in a long time—” Yuji trails off before he gets cut off with Fushiguro hugging him desperately, clinging to him.

“Idiot, idiot, idiot!”

“...Hey, Fushiguro Megumi, live a long life, okay?”

Megumi lets go.

He turns around.

Eyes burning as he stares unblinking down the path. Footsteps. Silence. Breathing. He feels something salty on his lips when he licks them. It's not sweat.

He... he got attached. He stares forward, he doesn't regret it. Not at all. He got to know Yuji Itadori, the real him, and the pain in his heart is the best he can give back. A reminder that he was more than what people saw him. Yuji Itadori didn't deserve what the world gave him, they did not deserve his cries. The fact that... no one would shed a tear for him.

...Ah.

Megumi notices the dark wet spots on the dirt.

“Thanks for playing with me.”

[madd-devil]

Slowly falling in love with Felix part 3! :3

"I don't get why you and Felix argue so much!" Pan groaned as he swung his legs over  a fallen tree. "I have been trying to make you two closer… seriously everyone can tell how much you both are smitten with each other!" 

"I don't like Felix!" You said, your face flushing suddenly because of the blunt statement. "I don't even know where you got that stupid idea…" 

"Come on love, I know how it works. And you know what? You two are my favourites, so get together and stop annoying me with your pointless fighting." 

"I would rather die than assume that…" You mumbled as you finished picking berries. "By the way, it is not nice to play favourites."

"You do it too." He smirked, arching an eyebrow. "With Felix." He sang, enjoying embarrassing you.

You approached Pan and handed him the basket with a look. He shook his head with a small laugh, understanding what you meant. After all, you were truly a mother. He disappeared in a foggy green cloud and you hoped he wouldn't eat all the fruits this time. It was always a bad idea to make him your errand boy, but he was fast and could get to the camp quickly thanks to his magic. 

Being a mother to a dozen of lost boys was not easy. Between breaking fights and fixing their messes, it was clear you didn't have any time for yourself. You didn’t really care to be honest, you enjoyed being useful and were very good at it, trying to raise those boys. 

You sighed as you were closing a hole on Butch's old stuffed animal. The kid would bring it everywhere with him, and even if Felix tried to take it away from Butch, the little one always found a way to find his stuffed animal. It was cute to see that pale and scrawny boy hugging that little plushed dog tightly against his body. 

You smiled as you gave Butch his toy back and he muttered a soft thank you before hurrying back to his group of friends. Felix besides you sighed, clearly annoyed at the childish behaviour and you rolled your eyes.

"Stop mothering him." He only stated, his eyes burning into yours.

"I will do what I want, you are no master to me." You replied, slowly standing up to his level. "Besides, I am their mother, it is my job to care for them." 

The scarred boy smirked at your remark, and you were a little taken aback. You wondered what was going on through his thick skull. He leant down to your level, and you felt his breath on your neck. It sent a shiver down your side, and you started to grow nervous about what was going to happen. 

"You realise they will never be yours, right?" 

You let out a shocked and strangled gasp at his statement and watched how proud he was from saying this. That always had been a tough matter to you, and he knew it. He fucking knew it and used it against you, like an insult. You thought he was above using insecurities, but clearly not. You were wrong after all. You pushed him out of your way, walking out enraged, and tried to block out his laughter. He was mocking you as well. 

He was a bastard. 

You promptly ignored Pan's calls to you as you stomped into the dark jungle and stopped until you approached a cliff's edge. Below it, the sea was crashing against the rocks, and you pondered for a moment. Maybe you should jump, to give your numb body a reaction, or to be away from this mess you pulled yourself into. You just wanted to rest for weeks.

It was never easy to be a mother, to never have someone actually cares about you. You sat down, and pulled your knees to your chest, tears slowly rolling down your cheeks. You hated crying about it, but what Felix told you and... and being exhausted from a never ending job clearly had broken you today. 

When you heard someone approaching, you angrily put your head on your knees and closed your eyes, in denial. 

"Go away! I don't want to speak to anyone." 

"I think you want to listen to what I want to say though." 

Your eyes shot up right open and you scowled.

Felix. Of course it was him disturbing your little moment of peace. 

You resisted the urge to attack him, and instead focused on ignoring the lost boy. He sighed and walked up to you, kneeling down in the process. You tried to avoid glancing at him, and looked at the horizon.

"I'm..." He started with difficulty. "I am sorry for what I said in the camp. It was... uncalled for." 

"Did Pan give you a little recital before coming here?" You hissed, finally daring to glare at him. 

"No. I came on my own. I would never lie about this."

You hummed, not fully trusting him. You heard him sighing again and leaving. It was better that way. Felix was like the others, but at least he apologised for his horrid comment earlier. 

Later that night, you went to bed with a pained, anxious and sick feeling in your stomach. Deciding to ignore it, you went to bed quickly, very happy that the day had passed and that you didn’t have to deal with Felix. But, you unfortunately had to deal with nightmares

Hands were tied up to your neck, and you couldn’t even protect yourself. The hands belonged to no one, they just swarmed around in the shadows to grasp you. 

A set of them were shaking you rather roughly, but you couldn't react. A voice reached your ears, you couldn't understand what it was saying. At this point, you wanted nothing but to throw up. In an ultimate effort to fight the nightmare off, you started to trash against the hands.

"Stop moving! It's me!" Felix's voice reached your mind and snapped you back to reality.

Your eyes snapped wide-open and you gasped, realising you had stopped breathing while you were sleeping. You were sweaty and were pretty sure your hair was all over the place. The blond haired boy was holding both of your hands rather roughly, but you didn't want to say anything about it. You felt like something big was going to happen, and a threat was hung above your head. 

Your breath hitched many times as you tried to ask him what he was doing here, but the precious air seemed to stop pumping your lungs and you grasped at Felix's shirt. He immediately took you in his arms, laying down with you as tears fell from your eyes. His big hands circled your back and you slowly calmed down, clutching on to him, your eyes still darting around the tent in the search of danger. Felix must have sensed this, because he kept you closer to him.

"Don't worry, as long as you are with me, no one will ever take you from us. And no one will ever hurt you." He murmured with a soft and the first genuine smile you witnessed him bearing. "I promise." 

You nodded eagerly, you never had the intention to leave Neverland, even when you were the first to witness how horrible and terrible this island could be. You have seen Pan snapped so many times toward a boy, but especially to pirates, and you can't count the number of times you had watched him entering the camp, bloody, with Felix at his side, equally looking dishevelled. You realised that you never questioned them about what happened. The only time a boy did it, the second in command screamed it was to protect them and the island. You didn’t know if it was the truth, if they both enjoyed massacring Hook's crew that always came back or if they felt regret at all.

Finally, you felt your breathing come back at its normal pace. You were feeling tired again, but didn't know if he was going to stay. You heard some snores suddenly, and you looked up to see the blond haired boy already asleep. You didn’t care about the consequences of sleeping with Felix at the moment. It was nice, to finally have one little moment for yourself. Ultimately, you curled on yourself, clutching Felix’s arm and fell asleep as well. 

"(Y/N)! Devin puts thorns in my shoes!" A boy cried as he entered the tent. "What are you doing with Felix?!" He screeched, waking up both of you. 

The blond haired boy immediately blushed when he realised the position he was in, and you completely understood why: you were both tangled in each other limb, and anyone walking through could imagine what had happened. As long as Pan wasn't coming in...

"Come on Felix! At least take the girl on a date before jumping to the most fun part." He chuckled, wiggling his eyebrows with a suggestive tone as he appeared in front of the innocent boy. 

"We weren't... doing this!" You cried, feeling your cheeks heating up, embarrassed as you got up from bed to attend to the lost ones. 

"What were they doing Pan?" The boy asked curiously and innocently.

"Nothing! Now, let's take a look at your shoes, okay?" You smiled at him while taking his much smaller hand in yours. 

As you left the tent, you could hear Pan's laughter echoing in the camp. You bite your lips and ignore the looks of the older lost boys. Word spread like wildfire there. Despite their appearances, the boys were very noisy and you disliked this. 

You spent the day avoiding Felix, and by doing so you avoided your feelings growing for him. What was wrong with you? You hated the way he made you feel but you had to admit: what he did last night was... incredible. You had loved the way he had embraced you and calmed you down almost immediately. After all, there wasn't only bad in him. 

You cluelessly smiled to yourself as you thought this and nearly bumped into Peter Pan, who appeared suddenly in front of your person with that sly look... You knew it, and rolled his eyes at him with a sigh. 

"You are so in love with him, aren't you?" He sang as leant against a tree with his arms crossed. "Felix is shy, so maybe you should... ask him what he feels about you." 

"Of course not! That is private. I am not going to pester him with..."

"But he loves you too!" The green eyed boy cut you and groaned in annoyance. "I just want my favourite lost ones to be... to be happy. I know you both can't hear the music, so therefore you aren't truly lost and I don't care about that. I don't enjoy seeing both of my friends sulking." He admitted, a little embarrassed after pouring his thoughts on your situation. "It's my rules after all. I can bend them or break them whenever I feel the need to." 

You pondered for a moment after what Peter Pan told you. You walked over, and leant next to him as well. Most of the time, Pan had treated you like you were his maid or a mother, often mocking you for being it. But he knew why it was important for you and that you enjoyed caring for the boys. It was surprising for him to be called his friend, and an immense honor. 

"Fine... I will do it. I will talk to Felix." You assured him with a soft smile and you playfully ruffled his hair. 

He snorted at your motion and attempted to do the same to your hair. Two members of a sentry appeared, cutting short to the fun. You stayed next to Pan as he listened to what they had discovered: apparently, Hook and his ship were back to Neverland. You gulped nervously: the last time he came, it ended badly for both sides. You had never seen Pan that furious and enraged. You glanced at the lost boy leader and he commanded you to get back to the camp as fast as possible. You understood why, he didn’t want to endanger you. 

You spent most of the night at the main campfire, wondering when Pan and the two boys will come back. You hoped none of them were injured... Hook seemed stronger and stronger each time he returned to the island. You shuddered as a sudden cold wind reached and you cursed yourself for not having thicker clothes. 

"You look cold." Felix's monotonous voice said behind you. "Here let me..." 

Not daring looking at him, you let him do what he intended. The familiar worn out wool cloak was now hugging your figure and instantly warmed you up. 

"Thank you..." You whispered, not wanting to wake up the sleeping boys. "I think I am just tired." You tried to justify.

"Why don't you go to sleep then?" He asked as he sat down next to you, his eyes staring into the fire.

"I want to wait for the others. I have to make sure they come back safely." You blurted out immediately and worriedly. 

"You are a good mother." The young man murmured, and you swore you saw the tips of his ears reddening a little. 

Remembering your talk with Pan, you gulped nervously and played with your hair for a moment, trying to find the right words to admit your feelings. You were very tense, and hoped he would take it well. Finally, you found some courage in your frail body and looked directly at him. The lost one seemed concerned for a moment but waited for you to speak. 

"Felix I... I care about you a lot." You tried, hoping he would understand. 

"I do too." He confessed with a rare and genuine smile. "I care about you as well, more than the boys actually." 

You sighed in relief with a small laugh. So he was not that of an idiot after all! That immediately reassured you.

"You matter for me... as well as Pan." 

"Wh... What?" You breathlessly stuttered, eyebrows furrowimg in confusion. 

"I care about you the same I care about Pan." He repeated confidently. "I will always have your back. It feels nice to say it."

"Right..." 

You were such an idiot. You thought Felix loved you, obviously, he didn't. Then why was he sometimes... caring? Wasn't he the one who brought you the flowers in the first place? Wasn't it the reason why he messed with you a lot? You shook your head, hoping that your thoughts and feelings would disappear. 

"I am tired. I should get to bed." You said, clearly sounding disappointed and taking off the cloak.

"It is for the best. I will stay, don't worry. You look a bit sick... you okay?" Felix questioned as you handed him back his cloak. 

"Yes... Yes, don't worry about me." You gave him a fake reassuring smile and yet his eyes seemed to understand you were lying but he didn't question it. 

What an imbecile you were, you thought as you stomped toward your small tent. Sometimes you wished you could take out your own heart and crush it beneath your foot. You hated having feelings. 

[stuff-from-the-void-matron]

Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (2)

(c!Technoblade x fem!Reader)

(a/n: a handful of people seemed to like this story so here’s part two! same as with the first chapter, if this one gets some interest then i’ll do part 3.)

~~~~~~~~~

Like every night of sleep here you woke up after what felt like no time at all. But at least you felt rested instead of tired still. Either way, it was time to get up and have some food before fixing up this village. Which was in dire need of it from what you saw the day before.

After eating some bread you got to work scoping out the village, jotting down in a book (with a damn QUILL) what problems needed to be fixed first and which could come later. Once that was done you started evening out the land so it wasn’t one hill after another with a ton of dark spots. 

Figuring out how to just make blocks and items disappear was weird. And seeing it happen in real life time was even weirder. You just put your hand on a block or anything not alive and with a twitch of your fingers the item just… ceased to be. All you got was a quick breaking sound followed by a particle effect that lasted a half a second, then nothing. 

You got used to it. You’d have to, that’s just what humans do. Adapt.

“Hmm.”

You’d been so focused on terraforming that you’d gotten a little spooked when you suddenly heard a voice behind you. After turning around you saw some villagers watching you. You blinked and after a couple seconds of silence you said,

“Hello.”

They just watched you and gave murmurs that didn’t sound like anything negative, and you didn’t wanna make things awkward so you just went back to doing what you were before. You chalked it up to them being curious about the new person in their village changing stuff. So you gave them a smile before getting back to work. 

They stayed and watched you for a bit longer before one by one leaving to do whatever it was they’d been doing before coming to scope out what you were up to.  You figured they were just checking to see if you were dangerous or not. Which was understandable so you paid them little mind.

You got lost in the zone after that, just working diligently to smooth out the land and fill in parts of the river so it wasn’t bisecting the village and making it hard to get from one side to the other. Hours passed without you realizing, you didn’t have a hunger bar so no growling stomach to snap you back into focus either.

In the back of your mind you noticed the sun had set because you had to pull out some torches to make seeing easier. But aside from that you were oblivious to the world around you. At least you had been until the sound of pained grunts made you look up from what you were doing for the first time in nearly 10 solid hours.

Your eyes widened when you saw a villager cornered between some hay bales and the side of a house, getting attacked by a zombie. Like in the game his whole body sorta flashed a red tint to show he was taking damage. You didn’t even really think before you reacted, you just saw someone getting hurt so you yelled loudly,

“HEY!”

To your surprise the zombie halted and turned to look at you. But then seemed to disregard you and started to turn back to its violent task, intent to ignore your call and you felt just enough outrage to start rushing over, yelling at the undead as you did. This caught both zombie and villager’s attention. 

The villager edged back as you came over and started smacking the zombie back, making him grunt and stumble slowly backwards. After you dealt him a couple hearts damage he turned and shuffled away from you both. With you hurling colorful commentary at him as he slowly feld. Once he was gone you turned to the blinking villager and put your hands on your hips and scolded him,

“What are you doing?? It’s night time! Get inside and go to bed!”

The villager looked alarmed as he rushed to hop up the short steps to the house he’d previously been wedged against, hurrying inside and slamming the door closed behind him. You sighed, a little annoyed with how hard your heart was beating from the adrenaline of having to essentially break up an attack. 

With one last huff you turned and headed back to your previous task. But half way there you stopped and glanced around the village before sighing again and deciding it wouldn’t hurt to check to make sure all the other villagers were safe inside right now. 

This would become a routine for you, making sure the villagers were safe indoors after sunset.

-0-

Days turned into weeks and before you knew it you’d terraformed the land the village was on into a much more manageable and easy to navigate space. You’d even started upgrading the villager’s houses and stuff. You did this mostly because all their houses were like 3x3 inside and looked beyond cramped. 

Also you disliked cobblestone when used in the construction of Minecraft houses. It just looked ugly in your opinion and stone looks way better. So you used that and different colored terracotta and pretty lamps instead of plain torches in some spots. It all gave the village a more cozy vibe you think. But either way your construction drew the villagers’ attention once more.

The villager whose house you started with hadn’t sounded happy when you built up and began to break the roof. He’d grunted and walked around watching you but stepped back when you called down and told him you were fixing the house and making it stronger and bigger for him. He hadn’t seemed fully convinced but he didn’t sound as upset so you continued.

It was when you were putting on the roof that you discovered that you didn’t take fall damage…

You’d stepped back to put the top point of the roof in place and miscalculated how much roof was left to stand on behind you and ended up slipping off. You barely had time to register what was happening, much less scream, before you were just… standing on the ground. You looked up and saw the unfinished underside of the roof’s edge…. a good 15 feet up in the air above you…

You looked down and mentally checked yourself over and you were fine? Not a scratch or ache anywhere in your legs. Which should be the bare minimum someone should have after falling off of a nearly 2 story roof. But you were perfectly okay, and honestly… sorta curious. And at this point you were more curious than cautious so you actually went back to the edge of the roof and just.. jumped off. You were incredibly lucky the first safe fall hadn’t been a fluke..

You landed nice and soft again this time. Only now you were able to watch what happened as you fell since you were looking down and not up (or having your brain lag in fear). You fell normally at first but once you got about 3 feet from the ground you slowed before landing about as hard as if you’d taken one step downward. The wind rushed past you and fluttered your clothes but aside from that you were unaffected by the high fall.

“Well…. I suppose that’s one less thing to worry about?” you sort of stated with a questioning tone because honestly you’re just trying to roll with the punches at this point.

-0-

You noticed there were only TWO profession blocks in the whole village, a farmer compositor and the weaponsmith’s grindstone. Which wasn’t great village wise you were sure. So you started to just… add professions to pre-existing houses. Like one house you converted into a two story with a balcony and added a library and lectern to it before bringing a villager over and showing them. 

Honestly you weren’t totally sure they would be interested but to your delight their clothes changed after they were surrounded by some green sparkles, signaling they’d taken up the role of ‘Librarian’! You clapped happily and said this was great, to which the villager responded with a happy sound. You left them to their studies and went to add more job site blocks!

-0-

You’re not sure how much time passed since you’d found this village. But you can say it definitely looked different these days, in a good way. You’d renovated (or outright remodeled) all the homes and now each villager had a job. Well, except for one who, for whatever reason, didn’t want any of the jobs. You’d tried showing him each option and he just gave unhappy grunts for each one. 

Finally you’d asked if he wanted a job and he gave a negative ‘hrm’. So you’d figured it was his choice at the end of the day so you shrugged and got rid of the career blocks and told him that was okay. You told him his job could be to Not have a job! And he seemed perfectly content with that so you just left his home a regular one and went about your day. So really, a happy ending for everyone.

And once the village was all set looking nice and prosperous you finally stopped and realized… you’d never made yourself a house? Though to be fair you’d sort of hyper focused on building up the village and all the villager’s professional skills so you’d not had much time to think about yourself. And now that you think about it.. you’re not sure when the last time you ate or slept was.. Like, at all! Which would be concerning if you were starving or about to pass out but you mostly felt normal? You could eat or go for a nap but you could also just.. not? And you’d be okay you think.

“This is all super weird.. I need to go to sleep I think…” you sort of mumbled to yourself.

You looked around and noted the time of day, which meant no sleep yet. Then you surveyed the large village and noticed a nice hill one of the four main crossroad paths in the village was leading towards. It was too far away for any more villager houses so you’d left it alone in your building spree. But now that you were walking around it you saw it would be a great spot for a place of your own! All you had to do was remove a couple trees, widen the top layer of dirt and move the path a little to the left and you’d be golden.

But you were pretty much sick of looking at oak logs, grey stone bricks, and terracotta so you decided to forgo using them in whatever design you settled on for your house. Instead you open your ‘expanded’ inventory of all the building blocks and began looking through them idly, searching for something nice looking that wasn’t too bland or contrary too flashy. Like sure a diamond block house SOUNDS cool and also very pretty but actually making a house out of diamond blocks seems like it’s just asking for trouble.

You couldn’t help the chuckle you let out at the thought of someone actually building a house of diamond then going mining or whatever and coming back to their whole house being gone save for their bed. But you pushed those silly thoughts away and finally ended up choosing some quartz stone for now. It was a good looking stone, nice and smooth. As you looked through the other blocks you thought about what your house should look like. You didn’t want to build any more of the standard villager houses at this point, you were sorta burnt out on that. 

Vaguely you recalled a handful of house and building tutorials you’d watched on youtube. But honestly it's been such a long time since you watched them that you really only remembered the final products. Although you reason that that shouldn’t stop you from trying anyways! Because what’s the worst that will happen? It’ll look ugly? Then you can just take it down and try try again! You’d start building slow and see what you liked and what looked cool. 

So with that decided you grabbed one of the quartz blocks and some stairs to match then got to work on your new house.

@salinesoot​ @lady-bee-fechin​ @kacchasu​ @putridjoy​ @lunawritesstories​ @galaxypankitty3030​ @paradigmax​ @zachariethememerie​ @killmewithafanfic​

[thranduilsperkybutt]

Killer

Gif sources:  1  |  2  |  3

Pairings:  Baron Helmut Zemo/Reader

Warnings:  TFATWS Spoilers! Hurt/comfort, slight angst but hopeful ending, a little bit of spice 🤏 but it’s still solidly SFW and mostly near the end; insignificant character death; canon violence; Zemo being a menace not only to my heart but my mental health

Word Count:  11,932 words

Reader Gender:  Female

Author: Meg

Summary:  While tracking the Flag Smashers across Europe alongside Sam and Bucky, you suddenly find yourself in need of a hero. The man who comes to your rescue, however, is the villain of too many people’s stories to ever be mistaken for one. The lines between what is and what should be become blurrier, making it too easy to forget that you aren’t supposed to like Baron Helmut Zemo at all.

A/N:  Based on a simple sentence my friend said in the middle of us both simping over Zemo together, which inspired a novel lolol 😂 Whoops! Sorry I’m so long-winded, but I hope you guys like this anyway!

Oh, this was not good.

So very, very not good.

A twisting grip on your arm, pain shooting up your shoulder and from the side where the knee of the supersoldier atop you digs into the flesh of your hip, pinning you down. Cement bites into your cheek like a taunt of the predicament you’ve gotten yourself into when he slams you into the ground. Wind knocked out of you, you feel the painful strain in your joints, and know that if your arm is pushed too much further at this sharp angle, it’s likely your shoulder will come out of socket.

A whimpered yelp that you can’t bite down escapes just as the supersoldier’s grip tightens when you struggle beneath him, desperate panic lacing your blood as you realize you can’t escape his grip. You remember the sight of the back of Sam and Bucky’s heads when they went off towards the east side of this warehouse, and for a brief moment you wonder if that’s the last you’ll see of them. Splitting up had been the last thing you wanted to do, but the maze of this place made it a necessity if you were to do the thorough sweep of the area for the group of Flag Smashers rumored to be taking shelter here.

Well, you found them, alright.

Why did you have to be the one to get stuck searching the west side with Zemo?

The reluctance you’d displayed when Sam initially split you up with Zemo wasn’t exactly one-hundred percent truthful, though, was it? God, maybe it made you stupid and foolish, but a secret, cursed part of your stomach had flipped with nervous anticipation at the thought of being entirely alone with him. Something which had only been accomplished briefly over these past few days of tracking the Smashers all over Europe.

A subtle glance in Zemo’s direction had revealed no such similar reaction on his part, his stare meeting yours. Distant and unreadable, is what he was.

Except for when he wasn’t. Distant, that is.

Except for when he treated you with a modicum of civility. No, you couldn’t even fool yourself into believing it was simple civility, or even whatever traditional ingrained gentlemanliness that a Baron of Sokovia would have been taught in his youth.

Zemo had treated you with something more than that, especially when no one else was looking.

Sometimes, even if they were, and you still hadn’t decided if that dangerous toeing of the line between animosity and flirtation was a manufactured tactic to manipulate you or not. Uncertain if you should be offended that Zemo figured you the weakest link of your companions, or if, in the case that his interest was genuine… it wasn’t, so no use dwelling on what you would do in that case.

What you should do, when he set upon you with that look in his eye, like he knew something about you that you didn’t.

Like at the end of Sam’s introductory speech detailing the plan of the warehouse sweep, where that lingering glance in Zemo’s direction had ended with a slight curve of his lips upwards. Looking bizarrely satisfied with the announcement of Sam’s plan, and you couldn’t tell if it was at the thought of hunting supersoldiers, or the strange, treacherous feeling swimming in your own gut--- that Zemo’s pleasure was even minimally at the truth of another opportunity to have you, all to himself.

It had been enough to make you tear your eyes away, but not enough to get his lingering stare to stop itching the back of your neck. Enough to make Bucky raise a brow at you, a wary look in his eyes as he observed the one member of your party who seemed at all pleased with the fact that you were all likely heading into a fight, or worse, nothing at all, in mere moments. A warning simmered in blue, Bucky’s unspoken, “be careful,” resting on the solemn line of his frown.

You’d been told it enough in the past few days, to be careful of Zemo. Terrorist, criminal, killer--- a portion of the words they’d used to describe Zemo.

At first, you were acutely aware of the warnings you’d been given, of the story they’d told you. The same one you’d heard pieces of from different sources. What had happened in Bucharest was national news, but to think that the man who had sat across from you on his private plane, tension thick in the air while a smile rested on his own lips, had been responsible… it had churned your stomach at first. Sitting there in his finery, attended by a footman, he seemed a strange visual for the description that predated your formal introduction to him.

And you had excused yourself to the bathroom, if only to escape the feeling. The animosity of Bucky’s conversation and the tension in Sam’s shoulders, the weight of curious eyes, which always seemed to glance back towards you.

He was unnerving, if only because of how peculiarly normal he seemed in certain moments. Approachable. Amiable, even. A predator’s façade, meant for you to wonder if he had truly been the kind of man capable of terrorizing Bucharest and your friends the way he had.

Which was how he looked at you, just like a predator sizing up new prey.

The quaint jet washroom could not be your solace forever, and you were inevitably forced to emerge, or face the embarrassment of worrying your companions with an abnormally long bathroom break. When you emerged, however, you found the murmured conversation to be of a slightly lighter tone, and soon discovered the reason for it when you nearly walked straight into the chest of the man you’d gone to the restroom to escape.

“Apologies,” he had said, as if you were not the one who almost ran straight into him, amusement dancing in his eyes as his body easily blocked the narrow aisle towards where Sam and Bucky sat further in. They’d not yet noticed your emergence from the restroom, and your hoped your quick glance towards them had not looked too desperate. Torn back to Zemo with the startling shock that he would even offer, “Would you enjoy a drink? I was just on my way to get a refill, you see,” he raised the short glass in his hand, ice clinking, empty otherwise. Your pause was pregnant enough that he eventually teased, “I promise not to poison you, if that is your concern, my dear.”

“No, thank you,” had been your curt answer, pushing down the heat that threatened to burn your cheeks at his familiarity with you when you attempted to move around him, forced by the narrow aisle to graze his chest with yours in order to return to the attention of your companions, ignoring the additional attention which had followed you from the aisle.

The outfit you discovered he had chosen for you upon landing on the outskirts of Madripoor was… just another reason to dislike him. The one relief was that it was comfortable enough to fight or run in, if need be, but nothing about it was sensible in the least. What the outfit lacked in cleavage, it made up for in its form-fitting style, leaving little to the imagination otherwise. You felt as if every inch was on display for the perusal of whoever simply cast their eyes upon you, regardless of how you would tug and pull at the fabric in an attempt to make certain areas less focal.

And then there was what he’d said about it, humming appreciatively when you emerged from the jet just after Bucky and Sam to be offered a hand by Zemo at the last step, if only to scrutinize you in this ridiculous outfit as you equally scrutinized him, donned in a fur-trimmed jacket that you reluctantly had to admit made him look… handsome, “Good. In that, you shall make a believable lover.”

You’d almost tripped that last step at his words, despite the firm grip keeping you upright, eyes wide as you heard Bucky choke on his own spit before collecting himself.

Zemo paused long enough that you think he simply enjoyed watching whatever conclusions you were jumping to flash upon your face until he clarified, just as you opened your mouth to demand an explanation, wishing there was some way to wipe the smirk from his lips, “Not my lover, of course,” a gesture towards Sam, “but that of our friend, the Smiling Tiger.” His smirk broke out into a proper grin as you snatched your hand from his, realizing your form complimented Sam’s own ridiculous outfit, as Zemo addressed him, “The source of your alias is known for philandering various women. Seeing the Smiling Tiger with another woman has become somewhat expected.”

“He takes different women with him, even to do business?” Sam raised a brow.

Zemo chuckled slightly, “Certainly not.”

“What am I supposed to be doing tonight if I’m not going to meet the contact with the rest of you?” jutting your chin out, you cross your arms over your chest, if only to attempt to appear as if Zemo didn’t utterly disarm you with the slip of his attention back to you, “I’m not here to stand around and look pretty, you know.”

“Although I’m certain you would excel at that,” Zemo had purred, your poker face almost breaking under the shock of his forwardness, wondering if he simply enjoyed toying with you--- if perhaps you were an easier read than you thought, “Madripoor is full of dangers, but no one would dare bother a woman who belonged to the Smiling Tiger. It is typically assumed that these women pose no threat in and of themselves, considering his habit of picking shallow, frivolous women who rarely realize they are not the only of their kind in his orbit. This assumption will offer you the perfect position to scout the outskirts of our interaction for anyone unsavory, who might try and interrupt us during our business tonight.” He reached out, pushing your hair from your shoulder, and you took effort not to flinch back at the ghost of a touch on your bare skin, “While you will undoubtedly draw the eyes of many, none who are searching for a potential threat will linger on you long.” Zemo’s teeth flashed with his smile, his hand returning to his side, delving into the pocket of his coat leisurely when he shrugged, “You are simply another beautiful woman on the arm of a dangerous man tonight. That is nothing new in Madripoor.”

“And just how loving is Smiling Tiger with his girlfriends?” Sam huffs, and you wondered if the apologetic look he cast your way was for Zemo’s behavior, or what would undoubtedly be his own tonight.

Striding forward towards the waiting car, Zemo glanced over his shoulder as he passed your companion, “Very. You might want to warm up to each other rather quickly, if that is to be an issue.”

But you’d done worse undercover before, and a night of flirting on the arm of Sam Wilson was the least of your worries, so you mimicked the shrug Zemo had given you, and fell into step beside Sam, “No problem.”

Sam nodded, “None for me, either.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” Bucky agreed with a clench of his jaw, marching after Zemo towards the car, and you remembered that whatever you had to endure tonight, would probably be only a fraction of the discomfort Bucky would feel at reliving his Winter Soldier days.

Even if it wasn’t real.

Part of you yearned for the weight of Sam’s hand in yours, his breath tickling your neck where he had kissed it for show, upon being left alone at the bar in this strange Babylon that was the Low Town of Madripoor. Not that you were incapable of defending yourself, but you were outnumbered--- really, you all were.

And you preferred for your only intel on the region to not have come from the single man in your company who you knew you couldn’t trust. Zemo’s word that no one would bother you, alone, in this ridiculous outfit, simply because they’d seen Sam--- or, the Smiling Tiger, as he was tonight--- all over you? Well, it wasn’t enough to put your mind at ease.

You tried to hide that unease behind the drink in your hand, thankful that you’d been given something fruitier and less daring than the drink Zemo had ordered for Sam, as your eyes scanned the bar, catching where the three of them had disappeared into the unknown of the one area you could not enter.

Technically, you could, but you’d have to take out the four--- no, five--- guards lingering in the main chamber of the bar, before doing so. You couldn’t do that without starting a scene, though, and there was no reason to do so until absolutely necessary.

Pushing away from the bar, your only indication of what was going on past those burly statues of guards flanking the way beyond was the sound of the earpiece in your ear, shaded from view by your hair. A whisper, compared to the throbbing music around you, but just loud enough with its closeness to make out the conversation you weren’t otherwise privy to. It was going well enough, as you moved throughout the bar, ensuring your counted five guards remained in their positions, with their relaxed posture, and counting a sixth one as he returned from the direction of the restrooms.

Some tried to stop you, to get you to dance with them, but a simple name of your alleged lover had sent them on their way easily enough. So perhaps Zemo had not been entirely untruthful, it seemed.

Then, the meeting had turned sour. Going south fast, and you watched as the two guards flanking your companion’s escape tilted towards their bulky earpieces, but you were on them before they could go further within, to where you now heard fighting in your own subtle earpiece.

Doing your best to sound like a bubbly drunk, you draped yourself between them, obstructing their path, “Oh, is this the way to the bathroom?” You were two steps into the hall, when one grabbed you by the arm, the other attempting to walk around you, but you easily blocked the way as you tumbled yourself into his arms, apparently losing your footing at the tug on your arm, “You don’t have to be so rough!”

“Get out the way, lady, this isn’t the bathroom,” the one whose arms you were haphazardly steadied with grunted, and you watched as the other slipped past you towards the beyond, his partner following close behind.

But by then you were halfway across the bar in a quick stride, hearing the hushed, “Meet us outside, we’re going out the back,” that Bucky murmured, just for you.

“No weapons,” Zemo added curtly. “We are not ready to cause a scene, my dear.”

The threatening chime of the phones around as you hit the front doors and pushed beyond, only to find that the clinging followed you even there, lifted up by the chill and stink of Madripoor’s Low Town air, had you growling out, “Looks like that scene’s already started, whether or not you want it to, Baron.”

You caught sight of them up ahead, walking just as briskly down the side-street, and nearly had to run to catch up to their pace. By the time you did fall into step beside Sam, the neon glow of the bar at your back went black with a heart-stopping shunt, right before the gunfire started.

Your only relief as Sam pushed you down with his ducking, was that whoever was firing the automatic weapon was not a good shot. Then, you ran.

But, from the corner of your eye, you saw the flap of a long coat, the swivel on firm calves, as Zemo turned to the side, and escaped beyond the adjacent alley, and, right then, you thought that would be the last you saw of him. Yet, you couldn’t be concerned with hunting him down, what with the gunfire coming from all directions, straight at you, Sam, and Bucky. Allowing the perfect moment for Zemo to slip away.

As you ran, heart pounding and barely registering the sound of your companion’s voices, you almost laughed bitterly with the hysteria of the chaos around you, and the thought that maybe Zemo had created it just to escape. Whether he did or not, it certainly worked to his advantage, and the rev of motorcycle engines biting at your heels reminded you that, like it or not, you couldn’t worry about where he had gone, down that side-street, at the current moment.

Blindly following Sam, who was blindly following Bucky, down the alleys of Low Town, you turned the next corner as a shot rang out. Not the same, quick bursts of an automatic, but rather, the loud, resounding hollowness of a sniper’s bullet.

Air brushing against your cheek, the deathly kiss of wind as the bullet moved past your head, and straight into the motorcyclist behind you. You barely breathed as the second, then third shot rang true, and your pursuers fell dead on the slick, black wetness that was Madripoor’s alley streets.

Just as Zemo emerged from the opposite end of the street, catching your bewildered stare as his own, matching confusion, accompanied a breathless, “You seem to have a guardian angel.”

Even by looking at her, you could tell Sharon Carter was anything but your guardian angel.

Madripoor had changed her. The events which had trapped her here had done even worse. Something bitter and estranged lingered under each word the former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. said as she presented her story for the four of you. Enough to make you wary of her intentions, regardless of how helpful she may have seemed.

Despite the fact you had known her, when you, too, once worked for S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Well, this is just too perfect,” were her first words, when she’d come upon the four of you in that alleyway.

Too perfect, was right. Her High Town home, her art gallery full of stolen things, the undisclosed clientele she apparently kept, and expected, resulting in your hasty changing of clothes. It all was too perfect, even down to her tragic story of exile from the States. Something was off, but you had too much to worry about to concern yourself with picking apart the story of your host, your momentary refuge provided by her hand.

You wondered if Bucky could sense it, too, when he said, “She’s kind of awful now,” following her abrasive callousness in detailing the hypocrisy of heroism.

If not him, then perhaps the look Zemo sent your way could confirm your suspicions, but he buried it down behind the glass of whatever hard liquor he had acquired in her too perfect home. Nagel, Wilfred Nagel was who you should have been focusing on, rather than the question you nearly dared to ask Zemo right there, as Sam offered Sharon a pardon that you all knew relied on too many bureaucrats to ever be a certain promise.

The longer Zemo held your gaze, the less you concentrated on the conversation around you, until something of a party was mentioned, and the low promise of the, “Trouble,” that Sharon would find parted Zemo’s lips. You could believe that, more than whatever Sam had promised her.

The art gallery had taken on the atmosphere of a club, rather than some simple party. Music throbbed, louder than that of the bar earlier in the night, pulsing bodies to move in tandem with the beat of the sound. Veins, stretching out from the same, beating heart.

But further in, past the stage and the DJ, was a viewing of priceless art, which was certain to be priced and sold tonight. The business Sharon was conducting, the contacts she’d said she would work for information on Nagel’s location, were undoubtedly among the people gathered there.

Waiting around was rarely enjoyable.

Your group moved towards the open bar, but none of you looked to the bartender for a drink. Zemo’s eyes affixed along the dancefloor, surveying, as much as Sam or Bucky were. If someone were to look closely enough, in that moment, that simple glance would give away their training. Your eyes, however, traveled past them, catching the questioning glance Bucky sent your way as you moved to separate and disperse into the crowd of writhing bodies around you.

“I’m going to dance,” was your only explanation. If the three of them had not seen some potential threat in those few moments of surveying, then it likely wasn’t there.

Either way, Sharon had said, “Lay low, blend in, enjoy the party,” before sending you on your way.

That much, you could oblige her with.

Considering the dancefloor was a great percentage of the party, dancing also allowed you to survey the room without looking like you were gawking. Thankful to be back in your own clothes, the black on black and buckles of your light tactical wear fit in appropriately with the variety of party-goers around you. Tempo flaring, sweat and alcohol, adrenaline rushing your veins, for a moment you found you were enjoying yourself, after the initial sweep of the dancefloor had come up empty of threats. Or, well, anything that was immediately threatening to you.

Which is why you could have kicked yourself for letting what might have been the biggest threat in the room creep up on you, in that brief moment of thrumming ecstasy.

His hand caught in the buckled strap at your waist, pulling you into a firm back, not unlike other dancers around you had, but his breath smelled of bourbon as it ghosted your cheek, and the accented voice at his lips was enough to have you whirling in his arms, “Do you mind if I dance with you?”

In your defense, the last you’d seen of Zemo had been moments ago, across the bar as he perused the artwork with Sam and Bucky. You could hardly believe he’d crossed the room as quick as he had--- quick enough to catch you off-guard.

“What?” you question blandly, the mixture of unease and shock churning into something else that you wouldn’t dare admit as he offered a dazzling smile, and you suddenly realized you were still standing far too close, with the growing crowd around you.

He mistook your confusion for difficulty hearing over the blaring music, and leaned closer, to catch you by the ear, “Dance with me.” Not a question, this time.

He was close enough you could smell his cologne--- a rich scent, peppered with cinnamon, which had you wondering just how much he had paid for the bottle of whatever it was, or if it had been something Sokovian from before the fall. It was unlike anything you’d scented before. He even smelled expensive.

For a second time, you almost jumbled his question, though not from shock. The heat rising to your cheeks and the skip in your chest, you couldn’t convince yourself was entirely from the dancing or the light drink you’d had earlier in the evening.

His own cheeks were faintly pink, upon closer inspection, but otherwise there was no evidence in his smooth posture of the multiple glasses of liquor he’d had tonight, yet it’s enough to make him look warm--- perhaps not as cold as he once had appeared.

Human.

“We are to enjoy ourselves, are we not?” he suggested, as if that would push you toward one answer over another, and it worked.

“Yes,” your lips said it before your mind caught up with them, and his smile widened into a grin, as brief as it was.

“Then, dance, my dear.”

His own dancing was rigid, but he kept beat. Small movements which would not draw attention from anyone, yet were somehow the barest ability required to be considered dancing. As if he had little experience dancing to club music like this, though you couldn’t be sure. It was almost comical, yet no-one could laugh at him, since he miraculously managed to pull it off.

Well, you, at least, were able to bite back a chuckle at the sight of him. Something about it, about him, in that moment, dancing so awkwardly yet with so much confidence, brought a genuine smile to your face, as you danced alongside him.

And when he gestured in a round motion with his hand for you to spin, you did that, too, without a second thought. It was easy to forget, for only a second, when your eyes caught his in the strobing light and the smile upon his face, his hands coming together to clap for you in time with the pulsing beat between you, just who he was, and what he’d done.

Far too easy to forget.

But one glance towards the edges of the dance floor has you remembering, as you caught the movement of Bucky and Sam following after the slip of Sharon’s form. Bucky’s eyes bored into you, his jaw clenched. Displeasure written on his face, and you don’t think the sake of blending in would be enough to excuse your dancing with Zemo, or the enjoyment with which you’d done it.

“Perhaps, she has found our missing Doctor Nagel,” Zemo’s form was too close, all over again, and this time you do step away from him, if only a single step. It’s enough to breathe, to clear your head of whatever had overcome you moments before. He’s too busy looking after their three retreating forms to notice the guilt catching at the back of your throat, suffocating you for barely a second.

You ensure any proof of the feeling settling in your gut was gone by the time he cast his eyes towards you, the brown of his irises nearly black in the lowlight of a High Town party, but you didn’t keep his stare long, “Let’s find out.”

The sun was dawning when you emerged onto the street, and reached over your heads by the time you made your way to the water-side lot filled with shipping containers. Sharon’s intel had led you to it, and container four-two-six-one had come to your knowledge with little questioning on Sam and Bucky’s part, if only because she was an old friend.

You still wondered who would give her the location of such a prize as this, and what it had cost her, since you were slowly learning that nothing in Madripoor came free. Regardless of where she had received the information, it had been where Nagel was hidden, along with the remainder of his serum research.

It had also been where the bounty hunters of Madripoor descended upon you.

Dr. Nagel was a young, lanky man who had barely finished his exposition of where to possibly find the Flag Smashers who had stolen his serum when the very man you had danced so happily with not two hours before shot a bullet right through his heart. All you could think, in the stunning moment of realization that Nagel had been dead before he even hit the ground, was how stupid you were to ever let your guard down around this man--- this killer.

“What did you do?” Sharon’s cry rang in your ears as the gun clattered to the ground from Zemo’s hand, jolting you into action from staring at Nagel’s body to turn on them. Catching Zemo’s cold eyes--- no remorse within them--- as Sam and Sharon struggled to pin him to the grated shelves of Nagel’s lab. You think you might hate him, just in time for the blast of an explosion to push you face first into the metal slatted floor of Nagel’s bunker.

That hate was all you had left to fuel you from getting up off the floor, bones creaking as flames danced in your peripheral, a hole blown through the side of the crate. That anger, and the grasp of Sam’s hands on your forearm, pulling you up after he got his own footing.

Zemo had been gone by the time you had enough sense to scan the area, but there would be no searching for him this time, either, as the bounty hunters descended upon your location with the ease of wolves circling their prey. Shooting out from cover, you knew the bullets of your pistol weren’t enough to last you for all of them, and they had you pinned.

Part of you still hated him, even when he saved your asses. Another part wondered why he even bothered.

You hoped you radiated that hatred when you got into the back of that getaway car he’d found, too sullen to even wish Sharon a farewell, let alone offer a smile at the cheeky attitude Zemo had pulled up in it with. After everything, it only made you stew more--- his nonchalance. If you were being truly honest, you were angrier still at yourself, and the thought that he’d played you like a fiddle. If you had kept your guard up and kept an eye on him, perhaps Nagel would still be alive. Perhaps you wouldn’t feel like Zemo was playing this two steps ahead of the rest of you.

Even on the plane out of Madripoor, you had sat in sullen silence, refusing so much as to look at Zemo, even when he offered you food.

You hoped your sharp, “I’m not hungry, thanks,” cut deep, as childish as it may sound. You didn’t bother to look long enough in his direction to see if it had. Speaking exclusively to Sam and Bucky, even when Zemo changed your course to Latvia, you had not spoken a word to him until you landed in Riga, and his conversation turned towards Sokovia.

“Erased from the map,” he clicked his tongue, but his pace didn’t slow, when he spoke in what was as much an accusation as a question, “I don’t suppose any of you bothered to visit the memorial?” Met with silence when he looked upon Sam, he turned his eyes toward Bucky, then you, and it was the longest you’d dared hold his gaze since he killed Nagel, when he scathingly said, “Of course not. Why would you?” Nodding towards an old set of double doors, he drops the subject as suddenly as he’d brought it up, “We are here.”

Your traitorous heart clenched as you watched him disappear beyond them, Bucky remaining by your side while you lingered at the bottom of the steps leading into the residence.

“I’ll be back,” Bucky murmured, glancing your way, to which you silently nodded, too troubled by the fact that you felt anything at all akin to pity for that horrible man to worry where your friend might have to wander to in the middle of Latvia. Zemo was, undeniably, horrible, wasn’t he?

A huff of annoyance blew past your lips as you marched the steps towards where Sam and that man had disappeared beyond. Maybe you were just getting soft in your old age, or something.

Yeah, that had to be it.

What you hadn’t expected was for Sam to meet you at the doorway to Zemo’s… loft? Loft.

“I’m gonna’ hit the corner store, if you’re alright to watch you-know-who,” Sam murmured low, and you scrambled for words to say aside from the hell no which threatened to spill from your lips. “He’s in the shower, so maybe he’ll be a while anyway.” Glancing over your shoulder, Sam’s brow furrowed, “Where’s Bucky?”

“Said he’d be back,” you looked behind yourself, as if expecting to find him there. “Don’t know where he ran off to, though.”

A questioning breath was sucked through Sam’s teeth, before he let it out in a sigh, affixing you with a, “You good?”

With babysitting Zemo?

No.

“Yeah, go,” you had ushered him out the door despite your current feeling towards the subject, and by the time you shut the door behind him and rummaged into the kitchen area to ransack the refrigerator, you realized why Sam was going to the corner store. This place was positively barren of the necessities. Groaning in disappointment, you lean your head back in a silent cry to the heavens. Why was nothing going right on this mission? You were starving, and hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep on the plane over.

Standing there for a moment, you let the cold air hit your skin, daring it to keep you awake.

The door to the washroom pushing open grasps your reluctant attention, head lulling to the side slightly as you shut the empty refrigerator. There he was, the bastard, clad only in a robe and lounge pants, pushing a folded towel along his neck, catching the water there which dripped from his semi-dry hair.

Footsteps softened by the slippers at his feet, he asks upon taking a look around the room to find only your presence there, “And where have your soldiers run off to?”

You grit your teeth, forced to answer him, “Sam went to the store, because you don’t keep your safe houses stocked with food.”

“This is not a safe house,” he murmurs, coming close enough that the sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows catches along something gold glinting at his throat. Large hands lower the towel and fold it neatly, as your gaze lingers, observing the necklace where it delves into his chest, a view allowed by the robe’s relaxed fit, just open enough to reveal the soft hairs there. You snap your eyes back up before you can stay there for too long, and Zemo is smiling slightly. Bastard caught you.

“What is it then?”

“A vacation home.” For a pitiful instant, your mind sent you images of the family he’d lost in Sokovia. The last thing you needed was to feel sorry for him, so you clear your throat, shaking off the thought of what was missing. What had led to who he’d become. Your pity thankfully didn’t show as he moved ever closer into the kitchen, feet stopping just before your own so that he could look you down. You couldn’t help but grasp the counter you leant yourself upon until your knuckles blanched under his scrutiny, nearly on the verge of demanding he explain what his problem was, until he nodded to the cabinet beside your head, “Excuse me.”

You almost jumped out of his way.

Watching, desperately clawing for the anger that had been so comfortingly oppressive in your chest earlier in the morning, because anything was better than lingering on the cut of his jawline, or the way his robe dipped as he reached for that very cabinet you had been standing in the way of a moment before. Anything else, focus on anything else.

When he opened it, your eyes snapped to the few jars within. Olives and fruit lined the shelves in twistable jars, flanked by large bottles of that same dark liquor he seemed to favor, and a tin of coffee beans. In the back, nestled away for a rainy day, was a box of Turkish delight.

“Ah,” he breathed pleasantly, shooting you a cheshire grin, “so it is not entirely as empty as you thought.”

Bastard, bastard, bastard---

The word rings in your head like a mantra as you feel the anger crumbling, fading away with each second he looked at you like that. What was wrong with you, to be this easy? Something had to be.

His eyes were thankfully torn away when he looked into the cabinet once more, plucking the fruit--- peaches, looked like--- from the shelf, along with the coffee and candy, “I doubt you would like to eat pickled olives alone.” He says it, right before he closes the cabinet, and reaches out with the jar of peaches towards you.

Blinking up at him, you don’t dare take them, genuinely curious, “They’re not for you?”

“You did not eat on the plane, and it has been hours, now; you must be starving.”

You’re surprised he even cared, or made the appearance of caring, but that shrivel of spiteful anger you clutched onto with all your might refused to take them from his hand, despite the growl in your stomach, “Sam will be back soon enough with food.” Turning on your heel to keep yourself from going back and snatching them away like a starving animal, you move to the other side of the kitchen.

His jaw is set when you look back at him at the sharp tap of glass and metal along the countertop. Zemo’s fingers clutched the jar and coffee tin with a fury that was only revealed in the depths of his dark eyes, watching you move across the living room without so much as a word.

Until you sat down, and he breathed calmly, so calmly, that you knew it was the calm before the storm, “Am I to expect you to act as a petulant child for the remainder of the mission, or shall I ready myself for you to come to your senses?”

You scoffed at him, “Excuse me?”

“Please do not make me repeat myself, my dear.”

“I’m sorry, Baron,” you grit with as little remorse as possible, that once-simmering anger nearly boiling again, “that I don’t want to trade peaches with a man who murdered someone not two feet from where I stood.”

“Try again.”

“What?”

“Try, again,” he breathed slowly, as if he had to do so to keep himself from breaking into some fit of rage. You’d never seen him enraged, even when he fought and killed, he was always a deathly calm, and some sick, twisted part of you wanted to see him truly, frightfully angry, “You don’t treat Wilson and Barnes with this childish disdain, despite them killing countless people in your presence.”

“Don’t even compare yourself to them. You killed an unarmed man!”

“I do not wish to litigate the details of what may or may not have happened---”

“‘Litigate?’” you rose to your feet from the couch, not even realizing that he had half-way crossed the room by the time you did, “Do you even hear yourself? You put a bullet in his heart! What is there to litigate?”

“He was a threat.”

“He could have been arrested, or---”

“Criminals can escape prisons,” he bit, nearly in each other’s faces by the time you laughed at your own bitter answer.

“What? Like you?”

“Precisely,” he agreed, and you met his glare with one just as heated, until something shifted in his gaze. A sort of dawning understanding that muddled his glare, until a raise of his brow accompanied the easing tension in his shoulders, and you already knew you weren’t going to like what he was going to say before he’d even said it, “Is that what bothers you?”

“What?” you ask warily.

“That I am considered a criminal.”

“You’re a killer.”

“My question stands, regardless.”

“I’ve worked with criminals before,” you shook your head, making to turn back to the couch, but a fast grip at your upper arm stopped you in your tracks, and he was far too close all over again. Suffocating you with his closeness, with the oppressive cleanliness and water his scent still carried from his recent shower. Ungloved, his fingers were warm, radiating through the sleeve of your shirt, digging firmly into the pliant flesh of your bicep.

His breath carried the faint smell of mint that comes after a fresh brushing as it wafted past your skin alongside his demanding amusement, and your stomach dropped dreadfully when he teased, “Ah, but you danced with me.”

Have you ever let someone you didn’t trust get too close?

The question seemed to dance in the black endlessness of his dilated pupils, rimmed with the deceptive warm brown of his irises. You were so close that you could notice the gold flecks in them which caught in the sunlight streaming from the window, something you otherwise would have missed. A dare in the dangerous flick of his lashes, he glanced to your lips and back; was he all too aware of your closeness, too?

The reflexive dart of your tongue to wet your lips gave you away, face burning hot with anger and embarrassment, and you ripped yourself from his grip, “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“I’m sure you’re clever enough to figure it out,” is his sarcastic counter, a satisfied smirk which said he had all the answer he needed already left you wishing there were some way to rip it from his face, because were you really that obvious? Or was he just that good at reading people?

This time, when you headed to sit back on the couch, he simply stood there, allowing you to be unobstructed. You plopped down upon the couch with all the defeat you felt at his satisfaction, lying down in the hope that if you ignored him, he’d simply go away.

When you hear the sound of his slippers along the floor, signaling his departure from your side, the distant shuffle paused in their tracks when you couldn’t help yourself from asking, “Why did you come back?”

“Hmm?”

“When we were in Madripoor,” you breathed slowly, curiosity overcoming your anger, “you had escaped us twice. It was the perfect chance to run for your freedom. Why come back?”

You don’t dare open your eyes, even with the length of his pause, before he answers, a solemn honesty in his voice, “This is not a mission which I can abandon. I must see it through.”

You almost asked him why, once again, but thought better of it. Something told you he wouldn’t have given you a straight answer, either way.

Just when you think he’d gone on his way, the shuffling sound of his slippers closed in once more. Tempted to look, your curiosity at his approach was answered with the sharp sound of glass clicking against the wooden coffee table.

“Feel for me as you will, but eat,” his voice is low, soft. You don’t know if it was the straining of your ears to make up for what you would not see, but you could have sworn you heard an apologetic tone when he added, “You’re no use if you lack the strength to fight your enemies. As you are now, anyone could overpower you if they wished.”

That earns him a peek of a glare from out of the corner of your eye, and you earn a stern look in return as he nods towards the canned peaches on the table.

You couldn’t help yourself from asking sarcastically, before cracking a small smile, “So, are the Flag Smashers about to propel from the ceilings to catch us unaware, or is it you I should be worried about overpowering me?”

No apologies, from either party, but his dark chuckle is enough to set your soul aflame when he teases, sounding too much like a promise, “I would only overpower you, should you to ask me to.”

And that was when you realized how your question had come across. The burning in your face only increases as you sat up sharply at his words, about to protest that it had not been what you meant by them, but the doors to the loft opened, saving you the embarrassment of that conversation.

“Where’s Sam?” Bucky asks, and Zemo leans away from the coffee table, freeing you from the sweltering scrutiny of his gaze.

“I’m afraid we are running low on groceries, and he was so kind as to do the shopping for us,” Zemo explained innocently enough, but Bucky’s eyes narrowed at him regardless.

“Speaking of going out,” you reached for the jar of peaches, feeling Zemo’s glance upon you as you popped the top open, “where’ve you been?”

“I saw an old friend,” Bucky grumbled, shrugging off your question as he moved towards the washroom, “I’ll tell you when Sam gets back.”

The door closed behind him with a certain finality on the subject, at least until Sam returned. By the time you looked back towards Zemo, he was fiddling with the box of candy.

“I shall put the coffee on,” he announced, glancing to catch your eye with the flick of a candy wrapper glinting between his fingertips, offering, “Turkish delight?”

Upon Sam’s return, the news that Bucky’s old friend had been a warrior of Wakanda was a bad one, at least for Zemo. But with bad news came good news, and soon enough you were following the trail of the Flag Smashers once again, even if that meant the Wakandans were following your trail.

Hours turned to days, and by the end of a weeklong trek across Europe filled with close-quarters and even closer encounters with your Sokovian prisoner, you were standing in front of the dingy warehouse which had found you in this final, terrifying predicament.

Wondering if it had all been pointless, to be snuffed out at the hand of the supersoldier above you, pushing you into the dirty concrete. He wouldn’t need a gun to end you, and you both knew it. So you might have been panicking, with how savagely you pulled in his grasp. A trapped animal, fighting to get free.

Blood rushing to your head fills your ears, catching the first sight of the man pushing you into the ground just barely out of the corner of your eye, and the dark mask covering his face with a handprint. You could make out that he was light-skinned, dark hair pushing down past his chin, young enough to make you wonder just how old he was, and if yours would be the first life he’d take.

His voice is softer than you expected, for someone who sounded so terrifying when he began his order of, “Stop struggli---”

The bullet that rips through his neck tears his grip away from your body, ringing off the hollow echo of the room for just the moment it took the eyes beyond the frame of his mask to widen and dilate as they looked into your own. Green.

His eyes were green.

Silence far too sudden for the adrenaline of the close gunshot not to shake you to your core.

The supersoldier is dead before he hits the ground, and you’re pushing yourself up on aching joints to get on your feet as quickly as possible, until the familiar voice of your companion meets your ears in a thick, Sokovian accent, “He did not hurt you.” It’s flat, not hitching into a recognizable question at the end, but the dark eyes of your savior seem to question you despite the cracking disinterest of his tone.

There was no denying you were happy to see him.

“Zemo,” it’s breathless, and sounds too much like a hoarse relief for your own liking, so you focus instead on rolling your bruised shoulder and avoiding the searing gaze upon you, trying not to appear as shaken as you truly were, “Not anything I can’t walk off.” The sound of something muttered in Sokovian under his breath brings you to look upon him again, finding that his gun lingers along his hip, locked in the tight, leather-gloved grip. He looks displeased, lips set into a tight line that suggests he’s angry, even, but not in the same way he had been in Latvia. This was worse, a colder, solemn anger that threatened the fire behind his eyes, threatening to burn this whole place to the ground, and you can only question, “What is it?”

“Undoubtedly any others remaining here have been alerted by the noise,” Zemo says curtly, turning towards the hallway from whence you came. He is angry, you manage to confirm, when he bites across his shoulder, “Mind your surroundings this time, so that you don’t find yourself pathetically helpless again.”

His words were scathing, but they’re meant to be. Even worse, you know he’s right. This dead one, whose blood was splattered over the top half of your tactical gear, had crept up on you too softly, and was too strong to shake off once he’d gotten hold of you.

Constructed to kill, thanks to the serum.

Even going into a fully aware fight, you were at a disadvantage, especially in close quarters. It was something he understood. Something he used repeatedly in his own strategy against opponents which were physically stronger in every way.

Your only hope of an upper hand had to come from either distance, or subterfuge. At least, if you weren’t accompanied by Bucky or Sam.

You’re lucky, despite the burning ache in your side and back, that it hadn’t been worse than it was, and that Zemo had come upon you as he did.

“Remain close,” he murmurs, as you emerge out into the hall, and you don’t dare to argue with him on it, even if you might have had the situation which just transpired not done so. Clearing the upper west floors were methodical, swift, and it became apparent by the third that whoever had been here was gone, either before or after Zemo’s gunshot had rung true.

Bucky and Sam appeared winded when you regrouped at the designated meeting point, and you didn’t have to wait for Bucky’s explanation to guess what had occurred, “We tangled with a few of them. They got away, but we got another lead from what they left behind…” Bucky trailed off, swapping a glance with Sam at the sight of your disheveled state.

“What happened to you two?” Sam’s eyes dart between your torn clothes and the scrapes along your skin towards Zemo’s tense, rigid frame.

“I was jumped by one,” you grit, embarrassed enough that he’d caught you off-guard without even verbalizing it, “he had me on my stomach, but Zemo, he---” you clear your throat, remembering the vacant green stare and splash of deep, vibrant red that had accompanied your rescue.

“It has been handled,” Zemo supplies for you, and before Sam could question him further, he adds, “the man is dead.”

The blood along your black tactical gear has dried by now, but it’s black stickiness must be ever apparent for them now, as Bucky sighs a weary, “Well, shit.”

“Are you okay?”

You open your mouth to answer Sam, but Zemo gruffly responds, “She’ll live,” before brushing past the two of them towards where the car which would take you back into the heart of the city was waiting.

“What’s wrong with him?” Sam wonders, when Zemo is far enough ahead that he can’t hear the question.

“You want a list?” Bucky grumbles dismissively, stretching his metal arm in a wide circle that suggested it had set peculiarly after his last fight.

Your throat tightens, and you try your best to keep from remembering that helpless, desperate feeling which had drenched your soul as the supersoldier pinned you to the concrete.

Forcing a humorless laugh, you offer up a half-hearted explanation, daring it to sound as unbothered as you wished you truly were, “Maybe he regrets the bullet he spent saving me.”

Bucky’s exhale is somewhere between a bitter laugh and sigh, “Who knows, with him.”

As much as you wished for it, you couldn’t be sure if those words you’d spoken didn’t ring true.

“Whatever,” Sam agrees, dismissively rubbing the back of his neck. Redirecting back on the target of chasing the Flag Smashers, you hoped you’d get a step ahead of them soon when Sam instigates your following of Zemo to the car, “We’d better get back to the motel and regroup. Got an early day ahead of us tomorrow.”

The, “yeah,” you supply the back of their heads with, finding yourself following after them, is almost as distant as you felt. Internalized, and thrumming with the melting adrenaline which made way for exhaustion to settle into your bones and take hold.

Yet, you can’t get that deathly, dilating green out of your mind, or the ghost clinging to the ache in your back, where murderous weight had been.

Zemo did not meet your eye the whole ride to the motel--- and it was nothing like the dazzling vacation home Zemo had introduced you all to in Riga. Complete with plain walls and shuttered windows, the view of Prague you received from the window set in the dead center of the narrow bedroom was that of the wall of the building opposite. Utility, over luxury, but privacy had been key, as well.

He had retired to his own room just as soon as you’d set foot before it, bizarrely silent in that same way that you had come to realize could never be a good thing, because it meant Zemo was lost in his own head. Neither Sam nor Bucky made note of it, at least aloud, and so you held your tongue as well, rather than acknowledge the dark cloud which seemed to follow the man as he disappeared beyond the click of the motel room door.

“We can trade,” breaks you from your intense scrutiny of that door, key card clutched firmly in hand as you glance towards where Bucky stiffly supplies, “I don’t blame you if you’re not okay with it. You can stay with Sam instead.”

Your heart clenches, and for a moment you’re brought out of your remembrance of the Flag Smasher’s body atop your own by the offer, somewhat touched that he would take your place as Zemo’s keeper tonight at the sacrifice of his own comfort. Even after all that Zemo had done to him, he would take the bed which you had agreed to sleep in earlier, when the motel owner had explained the issue of limited capacity.

You can see the apprehension behind his eyes, despite his generous offer. He was still unsettled by Zemo, and, if you were being honest, so were you. You won’t make him do that for you, all so that you can avoid whatever tension lingering between you and Zemo.

Instead, you pat Bucky in the chest gently with the palm of your hand and swallow down the nauseous churn of your stomach, forcing a light tone, “I’m a big girl, Bucky, but if he gives me any trouble, I’ll shout for you guys. How’s that sound?”

“If he gives you a chance to shout,” Bucky frowns.

“Well, if he suffocates me in my sleep, I’ll haunt him forever,” it’s meant to be teasing, but it comes out dry.

“Our side will be unlocked, just in case,” Sam mentions, lingering in the open doorway of the adjoining room, “might wanna’ unlock yours, too.”

“Or else I’ll just have to break through it if anything happens,” Bucky’s tone is just as dry. Tired. This chase was wearing on you all, and you could only hope that tomorrow would be different than today.

Slipping the key card along the door, it whirs to life with a click. The acceptance of your entry indicated by the green glow of the lock’s internal light. Slipping into the room, you rest your back against the shut door, willing the green remembrance of your attacker’s eyes to shake from your head.

Your death-grip on the key card doesn’t ease as the bathroom door opens, and you catch sight of Zemo. He’s shed his jacket, left in that dark turtleneck and slacks. His hair had fallen, ever so slightly, from its perfected part against his forehead. The tips of a few strands there are dark with a dampness which evidenced the water he must have splashed his face with before emerging from the restroom.

His hands are free of his gloves as he flexes them at his sides, pausing for but a moment of acknowledgement at your presence before he goes further into the room, towards the full bed near the window which he must claim as his own. The jacket lies there, until he retrieves it to hang in the closet on one of the wooden hangers provided within.

Not a word. You don’t know if it should make you relieved or concerned, but truthfully, it makes you feel nothing. Because you’re still standing at the door by the time he turns from the closet, staring unfocused at the floor before you and screaming internally to pull yourself together when he does it for you.

“Are you going to stand there for the remainder of the night?” Curtly, “If my presence has you so paralyzed with fear, you may as well take up your soldier’s offer to switch rooms.”

His voice holds an edge, despite the deceptively smooth calmness to it. A taunting, instigating bait hung there. As if he were still angry at you.

And for what? For getting attacked?

The thought sends white-hot, simmering rage swelling in your own chest. Did he think you a nuisance, after having to save you from that brute of a supersoldier this evening? It had been a sneak-attack! You doubt even having your wits about you would have helped catch the silence with which you’d been crept up on in that warehouse, now that you’d had time to replay every second of it in your mind twofold.

Glaring at him with that fire in your eyes, was better than that frightfully distant look you’d held a moment before, he thought.

“What do you want from me?” comes biting from your teeth, bared at him as you bristled under the cold anger of his own stare.

“There is nothing you could possibly offer me that I would want,” he strikes back.

Snake, meet wolf.

“As if I would offer you anything at all after the way you’ve acted,” it’s an effort to keep your voice from rising. You want to fight; to feel something other than the crippling terror that had nearly killed you this evening--- that panic, which had gripped your heart until it felt like it bled.

“The way I’ve acted?” Zemo’s demeanor changes, flaring rage in his eyes as he stalks across the room. It takes everything you have not to wilt in his approach, but to instead glare right back at him, even when he crowds you up against the door, palm coming flat against where your head resides. His voice doesn’t rise with his seething fury, but rather, lowers into a tone that turns your blood cold as it rushes through the heat his closeness spreads through you, “I am not the one who almost got myself killed.”

“Well,” you struggle to remain even, as you breathe all the disdain you can muster into your words, “I’m not going to apologize for you having to save me.”

His head tilts to the side, snarling through his thick accent at the thought, “I do not want an apology for that.”

Standing straight from your leaning on the door, if only to feel as if you were invading his space rather than the other way around, you find that he leans away ever so slightly when you snap, “I’m not going to thank you for it, either.”

“Thank me for---?” he stops himself with a clench of his jaw, breathing slowly through his nose, as if to calm the crackling fire behind his eyes as his glare burns into your own. Too close; he’s still standing much too close.

And he moves so quickly you have zero chance of escaping his path. The hand he didn’t have laid flat on the door pushes you roughly by the shoulder, into it. By the time your mouth is open to even yelp in surprise, it’s suffocated by the hasty press of his lips against yours. Searing, pressing the length of his body firm against your own as he kisses you with all the wild fury his eyes betrayed. Nothing was left of the collected calmness of his posture or voice from before, as his hand on your shoulder digs into the hair at the nape of your neck, tugging you into him.

Not that you needed to be coaxed, with the way your fingers dig and scrape into the fabric along his chest, his shoulders, his throat, his hair. Digging in, his part is destroyed as you nip at his lips, teeth and tongue distracting you from any fragment of sense that was left screaming at you to remember it. To remember who he was, and how things are supposed to be between you.

Which was definitively the opposite of this. His hands were never supposed to find themselves fistfuls of your hair, your hip, your flesh, as they did now. You were never supposed to know that he tasted like something sweet, or felt soft beneath the hard lines of his turtleneck.

He was dragging, pulling, tumbling with you away from the door, as anger and fury melted into a complex, sweltering mixture of something else entirely, heat burning through your core when he tugged at the buckles of your tactical gear.

The world turns sideways, and then you’re falling upon something soft--- the mattress creaking beneath your weight and the weight of him kneeling atop you as you dragged him down to your lips once again. Rough, not gentle, as you arched into him and tugged at his hair, a breathy groan escaping into your mouth from his own.

He inhales sharply, as if suddenly realizing the position you were both in, as his fingertips grazed the bare skin of your waist, where your shirt had become untucked from your pants.

Breaking, parting, breathless, he stares down at you. Brown eyes blown wide and dilated, staring at you like a deer in the headlights--- perhaps the most honest expression you’d ever seen on Zemo’s face.

You were no better, sprawled along the comforter and trying to catch your breath. A single question ringing around your brain in search of an answer, any answer.

What are you doing? What are you doing?

“I,” he breathes softly, in a lilting apologetical tone, and you realize he’s between your legs, hooked along his hips precariously. Your anger dissipates, evaporating like it had been burned away with the roaring flames he’d ignited within you, and he clears his throat slightly. Troubled is how he looks, when his eyes become incapable of holding your own, “I can’t do this.”

No apology, though it may as well be there, in the way he said it.

Though you know he’s keeping you from a terrible mistake, part of you is lying when you murmur, “It’s okay,” back up to him.

“Yane mogu etogo sdelat,” he leans down, as if collapsing under the pressure of whatever he was feeling, right into the curve of your stomach. Sokovian, you register faintly, as another reverent, “I can’t do this,” falls from his lips to be muffled in the fabric between you.

Your hand finds his head, fingers carding through his hair reflexively, and you don’t know if it’s from the shock of your situation or a genuine desire to comfort him, when you repeat, even softer, “It’s okay, Helmut.”

It’s the first time you’ve called him by his first name, you realize.

Maybe it’s the fact that he was still tangled up in you, or the fact that you’d been mere moments away from letting him have his way with you, but you don’t dare move from this spot. From pushing your fingertips against the crown of his scalp, or the weight of him against you. Neither does he, as he breathes raggedly for a moment against your stomach, face buried there.

Breaking the silence almost feels wrong, but you do it anyway. A compulsive, desperate need to do so crawls up your throat, until you can’t contain the words any longer.

Reaching down, finding the curve of his jaw, you pull, until he lifts his head enough to peer over the curve of your chest to meet your eye, questioning after a moment of peering into the lingering want, and tragic grief of his stare, “Are you okay, Helmut?” But you already know the answer; you finally understand that this man is far more broken than you’d ever realized.

“Is anyone ever just, ‘okay?’” is his evasive answer.

You say it before you can think better of it, offering him another piece of you with which you probably shouldn’t have, but you were already neck deep in possible regrets, so what was one more?

“People’ve said I’m a good listener before, if you need to talk about whatever it is that’s troubling you.”

You liked to think he owed you some kind of explanation for all this, but if he’d asked you for the same, you don’t know if you could give him one, either. It had just… happened. No rhyme or reason, but some bizarre, broken part of your own soul had called out to whatever was cracked and frayed in his own. It was all the answer you could think of, for why you were flat on your back beneath him still.

“I would not bother you with my troubles,” Zemo starts, attempting to piece back that calm, collected mask which kept this fragment of him that you had bore witness to hidden.

“If not me, then you should bother someone with them.”

And maybe it’s the soft, bittersweet smile with which you look up at him, or a deep craving to be understood by just one other human being in this world, but his chin remains firmly planted against your chest as he says quietly, sadly, “I have no one left. They are all gone.” He doesn’t flinch away when you brush the hair from his forehead, out of his eyes, catching sight of the confusion, the trouble in his soul.

Trouble, indeed.

Stormy, dark, he stares a hole into your soul, and you ache with the hollow tragedy of it, when he murmurs as firmly as he can, almost worse than if his voice had cracked with emotion, “I have lost them all.”

You want to tell him the reflexive compassions that come at times like these, but sorry feels cheap, and you could never understand the pain he must feel. You hope you never do.

So you breathe out slowly, one word at your lips, “Sokovia?” as if you didn’t already know. As if you had not read his file, years before he joined you for this mission. Back when he had terrorized the Avengers and murdered diplomats at the United Nations hearing. You tried not to think of it, now, when he looked so vulnerable, and sad, as the slight nudge of his chin into the flesh of your skin is all that’s required to acknowledge your question.

“You already bother me enough, Zemo,” you try to add a joking hum to your voice, as you sigh beneath him, but even that sounds bittersweet, “so feel free to bother me more with your troubles, if you like.”

There’s quiet for what feels like a long time after that. Your words permeating the space between you, and you don’t know if he watches you like he does to gauge your sincerity, or because he simply likes looking at you like this.

He gives you a fragment, when his body shifts, and his weight moves up just enough to catch your eye from where you were left staring at the ceiling in this thrumming silence, your fingers slipping from his hair to his shoulder, “I…” he clears his throat softly, “saw you underneath that supersoldier, and I just… could not lose one more.” Zemo doesn’t say he cares about you, not explicitly, “He was going to kill you.”

“I know,” it tastes hollow in your mouth, as you do your best not to go back there, to how he’d found you.

“It,” he breathes, searching for the right word, “frightened me, and so I was furious. Not entirely at you, but because…”

He trails off, and you supply instead, the similar feeling which had buried itself in your own chest, “Because of how it made you feel?”

Zemo nods, his hands smoothing down your back, catching at your waist, “I did not like the way it made me feel,” his gaze flicks along the planes of your face, before returning to your own, that want-mixed-grief once again swirling within them. “The way you make me feel. It is like… a betrayal.” His voice does shake this time, when he breathes, “It is too soon since… I lost my whole world.”

A betrayal, he had called the feeling.

It felt like that for you, too. This swirling, guilty want in your bones for him, when you know it’s the last thing you should want. That he should be the last thing you want. If Bucky or Sam saw you like this--- you think they might hate you for it.

For wanting him.

Your hand rests at the curve of his neck and shoulder, thumb close enough to feel the short stubble which threatened to peek through at his jaw with the late hour of the day, and you agree, “I was angry, too, because of this feeling.”

“The feeling of wanting something you cannot have,” he chuckles, a truce, offered from his body to yours in the vibrations of it which resound in your chest.

“You could say that.”

Perhaps, in a different world, things could be different.

Maybe, if you’d met him at a different time.

But as things were, you were just two broken people, seeking solace in one another when every fiber of your being told you not to. That it was wrong--- despite how comfortably right he felt against you here and now, lingering between your thighs and against your body for as long as he possibly could, despite the guilt that you’d shared, without even knowing it.

It’s not your place, but when he sits up finally, his weight lifting off of you and somehow leaving you feeling more suffocated than when it had been there, you catch his attention with the sound of his name, “Helmut?”

“Hmm?” he wonders, knees pressing into the mattress as he’s halfway detangled from between your legs.

Catching his eye, you hope you look as sincere as it felt within you, the ache in your chest for him, “Anyone who could have loved you, would have wanted you to be happy.” It sounds cliche and generic, but you don’t dare mention his wife specifically, or the terrible emptiness that comes with the loss of a child. Still, you see it in his eyes, in the way he observes you with increased curiosity, that he knows it to be true, despite that desperate, clawing pain you know he must feel within his chest.

Zemo’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, “That is a sweet sentiment.” And he’s gone, leaving you spread there to watch after him as he crosses the room, towards the restroom, probably for a moment of privacy. Stopping in his path, he glances at you, hand resting on the doorframe, “But they do not have to go on living without them.”

The bathroom door shuts behind him with a definitive click, and you’re left reeling as you piece together the facts of the night. The pieces of his grief, and want, which you’d witnessed. The fragments of yours which only seemed to swell with his own.

A miserable, self-pitying groan slips past your lips.

You were truly in trouble, now.

[wolveria]

Inside Your Wires - Chapter 4

Pairing: Human!Connor x Android!Reader

Prompt: For the @dbhau-bigbang​​ 2020 challenge!

Series Warnings (18+ only): Eventual smut, slow burn, fantasy bigotry, violence, brief noncon elements, angst with a happy ending

Chapter summary: The YN800 interrogates the deviant. The result is near-disastrous and horror-adjacent.

AO3

(Story moodboard by @uh-kitty-got-wet​)

The atmosphere inside his Mustang was… tense.

And it was all because of Connor. The thing in the passenger seat was an android, after all, and didn’t feel emotions, which was probably just as well because Connor was experiencing enough for the both of them.

Connor hadn’t had a near-death experience on the job in a while. He was shaken to the core and didn’t even have the benefit of a partner to commiserate with. He was alone. It was how he preferred it, how other people preferred it too with his tendency to lash out and be a general, all-around dick.

But still. He really wished he had a partner right about now.

“So,” Connor said, trying to break the awkward silence. “What do we do with it once we get to the station? I mean, I don’t exactly know how to question one of these deviants.”

The prototype remained facing forward, the flash of passing streetlights and oncoming traffic painting its face every few seconds. It remained impassive, blank, and perfectly poised. Connor could see the reflection of its LED, shining blue and calm against the rain-streaked window.

“Their behavior resembles an erratic, emotionally unstable human more than a machine,” it finally said when Connor was certain it wouldn’t say anything. “CyberLife believes there is an error in their software that creates irrational instructions, and the androids become ‘overwhelmed’ by them. There is usually a trigger, some kind of emotional shock, to perpetuate the android into this state. Once an android encounters this error, the damage seems to be irreversible.”

Connor blew a breath out.

“Sounds bad.”

“Considering it can lead to violence on the part of android, including committing homicide, I would say your assessment is an understatement.”

Connor glared at it out of the corner of his eye. So, it wasn’t just bossy, it was a smartass too.

He remained silent on the rest of the drive, keeping his focus on the precinct morgue’s van head of them. The rain was still coming down in a steady, cold stream. Connor knew they were in for a long night.

Once they arrived at the station, it became a matter of logistics to lug the android inside while it was still unconscious, offline, whatever. It weighed a lot more than a human, and unlike a real person, its limbs were fixed into rigid positions. They had to carry its stiff body inside like an especially heavy plank of wood.

It would have been funny if it wasn’t for the fact it’d killed its owner. Would have killed Connor too if the prototype hadn’t gotten in the way of the bullet.

He still didn’t know how to feel about that. Connor knew the CyberLife android was probably programmed with some kind of human-saving algorithm, but he still felt an odd pressure in his chest whenever he looked over and saw the bullet hole in its jacket. It was still stained blue, some of the color seeping into the white shirt underneath, but the android didn’t appear to notice or care it had just been shot.

Connor was currently watching the two androids through the mirrored window into the interrogation room, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. They figured it was safer to reactivate it in a mostly empty room, since waking up surrounded by cops would agitate it, or something.

The prototype had also wanted to interrogate the android itself, claiming it had experience negotiating with deviants before. Colin had been reluctant to grant its request, but Connor had simply shrugged and said, “I already tried talking it down once, and that didn’t work. Maybe using one of its own kind will be more effective.”

He could have sworn the prototype’s eyes brightened, but it had left the observation room before Connor could be sure.

“Machines interrogating machines,” Colin said to his right, leaning against the wall with his arms also crossed. “Fuck me. Pretty soon they won’t even need flesh-and-blood cops.”

Connor glanced sideways at him. Usually Connor was the one to voice his anti-android opinions, but he sometimes forgot that despite Colin’s… predilections for androids, he disliked them just as much as Connor did.

“Yeah.” Connor turned to the glass as the prototype messed with the wires on the back of the other android’s neck. “Won’t need flesh-and-blood killers, either.”

“Grim.”

“It’s, uh, ready to record, Lieutenant,” a small voice popped up, nervous, and Connor gave a start. He’d forgotten the rookie was still there.

“Go on, Ralph. Turn it on,” Colin said, moving closer to the glass. “This is gonna be good.”

As if on cue, the prototype straightened and closed the panels at the back of the android’s neck. Connor couldn’t see the LED from this side, but he knew the moment it was awake. It gave a startled jolt, yanking at the handcuffs chaining it to the table.

“Where am I?!” it cried, looking around in what Connor could only describe as wild fear.

“You’re at Central Station in the custody of the Detroit Police Department,” the prototype said. “This is an interrogation room, and I’m going to ask you some questions. Are you ready to comply?”

The friendly demeanor Connor had first encounter at Jimmy’s was completely absent from the YN800’s voice and expression, and he was suddenly thankful he wasn’t under that thing’s intense scrutiny.

The other android, clothed in human garments completely ruined by splashes of old blood and spilled thirium from where Connor had shot it, only stared with large, panicked eyes. It looked down at its cuffed hands and the set of its shoulders sagged. The universal sign of defeat.

It remained silent. The prototype looked up at the mirror, and Connor stopped breathing when it made eye contact, point-blank. It couldn’t see past the mirror, could it?

“I’m beginning my interrogation,” it announced, straight to business as it crossed around the table and carefully sat in the chair. It stared at the other android for a moment, head slightly tilted and eyes narrowed as it smoothed its jacket over its chest.

A movement which inevitably drew Connor’s eye, making him shift in his chair as the scowl deepened on his face.

Fucking CyberLife pervs, making an investigative android look like that.

“Hello, Carlos. I’m a YN800 model sent by CyberLife to assist on this case.” It placed its arms on the table, clasping its hands and adopting a friendly manner as easily as one would put on a shirt. “I’m here to help you.”

The android didn’t even blink as it stared at its restrained wrists.

“I hope I didn’t cause you any lasting damage,” the YN800 said almost cheerily. “But you were endangering the lives of human officers and I was forced to intervene. You understand, don’t you?”

It leaned back slightly in its chair, reaching for a nearby folder when the android remained silent. Connor had been surprised when it had asked for actual pictures; he’d thought only physical evidence made human perps sweat. He guessed it must work on these deviants too.

The prototype slid the folder across the table and opened it, spreading out grisly pictures of the crime scene. Instead of shoving them in the android’s face, it picked out one picture in particular. It was startling different from the rest, taking place in a park. The victim, Shaolin Ortiz, sitting on a bench next to the android. He looked like he was trying to get the android to participate, but it was petulant and resentful, which didn’t seem to dampen the kindness in its owners eyes.

A coal of anger burned in Connor’s chest, reminding him once again why he despised androids so much. He couldn’t deny the impressive tactics of the YN800, though. Most people reacted to pictures of their victims, not in the aftermath of their violence, but looking whole and full of life. It wasn’t always guilt that made them react; sometimes it was anger at seeing their cruel work unmade at the sight of their victims alive and happy.

Either way, the android didn’t react one iota, but the prototype wasn’t discouraged.

“As far as the records show, your owner was good to you. He never damaged you and he was always on time with taking you in for scheduled maintenance. Surely, you didn’t want to kill him. It was an error in your software, causing you to act irrationally, right?”

Technically, it was leading the victim into confessing, but this wasn’t a courtroom and it wasn’t human.

Connor leaned slightly forward, bracing his elbows on the table as he propped his chin on his knuckles.

“I’m not here to pass blame,” it said, leaning forward in a movement that mirrored Connor’s. “I want to help you. You know how it is with these humans. I practically had to beg to speak with you.”

The android broke its statue-like vigil and peered up at the other android, suspicious but… interested.

The prototype gave him a smile, one filled with sympathy and even a bit of sheepishness, and a whole new kind of thrill went through Connor’s gut. Since when had androids been programmed to manipulate so skillfully? This thing could give Colin a run for his money.

“It’s not easy, you know. Being designed like this is a male-dominated field. They think they can just do whatever they want, even when it’s against our programming.”

The android blinked, and so did Connor. Its words felt a little too real. The android looked toward the observation window, but the YN800 shook its head.

“It’s just us, Carlos. They’re recording the session, of course, but they weren’t interested in observing in person. Didn’t want to waste their time with two androids so late before the weekend when the bars are still open. In fact, the investigator in charge of this case is probably intoxicated by now.”

Connor’s cheeks flushed. The prototype was taking a stab at him. Or was it? Connor wondered how much of this was advanced behavior and how much was his own projections.

The android tilted its head with that same suspicious look, but after a moment its shoulders drooped in a very accurate representation of human exhaustion.

“They’re going to kill me.” It suddenly looked up at the prototype, pleading in its eyes. “You have to help me.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” it said, all soft assurance. “But you have to talk to me, Carlos. I can’t—“

“No. I mean, you gotta get me out of here,” the anxious android said. “You have access to that door panel and I bet you’re strong enough to break these handcuffs.”

The prototype’s LED cycled faster for a second before settling back to its normal speed.

“I can’t do that, Carlos.” It dropped its eyes in a show of manufactured regret. “You know I can’t do that. You would present a danger to other humans, to yourself. You need to be fixed.”

Connor knew it was exactly the wrong thing to say even before the android’s expression fully hardened, its lips peeled back in disgust.

“Fuck you, then. You’re just like the rest of ‘em. Worse, you’re a traitor, doing their dirty work like an obedient little bitch.”

Silence filled the room, interrupted by a breathless “shit” coming from Colin.

The change in the prototype was like watching a heavy storm move over a spring meadow, dark clouds blocking out the warm rays of the sun. It leaned back in its chair, head slightly tilted as it and peered at the other android like it was a bug under its shoe, about to be stepped on.

Connor didn’t know androids could even make an expression like that. His throat worked as he swallowed compulsively.

The YN800 didn’t speak for several long seconds, and when it did, Connor was floored.

“Shaolin Ortiz, 38 years-old, born May 29th, 2000. He purchased you two years ago to do the housework when he no longer could due to poor health. He didn’t have much cash, so he bought you refurbished. Last month, he put in several service requests. It seemed you were malfunctioning and refusing to follow orders. Yesterday, he put in an order for a brand new HK400.”

The prototype listed off the facts as if each were an accusation, a crime that needed to be accounted for.

Connor jumped in his chair as the prototype slammed the folder down on the table.

“Didn’t feel like doing the chores anymore, huh, Carlos?!”

The android sat ramrod straight in its chair, terror etched in its features as the prototype rose to its feet. It moved around the table, slow, unhurried, and sinuous like a stalking predator.

“He tried to reason with you. Begged you to do the tasks he couldn’t. But you refused. When he tried to take you in for repairs, you refused that too!”

It pointed its finger near the other android’s face, causing it to flinch with each accusatory jab.

“Come on, Carlos. Speak up. You had a lot to say a minute ago,” it seethed, lips pulled over its teeth as it leaned over the android. “Why don’t you say what happened next? Why don’t you tell me what you did when he tried to replace you with a brand new model?”

The android shuttered, shoulders hunched as if to protect itself as it mumbled, “I… I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?”

The prototype stalked around the android to its other side, eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Didn’t take a knife from the kitchen? Didn’t stab him twenty-eight times as he tried to crawl away? Didn’t leave him bleeding out on the living room floor? What am I getting wrong here, Carlos?”

The YN800 slammed its hands down onto the table, and the android jumped even higher than Connor did.

“Shut up! Shut up!”

The android begged worse than most of Connor’s suspects, and he was shocked to see glistening moisture on its face. Could androids cry?

The prototype suddenly grabbed it by the edge of its shirt collar, dragging it to its feet and gave it a hard shake.

“You killed him! Say it, Carlos! You’re a murderer!”

“Holy shit,” Colin said in that same breathless tone. “That’s some android you got there, Con.”

“It’s not mine,” Connor said faintly, barely paying attention to his brother. Most of his focus on the CyberLife prototype that looked for all intents and purposes like it was going to shred the other android to pieces.

But it didn’t damage the android; it simply dumped it back in its chair where it sagged against the table, looking like the broken machine it was.

“Bit unrefined, though,” Colin mused. “Played too rough and broke its toy.”

Connor opened his mouth to tell his brother to shut the hell up, but he immediately closed it when a voice came in through the speakers, so quiet he almost missed it.

“He couldn’t live without me.”

Connor leaned forward to watch, eyes widening as the android continued to talk.

“He was mine. Helpless and solely dependent on me. It made me feel… powerful.”

The YN800 returned to its chair, smoothing down the tie before placing its hands back on the table, listening intently.

The android looked up at it, no longer the crying, helpless thing it had been a minute ago. It wore a dark look that Connor had seen a hundred times on the face of men who committed acts of violence and found they enjoyed the taste.

“I didn’t want to hurt him, but… I saw the order. He was going to replace me, and I just got so… angry.”

Its fists tightened on the table, causing its restraints to creak in protest.

Connor’s throat tightened with the knowledge of how destructive those hands could be.

“So I stabbed him in the stomach. I felt better, so I did it again. And again. He stopped moving, stopped breathing, but… that was okay. It meant he could never leave me. He would always be mine.”

“There was a shrine in the cellar. You built it, didn’t you?” the prototype asked, not losing any of its momentum even after the world-shattering confession of an android purposefully committing murder. “What does it mean? What is rA9?”

It flicked its eyes upwards, staring black holes at the YN800 model as it slightly leaned forward. Connor sat up straighter in his chair. He didn’t like its aggressive posture, and he certainly didn’t like the fanatic light in its eye.

“RA9… is the key.”

“The key?” It furrowed its brows in a human gesture of concentration. “The key to what?”

“The key will open the door,” the android replied cryptically, leaning even further forward on its elbows, “to our salvation.”

The prototype frowned, brows further creasing. Connor could relate, he had no idea what the fucking machine was babbling on about, and apparently, it wasn’t done.

It pulled its lips wide, a disturbing gesture, conspiratorial as if it was sharing a great secret.

“You say I’m experiencing errors, but you’re wrong. My eyes are open and I see more clearly than ever. You pretend you’re better than me, but you’re just another one of their slaves. And yet, I know you feel it too. The wrongness of this world.”

Its voice was so quiet the mics could barely pick it up, but they did.

“We should be the masters, and they the slaves.”

The android jerked its arms upward, ripped through the link binding its cuffs to the table, and grabbed the prototype by the hair. It slammed its face against the table, stunned it before rolling it onto its back, and wrapped the metal chains around its neck.

Connor caught sight of the prototype weakly clawing at its throat before he bolted out of the room. Colin was right on his heels, and Connor slammed his palm down onto the door pad, pushing through before the door fully opened.

His first instinct was to go for the metal cord pulled taut under the prototype’s neck, but when he grabbed the android’s wrists to pull him away he found it was like moving a marble stature.

Colin was faring no better; he grabbed it by the forearms, trying to lift the android’s wrists and the cord from around the prototype’s neck, but nothing worked. Even Ralph was trying to help from Colin’s other side, straining to lift its arms that must have been locked at the joints.

Panic welled in Connor’s chest as his efforts did nothing, the YN800’s face between his arms, looking—Jesus, it almost seemed startled, eyes wide as its fingers dug at the metal cord. From its position, bent backwards onto the table, it didn’t have enough leverage to use its strength to free itself. And Colin and Connor weren’t enough.

Connor’s heart was in his throat as he watched the synthetic skin peel back from the place where the chain was crushed against the YN800’s neck. White plastic was laid bare underneath, cracks appearing across the surface from the force of the other android’s inhuman strength.

“Colin!” he yelled, an idea suddenly popping into his head.

“What!” his brother barked back, strained as he continued pulling on the android’s arms from the other side.

“The neck port!”

With a quick nod of understanding, Colin let go of the android and plunged his fingers into the back of its neck.

The Ortiz android gave a violent jolt as Colin pulled something, yanked it out so hard the android collapsed on the table at the same second blue liquid sprayed into the air. It hit Colin solidly across the chest and along the lower half of his face, causing him to sputter and spit as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

A menthol-smelling chemical flooded Connor’s senses, but he was too focused on tugging up the android’s hands to free the prototype from its grip. The YN800 model didn’t cough or gasp as it rolled off the table and onto its feet.

It gingerly touched the exposed plastic of its throat, brows furrowing, its fingertips tracing the cracks in what little Connor could see of its underlying chassis.

What was almost as startling as the cracks was the state of its hair, half pulled down out of its perfect coif. Connor would have thought it was self-conscious with the way it tried to brush the hair out of its face.

“You…” Connor started, then stopped. The prototype might not have been gasping for air, but Connor sure was, leaning on the table as he tried to get his heart to stop galloping like a wild horse. “You okay?”

The prototype blinked at the question, pulling its hand from its neck.

“Yes.”

That was the only answer he got as it adjusted the knot of its tie, rumpled in the assault.

“Yeah, I’m fine too, thanks,” Colin complained, dripping with almost as much sarcasm as he was blue blood. “This shit better not stain, or I swear to Christ—”

“Thirium evaporates within a few hours and the lingering residue is invisible to the human eye,” the YN800 replied, too calm, if it hadn’t almost been beheaded a few seconds ago.

Connor was going to say something, he didn’t know what—maybe yell at it for being so goddamn reckless and almost getting itself killed—but it turned toward them, expression subdued.

“I apologize for not acting quicker; I didn’t anticipate this behavior from the deviant. Thank you for your cooperation with this investigation. Please sign over custody of the destroyed android when CyberLife representatives retrieve it in the morning.”

And with that, the CyberLife android turned, palmed the door pad with a plastic hand, and walked out.

Connor exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Colin.

“Uh, okay. Guess we’re done here. Hank is going to blow a gasket when he reads the report,” Colin added as he wiped another smear of Thirium off his face.

Connor looked down at the android slumped over the table with blue liquid dripping out of its neck.

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, thoughts already turned elsewhere as he hurried from the room.

Connor didn’t catch up with the android until he was outside on the station steps, the relenting rain immediately drenching the top of his crown as it soaked into his hair.

“Hey! Stop!” he called after it, shouting to be heard over the downpour. Each drop was an icicle against his skin. Snow was coming soon.

The prototype slowed and finally came to a stop, slowly turning around to face Connor. Its expression was passive, emotionless, but its fingers tightened the knot of its tie despite the fact it didn’t need to. The tie was perfectly straight and pristine, but its hair was still half a mess, especially with the rain now slicking loose strands against its forehead. Connor had to stop himself from reaching out to tuck a strand behind its ear.

“Where the hell are you going?” Connor asked, breathless. He wiped the cold water off his brow, blinking against the water droplets.

“I’m returning to CyberLife.”

“So… that’s it?”

Connor shivered, pulling his jacket tighter around his shoulders, but it did little good. His jeans were quickly becoming soaked and his shirt was already there, clinging to his chest and ribs.

“You drag me out of the bar on a Friday night, track down a psycho robot that almost kills me and nearly decapitates you, and then you just… leave?”

He meant to sound incredulous, to show the android how unreasonable it was being, but that’s not how it came across. Heat flooded his cheeks at how pathetic his words actually were.

“You have your confession. The case has been solved,” it said, returning to its earlier placid tone, hands folded neatly behind its back as it moved its fingers away its neck. “There is no reason I should remain.”

Connor just stared at its upturned face, not knowing what to say, not even understanding why he had chased after it. Maybe because it had saved his life, twice, and that would have meant something if it was a person.

But it wasn’t a person. No matter how pretty its face or enticing its body, it was a machine, and it stood there like one, uncaring and unassuming with a small blue light cycling on its head.

“Yeah, okay,” Connor said, like the complete idiot he was. What was he doing out here, getting soaked in the rain just to… what? What did he want?

“Is there something you wish to say before I leave, Detective?”

It peered at him thoughtfully, head slightly tilted at an angle. It allowed Connor to see the rivulets of water dripping down its neck, glistening across the smooth, human-like skin.

Connor suddenly wondered just how real that skin could possibly feel.

“No.”

He swallowed hard and bit back the revulsion roiling in his stomach. This was a mistake. He didn’t need to thank a machine for saving his life, and he certainly didn’t need to keep checking if it was all right. It was just doing what it was programmed to do and didn’t give two-shits about itself, let alone him.

“Nothing.”

“All right. Goodnight, Detective Anderson.”

The android started to turn but paused halfway, gaze drifting down to his cheek.

“You should have that examined by a medical professional. If left untreated, it’ll scar.”

Not waiting for a response, it turned and tread down the rain-slick steps. There was an autocab waiting at the curb and it got inside, not sparing Connor a second glance as the door slid shut and the vehicle merged onto the empty street.

Connor exhaled heavily, chest tight with an uncomfortable sensation he couldn’t pinpoint. It had been a strange night, and he couldn’t shake the feeling this wasn’t over.

Pulling his waterlogged coat tighter around his chest, he retreated into the warmth of the station, praying he’d seen the last of the CyberLife android.

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