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mickules · 4 years ago

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ASK DUMP

But first:

OOPS [for context]

My hand slipped.

Yous all ready for a MAMMOTH ask post? I mean it this is LONG

[edit: completely forgot to add the ‘read more’ rip your dash this is L O N G]

(next set of asks are [here]! in smaller bites this time)

Honestly I’m kinda boring when it comes to headcanons, they’re mostly canon compliant or I end up floating about on the general consensus of popular fanon. Here, however, is a bunch of little titbits!

~Hifumi draws like Boichi. The idea he has a super detail oriented style and not a cutesy one cracks me up.

~The difference between Taeko and Celeste; those colour contacts are prescription. (Taeko doesn’t look too dissimilar to Toko and she hates that)

~Likewise, Gundham takes forever to get ready as he re-applies the “wards necessary to allow mere mortals to withstand the presence of The Supreme Overlord of Ice”

~Kazuichi on the other hand is au naturale. He just looks like that.

~Hiro is right, where do you think his clairvoyant abilities came from?

~Taka has had to shave every morning since he was 13, (he looks like Masaaki Sakai from Monkey if he grows it out) Mondo will never be able to grow any facial hair, and he’s salty about it. His hair is naturally curly but he straightens the back for that Pomp Aesthetic

~Taka is a very restless sleeper, never wakes up in the same position as he went to sleep. At Hope’s Peak he usually finds himself waking up across the room, on the floor.

~Additionally, He eats like a gannet - maximum efficiency (until he gets indigestion) [more on this]

~Red eyes and a diabolical resting bitch face is the dominant trait of the Ishimaru Bloodline. (POV trying to have a casual conversation)

~Takaaki is a divorcee not a widower; his marriage was an arranged one organised by Toranosuke, and when the scandal went down the marriage was dissolved by the bride’s family. [more on this]

She was 5′3′’

Takaaki just wants someone tall enough so he can take a nice photo (I had to google ‘no homo with socks’, I hope you’re happy)

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30% of Takaaki’s intimidation is his height, the rest is his Glare™

Ah! I can understand the confusion! That was actually an older Mondo, as the anon had asked about Kaito being Mondo and Taka’s kid. I’m easy going when it comes to pairing characters together, I don’t mind answering questions along that vein! I love to see other people’s interpretations, and how they imagine a relationship develops. I’ve seen some absolutely adorable art of them as a couple! Personally however, I don’t have a good idea of their chemistry in my head, so I don’t think of them as being together. At the very least not in this weird AU thing I’ve got going on.

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Bold of you to assume Takemichi hasn’t been keeping it a secret. Not out of fear or shame, but rather because Michi would do anything to keep nosy, overbearing, meddling Daiya out of his love-life. He’s seen how Daiya absolutely ROASTS Mondo every-time he strikes out, and Michi ain’t about to open himself up to that. I imagine Daiya finds out whilst frequenting a gay bar- like that Doctor/Donna Doctor Who scene:

He is then resolutely recruited as a Gay Consultant™

They become very popular regulars. (tags got me creasing)

@hawklanthebard

You’re not wrong - that’s a fabulous concept, but they’re gonna have to catch him first. Surviving middle school gave Taka an unusually highly developed intuition for trouble and an excellent default flight or fight response

Mondo having to deal with his gang associations negatively effecting his ‘civilian’ life and friends? *Chef’s Kiss*

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Taka with his wooden sword would be a sight to behold. Unfortunately, I doubt brandishing a sword would be welcome in a school environment - so he’d unlikely use it for anything other than exercise. ISHIDA ON THE OTHERHAND

Hifumi might have had a bit more trouble

@emiefaunwrites

(Thank you so much! That’s so very sweet! I’m glad you like! :D) SO I didn’t originally have a timeline when I started making the comics, but NOW I do, so it’s a bit of a mess lol! BASICALLY: ~Daiya survived the bike crash ~Mondo & Taka go to Hope’s Peak ~They become friends (I have a comic planned for this, and it’s NOT a sauna scene *wiggles eyebrows*) ~[The Yakuza Incident] this is when Mondo catches feelings, but chalks it up to the adrenaline of the situation ~[Mondo meets Takaaki] and [makes a great impression] ~Daiya is introduced to Taka, and gives him “The Shirt” unbeknownst to Mondo ~Taka has his own Gay Panic™ (this is another comic comin’ in the pipeline!) but he doesn’t recognise it for what it is. ~[Takaaki finds The Shirt, and him and Daiya make their plan] ~[The Hershey’s Kiss Incident] Mondo has to ask himself some PRETTY SEARCHING questions after this, whilst Taka has to wrestle with the revelation that if Mondo asked for a kiss, Taka would not hesitate to do it. ~ and Finally, eventually, a Confession (this is another comic, but it’ll deffo be a while before this one is done)

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@crackinwise

Takemichi sees the Oowada brothers as a single unit - he is 'second’ to both of them. So, whilst Mondo is at Hope’s Peak, Takemichi defaults to keeping an eye on Daiya to give Mondo some piece of mind, since Daiya still a target for rival gangs. Takemichi’s title of ‘second’ is just a formality of the gang. Daiya doesn’t really go in for the hierarchy stuff, but it’s the gang that insists on it and Mondo unfortunately really internalised it. From the gang’s perspective, you have the suave leader, his sharp, loyal 2nd in command and his volatile brother he has to reign in, when in reality Daiya delegated a lot of his responsibilities to Mondo and Michi over time, and was more a figurehead than an actual leader by his retirement.

(I’ve got some more Leon in a future comic - have a peek, he’s got such a cheeky face) [this comic is now done!]

Mondo’s unsuccessful romantic attempts are the favourite gossip topic of a surprising amount of class 78 tho’ not within earshot of Mondo obviously - They’re secretly cheering him on but they also have a betting pool based on how quickly he’ll scare the girl away. Celeste has made a very tidy profit.

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Taka is 100% the type who’d inform the mcdonald’s cashier that they gave him too many nuggets and try to pay the extra. He’s IMPOSSIBLE to do a favour for.

[persona ref here]

@chinchillasinunison

I agree, Mondo in specs is A+, but yes, ‘tis a persona reference. I FULLY recommend Persona 4 if you get the chance! It’s a JRPG, but the ‘dungeons’ are people’s psyches, and when they’re inside they have to confront a ‘shadow’ which is basically some aspect of themselves they’ve repressed or heavily dislike. The stress of being in the dungeons causes people to get dizzy and confused, and the glasses stop that- it suggests Mondo has already confronted his own shadow, before Taka had to confront his. . .

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That’s some excellent analysis right there! Taka 100% has some deep seated issues to do with his relationship with control. I think his new friendship with someone so far outside his understood norm of ‘acceptable’ would have rattled some of those insecurities loose. There would be an inherent need for Taka to try to ‘improve’ Mondo’s behaviour - to try to make Mondo more “acceptable to society”, the way Taka was taught to be. But by doing so, he would be removing something that makes Mondo who he is. It would come down to an internal fight of being a hypocrite for overlooking Mondo’s anti-social behaviour, or trying to control Mondo and making him into something he’s not. Taka would hate himself for not being able to accept Mondo wholesale, the way he wishes people would accept himself, and the way he knows friends SHOULD do - basically a microcosm of the wider span of his anxiety with his chosen path and future.

(ahhhh! !Thank-you! That’s supremely kind! I’m still really enjoying the Dangan stuff, and if I move on to other things and folk don’t vibe with it - It’s all good! No worries! My only goal on this tumble is to enjoy myself, and so far that ain’t changed :D)

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NOICE! Excellent recommendations I’m lovin’ them! Always happy to get more! 👀

Also, from that DR chatfic:

“TAIL ‘EM NAEGGI”

I have been outdone.

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(AH! You flatter me! I’ll keep on tryna be cool!) [pic is here!] Daiya and Takaaki being casual allies is definitely a dynamic I really enjoy; Crazy Crafters is such an enjoyable fic! All the little interactions and character chemistry works so well together! Chasml’s fics are ones that I keep coming back to - I ADORE Their characterisations.

@rc-hetalia-mun

Dang you right, Honestly I needed a kid and his mum for the Crazy Crafters [pic] and Hiro has such a fun design; it was inevitable.

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(AH! Thanks!! What a compliment!! :-0 !! ) Normally, someone as jacked as Mondo would have a craggier face, not unlike Sakura’s sharp nose and defined cheekbones - but he’s got surprisingly soft features, I think those big eyes and long tapered eyelashes really add to it.

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(!!!!!THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!) Taka doesn’t even smile that much in his in game sprites but I CANNOT HELP IT! He has such a wide, welcoming smile and I LOVE DRAWING IT!!

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(Thank you! I loved doin’ it!) All credit 100% goes to @monikamarkovova They have the most SUPREMELY FLUFFY MOTHMEN art and I am in AWE, I cannot compare. I do not know how they do it. [here for ref]

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(ahh! <3 thanks very much!) Here’s a bit of a behind the scenes! I do all my sketches in colour ‘cos I find it easier on my eyes. I have trouble telling the difference between colours of a close tone, so it’s easier to see when distinguishing between the sketch and the black lines when I’m doing lineart. Red just happens to be my go to since it’s quickest to get to on the colour slider and I’m lazy. The sketches you see are pretty much 1 to 1 what I use for lineart, minus the half tones. If I have multiple sketch layers, I’ll use multiple colours so I can see easier, but usually I do all my sketches directly on my guideline layer because I’m a madman. Here’s a coupla examples:

here’s a rare one where I didn’t draw directly onto my messy af guidelines- but I always start with red, then blue, then green and very occasionally purple if I need a fourth.

I keep the mini-comic sketches in red since I think it looks better. Black is harsh and can be unforgiving and I think it makes it easier to see how rough my sketches are. In colour it’s a little softer - and to me - more pleasing to the eye! (and even when I do use black- it’s usually at partial opacity to soften it out)

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AND cos I’ve been watching too much Natsume Yuujincho (FULLY RECOMMEND it’s delightful) Have a quick redraw:

As my brother described it “Kiyotaka and his Fat Biker Cat”

And that’s it for now! The ask box is nice and empty, thanks for so many brilliant asks and sorry it took so long! I’m working on ‘Taka and Mondo becoming friends’ comic and ‘Taka gets a clue’ (edit: this one is [done]) comic, and I hope neither will take too long! :)

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gunterfan1992 · 4 years ago

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Episode Review: ‘Together Again’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 3)

Airdate: May 20, 2021

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, Christina Catucci, Jesse Moynihan, Adam Muto

Storyboarded by: Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Maya Petersen, Serena Wu

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Across Adventure Time’s ten season run, the show explored a bevy of “mature” themes and story ideas—topics, like love, sexuality, depression, and grieving. The show also touched upon death, but the emphasis was usually placed on the emotional toll of a loved one dying, not really what happens when you die. We knew there were Dead Worlds and Death. We knew that there was reincarnation. But how does it all fit together? What does it mean? How does it work?

With “Together Again,” we finally have many of the answers.

This special opens with a marvelous fake-out episode simply called “Finn & Jake,” that sees the two steal a magical cartoon of 50-flavor ice cream before rescuing Turtle Princess and LSP from the clutches of the villainous Ice King. This is all deliberately anachronistic and over the top. Ice King is back to his season one ways, Finn has both arms, and he is still wielding his golden sword that he lost in season two’s “The Real You.” There’s lolrandom dialogue and silly monsters; it’s like a parody of seasons 1-2. But then, this adventure starts to get all wonky, and in time Finn realizes that he is in a some sort of trance or illusion: one that ends with Jake being buried in the ground. Suddenly, Finn awakens from his reverie. He’s an old man. And he’s dead. We’re then presented with a new title card that lets us know the episode is actually called “Finn & Jake Are Dead.”

Holy Glob! They actually went there.

Turns out Jake died years before Finn, so naturally Finn is super excited to see his best bud. But something’s wrong—he cannot find Jake!! They planned to spend eternity together. But all that Finn can find is his very own psychopomp, Mr. Fox (voiced by Tom Herpich, whose purposefully stilted line readings are the epitome of delightful). Finn rightfully assumes that Jake is in a different Dead World, and so, being the ball of spunk and energy that he is, he demands to meet with Death, only to discover that there’s a New Death in town (voiced by Chris Fleming). The episode eventually explains that New Death was the son of Death and Life, and after New Death killed his father, he became the sovereign of the afterlife. New Death hates his job and decides to just blow up all the Dead Worlds so he doesn’t have to deal with it all. (I won’t get too much into the details here, because there would be a lot of story to parse out.)

Finn soon learns that Jake has reached nirvana in the 50th Dead World, where there is nothing but peace and serenity. Finn nevertheless tracks down Jake, pulls him from paradise, but in doing so, accidentally lets New Death in, who promptly obliterates Elysium, sending all the enlightened souls—including those from different levels of the afterlife—to the 1st Dead World. This gronks up the afterlife, temporarily halting the reincarnation process.

Well, Finn and Jake are rightfully ticked, and so they haunt the material plane looking for Princess Bubblegum. She’s not home (more on that later), but Peppermint Butler is! After Ghost Finn and Ghost Jake explain the situation, Peppermint Butler tells them what to do: They need to find Life and explain the situation. The duo manage just that, and Life is rightfully angry that her kid has stopped the transmigration of souls. After Life gives Finn a McGuffin sword that can hurt Death, Finn and Jake return to his abode. A brawl ensues wherein we learn that New Death has been possessed… by none other than that spirit of the Lich.

That’s right, it’s the Lich! He’s back, and boy is he evil.

The Lich explains that by possessing Death, he can destroy the afterlife, thereby destroying a key aspect of reality. Naturally, Finn and Jake are not cool with this, and they engage in combat. After Mr. Fox grabs the McGuffin sword and uses it to annihilate the Lich and New Death, he is proclaimed the New New Death and sets everything right. Finn is slated to be reincarnated, and Jake is slated to return to the 50th Dead World where he and Finn will one day be reunited. As Finn is pulled into the wheel of souls, Jake suddenly decides to go back with Finn, too, “Just for fun.” The episode ends with a card letting us know that the episode is neither called “Finn & Jake” nor “Finn & Jake Are Dead.” Instead, it is “Finn and Jake Are Together Again.”

As they say, “And there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.”

If you were to tell me several years ago that the last episode to star Finn and Jake would revolve around them dying, I think I would’ve been upset. Not simply sad, but rather frustrated because “they all died” can feel like a cheap ending. But with “Together Again,” it all works. And a large reason that it works is because the show goes all in with their ideas. Finn and Jake don’t magically leap back into their old life (no, no, they very much do bite the dust). Instead, the special emphasizes the cyclical nature of life through the transmigration of souls. The episode ends with a beautiful scene of Finn and Jake, bound together as soul-brothers, being reborn into a new, mysterious (possibly Ooo 1000+?) world. It’s both aesthetically and emotionally pleasing; it doesn’t feel off the way over finales might. This is right. This is the way life works. “Round and round as nature goes,” and all that jazz.

I loved the series explanation of how death works. It seems that souls land in a specific Dead World, where they ‘marinate’ for a bit, presumably being rewarded or punished based on their life in our meat reality. After a time, they are then reborn. This process repeats, with each soul reaching higher and higher levels of enlightenment until they hit nirvana, which is the 50th Dead World. So in a sense, Adventure Time has a roughly Buddhist cosmology with a dash of Greco-Roman mythos thrown in for flavor. (As to what happens after a soul stays in the 50th Dead World for a long period is anyone’s guess, but I’d speculate that when all the souls in the multiverse have been purified and land in the 50th Dead World, they will all collapse into one another and form one perfect Monad. Perhaps this is the sphere of perfection that the beings who merged into Matthew thought they were connecting to? Who knows! It’s anyone’s guess!) I was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see who Death, Prismo, Life, etc.’s boss was, but perhaps that’s a mystery better left up to the imagination!

One minor thing that I loved about this special was the number of characters who made cameos as well as all the callbacks that were made to previous episodes. Regarding the former: Finn and Jake’s canine family show up (including the oft-forgotten Jermaine!), as do Tree Trunks and her myriad husbands. Tiffany plays a major role in all these shenanigans as a “death cop” of all things. There is a delightful rogues gallery stuck in the 1st Dead World (including, among others, Maja, Sharon from “The Gut Grinder,” and Wyatt). In the 50th we find Ghost Princess and Clarence happily at peace next to Booshy, the weird spirit mentioned in the Pen Ward classic “High Strangeness.” As far as callbacks go, perhaps my favorite is the clap (from “James Baxter the Horse”) that Jake taught to Finn in case they ever do get separated in the afterlife. And of course, there are myriad references made to “Death in Bloom,” the episode that planted the seed for what this would grow into.

Going into the special suspecting that it would involve Death, I was curious how they were going to handle Miguel Ferrer’s character. (In case a reader is not aware, Ferrer played Death in episodes like “Death in Bloom” and “Betty,” but he sadly passed away a few years ago). The producers’ choice to feature him in a non-speaking cameo—despite playing a relatively significant role in the story—was wise; I’m not sure if I can articulate the exact reasons, but something about his role felt appropriate and not gross, as some post-mortem memorials can be. Speaking of which, the wonderful, lovely Polly Lou Livingston was featured for the last time in this episode as Tree Trunks, happily in heaven with her literal harem of husbands. It was funny, it really was, and I’m sure that Polly Lou would’ve gotten a kick out of seeing it on screen. (Also, this is a pro-Tree Trunks safe space. Any Tree Trunks haters will be chucked into the 1st Dead World with Wyatt.)

The biggest mystery in this whole thing, for me at least, is the question of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Several years ago, I wrote an essay about what could’ve happened to them in the Ooo 1000+ universe. I speculated that they peaced out and left Ooo behind. In this special, neither Bubblegum nor Marceline are to be found in the Candy Kingdom—Peppermint Butler seems to be the one in charge, given that he is now wearing Bubblegum’s crown. Likewise, the duo aren’t anywhere in the Dead Worlds either. Maybe the two of them skipped town and got a duplex in the Nightosphere? Who knows… I just want my favorite gals to be OK!

All things considered, “Together Again” was a marvel: An episode that managed to feel like a series finale even more than “Come Along with Me” already did without taking away from the series itself. An episode that managed to make the idea of dying funny. An episode that brought back the Lich in a way that wasn’t forced. An episode that made Mr. Fox the New New Death. An episode that gave us a beautiful ending to Finn and Jake’s story… as well as the beautiful beginning to a new one. I said it on Twitter, and I’ll say it again here: “Together Again” was the end of a sentence in a book with infinite pages. Truly, the fun will never end.

Mushroom War evidence: Everything takes place in the Dead Worlds, so not really. Perhaps a more eagle-eyed viewer can inform us...

Final Grade: That’s right, I’m gonna do it...

Post-script, I actually messaged Jesse Moynihan to ask about his writing credit. He told me that it was for an unused story idea that he had developed. I’m not certain, but I’ll bet it was a part of the cancelled TV movie they were trying to make during season 5, since that would’ve seen Finn and Orgalorg journey to the various Dead Worlds.

#adventure time #adventuretime #atimers #at #atdl #distant lands #adventure time distant lands #finn the human #jake the dog #together again #togetheragain #dead worlds #hanna k. nyström #Hanna K #adam muto #jack pendarvis

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datawyrms · 3 years ago

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snap

It is The Day I post my Invisobang fic! it was a wild ride to write everything and not post. This is actually the second fic I did, as the first fell into my pit of ‘i hate it now’ and will sit in limbo for the rest of eternity. I teamed up with Spirit ( @ghostportals ), who has done some accompanying art! That, and Red @redead-red saved my bacon by doing some betaing last moment, so tell em they’re great too. Hope you’re all enjoying the flood of finished fics and art this week! Only the first chapter is here, the rest is posted on my Ao3 and complete. hope you enjoy!

One careless fall changed Danny's life forever. He was kind of hoping one fall like that was enough for any lifetime. Clearly fate disagreed.

It's fine though! He's got this. He's fine. He can totally explain why he ran off with his own body to mom and dad.

The stairs had always been a little too steep, a titch too narrow, but he was used to them. Jazz worried too much- the whole Fenton family knew how to take them two steps at a time. He wasn’t going to admit she might have a point just because he’d slipped one time. He wished there was a railing to catch himself with- it would have spared him some of the pain of his head knocking on the stair.

It didn’t hurt that much. Plenty of ghosts hit harder, and far more frequently.

“Took a bit of a spill eh, Danno?”

Great, dad saw him slip like he was three again. He wanted to speak, wave his behemoth of a father off before he got tangled up in some long lecture about whatever they were working on down here. Just had to sit up.

He was a little stunned or something. All those late nights made his limbs rebel when he wanted them to hurry up. Come on, before he tries to help and accidentally shaves his hair off with some anti-ghost stepladder or something.

His arms stubbornly rejected his internal horror story. His attempt to say ‘I’m fine’ was more a gurgle than anything. Way to go, Fenton. Do everything to get dad to worry! Really using those genius genes. Jazz probably stole his anyway, or they got fried in the accident. Come on! A bit of self berating should have him sitting bolt upright by now. Maybe his arm twitched. He felt something move, anyway. More like a muscle spasm.

“Danny? You okay?” The large man came closer, his usual jog slowed.

Of course he’s fine. He could see dad, sort of. He totally moved his eyes to see him better, even. Stupid ghost powers were just acting up. It’s okay, just give me a second to stand up. You’re worrying over nothing.

Jack had already made it over, crouching to get a better look at his fallen son. Like he was trying to look smaller or something with how carefully he was moving. Where was all that slow, ginger movement when he was driving? Or trying to tell them about some new invention that might burn off your eyebrows?

I’m fine, dad. He couldn’t get the words to come out, but he was just fine. He really didn’t like the strange look on his father’s face. After all, ‘Jack Fenton doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear’ or whatever random thing he felt like shouting when chasing after entities from another dimension. Come on dad, stop looking like that. It was creeping him out. Moving should be easy, a snap, but part of him didn’t feel like doing it. Apparently an important part? He could visualize exactly what to do, but he wasn’t sitting up. He swore he could feel his muscles clenching but not finishing the movement. Maybe they were testing something down here that just made all the ectoplasm hiding inside him take a nap. His ectoplasm was so fired after this.

“Can you look at me kiddo?”

Coaxing him. This was weird. Why wasn’t he just hauling him off the floor and laughing about how clumsy he was at his age too? Looking at him was easy. Pretty hard to miss him, with all the bright orange.

“Maddie? Can you come over here?” His question was strangely stilted, not much of a bellow.

Dad was going to get the wrong idea because his body didn’t want to cooperate. Great. Fantastic. He could feel the warmth in his chest, the sign his heart was still going. He was just fine, just a bit inconvenienced at the moment. Why couldn’t dad just be ��dad and do something dumb like pick him up with one hand while sounding way too excited about some new tool that he built?

“What’s wrong?” His mom said, her footsteps doing the same thing dad’s had. Speed that suddenly cut down to almost nothing. “Danny, did you hit your head?”

“I think he might have, he’s not responding. I didn’t want to try to move him-“

“You did great Jack, it’s okay.”

Gross. He hoped they didn’t get caught up in one of their lovey dovey circles while he was stuck trying to get his stupid legs to remember how to do things. He was responding! He groaned, and he definitely twitched a bit. Weren’t they paying attention? He tried again, a bit more forcefully and ignoring the pang in his neck. More of a jolt from someone with too much static cling than actual pain, really.

“Should I call 911? He isn’t moving! He just stayed there- didn’t even act all tough for his old man!”

Jack was panicking. Dad was panicking. Over nothing! Why wasn’t mom distracting him with fudge or some random study? No one was being normal today. Danny shuddered, he knew he did, it went with the pulse under his skin.

“That’d be great sweetie, just stay close.”

“In case you need my big strong arms to help carry him, right?”

“Just in case.” She wasn’t wearing the hood of her jumpsuit, at least.

It didn’t make it more comfortable when she crouched down, biting her lip and staring at him. Like this was concerning. It was the opposite of that, he was a klutz, a gangly teenager, it was normal for him to be a bit banged up. This shouldn’t concern her, or anyone. The only reason it bugged him was the not being able to move right now nonsense.

“You aware in there sweetie?” she said, rather loudly and clapping near his ear.

Yes I am, but I can’t tell you. Maybe he could focus on taking a breath and it would kick off whatever turned off his mind to body connection. Had he done anything strange before coming down here? Not really. He could absolutely feel her digging her nails into his earlobe though, ow! More motivation to move, but something wasn’t getting across. Maybe he was getting a bit freaked out about it too. Only because of his parents being weird. He was fine, he had to be fine. It was nothing, less than nothing.

“I’m just going to make sure he’s still breathing Jack, do you have anyone on the line yet?”

A loud response, but not to her question. “No it’s not a ghost emergency! It’s a human emergency!”

Of course he was breathing. He couldn’t look that bad from such a small fall. Just breathe out the words ‘Hey mom, personal space’ and they’d laugh and it’d be nothing. All this fussing was making his skin crawl but of course he had to have ‘special ghost freezing up’. Was it his ice powers? Like he could get his powers being snarky like that, appreciated it in a twisted sort of way- but it would be better around people who wouldn’t assume the worst? Like anyone else. Even Dash.

“Tell the operator he isn’t breathing.” Maddie’s voice was cold and controlled, even as she went back to biting her lip right after.

He was totally breathing. He could feel the air that ran in and out of his lungs, the swell and fall that other ghosts knew as a weak point, a way to slow him down. He knew what being doubled over, air shoved right out of him from a harsh blow felt like, how it felt like the portal again. Throat twitching, body heaving and trying to regain what it lost. The darkness that bit at the edges of his vision as every nerve went screaming You’re Dying . Hated that feeling, shook the ghosts who did that hard once they were in a thermos. This was nothing like that.

“He isn’t breathing, you need to hurry! My wife knows CPR- just tell them to hurry this is my son , please”

Yelling to hide the quaver in his voice. Like a kicked puppy yelping. It sounded so wrong. This was going to be so awkward after. They’d just...pretend this never happened, right? That’d be for the best. No, he was going to get grounded forever for some ‘dumb prank’, since he was fine and worried them so much. Which didn’t seem too bad if it stopped all of...this.

He moved a little. A toe, he was pretty sure. More notably was his mother, carefully getting him off the uneven stair to be flat on his back. Trying to keep his head from moving, and she couldn’t see he was looking at her? When she was this close? Too busy trying to be calm. Who could be busy enough to think he wasn’t breathing or tracking with his eyes? Another twitch, another inward curse that he couldn’t get back in control.

“Just hold on, help is coming.” She said, but the half ghost couldn’t tell who she meant, exactly. Him, dad or herself? Either way the quiet remark did not prepare him for the sheer force slammed into his crest. Like she wanted to slam right through him! Was it so much to ask that his parents stop nearly killing him by trying to help? Just try moving again and everything will be fine.

He couldn’t keep the mental mantra up when he heard- when he felt his ribs crack from the pointless force. She was killing him, he didn’t need help breathing, he had to get it through to them no matter how much his body buzzed and resisted his need to move. He had to focus and push through it, ignoring how cold and wrong it felt, how it seemed like he was squirming free of something that didn’t want him to go.

Her bone crushing assault stopped once he got his arm up, not even needing to touch her before she froze. The fear was wrong, out of place so he redoubled his efforts, twisting and struggling against himself, the sticky mass that wasn’t letting him act or speak to calm them down.

The phone hit the floor. He heard it. So why didn’t dad say anything? Danny twisted, wanting to make sure he was okay. Still stuck. At least he had a hand free and most of an arm, the edges of his fingers tracing the tiles of the floor. He could brace himself that way, pushing down hard to try and jar his shoulder loose. He could hear air moving, like a harsh breath out. Good- breathing was good. Even when it sounded so harsh and low.

“Jack- are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Maddie moved back, giving him the space he wanted ever since she’d cracked his ribs. They still stung under his skin, hissing at him to keep his parents away before he managed to get even more injuries over something so silly.

“I’m not sure what we’re seeing.” The phone remained on the floor.

That didn’t seem right. He’d sat up, mostly. Half sat up, propped up with an arm. Still mostly stuck and uncomfortable, the snapping and crackling sensation still clinging to his free shoulder. Really, he felt worse than how he started. at least there wasn’t pain in ‘hah my body is playing freeze tag without me’ land. The pulling sensation made his head ache and vision swim to the point he wasn’t actually sure if he was still looking at the ceiling or not. He couldn’t go back to just being frozen though, that’d suck. So just convince the rest of himself to get up. No problem!

Were lies in his head always this unconvincing? It felt like yanking himself free of a too sticky slime, strands clinging and tugging back until they finally snapped, parts still stuck but free of the main mass. At least ectoplasm had the decency not to stretch when you got drenched in it most of the time. Come on, focus and keep it together. He let out a wheeze as the last stubborn strands snapped, ignoring how loud it sounded to properly reorient himself.

Sitting up, properly, good! Parents staring with weird, half horrified expressions: bad. Very, very bad.

“I’m okay, I just fell.” Danny spoke, he could speak properly again. So why? “Sorry for scaring you guys?” He tried again, trying to ignore the first thought across his mind.

They kept staring. Maddie seemed to be recovering, shoulders starting to relax, but she seemed to be reaching for her belt.

He didn’t sound right. No, that wasn’t quite right, he just sounded wrong for Danny Fenton. Who he should be right now, he hadn’t been able to talk, let alone go ghost. This probably looked really, really bad. How had he switched, anyway?

Mom was reaching for a gun, wasn’t she? Crud. Now he regretted talking at all, how was he going to explain why Danny Phantom was treating two ghost hunters like his parents? Or how he managed to look like their kid. Maybe he could change back and convince them they were seeing things?

Yeah no, that was way too dumb.

“Wait.” Jack rested a hand on his wife’s shoulder, causing her to stop pulling the weapon. He wasn’t looking at the ghost at all, just her. Maddie remained stiff, not able to ignore the glowing kid on her floor.

Okay...dad was usually the gung ho one. Maybe he could get away with this? Danny tried to get a better grip on the situation. Felt a new pain, sharp and cold in his throat. Deep green scars clashed against his white gloves and ran all across his jumpsuit, glow intensifying as the panic choked him into silence. Fresh and angry like back- back before he managed to stumble out of the portal when he died when the accident happened.

With his human arms just as scared below them, still against the tile. The damage looked old, half scabbed over with only a dull glow deep in the death marks wounds. His arms attached to the rest of his body- that he was half out of.

Why? How was his body still and silent while he was sitting and looking at it. He’s cold. His body is cold. It isn’t breathing there isn’t some other facet of his personality sitting behind the dull blue eyes. This isn’t how it works! If he splits, it’s just temporary, he can fix it but his other half- corpse is wrong.

The pulling and clinging at his legs doesn’t feel like slime anymore. Rotting flesh that wants to drag him back, smother him in a cloying warmth that will only remind him why it burned, how it hurt. He had to move, he couldn’t stay half like this, it would get better once it wasn’t like this.

It didn’t want to let go as he tried to pull away, ectoplasm getting snagged on every nerve and muscle fiber, each pause a reminder of the shock and pain of his end that day.

He knew he screamed when he pulled free and slammed into the wall, furious green scars still marring his jumpsuit where there should be none.

What would Mom and Dad think?

No no no no no. He spotted movement from them and acted. He couldn’t let his mom break his body more, or look at it too closely. Dad couldn’t see what happened! This was fine, he could fix this!

He grabbed his corpse and fled through the wall.

#Danny Phantom #invisobang #invisobang 2021 #jack fenton #Maddie Fenton #there are a lot of way better fics made for this #but hopefully you'll enjoy mine too

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taeescript · 4 years ago

Text

29 + 1 (Part Two)

𝔰𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰: In which Seokjin is the Devil from The Devil Wears Prada, Taehyung is your work Jesus and Jimin is your handsome successful brother.

𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: seokjin x reader (squint harder than before for taehyung x reader)

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: slice of life; ceo!seokjin; a dash of enemies to lovers au

𝔴𝔠: 7.6k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: language; a plethora of drunk people, maybe a sext, and a ton of lying (possible implication of impending smut?!)

𝔞/𝔫: this part came out longer than i thought it would be but *shrugs* feedback and thoughts always welcomed. enjoy (: 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔯: DailyHive is real; this is not associated with it

part one || part three

The bright pop music that is blaring from the speakers does little to slow your animated talking. Bodies are packed into the small local bar, and students on summer break fill booths and form a snake of impatient, drunk (and horny) people. A slow trickle of the brazen has started to fill the dance floor as the evening morphs into the night.

You whip your hair into a ponytail and dab at the sweat that is beading your forehead. You definitely should have worn that sleeveless top rather than this thicker t-shirt dress.

“So, is he like your sugar daddy or something?” Taehyung asks, “Also drink.”

Friday nights were usually spent at home, snuggled under the blankets in your pjs binging another rewatch of Friends. After work today, you could no longer hold onto your secret and invited Taehyung out for drinks. His girlfriend, Fei, was supposed to join but had been held back for overtime.

You tip the shot back with no chase.

“You’re a monster,” he comments as he bites into his lemon piece.

The two of you had made a bet at the beginning of the evening: you each chose a pop song and each time it played, the nominee had to take a shot. That was your fourth of the night, and to say there was a bit of a buzz is an understatement.

“It’s all throat technique, Tae,” you say with a bit of a slur, “Hit the back and swallow. No innuendo intended. Also, why the hell haven’t you had any to drink?”

“You picked ‘Peaches’ for fuck’s sake.”

“I told you I don’t listen to pop music. It was the first one playing.”

“And shouldn’t that have told you something? Justin Bieber of all people?”

“Shut up. It’s your song.” You nod at the pink-faced barista for another round. She slaps your order in front of the two of you without so much a glance.

You don’t even know what song is playing, but you feel quite satisfied watching Taehyung make a face as he downs it in one go.

He clears his throat after the liquor has burned its way down to his stomach. “Back to my question: is he your sugar daddy?”

You bark out a laugh. Was he? Perhaps the fact that he paid for fancy meals at lunch? Those have been his one o’clock meetings for the past two months.

“I don’t know. I’d rather he buy me a car or pay my rent if anything. A casual 1k a week wouldn’t be so bad either. We just sit in his office and eat in secret, Tae. He’s ‘training me in the art of culinary cuisine’. I think it’s just so I don’t embarrass him by stuffing a shrimp cocktail up my nose.”

“You do know – ”

“Yes, I know. And I would never. It’s a metaphor. It’s just that the position ‘intern’ is quite loosely defined at DailyHive, don’t you think?”

Taehyung rinses his mouth with water before speaking. “So let me get this right. Mr. Kim calls you into his office, says he’s going to take you as his guest to the biggest tech event of the year, treats you to lunches and doesn’t ask for anything in return? No secret midnight meetups or shady business deals…”

You shake your head.

“Damn,” Taehyung says, resting his arm on the bar table, “Forget sugar daddy. He’s just daddy.”

Sticking your tongue out, you gag visibly at his comment. “Do not ever call him that again, Tae; ev-er.”

He laughs and watches you pensively. After a moment’s thought, he says, “Nobody has ever called me Tae.”

“What do they call you then?” you reply, wrinkling your brows together. A cute brunette across the room catches your eyes and for the briefest of seconds, you wonder what a one-night-stand would feel like.

He shrugs. “Just Taehyung.”

The brunette waves in your direction. You are about to return his wave when an equally cute brunette runs up to him. He promptly kisses her before swivelling her around to join his group of friends.

“Sorry. Do you want me to stop? I just assumed since we were out of the office…”

Oh Fate, how cruel you are. Life of twenty cats and solidarity, here you come. Maybe dogs. You feel like you could be more of a dog person.

“No,” he stops you, “You can call me Tae. Whatever you want.”

You turn your attention back on the also cute brunette in front of you. In all honestly, despite his youthful god-like countenance, he looks slightly out of place at this college bar with you in his upstanding business attire and dorkishly adorable thick-framed glasses.

“Sure. How about Tee-Tee? Or Hyungie? The TaeMan?” You wiggle your brows with the suggestion.

“God help me.”

The two of you clink your shot glasses together even though neither of your songs are being played.

His Apple watch lights up to indicate an incoming message. He relays the text to you, “Fei’s done work. She’s on her way now.” You can’t help but notice a shift in his previously excited demeanor.

You nudge him with your elbow. “Aren’t you excited? She’ll need a glass of wine or two to destress after work. I might be projecting onto you for this part, but you’re buzzed. So after we get her to unwind I’m sure the overwhelming power of pheromones will get you lucky tonight.” You wink at him to emphasize your point.

“She’s not a big drinker. She’s probably just going to come and ask to leave in five minutes. Bars like this aren’t really her thing either,” he states. He then unbuckles his watch and tucks it away into the pocket of his pants. Undoing the cuffs of his shirt, he rolls up the sleeves and continues to regard you solemnly. “Okay, next round is one me. Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to switch songs?”

You notice how nice, long, and slender his fingers are. Plus the thing of girls liking when men have visible veins on their forearm? That had never really caught your attention until now.

“She’s a bit of a bitch,” you say and immediately regret, “Shit, sorry. That just slipped out. Alcohol.”

He offers you his water to drink.

“I mean, she’s a little…uptight at times? But people can be completely different in and out of work. I can only imagine how stressful it is in her position. Working overtime until 9pm on a Saturday night seriously sucks,” you say to try and mend your wrongdoing.

“Fei in the office is basically Fei at home,” he says softly, “It’s always work with her.”

“We support career-driven women, yeah?” A smile is offered from you to him.

He finally lets out a small one and nods. Out of the blue, he reaches over and covers your hand with his. Staring intently into your eyes, he says, “I know she makes you do her reports and occupies your time to do her coffee runs as well. You can say no to her. She may be my girlfriend, but you’re technically my intern, and I will stand on your side no matter what.”

“Um, okay. Thanks, Tae,” you say. His sincerity has caught you off guard.

At that moment, the sound of clicking heels pierce its way into your eardrums through the noise of the even busier bar. Taehyung quickly retracts his hand.

Fei arrives, not a hair out of place in her tightly pulled bun. Her lips are painted a striking red against the paleness of her skin, and her manicured nails dig into the forearm of Taehyung when she reaches them. Even though she is wearing an otherwise drab office business suit, the curvature of her body draws quite a few glances from the younger men in the crowd.

“It’s like a zoo here,” she sneers, turning away from a sacrificial lamb who had been bold enough step out of his circle of friends to greet her with a sleezy “hey”.

“Hi, Fei. Busy night?” you greet her first.

She gives you a tight-lipped smile. “Yes. I don’t know why you weren’t there. Isn’t it the intern’s job to complete reports?”

Again, a loosely defined use of “intern” at DailyHive.

You return her smile with a crisp one of your own.

She turns away from you and regards Taehyung, who looks as if he had been the sacrificial lamb instead. “Teddybear, let’s go home. You know this type of place isn’t my vibe. I’m getting a headache already.”

You raise an eyebrow at his pet name.

He turns a little bit pinker, if that is possible under the current alcohol-induced glow of his cheeks, and says, “Um, sure. Y/N, are you going to be okay getting home?”

Waving him off, you show him your phone. “30% left. I’ve got pepper spray in my bag and enough booze in me to not run from a fight. I’ll call an Uber home soon, don’t worry.”

Fei has already begun to fight her way through the squirming, dancing bodies. Taehyung glances quickly at her and turns back to you once last time. “Text me that you’re home safe.”

“Will do, boss,” you smile at him warmly.

He lingers for just a moment more before running after his impatiently waiting girlfriend.

You turn back to the bar and order another beer for yourself. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is perhaps the biggest perk of being single.

...

On the opposite side of town, sinking deeply into a soft lounge chair is Seokjin enjoying a rare evening out with his best friend. He has swapped his usual attire for a more relaxed fit of a white oversized crewneck and techwear bottoms. A heavy, exorbitant fur-lined long leather coat hangs on the coat rack beside the door to their private VVIP room. He swirls his glass of Chateau Lafite before sipping delicately.

Outside, only a handful of patrons sit quietly engrossed in their own conversations. It is a relatively empty night at the high-end lounge. A lady sings sultrily on stage with the smooth background of a saxophone as accompaniment.

Junho has poured himself another glass while he is talking to Seokjin. Seokjin had since slightly tuned out his friend’s rather elongated rendition of another celebrity sighting to occupy his mind with another individual.

“Earth to Jin? When did you get so lightweight since I’ve been gone?” Junho waves a hand in front of Seokjin’s nose.

Seokjin blinks to refocus.

“The mansion I bought last year or the one I bought last month?” he reiterates. Sensing that Seokjin truly had no idea what the topic at hand had been, he tries again.

“Where should I do my birthday party this year, man? I thought the mansion from last year since it’s closer to the city, but I feel like it’s been reused too many times. It’s not completely furnished yet, but the property I got last month is significantly bigger and I can probably host more people.”

“The new place then,” Seokjin answers half-heartedly.

Junho grumbles something intelligible.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Junho sighs, “Tell me what’s new with you. How’s that little project of yours going? I still can’t believe you won’t let me know who you’re planning to take to the Gala.”

Seokjin had refused to release even the slightest detail about you to Junho. Letting him know that Seokjin had agreed to one of his plans would be enough to inflate Junho’s ego for at least a little while.

“It’s been going...”

Junho waits for more of Seokjin’s answer, but his friend’s attention has been turned to a received text.

10:17pm “Safe and sound, Teddy Bear.”

10:17pm “Or should I say Taeddybear? 🥴”

10:18pm “That last beer done me rael godo.”

10:18pm “Real good**”

Seokjin raises a brow at the unknown number. He responds back.

10:18pm “Who is this? I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

Junho crosses his legs and sits back with a sigh. He presses the button to request for an attendant.

10:19pm “You know who… Anyways, I just wanted to say thank you for saying you’ve got my back. It’s definitely appreciated.”

The response doesn’t do much except to further pique Seokjin’s curiosity.

“Sorry,” he says, sliding his phone back into his pocket, “Rogue text I think.”

Junho shrugs. “Is that right? Seems to have caught your attention.” There is now a manner of indifference to his voice.

“It’s going well, by the way – answering your question. I mean, all things considered. It’s not like I have to teach her how not to stuff a cocktail shrimp up your nose.”

His friend snorts. “I’d be concerned and against this person if it’s who you’re planning to bring.”

Seokjin’s phone buzzes again.

10:21pm “Pray for me when I wake up with the worst hangover of my life. I’m going to bed now.”

A moment of silence.

10:21pm “I hope I didn’t piss off Fei tonight for stealing you for the evening.”

10:22pm “Okay I’ll shut up now. Please don’t tell me you’re reading this. You should be getting some 😼💦.”

The emoji makes Seokjin choke, liquid sputtering from his lips.

Junho cusses. He angrily dabs at the speckle of red wine that has landed on his pearly white top.

10:23pm Download attached image. “Just in case, here’s a little something to get the night started 😉”

“What the hell man?” Junho gets up and makes his way to the bathroom. Luckily, the previously called attendant had arrived in time to escort him.

Seokjin barely notices that he is alone in room as he taps the download button. It isn’t until he has returned home and is looking at the picture one last time before bed that he realizes who his mysterious texter is.

The employee nametag clipped to the collar of your workday shirt hanging on the arm of a chair can only be found when zoomed in past your painted toes and naked feet.

...

You cannot hide your nervousness when you arrive at your “lunch meeting” the following Monday morning. All weekend, you had cursed yourself for not better checking who the recipient of your texts were before pressing send. Never had you thought that in your drunken stupor you would mix up “The Devil” in your contact list with “Taehyung Kim.” Curse you and your lack of friends beginning with the letter “T”.

You balk before, a hand poised in perfect position for a knock. Maybe he didn’t download it? And even if he did, it was just a troll feet pic. You had made sure that it was as pg-13 as possible before you had sent it.

“Hi,” you greet sheepishly when he has given you the go to enter.

In a smart plain blue button-up and round frames that are almost certainly for the aesthetics, the CEO of the company and your boss sizes you up and down.

“I know we’ve gotten to know each other better these past few weeks. But you’d think it’s still common courtesy to at least make eye contact,” he says. You look at him wide eyed without a word.

He rolls his eyes but does not gesture to your usual seat. In fact, you don’t spy a take-out container in sight. He instead stands up and picks up his phone, walking to the door. He notices you have yet to move.

“Let’s get moving. You’ve only got a 45 minute lunch.”

You scramble to match his speed and catch Taehyung’s eye as you grab your jacket at your desk. Taehyung’s gaze follows you as you hurry to leave in pursuit of Seokjin’s coattail.

...

The restaurant is a popular vegan establishment with a plethora of greenery crawling up its high ceilings and a window-framed overview of the city’s skyline. Waiters and waitresses who may just as well be walking New York Fashion Week serve you brunch mimosas on a golden plate; they attentively wait to the side in case you ever run out of water.

Common topics are rare between the two of you. Initially, you respectfully kept quiet and only answered questions when asked, but you have never been one for awkward silence. Yes, it’s awkward only if you make it awkward; there is just no denying the hanging suspense that curls your toes each time. Recently, you have started with simple inquiries regarding the company, who they might meet at the Gala and everyday mundane topics.

“You’re probably wondering why we’re out of the office,” Seokjin says. He continues shortly after taking a bite of his meal and ignores the look of your surprise at his initiation of a conversation. “My office has been getting stuffy with the warmer weather so I thought it’d be nice to get some fresh air. How’s the food?”

You nod, making small sounds of contentment as you chew on the Avocado Lime Tartare. Mmm… tart-y.

He takes a deep breath in, stalling the incoming conversation. “It’s my friend’s birthday this next weekend.”

“Oh,” you say, “Happy early birthday to him.”

“He’s my best friend.”

“Well… An extra happy early birthday to him.”

A sigh. “Are you free next weekend?”

Your chewing comes to a halt and you blink once at his question. Next weekend is the weekend before the Silver Gala. It is also the sole weekend before your birthday the following Friday after the Gala. You had hoped to spend it with Taehyung and maybe even Jimin who had promised to be in town on a long overdue vacation despite your chastising to visit your parents first.

He senses your trepidation. Quickly, he explains himself,

“He’s having a birthday party Saturday night. He has a place about an hour north of here. I can have somebody pick you up if that’s more convenient. I don’t have a birthday present for him and thought it’d be nice for you to meet him.”

“You’re giving him me for a present?” you ask, incredulously.

He bites his tongue. He never anticipated how awkward this conversation could go.

“You’re going as my plus one. He really wants to meet you; in fact, he insisted that you be there. He’ll be at the gala too. I have something else planned for his birthday present,” he adds hastily, “Besides, you’re less than qualified as a present.”

Musing silently to yourself, you wonder if in any situation should a human be qualified as a present. Despite that, you hate yourself as you agree on the spot.

The rest of the lunch passes by quickly in dull silence. As Seokjin pays for the meal on the company card (and hands you the receipt for reimbursement), you note that there has been no comment made on any strange photos texted to him over the weekend.

Perhaps being nonchalantly implied as a human birthday gift to a stranger is your karma for sending weird texts to your boss.

Seokjin stays inside the car as he drops you off at the office after lunch, already preparing for his next business meeting. You nod your goodbye and step onto the pavement through the courteously held open door of the limousine.

“Y/N, try a soft pink. Fuchsia is not your colour,” he tells you as the door is closed.

He then leaves you standing in front of the large office doors, staring at your chipped, week-old purple toenails.

...

“I’m not exactly expecting a package in the mail or a dress laid out on the hotel bed – ”

“You guys are staying at a hotel?” Taehyung says over the phone.

You are standing in your bedroom, an hour before when Seokjin is supposed to pick you up as an offering to his best friend. There are two dresses laid out on your Hello Kitty bed covers: a simple black dress you had worn once when you were a little bit more in shape and your prom dress.

“No, I’m at home. But I mean, let me play into this movie metaphor.”

“You suck at metaphors.”

You have your phone propped up on some pillows so that you can see Taehyung as you debate your fashion decision. He is in a relaxed white tee, hair messily framing his face after a shower and a bowl of popcorn in his hands. You watch as a droplet of water runs down his face from his still-wet hair. He nonchalantly licks it off from the side of his mouth.

“As I was saying, it wouldn’t hurt to get me something. He made it seem like it was a big deal. Like doesn’t the male lead usually surprise the female lead with a big bouquet of flowers and this over-the-top expensive dress which she wears and makes the male lead fall head over heels in love with her?”

He chews silently on a kernel then probes, “You want Mr. Kim to fall in love with you?”

“No,” you hastily correct, “It’s a metaphor. I think you’re the one who sucks at metaphors.”

There is a beep on your phone to indicate you have another incoming call.

“Tae, I’m going to have to call you back. My brother’s calling me,” you tell him. The black dress; your old prom dress is way too early 2000s. Black never hurts.

“Okay. Have fun tonight. Pretend that it’s your birthday party. And then I’ll meet you for brunch tomorrow, my treat? You can tell me all about it,” he says. “Also the black. You look cute in that one.”

“My party if I was 30, rich and successful. Oh wait, I’ll have one thing in common soon; that’s a start. Thanks though. I’ll call you tomorrow morning once I get up,” you say, then switch the call over to your brother. You had missed the flush of his cheeks as you busily swipe your phone.

Sticking the prom dress back into your closet, you rummage around the meager display of shoeboxes for a pair of high heels.

“Hey, Jimin,” you greet over the phone.

“Jesus, I do not need to be accosted by my half-naked sister,” he yells over the phone.

You turn rapidly, seeing that you had accidentally continued a video call from when you had hung up on Taehyung. You throw a pillow over the camera in your haste to cover yourself up.

“I was going to ask why you’re dressed like that but on second thought, I think I’ll leave your sexual exploits as your own secret.”

Despite how disturbed you feel about this comment, his cheerful voice makes you smile.

“So little sis, the weekend before the big three-oh!”

“Please stop reminding me.”

“Where do you want to meet tonight? I just got off the plane, but I can be ready to meet in about an hour. I booked a hotel close to the airport.”

Shit. You forgot to tell Jimin. These heels will have to do.

“Um… I, uh…”

“What?”

You clear your throat and begin to undress in front of the mirror. You have a sudden conscious thought that the dusty treadmill in your living room seems to be staring daggers at your back.

“I’ve got plans tonight.”

“Plans? I wasn’t even aware you had friends here.”

“Ouch, Jimin. But yes, I have friends. In fact, I am meeting a friend for brunch tomorrow if you want to join. I’m sure he’ll be okay with it.”

“He?” Jimin repeats, “Should I put on my big brother boxing gloves? Give him a good talking to in case he’s interested in my baby sister?” Pause. “Was that who you were calling before?”

You bite your answer back, not feeling the need to go down that rabbit hole.

“He’s just a friend; A co-worker really,” you say, “He’s also unavailable. And before you suggest anything, his goalkeeper is technically one of my bosses so I do not want to try and shoot past her thank you very much.”

Jimin laughs. “I wasn’t going to suggest anything. Well if you’re busy tonight, tomorrow morning works for me. Give me a call. I’ll spend the night in watching some good ol’ Netflix and enjoy this vacation time.”

“Sorry again,” you apologize.

“Go out and have fun,” he says, “You deserve it.”

The two of you finish off the call with the usual goodbyes. You have forty-five minutes to dress the part of a sparkly birthday surprise for the co-founder of the company you work for. Throwing on your favourite throwback music, you get to work.

Once satisfied, you snap a picture and sending it to Taehyung making special care that you have picked the right individual this time.

...

The mansion is bigger than you could have ever imagined, and the amount of people present are…

“You’re telling me I can do whatever I want tonight,” you ask Seokjin in the car.

There is no denying that Seokjin knows how to dress for an event. In a velvety black and white suit, contrasted by his blonde hair which he has elected to temporarily dye for the evening, he looks very much the posh CEO magazines brand him out to be. You are glad you elected for the simple black dress as standing beside this Renaissance statue in a floral pastel yellow dress would be like planting dandelions in Kanye’s sculpture garden (if he ever wanted one).

“The majority of people won’t recognize you after tonight. They’ll also be too drunk to even register anything you tell them,” Seokjin says.

He cannot believe that you chose a simple black dress. Did you really not own anything remotely feminine besides the most generic clubbing outfit? Even if you had wanted to make an appearance as a hooker, at least make it an expensive-looking one. Maybe he should have bought you that Versace dress he spotted in the window the other day. Instead…

“Take this. Your earrings are too gaudy for this event.”

You touch the sparkly black cats you have put into your ears. Their eyes are made of crystal, and you thought it looked quite fetching in the light. Opening up the box, you see a dainty elegant pair of teardrop earrings that may or may not be of real diamonds.

“Only Junho will know who you really are and then you can enjoy the rest of your night. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being held here against your will.”

Putting them on, you note that even this simple change in attire has elevated the entirety of your presence. You felt as luxurious as this gift.

“Thanks, Seokjin,” you try the first name basis he had insisted upon for this evening, “Not going to lie, I had imagined that maybe you’d send me a dress in the mail or something, but this is still very nice.”

He snorts and rolls his eyes. “Like in the movies? Please, I run a start-up company. I’m not a millionaire and I don’t think you would appreciate my handouts.”

You don’t respond, making your second note of the night on the Prada label on the cuff of his suit. “To clarify, I don’t introduce myself as your plus-one tonight.”

“No. I don’t want you associated with me,” he curtly states. He watches as your smirk twitches and he hits himself mentally in the head again. “It’s to protect you. There are bound to be tons of paparazzi tonight at a party as big as this. I don’t want you to find yourself in the tabloids tomorrow morning. Just be smart.”

The car pulls to a stop after inching its way up to the front door. People mill about outside in extravagant brands, holding glasses of champagne. The man of the hour is somewhere inside the building, charming his way into new business deals as well as making new friends.

“Stay close to me. You can leave after we meet Junho. It is his birthday after all,” Seokjin offers a hand as you step out of the car.

You take it, looping yourself into him so that your hand rests on his forearm. You are only 13 days younger than Junho, and yet this striking contrast in lifestyle hits you like a landslide while the two of you walk up the stairs and into the mansion.

Inside, it is dim with disco lights flashing to the beat of amped party music. Upon entrance, the two of you are offered glasses of liquor (you take a swirling iridescent drink) to which you are then ushered to where the birthday boy lounges.

Junho has an even more youthful face than Seokjin does. Where Seokjin’s features exude class and charm, Junho appears mischievous and looks to have stepped out of every girl’s bad boy dream.

You stop Seokjin with a tug and make him look at you. “Tell me: do I look like a passable birthday offering?”

Seokjin rolls his eyes and pulls you along with him.

“Jin!” Junho hollers loudly across the room when spotting his oldest friend. There is a doll-like female magnetized to his side. “This is Clara, my date for the evening.”

Seokjin shakes her hand and greets them. The female cannot seem to pry her eyes away from this handsome new stranger. He introduces himself chivalrously to her as Junho sides up to you and grips your hands in his. His breath smells strongly of mixed drinks, and you know that in about fifteen minutes the entire night will be a blur for him.

“You must be Y/N!” he says excitedly, “Jin didn’t tell me that you were coming! What a surprise!”

“I am,” you greet back with a large smile. “Although I’m also surprised. Seokjin told me that you had insisted I came.”

Seokjin grits his teeth, annoyed at Junho. Would he ever learn when to keep his big mouth closed?

Laughing loudly, Junho grabs two drinks just as a waiter passes by and hands them to you. “Insist might be a strong word,” he says, drilling another hole unknowingly, “I honestly thought I’d have to play part-time wingman tonight. But I’m glad he’s got someone by his side.” He jabs you a little too hard in the ribs. “Next week’s gala is going to be fun! Okay, now there’s only one rule tonight: there are no rules!”

The four of you clink your glasses together, while you do your best to hide an embarrassed smile on behalf of the birthday boy.

“You bet I’m going around as your trophy wife tonight,” you whisper in Seokjin’s ear when Junho looks away.

He whirls around to look at you, the tip of both your noses impossibly close together. He can taste the acidity of the wine when you breath out with a wicked smile. He barely has time to stop you as you peel yourself away to mingle with the crowds.

Seokjin is about to follow you but Junho pulls him away, flamboyantly introducing his handsome best friend to a group of international models. He turns on his brightest smile, but his heart thunders in his chest at you calling yourself his wife.

...

You twirl around in your dress, nobody noticing the small splash of champagne on the front of it in the quickly changing lights.

“He bought this for me last week. Says it reminds him of the first night we met. Our eyes met across the waters in Tuscany where he was on a business trip. I’ll let you on a little secret, but I was his mistress for a little while.”

Seokjin cannot make out the words you are saying to a small but growing group of people around you. He stands across from Junho, but looks over the latter’s shoulders to watch as you do another spin.

“A little while, Charlotte? Are you still his mistress?” an older lady with an exuberant amount of jewels hanging off her body whispers with a keen interest in your expertly spun story.

Charlotte Dior Laurent, an identity you are pretty sure is an amalgamation of French brands from the top of your mind. You continue to personify this character however.

“Don’t worry. He’s left her since. I know I know, my friends all say the same. ‘He’s already been divorced three times. How can you be sure he won’t leave you?’”

At this point, you are in way over your head at having told this story to at least two other groups and a multitude of other renditions to whomever you have met tonight. But there is something powerful about liquid courage as it courses through your body.

The lady lays a hand on your arm. “I don’t want your heart to break. You are still young.”

Looking up between the heads of your audience, you catch Seokjin’s eyes. They are fiery and it sends a strange sensation up your toes to your abdomen. You give a titillating wave at him in which he does not return.

“He says I’m special and different. How can you say no to that?” you exclaim with exasperation, fully committing to the poor damsel just oh-so in love.

There is a look of genuine concern on the lady’s face at your statement.

Before you can dig yourself a deeper hole, you place your empty glass on the table and excuse yourself. You do not know if it’s the drinking on a relatively empty stomach or if the room is really much warmer due to the multitude of bodies, but you head out to the balcony.

On your way out, you notice that the clock reads twenty minutes past midnight. This gives you a shock at how fast time has passed. Perhaps you should go find Seokjin if you are to get a decent amount of sleep before meeting with Taehyung and Jimin tomorrow. Speaking of Taehyung…

You pull out your phone and see that there are two unread messages. The first is from Jimin, confirming that he is indeed invited to brunch tomorrow morning. The second is a response from Taehyung.

11:09pm “Wow. You have me a little lost for words. I had imagined you’d look nice in the dress but… You really are beautiful.”

Smiling, you type in your response.

12:21am “Thanks, Tae. You’re up late.” You take a picture of the earrings Seokjin had gifted you and attach it to the message. “What do you think of these?”

Barely have you returned your phone into your bag when it buzzes again. This time you receive an attached image. Taehyung seems to be sitting in front of a monitor, as his face glows with a blue light and contorted into a pensive furrow of his brows.

12:21am “A little different from your usual style. Are they new? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear those.”

12:21am “Fei’s out with some friends tonight. She likes when I wait for her to come back before I sleep. To make sure she’s safe, I guess.”

12:22am “Pooey. I should’ve brought you as my plus-one 😩. Also, Seokjin bought them for me for tonight. He says my other earrings are too gaudy.”

12:24am “First name basis 🙃”

12:25am “How is your night going? Having fun?”

You are about give Taehyung a call for a detailed recounting of tonight’s escapades when someone speaks out from within the shadows.

“A penny for your thoughts?” He walks into the moonlight. You flush, meeting the eyes of this particularly dashing gentleman, the phonecall immediately forgotten.

Oh, Alcohol, you make even the smartest of people do dumb shit. And right now, your effects are even worse on this idiot.

Your mouth hangs slightly open as you watch him puff out smoke from his cigar and offer it to you. He brushes up beside you, his fingers trailing up your hand which grips the balcony. You cannot seem to break away from his gaze.

“Lung cancer has an increasing incidence rate particularly for females due to smoking. Are you sure you want to be condoning this type of behaviour?” Seokjin interjects himself between you and your Tuxedo Mask, pushing the outstretched cigar back towards its owner.

There is a small stare down amongst the two men before the latter quietly exits the stage. Your eyes continue to linger on him even as he walks towards another female alone in the night enjoying the outdoor breeze.

“You’ve just ruined by chance. I could have seduced then blackmailed him with the story of his illegitimate child to play Black Widow,” you whine.

Seokjin takes the glass that had somehow magically appeared in your hand during the short walk from inside to outside on the balcony.

“How many have you had since we came?” he asks.

You sigh wistfully, still in your dangerous daydream. “I don’t know. I’ve lost count.” You turn your attention back to him eventually. “What are you doing here? Did you see me with him and get all jealous, hubby?” you tease.

He scoffs, drinking from your glass and pulling a face. Once again, there is that twist and jump within his chest, but he attributes it to whatever nasty concoction he had just ingested. He pours its contents over the railing and into whatever shrubbery lies below. “You seriously went with being my trophy wife?”

You shrug. “Of sorts. You’d better be right about people being too drunk slash not caring about me enough after tonight to remember the things I’ve said. ‘Cuz you’ve been divorced three times, had me along with another as your mistress, I think you’ve sired a few illegitimate children and all in all, a Games of Throne life. Damn, maybe I made you a little too badass.”

“You’re having water for the rest of the night,” he says.

You glare at him, contemplating on making a remark about his equally flushed face but decide against it. Instead, you lean onto the balcony and give a cat stretch. A large sigh escapes from you.

Wordlessly, he shakes off his jacket and places it around your shoulder all the while averting his gaze on the unblemished skin of your upper thighs that had been exposed from your previous movement.

Your blood feels like liquid fire coursing through your veins. Feeling overheated even in the evening breeze, you give him back his jacket. You note his reluctance to meet you even as you throw what could be a thousand dollar jacket in the air to him. “So what’s it like to live like this every day?” you say in wonder. You feel said breeze return and lean over the balcony to catch its chill.

“Like what?” he asks. The warm summer night’s breeze blows through, settling his hair in a childish tousle.

“Like rich,” you say. You sigh again. “Believe it or not, I’m the same age as your birthday boy best friend.

And everything feels absolutely unreal right now. If I hadn’t agreed to come here tonight with you, I’d probably be at another dingy bar knocking back shots with my brother and friend.”

“Are you a secret alcoholic?”

You glare at him. “No,” you state matter-of-factly. “As I was trying to share, this type of lifestyle is something I could ever only imagine. I’m not ungrateful about spending time with them, but at the end of the night I’d go home, sweaty, drunk and gross, and then simply pass out. My bank account might be a couple hundred bucks lighter. Come Monday I’ll be working my ass off just to earn back what I had spent. Then cue the repeating cycle.”

Resting your chin on your palm, your other hand sweeps your hair back behind your ear.

“It’s amazing the difference a few life choices can have.”

Seokjin remains silent beside you. Truthfully, he is at a loss of words. The moonlight plays across your face and caresses your nose down to your lips. You are arching your back once again to pull away the soreness that comes with wearing high heel the entire night. It is just a simple black dress but on you it made you look –

“Well, you’re Mrs. Kim tonight,” he starts.

“Charlotte Dior Laurent,” you correct him.

He raises an eyebrow. “Okay… Ms. Charlotte Dior Laurent. Tonight you get to live like the rich, as you’ve put it. As a rich person, what would you like to do?”

You ponder his question a few moments for the answer. “Hmm…I think I’d like to play golf. It’s a rich person’s sport. I want to play it on a private golf course, wearing cute golfing outfits and talk about million-dollar deals with a client without a care in the world. I want to order sangria by the gallon.”

He laughs out loud. It takes a while for him to be able to speak again, but when he does you feel as if the night has been illuminated a few degrees brighter. “I personally don’t have a private golf course, but Junho does here in his backyard if you’re up for it. I can’t promise cute golfing outfits so you’ll have to do with your wine stained dress. And if you’re really up for it I can pretend to make business deals with you, that’s my job anyways.”

You grin, taking the hand he has offered you. “Call.” The two of you shake upon his suggestion.

As he is leads you by the hand towards the dim gates of said golf course, you tug at him gently. “There’s something missing…” you say.

He shakes his head and pulls you back in towards the party room.

“I’ll see what they have at the bar.”

...

As the hands of the clock continue to spin past another hour, the summer night takes a chilly turn. Seokjin has lent you his jacket but even that cannot stop your fingers from becoming numb. Your hands shake even as they tightly hold the golf club. Seokjin watches you in silence as you prepare to hit the golf ball, a beer in one hand and a few opened bottles littered on the grass beside him. The club hits the ball with a resounding “cling” but does little in propelling it a few centimeters.

“This one doesn’t count,” you announce, “It’s too dark to see anything here.”

Seokjin takes a swig as you readjust your position. You sway in the wind and the last tendrils of your hair come undone in its half up half down hairdo. Your hair now whips wildly around your face when another gust blows through.

“Shit!” you exclaim, missing the ball again. “Why is golfing so hard?!”

You throw your club down and trudge to Seokjin. The six pack the two of you had been sharing has officially been depleted. Seokjin offers you his half empty bottle. This time, you are the one watching as he goes to your spot and effortlessly swings his target into the darkness.

He smirks from the spot.

You grumble. “You’ve had years of practice. Not fair.”

“You’ve got to do better than that, Mrs. Johnson,” he says, teasing you.

Your grumble becomes more audible. You place the now empty bottle on the ground and cross your arms against your chest. Since telling him of your other American alias from tonight, he has not ceased to remind you of your strange choice of name.

“Just so you know, Mrs. Johnson can afford both an affair and the consequential prenup,” you huff.

“It’s still a stupid last name.”

“It’s an American multinational corporation with an income in the billions, okay?”

“Keep telling yourself that if it makes you sleep better at night. Now come on, I’ve got one last ball. Take a swing.”

Groaning, you shuffle over. You wish you had not suggested golf. You had never been good at sports anyways – bad hand-eye coordination.

He stands beside you this time, scrutinizing your every movement with hawk-like eyes. “No, not like that,” he says, “Have a wider stance and bend your knees. Better centre of gravity gives you a better swing. Also hold it with a neutral grip.”

You readjust your positioning following his instructions.

“Index finger down the center. Good. And three knuckles on each hand. No, that’s two. Okay your hands are just weird now. Three. I said three.”

“Stop standing there and show me then, Mr. Know-It-All,” you say, your patience in this makeshift lesson also coming to an end.

He walks closer to you, reaching out for the golf club. He retracts his hands in seeing that you have yet to let go. “You got to – ”

“You can touch me. I did tell you that Mrs. Johnson can afford an affair and prenup. Besides, I’m not going to be able to learn anything if I can’t even see you in this dark.”

He comes behind you and puts a foot between yours to guide your stance. Wrapping his arms around you, he fixes the placement of your hands to grip the shaft of the club in the way he had previously instructed.

Perhaps it is the mixture of wine, champagne and beer offered tonight, but being enveloped in the warmth of this embrace intoxicates you. The tingles that are sent down from his soft breathing on the base of your neck, make you shake like a leaf in the wind.

He inhales the sweet undertones of your perfume. The tendrils of your hair brush against his collarbone, sending a sensual kiss onto his skin. Unconsciously, he draws you closer to him, shielding you from another gust.

“Now you just want to swing,” he says, the words a mixture of a whisper and guttural grunt. His chest rumbles with it, passing the vibration through to your back.

You remain as still as a statue and lean ever so slightly back into him until your entire backside is pressed upon him.

You can’t stop yourself as you ask him, “Do you want to have sex with me?”

...

157 notes · View notes

yeojaa · 4 years ago

Text

( VELVETEEN RABBIT. )

What do you get when you mix Thumper and Bambi? Answer: Jeon Jungkook.

pairing. french lop bunny!jjk x ragdoll cat f!reader.

genre + rating. hybrid!au set in college. super fluffy, a little angsty, with a dash of smut to balance it all out. explicit towards the end because i just can’t help myself. oops.

tags / warnings. honestly, this jungkook should just come with his own warning. but more realistically, mentions of kook using a scrunchie, kook being cute, kook railing his date after using the world’s worst puns... the usual.

wc. 4.4k

beta reader(s). @hobi-gif as always become, c’mon. i’m me. she’s her.

author note. this was written as part of @thebtswritersclub‘s a hybrid fest and is gloriously late (i’m so sorry @ditttiii). i’ve never written anything hybrid-related before so hopefully you enjoy. feedback goes a long way! xoxo

He orders the same thing every time he’s in. Iced Americano, no room for cream, and a single almond croissant. (Every once in a while, he switches it up for matcha but that’s exceedingly rare.) He always pays with a tap of his wrist - a sleek black AppleWatch with rubber band - and flashes his trademark slightly too-big smile. All the girls swoon. So do the guys. Everyone except for you.

He’s unnervingly handsome, with long dark ears that sometimes hang in front of his eyes. You’ve caught him with them pulled back Lola Bunny-style, knotted with a loose silk scrunchie that looks nearly as soft as his fur. His hair’s usually unkempt, tossed into a little sprout of a bun, overly long fringe falling all over his big round eyes. He wears butterfly clips sometimes, though that’s usually on days where he isn’t freshly sweaty and carrying his gym bag. They appear in his hair when it’s damp from a shower, the smell of papaya and honey clinging to every inch of him. You know, because you have a great nose - one that’s sensitive to every smell under the sun but especially his. (You try not to think about it much.)

It’s a Wednesday morning when you notice the change. It doesn’t register at first, acknowledgement coming in a curious sniff at the air. Weird.

“Thanks,” he says like clockwork, a well-oiled polite machine, deceptively slender hands receiving the exceedingly hot cup without a care in the world. He’s got his usual bag over his shoulder - overly big, black, almost tactical - and a pair of comfortable looking pants on that seem more like they belong on your beloved grandmother. Somehow, he rocks it (but he always does). “Have a nice day.”

Because of course he says that. Of course he steals the words right out of your mouth, turns them back on you as easy as he makes your heart rattle around in your chest like it’s a Friday night bingo ball.

He moves toward the bar - he only ever grabs three napkins, tucks them into the slot on the left side of his bag - but pauses halfway there. Rooted to the same spot as always, sleek ears following the imposing line of his shoulders.

One, two—

The thumping starts, so quiet it’s almost negligible. But you catch it, because you always do and because you’re the reason for it.

He turns then, levels you with a look from the corner of those pretty, pretty eyes and you can’t help but laugh, openly, unashamedly, with the back of your hand plastered to your mouth. A true ojou-sama.

His mouth quirks - does that funny thing where he sucks in his cheek then rolls it back out with his tongue - and you think he might finally say something. Call you out for writing his name wrong for the past five weeks, finding more and more creative ways to do so every time. Even occasionally using nicknames - silly things you’d come up with while on the walk home, or during lunch, or in bed.

“Good one,” he states, laugh lines threading over his face, prominent around his eyes. His nose wiggles with the sound - another of his traits that comes out to play often. Your favourite of them all, if you’re being honest.

“Anytime.”

You don’t realise it’s him until it’s too late, until you’re practically running into him, bouncing off the broad expanse of his back with a startled squeak. Lucky for you, you’re quick on your feet, catching yourself before your skull can become too well-acquainted with the red brick wall to your right.

“You okay?” Though he asks, you have a sneaking suspicion he knows you’re not and an even stronger suspicion that he’d been waiting for you, hovering past the entrance of the cafe with his big university hoodie on.

“Barely,” you manage around a laugh, straightening the backpack slung over your shoulders, packed to the brim with goodies you got to bring home at the end of the night and two of your textbooks.

“Should watch where you’re going.”

This is the most conversation you’ve had - ever. But it’s fun, easy, organic and natural. You wonder why that is.

“You should watch where you’re standing, actually.”

He’s so much bigger than you, imposingly tall (especially being part of the Leporidae family) and wide in the chest. Not bulky by any means, but big. Strong. Threaded with a strength you don’t normally see in hybrids of his kind. It probably has to do with how often you see him covered in sweat and panting, basketball hooked under his arm, soccer cleats tied to his bag.

When he speaks again, it’s full of mirth, squeezing his round eyes near shut. “Got a problem with me standing here?”

You nod, solemn as ever (which is really never, but that’s besides the point). “It’s dangerous to block entryways, didn’t you know?” You’re gesturing to the awning, the dark interior just past the window of the shop. “You’re loitering, Jungkook.”

“So you do know my name.” You can tell he’s not surprised - that he’s hamming it up for dramatics, softly pink lips rounded in a little ‘O’. He’s cute like this, you think. Playful in a way you’ve never seen before.

“I do?”

There’s that cheek thing again. It’s even more attractive up close, the shape of his jaw thrown into prominent relief when he sucks in a breath.

“You just said it.”

You nod, thoughtful, finger tapping upon your chin. “I guess I did.”

“Say it again,” he states, expression inscrutable, eyes bright. They’re so glossy even under the dimmed streetlights, impossibly big and undeniable. So easy to get lost in - if your attention weren’t caught by something else.

“What is that?”

You’d noticed it earlier in the day, caught the scent in passing sometime during the early hours. You’d been unable to place it then, too distracted by freshly ground coffee, a girl’s three too many spritzes of Daisy by Marc Jacobs, and baking banana loaves.

It’s heady, masculine. A strong musk that sinks into your nose and makes it twitch, ears rotating as if that’ll help pin the smell down.

“What’s what?” You hadn’t realised how close you’d become, your face five seconds from planting directly into his chest. (It’d probably be nice - you know how soft your school’s merchandise is.) “Are you okay?” He asks because you’re now, actually, planting your face right against the worn navy cotton. It’s terribly nice, silk upon your cheek.

You answer more to his clothes than to him, nosing into the fabric. “You smell different.”

You feel more than hear his laughter, the sound barreling past his teeth seconds later. The vibrations running along his spine jostle you from your position face first upon him but you don’t mind. It doesn’t send you far, dark eyes peering up into the face of the bunny hybrid. True to his kind, his nose is twitching, puffs of laughter expanding his cheeks when he meets your stare.

“No I don’t.”

“You do.” Tone firm, a finger lands upon the neatly embroidered N on his hoodie. The white stitching stands in stark contrast to your baby blue nails. “You smell… off.”

Whether Jungkook’s offended or not, you can’t tell. He’s got that same strange expression on his face - the one from this morning when he’d received his coffee. It’s made up of too many moving parts: the flutter of his lashes, the coil of his jaw, the minute tick of the corner of his mouth. You can’t read him for shit, somehow more confused now than in your 300-level art history class. (You’d taken it as one of your optional electives assuming it’d be an easy A. You were wrong.)

“Sorry you think so,” he hums, looking down at you. You’ve seemed to fully forget the meaning of personal space, edged up beside him as if you’re best friends and not just two ships passing in the night.

“It’s not bad.” Really, it isn’t. It’s strong and sensual, vegetal in a way, calming in another. But it isn’t unwelcome.

In fact, you think you might like this scent a little more - less sweet than what normally clings to his skin, natural honeycomb rather than processed sugar. It zings across your teeth, pieces broken up and scattered behind your molars. You can practically taste it. Him.

“Is that so?”

“Yep.”

You share a look - one that says more than all the words you’ve ever spoken, that threads together all the silly laughter, narrowed stares, (written) flirtations. It settles between the two of you, filling the spaces with something akin to cotton, light and airy and soft.

The desire to speak lingers, hidden just beyond the cotton candy dusting. Should you? Shouldn’t you? You still have no idea what he’s doing here, a street urchin making his rounds on the campus village.

He beats you to it. “Can I walk you back to your dorm?”

You don’t think you could want anything more. “Sure.”

Silence falls again but it’s comfortable, a caress rather than a crutch. The grounds are surprisingly quiet - wayward students on their way to the library or heading home from lectures. There are no picnic blankets spread across the grass, no gaggles of girls dressed in school colours. It feels like the first day of fall, change sitting heavy in the air.

“So—” You start.

He finishes, “do you wanna go on a date with me?”

That’s surprising. (Or is it? You’re not really sure.) You nearly trip over your own two feet in your haste to look at him, entire body swivelling on the spot because apparently you can’t just turn your head like a normal person. Something something all or nothing.

“What?”

“Do. You. Want. To—” He’s being insufferable for the hell of it. You can see it in his eyes, glossy things shining down at you like he’s got the entire fucking nightsky hung in them.

“Not if you keep that up,” you retort, though you both know you’re lying. You’ve been waiting - wishing, wanting - for this moment since the day you laid eyes on him. Since Yuri had elbowed you so hard in the ribs you’d thought you’d be bruised for days, since Jae had rambled on and on for his entire shift about the cute new bunny who’d come in that morning. Since that very first wrongly spelt name on his plastic cup and every visit since.

“Is that a challenge?”

“You won’t get it in.”

He scoffs, loud and drawn out, cheek rounding with disbelief at your disbelief. How can you possibly doubt him - school basketball star and all-around athletic freak of nature?

“What do I get if I do?” The ball rests in his palm, poised to be shot through the hoop, sunk without making contact with the rim. He’s confident - he’s done it a million times.

“A pat on the back?” As much as you tease him - loop mockery around nearly every syllable you speak, you’re endlessly supportive, already carrying the fruits of his labour under your arms. A Pikachu shoved haphazardly into the purse slung across your body, a Snorlax tucked under your arm at an awkward angle that crushes his poor head, a Sylveon tucked into the side pocket of his joggers. (The arcade was really into Pokemon, apparently.) “Me saying thank you?”

“Not good enough.” He leans in close - those big galaxy eyes practically swallowing you whole - and taps a single finger upon your nose. It makes your nostrils flare, an itch blooming under his touch. “Gotta sweeten the deal.”

You must look hilarious because Jungkook’s biting back a smile, smirking down at you. Then, all at once, without breaking eye contact, he’s extending his arm, flicking his wrist, and— swish!

In goes the ball, leaving him with a perfect score.

“I want you to stay the night.”

You think he’s joking. He must be joking. This is your third date.

But he’s staring at you like he’s completely serious, gaze expectant, lips pursed around something that reads like a smile but has your heart doing a strange little one-two step in your chest. It soars for a moment, high above the clouds like the string orchestra of a choral work - Beethoven’s Ninth in D minor.

“Are you propositioning me, Jeon Jungkook?” It’s the same reaction he always has when you say his name: a twitch of his ear, the corner of his bottom lip quirking and then resetting, eyes so sparkly it’s almost absurd.

“No. I’m just telling you what I want.”

“Huh.” You should say no. Guys like him - with charm that oozes out of every pore, whose offhanded smiles break more hearts than you ever have - are almost always bad news. Too sweet, too funny, simply too much for your feeble heart to take.

“Is that a yes?” He’s got you in his clutches - a viper rather than a hare, with a smile so dangerous you’re paralysed by just the sight of it. (Who needs venom?)

Your words catch in your throat, stick to one another like the deformed gummies at the bottom of the movie theatre bag. What comes out isn’t what you expect. “Okay.”

Damn you. Damn him. Damn how good he smells and the big dumb grin that spreads over his lips, sunshine in human form, undeniable and warm and cute enough to start a war over. (That’s probably what’s happening - a vicious battle between your head and your heart.)

Damn his stupid thumping foot that you can make out over the sound of the video games, the boisterous din. It’s so cute you can’t help yourself from smiling, mouth pulling and pursing around the delight that begs to be freed.

“Cool,” he says, and you almost think that’s not very cool. He’s so nonchalant, cavalier about it as if it means nothing. You’d be bothered if you felt like you didn’t know him so well - hadn’t learnt his idiosyncrasies over the last two months.

How he looks when he laughs really hard, his slightly too-big front teeth taking up all the real estate in his mouth. How he sounds when he’s tired (groggy, with a lisp that rarely sees the light of day otherwise) or when he’s told he’s wrong (pouty, with his bottom lip jutted out so cutely you want to scream). How he runs every morning, hits the gym every night, and eats double your protein because fitness, bro! How his cheat meal of choice is soy garlic fried chicken from the place off-campus and he hates tangy, tart desserts (your lemonade lip gloss not included, he insists). How he can’t sleep if he’s too hot - which he often is - and he spends way too long combing through his ears with a specialty brush he doesn’t let anyone touch. How he’s secretly raindrops and gummy bears and hand holding in the car, so much more than his high school superlative of most likely to grace the cover of GQ.

You wonder, because you know those things, does that make you special? Does it make you immune to the heartbreak that you swear you imagine whenever your mood drops (not often, but often enough)?

You hope so.

“Let’s go shoot guns?” He’s tearing you from your reverie, planting an open-mouthed kiss to your temple. It’s sloppy and not very refined, much less suave than what you’d expect from your school’s soccer captain (and basketball small forward and swim team stand-in). You suppose that’s why you like him so much - because he’s always surprising you, keeping you on your toes.

“Let’s.” You agree, letting your date drag you toward the Time Crisis machine. It’s blissfully unoccupied, allowing the two of you to slide into place. He takes the blue gun, you the red.

He squeezes your hip when you take up position, one eye squeezed shut as you look down the barrel of the plastic weapon. “Better not let me die.”

“Better not get shot,” you return.

He doesn’t listen - failing halfway through the helicopter scene, his shot missing and resulting in some sad miserable death in the form of Continue? blinking across the screen. Neither of you mind that much though. He occupies himself on his phone, free hand tucked into the back pocket of your jeans. You play better when he’s not shouting terrible call-outs, nearly crashing into you because he gets so into it.

(How he’s never got a concussion on the basketball/soccer/etc. field before, you’re not sure.)

By the time you’re done - a good five minutes later, you think - Jungkook’s growing restless, tugging at your belt loops enough that you stumble with every shot, nearly knocking yourself out when you have to steady yourself on the centre console.

“Kook!” Your glare is barely that, too affectionate to dissuade him from his childish antics.

He pulls you forward, traps you between his thick thighs, tattooed hands settling comfortably on your hips. “Let’s go home.”

“Someone’s in a hurry.”

Of course, he doesn’t deny that.

It’s not the first time you’ve been over. Not even your second or third. You’ve met up with him before his games, thrown his jersey overtop and helped him wrap his fingers before hitting the court. You’d even had to grab his cleats for him once, running across campus as he did drills in his socks as punishment.

This time feels different. You know why but it doesn’t make it an easier pill to swallow. It lodges somewhere in your throat, makes it hard to breathe when you kick off your shoes and tuck them neatly beside Jungkook’s.

“Are you hungry?” He’s already in the small kitchen, glancing over his shoulder at you as you linger in the adjoining hallway, bag halfway over your head.

“I’m good.” You are, really. You’d eaten one donut too many at the arcade, indulged in a little too much disgusting nacho cheese goodness. You don’t really understand how your date’s still hungry, a cucumber crunching between his teeth when he turns back to you.

Standing there, vegetable devoured in quick, decisive bites, he looks every inch the French lop bunny he is.

You reach him in the same instant he finishes his midnight snack. Arms fold around you like there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing, head dropping to rest comfortably upon yours. Like this, his ears tickle your cheek - velveteen fur lost to the silk of your hair. “Are you tired?”

Another no comes - spoken into the fuzzy fabric of his sweater - and he hums above you, whole frame rattling with the noise.

“No bed then?”

At least he’s transparent, you think.

“One track mind much?” You’re only teasing. A part of you looks forward to… whatever it is that sits over the horizon, lost past the creaky bedroom door and somewhere beneath his surprisingly soft sheets. (You’d asked about them once - he’d told you his mother liked to send him housewares to remind him of home. He was a real mama’s boy that way.)

The monster only laughs, snuggles into your hair like it’s home. “Can you blame me?”

You can’t do much of anything when he’s like this - so utterly adorable and enticing and good for your heart that it feels as if you’ve taken a straight dose of morphine.

“Let’s go to bed, Wookie.” Another nickname, recently coined after you’d spent an evening watching Star Wars for the first time.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You whack him on the way to his bedroom, smack a hand over the arm curled around your shoulders. He pretends like it hurts, howls in a way he he thinks resembles a wounded animal but really just sounds stupid. “Not a ma’am.”

“Sir?” He asks, just to make you laugh.

“If you don’t shut up—”

He pushes you through the door of his bedroom while giggling to himself, sound puffing out of his cheeks. “Don’t be mad, kitten.” The two of you drop to the bed, a tangle of limbs and silken fur and squeaking laughter. “You’re so purr-ty when you’re annoyed.”

He’s doing it again. Dropping those stupid cat puns that make your nose wrinkle, ink-tipped ears folding back against your head.

“I think I’m hiss-terical, don’t you?”

Face adamantly buried into his sheets, you don’t give him the time of day. You don’t even care that your mascara is probably rubbing off against the charcoal fabric, lipstick tint doing potentially irreversible damage. He knows how unfunny you find these jokes, how you’ve heard them your whole life and roll your eyes so hard your optic nerve might sever every time you face another.

What’s the point of sharing your pet peeves with him when all he does is lean into them? Use them against you like it’s the cool thing to do. Make you wonder what you’d seen in him when he was just another customer, another boy in Seoul National indigo and bedhead so dishevelled it begged to be managed.

(You’re not sure why you’re so irritated suddenly, caught in the clutches of a moodswing as you curl into your side and ignore his bad jokes.)

Stupid Jeon Jungkook. Annoying, silly, too-cool-for-his-own-good Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook who makes you second guess your choices, leaves you breathless and confused with just one dumb look. Who has convinced you into his bed and teases you mercilessly, snickering to himself as his foot bounces against the floorboards because he finds himself that funny.

“Baby?” The pet name comes, presses itself past your curtain of hair and invades your thoughts.

You say nothing, adamantly faced away.

He doesn’t like that, sneaking his hands around you and cradling you into his chest as if that’ll lighten the mood. (It does, a little bit, but you don’t tell him that.) “Don’t ignore me,” he mumbles, warmth breath tickling your ears, fingers dancing over the rungs of your ribs as if they’re ivory and not bone, playing a tune only he can hear.

“Stop with the shitty jokes,” you retort. You’re being difficult - can feel the vinegar turning your blood even as he tries to will it all away.

You feel the intake, the rise and fall of his broad chest. You can only imagine how hard he’s biting his tongue, careful to keep his next errant pun at bay. People don’t tell him no - only you. Maybe that’s why you do it, to remind him you’re not just like everyone else.

“Sorry.”

You don’t tell him to show you how sorry— but he does anyway.

You’re astounded by him, utterly entranced by the way he moves. How power runs the length of his frame, manoeuvres each of his limbs and turns your own to jelly.

He’s got you face down, ass up, hands cradling your hips like they’re his home and he can’t bear to let go. Every upward stroke feels like heaven - feels like a million lifetimes of pleasure you can barely wrap your thoughts around. He’s impossibly big, thick and long. The first thought you’d had when he’d stripped his black Calvin Kleins was pretty.

You realise now there’s nothing pretty about him. He’s filthy - the devil come to collect as he fucks you across his bed, nearly loses you to the pillows at the head with each snap of his hips. (What they said about rabbits was true, you think.)

“B-Bunny,” you sob, scratch over cotton that’s worn soft and smells exactly like your favourite sweater of his. The linens are defenseless, tangled up and wrinkled with each flex of your fingers, bunched up within your palms every time he buries himself like he’s looking for the answer to life, thinks he might find it within the fluttering walls of your pussy.

“Not my name.” When he sounds like this, he’s more predator than prey, a thousand volts of electricity shooting up your spine. He’s demanding and unrelenting. It makes your head spin.

“Wook—”

“Not.” Bunny teeth are just as painful as a feline’s, doing their job as they dig into the flushed skin over your back, marking his territory with two prominent indents right between your neck and shoulder. “A.” He ruts into you as if he’s got something to prove, snaps his hips to a beat you can’t keep up with. “Wookie.” Grips you so tight you might snap, red blooming beneath his hands.

You sob under him, drool against the pillows because you can’t seem to keep your mouth shut. (You feel like Jungkook post-win, spewing nonsense as he prattles on about game winning plays with his teammates.)

“K-Kookie.” It’s what he wants to hear - hits him right in the chest, a bull’s eye to the thing that beats wildly and in tandem with your own.

His rhythm stutters. The bed is shaking and not because he’s practically breaking the weak wooden frame. No, his foot’s thumping, bouncing across the sheets even as he tries to regulate the roll of his hips, return it to the assured, teeth-numbingly good tempo it’d been at.

It doesn’t work. You love it anyway. Like it more, because it means he’s just as affected by you as you are him. Your heart sings, leaps out of your chest on hummingbird wings, and dances around your head. You’re a goddamn cartoon - Pepé Le Pew in ragdoll form - animated pink shapes circling like a crown.

You don’t care. You can’t. Not when he plasters himself to your back and asks you to say it again, begs you to tell him how good he is, tells you how he wants to make you his.

Who cares if it’s three dates in, if your meeting was cliched and silly and he’s the campus heartthrob?

You don’t - because he’s yours and when he flips you onto your back and you curl your fingers into his hair, it’s your name he stutters out. It’s you who has him coming apart beneath your hands, the feel of his ears like velvet, the little whines he huffs growing louder each time you tug at the base. It’s you who knows what he sounds like as he falls to pieces, throws himself against you as if gravity demands it. It’s you who holds him to sleep, whose skin acts as a canvas for the doodles he traces as he drifts off.

It’s you and it’s him and that’s enough.

tag list. @neverthefirstchoice @youwannabelostandnotbefound @snackhobi @codeinebelle

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flatstarcarcosa · 3 years ago

Text

favors and heists

notes: i gave myself brain worms while roping @dadbodsandbots into my mass effect insert shenanigans by using her mans so I had to shake some of them loose. this turned out to be kinda fun, actually, for a change :3

also tags @jackals-ships while making pspspsps noises

summary: what's the point of your best friend dating a galaxy-renown mercenary if not for the favors you can squeeze out of the deal?

zaeed takes a charity case.

ship(s): stubborn goddamn jackasses, cat/digs (boomcat? harcat?)

******

The door alarm has been chiming for four minutes. Pressing the override button on his omni-tool shuts it off for a few scarce seconds, only for whoever is outside to activate it again. Finally, Zaeed gives up on ignoring it and wrenches the damn thing open manually. The metal squeals in protest before the hydraulics correct themselves.

"The hell do you want?" he asks, frowning. Cat stands in the door way with barely contained tears in her eyes.

"My final thesis is due next week and the whole argument hinges on this 18th century painting and-"

"Dooooon't care," Zaeed drawls as he goes to manually pull the door shut again. She lunges forward, getting a shoulder and half a leg across before the safety catch feels an obstruction and stops.

"-and it got stolen and if I have to report it to my boss I'm not only gonna fail the program but I'll never work in this industry again!" she blurts. Zaeed has already turned his back towards her and is cussing at his omni-tool's refusal to force the door shut.

"Don't caaaaaaaaare," he says.

"You gotta help me get it back!" she cries, "That fucking asshole Harkness stole it and if he gets too far I'll never see it again!"

Zaeed stops, shoulders sagging. He holds up a finger and turns.

"When you say Harkness-"

"Yeah, Digger," Cat sniffs. "You know, Captain Boom-"

"Will willingly shoot my other eye out before I call him that, thanks," says Zaeed. He goes silent for a moment, and then lets out a frustrated growl and runs a hand over his face. "All right, fine. But only because I've still got a grudge against that jackass I've been meaning to settle."

She looks up, elation flashing across her face.

"Really?! I mean, I can hire you, too, so-"

Zaeed snorts.

"You don't make near enough to hire me," he says. "Especially not if you want him alive, although honestly, that part isn't up to you." He steps out of sight into the other room, and Cat wanders into the kitchen to blow her nose on a wad of paper towels.

"Where was he last?" Zaeed asks.

"I mean, my office," she calls back. He steps back around the corner, the top half of his armor undersuit hanging around his waist.

"I meant where was he before he stole the painting?"

"Oh!" she pauses. "I...dunno, some hotel down on Silversun."

Zaeed hums, and pulls his arm through the sleeve on his suit. He drags a footlocker over to the sofa and plops down, bending over to unlock the lid.

"How'd Harkness get into your office, anyway?" he asks. "It's not exactly publicly accessible."

"Uh- I...I don't know," she stammers, "he's a thief, that's what he does!"

Zaeed quirks an eyebrow at her as he laces his boots.

"Uh-huh," he says. "And he just happened to have decided to specifically case your office for one painting..."

"Yeah."

"Your office, which is in a moderately secured area in the Citadel Tower," he continues. He raises an eyebrow at her. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

"Yeah," she says again, voice tight. "Why?"

"No reason," he says. Motorized armor joints lock into place with mechanical whirring, and she watches him strap a pistol and a sniper rifle in place. "Here's the thing, if he's already jumped ship and left the Citadel, I'm not chasing him all over. This lasts until I decide the amusement isn't worth the lack of money. Matter of fact, you knowing Reese is the only reason I didn't tell you to fuck off and throw you out."

"A fact which I am heavily aware of," says Cat.

"Long as we're on the same page," says Zaeed. "Might as well wait here, I doubt this is gonna take too long."

"Hey," says Cat, "wait a second. How do you know him, anyway?"

Zaeed clicks his tongue.

"Got unlucky enough to be on a job with him once," he says. "Stupid little fuck nearly got me killed. Spent four weeks healing from that."

"Oh," she says.

"Granted, wasn't the same as getting half my face blown off," he adds, "but it was still enough that I've had it in for him ever since."

"You're not actually going to kill him, are you?" she asks. Zaeed shrugs as the door slides open.

"That depends on him, love," he says.

"Oh," she says. Before she can get another word out, Zaeed steps into the hall and leaves her alone. She sighs and sits down on the sofa. "Well, that's just fucking great."

******

It takes less than five hours to track Harkness down. After checking out of his hotel earlier that morning, he'd stuck around the Silversun Strip rather than booking a flight off the Citadel.

For some reason that Zaeed can only chock up to the man being an absolute fucking idiot, he didn't consider that wandering around with a medium sized painting under his arm was going to make him stick out to the residents.

Only on the Silversun Strip would one get away with that without C-Sec getting called and dropping down on your ass. Try it up on the Presidium and every rich asshole with a penthouse would be ringing the emergency numbers for 'suspicious activity' while triple locking their doors.

Tucked away in a back alley and away from the main attractions of the Strip is a little pawn shop run by, who Zaeed assumes, are the only Batarians to have a permanent residence on the Citadel. There's an old fashioned bell hanging above the door and it jingles when he walks through. It catches his attention for a moment, and he glances up at it, wondering where the aliens picked up that detail about human stores.

Behind the sales counter, a bored looking Batarian is standing with his arms crossed over his chest and glowering with all four eyes at the man in front of him.

"Come on mate," says the Australian. He's leaning over the painting, so focused on his attempts at hocking it that he either didn't hear the door bell, or isn't interested enough to turn around. Zaeed catches the gaze of the sales clerk, and holds a finger to his lips.

"I said no," the Batarian growls, looking back at the would-be customer.

"All right, fine, screw giving me what it's worth," the man continues, "we'll settle for 60% and then I can be on me way."

"You think I'm so stupid or naive I don't know stolen merch when I see it?" asks the Batarian. "I know enough about you humans and your squabbles to know there's no amount of credits worth getting involved in this kinda shit.

"Harkness, why don't you do something useful and stop pestering this poor Batarian?" Zaeed asks, interjecting only when he's close enough to Digger Harkness that the sound of his voice makes the man jump. "Bad enough the poor bastard has to walk around looking like that every day of his life, he doesn't need you coming in here and cocking everything up for him."

The Batarian sighs and rolls his eyes.

"Is it asshole human day today and no one told me?" he asks. "Oh wait, I suppose that's every day, isn't it?"

"Goddamn right it is," Zaeed says. Harkness turns around, nervousness clear on his face.

"Zaeed," he says, slowly, "well, I'll be...funny running into you out here, eh?" He reaches behind himself, fumbling his hand across the counter as he searches blindly for the painting. Zaeed is faster, and snatches it out from under him.

"Lets go," he says, gesturing towards the door. "You know why I'm here."

"Aw, c'mon-" Harkness' protest is cut short by Zaeed grabbing his wrists and slapping a pair of electrified cuffs on them. He shoves the man forward, and then tosses a credit chit down onto the counter.

"You see a couple of human males today?" he asks the Batarian. The alien grunts, considering him for a moment before reaching down and snapping up the chit.

"Been a slow day, I haven't seen anybody," he says, shrugging. Zaeed nods.

"Good man," he says. He shoves Harkness towards the door again. "Get moving."

The bell above the door rings as the two leave, and Harkness turns, walking backwards with his arms locked in front of him as he addresses Zaeed.

"Well, I'm simply stumped," he says, "can't for the life o' me figure who I pissed off enough to hire you." Zaeed says nothing, and simply motions with his pistol for him to keep walking.

Harkness faces foward and catches sight of the skycar parked at the end of the alley. It's not the best area to try and make a mad dash for freedom, but that doesn't mean he's not gonna give it a go.

"How'd you even get into the Citadel Tower to get a hold of something like this, anyway?" Zaeed asks, holding the painting up to get a good look at it. He's never understood fuck all about art and it's not one of those especially famous pieces that he'd even recognize anyway, so he doesn't bother theorizing on why it's so important to Cat's thesis.

"Oh, you know," says Harkness, "made a friend."

"Find that hard to believe," Zaeed drawls as he tucks the painting back under his arm.

"Oi, I'm quite suave when I want to be!" Harkness stops walking again, turning with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Though, some people are just easier to woo."

"Yeah, that sounds more like you, doesn't it?" Zaeed narrows his eyes. "Making a mark out of some poor girl that always sees the best in people."

Harkness blinks.

"Hang on," he breathes, "how do you know that? Don't tell me she's the one that hired you!"

"Course not," Zaeed snorts, "like I told her, she can't afford to hire me. This is a favor for a friend."

"Well shit mate! In that case, why don't you an' I work out a deal, yeah?" The grin is back, and Zaeed makes a point of ignoring him as he opens the skycar door and lays the painting in the back seat. "You ain't on an official contract, I see no reason why you an' I as two consummate professionals can't come to some sort of arrangement that benefits us both!"

"There's an exhaustive list of reasons why that won't be happening," Zaeed says, crossing his arms. "At the top of which is simply the fact that I can't goddamn stand you."

"Fair enough," says Harkness, "But Zaeed, come on, mate! As it happens right now, you're not making any money on this! That's a problem for you, and I can fix that real easy. You just slip these bracelets off me, let me be on my merry way, and recoup credits for your time. Anyone asks, I was too slippery to get a hold of, we all move on."

"No," Zaeed says. "Get in the goddamn car before I knock you out and shove you in the trunk."

Harkness groans, and bounces on the balls of his feet in frustration.

"Come on," he says again, "we both know at the end of the day lining your pockets is the only thing you really care about, so why don't you-"

Zaeed lunges faster than a half blind old merc has any right to move, and Harkness lets out a strangled yell as he punches him in the kidney with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He's wheezing as Zaeed shoves him into the alley wall, hanging onto him by the collar of his coat and lifting him off the ground.

"Listen to me, you stupid fucking jackass," Zaeed growls, "I'm not remotely young enough or stupid enough to not know exactly how you got access to Cat's office. That girl is the only person Reese knows that isn't a killer or a junkie or some fucked up combination of both, and the last thing she needs is to be caught up with likes of you and I."

Harkness says nothing as he gasps again, and waits on his lungs to remember how to take in air.

"I care about her well-being for my own selfish reasons because of her proximity to Reese, and I recognize that doesn't put me in a position of dictating to her who she spends her time with," Zaeed continues, "but so help me, you cause so much as a minor inconvenience for her and I will carve out your goddamn eyes, sew your mouth shut and sell you to Batarians as discounted slave labor, are we goddamn clear?"

Harkness manages half of a choked, garbled word and gets his head bounced off the wall for his effort.

"That didn't sound like a yes to me," Zaeed growls.

"Y-yes," he says. Zaeed slams him against the wall once more for good measure before dropping him.

"Get in the goddamn car."

******

The rental apartment Reese and Zaeed have been staying in isn't much to come home to. Far from the worst place they've ever holed up, sure, but that's never been a very high bar to begin with.

Regardless, as he pushes Harkness through the doorway and pauses long enough to set the painting down on an end table, he does reflect on the warm lightning in the corners and the smell of a beef roast being pulled out of the oven.

It's temporary and it's barely big enough for the two of them to move without tripping over each other, but it is home.

"You found it!" Cat appears in the archway to the kitchen, and Reese looks up over the counter. Their eyes glance between Zaeed and Harkness and the painting, and they quirk an eyebrow in his direction. Zaeed responds with a subtle shake of his head.

Later, he mouths, reaching up to undo the clasps on his armor.

"Wasn't too much trouble," he says aloud. "Helps when you're being sent after a goddamn moron. I should take more offers like this, actually."

"Caaaaaat," Harkness purrs. He goes to hold out his arms, and stops when he meets the resistance from the cuffs. She bypasses him entirely to scoop up the painting and make sure it hasn't been damaged.

"You know, on a hunch I looked into something on the way to the Strip," Zaeed says casually. "C-Sec has multiple active bounties on him at the moment. Cashing in on just one of them would likely pay more than, well...whatever it is you even do currently."

Harkness lets out a nervous laugh and looks between Zaeed and Cat. She sets the painting down and regards him for a moment.

"Right now I'm more worried with getting this back before anyone notices it was gone," she says, causing Harkness to puff up slightly. He winks at Zaeed, only to stop at the look the other man sends his way. "It's unlucky for me the building is locked down for the day, though..."

"Sounds to me like you could use someone who knows his way 'round security systems," Harkness offers. Zaeed snorts, and Cat frowns. Silence stretches out for a moment, broken only by the sound of Reese turning on an electric carving knife.

"Okay, fine," Cat says when they've turned the knife back off. "But know that if we get caught, I'm telling them you kidnapped me and I can cry on command."

"Well now you're just talkin' dirty to me," Harkness says.

"Really?" Reese barks from the kitchen. "Some of us still gotta eat tonight."

Zaeed remains silent and utterly unreadable as he taps at his omni-tool. The handcuffs beep a few times before popping open and falling off. Harkness massages at one of his wrists, and manages to ignore the bait when Zaeed shoves into him on the way to the kitchen.

"If we leave now we should make it in and out without too much trouble," Cat says. Reese offers a wave.

"Call me when you get in," they say, "mostly so I know if anyone's gotta kill him later."

"Sure!" says Cat. She tucks the painting safely under an arm, and drags Harkness out into the hall by the collar of his coat. The door beeps as the automatic lock powers on, and Reese turns to lean against the kitchen counter.

"What?" Zaeed asks, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of beer.

"Do I even want to know?"

"Probably not."

Reese rolls their eyes and turns their attention back to the roast. "I leave for 20 minutes to get fucking dinner, and I swear to Christ..." they say, trailing off when Zaeed reaches around and snags a slice of beef.

"You do realize she's got absolutely horrid taste in men, right?" he asks. The top of the beer bottle pops with a resounding hssss, and he flicks it across the kitchen into the garbage can.

"Yeah, well, that's just something we got in common, I guess," Reese says.

"Oi," Zaeed protests. He takes a swallow of beer and reaches for another slice of meat, then stops. "Hang on, she can cry on command?"

"Yeah, fucking wild actually," says Reese. They frown. "Why?"

Zaeed is silent for a moment as he takes another sip of beer before answering.

"Goddammit."

#reese.fic #ship: stubborn goddamn jackasses #others: boomcat

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swissmissficrecs · 4 years ago

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Hello! I really like your blog, it's great. I'm wondering, since I already finished all the fics that you have in the Fake relationship section, can you recommend us some more? Those are my happy place, thanks in advance, you're great :)

Reply: Thank you very much, that’s lovely to hear. You’re right, it has been a while since that list, so let’s see if I can add a few:

Fake Relationship Part 2

A Promise Made to Be Broken by PlantsAreNeat (37K, E, Johnlock) A young John makes an ‘if we’re still single at 40, we’ll get together’ pledge to a woman who ends up all wrong for him. She keeps reminding him of the promise, and won't let go of it. John asks Sherlock to pose as his boyfriend at a family wedding, so as to dash her hopes permanently. Sherlock, who has at last acknowledged his feelings for John, reluctantly agrees despite knowing how painful it will be to ‘have’ John, but not keep him.

Bridging the Ravine by SilentAuror (58K, E, Johnlock) Sherlock and John go undercover at Ravine Valley, a therapy centre for same-sex male couples in an investigation into a possible human trafficking ring. As they pose as a couple and fake their way through the therapy sessions for the sake of the case, it quickly becomes difficult to avoid discussing their very real issues. Set roughly nine months after series 4.

Chaperones by MissDavis (34K, T, Johnlock) Right. Of course. Everyone assumed they were a couple and no one would question it. John put his elbows up on the table so he could rest his head in his hands. "You want to pretend to be a couple so we can chaperone a trip to Disney World with Rosie's class and you won't have to share a room with a stranger?"

Classified(s) by blueink3 (36K, E, Johnlock) Clara's American father is the ambassador to some such territory that Great Britain probably used to own, but she (and Harry’s undying love for her) is the reason John is getting on a flight at 12:30pm, flying across the second largest ocean in the world, and pretending to be in a perfectly happy, healthy relationship with an undoubtedly perfectly coiffed stranger.See, Clara is not only American (and wealthy to boot), she's also best friends with John’s ex-fiancee. Whom she's placed in the wedding party. As Maid of Honor.And John just happens to be Best Man.Bloody brilliant.

Cockaigne by HollyShadow88 (38K, E, Johnlock) When John’s contacted by an old uni friend about problems in his new art exhibition, he doesn’t think it will be worth Sherlock’s time. After a glance of the crime scene, however, they’re both pulled into the project in ways John didn’t expect. Will a week of erotic performance art finally be enough to bring them together in the way they both secretly hope? (Spoiler: it’s a tropey fic, of course it will)

"finally kiss the bloody idiot" by Salambo06 (30K, E, Johnlock) "John and Sherlock know the Yard has a pool going for when they’re finally going to get together. It’s been running forever, and it’s worth thousands of pounds. It’s all fun and games, hahaha, until they find out Lestrade is in dire financial straits (dog needs emergency surgery, he’s putting his kid through gymnastics training, I don’t know, something), and they decide to fake a relationship to win the pool for him. Sherlock figures out the day and way that Lestrade thinks it’s going to happen, and they act it out. It’s all for a good cause, fake relationship style, until it’s not."

Hello You by weeesi (21K, T, Johnlock) John kind of can’t believe he’s doing this and kind of can’t imagine doing anything else. He dips his head, heart pounding.

Mountebank by Odamaki (26K, M, Johnlock) “I am calm,” John snaps, leaning on the door to glare out at the dark streets around them. Sherlock’s not said where they’re going; all he knows is they came off the ring road to the west of London and have vanished somewhere into the depths of Berkshire. All he knows is that he’s been trussed up in a suit that wasn’t hired from anywhere and if brought new would edge up into the triple figure margins. “Be calmer,” Sherlock advises, with a trace of irony. “We’re going to a party.”

Roommates are for little people by alexxphoenix42 (69K, E, Johnlock) John was looking forward to seeing his friends back at uni, but a new year brings new complications, not the least of which is a dorm room with only one bed, and a stroppy roommate with an utterly spectacular arse. God, John doesn't need the headache.

Sherlock Is All Tied Up by wendymarlowe (13K, E, Johnlock) It was Sherlock's bright idea to go to a sex club while on the trail of a killer. It's up to John to help them blend in. Luckily, he's got some experience in this arena.

Ten Years by toyhto (28K, M, Johnlock) A friend tells Rosie Watson that her parents aren't together for real, because they don't kiss. But we do, John says.

Thanks to the barbarians by queen_jadis (10K, E, Johnlock) John and Sherlock get married for a case, which both of them find hilarious - until they realise that they can't get a divorce. The offensive piece of paper has more effect on their relationship than John thinks it has any right to do.

Wars We Fought, Things We’re Not by blueink3 (55K, M, Johnlock) “Oh come, John. Could be fun,” Mycroft taunts, accompanied by an eyebrow arch he’s gotten far too good at. “Besides, it’s not as if it’s your first time pretending to be a couple.” Five months after John's world has fallen apart, Mycroft sends the consulting detective and his doctor on a case that neither is prepared for.

White Knight by DiscordantWords (69K, M, Johnlock) Green. The word green was used to convey a great many things. Illness. Envy. Inexperience.Standing there amidst Janine's chattering bridesmaids, watching Sherlock furrow his brow and study fabric swatches, watching him smile and simper and flirt, John thought it a remarkably apt colour choice. Because he felt quite sick to his stomach, he feared the source of said sickness might very well be jealousy, and he had absolutely no idea at all what to do about it. Or: Sherlock needs to fake a relationship for a case. He doesn't ask John.

#rec list #request #Anonymous

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oneofyatosfollowers · 4 years ago

Text

Yatori Week 2021- Day 4

@yatoriweek2021

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32090953/chapters/79500055

Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13905660/1/Yatori-Week-2021

Yukine was in the living room studying for midterms when his dad busted the door down and flounced into the room.

This was a common occurrence, as this man was not his biological dad, but rather a once concerned neighbor that adopted him and was therefore hardly a decade older than the teen. There could be many reasons why his dad, a man named Yato, was excited:

He saw something to do with Capybaras

He got an extra sketchy side job for pocket change

The weather was nice

He bought junk with said pocket change

Anything to do with his beloved girlfriend, Hiyori

Based on the way the young man skipped into the living room, high on cloud nine, Yukine could only assume it was the last option. With sigh, Yukine closed his textbook and readied himself to lose the rest of his study time. Yato tended to talk about his girlfriend for hours on end, like he’s never seen nor heard of them before her, and Yukine would not be able to focus. Now, Yukine liked his dad’s girlfriend. Loved her in fact. His dad was her art tutor- and class nude model- in college since she struggled with the subject as a medical major. Eventually she had become Yukine’s tutor in everything else except math, which was reserved for his dad. It was unclear if Yato hired her, or she did it out of the kindness of her heart, or the two just wanted to see more of each other, but Hiyori wormed her way into both their hearts.

“Yukine!”

“What?” Yukine drawled. His dad was a whirlwind of smiles and flailing arms as he tumbled towards Yukine. Used to this too, the blonde simply waited for Yato to sit directly in front of him without knocking him over. Yukine blinked as his dad struggled to find the words to communicate in a language they both understood. It tended to take some time, as falling in love with Hiyori Iki was a grand affair that wrestled your heart and tied your tongue. She tended to have that effect on people, as most kind-angels did. However, when all he did was wheeze and let out a strange coo mixed with a whine, Yukine couldn’t help but scoff and roll his eyes.

“I did it!” Yato beamed.

“Did what?”

“I finished that old lady’s kitchen and finally got enough money!” He burst. In a fit of laughter that strangers might have thought was madness, the young man rolled onto his back and kicked his feet. It took a moment for Yukine to realize his theory was somehow wrong before he crawled over top of his dad.

“What-ugh,” Yukine slapped away the hands that covered the man’s face, “what are you saving for? You never save money. I’m surprised we haven’t missed any bills yet.” Hands away his face, his dad’s bright blue eyes stared into Yukine’s hazel, full of unbridled joy . That was hardly a good sign; Yato was known for extravagant plans that he got far too excited over. Especially when they failed more often than not. Honestly, Hiyori was a saint for staying with such a spaz.

“That’s the thing!” The man gasped. He didn’t wait for his son’s answer, leaping to his feet to dash into the kitchen. Meanwhile, Yukine was rolling his eyes, of course it was about her. Yato ran back to his spot on the floor next to his son.

“Our two year anniversary is coming up in a few weeks and you know it’s around that time! The age, the lifestyle, the current situation,” he swooned, “her parents and Kofuku and Daikoku!”

“What. Are you talking about?” Yukine groaned as he kneaded his forehead. Just because his dad was capable of speech, didn’t mean he used it properly.

“I want to propose,” he said, “I want to propose to Hiyori.” The three magazines that he clenched in his hands were squeezed so tightly they crinkled. This time it was big blue eyes that watched Yukine struggle to find words. Yukine sucked in air, swallowed, stared, opened his mouth with nothing to come out, blinked a few times, then swallowed again. The logical part of this brain just shrugged, this was the obvious next step. They loved each other, were old enough, and that was usually the point of dating, what it led to. It wouldn’t change their day to day. The emotional side was shocked, blindsided, and completely convinced this would change everything.

Just the word ‘proposal’ was heavy in Yukine’s mind because ‘proposal’ led to ‘wedding’ which means ‘marriage’ which equals ‘family.’ Not that they weren’t already a family, they moved in to Hiyori’s place a little less than a year ago but that was a financial decision if anything. The more childish part of Yukine, the one that had originally protested the relationship and acted out during the first month of their dating, feared that this would take away even more of Yato’s attention. Because the fact was that marriage led to more children. But Yukine knew better than that by now. On the other hand, families, something Yukine had once before Yato, left a sour taste in his mouth. What’s more, this would without a doubt make Hiyori his ‘mother’ and this would mean Yukine wouldn’t just have a ‘parent’ but ‘parents,’ functioning ones that both loved him.

That last thought resonated in Yukine’s chest. Yato and Hiyori loved him very much, unconditionally, and he loved them. They were already a family and Yukine- Yukine wouldn’t mind calling Hiyori ‘mom’ if she ever wanted to adopt him. But most importantly, Yukine finally let his eyes drop from Yato’s and fall to the magazines. They were all for different jewelry stores, the outlines of their pages lined with little color tabs. Yukine could imagine they were covered in little notes and doodles from long before this moment. Most importantly, Yato deserved this. He was a single, smart, and kind young man that worked his way from the very bottom. Even Yukine was old enough to understand that for someone in that position- an impoverished college student- that Yato had taken on a lot, adopting him. It couldn’t have been easy to find someone. Someone as genuine as Hiyori who loved him just as much. Yato deserved this and he deserved to have Yukine support him. Which Yukine found that he truly, truly did.

“That’s great,” Yukine finally said. His voice cracked from the emotion and worry flashed across Yato’s face. But with one sniff and a genuine smile, Yukine showed that he was happy for them. The two dissolved into excited giggles and laughter, eyes blurry with emotion.

“I want you to help me pick it out. I want you with me when I buy it and help me plan the whole thing! I want you to be there with me, I need my kiddo for support,” Yato confessed. Blinking away the moist sheen, Yukine nodded once with a wobbly smile. His dad laughed with every ounce of giddiness and happiness that Yukine felt.

“Originally I was going to make one-”

“No,” Yukine said offhandedly as he wiped his eyes. Yato waved his hands and put down the magazines.

“I know! I know. This is super important and Hiyori deserves the actual ring. The best of the best! I can’t keep getting away with handmade gifts,” Yato said as he opened to a tab in each of the magazines. Yukine eyed the objects he circled and crossed out, writing everywhere.

“You make great hand-made gifts,” Yukine muttered as he fiddled with the cuff of his hand-made christmas sweater. His dad looked up to him, down at his hands, then back up with a smile.

“Well, I was thinking of making her golden knucklebusters, with diamonds of course, as an early wedding present.” Yato huffed.

“She’d like that a lot,” Yukine laughed, “just don’t let her parents see.”

“Oh god no! They already hardly like me.”

“They like you.”

“Yeah, cause I fix their house for free. Redo their kitchen,” Yato mumbled, “I hope they approve of this. I already asked them but the dad seemed more on board with it than her mom.”

“Hey,” Yukine nudged his dad, “that’s a good sign. At least you asked first.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right! This is good! She just needs to say yes.”

“She’ll say yes,” Yukine huffed with another roll of his eyes. Despite himself, even Yukine felt the small spark of fear at the possibility of Hiyori saying otherwise. They flipped through the magazines for a couple minutes longer, Yukine balking at the prices and mental math of costs per month.

“Ah!” Yato suddenly shot up and grabbed both of Yukine’s hands, knocking the book out of his hands.

“H-hey!” Yukine sputtered, wincing at his dad’s sweaty hands.

“But you can’t tell anyone!” Yato insisted, “this is a surprise. It has to stay a secret. Okay? Don’t tell anyone. Okay?”

“Okay!” Yukine finally yanked his hands away.

“You promise?” Yato urged, leaning even closer. His son shoved his face away and picked up his magazine.

“Yes! Yes! I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

They really were made for each other, Yukine thought a couple days later, like soulmates. Once again he was at home, heading to his room after Yato dropped him off. They had a family dinner later and Yukine wanted to chill at home with Hiyori while Yato went to prepare for the proposal. The house was quiet when he walked in so Yukine slipped the quarts of ice cream in the freezer and made his way to his room. Hiyori must be in bed. She hadn’t been feeling well recently, getting nauseous everyday for the past week. All those thoughts went out the window when, on the way to his room, the bathroom door cracked open and Hiyori’s head popped out.

“Yukine!” She hissed, “Yukine!” If it weren’t for her eyes being so wide and pleading, Yukine might have felt a bit more embarrassed by the sight. He stopped short in the hall.

“What’s wrong?” He said immediately. First she looked nervously off to the side, then to him, then up, then behind her, then back at him, letting out a whine disguised as a hum.

“What?” Yukine asked, a bit more nervously now. Still finding it difficult to answer, Hiyori’s arm slipped out and waved him over. Fearing she might have a broken bone, Yukine took one look at the house phone then walked over to the bathroom door, heart in his throat.

“Are you ok-ay!” Yukine squawked as the front of his shirt was grabbed and he was yanked into the bathroom, the door slamming behind him. He quickly glanced behind him, at the barrier, then back at his friend. She looked nervous, which made Yukine nervous. He would even say she looked anxious, scared, but the air buzzed with an excited tension. In front of her, Hiyori played with her fingers as she struggled to meet his gaze.

“Hiyori, are you okay?” Yukine finally got out. She looked okay, well not ‘okay’ okay but physically safe. The sweat that beaded her brow and the way her knees almost knocked together said otherwise.

“Um,” Hiyori looked up then down, “yeah, yeah, I’m okay. I- I think so?” Terrified at the thought of anything bad happening, Yukine quickly approached her with his hands up.

“What happened? What’s wrong? Do you need me to call Yato? We should call-”

“No!” Hiyori blurted out, causing Yukine to flinch. At this point he was almost shaking, Hiyori was rarely against calling Yato, especially during emergencies. More than just being the man of the house, Yato knew everything! He was calm and cool under pressure and could take on any problem without delay, dropping everything to help. Yukine certainly didn’t want to deal with whatever this was without at least telling his dad. Seeing the panic bubble, Hiyori reached forward and gently held Yukine’s hands like she often did during these times.

“No, no, no, it’s okay! It’s nothing bad! Nothing’s wrong!” Hiyori comforted, “I just got worrie- excited! I’m nervous about something and I wanted to tell you in private. It’s okay, nobody’s in danger,” her words quickly calmed Yukine back down.

“O-oh, okay,” Yukine nodded, “so, so what’s up?” He stuck his hands in his pocket to hide their shaking while Hiyori went back to fiddling with her fingers.

“I have a, uh, surprise! For Yato. And I, uh, wanted to hear your thoughts first.” She stammered out. This was rather confusing, but Yukine was relieved to hear that was all it was. Maybe she had a big anniversary present planned that she wanted his opinion with.

“Oh okay, what is it?”

“Well it’s not an ‘it’ exactly. It’s more of a, uh, uh, thing? Not a thing! It’s not a thing! I’m a thing? I’m something? I-I-I have something to give to Yato. And you? The family. My family too, you know, once I tell them. I’m just not exactly sure,” Hiyori babbled just like her not-yet-fiance, looking all around. Yukine resisted the urge to roll his eyes- he stopped doing that to her ages ago- and he refused to rush her.

“It’s okay,” Yukine offered a smile, “I’m sure whatever the thing is, Yato will love it. You know how sappy he is, he’ll love it cause it comes from you and you mean it.”

“Haha, yeah,” she didn’t sound too convinced and Yukine worried about why.

“I mean it, he will.” Yukine tried again. This time, Hiyori seemed to get rather bleary eyed and she hugged herself.

“Maybe not this time, Yukine, I’m just not sure. I mean we talked about it but it’s too soon and- who knows- maybe he won’t?” She continued looking around the room, biting her lip. Yukine was still an awkward sort of a teen and not very good with crying young women so all he could think to do was squeeze her hands.

“Don’t say that, Hiyori, there’s nothing on this earth that he-”

“I’m pregnant.” Her confession rang throughout the empty bathroom, echoing against the tiles and Yukine’s ribs. The boy’s mouth clicked shut as all those images he’d imagined, with Yato fawning over another child that was actually his, flooded in. When Hiyori sniffed again, the pictures shattered, leaving a frightened young woman holding her stomach.

“Yukine, I’m pregnant,” she repeated. Swallowing Yukine let his hands lightly rub her arms up and down.

“That’s,” he breathed, “amazing.” The honest wonderment he felt bleed through his voice and Hiyori looked up at him, eyes shining with pure hope.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Yukine promised. They deserved to be happy and experience having a baby and raising them with all the love and care they gave Yukine. After all, they already saved his life. What more can he ask of them? Once again he found himself blinking away the moisture in his eyes, Hiyori trying to do the same.

“But, what about Yato? Do you think he’ll,” Hiyori bit her lip and Yukine struggled to find the words and push away any jealousy he felt. Of course he wanted to be Yato’s one and only, for the man to never have kids of his own cause he had Yukine. But that was as selfish as it was stupid. Yato had a lot of love and Yukine knew he was no different than a son to him. Yato would never abandon him for something he deemed better and Yukine would be there to support him. Both of them.

“He will absolutely love them,” Yukine assured her, letting out a dry sob, “he’ll make the best dad.”

“Well, hehe, I think he already does?” Hiyori wiped under her eyes and Yukine found himself laughing.

“That’s right!” Yukine said, joyfully, “he’s the best.”

“Yeah, he is. The best I could ask for,” she murmured happily. The room was considerably warmer, lighter as Hiyori set her palms gently over her abdomen with a soft smile.

“Now I just have to tell him,” Hiyori said, “and my parents.”

“I’m sure they’ll be happy too,” Yukine sighed as he leaned against the door, “you haven’t told them yet?”

“No, they’re old fashioned and I would rather tell Yato first. So you can’t tell anyone!” Hiyori suddenly stepped forward with pleading eyes.

“Huh?”

“It’s a surprise! I want to tell him on our anniversary but I really need you to be there as support, so you can’t say anything, okay? Promise me you’ll keep it a secret!” She begged. Yukine gave his answer before he could think, not realizing until later what it would entail.

“I-I will! I’ll be there! And I promise I won’t say anything!”

The anniversary dinner reservation was booked at the restaurant Yato took Hiyori to on their very first date. It stood on the corner of an annual festival that followed the date and where Yato often took them every year since. In the car ride, various levels of anxious excitement is so palpable one of them could cut it with a knife. The excitement mostly came from the two adults in the front seat. Yukine, who sat behind Hiyori, was the majority of the anxiousness. Both hands were stuffed firmly in his jacket, balled up in his right hand was a little box protecting a diamond ring, his left was gently pinching the image of an ultrasound. He kept trying to rip his hands out of his pockets, worried about the cold sweat ruining such valuable commodities.

“So Yukine, are you excited about the festival?” Yato peaked at him through the rear-view mirror, smiling gleefully. It was unclear if his dad noticed Yukine’s flinch, but he quickly shoved his hands tight in his pockets and tried a smile.

“Y-yeah!” His voice cracked and Yato let out an awkward laugh. In the passenger seat, Hiyori turned around to look at him with an equally wobbly smile and a nod.

“We’re glad you can come with us to dinner this time,” she said, “right Yato?”

“Sure are! Soon you’ll be too old for us to force you to come on our dates!” Yato laughed. Even with the implication, the air in the car was considerably lighter. Yukine found himself laughing too, secretly knowing that there would never come a day he would need to be forced. While anniversary dinners were different, dinners with your parents hopefully lasted forever.

“Yato!” Hiyori chided through her giggles, giving him a good whack on the arm. The family continued to snicker as Yato pulled into a parking spot. He ran around the car to open the door for his beloved, taking her hand and helping her out. Yukine’s amusement sank like a rock when both the adults gave him a pointed look and a nod, he was reminded of what was to come. Giving his name, Yato could barely contain his excitement as the waitress brought them to a raised booth in the back.

“Yato,” Hiyori said with a light gasp. It was unclear if she noticed that this booth was the only one with fake roses strung up along the back but Hiyori wore a look of awe as she sat down on the other side of the candle.

“Two years,” he sang in reply.

“Yukine, you can take off your coat,” Hiyori suggested.

“N-nah that’s okay!” Yukine said. Both of them must have understood the implication because neither of them pressed it. They took a glance at the menu and eventually, the waiter came to take their orders, offering the most expensive bottle of champagne that Yato had already paid for.

“Oh, uh, no thank you, I’ll just have water, please,” Hiyori asked as she shut the menu and handed it to him. Yukine watched the waiter flash Yato a lost look who just nodded as he handed his own menu.

“I’ll have a colosi,” Yato said. The meal picked up quickly after that, the three of them ordering good dishes. Shortly after they started to dig in, the violinist Yato had called from college- a man with glasses named Kazuma- came over and began to play.

“Mmm!” Hiyori slurped down her pasta, “this is our song!”

“Hmm?” Yato cocked his head.

“Our song! You know, the one they played at the after party for the art exhibit? Our first dance,” Hiyori said. She ducked her head, looking suitably embarrassed until Yato hummed.

“I remember! Of course I do,” Yato smiled, “best night of my life.” Love in the air, they finished their meal, sharing a dessert Yato treated Yukine too. Once the dinner was complete, Yato distracted Hiyori long enough for Yukine to run and give Kazuma a tip and the next phase. Then Yukine jogged after them, the three of them walking out into the festival. Hiyori, rather obviously, tugged Yato off to the right. The woman on track to being a doctor was clever enough to know her romantic boyfriend would be taking them to the spot of their first kiss. Of course he did that every year, but Hiyori hoped being in such a nostalgic place would help the news to be received more positively.

Still, the two of them put a lot of effort into making sure Yukine felt included. Part of him thought this was just done out of gratitude for his help, but they’ve taken him here more than enough times for Yukine to understand they just wanted him to have fun too. Of course, this was still part of Yato’s extremely detailed plan. A handful of the game stands held certain prizes that Yato planted for the proposal. So far, Yato carried a hand-made scarf that mimicked something Hiyori used to wear while they were dating, a small wooden house that was used in sketch class, a box of sparklers, and binoculars. Currently, Hiyori was selecting another prize Yato and Yukine won for her by playing darts. Based on Yato’s instructions, the man offered Hiyori the prize box of fake jewelry, one of which was real and hand made. Knowing her, she would notice the pink-flowered charm and select it.

“I’ll have to go back for that bottle,” Yato sighed as he watched his love look over the options.

“I can go back and put it in the car,” offered Yukine.

“No, no, no, I need you here with me,” his dad looked at him, “I can’t do this without you.” He sounded confident but his eyes were so scared that Yukine couldn’t help but nod. Yukine had made a promise to himself some time ago that he would protect this eccentric, kind-hearted man that saved his life, from others who would try to take advantage of him or go out of their way to hurt him. Just like Yukine once did.

“I have tissues in case she says no and I put the ice cream in the freezer for you.”

“Haha! That’s my boy,” Yato let his fingers noogie Yukine’s hair and they laughed. The moment of truth was upon them. As Hiyori came back to them, showing off her new bracelet with the claim that it was something Yato would make for her. They walked to the edge of the street, the overview circling out over the park with a fence and benches. Yato handed the house and sparklers to Yukine, wrapping the light scarf around Hiyori’s neck. The fireworks would start in exactly seven minutes and Yukine still had both objects in his pockets.

“Yato,” Hiyori suddenly said, “I need to talk to you.” She looked at Yukine who stared back at her with wide eyes.

“What is it? We can talk here, you know,” Yato tried to get Hiyori to come towards the railing, but she remained firmly where she was.

“I just decided that I want,” she looked around, “some cotton candy!” Hiyori frantically pointed towards one of the mini carts.

“Wha-? Right now?” Yato’s shock and fear cracked his voice but he quickly tried to cover it with a laugh.

“How about after the fireworks? They’re going to start soon and you know how much I like-”

“Please Yato?” Hiyori put her hands together and cocked her head. From the middle of them, Yukine sucked air through his teeth and looked at Yato. Those were the big guns, Yato rarely said no to begging.

“Uh, um, okay, Hiyori. One-one sec!” Yato started towards the treats, “come on, Yukine!”

“No, no! That’s okay! Yukine can stay with me!” Hiyori insisted. She smiled when Yato just sputtered then ran off to retrieve the sweets.

“Okay, give it to me,” she frantically hushed.

“You’re going to do it now?” Yukine gave a quieted exclamation.

“I have to! I can’t let this continue without him knowing!” Hands shaking, Yukine handed the ultrasound to Hiyori who stuffed it under the top layer of her shirt against her spine. Once glance at the clock told Yukine there was four minutes until the fireworks would light up the sky and Kazuma would light the sparklers next to the matching mini wooden house just below them.

“Okay! Okay, here!” Yato ran back to them, “here you go, Hiyori!” He handed her a pink mass of sugar, shoving it in her face.

“Wha-! Yato!” Hiyori sputtered. As she struggled to get the sugary treat out of her face, Yato dove his hand in Yukine’s pocket and plucked out the ring.

“Heheh, sorry,” Yato said as he stuffed it into his pocket, “I tripped?” he offered as she moved the candy out of her face. As Yato smiled awkwardly at Hiyori’s narrowed eyes, the first firework of the night boomed in the sky. Slack-Jawed, the three of them looked up at the sky, then back at each other.

“Ah! It started!” Yukine gasped.

“Let’s go get a closer look Hiyori-”

“Yato, I have something for you!”

“I have something for you too, but, uh, it’s over here. So let’s go over here!” Yato was quicker, and louder, than Hiyori and managed to grab her wrist and pull her towards the railing. Deciding that his job was done- and that he didn’t want to really get caught in whatever was about to happen- Yukine chose to stay a couple feet back.

“Yato, I- '' Hiyori's words were caught with a gasp as she looked over the railing. On the stone patio that surrounded the park were a bunch of pigeons eating the seeds Yato had Kazuma put down just as they left the restaurant. Feeding pigeons was something Yato did a lot in college and one of the places Hiyori would find him sketching before they started dating.

“Look at them all!” She gasped at the massive heart made purely out of hungry pigeons. In the center of the feathered shape was a small note, leaning on the matching mini home, with fancy calligraphy made clear by the sparklers that were stuck on either side.

“Is that a note?” Hiyori squinted, “I wonder what it says.” She looked at Yato when he cleared his throat.

“Why don’t you use your binoculars?” He offered them. Hiyori didn’t seem to think much of it, taking them and leaning over the railing.

“It says ‘Will You Marry Me?’ Aw I wonder who that’s- for?” Hiyori’s sentence fell off her lips, drifting through the wind as she lowered the binoculars and turned her head. Yukine watched her eyes drop to Yato on his knee, who was gently holding up the box and the ring. When she gasped, eyes growing wide, he nudged the box up higher and cocked his head with a forced smile.

“Will you?” he asked. It took a moment but Hiyori finally moved, closing her mouth and blinking rapidly.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Really?” Yato sprang up with a gigawatt smile, Hiyori laughing at him.

“Yes! Yes!” She professed, bouncing up and down with Yato. Quickly putting the binoculars around her neck, Hiyori quickly grabbed Yato’s face and they joined in a passionate kiss. From his spot, Yukine found himself bouncing on the balls of his feet and clapping with the few people surrounding them. Through their love-sick laughter, and Hiyori’s many kisses, Yato took her hand and raised her to the ring. Before the rock could slip onto her finger, Hiyori jolted, finger freezing.

“What is it?” Questioned Yato, terrified at the way she took her hand back.

“Before you give me the ring, I want to give you my thing,” Hiyori said. Her weak words were slightly drowned out by the fireworks display and chatter of the audience but Yato just nodded with tight lips. Eyes downcast, Hiyori’s fingers slipped under her shirt. Then, she handed the ultrasound to Yato who blinked at once before he gently took it. Yukine watched him stare at it, almost incomprehensibly, for a little longer than necessary. Yato blinked again, turned it around and blinked once more. Adam’s apple bobbing, Yukine watched Yato’s lips say something that was too quiet to hear. Hiyori nodded, a jolting movement, trying to force a smile around her wet eyes. This was it, Yukine thought, they were a little family; a mother and her future husband. Yato was a husband, a father, a man of the house. Yukine’s clapping hands stopped and gripped his shorts.

Yato suddenly got his breath of life back, his head jolted up and he looked to Hiyori with an open jaw. He couldn’t force it close until he tackled her into a hug, holding her head and waist so close, like she was the only thing keeping him standing. Whatever Yato said convinced Hiyori it was time to slip the engagement ring on her finger as they squeezed each other tight. Their laughter sounded again, overshadowed by the fireworks and sounding considerably more breathless than before. Lit up by the dancing colors, Yukine watched them alternate between laughing, talking, kissing, and pointing at the objects in their hands. Just as Yukine’s happiness was starting to be completely overshadowed with loneliness and isolation, he watched both of them point at their gifts then turn and face the blonde.

“Yukine!” They cheerfully called his name, arms open to welcome him into their hug. Heart leaping for joy into his throat, Yukine ran forward without a thought. By the time their arms wrapped around him, holding him tightly against their bodies, Yukine’s wet laughter was bubbling out of his chest.

“Yukine! You double player you!” Yato exulted.

“You did such a good job!” Hiyori complimented with tears, “thank you so much!” The family gave another tight hug before pulling away.

“We really couldn’t have done it without you,” Yato sighed. He kept his arms around their shoulders, holding the ultrasound up against the sky, the three watched the final colors of the fireworks illuminate the tiny bundle of life that would be greeting them soon. As the final boom pounded against their beating hearts, Yato finally gave it back to his fiance.

“I’m glad it all worked out,” Yukine said, mostly to himself.

“Are you sure?” Yato asked him.

“Huh?”

“We just want to make sure that you’re okay with all this,” Hiyori started, “we know this is a lot and we just want to hear your thoughts about all this.” She gestured to everything but when Yukine gave them a blank look, Yato put his hands on Yukine’s head.

“Our family is getting a little bigger, are you happy?” He asked softly. Warmth spread throughout Yukine, building in his heart and fanning the heat behind his eyes.

“Yeah,” Yukine breathed, “I’m happy.” He blinked and let out a hum of a laugh as Yato and Hiyori smiled at each other.

“That’s great because we have something for you too,” Yato grinned.

“For me?” Yukine blinked. What could it be? What more could they possibly give him?

“Yes, a surprise for you too! Mostly from me to you,” Hiyori offered. When she looked at Yato, smile matching his, the three separated and Yato lifted his top shirt to reveal a folded packet. He handed it to Hiyori who handed it to Yukine with a shy smile.

“If you want,” she tacked on. Yukine kept his eyes on her as he unfolded the paperwork, already knowing what it was before he looked it at. It was so familiar, nearly identical to the one Yato gave him so long ago, the one that now sat in a protective folder in Yukine’s bedroom.

“You want to? Adopt me?” Yukine asked. He squeezed the papers tightly against his chest. Unable to say anything more, Hiyori pressed her trembling lips together and gave a short nod, a couple tears falling from her eyes. He was back in her arms just as she opened them, sniffing against her collar bone.

“Is that okay? Will you have me, Yukine?” She tearfully asked as she brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

“Yes,” Yukine cried, “I’d love that. So much.” He had a mom now. Not that woman that gave birth to him, a real mother figure that loved and cared for him and his dad properly. He had parents.

“See?” Yato sniffed, “I told you he would gladly welcome you into the family!” He tried wiping the tears from his cheeks but it hardly made a difference.

“The family?” Yukine repeated, feeling the word on his tongue.

“Of course! Can’t be a family without you, kiddo!” Yato insisted. He pulled them back into a hug, each of the gifts to each other- sealing their love and connection- squishing under the force of their laughter. They came together in a rather unconventional way, and they were nothing Yukine imagined for himself, yet they were everything he could ask for.

His parents.

His family.

#yatori #yatori week #yatori week 2021 #yato #noragami yato #yato noragami #yatogami #yukine #yukine noragami #Noragami yukine #hiyori #hiyori iki #noragami #noragami fanfic #noragami fanfiction

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cetaitlaverite · 4 years ago

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@mercurygray set a writing challenge for valentine’s weekend and it sounded so lovely i thought i’d give it a go! in a nutshell, the idea was to use a random generator (and i used her wonderful one) to create a new oc and introduce them through a short oneshot-type piece of writing. when i first set to figuring my gal out i was excited by the prospect of pairing her with one george luz. i think they’re a fun pair so i hope you do too!

my brief:

The Last Time I Saw Paris

There were a lot of things Max loved about her job as a chorus girl in the USO: she got to see the world in person, as opposed to merely in books; she got to meet and work with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars; she got to dance, everyday in rehearsal and almost every night in a show; and, though she didn’t like to admit it, there was nothing quite like the smiles the soldiers wore as they watched each of the shows - as though they were looking straight into the gates of heaven. The faces that watched her dance with such admiration each night damn near broke her heart, for their eyes betrayed how much the show meant to them after all they’d seen. They were the best audience she’d ever had. Performing for people who cared, to whom the music and the dancing and the sparkle meant something - well, that may have been what she loved most of all.

However, for all that she loved her job dearly, and especially because of the men she performed for, there was little she dreaded more than having to meet them afterwards.

When the show ended and Max followed all of the other girls back to their shared dressing room, she was always buzzing with adrenaline. As the moments twirled away from her, however, her smiles began to fade; once they got out into the hall, the men would be after all of them. They’d crowd their headliner first, always, and when the star had taken her pick, they’d flock to the chorus girls. The attention was stifling. No matter how Max tried to tone down her red lip or soften her carefully styled hair, the soldiers always seemed to know exactly which girls they were after. It was as though they spent the show searching, looking from face to face to decide which girl they wanted for a dance partner the moment they graced the main hall with their presence.

The thought made her uneasy. Max didn’t like to be looked at, she liked to be watched. She liked to think the men all sat there and saw her dancing for what it was: art. But they were men, and in her line of work she knew especially well what men saw when they looked at her, even if she was only a chorus girl and not the big star of the show.

“Maxie, are you comin’ or what? The way you set to mopin’ after every show anyone would think you’re homesick.”

Max tore her eyes from her reflection in the mirror to Lila in the doorway, a tiny firecracker of a girl who liked to act tough but, really, was always the one to make sure no one was left behind.

Max offered a weak smile. “Perhaps I am homesick.”

Lila rolled her eyes. “Perhaps you aren’t,” she retorted. “Paris is the City of Lovers, darlin’. This is your city and these are your people. Impossible to be homesick when you’re already home.”

Max couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled out of her. “You think I’m a lover,” she said disbelievingly, a grin twitching at her lips. “Do you ever catch me writing to anyone other than my family?”

“You don’t have to have a lover to be one, Maxie. I see that smile of yours when you dance, even when you ain’t performin’ for no one. You love dancin’, you love music, you love life - and, if you ever get your ass outta this here dressin’ room, I’m sure you’ll love Paris. Now, come on. Who ever heard of a dancer that don’t dance?”

With her elbow soon clamped in Lila’s tight grip, Max had little choice but to follow her out of the dressing room and into the main hall. The pair of them came stumbling into the outskirts of the other dancers - who, by the looks of things, were already receiving a considerably warm welcome from the hall’s occupants - and made it just in time to watch one Grace Henry, headline act of their particular show, pick her first dance partner of the evening from the sea of dashing hopefuls.

“My bets are on that one,” Lila whispered into Max’s ear. She gave her arm a tug before gesturing to a tall blond with a dazzling smile and First Sergeant insignia on his uniform.

Max quirked a smile as she watched him. “By the looks of him, so are his.”

Lila laughed. “He’s too much a peacock for the likes of you and me but I’m sure him and Grace will get along swimmingly.”

Max nudged her friend and shot her a look which held for about a second before fading into a grin again. In reality, there was no bad blood between the chorus girls and their headliner at all - though it was true Grace did think the world of herself, and this quality was generally reflected in the men she chose for suitors. Still, as much as she loved to primp and preen in the mirror, Grace loved her chorus girls and her chorus girls loved her. There was a sort of camaraderie in the life of a dancer, especially on the road as they were, and where they were each separated by background they were sardines in a can by experience.

By the looks of the soldiers gathered and how they grinned and bantered with each other, there was a lot of that going around.

As soon as Grace had picked her trooper - Lila had been right, it was the blond First Sergeant with the movie star smile and practised charm - the crowd began to close in. Max looked to Lila for reassurance and found her friend’s eyes settled in amongst the swarm of men.

“That one,” she said decisively. She bit onto her bottom lip and nodded. “That one’s mine.”

“Which one?” asked Max, attempting to follow Lila’s eyeline. “Dark hair, cheeky grin, on the shorter side?”

Lila shot a glance at her. “What? No.” She flicked her hand as if to brush the thought away. “Ginger hair, awkward-looking but in a cute way, average height, maybe just over. Over there, see?”

Max did see, but her attention was elsewhere. “I think perhaps the dark-haired fella might be worth considering, though,” she said, attempting to be subtle about it.

“Why’s that?” Lila kept her eyes locked on her target, likely already plotting her plan of attack.

“Because he’s making a beeline for you.”

“What?”

Max gestured and Lila turned. Sure enough, heading right for them was a dark-haired, grinning young man on the shorter side of the spectrum, though taller than the both of them.

Lila’s eyes, once sultry and determined, filled with panic. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Well, you can’t refuse a dance unless he gives you cause to,” Max said matter-of-factly. “That’s against the rules.”

Lila nodded, her eyes darting between the approaching man and her preferred choice of partner. In a single, elegant move, she nodded, straightened up, and turned to Max entirely. “Ask him to dance.”

“What?”

“Maxie, please. Just ask him to dance so I don’t have to. I’ll owe you.”

“What’ll you owe me?” Max quizzed, cocking an eyebrow to mask her alarm. Accepting dances was part of the job, albeit a part she did reluctantly; offering them, on the other hand, was unchartered territory. Worse, it was practically unheard of for USO performers to have to ask soldiers for dances. Even worse, it would be downright mortifying to be rejected in favour of her friend. That would be a memory to haunt her for decades.

“Anything you want. We’ll discuss later.” Lila took both of Max’s hands and did her best impression of puppy dog eyes. “Pleeeeeeease?” she begged.

Max glanced back at the approaching man, now closer than ever, before looking back to her friend. She tilted her chin up to assume an air of confidence and looked Lila dead in the eyes. “I would only do this for you.”

“Maxie, you are an angel and I am so lucky to have you.”

“Damn right you are.”

Lila gave her hands a squeeze and was off in a moment, weaving through the other chorus girls on her way to take her man off the market. Max turned to face her own fate and plastered on her most winning smile.

“Hi!” she greeted the dark-haired man, perhaps a tad too enthusiastically, if she was being honest. “Would you like to dance? With me?”

So embarrassing. So embarrassing. She was sure she’d never forget how mortified she felt in this moment.

The man faltered a moment and stumbled over his step. He began speaking so fast she couldn’t detangle what he was saying.

Max’s stomach rolled with humiliation.

“I know you were wanting my friend,” she rushed to add, a last-ditch attempt to save face. “But she met this soldier the other week and they’ve fallen desperately in love. He’s about to go back to the front and this is their last night together.” She sighed, her practised smile fading and her eyebrows surrendering from their perch halfway up her forehead. With a sincerity she never used with the soldiers she entertained, she pleaded, “I know I’m not much, but I’m trying to help my friend.”

The man’s smile softened, now less a grin than it was a twinkle. “I’d be honoured to dance with you.” He offered an arm gallantly and, when she took it, led the way to the space cleared for a dance floor.

Once they had secured a place for themselves amongst the hubbub of couples crowding the space, Max placed a hand in his and rested her other on his shoulder. When he placed his other hand on her waist, her eyes swept across the dance floor, seeking out Lila and landing on her already snuggled tightly up against her red-headed soldier. She must have felt eyes on her for she glanced over and caught Max’s gaze instantly, shooting her a quick wink before tucking her head back into the man’s shoulder. Max rolled her eyes jovially before her own partner’s voice drew her attention again.

“So, uh, what’s your name?”

“Maxine Robertson,” she replied, plastering on the polite smile she’d been taught to always tack onto the end of her name. This man, though, whoever he was, seemed to see right through her. She exhaled a laugh. “Max,” she conceded. “My friends call me Max.”

“Glad to meet you, Max. I’m George.”

Max laughed lightly to herself, though nothing about the statement nor the situation was particularly amusing. It was simply that he looked like a George.

“And your last name, Mr. George?” she wondered, just as the band began to play the opening chords of their next song.

“Luz,” he replied immediately. “Technical Sergeant George Luz of the 101st Airborne at your service.”

Max couldn’t help her giggle; he seemed a showman through and through, perhaps more a performer than she was herself. “Pleased to have met you, Technical Sergeant George Luz of the 101st Airborne.”

George grinned. “So, how’d you get into dancing?”

“Why? Are you looking to join the USO, too?” The comment slipped out before she’d had time to process it. She wanted to reach out and grab at the air in front of her in an attempt to shove the words back into her mouth and choke herself with them.

George, however, only laughed, not bothered in the slightest. In fact, her comment seemed only to serve to thoroughly entertain him. He was not, of course, without a retort. “Well, that depends on how much I’d be getting paid.”

“A showman such as yourself, I think you’d earn billions.” She shook her head, her smile lighting up her entire face. George thought he’d do just about anything to get a smile like that out of her again. “You’d have to learn to dance though, of course.”

“Now, what are you trying to say?” he replied without missing a beat, and spun her spontaneously as if to prove his point. When she came back to him, he grinned down at her. “You think they’ll let me in?”

Max shook her head at him, thoroughly unable to help her smile. She pretended to consider his question carefully before asking slyly, “How high can you kick?”

“Aw, damn.” George huffed, giving an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders as if to say ‘what can you do?’ “Now that ain’t fair. They don’t teach you that stuff in boot camp.”

“No?” Max teased, her eyes tracking his every movement. He had an incredibly expressive face and she didn’t want to miss a single expression that waltzed onto it.

“Not my kinda boot camp,” he amended, shooting her a wink. “Ain’t sure I’d be able to pull off those fancy dresses you guys wear, anyway.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think you’d be a vision in red sequins.”

George widened his eyes comically. “Now, Miss Maxine Robertson of the USO, are you flirtin’ with me? And here I was thinking you were only here because of your friend.”

“Technical Sergeant George Luz of the 101st Airborne, you think much too highly of yourself,” she fired back. “I was simply hoping to rope in a new recruit so I don’t get stuck dancing on the sidelines anymore.”

George shook his head amusedly but his smile softened to a twinkle once more. With unprecedented sincerity, he said, “Sidelines or otherwise, my eyes were on you the whole time.”

Max looked away. She didn’t know what to do with herself in the wake of such earnestness from a man she’d only known the length of a song.

As the band played their final few notes she ducked her head, willing the flames in her cheeks to die down. Once the song had ended and soldiers flocked to the floor, she risked a glance up at George. His eyes were already on her, having been waiting for her to find her feet again.

“It’s been a pleasure,” she told him, her voice emerging much quieter than intended. “Truly, it has.” She offered him a smile that came easier than any she’d had to flash at a soldier before. “Thank you for accepting my offer.”

George grinned and dipped a grande reverence. After he was upright again, he tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet - gone was the self-assured comedian, a bashful schoolboy taking his place. He cleared his throat and only when men started appearing in the hopes of finding their next partner in Max did he muster courage enough to ask, “What made you think I was gonna ask your friend?”

#band of brothers #george luz #mine #my writing #luz

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rrrawrf-writes · 4 years ago

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lordy lordy loo it’s been a hot minute since i’ve made an original post, i forgot where the button was

so. some of you may have seen the stuff running around about violetvineyard and mvcreates, some of you may not have. i’m just gonna lay out my experiences here, now that other people are talking about it and now that the server has been deleted. i’m gonna try to present a fair and nuanced version; i’m not gonna include screenshots (right now) bc i’m lazy, mostly.

there are several other people who are putting up way better breakdowns than i am. i just figured i might as well toss mine onto the pile bc why not? but if you’re hoping to hear from me a story about how i’ve been wronged, per se, you won’t find much of one, because i played mainly a spectator role, and never had much trouble there. i will have a vague, lukewarm defense of some of the people involved that other people may not agree with, but again, this is all just the whole VV deal from my point of view.

@nuwuhorizons (i haven’t said how dang much i lOVE your url) and @sapiencenotes have very good receipts and breakdowns. if you want a more in-depth (and dramatic, forgive me for using the word, i’m not trying to downplay this), check them out. @time-to-write-and-suffer also has some great stuff on their blog about all of this.

all righty. so. i joined VV not right at the beginning, but soon after it was started. there was an application process, i got accepted, i was looking for a community to help me start writing more. (it didn’t help, but that’s not their fault, that’s mine.) the person who owned the server was called mina, and on tumblr, mina’s url was mvcreates. mina is a nonbinary Muslim woman of color, a professional who i believe works at harvad and deals a lot with things like infectious diseases, iirc. she was doing a whole lot of work when the pandemic came around, and so the past few months wasn’t quite as active as she had been at the start, both on the server and tumblr.

the very first time mina came on my radar, before i joined vv, was because she had corrected someone’s typo on a post, and it stirred up a minor drama about “don’t give unsolicited criticism” and “is pointing out minor errors like that okay” and blahblahblah. i ran across that on a friend’s dash, and also ran across the promo for vv from that friend’s dash, as well, and joined bc y not.

everything was p cool for a while. it was nice to meet some new people and some of my mutuals on there. mina seemed like a fun person. she was about a year, year and a half, maybe, older than i am. the first things that kind of started rubbing me wrong at the start was how she would kind of dismiss suggestions for the server than i and a friend had, and how she kept bringing up her age - she would often say things like “well i wouldn’t do that but i’m an Old(TM) so maybe i just don’t get it” and i can’t really explain why that bothered me. i think it felt dismissive, like Younger Folks Don’t Know How Things Should Work. also, like. she kept bringing it up. as if it meant something, as if plenty of us on that server weren’t actually around her age. there was a convo on vaccinations where i wanted to make the point that a lot of anti-vaxxers should be educated instead of ridiculed and shamed, but i never really got to making that point bc she jumped in very sharply and explained that anti-vaxxers all come from a class of people who are generally educated. i didn’t bother saying anything else.

at the start, it was tiny little things like that. i chalked it up to her personality and mine just not quite matching up. i sat down a lot and examined my own internal biases, bc i knew something was bugging me, but i couldn’t tell if it was legitimate, or if i was jealous and petty, or if i was being discriminatory towards her identity. i still wonder that a lot; i want to be careful that i’m examining her actions here, and not the person who made those actions.

because the other thing that bothered me was that she was perfect at pretty much everything. she was a decent, if not good, writer, from what i read. i thought her “art”/edits were neat, even if sometimes i looked at them going “that just looks like an edit, not your own art, but u kno, edits are art too, so i’m not gonna say anything.” she had a lot of motivation, a lot of ambition. soon, this kind of transferred over into me feeling like she acted like she had to be perfect at everything. i think this is probably one of the more “lisa is just being petty” things, rather than a judgement on her character, but she seemed to flaunt her own skills and accomplishments a lot. not that no one is allowed to brag sometimes! but it was just another layer of “this bothers me.”

then there was the hero worship.

people in the server loved mina. i liked her. i had no problems with her, even if there were a few things i was a little “ehhhh” about. vv got pretty big, pretty quickly, and i assume there was a decent amount of turnover and people who just joined to lurk or sometimes share things in the promos channel or elsewhere. but the most active folks just. they adored mina with every fiber of their being. mina could do no wrong. no one ever called her out on anything; everything she did was hailed as fantastic and wonderful. and honestly, for the most part, it wasn’t like she was doing crappy stuff. some of the praise was well-deserved, imo, but it just bordered on embarrassing for some of these people, how much they just worshipped the ground she walked on.

and she didn’t really like, discourage it. like, at the start, i think i remember her being more modest, but in general, she just let it go, and so did i, bc like. i aint that kinda jerk.

the stated purpose of violetvineyard was to have a community that valued reciprocity. reciprocity was mina’s biggest thing. there was a channel for people to post their stuff on, so the rest of us could browse and read and reblog. i, admittedly, didn’t do as much of that as i wish i did, but part of it was because i do have a life outside of the internet, a memory and attention span the size of a gnat, and because like. 90% of the stuff that people put in the promos channel were things like edits, writeblr intros, wip intros, etc etc, when all i wanted was to just read some actual writing. but that’s neither here nor there. what got hilarious to me, though, was whenever mina’s fervent admirers would talk about how mina was, quote, a pillar of the community. how vv was doing something No Other Writeblr Group Had Done Before. how Important and Special this server was.

folks. i’ve been on here for several years now. we don’t have a community. we have a bunch of little cliques who reblog from their friends and complain about people not reblogging them. noah fence, but come on. vv got pretty dang big, but it was still a small corner of a small section of tumblr. like. sorry, all y’all, but them’s the breaks.

also, this was hilarious to me bc there are several big writeblrs who have been running around long before mina and vv showed up. yet, according to these people in the server, mina had Single-handedly Brought Hope To This Desolate Wasteland.

in the end, vv became just another little clique whose members reblogged from their friends. i don’t want to devalue the good that did come out of vv. a lot of the picture being painted rn was that the majority of the server were scary dog-piling people. the majority of the server were just writeblrs looking to promo their stuff and talk about their writing. unfortunately, few bad apples, bad rep, negatives outshine positives, etc etc. but i think it did do some good re: exposure for a few folks, even tho it didn’t turn into what it could have been.

another one of the things that was a minor irritant to me was that they eventually started archiving the vent channel, which was probably the most-used channel. that didn’t sit right to me, but as always, i was a coward had nothing to say about it, so i didn’t. the reason given was that there were often things in the vent channel that people might regret being there, so it was periodically archived and a fresh channel started.

so i’m rambling a lot about stuff that’s probably boring and inconsequential. that’s 90% of this whole vv thing, tho, you need to understand that.

the biggest thing that bothered me about mina, i think, came about from the constant hero worship from her adoring fans. and i know there’s a whole argument to be said about expecting labor from people with marginalized identities, which is an argument i agree with - don’t expect someone of a minority group to educate you or to face trauma or to shut down bigots, etc etc. but by now, mina had a lot of followers in general, and in specific, she had quite a few people who would defend her at every single perceived slight.

she made a lot of those fun writeblr reblog games, like “send me a fruit that says this about my writing.” those were cool, i’ll admit that. but she was super into “you have to send an ask to the person you reblog from, RECIPROCITY!!!!!!!!!!!” and seemed to struggle with the fact that sometimes, people don’t follow her established rules on her posts for these games. she’d complain about it every single time that happened in the vent channel, which, again, that’s fine? that’s what vents are for, it’s annoying to not get cool fun asks when you do these games, but also, that’s life for you. she could depend on her fans to send her plenty of asks, whereas the much smaller blogs who reblogged these games would probably get f-all, half the time. if you’ve gone through nuwuhorizons or one of the other blogs i mentioned earlier, you’ll have run across the incident where mina’s friends harrassed an 11 year old for not doing her ask game right.

an eleven year old.

and this is my biggest grief with mina. she only stopped her friends from dogpiling people... once? maybe twice? that i remember. and not only that, but there were SEVERAL occasions where she would get on the vent channel, complain about someone who had said something wrong on one of her posts (and sometimes, again, these were legitimate!), and then ask if someone in the server wanted to reply to them. reasons for such ranged from “i’m too busy rn” to “they would probably listen more to a white person than me.”

again. this, on occasion, is not necessarily a bad thing. we cannot expect labor and response from minorities. my issue was that she kept doing this. and sometimes it was fine, just someone who would drop a note on the post or send a polite anon. but this, to me, the whole asking someone else to fight your battles for you? that really bothered me. mina is a grown adult. either ignore it, like the rest of us chumps, or deal with it yourself. having friends support you is not a bad thing - if i was attacked on tumblr and my friends jumped in to defend me, i’m cool with that. but i wouldn’t ask them to, and then not do anything myself.

to me, this attitude just encourages dogpiling. this felt like she was taking advantage of the people admiring her so whole-heartedly, and using them to deal with minor grievances. (again, i don’t want to downplay some of the actual racism and xenophobia she experienced on this website, because there was some pretty sketchy stuff that did need someone else stepping in to object to. but then there was “ugh this person asked me what program i use to make my music and i don’t want to answer them bc that’s rude,” and stuff of that caliber. like, mina, you built yourself a pretty big following here on tumblr, you don’t get to complain when people are trying to ask you questions and engage with you when you set yourself up as a knowledgeable person on a subject.)

i’m going to mention @gingerly-writing because she already made a post on the subject, but there was an instance where we were in the vent channel and watched a lot of mina’s friends send anons and reblogs of a hurtful nature to one person. eventually, ginger stepped in to say “hey, i don’t think we need to keep doing this, they are a minor,” and after she did so, i also jumped in, saying something along the lines of, “yeah, i’ve seen this kind of stuff blow up in another server and end in a really regrettable situation where no one was happy, can we stop.” both ginger and i received a private message from the mods (individually) saying that we shouldn’t police the chat, etc etc. not during that message, but on the vent channel, another mod jumped in to say that the people dogpiling the blogger were also minors. as if that makes it okay, and isn’t actually extremely worrying in its own right.

after that, i pretty much took a stance of “all right then i just won’t say anything at all.” i stuck around vv because i hated myself actually really liked a few of the others in the server, including a couple of the mods who are actually really cool people, not all the vv mods are sketch, and because honestly? i lowkey knew that vv was going to crash and burn sometime, and i wanted to be there to watch what happened. due to the pandemic, and her line of work, mina became less active, and the whole server died down a bit.

then someone reblogged one of mina’s ‘art’ posts and accused her of tracing. mina’s admirers immediately jumped into action. nuwuhorizons has it pretty well documented on their blog. there was nothing in the server about it, except one of the others said “oh man i saw that and it pissed me off,” there was some minor chat, and then i woke up and wanted to know what had happened, and was told “don’t worry about it.”

so, naturally, bc the only thing i thirst for is water and Drama(TM), i went looking for it.

found it on some of mina’s friend’s blogs, where i found who had reblogged and said mina was tracing, and followed those reblog chains, where several of mina’s followers attacked the accuser and made fun of their name and age and defended mina, pulling out progress videos and stuff of mina’s work. the accuser was trans and still a teenager, even if technically an adult, so that made things a lot worse. mina eventually posted something explaining that she was pencil tracing and had a very cheery, false-positive tone to the whole thing.

things sorta ended at that, but then maybe the same day, or the day after, user hyba made that big ol post about the Big Scary Tumblr Mirror Website Copying All Your Good, Hard Work. mina and her friends jumped on this. they threw it in the server and talked about things like intellectual property rights and “i don’t like how this makes me feel :(” and from there, went in to how tumblr was a terrible garbage site and then mina and most of the mod team decided that it was time to pack up VV and leave tumblr completely.

pretty much everyone i know were mina’s besties have vanished off tumblr. mina made an announcement that VV was “migrating” off tumblr and discord(???) and dropped another application to join the great vv migration. i did not apply bc i just have too freaking much going on in my life and needed to get out of this for the sake of my own mental health. it was tempting as hell, tho, i will say that.

a couple things about this - at the time, mina is also having some pretty bad things going on in her family. she was very vague on the details, but i think that really contributed to wanting to leave; on top of the pandemic and everything else, she was probably heckin stressed. but also like. she never called out her followers for attacking her accuser. she never made any sort of post talking about it. she never told her friends on the server “hey don’t do that.” she never took accountability for it, or, honestly, for anything else she or her friends have done that didn’t feel too good. the mirror sites aren’t really a big deal.

after the server was archived, it was left up a couple days so everyone could grab contact info, etc. during this time, i was checking the ‘violetvineyard’ tag and saw someone post “what happened to mvcreates they haven’t answered my application to vv,’ and i responded with “oh, the server closed down bc of the copy cat sites.”

the same day, i got a tumblr DM from one of the former mods asking me not to give away any details about vv leaving tumblr. it was very politely worded and everything, but it was still just like

okay? vv is over? why are you asking me not to say anything. and it wasn’t like i was even spilling any hot goss, i was just repeating the excuse (and i do mean excuse) mina gave us.

anyway, that mod is off tumblr, too, as far as i know, or else they stealthin. which is fine, u do u, buddy.

uhh conclusion time, i guess? i have a few scattered screenshots of things, but i’m not posting em bc i’m lazy and also running late for a thing. but really, for me, i didn’t have a whole lot of beef with mina or pretty much any of the other folks on vv. i thought that mina and her friends were a bit too eager for blood, and that really bothered me. i’m annoyed they shut down vv completely, because it could actually have been something great. if mina wanted off writeblr, i wish she had given the whole network over to people interested in running it; instead, what was a good thing for a lot of people is now completely gone, with no existing framework for people to build on. sure, anyone can go make their own network/family for writeblr, but now it’s just going to splinter into a bunch of different, smaller groups, and we’re all back to square one.

but whatever. i didn’t get to see the server go down in flames, instead it just ended with a hasty retreat and a few whimpers, and quite honestly i wished my staying in had paid off.

i do want to reiterate - there were quite a few people in vv who i think are great, and this does include some of the mods themselves.

i’ve also gotten a couple messages from a few other folks who had been in vv who have their own real, real sketch stories, which are making me rethink how i feel about mina and her friends, and all the good credit i gave them. i just wanted to present this bc it’s my blog and i do what i want, fight me.

and if anyone wants to chat about vv, hit me up. i keep things as private as you want them to be, and i love love love talking about this nonsense. Give Me The Deets.

#violetvineyard #vv drama #long post #sorry not sorry #i just wanted to give a touch more balanced view on vv #i have a few other things i could talk about but none are really worth the effort

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evilmuffinlord · 4 years ago

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Strangers in a Strange Land- Chapter 7- Alpenglow

Cover art by the lovely @wolfy1298!

Chapter 7 is finally up! Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!

Summary: In which a mission is issued, mountain is made into a molehill, and revelations come to light.

Read it on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20280019/chapters/71821803 Read it on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13365894/7/Strangers-in-a-Strange-Land

Teaser under cut:

Astera was abuzz with activity, to the point that it was even busier than before the first attempt to capture Zorah Magdaros. Cannons and cannonballs were piled in teetering mountains that threatened to crush any unfortunate souls that bumped into them. Members of the logistics division dashed to and fro, carrying crates of supplies to whichever section needed them. High above, the workshop was working overtime, cranking out weapons and armor as fast as they could be put into the hands of waiting Commission Members.

Izuku looked over all of this from the raised command deck, thankful not to be caught in the melee. It reminded him of the trains back in Mustafu city during rush hour. People were just as likely to shout at anyone who got in their way here as they had been back home, which was comforting in some ways. He could almost close his eyes and feel like he was back home.

Before he could get lost in the noise, the Commander’s booming voice caught his attention.

“Now that everyone is here, it’s time we began our briefing,” he said, thumping the table for emphasis.

The table, like the rest of Astera, was absolutely covered in supplies for the upcoming mission. Maps and charts for both sea and land overlapped each other, and stacks of requisition forms and mission briefs towered over them all. Interspersed with it all were numerous empty and half empty inkwells that threatened to shower everyone and everything with ink if the papers beneath them were disturbed.

Surrounding the table were representatives from each division of the Commission, each looking haggard from the long hours they had been putting in to arrange the assault on the Elder Dragon.

By comparison, Izuku and Mina looked exceedingly fresh, having got a full night of sleep and a full meal before coming to the meeting, which just served to make Izuku feel even more out of place. The others here had been integral to designing and arranging their plan at every step of the way. Izuku, meanwhile, had only relayed what information he and Mina had gleaned from the First Wyverian and given his thoughts on the nature of the “Everstream” that the being had mentioned. They weren’t even particularly insightful thoughts, in his opinion, since anyone would have come to similar conclusions with the evidence before them. The Commander and Field Team Leader had jumped on them, though, and started basing a large amount of the operation around them, which made Izuku feel more than a little bashful.

“Now, thanks to the diligent efforts of our star hunters from the Fifth fleet, we finally have some insight into Zorah Magdaros’s intentions. It is following a path of concentrated energy henceforth referred to as the ‘Everstream,’ a path that will lead it inward towards the center of the New World. Unfortunately, it is carrying an immense amount of bioenergy with it, energy which threatens to turn this entire land into a blasted hellscape if it is unleashed.”

A ripple of worry and confusion passed through the division heads. They had known about it ahead of time—the Commander had made sure that everyone had gotten a report about it—but it was different to hear the facts stated so plainly, and by someone so authoritative. Even Izuku, who had known before anyone, felt his stomach clench at the Commander’s words.

“Commander, shouldn’t we begin to evacuate Astera?” the Analytics Director asked. “The Third Fleet’s mobile base could carry a large number of people…”

“Not all of them, though,” the Smithy pointed out.

“And not nearly fast enough,” the Chief Botanist added. “No, our only hope is to take down Zorah Magdaros.”

“Quite the tall order, considering how our last attempt went,” the Tech Chief said, crossing his arms and frowning. “'Sides, wouldn't taking the beast down blow us all to bits?"

"Not to mention it would defeat the entire purpose of us coming here," the Chief Biologist said. "We're here to study Zorah Magdaros, not eliminate it!”

“Be that as it may, I do not believe we have any other choice,” the Commander said, regret clear in his voice.

“Um, I might have an idea,” Mina said, raising her paw into the air in order to be seen over the table.

The various chiefs and division heads looked a little skeptical, but the Commander shrugged his shoulders and gestured for her to continue.

“The problem is Zorah dying in this Everstream, right?” Mina said, clambering up onto the table so that she could be at eye level with most of the others. “Well, what if we took Zorah, and just… pushed it somewhere else? Then it wouldn’t be as bad.”

The smug expression she wore reminded Izuku a lot of the cat pictures that often floated around social media sites back on Earth, and sent a pang of homesickness through him. He could also swear the idea she had just proposed sounded familiar, but couldn’t quite place where he had heard it before.

“That… isn’t a bad idea…” the Chief Biologist said after a moment of consideration. When the others looked at him incredulously, he continued, “I’ll admit, the proposal is a little simplistic, but the basic premise is solid. The Everstream borders the sea at numerous points. If we were to lure it into the open water…”

“We could mitigate the blast!” the Commander said, a wide grin splitting his normally grim face. “And the bioenergy it released would start a whole new ecosystem!”

“More sea-bound monsters,” the Huntsman said, clicking his tongue in disgust. “Just what we need.”

“Need I remind you, Commander, that our supplies are still low from our previous attempt at capturing Zorah Magdaros,” the Provisions Manager said.

“Actually, I have some good news on that front,” the Commander replied, his grin growing even wider.

Before anyone could ask what he meant, he put his fingers in his mouth and let loose a piercing whistle that had people across the tradeyard flinching in surprise. The only one that didn’t was a thin, wiry man that Izuku didn’t recognize. He was shirtless, and his exposed skin had been darkened by long exposure to the sun. When he heard the Commander’s whistle, he perked up and trotted over to the command deck with shaky steps, as though he couldn’t quite keep his balance.

“Ahoy, Commander!” the man said, snapping a quick salute once he reached the table. “What do ya need me for?”

“At ease,” the Commander said, returning the salute before turning back to address the table. “The Captain here has brought us an entire boatload of supplies, courtesy of the Guild back home.”

“Aye,” the Captain added, “I’ve got ballistae, cannon balls, explosive charges, and everything else you’d need for a siege. Even got a special weapon for ya, direct from the Guild.”

“A special weapon?” the Smithy said, sounding intrigued.

“Aye, the Argosy’s armed with the latest in anti-Elder Dragon weaponry. She’s got a Dragonator in her bow, and enough boilers in her belly to run it. Just give her seawater and coal, and she’ll drive off anything what’s giving you trouble.”

“Excellent,” the Commander said, “With the Dragonator in hand, I think we have everything we need to drive Zorah Magdaros off. What do the rest of you say?”

“Aye Commander,” everyone else said, in nearly perfect unison.

“Then I say it’s high time we get started. Has the research division managed to plot Zorah’s route?”

“We have it down to three possibilities,” the Chief Biologist replied, adjusting his spectacles. “Once our scout drakes come back, we should have the correct one. An hour or two at most.”

“Fine work. Once you have it, we’ll find a spot to set up and start construction of another barrier, assuming the Third Fleet is still up to the task?”

“Tell us where you need it, and we’ll build the toughest barrier you’ve ever seen,” the Smithy said, crossing his arms with a confident smirk.

The Commander nodded, then turned to Izuku and Mina, who straightened under his forceful gaze.

“As for you two, leave the planning to us and make sure you’re prepared for the battle to come. Elder Dragons don’t go down easily, and I have a feeling that this will be a battle for the ages. If your equipment needs any adjustments, make sure it gets done right away. If you need, you can put it on my tab.”

It was an expression of absolute faith in their abilities, and one that Izuku had never heard of the Commander extending before. If the stunned looks on the Division Head’s faces were anything to go by, it was indeed a rare honor, and one that Izuku intended to live up to.

“We’ll be ready, sir,” Izuku said, snapping a salute of his own.

“Ready to kick some butt!” Mina added helpfully. Her own salute was much more sloppy, but was equally heartfelt.

“I would expect nothing less,” the Commander replied. “Dismissed, all of you. This will be one for the history books, so be sure to give it your all.”

Read the rest on AO3 or FF.Net!

#izumina #mina ashido #midoriya izuku #mha #mhw #crossover #action #fluff #my hero academia #monster hunter world #bnha #boku no hero academia #fanfiction #alternate world transport #dekumina #minadeku

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lovelivingmydreams · 4 years ago

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A story by heroes and vilains

Janus Bullard: A second chance

Chances come and go whether you notice them or not. This is Janus' final second chance.

Masterlist

As their luck would have it, they slept terribly that night. Nightmares of Virgil and Castile getting crushed because of whatever they did had them waking up several times. This led to them sleeping through their alarm and missing their bus. Twice. Meaning they’d be late to school. Which meant that there was no bus ride there with Virgil, and no spare minutes before class started. Which meant they’d have to wait until after class, possibly until lunch to talk to him. Their heart was hammering in their chest. Sure they knew that as long as they got Virgil to hear them out, things would most likely be fine. But they were still terrified. They didn’t know for sure how they’d done it, what they’d done even. What if they got upset and hurt someone? They took a deep breath. They just had to stay calm. Calm and focused. One step after another. They made it to their homeroom. Eyes darting around until they found Virgil… Sitting next to Castile… Next to Roman. They probably should stop treating their friend’s friends so hostile. They had to trust Virgil’s judgement. Besides, Roman hadn’t actually done anything wrong. They’d assumed he was a bad brother, but other than Remus not wanting to bother him with his problems they had no proof of that. Virgil was an amazing friend and there was a whole list of things they didn’t tell him because of their own reasons. So maybe Remus had a reason they never knew about too. They heard the teacher say something, but they were trying to focus on staying calm. They felt the tension in their gut surge as Virgil and Roman, who had both seemed in a good mood moments ago, tensed as their presence was announced. “They don’t know, they can’t possibly know what happened yesterday,” they reassured themself as they walked over. They tried not to think about how troubling it was that their best friend responded to their presence in the room like this. They just had to ask Roman, nicely, to switch seats, even if it was just for this one time. They needed a chance to tell Virgil they were sorry. If nothing else, they needed him to know that. As they made their way over however, a vibrant collection of colors started registering in their mind. Slowly it sunk in that this vibrant collection of colors was Roman. His hair… The shirt. Wait, Roman Castile was gay? No, no. They needed to focus. Now was not the time to unpack that. Or the possibility that the reason Roman was so invested in Virgil al this time was because he… Liked him. It was easier said than done. Especially when it was only the recently openly gay Roman who looked up at them when they arrived. Virgil’s eyes were pointedly turned away from them. Clearly yesterday’s text had gotten their hopes up too much. Janus took in a breath and formulated the question in his head. “Can you move to a different seat? I need to talk to Virgil.” That was hopefully not too commanding. “Move, that’s my seat,” they hissed instead. No! No! Where did that come from? Roman moved his chin up, his eyes challenging. “De ninguna manera. You want to sit with the coolest kid in school, get here on time.” The remark and Roman’s clear honesty was a sharp reminder. Janus had been holding Virgil back. His high school life could have been so different if he hadn’t stuck with Janus this long. Was Virgil even going to believe they were sincere in their apology? Would he want it now that he knew he could do better? There was a pressure in their chest, a familiar one. They had to get themselves under control. Or else they would do something they’d no doubt regret. “Excuse me?” they demanded, sounding angrier than they wanted, clenching their fist, hoping to get a grip on themself. They needed to calm down. They’d end up hurting someone. They’d end up scaring Virgil away for good. “Mr. Bullard! Seat! Now!” The teacher’s voice snapped Janus out of their racing thoughts. They lowered their fist as they turned their attention to Virgil. Hoping that he’d somehow understand that they needed to talk with him. Virgil was still not looking right at them though. His face had something disappointed. Janus realized it must’ve looked like they were about to punch Roman right then and there. Why did they keep making things worse? “You heard the teacher Jan. Just go,” Virgil instructed to Janus’ astonishment. No… That tone... Were they really too late? Unsure what else to do they took a seat. It was on Virgil’s left, across the path for the teacher. They didn’t even register their neighbor. Their mind fully on ways to fix this. Maybe they’d have a class with Virgil. Was there any chance he’d picked sociology even if he was mad about it?

“Good.” Janus did not care much for what the teacher had to say. They were much more worried about messing up their next chance as spectacularly as they’d done with every other one they’d been given so far. “As I was saying, I hope the rest of the year will go without any more incidents like yesterday.” Janus felt his jaw set at the reminder. Not that they’d stopped thinking about it since. “Mr. Anker, Mr. Castile, I speak for the whole school when I say that we are happy to see you two are back and unfazed by yesterday’s incident.” “Thank you Mrs. Foster.” It might be odd. But it was a relief for Janus to hear their friend flustered at the attention. They weren’t so out of touch with him that they’d missed him becoming a social butterfly all of a sudden. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of my radiant presence for another day!” Janus felt extremely jealous of Roman. How they wished they had his confidence to walk around with their identity on full display like he was. When the bell rang, Janus wanted to follow Roman and Virgil out, but they needed their schedule. “I hope this is no new habit of yours Mr. Bullard. You’ve been getting good grades and that has allowed you some flexibility from your teachers, more than we typically allow students to have in fact. But you are a junior now. You’ll have to start to get serious about academics if you want to be able to make it in any college. Is that understood?” Janus clenched their jaw. “Yes ma’am,” he replied stiffly before leaving. Great, now the teachers had it out for them. It wasn’t like they asked for anything too drastic. If they had, surely someone would have said something before now. They hurried through the hallways, to find their locker. To their relief they spotted Roman and Virgil walk ahead of them once they got there. They hurriedly got their things in order and rushed in the direction they saw them disappear to. They witnessed Virgil closing his locker and following Roman farther up the hallway. They took a moment to collect themself. There was still a little time before they had to be in their first class. Enough to get Virgil’s attention. Enough to get him to agree to have lunch together or something. As they approached the two and repeated what they were going to say as a mantra in their head, they heard Roman speak up. “Where are we headed next?” Roman had his head in his locker and was thus unaware of Janus’ presence. Virgil had his back turned and was looking through his backpack. Once he pulled out the piece of paper that no doubt held his schedule Janus was overcome with curiosity. Maybe they could wait for a shared class? One where maybe Roman wasn’t there to distract either of them. In an impulsive, and very stupid move, Janus snatched the paper from Virgil’s hand and studied it. They might not know their schedule by heart yet, but they knew it well enough to see that it had nothing in common with Virgil’s. “Hey!” Virgil protested. It occurred to Janus that they’d overstepped, again, but out of pure habit they pretended to be in control of the situation anyway. There were too many people around, they couldn’t let themselves be vulnerable. “How can we have no classes together? I thought we were going to take sociology?” They didn’t have to look at Virgil to know that they just said the dumbest possible thing. They’d say that their brain to mouth filter was taking the day off, but that would imply their brain was involved to begin with and they seriously doubted that. “No!” Virgil snarled as he took back his schedule. Janus looked at Virgil, surprised at his hostility. They had never seen him this angry. Save maybe at some bullies who’d bothered them or Remus in the past. This was worse though. This anger was steeped in hurt and betrayal. They really wished they were braver so they could muster the strength to apologize no matter who was around to hear. They thought they’d grown past their cowardice after middle school. Clearly they’d been lying to themselves. “You were,” Virgil reminded him bitterly. “I tried to tell you that I wanted to do art, and you didn’t listen. Like usual.” The bitterness and disappointment in Virgil’s voice and face cut deep. Virgil turned to Roman with a finality that sent panic down Janus’ spine. “We’re in building C. Let’s go.” And with that Roman and Virgil pushed past a devastated Janus. They couldn’t let them leave though. They had to do something. “Virge come on!” They pleaded, dashing out in front of the two. “You are mad, I get it. I’m sorry okay?” As they said the words they knew they weren’t enough by a long shot. Still it felt like a relief to say them. Why hadn’t they allowed themselves to say it for so long? There was a faint spark of hope in Virgil’s eyes, though it was immediately smothered by distrust and fear. “Can’t we talk about this?” Janus pleaded, latching on to that one moment. Just a talk, that was all they needed. “We always work things out,” they tried to remind him. Virgil flinched away from them. This situation was clearly upsetting him. Maybe they should try again later. When they had more privacy. Virgil didn’t like causing a scene. Janus knew that. They realized that they should have respected that and waited for a better time. “My decision is final J. I’m done enabling your behavior. I thought I was helping you out, but I was making it worse. I can’t protect you anymore… You are right. Sometimes we have to do what’s best for us. And for me, that is not being around you anymore.” Janus recalled they would say something along these lines every time Virgil had taken hits meant for some random other kid. They never expected Virgil to finally take those words to heart by cutting ties with them. Janus reached out. Instinctively wanting to comfort their friend when he seemed distressed, disregarding the fact that they were the cause of it. They were blocked by the very colorful Roman Castile though. “He’s asking you to back off. Give him some space.” Later Janus would think back and realize that Roman meant to diffuse the situation. His voice was calm, his face reassuring, understanding even. But in that moment Janus just felt their temper flare and they needed an out. So they slammed Roman against the lockers. They were filled with pain and frustration and their mind conjured the worst they could say to lash out at the poor soul that found themselves on the receiving end of that. “Stay out of it Chapero!” they growled. Who was he to interfere with their business? Next thing Janus knew they were the one being pushed against a locker. In a strange way it was a relief. To find someone who was as angry with them as they were. There was also a strange sort of validation to see Roman break his calm and controlled streak he had going when dealing with them. Very clearly, the thespian had hit his limit when it came to patience. “You better not know what you just called me,” he warned. Janus, stupidly, doubled down and grinned at him with feigned confidence. Again that strange vindication took hold of them when they were confronted with cracks in Roman’s perfect image. “I don’t say anything I don’t mean. Payaso.” Well that was a lie. Janus wondered how often they told the truth lately. It felt like most of what they said the last few years was deceptive in some way. No wonder Virgil wanted nothing to do with them anymore. Still, Roman wasn’t perfect either. It was a comfort. A small and petty comfort, but a comfort non the less. “Roman! What’s going on? Let him go. Let’s just go to class. Please,” Virgil pleaded. Janus was reminded of the times when Virgil would pull them away from a fight and he’d be upset and fed up instead of comforting. Roman turned his attention to Virgil and relaxed. “Sorry. You’re right. We’ll be late,” he sighed. Janus was let go and watched the two walk away. “Get to class Jan!” Virgil called back. “This isn’t over!” Janus promised, still frustrated. But they knew they weren’t in any shape to talk to Virgil right now. Their first class was Math, luckily they didn’t see anything new because they didn’t have the mental energy to pay attention to that on top of calming themselves. Between classes they tried to catch Virgil alone. First time, he was accompanied by Roman the whole way, so that didn’t work. After sociology, which Janus did find interesting, even if their enjoyment was tarnished a little by the possibility of having ruined things with Virgil over it, they managed to see Virgil exit the art room, accompanied by his teacher. “…Need that one back after your date with miss Stacey.” They heard the man say. Virgil took off to his lockers. Janus felt their stomach turn. Virgil already had a girlfriend? Since when? What else had they missed? Not wanting to waste any time they grabbed Virgil’s shoulder and turned him around. “We need to talk, now,” they said urgently. Scared that something else would come around to ruin this chance too. Virgil’s frown didn’t bode well though. “Are you going to apologize to Roman?” he asked briskly. “What?” Janus asked, confused for a second. That was clearly the wrong reaction. “Or any of the people you’ve tormented over the past year, if not years? Because the only way, you and I are ever going to be on speaking terms again is if you stop acting like everything I despise in this world. Which, in case you are unaware, is a narrow minded, homophobic, bully.” Janus felt shame sink in. Of course. In their anger they’d used a slur that they hated themselves. If Roman had translated for Virgil, and knowing their friend, Virgil wouldn’t have given him the option not to translate, that made him look real bad. And there was really no excuse for their behavior. There were reasons, but no excuses. They knew that. “I already told you Janus. I’m done. When you start acting like my friend again, I’d like to have him back. I miss the Janus I’d stick by no matter what. But the guy I’ve seen the past year… I don’t know who that is. All I know is I want him nowhere near my family.” Janus looked up clinging on to the fact that Virgil wanted things to go back to normal too. But Janus understood that saying what he said to Roman was going to make Virgil defensive. “Listen, I messed up. I got mad and I just said the worst thing I could think of okay? I know that won’t excuse it. What with your dad and his boyfriend situation...” That was actually a decent apology. Janus was a little impressed with themself. They could do something right after all. Sadly, Virgil might’ve misread it. He got tense and defensive all of a sudden and Janus wracked their brain to figure out what they’d said wrong. “What do you mean…? If you said something to upset Patton or Logan, I swear!” “NO!” Janus exclaimed. Clearly Virgil didn’t know Janus had talked to uncle Lo and Patton when they returned from camp, or at least not what was said. Suddenly uncle L’s strange behavior after Virgil returned came to mind. Had… Had Virgil said something to him about what happened? Had Janus missed their chance to make things right long ago? “I didn’t… I promise. I just… Need you to hear me out, like now. I need to tell you something important. Let’s just go somewhere quiet for a bit. Okay? I swear I’ll leave you alone after… Just please Virgil. I need you to know…” Even if they had messed up their friendship beyond repair, Virgil had the right to know the full story didn’t he? Janus saw the hesitance in Virgil’s eyes. For a second they thought there was a chance. But then the slightly shorter teen’s frame tensed and he shook his head. “I can’t Jan. I want to. Trust me, I really want to be friends again. But I know that if I go with you now, things will just go back to how they were and that… I was being suffocated by you Jan. I didn’t feel like me with you anymore. Even when we were just us I couldn’t be myself. I’m sorry. But I’ll listen, once you’ve proven you're over this whole,” he gestured to the general space between them. “Thing where you think you can control my life. It’s not good for me.” Each word was like a punch in the gut. There was guilt and regret and heartbreak. When Virgil moved away from them, despair overtook their judgement. They couldn’t let him go without explaining. There was a strange surge running through them as they pushed Virgil against the locker. Their hold on him felt firmer than they expected, but they paid it no mind. “Damn it Virgil! Just stop being dramatic and come with me!” They demanded. It couldn’t end like this. They wouldn’t let it end like this. Virgil’s eyes hardened, he lifted his chin and spoke with more certainty than he ordinarily exhibited. “No!” “Let him go Bullard!” That got their attention. They looked up and they saw Roman stand there, ready for a fight. The part of Janus that always looked for a fight when they couldn’t deal with their own feelings latched onto that. They messed up, they knew. But maybe if Castile messed up too, they wouldn’t feel as bad. “I’ve got this Roman,” Virgil spoke reassuringly. Roman looked past Janus to address Virgil. “I know. But you don’t have to do this alone.” Roman was flanked by two of his friends and listened as one of them whispered something, only nodding in acknowledgement. His eyes were burning with determination as he addressed Janus. “I’ll ask one more time. Leave him alone.” Janus let go of Virgil and turned to their opponent. “Think you can take me Castile?” they challenged, itching to vent this awful feeling inside on something. They approached Roman, leaving a few feet between them, daring him to deal the first blow. “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of getting me in trouble,” Roman replied calmly. That wouldn’t do. Janus wanted him to be mad, to fight! To be justified in disliking him the past two years in some way. “So you’re just talk then huh?” they taunted. “Afraid to get your butt kicked in front of everyone? Trying to score easy points with Virgil? Hoping I’ll let you steal him from me that easily?” His fault, his fault. This was all because of him! “Trying to repay him in some small way for saving my life yesterday. But none of that is any of your business. Virgil’s decision to finally break free from you has nothing to do with me, and everything with how you’re treating him. I don’t understand what he saw in you that made him stick around this long. But you took it for granted and now it’s done. Leave him alone.” The words were true and so they hurt as they easily broke through the lie Janus was trying to tell themself. Other members of Roman’s lunch group arrived and then all of them except Roman started sending other students away. Roman kept staring at them. Janus tried to think. It was surprising to them that Roman didn’t want as big an audience as possible for his deed of heroism. Maybe he was trying to be modest? That was good. The less people around the less likely they were to accidently hurt someone. They tried to relax, but as perception and reality clashed and the possibility of another thing going wrong increased, their nerves built. They couldn’t let that show though. “What’s wrong Castile? Don’t want an audience? I thought you lived for the cheers of a crowd?” They taunted. It had no effect. Something had to happen though. Anything. “Or maybe this is an exclusive event? Just for your little fanclub and Virgil? Is he your newest devoted follower?” They cringed at their own accusation. Virgil was no follower. He was non-confrontational, but he had his own opinion and would stand up for it. Janus was currently paying for forgetting that it seemed. “You guys should head to class.” Janus felt relieved. Less bystanders was good. Roman’s friends protested for a moment but Roman stood firm on his decision. “You’ll all get in trouble if you don’t get to class in time. Now go. Tell our teacher that Virgil and I will be there soon. I’m not feeling well and Virgil is looking out for me.” Janus felt sick to their stomach at Roman’s nobility. It’s not right! Their world was falling apart and Roman was endearing himself to Virgil with every word out of his mouth! “Making your friends lie for you Castile? Some friend you are.” At this point Janus was latching onto anything they could to criticize Roman in some way. Roman quirked a brow. “Or tell them the truth. Apparently Bullard wants detention on the first day.” Great. Good job Janus. Now Virgil won’t be the only one upset with you today. Moments later Janus, Roman and Virgil were the only ones left. Janus’ hurt, anger, jealousy at everything Roman stood for, and guilt melted together in their gut to pure vicious spite. They were angry at themselves, but Roman was their target. “Now we’re talking! A private show, just for you Virge,” Janus looked back at him, but Virgil was looking right past them to Roman. They noticed how he held a hand to his chest. Had they been too rough? They never meant to actually hurt Virgil. Just grab his attention. They looked back to Roman, trying to ignore the spike of guilt. “Virge? You okay?” Roman asked, not even paying attention to them and that annoyed them to no end. Did he think he was too good for them? Did he think so little of them he didn’t even consider them a threat? “Yeah, fine,” Virgil muttered. From the corner of their eye they could see him approach. They stopped him with a gesture. They weren’t sure what would happen if they saw Virgil physically choose Roman over them. It was a moot point. He had chosen. But still they wanted to hang onto denial a little longer. To their relief, Virgil didn’t approach any further. “Just get to class. I can handle myself,” Roman assured Virgil. Still ignoring Janus even existed. Janus could feel the pressure built. It needed out. They didn’t want something to fall again. Roman, it was his fault. Yesterday would have been fine if he hadn’t been flirting with Virgil when they needed to talk to him. “Stop mocking me!” Janus exclaimed. There was a flash of white hot rage and then, Virgil was in front of them, falling to his knees as he clutched his stomach in pain. Roman was kneeling next to him concerned. What had they done? “V… I...” they started, unsure what to say. Virgil’s tear filled eyes didn’t help them unjumble their thoughts. “Messing with him emotionally and mentally isn’t enough for you? You have to resort to physical violence as well? What kind of friend are you?” They wanted to protest, but they couldn’t. Roman was right. They lowered their gaze in shame and walked away. Once outside they started running, faster and farther, right into the forest near the school. Once they reached a clearing they fell to their knees and started crying their heart out. Virgil’s words echoed through their mind. The friend they used to be. Virgil wanted that Janus back. Was there any way they could go back to that? Where to even start? They didn’t know how long they cried, but when they were done they looked up to find large branches had fallen off the trees surrounding them. Some trees looked like an elephant had used them as a backscratcher. They were pushed away from the meadow, roots pushed deeper on one side and up to the surface on the other. There were some smaller trees that had snapped. Had they done this? They whipped at their eyes. This had to stop. They needed to tell their parents what happened. And they needed to listen to Virgil. Show that they could be better, or not better, themselves. Show that they could leave the charade behind before they could be trusted to be honest about their identity. They’d apologize to Roman and everyone they ever picked a fight with or pushed out of their way to take out their frustrations or to hide their feminine side. They’d write Virgil a letter so they couldn’t mess up again. “My, my. What a fine mess you made,” a bemused voice observed. Janus turned around and got ready to attack. They weren’t sure what they’d do exactly. But every cell in their body told them that this was a fight or flight situation. Wait… they knew this person. “Don’t you worry,” they smirked gently. “You have quite some power. It’s a waste to hide such a gift away,” they told them. “It’s a curse,” Janus objected. “Your little incident of yesterday, yes I saw.” They were seen? “But it doesn’t have to stay like that.” Janus blinked. It didn’t? They were offered a hand. “I can help you Janus. I can help you prove yourself to everyone who looks down on you. And more importantly, to Virgil. You are a victim of some tough circumstances. But just trust me, and I’ll get you everything you wanted. I’ll help you be someone Virgil will adore. A hero.” The words swirled in their mind so beautifully. If they became a hero… They’d be better than the useless coward Virgil had known in middle school. They’d top Virgil’s expectations and conditions by a landslide. Their hair still stood on end. There was definitely something fishy about the person in front of them. But… This offer was too tempting… If they could help them control this, and be someone Virgil would let into his life again… With a trembling heart they took their hand. “Smart choice Janus. I am known as, ‘the collector’. I think we’ll get along.”

@cirishere @hestianerd1 @moonlightshow00 @naturallyunstablegamer @alias290 @meowthefluffy @frida0043 @angelic-cali @selenechris @theblackveilinreverse

#sanders sides #ts sides #janus sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #prinxiety #janus makes bad choices #tw: homophobic slur #hero au

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sylvanfreckles · 4 years ago

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I’m Sorry I Didn’t Know (FebuWhump 10)

Fandom: The Witcher (mix of book and show canon, set after season one and based on events in Blood of Elves) Summary: Jaskier finds himself in the hands of the enemy, being tortured for information about Geralt's location. Unfortunately he hasn't seen the witcher since that horrible day on the mountain. All seems lost and hopeless, but he has an ally on the way that even Jaskier doesn't know about...Yennefer of Vengerberg.

(Yes it’s more of torturing Jaskier, but he does get comforted this time. Just not by the big lug. See the AO3 version for my full rant :D)

* * *

The first thing he was aware of when he pulled himself out of the spiraling blackness was the pain in his wrists. Pain that lanced down his arms to his shoulders, and even his chest and stomach when he tried to move.

The second thing was the burlap sack over his head. It smelled faintly of old potatoes and dust, and he choked and coughed when he tried to catch his breath.

Then it was the taste in his mouth and the back of his throat. The faint remnants of wine and something like the odor of water lilies and incense.

Now Jaskier remembered. The pudgy little man with the greasy forehead and too many rings on his thick fingers. He'd offered to buy the bard a drink, claimed to be a patron of the arts, but he'd only asked about the songs Jaskier had written about the witcher.

“Oh, good, you're awake.”

The sack was tugged off his head in one swift movement and Jaskier found himself blinking in the hazy light of a few candles. There were two or three other people in the room, but they were nothing but vague shapes as he tried to shake the last of the muzziness from his head.

That was a mistake. The movement pulled on his shoulders and sent a shock of pain spiraling up his arms to his wrists, which he now realized were bound above him. No, wait...his wrists were bound together and he was hanging from them. His fingers were nearly numb but he could just feel the metal curve of the hook between his hands. There was just enough slack in the rope for his lower legs and knees to rest against the ground, but that was it...and the drugging had left him without the strength to pull himself up any farther to rest his abused shoulders.

Someone had asked a question. Jaskier tried to focus, but the terror pounding through his brain at being caught in this situation was making his blood roar in his ears. Oh, gods, no one knew where he was. No one was expecting him. He had an open invitation to lecture for the summer semester at Oxenfurt, but if he didn't show up they'd assume he just had other plans. He was utterly alone and at the mercy of men who had drugged and kidnapped and strung him up like a side of meat to cure.

The bucket of water flung into his face snapped him out of his panicked thoughts with a splutter. He coughed and spat and shivered, every movement agony on his wrists and shoulders. “Wh-what is it?” If he didn't think about it, maybe he could convince himself his teeth were chattering from the cold and not fear.

“We're looking for the witcher,” the man said, with the impatient tone of someone repeating himself. It wasn't the pudgy man from the inn; this one was taller and darker. Jaskier couldn't make out too many details in his woozy state, though his eyes seemed to fix on the red brooch on the other man's cloak.

“Sorry?” Jaskier tried to clear his head and looked up toward the man's face. “I don't know where he is. Haven't seen him for months. Not since...not in a long time.”

Red Brooch gave a simpering smirk and nodded to someone behind Jaskier. The rope creaked and Jaskier bit back a cry of pain when he was hauled upward by his wrists, the movement pulling on every joint in his body until...he stopped.

Heart in his mouth, he craned his head back to look at his legs. They were wrapped in heavy chains, one behind his knees and the other across his ankles, and the chains were staked to the ground to hold his lower body in place. Every haul on the rope pulled his body between two opposing forces, threatening to tear or dislocate his joints.

A slap across the face brought his attention back to Red Brooch. The man was obviously impatient. “Everyone knows you follow the witcher around like a simpering maiden,” Red Brooch sneered. “All you've done for most of a decade is sing his praise from one end of the continent to the other and you expect us to believe you just lost him?”

Jaskier swallowed and tried to work a little moisture back into his mouth. “I don't know,” he said, voice weak. “We-we haven't seen each other since the mountain, since the dragon hunt. He doesn't...I don't know.”

Red Brooch sighed and gestured again. This time the pull on the rope was sharp and fast and Jaskier tried to scream, only to realize his captor's upraised hand was glowing as he cast a spell that muted Jaskier's voice.

The stretch was horrible. The coarse rope tore at the sensitive flesh of his wrists and his left shoulder, which had been injured in a fall out a window a few years before, was already very close to being pulled out of socket. The sudden release of tension brought only mild relief, as the man behind him simply let go of the rope and Jaskier fell a few inches before he was caught by the bindings around his wrists. It was all burning and pulling, like he was being torn apart on the inside.

Closing his fist, Red Brooch released his hold on Jaskier's voice. “You wrote that ballad about the Child Surprise.” He leaned in, one hand on Jaskier's shoulder, pushing down just enough that a new spike of agony shot down his arms from his wrists. “So you know he found her. The Lion Cub of Cintra.”

Jaskier shook his head. That had been...that had been poetry. “Just a story,” he gasped. “I made it...made it up.”

Red Brooch opened his hand again, sealing Jaskier's lips, and nodded to the man behind him. The pull was slow and agonizing this time, the world around him erupting into bright explosions of pain as his left shoulder finally gave under the strain and dislocated. He wanted to scream, but the spell on his mouth made it difficult to even suck in a breath.

And through it all Red Brooch just studied him with a calculating expression. When the chains around his knees and ankles creaked, Jaskier was suddenly grateful Geralt had used such cruel words to send him packing all those months ago. He would have said anything, given up anything, to make the pain stop...but he had nothing to give.

Then the rope was released, and the sudden drop against his mangled wrists and dislocated shoulder was enough to make his mind go white for a few seconds, while Red Brooch went for another bucket of water to dash over Jaskier's face and chest.

“I don't kn-know,” he stammered, when he could finally speak again. “Please...”

Something rustled just outside his field of vision. Red Brooch glanced over his shoulder, then nodded at the man behind Jaskier, who lumbered off into the darkness to check. For the first time Jaskier realized they were in some kind of dilapidated barn or stable, which meant they couldn't be too far from civilization. If he was careful, he might be able to shout for help if Red Brooch got distracted.

The other man came back—a big, hulking brute with tangled hair and Nilfgaardian armor—shaking his head.

Nilfgaard. Of course. He could still remember all of Queen Calanthe's rather colorful insults during her daughter's engagement ball all those years ago. The night when Geralt had mistakenly asked for the Law of Surprise and wound up with a child of destiny he had no intention of claiming.

Jaskier was just trying to screw up the courage to scream for help while Red Brooch glared at his companion when the door blew in under a burst of flame. The soldier let out a cry of fury and charged, but another ball of fire caught him in the chest and knocked him back.

A lone figure strode into the darkened space. Dressed in a dark tunic and trousers, rather than the striking black-and-white ensembles she favored, Yennefer was no less intimidating as she released a second searing blast at Red Brooch. He had the sense to throw his hands up to ward off the damage, then he was diving behind Jaskier to put the bard between himself and the approaching mage.

Her violet eyes flicked up to make contact with Jaskier's, then a streaming gout of flame was arcing toward him, only to bend and flow around him without singing even a hair on his head. Red Brooch cursed and kicked Jaskier in the back of the legs, making the bard cry out in pain at the tug against his wrists and shoulder, then there was the warping twist of magic and the smell of ozone and Jaskier could just see a portal forming out of the corner of his eye.

“No you don't!” Yennefer hissed and fired another blast of flame at Red Brooch, but he was already diving into the portal. She started to follow but hesitated, eyes flickering at Jaskier for a fraction of a second, and sent another stream of fire after Red Brooch. For a brief, satisfying moment he thought he heard a man scream, and then the portal snapped shut.

The soldier was still moving, though his armor and part of his face had burned off. Yennefer stalked over to him, one hand alight with the glow of magic, and seized the front of his leather jerkin with her other hand. “Who sent you?” she demanded.

Jaskier tried to call a warning as the soldier lunged up with a knife, but Yennefer had seen it coming. She doubled back, retrieving her own knife from her boot, and dashed in to cut a long gash in the soldier's arm up toward his armpit, right in the unarmored space where his bracer buckled.

The man fell with a gurgled cry, and Yennefer stood over him for a moment with her face twisted in disappointment as blood spurted out of the man's wound to darken the floor beneath him. “Cut the artery,” she commented over her shoulder. “Damn.”

Too relieved to comment, Jaskier let his head rest against his uninjured shoulder. “Yennefer?”

She studied him, eyes going from the rope holding his wrists up to the chain binding his legs down. “When I cut this, let me take your weight. Don't try to catch yourself on your knees, got it?”

He nodded. She wrapped one arm around his chest, almost tenderly, and reached up with her other hand to slice through the rope connected to the hook he'd been hanging from. Jaskier collapsed against her, the hook striking a glancing blow on his hip on the way down, and fought down a sob of mingled relief and pain as his shoulders went slack.

Yennefer muttered something and the chains across the back of his legs went limp, letting him slowly drag himself up until he was standing, with Yennefer supporting most of his weight. She stared up at him for a moment, as though reading the map of his injuries, then twisted partly away to summon her own portal with a gesture.

“Two steps and you can lie down,” Yennefer promised.

“Why...” Jaskier coughed, the movement jarring his wounded body, and felt the sorceress pull him inexorably forward. “Why are you...”

“We'll talk later,” she promised. “Just come with me for now.”

He let her lead him through the portal, and the last thing he remembered before darkness flooded his senses was a warm, cozy room with a roaring fire and—most importantly—a soft, clean bed.

* * *

Waking up was much more pleasant this time. Jaskier slowly sat up, well aware that his clothing still stank of the barn and sweat and blood...but the rest of him seemed pleasantly recovered. He flexed his left arm, surprised and relieved that the shoulder had been reset and even the swelling abated.

“You're finally awake,” Yennefer called. She was sitting at the room's little table, a meal spread out in front of her in half a dozen dishes that smelled heavenly. “Come, join me.”

Jaskier slowly approached. The table had two benches that faced each other, but while Yennefer was seated on one the other was covered with what looked like the detritus of a night's spell work. Yennefer rolled her eyes and made a show of scooting to the end of the bench, patting the empty wood beside her. “I won't bite,” she teased. “At least, not after spending a day and a night putting you back together.”

“Ah.” Jaskier awkwardly sat on the edge of the bench. “Um, thank you. For that.”

She rested a hand on his arm in an almost tender gesture. “I've been looking for you.

He stiffened. He should have known...escaping one danger to fall into another. “I don't know where he is,” he explained slowly. Maybe she'd just let him go, they didn't actually have a reason to hate each other, did they?

“Oh, Jaskier,” Yennefer shook her head, one dark curl falling across her shoulders. “I was looking for you. If I wanted to find Geralt...I have my own ways.”

Jaskier nodded. His stomach was cramping, reminding him it had been at least a day since he'd eaten, but he just couldn't bring himself to fill his plate. “I haven't seen him since...since...”

“Since the mountain,” Yennefer finished. “I'm so sorry, Jaskier. I didn't know. If I'd known he'd said something like that to you, I would have come back. I'd have slapped him across his self-righteous face and taken you straight to Oxenfurt, or wherever you needed to be to get away from him.”

For some reason, her words made his eyes prickle as though he was fighting back tears. This couldn't be real—not the unfeeling sorceress, hero of Sodden Hill, the woman so powerful she'd nearly bound a djinn to her will—people like that didn't care about people like him.

“Poor Jaskier,” Yennefer sighed and scooted across the bench to lean her head against his shoulder. “I hate seeing you like this; you're no fun to tease.”

He laughed at that, and the sound almost surprised him. He hadn't had much to laugh about lately. Yennefer smiled up at him and reached out to fill his plate, piling it up with the delicate food the sorceress preferred over the rough meat and bread that was Jaskier's usual tavern fare. He couldn't complain, though. After the events of the last few days a few pieces of fruit and some light, toasted bread sounded a bit more palatable than a joint of mutton.

“You must know I don't hate you,” Yennefer began. “We don't see eye-to-eye, but I would never want to see anything like that happen to you.”

Jaskier gave in and let his head rest against hers, her dark hair soft against his cheek. “I think you're the only one.”

“Geralt was angry,” Yennefer replied. “For a man who claims to have no emotions he has a tendency to let his passions override his self control.”

She rested one hand on his arm and shifted her head so that she was looking up at him. “Don't let this break you, Jaskier. He blames himself for the harsh words he spoke to you; don't take them on as your burden as well.”

To his shame, her thumb brushed over a tear that had escaped from one eye. He cleared his throat and pulled away, taking his plate to stand closer to the fire to eat. “What are your plans now?”

Yennefer pretended not to notice the sudden change of topic. “I have a few things I'm looking into for a friend,” she lied smoothly. That was all right. Jaskier didn't really want to know the sort of things the sorceress got up to. For all he knew she was the spy mistress for an underground movement to liberate Cintra from Nilfgaard control. The less he knew about her life the better.

“I need to get back to Oxenfurt,” Jaskier said, though she hadn't asked. “I've been asked to teach for the summer semester, and walking those hallowed grounds would be a nice respite from life on the road.”

The mage gracefully stood from the table, her movements making even the rough tunic and trousers she still wore seem elegant. “I can send you there by portal whenever you're ready,” she offered, holding a hand up when he started to protest. “Please. I would be happier knowing I'd left you somewhere safe.”

Jaskier placed his empty plate on the mantle and gave a curt nod, emotions welling up in him again. He focused on the fire, knowing that a kind look from Yennefer would break him down again.

She seemed to sense his discomfort and crossed the room to throw a cloak over her shoulders. “I'll see if I can retrieve your belongings from the tavern where you were playing,” Yennefer said. “Eat your fill and I'll send you to Oxenfurt when you're ready.”

Yennefer had her hand on the door before Jaskier had pulled himself together to speak. “Thank you, Yennefer. I really...I mean it.”

The sorceress smiled, a soft expression that he'd never seen on her face. “Eat something. You've lost so much weight you look like a plucked chicken.”

The familiar, sarcastic bite to her tone hand him leaning against the mantle as he laughed, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes rather than the pathetic, pitying ones he'd been fighting back moments before.

Well. Another plate or two wouldn't hurt.

* * *

I actually have trouble watching the show because Geralt is just kind of mean. He's so much better in the books...even if it is a lot of fun to send my friend pictures of Henry Cavil every time she complains that she's thirsty.

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monstersandmaw · 5 years ago

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Male lizardfolk x female reader (nsfw) *Commission*

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

A commission for @ivymemnoch, featuring a nerdy lizardfolk boy (colouring/design based on a European green lizard) and a tall reader. This is the first of my five commissions to be completed and posted on here, and since it’s a paid commission, it doesn’t get early release on Patreon. Enjoy!

8144 words, no warnings, only fluff, some geekery, and some nsfw at the end. I will add though that I discovered that snakes aren’t the only reptiles to have two penises... lizards do too.

---

After a draining, all-day session in the recording studio, the last thing you wanted was to step out of the soundproofed booth and hear the relentless thrumming of raindrops on the windows.

The producer called over to you, briefly drawing your attention away from the foul weather, and grinned. “That was great! You really nailed her character. I think we can press on with the next section on Monday.” The sphinx smiled at you and stretched slightly before adding, “You have a good weekend now. Rest that voice of yours!”

You smiled and turned to look out of the nearest window with a grimace sliding onto your face. “Ugh. What a day to leave my umbrella behind,” you muttered. “Anyway, see you.”

Lingering just a moment more in the doorway of the recording studio, you eyed the rain and then - resigned to smelling like a wet werewolf - made a dash for it. Three seconds after you’d left the building, it doubled in strength and began to thrash down. Up ahead, still illuminated despite the fact that it was after five o’clock, was a shop you’d often thought about going in, but had never made time to venture inside. With an indignant squawk as the universe nudged you not-so-gently towards the comic book store by dripping water down your collar, you hurtled across the empty street, splashing through rapidly-forming puddles, and shot inside, soaked.

Standing on the mat for a moment, you shivered and gazed around at the room beyond. The walls were lined with bookshelves containing relatively ordinary looking books, and in the centre of the room was a lower stand displaying comics. On the top of this shelf, however, was a small army of figurines from a plethora of games and movies, and as you spotted a favourite of yours, you grinned. This place was nerd nirvana.

At the back of the room, surrounded as if in a shrine by a small alcove dedicated to arts and crafts and prop-making supplies for tabletop games, was the counter and cash register. The figure sitting behind it had looked up as you burst into his slice of peaceful heaven and the movement of his colourful head drew your eye over to him. Tall, slim but clearly muscular, with lime green skin speckled with gold and a wash of vibrant blue across his throat and up his cheeks towards friendly, golden eyes, the lizardfolk looking at you in mild surprise was frankly gorgeous.

You blinked stupidly for a second and then blurted, “I promise not to drip on any of the books.”

He grinned, a wide, warm smile that showed a row of pointed white teeth. “Appreciate it,” he said. His amber, unblinking gaze shifted to the rain and he said, “Gods, it’s really throwing it down out there.”

“Yup. I didn’t make it more than a hundred yards from work before bolting for cover. Nice place to duck into though,” you added, eyeing the figurines and graphic novels around you.

“You work near here?” he asked, setting down the tiny model he’d been painting. His clawed fingers were surprisingly slender and delicate.

You nodded. “Currently, at least. I’m a voice actor. The recording studio is just round the corner.”

“Sweet!” he exclaimed. “You voiced any characters I might know?”

You shrugged. “Maybe? I mean, Eliana from Ice Dragon Chronicles is probably the one I’m most known for? Mostly it’s just small parts for all sorts of things though. She was a rare break…”

“No way!” he breathed, “That’s awesome! Oh wow…” and he practically giggled with delight. His blue throat flushed a darker, more vibrant colour too. “That’s so cool. I’m sorry - you probably just wanted to browse in peace, or even just stay out of the rain. I’m sorry.”

Laughing softly, you said, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to check this place out, but I don’t really know where I’d start… I’ve read a few Manga, but I’d like to try a graphic novel…”

He stood, revealing just how tall he was. You were pretty tall yourself, for a human, but he stood easily a head higher than you. He blinked slowly and grinned, twitching his head towards the shelves along the walls. “Here’s one I always recommend to get people started. I warn you though, it’s a slippery slope… If you like this one, you’ll be obsessed in no time. I’m Bik, by the way.”

“I think I can handle it,” you smiled and he chuckled, handing you a slim but beautifully designed book with a dragon on the front and a female knight on a chestnut charger.

The art style was gorgeous and the writing seemed pretty good quality too, and as you leafed through the first few pages, you found yourself drawn in to the story about the female knight and the dragon. Finally you glanced up at him and said, “I’m assuming you don’t want me to read it all here right now…”

“It’d be nice if you bought it,” he grinned playfully.

He’d just reached out to take it from you when the door opened and a hunch-shouldered werewolf pushed inside, having just shaken the worst of the weather off on the doorstep all over their companion. The person behind her was a tiny, slender, and extraordinarily pretty young woman with pastel lilac hair that for some reason looked natural rather than dyed. Despite her almost innocent, childlike looks, she seemed decidedly furious about the soggy insult from the werewolf. In turn behind them came a figure who would have blotted out the daylight in the doorway had there been any to speak of outside.

You’d never met a hobgoblin before, and you tried not to stare as he lumbered in after the other two who had come to an abrupt halt at the sight of Bik and you standing together with your new graphic novel between you. The grin on the werewolf’s face made you think of feeding time at the zoo, and Bik clearly noticed it because his lithe tail swished a few times behind him in annoyance.

“Shall I take that for you?” Bik asked, offering his elegant hand again for the book and leading you over to the till so that you could pay for it.

You smiled and nodded, aware that the small group behind you were muttering between themselves. Bik was obviously aware of it as well, and seemed irritated by it, though you weren’t sure why. As you fished out the right money from your wallet, he muttered, “My D&D group… We meet every Friday. I’m sorry about them.”

“They seem nice,” you smiled, trying to reassure him. “You know, I’ve never played.”

“Really?” he asked, his golden eyes flashing brightly for an instant.

You shook your head and took the book from him, sliding it into your bag to keep it dry. “One thing at a time, eh?” you grinned before he could invite you to join in and he laughed.

“Hope to see you back again,” he added sheepishly. “There are some others I can recommend to you, whether you like that one or not.”

You nodded. He seemed so cute with the way he tilted his head and blinked his big eyes every now and again. His colouring was also astonishingly pretty, looking like a mosaic of gold and green all along his back, with that vibrant zing of blue around his throat. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” you said as you turned to go, and you really meant it.

While you were walking down the row of books towards the door, grateful that the rain seemed to have lessened considerably, you heard the werewolf dig her friend in the ribs and mutter, “Talk about your type!”

“Shut up,” Bik hissed. “Or she won’t come back.”

Of course, you did find yourself returning to his shop, though not on a Friday evening. You were sure his friends were nice, but you weren’t really there to meet them; at least, not just yet.

Bik’s face lit up when you stepped inside and he hopped down off the counter where he’d been sitting like a naughty schoolboy, swinging his legs and reading a comic which sat in his lap. “You came back!” he chirruped as he set it aside and came over. He wore tight-fitting jeans with a big hole tailored in the back for the thick root of his tail, and a blue t-shirt with a faded print on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” you asked, aiming for playful but still coming across as a little shy, perhaps even coy. “You said you had more recommendations for me…”

“You liked it then?”

“Loved it! The twist at the end was amazing.”

His toothy grin made your stomach flip over and you glanced away as a blush rose up your cheeks.

You spent the next half an hour dissecting every detail about the first book he’d recommended, and from there, he chose three others that might suit.

Over the next few weeks, you returned to the shop regularly, and on one blustery August afternoon, you found him preparing some props for his next D&D session. Instead of talking books, you asked him about them, and he tilted his head in that adorable way he had, glancing over the half-finished figurines and what looked like a maquette of an old castle ruin or something.

“Did you make that too?” you asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah. It helps with the game, but honestly I just enjoy making stuff…”

“They’re beautiful! You could work in the props department at a film company or something.”

His blue throat became so vibrant in contrast with his lime green skin that it almost hurt to look at him, and he half turned away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I get a lot of free time in the shop; fellow nerds aren’t too thick on the ground here, if you know what I mean. Hey, listen,” he added, scratching the back of his head with a clawed finger. “I’ve… uh… I’ve been wondering if maybe you’d like to come along to a session one day? You don’t have to take part or anything if you don’t want to, and we are, like, halfway through this campaign, but if you wanted to you could fill in for one of the NPCs or something… But… uh…” He trailed off, embarrassed and picked up one of the half-finished mimic chests on the counter top.

You watched as he turned it over in his delicate fingers and then chuckled. “You know what? I’d love to.”

At that, he dropped it and spun back around. “You’re serious?”

“Sure! Why not?” you asked, stooping to pick it up and handing it back to him. “Should I bring snacks?”

“Oh my god, could you get any more perfect!” he blurted and then laughed, staring down at the miniature mimic in his hands as if hoping that it might just eat him up on the spot. “Snacks would be amazing, but you don’t have to. Usually we take it in turns to bring something. It’s Oleander’s turn this Friday.”

“Oleander?”

“I don’t know if you remember her, but she’s the tiny one with the purple hair. She’s half fae and all sass. She bakes the most amazing sugar cookies though…”

“Got a sweet tooth then?” you asked and he nodded.

“Duly noted. Tell me about the others? Was the big one a hobgoblin?”

Bik nodded. “Yeah, that’s Jos. He’s kind of shy, but he’s great once you get to know him. He’s playing this tiny elven bard, and she’s -” he broke off, realising he was about to go off on a long and potentially quite boring waffle about their characters. Clearing his throat, he said instead, “Anyway, so yeah, that’s Jos. The werewolf is Emma. She’s… a bit brash and loud at times, but she means well.”

“How do you guys all know each other?” you asked, moving over to examine the figurines on the counter while he talked.

“From school, actually,” he laughed, setting the mimic back down. “It’s the typical - stereotypical I guess - thing of a bunch of rejects forming a bit of a ragtag band, and we’ve just been best mates ever since.”

With a fond smile, you firmly agreed to come to their next session.

You showed up with a bag of cookies, not wanting to seem tight but equally not wanting to try and one-up the resident baker in the group. You were also running a tad late after the recording session had run over, and the door was locked when you arrived at quarter past seven, and you had to bang on the glass repeatedly until Bik scuttled out to rescue you.

“I’m so sorry!” he said as he stepped to one side and let you in. “I thought I left it off the latch for you! I should also have given you my number. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine!” you laughed as he cringed. “But I wouldn’t say no to having your number…”

He went still and then smiled.

You followed him into a storage room at the back of the shop which had been decked out with flickering LED candles, and in the centre of the room was a round table set up for their game. They hadn’t really started yet, and Oleander was, to your surprise, sitting in Jos’ lap. He pecked her affectionately on the top of the head and picked her up, setting her back down on the ground. The werewolf, Emma, snuffed at the air and turned around, tail wagging from between the slats of her chair.

“Hey!” she grinned, leaping up and stepping over to hug you. “I’m sorry. I’m a hugger. You made it though! And…” and she sniffed ostentatiously, “And you brought goodies!”

“I couldn’t not bring goodies,” you chuckled, handing the modest bag of cookies to Bik.

“Tibikthio,” Emma said in a mock-formal tone to Bik, “You picked a good one.”

You turned slowly to the lizardfolk who had closed his eyes in semi-horror. “I hate it when you use my full name,” he groaned.

“Tibikthio…” you repeated. “I like it…”

You caught the tiniest flicker of something cross his face but it was gone a second later.

“Well he hates it!” Emma barked. “Come on, pull up a chair.” She adopted a silly accent, like some old crone, and added, “There’s plenty of room, m’dear!”

Smiling, you glanced at Bik, who still looked a bit embarrassed about the whole name thing, and then you settled in between him and Emma as the game began.

To start with, you stayed on the periphery, letting them tell their story and act it out. Some of them would have made good voice actors, though Oleander tried a bit too hard in places. But they were having an absolute blast. Bik was the dungeon master, weaving elements of improv and story-crafting seamlessly into one narrative, though there were some gaffes and hilarious moments when it all fell apart. By the end of the session, you had cried tears of laughter until your stomach hurt, and had had your heart in your mouth for the entirety of one fight in a long-lost temple.

It was past ten when they wrapped up, and Bik insisted that they just leave everything there for next time. “It’s late,” he said, “And who wants to tidy up now anyway…?” He was met with a chorus of nods and yawns.

Your stomach growled though as you stood and you felt a bit light-headed.

“You ok?” Bik asked, head tilting quizzically. “You look a bit squiffy… Didn’t make you queasy with all the guts and goop at the end of the fight, did I?”

Reassuring him, you told him you had just missed supper that night because of work, and he looked horrified. “There’s a place round the corner that’s open til midnight. You want to grab something?”

Your initial reaction was to refuse politely and say you’d rustle something up when you got home, but you happened to catch Oleander’s violet eyes as she looked from Bik to you with what could only have been described as a look of hope on her face, so you took a gamble and nodded. “Sure, I’d like that.”

Bik shut up the shop and bid his friends goodnight. Oleander winked at him but offered no comment before demanding that Jos carry her home, which he dutifully did. Bik caught you looking at them and smiled. “They’ve been together since they were sixteen. Real high school sweethearts.”

“They’re adorable,” you offered. “I mean, they’re kind of polar opposites, but… it’s nice.”

“There’s hope for those of us who tend to prefer other species…” Bik muttered playfully. “Come on, it’s not far.” As you walked along the empty street, he asked, “Did you have fun?”

“I did,” you replied honestly. “I had no idea it was so…” you waved your hand while you searched for exactly the right word.

“Nerdy?”

You snorted a laugh and corrected him. “Complicated… involved… complex…”

He shrugged casually and shivered. “It’s what you make of it, I guess. We’ve been plotting this particular campaign for months. It’s nice to be able to play it finally!” He shivered again and hugged his bare arms around himself, claws scratching slightly on his rough skin.

“Are you cold?”

He nodded. “I forgot my jacket. I’m not very good with the cold. It’s a lizardy thing.”

The evening wasn’t particularly chilly, but you supposed he was cold-blooded.

“You want my jacket?” you asked. “I think your shoulders are slim enough that it’d probably fit you.”

He shot you an odd look. “Isn't the guy supposed to be the one to offer that to the girl?”

“Only if you stick to stuffy old gender roles,” you grinned. “You want it or not?”

“Yes please,” he mumbled and took it off you with a grateful smile. He looked odd wearing it, but he burrowed into it for the remainder of the short walk to the late-night restaurant.

The two of you sat down and chatted, and you remarked on just how relaxed it felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… It’s nice. I’m glad you got rained on all those weeks ago…”

“Me too,” you laughed. He was a dork, but you liked that he felt genuine, and that his sense of humour was a bit off the wall.

The restaurant wasn’t fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but the food they served looked amazing. Run by a big Highland minotaur with a massive belly and a hearty laugh, it offered exactly the kind of meal you needed after not having had much all day, and the two of you took a seat in a quiet corner on some comfortable, diner-style benches.

The lizardfolk who took your order reminded you of a gecko, and had pinkish colouring and large, blue eyes. While you had always been drawn to lizardfolk, somehow no one seemed to compare to Bik lately.

While you waited for your food, Bik interrupted your musing and asked, “What made you get into voice acting? Maybe next time you can voice some of the other characters they meet…?”

“I think I’d like that,” you admitted. “Normally everyone just asks me to do impressions of famous people, you know, because I have an ear for accents and all that.”

He smiled and rested his chin in his hands, staring at you unblinkingly. It might have made anyone else seem a bit intense, but with him it just seemed endearing. As much as he loved to tell a story, he seemed just as happy to listen to one too.

“Honestly, I kind of fell into it. I did music and drama at college and was all set to go down the ‘traditional’ acting line, but I found I was more comfortable bringing characters to life with my voice than my entire body. It’s still really hard work though. Most people reckon that if you can do a few accents or a funny voice, that’s it, but it’s so much more than that.”

He nodded in agreement. “Oh absolutely! I mean, I think I gathered as much just from what we do in our little amateur group. We all sit round a table and we say our ‘lines’, and we all bring our characters to life as convincingly as we can. We’ve been doing it for years, but we’re still not very good!” Bik grinned at you, showing all his teeth, and you smiled back. A moment later he added, a bit dreamily, “I still can’t believe you voiced Eliana. She’s one of my favourite characters ever! I love that game. I wish she’d been a playable character…”

You laughed, honestly a bit bashful.

Before it could become awkward, your food arrived and the two of you chatted some more around mouthfuls of delicious, humble, homely food until you thought you were going to burst.

“Oh man,” you groaned, sitting back in your seat. “I won’t need to eat for a week!”

Bik smiled and said, “I actually probably won’t eat for a week.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Economically beneficial?” he snickered. “True. I’d rather be like that than like Jos. He has to eat six meals a day just to fuel his body.” He leaned on the table and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “And you know what? Oleander eats just as much as he does.”

“No way!” you gasped. “But she’s tiny! How does she do it?”

“She’s half Fae,” he said. “There’s probably magic involved.”

“Lucky her,” you muttered. “Though on second thoughts, grubbing up six meals a day sounds like a lot of effort. But seriously though, I am so full.”

The minotaur who owned the place came out at that moment and said in a heavily accented rumble, “Ach, too bad! I was gonna offer you’s some dessert!” He waggled a pair of menus at you hopefully.

“We’ll just have to come back next week,” you said and the minotaur laughed heartily.

Bik seemed sleepy after the heavy meal, but he walked you back to your place and you exchanged an awkward hug on the threshold. You got the sense that it wasn’t just you who wished it had been more, but neither of you was ready to make that leap just yet.

That first Friday was the first of many trips to the shop to watch them play D&D together, and after only a few weeks, you began to join in more activelyn. And so you found yourself lending your vocal cords to street merchants and beggars, high nobles and sea captains as the unlikely group made their way across their fictional land. The tables had turned a bit, and now it was you who made them helpless with laughter, even mimicking Oleander’s very particular speech patterns when the group ran into a mimic.

“That’s amazing!” she said. “Are you sure you’re not Fae?”

“No,” you said, “I mean, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m very ordinary…”

“You’re not ordinary at all!” Bik blurted and everyone burst out laughing.

“We all know that Bik’s got the hots for you!” Emma grinned.

Oleander chimed in with, “Well, as much as a cold-blooder can have the ‘hots’ for anyone…”

“Oi,” Bik grunted. “I’m sitting right here you know!”

“Better speak up more often,” Oleander teased playfully, chucking him affectionately under the chin like he was a favourite hunting hound or something, “Or she won’t notice you…”

“I’m going to write you all into a jail cell next week,” the dungeon master grumped. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

After that session, he claimed he was tired and begged off going to supper with you. Of course you said it was fine, but you had grown used to your private suppers together and fought off the lump of disappointment that lodged itself unexpectedly in your throat. He waved and slouched off down the street, leaving the rest of you outside the dark and empty shop.

“I think you went a little far this time,” Jos commented in his deep, gravelly voice to the two girls and they sighed. “He’s always been very sensitive about… you know, ‘matters of the heart’…”

“Yeah. Poor thing,” Oleander said and she looked at you with her large purple eyes. “The more he likes someone, the more awkward he can get. I’m sorry we butchered it tonight for you though. I’ll make it up to you. Fae’s honour.” After a pause, she added, “You do like him, right?”

“Very much,” you admitted quietly. “He’s very gentle. It’s nice.”

“He used to play lacrosse back in high school,” Jos grinned. “He wasn’t gentle then! But he’s sweet when it comes to people he cares about. He looked out for me at school.”

You shot him a surprised look and he laughed. “I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “You just don’t look much like the type who needs anyone to look out for them…”

Oleander patted his colossal forearm and cooed, “Ol’ Jos here wouldn’t say boo to a housefly, would you darling?” He smiled affectionately at her and said nothing. “We’ve always been the outcasts and misfits I guess. Bik’s the most normal one of the lot of us, all things considered.”

Emma announced with a sudden curse that she was running late to meet her girlfriend, and loped off into the night on all fours with an accompanying farewell howl, her backpack bouncing around on her shoulders, and Oleander and Jos bid you goodnight and headed off towards the bus stop, leaving you to make your own way back. It was strange not to have Bik by your side that night, and it made you realise how close you’d become to him over the last few weeks.

Back home, you curled up on the sofa, not ready to start thinking about bed just yet, and had just got your phone out to drop him a text when your message tone chimed at you. The way your heart clenched with excitement at the sight of Bik’s name on the notification made you pause a moment and wonder just what this affection for him was turning into. Images of his bright green skin and golden eyes darted across your mind; the sound of his laugh, the way his tail coiled itself off the ground when he walked, the way his clawed hands held the little props he liked to make… You’d been telling the truth when you’d admitted to Oleander just how much you liked him.

‘Hey’, his text began. ‘Sorry I bailed like that. Did you get home ok?’

‘:) yeah,’ you replied. ‘And it’s fine. I get it, but they meant well. And I’m looking forward to the next session already!”

Jos was the one who finally insisted that you had to become a permanent member of their fictional gang. Casting a look at Bik as you all loitered in the main shop after the session, you saw the way he bit his thin lips and coiled his tail around one ankle. “Should I?” you asked.

You’d grown in confidence around them, glad to have been welcomed into their group, and he nodded mutely.

“That doesn’t seem very enthusiastic…” you shot with tongue-in-cheek humour dancing in your eyes.

“Obviously he’d love that,” Emma said. That day she wasn’t in her wolf form, and it was one of the few times you’d ever seen her as such. She had ash blonde hair with a harsh side-shave above her left ear while the rest was long, tied back in a ponytail. Her body was strong and muscular, and honestly she was utterly gorgeous.

You cocked an eyebrow at him and adopted the tone of one of the temple guardians you’d voiced for them earlier that evening. “Come now,” you said with mock sternness, “Speak the truth, young dragonling…”

Bik immediately caught on and followed the joke as he spoke in the voice of his dragonborn bard, quavering and simpering. “Please… oh Great One, don’t make me speak more on the subject… I’m only a worthless wyrm…”

You closed the short distance between the two of you and leaned in close. His jaw slackened slightly, his throat bobbing, and his beady, amber eye locked onto your face. “You are no such thing,” you smiled. Biko’s throat worked nervously. Drawing back, you added, “And I’d love to join the group. You’ll have to help me think of a character.”

Bik still looked like he’d suffered a minor heart attack, but Jos whooped and Oleander giggled. “Great!” they said as one.

You turned to Bik and said, “Maybe you and I can chat it over after dinner, if you’re still up for our usual post-session snack?”

“Definitely,” he croaked, voice sounding thick and slightly awestruck. He looked a bit stunned, but you decided it was in a good way.

He held the door open for you and you stepped close to him as you headed out into the late evening, pressing a hand flat against his chest as you passed, and murmured, “Thanks.”

He recovered quickly, though he did seem to be concentrating very hard on the task of locking up the shop, and as the two of you walked away from the others, he kept glancing down at you.

“What?” you finally asked with a giggle.

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly something…” you pressed, turning and walking backwards so you could look at his face. “Regretting your decision to let me join the gang?”

“Not at all!” he replied, apparently horrified that your thoughts had gone there. “No… The opposite actually…”

“Oh,” you sighed.

He breathed your name and then stopped. You drew to a halt as well, watching him with a hammering heart. Starting to talk again seemed tricky, but he managed it. “I… Uh… I’m really glad you’re… you know… around… Ah, shit… I’m so bad at this…”

“I’m glad I’m around too,” you said, and you slid your hand into his. His skin was rough and cool, and your first thought was that you would very much like it against other parts of your body.

Bik tightened his grip on your fingers briefly and let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “I’ve never, uh… courted a human before… Is that even the right term for it?”

“You can call it what you like,” you said. “And you don’t have to do anything special or different. Just… keep hanging out with me. Maybe we could watch a movie or something some time?”

“Ok,” he said, swallowing thickly again. “Let’s go somewhere different for dinner?”

You turned your eyes from his to the restaurant sign just up ahead. “But we always go here,” you said. “And we’re almost there… Where else is going to be open at this time of night?”

“You could… come back to my place?” he asked. “I mean, it’s nothing special, but… I’m a tidy reptile, I promise! No hoards of strange things either. I’m not a dragon…”

You had to laugh at his oddball sense of humour that only got quirkier the more apprehensive he got. He also couldn’t stop his throat from fanning slightly too, the reptilian version of sweating nervously you supposed. “Alight. I’d like that.”

The upper storey of the old house where he lived was open plan, with beautiful bare rafters and sloping ceilings, and hardwood floors. His claws clacked adorably on them when he moved about. He also had the heating on stupendously warm, and you took your coat and jumper off immediately. “Sorry,” he said when he saw what you were doing.

You reassured him, and started to look about a little bit while he busied himself in the kitchen and poured you both a drink.

There were bookshelves on practically every available space, and as well as containing a collection of rare first editions and hard-to-come-by novels, they also sported photos, some in battered frames and others just propped up here and there. Most of them featured lizardfolk who looked a lot like him. “Family?” you asked and he came over to stand beside you.

“Yeah. We were a big clutch,” he said as he held the glass out for you. “Poor mum! There are twelve of us.”

He told you the names of each of his siblings, and what they were up to now, but you were really only half listening to the words. There was something magical about his voice, some unearthly quality it took on when he began to tell a story, regardless whether that was a story about his own life or a fantasy tale made up with his friends.

“What?” he asked softly.

“I… I like the sound of your voice,” you said honestly, and you reached your fingers tentatively up to touch the blue of his throat. He drew in a shaky breath, eyes closing as his reptilian head tilted upwards to allow you better access to him. “You’re very beautiful,” you whispered. “The colour of your skin is incredible… I like this bit too,” you added, running a finger down his cheek where it blended from green speckled with gold to intense blue.

Bik brought his hands to your shoulders and looked down at you, blinking slowly. “Really?” he asked. “It’s not very… I mean… most males of my species have much deeper blue… I mean, just look at my brothers,” he added awkwardly, nodding at a picture behind you.

“I like your blue,” you chuckled without turning around.

Embarrassed, but obviously deeply flattered, he brushed his knuckle against your cheek and said, “Would you like that supper or do you have other things on your mind?”

With a grin, you said, “I suppose I could be distracted by food…” you admitted grudgingly as your stomach rumbled.

You watched him walk away to the kitchen area of the loft apartment, and sighed. This was turning into exactly what you’d hoped it might - a friendship blossoming into something deeper.

Wanting to test that theory, you crossed to join him and, while he still had his back to you, you slid your arms around his slender waist and hugged him. “You need a hand?” you asked, pressing your cheek against his back.

“I… I was going to suggest takeout,” he said bashfully, glancing back over his shoulder at you. “But if you want me to cook, I can?”

You shook your head. “It’s getting late,” you said, releasing him. “Another time. Let’s get takeout.”

While you waited for the food to arrive, you bickered playfully over movie choices, finally settling on some cheesy old film about a dragon who shared his heart with a selfish boy. It was actually pretty good, but it was still horrendously dated in places. It didn’t matter to you though. The food was really good, and the two of you snuggled up on the sofa to eat, with you leaning against his side.

“I couldn’t do this with many people,” you said, nudging him gently with your elbow.

“Do what?”

“Cosy up under someone’s arm. I’m usually too tall.”

He chuckled and swallowed. “Never dated an orc then, I take it.”

You shook your head. “Not dated all that much at all to be honest.”

“What? But your gorgeous,” he blurted and his skin flushed a much darker green. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you said and put your hand reassuringly on his thigh. He jumped and then slid his arm around your shoulders, setting his empty takeout box down on the coffee table beside the sofa.

He gazed at you, a more serious look in his eyes, and said, “You know, I couldn’t help noticing your choices of media…” You flicked him a frown and he went on. “Ok, the first graphic novel with the dragon was on me, but everything else has also had dragons or lizards in…”

“You detecting a preference here?” you sassed gently.

“Am I?”

With an ostentatious roll of your eyes, you said, “I mean, I’ve always thought your kind extremely beautiful, but my interest in you is to do with you. It’s not some empty kink. You know that, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Just checking.”

“And what about you?” you said, also setting your empty food box down and shifting your position so that you came to rest astride his lap, the film almost over, forgotten and playing in the background. “I have to admit that your dragonborn seems to like humans rather a lot… Have you got a thing for us warmbloods?”

His throat worked and he didn’t meet your eye for a moment. “I mean… yes…” he said, and his clawed hands found your wide hips. He ran a circle carefully over them and moaned, his own hips shifting a little beneath you. “But when you walked into my shop, all bedraggled and soaking wet, I’d honestly never seen anyone more beautiful in my whole life.”

You laughed and kissed his cheek. He turned his head slightly as you moved away and drew you back for a proper kiss. His claws raked gently through your hair, messing it up as he gripped you firmly but tenderly, and his tongue slid slowly out to taste you, savouring the kiss. It wasn’t a conventional kiss like those you were used to, but it worked perfectly well. You rolled your hips against him once again and he broke the contact, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions. His tail coiled and uncoiled beside you on the sofa and you reached for it.

“Can I touch you here?” you asked and he nodded breathlessly.

He gasped as you stroked your fingertips along the slightly rough skin of his tail and he brought the tip of it up to caress the back of your hand.

“Kinky,” you grinned and he snickered.

Bik, somewhat slack-jawed and clearly aroused, brought his blunt muzzle to the curve where your neck met your collarbones, and inhaled the scent of you deeply. His tail coiled tightly around your wrist for a moment before unravelling and falling limply onto the sofa again. “I want you,” he rasped.

You let your hips grind into him again and he gasped and uttered a soft curse under his breath as he stared almost reverently up at you. You nodded, and his claws hooked the hem of your top and lifted it up carefully, revealing your bra and he made short work of the clasp. Taking the weight of each breast in his hands, he caressed you and then, with pupils blown wide and dark so that his irises were a mere halo of gold, he took your nipple delicately between his sharp teeth and very gently sucked, moaning softly as he repeated the gesture on the other one. His rasping tongue curled around them too as they hardened under his attentions and you gave a shaky exhale.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as he let go, leaving you throbbing and tingling. “Gods, you’re so beautiful.”

“Bik…” you groaned when he stopped touching you so that he could simply stare at your half-naked body in his lap.

He smiled and to your immense surprise, simply stood up, hooking his arms under your thighs as you gripped his waist instinctively with your legs. He was a lot stronger than he looked and you nearly yelped in surprise. “I’ve got you,” he said as he carried you towards his open bedroom door, nudging it shut behind him with his tail.

He laid you down on top of the duvet and undressed the rest of you slowly, savouring the sight of you as he gradually revealed your body. You looked up at him dazedly and saw the tent straining against his jeans. “Bik… Not fair,” you said. “You’re still dressed.”

More nervously now that the attention was on him, he took off his own t-shirt to reveal a pale, creamy green stomach and chest. He was still stippled with other hues of green and even a few freckles of black, but his front was mostly pale. His lean waist and narrow hips looked deliciously inviting and you sat up and ran your fingers around the inside of his waistband just to watch him shiver beneath your touch.

His hands hung quietly by his sides as you undid the button of his jeans and he stepped out of them carefully. His taloned feet were as delicate as his hands, and you marvelled at them too before letting your gaze sweep up his slim, strong calves to his thicker and more muscular thighs and to the tight, black boxer-briefs that hugged every single curve of his body.

Bik lay down beside you without taking them off and raked his claws up the length of your legs and, applying a little pressure to your hip, pushed you onto your back. With his tail, he tugged your right ankle close to his body and parted your legs enough for him to run the pad of his thumb in a slow, teasing circle around the soft, sensitive skin above your clit.

Your body lurched joyously at his touch and you sucked in a breath. You began to tingle all over, heat prickling beneath your skin as he woke your whole body up with reverent kisses and touches.

“Can I taste you?” he asked a while later after he’d reduced you to a writhing, whimpering mess, and you nodded.

After you moved further up the bed to give him more room, he reverently placed both palms on your hip bones and nosed gently at your sex. His tongue licked a long, slow stripe and you cried out and arched your back as he laved over your lips and just flicked your clit with the tip of his tongue.

“You taste so beautiful,” he said before returning his attention to your body. He circled and nudged at you, dipping his tongue deep inside you as well, always coming back to your clit until you were almost screaming with want.

“Bik, please… Please make me come,” you panted. “I’m so close…”

“Can humans only come once then?” he asked with over-accentuated ignorance, and you knew from the tone of his voice that he knew the answer to that already. You growled inarticulately at him and he pulled back. “I’d better stop then.”

“No!” you half sobbed. “Please…”

Smiling softly, he stared at you and moved his thumb back to your swollen clit. His claws were too sharp for him to work you inside, but the pattern he made on your skin with his tongue was enough to drive you right to the edge, and then as the white heat built inside you, you felt your orgasm rolling over you like a great ocean breaker and you cried out, grasping at the sheets. As you came, he pressed his tongue hard against you, savouring you as you came against him.

When you eventually slumped back against the pillows, breathing hard and almost dizzy with how good you felt, you half opened one eye to find that he had lain down on his back and was palming his erection through the fabric of his boxers.

“Bik?” you asked in a slightly slurred whisper. Your fingers moved to the waistband and he tensed slightly. “Bik?”

Licking his lips nervously, he nodded and you drew his boxers off. At the top of his legs was a mounded sheath which quite obviously contained not one but two cocks. Neither was necessarily all that large, but they were very beautiful, and fully erect.

“We’re not exactly built like humans,” he said bashfully as you stared openly at him. “I… I was worried that -” he cut off with a deep grunt as you trailed your fingers around the edges of his sheath. His twin cocks - both a bright vibrant green tipped with blue - writhed slightly, coiling around one another and glistening with the same clear fluid that slicked his sheath.

“You’re beautiful, remember?” you reminded him, shakily propping yourself upright on one elbow to get a better look at him. You repeated the gesture, running your fingers tips around his sensitive sheath, and he accepted your words as truth as you started to worship him with the same careful tenderness he’d just shown you.

As you lavished attention on him, he started to unravel.

Soon his spine bowed up off the bed and his hips squirmed as you worked his twin cocks in one hand. The tighter you gripped him, the more noise he made as they twisted together beneath your fingers, and you finally wrung a deep, guttural, low-frequency rumble out of him that reminded you more of an alligator than the more delicate lizards he resembled.

“Gods,” he rasped, “You make it feel like spring…” and you knew he was referring to the traditional lizardfolk mating season. You’d just lowered your mouth to the tip of one of his cocks and given it a tentative suck when he blurted, “Can I come inside you?”

You nodded, and he switched positions with you so that he was on top. The heat of his cocks was a delicious contrast to the constant coolness of the rest of him and you bucked upwards against him just to feel them pressing against your sensitive clit.

“Both?” he asked warily and you nodded again, shifting so that he could line himself up. He kissed down your neck and between your breasts again before he nudged the tips of his cocks to your entrance. As he slid into you, slowly stretching you full, you watched his face carefully. Again, he began to rumble softly and he almost couldn’t speak as he hissed, “So tight… so hot… gods, you’re so hot…”

With a final push of his hips, he slid all the way inside you and paused a moment, clearly fighting the instinct to come almost immediately. Recovered, breathing steadily, he began to slide in and out, his rhythm increasing in tempo as he lost himself in the sensations of your body. The way his cocks felt inside you, twisting together and shifting in a way that no toy could ever hope to replicate, was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and you knew you were going to come again in no time.

“I’m…” he grunted.

“Me too,” you said, grabbing his rough-skinned arms and pulling yourself even further onto his cocks. “Bik, I’m going to come again.”

“Fuck,” he croaked as you clenched tight around him with a cry.

You wrenched his orgasm from him with the force of your own and he arched his spine, hips driving him deep inside you as he released, and he yelled out, voice hoarse, the sound cracked and broken. His jaws parted to reveal his sharp teeth and you kept your grip on his arms as you came a second time.

He shuddered violently, grunting and breathing hard through flared nostrils, and then fell forwards, barely catching himself in time on his forearms. He was spent and exhausted and so beautiful. His blue colouring shone in the dim light of his bedroom and you trailed your fingers lazily along the bridge of his nose towards his lips.

“That was incredible,” he whispered when he’d got his breath back. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No,” you smiled and he hugged you briefly, lapping a little lizardy kiss on your forehead before pushing himself up on shaking arms and sliding free of you. His cocks coiled briefly in the warm air and he rolled onto his back beside you. With your thighs still slick with his release, you tucked yourself up beside him and took your time in exploring his relaxed body. Where before he had been tense, almost nervous, worried that his non-human body would be too strange for you, now he seemed to have fallen peacefully into a haze of bliss, and he let your hands roam all over his torso and down to his hips while wearing a soft smile the whole time.

His cocks lay soft across his skin, occasionally twitching and drooling a little, but eventually they began to shift back into his sheath. He slid his hand down and adjusted them, and shot you a look. “You really do like lizardfolk, huh?”

With a wry grin, you shook your head and said, “I really do just like you.”

—

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