#sorry for the abrupt cut offs between parts. i was originally going to post all of this story beat at once but. uh
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idoodlestuffsometimes · 1 year ago
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Story Post 14 (Part 2)
AU MASTER POST
BEGINNING | PREVIOUS | NEXT
[Image ID under the cut]
[IMAGE ID: Two pages of a black and white comic.
PAGE ONE PANEL 1: Gwen glances nervously over her shoulder at Dell. He beckons for her to continue. "It's not that. It's - ah--" PANEL 2: She turns back to the crow phone with a forced grin. "I hear you have a student now!" Dell's face drops in annoyance. PANEL 3: "A human one! How intriguing. I haven't heard of a human on the Isles since the one my great grandmother mentioned." Luz lies on her belly on her sleeping bag, happily reading in her room with King asleep next to her. Behind her, the window is open, revealing a scout brandishing a spear. PANEL 4: "And even that one disappeared, apparently," Gwen continues. Eda appears in the window, casting a spell that blasts the scout out of view. PANEL 5: Luz turns and looks out the window, puzzled, but there is nothing there. PANEL 6: "My human isn't going to disappear," says Eda. She looks over her shoulder at Luz's oblivious back through the window, determined. "Oh no, of course not!" says Gwen. "I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job looking after her and teaching her all sorts of things." PANEL 7: A close up of one side of Gwen's face, her eye looking to the side, knowing that Dell is behind her, concerned and waiting. "Like--," she says. PANEL 8: She leans in towards the phone, gritting her teeth. "--Palisman carving, maybe?" PANEL 9: Eda and Lilith clash. Eda blocks with her staff as Lilith comes at her with her own. "Mom, I'm busy!" Eda cries. "Just spit it out!" "Okay, okay!" says Gwen.
PAGE TWO PANEL 1: "It's about the family business." "What about it?" "Well," Gwen admits. "Palisman carving isn't exactly as easy as it used to be." A close-up of Dell in profile. His head is lowered, expression sad. PANEL 2: A view of an old, hanging wooden shop sign for a shop named "Clawthorne Palismen". It was once a mark of a well-cared for business. It has hand-carved wings, fancy lettering, and a second, smaller sign below it, declaring, "Established 16--" something. But the rest is broken off. The sign is in disrepair, with a, "CLOSED," sign plastered on top. PANEL 3: "A lot of people associate palismen with wild magic these days," Gwen continues. What was once a small, quaint shop sits boarded up and falling apart. It's covered in graffiti, reading, "REMEMBER METANOY," and "WILD." In the foreground, people avoid it, whispering. PANEL 4: A large, desolate field of clear-cut tree stumps. "And with the deforestation of the palistrom forests," Gwen says, "sometimes I worry it won't be feasible much longer." PANEL 5: "But your father can't do it anymore…" A close-up of Dell's hand. It shakes and is covered in scars. PANEL 6: A close up of Eda, guilty and distraught. "...And you--," PANEL 7: A flashback. Eda's cursed form looms over her frightened father, snarling. PANEL 8: A close up of Dell, younger and terrified, one hand towards the viewer, trying to ward off his attacker, the other clutching the side of his face. /END ID]
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Laurel Wreaths & Animal Teeth (11)
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(c!technoblade x fem!reader)
(people showed chapter 10 some nice love so here’s chapter 11. sorry it took so long to get out. I threw my back out and doing just about anything has been physical torture. but I’m starting to feel better so here’s hoping I’ll write more soon. but remember, please comment and reblog. they keep me motivated! <3)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Things settled down pretty well after the election. Almost unbelievably so. Wilbur pretty much completely disappeared afterwards. You felt worried and voiced your concerns with Niki, saying you hoped he wasn’t terribly upset he’d lost the election. You understand he no doubt felt incredibly attached to the title of president, and he may feel resentful of you for ‘stealing’ it from him. Niki smiled at you, glad you were being kinder about this than the other contestants would be in your shoes, but sighed and said,
“Yeah, he’ll probably be upset for a while. But I’m sure he’ll come around to accept you as the new president.”
You gave her a thankful smile, even if you didn’t quite believe her words. But then you paused and wondered if maybe, despite all your reservations about the brunet man, it was possible to smooth things over with him? Maybe all you needed to do was sit and have a talk with him. Perhaps he’d gone insane in the original timeline because both Schlatt and Quackity were… well, for lack of a nicer term, total dicks to him. They were openly antagonistic to the former president, banishing him and his younger brother from the very nation they fought and died for, which no doubt added to his crumbling mental state after L’manberg chose a new leader.
But maybe you could be different from Schlatt and Quackity. Honestly you had no desire to be cruel to Wilbur, though you would not put up with any of his BS, and honestly you hoped to have a neutral relationship with the man. So you decided right then that there was no harm in trying. Your smile brightened and you nodded and said to the blonde woman,
“You’re probably right, he just needs some time. Maybe after a few days he and I can have lunch and just talk. Clear the air between us. I’ve never been president before so I’m sure he’d be a great help in getting me better settled in!”
Niki was super glad you were being so chill about all of this. She knew you were the best choice for president. That’s probably why she’d voted for you. (yeah she’d heard your little speech and was really moved) But she’d never tell Wilbur that. He fully believed she’d voted for Coconut2020, and to be fair she had intended to until she was so moved by your speech. You had a way with words that just put the listener at ease.
“Yeah, I’m sure things will be alright,” Niki replied with a cheerful smile.
-0-
You settled into being president pretty well all things considered. There wasn’t as much work as you were expecting there to be for a president. But perhaps your only frame of reference (the US president) was a bit different than your current job (l’manberg president). L’manberg was super small actually. Especially compared to the United States. Hell, Punz’ house was almost as big as L’manberg if you remember right. 
You’re glad there wasn’t much presidential work to do at that moment. Because you wouldn’t have had time to juggle that work plus going back to your village and packing up some of your stuff in your ender chest before telling the villagers (and azo) what actually happened while you were gone. Which had been an ordeal in itself. You felt bad for just leaving to a new place so out of the blue. But you felt obligated to complete the role of president given to you. You’d feel less obligated if there was some other option you felt safe passing the torch to. Someone not a child. That left out every minor on this server and Wilbur. 
Part of you considered Fundy and Niki for the job but another part of you doubted if they’d be able to handle it. Honestly they shouldn’t have to either. It’s no secret that being president is one of the most stressful jobs a person can have. Being in charge of the safety and well-being of a group of people is enough to turn anyone’s hair grey. Even if the group was just like 10 or so people like L’manberg had. You remember seeing a post about pictures at the start and end of American presidents’ time in office. And each president looked at least a decade older in each after picture. Complete with wrinkles and grey hair. Those happened in FOUR years! Their jobs were so stressful that they aged 10+ years in only 4 years.
You were pulled from your thoughts by Tommy practically shouting “We’re here!!” as you all made it over the hill that led to your village. The first thing you saw was the towering bamboo wall around the perimeter of the place. You’d been so in your own head that you’d actually forgotten about the two boys on either side of you. They’d insisted they accompany you to your village as ‘presidential bodyguards’ despite the fact you said you would be fine. They’d practically demanded to go, to ensure the ‘new prez’ didn’t get attacked on the journey. Amused and touched that they cared, you’d finally relented and let them come along. You’d only be gone a short while anyways. At least that’s what you told yourself. 
It didn’t take long to pack up everything you wanted to take with you to L’manberg. You put all the nice gifts the villagers gave you (as well as a couple of the banners you made) and some of the stuff you made and packed it away into a shulker box you pulled from the Creative inventory before picking up said box and putting it inside your ender chest. Then you just picked that chest up and tucked it safely in your inventory and you were basically done. With packing anyways.. You still had to talk to the villagers and let them know you had to move away for a while. But you doubted they’d be heartbroken or anything. Maybe bummed out but they’d understand. It’s not like they’d be lost without you. They’d been living in this world long before you showed up and they’d probably be here long after you left.
Then you were ringing the village bell. And like every time you did the villagers all poked their heads out from wherever they were to see who rang it and what was going on. And when they saw you they brightened and hurried over to see what was happening. They gathered around you and the bell, murmuring curiously between themselves. You sighed and cleared your throat, gathering their attention to you before you hesitated, not entirely sure what to say. Should you explain the entire story from start to finish? No, probably not. That would take a while and you felt like they’d get bored fast. But just blurting out that you were leaving felt too abrupt and blunt. Though your indecision ended up not mattering because Tubbo finally lost patience with the silence and just let the metaphorical cat out of the bag in his usual laid back candid way.
“Are you gonna tell them you’re moving away?”
Oh that caught the villagers’ attention and suddenly you were surrounded by displeased grunts and hums, like surround sound stereos. You sighed and confirmed yes, you were. So with the news out there you started explaining what happened the day before, or at least a shortened version of it. You mentioned how you’d gone to support Tommy, placing a hand on his shoulder as you said this. Then you said how you’d sorta advised everyone to vote for who they felt would lead them smartly, and how you guess they took that as you entering the presidential ring.. And finally how you’d won the election by some points and how you’d not wanted to reject their trust so you’d accepted the job…
“Reader is our new president!!” Tommy practically shouted, clearly excited. 
Though from the disgruntled murmurs from the villagers they didn’t seem happy.. But you told them it would be okay. You’d come and visit them as often as you could while juggling your new job. But even with that promise they didn’t seem happy. Your shoulders slumped a bit and without thinking you said,
“I’m not happy about having to leave the village and move away either. But I made a promise to the people of L’manberg, one I intend to keep.” 
Despite not feeling the best about this you were determined to keep your word.
“Besides, it’s not like I can just pack up the village and move you all next to L’manberg!” you said with a flippant wave of your hand.
But the idea didn’t sound too bad to the villagers. They basically worshipped you as their guardian deity. So if loading up all their possessions and hauling them to a new place meant they got to stay within reach of their deity then so be it. They’d still be living in squalor if it hadn’t been for your kindness and generosity, so they wanted to follow you wherever you went. Be it sunny skies, harsh rain, freezing snow. 
So they all made excited grunts and you blinked at them, catching on to their train of thought pretty fast. You shook your head, missing the confused looks the two teen boys were shooting between you and the villagers, and said they couldn’t follow you to L’manberg. Hearing this made the boys’ eyebrows shoot up and they started asking if the villagers wanted to come live in L’manberg. You sighed and said they seemed to, yes, but it wasn’t viable because there was nowhere for them to live! Moving them all on a spur of the moment thing would be reckless. Not only would the journey be very hard on them and take quite a while but there’s also no homes available for them in L’manberg. 
“We could make some houses for them if they want to move to L’manberg!” Tubbo said with a little grin, not seeing the issue with them coming over.
You rubbed a hand down your face, careful not to jostle your mask too much. But then you sighed and finally caved in. 
“Okay, you can all move next to L’manberg,” you began, but before they could cheer you cut them off with, “BUT! They can’t leave today. I refuse to let them take the whole long journey to L’manberg just so they can be homeless when they get there.”
You said you and some others (who you would pay) would build a new village next door to L’manberg for them. And once it was complete you would come back and help ferry them all over safely. But you might have to take them over in small groups to avoid hostile mobs and stuff. Though despite all the risks the villagers seemed quite happy with everything. So you pulled out your notebook, the same one you’d used when you first showed up to the village actually, and made a note to start construction on a new village to either the North or East of L’manberg. Or whatever side had better building room. But now that that all was settled you bid the villagers goodbye, saying you’d start construction as soon as possible.
With that out of the way you decided to pay a visit to Azo. You missed the adorable little piglin and hoped she was doing okay. Your boys followed you into the Nether, asking what you needed from there so badly. That made you pause and realize they’d never officially met Azo! You smiled down at them and said you’d sort of taken up guardianship of a little piglin girl who lost her parents. You’d expected questions and some comments but got nothing but silence in return, which left you feeling a bit confused. But when you glanced over at the boys you saw Tubbo looking lost in thought and Tommy looking mildly upset. This caused you to stop short, which made them pause and look back at you. 
“What’s wrong?” you couldn’t help but ask.
But they both waved you off, Tubbo with a soft ‘what do you mean?’ and Tommy with an almost harsh sounding  ‘nothing’, both of which didn’t sound the least bit convincing. So you tilted your head to the side and in a firmer (but still gentle) tone you asked again what was wrong. Tommy’s nose scrunched up and he crossed his arms, adamantly saying nothing and asking if you all could hurry up and see ‘this kid’ since you had to hurry back to L’manberg. Tubbo tried to piggyback off Tommy, his smile attempting to be brighter as he agreed, saying he wanted to meet your ‘new kid’. That’s when it hit you..
“Are you two upset that I adopted a kid?”
Tommy wasn’t very subtle with his feelings, his loud “WHAT?! NO!” didn’t convince you of his supposed ‘uncaring’ regarding the situation. Tubbo however reacted slower than his friend, like he was processing what you’d asked before he gave a laugh that sounded too stilted to be genuine and denied being upset, saying that was ridiculous. Tommy actually started walking away, heading in the direction you three had followed when you were together here last time, with the goatish brunet watching him anxiously. But you called for him to stop and come back, maybe a touch sterner than you’d wanted. But when the blond came back to you he refused to look at you, just scowling down at his feet. You felt your heart ache at the sight and let out a calm breath.
You wrapped one arm around the blond’s shoulders and the other around his back, pulling him into a comforting hug. You laid your cheek on the top of his mop of hair, glancing down at Tubbo who was shifting between watching you both and glancing away nervously. Without much thought you removed the hand holding Tommy’s back and instead used it to carefully tug the brunet boy into the hug. They just stood there at first, still and awkward almost. But once Tubbo wrapped his arms around your hips and Tommy’s back his blond friend quickly caved and sunk into your warmth, wrapping his arms around you both tightly, like he was afraid you’d both disappear. 
You took a breath and gently began to rock the two back and forth, missing how Tommy’s eyes pricked with hot tears as he heard your steady heartbeat against his ear. After a couple minutes of just standing there relaxed into the hug you said quietly but with as much emotion as you could put into it,
“Tommy, Tubbo, please talk to me. I can do many things, but reading minds is not one of them.”
You felt your shirt become warm and you frowned and hugged them tighter,
“If something is bothering you two, if you’re sad or upset or angry then you need to tell me so I can maybe do something to make you feel better. I never wanna see either of you upset, so please… talk to me?”
The air around you three was unintentionally heavy, only the sound of fire crackling nearby broke up the silence. It was killing you to remain quiet but you didn’t want to push them to speak. That would just make them clam up and possibly push you away. So you waited, just holding and rocking them as you did. And your eyes brightened when your patience was rewarded.
“.... Why’d you have to go and get a kid?”
You half expected for Tommy to be the one to break the silence, he was always so against the quiet. But no, instead it had been Tubbo who finally buckled and voiced his thoughts. You couldn’t help but ask what he meant. And he sort of stuttered over his words, not sounding exactly sure what he wanted to say before he got his thoughts and mouth to cooperate.
“I thought you already-.. I mean you have us.. Why’d you-..”
If your heart could physically break like glass then you knew after hearing that it would be in a hundred pieces on the floor. You couldn’t help but pull them closer and bury your face between theirs, unknowingly letting out a softened keening sound. 
“I want you both to listen, just because I take another child under my wing doesn’t mean I no longer care about you two. I don’t think I could ever stop caring about you. You’re my boys, and I-....” here is where you hesitated, not wanting so sound weird but you continued,
“If you both want… I mean since neither of you have one to my knowledge… I’d happily be your mom.”
Shy isn’t exactly how you’d describe the two boys you’d begun to care for, but there was no other word accurate enough to describe how they agreed to your offer to be their mom. Tubbo gave an almost meek, “alright, sure” while holding onto your waist and Tommy gave a long-suffering sigh while trying to discreetly wipe his eyes and said, “I guess you’re cool enough to be my mum. Barely though.” That caused you to let out a loud guffaw, your grip on them loosening enough to where you could ruffle the blond’s hair.
“Ohhhhh, Big man himself thinks I’M cool? Very high praise~”
The heavy atmosphere lightened and your laughter had the two boys laughing too. But then a sly grin took over your face and you chuckled. The sound alerted the boys of your mischievous mood and they looked up when you started talking.
“Well, now that you’ve accepted me as your mom I’m legally obligated to do all sorts of ‘Mom Stuff’, I hope you realize that. Like making sure you both eat things besides bread and meat, make sure you sleep regularly, and do the spit thing when you’ve got dirt on your face.”
They gave you a look that was a mixture of confusion and mild disgust, and Tommy couldn’t help but blurt out,
“What the fuck do you mean by ‘spit thing’??”
Unbeknownst to him, he’d activated your Mom Trap Card and your grin grew into a smirk and you raised your hand, casually commenting that he seemed to have a bit of dirt on his cheek, and then you licked your thumb and moved it towards his face. He shrieked and practically threw himself backwards to avoid your spit covered finger. But you still had your arm around his shoulders so he didn’t get far. He rapidly screamed out a verbal blur of ‘nonononoNONONO!’ that had Tubbo nearly doubling over, howling with laughter.
Though his laughter abruptly cut off with a gasp when Tommy escaped your hold, causing you to turn your sights on him. He let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like the bleat of a goat before turning and running from you. You just cackled and chased after him, your longer legs giving you the advantage. You caught up with him before he knew it and lifted him in a backwards hug. Now it was Tommy’s turn to laugh at Tubbo.
But you did let him down, without cleaning his face, and smiled down at the pair and said sincerely,
“All joking aside… I think you two would make a cool pair of big brothers..”
Tommy took that and ran with it, saying of COURSE he would be! He was practically Tubbo’s big brother already! Which just caused Tubbo to argue with him that uh, NO, he was older than Tommy! So HE was the older brother out of the two of them, if anything! And oh boy that caused them both to go back and forth, arguing about who was the ‘older brother’ between them. Tubbo insisted it was him because he was born first but Tommy insisted it was him because he was taller. You just shook your head and led the bickering duo down the familiar path to Azo’s little ‘house’ you built her. And as you reached the open area you saw her outside the house playing with a couple other baby piglins. But when she looked up and saw you she squealed happily and all but sprinted over to you. You made sure to bend down and hold your hands out to catch her. 
She was so excited to see you again that she totally missed the two boys standing at your sides. At least until she heard them and then she stiffened and stared down at Tubbo from her place in your arms. Neither boy really knew what to say so you decided to intervene and put out introductions. You tapped her hand and smiled down at her, helping her worry ease a bit.
“Azo, I missed you! I want to introduce you to my sons! This,” you gestured to Tubbo, “is Tubbo. And this,” you turned your head and pointed to the blond on the other side, “is Tommy. They’re both very nice. And they wanted to meet you!”
You turned so you and Azo were both facing the boys and saw them smiling genuinely. Relief flooded you, thinking they were actually glad to meet the little piglin, unaware the smiles were more stemming from the fact you’d called them your sons so easily.
But you saw the wariness still on Azo’s face and worried she’d not like her new brothers. Suddenly you got a bright idea and your smile widened as you spoke up and said, 
“Hey, don’t you two have a gift for Azo? Maybe something yellow and shiny~?”
Tubbo’s mouth dropped down into an ‘o’ as he realized what you meant. Then he elbowed Tommy and then pulled open his inventory and started looking through it. Tommy glared at him, moving his arm away after getting jabbed, but then his eyebrows raised when he saw his best friend pull out a gold ingot from his inventory. Then he understood what you meant and hurried to look through his inventory as well. Thankfully he did have some gold ingots leftover from when he was crafting golden apples.
Azo perked up when she saw the gold ingot Tubbo had taken from his inventory. And when he offered it to her she couldn’t hold back the happy snort she let out as she joyfully accepted it. You giggled at how she admired the saffron colored bar. And when Tommy extended his own gold ingot you laughed when Azo’s little tail began to swish back and forth in glee as she took that one too. She looked so cute as she admired her new items. You rubbed her back and said,
“See? They’re pretty nice, right? Why don’t we go have something to eat? And we can hang out.”
The tiny piglin seemed more than happy with that plan and snorted happily. You carried her towards the house, her little friends having long since scurried off. The teens behind you followed your lead, joining you in the house. You sat Azo down and suggested she show off her toys to Tubbo and Tommy, which she started doing gladly. The two played with her while you brewed some tea and crafted some cookies. Chilled rosehip tea and shortbread cookies were on the menu and after it was all done you laid it out on the table before calling them over. The boys were all too happy for the chilly drink, the cold giving them reprieve from the heat of the Nether. But Azo was shocked by the cold, not having experienced something like this before. It took a bit of explanation to get her to give it a try, and despite how it made her shiver she seemed to really like it. And cookies were always popular. So the plate was emptied in a flash.
As you sat with the three, listening to Tommy brag to Azo about how ‘cool and tough’ he was and how he’s practically a hero in the Overworld while Tubbo interjected with contradictions, you felt yourself smile serenely; truly happy where you were right then.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@lady-bee-fechin @kacchasu @putridjoy @lunawritesstories @galaxypankitty3030 @paradigmax @zachariethememerie @killmewithafanfic @trinity-1002107 @hufflepuff-demigod @truthdaze @exorcisms-with-elmo @redbloodtea @heythereimhaylz @olyink @jackalopedoodles @nikkineeky @artsimatsu @hufflepuff-demigod @corpiet @beepa99 @anxiousnarwhale @bananaaddictmilkshake @realitycanbeajerk @lostandsouciant @thegeekisheere @sparkling-gayyy @woman-soot @xxtwizztedxx @v10dw4lk3r
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bjy-on-ao3 · 3 years ago
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Fic Friday: Idle Hands
(As usual, you can find the AO3 version of all my uploads [and some things I don’t post here to tumblr] via my Masterlist blog page.)
No real meaning behind this one. I just wanted to write some smut that was light and sweet. And Zenkichi feels like he could fit into something like that very nicely. So enjoy I guess what is effectively a sexy slice of life scenario. Also decided to go with one of the shower stall type bathrooms, rather than a tub/shower, despite it being a smaller space.
Thank you to Petaldances for beta'ing and catching as many errors/typos as possible!
Summary While taking a shower together, Reader gets a little handsy with Zenkichi, leading to no one really getting any cleaner.
Tags/Warnings Creampie, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Reader-Insert, Shameless Smut, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shower S*x, Vaginal S*x
Idle Hands (F! Reader/Zenkichi Hasegawa)
You waited patiently in the bathroom while Zenkichi bent over into the shower, adjusting knobs here and there. You watched him tentatively stick a hand beneath the flow of water to test it. He was taking his time, but you didn’t mind, content for him to take however long he liked, given the pleasant view of his backside you were privy to. Nothing steamy had been on your mind when you had decided to take a shower together, though the opportunity to take a peek while you stood there doing nothing was a hard one to pass up.
After a little while fussing and fidgeting with shower settings, during which you continued to gawp at the expanse of bare skin you couldn’t resist, Zenkichi straightened up. He turned back to look at you. “Alright, should be good to go,” he informed you.
You nodded in acknowledgement. “We should get in then,” you insisted.
He didn’t need to be told twice, stepping into the shower, immediately caught in the showerhead’s steamy spray. You took one more - hopefully inconspicuous - look over Zenkichi’s frame before you joined him, sliding the shower door shut behind you carefully.
Right away you were overtaken by the haze of steam and heat generated by the hot water, and the warmer temperature made you sigh contently. You would need to take turns with direct exposure to the water, but fortunately you didn’t have to be cold while you wait. Not to mention your eye candy from before hadn’t gone very far.
Not wanting him to catch you in the act - it was a little embarrassing even if you had a feeling it wouldn’t bother him - you reached for a washcloth. You reached past him briefly to wet it, but paused before lathering it up with soap. Zenkichi’s washing process was going considerably quicker than yours already, apparently not nearly so distracted by your nudity as you were by his. He had been quick to soap himself up using another cloth, and the motion drew your eyes, following each stroke.
Fortunately, he remained unaware of your intent gaze, his head tipped back to soak his hair and wash the soap in places he had already scrubbed himself. His eyes were closed, letting you indulge in the sight for far too long. Maybe you should have chided yourself for taking full advantage of the chance to leer at him, but you couldn’t resist. Standing there, taking up the water, Zenkichi cut a pretty picture you could hardly tear your eyes from.
Everywhere you looked was slick with soap, or spattered and streaked with rivulets and beads of water. It flowed down steadily, drawing your attention over and down his shoulders, along the fit planes of his chest and torso and the patches of slicked down hair that dusted them. His skin beneath the water and suds was pleasantly flushed, and you longed to touch it with each passing second. Perhaps showering together hadn’t been your greatest decision for the day, even if you were enjoying the show. Of course, you certainly weren’t accomplishing what you had meant to.
Unable to contain yourself anymore, you reached forward once Zenkichi had nearly finished washing away the last of the soap, and ran your hands gingerly over his chest. To his credit, he didn’t flinch away or seem at all started by the abrupt touches, almost as if he’d been expecting them. Instead, he stopped, tipping his head forward and opening his eyes to look at you. You didn’t bother to still your hands, trailing them down his torso and sides, and back up, pausing to absently massage his waist and hips.
A small, wry grin drew itself on across his lips. “Y’know, the whole reason for taking a shower was to get clean , not dirty,” Zenkichi half-scolded, half-joked, and you rolled your eyes cheerfully, a slight smile dawning on you, too.
“Ah, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t stop myself,” you apologized, though you weren’t really sorry, a sentiment that showed plainly in how your hands rested over his skin, still stroking delicately.
Of course, you hadn’t meant for the touches to incite anything, merely you had longed to touch him, so you had. There was no course of action beyond that.
“Mm hm,” he hummed, “and that’s why you still haven’t let go?” His tone was light and teasing, and his focus was trained on you.
At his remark, you started to pull your hands away, fully intending to behave and actually shower up, as had been the original plan. But Zenkichi stopped you, his fingers wrapping around your wrists and preventing you from moving them back. Your glance flickered once, back and forth. From his hands trapping yours to his handsome face, and you stared wordlessly for an instant. There was a cheekiness to his grin, a bit of teeth showing, though the expression was warm and made your heart flutter in your chest.
“But I guess if we’re giving up on cleaning up…” Zenkichi’s words trailed off into nothing, and he pressed your hands more firmly to his skin.
He coaxed you back slowly until your back hit the cool surface of the shower wall. The reaction was instant, and you shuddered, though you weren’t sure whether it was the cold tile or the way he moved closer still. He stopped, his skin brushing against yours, and finally freed your hands. He raised both of his own, leaning in and cupping your face in them. You lifted your arms, eagerly looping them around his neck and waiting with bated breath as his lips drew nearer.
When Zenkichi’s lips sealed over yours, after an instant that felt like forever, it was a languid and gentle affair. Your cheeks beneath his palms were hot, and your heart was picking up speed, accompanied by a warm comfort rising low in your stomach and chest. You kissed back, trying to match his relaxed pace and the passion simmering just below the surface.
For a while the kiss, despite the ardor smoldering within it, remained reserved, almost lazy, restricted to your lips molding together and barely parting before coming together all over again. His lips, though, weren’t your only distraction, and his thumbs stroked across your cheeks, the touch featherlight and almost ticklish. His length grazed the soft skin of your inner thigh, only half hard, though rising as time ran on. But he didn’t seem to pay his growing erection any mind, far too enamored with your lips.
The tender kisses continued even longer, interrupted only when one of you needed to catch a breath before coming back together, as if the both of you were compelled to do so. You weren’t sure how long it lasted, but it couldn’t have been too long, judging from the steam pouring into the shower around you from the stream of water that had yet to cool. Not that you really cared much about the water temperature then, shielded from most of the spray with Zenkichi to distract you.
The kiss escalated when Zenkichi’s tongue swept over your bottom lip, turning from gentle and casual into something far more steamy, the smoldering intensity from before making itself known far more clearly. You were in no mood to deny him, parting your lips to invite him inside. His tongue swept up your own swiftly, and a small, unbidden moan tried to escape, muffled by the steadily more searing kiss. He pushed himself harder against you, and his length twitched further to life against your thigh.
Even so, the pace remained slow, a trickle of passion growing surely, strengthened with each fleeting caress and small, pleased sounds rising from either of you. Zenkichi’s hands drifted away from your face, migrating down, and his fingertips skated over your neck and past your collarbone. A startled sound alike to a squeak broke from you, smothered by the kiss, when his hands found purchase on your breasts, confidently but softly engulfing each. He massaged them leisurely, alternating between handfuls and teasing, light pinches and brushes with the pads of his fingers. The contrasting sensations made you shiver and squirm, squeezing your thighs together unconsciously, and you couldn’t help but whine into his mouth.
You felt his lips twist up against your mouth, a sign of how he delighted in your reactions, just as much as he did in touching you and knowing you were enjoying it. He leaned harder into your make-out session, his tongue moving more eagerly against yours, his beard rasping against your chin. He withdrew for a moment to worry and suck your bottom lip before diving back in to meet your tongue again.
You were torn between enjoying the slow, smoldering heat of the moment and wanting more. You hugged him closer, tightening your arms around his shoulders and responding to the kiss with more vigor. You wiggled your hips impatiently, though it did nothing but press his erection a little closer between your thighs.
“Zen, please,” you murmured, parting from the kiss.
You bent your head to his neck, trying to persuade him with small kisses and bites. A small shiver rolled through him, and then a laugh, soft and amused. But as entertained as he sounded by your impatience and plea, he didn’t give in, only mirror the small affections you had left on his skin.
One hand abandoned your chest, the other remaining where it was, gently tweaking and squeezing. His wandering hand slipped down your stomach, rolling over your thigh until it hooked beneath it. Tentatively, he directed you to lift one leg up, and hardly needed to do much coaxing otherwise to get you to hook it around his waist. You tried to buck against him, a motion he quickly stalled by pressing them into the tile with his hand. You made a plaintive sound, your lips trying to curl into a pout even as you kissed him.
“Hey, easy, just slow down. We’ll get there,” Zenkichi whispered in your ear after breaking the kiss once more.
You took a deep breath, attempting to calm the rolling boil of desire rising far too quickly in your gut. Sometimes it was worth taking things slow, yes, but sometimes as well it was so difficult, and you got worked up too fast. But if Zenkichi wanted to take it slow and tender, you had little chance of convincing him to change his mind.
Stopping to gather yourself helped, even if it didn’t stop the thrum between your legs or the flush of heat creeping through your neck and chest that had nothing to do with the steam. Though how long that restraint would last, you weren’t sure. You became even less sure once Zenkichi’s lips latched onto your throat again, sucking several spots and marking a sordid path down your neck and over your collarbone. He rocked his hips against yours before pressing them more tightly against you, pinning them in place that way instead. He ground against you at an agonizingly slow pace, though even that added friction was enough to make the pulse between your thighs surge.
“Zen, mmph, that’s not, aah, fair,” you insisted, your complaint interrupted by a sharp pinch on one nipple.
He shushed you softly, ghosting his lips over the shell of your ear and making you shudder again when his hot breath touched you. “You started this, y’know,” he told you, punctuating his words by casually worrying your earlobe between his teeth.
“F-fuck,” you cursed, half at him, half from him, noting knowing how to respond wittily when all his small, slow attentions had your brain melting away to goo. The rich, low sound of another pleased chuckle didn’t help your thought processes.
You squeezed the leg wrapped around his waist tighter, forcing him even more flush to you, longing for the hard press of his erection just a little closer to where you craved him most. But Zenkichi seemed insistent on giving you no quarter, despite your desperation and the new wave of whimpers and gasps floating from your mouth.
He moved on from your chest completely, the lingering hand repeating the same motion as the other previously, catching your other thigh in his hold. You were grateful for him literally sweeping you off your feet in that moment, as the leg that had still touched the ground before had been growing shaky and weak. With both legs twined around him, he fit so perfectly against you, yet was still so far from where you wanted him you could nearly weep. Weep, or perhaps try to beg for him to indulge you. But would that really do you any good?
Though his weight pinned you easily enough against the shower wall, he cupped both hands beneath your rear, supporting you further, and bent his head down more. His lips and teeth turned to leaving love bites and marks over the swell of your chest, down and down, until his mouth met each nipple in turn, and then back again. You murmured his name with a breathless gasp; the noise turning into an airy moan when he scraped his teeth gingerly over one nipple. He lingered for a second, soothing the smart of his teeth with his tongue, before switching to the other and repeating himself.
You dug your fingers into his shoulder, loosening your other arm from over his shoulders and neck to muss his wet hair. You threaded your fingers through the soaked strands plastered to his skull and gave a soft tug. It wasn’t so much another sign of impatience - even if his new affections stretched thin what little patience you had left - but instead an effort to distract yourself. An effort to ground yourself as you took another deep, shuddering breath while Zenkichi’s mouth on your skin nearly overwhelmed you. You hooked your heels harder into the small of his back, despite having him already pressed so securely to you. It was a wonder he could get any closer. Though of course, you knew he could, and it was the fact that he hadn’t yet that was driving you so crazy.
Zenkichi glanced up from your chest, mouth enveloping a nipple again, and when you met his gaze, it was hard to hold it. There was a hunger burning there, yes, but also more second-hand satisfaction at seeing you in such throes of pleasure. More intense even was the look of affection that made your stomach flip and tumble, rather than simply fill it with lusty heat. A needy whine escaped as you battled with the new, softer and more comforting feeling that melded with the desire.
He straightened up, pulling away from your chest, though his grasp on your thighs remained until he shifted again. He moved one hand into the cramped space between your bodies, both slick from the shower, whether direct or residual. Your hips twitched against him when his fingers brushed over your mound, sliding down until they slid delicately between your lips. They slipped away just as quick as they had come, wrapping around his erection and guiding it. A more desperate whine broke free when the head of him brushed through your soaked folds and met your entrance.
Your eyes laid shut, and with your hand tangled in his hair, you pushed him back to you, meeting in another fervid kiss, clenching your fingers tighter. Zenkichi groaned against your lips, the sound muffled, deep and satisfied, and his hips just barely pressed forward. Slowly. Far too slowly. You opened your eyes and broke the kiss, though he remained so close the sight of his dark eyes, flushed face, and drenched hair filled your vision, and his breathing tickled your skin.
“Zen, I need you, now. Please?” Your words were quiet, breathless, and questioning, as if you were unsure if he would finally oblige them.
Seeing you stare so unabashedly back at him, eyes half lidded and lips parted, the heat of your body threatening to swallow him up, Zenkichi found he couldn’t resist any longer. His fun had been had, taking his time and playing things slow and sensual, enjoying each noise you had to give. But the time for games was past, and the time for him to give you where you longed for had come.
Your lips rejoined once more, and you let your lashes flutter down over your cheeks again, basking in the sensations surrounding you. Zenkichi pushed forward, still slow, but steady, a pace enough to satiate the boiling need in your gut and make the more pure feeling fluttering accompanying it take greater hold of you. A low, stifled sound, almost a growl, drew your attention when he had buried himself within you completely, and waited unmoving for a moment after.
Your lips separated, and Zenkichi’s attentions shifted elsewhere as he languorously rocked against you. Your head fell back against the tile, cool and slick from the steam. His teeth and lips claimed your throat again, peppering bites along it and your jaw, pausing sometimes to leave quick kisses among them. His breath beside your ears sounded ragged and thick, as if the buildup had worn on him as well, even though it had been his game.
With both hands moving back to hold your thighs, he was able to maneuver you with little effort, shifting you against the wall until he reached a new angle where his length stroked your sweet spot and made you gasp and groan.
“Zenkichi, god, please don’t stop,” you panted, massaging his scalp and stroking your other hand along his shoulders and back as if to encourage him.
You rolled your hips to meet him as best you could, so tightly pinned to the wall. Your answer was another erotic growl, and a hum of acknowledgement against your skin, before he placed a particularly zealous lovebite on the curve where your neck and shoulder met. Your sounds of delight pitched a little higher, and you reflexively dug your nails into his back in response to the bite that would surely discolor.
Each pant and moan fueled him, as did the sting of your nails, and Zenkichi’s hips rocked faster and harder. His kisses grew sloppier and less gentle as he went on, as if each time he sank back into your heat, a bit more of his control was eroded away. Once small, affectionate nips became much less tender bites that made you cry out in surprise, only to moan when he soothed the abused skin with a searing stroke of his tongue.
Before long, the sounds of your coupling and the chorus of moans, mewls, gasps, and growls reached a crescendo, the acoustics of the bathroom making them sound as if they echoed so much louder. You weren’t responsible for all the obscene sounds, though. Several of them came from Zenkichi between kisses and bites, more guttural and primal the closer he came to coming.
When he pressed to lips to your ear and spoke again, the strain in his husky voice was crystal clear. “So close. Not yet, fuck,” he cursed, as if admonishing himself.
Another wave of shivers wracked your body from his words, and your walls squeezed around him more desperately. One hand moved from your thigh, leaving support by one hand and the press of his body. Like before, it snaked smoothly between your bodies, seeking the vee at the apex of your thighs, searching. In no time, he found what he was looking for, rubbing your clit in short, frantic swipes that you couldn’t help but grind into.
Your breathing hitched sharply, the change strangling some moans. The burning heat in your gut wound itself tightly, more and more, until you nearly forgot to breathe for an instant. And then, the coil of heat burst, radiating out from your center and to your limbs, your breath returning to you in a series of louder, airier, and more lewd moans as you came.
Your body grasping him so tightly, as well as your renewed and much more wanton cries, was the catalyst for Zenkichi’s own orgasm, and he followed you past the point of no return. He drove himself harder against you, though slower, each thrust inside filling you with a familiar hot, wet sensation.
For a time, while your orgasm flowed over you, you thought of nothing except his body molded to yours, of his length and his filling you to the brim, and of the ripples of ecstasy that made your walls clench and your muscles ache most deliciously. As the throes of passion and pleasure ebbed, and you came down from your high, anew sense of warmth overcame you. Zenkichi had lain his head on your shoulder, panting heavily as he came down from the peak of bliss, too, his softening length sometimes twitching inside you.
Bereft of the searing desire from before, left only with the gentle, fluttering warmth, you bent your head, resting it atop his. You pressed several gentle kisses to his hair, once more massaging his scalp. A softer, more relaxed hum drifting from his throat amidst his heavy breaths, and you grinned. You let out a soft, happy sigh, feeling exhausted, but satisfied and full in many ways.
Eventually, you and Zenkichi came back to your senses, finally becoming aware again of the sound of the water beating down around you. Zenkichi, receiving the lion’s share of the stream, seemed to notice just how much the water temperature had changed. He carefully withdrew, and helped set you back on your feet, one leg at a time, grimacing at the suddenly cool spray of water plastering his back.
“I think we’re done for now,” he said sheepishly, and you couldn’t help but mirror the feeling.
“Next time I’ll behave so we can actually wash up,” you promised meekly, feeling your face heat all over again. Though you hoped you could actually keep that promise.
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wyofabdoms · 4 years ago
Text
Ten Days - Day Two
Characters: Javier Peña x female reader
Summary: Javier is shot and refuses to take his antibiotic while recuperating. You get creative and make him a deal that ensures he will take his medicine everyday: one kiss for one pill. It's gonna be a long 10 days.
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major character injury, slow burn, mutually unrequited, medical inaccuracies, swearing, a smidge of domestic Javi
Word Count: 1878
Note: My very first completed fic EVER and first original post on Tumblr...what a time to be aliiiiive!!!  The rating will go up in later chapters, FYI.  
Read the full series on Ao3
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The next morning was a Saturday, and you’re up early.  You creep into your partner’s apartment, hoping to high heaven that he’s sleeping.  Of course he’s wide awake though, and has clearly managed to peel himself off the couch on his own.  You find him lolling in a kitchen chair, nursing what smells like a terrible cup of coffee.  He smirks at you when you enter and see that he’s up and about on his own.  You refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing you’re already irritated with him.  You simply ignore his presence and go about making him something for breakfast.  The two of you share the space amiably, though you avoid his gaze as you fiddle with breakfast.  You click on the radio at some point and the two of you listen to the chatter and news; occasionally you inquire about a word or phrase you don’t quite catch or understand.  Your Spanish is good, but still has a few holes here and there. 
You’re pleased that he seems to be in a better mood this morning and you inquire as to how he slept.  He shares that he had slept well, surprisingly, despite the fact that he spent the night on the couch.  You don’t mention that the antibiotics may have very well made him sleepy; you don’t want to go anywhere near the deal you had made regarding those pills.  But you appreciate the rest he has gotten nonetheless. A good night’s sleep could do wonders. Especially for the likes of Javier Peña when he was in his foulest moods.
By the time you slide eggs and toast onto a plate in front of him, your irritation with him has disappeared and he has you chuckling quietly about a colleague that neither of you cared for; the smarmy DEA agent in question had done nothing less than piss himself during the fateful shootout three days prior that had resulted in your partner’s injury.   You both enjoyed a level of satisfaction that the blowhard had been taken down a notch or two, though you were sure he would spin some elaborate story explaining away his actions (or lack thereof), and succeed in keeping his lips firmly attached to the ambassador’s ass cheeks.
“Fuck, he drives me crazy!” Javier sighs out as he pushes his empty plate away, carefully stretching his arms over his head, taking care not to pull too much and separate his stitches.  He winces a little and his shirt pulls up above his stomach, revealing the bottom part of his bandages.  
“Peña!  What the fuck?”  You say, reaching across the space separating your chair from his and lifting his shirt up higher.  Your eyebrows lower in consternation, glaring at him. “Did you change your bandages?”  Javier lowers his arms and gently slaps your hand away from the messy tape job on his torso, giving you a look reminiscent of a teenager whose parent insist they put on a coat.  
“I’m not helpless, you know.  You said so yourself, it isn’t that bad.  I don’t need a babysitter.”  You snort at that as you gather up the breakfast plates and rinse them at the sink.  
“Then you’re gonna have to stop acting like such a baby when it comes to….” you stop yourself and quickly covering your near mention of the antibiotics. “...taking care of yourself.”  You shake the water from your fingers and return back to the table, looking around pointedly at the whiskey bottles half empty on a shelf and the several empty beer cans smashed and cluttering the counter.  You reach across the table and slide the ashtray and nearly empty pack of cigarettes away from him, smirking as you watch him make a grab for them but stopping suddenly when his injury pains him, keeping him from moving as far or as quickly as he would have liked.  “You can start by cutting back on these.”  He gives you a pointed look, raising an eyebrow.
“Really?  If you thought I was a dick last night, do’ya really think dealing with me when I’m craving nicotine’ll be any better?”  He watches your face as you consider that for a moment and then, resigned, slide the pack and ashtray back towards him.  He doesn't reach for either, though, but instead keeps his gaze on you as his face softens and he says your name softly.  You hate how your stomach clenches hearing his velvety gruff voice form the syllables of your name.  Get a grip! You chastise yourself.  “Listen…” he starts, then stops, his eyes dropping to the tabletop for a moment, before raising them again and looking at you abashedly.  “I’m sorry about...the way I acted yesterday.  The things I said to you.  I appreciate your help...even though I don’t act like it.”  His apology means the world to you and you nod your head at him, accepting his apology.  He shoots you THAT smile: the one he uses when he’s luring in an informant at a bar or flirting with a typist at the office.  You look away quickly, breaking the moment.  You clear your throat.
“Well, since you took it upon yourself to take care of your stitches, I guess I’ll head out.” He lifts his chin up once in a gesture of agreement.  “I’ll be around today.  Call me if you need anything, OK?”  He repeats the gesture with his chin.  “And seriously, Peña, don’t push too hard.  You’ve done enough this morning as it is.”  He lets his chin drop several times in response this time.  You offer to help him relocate to the couch, but he motions to his half full coffee cup on the table before him.
“Nah, I can get there ok.  I’m alright here for now.”  He looks up at your doubtful face.  “I’ll be careful, I promise.”  You let it go, hoping that he’s telling the truth and head for the door.  You have your hand on the knob when you hear him call your name.  You swing back around and enter the kitchen…
...the pill bottle is sitting on the table in front of him next to his coffee cup. Where the fuck did THAT come from? You wonder.  He says nothing, just watches your face carefully as you spot it.  His face remains blank as you look him dead in the eye, putting a hand on your hip and clenching your jaw.  
“Seriously, Peña?”  He just shrugs, his face still expressionless.  You flop back into the chair you had been in, sighing dramatically.  “You just sat here and apologized.  You’re really gonna hold me to this stupid idea?” He blinks innocently, saying nothing and continues to look at you.  Several long seconds passed as the two of you look at one another, each trying to weigh and measure what the other is thinking.  Finally, you roll your eyes to the ceiling and sigh, reaching for the bottle and spilling a pill out into your hand.  You flick it across the table towards him and cross your arms over your chest as you watch and wait for him to swallow it, following it with a drink from his coffee cup.  Without being told this time, he opens his mouth and shows you that it is indeed gone, to which you roll your eyes even more.  
You let out a sharp gasp mid-eyeroll as the room seems to jolt and move around you.  Your body jerks as the chair you sit in moves sharply across kitchen tile, emitting a harsh scrap of wood against ceramic; you look down to find Javier’s foot wrapped around the leg and lower rung of your chair.  The sneaky bastard had somehow gotten his foot attached without you noticing and pulled it (and you) closer to his own chair; eliminating the safe chasm of space that had been between you.  You’re thrown off balance from the abrupt movement towards him and one hand quickly snaps out to brace yourself on his shoulder, preventing your forward motion from vaulting you into his lap.  He would have loved that! You think to yourself as you glare at him, pulling your hand back from the toned muscles of his hard chest, hating that you noticed them.  He smirks at you, but makes no other movement towards you, keeping his dark eyes locked with yours.  
“God damnit, Peña!” you growl.  His eyes flash innocently as he raises his eyebrows.
“What?  We had a deal….” You grit your teeth, steadying yourself.  After glaring at him a moment longer, you shake your head in exasperation, then lean the final few inches towards him and place your lips on his.  
Once again you’re struck by how soft his lips are.  How is it possible that this gruff and bristly grump of a man could have something so soft on his body?  The lips that you were feeling now seemed in such stark contradiction to the lips that so often let spill dark curses and angry Spanish and harsh insults to friend and foe alike.  It's as though he were a different person entirely sitting here in front of you.  For a long moment, your lips merely rest upon one another, pressing softly together again.  He has a different strategy this time, it seems, than from the one last night: a split second before your lips meet, he parts his own and carefully lowers his chin, causing your lips to land on his unevenly, giving him leverage to widen his mouth and part yours lips in the process, allowing him the access inside your mouth that his tongue had sought the previous night. Just barely grazing the wet warmth behind your lips, he runs his tongue along your bottom lip searching for the slightest movement or indication from you that would give him permission to extend it further into your mouth.  The only movement you make comes from the ministrations of his mouth against yours. You find yourself swirling along with the sensuousness of his wet tongue and the feel of his mustache.  You realize you were so taken aback by the chair pull that you had forgotten to plan how many seconds you would allow this to go on.  And right now, the taste of him is convincing you that maybe it doesn’t really matter all that much….
You sense more than see his hand raise up towards your face and the movement startles you and causes you to pull away from him, but only slightly.  You realize you’re both panting softly, breathing into each other’s parted mouths.  Your eyes meet his gaze….so close: Yeah...Ok, it’s not just me then, you think with a feeling of satisfaction.  You make a fairly solid attempt at swallowing the lump that’s formed in your throat, but you find your mouth has turned to cotton and your brain doesn’t seem to be sending quite the correct signals to the rest of your body.  You inadvertently lick your lips and see Javi’s eyes flash dark with desire as they lower to watch your tongue’s journey.  You blink a few times and swallow heavily again before pushing back in your chair and rising, turning on your heel and leaving his apartment without another word.
Day One
Day Three
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creativia10 · 3 years ago
Text
First Wip: Dukeceit Vs
Summary: Vigilante Janus has to deal with the chaos that is the newest villain wreaking havoc. Yet they both find themselves drawn to one another.
Notes: I decided to go ahead and try posting some of these unfinished wips. This was actually one of the first fics I attempted to write after deciding I wanted to try and participate in Dukeceit week. I actually really liked this one. I think my original intention was for this to be for the Free day (although I ended up getting a lot of Dukeceit ideas that didn't fit into the prompts). I can see myself getting back to it eventually. Sorry for the abrupt cutoff it ends with at the moment.
Pairing: Janus x Remus
Word count: 2014
Warnings: implied background violence? , innuendos (implied kink), sexual tension
Janus nearly had to swerve as he felt his weight shifted into the wall of the building he was next to.
Well this was new.
Once he got his bearings, he carefully righted himself, testing that the ground was no longer shifting underneath him, and carefully made his way out of the alley he had changed in, still using the wall as a railing in case some other natural shift occurred. He peered out of the alley carefully, working into the natural suaveness his vigilante costume normally gave him.
The city…looked like a mess. He almost couldn’t begin to describe it. Roadways were shifted about, all sorts of objects were around in a disarray as though blown there. There were simultaneous evidence of flooding and fires. Janus had never before seen such a catastrophic mess left around. He wouldn’t have believed such a thing was there if he weren’t seeing it with his own eyes.
He sighed, and carefully stepped about to find the source of all this chaos. It didn’t take long for him to hear a maniacal cackle.
“Oh what fun!”
A man dressed in all black with accents in various outlandish neon colors was floating in the middle of the city, over what looked like swirling ground debris?
He was looking about, seeming to laugh at people’s reactions to the mess he had made. Attention at things such as people trying to fix wind ruined hair, and turning around as though dizzy in disbelief. He didn’t even seem to notice Janus at first.
Janus stepped up to him and cleared his throat.
“I’m not sure why I expected anything else, “ Janus said dryly. Of all things to say first to the new chaos.
The source of chaos turned to face Janus, and tilted his head, an unhinged twinkle to his eye before suddenly his earth twister collapsed and he landed right on the ground. There was an unpleasant sound as he landed, but the man didn’t seem phased as he looked over Janus. He had strange vibrant eyes, that gave Janus a radioactive feel.
“Hmm, you the goodie here to kill my buzz?”
Janus scoffed. “Gosh no. Do I look like a bright colored government ken doll? I clearly have way more class than them. I’m just someone who wants to make sure my life doesn’t get swept up in whatever craziness this is, and have the means to do so. I’d liked to see the end of the day, and I surely expected the road being twisted into a column is not going to be helpful to getting me to work tomorrow.”
The other just stared at him for a moment before he snorted.
“Ah, that’s a good one. See…I’m not done so,” He shrugged and went back to pointing around and zapping strange bouts of nature around the city.
“Are you even putting thought into what you’re doing?” Janus asked as he slyly brought himself closer.
“Or are you just doing your best to be an annoying menace to me?”
“Hmm,” he tapped his fingers to his lips, weird bits floating around.
“I mean, I didn’t have a particular plan, but I guess annoying you is a bonus.”
Just before Janus could pull out one of his weapons, a water tentacle slunk up from out of nowhere, and pulled him towards the black clad menace, wrapping him up and restraining him. The other laughed.
“Ah, now let’s have a looksy here.”
He walked around and seemed to be taking in Janus. Janus struggled and tried to get out of the hold, surprised there was such a firm pressure and that it was hard to break hold off. He wrinkled his nose when he got a whiff that suggested this water was not the cleanest.
“Hmm,” the villain was much closer now. Janus continued to struggle, glaring at the other, who simply smiled at him.
“Ok, “
Janus rolled his eyes. He concentrated, and Remus jumped at the unexpected slithering sensation around his ankle, which helped release Janus from the water hold.
Remus looked down to see the yellow and green snake there.
“Ah, you can summon snakes. Neato.” He then reached backward and got hold of Janus’ wrists before he could use the other snake like fanged object and surprisingly brought Janus up against his back, but he held the strength.
“Oh, snakey, if you wanted to wrap me up to bind me so badly, you only needed to ask.”
Janus grimaced and tried to break out of Menace’s hold, who in turn spun him around and pressed Janus back to his front this time. Menace made a sound somewhere between a growl and a purr.
“I say, I rather like you against me.”
Janus’ eyes widened, suddenly very aware of just how warm Menace’s body was against his. He tried to get ahold of his breath, struggling for a comeback.
“What, no quip back?” Menace asked, sounding far too pleased with himself.
Janus huffed out a breath and tried his other trick again.
“Oh, that’s not going to work on me, dear.” Menace said, even when snakes wrapped around his ankles.
“You’re not concerned about them being venomous?”
“You would kill me?”
“I’m a vigilante, I play by my own rules.”
“That wasn’t an answer~,” Menace sang. “And I’m sure this would be less fun if I died.”
“Who said anything about fun? That’s your thing.”
“Mhmm~. Sure.”
He leaned in some to whisper into Janus’ ear,
“Isn’t there a thrill to being close to a rival whose intentions you don’t know?”
For some reason, the way he said that gave Janus shivers. He quickly tried to think of something else he could summon to get him out of this position before he completely lost his composure.
“Aha!” A familiar voice cried.
“Release the snakey villain, you new fiend.”
However, the obnoxious ‘hero’s’ entrance gave Janus the distraction he needed. Janus stamped on Menace’s foot and elbowed him enough to be able to get out of his grasp. He turned to face him, eyes flashing.
Menace simply laughed.
“Oh.”
“Your villainous deeds have now come to an end now that I-“
Janus shot a gag at him.
Menace cackled.
“Didn’t expect you to do that.”
“He’s annoying.”
The hero wrestled the gag out and stamped his foot.
“Hey! I am trying to save the day!”
“Mhm, and I’m trying to cut down a pest, so out of my way.”
“As if I would let the sly likes of you determine your own moral law on how we retain the bads of this city!”
“Oh blah blah blah, gosh, does he always blather on like this?”
“Indeed.”
The hero gasped in offense.
“Anyways, I really did not come here to fight two people today. So if you’re determined, I’m gonna head out. “
“Aww, but you’re probably more fun to fight!”
Janus just stated at Menace for a moment.
“What?”
Menace laughed, and then zoomed away on another earth twister.
“Aren’t you gonna go after him?” Janus asked the hero.
“But first-“ the hero started.
Janus rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He threw a smoke bomb and left before the hero could turn that into another needless battle, like he tended to do.
-
Janus wasn’t sure what he expected to come of that, but it wasn’t what ended up happening. For one, apparently Menace, as Janus had mentally dubbed him, was better at getting away than he thought. Janus wouldn’t put it past the hero’s incompetence either though, but it really wasn’t his business as long as the pest was done. Recurring villains, unless they were really powerful, were actually not a common thing where they were. Usually the villain would end up in jail. The hero, despite being annoying and over the top, was powerful, like a more dramatic superman. It was annoying often, say when Janus clearly had it against a villain, or the hero suddenly decided to fight him since his deeds were not always the most legal. Nevertheless, a villain being a child about who they wanted to fight was not common. For one thing, usually it was just the hero who fought the bad guys. Janus didn’t always go out of his way since he didn’t consider himself to be a universal do-gooder or anything like that.
Yet, this ‘Menace’ would show up at different parts of the city, bringing about his usual chaos, and almost actively ignored the hero. It was strange. Janus, begrudgingly, felt he needed to step in. The hero didn’t work well with others, or maybe he was just a nightmare to ‘work’ with.
Janus had barely gotten his costume on in the alleyway when he felt a strong wind pulling him out.
Gosh. That was too close.
Menace was standing in front of him, on the ground this time, with his earthy twister behind him.
“Heyy there, snakey. I’ve been waiting~.”
Janus raised an eyebrow at him, despite it likely being covered by his mask.
“Is that so?”
“Mhmm!” The villain leaned forward on his toes, unnaturally keeping his balance, probably from wind powers or something. Janus couldn’t help but lean back some.
“I was getting bored~.”
“That seems to be your whole ordeal, hm? You get bored. I get tired, yet I’m still here.”
Menace snorted.
“See, this is what I mean. You’re fun to talk to.”
“Yes, because snarky rival banter totally counts as talking.”
“Well, it is for me. “
Remus then spun around in his twister that seemed to stretch away.
“Come and catch me!” His voice rang off.
Janus groaned and started to trudge in that direction, trying to decide what he could summon to assist himself. He hadn’t summoned many large objects of transportation, but maybe he could find something to up his speed.
“You! He-“
“Yeah, I know, sir super hero. He seems to want to play with me, I will have to deal with it.”
The hero paused for a moment. “Is there anything I can do?” He asked hesitantly.
Janus smirked at him. “Not that I can think of. You seem the type to care about protecting the people so” Janus waved his hand, and went back to his task. He didn’t get very far before he was thrust into his next obstacle, a sink hole suddenly sucking him into the ground. Janus quickly summoned a grappling hook and hooked it onto the surface so he was dangling, but no longer falling. There was an echo of Menace’s cackle. Janus sighed as he swung himself up and landed smoothly. He looked around and saw he was in a different part of the city.
“Oo.”
Janus heard little clapping.
“That was a neat trick. I got to see you in many different angles. Very fun for me.”
Janus gave him an unimpressed look, before carefully looking around.
“Where is everybody?”
“Oh, probably deserted. I’m not very quiet.”
He slid up to Janus, on some sort of sliding ground formation.
“I think I’d rather have you all to myself anyways~” He said with a whole body wiggle.
Janus made a face.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Hmm?”
Menace suddenly got closer.
Janus took a step back, hand curling for something, but he struggled to wrack his mind of something that he could actually use against the walking natural disasters.
“Th-the comments, to me.”
Janus cursed to himself at the stutter.
‘“Hmmm” Menace tilted his head until there was an unpleasant creak.
“Cause. It’s fun, and I like you.”
Janus paused and stared at him in bewilderment.
“What?”
Menace giggled at that and then suddenly they were against a wall. Janus let out an oof, as his back hit a bit roughly. It didn’t help that the other man was against him.
“Ya know, I gotta say, I’m not the type who’s into pain,” Janus croaked before he could stop himself.
Menace frowned and took a small step back.
“Er, sorry…I got ahead of myself. I didn’t actually hurt you did I?”
Janus narrowed his eyes at the other, a bit
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rocket-bear · 4 years ago
Text
shinsena ghost fic outline
SO. on my last list of shinsena fic ideas I had written "shinsena ghost AU (yes, like the patrick swayze movie) but with an actually happy ending". I have decided that I'm not actually going to write this fic because 1) it would take forever and I have other ones that are bigger priorities for me and 2) the inspiration for it was really the MOUNTAIN of IT fix-it fics I was reading in early 2020 because I was Going Through It where I then shunted that inspiration over into a fandom I was actually comfortable writing for, and at this point I have moved past that stage and no longer need the catharsis,
BUT! I do really like the bits that I did already write for it, and I still love the idea, so I'm just going to go ahead and post the WIP bits that I did get finished, and then flesh out what the rest of my plan was after!
The fic takes place in Sena's second year of college! It's a ghostfic so, y'know, warning for major character death and copious discussion of grief, haha, but it gets better!!! Also, in addition to ShinSena there's BG mentions of HiruMamo in both the fic excerpts and bulletpoints for the rest of the planned plot. Text below the cut is about 6k words!
---------
"Aw, beans," is the first thing Sena hears after he dies.
He doesn't really process it in the moment, too busy blinking up at the bright, unclouded sun and distantly noticing that it doesn't hurt his eyes. He sits up, running through the last few moments in his mind-- a bouncy ball dotted with pink flowers, skipping merrily over the sidewalk into the street, a girl in her school smock tottering on chubby legs after it, a car unavoidably close, his view of everything blurring as he throws himself forward without even thinking about it--
Oh.
"EHHHH," he shrieks, and scrambles away from his body, and it doesn't come with him.
"I'm going to be in ;so much trouble," that voice says again, and Sena whips around because it's the only thing he can actually hear clearly, even though he's pretty sure he should be able to hear-- the other people around him, looking at his body without looking at him, everyone unharmed but most of them in tears, and he doesn't want to think about that.
So he looks, and sees-- something. It almost looks like an afterimage, at first, the kind of light-dark luminescent spots your eyes put up when you look away from a light you've been staring at too long, but it stays put as Sena stares at it, a kind of void of shifting light just stamped in the way of his view of the bushes lining the sidewalk.
"Um," he says, and the Thing kind of goes more dark-light than light-dark for a moment as it… sighs?
"Yeah, sorry, you're not getting me at my best, this wasn't supposed to happen," it says, and Sena feels like he would be hyperventilating if he had lungs, but he doesn't anymore.
"No, listen," the Thing says, and it starts to get bigger, which Sena belatedly realizes is because it's moved closer to him. With the way it doesn't actually seem to take up space, it's hard to tell. "Let's move away from here, okay? It's going to be hard for you to listen with all this going on."
And, well-- Sena casts a glance back behind him, to the people with their hands over their mouths and tears in their eyes and the pointless things they're doing to his body to try to bring him back to it, and he scrambles up to his feet and follows the thing.
"Okay, here goes," the Thing says as they move further away from the-- the scene, and then its voice changes. "Fear not, mortal, for your time on this plane has elapsed, and you have accomplished all that you were intended for. Your current form--"
"Wait," Sena says, fighting against the mesmerizing effect of the Thing's shifting lights in combination with its new, multilayered voice, high and low at once but somehow soothing. "I thought you said this wasn't supposed to happen??"
"Well, okay, yeah," the Thing says, its voice reedy and thin once more. "Your time actually isn't supposed to be up, but-- okay, did you know you're like, really fast? Like crazy fast. I was just supposed to nudge the driver once they stopped the car in time, you know, typical near-death experience stuff, but you jumped right through me before I was in place."
"You kill people by touching them?!" Sena skitters away from the Thing, and gets the distinct impression that the silvery flush it pulses in response is decidedly unimpressed.
"I can't kill you again," it says. "And we don't kill things, anyway. We just… mark them as finished. I got you out of the oven too soon, that's all."
That sounds a lot like it was only different from killing things in terms of word choice to Sena, but he doesn't say so.
"C-can-- can we fix it?" He asks instead, the first shards of ice-cold realization sinking in at last. He's dead. He's dead?
The Thing flares sigh-dark, and says, "You know this kind of thing has only happened like, four times before? Ever! Since the dawn of humanity! It's been like 20,000 years since the last time! I don't know off the top of my head, kid, I'm gonna have to look it up."
"Then-- there's a chance? How long will that take? What if-- I mean-- they're gonna take me to the hospital--"
The ice shards sink further into his body, but the Thing's voice is dismissive.
"If there's a way, that's not the body you're going to be coming back to; there's no way we're gonna be able to do this without rolling back the clock. So don't worry about the morgue, okay?"
Which-- was a relief, but Sena feels an empty sensation at the word "morgue" that he's pretty sure would have been nausea if he had a working stomach left to experience it.
Some of that must show on his face because the Thing comes to an abrupt stop, and its voice is more gentle as it says, "Okay, gameplan. If there's a way to get you back, it's gonna have something to do with the energy left over from your presence among the living. So go see your friends and family and see what you can figure out. Right now, you're a ghost, so there's got to be some way to tap into that energy."
Sena nods a little numbly at first, working on auto-pilot, and then nods more firmly as he actually processes the Thing's words. A plan! That means-- there's something he can actually do, while the Thing goes to-- "look it up." That's good! A plan!
And then, the Thing goes yellowish, and its tone turns apologetic.
"And… Speaking of ghost stuff, I didn't get to finish this part before. Your current form will let you move around this plane to visit your loved ones and grant yourself any closure you desire, but you won't be able to interact with the living world, and if we're not able to fix this in time-- when the time comes, you'll have to make a choice. Move on completely to the next plane, or stay here with your loved ones until there are none left who remember you."
Sena blinks, going still, and the Thing glows even more yellow.
"So we've got about [a month] to figure this thing out. I'll do what I can, kid. You hang tight."
And then it's gone, and Sena is left alone on the sidewalk.
He does all that he can do, and goes to find Mamori.
------
He doesn't think through the consequences of that until he gets to her apartment and finds her in tears and Hiruma on the phone, calling them an escort to the hospital. Every awful minute of that first day feels like nothing more than a smear in Sena's memory by the time his funeral comes around. He spends the time in-between trying his best to do something, anything, that will let his friends and parents know that he's still there. He does his absolute best to go full Hollywood Haunting on everyone he knows, trying to knock over pictures or rattle windows or flick lights on and off, but nothing works. Every once in a while, when he's flopped beside Mamori on the floor as she goes through photo albums, he almost thinks she hears him as he talks about the photos she's flipping through-- but it always just ends up being a fresh round of quiet tears that brings Hiruma over to her side.
The funeral seems to be no different. He'd hoped, somehow, that maybe having so many loved ones gathered in one place to think about him would somehow give him the energy to make himself solid-- and there are so many people there, not just Sena's family and closest friends, but people from nearly every team in the Tokyo American football community, some of them who he only ever remembered seeing across the field.
All of the original Devil Bats are there, of course. Kurita sobs his way through the service. The Ha-Ha Brothers stand stony-faced, and Juumonji scrubs a rough hand across his eyes, but Sena never sees any tears. Suzuna clings to Monta's arm as they both cry openly with Riku in the row behind Sena's parents, Mamori, and Hiruma.
His parents cry. Mamori seems too exhausted to, just sitting quietly and taking in the service with bruised red eyes. Hiruma puts his arm around her shoulder at one point, and Sena finds himself surprised by how much tenderness he's seen between them in the last few days. Hiruma had handled almost all of the arrangements, actually-- Mamori and Sena's parents making the decisions, and Hiruma diligently rising from each discussion to make the appropriate phone calls.
In the middle rows, Sena finds himself looking at Shin and Sakuraba. He shouldn't have been surprised to see them-- and he really wasn't, not really, he knew he would be devastated and would definitely show up if the situation was reversed-- but something on Shin's face startles him into looking again.
He looks tired. Sena doesn't think he's ever seen Shin tired, before, not even after playing full-out through an entire game, not even after the most intensive of training. But Shin's face is undeniably drawn, and the skin underneath his eyes is bruise-dark.
Sakuraba tears up, and Shin doesn't, but it's Sakuraba who lays a comforting hand on Shin's shoulder. [UNFINISHED SCENE-- also I had intended to go back and make this scene more accurately reflect Japanese (vs Western) funeral traditions but have not done that since, I'm not finishing the fic]
----------
He finds himself seeking out one of his and Shin's old training routes from high school, when they lived close enough that it made sense to share. It's been years since he ran this route, but it makes sense, he figures, that he would be revisiting old memories like this. It was a good route, anyway-- at one point it ran alongside the river, and Sena remembers reaching it on hot summer days, and noticing that even Shin tipped his face into the breeze when the sun was really beating down.
He walks along the path at first, but before long finds himself jogging, the force of memory and habit alike drawing him into those quick strides. It doesn't feel the same without the sensation of the wind on his face, or the heat of the sun on his body, or even the sweat beading up stickily between his skin and his clothes, but it's something.
Without fatigue or fear of obstacles to keep him vigilant, Sena finds himself startled before too long by the sound of steady footfalls coming up behind him. He automatically shifts his path to make way-- though it doesn't matter much now, he thinks with a frown-- and looks up as the lone jogger makes to pass him.
It's Shin.
Sena's not-heart squeezes painfully at seeing him unexpectedly, and Sena gapes.
"Shin-san--" He gasps, and of course Shin doesn't respond or look his way. Sena swallows the painful reminder and adjusts his pace to match Shin's.
They run together, and of course it's quiet, because Shin doesn't know that he has company. Not that companionable silence was atypical for their runs together before-- running was for focusing on technique, including breathing, so they would save the chatting for before and after.
Sena wonders if Shin had kept to running this path all along-- he was so sure that they'd both abandoned it when they'd made their way to university. Or at least, Shin had apologetically told him so, when he'd moved on to Oujou University and Sena was still in his third year at Deimon.
Maybe Shin's feeling nostalgic too, Sena thinks, and then shakes his head. He doesn't want to be sad, and it's nice to have Shin at his side, even if Shin doesn't know he's there.
He tries to sink into the feeling of running. It's still hard-- he can't feel much of anything, after all-- but with Shin there, it's a little easier to fall into old memories and let those guide him. He can pretend-- to feel the gentle breeze off the river cooling the sweat on his face, to feel the push of the sidewalk under his feet launching him into his next step, to feel how the sun is hotter on his back and shoulders than anywhere else as it crawls its way up the sky.
It almost feels like normal, finding that rhythm alongside Shin that has their steps striking the pavement in tandem, Sena's extra stride to make up for their heights a little accented half-note; that peaceful, focused haze that has them inhaling and exhaling in synch. It's so perfectly familiar that Sena can almost imagine a lump rising in his throat and the sting of tears in his eyes, nearly overcome with the twin sensations of having and loss--
--when Shin startles hard beside him and skids to a stop, with a gasp that has Sena's blood running cold before he even looks back for him, the image of the oncoming truck flashing through his mind.
But there's no truck here, of course. They're on a running trail, on a totally separate level than the road, but it's obvious enough what drew that terrifying, uncharacteristic noise from Shin's lungs when Sena looks back, and his eyes meet Shin's.
Shin sees him.
[UNFINISHED SCENE, this is the last of the actual fic that I wrote!]
---------
FROM THERE here was the plan:
- Shin being able to see him only lasts a split second. Shin's super shaken and keeps looking around and rubbing his eyes for a couple moments, and then he turns around and walks back to the train, and Sena-- thinking, like, "holy shit, Shin never skips training"-- follows him back, because even though it's super heart-breaking seeing Shin so shaken up it's also the closest he's gotten to making any progress the whole time
- Shin gets back to his dorm and just like. sits down at his table with his head in his hands. Sena's motivation to keep trying to get his attention kind of dries up so he pokes around Shin's dorm room instead and notices, like. a bunch of half-eaten meals/snacks in the trash, "Practice" scratched out on his calendar for the next few weeks, unmade bed, evidence that Shin's only really gotten dressed to go out jogging over the last few days and is only wearing his pajamas otherwise-- he's just not doing good.
- Just as Sena's like, really starting to grasp this, Sakuraba shows up at the door-- Shin gets up to answer the door with his back to Sena and like, whatever Sakuraba sees on Shin's face just stops him in his tracks and he immediately pulls Shin into a hug, which Sena is kind of shocked to see that Shin totally sinks into
- Sakuraba sits down with Shin at the table and they talk. Shin admits that he thought he saw Sena while he was jogging, and both of them are just brushing it off as like, a grief-induced sensory memory, stuff like that happens, etc. Sakuraba comforts him and encourages Shin to take it easy, it's okay to take time off of even his own personal training, it's okay if he needs more time, and also like fusses about Shin not getting enough to eat especially if he IS going to keep training
- Sena meanwhile is like, feeling awful with guilt but also just kind of overwhelmed with the realization of how important he was to Shin, and this is where I would've like, laid the groundwork for how they'd gotten closer during the rest of high school/early college but Sena still never rrreally understood how much Shin cared about him because 1) he's got self-esteem issues baybee, and 2) Shin is not exactly, like, super forthright about his feelings,
- but, while Sena DOES feel awful about how much Shin was shaken up about seeing him, it's the only thread he can think of to pull on to try and bring himself back, and he ALSO feels guilty about having to watch everyone grieve for him, so, well,
- he starts haunting Shin!! Shin does not listen to his good and helpful friend Sakuraba and goes jogging again the next day, but it's obvious that he's still feeling Off and he's having a hard time getting into a rhythm, and Sena isn't able to tap into ~whatever it was~ that made him visible the previous time and is feeling super defeated about it, UNTIL,
- Shin takes a break at the midpoint of his normal route, which is a thing Sena knows he does not generally do from their own training together, and is basically just slumped over on a bench with his head in his hands again and Sena's also feeling awful and helpless and does the same thing,
- and then Shin tenses up beside him, his breath getting shallow, and Sena notices and tentatively calls out to him. Shin slowly, slowly looks up, and they make eye contact for just a second again, before Sena can tell he's not visible anymore because Shin's eyes kind of unfocus and he looks away, and just gets up and goes home.
- This kind of refreshes Sena's determination, and over the next few days (IT WAS GONNA DEPEND ON HOW LONG I WANTED TO TORTURE SHIN) they repeat the same pattern, with Sena going on Shin's jogs with him and occasionally achieving small flashes of visibility(/audibility, though Sena isn't ever able to get out anything helpful before the universe mutes him again) which Shin seems to be determined to just brush off as grief illusions even as he gets more and more tense each time
- Until finally as they're jogging, Shin sort of tersely asks "Are you there?" and instead of saying anything Sena just tries to barrel into him for a hug because clearly auditory-visual haunting only isn't WORKING and we've gotta get some TACTILE FEEDBACK in here,
- and it works. He knocks Shin off of his stride, and Shin grabs for him in turn, and there's a moment where they both stare at each other in total shock and relief before Sena starts trying to frantically tell Shin the whole story and disappears out of his arms like, three words in.
- Shin has a little tiny mental breakdown in the middle of the sidewalk where he cycles from devastation at Sena disappearing again to trying to pull himself together like, "okay if this is real then this isn't my last chance because it's happened a lot over the past few days" to a kind of giddy catharsis because it's real Sena's really here to kind of shutting down over the idea that maybe it's STILL not real and he's just going REALLY crazy to actually pulling himself back together and going to find a bench to sit down on, and just like,
- talking things out, out loud, in hopes that Sena can hear him. He can only see Sena when they're running, which is something they used to do together, so maybe recreating old memories is what triggers it. He's noticed that even when running, he usually sees Sena in moments when he's feeling least conflicted/emotionally complex-- either pure grief or pure nostalgia or pure just-zoning-out-running, not as much when he's really struggling to process and has a lot going on internally at once. Maybe the stability of the emotion is part of it.
- Sena meanwhile is having his own meltdown from sheer overwhelming relief over FINALLY FINALLY making contact and Shin FINALLY FINALLY believing he's there and also just like making hearteyes at Shin for immediately going into full methodical Ghost Scientist mode after getting his own meltdown over and done with
- speaking of going full Ghost Scientist, Shin announces his intention to do exactly that by saying he's heading back to his and Sena's old running trail to test out the "recreating memories" theory right that second, and they head over.
- They jog, and Shin talks out some of his memories with Sena from his own perspective, which is a surprise for Sena because he doesn't even remember some of the things that Shin does and also it lets him actually understand what Shin was thinking in those moments.
- And most importantly: it works. It's not constant, but the longer they practice, the longer they're able to keep Sena in view for longer stretches of time, more of an unsteady flicker than the total off-or-on that it was before. They stay out for a long time (and in the process discover that other people still can't see Sena when Shin can as he continually gets weird looks for talking to thin air) and Shin actually eats a real meal when he finally goes home.
- Sena and Shin keep practicing over the next few days, which makes Sakuraba SUPER concerned because Shin spending hours and hours jogging every day looks like Shin further depression-spiralling from his perspective, but he's somewhat mollified by the fact that Shin's actually getting back to eating and getting dressed etc. normally, even though he's still not going to practice.
- During this time, Sena and Shin bond when they're actually able to communicate. Sena notices that Shin's parents haven't checked in on him even once despite the fact that he just lost a friend, and Shin confirms in one conversation that he basically doesn't have a relationship or emotional connection with his parents at all. (But watch, hang in there, I'm gonna fix it,)
- In the meantime, Shinigami-san tracks Sena back down and they both share what they've learned. Shinigami-san says that Sena has to gather energy from as many of the people he's formed bonds with as possible to chain himself more strongly to life, and gives him a pendant to wear around his neck that will store the energy. When Sena talks about his and Shin's experiments, It says that it makes sense that being emotionally and physically in-sync would help bolster the connection between them to the point where other people would be able to see him, and that if they practice enough they might even be able to just use one or the other (emotional sync or physical sync) without needing both.
- After Sena laboriously relays this to him through flickers, Shin gets a metronome and they both practice tapping their fingers to the rhythm, and they're finally able to see each other at Shin's dorm room vs having to be on a run and actively reminiscing together. They develop a system where when Shin wants/needs to see him, he'll tap his finger against the side of his leg and Sena will do the same thing so they can actually talk.
(- There is at least one moment in the development of this that, when Sena successfully appears in front of him, Shin smiles fondly and very softly says, "There you are," and Sena immediately disappears again because he's so shaken to his disaster bisexual core that he can't even handle it.)
- During this process they find out that Sena's pendant glows when Shin is reminiscing or otherwise talking about his feelings (but not the capital-L feeling) about Sena, which lets them know how to go about "gathering energy" from Sena's friends.
- With the clock counting down on Sena's deadline, Shin starts approaching Sena's friends to "check on them," or, to sit down with them and talk about Sena. It's a little awkwardly sweet on both sides, because no one expects Shin of all people to be making sympathy housecalls and Shin's not very good at talking about feelings, but the conversations are surprisingly genuine and cathartic for all parties (including Shin, who is still processing some weird sideways grief even with his new connection to ghostSena, and Sena, whose self-esteem issues have a hard time standing up under a deluge of people talking about how much they cared about and miss him), PARTICULARLY:
- Monta and Suzuna, where the reminiscing works a little too well and they actually see a flicker of Sena sitting at Shin's side during the conversation and freak out. Shin immediately changes tacks and tells them that Sena is there and that he's trying to bring Sena back and he needs their help, and at first this makes them freak out more because what the fuck but by virtue of Shin being… Seijuurou "Overly-Serious-Stoic-Never-Overreacted-In-His-Life" Shin, he convinces them to try the tapping technique to bring Sena back into view.
- Sena has Shin describe a memory involving the three of them while they tap along to Shin's rhythm, and the combination of reminiscing and tapping works well enough that they're able to get frequent enough flickers of Sena to believe Shin. Yes, they do get a least one good long group hug out of the flickers, I'm not a monster.
- Shin still has to do most of the communication for Sena because it would take a lot of practice for the Sena-Monta-Suzuna combo to get enough in-sync to be able to communicate effectively, but he explains the whole situation and all the information they've gotten from Shinigami-san. They decide that it still makes the most sense for Shin to field the energy-gathering housecalls for the same communication-based reasons-- Sena can guide Shin through the conversations by suggesting memories to bring up with his friends-- but all the same, Shin suddenly finds himself with two tiny new best friends who want to hang out with him all the time. (And not even just to talk to Sena! Suzuna and Monta become pretty attached to and curious about Shin after he shows them more of his vulnerable side in the conversation leading up to the point where they actually see Sena themselves.)
- I was going to go through little flashes of Shin's conversations with a lot of Sena's friends across the football world, but the other Big One was going to be Mamori, of course. (And a little bit of Hiruma, who refuses to sit down for an Emotional Conversation with fucking Shin, but will gladly peanut-gallery Mamori's out of his own repressed desire for catharsis and also to make sure with guns loaded that Shin doesn't fuck up the fragile acceptance Mamori's been building since Sena's death.)
- Having learned from the experience with Suzuna and Monta, Sena wisely sits out of view during the conversation because he actually doesn't want to put Mamori through the rollercoaster of seeing him again, especially if his and Shin's efforts fail.
- Shin does not fuck up his conversation with Mamori and so Hiruma doesn't have to murder him! It's actually the most honest-- and healing-- conversation he has with anyone. Mamori finds herself feeling very fond of Shin, who she didn't know was so close with Sena and could be so supportive and empathetic under all that stoic strength, and Shin finds himself immediately adopted by another one of Sena's loved ones.
(- In their conversation, Mamori also mentions that just after Sena passed she kept finding herself thinking she heard Sena's voice, because that seed in the actually-written bit above was in fact foreshadowing ohoho.)
- I was not going to Go Into It because not even I have the strength, but to continue the theme of Shin finding a new family via his bond with Sena, there was going to be a brief scene referencing that Shin's visit with Sena's parents went much the same, with the addition that Shin was surprised Sena's parents already knew so much about him (because as it turns out Sena talked about him FREQUENTLY.)
(- Also within the housecalls there's a comedy scene where Shin makes Sena solid just long enough for Sena to log Shin in on Skype so he can talk to Panther without sacrificing a computer, and they discover that international friendship energy gathering does in fact work.)
- AND THEN: SAKURABA. The fic would switch to Shin's POV from here! In Shin's energy-gathering conversation with Sakuraba, things are going well at first, with Sakuraba reminiscing about Sena and then turning the conversation toward Shin himself to talk about how he's noticed Shin's seeming a lot more steady and like he's been doing some real healing lately. Shin obviously does not explain the ghostSena situation, but does honestly say that his conversations with Sena's other friends have helped him process his feelings a lot. And Sakuraba, being a supportive friend, very gently says that he's proud of Shin for reaching out, and for doing so well when he's going through something so hard, because he can't imagine losing the person he was in love with.
- Shin freezes up, and Sakuraba tries to reassure him that it's okay, he's known for a long time, he's so sorry that Shin never got to actually process those feelings with Sena, and Shin doesn't have to talk about it but if he ever wants to Sakuraba's there for him-- and Shin very stiltedly deflects the whole conversation because he doesn't want to totally shut Sakuraba down when he's just trying to be supportive but also Sena is right there
- After finally, awkwardly shooing Sakuraba out the door, Shin sits back down and tries to Talk About It with Sena, but he's so emotionally frazzled that he's not able to get a stable connection. Since they can't have a two-way conversation, he just launches into apologizing-- he's sorry, he understands if it makes Sena uncomfortable, Sena doesn't need to feel obligated to respond to it and of course Shin is going to help him finish getting what he needs regardless--
- Sena's just RAPIDLY flickering in and out of view, with the time he's not visible getting longer and longer as Shin keeps talking because they are incredibly emotionally out-of-sync, and with Shin only able to tell that Sena looks upset whenever he's able to see him, he makes some Assumptions about Sena's feelings about his accidental confession.
- Things don't get better over the next day or two. They try to do their synchronizing exercises, but even reciting memories doesn't help because Shin is too anxious and ashamed (and sleep-deprived from stress) to connect to them emotionally, which is only compounded because he realizes that Sena's deadline is fast approaching and they won't be able to finish in time if he can't get his shit together but that anxiety Does Not Help with relaxing enough to synchronize when he's spiralling over the thought of losing Sena again because of something that he "did".
- Finally, Sena apparently gets desperate and snatches up the metronome during one of the moments when he's solid for just long enough to do it.
- Shin doesn't see him for a while after that, and assumes (correctly) that Sena has taken the metronome with him to try and sync with Monta and/or Suzuna instead, and also assumes (incorrectly) that this is because Sena is extremely disappointed with him at best and totally hates him at worst, and that either way Sena probably doesn't want much to do with him anymore even if he is able to be brought back.
- He spirals for like, A Day, after which he does in fact break and go to tear up very stoically on Sakuraba about how yes he was (is) in love with Sena and it hurts him that he'll never get to express that properly (now that Sena wants nothing to do with him) and how he feels like he let himself (and Sena) down by not being able to act on that earlier (when it wasn't a literal life-or-death situation) and how maybe he's just not cut out for emotions and connections with other people actually, just look at even his relationship with his parents???
- Sakuraba comforts him and very gently tells him he's being a catastrophizing dingus and shows him, like, a mountain of texts on his phone not ONLY from concerned fellow Oujous, but also from a bunch of the people that Shin's talked to about Sena over the last few weeks, all of them expressing the general sentiment of "wow I was super surprised when Shin came around to talk to me about Sena but I'm so glad he did, it looks like he's doing well, keep an eye on him for me" in varying levels of transparency because after all they are Manly Footballers, but regardless: look at that, Shin is actually perfectly capable of forming relationships with other people, and they like and care about him.
- This results in some decidedly less stoic tears, and Sakuraba and Shin successfully patch things up after their previous awkward discussion about Shin's feelings for Sena. When Shin leaves he immediately heads for Enma to try and find Monta, because even if Sena and his friends don't want to see him he absolutely can't just shrug and sit back and just wait to see if they manage to save him.
- When he's like halfway there, he comes across Monta and Suzuna heading in his direction, and they cut off his questions by just being like NOPE SHUT UP COME WITH US and dragging him over to like, a park gazebo for some semi-privacy.
- Suzuna gets the metronome out of her bag and sets it on the park table and turns it on. Monta pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and starts reading.
- It turns out that after he left Shin's, Sena ghosted up into Monta's room and just plopped the suddenly-appearing metronome down on Monta's desk, scaring the shit out of him but also giving a very clear signal of WE NEED TO TALK. Monta called up Suzuna and the three of them had spent the last day and a half working on synchronizing non-stop, and while they still aren't nearly as good as Shin and Sena had gotten with weeks' worth of practice, they got far enough along that Sena was able to have them slowly write out some of his memories with Shin, this time from his perspective, through the unsteady connection.
- Suzuna and Monta take turns yanking the paper back and forth between them to read out the description of Sena and Shin's memories, and with Shin tapping along to the metronome, he's able to see Sena more and more clearly over time until he's solid more often than not.
- As it becomes increasingly clear, even to Shin, that these specific memories Sena has chosen to share are a record of him coming to realize his feelings for Shin, Sena is eventually able to take Shin's hands and hold them without disappearing, tapping not needed. He interrupts Suzuna and Monta to try to finish off the confession himself: Shin didn't need to be scared when Sena found out about his feelings, because--
- Absolutely overwhelmed by everything about the last 36 hours and having no ability to process any of it in words ANYMORE but moved by the SPIRIT OF COMMUNICATION regardless, Shin gambles on the pretty sure bet that he and Sena are in-sync about this, and kisses him.
- It connects. (And connects, and connects...) Sena's pendant starts to glow brighter and brighter until he's totally enveloped, and--
- Switch back to Sena's POV! He wakes up on the street in front of the truck again, scraped up but otherwise totally unharmed. So are the little girl, who he successfully pushed out of the way, and the driver of the car, who stopped in time regardless. Shinigami-san is also there, and Sena tells It to leave the driver alone because It owes him one, and Shinigami-san congratulates him and tells him that hey hey that was the plan along!! (The onlookers assume that he's confused from the near-accident when he starts talking to thin air.)
- Sena waves off all the concerned onlookers and runs off to find somewhere to sit where he's not going to be gawked at so he can text literally everyone he knows. By the time he finds a bench, he's already gotten HOLY SHIT WE JUST TIME-TRAVELED ARE YOU OKAY??? texts from Monta and Suzuna, which he responds to and incites a flood of emoji-based cheering. Everyone else he texts is politely puzzled by his "are you okay???" message, including Mamori and his parents to his intense relief, except--
- He gets a call from Sakuraba, who sounds very confused as he tells him that Shin wants to talk to him. Sena reassures Shin that he's okay, and tells him to meet him at the park that they left off at, and also that he loves him because he can't restrain himself after not getting to say it before. Shin says it back, and Sakuraba therefore sounds both confused AND delighted when he gets the phone back from Shin to say goodbye.
- Sena texts Suzuna and Monta to meet him at the same place, since it's about halfway between Enma and Oujou, and starts running.
- Shin and Sena, being… Shin and Sena, get there before the other two, and there's so many tears and so much hugging and so many I Love Yous and also some apologies. Monta and Suzuna eventually arrive and there's another round of tears and hugging and I Love Yous, and when everyone is less punchdrunk off of trauma and catharsis, they sit down and figure out that it's only the people that actually saw Sena as a ghost that remember the other timeline.
- With the group understandably not ready to be separated under the circumstances, but also with Sena desperately wanting to see his parents, Mamori and Riku, he comes up with a thin excuse for an impromptu dinner party at his parents' place later in the day (celebrating passing a tough test? beat the Cupids in a football game? national pancake day?? doesn't matter!!!), clears it with them, and invites Mamori+Hiruma and Riku over as well. (Shin lets Sena arrange takeout for everyone on his dime so that Sena's parents won't have to cook for an unplanned dinner party.)
- Fic ends with the group heading toward Sena's parents' house, Shin and Sena holding hands, with Sena feeling content and confident in his relationships as his phone continuously blows up with people responding to his check-in text, and Shin admitting that he's feeling pretty hopeful about the idea of getting to form connections with Sena's family all over again.
END. Thanks for indulging my "I'm too lazy to write this but NOT too lazy to bulletpoint each plot detail beat-by-beat" post, haha!
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savnofilter · 4 years ago
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TW: MENTIONS OF DISCOURSE, GR//MING, P/D/PHILIA, ASS//LT, C//NSENT, D//RK CONTENT.
- this isnt under a read more because i want people to read this, but please read past this/tread carefully if you cannot handle such topics. this is not meant to be interacted with.
I'm not sure how to really go about this. I've been overthinking if I should address this and bring up some stuff while I've been gone, so sorry the absence. I deleted the tumblr app a few days ago and I downloaded it again today so i could post this. I really don't like making posts like this because it cuts the vibe that I've been trying to portray that everything is okay and it makes me feel really disconnected to you guys. I am sorry for the abrupt absence and cutting off any source of communication between us. I knew if I left any form of direct line of talk to me that I would receive hate and I just mentally decided that I cant sit through being harassed right now.
Have you guys ever paid attention to the same people who always have a statement to say or is always in discourse? It's very telling how everyone can post about me, but I shouldnt dare post about them. I'm tired of not being able to post about what I want without people vague posting about me, bringing me up every time they start another discourse with another writer or directly talking about me. My days on here are starting to feel the same. Its good then it goes bad. Good goes bad and bad goes good. It's not even tiring, annoying, or angering -- its repetitive. When I'm not saying anything people create fake stories about me, and when i speak about it im the one starting discourse. Don't get me wrong, I'm nowhere near perfect and I have made my own mistakes. But why the fuck am I always being told to be the mature one, why am I the one who should've done better, why do you people expect so much from me. It's the fact people are always quick to say, "no one cares about you, youre fishing for attention" when they're the ones who vague and interact with me while ive been minding my business for months now. Hm. The fact people have me proudly blocked but still harass me anyways shows a lot about themselves than it does for me. How its such an issue that im a minor until it comes to demonizing, tearing down my character, gaslighting, lying and bullying. I'm a literal example of how their friend group manipulates their followers and exiles people from fandoms for not kissing their ass. except now its in your face.
Consider this my last post about this discourse. I'm not going to waste my time on people who fail to digest other peoples thoughts and opinions time and time again because theyre weak narcissists. If I so choose to decide to shit post my opinions or argue with someone, none of you should be aggravated or moved by it because youre not even supposed to be on my page. If its not something serious i will not be wasting energy that i can be using to build on myself as a growing person than on miserable old ladies that have to use fanfiction to have excitement in their pity, depressing and lackluster lives. If people so do choose to create stories or vague about me, I do not care. So I ask respectfully to people who do lurk on my page to not attempt to message, post or vague about me please. This includes sending anons to yourself to make shit happen.
Past that, something got me thinking. My (older) friend had showed me screenshots of adult writers (no one i have spoken to) that were very excited to write underaged reader with adult characters. There are other instances where writers (that you have probably read from) on here openly made reader underage while aging characters up as adults/with adults. There are many more but there's really no point in listing them nor do I really care. But least to say, the same people who are gung-ho over these pedophilic themes/stories are the same people who support predatory people.
I've been thinking about whether or not i should continue writing for the students anymore. Granted, I still think they're attractive because one snap of the fingers cant stop that. I had been teetering on this thought for awhile because of how borderline pedophilic the people are here towards my age group. I enjoy writing but not to the point of willingly being in a straight line of sight where people who are well over 16 are harassing me and lurking on my page, especially to other minors solely because they are my friends. Backtracking to the statement before, I honestly dont know if I will either stop writing or just for the students as a whole. It shows that clearly some people are using their attraction to teens with the excuse that the characters are fake. The rapid normalization on dark problematic "kinks" is disgusting and vile, and the fact that its discourse now to shame said interests is appalling. Concluding that combined with my experiences here, i feel unsafe.
***(TRIGGER WARNING)*** I dont talk about my personal life on here that much cause I dont see the need too nor do i think its anyone's business. Paired with the fact that the people i have trusted personal information with have used it against me, I will be preventing myself from opening that door. Besides that for now, I have sparsely shared I've been assaulted before. This is my first time really opening up about this and i kind of find it necessary now. Coming from someone who has been a victim of assault and CP by people my age and well over, writing nsfw has been the only way where I could feel comfortable with sex in general. I won't get into details because mentioning this is triggering already and can make people uncomfortable. It feels like anywhere I go, I'm constantly putting myself in a position to be abused. The same people who told me I didn't have to worry about my age and be judged for it, exposed the minimum comfort of keeping myself private online to demonize, judge and hurt me. People call me "extra" for being distraught about my face and age being posted because they think im trying to be sneaky which isn't the case. Its the principle that they KNEW I wasnt ready to share said things, and coming from someone who is inherently a private and closed person, she knew damn well what she was doing when posting screenshots of me on Tumblr. There is no excuse for it. The same writers who write dub/non-con can BARELY understand basic consent and its fucking terrifying. This site was the only other place I could cope without being criticized. To see people who some i was close to proudly lie on my name, (adults) say that i sent them pornographic content without their consent is so very hurtful. To watch people supposedly be victims and then use their own trauma to invalidate my own was so fucking humiliating, disgusting and nerve wracking. Although I knew I made the terrible decision to interact with stories, I have never initiated any NSFW discussion with anyone in DMs unless they did it with me first and a few times -- and trust me raise your hand I'll show you the proof. I was sure that everyone I talked to regularly knew that I was a minor, and to my general consensus, people were under the impression I was 15/16 (which I was and am).***
Whether it be victim blaming from the grooming discourse, I've been met with racism, harassment towards my friends, people wanting me to harm myself and be assaulted. I fear what will happen when i will turn 18, if the harassment will escalate and what not. A big part of me is that I'm still here anyways because it pisses people off and I don't care when I receive hate. I can take it but I don't want it. A good conscious of me knows that I should be doing what's best for me but at the end I'm still attached to my ego-self with the added fact that I sincerely enjoy interacting with my followers and posting stories.
I just don't know how the options look. I'll probably be updating my blog rules as of right now. I've been writing more sfw lately because of this and it'd be nice if you guys supported those until I properly decide. I still have plenty of requests of a bunch of characters (mostly Bakugo and Dabi) and original stuff (all sfw & nsfw) that I really wanna share with you guys. But I just ask that what I do modify that you will respect it like you would to any other writer on here.
Stay safe, keep your mask on, and thank you.
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peachywise · 4 years ago
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nullify
an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader 
- part 6: the beginning of understandings || part i ⋆ part ii ⋆ part iii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ more to be released 
- synopsis: It was finally time to meet the bringer of the apocalypse– a petite girl wrapped up in a blanket drinking tea. Totally chill. Nothing unusual about the situation at all. At least Klaus was consistent with his irritating commentary.
- note: my bad sorry i haven’t updated in so long!! but i’m back! and since season 2 is now out, please just note that this story is my own continuation of the story after season 1. also, i am no longer doing a tag list. honestly i just can’t be bothered, and i’m sure most of the blogs have changed since the last one for this series. i post on ao3, so you can subscribe to the story there!! 
link on ao3 
_______________________________________
Okay. So you were going to face the person who allegedly caused the apocalypse. No big deal. This was just a normal day, and she was just a girl. Albeit one who had undergone pretty severe trauma in her life, but hey. Nothing you couldn’t handle with a pleasant smile and a cup of tea, right?
Maybe the tea was a bad idea. But you felt like you needed a peace offering. Something to break the ice before asking someone who was relatively a complete stranger, “I think I can contain your powers, so why don’t we try? Also, why don’t you move into my apartment for the time being? I promise the occasional cockroach that comes out the drain won’t do any harm. It would be nice if he paid rent, but I can’t complain.”
Yeah. Just a normal day.
An abrupt tap on your shoulder and Klaus’s breath tickling the side of your neck forced your eyes away from your previous stare down with the white bedroom door, and any and all courage you’d built up to walk in quickly dissipated.
“Hey, you think if this whole—” his voice caught on a sharp intake of breath as he tried to find his words, his hands rolling, “trying to convince my sister to not start the second apocalypse by moving in with you thing doesn’t work out, I can still crash there? You can’t begin to imagine just how stifling it is here. I don’t even think Five has changed out of his little uniform in a week, let alone had a shower. You smell so much better. Like vanilla with a bit of stale coffee and deep-seated cynicism.”
Turning your face fully towards his, your noses almost touching by how close he had leaned in, you kept your expression passive. And then you tipped your hand to let half of the scalding tea fall over the lip of the cup and on his bare feet.
As Klaus jumped back, hopping between his feet and hollering a string of “ow, ow, ow,” you took a small step back and replied with a drab and mocking, “that has to hurt.”
Klaus gave a curt laugh that was almost lost, given his teeth were clenched in pain. “You know, I don’t know if I like your violent style of foreplay.”
“You’re making it very clear why Vanya destroyed the world in the first place, Klaus,” you responded, voice raised. “You haven’t even experienced just how sadistic I can be. I can turn around right now and just let her cause the second apocalypse again.”
“How original of you, threatening to leave. What is it, the tenth time already? Maybe if we’re all lucky, you can get a couple more in before dinner!”
“You know what’s original? Your desperate need for attention because you never got any from daddy as a kid. I’ve never seen that before-“
The door opened in front of you, and someone’s soft cough had you and Klaus both turning in their direction.
Allison Hargreeves.
“Are you guys done?” She questioned, a tight impatient look crossed on her features. At a loss for words, partly embarrassed now that you’d raised your voice, you tried to find anywhere to look but her eyes. Your gaze ultimately got caught on her neck, and the healed, puffy scar raised on her skin. Right. They’d mentioned Vanya had injured Allison. Pretty horribly at that. You remembered what you were nervous about in the first place.
“Allison, this is Y/N, though they will reply to trouble or travel-sized Satan just as well,” Klaus offered, slipping past his sister, who stood fully in the frame of the doorway.
Reaching behind to scratch your neck, you forced a timid smile on your face and gave a small wave with your free hand. “Hey. Nice, uh… place you got here.” Totally casual. “Very clean.” Not awkward at all.
Allison snorted. “Uh-huh. Nice to meet you. Let’s see if this was all worth it, shall we?”
Straight to the point. You could respect that. Nodding, you kept the nervous smile on your face as you walked past her after she sidestepped away from the door. You didn’t really know what you were expecting. Part of you thought the room was going to be some weird pit of despair. Dark and broody, like it was supposed to set the scene for some comic book character about to delve into their villain origin story.
But nope. It was just a standard bedroom, very well lit, white linen, clean carpet. The only thing that really stood out was the sunny yellow blanket wrapped tightly around a petite frame huddled on the single bed, a sky blue polka dot teacup clutched in both of her hands.
Well, now you didn’t feel so bad that you’d poured out basically all the tea you were going to give Vanya on Klaus.
“I’m guessing you’re Vanya?”
No shit, she was Vanya. You literally knew what she looked like.
You shuffled your feet awkwardly as the girl’s eyes flickered up to you. You still had the teacup in your hand.
“I brought you this, but I… spilled a little,” you commented off-handily, moving over to set it on a small side table.
Klaus made a notably shocked look. “Is that what you call a little?”
Vanya nodded her head once, her tone quietly gruff as she added, “we could hear you through the door.”
Allison offered a very helpful, “I’m sure the whole apartment floor heard them.”
Klaus, unable to contain himself from continuing this rally of comments, added, “well, it’s not the only time my screams have woken up someone next door. Certainly won’t be the last, God hoping the world doesn’t explode again.”
All three of you groaned. Good to know you weren’t the only one exhausted.
“It’s nice to meet you, Vanya. Did they explain to you why I’m here?” You asked, moving closer to the girl in question.
Vanya’s eyes glanced quickly over to Allison, who nodded her head in encouragement. She then turned to look at you once more and gave a slight jerk of her head in affirmation. Despite what had happened between Vanya and Allison, you could see the trust between the sisters. You might have gotten the story of what happened three months prior, but obviously they had worked out some stuff. At least a little bit. “Yeah. Yeah, Five uhm, gave me the gist of it,” Vanya replied, her voice still quiet with an edge of hesitance.
“It really works,” Klaus stated, looking at you with a joyful look. “Not seeing Ben’s ugly mug for once…” he pressed his hands to his heart and contentedly sighed, “it was the biggest blessing one could have given me.” His serene mood quickly dissipated as he looked to an empty corner and bit out a tight, “zip it, ghoul boy.”
“I don’t know,” Vanya carried on, as Klaus and presumably Ben continued to have an argument in the back. “Our powers are different. I don’t know if I want to take the risk of using it again in case it doesn’t work.”
You sighed, and Allison brought her hand up to nervously to chew on a nail. Moving to sit on the edge of the bed, you tried your best to settle the situation. Yeah, the money you would get for this would be nice, but you could tell this all went beyond that. It was important. You knew they wouldn’t have just let you into their inner circle if it wasn’t.
“I get it. What happened was awful, but you aren’t in that place anymore, right? Panic makes you do stupid shit. You aren’t you when you’re in such a crisis. That doesn’t mean you don’t take accountability for those actions, but the you sitting here isn’t actively trying to blow up the moon and cause the end of the world.” Peering over to Klaus, who stood grumpily off to the side, you asked, “it was the moon, right?”
His attention quickly fixed on you as he replied back, “oh yeah,” making a sudden explosion movement with his hands and horrible sound effects to go with it.
Allison’s blunt, “Klaus,” was enough to quickly shut him up.
“But I could panic again,” Vanya pleaded, her hazel eyes cutting in their pain. As stable and as comfortable as she appeared now, you could recognize that constant fear that must have lived in her. You knew too much about regret. You could see that in her eyes.
“And that’s where I come in. I can stop that. But we have to try first to see if it can work.” Reaching out a hesitant hand, you placed it on her knee still covered with the blanket and offered, “this power is inside you whether you like it or not. I don’t have perfect control over mine. I wish there were things I had done differently.” People you could have saved. People who you accidentally hurt. “You tried suppressing it, but that only made it explosive once it was actually let out. We can try to make it so you can live with it. Even if you don’t use it, at least you can control it.”
Vanya bit her lip and drooped her head, her hair falling in curtains around her face. You were curious about what her thoughts were. The furrow between her brows tensed and untensed in a way you knew her answer to the proposition was continually changing.
“Vanya, I’ve gone the self-destructive route to try and drown the voices out,” Klaus chirped up in the silence, his compassionate tone odd to your ears. From the corner, he strolled past you and rested a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “But I’ve never experienced quiet so fully until they put their field around me.” Soft eyes met yours as he added, “I never thought it was possible. It’s all I ever wanted.”
Holding his look for a moment, you weren’t quite sure what to say. You’d never really been… praised for your gift. Whenever you tried to use it to help someone else, you’d get called a freak or something worse. Any other time, it accidentally (well, purposefully sometimes) harmed someone. You could tell Klaus was sincere. Listening to the voices of the dead so much must be harrowing. You never really gave much thought about spirits and their presence, but for all you know, there could be multiple in the room with him at any moment. Always in pain. Always sharing that with him.
All you could manage to offer in response was a gentle smile before you tipped your head back to look at Vanya. “You don’t know me. I can’t ask you to trust me to do this. But why don’t you stay with me for a bit anyway? Klaus will be there, and you can come and go as you want, the others too. I’ll show you a couple of things I can do with the force field, and when you’re ready to test it out, we will. This is in your hands, Vanya. You’re in control.”
That’s all people like us could ever want. Control. Certainty—
Understanding.
“I already called sharing the bed with Trouble, just so you know,” Klaus said.
Although, it seemed your understanding clearly had its limits.
“If you did that, I would have to burn my bed so I didn’t get fleas. How about I get you a nice doggy bed instead?”
That got a grin out of Vanya, and when Allison added, “I think a flea repellent collar would be a wise investment as well,” her smile grew a little more comfortable.
“very funny, really, ” Klaus muttered.
“Okay. I’ll come with you,” Vanya finally conceded, reaching over to set her cup on the nightstand. “I’m— I don’t think I’m ready to try it out yet, but I guess if I do lose control again, having you there will be a good safety net?”
“We’ll all be your safety net this time.” Allison’s tone was earnest, remorse and care wrapped up on one. “I promise.” She sat on the bed and Vanya gently rested her head on her shoulder.
Whatever had gone on with this family, whatever tragedy had occurred in the past or with the current ordeal, seemed to be mending. You were kind of in awe staring at the scene. You had never known this kind of support since your father, and even then, you were so young that your memories of those feelings of comfort had faded. You lived alone. Didn’t really have any lasting friendships. You had the old couple across the hall who you played cards with at least once a week— though you were pretty sure they cheated every single time— but that wasn’t even close to what the Hargreeves had.
Family.
Standing back up, you heaved in a heavy breath. “I’ll leave you to pack,” you offered with your best shot at a cheery smile despite the sudden growing muck (jealousy, sadness, regret) festering through your veins. “Would you mind if I use the bathroom?”
Allison started to talk, offering you directions before Klaus interjected, “I’ll show you where it is.”
You were going to argue that you were perfectly capable of managing directions in the single apartment, but he placed his hand on your back and was quickly ushering you out of the door and down the rest of the hall.
“You really okay with doing this?” His questioned jarred you, eyes widening as you stepped away from his touch.
“Klaus, are you kidding?” You shot back, your exhaustion entrapping your exasperation in one low, breathy air. “I didn’t see you caring about that when I had originally said no multiple times.”
“You didn’t have that,” he stalled, struggling to come up with words as he haphazardly waved his hands in front of your face, “that look before. You looked sad when Vanya said she would come.”
Ah. You thought you’d shielded your face away from what you had felt. Strange that he would pick up on it. “It’s fine, Klaus. I want to help.”
Klaus didn’t look so sure, but he was also resigned enough to accept that answer. It was the truth anyway. It was a brief second of allowing yourself to feel bad. We all had those. A desire for something else someone has, for love, for care. But maybe this situation would help. Helping someone else, someone relatively similar to you, given the fucked up freak birth that messed up all their lives, would give you a sense of purpose.
“Can I ask you something, though?” You said, biting the inside of your cheek in a sort of nervous gesture.
“Yeah, sure,” Klaus prompted, curiosity lowing his eyebrows as he slightly tilted his head.
“Did you mean what you said in there? Did my blocking your power really help you that much?” You just needed to know. He looked so earnest, almost… desperate to experience it again. You felt seized by a sudden warmth. You just wanted to experience that again, whatever that was. To feel like you had done right.
“Trouble, you have no idea how much that helped. I meant what I said,” his tone turned almost affectionate, his eyes almost pleading with you to believe, “It really is all I ever wanted.”
And suddenly, the warmth that you hoped would have a growing familiarity in your body came back. However, there was something else there, nagging at the back of your consciousness, that you couldn’t quite grasp. It almost felt like concern or empathy, but there was something more. Despite Klaus’s kind words, there was an undercurrent of sadness to them. The man in front of you, who sometimes seemed so much younger and fragile than what he was, had been through hurt. You could recognize it. You had the moment you had met him and all the Hargreeves. But you were finally beginning to fully comprehend what his particular sadness was.
“It’s horrible to have been forced with a burden that could probably do so much good, but we just haven’t been able to see it.” You murmured, speaking your thoughts out loud without really meaning to. “All of you guys were forced to do good with your powers. Be the good guys, get the bad ones. That in itself was another burden just on top of it. You were kids. You never got to experience normal lives and have your powers adjusted to fit normalcy. I guess I’m lucky in that regard.”
You didn’t really know what you were saying. Just looking at Klaus’s face and the emotions you couldn’t read had you spewing words so freely that surely he must have thought you to be the erratic one now and not him.
“Sorry,” you laughed lightly, trying to break the tension. “I guess I’m just trying to say, if my power can do good by helping you guys out, then I’m happy. Whenever things get too noisy, just let me know and I’ll try and drown it out for you. Maybe just… living for a while, not stressing about your next plans, will help too.” You could try to provide some sort of normalcy in your shitty little apartment, with shitty cable, and an even shittier view.
“I’ll do that,” Klaus’s voice was so quiet you barely caught what he had said. “Thank you.”
Averting your gaze to the floor, you rubbed the tip of your nose with the back of your hand and stood in silence for a few moments.
“So uhm. Where’s that bathroom?”
“Oh, shit! Ah, yeah, just down the hall and to the right off the kitchen,” Klaus laughed, tension easing.
“What, not going to lead to it?” You teased.
“No, I think you can manage pretty well,” he smirked, before walking off into one of the adjacent rooms, probably to go pack.
What a shame. You’d probably have to burn all his clothes before they touched your carpets, now that you thought about it. You know, because of the fleas and all that.
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mowulf · 4 years ago
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Misplaced
HEY GUESS WHO’S BACK Okay, here’s the deal. Half the reason I have a hard time posting stories on this site is that I’m no good at keeping up with the previous/next buttons. I hate it, it takes a lot of time, and I just don’t want to. SO I’m gonna get around this by just reblogging the original post with the next chapter every time I update this story on AO3. I am currently in the process of rewriting and only the first 1.5 chapters will remain the same. That said, here’s chapter 1!
He clawed his way to consciousness. His whole body ached and a dull, pounding pressure had built up behind his eyes. An unnatural energy hummed around him, but he ignored it in favor of trying to figure out where he was. Pushing himself to his knees, he immediately took note of the scorch marks surrounding him. They formed an intricate array that encircled him and he immediately recognized the markings as forming a part of a spell. He didn’t know what spell, or where the information had come from, but it made him nervous.
He scooted back and gently eased himself off the pedestal. The floor wasn’t too far and he landed with a hollow thump. Blinking, he scanned the room he found himself. It was dark, making it impossible to determine the exact size, but he could tell the room was massive. The pedestal he’d woken up on was one of four that decorated the center of the room and a nearby carpet led the way further into the gloom.
With nothing better to do, he followed it. Deeper and deeper into the darkness he moved. With time, his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Shadows danced in the corners of his vision, but when he turned to look closer, he found nothing there. Voices whispered at his feet, begging for release or someone to share in their torment. He carefully ignored them and kept moving. As long as he didn’t stop, he’d be fine.
Just keep going. Don’t stop, don’t ask, and don’t try to ask who was there.
Turning a corner, he paused at the slice of light that filtered through the crumbled section of wall. The light wasn’t blinding and he assumed it was dark out, but it was still enough to hurt his eyes as he approached and stepped through. He blinked rapidly to adjust to the abrupt change in lighting.
The hum of energy increased and a shudder ran down his spine. Invisible hands grabbed at him, trying to pull him back within the darkness, unwilling to let him leave. Without looking back, he marched onward, hands wrapped protectively around his chest.
Something followed him, he could feel it. The unnatural energy crackled and hummed and a memory of green fog danced across his mind. Shaking his head, he kept moving. As long as he didn’t look back, he’d be fine. Don’t stop. Keep moving. Don’t look back. Just a little bit further.
Abruptly, the energy seemed to go away and the unnatural hum died down to something annoying but tolerable. He didn’t stop to question the sudden change, but took the opportunity to charge ahead until he stumbled onto a road. He was still no closer to figuring out where he was, but where there was a road, there was bound to be a town. Picking a direction at random, he hugged the orange vest closer and began walking.
Morning found him curled up in the back of a pickup truck. The driver had found him walking and offered to give him a lift to the nearest town. He’d hopped into the truck bed and settled down. With the lack of movement, exhaustion had crept up and washed over him. He’d only meant to lay down for a moment.
He pushed himself up, blinked the sleep out of his eyes and grabbed blindly for the edge of the truck bed. There was a loud clank of metal hitting metal and he recoiled. It took him a moment of searching before his gaze finally fell on the metal fingers clinging to the truck.
Metal?
He pulled his hand up and wiggled his fingers. They responded as he expected, but the metal glint showed that they weren’t real. Just to make sure, he grabbed a finger and tugged gently. His brain registered the tug and the pressure of his flesh hand, but otherwise there was no sensation. How odd.
Where had it come from? Why was his arm missing? He sat down and wiggled his fingers again, trying to dig through and pull up the relevant memories. Nothing came at first and he started to give up when the impressions of sleepless nights, helplessness, and pain bubbled forth. The memories were disjointed and out of order and, as he sifted through them, he found gaps in the available knowledge.
There wasn’t time to deal with this. He had things to do. He had to figure out where he was, for one. Maybe find someone to help. The missing arm was a problem for tomorrow. Standing up again, he grabbed the edge of the truck bed and slipped out. Glancing at the truck one last time, he rubbed his shoulder where flesh met metal and began to walk away.
Keep going forward. Don’t look back.
He walked until he found a gas station and entered. He scanned the room and finally found the maps in a back corner. Meandering over, he pulled a map out and looked it over. Everything looked familiar in the sense that he had seen it before, but he couldn’t seem to draw on the information locked away in his brain.
Trauma? Concussion? Magic? There was something. He could feel it just out of reach. Every time he started to get close, a mental block would pop up and he’d shy away. Fine. He would worry about it later.
Making his way to the front, he eyed the inhabitants of the little store nervously. The map was spread on the counter as he looked up at the cashier. “Excuse me,” he asked, trying to ignore the way his voice shook and the hoarse quality from disuse (or had he screamed until his voice broke? He couldn’t be sure). “Can you tell me where I am?”
The cashier looked him over before leaning forward and tapping a small city on the map. “Right here. You alright kid?”
“’M fine.” It was a lie but it slipped out before he could come up with anything else to say. “Just lost.” He scanned the map until his gaze landed on a familiar city name. Shouting, engines, and gasoline fill his senses. Familiarity and safety. Home. He needed to go there.
He dug around in his pockets until he found a leather wallet. There was just enough cash for the map and a cup of coffee. He didn’t bother trying to use the card. A niggling feeling told him that it wouldn’t work and he couldn’t remember the PIN for it, anyways. As he left the gas station, map in one hand and coffee in the other, the hum of energy increased and he felt out of place, like he’d been badly photoshopped into an image.
He returned to the gas station once more, just long enough to get a sense of direction, and started walking. Midday rolled around and with it came the beginning of a headache. By the time the sun set, his head was pounding and his left shoulder throbbed in time with his pulse. A barely tolerable pain was coming. Something far worse than anything he would ever be capable of dealing with. But there was nothing he could do except grit his teeth and bear it.
Cars drove past and, for the most part, he ignored them. He was too tired and panicked to risk hitchhiking. It wasn’t until a car pulled off to the side a little ways ahead and someone stepped out that he finally stopped to consider.
“Are you okay?” a woman asked as she hurried over to him. He blinked back at her for a moment before he took a shuddery breath and shook his head. The woman reached out to him and said, “You poor dear. Where are you trying to go? Would you like a ride to the next city, at least? You’ll never make it on foot.”
He didn’t want to impose. The truck ride from earlier had been an ordeal, but she had a point. He couldn’t possibly walk everywhere, and maybe they could cut the travel time drastically. He clumsily pulled the map out of his pocket and held it out to here. “Um. I uh… Here.” He tapped a city that he had circled back when he’d first gotten the map and was again gifted with a sensation of comfort and promised familiarity.
“Oh, perfect!” The woman said as she grabbed his wrist and began to guide him to the car. “We’re actually planning to pass through there. We can give you a lift there. Here we go.”
They were a family of four: mom, dad, and two boys. He found himself in the back seat between the two brothers. The conversation was kept light and loose. For the most part he let the family drive the conversation, answering questions as needed and chiming in here and there.
All good things had to end eventually, however, and the family came to a hotel when the night was finally too dark and too late to keep going. For a moment, he considered staying. He had no money, and they were well aware that he had nothing to his name, but he couldn’t impose. Besides, as he waited by the car, the hissing energy prickled and nipped at his ankles and he knew he couldn’t stop even for rest.
He started to walk away when a hand grabbed his shoulder and he turned to see the mom. “Where are you going?” she asked. “It’s late. Come on, we’ll get you a room.”
He shook his head. “I-I-I’m sorry. I can’t. I- I just…” He rubbed at his eyes as the mom deflated.
“I understand. But please wait for just a minute, okay? I’ll be right back. Just a minute.” he didn’t even look up, too ashamed to risk seeing the disappointment. He waited until he felt her grab his flesh hand and press something papery into it. “It’s not much,” she said sadly. “We don’t carry a lot of cash and we don’t have a lot to spare, but it should be enough for food and a ticket to wherever you’re going.” He looked up and she gave him a sad smile. “Be careful, okay?” He nodded and she finally retreated back to her car.
How odd. He hadn’t realized just how starved for company he was until he’d been surrounded by conversation. But now he was alone. So very, very alone. He bit his lip and rubbed the port on his shoulder before finally turning away to continue his journey to wherever.
He didn’t sleep that night. He did, however, find a bus station that would take him straight to his destination. The pounding behind his eyes had steadily increased to a constant thrum and he found himself absently rubbing his temples while trying to avoid any and all sources of light.
Morning brought an entirely new level of hell. The intense migraine had brought along light sensitivity and nausea. What little money wasn’t spent on the bus ticket went to various over the counter pain killers and the strongest coffee he could find. As he resettled into his seat for the umpteenth time, he leaned against the cool window and closed his eyes. Perhaps if he could sneak a nap in, he would feel better.
He woke up to the bus about to leave his stop and only barely managed to get off in time.
It wasn’t hard for he to orient himself once he took the time to look around. One street sign and he knew what direction to take. The layout of the city came to him gradually as he walked, like a map in a video game that had to be filled in through exploration. With it came vague almost-impressions of a happy childhood spent running and playing and generally getting into trouble. He took his time walking until the familiar shop finally came into view. Hope bloomed and he dashed the final yards to the main office.
“Hello?” he called, looking around and trying to ignore the desperation in his voice. There was no answer, yet somehow he knew not to expect one. The shop had obviously been closed for the evening, which meant the work area would be deserted.
But the garage was built into a house. If he could just find the main entrance…
A quick search revealed a side entrance painted in such a way so as to not stand out. Hidden near the door, roughly hip height, was a doorbell which he pressed a couple times. It wasn’t long before heavy footsteps stomped over and the door flung open.
“What’d’ya want?” a rough voice snarled and he was hit with the impression of oil stains and endless patience. The word ‘lance’ danced around in his head but he couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why the man reminded him of an ancient weapon.
The man’s gaze landed on him and his eyes widened in shock before narrowing. “If this is some kind of sick joke,” the man snarled and he recoiled, apologies spilling forth before the thought could be finished.
“I’m sorry! I’m sor- I-I-I, Hhhh- I didn’t know wher-where else to go!” He cowered, every instinct screaming to run away. He took a step back, still babbling in a slowly ramping panic. “I’m lost. Didn’t know where else to go. I thought you’d help me. I can leave. I’m sorry.” He turned and managed all of three steps before a rough hand grabbed his right arm and held him. With a frightened yelp, he dropped and twisted, metal arm bent to protect his head and face in preparation for the blows to come.
Instead, a familiar voice soothed, “Woah there, son! Not gonna hurt you. Just…” he glanced over, still hiding behind his arm, as the older man sighed. “C’mon. Let’s get you inside.”
It took some prodding and quite a bit of effort to get him inside. He was determined to leave, the previous impressions of warmth and safety long since replaced by fear and uncertainty, while the man seemed determined to get him inside. In the end, he found himself slung over the shorter mechanic’s shoulder and hauled inside, where he was quickly deposited on the couch.
“First things first, what’s yer name, kid?”
He dithered about, flesh fingers playing with the metal port attached to his shoulder as he weighed the pros and cons of giving an answer. Finally, he ducked his head and replied, “Arthur, sir. I think...” He missed the man flinch, expression twisting as though he’d expected the answer though it still hurt.
“Drop that ‘sir’ business. It’s Lance. And hold your head up! God, yer a sorry sight.” Lance looked Arthur over before holding up a hand. “You can sleep on the couch. We’ll deal with… this,” Lance gestured at Arthur, “in the morning.”
Arthur nodded and moved to sprawl on the leather couch as Lance left the room. He’d just gotten comfortable when the man reappeared with a blanket and a pillow. The pillow was handed over and Arthur quickly readjusted himself before the blanket was unfolded and draped over him. Nothing else was said as the light was turned off and Lance retreated for the night.
Left alone, Arthur tried to settle down to sleep. It wasn’t long before the unnatural hum of energy returned in full force. His skin crawled with it and he quickly gave up on sleep. Throwing the blanket aside, he jumped up and began to pace. Keep moving. Don’t stop. As long as he kept moving, the energy couldn’t find him and he’d be safe.
Safe from what, he didn’t know, nor did he want to find out. He just knew that stopping was bad. Needless to say, he didn’t get much rest that night.
Please reblog and comment. It fuels my desire to write and I love interacting with the fandom!
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haqita-kimoji · 4 years ago
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Darts of Pleasure - Chapter 3 - Sorry
Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Original Character (Sophie Poulain)
Genre: Romance, light fluff
Warnings: Manga spoilers, s4 spoilers, don’t read when you’re not updated with the latest anime episode
Word count: 1.6k words
a/n: I feel my writing is amateur-ish at best hence any feedback is very much welcomed. Posted on wattpad and AO3 as well.
Chapter 3: Sorry
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Sophie was unsure if it was the general anxiety of being in the presence of someone she was attracted to, or the specific anxiety of actually conversing with Humanity's Strongest Soldier that is Levi Ackerman, but for some reason, she felt her heart pounding as she brewed the Marleyan tea. She set the tea set carefully on the tray, adjusting the angles of the teacups and the teapot for the millionth time ensuring it was exactly how she thought Levi would want it. Noticing the anxiety practically dripping from her forehead a cheerful voice teased her from across the kitchen counter, "Hey Shrimpy!"
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She rolled her eyes turning to the familiar voice, a smiling amused Niccolo smirking towards her. Dodging between the other kitchen staff, he stopped next to her, "Having tea with a Paradis Devil is making you all weak in the knees ay?" Sophie rolled her eyes, averting her gaze back to the tray, repeatedly tapping the edge of the tray as if she was sending a distress signal in Morse code.
Both Sophie and Niccolo were never close back in the Marleyan army but now that they work together in Yelena's squad, they were indeed two peas in a pod. His pet name for her was "Shrimpy" due to her petite short stature. Breathing a huge, fake sigh of relief, Niccolo continued to tease her, "Shrimpy, you should let him put his slippery tadpole inside of you."
Sophie groaned, shoving Niccolo by the shoulder as she walked to the sink to wash her hands with soap, hoping to cleanse herself from any dirt or smell. She knew Levi's reputation as a Clean Enthusiast and would not want to leave a bad impression on him in terms of her personal hygiene.
"Niccolo, can I be real with you, can I just be honest with you?" Sophie blurted out, looking to her friend.
Taken aback by the sudden shift in her tone, Niccolo quickly replied, "Okay?"
Dramatically Sophie walked to him, placed one palm to her waist and another beside the tray, then looked Niccolo straight in the eye and announced with a lustful expression, "I want Captain Levi to place me on my knees, spit in my mouth and slap me on my forehead with his fucking dick! I don't care how big, how small, how medium it is—- I need him to envelop me in all his LEVI-ness."
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Niccolo nearly tripped at the filth coming out of the supposedly innocent lips of Sophie. He sat down on a nearby stool, his elbows on his knees, his head bowed, and palms against his forehead. His voice distinct and very annoyed, he uttered, "I'm going to get Onkyankopon to baptize you in the sea this weekend. The Paradis Devil got you good huh?" Sophie smiled sheepishly to her friend, feeling gratified at his reaction, but she was glad to get it off her chest. The curiosity she felt of the mysterious Ackerman had drove her crazy ever since she landed on the island and the sudden invitation for tea was perfect for her to get to know the Captain better.
Walking timidly with the tray on her hand, the hallways of the office quarters were strangely deserted. In the rarified atmosphere of the office floor it was always quiet, but on that day it felt spooky. No voices or footsteps echoed off the stone walls. Due to the eerie atmosphere, Sophie found herself sprinting down the hallways muttering repeatedly to herself the map to Levi's office, "Second floor, turn left, first door to the right."
When she arrived in front of his door, she exhaled a long breath to calm her nerves, and with the heavy tray barely balanced in one hand, she knocked on the door carefully with three sturdy knocks. She heard footsteps and his sultry deep voice calling out to her, "Come in."
Before she could reach for the knob, the door opened and she was not ready. The door swung inwards and she was instantly thrown off balance with the heavy tray on the other hand. Falling through the doorway in a great splash of tea, she landed on the hard floor with the loud cracking of the teapots, now broken. Sprawled on her stomach, her white button-down top soaking in the brew of tea, Sophie hovered her head upwards to see a part of polished black shoe inches from her head. A man's shoe, its toe as poised as if ready to kick her in the face for what had transpired.
She saw herself reflected in the dark shine of the shoe: her tea-drenched bangs swinging by her forehead, her cheeks flushed and her mouth hanging slack as she panted on the floor, beyond embarrassed at what had transpired. Her chest heaving. The fall had drenched her white button-up blouse, leaving the linen sticking to the curvature of her body. Thank goodness for the military's linen-cotton undergarments for the female cadets.
Biting her lips and noticing the mess she made, Sophie forced herself to follow the black shoe up to the ankles sheathed in white socks that are now stained with tea. Beyond was the hem of a trouser cuff, and her gaze followed the sharp crease of his black pants up toward his knee. Meticulous tailoring and cut revealed the contour of his powerful thigh from where the trouser inseam led her eyes to his bulge and she felt hot wetness between her and the floor.
Sophie bit her lips wallowing on the mess she made on the Captain's office floor. Even in the buffed, murky leather of the shoe, Sophie could see the blush of embarrassment on her cheeks deepen. She gulped. Levi's voice broke the trancelike spell, pleasant and bemused he said, "Are you okay?"
Sophie forced herself to look up through the veil of her long, fluttering eyelashes. A face loomed, looking at her endearingly. Those were the features she saw so often in their meetings and at the mess halls. His steely eyes were grey; his forehead was fringed by his raven-black hair. His expression was mild, monotonous at what had transpired.
Still sprawled on the floor, Sophie gasped as she made eye-contact with Levi. "I'm sorry!" she squeaked. "I did not mean to---"
"It's fine," Levi said monotonously, his gaze never breaking from her.
Slowly spreading her fingers against the floor, she tried to push herself up but remembered how the hot liquid would make her white blouse reveal more than she wanted in front of the Captain. The dark-steely grey eyes watching her were as focused and unblinking, they were measuring and recording every inch of her body.
"Let me help you up," the raven-haired man insisted, reaching down to her. Sophie timidly nodded, his fingers closed around her own were surprisingly cold. An amazing strength lifted her as his lips, those lips she's always dreamt of kissing, inches from her face said, "I'll clean up the mess, you should freshen up in the bathroom." Levi pointed to the door of his bed chambers which was connected to the office room, Sophie shuddered at the thought of being in his private quarters.
She merely nodded too embarrassed for words, her arms folded across her chest as she headed to the bathroom. She looked herself to the mirror mortified at how indecent she looked, her soaked white button-up top revealing the curvature of her cleavage, her ponytail messy and drenched of tea.
A quick knock was heard on the door and it caught Sophie off-guard, she jerked back in shock. Levi's deep voice was heard as he slid to open the bathroom door slightly, "Here's a towel and a set of my clothes, I'm sure you'd fit into my size." Sophie hummed awkwardly acknowledging him and he timidly placed the items on the bathroom counter, careful not to look where she stood.
When the bathroom door closed, Sophie looked back to the mirror, told herself to get herself together, and slapped her cheek for assurance. She cleaned herself up, dried herself, and slid into the clothes he had given. The blue button-up blouse and black slack smelt fresh and it fitted loosely to her body. Muttering words of encouragement to herself, she stepped out the door to see the Captain seated on a lounge armchair upholstered in black leather.
While Levi was disappointed that his romantic high tea meeting did not transpire as planned, he did get more than he bargained for witnessing her curvature under her soaked wet blouse from the fall. As Sophie walked to him in his own change of clothes, it had only increased his desire for her. She glanced quickly at the mess she made earlier by the door but she found the floor was clean as if the accident she committed never occurred.
Stopping inches from each other Sophie broke the silence, "I'm really sorry Levi, I mean Captain Levi. I genuinely---"
"Come join me on the rooftop?" Levi interrupted her, one hand lifted a bottle of wine, and the other held out two wine glasses.
"Wine under the moonlight?" Sophie giggled nervous, dazed in the sheer abruptness of how the night is unfolding. Levi looked back at her blankly, unsure what to say. He figured maybe with a bit of alcohol the awkwardness between them would subside and they'd be able to have a conversation.
"I mean sure, I'd like that." Sophie pursed her lips and exhaled slowly.
As they walked together to the door, Sophie smiled timidly at him, looking him in the eye, begging internally for him to stop her stride. Levi felt the intensity in her gaze and was tempted, he wanted to keep the door shut, threw her body against it, and ravaged her right there and then but he held himself back. He was a gentleman after all.
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fizzyxcustard · 5 years ago
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The Strike of Midnight.
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Fandom: Real Person Fiction (Richard Armitage)
Part 1
Summary: This is an amalgamation of an imagine and Christmas special idea rolled into one. My original imagine was “Imagine Richard admitting he loves you but you are adamant he’s joking and he winds up blowing up at you through your stubbornness and accusing him of being a liar.” This was then requested by an anonymous reader for it to be turned into fic. You’ve accused Richard of lying and he has stormed out of your flat. It is now New Year’s Eve and can you finally believe Richard’s words? 
Pairings: Richard Armitage x fem!reader
Warnings: Angst, insecurity, fluff
Word count: 1650
Comments/Notes: If you wish to be added to my tag lists for a particular fandom, character, or even everything, please send me an ask or a private message and I will add you. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! ;) My apologies for this not coming out to you on New Year’s Eve when it was meant to. I wasn’t very well, so I’m posting it today on 1st January 2020. 
Music listened to while writing this piece: My personal Two Steps From Hell iTunes playlist. 
Masterlist of fan fiction here
After Richard had stormed out of your flat, you had been both angry and sad. Angry at the fact that part of you always echoed the same words, ‘no one will ever like you.’ Sad at the fact that you had obviously offended him. Lashing out had always been your defence mechanism against your high wall of insecurity and self doubt. By pushing others away first, you did not have to experience crippling rejection. Instead, you were in control, and making sure no one could hurt you. It had only been a matter of time before you decided to push Richard away, even if he had not admitted any kind of romantic feelings, it would have probably happened further down the line of your close friendship.
At your parents’ house where you ate Christmas dinner and opened gifts, you faked every smile that came to your face. None of it lifted your spirits; the cheesy Christmas songs you normally loved couldn’t even raise a smile. On the night of Christmas Day, your mum sat you down at the kitchen table where you could both speak privately. Your dad was asleep in the living room, having drifted off whilst watching the holiday classic of Die Hard.
“There’s something wrong,” your mum said softly. “You haven’t been right all day, sweetheart.”
The floodgates opened and you broke down in front of your mother, your breath hitching and your shoulders shaking. Between sobs you tried as best you could to explain everything to your mum about the previous encounter with Richard.
As she always did, and most mothers would, she reassured you were a wonderful person and deserved love in your life. Richard at least needed to have a chance to prove himself.
For the next week you barely slept, tossing and turning in bed. In the darkest hours of the night you would check your phone constantly, hoping that Richard had text you. Nothing. Was this to be the last you would ever hear from him? Having been his friend for a while now, you understood what made Richard tick and how to handle times when he was angry. It was best to leave him to simmer down. But how long could you remain silent? Perhaps he was waiting for you to message him.
Not far from your flat, Richard slept in a hotel room. He had spent Christmas with his family, then decided to take time alone before heading off for his normal skiing holiday abroad for the New Year. Everything had become a frustration. Cutting himself whilst shaving had resulted in a smashed glass and torn shower curtain. The television remote batteries had died, making Richard throw the remote across the room. And to make everything so much worse, you hadn’t even contacted him since your last meeting, followed by an abrupt departure for him. He still had your Christmas gift, boxed and sitting in a silver bag.
He needed a drink, and something stronger than the usual wine he drank. Richard had begun to feel cooped up inside the hotel room and decided to go and sit in the bar, and maybe get some food while down there.
The bar was relatively quiet, with only one or two people dotted around the room. He looked upon a middle aged couple eating a meal with a bottle of wine between them. Across from them was a heavily tattooed man drinking a pint of lager, and then further towards the back of the room was an older gentleman, in a flat cap, reading the newspaper.
A short while later, Richard sat in the corner with a pint of lager and skimmed through the menu, but his appetite had deserted him. Not even a piece of chocolate cake with ice cream could tempt him. Flavour seemed to have gone from all food.
A light caught Richard’s eye, and as he looked down, he saw that his phone had lit up with a text alert. It was from you. Finally!He read the message, half smiling as both elation and a trickle of dread settled in his stomach.
Can we talk?
Richard dialled out to you, listening to only one ring before you answered.
“I’m sorry for bothering you,” you said softly.
“No, don’t be sorry. I’m glad to hear from you. I’ve missed you,” Richard said, unable to stop himself speaking the absolute truth about his feelings. “If you don’t feel the same way, you know…I understand…” he began, swallowing over a lump in his throat. “But please…”
“I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Are you free tomorrow? I know it’s New Year’s Eve and you might…”
“Yeah, I am,” Richard replied, his eagerness coming through in his tone. “What time shall I come?”
“Whenever you want. I’m free all day,” you said.
“How about eleven? It gives us both time to have breakfast and for me to get over to you.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you then.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Bye…” you trailed off, as if waiting.
“Bye…I…”
“You, what?” you asked.
“Nothing, angel. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Richard terminated the call and closed his eyes, knowing he had come so close to letting his feelings slip out again. The sound of your voice made it so easy to get caught up in the callings of his heart, which wanted you more every day. Self-expression had become something that Richard found harder home now that he was getting older and had become more skilled in his acting abilities on stage and behind the camera. By pushing away his own personality for his job, and taking on the role of someone else, he had repressed himself which was now pushing back hard. His true self was trying to break free, and it was when he was with you that it could finally be free. You had never expected him to be anything less than himself.
It was ten at night and you were driving to the local supermarket which was, thankfully, a twenty-four-hour service. Quickly, you scoured the aisles, looking for wine, ice cream and plenty of sweet snacks. Everything that you knew Richard enjoyed. Two bottles of rather expensive red wine, cartons of chocolate Ben and Jerry’s, and lots of cake later, you paid for the items and dashed back to your car.
For a few seconds you sat in the car and smiled to yourself as the engine hummed. What had flipped in your head? Maybe it wasn’t the fact that you fully believed him, but you couldn’t have negativity hanging in the atmosphere between you. The truth was you loved him as well. Since falling for him many months ago, you often fantasised about all the wonderful things he would do to pleasure you, or the warm cuddles you would give each other on a cold winter’s morning. Your imagination was a never-ending world of fantasies that played out about you and Richard. Now you were staring those fantasies right in the face.
You gripped the steering wheel tight and told yourself you were going for it. If you missed this chance, then it would never arise again.
You got up early, beginning your preparations for Richard coming. The negative moods you had been consumed by the last week had meant that little housework had been done, so that morning was going to be catching up on everything you had put aside.
Despite the fact that you had so many jobs to complete, time seemed to have stood still. Every time you looked at the clock and the hands barely moved. You had been sure that vacuuming through all rooms had taken much longer than just fifteen minutes. It had felt more like an hour.
At eleven sharp, Richard stood outside your flat. He had contemplated going earlier, then maybe turning up a few minutes late to not make himself seem to eager. But instead, he had waited in the café just at the top of your street for forty-five minutes.
Your door knocked. And there he stood, looking as handsome as ever.
He looked down, smiling as you greeted him. Then you let him inside, exhaling hard and closing your eyes as his scent wafted past you.
“I never got chance to give if you before, but here’s your Christmas gift,” he said, offering you a silver gift bag.
“Oh, I have yours as well. Hang on,” you walked quickly into your bedroom, and got the package from your desk.
You both opened your presents at the same time. In the silver bag of yours was a blue box and as you opened the box you were presented with a beautiful golden necklace, and on it was an owl pendent with diamond eyes. Owls were your favourite animal.
Richard opened his neatly wrapped present to find a hardback copy of a book he had mentioned wanting. It was something he had wanted to read for quite some time but never got around to buying a copy.
Both of your gazes met and you said ‘thank you’ in the exact same moment. Then you leaned up and embraced Richard tight. “I’m sorry,” you whispered at his ear. And then you pulled away slightly so you could look him in the eyes. Tears were welling in his blue depths.
You kissed him, lightly at first, and then you both sank deeper into it. Your one hand laced in his short hair as the other still gripped your necklace box. His stubble tickled against your lips, making you smile beneath the kiss.
“What?” he asked, hearing your faint giggle. Then he pecked your lips quickly as you moved your head away.
“I think we should have waited until the strike of midnight for this, you know?” you said, grinning.
“There’s no way I was waiting that long,” Richard replied, and grabbed you playfully, kissing you again.
                                                              ***
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scgdoeswhat · 5 years ago
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Unpacking The Elementalists Finale
I’d like to dedicate this to my dear Kane anon (and other TE anons) who have been hitting my ask box up for the last several months. I’m sorry this took forever to get out and I know it doesn’t ease the fact that they ixnayed Kane, but hopefully this makes a little more sense of TE’s abrupt ending.
Without further ado...
I’ve been wanting to make this post since Book 2 Chapter 10, but life has been hectic. TE’s finale finally forced my hand and so here I am, with a bunch of theories, points, and thoughts I've had noted since the book came back from its hiatus. First off, now that TE is officially over (😭) we now know that the hiatus was primarily used to tie up all the loose story lines and to give us a tidy ending. The writing in the second half of the book was more solid, concise, and had a clear cut vision of what the writers wanted and where the plot was headed. As much as I hate to say it, the first half of the book may have been overly ambitious. They introduced the Moral Compass, potentially two villains in Kane and Alma, and a plethora of different storylines. I had a number of people tell me through the first five/six chapters of Book 2 that they were confused with the plot because it became too convoluted and hard to follow along. I think they introduced too many elements into the story, which dragged down the arc. Let’s break down some of these individually: The Moral Compass was something we were all excited to see implemented, because it gave us the potential to be an evil MC. In the end, we know it didn’t make much of a difference, save for dialogue and/or violent options. I think this was originally something intended to be greater than what it amounted to, and part of it is the limitations of the medium that the app is and simply, resources. This also ties into…. The plot involving Kane and Alma. I don’t believe having Kane as the Big Bad was supposed to be as defined as it ended up being. The two Sources were written far more ambiguous in the beginning, with the chance that depending on your choices, you could side with either one by the end of the book and/or series. The hiatus streamlined the plot, discarding elements that were difficult to pull off, including multiple MC point of views that may have held the possibility of being evil or choosing Kane, therefore placing Alma as the antagonist. In a narrative story app such as Choices (as opposed to Lovestruck, where the routes have the same players but different stories altogether), I just don’t think this advanced storytelling would have been doable. These plots are primarily linear, and MC being evil/with Kane/etc, it would present a different set of problems, including the fact that this becomes an entirely different story while there is supposed to be one solid ending. (For what it's worth, I enjoy the MC customizability of Choices more.) Looking at the group of friends, obviously Beckett was incredibly fleshed out while the others were not as much. I wanted to delve further into our friends’ backgrounds a bit more, and I think at the beginning of the book, we were on that path. Aster and her wood nymph family was a perfect example of table setting. We had two or three scenes before the hiatus to go to the forest, and I thought the Wand Wars and their involvement against Kane was slated to be more prominent. I think the writers had something bigger planned, but how would it all tie in if players started choosing the evil choices? Again, having too many choices causes a domino effect that makes it nearly impossible to navigate when the story is supposed to end with a particular goal in mind. The chapter where we can receive the wand was a symptom of ending the book early and I think the execution of the actual Wand Wars scene was lacking the emotional punch the initial introduction of it warranted. This is unfortunate because the setup they had in Book 1 made it seem much more violent, disastrous, and full of hate compared to what was shown (i.e. Attuned just being greedy bastards). We were introduced to Shreya's Serene & Sublime business and the potential of family disapproval and lack of support in the beginning, but everything was tied up with the gala chapter. Looking back, I was curious why it was so easy to get so many financial backers this early into the series, but knowing that TE only went for two books makes much more sense why we knew whether S&S succeeded or failed. (Tangent - for anyone who didn't secure backing, is S&S successful at the end of the book?) I think Griffin, his scholarship, and his decision between Natural Sciences and Thief was also slated to be a bigger subplot. We never met his parents, despite them being brought up very early in Book 1. If TE had gone the originally planned three or four books, I have no doubt his family would've been introduced and MC would have needed to help sway his parents (and the committee for the scholarship) whether Griffin continued on the NS or professional Thief path. Doing the Griffin scenes (even as platonic friends) influenced his standing for the scholarship and not doing them made him lose out to Amy, if I'm not mistaken. Question for everyone regarding Zeph and the Thief captaincy: Does he get it in everyone's playthrough? I wonder if the writers always planned for Zeph to get the captaincy or if Griff would have kept it depending on your playthrough if they had all four books to use. Another big plot point that resolved itself out of nowhere was Atlas and MC butting heads over their Sun Source mother. I was not a fan of this storyline at all. I felt like the disagreements between the siblings was unnecessary drama that came off as forced. They tried to explain Atlas' position, and I understood where they were coming from, but Atlas was very unreasonable with their constant “who cares about mom” shtick.
I think this was something that could have been more impactful if there weren't so many plotlines happening and more focus could have been given to it instead of a few screens of Atlas saying they were pissed off before storming away from MC. This was also a plotline that was directly influenced by the Kane/Alma decisions. If MC sides with Kane, it makes much more sense for MC and Atlas to be against each other as opposed to MC being good/siding with Alma.
Five major subplots were opened, but how do you seamlessly weave these elements into a 17-19 chapter book? In my opinion, you can't. Each time something new was introduced, I felt things were glossed over, despite big chunks of chapters being focused on whichever subplot the chapter was about. Throw in the romance and I think it is nearly impossible to resolve each aspect in a complete manner.
What also hurt was the pacing of the series. This was also seen in Book 1, where sometimes a chapter would span one or two days, only for a huge time jump to occur in the next chapter.
So many ideas could have been explored through the course of four books (which is what I believe they had planned), but all the different elements should have been introduced at different times. Instead, Book 2 was an amalgamation of so many ideas but not enough time, space, or resources to thoroughly hash out and have a satisfactory resolution. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was having too much Beckett that hurt the series. He obviously kept the series afloat and was one of PB's biggest moneymakers in recent history. Despite the constant complaints on tumblr, people fail to realize that the ENTIRE online fandom (FB, IG, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Wiki) comprises maybe 0.5% - 2% of the ENTIRE player fan base. It only made sense that PB capitalized on him because their numbers dictated that the resources should be spent in that manner. The fallout from this was that Beckett was the only one who had his storyline relatively complete, and that was due to the spending power of everyone who romanced him. I think what hurt them the most was the multiple storylines and the indecision of which direction they wanted to go. They had a grand idea of the direction through Book 2 (and Book 3, let’s not lie here) but in-game mechanics and the type of game Choices is made it difficult to pull off. The app wasn’t the correct medium for what they envisioned. In my opinion, the overall story arc had the potential to be brilliant, but again, the app wasn't designed for the type of story the writers wanted to tell.
I also think the timing and having a very short turnaround hurt, as well. Players had high expectations and when you factor in the hype around the other books that were also released on Fridays, TE lost some of its sparkle. Most players didn’t get a chance to miss it for the regular 2-3 months we’ve been trained to wait for sequels. (I recognize that I’m an anomaly and the previous three sentences do not apply to me at all.)
Even with all this, I applaud the writing team for wanting to deliver a story that was worthy of a magical world. I love all the Pend Pals (‘Motley Crue’ for me), the familiars, the side characters, loved to hate the villains, and from someone who is not into Harry Potter lore at all, I was absolutely sucked into the magick universe that the writers built. (Metal Att for life ⚙!)
If TE does return in the future (and I REALLY hope it does), I think it will be even stronger than the first two books because the world building is complete. We know almost everything we need to know now. Instead of using a Book 3 to search for Sun Mama, the family is complete, MC and Atlas are attuned to all the elements, and there are so many open-ended questions that Book 2 left us.
If they implement a time jump where MC and the Pend Pals are all post grad/mid 20s, it also gives the writers a chance to move the story from the Young Adult genre to a more mature setting. We saw this in the later diamond scenes, where the writing appeared similar in their vividness (and coding in the final scene - THANK YOU, glorious writing team) to Open Heart, Bloodbound, and A Courtesan of Rome. This removes the restrictions placed on the group of being college kids, and therefore are almost fully developed with their magick, giving the possibility of moving the story out of a university setting.
If you've made it all the way here to the bottom, thank you for sticking with me and apologies for spelling/grammar since this has all been on my phone 😂 I think this comprises almost all my notes I've been keeping for the last 2 months. Feel free to agree or disagree; I just wanted to post my thoughts on this book and series that I love so much.
Now, I'm going to go back to my holiday (don't worry, I didn't write all of this while on vacay lol) and I'll try to answer asks when I have downtime.
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scarlett-olivier · 6 years ago
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Writing Tip #10
Character Development
(Today, we're discussing character development in general. This was originally a look at both character development,and character growth, but after writing it all out and seeing just how big the wall of text was, I decided to break it up into two posts. There Will be a little cross over between the two posts, because I kinda just cut it in half, so please bear with me.)
For a new writer, and sometimes even veteran writers, there can be some confusion when writing character development and growth. Neglecting these two tools can lead to one sided, flat, and Mary Sue-esque characters that your readers will not only NOT care about, but quickly forget.
But what does it all mean?
Well, the down and dirty of Character Development can be described as your character discovering who they really are, just as the reader is discovering who your character is. It's essentially worldbuilding, but for a single character. It's usually a very gradual, slow process that can take the whole book to reach a satisfying conclusion. Without Character development you have a lifeless flat character that is just going through the motions. Really, nothing more than a puppet for the narrator.
Now on the other hand, we have character growth. This usually refers to how a character loses or gains attributes, and how they handle the challenges the story throws at them. It can help shape the person they become by the end of the story. It can cause them to run into some serious internal conflict and reflect on how they acted in the past (Scrooge). Without growth, your characters become boring. Lackluster. It's where we run into the issues of the Paragon, or the Mary Sue.
Always remember that in your story, the characters HAVE to change. They have to be different from when the story started. They're people. As life continues to throw shit at them, they must adapt to the changes or stagnate. If your character doesn't experience growth of some nature during your story, you have a one dimensional character.
Both of these things are essential for crafting powerful and moving characters. You want your readers to feel what your character feels, and experience what your character experiences. You want your reader to be invested in your characters. Whether They're supposed to be hating them, or loving them, they should connect.
So, how does one go about doing these two things?
Character Dev;
When crafting your character (and this is for every important character in your book), you need to act as their therapist and psychologist. You need to be their best friend,and confidant. You need to know their life story. Their favorite color. Their hopes and dreams. What their favorite scent is. It goes so far beyond the physical description. You need to do research on your characters background, and figure out how that has shaped them. Take some time to research the psychological effects of their life experiences.
If your character has a drug addiction, look up cases of that drug (or a similar one) and what effects it has in both the short and long term effects on the physical and mental status of the user.
If you have a character that grew up in thw foster system, look up the effects of growing up in the system on a child's psyche. Look at actual testimonials of people who grew up in it.
Research everything. Research, research, and research some more.
For example... Let's take a look at Batman.
Bruce Wayne was a child raised in a rich family that tried to do right by their community. One night, they went to the theatre and on their way back, young Bruce had to witness his parents brutal murder over the pearl necklace his mother was wearing. He was then raised by his butler Alfred. Swearing an oath to rid the city of Gotham of the villainy that took his parents from him, he traveled the world to learn and train. A journey he first started when he was 14 years old. He trained relentlessly, leaving little time for friends or anything else a kid should have at that age. Once he grew into adulthood, he returned to Gotham and donned the mantle of the Batman. From there began an endless fight against criminal organizations. Sadly, as a direct result of his actions, he created a new breed of villain in Gotham. The supervillain.
How do you think seeing his parents murdered infront of him effected Bruce in the long run?
How do you think being raised by his butler in place of the parents he so loved effected him?
What are the long term psychological effects of the experiences and choices he's made up to now in the comics?
Bruce is a child who has seen to much, been through to much, and never really got to experience a normal childhood and adolescence. How does this all effect him?
How do you think Bruce feels knowing that his actions have led him into an endless war? That by trying to rid Gotham of bad guys, he will never know a moment of rest? That his dream is unachievable so long as he exists, but he can not hang up his mantle because the villains his actions have created can only be taken down by him?
From the comics, we know that he has trust and intimacy issues. He finds it hard to connect with others, especially when those that he eventually comes to care for keep getting ripped away from him, a la a Death in the Family, or due to the fact that Bruce has an abrasive personality and continuously pushes people away out of fear that they will leave him, only to have that fear confirmed when they eventually do (even Alfred did at one point).
This is character development. It's all his backstory and how that has effected him up to the current moment in his story. The key part to creating masterful character development is to sprinkle all of these details in, and very rarely just flat out saying them. The writers of the batman comics did a fatastic (sometimes. There are terrible issues nobody wants to mention... 29.) of showing this trauma and using it to shape the characters actions and how he handles life.
As you can see, development is literally who the character is. Honestly, most likely, you won't even use a third of all the research and work you put in to developing your character in your actual story. However, just by knowing your character so well, you can make their reactions and actions seem so much more authentic and believable. Making it so much easier to instill that suspension of disbelief that every fiction author strives for.
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(This is where I cut it in half, so sorry if it's a bit abrupt. I relly didn't have a good place to cut it off at. I'll be addressing the next part, Character Growth, with the next post. So, keep an eye out if you're interested. Also, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I'll do my best to answer them.)
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the7dwiki · 7 years ago
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At Toonzone, I posted a retrospective on The 7D! It’s a long post, so under the jump here’s my thoughts:
Today marks a day since the finale of The 7D first premiered in the United States. The production of the show was overseen by Tom Ruegger, and he brought along many of the staff who worked with him on past Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera series. The 7D took place years before the time of Snow White, with its own separate universe, and it paid homages to the 1937 Disney film, as well as some Disney and pop culture references. Even with all the talent involved and an all-star cast of veteran voice actors plus Kelly Osbourne (Hildy) and Leigh-Allyn Baker (Queen Delightful), this lighthearted and funny series is still very underappreciated. When The 7D was first announced for Disney Junior (later moved to Disney XD) in 2012, even with Ruegger being named as the executive producer, there were negativity and attacks towards the show and its staff, especially with you-know-who of Cartoon Brew. However, when the show debuted in July 2014, it became a ratings hit on Disney XD, making it at the time the No. 2 premiere in the network's history. Its official tie-in gaming app was downloaded more than a million times, enough for it to become No. 1. Then, the much anticipated Star vs. the Forces of Evil debuted months later, which eclipsed The 7D. SvtFoE became Disney XD's darling, and suddenly the writing's on the wall for The 7D over the next year. A schedule change on the last several episodes of the first season on January 2015 forced the season finale, "The Rock of Sages", off Disney XD as it was announced that there were some animation problems. Despite that, a few scenes from the episode was featured on that month's promo for the series, though one of the clips was revealed to be a deleted scene. Meanwhile, DXD in the U.S. continued to sat on the episode for several months while other Disney channels around the world had access to the season finale. "The Rock of Sages" finally premiered on the U.S. on September 2015, then many more months had been passed until the second season premiered on January 2016. At that time, The 7D was placed in a Saturday morning time slot at 9:30; DXD promoted the second season premiere and a few subsequent episodes well, which got strong ratings. After then, DXD had mostly stopped promoting the series, causing the ratings to drop sharply. The network also began the reduction of reruns; by the last months of the series' original run, its Saturday morning time slot became the only time one can watch the show on TV. New episodes and reruns aired on that lone time slot, and it was frequently preempted by random marathons or other special events. (It led many fans to forget that The 7D was still airing.) Further complicating matters was the series' cancellation by Disney before the start of Season 2 around New Year's but hadn't made public until the following April, cutting the number of episodes intended for the second season from 39 to 20. The 7D had proved to be a decent sized hit, but in my opinion it got lost in the shuffle as the ever-increasing popularity of story-driven shows like Gravity Falls and the aforementioned SvtFoE, in addition to DXD's over-attention towards them and a few others. Tastes were changed -- drama and angst are in, silliness is out. It came at a wrong time. Plus, the show wasn't a good fit for DXD: the show's brand of silly comedy and lightheartedness doesn't quite mix well with the network's other programming. Even though Disney encouraged The 7D's producers to aim for all ages, it instead ended up on a network that gears towards boys. Outside the U.S., the show is/was regularly shown on a Disney Channel or Disney Junior in some countries (in the U.K. and Ireland, The 7D was moved from DXD to Disney Channel earlier this year). The circumstances surrounding The 7D's abrupt cancellation remains a mystery. Wander Over Yonder's Craig McCracken, Gravity Falls' Alex Hirsch, and Penn Zero: Part Time Hero's Sam Levine had announced why their series ended and told their fans what they had in store had the series been continued. Over a year has passed, and none of The 7D's staff revealed why the series had ended so soon. Me and my friends speculated that there were some behind-the-scenes stuff going on between corporate and the show's staff, or Disney for some reason forced them into a NDA. Despite whatever troubles the show had, I'm glad I got to enjoy it. The 7D was the one reason I made many friends online over it. It has a lot of great songs that it was criminal not to release a soundtrack as Disney had done for other shows (Parry Gripp once mentioned that they were in talks to release one for The 7D)! The 7D makes you feel better when you had a bad day, and it deserves another chance. Sorry for the long post, I'm just passionate about this show! So...what are your thoughts on or memories of The 7D?
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artificialqueens · 8 years ago
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I Don’t Know Him (ABC) - Lemonade
AN: In all honesty, this story was originally inspired by someone’s text post about their ‘Biadore heart’ after Bitney had their date night. I started thinking Danny having the same reaction to the pictures would make a good fic, then I realized their dinner was the same night Adore had a show for the first time in a bit, then this happened. There is mentions of Danny’s anxiety throughout, but if you want to skip the brunt of it avoid paragraphs 8-11 (count the paragraphs broken up by text messages, but not the texts themselves.) I’m planning on writing a second part to this, so don’t worry!! The ending is definitely not the end.
Danny’s heart thumped erratically in his chest. He was bursting with excitement and choking on nervousness. The first few shows of his new tour had went rather well, they were more fulfilling and electrifying than he could have possibly imagined. Performing as Danny instead of Adore had ignited a fire inside of him. A new, raw passion that he thought he had lost on the way. He felt vulnerable, and grimy, and ugly. He felt beautiful, and alive, and genuine. The atmosphere of those shows definitely did help. He booked a few intimate venues in Seattle for the first handful of performances. It felt at home, safe, and cozy. He embraced his new city rather quickly. The vibe of the towns around him, the welcoming, warm, and cool as shit people helped him settle down with ease. He was happy and comfortable there, but he wasn’t in Seattle anymore.
Danny’s next few shows were scattered across California, his first couple in Los Angeles. The same place he had escaped to find his niche in the world, he was shoved back into. Danny never liked the energy of L.A. It was bougie and he always felt like a piece of meat to be gawked at when he was there. The more he thought about it, the higher his anxiety for the show grew. These were his fans, they loved him, he knew it, but he couldn’t help but have negative thoughts about the upcoming event: What if they don’t like the music? What if they don’t get me anymore? What if they’re only there to be able to say they saw ‘Adore Delano’ with no care for the music whatsoever? What if they try to pull or grab me?
Danny had worked himself up into a frenzy of nervous energy, his hands immediately reaching for his phone. The one thing he was looking forward to was his friends being there. They hadn’t had the chance to see him perform as just himself, and hear his new music in person yet. Knowing they’d be there watching and supporting him from behind the curtain let a calm wash over his anxious being.
1:15pm
Danny: You bitches are coming to my show tonight right???
1:16pm
Greg: Wouldn’t miss it!!
1:17
Danny: I’m so fucking excited man
Danny waited. And waited. And waited. It wasn’t unusual for Roy and Shane to be the last ones to reply to the group chat. It seemed especially so whenever it was Danny who had been the one talking. They weren’t always the worst texters in the world, but since they started dating  it was like they couldn’t find time for anyone but each other.
4:25pm
Roy: SHANE AND I CAN’T MAKE IT
Danny’s heart plummeted at the decline. Roy’s texting in all caps usually added humor to whatever he was saying, but this wasn’t funny. Danny really needed his friends to be there for him tonight. The thought of Shane in the wings clapping and jumping, Roy bear hugging him right as he got off stage, had helped calm Danny’s increasing anxiety. Now they wouldn’t even be in the audience to watch him perform. His chest tightened at the realization, the disappointment becoming a physical ache.
Shane: Stop typing in caps lock Shane: We’re so sorry Danny!!! Shane: We’ll make it up to you I promise!!! Shane: We love you good luck baby 💞 Roy: EVERYTHING SHANE SAID Roy: GOOD LUCK CHOLA ❤️❤️❤️😘😘😘
Roy dropped his phone on the nightstand after sending his last message. “I feel like shit for doing that to him.” He informed Shane, who was sitting on the floor in front of their closet, legs crisscrossed, and clothes that had been deemed unworthy for their long awaited date night scattered all around him. “He’ll be fine.” Shane said matter of factly. There was no wavering in his tone. He really didn’t see the big deal. They had cheered at a countless number of Adore’s concerts, why couldn’t they skip out on one show to focus on their own relationship? “He was excited for us to be there, Shane. It’s all he’s talked about in the group chat for a month.” The slight sting of guilt had turned into a gut punch of it. Roy swallowed down the queasy feeling in his stomach. “I think we should go.” Shane stood straight up from the floor, popping up so fast and sudden he was like a pop-tart being ejected from a toaster. “No!” His voice took on that shrill tone Roy fucking hated, he rolled his eyes at it reared it’s ugly head. “Listen, I love Danny. You love Danny. Everyone fucking loves Danny. He’ll be fine if we miss one show out of how many other’s he’s playing? We can go to any one of them-” “And we can go out to dinner any day of the week.” Roy interjected. Shane’s complete disregard for Danny’s feelings was shocking. Out of the two of them, Shane had always been the more empathetic one. “No, we can’t Roy! It’s taken us how many weeks to plan this? You’re never home, and when you are home, I’m not. Why can’t we be selfish and take care of us for once? You know, our relationship?” Tears glistened in his eyes, threatening to fall but Shane refused to let them. Roy had crawled across the bed to get to the other side of the room where Shane was standing. He climbed off and immediately enveloped him in an embrace. The anger bubbling up inside of Shane told him to push Roy right off of him, but the pain pricking at his heart made him squeeze his boyfriend as tightly as he could.
“I just want us to have this night.” Shane finally spoke after minutes of just hugging and swaying back and forth in each other’s arms. One of Roy’s hands came up to cup Shane’s cheek, the pad of his thumb running across his skin. “I feel awful for abandoning Danny too, but remember what we said?” This had been an ongoing problem in their relationship from the get-go, trying to balance a romantic relationship between the two of them and their friendship with Danny as a whole. They would either neglect themselves for the friendship, or unintentionally ice Danny out entirely. It was an exhausting, hurtful pattern for Danny; He was sure neither of them understood what that did to him or how it made him feel. “Relationship above friendship. We both agreed, but you don’t seem to be holding up your end.” It was no secret Roy had a soft spot for Danny. He loved the kid. Maybe he did tend to put Danny before Shane, but Danny needed him in a completely different way than Shane did. He didn’t want him to feel like he was useless now that he and Shane were together. “Fine,” Roy’s hand dropped from his face. He wasn’t going to bother arguing with Shane. It would be an unnecessary headache he’d rather avoid. “but we have to make it up to him, not just say that we will. He doesn’t even live in L.A. anymore, it’s been months since we’ve seen him without a screen cutting through.” “I promise the both of you, we’ll go to his next show with flowers and signs and megaphones. We’ll make it up to him.” He agreed with Roy.
—–
This crowd had to be the worst Danny had ever dealt with. They screamed over his singing, yanked him down roughly when he reached his hand out, and had no respect for him or his music. Every minute on stage felt like another hand wrapping around his throat, constricting his air flow until he couldn’t breath anymore. Why was this happening? He never had anxiety attacks on stage. This was his safe place. This is where he lost all control and could exist without the world echoing in his ear.
They didn’t care, and he needed to get off stage before he made a scene. The absolute last thing he wanted was to collapse in a hyperventilating mess in front of a crowd of people with their phone cameras pointed directly in his face. Danny managed a strangled “Thank you.” before scurrying backstage. The audience was confused, he had only made it about halfway through his setlist. The abrupt ending caused the audience to breakout in a roar of his name, which he heard backstage and only worsened the panic coursing through his body. Danny dropped to his knees a few steps away from the curtain he had disappeared behind. One hand pressed against his chest as if it would help him catch a breath. Tears didn’t threaten to fall, but rained down his cheeks like a storm. He was a mess, a damn train wreck. This wasn’t suppose to happen. Not with this tour, not with this music, not with the person he was growing to be.
“I can’t breathe.” He gasped to the person who had knelt down in front of him. Danny didn’t look up, he couldn’t face anyone like this. Greg put both hands on Danny’s shoulders and ran them up and down his arms. “What’s the matter, Danny? What’s going on?” He didn’t understand. Basically all of Danny’s friends knew he had anxiety, only a few could relate, and only one knew how to calm him down as much as possible (or enough to get him off of whatever floor he had slumped onto). Roy knew to hold both his hands, Roy knew to make Danny focus on him and nothing else around them, Roy knew to demonstrate proper, exaggerated breathing so Danny could copy, he knew to pick him up off of the ground if he couldn’t stand, and he knew to press a cold washcloth to his face when it was all over. It wasn’t romantic or cute, Roy learned to care for Danny because he couldn’t bare to sit back and watch him suffer helplessly. He needed that right now, even a FaceTime call had been enough to pull him through an attack in the past.
Of course, Roy wasn’t there, and Danny wouldn’t attempt to interrupt him while he was with Shane. Ever since they started dating Danny felt less and less important to them individually. Eventually, Greg and John (Danny’s cousin) managed to get him up from the dirty floor and to his dressing room. The rest of his night was full of shallow breath, shaking hands, desperate sobs, and people who really didn’t know how to handle him.
——
Shane rolled off of Roy and cuddled into his side. An arm wound around his waist and pulled the blond in closer as a pair of lips pressed against his forehead. “See?” Shane practically sung as he traced odd patterns against Roy’s chest. “Aren’t you glad we stuck to our plans? We would still be at Danny’s show if we had went.” Roy looked down at him, shifting uneasily under his body. He had completely forgotten that they essentially ditched Danny’s show, a show so important to him he’d been beaming about it from the moment the date was finalized, to have dinner…and fuck. A pang of guilt revisited his stomach. “I still feel bad about that.” “I told you he’ll be fine, pussyface. Besides, the next three shows he has in California we’ll be the most obnoxious fans there.” Shane declared. Despite not necessarily seeming like it, he did feel crummy about choosing not to go to Danny’s show, but he had decided when he and Roy started dating that they would be his priority. Danny had other performances, Shane only had one shot at being with Roy. He pushed himself up to press his lips against Roy’s. “Round two?” He purred in his ear, nipping at his earlobe to persuade him. Roy answered by flipping them over and pinning him to the mattress. In the back of their minds they both knew they should at the very, very least text Danny to ask how his gig went, but this quickly took priority. The rest of their night was full of heady kisses, needy touches, choked moans, and two people who knew each other’s body’s better than anyone else had.
—-
Danny woke up mid-afternoon with stinging eyes, a stuffy nose, and a pounding headache. Last night was an absolute disaster, the unruly crowd getting the best of him. He groaned at the memory and pulled his blanket over his face, turning over so he could grab his phone from the other side of the bed. He didn’t want to see tweets from concerned fans or any mean spirited comments on his Facebook page; He wanted to talk to his friends. As the reflection of his lock screen illuminated his eyes, he realized his friends didn’t want to talk to him. He had one private text message from Greg asking how he was after last night, and none from Shane or Roy. They hadn’t even gotten around to asking how his show went. He felt that same sinking disappointment in chest as when Roy initially told him they wouldn’t be making it. “I am so fucking sick of this.” He muttered bitterly under his breath. He was beginning to feel like more of an inconvenience than a friend.
It was a petty, bratty thing to do, he thought, but Danny unlocked his phone and went to check their social media to see if they had posted anything since the last time he had spoken to them. Just as he suspected, they did. His Instagram feed was flooded with pictures from Courtney and Bianca’s accounts. The last update from Courtney, three hours ago. It was a picture of him and Roy in bed together with some cheesy caption about waking up to ‘the love of his life’, Danny nearly gagged as he read it. That was the final straw. Since they started dating they also started dodging his phone calls, taking hours to respond to texts, not contacting him when they were (by some grace of God) in the same city, and denying every offer to hang out as a group Danny presented to them whenever he was in L.A. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be treated like this anymore, not by the two people he considered to be his closest friends.
Danny quickly responded to Greg’s text from this morning, letting him know that he was thankful for him being there last night and checking up on him today. When that was done, he started a new group chat with just Shane and Roy.
Danny: Glad to see you two had fun last night!!! My show went great btw!! I had a full blown anxiety attack in the middle of it :)
If there was one thing Danny wouldn’t stand for was his friends not supporting him. He could almost forgive everything else if they had just showed up this one time. They knew about this show. They knew how Danny had been bursting at the seems to start this new chapter in his career. They knew how much this meant to him and how much their support meant to him. Still, they chose a dinner date they could have rescheduled for any other day of the week over something that was so important.
Roy was the first to check his phone, seeing as Shane was in the shower. His eyes widened at the text. Fuck! He had a lingering feeling of forgetting something since he had awoken, but couldn’t put his finger on what exactly that was until Danny texted him. The now familiar feeling of guilt deep in his gut had returned. No doubt it was worsened by the knowledge of Danny having an anxiety attack. He knew they should of went, at least he could have been there to hold his hand through it.
Roy: DANNY I’M SO SORRY!!! ARE YOU OKAY???
Shane’s eyes were captured by Roy’s harsh features as he entered their bedroom. He stared down at his phone, his eyebrows laced together as he looked like he might be sick. “Baby?” Shane’s voice was soft as it called for his attention. Roy’s head snapped back to look in his direction. “What’s wrong, Roy?” “We completely fucking forgot to say anything to Danny about his show last night and now he’s pissed…He had a panic attack.” “What!? Just because we didn’t go?” Now that tinge of guilt Roy had become accustomed to punched Shane right in the face. He should have listened to Roy, they should have went to Danny’s show. “No. At least I don’t think so.” Roy shrugged his shoulders. “It happened at the gig, now he’s not answering me.”
Just as he finished his sentence the phone in his hand lit up with a FaceTime request from Danny. “It’s him.” “Danny?” Shane leapt onto the bed, losing the towel he had wrapped around his waist as he hurriedly crawled across the surface and into Roy’s lap just to grab his phone from him and hit answer. Danny’s face didn’t have time to load on the screen before Shane was shouting for him. “Danny? Danny? Are you okay? What happened?” Roy looked over Shane’s shoulder as he waited for Danny to speak. “I’m fine no thanks to either of you.” His tone was harsh. “Danny, we’re sorry.” Roy chimed in, half hidden by Shane’s body in front of him. His voice was gentle and comforting, a complete contrast to Danny’s. “Yeah, Danny, really. We promise next time we’re gonna be there with signs and balloons and a confetti machine if that’ll make you happy.” “It’s not even fucking about that!” Danny snapped at them. How could they not see it? How could they not understand this was just the straw that broke the camels back? Did they really not understand they were making him feel like a burden?
“You guys have been treating me like shit since you started dating. Like I don’t matter to either of you, like I never did! Like all I’ve ever done is get in the way of you two being together, and now that you are there’s no use for me!” “Danny, that’s not true.” Roy spoke up. He wasn’t argumentative for once, he didn’t even believe what he was saying. Did either of them really feel like that? Hell no. Were they treating him in a way that would make him feel like those were their true thoughts? Absolutely. It hurt to hear, but they had to be aware of how they were making him feel. “Yeah Danny, we love you.” Shane added. “You have a shit way of showing it! You guys never answer my call or texts, you never want to hang out anymore, you ditched my fucking show! You guys ditched a show that you’ve know about for months! A show you knew was important to me. This was the real kickoff of my tour, my music. My fucking music that means the world to me, and you two weren’t there like you had promised ten times over! Roy, I went to so many of your gigs when you were on tour I could recite your whole goddamn act to you right now. Shane, I literally got you fucking booked in Seattle so I could see you! Meanwhile you guys can’t even bother to text me? I don’t deserve to be treated like this!” “Alright, you’re being a little fucking dramatic now.” Roy shocked even himself with his words; He was sick of hearing Danny insinuate that they didn’t care about him, or support him, or whatever the fuck he was getting at. “We have a relationship. You can’t expect us to drop everything just because you want our attention.” “Are you fucking kidding me?” Danny yelled through the phone, if there weren’t a screen between them he wasn’t sure his hands wouldn’t be around Roy’s throat right now. His blood was beyond the boiling point. “Is that what you fucking got from all of that? Really Roy? Just because I want attention? I wanted my best fucking friends to share this experience with me. I wanted my best fucking friends to support me while I exposed a huge piece of my soul. Me, Danny. Not Adore. This is so special to me and you guys don’t even get it! You don’t get me, because you haven’t talked to me properly since you started sucking each other’s dicks–You know what? I’m fucking over this. I promised myself this would be the year I take care of my mind, and cutting off friends who can’t seem to make more than two minutes for me is a great way to continue that. Don’t contact me unless one of you is dying.”
And with that the call ended. Roy and Shane stared at each other almost speechless. Shane shook his head as he removed himself from Roy’s lap. “That did not just happen. Did he just cut us off? He cut us off!” Shane senselessly rambled, pacing back and forth ass-naked trying to make sense of the situation. Were him and Roy really neglecting Danny to the point he thought cutting them off would be better for himself than their friendship? What the hell was he gonna do without Danny? His best friend! Who was he gonna ask for advice and call up drunk at four in the morning when Roy was passed out?
As Shane walked a rut into the floor Roy sunk into his own world. Him and Danny had never fought. In all honesty, Danny was the best friend he had in his forty one years. He’d seen him blubber like a baby, he knew things about him that no one else in the world could claim. What the hell was he gonna do without Danny? He shouldn’t have snapped. Maybe if he didn’t snap they could have talked this out. It was all his fault.
Danny threw his phone across the room, the device making direct impact with the wall and the screen shattering in front of his eyes. Well, they definitely won’t be contacting him now. Danny plopped down on the hotel bed, head in hands. He tugged at his hair in frustration. Was this his sensitive heart acting on pure emotion or was this his bossy brain trying to protect him from people that weren’t good for him anymore? Either way, he made his decision, whether impulsive or not, and he had to deal with the consequences of that. Today would mark the first day in years that Shane and Roy weren’t Danny’s ‘ride or dies’. Though, it seemed like they willingly relinquished that title ages ago.
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starryforgetmenots · 7 years ago
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Nightmare Vent
**Vent(?????) I had a bad night last night for sleeping. I just need to write it down somewhere. Below is what happened in my dreams and what not. For some reason I can’t add that little bar/link that is like “Read More” so, sorry for the long post. So for the past few nights I've been having bad nightmares. Yes, I have been listening to a lot of horror stories, but no; they don't typically give me nightmares. The first two nights, the beginning was about a doll. Her name is Molly. Molly and I are very close outside of the dreams soo... But in the first dream, half of her face was burnt. It was a dark place and sorta run down and monochrome. She just sorta stared at me. In the second dream in the beginning, the place was all in black and whites and burnt down and scorched. Molly was facing away from me. I was so happy to find her! I tapped her shoulder and then she turned her head to look at me. Her skin was burnt and polished clean, like a bone singed by fire. Her eyes and mouth were missing. She seemed worn down and like she went through a bonfire. She just stared at me. The malicious feeling felt so real... Like I wasn't even in a dream. I'm skipping the rest because I can barely remember and well, it's just not relevant. Tbh, this isn't even that relevant to last night at all. Fast forward to last night. Last night I originally went to bed around 11:40/50 PM. Ya know the normal for a school night. I fell asleep just fine. It was going fine until I woke up around 3 AM. I tend to wake up randomly around that time, so I didn't think much of it. I tried to fall back to sleep but I couldn't. A few hours passed. It must of been around 4-5 in the morning. I had been in that sorta half sleep and occasionally was actually asleep, like in and out of being awake?? I dunno how to describe it. So I DID sort of have dreams. Well, the first dream. It took place at my great grandparents' farm. They live out in the middle of nowhere on an almost century old farm. You literally have to walk like at least a mile before you get to the neighbours. Anyways, I was staying the night. There were, of course, my great grandparents (already asleep), my grandma, myself, and this boy I was friends with... I guess we were friends anyways. He didn't actually have a name, but he was subconsciously labeled as Jack. Jack was around my age (a teen) and was so kind and nice, even if he was a bit strange. He was pale and had black tuft-y hair. I never got to actually look at his face. It was always blurry. But He seemed to have bright green or hazel eyes. Anyways, my grandma told us to go to bed. So I went and got ready for bed, and my grandma went to sleep while Jack straight up disappeared for a while. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I felt Jack's presence reappear. I had wondered where he went, but didn't go to ask. I went down the hall to the old bedroom we were using and went to go to bed. Well Jack was standing in the middle of the room, practically making the beds inaccessible (the room is small with the door at an angle and a bed on the right wall and a bed on the left wall. The space between the beds is in the middle of the room and is tiny.). He had a huge inhuman (almost) grin on his face. He seemed different. He stood stiffly and started to beg me to come outside. Outside it was freaking midnight next to the woods in the middle of fucking nowhere. I backed up, telling him it was time for bed, as he advanced towards me. He was acting very abrupt? and strange. Jack began to beg and plead even more. I turned away and walked down the hall to find my grandma or one of my great grandparents. I had enough of his creepy shyt already. Jack was no longer in the bedroom. I only knew this because of the same way I knew he had returned- the feeling of his presence. I walked out into the kitchen and for some reason I went towards the backdoor. Now, the backdoor. The backdoor is down like four steps up into the kitchen. There is a landing at the bottom of these steps. Facing down from the top of them, the backdoor is to the left. To the right is an empty space which leads to an open, unstable, very narrow, long flight of steps to the basement. Out of all my times visiting the farm outside of my dreams, I have avoided the basement like the plague. I swear to god, there is something down there. I don't care what others think. Anyways, I walked to the set of steps leading to the basement and backdoor and just peered down into the pitch black. Then Jack was there. He was wearing  a long/large pointed black hat and black robes. He just stood there near the basement and stared up at me. He had no face. I can't remember what happened next, but now I was crying and and Jack had forced me outside. His appearance had changed. He was now wearing rags and his arms were so long, the knuckles brushed the ground. He seemed hunched over as he lead me to a 'cult'. He said he was so happy I was going to join. I had the unshakable feeling that something awful was going to happen to me. I woke up. Now then. I tried to go back to sleep after calming myself. I have always had the fear of someone or something being in my room when I sleep. I would love to be able to lay on my right side or my back to make sure there is no one but my dog and I, but I normally only fall asleep on my left side (facing the wall) or my back. For that reason, I hug the wall as flat as I can and place a blanket behind/over my head and completely cover my body with another one. I know, it sounds stupid. But anyways, whenever I tried to sleep, this deep inhuman voice kept playing in my head... At first I recognized it as the voice of a creature from this horror story I listened to, but it slowly became different and more realistic... If you have read my profile, you'll know I'm VERY superstitious. So while you guys are probably scoffing and mocking me, I'm legit fucking terrified. Demons and I do NOT get along. (This also explains why I can feel presences and the following.) So I started running through all the mental things I can do to protect myself without actually getting up and getting the freaking salt and holy water (which I'm freaking out of adsf;dsk) when I fucking felt something STANDINGINMYFREAKINGDOORWAY. Like the voice, at first it seemed like the creature from the story (link above) but slowly felt worse and worse and more and more realistic. After what seemed like FOR FREAKING EVER I finally dispelled that feeling. So I closed my eyes and went to go to sleep... Now, realize that I tend to sense things that aren't there; visual and auditory hallucinations and what not. I first heard a great rushing sound... And then is got faster and louder like something was hurtling towards my freaking head. At it's peak, I heard a deafening crash and explosion. Now I wouldn't of mentioned this if I didn't actually feel heat and wind and debris(???? or something, small things hitting my face sharply) on my face. Don't even ask how it happened, it doesn't even make sense to me considering I was even facing the wall. I ALSO wouldn't of mentioned it if it didn't happen THREE. TIMES. After the third time, I opened my eyes and whipped myself up into a sitting position to look at my alarm clock. I can't remember what time it was. On to the third, and worst part of my night last night. I had started to drift back to sleep after what seemed to be an eon after the last incident. I wore a heavy shirt to bed last night and well, having two full blankets, and my dog curled up under them (she's a mini heater I swear), I was obviously getting a bit hot. More like VERY hot. Now I normally don't let my hands/wrists and feet/ankles out from under a pillow the blankets because of my fear of having them cut off in my sleep or just being dismembered in general (???? stupid, i know.) but I had thrown off on the blankets and had the top of my torso and my left arm/hand (my dominate hand) was resting on top of the pile of blanket near the open edge of the bed. I had started to fall asleep again, looking out my bedroom door into the hall. The light was on in the dining room (just outside my room and the hallway so it illuminated my doorway) and well, I still sleep with a nightlight (don't shame me). You know all that stuff about lucid dreaming and astral projection and what not? Yeah. Well. I was back in that half sorta sleep where you sorta dream again. But the thing is that everything faded to black and then slowly came back. I couldn't move. At all. No matter how hard I tried. Everything was in shades of dark greys and blacks with very little light. The light sources themselves looked... different. darker. I scanned the room, looking at how warped and twisted and dark everything now seemed. I could still feel my body, like you do when you're awake. After I finished, taking everything in, I rested my eyes to the edge of the bed. And then I noticed something. There was a top of a horse head. But like, much smaller. Maybe the size of a dog head. No, it wasn't my dog. She was beside me under the covers, snoring. And she didn't even look like that. The skull seemed bulbous under the tight grey skin. The horse ears were placed directly on top of the head and seemed tiny in comparison. Then a wet, reptilian looking hand/paw/whatever slowly came up and then grasped the edge of the bed. The thing was slowly pulling itself up?? I dunno. But the head slowly raised up. This demonic frog-reptile-horse thing was staring. Right. Freaking. At me. Its eyes were hallow and I never saw the bottom of its head. Its head was very long and seemed to get more and more skeletal as it went on. It finally stopped and in the lighting, I had noticed that it had long antlers? or horns. Idk. I guess that doesn't matter. But anyways, it started to climb onto the bed? Or get closer. Or reach its paw towards my hand. Or all three. Like I said, this place was very distorted and dark. I tried to move away, but I couldn't move my body at all. I know how these dreams/occurrences go down, it wasn't my first time. (A few years ago, I had a very similar event go on with a demon lady inches away from my face.) I should of known I wasn't going to be able to escape it. I started to wonder what I was going to do, what it was, where I was, if maybe I had somehow went to like a demonic plane of existence. I don't know. But thank fucking gods, right as it was about to touch me, I felt that dropping feeling sort of like part of yourself falling back into yourself?? Like idk your nonphysical self going back in your body or whatever. And like it was a magic switch, everything was normal again and I found myself awake, staring out at the edge of the bed. I could move again and the room was back to normal. Needless to say, I didn't even think of falling back to sleep until like 7 AM. I honestly don't care if anyone believes me or not, I just had to write this all down and/or tell someone. So here. Have this timeline of freaking chaos from last night.
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