#surprisingly enough this might actually be an everybody lives au
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minteayoongimakesmewoozi · 2 years ago
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Hi hi! I've been reading fits for awhile now! (you might see my comments sometimes too lol) and I've been really into rediscovering my middle school favorite YA series, the hunger games recently.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but I keep thinking of the kamados as people from District 12. Maybe it's bc they sold coal, and D12 is the coal district. Zenitsu might be from 3 or 6, Inosuke I'm not sure about, and if you are familiar with the series I'm curious to know what district ayame would be from. Muzan is probably the equivalent of president snow and the demon slayer corps is probably the rebellion.
I feel like both tanjiro and ayame would volunteer for the hunger games if their siblings got reaped, although tanjiro wouldn't be able to volunteer for nezuko which is sad :( same ayame for her brother.
If you're familiar with the series, do you think anyone from the fits idiot squad would be a hg victor? Also I think if ayame and tanjiro came from tge same district we'd have something very similar to the everlark "star crossed lovers" strategy lol.
Also could you imagine a fruits basket au?? Just suddenly popped to mind I must now go think about. (Zenitsu is monkey, inosuke obvi a boar, genya maybe the tiger or cat? Ughghghghh so much to think about 🤩)
owo anonnie thank u for commenting!!! if i've replied to ur comments then i've already said that, but i still appreciate every comment i get! it really gives me motivation to keep writing and posting fits!!!!!
oh man hunger games au.......... i only ever read catching fire, although i know the important parts of the hunger games from fanfic n whatnot..... and i know i can write a hg au cos i once went a lil viral for a set jicheol hg au a few years ago......... alright! let's go!!!!!
Hunger Games AU
- if i were to write a hunger games au, ayame and tanjirou probably wouldn't be from the same district TwT the same way that i agree the kamados would be from district 12, the higuchis would be from district 2 bc of the whole blacksmith thing
- but maybe. *maybe* they were originally from district 12 generations ago. maybe the higuchis and the kamados are intertwined, which is why tanjirou is given his father's earrings, and ayame wears wears her mother's tama kanzashi. they've been taught since birth to look out for those heirlooms - bc that's how they know they'll have an ally should they become tributes
- of course, it's been years - decades even - since a kamado and a higuchi end up in the same games
- until one day, takeo is reaped and tanjirou takes his place. and misaki is reaped, and ayame immediately volunteers in her place
- the wheels start turning then. or maybe they were already in motion, but there's a kamado and a higuchi as tributes and the rebellion realises this can only play to their advantage
- ayame notices tanjirou first, but tanjirou is the one that approaches her first. he walks over to her, swallows nervously and whispers, "higuchi-san?" and ayame turns to him with warmth in her gaze and offers a nod and a demure, "kamado-san."
- they're both gentle people. both sixteen and both the only volunteers who took the place of their younger siblings. when the cameras catch them together, the capitol sighs about a forbidden love and that's when the rebellion digs their teeth into both teens
- kyoujurou is, of course, the mentor for district 2. he laughs loudly and easily, but there's a sharpness to his smile that makes the other mentors wary. everyone remembers how he used fire to win his games, and it shocks no one to realise that ayame is just as good with flames as he is
- zenitsu is from district 5, and inosuke is from district 10. kanao is from district 11! and genya from district 3. for obvious reasons, none of them are dying dammit. i can't live like this anymore, there's already so much angst in kny canon
- let's just say that all of the mentioned districts are all working together for the rebellion. idc if it's not canon, none of them are dying in this
- genya, ayame and kanao are of course favourites to win. ayame bc she's from a career district, kanao bc she's surprisingly good with a scythe - but maybe not, since she's from an agricultural district. genya bc his brother is a victor, and no one would expect someone as protective as sanemi to not arm his lil brother with every important knowledge he has
- the hashiras would be previous victors for sure. kyoujurou for district 2, tengen from district 1. sanemi is of course from district 3 with genya, and that means shinobu is the victor and mentor for district 11. obanai would have to be the mentor for district 10 on account of, y'know, kaburamaru. livestock yeah but u know. (also an inosuke & obanai pair is just hysterical) himejima could be a victor for district 2 too, along with mitsuri cos haha kyoujurou n mitsuri amirite. that just leaves giyuu (district 4) and muichirou (district 7).
- does this mean aoi is either a tribute from district 4 or also one of shinobu's adopted sisters....... idk
- tanyame could absolutely do an everlark star crossed lovers strategy definitely, although ayame would have to be the one to do the whole lying thing like peeta had to
- something about how she managed to fall for one of her tributes during training and everyone knows it's tanjirou cos they did get pretty close during that time
- also i can totally see ayame sneaking into the district 12 dorms (with mentor urokodaki's help and also kyoujurou's) so she can apologise for the whole thing, but she had to do it
- katniss, i know, was an unwilling figurehead the whole time, but i can see tanjirou as being more proactive. maybe urokodaki-san has already read him in on the whole act, with no bullshit. they're going to use the kamado-higuchi alliance after all and it's only fair that they're both aware of the roles they have to play
- if we're talking about a 75th quarter quell games au, then all of the kmbk squad would absolutely be past victors. and that would make things even more amazing bc they'd have all at least met once during their victor tours
- ngl hunger games au makes me sad, but the idea of tanyame battle couple still being a thing is so chef kiss
i wish i could add more to a fruits basket au, but i've never watched it ~w~ i can see zenitsu as either a monkey or a bunny tho! and ofc inosuke is the boar, that's his whole thing! genya...... he looks so fierce in human form so i demand that he is a lil kitty cat. maybe tanjirou would be like a bull or smth, he's so boulder-brained bless him
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deconstructthesoup · 5 months ago
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Of course I can't just drop an idea into the void and then scamper off for other people to do something with it---I have to do it myself. So, feast your eyes on the DBD fantasy AU:
Edwin is a bookish prince with a love of mysteries and a keen sense of justice, which is a useful trait to have when your kingdom has a habit of letting people fall between the cracks. However, his habit of sneaking out into the kingdom to "assist" the royal guards with cases has gotten him into trouble... specifically, the accidentally-got-captured-by-a-demon-and-was-stuck-in-the-demon-realm-for-a-bit kind of trouble. Because of this, he's been assigned his own personal knight to stick with him at all times---but thankfully, Edwin's new shadow might be more rebellious than he seems...
Charles has only recently been knighted, and got assigned to Edwin due to the fact that they're similar in age and Edwin doesn't have a lot of friends. He got put on the path to knighthood because his father thought it'd be a good way for him to "man up," but surprisingly enough, he actually enjoys being a sword-fighting protector of the realm, even if the other knights have a tendency to be pricks. And Charles is more than happy to help Edwin do some clandestine detective work---hey, as long as he's sticking by him and making sure he doesn't get hurt, he's fulfilling his duties.
Niko is the princess of the neighboring kingdom, and she and Edwin are set to be married when they turn twenty-one---which both of them are fairly fine with, because despite the fact that they're both gay, they've been best friends since they were kids and know full well that it could very well be worse. Ever since her father died, she's been fairly withdrawn and lost, and has retreated even further into her love of books to keep her distracted. But even her newfound isolationist tendencies didn't keep her from briefly contracting a curse when she came into contact with an old magical artifact... a curse that was thankfully broken by her own personal bodyguard-slash-attendant.
Crystal is a recent graduate of a prestigious wizarding academy, and until her final year, she mostly skated by on average grades and the money of her noble parents. However, the summer before her final year, she summoned a demon on a dare, fell for him, and allowed him to possess her... and the experience not only briefly left her with holes in her memory, but was generally a wake-up call to how reckless she was with her magic. Over the following months, she applied herself to her wizardly studies, and got good to the point where she was called in to help cure Niko of a mysterious, multicolored curse that was afflicting her---and once Crystal succeeded, she was immediately handed a position as the junior court mage and Niko's primary attendant. Luckily, the two of them actually wound up getting along pretty fast.
My ideas for the others aren't as thought out, but I'll give you the basics:
Jenny works as the head cook in Niko's palace, and pretty much everybody knows not to mess with her. She's the person who Niko usually goes to for advice, despite the fact that she's really trying to not give off "mom friend" vibes.
The Night Nurse is the royal advisor to Edwin's parents, and is the one who's in charge of the majority of his schooling and general upbringing. While she's incredibly strict, she's still much more present than his actual parents are, and she's kind of unintentionally become his adoptive mom. She'll deny this if you ask her.
Esther is still a scheming witch who's pretty much always up to no good---maybe she's living in a village, maybe she's actually living in the palace as Crystal's mentor, I haven't decided yet---but Monty is her actual son and apprentice who simply has the ability to transform into a crow. And he... needs help.
The Cat King is a fey who Edwin met on a case. They meet up when they can and make out sometimes, though it's strictly a friends-with-benefits situation. He gives Edwin terrible advice on how to talk to boys.
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[busts out of the ground]
I'M NOT DEAD @jbeetle814 @hattedhellspawn I'M SO SORRY I ABANDONNED YOU GUYS INSIDE MY INBOX FOR A YEAR
I'll tell you everything with pleasure!
Buckle up because this might be a long ride :)
So, let's first establish the basic context of this whole AU; such as background info on what in the actual fresh hell is going on here.
First things first: this AU just kind of co-exists on the sidelines of canon tf2 with its own separate story happening while the OG mercs are off following canon at the same time in New Mexico and stuff. So technically, they both are in the same universe, just, from entirely different perspectives. I guess we can’t even call this an AU at this point but shhhh, we like having fun here.
Okay, so now that we’re clear with that let’s hop onto the actual story of ✨️ ze switcheroo mercs✨️:
BASICALLY, the 'mercs are actually all clones' theory is very much a real thing in my world. Except that the canon RED mercs are the “original mercs”, and literally everybody else are just clones.
Multiple cloned teams of the "original mercs" are scattered worldwide, and the job switcheroo mercs are one of them! Every single cloned teams are controlled by the one and only, you guessed it: Administrator. RED and BLU basically run a massive international chain company at this point, but like, with clones that fight each other to death.
The job switched mercs are one of the few cloned teams that have the least physical differences from the OGs they are supposed to doppelgang, which is surprisingly rarer than you’d expect. Ironically enough, clones rarely ever look exactly the same as the "originals" because of gene mutations (don't trust me on this, I'm not a science person at all), and more often than not a clone is going to pop out blond instead of brunette- or tall instead of short.
PERSONALITY HOWEVER, is a whole different story. My version of clones are "born" with a blank slate for a mind, with only the bare necessary knowledge for, ya know, living (i.e. how to eat, how to speak, how to do their job, yada yada you get the gist). All memories and pasts of the "originals" are wiped clean and you've got yourself a fancy new clone, yayyy.
So because of the obvious lack of everything inside the clones' minds, clones often don't have the same personality as the "originals", and sometimes even differ completely. It's up for them to build experience and form their own identity (as long as they don't end up revolting against Admin or anything, but that's never happened before so it should be okay).
The job switcheroo mercs have been stationed at a base in bumfuck nowhere (think of any country to slap em onto) with another cloned BLU team for approximately 3 2 years now; and all members of each team have formed their own entirely unique identities by now, and guess what that means! They're starting to have thoughts!
In the beginning, no one really cared about the jobs they were assigned with as a clone, but as the years grew they started thinking: “Hey, how about no [breaks the social norms]”. Everyone eventually realized that no one was happy with the jobs they were initially given, so they said fuck you to the system and started passing around their classes like a hot potato to see what sticks. By the end of this whole ordeal, everyone had tried everyone else’s job at least once before they eventually found the one they were satisfied with. TADA, ✨️the job switcheroo mercs were born✨️
Admin didn’t really care about this whole thing because 1) they're technically still doing what they're supposed to be doing, just with different jobs now and 2) she had other, bigger things to worry about, and the most emotion this mini revolt drew from her was: “ew, Miss Pauling, they’re starting to have opinions”
So far the team consists of:
Sniper as Soldier
Scout as Medic
Medic as Engineer
Spy as Demoman
Soldier as Spy
Demoman as Sniper
Heavy as Pyro
Engineer as Heavy
Pyro as Scout
ANYWAYS that’s all I got for now so if u got anymore questions feel free to ask
(Friendly reminder that this AU is a joke that I got way too invested in, and these job switches were made completely on random. AND ALSO literally nothing about this makes sense so let's just fuck around and find out at this point)
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candlewaxandp0lar0ids · 4 years ago
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if I can never give you peace — zero || Jungkook
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Pairing: Jungkook x Reader
Summary: It starts like quite a few stories do, in your world. Girl meets boy, who happens to be a hybrid, girl buys him at an auction where hybrids are sold, boy falls in love with her, girl gets bored of him. Then it’s not so typical anymore, when the boy ends up forced into illegal fighting rings, until he makes a wrong move and the girl’s father decides he needs to be killed.
Where does that leave you? Well, you’re the one who handled Jungkook’s fight and generally organized his life, and, when the girl’s father, your boss and mafia leader, tells you he wants him ‘put down’, you’re the one who has to get it done. Except, instead, you let him escape, and everything turns out fine.
Until he comes back.
Also available on Ao3.
Word count (chapter): 5.8k
Genre: Mafia AU, Hybrid AU, enemies to lovers, heavy on angst, slow burn, eventual smut
Warnings & Tags (chapter): Descriptions of Violence, Tension, Dehumanization and general poor treatment of hybrids
A/N: So I have two modes and those are tooth-rotting fluff and angst feast. This is... not fluff. I hope you’ll enjoy this first installment and introduction to the series, and I will see you soon for the next one!
Next
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Your eyes follow Jungkook’s every step as he walks through the crowd and enters the cage that serves as a ring. He doesn’t have to look at you to know you’re watching. You’re always watching. You’re standing in your usual corner, from where you make sure everything goes smoothly. Two tall, muscular men stand on either side of you. They look like they’re your bodyguards, but really, they’re here to handle him if he tries to do something. To everyone in the room but the two of you, this looks like every other fight night since the very first time he came to the Circle.
You’re too far for him to smell you, especially over the crowd of excited, sweaty men, but if he did, he’s sure he would pick up on the bitter scent of anxiety, would hear your heart beating a little too fast. He’d say you’re lucky the guards aren’t hybrids, but he knows that’s not the case. You never count on luck. Everybody knows that. That’s what makes you so good at your job. That’s what might just save his life.
He glances at you, finds your eyes glued on him, and gives you a smirk, which reveals his abnormally pointy teeth for a rabbit hybrid. It’s been over a year since they’ve been sharpened for him, to make him look more threatening. You’re used to them, but he still sees you swallow. For the first time he wonders, vaguely, if you had any say in that. You’re the one he meets with nowadays, but you’re not his owner, after all.
Your eyes leave him to look at his opponent. The man’s taller and has broad shoulders, he seems to have some training based on his on-guard position, and he’s older than him. You couldn’t find many informations on him, but based on his attributes, he’s probably some kind of dog hybrid.
You both know he doesn’t stand a chance.
“On my left,” the announcer roars, “some fresh meat! I give you… Jin!”
There are enthusiastic shouts, and the man shoots nervous glances around him at the crowd all around him. It’s clear that he isn’t used to that type of setting, and you feel an unexpected wave a guilt in your chest. He’s going to get destroyed tonight, you’re sure of it. You’re the one who suggested that Jungkook should fight a newbie, for the show. You don’t regret your decision, but you don’t feel good about it either.
“And on my right! The man who needs no introduction, who has won thirty! Two! Fights in a row, I give you… Jungkook!”
The crowd goes hysterical, and the hybrid facing him winces again. If he thought he had chance before that, it’s clear that he doesn’t anymore. You wonder if he’d heard about Jungkook, if his owners had prepared him well enough, if whoever owned him was betting against him. You wonder if he’d just been told he would be fighting a rabbit hybrid and assumed he would be fine.
Jungkook’s long ears are flat against his head, carefully tucked under a headband, and without those, he doesn’t look like a rabbit hybrid, too tall and broad-shouldered. Then again, he had never really been your typical rabbit hybrid.
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Truth was, you had been relieved when you had been assigned to working for the daughter of Mr. Xanders. Your whole life, you had known you would end up here. Your dad had worked for the Family since before your birth, and though it was clear your mom disapproved, she had never held any illusion that you would escape it. If anything, you were the sacrifice, a way of making sure your siblings wouldn’t be forced to work for the most powerful crime family in town. That was, if you did good enough.
Getting assigned to the girl who was nicknamed “the Princess” was both a blessing and a curse. It meant you got to stay away from most of the illegal stuff, as the girl was notoriously sheltered from all of that by her father. However, it also meant that you had to basically babysit the spoiled seventeen years old, despite her being only a few years younger than you. You had dressed as professionally and sternly as you could, adorning yourself in a dark woman’s suit, but she hadn’t seemed impressed.
That was how you found yourself here, at an auction for rare hybrids. You thought the whole thing was grim — oh, how naive you had to be back then, to think this was bad — but you had obeyed orders without batting an eye. You had to do this right, and this was a pretty easy job, after all.
You gritted your teeth silently as various hybrids were brought on stage, exhibited and bought, one by one. The status of hybrids was a complicated subject in the country, always had been, but you had grown up in a poor area, where a lot of hybrids lived freely, and the idea of owning what you knew to be a person made you sick to your stomach. At least the Princess hadn’t said a word the whole time you’d been there, and you had hopes that you would leave without — God — buying someone.
Naive. So damn naive.
“I want this one,” the girl had announced decidedly, pointing at the stage with a movement of her chin.
Shit.
You looked at the stage. There, the auctioneer was highly praising the hybrid who had last been brought on stage. A surprisingly tall and muscular rabbit hybrid, with fluffy black hair and long ears falling on either side of his head. He was shaking slightly, sending terrified looks around him, and your heart tightened in your chest.
Naive and soft.
“Are you sure?” you asked, and the girl rolled her eyes.
“Do your job. Get him for me.”
Numbers flashed in your mind, the exact amount of money you were allowed to spend clear as day. It made you feel a little better, for a second. This was what you were good with; numbers, facts, informations. If you thought of the hybrid as just that — a number,  an element to compose with — you should be able to do what you were supposed to do. Do your damn job, and ensure your little brother never ever had to work here, because they wouldn’t be as kind to him.
You took a deep breath, and, after a few people had already considerably raised the price, you made your bid.
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Jungkook walks to the center of the ring, arms raised high. He’s good at giving a show, good at most things, actually. He looks good here, confident, knowing exactly what he’s worth, and he’s nothing like what he was that first day. There is absolutely no fear on his face as he fists the air and people shout for him. Instead, he seems to be positively thriving on the attention he’s getting.
He’s a favorite here, because he always gives people what they came for. He makes the fight last, makes it theatrical, with twists and impressive moves. It’s been a while since he’s struggled in a fight, really struggled, which has made it easier. You recognize you’ve played your part in that. You have your word to say when picking his opponents, and you don’t want him to— well, to die, or to be too badly injured.
You know it’s not much. You know no matter what you tell yourself, that’s not protecting him. You know you should have acted a lot earlier.
But you didn’t.
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They gave you Jungkook as soon as the payment was confirmed, which didn’t take long. People were fidgeting in the room, careful not to stare too long at the Princess. They knew who she was, of course. The bodyguards and your ghostly presence, one step behind her, did not do anything to soothe their nerves. No one actually knew you back then. You hadn’t earned your reputation of efficiency, no one had called you a cold-hearted bitch yet, though that would pretty much become your identifier, but you were still somewhat unnerving, with your stillness and your all black attire.
Which was why you never tried to add color to it.
The Princess seemed to be in her element, not bothered by the silence and people’s obvious fear of her, even for a second. Instead, she was watching her acquisition. The hybrid — Jungkook, you remembered, because you’d heard his name after winning the auction — was staring at the floor, stealing glances at her every once in a while, before quickly looking away again. He was clearly shy, and terrified, and it looked like the Princess liked that.
When they handed the leash to her, she was quick to clip it on his collar, and you held back your disgust. Your mind went to Mark, a kind golden retriever hybrid you had grown up with, and the idea of him being collared like that almost made you retch.
But, of course, none of that could be seen on your face. You had been told that you had the perfect poker face, unreadable at all times. In moments like this, it was a true blessing.
“Hello, Jungkook, I’m Anna, and I’m your new owner. I’m going to take good care of you.”
Then Jungkook looked up at her, briefly, and an adorable smile curved his lips.
You knew then that this could only end in pain and heartbreak.
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Once Jungkook is done, he turns to face Jin. The other hybrid looks like he wants to run away, but even if he tried it, he’d be pushed right back in. So he does the smart thing, and prepares himself for the fight, lifting his hands to protect himself. Jungkook does the same thing. There is a brief moment of silence, everyone bracing themselves for what is to come. Despite his earlier display, Jungkook is deathly calm now, every muscle in his body ready for action.
The second the bell rings, Jungkook is moving, so fast he’s almost blurry, and you have to avert your eyes when his fist connects with the other hybrid’s chest.
This all feels like it could have been avoided.
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A relationship quickly developed between the shy bunny and the Princess. You didn’t say anything about it; that wasn’t what you were here for. A baby-sitter, sure, but not a chaperone. Anyway, it seemed like Mr. Xanders wasn’t too worried about that, and his daughter was free to do whatever she wanted as long as she didn’t get pregnant. You supposed a hybrid was the perfect choice for that, with how rare it was for them to have children with a human. It could happen, of course, but it was highly unlikely without medical assistance.
Still, you weren’t sure you liked the relationship all that much. It just felt like Anna had so much power over him. He was a couple of years older than her, since selling hybrids under eighteen was technically illegal, but it was clear from the very beginning that he had been sheltered and didn’t have much experience in— well, in any areas. A sickening feeling told you that had probably been done on purpose by the people who had raised him. You were well aware of what rabbit hybrids were usually bought for.
You watched, silently, as they got close, as Anna’s hands started to easily find Jungkook’s, as Jungkook started to rest his head on her shoulder, to scent her, as he fell in love with her. Today, maybe you would have been annoyed at the sight, annoyed by his innocence, but back then, it only made you sad.
You were also there to see Anna grow bored of him. It didn’t even take her that long, no more than a couple of months.
When she insisted on going to another hybrid auction, and asked you to bid on someone else, you knew that it was over.
“Get him to fight,” Mr. Xanders told you dismissively at a meeting you had with him. “I want the money he cost me back.”
“He’s a rabbit hybrid,” you had said, frowning. “He’s not exactly the fighting type.”
“I didn’t tell you to make him win,” he scoffed. “I don’t care if you have to bet against him. Get my money back. After that, I don’t care what you do with him.”
You didn’t realize then that that was a ‘promotion’, and that this meant you would start working in illegal settings. All you knew was the painful weight in your chest at the idea of sending Jungkook to his death. You had kept away from him, not trying to create any bonds with him, but he smiled politely and kindly when he saw you.
God, he was in love with Anna. You were sure he had noticed her losing interest in him, but you also believed he held out hope. This could— This would probably be crushing for him.
So you took the matter into your own hands. You didn’t just sign him up for an upcoming fight, but you also found him a trainer, the best you could.
“Does Anna want me to learn how to fight?” he had asked you, big brown eyes looking at you, when you had told him about the training. “So I can be her bodyguard?”
“My orders don’t come from Anna,” you’d answered, trying to stay as distant as possible.
“But will she— Do you think she’ll like me again, if I learn to fight?”
No. You thought Anna had gotten everything she wanted from him.
“I don’t know,” you had answered. You couldn’t. You couldn’t do it.
The first fight had been brutal. Devastating, in fact. Jungkook had been training, and you’d been told he was good at what he was doing, but, as a newbie, he’d been sent against an expert fighter — “for the show”, you’d heard, the exact same thing you would use as well, years later —, and you were later told he was lucky he’d made it out alive.
You stayed next to him in the hospital room. As a hybrid, he healed quickly, but he still looked terrible, body marred with black and blue, lip busted, and black eyes. When he woke up, he looked around the room, every movement he made clearly painful, and you knew, at his expression, that there was only one thing he thought about in that moment.
Anna wasn’t there.
You would never forget the look he gave you then. The way he set his jaw, the way something hardened in his eyes.
“Get out,” he had said, and you were pretty sure he had meant for it to sound aggressive, but he wasn’t good at it yet, so it was more pleading.
You had gotten up, made a move to— to pat his shoulder, to do something, but you had refrained and your hand had fallen down to your side.
“I’m sorry,” you had said, and you had left him alone in there, with his broken hopes and heart.
That night was the first and last time you considered leaving your job.
But there was no quitting, where you worked.
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In the ring, of course, Jungkook is good. He leaves an opening for the guy to place a few punches, ones that can’t hurt him too much. The crowd is delirious, bets are being placed. There’s a rumor that Jungkook was injured at the last fight so tonight could be the night where he loses his title, couldn’t it? The first round is coming to an end, and he doesn’t seem to have done much so, surely, he’s not going to be able to end that guy by the third, like he usually does — and if he does, hey, at least they’ll have had one hell of a show.
The three rounds thing is something you asked him to do after an organizer told you people needed that to feel they had gotten their money’s worth. You had told Jungkook, and he’d growled an answer, but he had never won in less than that since. For all his obvious hatred of you, the organization, and everything that surrounded him, he didn’t actively oppose you most of the time. He had tried to run away, twice, but when those attempts had failed, he had seemed to realize that it was just easier to go with the flow.
When the second round starts, though, he goes wild. His bare feet are light on the floor,  his fists quick and precise. He doesn’t leave anything to luck either. Every punch lands exactly where he wants it to, when he wants it to. He dodges his opponent’s attacks easily, and he sees in his eyes the moment when the man realizes that he’s not winning this. He sees confidence turn into surprise, then into fear, and it only makes him want blood.
His right hook hits the man in the jaw with all the power he can put into it, and this time you don’t wince. You’ve gotten used to the violence now — it always takes you a while — and you’re mostly impressed at how good Jungkook is.
But that’s exactly why you’re in this situation, isn’t it?
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“We should put him down,” Mr. Xanders said, with the exact same dismissive tone he had used years ago to tell you to make Jungkook fight, and you looked at him in disbelief. Surely, surely, he didn’t mean—
“I really disapprove of that solution, dad,” Anna said, shaking her head, and you realized he did.
You had been surprised by Anna’s presence, when you had walked into the office. You hadn’t worked for her in a long time, having graduated to far worse things. You had served your purpose, you supposed, made yourself practically indispensable when it came to the organizing of the Family’s business, as you knew the workings of the Family in and out, both legal and… less legal aspects. No one had ever said anything about your siblings joining.
“He attacked someone,” her father simply shrugged.
“If I may, Mr. X, it was after a fight and the man was being really aggressive after he lost the money he’d bet against—”
“I don’t care,” he said, waving his hand like you were just an annoying fly. “He attacked a human. We can’t have our hybrids doing that, otherwise it will just be chaos. You’re smart enough to know that.”
You swallowed. Something inside you was screaming. You had long shut down any form of moral compass, but it seemed like Jungkook always awoke the last remnants of it. You were pretty sure he despised you now, and you didn’t blame him for it. But, just like what you’d thought when Anna had bought him, you couldn’t shake the feeling that this just wasn’t right.
“I understand, sir.”
“That’s a horrible thing you’re doing, dad,” Anna insisted. “I thought you’d try to at least reason with him, (Y/N).”
That wasn’t your job. You knew when your opinion was asked on those things, and now was not one of those times. You also knew that you hated that she called you by your first name, like the two of you were friends, and you didn’t say anything about that either.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mr. Xanders said warmly, like he had just refused to buy her an expensive toy, and not condemned a man to death. “I’ll make it up to you, okay?”
Anna sighed and rolled her eyes, and you assumed she’d probably stay mad at him for a while. But not too long.
Your heart was beating so loud in your chest you barely heard Mr. Xanders dismissing you, and you were relieved to be left alone when you walked out. There was only one thing you wanted to be thinking about now.
How were you going to save Jungkook’s life?
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Jin hits the floor and doesn’t get up. It’s not an actual knock-out, because he’s still moving around, but Jungkook doubts he’ll even try to get back on his feet. The guy seems to be smart, he probably realizes that that would be suicide. Another minute with him on the ring? Nah. That would be a really, really stupid thing to do. Jungkook’s knuckles are bleeding — he doesn’t think they’ve been intact once in the four years he’s been fighting — and he’s pretty much unstoppable, right now.
He lets the referee grab his arm and lift it in the air as the crowd screams. They’re particularly loud tonight, because he won in two rounds. It’s not really a surprise when they force the entrance of the cage, flooding it, and Jungkook looks for you, almost instinctively. When he finds you, your eyes are on your phone. You look like you couldn’t care less about what’s happening around you, and he knows you do genuinely dislike the fights. You’ve never made it a secret. You’ve never taken care of the other hybrids owned by the family who participate, either. He doesn’t know if he’s your burden, or if you’re the one who chooses to still do that. Before, he wouldn’t have doubted it. Now… He’s not so sure.
Your eyes flicker up to his for a second, and you nod, imperceptibly. Your heart is probably beating as loud as his right now, though for different reasons.
Jungkook examines you, takes in how out of place you are in that environment, immaculately dressed, small glasses on your nose, hair pulled back, and lets himself be amused by it, one last time.
And then he’s gone.
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You only visited Jungkook when there was about to be a fight, and it was clear he really didn’t like it when you showed up. You always seemed to be interrupting him, whether it was a training session or a work-out. You didn’t think you’d ever seen him do something other than those two things. You didn’t know if he had anything else.
You brought some food from a restaurant he liked, as you usually did, and got some things for the guards who would be around. That wasn’t as usual, but you had done it before, so hopefully it wouldn’t make anyone suspicious and it would allow you to have some privacy with Jungkook.
He sat down opposite from you, immediately diving into the food you’d brought, and you watched silently. His shoulders were tense, never completely down but, though he would hate to admit it, he was more relaxed around you than around anyone else. It said a lot about his life, about how desperate he was for any form of companionship, that the way you told him about his opponents almost made him feel like you cared about him. It said a lot that your presence comforted him, and it was pretty pathetic, if you asked him.
“So, who am I fighting?” he asked while eating. He never bothered with his manners when he was around you.
“A newbie,” you said. “Some fighting training from what I’ve gathered, but he shouldn’t be an issue.”
He growled. The sound was unnatural for a rabbit hybrid, but he had mastered it over the years. It was a good way of intimidating people.
“Really? I thought I told you I wanted a challenge.”
You didn’t reply immediately, and that made him look up at you. When he did, you were chewing on the inside of your cheek, hesitant. That was completely out of character. Then, you made up your mind, and your expression turned back to the unreadable one he was so familiar with.
“Keep eating, and don’t raise your voice” you ordered.
He lifted an eyebrow. Normally, he would have done something like folding his arms and waited for more, in a defiant attitude, but this was you. You would never do something like that just to assert your power over him. He hated your guts, but that was one thing he could say about you.
“Mr. X is going to have you killed because you attacked that man at your last fight.”
There. Direct, to the point, not a useless word — though you couldn’t bring yourself to use the words “put you down”. Jungkook froze for a half a second, than resumed his eating, albeit slower than before.
“It was all good as long as long as I brought him money, but he doesn’t want any trouble for it, huh?”
His voice was bitter and low, barely more than a rumble. You were confident no one was paying attention to you, since the guards ate in another part of the house and no one cared about what you were saying. They could see you through the picture window, but they couldn’t read lips. Still, you lowered your voice as well.
“Win your next fight in two rounds,” you said, instead of answering him.
He shot you a dirty glance.
“Do you really think that’s what I—”
“That should get the crowd to lose their mind,” you continued. You had gone through all the possibilities in your mind, over and over again. This was the one that was the safest for you and your family, while giving Jungkook a reasonable chance of survival. “When that happens, you’ll use the hysteria to leave through your opponent’s entrance.”
This got his attention, and he stopped trying to interrupt you, finally focusing on your words.
“I can probably get you somewhere between five and ten minutes before everyone finds out you’re missing.”
He scoffed.
“That’s very generous of you.”
“I also won’t look too hard for you,” you added, because you would obviously be in charge of that as well. “So as long as you don’t do a terrible job hiding, we probably won’t find you. Stay away from hotels, and don’t get noticed.”
Jungkook stayed silent for a while. He didn’t look at you, jaw set, and you were pretty sure he was weighing the pros and cons of your plan.
“I don’t know if there’ll be another chance,” you told him truthfully. “They want you gone after the fight.”
The silence went on a little longer, before Jungkook spoke again.
“Anna’s said yes to that?”
You didn’t miss the way his voice faltered on her name. You didn’t think he had spoken to her in years, but he still had a soft spot for her, and being reminded of it always made you sad. You had accepted, a long time ago, that life wasn’t fair, but that was particularly true when it came to him. None of what had happened to him was fair. The shy boy with the wide eyes you’d helped buy at the auction deserved better. You didn’t, probably deserved every single bad thing that had happened to you, but for him, you wished you had done something — anything — differently. So you wouldn’t be faced with a jaded, cynical version of that boy right now.
“She opposed it, but her father is still going through with it.”
“So she didn’t oppose it much.”
You didn’t answer that. It was true, and you both knew it.
You glanced at your watch. Your time here was almost over, and you had a lot of responsibilities.
“Will you do it?”
Jungkook glanced at you, eyes wary.
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth? You could just do that so you could have me killed and say I tried to escape.”
You shook your head, almost amused by the possibility.
“I would gain nothing from doing that, and if I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t go about it that way. Will you do it?”
This time, he nodded. He didn’t trust you, but he thought you were telling the truth on this.  So following your plan would be just as well.
“Good. I’ll see you for the fight.”
This would have been a good moment to wish him good luck, probably, but you didn’t do luck, so you didn’t say anything. You gave him a quick nod, gathered your things, and then you were out.
You didn’t think to say goodbye.
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“We’ll get him when the crowd’s dispersed,” one of the bodyguards says, and you hum noncommittally in response, eyes on your phone.
Moron.
If these two were the ones you usually work with, they would know that your usual protocol is to go get Jungkook as soon as the referee’s lifted his hand up. That way, you can get him out as quickly as possible and you don’t have to worry about him getting mobbed. But you’ve changed your team the day Mr. Xanders asked you to ‘put Jungkook down’, so they have no idea. It’s been a week since then, which shouldn’t make it too suspicious. Hopefully.
When the crowd does move enough to see what’s going on in the cage — three minutes — one of the two men says, voice worried, “Hey, can you see him?”
Your head snaps up and your eyes scan the room. You’re relieved to see that Jungkook’s nowhere in sight.
“Where is he?” you ask urgently, and the men seem to shrink under your glare, exchanging worried glances. You roll your eyes and sigh. This may be your plan, but they’re still acting incompetent. Which is good for you, sure, but the perfectionist in you is annoyed.
“You two should pray he’s in the changing room,” you spit out as you march towards it. It takes some struggle, because the crowd isn’t exactly calming down, but it’s not too long.
Of course, Jungkook isn’t in the changing room. It was a bad idea to go look there anyway — usually you would probably have already informed everyone that he had disappeared — but these two don’t seem to realize that.
“Go search the fighting room,” you order, “make sure you haven’t missed anything. Then check the surroundings. I’ll stay there. Let me know if you find something.”
They practically run out, and you allow yourself to sit down. This isn’t even dangerous yet. If Jungkook’s done that part correctly, he should already be too far for them to find him. As far as you’re concerned, you’ve bought him — you check your watch — seven minutes. But even if you don’t doubt him, you still feel terror at the idea they could catch him. You don’t know what would happen then. You don’t want to think about it.
The seconds tick by. It’s been almost exactly ten minutes when your phone rings.
“Hello, Miss—”
“Do you have him?” you bark.
There’s a silence.
“I want an answer!” you snap.
“No. I’m sorry. We’ve lost him.”
You hang up immediately and start to dial another number to let people know Jungkook’s missing.
But, before you actually call, you let out a brief sigh of relief.
This just might work.
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You get home late the following night. When you do, you’re absolutely exhausted. You’ve had a terrible day, unable to sleep a wink, and you got thoroughly chewed out over Jungkook going missing. You think Mr. X was suspicious of you, because you basically don’t fuck up, ever, but then Anna started to wax poetics about how “Jungkook was a soul who wanted to live”, and you don’t think he bought it, but it at least got his mind off of you.
You doubt he’d get you killed over that, it just isn’t worth it and you’re pretty valuable, but it would be much better if he didn’t think about it too much.
You’ve organized the searches, pretty sloppily in your own opinion. Of course, it’s possible that they could find him, but if Jungkoook does his part, everything should be okay.
You remove your shoes with a groan when you walk in. You usually never regret wearing heels, thankful for the centimeters they help you gain, but tonight you definitely do. Keeping them on for two days was not how they had been intended to be used.
Once they’re off your feet, you painfully walk to your kitchen. All you want to do is to make yourself a cup of tea before going to bed, but you stop yourself before grabbing your kettle.
Something feels— off. You’re probably the only person who could notice it, because you’re  so obsessive with everything that’s in your home, but you just can’t miss it. It’s not much, just some items that aren’t where they should be, or that were moved a little to the side.
Your breath catches in your throat, and you hesitantly grab a knife from your kitchen drawer. You don’t think that would do anything, if someone was in your apartment right now, because you can’t fight and, considering the people you work for, you’re pretty sure if someone wanted to kill you they would, but it makes you feel better.
You make your way through the living-room slowly, heart hammering in your chest. You check the bathroom, first. No one’s in there, but it’s clear that whoever was there used it as well. He didn’t put your toothpaste back where it belonged.
That only leaves your room. You walk in, carefully, to find it empty. Your bed’s done, though not exactly how you do it, and that confuses you. At least until your eyes find the necklace that’s on your bedside table.
It’s the identifying tag Jungkook wore around his neck for fights. You reach out for it, in disbelief, and that only confirms what you thought.
A laugh bubbles in your throat, and you just can’t hold it in. It escapes your lips, breaking the silence that always reigns in your apartment.
Here. He was here, in the eye of the storm, while everyone was looking for him. You have no idea where he is now, but this makes you feel like he’ll be fine. Clearly, he is a smart man and he has resources.
You fall to the ground, lean against your bed, holding the tag in your hand. You give yourself a second. That’s more than you usually get. It’s a second to close your eyes and feel grateful and happy about what happened, a second to think that perhaps not everything is dark and terrible in the world.
A second, because Jungkook made it out.
And then, you open your eyes, and you come back to your reality, which is that you’ll be working for the family tomorrow, and the day after that, and probably for the rest of your life. There’s no out for you. No hope.
But at least Jungkook should be fine. You’ll never know about it, because if he is, then you’ll never hear about him again.
If you ever do, it will only mean bad news.
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Next
Thank you for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed this first chapter and feel free to let me know if you would like to be tagged for future ones!
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blockgamepirate · 3 years ago
Text
So we were talking on Discord about a DSMP superpowers AU, specifically Syndicate as an anarchist superhero team who are perceived as villains by pretty much everybody. (There were a bunch of people involved in the brainstorming but I wanna particularly credit @macachee for the idea for Techno’s superpowers, even though I ended up using a slightly different version than theirs.)
Anyway I know I don't really write fanfic anymore and I'm extremely rusty but uh... my hand slipped?
(CW: nothing major but there are repeated mentions of fire and some pretty tame violence)
×××
"Professor Underscore, I presume?"
The distinctive deep voice of an infamous supervillain was really not something anyone wanted to hear after 14 hours of last minute bug-fixing on a prototype superweapon in a secret laboratory. Especially when all your assistants had already called it a day and gone home.
Without even looking around, Tubbo reached for the gun in his desk drawer but before he could pull it out, a blade smashed into the wood right next to his hand.
"Nope", said the voice, "you don't get to have weapons, I get to have weapons. And speaking of weapons..."
Tubbo carefully turned around on his chair to face his attacker. As expected, it was a huge, hulking pigman dressed in flashy red and a golden mask.
"You are Protesilaus, aren't you? From the Syndicate?"
Protesilaus blinked at him. "You're a LOT younger than I expected, professor."
"Yeah, I get that a lot."
"I mean it's very impressive though, good for you."
"Thanks."
"So anyway, I'm here for the weapons."
"The weapons are kinda reserved already. You know, for the military."
"Don't give a shit", said a voice from the door. "Gib."
Protesilaus sighed. "Zephyrus, you're supposed to be the secret back-up."
The man hiding by the door frame laughed. "We already took care of the guards. There's nobody here but him, it's fiiine."
"But what if HE has his own secret back-up? What then? Well, it's too late now so just keep a look-out, alright?"
Zephyrus laughed again. "Sure."
"Alright." Protesilaus pointed his sword at Tubbo. "Show us to the weapons."
×××
There wasn't much he could think of doing to stall except try and tap in the pin codes on the doors as slowly as humanly possible. To be fair he didn't even really know what he was stalling for exactly. Secret back-up would have been nice but if they’d really taken out all the guards then none was likely to come.
Protesilaus was following him, sword in hand, making random small talk on the way as if he didn't know how to deal with the silence. Tubbo had only caught a few glimpses of Zephyrus, the winged man, in the background or in reflections. He seemed to be tampering with the security systems on the way, meaning that Tubbo really might be completely alone on this if the sabotage was successful. Zephyrus was also pulling along a big wheeled container of some sort that was probably intended for the weapons.
The two of them were the known members of the Syndicate, a team of anarchist terrorists who gave nightmares to the local police forces, the national guard and occasionally the military, but it was also widely theorized to have a secret third member with fire powers. Nobody had ever managed to catch them in the act, the only evidence of the secret member's existence was the trail of smoking ruins following the pair, their targets always burned down in a blaze of extremely memorable pink flames.
Tubbo had a theory that there were actually two secret members in the Syndicate, because if you're going to have one secret member you might as well have two, right? Maybe even three! It just made sense.
His assistants hadn't seemed convinced by this logic.
They arrived at the large hall leading up to the main vault where the prototypes were hidden and Tubbo finally had a plan. Somebody (probably him, honestly) had left the remote control of his battle bots lying around on a sidetable. He took advantage of his captors checking the space for surprise guards and inched slowly towards the remote.
"Everything good up there?" Protesilaus called out to Zephyrus who had flown up to the rafters.
"All good."
"Alright, seems safe enough", said Protesilaus. "Now, open the vault."
Tubbo just needed to stall a little bit longer until he could grab the remote undetected. "Actually, maybe I just won't be able to live with the fact that I let you guys get your hands on superweapons? What if I'd rather die than let you have them?"
Protesilaus sighed. "Look, don't worry, it's for a good cause, I promise."
"I mean, you guys are supervillains."
"Oh yeah sure, you're literally making weapons for an imperialist government but we're the villains?"
"What about that orphanage you burned down?" Tubbo kept moving towards the sidetable, trying to make it look like he was just pacing nervously.
"I have NEVER burned down any orphanages, I do NOT have an irrational hatred of small children, in fact I LOVE orphans in particular, you can ask anyone."
"You did, though! That was like two years ago, back when you were part of the Sleepy Bois Inc!"
Tubbo actually knew quite a lot about the Sleepy Bois, the infamous villain team who were particularly known for conning people into taking part in some sort of strange experiments, like that time they somehow transported a hundred people to the moon and told them to terraform a random area. The group had broken up a while back and two of the four had since reformed. Well, more or less reformed anyway. Actually not really reformed, but they were at least sticking to smaller crimes these days.
Anyway Mr. Business was now one of Tubbo's best friends, although nobody was supposed to know that. And Dirty Crime Boy seemed like a surprisingly nice guy. He was out there running what seemed to be some kind of a drug van but Tubbo had chosen not to worry about it too much.
The other two members, however...
"Sleepy Boys? Doesn't ring a bell." Protesilaus' face was suspiciously blank.
"You know, back when you called yourself the Blood God."
"Nah nah nah, I'm Protesilaus, not the Blood God."
"Come on, you're OBVIOUSLY the Blood God."
"I've never even heard of that guy."
"You're LITERALLY a pigman with superhealing powers and a shiny magical sword, you wear a crown AND you're hanging out with a blond guy with wings who looks just like the Angel of Death."
"Wow, wild coincidence", said Protesilaus
“Not gonna lie, the Angel of Death is a really cool name“, said Zephyrus.
Tubbo ignored them. "And you sound exactly like the Blood God."
"I don't hear it", said Protesilaus.
"You said you don't even know who he is!"
"Exactly."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'EXACTLY'??? THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!!!"
"Well I can't hear it if I've never even heard him speak. That's just logic."
Up in the rafters Zephyrus was cackling like a madman.
"You annoy me so much", said Tubbo.
"Aaaanyways, just give us a little peek into the vault, alright? Just out of curiosity, you know."
Tubbo had made it to the remote, he just needed one more distraction to cover for him grabbing it. "Uh..." Then he had an idea: he just took a quick sudden glance at the exit, as if he'd seen something over there and sure enough both of the criminals immediately turned to check. It was just long enough. He got the remote. "Okay fine, you can see the vault."
"Nice, nice." Protesilaus was still glancing around suspiciously but he had no idea what he should have been suspicious of.
Tubbo was more than happy to open the vault now. It might be holding the prototypes but it was also filled with a small army of robots.
All of which came to life with the press of a button.
"Ah", said Protesilaus. "There's his secret back-up."
"Oh Jesus", said Zephyrus. "I think we fucked up."
"You could say that", said Tubbo. "If you just leave peacefully I might let you go", he added in a sudden fit of uncharacteristic levels of confidence.
Protesilaus raised his sword. "Well you see, I really want those weapons, though."
"I guess you'll just have to fight the robots for it then", said Tubbo, configuring the targetting system.
"Mate, they've got guns on them", Zephyrus called out from above.
"Take cover then", said Protesilaus, very much not taking any cover at all himself.
Tubbo, pretty sure the bots knew which people to fight, released them on the criminals.
Protesilaus immediately managed to dodge the first few lazer bolts from the bots, but the third hit him on the arm. He flinched a bit but didn't seem too bothered. "Ouch. Okay so they can actually aim."
Still dancing around the shots, he held his hand to the wound and once he took it off, only the singed hole on his sleeve remained. The Blood God had been known for some kind of healing powers and coincidentally Protesilaus of the Syndicate, who apparently definitely wasn't the Blood God, just happened to also have healing powers. This fight was going to be hard even for thirty robots.
The pigman finally took some cover, hiding behind a pillar. The robots would have to move closer and Tubbo could already tell that if he'd manage to single them out, Protesilaus would easily take them down one by one.
Even worse, Zephyrus had hidden behind a different pillar up near the ceiling and was sniping the bots from above. They were supposed to be bulletproof but the man was absolutely cracked and managed to keep hitting them in the joints and in the eyes.
But at least the bots had given Tubbo some room to work with. He bolted into the vault and headed straight for a very specific section.
"So I just wanna know, professor", Protesilaus called out from the hall, "how are you NOT the evil mastermind here? You have a LITERAL horde of robots in your control that you can just let loose on people!"
"What do you MEAN? They're for fighting people like you! In this exact kind of situation!" Tubbo found what he was looking for and quickly unbuckled the huge harnesses holding it in place. He had to get a stool to reach the highest ones and nearly tripped on it in his hurry.
"Oh and how many of these have you sold to the government? And what if they just decide that they'd be very convenient for taking care of dissenters?"
"Well if the dissenters are literal supervillains, that sounds great." He climbed the ladder on the wall up to the platform by the mech suit and jumped inside.
He couldn't hear what Protesilaus responded after he pulled down the dome of the suit over his body. The sounds of fighting and the bulletproof glass drowned it all out from this distance, and the sound system wasn’t turned on yet. Now the odds should be a lot more even, though. Let’s see how they deal with this, he thought. He settled in and launched the mech--
... and then maneuvered awkwardly through the mess of secret weapons and machines inside his vault. He was pretty sure he didn't break too many things on the way, it was fine. In the corner of his eye he thought he saw a flash of pink and for a second he worried that the pigman had followed him into the vault where it would be almost impossible for him to fight in the suit but luckily he could still hear the sound of sword clanging into metal from outside.
He moved over to the vault door as sneakily as he could while piloting a 12-foot-tall machine in a tight space and looked out into the hall. The floor was littered with broken robots, and there were several blinded ones aimlessly wandering around and getting in the way of the ones that still functioned properly. Protesilaus was towards the back of the hall, stabbing a bot in the armpit and tearing off its arm, Zephyrus on the other hand, still perching on the rafters, had moved around the pillar he had hidden behind, now aiming away from the vault. Neither of them were looking at Tubbo. He took aim and shot at one of the huge grey wings.
"Ah! Fuck!" Zephyrus spun around. "You little shit!"
"Zephyrus, are you okay??" Protesilaus immediately looked over to his ally and took another hit himself.
"I'm FINE, dude!" Zephyrus sounded exasperated but fond. "Look out yourself! Also the kid has a fucking mech."
"A what?"
Tubbo slammed the vault door shut. Good luck getting in there now, Syndicate. Then he tossed aside some robot carcasses to clear out the floor and threw one at Protesilaus who dodged it easily but in the process took another hit from a different robot. He was starting to look tired and he was obviously distracted by Zephyrus getting hurt. That was promising.
Tubbo started climbing the pillar up to the ceiling. Zephyrus cursed again and tried to hop around the pillar to run across to the other side but his hurt wing didn't open properly so he lost his balance, slipped up and fell. "Shit!"
"ZEPHYRUS!"
The man managed to open his wings and soften the fall but the injury made him veer dangerously to the left and crash into a pile of broken robots. Protesilaus leaped over to him, dropping his sword and laying his hands on his friend's wing and back. A faint red glow emitted from the touch points.
Tubbo jumped back down to the ground and stormed at them. He punched the pigman right in the chin, sending him flying across the room. He then tried to grab Zephyrus but the man had already slipped away and had apparently managed to pick up his friend's sword. "You motherfucker", the man said, "I'm going to take that fucking suit apart and then it's your turn."
"Zeph!" Protesilaus called from the side and Zephyrus tossed the sword to him without taking his eyes of off Tubbo. Then the man pulled up his sniper rifle again and Tubbo quickly covered his weak points with his armoured arms and jumped behind a pillar. He needed to disarm Zephyrus ASAP.
Behind them, Protesilaus was taking care of the last few robots. Tubbo didn't have much time, but he couldn't do anything until Zephyrus would have to reload, the guy was just too accurate...
"Oh fuck", said Zephyrus suddenly. "Prot, the door!"
They all turned to look at the exit.
There, at the door, was Ranboo, widened eyes flicking between Tubbo, the broken robots and the Syndicade. He was holding a bowl of biscuits and a cup of tea. "Uh... hello? Hi?"
Ranboo was actually NOT allowed in the vaults but how do you stop someone who can literally teleport anyway? Tubbo was glad to see him sneaking in, though.
"Ranboo! Help! They're trying to steal the weapons!"
"I..." Ranboo seemed frozen in place.
"Ranboo!" Tubbo was starting to get worried. His husband wasn't even taking any shelter. He drove the mech over to him to at least give him some protection.
"I just came to bring you cookies? Coz I thought maybe you were staying late to make the deadline and I thought--"
"Ranboo, I'm being attacked by supervillains right now!"
"Look, what if we just talked this through? I'm sure everybody here would rather not kill each other, right?" Ranboo was tall enough to lay a hand on Tubbo's shoulder even when he was wearing the mech suit which kind of pissed Tubbo off to be quite honest.
"Sure", said Protesilaus, "I love negotiating. Give us the weapons and their blueprints and we're more than happy to go."
"See? That's good, right? Tubbo, we can just let them have the weapons."
"Ranboo, sometimes you're a bit too quirky for my liking. Stop being quirky, help me fight them. You can use your... T-E-L-I-P-O-R-T-A-T-I-O-N powers."
Everybody just stared at him for a second.
"Shouldn't it be T-E-L-E?" said Protesilaus.
"Tubbo, you realise they can spell words too, you know, like most people who graduated elementary school?" said Ranboo.
"I'M SORRY! I'M TIRED, OKAY?"
“You could have just said ‘use your powers’, I mean, I know what my powers are.”
“IT'S BEEN A REALLY LONG DAY!“
"Zephyrus, I think this guy might be too much for us, I've never met such intimidating intellect", said Protesilaus. Zephyrus seemed to already be dying of laughter and his ally's words did not help.
"Now that's just rude," said Tubbo.
He'd barely finished his sentence when a horrible whistling sound hit them all like an invisible cargo train. After a second Tubbo managed to reassemble his braincells long enough to figure it out: "The fire alarm!"
Then he noticed the grin on his enemy's face. "Well, good job, everyone! Let's go home, Zephyrus", said Protesilaus cheerfully.
"Sure, mate."
The secret third member of the Syndicate, Tubbo suddenly remembered. The container they'd brought with them was gone too. Well, fuck. "This whole thing was a diversion??"
"Yep." The Protesilaus was already at the exit and Zephyrus was following right behind him. "See ya, losers!"
Something inside the vault exploded, making a muffled bang through the door, as if just to prove where exactly the fire had been lit.
"Oh man..." Tubbo flopped down on his seat. "I spent SO LONG building all those things!"
"Tubbo, we need to get out." Ranboo took him by the hand of his mech suit and pulled him along.
"No, we could still go in and save the--"
"No, Tubbo. Let's NOT run into the vault full of dangerous chemicals that's literally on fire, actually."
×××
By the time the fire department showed up, pink flames had enveloped the entire lab complex. The terrorists presumably had at least one of the prototypes now and all the remaining ones were a lost cause.
It's not like all the work was gone to waste, they'd made some backups at least, but it would be a pain to find a new lab and order all the extremely volatile chemicals again. So much paperwork. Tubbo was really not good at paperwork.
"Well, there goes my summer holidays I guess", he said.
"Yeah", said Ranboo. "There they go."
×××
"So... Lethe", said Techno at the next Syndicate meeting, "you never happened to mention you were friends with Professor Underscore."
Ranboo shifted nervously in his chair. "I mean... in my defence, you never said you were going to raid his lab?"
"True, true. It didn't seem like relevant information at the time I suppose. You know, because you're kinda more in the group just for the book club and Bake Off Fridays and not so much for the vigilante thing."
"How do you know Professor Underscore, Lethe?" asked Niki gently.
Ranboo looked around the table. He was fairly certain that the others wouldn't kill him for fraternizing with the enemy. He was pretty sure anyway. At least 70% sure.
Also they were all staring at him now.
"Uh... he's my... husband?"
The staring continued.
"Oh!" said Niki.
"Well", said Techno. "This is awkward."
"Uh huh?" Ranboo responded, his entire body tense and slightly wobbly.
"Techno", Phil said softly. Techno brushed him off.
"So uh, are you attached to him, Lethe?"
"Y-yes?" Ranboo straightened his back. "Yes." he said again, more firmly.
"Alright. I guess in the future we should try not to kill him then."
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tolkien-feels · 3 years ago
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is it Too Much to just ask the whole relationship ask meme for all permutations of the nargothrond trio (túrin/gwindor/finduilas)? except for the ones for which the answer isn't that interesting, like "when did they meet" for gwindor and túrin bc. we know that
I..... got more asks than I expected. So can we compromise and treat them as a trio rather than going through every permutation?
Also fair warning that I haven't read CoH in FOREVER so their Silm versions are much clearer in my mind and that might change things somehow.
When I think they became friends (if canon already hasn't showed how they became friends)
I don't think I actually have any headcanons about this? 🤔 Do you have any I can adopt?
My favorite scene of them
When Gwindor tells Finduilas to go ahead and be with Turin, though she should be careful, and Finduilas tells him Turin won't love her. The way they love each other and yet both mourn not being loved by the person they love, it's so good. I also love how that's followed by the three of them attempting to continue this conversation as a group but never being in the same room when they do that, but that's just because it's so funny
A random headcanon I have of them
Smiles are a big deal for them. Often if they are together and one of them smiles the other two look at each other like "!!!! We did That!!!!" because they just want each other to be happy and life has been trying pretty hard to make them Not That, you know?
My favorite thing about them
They try so, so hard. Like, they all react in the most adult way possible to the whole love triangle/shared trauma situation and I can't emphasize enough how much I love that - I would actively hate this storyline otherwise. I was fully expecting Gwindor would hate Turin and Turin would scorn Finduilas and Finduilas would act like a teenager..... But nah. Everybody is surprisingly sensible.
A scene I wish we had of them
Just them... hanging out. Not gonna happen in Tolkien, I know. But you know how in movies if something bad is going to happen to someone you get a cute little scene to make you feel worse when the bad thing happens? I want that
A scene with them that I want to rewrite/change in some way
I went through all scenes I can remember and none? CoH might have one, but I don't remember CoH enough 🤔 One of the reasons I'm planning a re-read this year
What makes me like their friendship
I am not immune to heartbreaking tragedy. I'm a Turin apologist (...ish), so as far as I'm concerned, these are three very good people whose lives are ruined by Morgoth, and I can't get over it
Who I think is the ”crazier” one
I struggle to think of any Tolkien character crazier than Turin
Would I change anything about their friendship?
Not really? I think I would have wanted Gwindor and Turin to be closer than they seem to be, but that's a problem I routinely headcanon away anyhow
A song that reminds me of them
It's more of a Gwindor/Finduilas song, but I have to mention Storybook by Heather Dale.
One that might work for all of them might be Mars by Sleeping at Last 🤔
Which one of the friends can I relate to more?
...none? Finduilas maybe? Just because I'm not as strong as Gwindor and not as bold as Turin, but I at least try to have Finduilas's kindness.
A word to describe them
Oh that's so boring but: tragic
What I think would have happened if they never met
Hm... Turin continues to be cursed, so some sort of equally horrible tragedy I'm not creative enough to come up with. Gwindor and Finduilas would probably be happy or at least happy-ish together. Not sure what would happen to Nargothrond politics without Agarwaen and his brilliant ideas, though. I'm Very Bad at AUs. I'm inclined to agree with Gwindor's assessment.
If I can picture them to be more than only friends
OT3! OT3! OT3! If Tolkien wasn't a coward he would've gone there. If there's a mortal who could be in love with not one but two elves at the same time it would be Turin and I think this could have all sorts of fun worldbuilding implications. I don't even know if I want this for characterization reasons, it's more because it adds more chaos to the CoH mess by hitting LaCE with a hammer :D
If I would want to be friends with them
Hell no. I'm not getting near anyone who has 10 degrees of separation from Hurin.
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lochnessghost · 4 years ago
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dream smp warrior cats au
i’m stupid and dumb and for some reason folks liked my last post abt the wc au so here is my interpretation of season 1 of the dream smp as warrior cats baby!!! SO pretty much the au is that everybody was a part of one big clan (no name yet so ill just call it the smpclan,, i want to do a more realistic name but my brain hurts) that’s led by dream aka swiftstar along with his deputy sapnap aka darkflame and the medicine cat mosseyes (george). eventually a warrior called sootfur (will) and his apprentice bigpaw (tommy) decide they’ve had enough after swift and dark become more tyrannical and break off to start their own clan, manclan (this is a canon name for it, bigpaw suggested it as a joke and they ran with it) and sootfur becomes sootstar. he gives bigpaw his warrior name, bigclaw, and names him his deputy. bigclaw needed an apprentice before he could become deputy to be officially recognized, so sootstar used a loophole where bigclaw’s best friend sparrowpaw (tubbo) was made his apprentice a couple of minutes before sootstar made him a warrior too—sparrownose. the three, along with sootstar’s half-kittypet son foxfoot (fundy) and their friend brambleflower (eret) started manclan and defended it for a couple of moons. the declaration of independAnce is all of them putting their clawmarks in the great tree (l’mantree). you know the rest of the story bla bla bla the discs are two gems bigclaw found as an apprentice in a twoleg trash bin. sootstar steps down as leader, as he never truly got nine lives and everyone demanded they find out who starclan truly chooses as manclan’s leader, and starclan chooses an smpclan cat called rambelly (jschlatt). he becomes ramstar with duckstep (quackity) as his deputy. he makes bigclaw and sparrownose apprentices again, saying sootstar’s ceremonies were invalid because they were not backed by starclan, and then exiles bigpaw and sootfur from manclan. sootfur and bigpaw go off and live in a cave they find. their little group has no name besides ‘the exiled’. they meet a rogue called boar (technoblade) who helps them navigate the lands outside of the clans. soot rejects the clans completely, dropping his suffix and swearing revenge on manclan. despite soot’s protests, bigpaw keeps his warrior name and begs soot to at least attempt to mentor him and help continue his warrior training until he’s ready to become a real warrior (they both admit his training still wasn’t complete when soot made him a warrior/deputy) when they return (he believes they’ll return one day, soot doesn’t). soot begrudgingly agrees, but his training is less warrior training and more dangerous, intensive militant training. meanwhile, sparrowpaw is mentored directly by ramstar, mostly so ram could keep an eye on someone who was so close to the exiled, bigpaw in particular. after a few more moons of training, sparrow regains his warrior name, now sparrowpelt. he keeps the exiled up to date on what’s going on in manclan. bigpaw gets a little jealous when he finds out about sparrowpelt’s warrior ceremony, but doesn’t act on it. ramstar eventually plans a big feast for the clan to ensure loyalty, which sparrowpelt helps plan. he informs the exiled of this.
soot confesses to bigpaw that he was born a loner and that boar is his brother. he uses his rogue ties and help from his brother to plan to sabotage the clan’s feast. their plan is simple: they use sticks to take fire from a twoleg campsite and catch manclan’s territory on fire. surprisingly, swiftstar, who has become more of a rogue after allowing manclan to take up the spotlight, offers his help in this. the plot goes as normal, with the plan to usurp ramstar after he becomes incredibly insufficient as leader, and boar offers everyone tooth-clad collars as extra protection from their necks getting bitten (the vault scene). soot gives bigpaw his warrior name despite no longer being a leader, and everyone backs it, saying even without a leader, he’s earned it. he is once again bigclaw. the fight goes on regularly. ramstar had actually used up all but one of his nine lives doing various reckless activities, further proving his lack of respect for starclan, having only used them for his personal gain, and dies after choking on some of the prey he’d been hoarding for himself. no one helps clear his airway and he dies.
sparrowpelt is made leader of manclan and makes bigclaw his deputy. the cats rejoice, but meanwhile, soot fetches fire from the twolegs with swiftstar’s help. he sets the woods on fire and is then confronted by his loner father, a yellow cat named crow (philza) who came to see what his sons were doing in the clans’ territory. crow kills soot after he begs him to. the woods catch fire very quickly and boar leads them to safety by the edge of twolegplace. however, he makes his big speech and reveals that this was a trap and breaks the lock on a fence, releasing three massive dogs into the burning woods. more story, the cats eventually deter the dogs, bla bla bla. this is all i’m going to write for this post because JESUS CHRIST i did not realize how long this would be, but if you’re interested in hearing the later arcs’ warrior au type deal lmk! idek if this makes sense but you know. i might post some more art of this au as well,, you can check some warrior designs i did for michael and revived!tommy here, and the designs i did for the dreamteam and apprentice bigpaw here! here are some misc doodles as well! part 2 has been posted!
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lala-ladybug · 4 years ago
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Healing Hands: Chapter 4
Yesyesyes I’m super excited to share this one with you guys!! The game is finally beginning, ahhhh!!!!
Jasonette Sword Art Online AU
Read here on AO3
Tag list: @iloontjeboontje
First | Previous | Next
Chapter 4: Goddamn wimps, all of them
Marinette opened her eyes, squinting against the bright sunlight. She stood in a huge village square filled with hundreds of people, the gaps between them growing smaller as more and more players appeared. The sun shone merrily, and an excited chatter began rising in the air. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It felt good to be back.
“Marinette!” She looked around to see Alya and Nino waving a few yards away. She broke into an excited smile and jogged over to meet them. They must have spawned in relative to their actual locations since Kagami, Luka, and the others from her class were already there.
“Hey guys!” Marinette said breathlessly. “Almost didn’t make it. Thanks for the call, Alya.”
The brunette gave her a quick hug. “Anytime, girl. Now you and Lila can show us the ropes!” She bounced excitedly.
Marinette barely caught herself from rolling her eyes and just nodded instead. Of course Lila would be able to help teach the others how to play. It definitely wouldn’t just be Marinette teaching everybody. Again.
Meanwhile, Max and Nathaniel were remarking on how realistic the textures of the cobbled streets were. Marinette did a double-take when she saw Adrien standing next to them. He had an immensely intricate and ornate suit of armor. There was an excess of spikes, ribbons flowing from every joint, and every inch of him was covered in metal. A tall helmet adorned with skull decals cast a shadow over his grinning face.
“What are you wearing?” She spluttered. He pointed a thumb to his chest with some difficulty, the thick metal creaking with the movement.
“This bad boy is the toughest armor in the game! I may have made a few embellishments of my own, so now I look even cooler.” He stated with pride.
Marinette shot a look at Luka, who wore a light set of simple leathers. He grimaced and shook his head, warning Marinette not to question their friend’s surprisingly atrocious taste in fashion. Or serious misunderstanding of armor weight classes.
“You know you could’ve picked any armor you want, right?” Adrien asked.
“Oh, I know. I crafted this set during beta testing!” Marinette spun around to show the boys, gladly welcoming the change in subject. She was dressed in a light suit of armor, the metal tinted a deep red. Black fabric peeked underneath the gaps, a strong yet flexible design of her own making. A simple grey cloak hung off her shoulders, concealing the quiver behind her back.
While Luka and Adrien complimented her brilliant design, she spotted Lila. She looked a little out of her element, hanging back to awkwardly watch a conversation between Kim, Alix, and Kagami, oddly enough. The three were dressed in heavy sets of armor, lamenting about how there weren’t any monsters to battle yet.
Chloe sauntered over to join them and, having heard how even Kagami was itching for a fight, wrinkled her nose. Marinette giggled to herself. This was going to be interesting, to say the least.
* * *
Jason’s eyes snapped open and he threw out an arm to steady himself. The transition from logging on was dizzying, but the sensation faded with every deep breath he took. He noted the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through the air. Damn, even he had to admit this tech was impressive. Dick and Tim stood next to him, wearing blue and red-toned armor respectively. Tim was looking around wildly, grinning like an idiot.
“Timmy!” Cassie Sandsmark sprinted towards them to tackle her boyfriend in a hug. Oh great, looks like the rest of the kiddy patrol was here too. Looking to where Cassie had run from, Jason indeed saw various members of The Team. Connor looked just as nauseated as Jason had felt after joining. Roy stood next to him, unmoving as he stared down at his very realistic-looking hand. Ouch. Jason had to have some sympathy for the poor kid, not that he’d ever tell him that.
Bart and Garfield, on the other hand, appeared to be having the time of their lives. Bart got into a running stance and Garfield gleefully jumped into the air, both falling flat on their faces. Jason snorted as he watched Jaime help his boyfriend up. Jaime asked him, “Whoa there ese, what gives?”
Bart shook his head and muttered, “I don’t have my speed.”
Garfield furrowed his brow and strained his face. “You look like you’re either really constipated or trying to shift,” Artemis informed him.
Ignoring her, Garfield locked his panicked eyes with Connor’s. “I can’t shift either, SB.”
“Der kaolc ym nrut,” Zatanna intoned quietly. When nothing happened, she nervously said, “My magic doesn’t work either.”
Jason rolled his eyes. Goddamn wimps, all of them. “Looks like all you supers will have to stoop to our level.”
“Stay whelmed everyone,” Dick stepped in to mitigate half the group’s outrage. “It’s just a game, we don’t exactly need our other skills right now.”
Before they could say anything else, an enormous bell mounted in the center of the town square began to ring. A hush fell over the crowd. The sky darkened as red hexagons interlocked to create a massive dome around the town.
A tall being flickered to life in the air above them. The hooded figure floated high overhead, their face eerily concealed.
“Attention players,” the figure raised their hands. “I welcome you to my world.” Well that didn’t sound ominous, Jason thought to himself. He felt the mood from the others shift into high alert.
“You may call me the Game Master, and I am the only one in control of this world. You may have noticed that the logout button is missing from your main menu.” The figure paused dramatically. “I assure you, this is no defect in the game. It is all as I have designed it to be. You cannot log yourselves out, and no one outside the game will be able to remove you forcibly. If anyone tries to do so, a transmitter inside the VR headset will emit powerful microwaves into your brain that will end your life.” Shit, shit, shit. This was just supposed to be a dumb game he played to make Replacement shut up about it, what the hell?
“Of the 10,000 players, 215 have already died because their family or friends ignored this warning and attempted to remove their headsets. Media outlets have been reporting on this, so it is safe to assume the danger of your headsets being removed has passed.” This guy had to be joking. Though if he wasn’t, Babs would surely research everything within her power to try to remove them safely.
“One other feature of the game is that you are no longer able to revive players. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will die and the headset will destroy your brain.” Jason’s eyes widened and his head whipped to Dick. He ran a hand through his hair, looking just as horrified as Jason felt.
“The only way for a player to return to the real world is to clear the game. You are currently on Floor 1, the lowest level of the castle. If you make it to the dungeon and defeat the level boss, you may progress to the next level. Defeat the final boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game.” This motherfucker couldn’t be serious.
The game master, god what a pretentious prick, raised his hands and began to disappear once more. He said, “Good luck, players,” before disappearing entirely. The sky returned to its cheery blue.
 A beat of silence passed before someone started screaming. Then the thousands of players erupted into a cacophony of sound.
* * *
Marinette stood stockstill amidst the chaos. She felt more than heard masses of people panicking around her. Her eyes darted back and forth without truly seeing anything, mind racing to figure out a solution. If there was no way to safely remove the headset, then they’d have to beat the whole game. What about the Kwami? Could they connect with their miraculi? What about the small powers they’d each accumulated over the years? If those were accessible, then they might stand a chance, but god if they weren’t--
A hand on her arm made her snap her head to attention. It was Adrien, his jaw clenched tightly. She gripped his arm in return, the small reassurance barely that. Around her, the new Order looked to their leader for orders, direction. And behind them, her classmates....
Most were white in the face. Max had his hands clenched in his hair and was muttering to himself about the likelihood that the headsets actually could kill them. From the way he was shaking his head, she guessed it was a definite possibility. Lila looked like a cornered animal, twitchy and desperately looking for an escape. Even Kim and Alix wore uncharacteristically serious expressions.
“Well?” Chloe prompted Marinette. The latter took a deep breath. Better focus on solving the smaller problems first. “Your VIP package came with a house on the first floor, right?”
Chloe blinked in surprise. “Yeah, it did,” she replied uncertainly.
“Good.” Marinette whistled and gestured for the rest of her friends to gather around. “Listen up! We don’t know how everyone else is going to react, so it’s best for us to go somewhere safe to lie low for a while. I can teach everyone the gameplay, and we’ll do our best to help beat the game.”
She looked Alya and Nathanial in the eye, since their hands seemed to be shaking the most, and said with all the confidence of Ladybug, “Think of all the bullshit Hawkmoth’s put us through. We are not going to die here. That’s a promise.”
Marinette drew her bow and half-strung an arrow, holding it parallel to the ground. “Chloe has a house on the first level. Let’s go.” She nodded to Adrien, Chloe, Kagami, and Luka to establish a perimeter around the rest of the class as they moved. She exhaled a quiet, shaky breath and led the way out of the square.
The crowd did not part easily. People were sobbing, shouting, hyperventilating. They needed to get out fast before the shock wore off.
Someone stood in front of her. The poor soul was probably just as scared as they were. She put her bow back in her inventory, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
“Excuse me,” Marinette gave a little half-wave to get their attention. “May I please get through?”
“Oh, sorry,” He had a deep, male voice. One hand gestured to the direction she was headed as he stepped out of her path. “Go right ahead.” His hands weren’t shaking as the other crept towards his belt. Not good, not good.
A flash of silver was all the warning she got before Luka pulled her back. A knife collided with his hastily raised shield, shedding sparks as the assailant nearly dropped his weapon in surprise. Marinette dropped down to sweep her leg beneath Luka’s shield, knocking the man off his feet. He gave a shout of surprise as he went down, and Luka disarmed him in the confusion.
“Come on, move it!” Marinette shouted over her shoulder. She re-equipped her bow and surged forward, picking up the pace to get the hell out of there. Such a large group was an easy target, they had to get out of the open and fast. People were starting to react beyond their shock, and more of them were bound to get violent.
Her eyes scanned over the buildings in front of them. There. A momentary break in the throng of players allowed her to spot Slipcut Alley, a favorite shortcut of hers. It was only a few yards away. The alley was too narrow for anything but a single-file line, but it provided cover and was hidden by a spell that only other beta testers would know about. It was their best option.
She squared her shoulders and pushed through the last of the crowd. She turned to face her friends, who gathered around her as they too made it out into the small clearing. Chloe, Kagami, and Adrien were watching the crowd behind them, ready to defend against any other attacks.
Marinette put her bow away one more time and asked, “Do you trust me?”
Shaky nods and wide eyes. That would have to do.
“Then follow me,” she said, and walked straight through the wall before them.
* * *
“Our first step should be finding shelter for the night,” Dick said sharply. “We can figure out the rest tomorrow, but it’ll do us no good if we die tonight.” Tim nodded, ever the protégé.
“And just how do you suggest we do that?” Jason countered. He couldn’t help it if it came out a little accusatory. He did not sign up for a damn death trap.
It was Garfield who had the answer. “Well, in order to do anything, we need money. So we need to start killing some monsters!” He palmed his fist with a resounding smack. “And then we can see about an inn or something.”
Connor rubbed his chin. “That’s not a bad idea, kid.”
“Just tell me where to hit them,” Roy said in a low voice, sounding about as pissed as Jason felt.
“Let’s split into three teams. Alpha squad will be Artemis, Wally, Bart, and myself. Tim, Roy, Gar, and Connor will be Beta. Jason, you’re with Jaime, Cassie, and Zatanna for Gamma.” Great, Jason was the only non-super there. What a grand old time that’ll be.
He made to leave the square and disappear into the panicking crowd, but Dick held his arm. “Hey, I’m trusting you to keep them safe,” he kept his voice low. “It’s been a while since they fought without powers, so keep an eye on them.” He then turned to address the rest of the team. “Alpha will take north. Beta, go south and Gamma see what’s west. Meet back here at sunset. Alpha will secure lodging before engaging enemies.”
“What, no pep talk?” Wally elbowed Dick. The latter didn’t crack a smile as he said, “Just stay alive.”
Beside him, Garfield swallowed hard and said weakly, “Noted.”
Jason rolled his eyes and jerked his head in their assigned direction for the other three members of Gamma squad to come with him. He’d follow along as long as Dick made good plans, and Jason didn’t exactly have any better ideas for now.
He put on his very best I know exactly how to kill you and I’ll do it if you don’t get the hell out of my way face and lead the way out of the packed square. The crowd parted easily before him, and they were out on an open street within a matter of minutes.
”Where to first, ese?” Jaime asked, shifting nervously from foot to foot.
Good question. Jason looked around for a map or something that could tell him the way out of the damn town. When he glanced back for a quick headcount and only counted two, he cursed and asked Cassie, “Where the hell is Z?”
She pointed at a nearby stall where the magician was chatting with the vendor. Zatanna waved to them, then sauntered back over to the rest of the team. “The shopkeeper says there’s a bridge further down this street and to the left that’ll take us west out of the town.”
Cassie frowned. “Was that a player with their own shop already? Man, we are behind.”
“Oh, no it was an AI.” Zatanna readily supplied. “An NPC?” She added on seeing the confusion on her companions’ faces. “Honestly, was I the only one to do research on this game before playing it?”
Jaime sheepishly scratched his head while Cassie squeaked, “Well....” Jason had to agree with them, he just did this to keep Replacement happy. And get Dick off his ass, the meddling prick.
Zatanna shook her head. “Look, AI stands for artificial intelligence, and NPC is a non-playable character. They’re computer-generated people, not actual players.”
Jason caught enough to surmise that these NPCs were created by the same maniac that locked them up in here. He crossed his arms and asked, “How the hell can we trust their word if they’re controlled by that fuckin’ game master freak?”
Cassie bit her lip and had the good sense to look concerned.  Zatanna just shrugged and said, “I guess we’ll just have to find out. We can try following their directions but stay cautious in case it’s a trap.”
“Fine,” Jason sighed. “Let’s go.” He was already resigned to the absolute stupidity of the situation anyway.
They made it to the end of the street without incident, and turned where the shopkeeper had directed them to. There was a bridge, spanning a merrily bubbling river, and open fields dotted with trees beyond it. Jason could smell the greenery and apple blossoms from here.
“Wait!” Jaime threw his arm out. He made a face, then sneezed. “Aw man,” he gave a tremendous sniff. “Can’t eben escabe allergies in a video gabe.”
Cassie laughed at her friend and slapped him on the back, which only made him sneeze again. Dumbasses, they didn’t have time for this. Jason rolled his eyes for what felt like the umpteenth time that day and walked up to the base of the bridge. He slowly, carefully stepped across and edged his way to the other side.
The other three followed suit, and upon joining him, Zatanna said cheerfully, “Seems like we can trust the NPCs!”
“For now,” Jason muttered, still not convinced. He turned his gaze to the rolling hills before him, warm breezes sending waves that shimmered through the knee-high grass. He didn’t see any monsters, but there had to be some... right?
He used two fingers to swipe the air in front of him, opening his inventory. At least he remembered that much from the tutorial. He equipped the crossbow he’d loaded in when he created his avatar. Damn, that night in the Batcave felt like it was a week ago.
Jason took a wary step forward, into the grass. “Fan out,” he directed the other three. He didn’t turn to watch as he heard them draw their own weapons and creep up to flank him.
A rustle in the grass ahead had him throw a clenched fist into the air to have the others hold their positions. He waited until the movement stilled, then crept forward a few more steps, careful to keep his footsteps silent. He was within feet of it now, whatever it was. He hoisted up his crossbow to brace it on his shoulder and trained it on the last place he’d spotted movement. There was a sharp inhale behind him, and then Jaime sneezed loudly.
The head of a wild boar whipped up and it lunged for Jason. “Shit!” he yelled. Damn kid and his perfect timing. Jason blindly jumped backward and fired a bolt at the same time. It met its target and the boar shattered into glittering dust that resembled pixels. In front of him, a notification popped up that 20 copper coins, the crossbow bolt he’d shot, and a boar tusk had been added to his inventory. Huh, that was surprisingly easy.
“Wow, that was so crash!” Cassie pumped her fists in the air. “This game is gonna be a piece of cake.”
“Not so fast,” Zatanna frowned. “Remember, this is only the first level. It’s bound to be easy. It’s only going to get harder from here.”
Jason turned around to face them. “And just because that little shit was easy to kill doesn’t mean they all will be on this level.” He noticed Jaime hanging back, looking embarrassed.
“Hey kid,” Jason jerked his chin at him. Jaime's head snapped up. “Do you want to try the next one or wait by the bridge until your allergies clear up?”
Jaime opened his mouth to respond but had to sneeze again. “I think I’ll just waid by the bridge. I’b really sorry guys.” He trekked back to where they’d come into the fields.
“And then there were three. Ladies first,” Jason mockingly bowed, gesturing to the open fields beyond where the boar had been. Zatanna smirked and Cassie stuck her tongue out at him, which he returned with a rude gesture.
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mantis-in-the-dirt · 4 years ago
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sakaar au! aka i rewatched ragnarok and brain went big brrr about the arena :D
(in this au, none of the avengers shit is happening, or it happens after or before or something. not the same timeline i guess skjgjkf)
techno wakes up in a strange chair, locked and with a weird device stuck in his neck. he doesn't know where he is or when he got here (later remembers he crashed his ship but doesn't know anything after the crash), but a creepy voice is telling him to be glad about where he is or something. 
he meets this dude, schlatt, the grandmaster, who is impressed by his spirit and decides it'd be great to see him in the fighting rink. techno finds out that the only way he can get out of here is if he beats the grandmaster's champion. techno agrees easily, confident in his fighting ability and ready to beat whoever this champion is. 
the champion introduced is someone named nightmare, a strange guy who seems like a beanpole with little muscle who wears a strange mask, but is amazing with an axe and combat strategy in general. 
techno loses the fight but doesn't end up dying and wakes up in "nightmare's" room. he speaks to nightmare, who is watching him from his bed when he wakes up, and finds that creepily enough only the same propaganda from the beginning, in that strange chair, is spilled back at him. 
he's trying to convince nightmare that it's really creepy that they're here and that they should both be getting out, but the only thing he achieves from the conversation is that the guy's real name is dream. dream seems completely brainwashed into the opinion that the grandmaster is a good guy. 
eventually, techno leaves him alone, horrified but determined to get both of them out of here, his original desire to leave even if it meant he was the only one getting out dissipated. 
he is eventually let out of the room and into this freakish party thrown by the grandmaster. he is informed that he and dream will be fighting every other day until one of them dies, leaving a new champion in their wake. 
he meets a man named wilbur, a noble with a surprisingly slick tongue who befriends him and starts to explain some of the stuff. he says that dream is probably about techno's age in the time the outer world counts with but has been here long enough that few people remember his arrival. 
wilbur is one of the older people here, and he managed to make it into the ranks of the "nobles" by paying way too much money and lying about being a bit more powerful than he truly is. 
he tells techno that dream used to fight his position, but everybody slowly watched him lose whatever fight he had for reasons none of them understood, and, eventually, he accepted the role. he now acts like a sort of puppy-dog for the grandmaster, obeying his every wish and fighting as hard as he can every single time he's put into the arena. he doesn't fight back against the people or anything, but he also doesn't react to the crowds of people wearing copies of his mask or cheering for him, only really looking at the arena masses when fireworks or such goes off within them.
wilbur tells him that forgetting about making it off sakaar is a smarter decision, but that he’s willing to try and get techno out of the arenas. if he's part of the nobles, he'll live a comfortable life here, and he can stay out of the fights and the constant near-death. it's horrifying to watch, sure, but you get used to it, and after a while it truly does become entertaining, especially because it's the biggest kind of event this world has. 
wilbur also gives the information that he and dream are friends of a sort, and that wilbur will sit with him after a hard match. he doesn't talk much, but he's truly very kind, even though he fights as ruthlessly as possible. 
techno thanks wilbur but is disgusted by the thought, and the entire conversation only more his decision to get dream and himself and anyone else he can take out of here much stronger. 
nobody deserves the treatment of the arena, and nobody deserves the blatant brainwashing dream seems to have gone through. 
honestly, i don't have as big a plan for the rest besides techno slowly convincing dream that he should be horrified by the arena and how the people at sakaar have treated him. 
techno slowly discovers how dream was influenced to believe the grandmaster and the arena were good for him, slowly discovers how terrible everything was and what happens to dream whenever he still does try to disobey. 
eventually, using wilbur and a few other people he's met at the "parties" (phil, george, and puffy) he forms a plan and acquires a ship. 
dream is extremely hesitant, so even after techno manages to get hold of an escape and form a plan, he has to spend a while telling dream it's a good idea to leave, a good idea to get out of the hellscape that is sakaar, but eventually, he manages to make dream believe that they can get out. 
(he also promises dream that if it's too bad out there he'll let dream come back, but it's a lie. techno never wants anybody to come to this fucked up shithole ever again, and he's definitely not letting someone like dream who's already gone through so much here come back.) 
and then they make it out! the escape attempt is successful, and it ends with dream and techno flying out.
k but. i’m actually a huge fan of this idea? i really like this. like,, might write a oneshot or more for it really like it,, 
alsooo, i might elaborate more on it later!! 
sakaar!dream,, my beloved
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jaydicksummerexchange · 4 years ago
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JAYDICK EXCHANGE: AUGUST 24, 2020
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[ ❤ Works posted so far! ❤ ]
Here are today’s fanworks! Please leave a comment and kudos for the author if you enjoy their work. Authors/artists will be revealed August 31st!
Alone Together by anonymous for Nottak [FIC, T, No Warnings, JayDick] 
Additional Tags: JayDick Summer Exchange, BatCat wedding, Wedding blues, or is it bachelor blues?, Dick's impressive list of exes, Loneliness, Drunkenness, Slight Abandonment Issues, Fluff and Angst, Open Ending
Summary: “Everybody’s off… getting married and going away. But you and me, we could be our own family.”
Dinnertime by anonymous for firefright  [Art, Gen, No Warnings, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd] 
Additional Tags: JayDick Summer Exchange, Fanart, Digital Art, just jason taking care of dick, Domestic Fluff, But also, Mild Hurt/Comfort, because of the premise/prompt
Summary: “That’s enough, Dickiebird. It’s dinnertime.”
Dick Grayson suffers from a very specific form of tunnel vision when lives are on the line, leaving him a) unable to take care of himself; and b) unwilling to take care of himself. Between his day job as a cop and his (actual) job as Nightwing, that's pretty much his new normal. Enter Jason, back from the dead and wherever he's been with the Outlaws, who may or may not have inherited the combined forces of Alfred's and Bruce's mother henning tendencies despite his claims otherwise.
we're just dancing in the dark by anonymous for naol [FIC, Teen, No Warnings, JayDick] 
Additional Tags: no capes AU, fairytale AU, curses and spells and such, Memory Loss, Transformation, brief description of animal death as associated with hunting, absolutely no research done into the proper historical setting
Summary:  Deep in the forest, there is a mysterious old man, a cursed manor, a blue-eyed wolf following his every move, and a hauntingly familiar young man who knows something he is not sharing.
Jason, a hunter in the nearby village, is just trying to survive the winter. But he'll have to unravel the mystery of it all, including his own missing memories, if he wants to protect the people he cares about and save himself.
Running on Fumes by anonymous for salvadore [FIC, Ten, No Warnings, JayDick] 
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Humor, Missions Gone Wrong, Drug Use, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pining, Banter, Pre-Slash
Summary: Dick’s day goes from bad to worse but luckily, Jason is there to pick up the pieces.
Don’t let me go (don’t leave me) by anonymous for AlannaofRoses [FIC, Gen, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd] 
Additional Tags: Whump, ambiguous ending, does he die?thats up to u!, Dick Grayson Whump
Summary: "Does it hurt?"
"Dickie, please," he begs. "Come on."
He doesn't respond, glazed over eyes making Jason wonder if he'd even heard him at all. "I think it might be nice," he murmurs, fingers stilling in their exploration of Jason's face. "To see my parents again." No.
"Di-"
"I'll miss you, Little Wing."
They Are Out There Saying by anonymous for empires [Fic, Not Rated, No Warnings, JayDick] 
Additional Tags: Misunderstandings, Cultural Differences, Japanese Culture  a tiny little bit of a case, don't get too excited about it, Getting Together, Marriage Proposal, of sorts, ou will see what I mean, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, POV Jason Todd, POV Outsider, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd Swears, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Everyone Loves Dick Grayson, Everyone Fears Red Hood, The author is a nerd, The Author Regrets Everything, Rumors, Poetry, Undercover Missions, Shy Jason Todd, can this work remain anonymous forever?, Unreliable Narrator, Canon-Typical Violence, JayDick Summer Exchange, Kissing, my tags are a mess, I don't know what this is anymore stop looking at me
Summary:  There was a rumour going around the Hida Province that the infamous wandering monk was secretly courting the blue-eyed ninja. Not only has the monk not discarded his earthly desires, said some, but he actively sought to indulge them, insisted others. Something ought to be done, proclaimed few, lest he would turn into a demon or come back as a vengeful ghost, feared all.
Meanwhile, Jason and Dick were just trying to live their best life.
“So you’re saying,” Jason decided to sum it all up, “that a rival clan of surprisingly sloppy ninja,” properly trained ones wouldn’t stomp all over the place, after all, “is trying to enact revenge by going after an old calligrapher? Because you found a piece of rock?”
Who would have thought huh? by anonymous for geckoholic [Art, Mature, Now Warnings,  JayDick] 
Additional Tags: Fanart
Summary: Somewhere over the desert.
we wanted miracles (they didn’t happen) by anonymous for pentapus [FIC, Mature, Graphic Depictions of Violence, JayDick] 
Additional Tags: Telepathic Bond, Soul Bond, Space Flight, Sharing a Bed, Communication Failure, BAMF Dick Grayson, BAMF Jason Todd, Canon-Typical Violence, Major Character Injury, WhumpHurt/Comfort, Developing Relationship, Psychological Trauma, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug
Summary: “It gave us an edge.” Dick shook his head. “I couldn’t risk the city blowing up just to spare your feelings.”
“So you didn’t even ask.” Jason looked disgusted.
“No. In the end, you’ve always done what’s necessary.” Even after everything, Jason was still a bat, and that sentence might as well be their family motto.
Like a good little soldier.
That brought Jason up short. His mind was static, and he gritted out: “Whatever. I want it gone.”
“Oh, believe me, so do I.”
(In order to defeat some aliens, Dick and Jason enter a soulbond. To get rid of it, they embark on a galactic road trip.)
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ptolomeia · 3 years ago
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Story Time: Restitution
Teen and up
Brotherly/Platonic DRLAMP AU, Clones, psychic powers, Believed Major Character Death, Protective brothers, Suicidal Thoughts, Grief, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Second Chances, Rescues, Brief appearances of first person narration, but we promise they don't last, Everyone Needs A Hug, And surprisingly most of them actually get one
Summary: Story Time: Once upon a time, there was a boy named Thomas who developed psychic powers. Let me tell you, it did not go the way I dreamt it would.
* * *
When Janus learns what the men who made them had done to their progenitor, he knows he needs to get his brothers out. As soon as he can, he defects and starts the work needed to take down the men who made them, and keep his brothers safe.
* * *
After Deceit kills Janus, Virgil is left helpless to watch as Deceit takes his older brothers away from him one by one, until all he has left is the ghost of Not Janus and the possibility of a new brother to hold onto.
AO3
Story Time: Once upon a time, there was a boy named Thomas who developed psychic powers. Let me tell you, it did not go the way I dreamt it would.
* * *
Janus was the first of them to fall to Deceit. He’d been the oldest and smartest and best of them all, and Deceit had killed him.
Virgil knew that made sense. Janus was the most powerful and smartest of them all. Deceit had to know that any plan he made with Janus still around to fight him would have failed, so Deceit had killed him. Ambushed Virgil’s oldest brother on one of his missions, killed him, and started trying destroying everything the organization that made Virgil and his brothers had ever worked on. Deceit was brilliant. Deceit was terrifying. All of their training had been turned towards making Virgil and his remaining brothers powerful enough to destroy him. Apparently they’d done well enough, because the orders had come down last night. Remus would be going after Deceit in two more days.
Virgil bit his lip and tried to keep his worry from even Patton, useless as it was to try to hide what you were feeling from an empath. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Remus could do it—Remus was incredible! Brutal, creative, literally invulnerable, he’d take out Deceit no sweat and be home within the week.
But… Janus had been Janus. And Janus was never going to come home.
Virgil just didn’t want to lose another brother.
* * *
It had taken Remus days to get this deep into Deceit’s lair, but he’d finally managed it. Infiltration was his speciality after all. Well, that and mayhem. It was amazing what you could do when you didn’t have to worry about silly things like “bodily integrity” and “extreme temperatures”. But until he had Deceit right where he wanted him, he could be patient. And then, once Deceit was left in itty-bitty pieces, the Men who’d Made Them would be so distracted by cleaning up the rest of his organization that Remus would be able to grab his brothers and get out. Janus wasn’t there to protect them anymore, and someone had to. Roman would be safe. And so would Virgil.
He just had to kill this bastard and the brothers he had left would be free.
Remus heard steps coming down the hallway he was hiding over and shifted slightly, ready to drop down and destroy. Show time.
He would have sworn the movement was completely silent, but the figure stopped just outside pouncing range. Remus kept his breath as silent as possible, rage burning in his chest. Just a few more steps, and Janus’s ghost would be able to rest easy. All he had to do was wait.
“I know you’re there,” said a familiar voice, and everything inside Remus’s head came to a crashing halt. He was dead. “I can hear you. I don’t know how you made it this far, but you might as well—“
The angle was wrong, and his coordination off, but he still launched himself at the hooded figure not quite below him.
Shadow arms reached out and caught him, throwing him against the wall and pinning him there, and Remus was left staring into familiar brown and yellow eyes. Eyes that were full of things Remus couldn’t name.
“They send you to kill me?” Janus asked, letting go of Remus and vanishing his shadow hands. Remus’s legs refused to take his weight and he kept on sliding right down the wall. Janus was alive. “I wish I could say I thought they were above that,” Janus continued, “asking you to kill your own brother, but I can’t. Not after everything I’ve learned. Not after what they did to Thomas.”
“You’re alive,” Remus managed, not yet able to process anything else. “They told us Deceit killed you!”
“Right, because people who would send someone to kill their own brother—without even telling them—are the epitome of truthfulness,” Janus spat.
“Jan?” Remus asked, and for the first time in years, he let himself sound like the scared little brother no one could ever know he still felt like some times.
“They lied to you, Remus. To all of us. When I found out the truth about Thomas—“
“Who’s this Thomas guy you keep mentioning?” Remus asked. And why didn’t Remus know about him?
Janus looked down at him, thoughts flashing behind his eyes. Remus wished he’d let on what some of them were. “Our progenitor,” Janus finally said.
“Wait, what?” Remus asked. “You know about our progenitor? How? All they ever said was that he developed psychic powers and that’s why they cloned him after he died youn—“
Janus let out a dangerous hiss and Remus froze. Indestructible and immune to physical pain or not, he’d learned young it was really, really dumb to push Janus in a mood like this.
“That is what they said, isn’t it. ‘Died young.’ Well, at least that much wasn’t an outright lie, even with all the truths they hid with it.” Something solidified in Janus’s eyes—he’d made a decision.
“Come on,” he said, coming up to Remus and offering him a hand. “There are things you need to know.”
Without another word, Remus took his—living—brother’s hand and let himself be pulled up. There was no way he was going through with the original mission anymore, and once he had calmed down, Janus would be able to help him figure out what to do. It wasn’t his job alone to protect his brothers anymore. Janus would make sure Roman was never used to control Remus again. That Logan got to relax. That Patton never had to reach into someone’s heart and break them ever again. That Virgil… That Virgil was okay. All Remus had to do was hear Janus out and then they could get started on fixing things.
They walked through the twisting corridors of the base Janus had claimed. Remus’s mind made notes of small improvements that could be made to the already impressive security. He’d tell Janus when he’d calmed down again. Finally, they turned through a door into a small office. Nothing fancy—No pictures on the walls or rugs on the floor or anything. Just a small desk with a single screen on it, attached to a computer, and a chair at the desk. Janus sat down and started typing in commands.
“This room was one of the first ones I set up, when I left. My bedroom is the next door down and I come here when it feels like too much. When I need the reminder of why I left in the first place, and what’s truly at stake.” He got up from the computer. “They’re cued to run one after the other.”
Remus hesitated. His thoughts were too fast, his body needed to move, he didn’t want to—
“Do I really have to sit for this?” Remus asked.
“There’s a lot to take in,” Janus replied, looking over at him. Remus shifted slightly from foot to foot. This was obviously important but he could never focus when sitting sti—
Janus pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to Remus. Remus couldn’t help his grin as he caught the fidget cube, hands immediately going to the clicking side. It might drive everyone else crazy, but he loved it. It was always the first side of his cubes to break.
“Aw shucks, bro. I missed you too,” Remus said, trying for a joke and an easy smile and for once having terrible aim.
“I’ve missed all of you,” Janus said, and he wasn’t even trying to hide how he felt, the confident bastard. “But after you see this, I think you’ll understand why I had to leave.”
Raising an eyebrow, Remus went and sat at the computer as his fingers danced across the cube, clicking and flicking and twirling. On the screen was a familiar face—the same one he saw in the mirror every day, or whenever he saw his brothers, though he didn’t know the subtle differences that distinguished this one. He knew for sure none of his brothers had ever looked that care free and besides, the kid on the screen looked older than most of them. Older than Logan, but younger than Roman or Remus himself. 16 was Remus’s best guess. He could turn and ask Janus—Janus definitely knew—or he could watch the videos and probably get the answers he wanted anyway. He reached up and pressed play.
On the screen, the kid started to move, smile becoming bigger and even more carefree, “What is UP everybody!”
Remus sat and watched. First were the videos of Thomas goofing around and having fun. And then the powers started showing up. Remus recognized them. The rest of their powers might be a lot more subtle, but he’d know Virgil and Janus’s shadow hands anywhere.
The next videos weren’t Thomas’s. They were security footage of familiar corridors and a cell and a kid who’d never been trained in his life trying to escape and failing miserably. Then came the experiments. Baseline stuff—Just tests to see how much you’d improved in certain categories. Lots of them, sure, but nothing Remus hadn’t been doing for as long as he could remember.
The next video didn’t have Thomas in it at all. It was a meeting of the men who ran the facility. The ones who’d ordered all of them made. Remus knew them from their pictures on the walls, but had never seen them in anything else. Not before now. The meeting did not start well. Disagreements. Arguments. Yelling. Finally, agreement. Conclusion.
Back to Thomas, with the experiments getting worse. More intense. Pushing Thomas to do more and more and more—again, it wasn’t anything Remus and his brothers hadn’t had to do, but Thomas wasn’t trained to take anyof this. Clips of Thomas crying in his cell. Thomas begging to be let out. To see his parents. To see his brothers. Thomas didn’t have any brothers in the facility. Remus felt Janus standing behind him, watching the videos with him. Janus who had died. Janus who was alive again. His fingers moved across the cube more and more frenetically. Harsher experiments—Worse than what they’d done to any of them except Remus, and Remus was indestructible—and then—
The explosion.
Thomas losing control or will or something—Remus couldn’t read his expression, the second it all went wrong, besides the fear. Maybe Patton could have, but Remus couldn’t. He just felt—He didn’t know that either.
The last video. A meeting. Blame, anger, (no guilt). A proposal. A ‘solution’. DNA recovered. They could start again, as many times as it took to get it right. They could tweak the sequence, adding and taking away as needed. They could build a team powerful enough to do whatever they wanted done. Experiments could be run to see if more power could be created, harnessed, controlled.
They would start with a single clone—increased senses, increased mental capabilities, some animal traits for senses humans didn’t have. He would teach them much about how to build the ones who came after him. The project was voted on. Approved. Code name: Janus.
The video ended on the smiles of the men. The cube cracked in Remus’s hand.
“You understand why I left now, don’t you,” Janus asked quietly behind him. “I’d long suspected there was something rotten there—the way they used Roman to control you, for a start—but once I knew the whole truth? Once I knew who the ‘Thomas’ I’d heard whispered about behind closed doors was and what happened to him… I had to stop them Remus. They tortured a kid to death—” Remus almost wanted to point out he wasn’t sure if Thomas was older than Janus by the time he’d… he couldn’t pick between ‘died’ and ‘was killed’ to describe it, but he didn’t. Even if he’d been years older than Remus by the end of the videos, he still understood thinking of someone that helpless and alone as a kid. “—and then they made more of us to torture until they could get it ‘right’.”
“I’ll help you stop them,” Remus said, turning to face Janus, the sharp edges of the broken cube digging painlessly into his palm.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Do you think you can stop me?” Remus said, surging to his feet and starting to pace. “After what I just watched? After what I know they’re willing to do? We can’t just keep leaving our brothers at their non-existent mercy Janus!”
“Because that was my plan entirely,” Janus snapped before coming over and grabbing Remus by the shoulders. “You have to understand, Remus. This is dangerous, even for you—“
“More dangerous than it is for you? You forgetting which one of us is invulnerable here?”
“They’ll use Roman,” Janus said, giving Remus a single shake. “You might be physically invulnerable but—They never had to hurt any of you to keep me in line, but they know you fold when they put Roman under pressure. If they think you’re dead, they wont’ have a reason to hurt him. You might be indestructible Remus, but are you willing to risk him?”
“So start a rumour you’ve developed mind control powers or something—They’d believe it! Dammit, Janus, you need me! I get you don’t have the resources to take them head on yet, but I can help you get them faster because we need to get them out!”
Suddenly, Remus had all of his big brother’s attention.
“What happened?” Janus demanded.
Remus pushed down all his panic and the memory of Thomas’s last expression.
“Janus. When you died—when you left… They started experiments on Virgil.”
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ninja-go-to-therapy · 4 years ago
Text
Whumptober 5: Where Do You Think You’re Going?
On the Run
I finally got around to writing something for my own damn AU, and it’s not even canon! I’m great at this.
Summary: Months after escaping from Prime Empire, Scott finds himself in Paris with none other than Unagami. It doesn’t go well. (This is of course part of the Miraculous crossover that I talk about sometimes on @blursed-ninjago-ideas)
Trigger Warnings: death threats, violence, panic attacks
4517 words
The years of his life Scott had lost to Prime Empire were hard to come to terms with. Every day he had been in there, he was well aware of the passage of time, but it was still the hardest thing he’d ever gone through.
Every day he had convinced himself that he would get out soon.
That first day, he was certain he’d be out by the end of the week. By the end of the week, he thought it couldn’t possibly be longer than a month.
It had gone on for years. Thirty, specifically.
Everyone he had ever known and loved had grieved and moved on. He had missed decades with them. His friends. His family. Everyone.
And it was all Unagami’s fault — right. Unagami was actually just a stupid little child who hadn’t really known what he was doing. He was supposed to be trying to get along with him, because he needed to be a role model or some shit.
Honestly, now that the kid wasn’t actively keeping him trapped inside a game for decades, he wasn’t all that bad. Sure, he could be a bit of a brat at times, but that was a phase that all children went through.
And apparently, he lowkey — that was the word Jay liked to use, right? He was so behind on the current slang — idolized Scott. Yeah, the child who’d been trying to turn him into a lifeless, numb, empty little energy cube for years and years and years, thought he was cool. That was… something, he supposed.
He was mostly doing this because Jay had all but begged him to. Said it made him a good person and he needed to let go of his anger.
Scott didn’t know if he would call it anger. He couldn’t bring himself to hate Unagami, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a little… well… uncomfortable around him. Yeah, that was definitely the right word.
But that was dumb. That debacle was finally over, and even if the nightmares and trauma didn’t go away, it wasn’t like Unagami acted malicious anymore. He wasn’t trying to kill anyone anymore.
So what if every time Unagami did much of anything, Scott’s grip on whatever it may have been that he was holding tightened enough to break a bone? That wasn’t that concerning. Everybody did that. Probably.
And hey, he could have had worse problems than scratching up his hands when he was nervous or anxious or really freaked out or really scared or flashing back to that cramped dark horrible nothingness when he was just lines of code trapped in a little energy cube with no way to get in or out or anything — and, uh, everyone had a random bad dream once in awhile. Or every night.
But he could put that aside, because he was a mature adult.
So here he was, babysitting an arcade-game-turned-boy, who was surprisingly energetic and very bright-eyed. 
“When are the ninja coming back?” Unagami asked, popping up from behind the couch.
Scott barely suppressed a surprised curse. This kid was way too light on his feet. “I don’t know,” he said, taking a deep breath to calm himself.
Unagami, unlike most kids would, actually accepted that as an answer and went back to his BorgPad, tapping away at the screen.
The thing was, nobody had seen the ninja in a few weeks, now. Scott was beginning to get concerned. After Lloyd had disappeared — which had been information divulged to Scott privately by Jay, because they didn’t want the general public to know — the next few days had been spent in a raw panic. And then, total radio silence.
He hadn’t heard from the ninja since.
He hoped they were okay. He was a little too familiar with people disappearing only to never be heard from again. Well, not until thirty years after the fact.
He wasn’t bitter, not at all.
“What are you doing, anyway?” Scott asked, trying to get his mind off the subject. He was supposed to be taking care of the kid for the day, he might as well have been trying to make some sort of connection.
“Hacking the Hexagon!” Unagami said, looking up from his screen with a big smile.
Oh, that was nice — wait, what?
“Excuse me?” Scott asked, jumping over the back of the couch and crouching on the floor, where Unagami was sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce. Scott peered over his shoulder at the screen.
“If they didn’t want it hacked they shouldn’t have made it so easy,” Unagami shrugged.
Was it… was it normal for a child to be hacking into government facilities from a BorgPad?
Scott was going to go out on a limb and say no. …It was probably just an AI thing? Yeah, it was probably fine.
He watched for a moment as Unagami’s fingers flew across the screen, lines in a language Scott didn’t understand everywhere. He’d never had the ambition to learn how to code.
But damn, back before Prime Empire, people had hardly even dreamed of tech like this. 
It was kind of crazy.
Scott was going to be honest with himself. The BorgPad was cool. It had tons of features that were all put together onto one little device — texting and pictures and games and social media and more. It had everything.
But at the end of the day, it was just another reminder that Scott had missed out on so much while he’d been trapped inside the game. 
Back in his day, people had been perfectly content with “low quality” arcade games and flip phones. But now… well, people like Cyrus Borg were completely changing the world.
It was cool. But it stung.
“As long as you don’t get like, in trouble with the law or something. I don’t want Dyer buggin’.”
Unagami gave him a weird look, but slowly lowered his gaze back to the screen.
Right. People didn’t say that anymore, did they? His vocabulary was really outdated. He was really outdated.
He sighed, standing up and heading to the kitchen so he could make some tea. Jay had given him some, claiming it was really calming.
Scott could use a little of that right now.
The label was faded enough that it was basically unreadable. Scratch that, it was completely unreadable. Did tea expire…? Nah, Jay wouldn’t have given it to him if it was bad.
As the tea was brewing, Scott leaned against the counter, fiddling with his phone. It had been brand new technology at the time, and had been pretty expensive.
Now, according to Jay, it was “mega-outdated”. 
That hurt more than it should have. He remembered being so excited about this thing, but now it was nothing compared to the technology of today.
“You want some tea?” Scott asked when it was done, going for a mug.
“What does it taste like?” Unagami asked, setting aside his tablet and coming over to observe the tea with interest. 
“Uhh… I dunno, haven’t tried it yet,” he shrugged.
“I think I would like some, please.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Scott went to pour it, but as he was doing so, he found his mind wandering to wondering where the ninja had disappeared to again. It was strange that they had just —
“Is that supposed to be happening?” Unagami asked.
Scott looked down at the tea, concerned to see a bright glow spilling from the kettle. “Uh…” before he could come up with a rational answer, it brightened, all but blinding the two as it took over the room.
When it faded, there was nothing left but a broken mug on the floor.
———
What the fuck?
What had just happened?
The last thing Scott remembered had been sitting in the kitchen making tea, but now… now he was outside, near some giant metal tower, in a place he absolutely did not recognize.
He didn’t recognize the place, but he did recognize the feeling.
He was in a new realm.
The first thing he could feel was the panic.
Not again. Fuck! Not again. He couldn’t go through this another time, he couldn’t lose more of his life to a monster, he couldn’t — he couldn’t — he couldn’t breathe. He gripped the grass he was sitting on, practically hyperventilating.
“Scott? Are you alright?”
Oh first master, Unagami was here too.
“Get away from me!” he yelled, though he made no move to put distance between them. Instead, the little brat only came closer.
“You need to breathe.”
“I said get away—” Scott’s words died in his throat. Something was different. Something was wrong.
“Captain Clockwork,” a voice said, booming throughout his head.
“What’s going on?” Scott demanded.
“I am Hawk Moth. I can feel your distress. The anger, the grief, all of it. You just want things to go back to the way they used to be, don’t you?”
“Yes…” he found himself agreeing, nodding along.
“I can help you with that. I can give you the power to take back your life. All I need in return is for you to retrieve two pieces of jewelry for me, called the Miraculous. Do we have a deal?”
Scott didn’t even have to think twice. “Yes, Hawk Moth.”
——— 
Unagami was concerned.
Scott was freaking out, clearly on the verge of a panic attack, and nothing he was doing seemed to help. And then, out of nowhere, it just stopped.
And then Scott started talking to nobody, and then his body, for the briefest of moments, was enveloped in a purple so dark it may as well have been black.
When it was gone, Scott looked different. He was wearing an outfit that could only be described as old-timey-steampunk. 
It wasn’t that strange, considering that sort of stuff was perfectly normal in Prime Empire. Still, Unagami should probably make sure that Scott was okay.
“Scott?” he asked, stepping a little closer.
Scott glared at him dark enough to kill.
Wide-eyed, Unagami took a small step back. “Scott, what’s wrong? Who were you talking to? Is this a video game, like Prime Empire?”
“You would just love that, wouldn’t you?” Scott yelled. “You would just love to ruin even more people’s lives!”
“What?”
A ball of light burst into existence in Scott’s hand, which was closed tightly in a fist. He threw the light off to the side, launching at a huge television screen on the side of a building. Almost immediately, it turned into a box-style TV.
Scott smiled wickedly. “Oh, would you look at that? The power to downgrade tech. If I can do that to a TV, I wonder what will happen to a stupid. Little. Arcade game.”
Unagami narrowly dodged a blast from Scott following those words. “Scott, stop! You’re — you’re not in your right mind!”
“Oh, I’m in my right mind!” he screamed. “I’m finally free, and what am I met with but a world that moved on without me? You took away my life!”
“Scott, please, you are not thinking clearly!” Unagami said, desperate.
“Save it, you little brat! Now hold still so I can kill you!”
Unagami tripped, falling back into the grass. He scrambled back, doing his best to get to his feet, but regardless, Scott had the upper hand. He was done for.
He squeezed his eyes shut, accepting the inevitable.
Suddenly, he was being lifted, and then he was in the air. What?
He opened his eyes.
“I’ve got you!” a girl dressed in red spandex with black polka dots all over it said.
“What’s going on?” Unagami asked.
The girl looked confused. “Uh…” they came to a stop on a rooftop. It was then that a boy dressed in what looked like a leather catsuit joined them, vaulting up with an infinitely long pole.
“How do you do, M’lady?” he asked, smiling at the girl.
“Not now, Chat. I just saved this kid from the latest akuma, but I don’t think he’s speaking French.”
“Language barrier powers?” Chat asked. “That’s a new one.”
“I don’t know, from what I could tell, the akuma was speaking in the same language as him.”
“What’s going on?” Unagami demanded. “What happened to Scott?”
Chat frowned. “It sounds kind of like Japanese. But like, not quite? It sounds like Japanese on drugs.”
The girl sighed. “Wonderful description, Chat.”
“Thanks! I try.”
“Wait, I’ve heard this before! It sounds like that language the ninja speak!” The girl said.
“Oh yeah! Maybe they’re from the same place?”
Unagami tuned out their rambling, glancing over the edge of the roof to see if he could still see Scott. Luckily, he couldn’t.
Or was that unlucky?
Scott was the only person he knew here, but at the same time, he’d lost his mind out of nowhere. And now he was on some sort of evil… violent rampage… manhunt… chasing after him… well, that was uncomfortably familiar.
 “Okay, well, our miraculous allows him to understand us, I wonder why it doesn’t work the other way?” Chat glanced at Unagami. “You can understand us, right?”
Unagami gave a frustrated nod.
“Okay, well, do you know why that guy got akumatized?”
Unagami had absolutely no idea what that was, but it was clearly in reference to what had happened to Scott.
“I don’t think he does. We have to get back to fighting before this guy destroys half of Paris,” Chat said, tapping his wrist as if there was a watch there.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Scott yelled from the streets below.
“Oh, hey, that was French!” Chat said. “Akuma powers are awesome.”
The girl gave him an unimpressed frown.
Various balls of light were transforming technology into older versions of themselves left and right as Scott rampaged.
“Shit, okay, Chat, can you drop him somewhere away from the akuma?”
“Sure thing Bugaboo!” Chat said with a wide grin. He held out a hand to Unagami. “Hold on tight, kid.”
———
Ladybug landed in front of the akuma gracefully, her yo-yo at her side.
“Ladybug, I presume,” the akuma said.
“That would be right.”
The akuma glared at her. “Look, I don’t particularly want to hurt you. Just hand over the earrings and the kid, and I’ll be on my way.”
“What do you want with him?” Ladybug asked, eyes narrowed. “What could he possibly have done?”
The akuma laughed, and it started low, but it quickly gained a touch of psycho, edging on hysteria. “What didn’t he do?” He yelled, his arms widely gesturing — though his right hand stayed tightly closed. That could be important. “He kept me trapped in a video game for decades. He made me live every day in fear that it would be my last! He ruined my life! He took everything from me!”
Well… fuck.
That was actually a pretty valid reason to be upset with somebody. But how on earth had that happened in the first place? Well, the details didn’t matter. She had an akuma to fight.
Against all reason, Ladybug decided to try getting through to the poor guy. “You don’t have to do this! Hawk Moth is manipulating you!”
“I don’t care!” He screamed. “He made me into Captain Clockwork! He gave me the power to take back my life!”
He threw a blast of energy at Ladybug, which she only barely managed to deflect with her yo-yo. It bounced back to what looked like a brand new car, which immediately turned into a station wagon.
Oh boy.
“Time has moved forward without me. I don’t fit into this world, so I’m gonna make this world fit me!”
She needed to figure out what to break. Whatever he was holding, that could be it.
Unceremoniously, Chat dropped from the sky, landing in a heap next to her.
“I did not get that right…” he muttered, getting to his feet with some difficulty. “What’s the plan, M’lady?”
“I don’t know, but I think the akuma is in whatever he’s holding. We need to get him to drop it.”
“May I offer a distraction in these trying times?”
Ladybug smiled.
“Hey, the future isn’t all that bad!” Chat exclaimed, dramatically vaulting himself to be behind the akuma so that he had to turn around and his attention was off of Ladybug, while she quietly summoned her lucky charm.
“We’ve got video games! And bullet trains, and iPhones, and — ooh, we’ve got anime! It still baffles me that people ever managed to live without anime. A tragedy, really.”
Captain Clockwork glared at him. “We had video games and anime back in my day. It was good enough, it didn’t have to change!”
“That’s sort of the way of life, buddy,” Chat shrugged, batting away a blast with his baton.
“It shouldn’t be! I shouldn’t have gotten left behind!” he screamed, sending blasts of energy one after the other at Chat.
“Left behind?” Chat asked, lowering his guard slightly when the akuma, breathing heavily, stopped firing.
“That boy you stole away just a few minutes ago,” Captain Clockwork said, laughing hysterically. “He kept me trapped inside a video game, for thirty years. Thirty years! It’s not fair! It’s not fair! I’ll kill him!”
“How did a little boy trap you in a video game?” Chat asked, legitimately curious.
“He is the game! He ruled Prime Empire! He ruined my life!” 
Chat was regretting asking, because now the akuma was backing him into a corner, his fist glowing. He wasn’t sure he’d ever battled an akuma so full of pure rage before.
Chat extended his baton, sweeping it under the akuma’s feet and knocking him to the ground.
“This is so cool!” Alya shouted from across the street, filming with her iPhone.
“Alya,” Nino all but begged. “We gotta get to safety!”
“But I’m getting some great footage on this thing!”
Captain Clockwork growled, blasting violently at the pair. Alya’s brand new, expensive phone immediately reverted to a flip phone.
The way Alya screamed would have suggested someone had been murdered. “No!” she shrieked, being dragged away by Nino.
“Phones don’t need to be able to record! Just use a fucking video camera! They didn’t have to change it!” Captain Clockwork yelled, running after Alya.
That got the couple’s attention enough to start running.
Chat put himself between them, crying out when he intercepted a blast.
“Chat!” Ladybug yelled.
Chat grunted, rolling with great difficulty away from the akuma.
His baton immediately grew in length, turning into what looked like a perfectly regular, non-magical, old-fashioned baton.
“Oh fuck.”
“Hand over the ring and I won’t hurt you,” Captain Clockwork demanded.
“Sorry, I’ve got a contract,” Chat replied, using the baton as a sort of cane to help him get to his feet again.
He didn’t manage to dodge the next blast, which turned his magical very technologically advanced leather suit into a hoodie and a cheap pair of sweatpants. 
Panic gripped him, and he quickly went to feel for his mask. Oh, thank god, it was still there.
Captain Clockwork charged up another blast, but before he could use it, Ladybug grabbed Chat and swung her yo-yo, getting them both away and into a back alley.
“Are you okay, Kitty?” she asked, setting him down gently.
“I’m alright,” he affirmed. “I need to detransform, make sure Plagg is alright. Maybe when I retransform it’ll go back to normal?”
Ladybug purposefully turned around.
“Claws in,” he said.
Immediately, Ladybug could hear a low groan from her partner’s kwami.
“Here,” Chat muttered, presumably offering him some food.
“Thanks. God that really hurt…” Plagg muttered.
“It did?” Chat cried, worry seeping into his voice. “Are you okay? How can I help?”
“I’ll be fine, Kitten,” Plagg said, laughing somewhat through the now very obvious pain. “Just defeat this guy and you can buy me some extra nice cheese to make up for it.”
Chat laughed. “Sure thing Plagg. Claws out!”
Ladybug waited a moment, then turned back around. Luckily, Chat had been right, and his suit was back to normal. “Okay, so we’ve got my lucky charm, but I still don’t know how to use it. Did you learn anything about the akuma?”
“Well, apparently the kid he was trying to obliterate trapped him in a game for thirty years,” Chat shrugged. “I dunno if that’s important though.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard. He keeps screaming about it every chance he gets. But as long as we free the akuma, he’ll be fine. Did you happen to see what he was holding?”
“It looked kind of like a phone, but like, one of those really old flippy ones. Like the ones they used in High School Musical!”
Ladybug sighed. “Well, that’s something. Actually, my lucky charm is a flip phone.”
“That’s weird… think he’d like that?”
“Wait! I have a plan.”
———
Meanwhile, Unagami was hiding behind a trashcan as Scott got closer and closer to his whereabouts. His heart was pounding loudly in his ears.
“Unagami,” Scott called out, his voice sickly sweet and too high in pitch. “Come out, come out wherever you are…”
Unagami held his breath, praying Scott didn’t find him.
“Isn’t it ironic?” Scott asked, something out of Unagmai’s sight crashing loudly. “The hunter becomes the prey. Bet you never thought you’d get retribution, huh?”
He hadn’t meant to ruin Scott’s life. He’d just been following his father’s instructions. He’d apologized. He thought Scott had forgiven him. He’d acted like he had.
Had he felt like this the whole time?
Angry and hurt and wanting to kill him?
And… was this how Scott had felt while trapped in Prime Empire?
Scared for his life, fearing every second that it could be his last? Keeping himself hidden away for years with the constant terror that he would be found?
The trashcan was thrown, and there was Scott.
“Found you.”
“I’m sorry—” Unagami said.
“Save it! Sorry doesn’t make up for the lost time! Sorry doesn’t make up for the fear I lived in! Sorry doesn’t fix things!”
He charged a blast.
Out of nowhere, a bright blue tornado threw Scott across the street.
It slowed to a stop, revealing none other than the blue ninja. “Unagami?” he said, bewildered. “How are you here?”
“Why are you defending him?” Scott screamed. “He trapped you too! He took all of your friends! He hunted you down like a wild animal! Aren’t you angry?”
“Scott? Jay cried, even more bewildered than before. “What the… wait, but Unagami is just a kid! Sure, he caused a lot of pain, but it wasn’t his fault! And he’s done all he can to make it right!” “That’s not good enough!”
“Ice to see you!” Zane yelled, dropping down from the rooftop.
Scott growled, charging a blast of energy. “Just let me kill the little brat! He’s not human! He’s not a person! What difference does it make?”
Unagami froze.
Scott… didn’t see him as a person? All this time?
He thought they had been bonding. He had thought… well, he hadn’t thought they were friends, exactly, but he had at least thought… 
It was true that he wasn’t human, but Unagami had likened himself to Zane. They weren't human, but they were still people. But that wasn’t how Scott saw it at all. And he had never known.
Zane screamed out as he was hit with a blast. The light encompassed him, and suddenly he was left with rusty copper skin.
Unagami’s eyes widened in horror.
“I — I — I — do not feel — Jay — I cannot — what is happening?” Zane stammered, his voice box glitching heavily.
“I can downgrade tech,” Scott said, laughing darkly. “You’re tech.”
“Scott, this isn’t you!” Jay attempted. “You’re better than this!”
“I don’t want to be better than this!” he yelled. He threw Jay to the side, completely knocking the boy unconscious.
With Zane unable to even move, Unagami was about to die.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said.
“Hurt doesn’t care about intention.”
In what was either the best or the worst timing ever, the boy from before — Chat — waltzed over to them casually. “You were right, Captain Clockwork!” he exclaimed loudly. “Old technology is better! I’m just surprised that you didn’t notice I took your phone!” he said, waving around an old flip phone.
“What?” Scott — Captain Clockwork? — gasped, opening his fist. “No you didn’t, it’s right here?”
But then it wasn’t. Ladybug’s yo-yo string wrapped around it, and yanked it hard.
“No!”
Ladybug snapped the phone in half easily. “No more evil-doing for you, little akuma. Time to de-evilize!” she declared, catching the butterfly — Unagami wasn’t even going to ask why a butterfly had come out of Scott’s phone — easily. “Gotcha!” she set the butterfly free, and in a stark contrast to the previous shade of sickly purple it had been, it was now a pure white. “Bye bye, little butterfly.”
Scott fell to the ground, his new avatar — or whatever it was — dropping.
“Miraculous ladybug!” Ladybug shouted, throwing the fake phone into the air. A swarm of butterflies took over, somehow undoing all the damages that Scott had caused.
Honestly, it was far from the strangest thing Unagami had experienced recently.
———
Scott came to on the sidewalk. Hadn’t he just been near some big metal tower thing? And how had he blacked out in the first place? What the hell?
“What… what happened?” he groaned, unable to get to his feet. 
Zane — when had Zane gotten here? — said something in what sounded like another language.
“Everything’s alright now, sir!” a girl dressed as what looked something like a superhero said, smiling gently at him. “You don’t know what an akuma is, do you?”
Again, Zane repeated her question, this time looking at him. Ah, he was the translator.
“No…?”
Her and a boy in a leather catsuit shared a look.
“A bad man called Hawk Moth took advantage of you,” the boy explained, reaching out a hand and helping Scott to his feet. “You were feeling some kind of negative emotion, and he used that to turn you into a supervillain.”
A supervillain? What kind of negative emotion could he have been — 
He spotted Unagami, who was staring at him in nothing short of terror from against the brick wall of a building. Oh yeah.
“What did I do?” 
“Nothing that couldn’t be undone,” the girl assured. “All property damages have been magically repaired, so you don’t have to worry!”
“It’s not the property damages I’m worried about,” Scott muttered, looking at Unagami, guilty all but stabbing him through the heart. The kid looked traumatized.
Before anyone could say anything else, Unagami ran. Jay immediately went after him, but the others stayed behind.
Scott knew that if he went, he would only make things worse. “Please, just… what did I actually do?”
By the end of the recap, Scott had sunk back to the ground. 
There wasn’t really a way to fix this, was there?
37 notes · View notes
deadontheinsidebut · 4 years ago
Text
You’re my boss? Part 1
Pairing: Bokuto x fem!reader
au: Bokuto is the head of a big company in Japan and his serious and professional demeanor is able to stop anyone in their tracks. You end up promoted to his personal assistant and he’s immediately entranced by you. What happens when he shows you a side that’s not so serious. How will you react?
Genre: fluff but also suggestive nsfw and a whole lot of spice I guess :) throughout the series
Disclaimer: hi guys this is just part 1 and the Bokuto you know and love from Haikyuu will pop out soon!! :)))) we’ll go more in depth with this Bokuto’s backstory in part 2 so stay tuned.
Your life would soon be changed forever. After being promoted to be the personal assistant of your cold and distant boss, you couldn’t help but feel slightly vulnerable at the thought. Bokuto Kōtarō was the biggest CEO in town and he was notorious for his inability to smile. You, being the adorable cinnamon roll you were, were shaking like crazy to meet your boss. After all, you’ve only been working under his other assistants before being randomly promoted due to the shortage of assistants.
When you made your way up to the top floor to meet your boss, you felt slight shivers trying to imagine what he looked like up close and personal. When the door swung open, you saw the ice cold eyes of the gray-haired man lock onto yours and you were stopped dead in your tracks. He was beautiful. His eyes reflected a mysterious aura that resembled an owl and his hair slicked back like a gray mountain. His shirt was buttoned up and his tie was tight around his neck.
You took a big gulp as you approached him. His eyes followed you as you made your way across the room. His stoic expression did nothing to reassure you. When you finally stood right in front of him, his deep, clear voice interrupted the silence.
“Ms. l/n, you’ve been working on the second floor as (assistant’s name’s) assistant right?”
“Y-yes sir.”
God, that was so stupid why did you say it like that??? Ugh what if he thinks you’re so unprofessional now?? What do you do??
He noticed your slight twitching and let out a deep sigh. You saw his eyes look at something behind you and he spoke once again.
“Ms. l/n, you will call me Bokuto. From now on, you’ll be my personal assistant and will report directly to me. But for now, just sit and watch so you’ll have an idea of what to do.”
His voice was not demanding in the slightest. Actually, he sounded quite soothing. You felt your body relax at his words.
“Thank you, Bokuto. I promise I won’t disappoint you!”
He smiled a bit at your declaration and went back to looking at his paperwork. You could see that he was really dedicated to his work. According to your old boss, Bokuto was able to leave the office anytime he wanted, but he always stayed many hours after everybody else in order to get more work in. You wondered if that ever caused a strain on his health.
As you unknowingly continued to stare at his face, he grumbled and turned to you.
“Oi, my face isn’t a piece of artwork. Go get me a can of beer if you’re bored.” (Haha his face is beautiful wdym)
“YES! Sorry sir!”
You scrambled to the vending machine to grab him a beer and you didn’t know which one he liked so you got one of each!
The bewildered look on his face when you came rushing back in with seven different types of beer cans in your arms was a sight to remember.
“Let me pay your back for those, Ms. l/n,” Bokuto said nonchalantly.
“No no, consider it a thank you for the promotion, sir,” you reply with a smile on your face.
You might be going crazy but you swore you could see a slight dust of pink on his cheeks.
“Very well. Thank you for the gift,” he says as he pops a can open.
You didn’t even notice that Bokuto has gotten through all seven of the cans and 2 piles of paperwork because you were starting to doze off. It was not until you felt a sloppy poke to your cheek that you jolted up.
The gesture was from none other than your cold-hearted boss. His eyes were dazed and he looked pretty drunk. It was almost 3am and you could feel yourself about to pass out.
“Hey y/n, you’re faaaaalling ashleeep on the jobbbb. Thas not allowed! Lemme take you...home okay?”
Then sound of your first name in his mouth was delightful and you could feel your stomach churn. Oh god what dirty thoughts were you thinking of with your boss of all people???
He starts to stand from where he was squatting beside you but he was wobbling like crazy.
“B-bokuto be careful!! Let me help you!”
But it was too late; Bokuto had fallen right onto you and you both fell over with a thump. You expected it to hurt but his hand was supporting your head to break the fall. You gasp at the proximity and try to scooch your way out from under him to no avail.
“Bokuto, we need to get up. Can you stand?”
He lets out a muffled sound of annoyance and you sigh. So this was the oh so tough Bokuto Kōtarō? He was more like a big baby. Your brows furrowed as you stared down at the man lying atop you and you felt an indescribable urge to touch his hair. The hair he had put up with gel was now tousled and undone. You cautiously ran your fingers through his hair and he hummed in response beneath you.
This was wrong on so many levels. This was your first day meeting your boss and you were already stuck in this intimate position. His hair is so soft omfg. You continued to feel his hair when he jostles from beneath you.
“What’s happening?” His groggy voice interrupts the the silent atmosphere and you’re now 50 shades of red.
“F-FORGIVE ME SIR!!! YOU FELL ON TOP OF ME AND I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!”
You didn’t want to get fired on your first day so you figured some sort of explanation was in order.
Bokuto doesn’t appear to be listening but instead, he’s rubbing his eyes and squinting at you as if to make out who you were and why you were in his office.
“Ah, I see. Thank you for your help then,” he checks his watch, “it’s 3am, let me take you home.”
“Is that alright? No offence but, you’ve had way too many beers tonight. I’d feel safer if you let me drive you home.”
Surprisingly, you were met with little argument and soon enough, both of you were cooped up in your little ride. You started up your car and was about to ask him where his house was when you turned to see a dead asleep Bokuto by your side.
Once you got there, Bokuto was snoring loudly and you had to hull his heavy body towards your door. All your volleyball practice in the past literally amounted to you being able to carry your boss into your house at 3 in the morning.
You flopped his body onto your couch as you tried to catch your breath. You stared at him for a moment and you couldn’t help but think that he must’ve been so uncomfortable in his work clothes. You chastised yourself for your next thought, and what happened next was a surprise.
You started loosening up his tie and unbuttoning the top of his shirt. You could feel his chest muscles brush against your knuckles everytime you undid a button and hear his breathing turn into a slow and steady rhythm.
After you were done helping him, you stood to get ready for bed when a strong hand gripped onto your wrist and pulled you downwards. The force wasn’t enough to make you fall but you quickly turned your head to your sleeping boss.
He was still fast asleep, but his body was shaking and his forehead was creased as though he were in a lot of pain.
“Father, please, please don’t go..” he whispers. His voice trailed off and you can hear the slight crack in his voice.
You felt as though you heard something you weren’t supposed to hear or unlocked and emotion that wasn’t meant to be seen by a mere assistant.
When he wouldn’t let go of your wrist, you settled for sitting on the floor beside him. When the twitching and murmuring didn’t stop for another couple minutes, you find yourself stroking his hair again. He’s calming down and his slumber is becoming peaceful.
Before you know it, you’re falling asleep right on the floor with your new boss gripping tightly onto your wrist.
You awoke to the sun beams from your living room window. Your eyes are squinting as they try to adjust to the light and you look around the room. And oh my lord the sight before you was not one you see everyday. You were on your couch wrapped in a button-up with your SHIRTLESS BOSS MAKING BREAKFAST IN YOUR KITCHEN???? What in the wattpad is happening??? Wrong platform
“U-um, Bokuto-san, what’s going on?” You ask meekly.
“Oh, good morning Ms. l/n. I hope you like bacon and eggs because that’s all I know how to make,” he says nonchalantly.
“Anything is fine but, would you like your shirt back?”
You hastily unwrap yourself from his shirt and drape it over his shoulders. He’s significantly taller than you so you’re on your tippy toes trying to reach him.
He’s looking at you with gentle eyes before focusing on the eggs once more.
You’re a flustered mess as you make your way into the bathroom. How did this happen? Last time you checked, you had placed Bokuto onto the couch and was sitting on the floor beside him while your sleep talking boss held onto your wrist. He must’ve moved you when he woke up. His cologne lingered on your skin from where his shirt touched you.
You’re looking in the mirror and you look like a mess. Your hair that was once tucked neatly into a bun was undone. Your makeup had smeared and your clothes were ruffled. Oh god your boss had seen you in this state.
You quickly tidied up and put on the only other clothing that was appropriate for your office job which so happened to be a blouse and pencil skirt that sat snuggly on all your curves. You couldn’t lie, you looked smoking hot.
You mustered up the courage to face your boss and was met with a pair of astonished eyes. He was looking you up and down as though he were meeting someone new. Your hair was too messy to put back into a bun so you were left with brushing it down enough so that it looked like natural waves. You were never insecure about your looks before, but the eyes of this man made you feel naked.
You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and said, “um, are you ready to go now?”
Bokuto clears his throat at your words and nods his head.
As you arrived to the building, you could feel the eyes of all the other employees glued to you in confusion as the two of you stepped out of the car together. Bokuto had already switched to cold-mode and walked towards to the entrance without waiting for you. Poor cinnamon roll was left to fend off the judgemental coworkers alone. But could you blame them? They were used to their big boss never interacting with anyone unless it was business related but here he was, coming out of a girl’s car with unkempt hair and wrinkly shirt.
As you caught up to Bokuto, you tried to strike a conversation in hopes of easing the tension but he was definitely in no mood to talk. His eyes were glued to the direction he was walking in and he always seemed to march a few strides ahead of you as if you keep you at a distance. No one would believe you if you told them that this man was the one cooking you breakfast this morning. Not that you’d tell anyone, though. You had enough on your plate without having people assuming that you slept your way to the top.
When you both reached his office, he was at his desk starting his paperwork with no instruction for you.
You stood in silence for a couple minutes before speaking up, “excuse me Bokuto, what do you suppose I do in the meantime?”
He glanced up quickly and stared at you with boredom.
“I’ve printed out sheets of this month’s financial report. Please go retrieve them for me.”
“Of course,” you reply as you scurry to do just that.
The retrieval of the report was an easy enough task and you wanted to be efficient in returning but you were stopped by a familiar coworker.
“Y/n-chan, I heard you’ve been promoted to the big boss’s right hand woman. Looks like I’ll have no way to look at your sweet ass anymore, huh?”
“Terushima-kun, I am in no mood for any of your games right now. Please move aside.”
He’s smirking now and backs you up against a wall with one arm beside your head.
“Don’t get too cocky sweetheart. Just because you’re our boss’s bitch now doesn’t make you any better than the rest of us,” Terushima whispers against your ear.
You’re now hugging the papers close to your chest as some form of protection. You whimper and close your eyes as you feel his hand caress your cheek but it’s cut short when a big figure cuts in between you and Terushima.
Bokuto is standing in front of you and gripping onto the hand that was once caressing your face. Terushima’s expression shifted to one of fear as he began to realize what was happening.
“B-boss! What’s up? It’s a lovely day isn’t it?”
“Save it,” Bokuto sneers at him, “you’re lucky I don’t fire you right here and now. The next time you decide to harass my assistant, you better consider the consequences because next time, I won’t be so generous.”
Bokuto releases Terushima’s hand and grabs onto yours as he drags you away.
“Sir! Thank you for the help!”
He doesn’t reply until you reach his office. He kind of looks irritated as he stares at the floor.
“Bokuto-san! You were so badass back there! Thank you so much for saving me. And oh! I got your papers!” You exclaim with a bright smile on your face.
You’re pushing the stack towards him in earnest and he’s staring at you like you’re giving him the moon.
He suddenly bursts into laughter, “you were almost harassed and you’re praising me?”
His laugh sounds childish and genuine. When he laughs, his face lights up like a kid that has just got a new toy.
“But it really was cool, huh? I was so ready to punch the guy. Mannn that rush of adrenaline brings back so many memories!” Bokuto is going on like you’ve never seen before.
Your eyes are starry as you stare at the enthusiastic Bokuto. When he catches you staring in amusement, he is quick to fix his tie and shift back to business mode.
“Ahem, anyway. What’s done is done. Let’s get back to work.”
The moment was nice while it lasted. You felt as though you had seen a side of Bokuto that has not been awakened for a long time. You glanced at him occasionally while sorting the paperwork, and although he did not look back, you could see the slight trace of a smile on his lips everytime you stared.
Oh boy, you were in for a long ride. And you weren’t complaining. There was definitely more in store for you and your cold-hearted boss...
a/n: come back for part 2 coming soon!!! :)))
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hearthwitchhome · 3 years ago
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Story Time: Restitution Ch 1
Teen and up Brotherly/Platonic DRLAMP AU, Clones, psychic powers, Believed Major Character Death, Protective brothers, Suicidal Thoughts, Grief, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Second Chances, Rescues, Brief appearances of first person narration, but we promise they don't last, Everyone Needs A Hug, And surprisingly most of them actually get one Summary: Story Time: Once upon a time, there was a boy named Thomas who developed psychic powers. Let me tell you, it did not go the way I dreamt it would.
* * *
When Janus learns what the men who made them had done to their progenitor, he knows he needs to get his brothers out. As soon as he can, he defects and starts the work needed to take down the men who made them, and keep his brothers safe.
* * *
After Deceit kills Janus, Virgil is left helpless to watch as Deceit takes his older brothers away from him one by one, until all he has left is the ghost of Not Janus and the possibility of a new brother to hold onto. AO3
Story Time: Once upon a time, there was a boy named Thomas who developed psychic powers. Let me tell you, it did not go the way I dreamt it would.
* * *
Janus was the first of them to fall to Deceit. He’d been the oldest and smartest and best of them all, and Deceit had killed him.
Virgil knew that made sense. Janus was the most powerful and smartest of them all. Deceit had to know that any plan he made with Janus still around to fight him would have failed, so Deceit had killed him. Ambushed Virgil’s oldest brother on one of his missions, killed him, and started trying destroying everything the organization that made Virgil and his brothers had ever worked on. Deceit was brilliant. Deceit was terrifying. All of their training had been turned towards making Virgil and his remaining brothers powerful enough to destroy him. Apparently they’d done well enough, because the orders had come down last night. Remus would be going after Deceit in two more days.
Virgil bit his lip and tried to keep his worry from even Patton, useless as it was to try to hide what you were feeling from an empath. It wasn’t that he didn’t think Remus could do it—Remus was incredible! Brutal, creative, literally invulnerable, he’d take out Deceit no sweat and be home within the week.
But… Janus had been Janus. And Janus was never going to come home.
Virgil just didn’t want to lose another brother.
* * *
It had taken Remus days to get this deep into Deceit’s lair, but he’d finally managed it. Infiltration was his speciality after all. Well, that and mayhem. It was amazing what you could do when you didn’t have to worry about silly things like “bodily integrity” and “extreme temperatures”. But until he had Deceit right where he wanted him, he could be patient. And then, once Deceit was left in itty-bitty pieces, the Men who’d Made Them would be so distracted by cleaning up the rest of his organization that Remus would be able to grab his brothers and get out. Janus wasn’t there to protect them anymore, and someone had to. Roman would be safe. And so would Virgil.
He just had to kill this bastard and the brothers he had left would be free.
Remus heard steps coming down the hallway he was hiding over and shifted slightly, ready to drop down and destroy. Show time.
He would have sworn the movement was completely silent, but the figure stopped just outside pouncing range. Remus kept his breath as silent as possible, rage burning in his chest. Just a few more steps, and Janus’s ghost would be able to rest easy. All he had to do was wait.
“I know you’re there,” said a familiar voice, and everything inside Remus’s head came to a crashing halt. He was dead. “I can hear you. I don’t know how you made it this far, but you might as well—“
The angle was wrong, and his coordination off, but he still launched himself at the hooded figure not quite below him.
Shadow arms reached out and caught him, throwing him against the wall and pinning him there, and Remus was left staring into familiar brown and yellow eyes. Eyes that were full of things Remus couldn’t name.
“They send you to kill me?” Janus asked, letting go of Remus and vanishing his shadow hands. Remus’s legs refused to take his weight and he kept on sliding right down the wall. Janus was alive. “I wish I could say I thought they were above that,” Janus continued, “asking you to kill your own brother, but I can’t. Not after everything I’ve learned. Not after what they did to Thomas.”
“You’re alive,” Remus managed, not yet able to process anything else. “They told us Deceit killed you!”
“Right, because people who would send someone to kill their own brother—without even telling them—are the epitome of truthfulness,” Janus spat.
“Jan?” Remus asked, and for the first time in years, he let himself sound like the scared little brother no one could ever know he still felt like some times.
“They lied to you, Remus. To all of us. When I found out the truth about Thomas—“
“Who’s this Thomas guy you keep mentioning?” Remus asked. And why didn’t Remus know about him?
Janus looked down at him, thoughts flashing behind his eyes. Remus wished he’d let on what some of them were. “Our progenitor,” Janus finally said.
“Wait, what?” Remus asked. “You know about our progenitor? How? All they ever said was that he developed psychic powers and that’s why they cloned him after he died youn—“
Janus let out a dangerous hiss and Remus froze. Indestructible and immune to physical pain or not, he’d learned young it was really, really dumb to push Janus in a mood like this.
“That is what they said, isn’t it. ‘Died young.’ Well, at least that much wasn’t an outright lie, even with all the truths they hid with it.” Something solidified in Janus’s eyes—he’d made a decision.
“Come on,” he said, coming up to Remus and offering him a hand. “There are things you need to know.”
Without another word, Remus took his—living—brother’s hand and let himself be pulled up. There was no way he was going through with the original mission anymore, and once he had calmed down, Janus would be able to help him figure out what to do. It wasn’t his job alone to protect his brothers anymore. Janus would make sure Roman was never used to control Remus again. That Logan got to relax. That Patton never had to reach into someone’s heart and break them ever again. That Virgil… That Virgil was okay. All Remus had to do was hear Janus out and then they could get started on fixing things.
They walked through the twisting corridors of the base Janus had claimed. Remus’s mind made notes of small improvements that could be made to the already impressive security. He’d tell Janus when he’d calmed down again. Finally, they turned through a door into a small office. Nothing fancy—No pictures on the walls or rugs on the floor or anything. Just a small desk with a single screen on it, attached to a computer, and a chair at the desk. Janus sat down and started typing in commands.
“This room was one of the first ones I set up, when I left. My bedroom is the next door down and I come here when it feels like too much. When I need the reminder of why I left in the first place, and what’s truly at stake.” He got up from the computer. “They’re cued to run one after the other.”
Remus hesitated. His thoughts were too fast, his body needed to move, he didn’t want to—
“Do I really have to sit for this?” Remus asked.
“There’s a lot to take in,” Janus replied, looking over at him. Remus shifted slightly from foot to foot. This was obviously important but he could never focus when sitting sti—
Janus pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to Remus. Remus couldn’t help his grin as he caught the fidget cube, hands immediately going to the clicking side. It might drive everyone else crazy, but he loved it. It was always the first side of his cubes to break.
“Aw shucks, bro. I missed you too,” Remus said, trying for a joke and an easy smile and for once having terrible aim.
“I’ve missed all of you,” Janus said, and he wasn’t even trying to hide how he felt, the confident bastard. “But after you see this, I think you’ll understand why I had to leave.”
Raising an eyebrow, Remus went and sat at the computer as his fingers danced across the cube, clicking and flicking and twirling. On the screen was a familiar face—the same one he saw in the mirror every day, or whenever he saw his brothers, though he didn’t know the subtle differences that distinguished this one. He knew for sure none of his brothers had ever looked that care free and besides, the kid on the screen looked older than most of them. Older than Logan, but younger than Roman or Remus himself. 16 was Remus’s best guess. He could turn and ask Janus—Janus definitely knew—or he could watch the videos and probably get the answers he wanted anyway. He reached up and pressed play.
On the screen, the kid started to move, smile becoming bigger and even more carefree, “What is UP everybody!”
Remus sat and watched. First were the videos of Thomas goofing around and having fun. And then the powers started showing up. Remus recognized them. The rest of their powers might be a lot more subtle, but he’d know Virgil and Janus’s shadow hands anywhere.
The next videos weren’t Thomas’s. They were security footage of familiar corridors and a cell and a kid who’d never been trained in his life trying to escape and failing miserably. Then came the experiments. Baseline stuff—Just tests to see how much you’d improved in certain categories. Lots of them, sure, but nothing Remus hadn’t been doing for as long as he could remember.
The next video didn’t have Thomas in it at all. It was a meeting of the men who ran the facility. The ones who’d ordered all of them made. Remus knew them from their pictures on the walls, but had never seen them in anything else. Not before now. The meeting did not start well. Disagreements. Arguments. Yelling. Finally, agreement. Conclusion.
Back to Thomas, with the experiments getting worse. More intense. Pushing Thomas to do more and more and more—again, it wasn’t anything Remus and his brothers hadn’t had to do, but Thomas wasn’t trained to take anyof this. Clips of Thomas crying in his cell. Thomas begging to be let out. To see his parents. To see his brothers. Thomas didn’t have any brothers in the facility. Remus felt Janus standing behind him, watching the videos with him. Janus who had died. Janus who was alive again. His fingers moved across the cube more and more frenetically. Harsher experiments—Worse than what they’d done to any of them except Remus, and Remus was indestructible—and then—
The explosion.
Thomas losing control or will or something—Remus couldn’t read his expression, the second it all went wrong, besides the fear. Maybe Patton could have, but Remus couldn’t. He just felt—He didn’t know that either.
The last video. A meeting. Blame, anger, (no guilt). A proposal. A ‘solution’. DNA recovered. They could start again, as many times as it took to get it right. They could tweak the sequence, adding and taking away as needed. They could build a team powerful enough to do whatever they wanted done. Experiments could be run to see if more power could be created, harnessed, controlled.
They would start with a single clone—increased senses, increased mental capabilities, some animal traits for senses humans didn’t have. He would teach them much about how to build the ones who came after him. The project was voted on. Approved. Code name: Janus.
The video ended on the smiles of the men. The cube cracked in Remus’s hand.
“You understand why I left now, don’t you,” Janus asked quietly behind him. “I’d long suspected there was something rotten there—the way they used Roman to control you, for a start—but once I knew the whole truth? Once I knew who the ‘Thomas’ I’d heard whispered about behind closed doors was and what happened to him… I had to stop them Remus. They tortured a kid to death—” Remus almost wanted to point out he wasn’t sure if Thomas was older than Janus by the time he’d… he couldn’t pick between ‘died’ and ‘was killed’ to describe it, but he didn’t. Even if he’d been years older than Remus by the end of the videos, he still understood thinking of someone that helpless and alone as a kid. “—and then they made more of us to torture until they could get it ‘right’.”
“I’ll help you stop them,” Remus said, turning to face Janus, the sharp edges of the broken cube digging painlessly into his palm.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Do you think you can stop me?” Remus said, surging to his feet and starting to pace. “After what I just watched? After what I know they’re willing to do? We can’t just keep leaving our brothers at their non-existent mercy Janus!”
“Because that was my plan entirely,” Janus snapped before coming over and grabbing Remus by the shoulders. “You have to understand, Remus. This is dangerous, even for you—“
“More dangerous than it is for you? You forgetting which one of us is invulnerable here?”
“They’ll use Roman,” Janus said, giving Remus a single shake. “You might be physically invulnerable but—They never had to hurt any of you to keep me in line, but they know you fold when they put Roman under pressure. If they think you’re dead, they wont’ have a reason to hurt him. You might be indestructible Remus, but are you willing to risk him?”
“So start a rumour you’ve developed mind control powers or something—They’d believe it! Dammit, Janus, you need me! I get you don’t have the resources to take them head on yet, but I can help you get them faster because we need to get them out!”
Suddenly, Remus had all of his big brother’s attention.
“What happened?” Janus demanded.
Remus pushed down all his panic and the memory of Thomas’s last expression.
“Janus. When you died—when you left… They started experiments on Virgil.”
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lov3nerdstuff · 5 years ago
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Perfect Illusions
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~Doctor Hiddleston AU~
*Tom Hiddleston x reader*
Oneshot
Words: 6.2k
Summary: You're an intern at the most reknown hospital in your city, when you run into Dr. Hiddleston for the first time. Over the months of your work together you develop a close friendship, but when you help him through a rough time, you realize that you might be feeling more for him than just friendship... way more. And when he invites you over to his place for some necessary distraction, you know that this will either end very well or very badly for both of you.
A.N.: Requested by @foodthatsgoodforyoursoul who wanted Tom in scrubs! Here we go 😁 Also, I have absolutely no clue about the medical professions or about working at a hospital, so pls don't kill me if I got the facts wrong. We're all here for sexy Tom in scrubs (and some cutie domestic Tom), so that's what you get from me! 💗✨
Also check out my Masterlist!
______________________________
You had been a medical intern in the most renowned hospital in your entire region for six months now, and those six months had been both heaven and hell to you. You were stationed in the surgical department, the pride of the entire hospital, and that meant impossible working hours, insufferable competitive thinking and ignorant (mostly male) colleagues. The department was large, gigantic even, and even after six months, you still hadn't met everyone you were working with, which honestly wasn't even entirely your own fault. Most doctors deemed themselves too important to talk to an intern, while most nurses just stuck to themselves. That had left you to being quite alone for about a month, until you had finally met the one person who half of the department loved for his impossible talent and knowledge, while the other half hated him for the very same reason. Thomas Hiddleston, renown surgeon and head of your department, and thus technically also your boss. But the day you had met, something had just clicked with the two of you, and you'd gotten along immediately. Since that day, work had become more fun for you, as both of you had at last found the one person you could actually be yourselves with. And over the course of the months, you had become something like friends. Work friends, at least. At first.
While mostly everyone addressed him solemnly by his last name, he had been quick to offer you to use his first name. And thus, you were maybe the only person in the entire hospital who was allowed to call him Tom. Somehow, you took a strange sense of pride in that.
He was the most brilliant thinker and an even better physician, precise to the impossible and knowledgeable even beyond. If you ever had any question at all, though you yourself were quite decent at the job as well, you would always come to him first and he would gladly help you out. Occasionally, he would actually come to YOU indeed, in seek of your opinion on something, or maybe just to give you an opportunity to practice. Anyway, he valued your opinion, your work and your presence and that maybe was the greatest compliment he could've made you.
Tom was a cheerful person, almost always smiling or laughing about something, if not trying to make you or his colleagues laugh as well. A real dork even, once one got to know him better, which surprisingly not many people bothered to do. They let themselves be blinded by his smiles like they were blinded by the crisp white of his scrubs… never bothering to look closer, to spot the small glimpses of shadow in his eyes. The speckles of something not quite so happy and cheerful, not as practiced and collected.
It had taken you a good three months to notice for the first time, admittedly, but you had noticed it at all and that's what you focused on. He had never talked much about his personal life, at least at first, nor about whatever it was that had the shadows on his face deepen from time to time and the rims of his eyes turn a little more red. Some days, you found that his curls were just slightly more disheveled, his smile a little more forced and his eyes a little less bright than usual. But you never had commented on it, not for the longest time, for despite the professional friendship you had built, you had known it wasn't your place to interfere in his affairs. Until a month ago, when at last your professional friendship had started to change slowly, to drift more into the array of a different kind of relationship. That's when things had started to get a little more messy, and a lot more interesting.
_______________
It had started out fairly ordinary in the beginning of your professional relationship, as mere brief acquaintances, when he had suddenly requested for specifically you to care for his patients before and after their surgery, and had allowed you to watch what he was doing whenever possible, sometimes let you assist him even. Much to the dismay of his colleagues, but he hadn't cared about them, and so you hadn't either.
Then, a few weeks later, he had actually left the sanctuary that was his office in order to have a chat with you over coffee, during your simultaneous break, and then made a habit of it to continue every single day. Sometimes that had been all you saw of him really, and other days you'd had more work together. Both was fun, even though you enjoyed his private company more and more and actually found yourself looking forward to coffee break as soon as your shift would start. That's when your work friendship had started, as a small planted seed on the soil of everybody else's refusal to deal with either of you.
Another few weeks later, he had asked you for the first time if you'd care to grab lunch together, in the highly modern cafeteria that still somehow didn't manage to make their food NOT taste like hospital chow. But his company had made up for that, by far even, and you had been surprised that he had actually wanted to sit with you, and only you. Nobody else had dared to sit down at your table, maybe because they feared him or maybe because they looked down on you… but Tom had let you know on that first day of shared lunch that you were actually the first person in years who bothered to sit with him. You'd laughed, thinking that must've been a joke, then frowned once the doubt had set in, and at last you had looked at him almost sadly upon the realization that he was being serious. You hadn't understood why people didn't want to sit with him, and you'd told him that much. He had smiled, a real and honest smile, and you had felt the tingles starting in the pit of your stomach for the first time. You had blamed it on the cafeteria's chow back then. That's when your work friendship had started to grow small buds, and even smaller roots.
As you had continued to have coffee and lunch together every day, he also had let you in on more of his work. Somehow your shifts had started falling together with his all the time, both at day and night, but you hadn't questioned how on earth he had been able to arrange that. He was the chief physician, medical director and all, and that surely came with its privileges. So you had happily spent hours upon hours in his office, going through reports and screenings together, and sometimes you would give your evaluation of them by accident, only for Tom to request you do it more often. The tingles had spread from the darkest part of your being right into the light, crawling up your arms and legs whenever he was around. That's when your work friendship had started growing more quickly, flourishing with the brightest ideas and happiest times during both your work days.
Eventually, especially during those impossibly long night shifts, you had come to talk about more meaningful things. About the big questions and the even bigger answers neither of you could really have shared with anyone else. You understood Tom on a level that was beyond collegial, beyond professional… and you felt likewise safe and understood by him. And so your tingles had spread throughout your entire being like wildfire, consuming your heart and mind eventually as they had your body. Your heart had started beating more quickly whenever Tom was around, and you had started working harder if only to somehow prove to him your worth. Not that you had needed to in the first place, he had always known how bright you were. That's when your friendship had become more of a real friendship, not one merely reduced to work and smalltalk. You had grown to admire him even more, and he had grown to admire you in return.
From that point on, close to the five month mark of your work together, you had become inseparable. He had started talking about more personal things, as had you, but he had always avoided to speak of his circumstances of living, and his relationship. You'd known that he had a girlfriend, and you had felt an unpleasant stinging in your heart whenever she had been mentioned (which luckily had happened only very rarely). Tom preferred hearing about your life and never had ceased to express his sincere interest in it, and you had gladly told him whatever he had wished to know. And while your friendship had gotten closer and closer, you had started to believe that you might be feeling more for Tom than simple friendship indeed. The tingling had turned more into a brightly burning flame, a yearning and a wish… you didn't allow yourself to admit what you wished for however. So you had just enjoyed the friendship, and both the work and private conversations, and hoped that you'd be fine.
And surprisingly, you were fine for the longest time. Not truly happy of course, but content enough with the very close friendship the two of you had. As long as Tom was happy, you would deal with absolutely anything to keep him that way.
But that was when things started to change yet again.
_______________
Tom was always putting on a happy face when working with others, and only in the comfort of your presence alone, he allowed for the mask to slip. Then he would tell you why he wasn't happy for real, maybe because he'd had a bad night, or a difficult patient, or another of those annoying talks with the financial department. You would usually comfort him by bringing him coffee, or chocolate, by buying him lunch, or by simply listening to what was on his mind. Occasionally, rarely, you would give him a hug if he really needed it, only for your heart to almost explode in equal joy and pain. You shouldn't be hugging him, shouldn't want to so badly, not when he had a girlfriend… not when you wanted to keep your feelings a secret. But sometimes he just needed the comfort, and that was more important to you than your own silly feelings. Somehow you had ended up always putting Tom first, and you didn't even mind it the least bit. You'd come to the lasting conclusion that you loved him, dearly, and if you could only express that by being the best friend possible to him, then that would be your way of fate.
That was until he started putting on a happy facade around you as well, brushing off your questions with a mere 'it's nothing' or 'I'm fine'. And yet, you could clearly tell that he wasn't. It continued like that for a couple days, a week, turning into two, with him clearly upset but refusing to admit that anything was wrong at all, until at last, on Friday afternoon close to the end of your last shift for the week, you had enough.
So you walked into his office, without knocking as he had instructed you, with the determination that you would make him talk. Screw work or professionalism… he was your friend, and he needed your help even if he didn't want to admit it. Tom never liked to impose his own problems onto other people, but today you would make him do just that.
"Alright, spill the tea." You started as you sat down in a chair, facing him with a calm expression.
"What?" He rose an eyebrow at you once he looked up from his documents, flipping them shut to place them on a high stack of folders.
"What's up with you?"
"Like I said, I'm perfectly fine, Y/n, I…"
"I don't believe you." You stated in the same calm, eyes not once leaving his. This time, you wouldn't let him off the hook.
"Well, that's your problem, not mine." He replied almost coldly, in a low grumble. "Believe what you want."
You merely rose an eyebrow at him in return, as he had just, even if unintentionally, proven your point. Tom in his normal mind would never snap at you, nor would he utter a single mean word towards anyone if not absolutely necessary. And never directed at you.
"Alright…" Tom finally sighed, closing his eyes as he rested his elbows on the wooden desk and his face in his hands. For a moment he stayed like that, silently, until he spoke up again. "It's not fine. I am not fine. Not by far…"
"Well, admitting it is a start to better things. I'm here to help you, Tom, always. You know that, right?" You spoke gently as you rose to your feet, stepped around the desk and sat down on the edge of it, right next to Tom, to place a reluctant hand on his shoulder. He sighed upon the touch, a pleasant sound lowly coming right from the depth of his chest, and you had to suppress the blush that threatened to tint your cheeks a deep crimson.
"I know…" He sighed under his breath. "You're way too good to me, Y/n… I don't deserve your kindness."
"Nonsense." You replied immediately, in a calming voice. "What's wrong?"
"Too much…"
"What can I do to help?" You asked instead of dwelling on your previous question. Making him feel better was way more important than knowing the reason behind his misery, at least for now. You'd first make sure he was feeling better, then kick the ass of whoever had him feeling so down.
Tom lifted his head from his hands and turned his face to look at you with a small, almost touched smile. "I don't know."
"Coffee?"
"No…"
"A hug?"
For a moment his lips parted as if he meant to speak, but simply remained still as he failed to form the right words. "Maybe later, alright?" He breathed at last.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you need." You smiled back, a feigned smile, ignoring the small sting his words left in your heart. But not only you could see beyond his facade, it worked both ways around.
Slowly, reluctantly almost, Tom placed his own hand on top of yours that was still resting on his shoulder, giving you a few seconds to pull back should you have wished so. You didn't, and once he realized that, he intertwined his fingers with yours and lifted both your hands off his shoulder to breath a feathery kiss to the back of your smaller hand. His eyes met yours, and your heart skipped multiple beats, then started racing like mad.
"Thank you, Y/n… for caring." He said quietly, with a small smile.
"Of course I care." You replied in a voice equally quiet, for you weren't sure you could keep it from breaking had you spoken any louder. "And I do want to make you feel better."
"I know…"
"It's a little difficult to, since I don't even know what exactly is wrong with you."
"I… I've had a few rather rough days. A lot to think about. And a lot of work in addition to that."
"Maybe some distraction would do you good then?"
"What are you thinking of?" He asked with a small chuckle and an honest smile for once, as he looked up at you in the barest hint of amusement.
"We could go out, tonight." You said before you could stop yourself, but then decided to just go with it and ignore the possible implications of your words. He might not even understand it as you asking him for a date, after all. No, he certainly wouldn't. "You know, we could go to a bar and have dinner and a few beers, or visit the movies and have a good laugh at one of those ridiculously exaggerated action films…"
Again, Tom gave you another sad half smile before he replied. He was still holding your hand, gently caressing your knuckles with his thumb. "Those are great ideas, really, but I'm afraid I couldn't stand being around people at the moment. Working with them has already been exhausting enough this week."
"Oh…" You breathed, yet again before your lips would seal, then continued on in a neutral voice. "That's alright, I completely understand… We really don't have to do anything, of course, it's perfectly fine…"
"No, I…" He interrupted you, looking down to the chaotic desk in front of him for a moment, then finally back up at you. "I would love to spend time with you… for distraction, and… yeah. But maybe instead of a bar and the movies, we could…" He stopped, frowning at you ever so slightly as his shoulders sank down a little.
"Do go on." You said encouragingly. "I'm down for anything, don't worry."
"Maybe we could cook at my place, and watch a movie after that…" He said quietly, almost as if he was afraid of speaking the words out loud. Now you actually did blush, a little. Tom had never invited you to his place, and neither had you ever invited him. You had gone out to a bar once before, with a couple colleagues to celebrate someone going into retirement, but that was it. That was every outside-of-work time you'd spent together.
"That sounds really great…" You replied with a shy half smile. "But… I'm a little scared I'll be fifth-wheeling the entire night."
"What?" Tom frowned at you in utter irritation, and you could feel the nervousness crawling up your back. Not for discomfort, but out of the fear that you would somehow insult Tom and thereby ruin everything.
"I… I'm not sure if your… girlfriend would like… me being around for… your… night in." You stumbled over your own words like you usually stumbled over your own feet. Communicating your thoughts was a maze of too many wrong paths that didn't allow turning back.
For a moment Tom's eyes widened in realization, then his face fell ever so slightly, and at last he caught himself again, showing a neutral expression. "Don't worry, she won't be around. How's seven for you?" And to emphasize his point, he gave you a smile that was neither feigned nor honest.
"Uh… seven is good." You replied a little slowly, then snapped out of your irritation (for the moment, at least). "I can go grocery shopping, if you'd like. I'm off my shift now, and my apartment is only five minutes away."
"That would be amazing. I still have to finish up a report, and I'd also like to clean my place a little before having you over." He replied with an honest smile now, giving your hand another squeeze before he finally let go. You missed his warmth immediately.
"What would you like to cook tonight?" You then asked to distract from your eyes giving away any hint of sadness at the loss of his touch.
"Surprise me." He grinned at you and the sparkle you adored so much, the spark you had missed for the last two weeks, finally returned to his eyes a short moment later. Your Tom was back at last.
______________
After you clocked out for the day and changed back into your streetwear, you biked the short way home to take a shower first of all. But even after that, your heart was still beating like crazy. You'd spend the entire evening with Tom, at his place… alone. Sure, the night shifts sometimes felt like one was entirely alone, but you'd never been alone for real. And the thing about his girlfriend still wouldn't leave your mind as you moved on to do your hair and get dressed. Would Tom get into trouble for inviting you over so spontaneously? You honestly didn't mind getting into trouble yourself, for you were doing this to make Tom feel better after a rough two weeks, but you worried if he would get into trouble. That's surely not something you wanted, but it was out of your control, and you could only hope that he would be alright.
Pushing the thought out of your head at last, you decided to wear something a little nicer than usual, but still comfortable enough to chill on the couch in. Sheer black tights, a body-hugging jersey dress that was both sexy and as comfortable as sweatpants, and a loose graphic tee on top, for just the dress might've been a little too… much. You were going to cook and chill after all, not go clubbing.
An hour later, you stood in front of Tom's door and knocked with one hand, while you balanced the giant bag with groceries in your arms. He really lived in one of the most expensive apartment buildings in the entire city, and you wondered just how much he must earn in his position in the hospital. Funny, you'd almost forgotten that he lived in an entirely different world than you did... He had a Portier and a penthouse, and you had six flights of stairs to your shared two-room apartment and too much debt from student loans.
Tom opened the door with a smile and a chuckle once he spotted the bag in your arms. "Hey Y/n…"
You returned the smile as you stepped into the apartment, letting him take the bag out of your hold for you to take off your jacket and shoes. "Hey… I hope I'm not too late."
"No, it's only three minutes after seven." He replied in amusement. "You're all good."
"I would've been here five minutes earlier, but the Portier refused to let me come up. I guess he doesn't see girls in Queen t-shirts all too often." You replied with the same amusement, as you followed behind Tom. The apartment really was incredible… open and probably bigger than anything you'd ever live in, but still cozy in a way. At the opposite side of the large room, you saw that the wall wasn't as much a wall as it was a window, overlooking the city and even the forest far off in the distance. Wow… what it must be like to live here. As you tore your eyes from the incredible view and the absolutely stunning living room, you finally looked around the kitchen you were just walking into. It was no less impressive, but you didn't really want to stare and thus looked back to Tom who placed the bag on a counter.
"What do you think of the place?" He asked without turning around.
"It's incredible… large, and probably a hell to keep tidy, but still… it seems very comfortable. Most penthouses in movies seem cold and clinical, but this… I like it." You smiled as you looked back through the open door towards the large windows in the distance.
"I would've loved to live in a smaller and less over the top place… but in my position, one has to fulfill certain expectations." He sighed.
"You do?" You frowned at him, turning around so you were facing him with your entire body again.
"Unfortunately." He shrugged. "But I tried to make the best of it."
"I think you did well." You smiled, and Tom did too. Then your eyes reverted to the bag of groceries. "So… I bought everything we need for dinner, then I got wine, ice cream, popcorn, tequila and lime."
"Tequila?" He rose an eyebrow at you in amusement as he moved to unpack the bag. "With lime?"
"Yup. Tequila because you looked like you need it, and lime because it's way better than lemon." You grinned, upon which the two of you moved to prepare your dinner together.
______________
While cooking, you already started on the first bottle of wine, which honestly only made cooking together just perfect. You listened to some music too, and sang along, occasionally dancing together while you waited for the oven or the microwave. Honestly, it was such a relief to see Tom laughing and enjoying himself after two weeks of gloom, and you wondered repeatedly how you should keep yourself from just acting like the lovesick puppy you were. His smile, his eyes sparkling like the stars themselves, the way he looked at you… hell, even seeing him in a t-shirt and jeans for once was doing things to your poor heart that you couldn't ignore, couldn't suppress. But you were happy, more than happy even.
By the time you had both finished your dinner and done the dishes (which you had insisted on helping with), you had finished the wine and decided to take a break. Neither of you wanted to ruin the night by getting all too tipsy, and you still wanted to watch a movie. You let Tom pick whatever he wanted to watch as you still marveled at the view you had of the city, now that it was dark outside but for the million lights far down below.
Then you both got comfortable on the couch, probably sitting way too close together for any means of appropriateness, but you also couldn't bring yourself to care. The heat of his body was scorching your side, crawling through the thin fabric of your clothing to create goosebumps all over your arms.
"Are you cold?" Tom asked a short moment later, as he noticed your shivers. Gods, if only he knew…
"I'm good." You returned with a small smile, but Tom still moved the slightest bit closer to you as he watched the ongoings in the tele, gently rubbing your arms, your shoulders, your neck… until his hand stilled on your upper arm furthest from him, holding you to his side tightly. You didn't even know what movie you were watching, and you were thirty minutes in.
You later found out that it was some kind of thriller, a rather scary one admittedly, and by the end of it you were shaking like dry leaves in the harsh wind of autumn. Still, the film had been amazing… and being curled into Tom's side for the entire duration of it had been even more amazing.
"Now you look like you need a tequila." Tom suddenly said once the movie had finished, pulling you out of your thoughts.
"Oh, well, yeah…" You chuckled, as you did what you thought to be the most appropriate, yet also the most painful: you scooted away, just a little, for more your heart couldn't bear. "The movie was scarier than expected."
"Very well then." He smiled at you, and stood up to prepare the drinks for both of you. "Do you want to watch another movie, or do you wish to go home?"
"Let's rephrase that: do you feel well enough now, or do you need me to distract you some more?" You returned as you watched him move around the kitchen in the distance. This was really something you could get used to, being like this, with him… but you shouldn't.
"Oh, I'm absolutely happy while you're around. I just doubt that I will be once you're gone." He called back with a small laugh that went straight to your gut. If he kept on saying things like that, your heart would explode by the time it was midnight. Maybe even earlier than that.
"So you would prefer for me to stay?" You questioned with a smile as you placed your chin on the backrest of the couch, watching him as he came walking towards you with the most breathtaking expression you'd ever seen on him. For once, he looked truly happy.
"Obviously!" He smiled as he set everything down on the coffee table. "If that would be alright with you…"
"Obviously…" You grinned back, taking the shot he was offering you with the feeling that this night would either end very well or very badly for both of you.
______________
Three shots and half a movie later, the sound of the clock on the wall hitting midnight made you jump rather badly. You'd watched another rather scary movie, and once again you had more and more curled into Tom's side without really meaning to. He had placed his hand on your knee that rested against his thigh a while back, and your shrieking at the clock's sudden noise made him grip onto your leg just a little too tightly as he jumped as well.
Your head whipped around for your wide, frightened eyes to meet his, and he looked back with the same freaked out expression… until a second later you both had to laugh out loud at each other's expression.
"Gods, that stupid clock…" You groaned with a chuckle, nudging him in the side with your entire body. Somehow, you didn't care to move away now, even if it would've been more appropriate. But he didn't seem to mind, as he merely smiled at you adoringly while the movie continued playing to your right.
"I really should be heading home… I can't imagine your girlfriend being all too happy about me still being here in the middle of the night." You blurted out before you could tell your mind to shut up. Darn alcohol… it blurred your filter, made it slow…
Tom's smile dropped immediately, and his eyebrows furrowed back into the weary frown he'd been wearing a lot over the last days. And yet, this time he actually looked at your eyes after a few seconds and sighed deeply. "She's not coming back, Y/n…"
"What?" Your eyebrows rose without your doing, and somehow his body heat seemed to feel so much more intense all of a sudden. Or was it your own skin heating up? "Is… is she on a business trip?"
Now Tom's eyes left yours again, as his head dropped back onto the backrest behind you, and he let out a desperate, and slightly bitter laugh while he stared up at the ceiling. "Oh, my lovely Y/n… You're such a genius and yet so enchantingly stupid sometimes."
"Thanks?" You tried, sending him a doubtful look. "I… Sorry?"
"Don't be." He sighed, then stilled for a moment as his face turned serious once more. "We… separated. At the beginning of the week, and she had her last belongings picked up this morning."
"Oh no…" You felt a veil of stone clinging onto your heart immediately, as the largest part of you felt sincere sadness for the man you loved. Even if technically this might've been good news, you could never be happy about it if he wasn't. "I'm so sorry Tom. I really am… Why didn't you tell me?"
"I…" He started, jaw clenching for a second before he finally sat up straighter, turning towards you so that you sat directly in front of each other, only a few inches apart. "I didn't want to worry you."
Slowly nodding, you still felt the tiniest bit hurt that he wouldn't tell you about something that important, especially if it was worrying him. "Did… did she leave you, or did you both decide to split? Is that why you were so sad over the last few weeks?"
Again, Tom sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. The muscles in his face seemed to tick in accordance with his thoughts, but you could wait. You would wait, for however long it would take. He was more than worth it, both as a friend and as the person you loved more than anything.
"I left her, actually." He finally replied, quietly but with a certain calm that brought goosebumps to your skin. What? "I left her, and she was absolutely…"
"Devastated?" You added in, hoping to complete his sentence.
"... indifferent." He finished instead, looking almost relieved at the words he spoke. You on the other hand simply felt confused, and obviously it showed, for he continued on a moment later. "She said 'whatever', took her Gucci bag and was out the door before I even finished my sentence. One day later a company came to pick up her things."
"Wow…" You breathed as your heart simply broke into a million pieces, lying shattered at his feet. "I… I don't even know how anyone could be so heartless."
"Well, I only ask myself why I lived with her for so long… We were nothing but strangers in the end."
"How long… were you together?"
"Three years."
"I'm sorry…"
"For the time we lived together, or that we split?" Tom asked almost a little bemusedly.
"That she hurt you." You replied honestly as your eyes fixed on his so intently that you were sure to see his soul behind the swirling storm of blue.
"She didn't hurt me, not really. Actually, she hasn't made me feel anything at all for the longest time." He shrugged while his gaze remained locked with yours. This was the most he had ever talked about his now passed relationship, and while it pained you to hear, you also wanted to know everything he was willing to share. Maybe that was masochistic of you, but you couldn't turn off your curiosity.
"What… what went wrong?" You asked quietly, and involuntarily scooted the smallest bit closer to him as your legs that you'd tugged under you started to go numb, urging you to cross them under you in a different way that mirrored his position.
"It wasn't love… It was a perfect illusion. I don't remember what drew me to her in the first place, but I start to believe that she was drawn more to my money than to me. And I merely was in love with the idea of being in love, and being loved."
"And… why did you break up with her just now, if you didn't even live with her anymore, only next to her? Why did it sadden you only now, and not last year, or next year?" You inquired, maybe a little more bravely with the alcohol still in your blood. "What happened, Tom?"
"You happened." He replied with a half smile that was equally shy as it was breathtaking, while his words did the rest to stun you. "At first I didn't know what was happening to me, I didn't realize… But two weeks ago, it hit me like a strike of lightning, and the revelation was…" And for once, Tom –the most eloquent person you had ever met– was at a loss for words.
"...Was what?" You asked quietly, lips parted as your chest rose and fell quickly as if you'd been running a marathon. Your heart definitely was beating that fast.
"It was the most intense thing I have ever felt, it still is, and I knew that I had been living a lie. I couldn't continue like that, not when all I wanted… was you, Y/n." He smiled as his deep velvet voice wrapped around your senses, his words dripping off his lips like the sweetest honey. Your breath caught in your throat and your eyes widened, studying his expression as it was only illuminated by the dim glow of the tele.
"Please say something…" He whispered softly, as his eyes turned into a wild mixture of hopeful and afraid.
"I… You… you want ME?" You breathed incredulously, shivering ever so slightly from the rush of pure adrenaline coursing through your blood. "But… why?"
"Because the realization that struck me so very intensely was the one that I am absolutely crazy about you." He said in a nervous laugh. "I… I love you so impossibly much that I cannot for the life of me imagine why it took me so long to understand that."
"But why on earth did that make you so sad?!" You questioned before you could think of a better thing to say, stones lifting off your shoulders and breaking the chains around your heart along the way.
"Gosh, I wasn't sad about it, I wasn't even sorry. I knew that I had to get out of this pretended relationship no matter what you feel for me, because now that I know just how much it is possible to love someone, I couldn't possibly be content with anything less. That's why I ended it. But that's not what troubled my mind for the past two weeks."
"And what did?"
"I was, am, simply afraid of what's going to happen now. You see, falling in love is a deeply scary thing, and a dangerous one as well if it endangers the friendship we have built. I… I simply was so torn if I should tell you, because I can't bear the thought of losing you and…"
He didn't get to say a single word more, for your lips shut him up in the best way possible. And from that point on, he knew that he didn't need to be afraid, that he didn't need to pretend anymore. You were all his to love and he could be yours in every way, every day, for as long as you would have him. And you definitely didn't plan on ever letting him go again.
For now he only pulled you into his lap as your lips met his over and over again for the sweetest affirmation of your love, and the promise of so much more yet to come.
_____________________________
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I hope you enjoyed this guys! 😁💗✨ It was a little difficult for me to write at first, because I didn't know how to keep it in the hospital 😅 but I still hope it was any good ☺️ Toss a comment to your writer, oh valley of plenty 😉 and let me know if you want to be added to my tag list!
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aladygrieve · 4 years ago
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Merlin/Arthur Fic Rec
** - Favourite
FANDOM CLASSICS
Castle (The Rules by Which We Live) by kickflaw Word count: 16,200 Summary: Merlin knows that getting off fastest when he’s got some BDSM porno playing loud on the computer doesn’t mean he’d really like to be that bloke, gagged and bent over and bound. Right? Notes: Modern AU and the best BDSM I’ve ever read.
Destiny That Darkly Hides Us by Nympha_Alba Word count: 63,000 Summary: It’s 1913, the practice of homosexuality is unlawful, so is the practice of magic. When Arthur Pendragon and Merlin Emrys meet as Cambridge undergrads, they’re both hungry for a real and true connection without secrets. For a short time they believe they may have found it. But war breaks out and separates them, and it seems unlikely that they will meet again. After all, what are the odds? Notes: Includes reincarnation!
Drastically Redefining Protocol by rageprufrock Word count: 46,000 WIP Summary:In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose. Notes: Modern AU in which Merlin is a chain-smoking med student and Arthur is the womanizing Prince of Wales. Includes several companion stories.
**The Student Prince by FayJay Word count: 145,200 Summary: A modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love… Notes: Because really, no rec list is complete without the novel-length jewel of the Merlin fandom. It’s plotty, beautifully written and perfectly in-character, and is especially dear to my heart now that I’ve actually visited St. Andrews. I highly recommend the podfic, as FayJay is an incredible reader.
REINCARNATION/FINALE-COMPLIANT
Hold My Heart Until it Beats by ingberry Word count: 1920 Summary: Arthur dies and waits for Albion to need him again. But most of all he waits for Merlin. Notes: Great use of the Arthur waits trope.
**Hopeless Wanderer by Magnolia822 Word count: 18,500 Summary: Merlin has been wandering the world for hundreds of years alone; one day a young blond man moves into the flat upstairs. But does Arthur remember? Notes: Still my all-time favourite reincarnation fic.
I Keep Going Over the World We Knew (Over and Over) by Mellacita Word count: 51,100 Summary: When Merlin Emrys is sent on a ‘round-the-world assignment, he begins remembering a life of magic, dragons, and kings. To make matters worse, a strange woman starts stalking him along the way. And that’s before he even meets Arthur Pendragon, whose answer to climate change is going to save the world. Because apparently just saving Britain won’t be enough this time around. Notes: Plotty and intricate and very, very cool.
Let Your Heart Hold Fast by Acavall Word count: 3000 Summary: Merlin waits for Arthur’s return, and the only way to hold on to his memories is to write them down. Over and over, again and again, as history marches by. Notes: Works interesting historical references into the reincarnation deal.
Never Let Me Go by LadyVader Word count: 3500 Summary: Merlin has walked the world for a long time waiting for his friends return. Notes: Great use of the rest of the characters.
Now I Will Unsettle the Ground Beneath You by nu_breed Word count: 42,300 Summary: Merlin’s dreams have always fuelled his art, but they’ve always been abstract and removed from reality. Soon after he meets Gwaine, he starts to see vivid images of a past full of death and magic and love for a King who was ripped from him. Things only escalate further when he spends a weekend in the country with Gwaine and meets his group of friends, which includes aristocrat and It Boy, Arthur Pendragon. Merlin soon realises that no matter how hard you try, one thing is certain, you can’t fuck with destiny. Notes: Merlin’s dating Gwaine but he and Arthur can’t keep their hands off each other. I love it.
Old Love, But in Shapes That Renew and Renew Forever by leopardwrites Word count: 3500 Summary: People accept that an old man might live alone. People understand that he might have lost the greatest love he has ever known. Notes: Fics that deal with old!Merlin are never not going to be gut-wrenching.
CANON ERA
A Bet by juxtapose Word count: 1100 Summary: In which the Knights stumble upon a private moment between the Prince and his manservant, Leon is uncomfortable, and Gwaine decides to make a bet. Notes: All the knights are fantastic in this one.
The Accidental Seduction by Ras Elased Word count: 9000 Summary: Arthur’s a bit dim and a prank goes horribly awry, but in the end this works out to the benefit of all involved. Notes: Almost unbearably adorable.
**Finding Home by riventhorn Word count: 7860 Summary: When Gaius retires, a new physician takes over, one that quickly kicks Merlin out of his room and takes it for himself, Arthur finds Merlin sleeping in the stables..and it’s winter. Notes: Good old-fashioned hurt/comfort with a dash of fluff. Probably my favourite canon-era fic.
**Fools of Us All by adelagia Word count: 11,100 Summary: Merlin accidentally makes everybody in Camelot fall in love with him. Everybody except Arthur, that is. Notes: Cute, funny and very in-character.
Freedom Hangs Like Heaven by derryere Word count: 9000 Summary: It’s happened five times and they don’t talk about it. Notes: The unresolved romantic tension will end you.
The Greater Bond by ravenflight21 Word count: 15,500 Summary: When Arthur is kidnapped by slavetraders, Merlin has only one option: to buy him. Playing Arthur’s master has its drawbacks – but it also has extraordinary compensations. Notes: Fabulous trope that also includes fancy dress. What more do you want?
**A Heavy Heart to Carry by ThursdayNext Word count: 12,561 Summary: When Merlin is captured and injured, Arthur must face up to his own feelings for his manservant as well as the many secrets he discovers are being kept from him. Notes: I think this might have been the first merthur fic I ever read. It’s Cold Outside by ionionie Word count: 2500 Summary: Merlin and Arthur get trapped in a cave on a freezing cold night. How do they stay warm? Notes: I’m such a sucker for this trope it’s actually sad.
**Meteorology by fayhe Word count: 4600 Summary: Character study with spot-on cameos from Uther, Morgana, Gaius and even Kilgarrah. Notes: Best Gen.
So That I Might Be Where You Areby cherrybina Word count: 4600 Summary: When a spell goes wrong, Merlin and Arthur are linked together in an unusual way, which leads to lots and lots of UST. Notes: Not kidding about the UST, which works surprisingly well. **Stars Above, Stones Below by Destina Word count: 46,800 Summary: After the disastrous end of his betrothal to Gwen and the regret of his offer to Princess Mithian, Arthur swears off finding a wife until he’s ready to wed. When Merlin offers himself to Arthur as bedmate, Arthur suggests they hand-fast in secret for a single year of mutual pleasure without obligation. As their year together unfolds, and secrets and betrayals unravel around them, Arthur and Merlin learn there is no such thing as uncomplicated pleasure. Everything they thought they knew can change in the span of a single year. Notes: Another one of my absolute favourites. Winterbloom by Shinybug Word count: 6200 Summary: Deep in the woods in the frozen heart of winter, a careless comment leads to a redefinition of Arthur’s relationship with his manservant. Notes: Emotionally-constipated boys shivering in the cold will always be one of my favourite things.
MODERN AU
A Change of Pace by kianspo Word count: 54,600 Summary: The one in which Arthur works in finances and his suits are various (two) shades of grey, Merlin works in advertisement and has no boundaries whatsoever, Morgana drinks rum, Mithian stages a coup, Agravaine is aggravating, and Elena’s house is amazing. Also, Andy Warhol is mentioned in vain, and Arthur and Merlin fall in love in Victorian era style. Notes: In which Arthur has a structured, ordered, boring life, until Merlin comes along.
This Silly ol’ Dance is Perfect for Two by SlantedKnitting Word count: 80,500 Summary: Arthur is young, gorgeous, talented, and captain of one of the best football teams in England; his life should be perfect. But he can’t keep a girlfriend for more than a few months, and it’s not just because he isn’t ready to settle down. When his most recent girlfriend dumps him, he has a rough night at the pub and has to be dragged home by his neighbour, Merlin. Merlin is an archivist, a Ph.D student, and he hates football almost as much as he hates Arthur. They both have their own reasons for not wanting to spend time with each other, but after that disastrous night, remaining silent neighbors doesn’t seem like much of an option anymore. Notes: Plotty and original. Wicked Game by winterstorm Word count: 42,400 Summary: Arthur’s the King of Camelot…nightclub. He can pick and choose who he wants, and he does – often – no promises and absolutely no repeats. The night he chooses Merlin might just be his undoing. Notes: Slight age difference.
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