#thank you you helped push the needle and make tumblr so much more hospitable

[pinbones]

I've shittalked the people who keep falling for scapegoating exclusionary tumblr unpopularity cycle crap, but it's worth thanking the people who've been on our sides the whole time. For every blogger who posts hate about the target du jour, there's at least one blog with less followers who's been with us from the start and I just think that's awesome. So yeah, shoutout xxx

[barnesxplum-blog]

Steve Rogers x FemaleReader

Summary: Steve Rogers is working as a builder on a construction site right outside of your apartment building, and causes you some *ahem*problems *ahem*

A/N: this is my first time writing anything on tumblr so pls be nice! Also I’d love any feedback! I’m still learning so much :)

Warnings: Smut (18+ only), catcalling, fluff(ish), swearing, unprotected sex. 

Word Count: 4,119

Shoutout to @shxrirogers for the kind words and support in helping me start writing :)

(GIF not mine)

You don’t know if it was the rippling muscles, or the soft, semi-sexual grunts tumbling from his lips that made you do a double-take. Either way, you were in a whole world of trouble, purely because of your wandering eyes. Because your mouth hung open for just a second too long. 

“Hi, sweetheart!” 

The words alone made your hairs bristle and caused numbness to bloom in your chest. 

Reluctantly, you slowed your gait and even dared to turn your head towards the construction site fully. It wasn’t your imagination. There he stood, his shirt was completely off, looking like he had just leaped out of one of those provocative calendars with half-naked men plastered across every month. His lack of clothing was unsurprising in this blistering heat, but all the same it a tugged at a cord somewhere deep inside of you. A cord that threatened to unravel and show no sign of stopping. 

The shirt in question was stuffed carelessly in the back pocket of his utility trousers, which of course, he wore low slung, the tops of his briefs peeking out and taunting anyone who dared to look. 

‘Surely this is a safety hazard’, you thought.

 Below his hard hat were two cocked eyebrows, and even further below were a set of pink lips twisted into the most irritating yet beautiful grin you’d ever seen. 

“You’re blushing,” he remarked, in an irritating sing-song voice, using the back of his hand to wipe away sweat from his forehead roughly. 

“She’s blushing, guys” he called over his shoulder, rousing incoherent grunts from the other men. 

“Can you blame her, Steve?” One whistled, crudely slapping his workmate’s butt before laughing loudly. Steve turned back, eyes following you closely as you moved slowly towards the door of your apartment complex. 

‘Of course, I’m fucking blushing, you’re standing there, half-nude in front of me with...with those out’ You thought, your eyes roving over his abs, though you pleaded with them to stop looking. 

You chose to look away and hurry inside and away from him. The inside was safe, at least. The only problem was, it was your building he and his crew were working on. It had only been a couple of days and you hadn’t had the guts to ask anyone how long they would be there for. All you knew is that they were there in the morning when you left for work and when you got back, they would be starting to pack up their equipment and head to whatever godforsaken bar they could hijack for the night. 

You heaved a sigh out, dropping your bag next to the door and collapsing onto your worn futon. 

“Rough day at work?”

 You dared to open just one eye to greet your roommate and best friend. 

“Not even, Bucky.” you sighed “not even...” 

Work was fine. Being a nurse was great. All you had to concern yourself with was stopping people from dying, and making sure they were reasonably comfortable while you did so. 

“So, why are you sulking?” He used his metal finger to prod at your cheek, the cool metal stunning you for a moment, causing you to gasp and twitch away from him. The sharp intake of breath caused your roommate to chuckle, and flop down beside you. 

“Mmnot” You slurred, burying your head in the arm of the sofa, your new sanctuary away from prying roommates and hot-as-sin builders. 

“Whatever,” he sighed and heaved himself up. “You so are” 

You watched him saunter back into his room, but leave the door open. You knew he wanted you to talk to him, but he would never push you. Just like you did for him all those years ago. He stood a little past his doorway, so you could see his silhouette fixing his hair into a tight knot. Not a bun. Not a ponytail. Certainly not a man bun. He hated all of the above variants. 

“Jesus, will those guys ever shut up?” Bucky muttered while gazing out of his window at the gaggle of construction workers making their way home for the night, as rowdy as a bunch of schoolboys. “When the hell are they gonna be done?” He mused to himself. 

You gathered the strength to stand and stare out of the open living room window, which had the same view as from Bucky’s room. You could hear them quite easily from the cracked open window. 

“Steve- Dude stop!” 

“And if I don’t?” 

You watched as the annoyingly hot construction worker finally released his colleague from a headlock, not before messing up his hair with his fist. 

“I hope soon,” you whispered under your breath, but you couldn’t help but feel you truly wanted the opposite.                                  

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before you were back on duty at the hospital. At least at work, your mind was occupied enough to forget the hot, humid night you spent trying to get the man out of your head manually and failing miserably at it, resorting to an evening alone with your right hand and your own vivid imagination. 

You shuddered at the thought of him finding out just how much he had affected you. Your colleague, Matt bounded up to you and took your state in - Buried in paperwork but somehow still whistling and smiling. 

“Y/N..?” He asked warily “is that really you?” 

You laughed and smacked his arm. 

“What? I can’t be happy?” 

“By all means!” He chuckled “It’s just normally you kinda despise admin” 

“Not today,” you winked cheerfully. 

“Well, if you’re happy doing paperwork you’ll be even happier demonstrating some stitches for a student doctor, wouldn’t you?” 

You picked up the stack of paper you were working through and tapped it on the table to straighten it out. 

“That does sound more exciting than filling these out.” You muse, scratching your head. 

He pulls out your chair with ease, making you yelp in surprise. 

“Off you go Y/L/N, I’ll take this from here” he sighed as he gently pushed you towards the hospital ward. 

You chuckled softly as you wandered towards the baffled looking student Matt had bestowed unto you. You introduced yourself to her and gave her some quick reassurance before whipping open the curtain separating yourself and the patient. You immediately picked up the chart and read aloud to the student. 

“Patient’s name is Mr. Rogers, 38, sustained some minor puncture and laceration wounds from a fall at work... what do we do doctor?” You ask smiling up at the student before you 

“Remove any debris, clean and suture?” She mumbles and you nod. 

After sliding the chart back into its place, you look up to assess the extent of the injuries and find yourself plunged into the depths of a pair of icy blue eyes. You jump back as though you had been burned by a hot stove. 

The exact same stomach-churning wave you had been feeling yesterday night washed over you, and your knees threatened to buckle and made you shift your weight from foot to foot nervously. 

Why the fuck was Steve from the construction site outside of your apartment here? 

The student threw a confused glance at the both of you, before sliding a stool to sit at Steve’s bedside. Thankfully, he looked just as surprised to see you and even had a flushed tinge to his otherwise pretty tan, uniform complexion. You cleared your throat and finally detached your eyes from his, gesturing for the student to begin. 

“So, Mr. Rogers, how did this happen?” The student asked while she disinfected the wounds on Steve’s arms and torso. 

“I was working,” he grunted, wincing at the sting “and I fell” 

You caught the subtle eye-roll the student gave in response to his obvious answer and smirked. 

It was as if you were saying the words before they even reached your brain for approval- “This would never have happened, though, if you were wearing a shirt and protective gear” You blurted, your eyes growing wider with every word you uttered. 

By the end of the sentence, you were almost literally kicking yourself. Steve’s eyes snapped up at you, a grin now plastered across his face, not dissimilar to the one he flashed at you the day before. 

“Then how the hell would I have gotten your attention” he squinted at your chest to read your name badge “Nurse Y/N...?” 

Hearing your name tumble from his lips was enough to force you to squeeze your thighs together in an attempt to suppress the tingling feeling emanating from between your legs, and pretend as though you didn’t hear him. 

Finally, your protégée was done with her clean up and switched places with you so you could show her how to suture up a wound properly. 

“Now, you grip the needle just like this...” you began.

 Absentmindedly, you placed a hand against Steve’s bare abdomen to steady yourself and instantly regretted it. 

He was warm. Very warm, in fact. It was strange that this surprised you. It was hot outside, after all. It was probably something to do with his muscle bound body looking like something that had been carved out of a cold block of marble, and placed in a museum to be marvelled at. Nevertheless, you became more and more self-conscious of how you touched him, and even more aware of his eyes boring into you as you nimbly finished up the stitching. 

“And...you’re all done.” You sighed, slightly disappointed. “Hope that helped,” you turned to your student. 

“Thank you, Y/N. It did.” She smiled at you and rushed off to lunch. 

“Yes, thank you Y/N.” Steve mimicked, now sitting up and smirking over at you. You raised an eyebrow at him as you fill out his chart. 

“What, are you not gonna say thank you back?” He teased “I could see how much you enjoyed feeling me up.” You blushed but maintained your silence. He shook his head and laughed a little. 

“I’m messing with you. You know that right?” He chuckled, but stopped quickly, as he noticed you only offered him a weak smile. 

“But seriously, thank you.” He sighed. “I guess I can get out of here now?” 

“You’re free to go, Sir” He gave you a meaningful look, and you could almost see his eyes darken a shade before he pulled on a dark grey Henley and strolled out of sight. 

You hated to admit it, but you disliked seeing him leave, and it was almost devastating to see him put a shirt on. The only consolation being that his butt in those pants worked wonders for your mood.                                                       

“I’m telling you Y/N, don’t invite Sam if you want to have a quiet night in with no hijinks,” He grumbled

 “I thought you were friends” you chuckled, flicking through yours and Bucky’s extensive DVD collection. 

“We are ... but he’s a problem” he explained, slamming the microwave door on the popcorn he had just placed in it. 

You rolled your eyes and raked a hand through your hair, before finally settling on a classic. 

“We’re watching back to the future...again?” Bucky feigned annoyance, shoving the bowl of popcorn between the two of you and curling up underneath a blanket on the other side of the couch. 

You could only see his eyes peering at you as he drew the blanket up above his nose, his legs stretched out and his ice block feet were planted on top of your thighs, draining their warmth. 

“Don’t act like you don’t love it,” you retorted as the opening sequence began. 

Much to both of your annoyance, a sharp knock at the door interrupted your movie just at both of your favourite part- the skateboard chase scene. 

“Did you order in?” Bucky paused the movie and gave you a confused look You shook your head, equally confused, and drew your knees up to your chest as Bucky stood and walked over to the front door. 

“This better be important.” he sighed as he pulled open the door forcefully. 

“What the hell?” Bucky whispered, his voice dripping with incredulity. Bucky was not a man who was easily surprised, so you quickly upped your seat and padded over to the door to see what could have possibly unsettled your normally stoic best friend/roommate. 

It was Steve. He wore a similar expression on his face to when he had seen you at the hospital early that morning. Only this time he had a shirt on and was clutching a bouquet of flowers. 

“Bucky?” It looked like all of the life force had drained from Steve’s face. After a few seconds of staring and silence, you decided to break the awkward silence. 

“I’m assuming you two know each other?” You chimed in. 

Bucky shuffled back to include you in the conversation and nodded. 

“Steve and I used to work together.” He explained, his eyes still fixated on Steve, who was now looking down at the ground. 

“You mean, back when you were an a-“ Bucky flinched beside you. You had almost forgotten how much Bucky hated talking about that. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled, briefly patting his tensed flesh arm. 

“Well, it’s nice to see you again,” Bucky continued, still holding his gaze. 

Steve looked up and offered Bucky a weak smile. “Yeah, it is,” he agreed. 

After a pregnant silence, Steve’s eyes widened. 

“Oh, you’re probably wondering why I’m here,” he chuckled nervously. 

You raised an eyebrow. This was a new side of Steve you’d observed. Not to say that you knew the guy well, but from what you had seen, he seemed to be a confident, bordering on cocky kind of guy, who loved attention. To cut it short, you had him down as a womaniser, but the way he was scratching at the nape of his neck and shuffling anxiously before yourself and Bucky gave you doubts. 

“I-I wanted to say thanks properly for today, Y/N” he tripped over his words a little as he thrust the bouquet towards you. 

Bucky now looked at you with that all too common confused look.

 “I did his stitches,” you explained, and thankfully that was enough for Bucky. 

“I was just doing my job,” you took the flowers “but thank you, Steve, that’s really sweet” 

“How did you know our door number?” Bucky asked, completely ignoring the heartwarming scene before him. 

Again, Steve blushed and smiled. “Maybe you should’ve been a detective, Buck” he laughed, “I asked one of your neighbours. I guess I got lucky” 

Bucky smirked at his comment and nodded, accepting the explanation. The conversation reached a natural end, and Bucky looked to you expectantly to bring it to its official close. 

He tended to rely on you in certain social situations, and you had grown used to it. “Well, thank you again, Steve...” you began. And just then you had a thought. 

“Why don’t you stay? We’re having a movie night.” Steve looked momentarily caught off guard and he stuffed his fists into his pockets. 

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he admitted. 

Bucky rolled his eyes and pulled Steve in by his wrist. 

“It’s back to the future tonight,” he muttered and resumed his usual position on the couch, watching intently as Steve sat between yourself and him after you had found a vase to place his flowers into. 

He could tell something was going on. Steve hadn’t acted like this since...forever ago. 

Finally, the ending credits rolled, and you noticed Bucky was fighting to keep his eyes open, his eyelids drooping and his mouth hanging open slightly. 

“Okay, I think we might have officially overtired the old man,” you remarked, chuckling as Bucky shot you a dirty look. 

He rose from his reclining position and announced he was heading to bed, not before shooting a long, meaningful glance at yourself and Steve. You were alone. At night. With Steve. You blushed as memories of you needing to touch yourself to satiate your yearning for him crept into your mind at what felt like the worst possible moment. You crossed your legs quickly to try to counteract the spreading warmth from your core. 

“Wanna watch something else?” You quickly offered. 

Steve shifted in his seat so he was closer to you, his arm draped over the back of the couch, almost brushing at your hair. “Whatever you want,” he smiled lazily at you. 

Though it was pretty dark in the living room you could see his pupils were blown, and were focused on your mouth. 

“Uh...I think they’re showing some old films on channel-“ “

You’re nervous,” he sighed, cutting you off. 

You shifted awkwardly in your seat, not knowing how to respond to his statement. Luckily for you, Steve seemed to have a plan of his own. Before you could properly react, he had brought his hand to your face, and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear before dragging a finger down your jawline to your chin, and resting it there. By now he was close enough for you to feel his body heat radiating from underneath his clothes. 

“You’re real pretty, Y/N.” He whispered. His eyes were now scanning your whole face. 

You felt your jaw drop and your mouth hang open, unsure of what was going to happen next. You couldn’t even summon the strength to say thank you. He was now firmly holding your chin between his thumb and forefinger and he gently brought it closer to his own face. You watched as his eyes fluttered closed and he pressed his lips to yours. His tongue darted playfully, asking for entrance, and you immediately moaned, granting him access. He brought his hands down to your waist, then your hips, and then squeezed at your ass. He smirked into the kiss. 

You caught your breath as you finally pulled apart from him, but relentlessly he attached himself to your neck, nibbling and sucking at the sensitive skin there. “Steve...” you sighed, embedding your hands in his soft hair. 

“Mm?” He hummed, his hands exploring your body. 

“Steve, I need you” He quickly pulled away, and stared at you. You could barely see him now in the darkness, but you could make out his chest rising and falling due to laboured breaths. 

“Say it again.” He demanded, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“Steve I need you. I need you right now” you said, adding a whimper at the end for effect. 

With a deep growl, he rose to his full height and picked you up bridal style as if you weighed nothing. Somehow, through your shocked state, you guided him through the dark apartment to your room. He tossed you onto the bed and started ravaging your body with his mouth, kissing every inch of bare skin with desperation. You felt his erection pressing against your thigh as he removed your top and fiddled with your bra strap. He ripped the bra from your body, and instantly attached his mouth to the peaks of your breast, rolling the other bud in his hand. This drew a primal moan from the depths of your body, and you clamped a hand over your mouth, knowing Bucky was sleeping nearby. You bit your lip as Steve continued to massage your breasts and flick his tongue against your nipple simultaneously. You started to palm him through his jeans. 

From what you could feel, he was large. Your mouth watered and your pussy clenched at the thought of it. It seemed Steve noticed this and almost read your thoughts. 

“Can’t wait to feel me inside you, Y/N?” He whispered, sitting up suddenly to remove his shirt, the outline of his ripped torso catching the dim light of your bedroom. 

“Please, Steve,” you whined, rolling your hips against his leg. 

“I’m gonna taste you first, darling” he muttered, pulling your sweatpants down and exposing your panties. He dragged two fingers over the material of your underwear and chuckled. 

“You’re wet,” he mused, tugging the material to the side. He began by rubbing your clit slowly, causing you to lift your hips into the air jerkily, overcome by a wave of pleasure. 

“Look at you,” he sighed so violently you could feel his hot breath against your pulsating opening 

“You’re so pretty, coming undone for me, Y/N” And with that, he dove between your folds, lapping at your core enthusiastically. You tugged at his hair, steering him as he continued to eat you out. Your toes curled at every movement he made with his fingers and tongue, almost knocking the breath out of you. 

“Cum for me” he murmured against your heat, noticing you getting close to your climax. 

“Soak my face.” His dirty words alone sent you over the edge, a wave of euphoria crawling out over your body, leaving you a shivering wreck. 

You didn’t have much time to recover from the first orgasm that Steve Rogers had so graciously given you, despite it being so intense. You had barely finished twitching when you looked up to find the man angling his sizeable cock at your entrance, his face flushed and his hair flopping into his face- a perfect picture of impatience. 

The tip brushed frustratingly against your folds, teasing what was to come. You moaned and rutted your hips against him. 

“You sure you want this, darlin’?” He whispered, his breath hot on your skin. 

You couldn’t nod fast enough, and he grinned. He loved your eagerness. It was endearing, and something he hadn’t experienced in a while. He watched your mouth involuntarily fall open as he pushed himself into you so fast, that his balls slapped against your skin. Instinctively you reached out to grasp onto something, anything and squeezed your eyes shut as you stretched around his girth. 

Steve continued to thrust into you, but took a more gentle rhythmic approach, allowing you to grow used to his size. Noticing your raised hand, he interlocked his fingers with yours, and gently rested your intertwined hands on the bedsheet above your heads, leaning down to kiss your forehead. 

“F-fuck, Steve, you feel so good” you groaned as he picked up the pace. 

“Yeah? You like it when I’m fucking your pretty little pussy hard?” He grunted, releasing one of your hands and running a finger along your bottom lip. You nodded, and licked at his fingers, before sucking on two of the long, calloused digits. 

He raised an eyebrow at you, growled, and quickly flipped you over so you were riding on top of him. 

Now you could see his body clearly. You couldn’t help but run your fingers up and down his toned chest, now coated in a sheen of sweat, all while grinding against him teasingly. 

You stuck your chest out so your breasts bounced just that little bit more, and it seemed to do the trick. He pulled you down forcefully by the arms and buried his head in your cleavage and his thrusts became sloppy and erratic. 

“I’m gonna...Y/N I’m gonna cum right now...” he warned you. Quickly, you slid off of his length and pushed your tits together in front of his tip. 

“Cum for me, Steve,” you whined, looking up at him through thick lashes. This, was enough to push him over the edge. His mouth contorted into a crooked “O” shape and his eyes rolled backwards slightly. 

White, hot streams of cum shot out at you, coating your breasts thickly. You smirked, maintaining eye contact with him whilst scooping up some of his seed and sucking it clean off of your finger. His eyes widened and a pink hue rose at his cheeks once more, surprised at how dirty you could be. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to give you another one,” he mumbled sheepishly, as you cleaned yourself up. You shook your head and slid between the covers beside him again. 

“Steve, I’ve never cum that hard in my life. Don’t worry about it.” He smirked, and reached out under the thick covers to wrap his hands around your wrists and pull you until your chest was flush against his, and you could feel his heart beating through the warm skin of his chest. All was silent until you heard feet on the floorboards outside of your room. 

“Thank fuck that’s over,” you heard Bucky grumble petulantly before hearing his door slam shut once more.

[quicksilversquared]

The Designer and the Twins

When Adrien volunteers to look after Alya's twin sisters for a bit but ends up having to go to a piano lesson instead, it forces Mr. Agreste to step in and look after the girls himself. How hard can babysitting two young girls be?

As it turns out, it can be VERY hard.

links in the reblog

                                          tumblr give me back my line break

Gabriel Agreste was in the middle of a round of edits on some evening dress designs Saturday afternoon when he heard the front doors open. He spared only a single glance in that direction- no doubt it was Adrien, returning from whatever outing he had managed to persuade Nathalie to allow, just in time for piano lessons- before returning his attention to his work.

The squeals of excitement yanked his head back up a moment later. He frowned, sitting up fully and staring in the direction of the atrium. Two voices- young, definitely girls, and sounding nearly the same- exclaimed over how large it was, how there was no color, how the other should look at the big painting, could they play in the plants-

Gabriel Agreste pushed himself up out of his chair and strode to the office door, scowling out into the atrium. The first thing he saw was Adrien, trying his best to contain two young girls that came up to hip-height. They were running to and fro, trying to look at everything all at once.

He cleared his throat, unimpressed. Adrien's head whipped around, but the girls didn't slow down at all. Gabriel spared them a glance, then turned his attention on his son. Adrien was cringing a bit as he watched the girls tugging at a door, but he straightened as he turned to Gabriel.

"Father, I can explain," Adrien said quickly, gesturing to the girls. "These are Alya's sisters. I was helping Alya bring some books for our project back to her house so we could work on it there during the week, but then her bike hit a hole and it fell over and she got a really bad cut on her leg. So her older sister had to bring her to the hospital because she'll probably need stitches, but her younger sisters still needed to be watched, so..."

"So you offered," Gabriel finished, entirely unamused. "Forgetting, I'm sure, that you're meant to have piano lessons in three minutes? Your instructor is already waiting for you in the lounge."

Adrien froze, gaze shooting back to the twin girls. They had finally paused in their exploration, glancing between Adrien and Gabriel with wide eyes. "Uhh..."

"Were none of your other friends available to help?" Gabriel demanded. "Or were none of them willing?"

"They- well-" Adrien shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. "Nino is on the other side of the city- he's got family over, apparently, and they were going to a roller garden- and Marinette is busy right now, Alya said. She's already babysitting Madam Chamack's daughter, and Manon is a handful just by herself."

Gabriel glanced at the two other girls. They were giggling over something between the two of them. Then he looked back at Adrien, who was looking a little stressed, and he considered.

Adrien had to attend his piano lesson, of course. He had gone without lessons for a while now because his instructor had been gone on vacation and then sick leave for several weeks already, and there were several things that Gabriel had already asked the instructor to work on so that Adrien would be able to perform at the Gabriel winter investor's dinner. Adrien wouldn't be able to concentrate or learn a thing with the twins around, that was obvious. They were unruly and Adrien had absolutely no experience with kids. He wouldn't be able to control them. Gabriel, however, had raised a kid- or helped raise a child, at least, considering that Emilie and their old nanny had done most of the work so that he could focus on designing- and was aware of how to keep kids under control.

There was no other option, really. If the twins went along for the lessons, Adrien's instructor could very well quit and then Gabriel would have to waste some of his time finding a suitable replacement. A quick mental cost-benefits analysis confirmed that, and he sighed before addressing Adrien. "Very well. I'll watch them while you attend your lesson. As soon as it's over, though, remember to come collect them at once."

Adrien lit up. "Really? You would do that, Father? Thank you so much!"

"No more lollygagging now, go," Gabriel instructed, and Adrien scampered off as instructed. The twins made to follow, until he cleared his throat. "Girls, you'll be coming with me. Adrien has lessons right now."

"Lessons! Ew!" they chorused in almost disturbing unison, turning away from Adrien at once. "Lessons are yucky! They're boring and we have to sit still!"

...okay, yeah, forget almost disturbing unison. That was disturbing unison.

"We'll come into my office," Gabriel continued. "And then I'll, uh..."

He came up blank. It had been too long since Adrien had been the twins' age, and Gabriel hadn't exactly been a particularly involved parent at that time. He would have Nathalie search up some activities, or perhaps take over the babysitting herself, but she was currently out on lunch break.

Surely he could manage alone until she came back. She was due to return any time now.

"Can we have juice?" one twin asked, tugging at Gabriel's sleeve as they entered the office.

"And cookies?" the other added on, tugging the other sleeve.

Gabriel resisted the urge to rip his arms away from both of them. That would no doubt end in tears, and he neither wanted to nor knew how to deal with tears. "I- fine. Wait here for one minute, I'll page the kitchen staff to bring up juice and cookies."

"Yay!"

Well, so far, so good, Gabriel figured as he headed across the room to Nathalie's intercom to order two cups of juice and two plates of cookies. It was important to keep kids fed and hydrated, and getting them a small snack would keep them from whining. They could sit down on the floor and eat, and he could return to his designing and actually get some work done.

"Can we see what you're drawing?" one twin wanted to know as soon as Gabriel had ordered their food and headed back to his desk. "Is it something pretty?"

Her sister pushed her. "Dummy, adults don't draw! They only write!"

"No they don't! Look, see, all of the drawings of dresses!"

Gabriel stiffened as he suddenly found himself surrounded by two small, curious girls, one on either side of his chair. "Now girls, go back over to the door and wait nicely-"

"Why are you drawing dresses?" one twin asked. "Boys don't wear dresses! Can you draw a dress for me?"

"I design-"

"I want a dress, too!"

"But I asked first!"

Gabriel moved his sketchbook and the loose pages of designs out of their reach. "I am trying to work here, girls, go-"

His movement bumped his computer mouse, minimizing the window that he had up and revealing the one behind it, which was the Ladyblog. That was an immediate distraction for the twin terrors at his elbows.

"Look, it's the Ladyblog!"

"Our sister runs that! Does she know you look at it?"

"Everybody in Paris looks at it!"

"Yeah, because Ladybug is so cool! MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!" they cheered in unison, both miming throwing a Lucky Charm up into the air.

"You should design something for Ladybug!"

"Are you any good at designing?"

"Do you sew, too? I don't see any needles!"

"You asked for juice and cookies, sir?"

Gabriel tried not to slump in relief as the twins promptly abandoned him to run to their chef, who did quite a good job of not reacting as he handed out two cups of juice and two plates of cookies before making a hasty exit. Now that was them distracted for the time being, so he could actually think about what to do next. Clearly the twins would not be content to simply sit in silence until Adrien came to collect them- they didn't seem at all intimidated by his raised voice, which suggested that they probably got ordered around quite often but never saw any real consequences- so he would have to find some way to entertain them. Without, of course, exerting any real effort himself. He had work to do, after all, and couldn't be bothered with spending any extended amount of time dealing with kids.

Even as he thought that, his Miraculous started to warm. Somewhere in the city, someone was upset enough to get akumatized. Gabriel almost automatically moved to get up and head for his elevator before realizing that he couldn't. There were two very, very nosy pairs of eyes in his office, and they would absolutely blab about anything strange that they saw. And with their sister running the Ladyblog...

He scowled and sat back down. Within a couple minutes, his Miraculous started cooling back down again, the opportunity gone.

"We want to watch cartoons!"

Gabriel startled out of his thoughts, his attention going back to the twins. They had finished off their cookies already- and he was going to have someone come up and clean, because there were crumbs all over the floor and one of the girls had clearly spilled a bit of her juice- and were headed back over for him, this time with chocolate-smeared fingers and sticky hands.

He panicked for a moment, then realized that they had literally just handed him a distraction- cartoons. While he had heard plenty in the news lately telling parents not to let their kids get raised by screens and to limit TV time, he was neither the parent of these two little terrors nor their guardian, and so that didn't apply to him. But he did know that he would have to find some age-appropriate cartoons for the girls to watch, because otherwise he would have their parents coming after him with "concerns" and he really had neither the time nor the patience to deal with that. They would no doubt do the same if he yelled at the girls to get them to behave, so he had to watch himself.

"All right, all right, I'll set up some cartoons- if you promise to sit still and watch," Gabriel told them. "No running around or anything."

"We promise!"

Gabriel tried not to grumble as he headed for Nathalie's computer. He knew that she had Netflix on her computer because she liked having cooking shows on in the background as she worked her way through particularly tedious paperwork, which he normally rolled his eyes at but right now he couldn't be more grateful that she had a resource like that on hand for him to borrow. She was logged in, which was good, and Gabriel went ahead and flipped through the listings of cartoons.

...he really wasn't familiar with what was age-appropriate for kids that small. Gabriel didn't know what any of the shows were- he had no reason to be- so the most he had to go off on was the pictures. And pictures could be misleading. He had seen enough commercials recently to know that there were some very young-looking designs for shows that had much more adult humor. So after a couple minutes of waffling with increasingly impatient twins at his elbow, Gabriel picked the youngest-looking show- surely it would be safe- and clicked on it, letting the first episode load a bit before turning the computer to the kids. It took a minute to get them seated- they were each convinced that the other was closer, which resulted in a bit of pushing back and forth before Gabriel finally got them to cut it out- and then he could finally, finally get back to his seat and start up his work on reviewing the designs again.

It had only just occurred to him that these two had made up the akuma Sapotis and that they had been quite the handful as akumas. They hadn't listened when he warned them about the trap, only wanting to run around and eat what they wanted and go to the amusement park and stay up and night and watch cartoons and...and not listen to rules.

Gabriel was starting to suspect that maybe things wouldn't go quite as smoothly as he had initially thought, but now the twins were settled in front of the computer screen and listening to some show with obnoxious music and high-pitched voices. It was distracting, but he could tune it out well enough. It took a few minutes for him to get back into the designing groove and figure out where he had left off. The design that he was reviewing was from one of his younger designers, which meant that it was easy enough to pick out where the lines needed to be altered just a touch and mark a change in the type of fabric. The piece was original and creative, though, inspiring enough that Gabriel set it aside for a moment to grab another sheet of paper, sketching out the starting lines for a matching suit to go along with the dress. It would be close-cut, absolutely tailored to perfection and creating a bit of an illusion of broader shoulders.

These pieces would end up on the runway, Gabriel was positive. Paired pieces were always popular.

He had just started scribbling down detail on the side of the paper when he glanced up briefly and spotted Nathalie's computer playing to an audience of...zero.

Frowning, Gabriel sat up fully. The sound of giggling caught his ear, and he spun around to see one twin crouching next to one of his mannequins, the hem of the dress there draped over her head like a wedding veil.

"No playing with the dresses!" Gabriel barked, and both girls jumped before scrambling away from the mannequin. He frowned over at the dress- he would have to get it cleaned soon to remove any chocolate-y fingerprints that might have gotten on the fabrics- before returning his attention to the girls. "I thought you were watching cartoons!"

"Those cartoons are boring," the first twin complained. "They're for babies."

"They're so dumb," Twin No. 2 chimed in. "I don't wanna watch a baby show. Do you have fabric scraps we can play with?"

Gabriel frowned. All of the fabric scraps that he had around the office were exclusive Gabriel print samples, or silks and embroidered pieces or things that he had beaded. They weren't things that he wanted ruined or accidentally going home with the girls. "No. And you promised-"

"But it's a baby show!"

Movement by the door caught Gabriel's eye, and he turned in relief to see an unimpressed Nathalie standing there, surveying the scene in front of her. He opened his mouth to ask her to take the girls- surely she could entertain them elsewhere in the house- but Nathalie beat him to it.

"I'll be taking a late lunch now," Nathalie told him, turning to stride right back out the door. "I will see you in a bit, Mr. Agreste."

"You were just out on lunch, Nathalie!" Gabriel objected, jolting straight up in his chair.

"And I was just summoned to the Gabriel building on urgent business," Nathalie continued as though she hadn't heard him, pulling out her phone and consulting it as though an email had just come in. "So I have to go sort that out. I will be back...at some point."

And before Gabriel could protest, she was gone. He gaped after her for a few seconds- she was his employee, she couldn't do that!- then turned back to the girls still tugging at his elbows, trying not to growl in frustration.

He had to remember, if he lost his temper, it would get back to their parents. If it got back to their parents...

So Gabriel took a deep breath, glanced at the clock- was it broken? Surely more time had passed than that!- and then turned back to the twins. "Okay, what do you want to watch?"

The girls lit up, hopping up and down and yammering at him faster than he could follow. He let them tug him up out of his chair and towards the computer, having them point out the show that they wanted to watch instead. They then spent five minutes arguing over which show they wanted to see out of a pick of four or five things before settling on one. Sighing with relief (and trying his best to ignore the headache starting to build at the edges of his temples), Gabriel clicked on the first episode that came up, arranged the computer to the twins' satisfaction, and returned to his seat. He glanced up as the cartoon started to play and- okay, he could already tell that the cartoon was a bit less babyish than the first one, though it still had annoyingly high-pitched voices for all of the characters. The girls seemed content, so Gabriel gave himself a pat on his back and returned his attention to his designs. Several minutes later, he was just getting back into designing mode. He picked up his pencil, and-

"We've seen this episode already!"

"Yeah! I don't wanna see it again, I already know what happens!"

"We've seen this so many times!"

Gabriel let out a long breath through his nose as he was unceremoniously ripped from designer mode yet again. The twins were already clambering to their feet, clearly ready to abandon their activity and start tearing through his office again. He stood before they could get too far, strode to the computer, and maneuvered back to the menu to pick out another episode. It started playing, and the twins sat back down.

Hopefully he would get more than three minutes to himself this time.

They got past the intro without incident, and Gabriel turned his attention back to his work. He had almost gotten back into the groove when the complaints started up again.

"I've seen this already! This is an old episode!"

"Really old!"

"I'll change it, I'll change it, just keep sitting!" Gabriel said hastily, completely willing to agree to anything to get them to shut up already. Thank god he and Emilie had gotten a nanny to get Adrien past this age, and thank god that they had only had one kid. Having two or more- having twins- would have been a nightmare. And hadn't Adrien said that there were four kids in the Ladyblogger's family? That would be awful. "How many episodes of this have you seen?"

There was some whispering between the two girls, and then some arguing. Finally they resurfaced with a shrug and an unhelpful "I don't know".

Small children were maddening.

Gabriel selected another episode, this time just a little further along. There weren't that many episodes listed, so if they had selected this show it meant that there had to be some that they hadn't seen yet, right?

Apparently not. Over the next thirty minutes, the girls kept interrupting him every few minutes, taking anywhere between three to six minutes to recognize an episode and start complaining. At one point, they lost interest in the cartoons entirely and started asking if they could have cake. With a groan, Gabriel realized that he shouldn't have given in so easily to their request earlier. It had been a test to see how much they could get away with, and he had failed it.

He also missed another prime akumatization opportunity. Two so close together was rare, and yet he couldn't slip away and take advantage of it.

"Of all the days for Adrien to have a two-hour lesson instead of a one-hour one," Gabriel groaned as he pushed his work to the side again to put an end to the complaining that had started anew. The twins were looking antsy now that so much time had passed without them watching all the way through an episode, and he had to wonder how much longer he would last.

Would it be possible for him to go online and hire a babysitter to finish up the time? If they stayed in the house, surely no one could complain? But it seemed unlikely that he would be able to find someone on such short notice, and it would take time for them to arrive. Besides, finding a babysitter online would require actually having more than a couple consecutive minutes to focus on that, and he didn't have more than a couple consecutive minutes, not with the girls needing constant attention.

Three more episode switches later, and Gabriel was ready to start pulling his hair out. Right before he was about to snap at the girls to just sit down and enjoy an old episode, the door buzzer rang. Gabriel dove for it, welcoming the interruption. Maybe Nathalie had sent a babysitter. Maybe the twins' family had finally decided to come pick them up. Maybe-

It was one of Adrien's classmates, the designer girl- Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he remembered. Next to her stood another very small child, her brown pigtails barely reaching the bottom of the camera.

He couldn't deal with another small child, he really couldn't.

"I'm here to collect Ella and Etta!" Marinette said with a cheerful wave at the camera. "Adrien texted me and said that he left them with Mr. Agreste?"

"He did," Gabriel said at once, noting the way that Ms. Dupain-Cheng startled. Clearly she had been expecting Nathalie at the other end. He pressed the button to open the gates. "Enter."

"Who was that?" one of the twins wanted to know at once. "A new babysitter?"

"Yes-" Gabriel started, but they were already on their feet and racing out to the atrium. Just as they got there, Marinette stepped in with the other small girl in tow. She took one look at the racing girls and raised one eyebrow, planting her free hand on her hip.

"Ella! Etta! Is that how we behave indoors? And when we are guests in someone's house?"

Much to Gabriel's surprise, both twins slowed down and shook their heads. "No..."

"I didn't think so." Marinette turned her attention to Gabriel. "I hope that they've been behaving themselves."

Gabriel opened his mouth to answer before thinking better of it. He didn't need to admit to a fourteen-year-old that he had been having trouble keeping two five-year-olds in line, not when they had settled down so quickly at her demand. Instead, he changed the subject. "Are the twins' parents finally back home to take them? Or your friend?"

Much to his surprise, Marinette shook her head. "No, not yet. Alya needs stitches and a tetanus shot, so she and Nora aren't going to be home for a while, and their parents are super-busy right now and can't leave work early. We're going to go over to the TV studio to drop off Manon and after that, I was planning on taking Ella and Etta back to their apartment so that they won't be destroying anyone else's house." She paused, glancing over in the direction that faint piano music could be heard coming from. "I. Uh. If it wouldn't be too much to ask, I would really appreciate it if Adrien could come over and help out, so I'm not the only one watching these two."

"I will send him over once he finishes his piano lessons," Gabriel promised at once, partly so Marinette wouldn't change her mind about taking the twins and partly because Adrien had offered to take up that responsibility in the first place and he needed to understand what following through would be like so that he wouldn't do it again in the future.

A chorus of whining followed Gabriel's words, and he looked over to see both twins pouting at Marinette.

"I don't want to go on a walk!"

"Yeah, that's too far! And it's too hot!"

"I want to stay here and watch cartoons and eat cookies!"

"And drink orange juice!"

The small girl holding Marinette's hand stomped her foot and turned to her babysitter. "I want cookies, too!"

"Cookies and no walking!"

Gabriel's headache spiked as the whining got louder, but Marinette only frowned at them. "Manon, you've already had cookies. Also that's too bad, we're going on a walk. No, you don't get a say in this. Now thank Mr. Agreste and we'll be leaving."

"But I don't want to!"

"Yeah!"

"If you don't behave, I'll tell your parents and you won't get dessert for a month and you'll have to go to bed early," Marinette warned them, and Gabriel watched in utter disbelief as the twins straightened up and promptly fell into line next to her. "Now what do we say to Mr. Agreste?"

"Thank you!"

Gabriel could only nod in response as the group headed back out the door, following Marinette down the steps and across the courtyard like a line of little ducklings. He waited until they had exited the gates and turned the corner before heading back into his office and collapsing into his chair.

He could deal with uncooperative suppliers and diva clients all day long, but two young children wore him out in a heartbeat. If Ms. Dupain-Cheng hadn't shown up, he- he-

He didn't know what he would have done. His patience had been gone, he had been at his wit's end, and the twins had just been whining and whining and whining.

Ms. Dupain-Cheng deserved a reward of some sort for coming in and rescuing him from those little monsters, Gabriel decided as he reached across his desk for some aspirin. Nothing obvious, of course, because he couldn't let on that he had had any problems with the twins, but she hadn't had to come over and add two more little terrors on top of the handful of a girl that she had already been babysitting. She could have just continued with her day and assumed that he was fully capable of dealing with the twins until Adrien finished his piano lesson, which is what he assumed most teens her age would have done.

Perhaps he would grant her immunity from getting akumatized, Gabriel decided after a minute's thought. He wasn't experienced enough to be able to identify individual imprints himself, but Nooroo could and he could block her imprint's emotions from getting picked up by the Miraculous upon request. Gabriel had heard talk that it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience for those who hadn't gotten akumatized voluntarily. Something about how their memories during that time were fuzzy or lost completely, which was terribly disorienting. He hadn't experienced the same, of course, and neither had Nathalie, but the two of them were special cases. Everyone else had to deal with holes in their memories and a nagging sense of confusion, neither of which were pleasant.

Yes, that was what he would do. It would be a way to express his thanks without giving away that he was doing that at all, Ms. Dupain-Cheng would no doubt appreciate being able to express her emotions safely, and it wasn't as though it would be any great loss to him.

There would always be other people to akumatize, after all, and giving one normal teenage girl a free pass out wasn't going to make any big difference in the long run.

[buttersbots]

Welcome to Earth

Word count: 2,837 Rating: K+

deviantART | Archive of Our Own | FanFiction

This is an older one, but I realized the only version I had on tumblr was a link! That won’t do for one of the most important stories in my series.

Here’s my dear Fletcher’s debut 💜💜💜

July 28, 2847 ‒ 02:36:12 As Two’s due date approached, it became harder and harder for her to stay offline. So many of her systems ran to keep her containment chamber cool, to divert extra power to the nanobots, to write the child’s programming and code their behaviors. Sleep mode was difficult to keep, though it was all she wanted, and this night was one of the worst she’d had in weeks. It had taken what felt like hours of tossing and turning to slip out of consciousness at all, leading to thin, restless sleep mode. Not even that was meant to last.

Two woke to a critical system alert. Her visor hardly cleared the start screen before a window popped up, consuming her whole field of vision. Two had to read over it a few times. Her eyeforms swelled to their full size. “Nos,” she uttered. “...Mmm?” “Nos... wake up...” she pushed at his shoulder. He rubbed his hand over his face, lying with his back to her. “What is’t, love?” the words fell out of his half-functional processors. “B-Baby...” Two stammered. Nos-4-a2 gave a soft yawn to bring air through his ventilation systems and shook his head. “Sorry, wha’s that?” Two grabbed his shoulder harder, her fingers trembling. “Baby!” No words were exchanged while Nos processed what she said. After a minute, he turned over to face Two, optic still closed. He put his arm around her and nuzzled his head lightly against her metal. “Sorry, love... doctor said no interfacing til’ six weeks after the baby’s born...” “No, Nos-4-a2, wake up!” Two urged again, wiggling out of his grasp, “I don’t mean you, ‘baby!’ I mean the baby’s ready!” Two had never seen her husband move faster in his life. He sat bolt upright in less than a second, his jaw dropping open. “Now?!” “Yes, now! The program is finished! It’s finished!” “Okay. Okay, I’m going to ‒ I’ll call a car! Do you need anything? Should I get you a cloak? Do you need a power cell?” “No, just call a car!” Nos lept out of bed and flew to the closet, grabbing the first cloak he found. “Quinn!” “Yes, sir?” Nos burst back into the room, trying to fasten the clasp on his inside-out cloak, a wild smile plastered on his face. “Contact a driving service, we need a car to the hospital immediately!” ~~~ July 28, 2847 ‒ 10:54:13 Nos-4-a2 alternated pacing and sitting, twiddling his thumbs, trying to keep himself occupied. “Uncle Nos, don’t you want to sit down? Watching you is making me tired,” Willow sighed. After hours sitting in the waiting room, her game had run out of batteries, leaving her starved for entertainment. “Let him be, Willow,” Wall.E scolded lightly. He had been sitting next to Probe One, watching the news on the silent, subtitled holovision. “...Why can’t I be in there?” Nos muttered. It was killing him, not being able to see his wife at such a time. Their whole corner of the waiting room sighed at the repeated question. “She’s unconscious, being in there would only make your worrying worse and get in the way of the doctors. They’re still repairing her,” One repeated. Nos looked at the double doors that led to the operating rooms, hovering in place. It would be so easy for him to push through those doors and peek into her window... He turned his gaze down and started pacing again. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand waiting. After Two woke him up and they’d rushed to the hospital, the nurse took them to a room where Two was prepared for the operation, connected to machines that monitored her vital system functions. Nos-4-a2 stayed with her through four hours of preparation before being sent out to the waiting room. Two had gone through just about every emotion imaginable while the engineers set everything up. Twinges of pain occasionally shot through her from the deactivating reproductive hardware, but it was only to be expected. The nanobots had started detaching the probeling from her inner workings. Nos did everything he could to support her, though he could hardly handle himself as it was. To distract her, he talked to her about anything that came to mind. He held her hands ‒ though it earned him a few dents ‒ and told her stories when she was too distracted to talk. She knew every story he told, but was happy for any reason to take her mind off her dizzying thoughts. It was six o’clock in the morning when one of the nurses told them it was time to start the operation. Nos stayed long enough to sit with her while the inhibition coding took effect, putting her offline for the operation. Before she went out, he made sure to tell her that the next time they met, they’d be parents. Two was so excited that the nurse had to dial up the inhibition coding. As soon as Two went offline, Nos-4-a2 had to leave her in the hands of Dr. Darickson and his team. When he arrived in the waiting room with frayed nerves, Probe One, Wall.E, and Willow were all there. Seeing his family helped ease his mind, even though he was still on pins and needles. The clock slowly inched toward eleven. The sunlight moved through the window and traveled across the floor torturously slow, leaving striped patterns on the carpet. Nos cast his optics out the window, looking out at the view of Axiom Lake from five stories above the ground. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could wait before he stormed out of the waiting room to see Two. As soon as he had worked up the nerve to go, everyone’s attention shifted to the opening doors. Dr. Darickson stood on the threshold, the bags under his eyes magnified by his thick glasses. His mousy hair was even more disheveled than usual, and he had dark stains on his sleeves. Nos felt his power core drop out of his frame. Darickson grinned. “It's a boy.” ~~~ July 28, 2847 ‒ 11:06:11 Two couldn’t tell whether she was awake. Wasn’t she supposed to be doing something important? Where was she? It was dark, wherever she was. Something hurt. She couldn’t really tell what, but she felt smaller than before. Energy signals radiated from all around her. Two tried asking Nos what was going on, but he didn’t respond. Where was he? She thought he should have been there, still pestered by the thought that something important was going on. As much as she tried to focus, Two couldn’t get her optical system working. Or maybe something was wrong with it? Could that be what hurt? Everything she could see was grey and black and peppered with pinpricks of color. Her hearing wasn’t any better. It sounded like it looked: unidentifiable somethings dancing right outside her range of perception. Then the light changed. Bright colors flooded in. More sounds came through. Brilliant shades of red, purple and blue approached her with an energy signature that wrapped her in comfort. A gentle pressure surrounded part of her... her hand. Her right hand. A delicate sensation streamed into her through the new contact. She asked Nos to tell her what was happening again. “Shh, I’m here, Eve...” he answered through a distant fog, “You did it. You did it, my amazing little dove, you did it! It’s a boy!” ~~~ Tears brimmed in Nos-4-a2’s optic as he cupped Two’s little hand in his. Even after he told her the news, she didn’t seem to register what was going on. He thought she might be trying to focus on him, but the limits on her processors hadn’t worn off yet. Not that he cared. He was so excited, he kept telling her over and over again, rubbing her fingers between his. He could feel her becoming more aware with every passing minute, dripping with anticipation for when she realized... And there it was. The softest, most blissful smile came over her drowsy features as it dawned on her. “A boy?” she beamed. Nos-4-a2 made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yes, my love.” Two choked on a laugh as well, squeezing his hand. When she reached out, he readily leaned down to give her a hug and buried his head against hers. “Have you seen him yet?” she asked in a wavering voice. “No, but I’m sure he’ll be here soon.” “I can’t wait another moment.” “Oh, come on!” Nos sat up, “If I waited outside for hours, I’m sure you can hold on just a bit longer.” “It’s not fair, how could they keep him away from us?” “I asked the same thing when Darickson told me I could wait with you. They’re just working out the last few bugs.” “Is everything alright?” “Yes, he’s perfectly fine, completely healthy. It’s all just routine maintenance for newborns. You know what Patrick told me?” Two looked at him expectantly. “He said he’s beautiful, Eve. He must look just like you.” Her smile looked like distilled bliss. He felt the waves radiating from her power core swirl around him, and as he leaned down to plant a kiss on her forehead, he basked in her emotions. He wanted to scoop her into his arms and keep her there forever, the robot who had given him her universe. Now, she’d even given him a family. Words weren’t enough to say how much he loved her right then. Even the dust motes that twirled through the light looked utterly beautiful. Stroking his talons slowly up and down her arm, he told her about how well she’d done and that everyone was there to support her in the waiting room. Nos-4-a2 thought that all the world should have been there for such a historic event. Their child was the first Energy Vampire born with the Earthling artificial reproduction program. Neither could think of anything else. Anticipation bubbled in the air as the new parents awaited the arrival of their son. ~~~ July 28, 2847 ‒ 11:44:28 Two couldn’t rest for two reasons: she was plugged into a charger that fed her a constant stream of energy, and she still hadn’t seen him. Everything else in her body felt tired and worn and thankful for the electricity being provided; even her mind felt like it had been fed through a shredder then messily stuffed back in her head, but there wasn’t anything that could distract her from this. Nos, too, was shimmering with waves of static impatience. He was still holding onto her hand, trying to keep himself occupied by playing with her fingers. It was no secret that the nearly sleepless, stressful night had exhausted him, but there was no way he’d leave to eat yet. Two traced the dents in Nos’s hands. She had never been so scared or excited in her life, though she had been less than prepared for the pain. Apparently, the newer versions of the reproductive hardware had worked that bug out a little better, but she wouldn’t have to worry about that ever again. The reproductive ware had been removed during the operation, just as she and Nos-4-a2 had decided. That would be her first and last time giving birth. Giving birth... that was another concept entirely. After carrying the little ‘bot for around 60 weeks, she could hardly believe it was over. She would never be pregnant again. Now that she’d given birth, she felt just as confused as she did when she first found out she was pregnant. A part of her was waiting to wake up from this strange dream, though she knew it was all real. The door she was staring at was real. The feeling of missing parts inside of her was real. Nos-4-a2 sitting next to her, probably thinking something along the same lines, was real. Never before had Two felt so invested in the present moment. Suddenly, Nos froze, his hands becoming tense around Two’s. He picked up the sound of footsteps coming down the hall just before she did. Two’s energy fluctuated as the footsteps stopped in front of their door, a shadow falling over the frosted glass window. The door opened, revealing a black-haired human nurse holding a blue bundle in her arms. She had a pleasant enough look about her since she’d been up all night. “Congratulations, Eve Two and Nos-4-a2,” she smiled, “He’s in perfect shape.” Nos let go of Two’s hands so that she could use both her arms to receive the bundle of fabric. A soft pulse came from within the blanket that each parent recognized as part of the other. Two couldn’t keep her hand from trembling. It was time... after fourteen months, they were finally going to see their baby. The universe held its breath as she pulled the top of the blanket away from the new robot’s face. “Oh... N-Nos...” her voice caught. She tugged the blanket down more to take him in. The newborn fledgling’s whole shape was not unlike Nos-4-a2’s, besides his head being round instead of flat on the back, and with a rounded chin as well. He didn’t appear to have any neck besides three black cables, one thick and two thin, connecting his body to his head, and instead of purple triangles on his forehead like his father, he had dark blue semi-circles, cutting off at his black visor. There wasn’t a single tooth in his small mouth, and as he yawned, they could see that his tongue wasn’t forked like Nos’s, but round. The rest of the metal on his face was such a pale shade of blue that it was almost white. The exposed section of his shoulders was deep purple, along with his upper arms. His forearms were the same pale blue as his face. The couple noticed with even closer inspection that his hands were like Two’s in having magnetically bound pieces, including a bit for a palm that she didn’t have. The middle section of his torso was pitch black like his visor and completely smooth besides a single silver wire on each side, while even further down, he had two silver rings around his waist where Nos-4-a2 had three gold ones, and a silver upside-down triangle that followed the taper of his lower body. “Congrats again, you two. I’ll let you have some time alone with him, but Dr. Darickson wants me to tell you, Two, that you need to rest. You know what to do if you need anything,” the nurse told them matter-of-factly. “Thank you,” Two nodded as the nurse left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. There was a minute of silence where Nos and Two just kept looking at the baby in the latter’s arms. Slowly, Nos reached around her back, holding her closer to him. “You did it,” he whispered shakily. Two looked over at him to see the most endearing smile on his face, oily tears shining in his optics. “Oh, Nos…” her voice trembled as she leaned her head closer to his and cuddled the baby between them. Nos gave her a little squeeze around the middle in response. “Do you… want to hold him?” she asked softly. He pulled his arm from behind her, putting both out to take the baby. Two handed the sleeping bundle to him, and he held it as if the little robot would shatter at the slightest bump. Their child was very small to Nos, even though he had taken up so much space inside of Two. The tiny fledgling’s head could fit in his father’s palm, and his entire frame from top to bottom wasn’t as long as Nos’s forearm. A single oily tear fell down the Energy Vampire’s cheek. He couldn’t explain what it was about the baby, but just seeing him, feeling his unique, peaceful energy signature made Nos so inexplicably happy. He looked up at Two, overpowered by the need to tell her, “Thank you.” The words were quiet, sincere, and from the very depths of his soul, making Two’s visor sting. She gasped and Nos-4-a2 almost leapt in surprise when the baby emitted a quiet start-up chime. Nos gaped down at the child, cradling him to his chest, staring straight back at the tiny purple eyeforms blinking open in the baby’s visor. It was the most remarkable thing he’d ever seen. Their baby blinked up, focusing on Nos’s optics. “Hey there, little tike,” he whispered, “I’m your daddy!” The baby blinked again and made a face, like hearing his father’s voice was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to him. Next to being born, it probably was. Two experienced a moment of inspiration. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt perfect, like it just fit. She remembered one of the names that they’d picked for a boy. “…Fletcher.” Nos laughed, blinking another tear away. “Welcome to Earth, Fletcher.”

[laonii]

What In The World is Going On With Lahn - A Recap

So, I know over the last year, I’ve made many friends, and shared my story, but some I don’t end up seeing much anymore. Or there might be people wondering about my sporadic posting Tumblr. Anyways, now I’m (hopefully) coming towards the end of it, I’ll just put down the whole story for everyone. For people I haven’t seen in a while to catch up, and for people just straight confused to know. 

If you’ve got any questions for me, feel free to shoot me a message, I’ll turn on anon too.

It’s going under a Read More cause it’ll be long with pictures but, tl;dr: Lahn’s got cancer, 9 months of chemo, 1 month of radio, and a bone marrow transplant later, I hope I’ve won.

So, back in May of 2016, at the ripe old age of 21, I was preparing for my mid-year exams. I’m currently studying a Bachelor of Laboratory Medicine, and I had practical microbiology and immunology exams to prepare for, and theory on those two -and- metabolic biochemistry. Fun, right? I was pretty stock standard university student (Picture related, it me, prior to diagnosis!)

My doctor had noticed just the week before that in my standard iron level check ups, I’d actually been showing both signs of iron deficiency, and iron overload, for the last year. It’d always been chalked up to allergies or illness before, but this time, he wanted a clinical haematolgist to check it out. I noticed around this time if I raised my left arm above my head, I’d lose circulation in it. I noted it in my brain, intending to tell the haematologist about it. An early morning shower lead me to discover the swollen lymph nodes in my neck on both sides, and seeing as I could get into my doctor that day, I said screw it, booked the appointment, and handed in my last assignment for the semester. I truly walked into that appointment, believing I’d be back home in a few hours with nothing much more than a “Well, you’re probably getting something viral, but bring it up to the haematologist in a week and a bit when you see him”

This was definitely not the case.

He immediately started calling up every hospital in my city, looking for one that could get me in for a CT scan that day, while shooing me across the hall to have bloods taken, and to call my parents, knowing this was something a little more serious than just a viral infection.

Mum tells me the images of my CT were pretty popular, a lot of staff went into the room, but they let us go, with no hint of what they found. My doctor rang me on the drive back home, and asked me to come in, where he dropped the bomb I probably had lymphoma, the blood flow to my brain was being cut off, my airway was being cut off, and I needed to go present to emergency -now-. I didn’t have time to go home, and frankly, he really should be telling me this news over the phone, instead of telling me face-to-face.

I saw him at 11am. By 4pm, I had been admitted to hospital, with a bed up on the cancer ward.

The next week was a mess of tests and preparations. They needed to check my heart and lung function, get me in for fertility preservation, determine and stage my disease, get the hardware installed to have chemo through, and determine and order the chemo I’d need. They...didn’t get it all done, but, a big chunk of it they managed

I was diagnosed with Stage III/IV Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. So here, the left side is a normal result. Right side? All that extra dark black stuff, and how my bones are darker and more visible? That was my cancer (Well, except that one little spot in my upper arm, that was from robo-arm installation)

I started chemotherapy, ABVD, a week after I was admitted, with the help of my handy dandy robo-arm! It’s actually called a PICC line, but, you do kinda look cyborgish. It’s a thin tube they insert into one of the large veins in your arm, and push the tip right through until it sits just above your heart. Then, they can use that tube to pump chemotherapy directly to your heart, to be rapidly distributed through the body, and they can also use it as a needle free way to draw blood (Believe me, this is a function I miss)

My first dose I had as an inpatient in the hospital, and after a few days, they were happy with how I was going, the nodes in my neck had started to reduce, so I was discharged. And all the other treatments I had as an outpatient. Half a day at the hospital, every 2 weeks, for 6 months.

They did another scan after 2 months of treatment, and that one, it showed no cancer! We were exhilarated, and it made the next 4 months of treatment a lot easier to bear. I organised to return to university in 2017, organised getting my apartment back, and looked forward to settling back into my future. My last day of chemo, I’m a little disheveled, I don’t look the best, but, I was so excited. We brought in cupcakes for every patient and nurse on that day.

I had another scan in November, which, too, came back clear, and my haematologist gave me clearance to fly to the US the week of Christmas, to spend time with Zak (the-zaktrain), who was my rock through all this, and continues to be to this day. Zanin (mugishalffull) even flew in for a weekend, and we burnt up the town (And spent 90% of our time in the warm playing video games). We adopted a cat! And then it was back to studying at university, back here in Australia. I moved out back to the apartment I had before, and started getting back to my life... when we found a lump in my neck again. Only on the left side, this time, not the right.

They did more biopsies and scans, and, they confirmed my Hodgkins was back. Because it was such a short time for it to come back, it was now refractory disease, and, for extra bonuses, they found it in the left side pelvis and in my ribs. I found out this -after- I got admitted for hospital for extreme pain in my left side of the pelvis. (Painkillers are a hell of a drug)

The treatment this time was more savage, ICE chemotherapy, over 3 days which I was required to be hospitalised, into an autologous stem cell transplant. Basically, a bone marrow transplant, but using my own cells to replenish the marrow. This also required the installation of new, and more terrifying, hardware just after the second month.

This would allow them to harvest my stem cells they were about to start forcing my bones to produce, through a machine that’s kinda like a dialysis machine. I did two months of ICE chemotherapy, before they moved onto stem cell harvest. I had to inject myself twice daily to stimulate the production of them, which made you feel like you had the flu and a migraine all wrapped up in one, and then when you had enough, they harvested, which was a day hooked up to this machine

Another scan, they found the ICE chemo had shrunk the cancer in my chest, and seemed to have cleaned up my bones, so they went ahead with the next stage, transplant. For this, I’d need to travel, they don’t do that at my local hospital, so, I lived in another city for a few months. They gave me a week of BEAM chemotherapy, which destroys the bone marrow, which...they normally do as an outpatient, but, my symptoms were bad enough that I was admitted on the second day. This was my world for a month (Thank god for mobile broadband with free Netflix data)

After the chemotherapy was done, my stem cells that had been frozen and prepared, were re-infused into my system. Thus came the most risky two weeks of my life. Without bone marrow, my blood counts would drop, and I’d have literally no immune system (which, given its repeated attempts at killing me, is what it gets) and the stem cells would take about 2 weeks to engraft, and start producing cells of their own. And for some people they woudn’t engraft. For me, fortunately, my cells did engraft, and like clockwork, about 2 weeks later, I started producing my own cells again, and was no longer reliant on blood transfusions and being fed through a tube. Not really any pictures of this time, I spent 99% of my time sick or asleep, really.

I returned back home, hardware removed now I no longer needed it, and in July of this year, they did yet another scan. It seemed as though the cancer was all gone, but, the nodes were still quite swollen. My haematologist suggested radiotherapy to those areas as consolidation, and the radiotherapists agreed, after seeing the latest scans. So, I did a month of radiotherapy to my chest and neck, into hospital every day. And I came out with this horrific thing. I hate this mask. It currently lives in the roof because the noises it makes make me have mini panic.

Radiotherapy, I finished that last week. Other than the mask from hell to keep you bolted down, it was easier to deal with, than chemotherapy. In a month, I have another scan, and hopefully, it’ll show no cancer with reduced swelling, and I can go back to planning and living my life again, albiet, with the caveat that the transplant recovery time is 6-12 months, and that I can’t do university until that recovery period is over. Hoping to go back to visit the states soon, and getting to see family, this year.

So, that’s what’s happened to me this year (and a bit). And why I seem sporadic and all over the place.

[gguksgalaxy]

Engraved pt. 3

Masterpost <-- Engraved 2 | Engraved 4 -->

Short: You’re a tattoo artist for a gang known as EXO who own a club down town. (read synopsis at masterpost) Words: 4377 Warnings: Blood, needles, swearing, sexual references? Nothing too bad again.  Pairings: D.O. x Reader, slight Kai X Reader A/N: LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

Read HERE on AFF or on tumblr down here. 

Beside you, D.O.’s head fell on your shoulder, as his weight on your became heavier and heavier slowly. Upstairs, doors slammed open in the hallway. The first person outside was Minseok. “Minseok, he’s been stabbed!” you called. The leader wasn’t wearing much more than a pair boxers and a shirt. “Fuck. Lay! Yixing!” he yelled, voice echoing in the room, authority dripping off. He made his way down the high stairway, running a hand through his hair. “What happened?” he asked, coming up beside you and pulling up D.O.’ s shirt and sweater. Blood was still running out, his shirt and pants ruined with dark stains. “He broke into my house, I found him stabbed.” “You stabbed him?!” he boomed. “I stabbed him in the arm after he tried to choke me, I didn’t stab him in the chest!” you said defensively. “LAY!” Xiumin called again, looking upstairs as a door opened. Chen was the one who came outside. “Jongdae, find Yixing, Now!” Chen was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. But when he saw you and D.O. he quickly made his way down the hall. “Okay let’s help him down.” The two of you set him against the wall, stripping him of his hoodie and using that to hold the wound closed. His face was turning pale and his eyes were barely open.   “D.O.” you said, pushing his hair back form his face. “Stay with us okay, we’re going to help you.” 

Loud footsteps followed from the iron stairs, and you found Jongdae trailing behind Lay. Jongdae was carrying a box of some sorts. “Move,” Lay hissed at you, hand pulling you up roughly by your upper arm. He turned you away and sank down beside D.O. He tore his shirt open, and the lights in the room flickered on. Jongdae’s doing. The wound was on his right side, far to his waist, so hopefully they didn’t hit anything vital. “What is this?” Lay suddenly asked, checking the wound on his arm. He looked up at you, eyes full of anger. “Did you do this.” “He was trying to choke me!” “You stabbed him in the arm? What the hell did you do this with?” “A tattoo gun.” you mumbled rubbing the back of your neck. “You almost hit an artery, you could’ve killed him!” “I was about to faint, I didn’t know what to do!” “You need to learn to stay the fuck away.” He hissed. Xiumin put a hand on Lay’s shoulder. “We don’t have time for this, I’ll talk to her later. We need to help him.” Lay turned away from you, and Jongdae sat down beside him with the box. It contained needles, tubes used for IV’s, and a bag of blood. You watched as he disinfected D.O.’s arm and asked jongdae to tie of his upper arm with a strip of fabric. He sank the needle in with practiced ease, and connected the blood bag to the tube. “We need to get him upstairs, I can’t do this here.” Suddenly, more doors opened upstairs and people filled into the hallway. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Sehun, Suho, Jongin, looked over the railing at the scene downstairs. They were surprisingly silent. Lay and Xiumin were lifting up D.O., holding up the dripping blood bag. “Move!” Xiumin called. Everyone upstairs stepped aside, and Jongin was the only one to come downstairs. You weren’t really sure what had happened. But the moment D.O. was out of your sight, it was like all the pain in you body hit in. Your vision blurred, and hot searing pain went up your leg. You throat ached and you coughed. Everything started spinning and you had nowhere to catch yourself. Jongin caught you around your waist. “Easy there.” he said, sitting you down on the stairs. “Shit, are you okay?” Jongdae said, kneeling in front of you. Jongin was sitting beside you, arm behind your back trying to keep your up. “Did you get shot?” Jongin trailed his finger up your leg, bruised and bloody skin shivering. Your leggings were stuck to your skin by now. He reached the scrape wound, and you hissed through your teeth. “We need to get Lay to check that out after he’s done with D.O.” Jongdae pulled of his vest and held it against the wound. “Is it deep?” “I don’t know, I got shot while driving. Haven’t had time to check.” He nodded, “It doesn’t seem too bad apart from the blood, but you’re also soaked so that might make it seem worse.” Suddenly it was like the cold set in, the feeling of your wet hair against your neck, you leggings sticking to your skin everywhere. Was it raining? You hadn’t even noticed in your hurry. “Here,” Jongin unzipped your jacket and slid it off you, your shirt was still dry on the top. He pulled of his sweater and helped you put it on. “Thank you.” you smiled softly, and he winked at you. “Dae, can you do something for me?” “What?” “Take Chanyeol with you, and go check on my shop. They busted the window and there’s blood and supplies everywhere in the open now. If they’ve left, can you try to clean the blood?” Chanyeol and Baekhyun moved down the stairs. “Yeah we’ll go, let me grab my gun.” Baekhyun knelt down beside you too. “What exactly happened?” You sighed, leaning against Jongin’s side, who pulled his arm further around you. “I was upstairs and heard someone breaking in. So I went downstairs and i got attacked. I tried to fight him off and I might have bruises all over now. He somehow managed to get his hands around my throat and I was about to fucking die right there. So i stabbed him with a tattoo gun. That’s when I found out it was D.O. I took him here as fast as I could, but I got shot on the way. I lost them thank god. “Come on let’s go.” Chanyeol threw a gun at Dae, who caught it deftly. “Thanks guys.” Jongdae smiled, and pressed a quick kiss to your forehead. “Anything.” And then they were out the door. It wasn’t even 2 minutes until Chen came back, pushing your motorcycle inside through the door. “You might want to park this inside next time.” “Fuck of!” you laughed. “What is it between you and Jongdae?” Baekhyun laughed. You looked at him, the red haired boy pushed his glasses up his nose. “He’s my best friend.” “Who you sleep with?” “Yeah.” “Shit can I be your best friend?” “I’m not sleeping with you!“ you laughed and pushed him a little. “Does that mean you sleep with Jongin?” Jongin and you both tensed but replied in unison. “No.” Something flashed across Beak’s face and you were sure he was about to make a rude comment. He didn’t though. “You want me to call someone to fix your window? So I can get you around insurance?” You hand’t expected him to say something like that, you guys weren’t really that close. Most of the time he was busy doing his job in his office and you were busy doing yours or hanging out with Jongdae and Jongin. “Yeah thank you.” “Hey, you might have just saved my friend’s life. It’s the least I can do. Plus, you’re somewhat of a friend too right?’ In someway Baekhyun always made you laugh. “Somewhat of a friend you really want to sleep with.” He shrugged. “You’re hot I can’t help it.” With a roll of your eyes you leant your head on Jongin’s shoulder. He was warm and you were cooling down quickly in the large room. Without a word he rest his cheek on your head and carefully kept Chen’s vest pressed against your wound. In his movement you could feel he was scared to hurt you. So you put your hand over his to press tighter, and left it there. Beside you, you still felt Baekhyun eyes on the two of you, silently judging. He didn’t say a word. “Angel?” Suho’s voice sounded from upstairs. All three of your looked up. “They’re almost done with him, he’s doing alright. He just lost a lot of blood, you were just in time.” You nodded. “Thank you.” “I think we should thank you, but we both know that might not happen.” He laughed, his grey hair sticking up in different directions. “Xiumin mentioned you were bleeding, come upstairs, Lay will check it out.” Jongin helped you up, and Baekhyun was calling someone behind you. You thanked adrenaline, because with all the pain going through your body right now, you weren’t sure if you would’ve made it to the warehouse if you weren’t high on it. Before you entered the room where Lay was helping D.O., Suho stopped you with a hand around your wrist. “Please don’t talk back to him. Not with Xiumin in the room after D.O. just almost died.” His sentence hit home with you, he almost died. He could’ve died and it would’ve been your fault because you didn’t recognise him and found it necessary to stab him again. “I’m sorry.” “You shouldn’t be.” Suho said. “Just ignore him.” You nodded as Jongin helped you into the room. D.O. was on a hospital bed, the white sheet beneath him stained red, his eyes closed. He was hooked up to a heart monitor, and the IV’s dripped steadily. You didn’t know they had all this stuff. “Sit on the other bed,” Lay said, his voice surprisingly calm and level. Jongin helped you up, and you pulled your disgustingly wet leggings of your legs with some struggles. Leaving your in his sweater and your underwear. Lay disinfected your wound, and you scrunched up your nose at the burn. Jongin took your hand in his, to show you he was there. But he knew you’d taken much worse, it was just Jongin being Jongin. It’s been a long time since you’d seen the professional side of Lay. As he grabbed some anaesthesia, antiseptic and a needle and thread. Maybe you were too naive thinking he’d be nice to you, as you yelped loudly when he practically stabbed the needle in your leg. “Sorry.” he said, his voice still neutral. It was then that you noticed Xiumin at the other end of the room. He was on a chair beside D.O., his dark eyes quickly flickering from the heart monitor to D.O. His back was tense, his head resting against his hands as he leant on his knees. Frightened. Suho stepped over to him, squeezing his shoulder, but he never looked up. The feeling of thread sliding through your skin and wound was uncomfortable, even with the numbness. It was something you’d felt before, but it was still uncomfortable. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from it. The way Lay’s hands moved with ease as the tied of each little stitch, he’d done it hundreds of times before. His normally beautiful hands were gloved. You and Lay would never get along, for good reasons, but there was a thing about his hands that always had you watching them. His fingers were long and nimble, carefully taken care of skin and nails. The hands of someone who used them to heal the human body. And to break it down. “There, you’re all done. I’ll put some gauze around it. It wasn’t deep so it should heal with a small scar.” he pressed gauze on your wound and wrapped some bandage around it. Jongin helped you up again, putting full pressure still hurt. But that was maybe also because of the large bruise at the back of your thigh, which you felt sting from the sitting down. “We should have crutches somewhere, I’ll give you them tomorrow.” Suho said as he followed you outside. “For now, just stay here.” You nodded as Jongin lead you into his room to catch some more sleep.

***

When you woke up, your face was pressed into the crook of Jongin’s neck. His skin was warm against yours, and soft. You sighed deeply, and moved a little. Everything was aching, and your throat was incredibly sore. “Good morning.” Jongin said, voice rough with sleep. You just hummed, scared to try out your voice after last night. “Your neck looks like shit.” He said, trailed a finger over the skin. You flinched away, knowing it was lined with dark bruises. “You can borrow a turtleneck.” As thanks you pressed your lips to the corner of his jaw. He pulled you closer, probably enjoying your warmth as much as you enjoyed his. “It’s been a long time since we were together like this.” His hand trailed down your side to come to rest at your hip. You felt your bad leg was thrown over his. “I missed it.” “Sorry.” You whispered. “It’s okay.” he said, and you drifted back to sleep.

***

You stayed with them for 3 days, for safety reasons. And because Chen and Baekhyun had guilt tripped you into cooking for them, because you stabbed their usual cooks arm and now they’d have to eat takeaway every night. It was nice though, to not be alone for once. Most of them were nice to you, with the usual exception of Lay and Xiumin. They ate with you and the rest, but there wasn’t much conversation, and most of the other guys probably noticed the tension. Suho tried to be as nice to you as he could, but you knew he was the one who suffered the most under your difficult relationship with the other two. Tonight was the night you were going to go home, get back to your customers who you had to cancel due to an unfortunate ‘accident’ at home. Now, you brought food into the living room with Jongin and Sehun on your heels after they’d helped you out. “So Angel, words been getting around something happened at our place. I don’t think most people know why, and neither do we at this point.” He said, sitting down in one of the chair around the table. As you took D.O.’s seat beside Chanyeol and Jongin. “Who was he after thought?” You questioned as you waited for the others to come sit down. “Some guy who had been failing to pay his debt, nothing big. You said there was a whole group of them right?” “Yeah, at least five.” “Weird.” Baekhyun sat down across from you. “I checked surveillance camera’s, but their faces didn’t show up in the databases I have access to. Xiumin took a look, but he didn’t recognise any of them.” “Let me have a look, maybe I recognise them.” “I don’t think we need your help with this.” Lay snarled, from the other side of the table. “You’ve done enough.” Suho sat down too, not wearing his usual skinny jeans but a pair of training pants. “She might be of help though, she knows a lot of people outside from here.” Lay opened his mouth to answer but you beat him to it. “Still opting out of skinny jeans I see Suho?” His eyes shot up from his plate to you, narrowing in something that was supposed to be suspicion but he still looked cute. But behind those sweet eyes, he hides a cunning mind. A mind made for scheming and planning, and coming up with plans to lead them to the best solution. “What are you on about?” Jongdae suddenly said. “Nothing.” “Spit it out.” “Excuse me Chen? What did you just say to me.” You turned over to him, raising an eyebrow daringly. He shook his head. “That’s what I thought.” After that you ate in silence mostly, some short conversations between them about everyday things. The whole time though, you felt that Suho was watching you, and you knew damn well why. You just had expected him to tell them about this, and you tried not to laugh. “Okay what is this?” Chen called out, pointing at you and then at Suho. “Is there some inside joke I’m missing out on?” You looked at Suho, questioning him. Chen noticed. “Spit. it. out.” You zipped up your mouth, leaving it to Suho. Until Sehun chipped in. “You have been wearing lose pants for a while now Junmyeon.” “Shut up Sehun.” he grumbled in response. “Don’t tell me you did it.” Chanyeol said from beside you, and then he looked at you. But you kept a straight face. He turned back to Suho who blushed. You knew that he had probably asked Chanyeol about it before making the decision. “You did it. Oh my god.” “Did what?” Chen whined. You sighed, swallowing the last bite of your meal. “Suho got a prince albert done.” Chen choked on his water, and baekhyun fell silent in his conversation with Jongin. “He what?” Baekhyun asked. Chanyeol was laughing. “He got his dick pierced.” By now Chen was laughing loudly, “Not like he’ll put that thing to good use.” And now some other guys laughed and you saw Suho cringe. You actually felt bad. “Well Chen, the only reason you say that is because you chickened out of yours.” Then it fell silent again. “You did not.” Chen hissed. “I did, now i seriously thought you guys were closer than this. Do I need to point out anybody else’s piercings? Wow.” You leant back in your chair shaking your head while smiling. “Oh please do.” Chen said. He sounded angry, buy you knew that Baekhyun and Kai already knew about it, and Chanyeol probably did too. “Lay doesn’t have any.” Sehun pointed out the silent one at the end of the table. “I do.” he replied calmly. “Under my tongue.” “Risky.” Chanyeol replied. Lay rolled his eyes and stood up from the table. “I have no time for the childish business.” “Why did you have to say that!” Chen whined, with his hands over his face. “You promised.” You chuckled, getting of your chair and stepping over to him. With your arms around his neck and your chin on his head you said; “No I said I would use it against you if you told everyone my secret. But I didn’t say anything about other situations. Plus, how long do you think Baek can keep his mouth shut?” The rest laughed, but Suho didn’t, and you felt Chen move his head to look at Kai for a second. “Don’t even think about it Chen.” You whispered in his ear, and left the room with that. To be honest, you felt sort of bad, you had made that comment towards Suho wasn’t intended this way. Chen would get over it, what he said to Suho wasn’t that nice either. How do they manage to live in such close quarters and not know stuff like this really? Kai had already put the pieces together on Suho’s piercing, and from Sehun’s comment he almost had too. You hopped into the kitchen to bring D.O. something to eat. He was in his bed, they had moved him there since the hospital bed wasn’t that comfortable. His room was at the far end on the hallways, close to Chen’s and Chanyeol’s, who he shared a bathroom with. You hadn’t actually been there yet, but you also felt like you needed to apologise to him. The door opened without a sound, and you found him awake. He was reading a book, but looked up when you entered. “Hey.” he smiled a little. “Hey, I brought food.” “Ah, thank you.” He put the book down beside him and you handed him the plate. “I’m sorry.” You said, bowing your head down. “I should’ve recognised you.” He softly chuckled and patted the bed for you to sit down. “Sit, I have some questions.” You frowned but sat down besides him. “I want to thank you first, if it weren’t for you I’d be dead now.” “I stabbed you.” “After I tried to choke you.” “Yeah, about that why did you do that if you knew it was me?” You said still frowning. He looked up, swallowing his food. “Well that’s what my first question was about actually. Where did you learn to fight like that? For a second I was convinced I broke into the wrong place.” “Oh that…I sort of grew up with it. Did you forget that I’m part of this life too?” “You’re involved with a group like ours?” “I’m a rogue.” Suddenly he stopped eating, eyes going over you. “Then why are you here.” his voice became harsh “Don’t do that! Don’t treat me like rash because I’m a rogue, please. I just work for myself okay.” you mumbled a little bit. He pouted a little, full bottom lip jutting out. Then he looked up at you with big eyes, his red hair almost falling over them now that it wasn’t styled up. “Xiumin alway says tha-“ “I know, I’m not like that.” You looked at him, and he chewed his lip ring. “Sorry.” “It’s alright, i guess I deserve it.” “How did you know his name?” “Huh?” D.O. narrowed his eyes, searching for something on his face. “I can never tell when you’re playing me or not.” “Life is a game. Whose name?” “Xiumin’s, it’s Minseok. I’ve been here for a little less than two years, but even I didn’t know. Suho told me.” He took another bite of his food, looking away from you. “Oh.” you said, you had barely realised you’d said his name. “I’ve known him for a long time now, I know all of your first names.” He looked up again, moving his hand to touch the piercing in his eyebrow, twisting it. “You know mine?” “Kyungsoo. But I never call you that, I know.” “You can, I don’t like D.O.” “Then I will. Just not around Xiumin, he get’s pretty ticked of when I call you guys by your real names.” Kyungsoo nodded. “Are you okay?” His question kind of startled you, why should he care? He almost died himself and you only added to that. “Don’t worry about me.” “I can see the bruises on your neck. I’m sorry for doing that.” “Well I guess we’re even then?” He laughed a little, and you couldn’t help but smile at the sound. “Yeah, I guess we are. I am sorry for bringing them to your house though, I’d help clean up if I were in a better state.” You stood up to leave. “I got to go, I’ll see you around. I hope you get better soon.” with a salute you walked to the door, but his voice stopped you. “Angel, if there’s every any way I can repay you for saving my life, let me know.” With a grin on your face you turned around, shooting him a wink. “I will.” The door closed behind you, and you took the door to the other stairways, which lead to the basement. They had a training room there, filled with all sorts of work out equipment and machines. You remember asking Xiumin if you could use it once, he blatantly refused and you had pouted. His answer remained no. So now you had a subscription to the local gym, which smelled like shit. He was there though, like you expected. Wearing sweatpants and nothing else. His feet were bare on the mat, his back glistening with sweat. Xiumin had probably the best body in the group in your opinion. He was a little on the short side, but his chest was nicely defined and his arms definitely looked good too. His muscles flexed as he punched the bag in the middle of the room, shoulders tensing and relaxing, jumping on the balls of his feet. There were some bloody streaks on the bag, probably from his unprotected knuckles. You had told him over and over again he should wrap them up, but he’ll never learn. It was bad for his tattoo’s, and he came in for touch ups more regularly than normal people with hand tattoos did. The skin on his hands was layered with scars, from cutting his own hands, getting into fist fights. It was that way when he was younger, before the group came to be. Before everything. “Get out.” He panted, wiping the sweat of his forehead and grabbing a bottle of water of the floor. “Don’t command me.” “You should know better.” “I know better than to listen to your commands like a little lap dog. I don’t work for you, you can’t tell me what to do, Minseok.” You went over to one of the cabinets and took out rolled of bandage. “Xiumin.” he corrected you with a snarl. “You are not going to force me into obedience by having me not say your real name.” you said calmly. He sat down on a bench and you sat down beside him, roughly taking one of his hands and wiping them with a wet cloth. “Stop doing this, he’s going to be okay.” You put the loop of the bandage around his thumb and started wrapping his hands. “One day you’re going to hurt yourself. They care about you too you know. It shouldn’t take an event like this for you to show you reciprocation.” He didn’t reply, but willingly handed you his other hand. “Showing that you care isn’t weakness, it’s strength, because you have to put yourself in a vulnerable position. It’s easier to remain closed up and protected.” You finished and stood up. “If you need a touch up, give me a call.” Before you reached the door, your eyes met his in the large mirror on the side. They were free of makeup, sharp, staring into yours. Most people were swayed by his voice, the authority in it. For you, it had always been his eyes, how it felt like he’d stare at you until you fell apart under it. “Tell me one thing before you leave.” he said, standing up. “Why is it, that every time you’re involved, one of them has to die?”

@oh-beyond @chenbootysoo @mylordae @littlekatlizzy @i-am-foyo @sherbatchan @damn-jongdae-slay @ruke-pammant @nunchiwrites @bootyfulohsehun @killingxkaila @thawingsnowwolf