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kotoprotranslations · 2 months ago

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EPISODE 7 LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 6-3 English Translation

“Sir!”

It was at that moment that a young man came jogging up to them. He wore the same uniform as the other staff members, but his hood was a different color than the rest. He must work in the research labs, Owl thought, up until Clemens waved at him and called, “Ah, Fossanova.”

“Fossanova?” Owl snapped his notebook shut, eyes wide, and whispered to Clemens, “Fossanova as in the director?”

“Correct. You’re well informed.”

“Of course I am, don’t insult Nick’s information network like that. The guy just took over as head of the facility, his name was easy enough to find.”

“... Well done, Nick,” Clemens murmured.

Fossanova rushed right up to Clemens, relief lining every inch of his face. “I’m so glad you came back, sir,” he said, grasping Clemens’ hand.

“Of course I did,” Clemens replied.

“There’s been no progress since you left, and I’ve frankly been at a loss on what to do. I’m truly grateful that you didn’t run away.” The corners of Fossanova’s mouth ticked up like he was joking, but that smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Clemens clapped the man on the shoulder. “I would never. I said I’d come right back, didn’t I?”

Fossanova’s eyes slid over to Owl and Elnora. He paused. He blinked for a moment. He turned back to Clemens. “Sir, erm, is he really...?” he asked doubtfully. “He’s, uh, rather young.”

“He is quite young,” agreed Clemens, “but he is also a state alchemist. Lord Tristan himself has given him his stamp of approval. He’s a detective by the name of Owl.”

Fossanova was silent for several seconds. “... Truly?” he eventually said, staring at Owl with renewed interest. “To receive a state certification at such a tender age is no small feat. Forgive me, I was certain an older, more experienced detective would be coming... I’m afraid you caught me off guard.” He stuck out his hand to Owl. “My name is Fossanova, Owl. I’m the person who asked for your services, and, as you’re already aware, I’m also the director of this facility.”

Owl observed Fossanova during that whole exchange, and honestly, he was just as surprised as the other. Fossanova didn’t possess the sort of dignified look of a hospital director. He’d expected that, though – according to the info Nick dug up, the man was only in his mid-twenties. He was a thin, nervous-looking man, with loose longish hair the color of gold leaf tucked behind his ears. Rather than a Gefinesse clergy, he looked more like a doctor... in fact, the air about him sort of resembled Jack’s, in a way.

Observations complete, Owl gripped the other man’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Likewise.”

Elnora chimed in, “And I’m his assistant, Elnora. Lovely to meet you as well.”

“Miss Elnora, yes, Mr. Clemens has mentioned you quite often.” Fossanova offered Elnora a handshake as well. “Let’s move to my rooms for the time being,” he urged. “There are rather too many eyes here.”

Owl shook his head, though, and demanded, “No, show me the body now, please, before anything else.”

“You wish to examine the body?” Fossanova asked, brows furrowed. “You can, of course, but are you not tired from the trip here?”

“I’m fine. I’m young, after all,” Owl stressed.

Fossanova’s lips quirked in a wry smile. “That makes two of us. Well, then, let’s go.” He turned and set off at a brisk walk.

As soon as they were walking, Elnora struck up a friendly conversation with Fossanova. “Ah, hey, Director!”

“Yes?”

“If you’re in charge around here, you can get your hands on a uniform, right?”

“Er... yes?”

“Then can you get one for me? This one’s too small ‘round the waist and chest.”

“Uh-huh....”

“I mean, just look at this! These clothes totally screw up my figure, and don’t you think the crest on the shoulders stands out way too much? They’re just indecent. What are they, roses? Ugh, so audacious, I don’t care for it at all. I’m meant to be the biggest, most beautiful flower on the block, so everyone else around me needs to be neat and trim by comparison. Like, let me see, what do you think of bluebells?”

Fossanova listened with wide eyes as Elnora prattled on with no regard for decorum. It didn’t matter who she was talking to, director or patient or anyone, Elnora spoke her mind. “My apologies, but all I can offer you here are the uniforms for female students,” he eventually answered with a strained smile. “There are very few here as lovely as you... well, there are very few women here in general, I should say.”

“Oh, my.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, just impressed. You sure know how to flatter a girl. You could use better material, though. Try adding something to it, like ‘you’re beauty incarnate’ or ‘you’re as lovely as a flower fairy.’” Elnora wriggled her shoulders captivatingly.

“A... fairy?”

Next to her, a sour-faced Owl spoke up, rubbing salt in the wound. “I’m not fond of the color, either,” he said, picking at the chartreuse robes around his shoulders.

“Oh? I like this color, I think it’s lovely,” Elnora shot back.

“The color’s fine, it’s that I’ve only been seeing younger staff wearing it,” Owl explained. “It’s probably the color trainees wear. Do I look like a trainee to you?”

“Well, you look young enough. It means you don’t stand out.”

“... I don’t like it.”

“Oh, dear,” Clemens sighed, “and here I thought your mood had improved. Are you really going to go all surly on us again?”

“You drew on me while I was asleep and had me solve a pointless puzzle,” Owl bit back. “Why on Earth would I be in a good mood?”

“Ah, well, I suppose. I apologize for that. But that’s not the only reason, right? Perhaps you’re also just desperate to find Jack?”

Owl flinched. “I’m not –” he started, then willfully held his tongue with a scowl. “Yes, fine, I’m worried. The sooner we find him, the better.”

“As I thought.”

“But that’s not why I’m in a bad mood. I don’t like all that ‘fighting factions’ stuff.”

“Ah, that’s what you’re up in arms about?”

“Yeah.”

Clemens tipped his head with a crooked smile. “Well, I hadn’t expected you to be keen on it.” The young detective’s love of complex mysteries did not extend to complex interpersonal relationships and conflict. “I imagine you had many opportunities in your past to get involved with such groups.”

“I’m not saying they shouldn’t be formed. I think it’s good that they promote each other’s best qualities. But most factional disputes start because some people belittle the other side’s achievements or, worst-case scenario, ruin their work and kick ‘em when they’re down while they’re at it. That’s the part I don’t like.”

“... And yet such factions and social groups are held in quite high esteem in this country. Higher than any other, I might say.”

“That’s why I made sure all the alchemical recipes I made in college were accessible to everyone... though apparently those idiotic professors have been hogging some of them for themselves. I regret not setting those recipes to burn up after three days.”

“Yes, they do occasionally keep knowledge to themselves, don’t they?”

“And there are even people who don’t accept opposing factions at all and try to completely obliterate them.”

Clemens pursed his lips at that, his merriment fading slightly. Such a dark word, “obliterate.” “Quite the dangerous thing to speak into the world,” he said quietly.

“That was my childhood.”

“What?”

“My father... Tristan has a lot of enemies, and a child makes for a glaring weakness. There were plenty of fools around him who tried to use that.”

“Ahh.” Clemens heard what Owl left unsaid. State Alchemist Tristan, the man who stood at the pinnacle of his craft, probably had hordes of unwanted groups dogging his heels, and for every supporter there also had to be an opponent. Those opponents had to have seen Owl as a suitable target. “Were you by any chance ever kidnapped due to your relation to him?”

Owl rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”

“What?”

“Don’t underestimate our staff. If a bomb fell on us while one of his friends had me by the hand, or if they dragged me into a waiting carriage or something, they’d be consigned to a nightmare existence of constantly being stalked by predators unless they were forced to flee the country.”

Clemens thought back to the butler and maid he met at the McCreech estate. “... I see your point,” he agreed.

“But the fact remains that there’ll always be a target on my back. That’s why I hate all that fighting between parties,” Owl declared. “Why do they have to always be looking down on each other? It’s the same with knowledge, too, keeping it all for yourself just grinds progress to a halt. They’re just as stupid as the politicians who rant about enemies at our borders like it’s a good thing.”

“So that’s why you left Tristan’s house?” Clemens asked with a faint, wry smile.

“Not really. I wasn’t scared of being kidnapped or anything.”

“I figured. But Tristan is rather vital to the country – I would imagine the less weaknesses he has, the better.” Under his breath, he added, “There’s no way he didn’t drill into his boy that love is the greatest weakness of all....” Clemens poked Owl in the shoulder and teased, “You’ve got a surprisingly strong sense of filial piety, don’t you?”

Owl narrowed his eyes. “You want me to kick you again?”

Clemens immediately stepped away from Owl. “I would very much rather you didn’t.”

In the time everyone spent chatting, Fossanova guided everyone down a back road and to a simple one-story stone building set a little way apart from the main plaza. Owl took one look at the semicircular arched windows and the undecorated exterior and murmured, “This building looks fairly new.”

“Only on the outside,” Fossanova replied, having overheard. “It was apparently destroyed during the war, so when they rebuilt it they decided to model it after a Namuron citadel.” He unlocked the wooden door and opened it for everyone.

The first thing that immediately stood out when they stepped inside was the altar against the eastern wall. Not only was it decorated with flowers, the shelves and floor around it were also littered with burning candles that coated the area with a warm reddish glow. The blue ceiling tiles above depicted an impressive mosaic of the night sky, complete with several constellations, while the blue floor tiles below were painted to look like ocean waves. Three students stood crowded around the altar, but when they saw them approaching they hurriedly straightened, each with tense looks on their faces. “Director!” they called.

Fossanova glanced at each of them in turn. Distress flashed across his face for a brief instant, but he spoke appreciatively. “... Ahh. It was your turns to pray. Good work.” He crossed the room toward a lattice door on the other end without further ado.

“Director!” One of the students rushed up, though, to peer up at him with concern. She was a cute girl, with a short reddish bob and doleful, droopy eyes. One hand reached out toward Fossanova’s arm. “Are you feeling well? I’ve been horribly worried.”

Fossanova held up a finger. “Hold your tongue of private matters, lest the flames of repose in your soul die out” he instructed. “Continue your prayers.”

The girl apologetically withdrew back to the altar.

Fossanova unlocked the lattice door and ushered Owl’s group inside. Inside was a flight of stairs leading underground. “The morgue is down here,” he told them, lighting a lamp and passing it to Owl.

A morgue. A place where dead bodies lay enshrined. A place that all medical facilities were sure to have.

Cold air twined around their ankles as they descended the stone steps into the deep darkness.

“So hey, that girl by the altar just now....”

“Yes?”

“... No, I guess I was just wondering if it was used for funeral ceremonies.” Rather than echoing off the walls around them, Elnora’s voice seemed to be sucked into the gaps between the stones, leaving no proof she spoke at all.

“It is,” Fossanova answered. “We always keep the altar lit to provide prayers for those who have passed away in our facility. The students here take two-hour shifts at night to stand watch.”

“Interesting.” Elnora pressed her hand to her mouth, not that it did anything to hide her giggle. “Ah, but it seems like a sweet way to pass the time.”

Fossanova squinted at her, befuddled. “Sweet? What do you...?”

“Oh, you know,” she tittered. “I caught a whiff of something sugary coming from them... jam, maybe?”

“Jam?” Fossanova repeated blankly.

“Perhaps it was a Bakewell tart? Either way, those kids have been eating sweets in secret.” Elnora shrugged, playful smile still dancing on her lips. “I understand, though, having to pray for even two hours locked up in a morgue may as well be purgatory for young people. They’d lose it if they didn’t have something like sweets to distract themselves.”

“Are... are you truly saying they’ve been eating sweets up there?”

“Oh, yes, I can tell. My nose is very sharp, especially when it comes to sugary delights.”

Fossanova tilted his head up to the ceiling and sighed. “... I see.” His head then bent forward, sagging under an invisible weight. “I’m sorry you bore witness to something so embarrassing. We usually tell our students quite firmly that those who learn medicine must not be prideful and must treat even the dead with proper respect, and yet....”

“That’s a wonderful lesson to impart to them, but I don’t think they’re really trying to disobey you or anything,” Elnora pointed out. “And I don’t think they’re being disrespectful, either. It’s just that, a person that’s not living? That’s kind of horrifying in its own right, just the idea that someone’s not alive anymore. It’s easy to avoid it, but you need a lot of love in your heart to pay proper respects. I sure couldn’t.~”

Fossanova... really had no response to her easygoing, almost aloof demeanor, so all he could do was blankly mumble, “... Uh-huh....” He tilted his head toward Clemens and whispered, “She’s got a rather... frank way of looking at things.”

Clemens nodded with a commiserating half-shrug. “You’re not wrong. But she can provide salvation precisely because that’s who she is.”

“Exactly,” Elnora declared, inserting herself right into their conversation. “If you ever feel like your faith is wavering, come to me anytime. Heaven doesn’t save a single soul at the end of the day, but if you come to me, I’ll let you worship me completely all you want. I use methods you wouldn’t even dream of... to show you real salvation.” She tipped Fossanova a beguiling wink. “Okay?”

“Yes, yes, very funny.” Fossanova twisted away and tromped down the stairs.

Clemens patted Elnora’s shoulder as he passed her. “Go easy on the teasing, Elnora.”

Elnora’s smile widened. “He’s got such a pure heart. I didn’t expect that from someone you know. He’s just adorable.”

The group descended the stairs single file until they finally came upon another door, this one made of half-rusted metal. Fossanova pushed this door open, revealing a long corridor on the other side. Even colder air blasted their faces as they stepped through the doorway.

Owl paused right as he was about to start walking down the corridor, raising the lamp up to get a better view of the stone walls. “There’s alchemy engraved in these,” he commented. He gently ran his hand along the sigils carved into the rock. “... Ice-based alchemy.”

“You’re correct. We store bodies down here, so we need to keep the temperature low,” explained Fossanova. “Ice alchemy is quite handy for preserving cadavers. Though I’m afraid I couldn’t say more – I’m hopeless with these kinds of things.”

“These look pretty old.”

“They are. They’ve been here since the facility was first established.”

Owl studied the sigils for a moment. “Would you mind if I jotted these down?” he eventually asked.

“Huh?” Fossanova blinked. “Oh, no, please, by all means. As I understand it, they’re simple formulas one could find anywhere....”

“No, they look simple, but one of these has water and air properties mixed in. Extremely rare.”

“Er... is it?”

Clemens smiled wryly when Fossanova glanced at him. “Let him do as he likes,” he advised with a shrug. “He’s the type who can’t hold back when something’s caught his interest.”

“I want to ask Tristan his opinion on this,” Owl said as he took careful notes of the sigils.

“Really?” Clemens peeked at his notes with an uncertain frown. “These are rather old, aren’t they? And combining attributes like this is a recent development – researchers are still hard at work on the subject. Alchemists only managed it thanks to sophisticated alchemical tools, so would it not be impossible for an alchemist this far in the past to have succeeded?”

“Which is why I want to ask Tristan. And it might help Ritz, too.”

“Ritz?”

“You know she Demonized, right?”

“Yes, I heard about what happened during that Demon Parade incident.”

“... You ‘heard’ about it?” Owl squinted at him for a moment. He swore he saw Clemens there back then... but he chose to hold his tongue for now. “When she Demonized, she became Leviathan and could manipulate water. But that’s odd, because Ritz is a Libra; by all rights, her element should’ve been air.”

“You’re referring to controlling elements through alchemy, though. She wasn’t using alchemy to control water, she was using the power she gained by becoming a Demon.”

“Right, but it’s still your inner ‘magic’ you’re drawing on whether you’re a Demon or an alchemist, and that’s something you have from the start. Your inclination toward a certain property should still have a considerable effect. Nick’s an Aries like me and his attribute’s fire – you know that lightning he’s always got crackling around him? That’s where that comes from. And Ralph’s a Libra, which is why his claws are always wreathed in rushing wind. You’re an Aquarius, by the way, water sign, and you control blood, which is a liquid... ahh, right, and Mrs. Eliza is a Capricorn, that’s an earth sign, and she looked like a rose blooming out of the ground and was summoning all those thorny vines.”

“Now that you mention it, you have a point.”

“But when Krinos turned Ritz into a Demon, she had the property of water. My guess is that’s what that angel specialized in, and that’s why all those other people turned into merpeople. But when I think back now, Ritz wasn’t just controlling water, she was also controlling ice, meaning she was using her inherent element of air with the water. Or, not really air, she was probably manipulating the atmospheric pressure around her.”

“You can turn water into ice by changing the atmosphere around you?”

“Yeah. If you place water at normal temperature in a vacuum, the boiling point drops to below zero degrees. Boiling water vaporizes, which robs it of all its heat, which instantly freezes it. Put simply, Ritz combined several elements at the same time without using any tools or –”

“Okay, I get it!” Clemens snapped his fingers in front of Owl’s face before he got too fired up and lost in his own explanation. Owl froze like Clemens had poured a bucket of water on him instead. “... I understand you want to help her, Owl,” Clemens continued a bit more gently. “Believe me, I do. But just stop for now. Save the explanation for later, take your notes, and let’s move on.”

Owl took a breath and gathered himself. “... You’re right,” he murmured with a nod. He shut his mouth, finished taking his notes, and pressed on with the others.

It wasn’t long before Elnora gave a full body shiver. “It is freezing down here. Hey, Owl, light a fire,” she demanded.

“I’m not a fireplace.”

“But a lady is asking. C’mon, hurry up.”

Owl hesitated for a moment longer, but eventually sighed and snapped his gloved fingers, performing his Wave Molecule transmutation. Golden light flared to life around his fingertip, spinning into a circular array that sparked a tiny flame in its center. In the dark of the underground corridor, the space around him shone as bright as the sun. He picked up some broken brick fragments by his feet and blew the golden circle on them, causing them to start shining just as brilliantly. “Here,” he said, holding them out to Elnora.

“What’re these?”

“Heated stones like the ones they use in the East... or something similar, anyway.”

“Heated stones?” Elnora gingerly grabbed them. “Oh!” she gasped as the glowing fragments slowly began to warm her hands. “These are impressive. They’re so nice and warm, and they’re not cooling down, either! They’re staying the perfect temperature.”

“Oh? Owl, you learned how to imbue your alchemy into objects? Impressive indeed.” Clemens’ eyebrows climbed up his face. “Isn’t that quite difficult, though?”

“Imbuing alchemy into objects?” Elnora echoed, eyes sparkling. “Wait, can you imbue alchemy into people? That’d be super useful. I want to summon fire like Owl does.” She wrapped the pieces of brick in a handkerchief and stuffed them in her chest.

Owl, however, shook his head, unmoved by their compliments. “Unfortunately, no, I can’t imbue people with alchemy. You need to decipher their element and ‘circulate’ it through their body, but as a fire element I’m pretty bad at that. You’d be better off asking a water or an air for that. Tristan’s earth, so he couldn’t teach it to me well.”

“So there are things you’re both bad at,” Clemens hummed. “You managed those rocks just now fine, though.”

“Because they’re inorganic. It’s relatively easier to unilaterally shove my power into something. I can’t use it for long, though. A client came by the office recently and used a card imbued with alchemy on Nick, and I tried copying them, but even with practice it was really difficult and didn’t end up working out that well anyway. He seemed to be good at circulating his property, so he was probably a water or air type.”

“‘He?’”

“The client. Called himself Louis. He was looking for his foster parent.”

Clemens fell silent. His eyes darted away. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but it looked like he might have mouthed someone’s name. Owl frowned at the priest’s reaction – he had the pained look of a man who’d just been bitten by an unknown snake – and he opened his mouth to ask.

“I should have expected as much from Mr. Clemens’ acquaintance,” Fossanova declared. Owl shut his mouth again. “I will admit to some small doubt at first, given your age... but you possess a superb wealth of knowledge about alchemy. I’d almost like to ask you to give a lecture on medical alchemy like Mr. Clemens.”

“You teach medical alchemy here?” Owl asked, interest piqued.

“Oh, yes. My father... the previous director was a Black Rose Disease specialist. He was researching a possible form of treatment that combined traditional medication with alchemy.”

“With alchemy? I saw the news about medicinal treatment in the paper, but this is the first I’m hearing of alchemy being involved.”

“There are many out here in the countryside who are afraid of alchemy, so we haven’t made it public knowledge just yet. But with the Black Rose Disease spreading at its current rate, we decided to pour all our efforts into researching a cure and started providing treatment free of charge several years ago... though none of them could overcome the illness inside them. I respected the previous director quite deeply for that.”

Owl’s head tilted. “You say that like you don’t respect him anymore,” he commented, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

Fossanova’s face tightened for a moment, but it soon smoothed out into yet another gentle smile. “I still do, of course. I simply meant that he didn’t manage to find the cure before he left.... He’s currently convalescing in the suburbs.”

“He’s not receiving treatment here?”

“... No, he is not. Now, we’ve arrived – the morgue is just ahead.”

Yet another door stood at the end of the long corridor. Fossanova opened it and ushered everyone through. The group proceeded through a wide room of stone, empty save for the rows of beds... except they weren’t beds, they were wooden pedestals with white sheets draped over them. It went without saying what lay underneath those sheets.

“There were two bodies discovered on the grounds.” Fossanova headed further into the room. “This one here,” he said, stopping by one of the pedestals, “was found at the base of the cliff. The autopsy revealed traces of electrocution and an injury to the head.”

“That must be Daniel, then.”

“... Yes. It was some time before his body was found, so we have been unable to determine which of the two directly caused his death. The clothes he was wearing at the time and all of his belongings are over there.”

Fossanova lifted the sheet, revealing the body of the man he and Clemens had stood over in that rainy forest several days ago. Owl approached and examined it from head to toe. “Yeah, this could’ve been death by electrocution or a fall,” he mumbled to himself.

Fossanova’s gaze slid from the body to the ground. when he heard that. “... This was an accident, right?” he asked.

Unfortunately for him, Owl shook his head. “I’m not a coroner,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I’m only remarking on what I see here. The body has the sort of feathered burn marks that often show up on corpses that have been struck by a lightning bolt, which is likely what electrocuted him. But these injuries are severe; lightning didn’t cause those. Without looking into the circumstances of his death and where he died, I wouldn’t be able to say anything definitive about what actually caused his death.”

“Oh... is that so....” Fossanova’s head drooped.

Owl watched him with a vague sense of unease. Did he want Owl to say it was an accident? The detective’s eyes flicked to the neighboring pedestal. He reached out and lifted that sheet, revealing an elderly woman beneath. Down the line he went, checking body after body. To his relief, none of them were Jack’s. “So which one of these is the second body you mentioned?” he asked.

Fossanova’s head lifted. “None of them,” he answered, glancing to the corner of the room. The wall over there was bare, save for something leaning against the stones.

Owl tilted his head curiously. Whatever it was, it stood a little taller than himself, draped in a sheet like everything else. The vague shape underneath looked like it might be an old carpet someone left in storage, but....

“I couldn’t enshrine him supine like the others, so I had to set him up against the wall like this....”

Fossanova strode up to the object and pulled the sheet off.

“Since this is the state he’s in....”

“Huh?”

“If I try to lay him out flat, he rolls and falls to the floor.”

The thing under the sheet... was a far cry from “human.”

Owl had seen and experienced all sorts of things, but this was a new one.

For several seconds, everyone stood in stunned silence. The thing standing there just looked so... ghastly.

“How... in the world did it get like...?”

“I don’t know. He was in this state when we found him in the ruins of the mill.”

“That’s....” Owl slowly approached it. His monocled eye narrowed. “... Run through by a spear? No....” he muttered to himself. “And this is human? It’s real?”

“It’s real,” Fossanova confirmed. “The flesh has been decomposing. This was Luca Capanet, a neurological researcher here at the institute. He was at work the day before we found him like this, healthy and lively as anything from what I understand.”

The thing propped up against the wall was a corpse... but not just any corpse. Several gigantic stone protrusions lanced the body, spiky and jagged and numerous. They looked eerily reminiscent of lightning, as if someone had crystallized several bolts and shot them directly into the body.

“... It’s like looking at a shrike’s prey,” Owl commented, drawing closer to the body’s face to get a better look. He paused. “He wasn’t stabbed,” he realized. “... Are these coming out of him?”

He drew his fingers along the spot where stone met flesh. The way the flesh stretched around the stone, it looked as though they’d burst from the corpse. “The stone’s growing out of the body....” Owl grabbed one of the spires and pulled, but it didn’t budge. However it had happened, the stone was basically glued to the body. “Yeah, I can see how you couldn’t lay it out flat,” he muttered off-handedly to Fossanova. With spikes of unremovable rock in it? Not a chance. The pointed ends of the stone kept the body propped upright against the wall, as well, making it look like it was vaguely hovering in midair.

It was a gruesome sight. The dead man’s clothes had all been charred, and the body itself covered in soot. Half of the face was gone, destroyed by one of the stone lightning spires.

Ow tilted his head, gazing at the spiky rock. “... I wonder....” He reached out and wiped some of the soot from the stone. The actual rock underneath was a dark gray... well, grayish, mixed with dark blue and purple, and translucent like a gemstone. “... Not red...” Owl murmured. “So it’s not that, then?” His eyes wandered back to the perfect fusion of skin and stone, utterly befuddled. How did organic and inorganic material combine like that? He was hard-pressed to describe the sight, and he was staring right at it.

“What do you think killed him?” Clemens asked from behind him.

The priest sounded way too calm – he must’ve already seen the body. Owl turned to glare at him. Yet again, he’d had failed to share pertinent information.

Thankfully, Clemens answered his unspoken question, though he sounded perfectly unaffected. “If I’d told you beforehand, I might have poisoned your mind with my own opinions. You needed to form your own thoughts first.” He drew close to Owl and murmured in his ear, “I thought he might have been halfway to transforming into a Demon when he died from shock or the like, but he it turns out he wasn’t infected.”

“... I see.” Owl turned back to the body to continue his inspection. “I don’t have a clue how he died or how this all got fused to his body... but he was probably murdered.”

“Murdered, hm....”

“Yeah. It’s faint, but I can see traces of alchemy around the body. Whatever killed him, it was probably some kind of alchemy... but still, it’s a little odd.”

“You’re saying the killer was an alchemist? Can alchemy do that to a person?” Clemens gestured to the rocky spikes.

“Theoretically, anything’s possible... but this is all hypothetical. Mixing two completely different properties like this would be extraordinarily difficult.”

“Even for you?”

“Even for me. You must’ve heard what happened when I tried to make pudding.”

“Ahh... right, that... I heard that it looked perfect, but that the flavor was uniquely... unique.”

“And that was a relatively simple dessert. Mixing a human with an inorganic substance....”

“So, he couldn’t withstand the fusion and died of shock, then?”

“No, we don’t know if this happened before or after he died. We can’t rule out the possibility that he died from something completely different and someone tried to use his body for whatever this was.”

They had to account for everything... except Clemens shook his head and asserted, “No, he was still alive.”

“And how can you tell?”

“Simple. He was still alive when the stable hand found him. He even managed to say a few words.”

“Really? What did he say?”

“‘The first. Not here.’”

“‘Not here’...? What did he mean? And what was ‘first’?” Elnora, who had been listening quietly for a while, cocked her head. “And if it’s ‘not here,’ then where?”

“I don’t know. I honestly wouldn’t even be able to hazard a guess,” Clemens replied.

“... Hm.”

Owl listened to their chatter as he rooted through the dead man’s burnt clothes. He stilled when his fingers brushed against something hard. “Hm? Hey, this guy was carrying something on him. Maybe it’s in his inner pocket...?”

“Huh?”

Owl patted down the clothes till he found the pocket and dug around inside. “Yeah, there’s something here,” he reported as he pulled out a piece of a mirror. He frowned and dug around some more, but there was only the one fragment. “Why’s there only one?” he wondered, holding it up to the lamp. It looked like a regular old mirror, but on closer inspection, there were tiny letters engraved on the back. “An alchemical formula...? No, this is....” He started, then thrust it toward Clemens. “Your turn, Clemens.”

“My what now?”

“This is the same ancient language from the McCreech estate and Teos Island.”

“What?” Clemens grabbed the mirror piece and traced his finger over the letters on the back. “... You’re right, this does appear to be the same language.”

“What’s it say? Read it out for me.”

“I can’t. This is probably the middle of a sentence. Without the first part, I can’t translate it.”

“You can’t deduce it just with what you’ve got there?””

“Don’t be absurd. I can’t deduce it.”

“This is why I said you should teach me how to decode it!” Owl snatched the mirror out of Clemens’ hand with a click of his tongue. Useless priest. He grabbed his notebook and snapped it open to a page littered with complex characters, glancing between it and the mirror. “... This word here is ‘liar,’ isn’t it?” he checked with Clemens. Apparently the detective had been making notes on his own time to try and decode the language.

“You’re definitely Tristan’s son,” Clemens remarked, completely ignoring the question. “You both go about things the exact same way.”

“Now is not the time for that. Just answer the question.”

“Ah, well, yes, I suppose you could say that’s an accurate guess based on the context given.”

“‘Liar,’ huh....” Owl considered the mirror, his mind awhirl.

However, he didn’t get the chance to pursue his train of thought long.

Thundering footsteps echoed in the wide empty space of the morgue, heralding the arrival of someone who was quite clearly in a hurry. One of the young men they’d seen by the altar before burst through the doorway and shouted, “Director! Something terrible’s happened!”

Fossanova whirled around. “What is it?!”

“S-Someone else died...! Th-They told me to come get you...!!”

Owl rushed past the trembling young man without another word.

original written by Nagaya Kawaji here

#kotonoha project #for the record aquarius is an AIR sign #I'm an aquarius I've agonized over this exact thing many a time #but I have to translate what I'm given and the writer got it wrong in a way I can't correct!

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mushroombitchboy · 3 years ago

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(nyehehhe ginger best friend time)

"Woah, what's in that one?" Eki pointed to a vial of something bubbling. Jun had invited her into the lab, and she had done nothing but marvelled at all the different colors and labels of things she had read once in her teammate's notebook but never again.

The lab was different than she'd expected, but was certainly still cool. Jun knew the names of everything and how it all worked, and Eki found herself mostly just asking questions. She tried to stay out of their way, but her excitement drew her towards the colorful liquids. She looked at the liquid Jun had poured onto a plant, burning straight through the leaf. "Is that acidic?"

The girl was absolutely adorable, the fact that Kumo hadn’t introduced Eki to them earlier was a crime. Junpei doesn’t care that the man only had her for a month! She would make a great assistant, maybe even partner if she was interested.

All she has to do is stop talking and start listening, but Jun couldn’t really be mad, this side of the ninja world isn’t something they teach in detail at the academy. A ninja would have to seek out the knowledge themselves.

“Yes, that is acidic—and that,” the teen carefully grabbed the vial that Eki took off the counter, “is something you don’t touch.” They almost laughed at how much Eki reminded him of Kumo, always curious about what happening and wanting to touch anything.

“You know, if you wanted to I’d be willing to take out some free time and teach you how to make some of this. We just couldn’t tell my sensei, or your sensei…or anyone that outranks us.” Junpei didn’t have the permission to take Eki into the experimenting area, let alone teach her. Still if they were sneaky enough it was possible.

#oc:junpei #oc:eki #rp #GINGER PARTNERS IN CRIME

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years ago

Text

Eccentricity [Chapter 9: Now I Love Your Shadow And I Love Your Curls]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sex, violence, and drug use.

Word Count: 7.6k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk

Field Trip

“You want to go to Chicago with me?”

I coughed, having almost inhaled a chunk of pineapple off my slice of GrubHubbed pizza. We were sitting on the grass outside Forks And Spoons under the shade of the maple trees, which were turning from jade to ruby to amber to fool’s gold, rejoining the earth they once rose from one fallen leaf at a time. It hadn’t rained in almost four days—was that some kind of record?!—and the leaves littering the ground crunched when I stepped on them, which I did purposefully and often. The breeze was soft and whispery and temperate. I could get used to this whole having actual seasons thing. “What, in like a hypothetical, at some point in my life kind of way?”

Joe smiled. His U Chicago hoodie of the day was black. “No, as in this weekend.”

“Really?”

“The Cubs have a game on Saturday, and it’s supposed to be rainy and overcast the whole time, and I just thought...” He shrugged, toying with a piece of pizza crust before tossing it to the squirrels. He’s nervous, I realized. How the hell do I have the ability to make the sexy undead Italian man nervous? “It might be nice for us to be able to get away for a few days. Away from my family. Away from Charlie. Not that I don’t appreciate the ambient noise of his snoring from the living room couch, it’s super endearing, I seriously consider dating him instead of you at least twice a week.”

“Go for it. Charlie could use a rich husband. His pension is pathetic.”

“You wouldn’t miss me?”

“I am not necessarily opposed to clandestinely seducing my sugar daddy stepdad should the occasion arise.”

Joe crossed himself like a nun passing tattooed, cursing, lip-pierced teenagers on the sidewalk. “Lord, protect me from this harlot.”

A weekend away. No Charlie, no constant and chaotic whirlwind of Lees, no Ben. I hadn’t spoken to Ben since our misadventure in the Lee kitchen; if he wasn’t avoiding me of his own volition, he was following orders to stay away. Joe claimed that they’d talked it out. I wasn’t sure if I believed him. “I accept your invitation. Although, truthfully, I’d rather get hit by a bus than watch an entire real-life, no-commercial-breaks baseball game.”

“I accept your acceptance. And I’ll throw in a visit to the Shedd Aquarium, just for you. They have baby sea otters.”

“Sweet.” I checked my iPhone. “I’m gonna be late for Chemistry.”

“Anything fun planned?”

“We’re doing a lab involving hydrochloric acid. I’m highly concerned that Ben will accidentally spill some on himself. The miraculous instantaneous healing thing might raise a few questions.”

“Hm,” Joe replied. But he wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at my bandaged hand. And he wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Joe, I’m fine.”

“Yeah.” He took a preoccupied swig of his Dr. Pepper. Solemnity never seemed right on him; it was like he was wearing somebody else’s skin. “You’ve mentioned that.”

“Hey. Mob guy.”

Now his eyes flicked to mine.

“No more sad spaghetti.”

“Okay.” He surrendered, took my face in his hands, gave me a kiss on each cheek and then one quick parting peck on the forehead. “You win. I’m not sad. I’m ecstatic, actually. I’m gonna be eating my weight in hotdogs and mustard-slathered pretzels on Saturday. What’s there not to be ecstatic about?”

“The fact that your license says you’re only twenty and consequently can’t get a beer?”

Joe blinked, remembering. “Fuck.”

I drained my Diet Coke, flung my pizza crust to the skittering grey squirrels—no eerie albino forest friends today—and pulled on my backpack. “See ya. Have an awesome time in Game Theory.”

“Thanks, I probably won’t!” he chimed, waving, grinning compliantly; and yet did I still sense some lingering menace of disquiet, of fear? I suspected I did. Chicago would cure everything.

Ben tensed when I walked into Professor Belvin’s classroom, ran his fingers through his unruly blond hair, peered fixedly down at his notebook and feigned obliviousness. There was already a metal tray of Erlenmeyer flasks, labeled bottles of solutions, burettes, goggles, gloves, and an unassembled ring stand crowding our small table by the open window. Autumn air poured in like seawater through cracks in the hull of a ship.

“Guess who’s gonna see the Cubs play up close and personal this Saturday?” I announced.

He pretended to have just noticed me. “...You...? But that doesn’t sound like you.”

“It was Joe’s idea. I’m acting like I’m not totally thrilled and freaking out about it, but I am. Don’t tell him.”

Now Ben was the one staring at my bandaged hand. His green eyes were large and unfocused.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

“Sure,” Ben returned noncommittally.

I started skimming through the packet of lab instructions and setting up our titration experiment as Professor Belvin circulated through the classroom, observing, commenting, offering suggestions and critiques. My wounded hand—still sore in the lull between Advil doses and relatively useless—was quite the embarrassing hinderance; I fumbled with a large glass flask and almost dropped it.

Ben shook his head and reached out to stop me. “Here, oh my god, this is so pitiful, sit down. Please sit down. I’ll set it up. It’s the least I can do.”

“Thanks.” I peeked at his notebook. “Your handwriting is atrocious. Haven’t you had like a century to work on that?”

“Penmanship was never at the top of my to-do list, tragically.”

“What language is that, anyway?” The phrases scrawled in black ink in Ben’s notebook definitely weren’t English. Or Italian. “Elvish? Are you a lowkey Lord Of The Rings fan? Magic and self-sacrifice and nearly insurmountable evil, I could see that being your thing.”

He smirked, struggling with the ring stand. “It’s Welsh.”

“Welsh,” I repeated, perplexed. “Welsh...like how Gwil is Welsh?”

“Precisely.”

Professor Belvin checked in on us, nodded in approval, reminded me that I was always welcome to stop by at bowling league activities, and resumed his wandering.

“Gwil still speaks it,” Ben continued. “The rest of them speak it too. At least enough for basic communication.”

“I didn’t know,” I said, fascinated, examining the long, unfamiliar words riddled with Ls and Ws and Cs. “But that must be very useful.”

“It is. Welsh is nearly a dead language at this point. It’s like talking in code. I always refused to learn it on principle...or maybe I was just being difficult. I would study other languages, Arabic, Japanese...but not Welsh. That was always Gwil’s language. Their language. It was a Lee thing. But now...”

“Now you’re sort of a Lee too,” I finished for him, smiling.

“Whatever,” Ben said, hiding behind his bangs.

I watched him as he at last tamed the ring stand, secured the burette, placed the Erlenmeyer flask. Then he began reading the labels on the solution bottles. “Guess what else.”

“What, Baby Swan?”

I grinned, showing off my unremarkable, entirely benign human teeth. “I’ll bring you back your very own U Chicago hoodie.”

That night, after a pleasantly prosaic dinner with Charlie—burgers, one veggie and one of the conventional variety, and milkshakes at Danny’s Diner—I started packing a small, Arizona-sky-blue suitcase as sparse raindrops pattered against the roof and moonlight streamed in through the open window. Then I ticked off my mental inventory.

“Jeans, sweaters, pajamas, socks...”

I pawed through the top drawer of my old, scratched dresser��the same one that had once upon a time been Renee’s—and contemplated the bra and panty options. Would my theme be comfort and practicality, or feral impenitent seductress? Friday and Saturday in Chicago would be our first nights alone together. That had to be significant, right? After some deliberation, I gathered a handful of lacy, transparent, and/or exceptionally skimpy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret that Jessica had more or less forced upon me during a shopping trip in Port Angeles last month. As I dropped them into the open suitcase, I glanced up to see the albino owl outside my open bedroom window.

“You never know,” I told the owl, shrugging.

It leered judgmentally back at me with those gory red eyes.

“Oh shut up. How many eggs have you laid in your lifetime, Casper The Unfriendly Ghost? Probably like a bazillion. Freaking feathery trollop.”

The owl had nothing to offer in its own defense.

“Why don’t you ever come around when Joe’s here? I’m sure he’d love to meet you. He’s pale and weird too. Although I like his eyes a little better than yours. No offense, Snowflake.”

The owl blinked, tilted its gaze at me, ruffled its feathers and sent the raindrops that had gathered there flying in every direction.

I slid my iPhone out of my back pocket, spun around, and snapped a quick selfie with the owl in the background. “Say cheese, Marshmallow!”

The owl immediately unfurled its wings and flapped off into the trees, vanishing.

“Huh. I guess homegirl is camera shy.” I texted my selfie to Archer, typing out with my thumbs: I am the Steve Irwin of Forks. Behold, one of my many forest friends.

Archer replied a few minutes later: WOW! Pasty and mildly disturbing. Exactly your type. :)

“Yours too, apparently,” I murmured, smiling in my empty room.

I went to my full-length mirror with the plastic, teal-colored border, briefly appraised my reflection, felt a dull swell of approval for what I saw there. The version of myself that had once been so consumed by fears of inadequacy seemed impossibly far away, maybe even fictitious, a dream so vivid I could mistake it for truth. Three things were taped across the top of the mirror: Joe’s Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!! post-it, his Official Whatever You Want Pass, and a photo of us dressed up together and standing in front of the limo in the Lees’ driveway just before the Calawah University Homecoming dance. I peeled off the Official Whatever You Want Pass, carefully folded it into a neat little square, and tucked it into my wallet.

When the rain began to pour and thunder rolled in off the Pacific Ocean, I closed my bedroom window; but I remembered to leave it unlocked for Joe.

Departure

“Got your license?”

“Yes, Dad,” Joe sighed.

“Got your airport snacks?”

Joe held up the gallon-sized Ziploc bag filled with pumpkin and white chocolate chip cookies. “We’re ready to rock.”

“Call me when you get there safe,” Mercy fretted, hugging me and then Joe. “And Joseph, sweetheart, you make sure you keep an eye on her. She’s never been to Chicago before, it’s a big city, and O’Hare is an absolute nightmare, it’s so easy to get lost...”

“I don’t think he needs any reminders, love.” Dr. Lee laid a hand on her shoulder, stroked his neatly-trimmed beard with the other, watched us with a vague and wistful smile.

Mercy went back to trimming the flowers she had spread out across the kitchen countertop, white calla lilies that she threaded one by one into a translucent sapphire blue vase. “Now don’t forget to say goodbye to your brother. He’s out back feeding the new ducks. And I expect these ones to stick around for a while, thank you very much.”

“Mom, I don’t need to say goodbye to Rami. I’ll just think it. Really loudly.” Joe rubbed his temples with his fingertips and squeezed his eyes shut. “Peace out, you nosy bastard.”

“Joseph,” Mercy pleaded.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go say goodbye. Don’t get all aggressive. Don’t take it out on the flowers.” Aggressive...what a joke. I doubted that Mercy Eleanor Lee, formerly Martin, had a single aggressive bone in her immortal body; not even the infinitesimal stapes of her inner ears or the sesamoids of her feet.

“They’re calla lilies,” she replied dreamily, tending them like children. “And they symbolize love, and beauty, and fidelity...”

My nostrils itched and burned faintly in dissent. “I think I’m allergic to them.”

“You’re allergic to fidelity?” Joe asked, raising his eyebrows. “That’s it, now you’re definitely not getting my reclaimed virginity. No ma’am. I am not hit-it-and-quit-it material.”

“Oh sweet baby Jesus,” Mercy murmured.

“I’m going,” Joe said, showing his palms in capitulation and disappearing out the back door. I dragged my suitcase to the front one, politely declining Mercy and Gwil’s offers to help.

Lucy—her bleached hair in a high half-ponytail and wearing polka-dotted black tights, combat boots, a plaid miniskirt, and an extremely Octoberish orange sweater—was sitting cross-legged on the roof of Gwil’s Volvo. God, he’s such a dad. “Have a nice time,” she chirped artfully.

I opened the hatch of Joe’s Subaru and threw my suitcase inside. “Why do you sound like you already know I will?”

“I might have some relevant clairvoyant insight.”

“No way.” I stared up at her, stunned, my hands on my waist. “But you can’t see me, right...?”

“True. But this vision wasn’t of you. It was of Joe. You just happened to be there.”

Interesting. Very interesting. “And what transpired in this vision?” A night full of hot, steamy, blissful vampire sex? A girl could dream.

Lucy closed her eyes, recalling it fondly, maybe even cherishing it. “You were sitting in the stands of a professional baseball game. I could hear the crowd roaring, the umpire’s trumpeting interruptions. Blue and white...everyone was wearing blue and white. And you were there together—Joe a vampire, you human, side by side, almost entwined—shouting to each other over the thunderous noise and laughing and pushing nuggets of soft pretzels into each other’s mouths. So happy. I’d never seen Joe so happy.” Her striking pale eyes came open. “And he’s someone who’s already rather prone to happiness, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“I have,” I agreed.

“He’s never been serious about anybody else. I hope you know that.”

“I know that’s what he tells me.”

“It’s the truth,” Lucy insisted. “I would know if it wasn’t. Rami would know, Ben would know. Joe...he’s kind of the opposite of you. He’s always been the easiest to read. He’s the one Rami hears most loudly, the one who shows up most often in my visions. He’s clear, you know? Uncomplicated. Authentic. And what you mean to him...it’s something everybody sees. It’s a contagious sort of lightness, of joy. So thank you for that.”

And if whatever mysterious genetic switch that renders me immune to your talents wasn’t flipped, I’m pretty sure I’d look the same way. “I should definitely be thanking you,” I said. “You guys have a pretty cool existence going on here. And I’m so grateful to be invited into it.” For however long this lasts, anyway.

“None of us really invited you,” Lucy demurred. “We just let it happen.”

“So everyone knew I was coming? Because you saw it?”

“Everyone but Joe.”

“You never told him?”

“No. Not even now.” Lucy turned sharply towards the trees, as if she heard something in the soaring western hemlocks that swayed drunkenly in the wind. After a moment, she continued. “I’m not sure if I can even explain why. It wasn’t that I feared changing the timeline or something...my visions always come true regardless. Always. But I guess...” She tugged on her short half-ponytail, pondering. “I guess I didn’t want to cloud any of his decision-making, any of his emotions with the specter of the inevitable. I wanted whatever he felt for you to be completely organic. And it is.”

I considered her. “You are extremely thoughtful for someone who spends as much time shopping as you do.”

Lucy laughed in a high-pitched, almost juvenile trill, netting her fingers beneath her chin, her elbows resting on her bent knees. “I do like to shop. I didn’t always though.” She peered off into the trees again, this time pensively. “Did Joe tell you anything about my life before Gwil saved me?”

“Aside from the copious hippie jokes, not really.”

She nodded, her eyes far-away and still lost in the forest. “Gwil and Mercy are inordinately wonderful people. My biological father and mother, unfortunately, were not. And maybe they couldn’t help it, because from what I understand their parents were monsters too. I don’t think of them very often now, not even to resent them. But when I was alive I burned with it, with all that hatred, with all that bitterness. Every bruise was another log on the fire. Every screaming match or hurled plate was a splash of gasoline. So I ran away and found what I fancied to be a new family, and I lived on basement couches and out of vans and in abandoned buildings, and I explored increasingly inventive ways of putting that fire out.”

The October breeze cascaded through the trees, carrying echoes of birdsong and disembodied distant voices and the scent of pine. It reminded me of Joe.

“Chemically speaking,” Lucy said, “that first hit of heroin, that first high...it’s the best you’ll ever feel in your entire life. Nothing else will ever compare. Not skydiving, not backpacking through Southeast Asia on some Pulitzer-prize-winning journey of self-discovery, not winning the lottery, not the births of your children, not falling in love. And once you accept that, what’s the point in stopping? Everything you ever experience will live in the shadow of that needle. You’re twenty-five and you’ve already seen the endgame. You’re born, you suffer, you catch a glimpse of paradise, you pay bills and push shopping carts down the aisles of grocery stores and insipidly smile your way through your husband’s work parties until you die. What’s the fucking point? So I didn’t stop shooting heroin. And the whole time, I knew it was killing me. That’s what they don’t tell kids when they force them to make those idiotic classroom promises to never do drugs. You know it’s killing you, but you don’t care. Because it feels so goddamn good. Because it becomes the only sliver of your existence that doesn’t cut like glass beneath your skin. Sometimes you love things so much you let them kill you, isn’t that ridiculous?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer her; still, I heard my own voice: “Yes, it is.”

“It took dying for me to see that life is worth living. That there’s magic in the mundane and the frivolous. And that there’s beauty everywhere if you bother to look for it.” Lucy uncrossed her trim legs, leapt gracefully off the Volvo, and—with definite but not unkind scrutiny—pulled at the collar of my thrift shop sweater. “Even in your very, very, very misguided fashion preferences.”

The front door of the Lee house swung open, and Joe jogged out, carrying his suitcase. Gwil, Mercy, Scarlett, Rami, and Ben appeared on the porch to wave us off.

“What’d you do?!” Joe demanded, pointing at Lucy.

“Nothing,” she quipped.

“You guys gotta stop doing this!” Joe exclaimed. “You know what you’re doing, you know exactly what you’re doing, you gotta stop cornering people and forcing them to listen to your creepy tragic backstories! Nobody freaking asked!”

Lucy chuckled patiently and stood on her tiptoes to hug him goodbye. “Have fun.”

“You know it.” Joe tossed his suitcase into the Subaru and opened the driver’s door. “Ready, Baby Swan?”

“Almost.”

I walked to the wrap-around porch, climbed the steps, held my hand out to Ben. My stitches had almost completely dissolved over the past week, and the clunky impediment of bandages was no more. Joe crossed his arms and watched from beside the Subaru with an uneasy frown, but he didn’t try to stop me. He nodded to Rami, so subtly I almost didn’t notice. Rami nodded back.

“I will miss your melodramatic brooding immensely,” I told Ben. “Please do some fun family stuff while we’re gone. I’ll see you soon. Dan eich bendith.”

“Dan eich bendith,” he replied, taken aback. And then, after a moment’s hesitation, he ignored my outstretched hand and embraced me, his grasp so strong and yet so careful. His scent like crisp leaves and salted caramel and autumn sieved into a bottle unfolded in my lungs like an opened book.

“I Googled that especially for you,” I whispered. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m in awe.” His words were characteristically sardonic, but I heard warmth in them as well. When Ben pulled away, I saw that everyone else was smiling. Mercy had tears in her eyes.

I retreated back down the porch steps and met Joe by the Subaru. “Okay, mob guy. I’m good.”

He slid on his sunglasses, shook his head, flashed a proud and toothy grin. “You definitely are.”

All the way down Route 101 to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, we listened to Joe’s classic rock mixtapes and my NOAA Ocean Podcast episodes, reviewed the weekend itinerary, ran through the bare essentials for me to understand an MLB game (“Which I am totally not excited about whatsoever,” I informed Joe, who knew enough not to believe me).

When the Boeing 747 ascended above the clouds and unimpeded sunlight poured in from the other passengers’ windows, Joe put on a black sleeping mask over his sunglasses and reclined his seat, tried to nap, passed the time until he would be safe beneath the curtains of the sky again.

Somewhere over the Dakotas, as I leafed through a book about the Great Barrier Reef for my Marine Botany class, Joe’s hand bumped mine. “Hey,” he said drowsily, seriously; and I braced myself for some emotional declaration, some dire warning, some grave realization of the futility of what we agreed—almost always wordlessly, and yet unfailingly—was love.

“Yeah?”

“It’s an emergency.”

“Uh oh,” I replied, smiling now.

“Flag down the flight attendant and get some more of those honey roasted peanut packets,” Joe said. “I’m starving myself back to death over here.”

The Windy City

The bat cracked deafeningly against the baseball pitched at nearly a hundred miles per hour. It was a home run. The crowd erupted into mindless, primal shrieks of conquest; and when Joe jumped to his feet, clapping and cheering and nearly spilling his blue-and-white bucket of popcorn, I found that I did as well. I screamed for the team of a city I’d never lived in, sank back into my seat beside Joe, nestled against his chest as his right arm closed around my waist and hauled me in closer, as his left hand teased me with a soft pretzel nugget hovering just out of reach. And in that moment, I felt like Lucy, snatching Polaroids out of the space-time continuum of the present and the future and the past. There was where Joe and I were right now, of course; the day we had met each other in the nonfiction section of the Calawah University library; the dance floor at Homecoming; the first night he snuck soundlessly into my bedroom window; all those years we still had left to spend together. Not forever, but perhaps long enough.

“I like this baseball thing,” I told him over the roar of the crowd, twirling my fingers around the curling locks of dark hair that stuck out from under his Cubs cap. Or maybe I just like you.

“Whew, thank god.” Joe wiped his forehead with the back of his hand in mock relief. “Now I don’t have to break up with you.”

After the game—a 5-3 Cubs victory, close enough to keep the spectators’ blood pumping throughout—we boarded the L, held onto the metal railings as the packed train car bumped and swerved along, and disembarked in Little Italy. Historic brownstones were interrupted by a freckling of pizzerias, Italian ice stands, and sports bars spilling out shouts of triumph and despair. We were staying in the Four Seasons with a view of Lake Michigan; but we had an hour of daylight—albeit chilled, dreary, and forever threatening rain—left in our Saturday. Tomorrow would be the aquarium, and then dinner before catching our flight back to Seattle, back to the greenery and fog and eternal dampness that I was beginning to think of as my home. Had I really only left Phoenix two months ago? Had I ever really lived there at all?

“So,” Joe said as we walked under shedding green ash and black cherry trees, his arm draped across my shoulders. “Guess what the University of Chicago has. In addition to a killer Economics PhD program, which yours truly will be graduating from in approximately 2027, astonishingly aged not a single day. Maybe he’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.”

“Hideous sweatshirts?” I guessed.

“One of the best Marine Biology departments in the world. And the affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory up in Massachusetts, where they send their PhDs to do research.”

“Wait, seriously?” I stopped abruptly, the heels of my boots squealing against the sidewalk. “You mean...for me?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, for my other girlfriend who is also inexplicably super obsessed with the ocean. I clearly have a type.”

“You want me...to come to Chicago...with you...after graduation? For like...a five to seven year commitment?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, that just sounds...serious.”

“Huh. What do you know. I guess we’re serious after all.” He took my hand and pulled me gently forward, leading me down West Taylor Street. He seemed to have a destination in mind.

“How is this going to work for you, anyway?” I asked, beaming uncontrollably now, trotting along beside him. “Living in a place that isn’t Washington or Scotland or Alaska?” Chicago was cold and cloudy for a lot of the year, true, but few cities were Forks-level wet and sunless. Forks-level tyrannically depressing, I would have said two months ago.

He shrugged, unphased. “Night classes. Sunglasses. Faking a chronic illness so I don’t have to leave our house. I’m really good at that one. Plus I can get a doctor’s note any time I want one. I’ve got connections, you know.”

Our house. He said OUR house.

Joe came to halt in front of a stately yet plain brownstone which now operated as a trendy bookstore, the kind that sold six dollar lattes and hosted anarchist poetry slams on Friday nights.

“Is this where we’re going to crack hipsters’ kneecaps as a bonding activity?” I asked.

“This is where I grew up.”

I looked again, studying the earth-colored stone quarried over a century ago, the wrought iron railings that framed the front steps, the rectangular windows revealing the illumination and shadows of other families’ lives. “Joe,” I said softly, leaning into him, searching for my words.

“There were eight Mazzello kids: Joseph, Charles, Mimi, Salvador, Donna, Lucia, Bianca, and Giuliano.” He rattled them off like a jingle from a fast food commercial. “And I was the oldest. So when my dad dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of his shift at the Zenith Radio factory, it was my job to step up and figure out how to keep everyone fed. I was seventeen and completely hopeless at school back then; Sal was always the smart one, the disciplined one, he ended up as a math professor at Loyola University. I was just some directionless, grieving kid who never shut up. But there was a place for boys like me in Chicago in the 1920s. The mob could get you money. The mob could turn that same incessant chatter that got you bruised at school into something useful. And the mob could give you a family.”

Joe watched the brownstone solemnly, meditatively, his hands in his pockets.

“My mom sobbed for an hour the first time I brought home an envelope full of bills with Hamilton’s face on them. She knew how I got it. But how could she say no, how could she tell me to stop? We’d never seen money like that. All my siblings could finish school. My sisters could have new dresses on days that weren’t Christmas and Easter, my brothers new shoes, Sal the glasses he needed so badly. My mother always had something to put in the offering plate at church. And once you were in the mob, it wasn’t exactly easy to leave. But they took care of their own. After I died, they sent my mother money for years, until her own children were established enough to support her. That’s when I learned that money wasn’t just something that put food on the dinner table or kept the lights on. It’s a way of showing loyalty, of giving people peace and comfort and meaningful choices in their lives. It’s how I’ve been taught to give back to the world. So I guess I shouldn’t have disparaged my fellow vampires back in Forks, because there’s a slice of my tragic backstory, Baby Swan. Now you know. And you should know everything, since we’re in this thing together. Or maybe I just want you to.”

I laid my palm against his cool and flawless face, ran my thumb lightly across his cheek. “You really are serious about me.”

“I am alarmingly serious about you.”

“Even though this thing of ours has an expiration date?” Since I can never become a vampire. Since I will never have the distinction of being a permanent fixture of the Lee coven.

“That’s not a problem for today. That’s a problem for ten or fifteen years from now, whenever you decide you want to settle down and have kids and do the whole Great American Dream bit. You’ll be sick of me by then anyway. You’ll be dying to get away from us. Hahaha, get it? It’s a pun. Dying to get away from the vampires.”

I couldn’t imagine ever being sick of Joseph Francis Mazzello. Still, ten or fifteen years felt almost as good as forever to me. Fifteen autumns, fifteen Christmases, fifteen journeys around the sun that he avoided so deftly. “Why me, Joe?” I asked, incredulous. “You could have anyone. Any human, any vampire. Why me?”

“Because you’re you,” he said simply. And his mystified dark eyes added: What kind of a question is that? “You’re smart and you’re hilarious and you actually care about the world, about where it came from, about where it’s going, about people and places and animals that you’ll never meet. You’re indomitable. You’re fearless almost to the point of recklessness. And yet you’re so kind. You’re even nice to Ben, and humans are never nice to him...they’re either horrified or confused, or they’re too busy fantasizing about him to remember that he’s a real fucking person. But you’ve always tried to see the good in him. Even when he didn’t deserve it.” Joe shook his head, marveling. “And yeah, I’ve...I’ve screwed around, full disclosure. I’ve done the hookup thing. And it was great for what it was. But I never wanted more. I never felt some gnawing, sentimental, Hallmark-channel need for connection, to understand who they were as people. And then I met you, and...I want to know every single goddamn thing about you. I want to know your favorite color, what books you read, what the hell is so appealing about pineapple pizza, what you dream of. I feel like I could never get tired of trying to understand you.”

A refrain circled through my mind like a whirlpool, dragging every other thought down into oblivion: I love him, I love him, I love him. “Blue,” I said at last.

“What?”

“Turquoise blue, like the sky in Arizona. That’s my favorite color.”

The smile, slow and wonderous, rippled across his face. He took my hand again. “Come on.”

Joe led me onwards, down a few blocks and around a corner, as the muted sun receded from the sky and the first stars took its place, pinpricks of celestial light in a blanket of violet, azure, amber, rust. He stopped in front of the Church of Saint Lawrence, established in 1902 according to the sign mounted on the brick wall that faced the street, perhaps the same church that he had once visited with his family as an impatient child, snickering with his brothers and sisters and kicking the back of the pew in front of him with shoes that never fit quite right. There was a fountain bubbling with transparent water, a statue of the Virgin Mary at the center, coins made of copper and nickel and zinc glinting through the water under corridors of silvery luminance cast by the streetlights.

“I lied about not having my own superpower,” Joe informed me mischievously, not at all serious.

“Oh, did you now?”

“Absolutely.” He opened his wallet, rooted around, pulled out a penny and handed it to me. “I can make wishes come true. So go ahead.” He nodded towards the fountain. “Make your wish.”

The penny was worn and nearly indecipherable, but I was just barely able to read that it had been minted in 1928. The same year Joe was turned. “Joe...I can’t just throw this away!”

“You’re not throwing it away. You’re exchanging it for a wish. Now wish.”

I closed my eyes, chose my wish, tossed the penny into the fountain. The plink it made when it hit the water was bright and yet mournful somehow, like windchimes, like flickering candlelight.

“Outstanding job,” Joe complimented.

He was so visibly proud, so content, so faultless. The streetlights threw shadows across the sidewalk, the fountain, the whole world it seemed. I laced my fingers behind his neck, gazing up at him. “What are we doing tonight, mob guy?”

“I’m so glad you asked. You see, we have options.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“Door Number One,” Joe began. “It’s been a long day, and you’re exhausted from the illustrious honor of witnessing a Cubs victory firsthand. So we go back to the hotel, find some shark documentary on tv, order room service, shower, and drift off into a peaceful slumber. Just like last night.”

“Not bad. How about Door Number Two?”

“Door Number Two. You’re tired, but not that tired. We go back to the hotel, find that same aforementioned shark documentary, but totally ignore it and make out instead. Maybe we even round second base, in the spirit of the Cubs. Whatever you’re up for. Then we shower and drift off into a peaceful slumber.”

“Even better,” I said, and I meant it. “And what’s Door Number Three?”

Now Joe became jittery; his eyes darted to the fountain, the church, the cars that rolled lazily by. He was so desperate to conceal his hope, to not impose any undue influence upon me. I felt infinitesimal, almost weightless drops of rain against my cheeks, my collarbones, the downy undersides of my arms. “Well, uh, Door Number Three is...it’s...well...uh...it’s...”

Door Number Three is a home fucking run. “I want Door Number Three.”

“Really? Because you don’t have to say that, you can say no, that’s completely fine, it’s more than fine actually, it’s awesome, it’s totally cool, I’m seriously fine either way, and you can obviously change your mind whenever—”

“Wait.” I broke away from him, yanked my own wallet out of my purse, found the Official Whatever You Want Pass, hastily unfolded it, and presented it to Joe. “I want Door Number Three.”

He barked out a shocked laugh, accepted the pass, studied it in disbelief. “You are full of surprises, ma’am. It took me a hundred years to find a woman like you. And I don’t think I ever will again. Makes one wonder if this whole eternity thing is all it’s cracked up to be.” He tucked the pass into his pocket and kissed me beneath the streetlights, beneath the stars. “So there’s one tiny caveat to my wish-granting superpower.”

“Yeah?”

He smiled impishly, nudging the tip of my nose with his. “You have to tell me what you wished for.” He was joking, as he almost always was; I didn’t have to tell him anything. He wouldn’t press the issue. I doubted that he was really expecting me to answer at all. And yet I wanted to tell Joe; I yearned, for once, to be as clear as Lucy had said he was.

“For you and me,” I replied in little more than a whisper. “And for forever.”

Home

The only thing that startled me was how profoundly unstartling it all was, how wholly uncomplicated, how effortless.

I didn’t feel like a different person afterwards. I didn’t feel that some latent spark of lust, of carnality had been ignited, had singed through me, had left me forever marked like the heights of children ticked off on a doorframe over decades; I felt neither ruined nor awakened, no wiser, no older, no more enlightened as to the incalculable eccentricities of the vast and enigmatic universe. I felt only happiness, and exhausted satisfaction, and a deep, dreamless peace that engulfed me like frothy fingertips of waves dragging pebbles and shells back into the sea. I felt only a homecoming that was measured not in miles but in soul.

We slept in as the morning sun rose over Lake Michigan, bought Ben a hoodie (black, of course, per his usual aesthetic) from the University of Chicago gift shop, strolled unhurriedly through the dimly-lit, relentlessly blue pathways of the Shedd Aquarium. As I stood in the glass tunnel and watched sawfish and blacktip reef sharks soar by overhead, Joe linked his arms around my waist, tucked his chin into the dip of my collarbone, kissed the slope of my jaw.

“What do you think?” he asked, perhaps a touch apprehensively. “Could you get used to the Chicago life for a few years?”

“I would be tempted to kidnap some of these guys and bring them home to live in our bathtub. But yes.”

And Joe murmured, smiling, his lips to my temple: “That’s illegal, ma’am.”

Our flight back to the West Coast took off after dusk, and there was no blinding sunlight for Joe to avoid; only immense glooms of clouds and gleaming distant stars and the unfathomable void of space, cursed with crushing pressure and darkness like the cervices of the ocean floor.

Fifteen years might not be enough, I thought, resting my forehead against the cold airplane window as the city lights died behind us, as Joe’s hand weaved through mine on the armrest. But forever sounds just about right.

Larkin

There once was a boy born in a stone cottage with a dirt floor in a vanishingly inconsequential village just west of Clifden, Ireland. It was February 9th, 1672, bitterly cold, miserably wet, and the sea was murderous with storms. His mother was illiterate, as her mother had been, and as her mother had been as well, all the way back to people who painted mammoths on cave walls with their fingers; she was thirty-three and already exhausted with living, her seven children forever underfoot, her full and ruddy cheeks perpetually smudged with dirt from the field and ashes from the fire. Her husband was a failure and a drunk, but half a day’s worth of work once or twice a week was better than none at all; and as much as she never would have admitted it, he was a tether for her in a world that was often, as she had learned, both lonely and cruel.

She gave the baby boy a name—a strong Irish name, none of that audacious English rubbish—that meant rough or fierce, just like the sea that rose and ruptured against the rocky cliffs outside. He would need to be rough to survive in this world. He would need to be fierce.

He began like all the other children had been: sweet and yet anonymous, yielding, needful, worryingly small. She rocked him absently with one arm as she stirred the stew pot with the other. She sang to him, told him stories long before he could comprehend them, tales of the Lord and the saints and all their malevolent adversaries: serpents, pestilence, demons, dragons. She tossed stray sticks to him so he could carve pictures into the dirt floor and keep out of the way as she labored with the laundry or the sewing. And he grew, and he grew; and there was nothing remarkable about him at all, that boy speckled with mud and soot and the perpetual bruises of children mostly left to their own devices, that boy with pallid skin like his mother’s and black hair like his father’s and eyes so light and vibrant a brown they were nearly gold.

The boy was a baby, and then a child, and then a young man. And his mother realized one day—all at once, as a mother does when their attention is divided among so many other lives, when the children’s analogous faces bleed into each other and even their names sometimes escape her, even those names that she had chosen herself from the stories her own mother once passed to her through threadbare whispers—that people had a habit of following him, of listening to him. That there was an ether of allure that hovered around him like the mists that clung to the precarious, crumbling cliffs that touched the sea; that there was something like what the heathens called magic. And when the war came, that boy who was no longer a boy left his mother’s stone cottage and enlisted in Clifden, lied about his age, signed his name with an X because that was all he knew how to spell. But he was sure to tell the man who handled the ledger that he did have a real name, a good Irish name, a name apt for a soldier, a name that his mother had told him meant rough or fierce: Larkin.

There are men who join wars out of loyalty, principle, love for their homes; and then there are men who join to escape their homes, perhaps to forget them entirely. If you were to consult that ledger signed in a pub in Clifden, Ireland in 1688, you would read that I fought for Ireland, for the Catholics, for Christ the Lord and all his saints. But what I really fought for was my own resurrection: to take that boy stained with dirt and ignorance, drown him in the blood of other mothers’ trivial sons, and dredge up some greater version of myself that I had always known existed, that was hidden somewhere in the netlike darkness of the marrow of my bones.

People follow me, and they always have. I couldn’t tell you why. When I called them to enlist, when I thrusted swords and pikes into their calloused farmers’ fists, when I told them they could fight and live to see their wretched homes again, they believed me. I climbed the ranks like a ladder, like a mountain made of bones. And all those other mothers’ sons laid down for me so I could walk across the bridge of their spines to what I mistakenly assumed was invincibility.

At the Battle Of The Boyne, my horse was shot out from under me. A Williamite caught me beneath the ribs with his dagger. And as I bled out, staring up at the sky and impatiently waiting for the pain to vanish as my consciousness withdrew like low tide, I became aware that someone was lifting me, holding me, spiriting me through the battlefield and then the wilderness; and that my pain, in a disconcerting turn of events, had swelled to a vicious and unrelenting inferno.

Three days later, I woke to find that I was resurrected again, this time as something more than human. The man who turned me was blond-haired, light-eyed, agile and yet gentle, ancient and yet ever-changing.

“I thought you’d survive,” Nikolai said in a thick Slavic accent, standing over me with a kind smile. Then he helped me to my feet. “You have greatness in you. It sweats out of your pores, it’s in every word you speak. What a shame it would be for all of that to go to waste.”

He taught me everything: how to read and write, how to hunt, how to dodge the sunlight, how to survive an existence that was both theoretically endless and yet forever on the precipice of being cut short. He introduced me to the Draghi, to vampires who were remarkable for their ferocity, or their creativity, or their curiosity, or their cleverness, or all those things at once: Victorien, Honora, Elizabeth, Kestrel, Zhang, Sergei, Ana, Gwilym. And most crucially, Nikolai showed me that my human talents were magnified several times over, that his own followers were not immune to them, that there was power in collecting exceptional individuals like pieces of china stacked in a locked cabinet; and that if I could learn to climb immortal bones, the ladder never needed to end.

You never quite get used to the power, to the invincibility, to the promise of eternity. You never take it for granted. It hits you, again and again, in ceaseless and victorious waves. Once I was a barefoot toddler who sketched dragons and Catholic saints from the stories my mother told me into the dirt floor of our drafty stone cottage. Now I live in palaces with marble floors, with spiral staircases and libraries and gold-dripping ballrooms, with unobstructed views of any sea I choose. Now I am the dragon.

My phone rang, and I checked the name on the screen. Then I answered. “Hello, beauty. How’s the other side of the Pacific treating you?”

And Liesl answered, in a soft and astonished voice: “I don’t think Lucy can read her. I don’t think any of them can.”

I could feel it again. Another wave, crashing through me like the ocean, like the unstoppable rolling of time: power and insatiability and exhilaration. I smiled in my twilight-lit study as long-dead stars rose outside and the wind howled like wolves over the East Sea. “You know what to do.”

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saundraswriting · 4 years ago

Text

Interior Design Ch. 6: First Day

SUMMARY: Today marks your first day as a SI employee...more specifically the Avengers' personal interior designer.

WARNINGS: None.

NOTES: Sorry it has been a while. Been busy.

As always you can read it on Ao3 here!

Masterlist // Ao3 // Previous

The next morning you were up with the sun. You laid in the bed for a moment, relishing in everything that happened yesterday. You sat up in a quick movement. 'I have to give Ms. Potts the contract. I have to get my sample books here. I should also finish with the other clients I have waiting too. I should speak to each member I can to get a idea...maybe a powerpoint to show the difference in styles.' You thought to yourself. A plan in mind you got ready, silently thanking the universe for dry shampoo. Once done, you pulled out the contract and read it over before signing it. There wasn't anything you were against, so you signed and placed it on your desk for later. You decided to head to the kitchen, remembering the sleek looking espresso machine on the counter.

You headed out, your bag full of your necessary tools. You were deep in your tablet by-passing everyone loitering in the kitchen as if by magic until you got to the machine. Not hesitating you grabbed a mug and set the machine for a quad risotto shot and waited for it to brew. While waiting your phone rang, you answered it knowing it was one of your clients.

"Yes, ma'am? I am sorry I had to take an unexpected trip out of the city. What can I do for you?" You said pulling up her file on your tablet.

"Y/N, I love your work always, but this time something happened. The table just doesn't fit right. I am very unhappy. I hate glass top tables and the coffee table is glass." Your client said.

"Ma'am...I would never had ordered you a glass table. I have a distinct note in your file. I will immediately look into this. Please give me a moment. The company is still there correct? I will call you back in a moment." You hung up, muttering under your breath before calling another number. "You idiots. Get that table out of there. That is the Tohru account not the Bells. Yes. I know. I have the order right here. I ordered the gold leaf marble table, that glass table isn't to be delivered until next month. Take it back right now." You demanded, rubbing you forehead harshly. "Thank you very much." You hung up, you began typing rapidly on you tablet at the same time asking you phone to call your client. "Ma'am, they will be taking that table back this minute. I am sorry for the confusion. I had to take a trip unexpectedly and wasn't there to oversee everything. I hope you can pardon this mistake. I will be seeing you in a few days when your actual piece comes in. I am currently emailing the company to ensure this next delivery goes off without a hitch." You finished your email with a glare to your tablet.

"Thank you so much, Y/N. I appreciate all the effort you put into this. You are always so good to us. I'll send you a tip right now for all your help." Your client bid you good bye and hung up. A second later your phone chimed with an alert your client had deposited a large tip with only a smiley face emoji.

"She is too much. My goodness." You slumped against the counter and remembered your coffee that was probably done brewing. You pulled your mug over and fixed it up. The first sip has you moaning in pleasure. "It isn't even 8 am." You whispered into your mug.

"You gonna join us for breakfast or keep murmuring sweet nothings to your coffee?" Clint asked from the table. You tensed expecting comments on your lack of manners.

"I am so sorry. I am a coffee addict. Nothing before coffee. I don't really eat breakfast, but thank you. I did want to talk to you if that was okay?" You asked hesitantly.

"Sure. I don't mind. Honestly this is probably the best time to get us, before we scatter for the day." Cint answered.

"Oh, good." You hurried over and pulled out your notebook. "I need to get ideas from all of you. I have some examples of different styles and themes to give you ideas. I need preferences and things to get samples ready. I am starting with your individual rooms. It will help build a connection between you and I." You told them. "I have several other things happening at the moment so I will be coming back and forth for a while which is why I want to get ideas so I can build layouts and idea boards and bring them to you for approval." You continued. "I know that it seems overwhelming but my job is to make it less so. If you even have 15 minutes at some point today to speak with me I would appreciate that. My job is to do all the work. Your job is to say yes or no. So who wants to go first?" You looked up from your notebook to meet several curious glances.

"I have some time around 10:30 or so. I can meet with you." Clint said. His agreement seemed to break the ice and everyone else began chiming in on when they could meet. They all were cooperative in making it easy to meet with them, and once breakfast was over Tony came in.

"Mr. Stark, can I ask a favor? I was wondering if you could escort me to Ms. Pott's office? I have the contract all signed and I have a question for her." You asked. Tony nodded. The table began dispersing and with it you did. You gathered your things and waited in the kitchen.

"You're leaving? " Steve asked with a pointed glace at your bags.

"Yes, Captain Rogers. I have things to do at my office and all of my things are there. I have a lot of work to do before I start working. I have to speak to Ms. Potts and then I have to meet with all of you and then I will be on my way back home. I am just trying to be one step ahead of the game." You explained.

"I'll take your bags to the door for you while Tony takes you to Pepper. I will see you later." Steve grabbed your bags but you stopped him with an arm on his.

"Thank you, Captain Rogers. Can I also ask if you would sit in with Sargent Barnes' meeting? I don't want to overwhelm him." You said, looking at the ground.

"Yeah, of course. I'll have him come to mine, how is that?" He suggested. You smiled up at him gratefully.

Tony came that minute to walk you to Ms. Pott's office. Steve took your bags like he said he would. On the ay there, you made a point to learn the way, not wanting to be escorted back. Tony disappeared when you arrived offering "Meetings, you know." with a quick wave.

Pepper was more that willing to hear out your requests for several of you favorite catalogues and sample books to be ordered for the Avengers to look through. She also accepted your contract with a bright smile. She also gave you her personal cell number and a few other important people in case you needed them. You also got your badge and biometrics scanned to finish your hiring process.

You headed back to the Avenger's side, seeing the living room empty you set up in there, getting more ideas together for the meetings. You were scrambling putting together examples of some of your favorite design motifs like industrial, contemporary, oriental, art deco, bohemian, Scandinavian, rustic, country, modern, classical, minimalist, coastal, glamourous. You also added geometric, traditional, transitional, floral and such. You tried to keep it simple but informative. You listed pros and cons of all of them and before you knew it Clint loudly arrived in through one of the openings into the living room.

" Hey, kiddo. I just need to grab a drink and then we can get started. Do you want anything?" Clint said as he walked by.

"No. I am-" You tried to deny him, you were interrupted by F.R.I.D.AY.

"Agent Barton, Ms. L/N has not had any thing by mouth since breakfast and that was only a large coffee. You should ask her again." Friday told him. She sounded almost disappointed in you. You narrowed your eyes at the ceiling, unable to make words only noises.

"Get used to it. That is what she does. She loves us as much as an AI can. Now, let's try again. Can I get you something to drink?" Clint shook a bottle of water and raised an eyebrow.

"I guess I will take a water. I swear if my meetings run late because of bodily functions, I will never forgive her." You threatened. Clint laughed.

"You heartrate skipped implying that you don't mean that, Ms. L/N. But I appreciate the sentiment." F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. You just sighed and shook your head.

"Come on, Agent Barton. We should get going. This isn't going to take long. All this talk is for it getting you opinions on the very basic thing...theme. You pick what you like, what parts you don't ad I take that information to find pieces to go in your room and then we put it all together. I will do this for everyone in every room and then for the common rooms I will take the common things or needs and then ask everyone's opinion." You explained.

"You will do this for everyone today? That seems a lot." Clint said.

"I need to get ideas, that is all I can do. All my sample books and such are in my apartment. I will have more to work with when I come back. I have some pressing work to do to. I am have clients currently." You patted the seat next to you, gesturing at tablet, notebook and laptop before you. "Shall we get started?"

The meetings with the Avengers went well. The start of each meeting was rocky but as they warmed up, it got easier. You got about 1/2 of those who had rooms, You still needed the more...Very Important Powerful Beings and their opinions. But this was a start. There wasn't much repetition the styles they wanted, and it honestly went how you had predicted. Clint had chosen a geometric motif with hints of industrialism. Natasha had gone with muted bohemian style. Wanda had chosen a more glamorous bold style while her brother had chosen a soft coastal theme. Vision agreed with Wanda's help a very bare bones approach considering his android-ness. He accepted a sleek contemporary look but only to satisfy you and Wanda. Tony was a very new age tech room that you figured would end up being a crash pad and extra lab. Thor went with a more traditional art deco theme, it seemed to make him happy and sad at the same time. Sam was the most undecisive until you convinced him of the perks of mid-century modern vibes. Bruce wanted a more classical theme, a relaxing space to turn off. You made some notes to help that idea stay number one. Steve and Bucky took some time.

"Sargent Barnes, I know this seems like a lot but I promise, nothing you say here is your forever answer. You have time to change your mind, if we finish and you don't like it so be it. We will work on it until you do. This is your room, your space. You don't have to answer to anyone on why it is the way it is. My job is to make you happy and comfortable. So just answer my questions honestly and then we go from there. if you aren't sure then that is okay too." You pulled up some of the more radical themes you had worked on. You felt him saying 'no' would be first easier than saying 'yes'.

"That is gaudy. I was alive when that was losing steam as a trend. I don't want to relive it." Bucky denied the art deco, bohemian, glamorous, nautical and new age theme.

"That is a great start. However this is where it gets tricky. You know what you don't like, but now we need to find what you do like. If you like a whole idea, great. If you only like pieces of it, also fine. My job is to make it work." You next pulled out some of the rustic, industrial and minimalistic ideas. The palette was a little warmer than Steve's Scandinavian minimalist choices. Bucky like the wood/metal contrast and the open concept and natural lighting seemed to catch him too. You had an idea for the ceiling to have it painted to look like there were pipes and so made a note. You also made a note about a pipe bookshelf and plant wall.

"Captain Rogers, Sargent Barnes. This was fun. I will be having some magazines and sample books delivered here for everyone to look through if they want. If not we will have plenty of time to talk about it. Sargent Barnes, I know today was a lot for you, but I have to say...I am very proud of you. Today can't have been easy with the interrogation as light as it was. I unfortunately have to get going. I need to be in the city for the next few days but if you or anyone else has questions, I left my contact info on the fridge." You stuck you hand out to shake and Steve snorted.

"A minute after meeting me, you gave me a hug and made me cry, now you want to play coy and offer a handshake? I don't think so doll." Bucky pulled you into a fast hug before bidding you good day and heading back to his room. Steve gave you a slightly longer hug, beaming at you.

"You are amazing. I never thought we would be doing this today. He seemed like he was having fun. Thank you again. It means a lot to us that you are working so hard." Steve said.

"Captain Rogers, you all save the world weekly. The least I can do it make your bedrooms into a safe space. Now, are you gonna be a punk or you walking me out?" You asked winking with a smirk.

The two of you walked to where Happy stood next to a car that you were sure already had your stuff packed. "I am glad he trusted me enough to talk with me. I want him happy, and comfortable. Tell everyone I said bye and I will see them soon!" You squeezed Steve's arm before heading to the car, letting Happy open the door for you.

Happy opened the door for you to exit the car. You bid him a warm goodbye, taking yourself and your bags up to your apartment to begin the hard part-putting the ideas of others into a plan of action.

*******************************************************************************************

So what did you think? How am I doing? Thoughts, comments, concerns?

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fluff #protective Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes x interior designer! reader #interior design the fic #recovered bucky barnes #Bucky Barnes in recovery #avengers family #domestic avengers #saundraswriting #saundrasays

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apathycarestostudy · 4 years ago

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Staying Organized as a STEM Student

In general, it’s nice to be (and stay) organized. There’re a plethora of tips on how to maintain your stuff, but as a stem student, it seems like it’s all too much for me - or maybe I have commitment issues, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t work for me. So! I decided to share an organizational system so to say that took me three years to develop.

Virtual Stuff

folders for your major - organized by year by semester by subjects by ppts / assignments / extras

name everything correctly

(you don’t have to colour code or date them or anything extra unless you wanna)

hard to find? pin them

(i pin my current semester’s folder + the most demanding courses separately if needed)

use bookmark manager on your web browser

how my bookmark folders are organized - engineering refs (what it is how it is why it is / past paper questions) / class (refs / books / assignment citations) / online class links / future / internship (according to projects) / volunteer work

save every page if you’re working on some research - even if it’s 43% useful

go through them later when you’re done amassing info and delete if you need to

(i find that i tend to need a couple lines from useless sites and then get mad that i didn’t save it)

with research:

※ spend an adequate amount of time amassing info first

※ this will help you brainstorm if you don’t have ideas, or refine the ones you got

※ record any ideas that pop up as you do since you’ll have come up with a rough draft in your head

※ if you do this before every report / assignment, you’ll save so much time coming up with a rough draft, going back and forth researching, getting stuck etc.

on google docs? more folders!

folders folders folders

separate appropriately and on an easy-to-find basis

Paper Stuff

keep everything

even scrap paper (will be useful later)

own one spacious folder / binder for daily use

how mine is organized according to leafs - schedule / syllabi / transcripts or score sheets / important stuff from uni / review sheets collection / several empty leafs for new courses / assignments to be handed in / returned assignments / graph paper / lab report paper / blank sheets / scrap paper

buy those pack of cheap folders for extra stuff - if you need to hand something in a folder, to hold previous stuff once you empty main binder out, to hold extra stuff at home etc.

label the ones used if you know you can’t differentiate later

organize notebooks according to schedule (if you pair a couple courses in one notebook)

keep recurring stuff within arm’s reach of your study space

keep review sheets / formula sheets of previous courses in your binder if they relate to current courses (ex: i kept my last year’s transport phenomena stuff in my folder because i was taking mass transfer last semester)

Recording Stuff

a small notebook / planner / an app to record assignments and quizzes and exams

one is enough

write the teachers / profs / doctors information on the first day in one place

date everything please

own a pack of extra pens / pencils / a set of stationery so you never have to buy any new stuff for the semester

(i legit buy them in packs and never buy any more for the rest of the semester)

do that on a good month / when the money isn’t tight

(in the middle of vacation is my time)

write everything down

spend a moment of time to make a formulae / questions / review stuff master list(s)

that will help you loads later if you start from the beginning

keep recurring stuff within arm’s reach of your study space

use scrap paper for practicing formulas / questions / review stuff - works better than flashcards if it’s repetitive, and saves time as well

The biggest takeaway from this post I would say is: doing the bare minimum is fine. You don’t need to do a whole lot to be an organized person. I can say that confidently because apparently I built up a rep of being the most organized person in my batch, and I’m just like 🤨🤨🤨

Anyways - the bare minimum is fine. If you have the little things everywhere in place, that’s enough. But!

※ do underestimate yourself

※ if not, you will lose track of your stuff

Here’s to our collective success ⁓

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antiquechampagne · 4 years ago

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Absolute Zero - Chapter 1

As Angela walked up to the metal door, its presence punctuated by a garish glowing neon arrow, her heart felt like it would blow out of her chest. Goodneighbor. She clutched her thick three ring binder before her, hoping it would give her the strength she needed. Angela hadn’t traveled here alone from Amherst, but she entered the town on her own.

The door was heavy. Angela struggled with it until a ghoul carrying a tommy gun and wearing a threadbare suit topped with a rust colored fedora helped her open it the rest of the way.

“Welcome to Goodneighbor.” He sounded tired.

Before he could walk away, she quickly thanked him. “Could you also tell me where I could find… the Mayor?”

“If ya wanna talk t’ the boss,” he pointed a scarred finger across the courtyard. “Check out the Old State House.”

She thanked him again, but he had already turned away. Taking a few steps closer, she took in the tall brick building. It was stately, definitely pre-war built, but well taken care of given it’s age. It reminded Angela of some of the ruins she played in as a child, looking for long forgotten books or scraps of pre-war gadgets. Glancing around the square, she saw a friendly ghoul manning a general store. She was more surprised to see an assaultron behind the counter of the other shop, one full of dangerous looking arms. It was early evening, but not many other people were on the street.

Standing in front of the State House, Angela took a moment to straighten her bangs, combing her fingers through her chin length blond hair. She wiped some hot sweat from her forehead. Her nerves were shot, but she had to go through with it. It was the only way.

Once inside she was directed to the second floor. She wasn’t sure what to expect. All Angela knew about the mayor of Goodneighbor was that he was a ghoul with a taste for chems. She wasn’t expecting a man clad in a long red coat playing chess with a rather serious looking woman.

“Looks like we have a new guest, Fahr! And this little lady has balls!” He picked a hat off the table as he rose and plunked it squarely over his deeply ridged scalp.

She found herself staring at the hole that had once been a nose as she spoke. “I…I didn’t mean to intrude, Mr. Mayor…” Angela had never been this close to a ghoul before, much less talked to one for so long. Sure, there had been a few ghoul traders around, but she was never directly involved in any commerce activity.

The Mayor drew closer to her, a cocky smirk on his face. “Oh, now don’t be shy, sister! We’re all friends here, right?” He motioned to a pair of sofas in the middle of the large room. Angela had always been on the shorter side, but the Mayor’s bombastic personality made him seem even taller than his average stature. Sitting down across from him did little to lessen it. Angela felt like she was shrinking under his gaze.

“Now, what can this old ghoul do for you today.”

Angela thought he sounded almost predatory. The glowering giant woman with a mohawk standing behind the couch wasn’t helping. She closed her eyes and pictured her family in her head. Releasing her breath, she began.

“Mr. Mayor… my name is Angela. I came east looking for someone who might be in need of my particular set of skills and I heard Goodneighbor would be a perfect fit.”

He cocked a smooth hairless eyebrow. “Oh, really? And what would those skills be?” the Mayor purred, leaned forward on his knees.

Angela opened her binder, leafing through the notebooks, papers and pamphlets stored within. “I am a trained scientist, specializing in pharmacological chemistry. I can synthesize chems of all sorts, medicinal, recreational, even chemical warfare. I’ve spent the past 10 years collecting every formula and recipe I could get my hands on.” The ghoul was leaning farther over, trying to glimpse at the treats she teased in her pages. This was going well. “Get me in a lab with the ingredients I need, and I’ll make you whatever you want.”

The Mayor leaned back in his seat again and glanced up at Fahr, another smile teasing the edges of his deformed lips. “That is quite the compelling sales pitch you have there, especially with the issues we’ve been having lately... but how do I know you can actually deliver? Not many actual scientists around these days… unless you’ve defected from the Institute.”

Angela had no idea what this ‘Institute’ was, but from the way he spoke, it wasn’t a popular around these parts. “I grew up in the ruins of an old university out in the Amherst wasteland. My mom was the town doctor, but I was more interested in books than bodies.”

The ghoul rubbed his chin, seemingly unimpressed.

“Put me to the test, then.” If what she had heard was true, this gamble was worth the risk. “Pick out anything, give me the means to make it, and see what you think.”

“You’re kidding, right?” The woman piped up. “You come in here, and then demand caps from us… just to waste on some flaky science experiment? Throw this pipsqueak out on her ass, boss. We’ve got better things to do.”

“I barely got here with the shirt on my back! Cut me some slack!”

“Now hold on a second,” The Mayor raised his hand. “I think we can work something out.” He spread his hand over Angela’s binder, turning it towards him as he spoke. “I’ll pick a treat from the cookie jar, here… and if Squeaky here can deliver we can have some more negotiations. If not, then I get to keep the recipe.” He stared at her, freezing her to the spot. “Deal?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “Deal.”

Opening the binder to what appeared to be a random page, the Mayor read the title.

“Rocket? Never heard of it. Sounds fun!”

Twenty minutes later the pair led her to the dingy basement of the local hotel, a small crate clutched in her hand, the cola bottle clinking together between the box of Abraxo soap and Jet canisters.

“Hey, Fred,” called Mayor Hancock. “Mrs. Angela here is going to use your bench for a little while.”

A drowsy face popped out from a side room. “Yeah, well… you might want to check upstairs with that. Marowski might not like that.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have a little chat with him right now.” He turned to Angela. “In the meantime, why don’t you get set up.”

The lab was set up in the middle of the large basement. She wished she had more light but began to unload and organize on the counter when Fred appeared next to her. She tried to ignore him.

“Sooo… whatcha cookin’?” His wide watery eyes tracing over the bottles and boxes. He reached out but Angela quickly slapped his hand away from the Nuka-Cola. “Jeeze, sorry man. You don’t have to be like that. I’m just curious.”

Angela placed her binder on the bench top, her hand firmly holding the cover down. She didn’t want anything of hers wandering away while she wasn’t looking.

“Oooh, what’s that?” Fred asked, peering around her with a little hungry smile.

“Mine.” She glared at him. She was already on edge with the pressure of synthesizing chems in an unfamiliar lab, but now she had to be on her guard against possible sabotage. Great.

Just then, Hancock and Fahrenheit came down the stairs. “Okay, a few caps and that’s all squared away. You have an hour. Show us what ya got.”

“Hey, wait a minute there!” Fred stood up tall, puffing out his chest. “Are you guys looking to replace good ol’ Fred?” He shoulders hunched a little. “Say it ain’t so, Mayor?!”

The Mayor threw an arm around the greying chem dealer’s shoulder. “Nah, man. That’s not it at all. You know, with those raiders pouring out from Nuka-World it’s been hard getting a steady supply. Think of her as a possible assistant. This,” he spread his other hand out wide. “is her interview.”

Fred considered the news.

“Besides,” the ghoul continued. “You’ll get to try her goodies out… and it looks like she’s got a couple of aces up her sleeve.” He let Fred go and started towards the stairs.

“Oh, and Fred?” he looked back. “Leave her alone… she’s got work to do.”

Author’s Notes: I have decided to not put chapter titles with this fic and see how I feel about it.

#new fic #absolute zero #fan fic #fan fiction #goodneighbor #john hancock #hancock #fahrenheit #fallout #fallout 4 #chems

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dandelionflower · 5 years ago

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Magic AU

Chapter 6

As Marinette pushed herself out of her loft, the wind through her hair, she only had one thought: I need to have a better way to hide my identity than just a mask.

There was a bright flash of light and a scream.

Okay, costume ideas later.

She perched on a roof and assessed the woman tearing through the streets.

Purple hair, black jumpsuit, on fire lab coat, giant pen. Yes, definitely a villain. She pointed her pen in the air.

“Submit yourself to grading! Are you Cursed or Blessed? Only the Grademaker can decide!”

“So her name is Grademaker…” she mused, watching her stomp down a corner.

“That’s Ms. Mendeleiev, the teacher for the Cursed in one of the nearby schools.”

Marinette screamed and almost toppled off of the roof before Cataclysm grabbed her hand and hulled her back up.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine, I wasn’t paying attention.” Her eyes trailed over his new costume. “Nice suit, by the way.”

“Yes, it certainly fits what I’m going for.” He fished in his pocket. “Speaking of, I have one for you as well.” He handed her a ribbon. “Just tie it on your wrist or ankle.”

She took the ribbon and wrapped it around one of her pigtails. Instantly a glow enveloped her, shifting her clothes until she looked like a genuine hero.

It was mostly brown, with patches of a more gold-like color on her toes, elbows, knees, and the tips of her skirt. The skirt was open in the front, allowing for better maneuvering, and had a reddish belt that she immediately clipped her baton to. Her collar was black with a white cotton ball hanging off of it.

She leapt up, doing a full spin in the air before she landed. “I love it! Thanks, Cataclysm!”

“A good friend of mine made it. Now, let’s go, Grademaker isn’t waiting for us.”

“Right. Let’s go.”

She extended her baton, flying through the skies, as Cataclysm wrapped his yo-yo on a gargoyle and swung alongside her.

————————

They both crouched behind a chimney and watched as Grademaker interrogated citizens.

“You! What’s your ability?”

The girl, who could only have been about six, quivered. “I can make little stars…”

“Blessed.” Grademaker pointed her pen at the girl and a red circle flew out of it. It floated just above the girls head before glowing gold. “‘A’ plus. And your mother?” She narrowed her eyes.

The mother stepped forward. “I can bend and twist metal with my mind.”

Grademaker reeeled back. “Disfigurement Of metal? Cursed!” She shrieked as a red ‘X’ flew out of her pen. “An ‘F’ if I ever saw one.” The ‘X’ attached itself to the woman back, wrapping itself around her arms, trapping them at her sides.

Cataclysm glanced at her and nodded. Marinette jumped from her hiding place and slammed her staff on the pen, just before another grade flew out of it.

“Ah, Lucky Charm! The power of creation. Blessed. I’m afraid, though, that your association with that Cursed has lowered your grade.” Another circle flew from the pen. This time, it flew around Marinette’s waist and circled it like a hula hoop. Then, it snapped shut, slamming Marinette’s hands to her sides.

“Hawkmoth wants to used you for something.” She winked her nose. “He wants Cataclysm too, but for what he would need that Cursed for, I don’t know.” Just before Grademaker grabbed Marinette, the string of a yo-yo wrapped around her waist and pulled her up next to Cataclysm.

“Sorry,” he smirked, “I don’t think we’re going anywhere.” He placed a hand on the circle entrapping her, and it disintegrated into dust. “Summon a shield and get the pen out of her hands,” he muttered, wincing at the sound of Grademaker’s offended shouts, “I’ll distract her.”

With that he ran off, still shouting. “Hey, Ms. Mendeleiev! How would you grade this?” He slid his hands against the halo and the ‘X,’ crumbling them both to dust.

Marinette threw her hands in the air just in time to catch the shield she created. It was all silver with a green four leaf clover on it. Cute.

She began prowling behind Grademaker, watching as her shots against Cataclysm became more and more frantic. She growled to herself as the pen kept moving just out of reach.

Suddenly, there was a shout and Cataclysm fell to the ground as multiple ‘X’s tied him up. Grademaker smiled wickedly as she clicked her pen, tightening his bonds. “Goodbye Cataclysm.” She hissed as the ‘X’s began to glow a searing red.

But just as smoke began coming from Cataclysm’s costume, a piercing shriek came from nowhere. Glass shattered, falling to the ground. Marinette scanned around wildly, searching for the source of the deadly sound.

There! Behind a garbage can, a girl in Felix’s class. Her eyes were squeezed shut as she yelled.

Marinette’s eyes darted back to Cataclysm, who had an enormous smile on his face as two other kids from Felix’s class rushed to his side. They exchange a few words and the kid with the green cap taps the ‘X’ and it morphs into a red bear that begins to bob slowly to a news stand and chew on the paper.

Cataclysm flipped to his feet, and swung his yo-yo at Grademaker’s hand. The pen flipped around in the air, and Marinette trained the point of her staff at it and extended it, pushing the pen towards Cataclysm.

His yo-yo wrapped around the maroon pen, and pulled it down to him. With a single tap, the pen disintegrated and a violet butterfly trailed lazily out of it. Cataclysm patiently held out his hand and darkness flew from the departing butterfly into his gloved palm.

He glanced at Marinette and nodded. She threw her hands in the air and felt the magic of her power fill the air and melt away her bruises. She opened her eyes just as Cataclysm’s dark firework faded away into the sky.

She held out her fist for a fist bump, and wasn’t disappointed. “See you next time.”

“Of course.” However, instead of leaving, Cataclysm turned to the students who saved him.

She waved to them and extended her staff into the air, flying over the rooftops and landing into her open balcony window, tearing off her ribbon and shifting her staff into a hair clip and sliding it into her hair.

The trapdoor began to cream open, and Marinette grinned. “Hey, Felix! So, the thing I needed to do didn’t turn out to be such a big deal anyway.”

When the door opened entirely, she saw that it wasn’t Felix at all, it was her papa.

“Hon, your mask is on.” He pointed, a tiny smile on his face.

“Oh!” She slipped the mask off her face and into her bag, right next to the ribbon. “Thanks Papa!”

“No problem, Lucky Charm.” He winked. “I just wanted to let you know Felix went out for a bit. He’ll be back in a bit and he’s excited to see your designs.”

“Alright.” She began pulling out notebooks and fabric samples, her mind wandering back to those three kids and how they were willing to risk their lives for Cataclysm and her, but no ‘Blessed’ had.

Odd.

…………

The rest

@drama-queen-supreme

@synnesstra

@evil-cricket

@thewingting

@tiny-brie

#magic au #felinette #ml felix #mlb #marinette dupain cheng #miraculous ladybug #ml marinette #felix culpa #ml au #ms mendeleiev #ml mendeleiev #quantic kids #ml allegra #ml mercury #ml claude #a scribble

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therainroguefanfiction · 4 years ago

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⚘ Ol’ Switcharoo (Hajime Iwaizumi)

Genre: Slice of Life, Friendship, Fluff, Mystery

Word Count: 4,501

Pairing: Reader x Iwaizumi

World: Haikyuu

Prompt(s): A makes a potion but trips, spilling it all over B. / “I’m not cold in the least.” / Nerd-Jock AU

Author’s Note: This was written for the weekly-prompt (08/06/20) over on @hqbookclub ‘s discord server – you should check it out if you haven’t

━━━━━━༻⚘༺━━━━━━

You looked at the white tabletop, eyes scanning each ingredient and mentally ticking them off the list as you went. When you were sure that you had everything you needed, you took out your phone and pulled up the video you needed, propping it up against an empty glass bottle before pressing play.

The video was an episode of Axis Powers Hetalia where England was crafting a potion in his basement. He claimed that this potion would make anyone who drank it fall in love with the first person they saw. The thought that you could make Iwaizumi fall for you with just the sip of a potion you created had you giddy with excitement and you didn’t even consider the possibility that it could backfire, potentially going horribly wrong.

You pushed up your glasses with your middle finger, copying what England did with careful measurements – which was a bit difficult considering he didn’t mention what any of the ingredients were, nor did he measure them, but you were one of the smartest kids Aobajohsai had to offer. Using context clues, you determined what he was using and how much and you did not deviate from the list you had made. The contents of the glass bottle was a deep, cherry red with ice-cold smoke pouring over the top of the bottle, quite similar to dry ice.

It was just like England’s potion and you felt excitement bubbling within you as you poured in exactly two teaspoons of lime juice. The liquid bubbled up, changing to a rich shade of dark blue. The smell was atrocious, smelling like rotten fruit that had been sitting out in the sun for a few weeks. Your stomach turned at the thought and you were thankful you had skipped lunch in favor of working on the potion.

You grabbed a white mask from the supply cupboard to block some of the smell, something you should have done before even beginning to work on it, but it had slipped your mind in your excitement. ‘Now I just have to let it sit for twenty minutes over a roaring flame!’ Cranking the heat on the burner up, you settled down onto the wooden stool.

It was Sunday and, while there were no classes, the school remained open for students that wanted to work on projects or study for upcoming exams. Very few students took advantage of this, wanting to be anywhere but at school on the weekends, but you loved to learn so the school acted as a second home for you.

Twenty minutes passed by slowly and when the timer on your phone finally rang, you sprung off the stool, turning the heat off before carefully removing the bottle with a heat-resistant glove. The liquid was now a deep blurple and, though the smell of rotting fruit was still present, it now had a sweet-smelling overtone as if someone had dumped fresh fruit on top of the rotting ones.

How were you supposed to get him to drink something that smelled so foul? There’s no way he’d trust it. Maybe you could slip it into his sports drink during practice? Yes, that seemed like a good option! After the bottle cooled, wrapped your fingers around the slim neck and excitedly headed for the door. Again, the excitement made you overlook two very important things.

The first was the fact that you had forgotten to put a cork in the bottle to ensure that no liquid spilled accidentally. The second was the fact that you should never run with an open bottle of questionable liquid.

As the door slid open, you were unable to stop your momentum, running straight into the very object of your affections – Iwaizumi Hajime. The bottle jumped out of your hands, the liquid spilling all over both of you before the bottle clattered to the ground, surprisingly unbroken.

As the liquid seeped into your clothes, wrapping around you like a second layer of skin, your body got very cold. It was like you had just stepped into a walk-in freezer at the back of a supermarket. Your eyes clamped shut, arms wrapping tight around your body as you attempted to preserve what little bit of warmth was left.

Iwaizumi released a shaky breath, forming a small cloud of smoke from the change in his body temperature. He was feeling the effects too, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as you seemed to be taking it. “A-Are you o-o-okay, Y/N-san?”

“Y-Y-Yes, why do you – do you a-ask?” You stuttered, your teeth chattering almost violently.

“You’re – you’re sha-a-king-g-g,” he stuttered back, rubbing his arms to try and generate heat. What the hell was going on? What horrid thing had you created within this lab? He was scared to ask.

“I-I-I’m not co-co-cold in the – in the l-least!” You tried to smile, but it was clearly forced. Your body was shaking like a leaf on a windy autumn day.

“Y-Yeah right,” he huffed, trying to control the shaking of his own body. Feeling concerned for not only himself but for you, as well, he pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly to try and warm both of you and it seemed to be working. Your hands clutched at his shirt tightly, burying your face in his neck as the cold slowly started to work its way from your bones.

Iwaizumi was like a warm blanket on a cold winter morning, so comforting that you forgot the rest of the world even existed. It was a wonderful feeling and, while you had imagined what it would feel like so many times in the past to be held by him, it certainly did not disappoint. You were fully content just staying like that forever, snuggled within his body with your arms wrapped tightly around his waist, able to feel his toned muscles through the fabric of his thin shirt.

“Uh, Y/N-san. You can let go now,”

His voice brought you crashing back to reality and you noticed that neither of you were shaking anymore. While you were reluctant to do so, you finally released your hold on him, taking a step back while readjusting the glasses on your face. “I’m really sorry Iwaizumi-san!”

He frowned, rubbing at his arm before turning his attention to the floor. The strange liquid was completely gone, but the smell still lingered in the air, making him wrinkle his nose. “What the hell was that stuff?”

“Oh! It was a lo -” You slapped your hand over your mouth, giggling nervously when he quirked a brow. “A, uhhh, low grade fever reducer – yes, let’s go with that! Anywho, did you need something?”

“We have a project to work on, remember? I’m skipping practice to get this done, so let’s not waste time.”

“Of course! Let me grab my bag and I’ll meet you in the library.” You offered him a smile, which he returned with a nod before turning and leaving the room. As soon as he was out of sight, your bubbly demeanor deflated. You had put so much effort into that potion and some of the ingredients were harder to come by and thanks to your reckless excitement, it was ruined.

Maybe it was fate’s way of telling you the relationship wasn’t meant to be. Or perhaps it was karma for trying to force him into loving you. Either way, your mood had definitely taken a nosedive, but you would put on a fake smile for Iwaizumi because that’s what he deserved.

━━━━━━༻⚘༺━━━━━━

When you woke up the next morning to get ready for school, your mood hadn’t improved much. Although you had gotten to spend time with Iwaizumi for several hours, neither of you really talked much unless it was about a project, but that was how it always was because you really had nothing in common.

While he was athletic and outgoing, surrounded by people and in love with playing Volleyball, you were quite the opposite. You preferred books over humans and didn’t like talking to someone that didn’t share your views on how important getting good grades was for the future, plus you couldn’t play a sport to save your life. Even so, you had fallen hard for the third-year and just wanted to be near him.

You picked up your glasses and slipped them onto your face, only for your vision to go completely blurry, a wave of nausea washing over you. You pulled them off in a confused flurry, eyes widening when your vision cleared up. You were absolutely positive that poor sight didn’t just magically fix itself overnight.

‘Wait… magic? Ah, the potion!’ Your mind started to work overtime as you started to pace around your room. ‘Did I make a mistake? No, I’m positive that I used all of the correct ingredients and measurements. Perhaps when it touches the skin, it has a different effect? Or it could be as simple as a bug flying into the mixture when I looked away. Hmm, I should research this and try to recreate it.’ You reached for your notebook to take notes but you paused. ‘Next time with a heating blanket,’

After getting changed and grabbing your bag, you rushed out of the house toward school, your mind running wild with thoughts and questions about yesterday’s events. When you got to school, however, you found Iwaizumi standing outside the school gate, his eyes squinted as he watched the other students passing by.

“Good morning, Iwai -”

“What did you do?” He demanded, taking you by the arm to pull you away from the other students who had turned to look after his outburst.

“W-What?” Your brow furrowed in confusion. “Why do you keep squinting?”

“I can’t see!” He scowled, rubbing at his eyes. “Everything is all blurry.”

Your eyes widened. ‘No, it can’t be…’ Digging around in your bag, you pulled out the case that housed your glasses. Thankfully, you had brought them just in case your clear vision was a fluke. “Put these on!”

“What? Why?” His lips tugged down as he squinted at the black frames on his palm. “I don’t need glasses.”

“Trust me,” you encouraged, pushing his hand closer to his body.

Iwaizumi was unsure, but he did as you told him, slipping the glasses onto his face. Like magic, his vision was no longer blurry, the only reminder being the headache throbbing within his temple. “What…”

Without warning, you grabbed the bottom of his shirt and tugged it up to reveal his stomach, much to his displeasure. His cheeks burned and he pushed your hand away, asking you what the hell you were doing, but your mind was far too distracted to hear his words. His stomach, once full of muscle and a very defined six pack, was now flat. In your excited haste that morning, you hadn’t noticed the change in your own body mass, but now that your mind was slowly piecing together the mess that was your current existence, you realized that your stomach was now full of muscle, along with your arms and legs.

“Oh… Oh no…”

“What the hell is happening, Y/N?” He proped, watching your face as it morphed into a million different expressions, your hand on your chin as you started to pace back and forth. “Oi, are you even listening to me?”

No, you weren’t.

“How is this possible?” You muttered to yourself, barely audible. “I was wrong, the potion doesn’t fix your vision upon skin contact, it has a completely different effect. But what is it, exactly? A body switch? But our minds and memories are intact. I wonder…” Your eyes lit up with excitement as you grasped him by the wrist and dragged him toward the gym where the volleyball team was practicing.

“Oi!” He tried to free himself from your grip, but your strength was superior to his now.

You burst into the gym loudly, eyes scanning the team as they all paused to look at you. Oikawa was the first to recover, approaching you with a huff. “Y/N-chan! You’re late for practice. Hurry up and change.” His eyes slid to Iwaizumi and he grinned. “Thanks for making them come to practice, Iwa-chan!”

His mouth opened, but no sound escaped.

“I apologize, Oikawa-san. Iwaizumi-san and I have a really important project coming up so I won’t be at practice. I just needed to check on something.”

“Eh? But -”

You ignored him, dragging the dark haired male with you as you left the gym, the doors slamming behind you. “No, it’s definitely not body swapping. It’s life swapping!”

Iwaizumi massaged his temple with his free hand, feeling like he was currently in a nightmare that he just couldn’t wake up from. “Will you please tell me what’s going on.”

“Oh, right, of course!” You pulled him over to the nearby bench, motioning for him to sit down. “This is all started when I was watching Hetalia. Iggy was making a love potion for this woman that he had a crush on and the recipe seemed quite simple. I took very careful notes, you know. Naturally, I had to try it out myself, not only as a scientific advancement, but because it would be the only way you would ever spare me a second look.”

His eyes widened in surprise at the admission, but you were too wrapped up in your thoughts, pacing back and forth, to notice that you had all but confessed to liking him.

“It took me a week to get everything together and I know I followed the recipe to a T, but something clearly went wrong. My theory is that the liquid has a completely different effect when it comes into contact with skin opposed to being ingested. When I spilled it and it landed on both of us, something must have occurred to make us switch lives. It’s quite curious, because our minds and memories have not been altered, but our physicalities and lives have been changed. Would the same effect still occur if it came into contact with only one person instead of two? This is fascinating!”

His eye twitched, clearing not sharing your sentiments. “That’s great and all, but how do we fix it?”

You hummed thoughtfully, coming to a stop. “Well, I propose that we try it again.”

“Are you telling me that spilling that… potion on us again will reverse the effects?”

“Of course not!” You met his gaze, reaching to push up your glasses only to frown when you remembered that you no longer needed them. It was a strange sensation – they had become like an extra limb to you after all of the years you had worn them and even now, it was like you could feel them perched upon your nose. You cleared your throat. “The probability of that working is only about twenty percent. However, since the potion got us into this mess, it’s certainly possible that it can get us out. We have no other options at this point.”

“You said it took you a week to get the ingredients… so we have to stay like this a week?” He really hoped that wasn’t the case. Even now, he just wanted to get into the gym and play volleyball with the rest of his team, but he doubted he could with the lack of muscle he now had. His body felt clumsy and he was positive that he wouldn’t even be able to keep up with the slowest members of the team.

“Actually, I planned ahead and ordered extra ingredients on the rare chance that I messed up the potion. There’s one ingredient I didn’t get, though.”

Iwaizumi assumed it was a super rare ingredient since you didn’t get more of it and that worried him. “What is it? How long will it take to order it?”

“Oh, we don’t have to order it. We just have to visit the grocery store!”

“The… grocery store?”

“Yup! The only ingredient I’m missing is a lime. I suppose it is possible that the school kitchen has one somewhere, but I believe that would raise unnecessary questions. We will have to wait until school ends, though, since I have to use the school’s laboratory in order to properly craft it.”

Iwaizumi found himself deadpanning. He was no expert, but he had never heard of a lime being an ingredient in a potion, especially not one that was meant to capture someone’s affections. That thought brought color to his cheeks and he turned his attention to observe you. ‘I never thought Y/N liked me. They never showed any signs of wanting to be anything more than just friends.’

The bell rang out, signaling the start of homeroom and you squeaked in surprise. “We’re going to be late! I’ll meet you in the laboratory after school!” You offered him a bright smile before taking off, surprised by how fast you could now run.

He didn’t move from his spot on the bench, closing his eyes as he leaned his head back, the warm breeze ruffling his hair.

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You hummed contently as you carefully set out the ingredients for the potion, double checking to make sure you had everything you needed to recreate it perfectly. Now you just needed to wait for Iwaizumi to return with the lime and you could get started. Even though you remembered the formula by heart, you still set up your phone with the video just for extra protection.

“I’m back,” Iwaizumi entered the room with a small plastic bag in his hand. “I bought five just to be safe.”

“Thinking ahead!” You grinned, accepting the bag from his hand, heart skipping a beat when your fingers brushed against his. You cleared your throat, quickly turning around to set the bag on the counter. While you got to work creating another potion, Iwaizumi settled himself at the table behind you, watching you curiously as you worked. He noticed the way your tongue stuck out of the corner of your mouth when you were measuring something, the way your eyes sparkled once you got the desired effect.

These were things he had always noticed about you, among the other quirks that you had. Truth be told, he had been watching you since you were both first years. Your intelligence was so beautiful to him and he wanted to get to know you, but he worried that he wouldn’t be smart enough to keep you entertained or happy, so he didn’t get his hopes up and just admired you from afar. To think that you shared his sentiments was unbelievable to him. You had even gone so far as to try and force him to love you with a damn potion.

The thought made him chuckle and you sent him a curious look over your shoulder. He coughed, using his hand to try and hide his warm cheeks. “Sorry, I just remembered a funny joke Shittykawa told the other day.”

You smiled at him before returning to the potion. The smell was beginning to rise up from the smoking liquid, filling the room and making his stomach twist painfully. He had to pull his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, but you didn’t seem the least bit bothered by it. He wondered if you had gotten used to the smell already or if you were just too focused to notice.

The minutes ticked by in silence and, after what felt like an hour, the potion was cooling on the tabletop. With a proud grin, you pulled the thick gloves from your hands, setting them beside the bottle. “It’s all done! We just have to let it cool off to room temperature before using it.” You plopped a thermometer into the liquid to keep track.

“We have to spill it over ourselves, right?” He winced, remembering how ice-cold he had felt upon contact. It was like death himself was ripping out his soul and he was not looking forward to experiencing that again.

You giggled as he suppressed a shiver and you reached for your bag, pulling a thick blanket from the bottom. “Don’t worry, I was planning on recreating the potion anyway, so I came prepared this time.”

He released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he saw the brown object. “A heating blanket,”

“Yup! Though I did not anticipate you being here, as well. It should be big enough for both of us!”

The thought of being under the same blanket with you, bodies pressed together to preserve heat, had him feeling some kinda way. He loved the idea and suddenly, being ice-cold again didn’t seem so bad. “Good thinking, Y/N.”

“Thanks!” You beamed at the praise, not even realizing that he had dropped the -san from your name, saying it just a bit softer than he normally would. “Oh, it’s ready! We should re-create the scene just to be sure.”

“Can’t we just -”

“No, we have to do it exactly the same way.” You responded firmly. “Go out into the hall, standing five lockers down from the door. Start counting as soon as you leave the room and open the door on ten. Understand?”

He nodded, pulling himself to his feet.

One.

Two.

Three.

You turned on the heating blanket, setting it by the door so it would be ready for the two of you.

Four.

Five.

Six.

You carefully picked up the bottle in your hands, cradling it like a fragile creature.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

The door swung open as you approached it quickly, the two of you colliding just as you had the day before. The bottle slipped from your hands, the liquid sloshing out and covering both of you, quickly seeping into your clothes and chilling you to the bone. The difference this time was that the bottle shattered upon hitting the floor, spraying glass across the room.

“S-S-Shit,” you cursed, throwing your arms around yourself as the cold reached to your bones. Iwaizumi grabbed the blanket, trying to control his shaking hands as he wrapped it around your shoulders before pulling you into his body, allowing you to wrap it around behind him. Even on the highest setting, you could still feel the chill hanging over you. “I fe-el dizzy.”

“Me t-too,” he breathed out, seeing his breath in a cloud of smoke. A wave of nausea came over the two of you, spots appearing inside your vision before darkness claimed you. He tried to keep himself together, holding you up, but he too succumbed to the darkness, both of you crumbling to the floor in each other’s arms.

━━━━━━༻⚘༺━━━━━━

Iwaizumi felt someone shaking him and he groaned, reaching for his throbbing head. He felt like he was coming out of a thick fog, his body heavy as it was roused from sleep. ‘What the hell was that dream? And why do I feel so hot?’

“Iwa-chan!”

His eyes cracked open, finding Oikawa leaning over him with a worried look on his face.

“Are you okay? And why are you wearing glasses?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” The male scoffed, pushing him away and slowly sitting up. Upon doing so, the heating blanket slipped down, exposing his warm flesh to the cool air coming in through the open window. ‘That explains the heat, but doesn’t explain the glasses.’ He pulled them from his face, rubbing at his eyes.

“You and Y/N-san passed out,” Oikawa responded with concern, glancing at you on the floor beside him, still unconscious. “I was walking by when I heard glass shatter, then I found the two of you on the floor!”

Iwaizumi panicked, turning his body toward you as he gently shook your body. “Y/N? Wake up!”

You started to stir, a soft groan passing your lips as your eyes cracked open, squinting up at the blurry face above you. With a softness that surprised you, he carefully put your glasses on your face, clearing up your vision so you could see the worried expression marring his beautiful face. “Iwaizumi-san? What happened?”

Oikawa huffed, “That’s what I want to know! What crazy experiments were you doing, Y/N-san?”

“Experiments…?” The past two days rushed through your mind like a movie on times-two speed, eyes widening as you turned toward the dark-haired boy, grabbing the bottom of his shirt and lifting it up almost violently. You were greeted with his abs, sculpted after years of playing volleyball.

With red cheeks, he smacked your hands away, forcing his shirt back down. “Will you stop doing that!”

Oikawa quirked a brow, an amused smirk playing on his lips. “If you wanted to see abs, Y/N-san, you could have just asked me. I don’t mind sharing~” He grabbed for the hem of his shirt but Iwaizumi made a strangled noise, putting himself between the two of you so you wouldn’t see it. His abs were the only ones he wanted you to see.

“Your concern is noted, Shittykawa, now go away!”

“How rude, Iwa-chan!” But the boy obeyed, sticking his tongue out before turning to leave the room.

“Your abs are back, and my bad vision is back.” You chirped happily, readjusting the black frames when they started to slip down your nose. “It looks like it worked! I wonder why we passed out this time, though. How fascinating!” You pulled yourself to your feet, looking over the shattered glass on the floor. “Surely smashing the glass couldn’t have altered it that drastically. Is this the butterfly effect? I must research this some more!”

You tried to head over to the table where the ingredients were but Iwaizumi grabbed your wrist to stop you, tugging you backward. You didn’t have a chance to speak before you were wrapped in his arms, his hand on the back of your head. For a moment, you just stood there in surprise, unsure of how to react. It was one thing for him to hug you to try to preserve warmth, but it was completely different for him to suddenly hug you without just cause.

“Iwai -”

“Hajime,” he stated, his breath making your hair shift. “Call me Hajime.”

Your cheeks lit up at the thought of being allowed to use his first name. “Hajime-san… what are you doing?”

“For someone so smart, you can be really dumb.” He commented with a chuckle, pulling back just enough for his forehead to rest against your own. His eyes were soft and full of love as they met yours. “You didn’t need some silly potion to win my heart, you already had it.”

Before you could process the declaration, his lips met yours and you practically melted in his embrace, hand going to the back of his neck to deepen the kiss. It didn’t matter if you weren��t as athletic as him, or if he wasn’t as smart as you. The two of you made up for what the other one lacked, and that was more than enough for the two of you.

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killervibe · 6 years ago

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There Are No Secrets That Time May Not Reveal

Written for 12 Days of Killervibe

Summary: A thanksgiving killervibe 5x07 missing scenes fic.

You can also read my fic on ao3, with the same username thatkillervibe

Barry is caught off-guard when Cisco knocked on their door the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. “Hey man,” He said, opening the door. He turned to look at Iris who shrugged at their table, equally curious. “Hi Cisco!” “Hey Iris,” he said, then lowered his voice. “Barry, can we talk alone?” Barry frowned, “Is there an emergency?” “No,” Cisco reassured, “Nothing like that, um,” He peered over Barry’s shoulder where Iris was still watching them. “Can we take a walk?” “Sure,” Barry grabbed his coat and keys and told Iris he would be back soon.

They’re halfway down the block, shoving their cold hands into their pockets, pretending they’re not cold when Cisco finally said, “It’s back.” “What’s back?” Cisco shot Barry a look, a timid, uneasy one, and suddenly Barry understood everything.

“Oh,” he said. "That.” It shouldn’t have been that surprising. Barry knew for quite some time about Cisco’s on again off again feelings for Caitlin. Years, actually, and yes he will always be Caitlin’s best friend, but the way he pushed and pushed with her dad... “Yeah,” Cisco sighed, then elaborated, “I guess they never really went away? I just buried them under because I had to. Because of Cynthia, y’know.” “...Right.” “But I can’t now. I think it’s showing too much. I don’t know what to do.” Barry said what he does every time they have this conversation. “I think you should tell her, Cisco.” He scrunched up his face, as if already anticipating the pain that would bring. “You love her?” “Yeah,” he breathed, then looked down, nodding. “Oh God, Barry. Yeah. I wanted to murder her father. I wanted to vibe her far away and swaddle her in bubble wrap to keep her safe.“ Barry gave him a wry smile, “Yeah, I know the feeling. But, this is Caitlin we’re talking about. Whether or not she loves you the same way, she does still love you, and she’ll listen to you.” Cisco didn’t say anything, squinting up at the moon. “And Caitlin’s been single for a while...” “Barry. ” Barry threw his hands up in defense, “I’m just saying.” “Yeah...” Cisco trailed off, “I don’t know. We’re closer than we’ve ever been, but something still feels off. Like, I’m not what she needs right now.” Barry’s face softened.

“But I need her.”

“You still have her,” Barry reminded Cisco gently.

Cisco didn’t look at him. “I know.” “So,” Cisco said after they walked around the block. “I need your advice. I need you to make sure I don’t, y’know, go overboard or become crazy obvious. Like, I need you to tell me when to reel it in. I'm having trouble with it.” “...You want me to watch you two?” Cisco kicked at a pebble. “Yeah, I know how it sounds.” He stopped and touched Barry’s jacket arm. “Would you do it anyway? Please?” Of course Barry will. Caitlin might be Cisco’s best friend, but Cisco was his. “Of course.” Just those words alone seemed to give Cisco some peace.

“Thank you,” he said with feeling.

“It’s different this time, isn’t it?” Barry couldn’t help but ask. Because, yeah, Cisco crushing on Caitlin happened sometimes, but it didn’t get him like this.

“She’s my Iris,” Cisco said simply. “I know she is. I just don’t think I’m her Barry.”

Barry thought, if Cisco really was that far deep, this job that was asked of him is going to be a little harder than he thought.

So. Killer Frost may have been right. Thanksgiving at the West-Allens’ was where they belonged. Not getting pity-drunk by themselves at Star Labs. But still, ever since Sherloque flung out his shitty year at him, he’s been a bit in a mood.

Cisco sat on the couch as they waited for the turkey to do its final minutes of cooking, watching Killer Frost have a blast with Sherloque and Barry. He emptied the last drops of red wine onto his tongue and tried not to think about how Killer Frost’s curls were falling against Caitlin’s blouse. Nora approached Cisco with her notebook in hand. “Hey, can I sit next to you?” “Sure, baby flash,” Cisco said, scooting to the left to give her more room, “take a seat.” “So...” Nora started, “Don’t get mad at Dad, but,” she lowered her volume and leaned her head toward his.

“He told me about your dilemma....” Nora jerked her head in Killer Frost’s direction. Cisco sighed deeply, and watched as she began leafing through her special notebook. “If you’re here to show me the picture of Caitlin’s future husband, I’d really appreciate wallowing in peace without literal proof that I’ll always be a bit hung up on my best friend.” Nora shook her head and gave him a little frown, her big Iris West eyes looking completely wide. “No! No, that would be mean!” Cisco wasn’t stupid. “....So, Caitlin’s future husband is in there....” Nora began to protest, but just like her father, she was particularly bad at lying.

“Yeah,” she eventually whispered, biting her bottom lip.

“Shrap. I’m not supposed to spoil. I was just going to show you the picture that you guys took at my parents’ housewarming party. This one.”

She pointed at a familiar picture. The one where Caitlin was wearing that velvet green dress and her head was tipped against his. When he gave her the snowflake power dampening necklace and tried to fight his conflicting feelings about Julian’s sudden interest in Caitlin. “I wanted to remind you that Caitlin will always be your best friend, and for that you should be thankful, because, I would kill to have a Cisco to my Caitlin.” Cisco put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have a best friend? No ride or die?” Nora shrugged. “I have friends, but I guess it’s not so hard to see why I’m reluctant to go back, huh?” Cisco gave her a hug. “Oh gosh, you’re going to be an adorable kid. I can’t wait.” Nora smiled ruefully. “You always were one of my favourite uncles.” Cisco tilted his head to the side. “You only have one. Wally.” “But you made all the best toys!” That made Cisco cackle. “And that’s not true! I did grow up knowing you as my uncle. Uncle Cisco, Uncle Ralph, Uncle Harry.” “Oh god,” Cisco groaned, still chuckling. But she was right, he did have family, right here, and for that he should be forever grateful. “Okay,” Cisco said, a few minutes later. “Show me Caitlin’s guy.” Nora looked uncomfortable again. “You sure?” Cisco took a deep breath, clapping his thigh. “I’m a big boy, I can take it. I did once before. Just—Please tell me I’m at least friends with him.”

It might have been unrealistic to expect them to be as close as he was with Ronnie, but, it would be nice to know future Cisco actually approves.

Maybe he could move on for good, this way. Nora made a funny face. “I’d say you know him well.” “Oh,” Cisco let out. “Good.” Nora flipped through her notebook close to her chest and slowly opened it at the correct page. She looked at him, then back at Killer Frost talking animatedly with Iris. “Here,” she said softly, pushing the brown leather book into his hands. Cisco stared down at the photograph. And stared. And stared. And stared. “Cisco?” He felt like he was about to have a heart attack.

Because it wasn’t just Caitlin in red lipstick and a beautiful wedding dress. It was him in a tuxedo standing next to her, unmistakably looking like he just married the love of his life. His grip loosened on the book, and he’s suddenly blinking back tears. “No,” He whispered, in absolute disbelief. His fingers touched the plastic film over the photograph, right over his beaming face. Nora’s thumbnail was in her mouth, gauging his reaction. “Uh huh.” “Nora, I—“ “It’s real.” She told him. “That’s the future. It’s going to happen.” “What’s going to happen?” Caitlin asked, popping out of nowhere. Cisco jumped out of his skin as Nora snatched her book and flashed it closed.

Cisco was surprisingly quick on his feet.

“Nora was just telling me she’s going to find our embarrassing photos to put in her notebook.”

“Ha,” Caitlin laughed, sitting in the space between them on the couch. “There’s no such thing as an embarrassing picture with me in it.” Cisco’s mind was still floating with her hair in a veil and arms around his neck, looking like a goddess. “There sure as hell isn’t,” he agreed, his voice a little too dangerously soft. Caitlin flashed him a happy smile and Cisco wanted to kiss her. Caitlin. His future wife. His best friend. Caitlin. Caitlin, who he has had a massive crush on for several long years, who he’s in love with, who he has his most dearest, important relationship with. There’s nothing Barry can do that will save him from himself now. Cisco dared to touch Caitlin’s arm, leaning into her side and getting a whiff of her vanilla perfume. He pulled his hand back.

He can’t do this.

“Hey, I’m going to get a refill of wine. Would you like some?” Caitlin nodded, “Thank you.” “Nora,” he said, “Wanna help?” He sent her a secret look and she got up immediately, following him past the kitchen. “Mom and dad keep the wine in the cabinet,” Nora said, a little confused. Cisco kept walking. “I know,” he replied, strained. “Then why are you taking me to the front door?” Barry must have developed a sixth Daddy sense, because he’s by the doorway looking between the two. “What’s going on here?” He asked, “I was just about to carve the turkey.” “Yeah, that’ll have to wait a minute. Barry, come.” Cisco dragged them both out into the hallway, closing the front door behind him. “Give me your book,” Cisco ordered Nora firmly and she obeyed, giving them a meek look. Cisco’s hands shook as his eyes took in the image again. He wasn’t even embarrassed when his tears start to fall in earnest. He wordlessly jutted the book to Barry, whose jaw dropped to the floor. He didn’t stare at it forever like Cisco did, but his mouth did clench closed, angry at his daughter for Cisco’s sake. “Nora.” “I’m sorry! But isn’t this a good thing? Dad, Cisco was looking miserable! You asked me to cheer him up!” “Yes, Nora, but not like this. The future isn’t certain. We don’t know how any of this will play out. This isn’t cheering Cisco up, look at him! It's doing the opposite! It’ll drive him crazy. He’s going to analyze every minute, every conversation with Caitlin from now on. It has happened to me once when I saw a future I wasn’t supposed to see. We don’t do spoilers! Especially not anyone that is outside me and your mom.” Nora looked properly chided. Cisco interrupted Barry’s dad talk before anyone else started to cry. “Hey, Barry, she didn’t think. And I asked her to show me, we’re both at fault.” Barry ran a hand through his hair. “Cisco, maybe you should tell Caitlin now.” “No!” Cisco exclaimed too loudly, forcing out a bitter laugh. He pointed at Nora’s book. “No. Look, I don’t know how or if that comes about, but I do know if it does, it’s not supposed to happen like this.” Cisco turned to Nora. “You’re taking me back.” “What?” She cried. “Back in time. 20 minutes ago. I continue to wallow in my own feelings secretly and you show me nothing. You don’t ever say anything to anyone either.” Barry made a noise, but closed his eyes and covered his mouth over with his hand as if to prevent himself from talking. Cisco glared at Barry. “It’s twenty minutes. The timeline won’t explode because of twenty minutes.” Barry nodded reluctantly. “Do you know how to time travel that slowly?” He asked his daughter. Nora blinked. “Pretty sure.” “And you, Cisco. You sure you don’t want to just, pretend to forget about it.” Cisco laughed, sounding like a strangled cat. “Is that a joke?” Barry sighed. “Yeah, okay. Nora go back and fix it.” Nora crossed her hands over her shirt, with a very guilty face. “I’m really sorry Uncle Cisco. I was really trying to help.” It was the first time she ever called him that, and yeah, Cisco was having an emotional meltdown, but the poor girl was just so sincere. He stepped forward to give her another comforting hug. “Yeah, sobrina, I know. Thank you. It just isn’t what I need.” “Okay,” she whispered. Cisco was shy to ask Barry for Nora’s notebook again. “I just want to see it,” he explained himself, opening it to the perfect page. “One last time.”

“Hey,” Killer Frost smiled, nudging Cisco’s shoulder. “Want some wine?” Cisco peered into his glace, “Is this chilled?” “Well, mulled wine comes for Christmas. It’s only Thanksgiving.” She winked at him, then walked away to give a glass to Iris. Cisco sat down on the couch, waiting for the turkey to do its final minutes of cooking and watching Killer Frost have a blast with Sherloque and Barry. He tried hard not to think about how Killer Frost’s curls were falling against Caitlin’s blouse.

Nora approached, empty handed. “Hey,” she said cautiously, “Can I sit next to you?” “Sure, baby flash,” Cisco handed her the wine glass and scooted over to the left give her more room, “take a seat.”

#killervibe #thatkillervibe fic #the flash #the flash fic #12daysofkillervibe18 #12daysofkillervibe #angst #5x01 #the flash fanfiction #Cisco ramon #caitlin snow #nora west allen #Barry Allen

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chatty-catnoir · 6 years ago

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Chemical Reaction

Summary: Adrien and Marinette team up as lab partners for Science class. Conducting experiments for an hour wouldn't cause any trouble...would it? Adrinette one-shot!

Genre: Humor/Romance

Marinette couldn't stop grinning like a dork. She was vaguely aware of Miss Mendeleiv giving instructions on the series of experiments they were about to conduct and how their finals depended upon it. She absently noticed Alya desperately signing her to stop smiling like a love-struck idiot, but she could hardly help it. Her mind was completely focused on Adrien, who was her lab partner for the day.

Oh, how lucky she was to have Adrien, the smartest and most amazing guy, as her lab partner! It was like a dream come true, to be working with Adrien, her crush, and it was all thanks to Alya! Since it was the new school year, the students were allowed to pick new partners, and so, Alya decided to pair up with Nino. Nino, who was in the game with Alya, suggested to Adrien that he, should pick Marinette, since she didn't have a partner yet.

Marinette's heart nearly leaped out of her mouth when Adrien came to her in the locker room before the class began.

"Hey Marinette!" Adrien said with his usual friendliness.

Marinette, who had been talking to Alya, jumped, "Oh um, hey there! Adrien! What brings you here?"

"Nino told me you don't have a partner yet for Science class." Adrien started but was interrupted by Marinette's nervous bumbling.

"Oh yes! It's a great tragedy! I'm so bad at Chemistry; I'm barely passing the tests! And with my luck I would probably get paired with Chloe," Marinette scoffed to herself. "It would be a disaster of great! I mean great disaster. Ugh, what am I saying?" Her shoulders drooped in dismay, while Alya could only face-palm.

"Well, then if it's okay with you, perhaps I could become your partner!" Adrien continued nevertheless.

"Me? Your partner? No way!" Marinette exclaimed in surprise.

"Oh! Then I suppose I'll have to ask someone else." Adrien said apologetically.

"No, I mean, of course I want to be your partner, Adrien!" Marinette quickly covered up.

"That's great! See you in class then!" Adrien winked and went off to his way.

Marinette waved to him dreamily, "Yes, see you in class!"

She snapped out of her trance when she realized that Adrien was saying something to her.

"Did you say something?" she asked.

"I was asking if you could write notes on the plant cells." Adrien repeated patiently.

"Yes, of course! Leave it to me!" Marinette said excitedly and got to work, while Adrien began working on the Oscillating clock reaction. She picked out a leaf and after gently cutting a thin piece of the leaf, she placed it gently onto the glass before adding a drop of water, following the instructions in the book.

She placed the glass under the microscope for observation and pulled out her pink notebook to take notes. All she could see what some swirling patterns of green dotes, shaped like clouds. She continued observing, trying to make sense of the plant cell and drawing its shape on the notebook, when she felt Adrien move close to her. Her breath hitched and a shiver when down her spine when he whispered, "Marinette, there's something you need to know…"

"Um, yes?" Marinette looked up from the microscope, her heart throbbing in anticipation. Before she could let her fantasies run wild, Adrien pulled up the USB plug of the microscope. "I think you're supposed to plug this thing in before you begin your observations."

"Oh…um, right! I totally forgot about that! Thanks!" She smiled nervously as she plugged it in.

"No problem!" Adrien smiled back and returned to his experiment.

Marinette sighed to herself, "Oh, I'm such a dork! I won't be able to survive this!"

"It's okay Marinette! Trust yourself!" Tikki whispered from her little purse.

"Hide Tikki!" Marinette exclaimed, glancing around nervously.

She tried observing the plant cells, but it still didn't make any sense to her. She opened her text book for some clues, but the picture in the book in no way resembled the one she was seeing through the microscope.

"Need any help?" Adrien asked, placing the flask over the stand.

"I followed all the steps, but these plant cells don't make any sense! I just don't know where I'm going wrong! "Marinette explained dejectedly.

Adrien placed a hand over her shoulder encouragingly, "Hey, don't worry! Let me have a look." He bent over the microscope, surprising her. With their faces inches away, Adrien said, "See, you just have to focus on it using this dial," he demonstrated.

She quickly reacted, "I see! Thank you, Adrien!" she smiled nervously.

"You're welcome," Adrien nodded. She used the dial to focus and found the cell matching the images and wrote down her observations.

When Miss Mendeleive came by their desk, she was impressed by Adrien's experiment, the liquid in the flask oscillating from clear, amber, blue and later, a black color. She bent down to see the plant cell and to Marinette's relief, she nodded with approval.

"Looks like we make a good team, eh?" Adrien smiled.

Marinette squealed with excitement internally, "I think so too!" They gave each other a high-five. Marinette couldn't help but feel some connection as their hands met, but she shook off the feeling.

Chloe, who had been observing all this with detest, remarked snobbishly, "I bet you can't do a single experiment without Adrien's help, Marinette Dupain-Cheng! You're just a tiny little klutz!" she laughed wickedly.

Marinette growled, "That is not true!"

"That's not nice, Chloe!" Adrien defended Marinette.

"You're just jealous because your experiment failed!" Alya pointed out at her flask that was frothing all over the desk.

"Jealous of not inheriting her lameness? You wish!" Chloe snickered once again.

"Enough talking, class!" Miss Mendeleive clapped her hands to draw attention. "Now open page 29, we are going to try a new experiment before the class ends."

Marinette angrily flipped the pages of her textbook. "What does she think of herself? She's just jealous that Adrien asked me and not her for being lab partners." She mumbled to herself. "I can do the experiment without anybody's help."

"Now, carefully light the burner and place the flask with water over it." The teacher instructed.

Marinette, fuming with anger, lit the fire and placed the flask over it.

"Don't forget to wear your safety goggles and gloves. We don't want any accidents in this class." The teacher warned and the students followed.

"Marinette, are you okay?" Adrien asked, looking concerned.

"Yes, I'm fine." She said, still burning with rage.

"Now wait till the water boils with tiny bubbles. Till then, keep all the other materials ready."

The class followed all the instructions, including Marinette, who was performing the experiment with great vigor. It was like she was a whole new person all together. The bubbling red chemical seemed to mirror the fire in her blue eyes.

"I don't think we're supposed to get a red colored solution..." Adrien said raising his eyebrows as he flipped through the pages of the textbook. "Let's just start over, okay Marinette? I'll fetch the supplies," He started looking in the drawers of the desk.

"Now mixing sodium generates an exothermic reaction, which means that if you mix it, there will be-"

Marinette, clouded by her anger, swiftly picked up the bottle of sodium to mix it with the smoking solution. Adrien, noticing what she was doing, raised his arm in alarm, "Marinette, wait!"

A huge explosion sounded as the room tremored under its shock. It left a classroom of baffled and sooty students and a teacher, and a very startled Marinette, whose face and lab coat had been blackened by the ashes of the explosion, hair blown back as if she had walked through a windstorm. She took off her goggles that only revealed a pair of heavenly blue eyes twinkling in all innocence.

"-an explosion." Miss Mendeleive finished and sighed.

"Oops?" she smiled a nervous grin.

Adrien couldn't help but burst out laughing, as the whole class joined in, including Marinette. And even though he was made to scrub the desks of the classroom from the disaster along with Marinette, he still looked upon the day fondly and endearingly upon Marinette's beautiful twinkling eyes. He wouldn't want to trade her as partner for anyone else in the class.

a/n: I literally have no about the chemicals but this was really fun to write! This is my first time writing a miraculous fanfiction, so I'm really excited to post this! I hope you like it :)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12775247/1/Chemical-Reaction

#miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrienette #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #chat noir #ladybug #mlfanfic #ml #alya cesaire #chloe bourgeois #mystuff

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thefatedthoughtofyou · 6 years ago

Text

Some Assembly Required - Video #8 : That’s So Sad... F.R.I.D.A.Y. Play Despacito

Ao3

The screen lights up and shows Sam, Bucky, and Peter sitting on the couch. All facing the camera, they wave in unison and all glance at each other because of it.

“So today’s video is a work of art. Not because it’s good, necessarily.” Sam said.

“Because god knows that our videos are never good. Not really. You guys just like them cuz we’re assholes.” Bucky said, shrugging when Sam frowned at him. Peter laughed and tried to turn it into a cough when Sam frowned at him.

“As I was saying, this video was… a lot of work. A lot of work went into getting all these shots together.” Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yeah and by that he means I hacked into F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s video banks and then Peter cut and edited and did fancy shit to get them all together nicely.” Bucky explained, Peter snorted again and avoided Sam’s glare by glaring at Bucky too. Bucky raised his eyebrows at Peter and he looked into his lap.

“You just can’t let the magic of mystery be there can you? Just gotta tell everyone everything all the time huh?” Sam asked, shaking his head. Bucky smiled and shrugged again.

“It makes you grumpy. That’s why he does it.” Peter said, smiling at Sam and then flinching when Bucky elbowed him in the ribs.

“Oh I know. I am well aware of his assholish ways. Now, ” Sam said, his frown increasing as he glared at Bucky for a moment longer,

“Can we get on with this?” he asked, his hand motioning to the camera. Bucky lifted his hands in mock surrender and motioned for Sam to continue. Sam huffed and looked back to the camera, pouting.

“Oh forget it, this video took forever to make because we had to steal footage from F.R.I.D.A.Y. and mash it all together. Enjoy!” Sam said, and began reaching for the camera.

“All the footage was taken over a few months! Just so you know how long its been going on - aah!!!” Peter said in a rush, peaking over Sam’s shoulder, yelling when Bucky pulled him backwards off of Sam. Sam’s eyes rolled before the screen went black.

~***~

The camera angle is higher than normal, clearly taken from a camera in Tony’s lab. Tony is testing new parts for a suit, Peter is sitting at one of the desks, watching and taking notes. Tony attempts to power up one of the new thrusters and flies backwards. Peter jumps a little at the noise but only reacts by writing something in his notes. Tony stands up, unharmed, and brushes himself off. He huffs, says a few choice words and stomps back to the testing area.

“Okay. Next test. Half power.” He says. Peter nods and looks on expectantly.

Tony nods back and the thruster fires again, he almost has it, it’s stable for a good five seconds and then he spins quickly to the left and lands roughly on one of the safety mats Pepper had made him put in the lab. He groans loudly. Peter scribbles in his notebook.

“Aww Mr. Stark, that’s so sad, F.R.I.D.A.Y. play Despacito.” He says, no hesitation, it just comes out. His eyes go wide and he looks up at Tony as the song beings to play. Tony’s head pop’s up over the edge of the mat, eyes full of confusion.

“Peter what the fu-“ he starts to ask, but Peter is gone. A swirl of notes fluttering to the ground near the desk where he’d been sitting. Tony stares up at the ceiling speakers for a moment before shrugging and walking back to the test area, his hips swaying a little with the music before he fires the thruster, once again flying through the air and landing on a mat.

~***~

“I don’t know.” Steve says, hesitation coloring his features as the camera zooms in close and then pulls back.

“Un uh, none of that. Me and Buck and Pete did ours,” the camera moved to left to show Bucky with sharpie all over his face, a beautiful French mustache adorning his lip. And Peter, a chunk of hair missing from the side of his head like he’d been attacked by sheers. It had, in fact, been Bucky, with a pair of sheers, and it had been retribution for the sharpie. Both of them were smiling brightly, they waved at the camera and it moved back to Steve.

He was standing at the edge of a field, nothing in view but nature.

“Now it’s your turn.” Sam said.

“Why do I have to throw my shield though?” Steve asked, almost whined.

“Because that’s the dare man. That’s how dares work.” Sam explained.

“It wasn’t just a dare.” Bucky said, the camera moved back to him and Peter, both of them grinning mischievously.

“I think you’ll find it was a triple dog dare. Which means you have to.” Peter said, crossing his arms over his chest and clearly trying not to laugh.

“Oh I have to? Is that what it means?” Steve asked, mocking their tone.

“Yes.” They both said, straight faced. The camera moved from them, to Steve, back to them, back to Steve, back to them, and back to Steve again before he groaned and shook himself like he was psyching himself up.

“We’re good, right Pete?” Sam asked, moving the camera back to Peter. The boy put his hand above his eyes and squinted across the field.

“Yeah should be. I mean there’s a real old looking car way wayyyy out there. But like…what are the odds he hits that?” Peter asked, shrugging and smiling into the camera. Bucky raised his eyebrows and smiled too before the camera moved back to Steve, he was staring at the two of them.

“I hate you guys.” He said, the camera shook as all three of them laughed at him.

“Just do it ya big baby.” Sam said.

“I am. Give me some space.” Steve said, Bucky, Peter, and Sam moved to the side. Steve took a few steps back and then ran a few steps forward, putting all his weight behind his throw, yelling as he flung his shield into the field as hard as he could. Peter and Bucky moved to stand next to Steve, all of the staring out into the field.

“What if it does it the car?” Steve asked, sounding worried.

“Maybe it’ll hit it just right an bounce right back to you.” Peter said, his voice sounding so genuine until he and Bucky snorted with laughter. The camera shook as Sam laughed with them. Sam moved to the side again so he could see all three of their faces.

“What if it hits the car, and bounces somewhere else? And like…kills someone’s cat?” Bucky asked, his voice rough. Peter and Steve’s heads both turned to him slowly.

“That was so dark man.” Peter said, looking horrified. Steve just rolled his eyes and looked back out into the field.

“Can you see anything Peter?”

He squinted.

“Ummm, I can see the car still. You’re shields real hard to see when it’s flying through the air.”

“A lot of things are hard to see when they’re flying through the air.” Bucky said.

“Like?” Sam prompted.

“Golf balls.” Bucky said.

“Small birds.” Peter said.

“Peter, if you throw him hard enough.”

“Bucky’s arm, if you rip it off.”

“Peter’s di-“

“HEY!”

“THAT’S NOT WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY!”

“Well what WERE you gonna say??”

“I was gonna say your dignity when you’re talking to a girl.”

“Oh, well that’s better I guess but hey! Still not nice.” Peter frowned.

“Yeah. Sorry kid.” Bucky elbowed him gently in the ribs. Steve looked at them.

“Did you just apologize?”

“Yeah? I do that. Sometimes.” Bucky said, shrugging.

“You have never apologized to me the entire time I’ve known you!” Steve shouted, throwing his hands up.

“Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf.” Peter suggested.

“Maybe he likes the kid better than you.” Sam suggested, they all looked at him, Steve and Bucky burst out laughing, Peter huffed.

“Hey wait, did you hear that?” Peter asked, they all stared off into the field again.

“Uh oh.” Peter whispered.

There was loud metal clang, and then the sound of far off breaking glass. Peter turned to look at the camera, he mouthed, ‘he hit the car’, and then bit his lip to stop himself laughing. Sam snorted behind the camera and zoomed in on Bucky pulling his phone of his pocket. He brought the phone up to speaking range and looked Steve dead in the eye.

“That’s so sad… F.R.I.D.A.Y. play Despacito.”

The music started and Steve punched him in the face.

~***~

The living room is empty, the camera in the corner recording only an empty couch. Until Clint walks into view, hair sleep ruffled, feet dragging, he groans softly and rubs at his eyes.

“Mr. Barton.” F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice says.

“It appears you’ve forgotten something.”

Clint looks up at the sound of her voice and then back down at himself when her words register.

“Aw pants.”

“Would you like me to play Despacito for you sir?” F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice asks. Clint’s head snaps up.

“What the fuck? No. No I would not.” He says, his voice grumpy.

He shakes his head and turns back the way he’d come. His feet still dragging over the carpet.

“Fucking Parker.” He mutters as he walks off screen.

~***~

“Are you ready for this shit? It’s so fucking cool.” Bucky says, looking into the camera as he gets it sat down on the counter. The camera shakes as he sets it down and shows Thor waiting patiently for him.

Thor nodded and Bucky handed him something.

“That’s a popcorn kernel for those of you who can’t see at home.” Bucky explained and moved to the side a bit so the camera was only on Thor.

The kernel sat in Thor’s palm, doing nothing, until lightning rolled over his skin. The beautiful white lines moving up and around his hand like waves on a stormy sea. The white lightning hit the kernel twice and then it popped up out of his hand. It flew into the air and Thor caught in his mouth, laughing heartily as Bucky looked on in awe.

“How fucking cool is that? You should see him do the jiffy pop thingies it’s so-“ Bucky cut off, his eyes looking over the camera at the kitchen doorway. Both Thor and Bucky were looking that way now, Bucky reached for the camera and turned it to show what they’d been looking at.

Peter was shuffling into the kitchen, his hair sticking up in all different directions, hello kitty pajama pants dragging the floor. He rubbed at his eyes and made his way to the freezer, he rummaged around until he found what he wanted. Then pulled a box of raspberry toaster strudels out and dropped it on the floor. He sighed sleepily and picked it up, tossing it onto the counter as he shuffled to the silverware drawer.

Peter dropped his knife twice before he made it back toward the toaster. It took him three tries to get the pastries out of the plastic and he finally got them into the toaster with a pleased little sound. As he stood waiting for them to pop back up the camera moved to look at Thor and Bucky, both of whom where standing silently, watching Peter struggled to get his breakfast together. The camera moved back to Peter, shaking a little as Bucky spun it on the counter.

Peter dropped his knife again when the toaster popped up. He then struggled for about a minute with the icing packet. Getting at least two pieces of plastic stuck on his tongue, apparently almost choking one if the sounds he was making where anything to go by. Bucky and Thor stood back silently. Peter finally managed to spread the frosting, set his knife gently in the sink, and pick up his plate to move to the table when Sam walked in.

“Do I smell toaster strudels?”

Peter’s entire body flinched. His hands flailed. His plate fell forward, the strudels falling to the floor with a sad flop. His hands fell to his sides as he stared down at them.

“That’s so sad,” Thor’s voice said from behind the camera, “F.R.I.D.A.Y., play Despacito.”

Peter gave the off-camera Thor a death glare as the song started. There was a strangled noise as Bucky dove for the camera, it spun so fast that it fell to the floor.

The screen flashed black for a moment and then came back with a static-y sound, the view blurry as it swung around in Bucky’s hand, Sam and Bucky’s laughter the only sound audible over the static. The crackling faded and the laughter increased. The camera finally settling on the counter again, showing Sam and Bucky doubled over, red faced. Sam reached out and moved the camera, turned it toward Thor, he was standing there looking at Peter, the biggest smile on his face. The camera turned again, to show Peter. He glared into the camera as Sam and Bucky’s howling laughter filled the air and the screen went black.

#Some Assembly Required #sar #sar part 8 #sambucky #sambucky ficlet #ficlet #winterfalcon #sam bucky peter sibling vibes #My writing

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pandora-evermore · 6 years ago

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A Gentle Touch

Part 1

Written for @bithors 5k writing challenge.

Prompt: “This is the part where you hold my hand.”

Summary: You’ve spent the last three years of your life working on a revolutionary vaccine for the Roxxon Corporation, something that will shake the very foundations of the medical industry. Unbeknownst to you, there are those in this world who see a more military use for your miracle drug and would do anything to take it for themselves. When your lab is attacked and your whole world turned upside-down, your only hope rests on the shoulders of one very damaged super-soldier.

Warnings: Violence, angst and other stuff in later chapters...

A/n: I struggled so much with this and my concern is that it really shows. So, you know, be kind. I had three or four different ideas to go with this prompt and I’d started each of them before deciding on something different. I’m hoping I can turn this into a half-decent series despite my struggles. (Also, I swear I put a read more link in this thing but it's not showing up for me so if it's not here, I'm sorry.)

You jumped, clutching at a metal pipe for support as a loud bang rattled the heavy circular door to your lab. Men were shouting at each other in a language you didn’t speak. Heavy boots stomped back and forth out in the halls. People were screaming, crying, and all you could do was sit alone in the dark and wait for the inevitable.

You worked nights at an off-shore research and development site for the Roxxon Corporation in Lab number 394, a large rectangular room that housed more lab equipment than it had any right to. The bleached white walls were lined with bleached white counters, and the rows of florescent lights reflected off the bleached tile floors, casting everything in a sterile glow. Notoriously nicknamed The Vault, it was the most restricted of the onsite research facilities, requiring three separate types of verification in order to get in or out of the large, reinforced metal door, and only a handful of people possessed all three. In the centre of the lab, they had managed to cram three desks, two of which belonged to coworkers you’d never met, piled high with paperwork: official documents, notes, scribbles doodles, and perfectly balanced chemical equations. The third desk, however, had been your home away from home for nearly three years, a silent witness to your greatest breakthroughs and breakdowns. The Vault itself was equipped with a very advanced alarm system and quarantine protocol to prevent the spread of the viral cultures you needed for vaccine development.

You’d activated the quarantine protocol when the alarms sounded, sealing yourself within the vault, casting the lab into near blackness save for the amber alert light flashing steadily in the corner. You thought it had been a drill. It was always a drill. They ran them every couple of months to keep everyone on their toes. But then the screaming started. A concussive round of semi-automatic gunfire went off in the lab above your head, making your stomach turn and your ears ring. The silence that followed was worse. Somewhere in a distant part of your brain you were surprised the shots didn’t echo. You’d always thought they would echo. You tried to steady your breathing to the rhythm of the flashing amber light. One rotation. Two. Three. A strange sound like a pull and a pop startled you. Then the light went out, casting the room into total darkness. You clutched the pipe even tighter, desperate for support. They must have cut the auxiliary power. Now there was nothing to do but wait and wonder: who was alive, who was dead, and how long were you going to survive with the ventilation system offline?

The pipe in your hand twitched and shook itself free from your grasp and you hand to slap your hand over your mouth to stifle a scream. Squinting into the darkness you could barely make out the vague figure of what must have been a man -tall, broad shouldered, and scowling, the shadows twisting his features into something menacing. A monster in the night.

“Oh!” You exclaimed louder than you meant. In a heartbeat he closed the little space between you, towering over your frame, before backing off just as suddenly. A series of panicked questions fired through your brain as fast as the neurons carrying them. What was he doing here? How long had he been there? What did he want? Was he going to hurt you. The shadow where his eyes should be never left your face. He was watching you. Waiting. Maybe for you to work it out. He hadn’t killed you, or worse, yet so he couldn’t be one of them, but he certainly didn’t seem safe either. Did the monster speak? It was worth a shot. Mustering every ounce you had left of your courage, you asked the first question you could muster.

“How long have you been standing there?” You whispered, nearly smacking your hand to your forehead at your own stupidity. How was that the most pressing question?

A heartbeat. Two. You could count them by the thrumming in your ears before…

“A while.”

Success!

“And are you –”

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

Another bang against the door cut off your reply as the walls chipped and dust and less-than-savoury remains drifted down from the ceiling. Another wave of nausea rolled through you.

“Buck,” a voice crackled through his comms. “Buck, what’s your location.”

I’m in the vault,” the man, Buck apparently, sighed, pressing his finger to his earpiece. “Someone,” he cast a sidelong glance at you, “activated the quarantine. And you really don’t need to shout, Steve.”

The back of your neck grew hot under his penetrative gaze.

“Well, what would you have done?” You hissed, keeping your voice much lower than he was bothering to.

He cocked an eyebrow, but he didn’t reply, listening instead to the voice on the comms.

“Head for the rendezvous,” he said after a moment. “I’ll meet you there as soon as we’re out.”

You strained your ears to hear the reply but there was only silence on the other end. Suddenly, something rammed against the door, making the metal groan and quake in protest.

“I’m good, Steve. I won’t be long.”

“Fine,” Steve relented, clearly not thinking it was fine at all. “Just don’t get lost.”

“Try not to jump out of any more planes while I’m gone.”

“That was one time and –”

A female voice interrupted through the comms. “Hate to break up your little bromance guys but we’ve got incoming.”

“Get out while you can,” Buck warned as another bang dented the door. “I’ll get the formula and meet you there.”

“Formula,” you hissed indignantly. “Which formula?”

“Yours.” He cast a glance at the buckling door before turning his full attention to your desk. He threw open the drawers, grabbed loose-leaf pages, notebooks, file-folders, rifling through them only to cast them aside. Your stomach rolled uncomfortably. He was touching your stuff. You needed to sit down. Another bang. You could see the metal starting to give way. You gripped the edge of the lab counter to steady yourself. Suddenly the room was spinning, the initial adrenaline wearing off.

“Hang on. Hang on. Hang on!” The words burst from you as you ran forward to catch his hand before he touched something else.

He froze like a startled cat deciding whether to scratch. His back straight. His eyes dark and angry. You flinched back almost instantly.

“Don’t.” He rolled his shoulder, shaking his head as though he was trying to clear some intrusive idea.

“I –” You tried to think, praying he wasn’t in the midst of some violent mental break, “I thought you said you weren’t going to hurt me.”

“Look,” he leaned close, his face inches from yours, his blue eyes bright, intense, burning. “I get that you’re scared. I do. But right now, your choices are me or a team of Hydra operatives and I guarantee they won’t be gentle. Now, where’s your formula?”

“How do I know you’re not just going to kill me as soon as I give it to you?”

His face twitched into a grimace. “You don’t. But if I’d wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already and taken it anyway.”

Another burst of insolence shot through your brain. “You wouldn’t be able to find it without my help.”

He snorted. He actually snorted. “Sure.” Another bang, the seal around the top of the door popped and thick tendrils of grey smoke slipped into the lab. “We’ve got about thirty seconds before the bust down that door. So what’s it gonna be?”

You stared at him for a moment, trying to clear your head. What choice did you have, really?

“Right,” you finally nodded, ducking under your desk. Fumbling with your keys, you unlocked a hidden compartment and pulled out a large green binder. “Formula. Check. Can you get us out of here?” You tried to make it sound like you didn’t secretly think he was going to grab the binder from your hands and leave you to fend for yourself against the oncoming hoard but the tremor in your words gave you away.

Buck nodded, “Get behind me and whatever you do, stay close.”

“Right.”

The men outside were shouting again.

“They’re setting up their explosives.” Buck explained. “When that door opens, hit the ground, and when I say run, you run. Understand?”

“I understand.”

The heavy footfalls behind the door faded away into silence. One second. Two seconds. A sound like thunder tore through your ears as the heavy door creaked and groaned and finally game way under pressure, falling inwards with a crash. All at once there was chaos. You threw yourself to the ground as a team of men in black tactical gear burst through the opening. Buck launched himself at them, striking out with just his fists against a hail of bullets. You slammed your hands over your ears. They were shouting. The room was filled with the scrape of metal against metal and the sickening squelch of metal against flesh. Then you heard it.

“Run!”

You jumped to your feet, your vision locked on the clearest path through the door. You took off, not bothering to check to see if he was behind you.

“This way,” you heard him shout. Casting a furtive glance over your shoulder, you saw him coming up on your left, passing you with a few easy strides to lead you to the stairwell.

“Why does it have to be stairs?” You puffed, not meaning for him to hear as he jumped them two at a time.

“Because you work in a basement!”

Damn.

You kept pace behind him, binder still clutched tight against your chest, until you reached the top, where he waited a moment to let you catch your breath.

“You good?”

“Most days,” you quipped, getting agitated.

“Let’s go.” He took off down one of the main corridors, leaving you to trot dutifully behind. You were dizzy with questions, every nerve in your body burned, overstimulated. You wanted to stop. You wanted to sleep. You needed something to focus your mind. A thought nibbled at your brain.

“Hey!” You called, louder than you meant, hoping to get his attention.

“Yeah?”

“How did you even get into my lab? It was under quarantine. Airtight. Nothing could get in or out. And if you were in there before I activated the protocol, I definitely would have seen you. You’re not exactly a ninja.”

Silence. Maybe you were pressing your luck? Just because he agreed to get you out doesn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind at any moment.

“I have a very particular set of skills.” He took a sharp turn down another hall lined with large windows set in wide panes. The moon outside glistened full and bright and menacing on the blood-spattered tile.

You couldn’t help the panicked laugh that bubbled up out of your chest. “Shut up. Everyone’s seen Taken.”

Great. Well done. Sass is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed. You waited for him to snap at you, or glare, or something.

“Not everyone,” he chuckled.

He rounded another corner. Suddenly, he turned to you, grabbing you by the arm and tucking you into a window alcove.

“Whatever you do, don’t look down that way.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re gonna have to trust me on this one.”

Raising his stolen gun, Bucky fired three shots into the glass. The sound burst through your eardrums like thunder, making you jump and grip the frame for support. Spiderweb cracks spread out across the glass but it didn’t shatter. You cast a furtive glance over his shoulder and were met with the sight of something dark and red pooling across the moonlit floor. Bile rose in your throat and you had to swallow hard, snapping your eyes closed in a futile attempt to stop yourself from collapsing in a fit of panic. You didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to know. And you certainly didn’t have time for this.

“Hey,” Buck coaxed, nudging your foot with his boot. You opened your eyes, startled to find him staring at you so intently. “You gonna make it?”

You shook your head, you could feel panicked tears welling up in your eyes. “Nope. Nope. My coworkers are dead. There are people trying to kill me. You might be trying to kill me. And now I’m crying so I don’t even get to die with dignity like they do in movies.”

He smiled a soft half-smile. There was something about it –sad and warm and comforting all at the same time. He didn’t look as evil when he smiled. Saying nothing, he pulled his left arm back, the moonlight glinting off the metal plating on his hand, and struck the glass, sending shards flying out over the cliff.

“You know we’re like a thousand feet up, right?”

“This is nowhere near a thousand feet.”

You stared out through the shattered glass and down to the rocks below, the inky sea roaring over them in a menacing spray of salt and foam. It wasn’t until Buck Blue-eyes snapped his fingers in front of your face that you realized he was staring back at you, expectant, with his arm outstretched.

“This is the part where you hold my hand,” he murmured, voice steady as he cast a furtive glance down the whitewashed halls, now spattered with blood. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“This is going to hurt,” you grimaced, gripping his hand tightly.

“You may want to shut your eyes.”

You did as you were told and with a sudden yank, the floor was pulled out from under you and you were plummeting fast through the air. A scream bubbled up through your throat and out your lips before you could stop it. You felt Buck’s hand slip through your fingers as you hit the surface like a bullet, swallowed up by the icy depths. You choked, a spastic breath that burned as the fluid filled your lungs, the muscles in your throat desperate for air. You kicked out, struggling for the surface but only succeeded in taking in more water. The world turned, fading to dusky shadows, then nothing.

#kumi #bithors #marvel #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky x reader #steve rogers #reader insert #kumis5kchallenge

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eternalstereksecretsanta · 7 years ago

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love letters straight from your heart

For the lovely @poetry-protest-pornography, who listed one of their favorite tropes as “doing something nice for the other and getting caught.” although this didn’t quite turn out to be that, I hope you enjoy anyway ♥

It seemed like a good idea at the time. How much of Stiles’ life was shaped by those words? But this? This was probably one of the worst decisions he had ever made.

After two years of living in the dorms, Stiles was faced with a choice. Either find some people to get a shitty apartment with, or move back home. Between nightmares and training with Deaton, moving back to Beacon Hills made the most sense. The commute was only an hour and he had managed to schedule his on-campus classes to meet only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Everything else he could take online.

But he just had to go complaining about moving back in with his dad to Derek over the summer. In his defense, he never expected Derek to offer his spare room. Because Derek had a house now. A very nice house. And a job.

Honestly, the idea of living somewhere he could be independent, yet still see his dad whenever he wanted was too good to pass up. But now, standing in the fancy kitchen and staring at the yellow sticky note on the coffee maker, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d made a mistake.

DO YOUR OWN DISHES, spelled out in Derek’s blocky hand writing stared back at him. Stiles sighed, scrunching up the yellow square and setting it beside his mug. It was the fifth note he’d found in as many days. One in the bathroom (PICK UP YOUR TOWELS), one on the refrigerator (DON’T DRINK MY BEER), and several others scattered across the house.

It was infuriating. This was the reason Stiles had wanted to sit down and draw up a roommate contract, but Derek’s only stipulation was ‘pay the rent on time.’ Stiles rinsed his mug and dropped it into the dishwasher. It hadn’t even been a week and he was already worrying about making this work.

—

Stiles was stubborn. He told his dad this was for the best, so he was going to stick it out. And Derek wasn’t a bad roommate, really. He worked odd hours because he was the newest deputy on the force, but he was always quiet and neat. Sometimes Stiles didn’t even know he was home.

After the first month, Derek convinced him to take the Toyota to class. It had much better gas mileage, plus meant less wear and tear on the Jeep. So Stiles parked Roscoe in the garage with the Camaro and hung the new set of keys off of his keyring.

All in all, Stiles though they were doing well. Even if they rarely saw each other. (Which, considering the massive crush he had on Derek, was probably for the best. No need to make it weird.)

It had been two weeks without a damn sticky note, so Stiles figured he’d cleaned up his act enough to make Derek happy. Until one morning he came down to a note reading PICK UP YOUR SHIT. It was stuck to the wall above the pile of shoes and sweatshirts and textbooks that had accumulated in the living room.

Stiles sighed heavily before gathering up the mess to take to his room. “This is why we need the expectations outlined,” he grumbled, not even caring if he woke Derek up.

He dumped everything on the floor, grabbed his backpack, and shut the door a tad bit harder than necessary. KEEP YOUR DOOR CLOSED OR CLEAN YOUR ROOM had been the last message and Stiles tried hard to comply. But hell, it was exhausting trying to remember all of the rules. Maybe he should have kept the notes instead of crumpling each one and throwing it away.

—

For the first two months living together, Stiles could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually spoken to Derek. Part of it was his crazy schedule, with classes and training with Deaton and hanging out with his dad. And the rest was Derek’s apparent preference for night shifts. In fact, it wasn’t until mid-October that Derek finally confronted Stiles about his sleeping habits.

Stiles was neck deep in practice tests when the door to the garage swung open. Derek dropped his work bag on the kitchen floor and slipped into the chair across from him. There were notecards, loose leaf papers, and multiple notebooks spread across the table between them.

Derek took in the chaos and sighed. “Why are you still up?”

“Stupid exam tomorrow.” Stiles didn’t even look away from his screen. The words stopped making sense an hour ago, but there was no way he could remember this many conjugations.

“Go to bed.” Derek gently slid the laptop out of range. “You can’t learn anything when you’re this tired.”

“But…” Stiles’ protest died as Derek fixed him with a look. It clearly conveyed that he wasn’t listening to arguments. Defeated, Stiles leaned back in his chair and yawned widely. Ugh. It was almost four in the morning.

The next day was brutal. Stiles rolled out of bed at eight o’clock to an alarm that he didn’t remember setting. He stumbled down the stairs, trying not to wake Derek with his heavy footfalls. But when he went to pull the milk out of the refrigerator, the sight of a yellow sticky note on the door made him freeze.

In neat capital letters, it said: GOOD LUCK TODAY. There was even a smiley face. Was this the Twilight Zone?

Stiles stared, then blinked several times. But the words didn’t disappear.

He smiled the entire duration of his morning routine, stopping to stick the note to the inside cover of his Latin textbook before he left. Then he hopped into Derek’s Toyota and drove to school.

He aced the exam.

—

Several weeks passed and Derek was already out on his night shift when Stiles shuffled in from school. He’d had an incredibly long day, filled with lectures and labs and finishing a stupid group project. Finding a familiar yellow note hanging from the microwave didn’t fill him with dread anymore. Especially not when it said: DINNER’S IN THE FRIDGE.

Stiles heated up the leftovers, feeling exhausted and content. Derek had even made his absolute favorite because he knew today was going to suck.

It was difficult not to read into Derek’s little acts of kindness, and Stiles was crushing harder with every note. The newest one was going to hang alongside DON’T FORGET YOUR LUNCH, and SCOTT SAYS HELLO, and DON’T WORRY I’LL BUY MORE COFFEE TONIGHT, and HAVE A GOOD DAY. That last note had Stiles grinning like a lunatic, to the point where Deaton asked if everything was alright.

So all in all, life with Derek was good. Stiles just had to keep reminding himself that Derek was a friend and not his co-lead in some rom-com about a werewolf and a spark who live together and fight crime. Although that would probably be an awesome idea for a TV show.

Shaking his head at the thought, Stiles loaded his dishes into the dishwasher and headed up to bed.

—

Halfway through the semester, Stiles’ three accelerated online classes had finals. He was super excited because that meant he’d be down to only two classes. His work load was about to be so much easier, and he might even have time to catch up on Netflix

The only problem was that the exams had to be scheduled at the proctoring center on campus. And because he was an idiot, he scheduled them all back to back. How he was going to survive six hours of testing was a mystery.

But Derek stayed up with him every night for a week, flipping through notecards and quizzing him on what he knew. Plus, he promised to take the night off and have a movie marathon once Stiles got home. Because Derek’s house was ‘home’ now and Derek was one of his best friends.

Sure enough, a yellow square saying: YOU’VE GOT THIS was already in his spot on the kitchen table. Stiles grinned at the note, peeling it away so he could add it to his collection.

—

On a typical Thursday night, Derek tapped at the door and stepped into Stiles’ room. Which he had never actually been in before. It seemed kind of weird, now that Stiles thought about it. He glanced over at the mountain of three week old laundry in the corner that was offensive to even his human nose and, well maybe not.

Marking his page, he set the textbook on his desk. “Hey, what’s up?”

Derek didn’t respond. He was staring at the bed with a slightly dazed expression. Then Stiles remembered the little yellow squares affixed to the headboard in neat rows.

He flushed, not really sure what to say. “Was there something that you wanted?”

Derek tore his eyes away. “I just wanted to make sure you were ready.”

Right. This morning’s note read WE’RE HAVING DINNER WITH YOUR DAD. It was a nice reminder of the fact that Derek was taking fewer night shifts. Sometimes he was even around to hang out with.

“Give me a second.” Stiles glanced down at his ratty sweatpants and stained t-shirt. Man did he need to do laundry.

He emerged from his room in more appropriate clothes and followed Derek out to the Camaro.

They were halfway to his house when Derek broke the silence. “You kept the notes.”

“Yup.” Because, obviously.

—

Stiles rushed home from school. It was the last day of the semester and normally he’d be ecstatic to have his freedom back. But this time, he was too nervous. Honestly he had no idea what he was thinking that morning. Maybe he could still get back in time to take that idiotic note off of the counter.

He parked in the driveway and sprinted to the door, hands shaking as he unlocked it. When the door finally clicked open, he crashed into the kitchen. The shower upstairs was running. Fuck. Maybe he could call it a friend dinner? People probably made reservations at the fanciest restaurant in town for friend dinners all the time. Right?

Stiles’ panicked eyes landed on the note. His hurried scrawl: Dinner at Luka’s? 6pm was followed by Derek’s blocky print spelling out: IT’S A DATE and underlined three times.

Sagging against the counter, Stiles took a deep breath. He knew he hadn’t imagined the last few weeks. Derek was home all the time now, only taking shifts while Stiles was training or at school. Which meant they spent most of their day bickering over recipes and watching crappy television.

It was awesome and domestic and Stiles couldn’t wait to date the hell out of Derek Hale.

—

(And five years later, they visited Luca’s again. But this time, Stiles’ drink came with a sticky note asking WILL YOU MARRY ME?)

#eternalstereksecretsanta17 #esss17 #fic #submission #sterek

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