#this is fairly typical for this kid

[shewantsitall]

today one of my students called another kid stupid within my hearing and when I asked him (very calmly and in a neutral tone) if that was a kind thing to say he fell to the ground sobbing and saying he didn’t say that from the mere question and idk

something about that is just so marvin falsettos to me

it’s the gaslighting and dramatics combo I think?

[milolunde]

We all know Timmy is Wanda’s mama’s boy but we need to keep in mind he’s still Cosmo’s kid too and that Cosmo would love him just as vehemently as Wanda

[serpentface]

What's the Wardi cultural take on Akoshos sleeping with/partnering with/marrying other Akoshos?

It's not highly regulated to a degree that there are overwhelming cultural norms about it. There's a lot of societal focus on akoshos being theoretically suitable sexual partners for both men and women due to being dual-gendered, but not to an extent that relationships with One Another are stigmatized.

They also largely get to escape from the most severe concerns about penetrator/penetrated power dynamics because they're not regarded as Men (they're regarded as dual-gendered, and they're a female social class on every practical level), there's no status of manhood to Lose by receiving sexual penetration. The only real thing you see in that department is people assuming that one acts as 'the man' and one acts as 'the woman', but this is largely due to preoccupation with a notion of sex being Penetration With A Penis (and that Penetration With A Penis means that one person is in a Man's Role and one person is in a Woman's Role). But this will not be regarded as unnatural as in same-gender male relations, akoshos will Have to take up a position in this sexual dichotomy if they want to have Real Sex (Penetration With A Penis) with each other, and this is not unnatural and doesn't involve gaining or losing status since they are simultaneously male and female, not men.

So like you might see individual culture critics finding stuff to nitpick about it as their annoyance of the week or a singular Guy here or there who thinks it's weird, but this isn't a widespread norm. The vast majority of people don't give a shit about akoshos having sex with each other. The worst thing you're likely to experience Solely by virtue of being in an akoshos-akoshos relationship is someone asking you (probably with genuine curiosity) which one does the man stuff and which one does the woman stuff.

Akoshos also don't experience Hard expectations for marriage (though there are societal pressures that make marriage an attractive safety net all the same, ESPECIALLY marriage to a man) so unofficial life-partnerships between akoshos are pretty much the Only same gender partnerships between unwed people that are going to go unquestioned. ((Sworn brotherhood is technically a same gender life partnership for men that is Functionally similar to marriage (in that it's a kin-making practice between unrelated adults), but the tradition is Built upon the assumption that both parties will be married to women and that a primary goal of this kinship is to provide security for both parties' wives and children)). Marriage obligations in general are more lax in the economically secure but not Wealthy lower mercantile classes (as obligations to support and perpetuate one's family are universal, but these obligations can be filled simply by having at least One son who can get hitched, and marriages in the lower classes have no political functions and therefore there's less reason to ensure All your children are wed (there's still incentives like dowry, but this is not desperately needed when a family is economically secure)). So akoshos in this class group tend to have a Lot more freedom in terms of their life arrangements and chosen partners (though still experience the limiting frameworks of structural misogyny in other capacities).

The only thing that is out of the picture is akoshos/akoshos marriage. Marriage in this society has a predominantly reproductive function, the concept of reproductively non-viable marriages is generally considered absurd. This is not JUST this culture's form of homophobia, as marriage is a very practical arrangement at its core - both in a reproductive capacity and as bedrock for the patriarchal blood-kinship family system that forms the core social unit. The idea of same gender marriage isn't just absurd because 'ewwww weird' it's like, that Cannot work within this system, it Cannot fill core functions of what a marriage intends to do here, the ways on which marriage and kinship are BUILT makes same gender marriage practically (rather than just socially) untenable.

The sole exception to the 'marriage = reproductively viable" rule is that akoshos can be married to men (which in practice is almost always as a remarriage after a man has secured At Least an heir). This has a Little bit of internal logic here in that they perform predominantly female social roles (thus are suited to being a wife, even if they can't bear children) (and also on practical levels of them having the same legal status as women) but it's really more of a 'this is just how it's always been' kind of thing. A lot of the older pre-Wardi identity dual-gender roles that got mashed together under the 'akoshos' name would have involved marriage to a man as a second wife/concubine, in addition to his primary wife who would bear his children. Men potentially having multiple spouses has not been retained as a cultural practice, but the notion that an akoshos Can be a wife to a man has survived into modern day legal and doctrinal practices around marriage.

So like this being said, marriage as it is legally defined is only between a man and a woman, a man and an akoshos, or a woman and an akoshos. In practice the latter two are comparatively VERY rare- a man/akoshos marriage cannot provide children (though an akoshos can practically fulfill all other obligations and duties of a wife), a woman/akoshos marriage Can provide children (and while akoshos cannot function as a male heir, these children Will take their akoshos-parent's family name (though the wife retains her father's family name)), but akoshos are legally grouped with women in terms of rights and privileges (including being permanently under legal domain of their father unless they have been legally handed off to a male husband) and Cannot provide hard power patriarchal support that this family system is built upon and therefore depends upon, which makes these marriages socio-economically insecure. They can obviously still be a good partner and parent, but this is not the same as having the Legal hard power of a patriarch.

Akoshos marrying each other would be reproductively and socially nonviable, and is treated as a similarly absurd concept to a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman. It's just not a part of the marriage and kinship framework, it's not a thing that you can Do.

[ms-demeanor]

I understand that vaccines are proven to work and are a great advancement in our medicine, and also that homeopathic remedies don't work, but don't they work on the same principal? Why does one work and the other doesnt?

They do not work on the same principle.

I can see how vaccines look like a "like treats like" situation, but in homeopathy "like treats like" is a kind of magical thinking.

Let's take an example from Chicken Pox, a virus for which there is an effective vaccine and for which there is a common homeopathic treatment.

Chicken pox infects people once, and it is extremely rare to get a second case because once you have had it, your body forms persistent antibodies against the varicella-zoster virus. When I was a kid, they didn't have a vaccine for this, so kids mostly got chicken pox once and it ran around whole schools and that was it. It's a virus that is fairly minor in children, though it can cause dangerously high fevers. Adults who get chicken pox typically get much sicker than children who get it, and it can lead to permanent harms like infertility in adults who get it. Because it can be so dangerous, we don't want people to risk getting it, so we vaccinate.

The way the vaccine works is that it takes a weakened form of the virus and introduces that into the body of a person with a healthy immune system. The immune system responds and the person who got the vaccine may get some minor symptoms, like a headache or a slight fever, but it will be nowhere near as severe as getting actual chicken pox would be. Because the immune system was exposed to the virus and responded, it now has antibodies against the virus that recognize the virus and respond immediately before it can start replicating in the body. If a person who has either previously had chicken pox or who has been vaccinated against it is exposed to the chicken pox virus, their body uses those antibodies to react to the virus and protect against a systemic infection.

Are you familiar with Star Trek? It's kind of like the Borg. You can't use the same attack pattern against the Borg multiple times because if you do, they'll recognize the pattern and will be able to defend against it. The virus is the attacker, and your immune system is the Borg. It knows what it's looking for and won't let anything get through its defenses.

Homeopathic remedies don't seek to prevent illness or provoke an immune response, they seek to cancel out something that is happening in the body.

For chicken pox, which produces itchy red bumps, homeopaths use Rhus Tox - a dilution of poison ivy, a plant that causes itchy red bumps if you encounter it in nature. The Rhus Tox didn't cause the chicken pox, it's not given to prevent the virus, it's from a plant that is completely unrelated to the virus that happens to produce some of the same symptoms as the virus when you touch it.

They don't even think that the Rhus Tox will provoke an immune response from your body like actually touching poison ivy would, they're attempting to use an unrelated compound (that is so diluted that it isn't even present in the preparation) in place of your immune system to attack the itchy red bumps.

So I'm going to go over this in a few brief points:

Vaccines are preventative ONLY, they are not a treatment for illness or symptoms of an illness

Vaccines work by introducing your immune system to a partial, weakened, or dead virus so that your immune system can form antibodies against that virus and prevent that virus from replicating in your body when it is later exposed to a whole/strong/live virus.

Different vaccines have different levels of effectiveness and produce different lengths of immunity; this is for a number of reasons, but if you get a measles shot as a kid you may only ever need one booster, while you need a flu shot every year and a tetanus shot every decade. All of them work the same way, though: they show your immune system what a virus looks like so that your immune system can kill the virus.

That is why immune compromised people sometimes can't be vaccinated, or why vaccines don't work as well for them or may need higher doses or more boosters. Because they don't have a healthy immune system, weakened viruses like the ones in the chickenpox virus might be too strong for their immune system to fight, and even if it doesn't get them sick, their bodies may not be able to produce enough effective antibodies to protect them from the virus in the future. That's part of why it's important for as many people to be vaccinated as possible; the more people who are vaccinated, the harder it is for viruses to spread, and vulnerable people like immune compromised people or babies too young for vaccination won't be exposed to deadly viruses.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, aims to treat symptoms of an illness that a person is already experiencing.

Homeopathic treatments do not aim to provoke an immune response, they aim to cancel out a symptom with a cure.

Dilution is a very important part of homeopathy, with homeopaths claiming that the more diluted a preparation is the stronger it is. This is simply incorrect; I don't know how to make a more logical explanation of that, it is just wrong that less of a substance causes more of a response.

Homeopathy says "like treats like" and that may seem like using a vaccine with a weak virus to prevent infection from a strong virus, but their version of "like" is different - Rhus Tox (poison ivy) is supposed to be "like" chicken pox because both cause itching. Rhus tox is also supposed to treat PCOS, erectile dysfunction, uterine prolapse, sunken eyes, nausea, and backache. "Like" can have an extremely broad meaning in homeopathy, which should be cause for suspicion.

Here's a paper that compared the immune response of college students given homeopathic "vaccines" against a control group and against a group of students who were given standard medical vaccines. The control group and the homeopathic group both did not have an immune response in titer tests, while the vaccination group did have an immune response, demonstrating that they had protection from the vaccinated viruses. It's a pretty good demonstration both of how effective homeopathy is (not at all) as well as how to set up a fair and ethical study to look at the effectiveness of different kinds of treatments.

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

This one goes out to all the bitches who love some good Safehouse Era Horror. It's me, I'm bitches. I want Jon and Martin to be fucked up and eldritch but I want them to be fucked up and eldritch and loved

(Notes under the cut because I can't help myself. Heads up, I do go into some detail of how Jon gets injured so I can explain my thought process for how I designed his scars. All canon-typical and fairly clinical in tone.)

Here's how I picture Safehouse Jon!

He doesn't need glasses anymore by this point, so he should just be wearing empty frames, but I drew this before I settled on my glasses headcanons. This drawing looks better with the reflection anyways.

He hasn't gotten a haircut since before his promotion to Head Archivist. He doesn't love the weight of it on his neck, but he also uses it to fidget, and he really doesn't want to go through the whole process of cutting it. He's disliked haircuts since he was a kid (People: Bad. Small talk: Bad. Touching: Bad. Loud sounds: Bad. People talking all at once: Bad) and since his time with the Circus he's only grown more reluctant to go and get it done.

At this length his hair is naturally pretty curly but he is. Not taking care of it. I actually put a lot of effort into trying to make it look brittle and tangled (I have a lot of experience lol, my hair is quite thick and I've always hated taking care of it. Yes I am also projecting my feelings about going to a hairdressers onto him why do you ask.)

The various scars were a bit of a strange task, but anyone who has seen my takes on The Bad Kids knows I'm not averse to selective realism in my fiction. Easiest one was the neck, I always pictured Daisy making a vertical cut based on "through the voice box". The larynx is longer than it is wide, so I think Daisy would go for the method that dealt damage across the largest total surface area. Yes I am aware that I'm speaking the same way Martin does when he explains his corkscrew.

The worm scars were easy because I barely drew any. There are a few marks on his cheek, but they're just surface bites. I picture most of his encounter with Prentiss showing on his legs, particularly on the right side, with enough damage there that he starts using a cane after the incident to keep weight off his right leg. More research to be done on this particular detail.

Finally the burn on his hand from Jude. This was the weirdest one to figure out just because of the nature of the injury. How do you quantify the damage done to an epidermis by a living manifestation of sometimes-boiling wax that can heat and cool at will? I settled on it being a second-degree burn that healed supernaturally fast, containing the damage to the space Jude had direct contact with. He'd probably have some mobility issues there as well. I know there are ways to help with mobility and pain after a severe burn, but I don't know how much of it Jon would actually. Do. Like I said, definitely further research to be done on these last two.

Hey so I'm gonna ask you to stop and consider the horror of the watcher. The helplessness. The guilt. The inherent terror of being a spectator, a participant by proximity but not by action. The horror of not being able to look away, of being a bystander. Jon forgets to blink sometimes. But wouldn't it be so much worse if there were no eyelids at all? That's how I interpret the description of The Archivist being "All Eyes" :D

I love a good Many-Eyed Jon, so I whipped up my own interpretation here. I think the more he Becomes the more he starts to resemble the thing from the dreams. He has a lot more control of it in S5, but it still creeps up on him and he has to consciously go back to a human shape.

[apatheticsunday]

Dead Serious Oblivious Dating Trope

AKA "Damian thinks flirting/dating entails a lot more violence than the average person and Danny's confused as to why this vigilante keeps prepositioning him for battles" idea!

Okay, so, I know Damian went to live with Bruce when he was still a kid, 10 or something, but what if he joined the Batfam when he was older? Like imagine he's had an entire childhood and adolescence in the League of Assassins, so he's raised in this culture of being The Best (i.e., strongest fighter, intelligent and knowledgeable, etc.). And maybe the LoA typically follows the tradition of arranged marriages, but you may court someone if they're seen as an equal. Talia with Bruce, for example. And!! It's not courting like the "sweet serenading, fan-fluttering, going for a walk in a park with a chaperone" Bridgerton-type courting.

In the League of Assassins, you court by battling your intended's guardian to the death.

So, fast-forward to Damian learning how to assimilate into Gotham city culture. He still struggles to learn his place in the Batfam, but he's older and has a better grasp on his emotions; no trying to kill Tim, no constant threats of death and dismemberment, no jealously protecting the title of Heir. He's... kind of like Bruce actually. Damian is scarily competent, logical, and level-headed but super intense.

Danny, who's been living in Gotham for awhile and has gotten to know the Batfam fairly well, meets the newest addition while on patrol. Let's say he's still Phantom but cosplays as a Meta. Bruce let him stay in Gotham because he's a sucker for a black-haired, blue-eyed, abused kids.

Their introduction goes about as well as the Batfam expects. Damian is all business, only offering a quick nod and his name before returning his focus to patrol. Danny's maybe a bit taken aback but doesn't take it too personally since he'd already been given the rundown by Tim.

Damian and Danny end up patrolling together while Batman and Cass investigate some lead by the docks or something. Their night turns pretty badly when Clayface attacks. Damian ends up being the damsel in distress since he's only ever faced human enemies; even the deadliest opponents in the League could still be killed using swords or the usual combat weapons. Danny ends up using his powers to defeat Clayface before Batman can come back.

And then Danny goes home, content that he was able to let loose a little without Batman there to supervise him, and doesn't think about it after. Damian, however, is downright enamored because Danny was terrifying while fighting. His movements were lupine like a panther, a comfortability in his posture that spoke of decades in combat; his eyes turned Lazarus Pit green, chilling in its intensity. His skin took on a ghostly pallor and Damian could've sworn his teeth sharpened. He looked like a deity of War.

(Danny doesn't know this, of course; he was just happy to enjoy a really good fight since he hasn't unleased his Full Ghost powers in a long minute.)

A couple weeks pass and Danny's invited to a Wayne family dinner. Except when he shows up, Damian - who he thought he'd kind of bonded with since he'd literally saved the guy from Clayface - tries to kill him. Straight up: full assassin regalia, recently polished sword, genuinely throwing his all into the battle.

The Batfam try to intervene but Damian easily (and painfully, as Jason was flipped face-first into a table, Steph was stabbed, Dick broke his elbow) fought off. In the end, it was Danny who froze Damian and yelped a frazzled, "What the fuck, dude?" Bruce agreed to dethaw his son if he never, ever drew his sword at the dinner table again and explained why in the world he randomly attacked Danny unprompted.

Except Damian's response is to apologize and formally proposition Danny to a "battle to rights"... and the Batfam are all like, wtf?? What is that?? They're thinking maybe the rights to the Wayne inheritance, but Danny was never adopted by Bruce (he'd had enough of millionaires trying to adopt him so he'd politely declined all the Batfam's attempts to rope him into the family; Dick, Babs, and Jason of all people included).

The thing is that Danny's parents disowned him, he doesn't consider Vlad to be his guardian, and Jazz isn't really in the picture here. Bruce isn't considered his adopted father figure, either. So, Damian concluded the next reasonable course of action was to fight Danny for his right to marry him.

Cue months of hilarious misunderstandings where the Batfam try to keep Damian separated from Danny since he keeps trying to fight him... and worse, is that Damian loses every damn fight. Danny has non-human powers and endless knowledge of dead languages, cultures, space, history, etc. Damian likes him so, so much but he can't win the battle to rights and it's driving him insane!! He calls his mother to vent his frustrations and she only encourages him, tells him that he shouldn't want to marry someone he can beat so easily, that he picked his intended well.

It gets to the point where Damian's trying to use any and all knowledge of Danny's weaknesses. It just makes him more obsessed because there doesn't seem to be any (there are, but they aren't on Earth and/or are locked down in the Fenton Works labs, untraceable to anyone not in the GIW).

And Danny's just like, what the hell!! Why the hell is this guy targeting him over and over again? The worst part is that Damian is actually very intelligent and thoughtful - during their duels, they quip back and forth in ancient languages, discuss thought-proving topics, and when Danny beats him, they have a quiet moment to compliment each other's fighting styles. They discuss ancient history and art together. Damian is one of the few people who can actually match Danny's odd tidbits of random knowledge, as he'd been extensively educated while in the LoA.

Finally, Danny just asks, "Why do you keep trying to fight me?? Do you just hate me or something??" (He hopes not. Danny's starting to like Damian a bit too much, especially after their fights when Damian offers to cook him some of Alfred's most popular recipes. Danny's a terrible cook so he actually looks forward to having a surprisingly good meal, sans the attempted poisoning at times.)

And Damian just... stops. He's utterly flabbergasted and perhaps a little bit exasperated since it's been months of being unable to win the battle to rights. "Why would I request to court you if I hate you, habibi?"

Danny's like, "Huh???"

Damian explains how courting works in the LoA and why it's been on-sight ever since the Clayface fight. And everything just clicks for Danny!! He's also kind of... flattered? Like, he's never been wanted so badly that someone would fight to the death for him (Danny's just like "he's confused but he's got the spirit!" about the whole "if Danny doesn't have a guardian, I'll just fight him instead" logic).

So, he's like, "Of course, I'll date you!!"

It'd probably be an adjustment period since Damian's idea of a romantic date is watching his boyfriend go Full Ghost on supervillains. He'd just be heart-eyeing at him the entire time. And it's not like Danny's not having a good time!! He just expected there'd be more date-night activities and less patrol-night activities. So, Danny introduces Damian to more "regular" hobbies, like going to the zoo, movie nights, bookshop dates, etc.

(another side idea in my head is Damian introducing Danny to Talia and Ra's al Ghul, like, "This is Danny Fenton, my intended." But Danny is decked out in his Ghost King attire, crown included, and introduces himself as King of Infinite Realms, Space, and the Dead. Meanwhile his boyfriend is just looking at him with this look of utter besotted lovesick pride. There's so much potential!!)

[prokopetz]

I'm always a bit taken back by Homestuck fans who treat classpects as something that has, like, real-world utility as a personality typing system, because – leaving aside for the moment the broader issues inherent to all personality typing systems – there's a fairly strong reading that classpects are bullshit, and meant to be understood by the reader as bullshit, even from an in-universe perspective. There's a suggestion which becomes increasingly prominent in the latter portions of the text that SBURB as a system has a shallow and mechanistic concept of personal growth, and that while it's able to identify images and themes that are emotionally resonant to its players, it fundamentally lacks insight into why they're resonant – it's just bashing tropes together like a kid making their Barbie dolls kiss, and can't tell the difference between an aesthetic preference and a deep-seated trauma. Heck, one of the comic's more consistent motifs is that characters who voluntarily make their classpect central to their self-image typically have something profoundly wrong with them.

[kandicon]

Had to do a lot of walking today, and I am sore as hell. It's fun to see little kids make big, wide eyes at my forearm crutches though.

Anyone can continue! <3

tag game!!

Do this picrew of yourself, and tell me one thing you did today!

I got to say hi to all my friends and catch up on stuff after not having my phone for a week :]

@mintymooshroom @onyxofc @pandagobrr @amethysttable @theembergazer @silverdragon889 @sylki221b-of-the-shire @saltinegam @sleepywillowo0o

[vin-taege]

Hi! I loved your awkward chishiya flirting sooo much <3 The way you write is so in character even with him being nervous about showing affection. Can you write him being completely oblivious he’s liked yn the whole time they’ve been through the games; he thought he was just protecting them out of trying to be a better person until Kuina is like you moron you’re clearly in love w them!!

And he’s like oh fuck, what are feelings?? I have them?? His thought process as he tries to deny it and then him having some awkward interactions w yn bc he doesn’t know how to act now he’s aware he likes her and then is desperately trying to flirt with no idea how to at all

Tokens of Appreciation

Summary: Chishiya tells himself that he sees you only as a friend, despite doing his best to give you a gift.

Genre: fluff

Pairing: reader x chishiya

Words: 2.4k

Note: I tweaked this a little to show more of him being in denial and still in the middle of processing it ^^ I didn't want it to be too close to the other awkward flirting fic, but I hope you still like it! Also god, I;m so sorry it took more than a year ; O; Good news is that I'm almost done with my thesis, so I have a bit more time to write :DD

Chishiya set the screwdriver down with a frustrated sigh. The music box sat in front of him, open yet still without song. He saw this on the day of the six of clubs game. The car that was supposed to pick them up got a flat tire and stranded them for a good hour. As much as he hated the militants for their incompetence, he was grateful that he had extra time to scavenge around the nearby shops. It was in one of the metalwork stalls where he found it.

It was fairly light, small enough that you could hold it when you brought both hands together. The outside looked like a small pot, with the lid having scalloped edges. Ornate, gold vines swirled around the sides of the box, leading up to the front. At the center of it was a teardrop-shaped gemstone that refracted prisms under light. Inside was a small rabbit instead of a typical ballerina. It posed with its arms up mid-dance, pointy ears curved back as it looked up.

That was what made Chishiya decide that this was the perfect gift for you. At the beginning of your friendship—before you had worn down his walls with “incessant” conversation—you had off-handedly mentioned a memory of your childhood toy.

“Oh, look at that!” you picked up the small piece of candy. The packaging still boasted its classic colors of red, blue, white, and black. Turning around, you held it out to Chishiya. “I used to eat this all the time when I was a kid.”

He wrinkled his nose in disgust. This was the ninth room around the Beach that you’ve ‘investigated’—a fancy word you liked to use instead of ‘snooped around.’ “You don’t know how long that’s been there. Plus, you’ll get cavities.”

“Candy doesn’t expire,” you stuck your tongue out at him, swiftly unwrapping the sweet and popping it in your mouth. You smoothed out the wrapper, particularly the area around the illustrated rabbit.

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true—”

“He looks like the bunny plush I had.” Chishiya knit his eyebrows in confusion before glancing at the wrapper. He shrugged, feigning indifference.

“All rabbits look the same.”

“No, idiot. This one has pointy ears instead of rounded ones.”

“What’s that?” Kuina’s voice nearly made him knock over the entire thing. He flinched, throwing a blanket over his project. Clearing his throat, he stood up and narrowed his eyes at the girl.

“What did I tell you about knocking?”

Despite his small frame blocking the table from view, Kuina side-stepped around him, swiftly pulling the cloth right off. He hissed, moving to take the music box, but Kuina was faster, swiping it off the table and bringing it up to her eye level.

“Wow,” she enunciated, dragging the word. “This is for them, isn’t it?”

“No,” he tried not to stutter. He reached for it before Kuina held it above him. Her eyes were glued to the meticulous details. “If you drop that, I will kill you next game and make it look like an accident.”

She chortled, throwing her head back. Her loudness grew on him—is what he always told himself. Being his only friend when the Beach was only starting to form, he learned quickly how to tolerate Kuina’s more bubbly personality.

“What’s it for? Their birthday coming up?”

“No. I’m just making sure all our pieces are in place.” Kuina let him nab the item back. She watched as he wrapped it in the blanket, tucking it safely back into a drawer. 

“You totally like her,” she snorted.

“No, I don’t!” It came out too fast, too loudly. Chishiya’s face was starting to redden. His lips were pressed in a thin line, eyes downcast. It took a moment for him to collect himself. “We need her for the plan.”

“Yeah, right. It’s been half a year. Whatever long game you’re playing is over,” she smirked at him, plopping on his bed. “If anything, you’re the one getting played.”

“I don’t like her that way,” he crossed his arms defensively.

“Keep telling yourself that, lover boy,” Kuina chuckled, throwing a pillow at him. Chishiya swatted it away, face beet-red.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Call you what, lover boy?”

“Kuina!”

Three soft knocks interrupted their banter. Chishiya froze when you opened the door, slipping in with a mischievous grin. Your arms were behind your back, hands hidden from their view. A faint crinkling gave Chishiya a hint as to what you were holding. 

You stepped towards him, making him instinctively block the drawer the music box was in. Your grin spread wider, making your cheeks look unbearably adorable. Wait, did he really think that?

“I have something for you,” you said almost teasingly. You thrust your hand to his chest, pressing a package of biscuits on him. He wasn’t religious, but he prayed that you couldn’t feel his heartbeat thrumming out his rib cage.

Glancing down, he gave the biscuits a curious look-over. The wrapper was pink and white, with small cartoon strawberries spread around it. Attempting to take it from you gently, his fingers grazed over the back of your hand, flustering you both. Quickly, you whipped your head towards Kuina, chucking her the other item.

She caught the lighter with ease, excitedly flicking it on. Kuina was certain the militants threw it out after the pool fire incident. Totally not your trio’s fault. “Woah! Where’d you get these?”

“I was in Tatta’s storage space,” you beamed proudly.

Chishiya’s blood curdled. He squeezed the biscuits, though still careful not to break them. Shifting his weight to one foot, he scrunched his face in distaste. “What were you doing with Tatta?”

“Nothing, we were just hanging out. Ann dragged him into the hallway for a quick conversation so I had time to ‘investigate,’” you motioned with air quotes.

“What are you hanging out with him for?” The blunt words left his mouth before he could process them. 

His heart shrivelled a little when your smile faded. Taken aback, you clasped your hands, suddenly self-conscious. “I thought he was nice and making another friend around here didn’t seem like a bad idea.”

“Well, what if he’s just another sleaze like Niragi? You know how some of the men slobber like dogs here. And you’re in a closed space with just him? Just the two of you in a room? Together? Do you know how stupid that is? What if something happened and Kuina and I were in this room and we couldn’t hear you and—”

“What Chishiya is saying—” Kuina spoke over him, sending him a sharp glare despite her pinched smile. “—is that we just want you to be careful around here. I think Tatta is a fun guy too, but don’t let your guard down that easily okay?”

You nodded wordlessly, avoiding Chishiya’s eyes. Unbeknownst to you, his look softened, fingers releasing their tight grip on the biscuits. He slouched, silently berating himself for sounding so harsh, especially after you’ve just given him a gift. Oh god, you gave him a gift! He looked back at the cookies, strawberry-flavored no doubt. Perhaps it was your attention to detail that chipped at his armor. The way you remembered how he took two teaspoons of sugar with his tea and how you’d sometimes take his hoodie after a rough game and bring it back smelling of fabric softener.

Just normal things good friends would do for each other. Because that’s what you were—good friends.

“Chishiya?”

“What?” He blinked slowly, glancing at Kuina through silver hair framing his face. 

“I said I’m gonna get us drinks from the bar. You sound like you need it.” She stood up, motioning for you to take her place on the bed. You shot her a small smile, though your mood has obviously been dampened. 

Kuina passed near Chishiya, lowering her voice to whisper, “Fix your mess.”

When the door shut with a soft click, it was quiet for a few awkward moments. The room felt like a held breath, with Chishiya still standing, holding the biscuits like an idiot, while you were sitting on his bed, regarding him a huge eye sore in the middle of the spacious hotel room. Being a high-profile diamonds player bought him certain luxuries, despite how unnecessarily flashy he deemed them. 

“I know you’re just looking out for me, but you really could be nicer sometimes.” He almost didn’t catch what you said, your voice soft. “I just wanted to get you something nice.”

He sighed, more so at his own stupidity. He pushed himself off the drawer and sat beside you, your knees touching. Pinching the corner of the wrapper, he ripped the packaging open, angling the biscuits towards you. Your knee tensed beside him, making guilt claw at his stomach more.

“Take one,” he said, almost demandingly. You huffed, gingerly taking a piece. It was a small, pillow-shaped shell. You bit into it, bringing your hand back to look at the strawberry filling inside. Chishiya hummed in approval as soon as the sweet cream hit his tongue.

Wordlessly, you shared the biscuits—his own form of apology. You scooted closer to him, a silent act of forgiveness he quickly picked up on. Always the clever man, yet he could never figure himself out.

“I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you. Anyone with eyes can see how beautiful you are. If anyone here tried anything on you, I’d have to put rat poison in their alcohol. Do you know how troublesome that is?” he wrinkled his nose, pointedly munching.

A grin crept into your face. Your eyes flitted towards his face, dark brown eyes meeting yours. “You think I’m beautiful?”

Chishiya was stunned for a second. Blood rushed to his cheeks and the furrow in his brows deepened. He stammered, “No. No! That’s not what I meant. I mean that I’m just worried about you!”

You brought your face just a tad bit closer to his. “You worry about me?”

“No, no! I mean, you’re just a good ally and I don’t have any other strong feelings about you. I’m doing this for the sake of our alliance—”

He didn’t notice as you took the last biscuit, gingerly pushing it against his lips. He froze, eyes wide as he took in your appearance. An orange glow from the setting sun wrapped around your silhouette. You looked heavenly, like an angel beckoning him to the next life. Despite all logic screaming at him, he would gladly take your hand and go wherever that may be. 

You pushed the biscuit past his lips, the soft pair almost chasing after your fingertip as you pulled away. Curling your finger, you wiped the corner of his mouth with the edge of your knuckles. His breath stilled in his chest.

Chishiya leaned closer, your pull towards him magnetic. Shakily, he brought a hand up, about to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. He’s seen this move once before, during a promotional commercial for a drama. He was reviewing for his finals at the time, taking only a few seconds to stare coldly at his roommate because of how loud the TV was. Evidently, he never put it into practice before.

“Ow!” you jolted back, hands cupping your face. Somehow, despite his brilliant mind, he accidentally poked you in the eye. You grit your teeth in pain, globs of tears running down your cheek. 

“Shit, I’m sorry!” He tried prying your eyes away from your face, using his free arm to wrap around your back. “I’m so sorry. Shit. Don’t rub it, it’ll get worse. Come here.”

Assisting you through your blurry vision, he managed to walk you to his bathroom. He turned the faucet on, making you bend over the sink. Forcing stillness into his hand, he caught the water, gently splashing it against your reddening eye. You hissed, jolting back at the contact, though a firm hand on your back kept you in place.

“I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean to.” The distress was evident in his voice. You’ve never seen him in such shambles before, not even during games where he was at the brink of death.

“I know, ‘Shiya. It’s okay,” you managed to smile at him. He wiped your eyes with a soft towel, bringing it down for a second to gently grip your chin. He nudged your head up, only enough for him to check on your eye. He let out a deep sigh before pressing the towel back. At least the pain has died down a bit now. “How bad is it?”

“It’s not fatal.”

You snorted, hitting him lightly on the shoulder. His lips twitched almost into a grin, though he was still slouched over in embarrassment. “I can’t believe this is the thanks I get for feeding you.”

“I… I-I didn’t mean to. Honestly!” He shoved his other hand into his hoodie pocket. Suddenly, the floor was the most interesting thing in the room. You chuckled lightly at his antics. There was something so boyish about the way he stood, almost as if he wanted his hoodie to swallow him whole.

You brought your hand up, wrapping it around his on the towel. His cheeks heated up, though still defiant in meeting your gaze. You stroked the back of his hand with your thumb, surprised that he hasn’t pulled away yet.

“I’m sorry I poked your eye. I was just trying to…” he trailed off. How was he even going to explain himself out of this one? “There was dirt on your face. You should take a bath from time to time.”

“I do take baths!” you exclaimed, swatting at him again. You jabbed a finger to his chest, tone riddled with tease. “You’re just so obsessed with me.”

He finally allowed himself to smile, the smile that made everything feel normal again. At that moment, you weren’t players in the Borderland fighting for your life every other day. You were just two friends, for now. Chishiya is a tough nut to crack, but between your laughter sounding like tinkling bells and the euphoric buzz he gets from being around you, he’d be able to sort himself out. He just needs to take it one step at a time, starting with making that music box sing for you again. 

Because that's what good friends do. God, he was such a good friend.

Back in the main room, the entrance door swung open, followed by the sound of glass bottles clinking against each other. Kuina proudly declared, “I got us the stuff!”

“Did you bring ice?” Chishiya called out to her.

“Of course!” Even from the bathroom, you could hear her huff.

“Good, because we need a bunch of it here.”

[eaglerayys]

I really love the way that SM-33 switched sides during the “claimsies” argument because to me it was a reminder that for all the fun the show’s had with 33 being beholden to the pirate code, he’s still fundamentally a Star Wars Droid.

Throughout the show we’ve seen that 33 is not just thematically pirate-coded, but he’s also often been bound by rules in a way that is fairly common for robots in media. He doesn’t remember “no At Attin”, he attacks the kids when reminded of his orders, etc. While this is behaviour that is normal for a typical robot, 33 isn’t just a robot— he’s specifically a Star Wars droid, and Star Wars has always shown droids to be sentient beings capable of “emotional” attachments.

So of course 33 accepted that claimsies was close enough, because fundamentally he wanted to be on the kids side. He’s been waiting the whole show for viable reasons to attack Jod because despite being constrained to his programming, he still has his own personality and opinions.

TLDR 33 isn’t just a robot, he’s a droid who’d been waiting for the chance to have a go at Jod

[blondeaxolotl-twstocs]

VOICE CLAIM HERE !!

NEW OC DROP!!!!!!!!! Say hi to Del! But please call him "Dellie" ! He's an exchange student who joined NRC a bit late and out of the blue, but his friendly demeanor made him quickly fit in with the rest as if he was there from the start.

Dellie is a young dolphin merfolk who's fairly tall and athletic, usually towering over most of his peers. But his multicolored hair with the resemblance of harlequin ice cream and cute aesthetic make him appear more friendly and easier to approach for others. He is often seen with stickers on his face which change everyday depending on what he's wearing, they are said to help distract others from looking at his sharp toothy grin. Bows are also a big part of his wear, any ribbon or tie he has will be turned into a cute bow with pins attached. The bow on his tail has a bell, it not only makes it cuter but it also helps to know when Dellie is nearby, since his footsteps are very silent and it risks the chances of someone getting jumpscared by him if it weren't for the bell. 🎀 His mostro lounge wear is practically the same as Jade and Floyds, besides the fact he wears roller-skates with colors to match the uniform. The roller-skates help him go from table to table quickly and bring orders to customers faster, but they mainly help attract more customers. Because everyone loves watching a dolphin do tricks, even if it's something simple as a little twirl 💜

Personality 🎀✨

Dellie is very social and kind hearted, he goes out of his way to befriend and help others around him without any intention of expecting something in return. He does favours and errands for others so often it's impressive how he gets anything done for himself. He especially likes to help those who he "looks up to", one example being Azul. Who at first didn't like his offers to help but quickly adapted to them after realising Dellie has no intention of wanting anything from him, he just likes being told what to do and told good job for it. This as well made him become a perfect teachers pet, they can count on him by doing tasks that most students usually can't, since he isn't only kind, but also very intelligent. He has even helped tutored some students before who struggled with assignments or classes, Kalim, Deuce and Ace being a few of them (and recurring ones). Dellie also seems to have a soft heart, not enjoying being yelled at or being confronted about anything because it will quickly drive him to tears, it makes everyone around him feel like they just witnessed a puppy being kicked. This has only happened once and never again, it made the person doing the yelling/confronting feel like they were bullying the exchange student who already felt left out because he joined later than others, there were even glares directed towards the guy for this (said person apologised profusely to Dellie for making him cry, and he forgave them since he knew they didn't mean to).

But surprisingly, Dellie can get protective if the yelling is directed towards a friend, or someone like Azul. dropping everything he's doing to get between the friend and the other person, almost as he's protecting them from harm. Making Dellie not only a friend you can count on, but also a guard dog who will protect you from bullies.

At least, that's what Dellie wants you to think.

In reality, Dellie is a typical spoiled, mean, and selfish rich kid. Everything he does is because it makes HIM look good, his friendly, bubbly personality and cutesy appearance is just a mere facade he puts on around others. His kind words and gestures are only meant to make people want him to be around them and ask him for help, knowing he will help if no one else can. Dellie does not care about most people he helps, he willingly only sticks around certain people if they peaked his interest or if they're fun to torment.

Despite the fact Dellie has defended Azul and others from people who would be considered bullies MULTIPLE times, Dellie is in fact secretly a bully himself. He specifically acts like the leader of what you'd typically see in shows when a group of bullies appears (which means he's probably the worse person you'll ever meet). But he specifically picks out victims who he believes are fun to pick on, people like Azul, Riddle or Idia, etc are surprisingly NOT one of them, in fact they are the ones he defends from others. Sadly, the unfortunate soul who did end up being Dellie's unlucky victim is Floyd. Dellie found Floyd's mood swings and short tempers funny, hilarious even. Since the first few days he has been in NRC and made friends with everyone, not long after he has made his personal goal to make Floyd's life hell. Only singling him out when no one is looking, but also treating him with the same kindness he gives to Azul and Jade when they're around as if it is to mock him. Even making sure to play the victim card when Floyd gets fed up with him but someone ends up entering the room when it happens, and usually this makes Floyd end up being the one to apologise because Dellie would NEVER do whatever Floyd told them. Even if it was true, Dellie's crocodile tears and puppy dog eyes make Floyd look like he was doing the bullying instead of the other way around.

In conclusion, Dellie's sweet and soft persona is all an act which only Floyd can see through it. And knowing this, Dellie makes sure to go out his way to ruin Floyd's mood, no matter what the choices he makes are, he will do them while wearing a warm smile on his face, facing towards everyone who's blissfully unaware of what an actual bastard he is.

Signature spell ✨

"Aww c'mon cheer up a little~ Toss Around!" Dellie's signature spell makes him able to summon 3 dolphins around the opponent, when the opponent strikes to attack with a spell, one of the dolphins will instead catch it and start playing ball with the other dolphins over the opponent's head. This serves as a distraction (making the opponent think one of the dolphins will eventually hit them with their own spell) as Dellie quickly charges up his own spell and then strikes the opponent directly while they were not looking. Dellie's spell is either weaker or stronger depending on location, if Dellie uses his spell in a more drier location, his final blow will be weaker and the dolphins would be playing slower which gives the opponent a chance to dodge Dellie's attack. But in an area with more moisture, the dolphins will play faster, and Dellie's attack will be stronger and possibly knock you down for a bit. Oh and to add salt to the wound, the dolphins would laugh at you after you fall down before they vanish. If you want a description on how this would feel, imagine 3 guys take your pencil case and start playing hot potato with it. And while you're distracted trying to get your pencil case back a secret 4th dude fucking hits you with a volleyball full force for shits and giggles.

Other notes 🌸

After moving to land, Dellie has took an interest in stickers, collecting them for fun and even putting them on his own face. Dellie sometimes even puts stickers on others as a sign of friendship, he has put A LOT of stickers on Floyd before, purely, out of spite.

Dellie can sometimes accidentally come off as flirty when being nice, surprisingly he doesn't do this on purpose and actually gets shocked if anyone confesses to him because of it (there were a few who have confessed, but Dellie has rejected all of them and doesn't plan on accepting any as it seems).

Dellie often gets babied by others because of his "kind heart and friendly demeanor", some students even avoid saying curse words around him and get scolded by other students when they do. Dellie finds this so humiliating but takes advantage of it when playing victim because people end up defending him when he's in trouble.

Dellie's exam papers all have cute doodles on them, his professors told him to stop at first but eventually just let him do what he wants as long as he finished his exams on time.

Dellie's hair might actually be dyed, but he rejects and avoids any questions about it since you never even see his roots.

Dellie enjoys music and dancing, it's why he joined the pop music club. He sometimes gets invited by Kalim to come and dance with him and Jamil.

Vil doesn't like Dellie because he reminds them of Neige, though they tolerate him enough to let him help with whatever task he's needed for.

Dellie's favourite food is inconsistent, sometimes it's waffles, sometimes it's cake, other times it's pasta or pizza. People just assumes he can't choose a favourite and therefore has many instead of one.

It's unknown to why Dellie switched schools and joined NRC, only thing Dellie says about it is that he just didn't "fit in" with his old school before he completely changes the topic. Though there is a theory Dellie got into NRC because his dad payed a lottt of money for him to get in.

Dellie is genderfluid, and his sexuality is bisexual with a lean for guys! (<- he hasn't discovered this yet about himself, but at least we're aware)

He has his own playlist! :)

OKAYY THATS ABOUT IT FOR DELLIE, he's a complete asshole so I hope you guys hate him or not, feel free to hit him with a basketball directly in the head cause he deserves it <3 Bonus doodles <3

Live laugh kick Dellie down before he kicks you

[cobaltperun]

The Catalyst - Stronger On Your Own

WandaNat x Female Reader

Story summary: A peaceful life could never be an option, especially not when backing out of a fight means leaving your loved ones to fight. It still doesn't change the fact that you hate having these powers.

Chapter summary: A reunion with an old friend brings you back into the life you tried to leave behind. How do you deal with once again being in the same room with the woman you once loved? The same woman that left you to die?

Spotify Playlist

Masterlist / Next Part

Word Count: 4.5k

-Self-destruction is the name of the game, I say I've had enough, but still want it all again-

A dusty old warehouse? Check. A chair inches away from an edge a couple of floors above ground? Check. Ropes and standard tools that could be used for torture on the table? Check. Two thugs with barely functional brains guarding their old boss? Double check. Overall, boring, regular, perfectly average experience on these missions.

Annoyance, that's what this man was. Just another thug that got powerful enough to feel like he's untouchable. Just another man thinking he caught her, boasting to himself that he outsmarted the infamous Black Widow.

Typical.

Well, it certainly made her job much easier.

It wouldn't take long for Luchkov to start talking, feeling like he was in control, like he didn't walk right into her web. “I thought General Solohob is in charge of the export business,” Natasha faked being clueless, not being up to date on the information, feeding his ego in the process.

“Solohob? A bagman, a front. Your outdated information betrays you. The famous Black Widow turns out to be just another pretty face,” Luchkov taunted her, underestimated her, believed having her tied to a chair would be enough to be safe. He turned away from her with hands in his pockets, full of himself.

“You really think I’m pretty?” and she let him believe all of that. Even when one of the two thugs Luchkov brought along grabbed her jaw and forced her mouth open. Nothing they were doing would have scared her even when she was just starting out, let alone now. She’d just have to wash her face later.

“Tell Lermentov we don’t need him to move the tanks,” Luchkov took his sweet time getting to the table. Or rather that was as fast as he could move without running out of breath. “Tell him he is out. Well,” he took pliers and turned to look at her. “You may have to write it down,” he couldn’t even threaten properly, for all his effort he was as threatening to her as a fly caught in a spider web.

A phone suddenly ringing did catch her by surprise, especially when it turned out it was for her, and Natasha was fairly sure Coulson was the one who called and was now threatening Luchkov into handing Natasha the phone. She didn’t show it in any way, but she wasn’t happy with this interruption, she was on a job, and all this was doing was making the job take more time than necessary. Worst case scenario it could ruin the entire interrogation and she’d have to get her hands on the information needed some other way.

Still, she’d hear Coulson out. But it better be important. Luchkov handed her the phone, and she held it on her shoulder. Apparently, they weren’t stupid enough to untie her hands.

“We need you to come in,” she slightly frowned at that, the tone of Coulson’s voice worried her a bit, but perhaps that was just her paranoia.

“Are you kidding? I’m working,” surely it wasn’t that urgent. This would have taken her another ten, maybe fifteen minutes.

“This takes precedence,” Coulson remained persistent, and for a moment Natasha was reminded of last year, where it felt like the whole world was turned on its head in one week. Aliens, monsters, technologies and weapons she had no hopes of matching even with the super soldier serum the Red Room gave her.

She pushed those thoughts out of her head. This wasn’t the time to dwell on the past. Instead, she pushed back against Coulson. “I’m in the middle of an interrogation, and this moron is giving me everything,” it didn’t even matter that he was right in front of her, hearing every word she spoke. By this point Natasha knew the job was finished, the flow of the interrogation was stopped, Luchkov was no longer in control, she wouldn’t get what she needed.

“I don’t give everything,” Luchkov stammered to the thug on his left and Natasha just looked at him almost unable to believe how stupid the man was.

“Look, you can’t pull me out of this right now,” maybe Luchkov was that stupid to fall right back into her trap if she played her cards right.

“Natasha, Barton’s been compromised,” in a single moment everything changed, and this job no longer mattered.

The decision was instantaneous. “Let me put you on hold,” she said and the moment Luchkov took the phone she kicked him in the leg and headbutted him. He went down, dazed and taken by surprise as she got up and, while still tied to the chair, made quick work of his two thugs, dodging their attempts to hit her and using the chair against them. She fought on autopilot, breaking the chair on one of the thugs. There was only one thing on her mind, Clint being compromised, and her not knowing anything, not where he was, not even if he was alive or for how long he would remain alive.

The lack of attention to the fight allowed one of the thugs to grab her, but it didn’t matter, she twisted his arm and knocked him out, focusing just for a moment on ending this whole thing and immediately heading back so she could rescue Clint.

As she tied a chain around Luchkov’s leg and pushed him over the edge she resolved to do anything to get Clint back. No matter what, she wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

Natasha didn’t even spare the man a second look, she just turned around, took her high heels and phone and headed for the exit without even taking the few seconds to put her heels on.

“Where’s Barton now?” she asked, anxious to be caught up to speed as quickly as possible. From what she knew Clint was guarding the Tesseract, so something must have gone very wrong if he was compromised.

“We don’t know,” that was close to the worst answer she could get and that familiar dread set in once again. What would happen by the time they managed to locate Clint? The images of ruins briefly flashed in front of her eyes. That wasn’t an option in this situation, Clint didn’t have that kind of power.

She didn’t have the luxury to dwell on the possibilities or the past mistake that haunted her. “But he’s alive?”

“We think so,” yet another uncertainty. “We’ll brief you on everything when you get back. But first, we need you to talk to the big guy,” Coulson told her in his usual calm tone, and Natasha figured this was it, the Avengers Initiative was being restarted. And that also meant being reminded of you once again when S.H.I.E.L.D. fails to get you to come back.

Still, she wasn’t the best person to talk Stark into joining, and as far as she was aware Fury would handle Rogers. “Coulson, you know that Stark trusts me about as far as he can throw me.”

“Oh, I’ve got Stark! You get the big guy,” the moment Coulson said that she stopped, understanding exactly who the big guy was and what remained of the calmness in her mind vanished, though she managed to hide it well.

“My God,” she whispered in Russian, doing her best to suppress the last year’s incident from her mind.

Coulson didn’t hang up though, and Natasha didn’t like that one bit. “We also need you to get L/N,” she froze, nearly dropping her high heels.

She felt like something squeezed in her chest, but she pushed it to the back of her head. “She won’t come,” it was naïve of Fury to even consider you for the Avengers initiative. You wouldn’t even hear them out, and you especially wouldn’t hear her out. It’s been three years since she last saw you face to face, three years since that cursed mission that ruined everything between the two of you, and you abandoned S.H.I.E.L.D.

“She will if we send you,” Coulson was always too optimistic, too willing to hope for the best. Frankly, it should have been him going after you, after all he was the one who recruited you so many years ago.

Natasha was more realistic, aware that she was actually the worst person to go and meet up with you. Countless times she rewatched what little recordings there were of the mission, desperately wishing she could yell at her younger self to turn around, to go back and reach you, save you, everything else be damned, but there was no changing the past.

“Where is she?” she asked, willing to at least give it a try. You wouldn’t turn hostile, that much she could still be sure of.

Even if she genuinely believed you had every right to attack her and anyone from S.H.I.E.L.D.

“You know where,” she heard sympathy in Coulson’s voice, maybe even pity. It was true though, she knew where you were, she’s always known where you were, not that you were trying to hide. She just tried to suppress that information from her mind.

~X~

You frowned in your sleep, memories plaguing your mind once more. Always the same, always the same cold eyes, the same red helmet, the same purple cape, the same destruction and rage, unstoppable, focused solely on erasing everything in his path.

A monster driven by rage and grief, too powerful to be stopped by mere humans. Metal constructions twisted and broke apart, falling to ruin in his rage. The small town was on fire, burning down and disappearing in front of your eyes. He didn’t directly set things on fire, but he might as well have done it. He tore everything that had metal in it apart, breaking things and making them explode. As the flames came closer to you, you went and raised your hand toward the man, etching his face, his eyes into your mind.

"Stop!" you screamed, abruptly jumping to your feet, shaking as your hands lit up in blue flames. Your eyes widened, the flashes of the nightmare still fresh in your mind, as you extinguished the flames you unwillingly lit, and released a shaky sigh. There was no way you could go back to sleep now, your mind was too caught up in the nightmare, too restless, too affected by it all for you to just lie back down and sleep.

You glanced at the clock; it was barely past midnight. You sighed, ready for a sleepless night, the cabin you spent the past two and a half years in felt suffocating tonight even with most of the windows left open, so you went outside and sat down at the table on your porch. The dense forest looked ominously dark, with no lights anywhere around you, other than the moonlight, but you’ve gotten used to it. You appreciated the peace and quiet it brought, but tonight you just couldn’t find peace.  You were restless, and it annoyed you.

The sound of the night was suddenly disturbed by a familiar sound of a quinjet and you looked up just in time to see it flying toward your house and landing with perfect precision that ruled out damn near every agent.

You stood up, watching as the doors opened and Natasha Romanoff stepped onto the grass. You watched her, stuck between confusion and annoyance, but somehow it all vanished when she approached and you got to see her up close. It wasn’t the fact that she wasn’t in her uniform, or that there were clear signs of exhaustion on her face, it was her eyes that told you everything.

You didn’t greet her though, you just turned around, opening the doors and going inside, but the doors kept open were enough for her to get the message.

“I need you to come in,” Natasha said as she walked inside, immediately and instinctively taking every detail of your cabin in. The ways out, the distance to the nearest weapon, the small signs of life left everywhere, a nicked glass of water you didn’t finish before going to sleep, the newspaper neatly folded on the side of the table, the glaive hanging on the wall, always close enough for you to grab.

“You do?” you asked, the tone of your voice harsh, but not as harsh as you intended. You were leaning back against the table with your arms crossed, putting up all the walls between the two of you. You studied her, feeling the tension already rising between you. She was uncomfortable and you were… happy because of that. This wasn’t how you imagined your reunion after three years, not that you imagined anything. You would have been perfectly content with your life if you never saw her again.

“I do,” she didn’t explain it any further. Some things never change, especially when it came to Natasha.

“I’m not in the mood to be depowered again, Romanoff,” you went through it once, it nearly cost you your life. Maybe it would have been better that way. The way it was right now, it cost you a lot more than your life. You were alive, but you lost the life you built, betrayed by the people you trusted and the woman you loved.

“That isn’t Fury’s intention,” you tried resisting her, you wanted so desperately to resist her, yet that look in her eyes, that desperation and fear, the storm inside her mind, they all made it difficult not to give in to whatever she demanded. This wasn’t Natasha you knew. She was frightened. And despite every fiber of your body telling you otherwise your heart still ached at the thought.

You should have kept questioning her, should have argued against coming with her, but you knew the decision was made the moment you saw that look in Natasha’s eyes. “Bathroom is to your left, I need five minutes,” just to grab essentials, change into something more appropriate for potential combat and then freshen up yourself to properly wake up.

Natasha looked like she needed a moment to herself a lot more than you did, and perhaps a bit of cold water would clear her mind enough.

There was no need to know exactly what was going on. Natasha was desperate enough to come to you, even if it was likely an order. Still, she came to you, after everything that happened, and you couldn’t ignore that.

You didn’t put on your old uniform, you no longer had it, instead you just went with civilian clothing, simple, though a bit worn-out, jacket, shirt and pants, and the moment Natasha stepped out of your bathroom you went in.

You finished freshening up a bit and grabbed a towel, and it immediately hit you. The familiar comforting scent of Natasha’s perfume, subtle, yet so definitively her own. “Fuck,” you cursed, giving up on drying your face with it and throwing the towel in the basket. You watched the towel with disdain, as if it was the towel’s fault that you suddenly felt at ease. You huffed, pushing the old feelings aside and just wiped your face dry with a clean towel.

When you stepped out you saw Natasha was already outside, not wanting to intrude on the peace you tried to build in this cabin with her presence, and you did your best to ignore how, despite the surface-level tension, right it felt when she was in the cabin with you. You took your bag and glaive and joined her in front of the cabin. “Let’s get this over with,” you muttered, letting Natasha take the lead. And she did it, without a single unnecessary word spoken.

~X~

To your surprise you didn’t go straight to where the helicarrier was at the moment. Instead you went to India. Still, it gave you enough time to get caught up to speed with things that happened. The Avengers Initiative, including Natasha, Clint, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and Thor, as well as you. You paused when you reached the data on Banner, remembering last year. While you and Natasha didn’t meet up, Clint did pull you back into this whole mess and you went, keeping your distance but you were there in case Natasha needed backup.

You glanced toward her, wondering what was going through her mind, what got her to seek you out instead of sending Clint, or hell, Coulson. Whatever it was, it had to be bad for Natasha to be like this.

“I doubt you’d be this concerned over the Cube,” sure, she cared, but this was more than that. This was desperation, this was something you weren’t used to seeing from her.

Natasha sighed. “Clint’s been compromised,” and it all made sense now. You stood up on instinct, approaching her and reaching for her shoulder, but you stopped, turning away at the last second.

“You’ll get him back,” you left it at that, returning to the files and not speaking another word, even though the silence was deafening at times. Neither you nor Natasha said a single word for the rest of the flight, or as she met up with other agents in Calcutta and set up a plan to convince Banner to come with her.

You just stood by, taking note of the tension everywhere around you. This wasn’t just because of the dangers that came with trying to convince the Hulk to come aboard, this was more than that, this was the reality of being utterly outmatched hitting every single agent all at once. You sat near the comms and yet again your eyes found Natasha. She changed into a beautiful black dress and you forced yourself to look away, fearing the old emotions would reemerge, pushing aside the anger you felt because of her betrayal.

She went inside the old house, waiting for Banner to show up and you chose just to listen, to not get involved even if a fight broke out. You wouldn’t fight. You wouldn’t do anything unless the whole world was in danger.

About five minutes later Banner entered the shack and you listened to Natasha talking to him. Calm, steady, but with just the tiniest hint of fear buried deep under the mask she put on. None of the other agents here could have possibly caught it, Clint and Fury could, and you, apparently, still could, but no one else.

Unless she let someone else in over the past three years.

“Just you and me,” you heard Natasha saying, lying to Banner who correctly guessed the shack was surrounded.

“And your actress buddy? She a spy too? They start that young?” there was no animosity in his voice, not yet, but there was something a tiny bit eerie about his tone. It was too calm, like a calm before the storm, or a quiet rage waiting to be unleashed. Yeah, maybe that was more appropriate for his case. The night wasn’t cold, but you still felt a shiver run down your spine as the air became thick with anticipation and anxiety.

“I did,” Natasha replied, and you got caught up in memories for a moment, remembering her opening up to you about the Red Room. And then, not even a month later, it all fell apart. The conversation between them continued, a back and forth that for once had Natasha putting in all of her effort to keep the situation under control. Armor piercing bullets wouldn’t even scratch the Hulk. “I’m here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.? How’d they find me?” you heard a hint of that rage slipping through and sat up, now more alert of their conversation. The entrance to the shack was directly in front of you.

Yet Natasha regained control over the situation, at least for now. “We never lost you, Doctor. We’ve kept our distance, even helped keep some other interested parties off your scent,” her voice didn’t waver, almost as if she was trying to soothe him. Even if it probably affected you more than it affected Banner.

“Why?” or maybe it worked on him too, as that rage turned more into confusion.

Clearly Banner still hasn’t met Fury, that man was in a league of his own when it came to his own methods and reasons. “Nick Fury seems to trust you. But now we need you to come in.”

Bullshit. Nick Fury didn’t trust anyone, but he did see their use to his cause.

“What if I say no?” Banner asked, once again proving he didn’t know Fury, otherwise he wouldn’t be asking such questions.

“I’ll persuade you,” she just… you knew that tone, the same seductive tone she used on her targets, and you glared at the comms, annoyed a lot more than you had any right to be.

“And what if the Other Guy says no?” you once again got alert against your will, waiting anxiously for even the smallest hint of danger.

You weren’t going to fight.

You weren’t going to fight.

“You’ve been more than a year without an incident. I don’t think you want to break that streak,” Natasha remained as in control as she could be, given the situation.

“Well, I don’t every time get what I want,” there was a clear threat in those words, a warning, and an acceptance of the circumstances he was in.

“Doctor, we’re facing a potential global catastrophe,” Natasha chose to plead to his sense of humanity. His empathy, or what was left of it. Considering what he went through you’d be surprised if he had any desire to help or protect people. And yet he was a doctor in a poor part of town. Necessity? Certainly. But you weren’t quite sure what kind of necessity drove him to do it.  

Banner chuckled, though it wasn’t out of amusement. “Oh, those I actively try to avoid.”

“This is the Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet,” and then there was that. The stolen Cube, Tesseract. Fury was desperate. From what you read this team, if it even got formed, would be volatile, clashing ideals, big personalities, tensions. Nothing short of a miracle would get all of these people on board.

A miracle or…

You glanced toward the shack for the first time, approximately to where Natasha could be. Maybe that was Fury’s miracle.

“What does Fury want me to do? Swallow it?” despite the tension you felt you still smirked a bit at that.

“He wants you to find it. It’s been taken. It emits a Gamma signature that’s too weak for us to trace. No one knows Gamma radiation like you do. If there was, that’s where I’d be,” Natasha explained in an indifferent tone, cold and calculated. Basically stating that this was a meeting caused by desperation, and that it had nothing to do with Banner being the Hulk.

That didn’t sound like Fury. Sure, Banner could be the best person for the job, but the Hulk wasn’t something Fury wouldn’t take into account.

“So, Fury isn’t after the monster?” Banner questioned, almost unwilling to believe that.

“Not that he’s told me,” even if all the signs pointed toward the opposite.

“And he tells you everything?” no, Fury barely says anything to anyone. No one but Fury can know everything.

“Talk to Fury, he needs you on this,” Natasha didn’t answer, she didn’t need to, the answer was more than clear.

“He needs me in a cage?” Banner immediately countered.

“No one’s going to put you in a-“ Natasha tried to reassure him.

“Stop lying to me!” Banner yelled, slamming his hands on the table.

You moved without thinking, crossing the distance and reaching the entrance in less than a second. A cloud of dust was left behind you as you looked Banner in the eyes. “Don’t move,” you pointed your glaive at Banner, ready to fight. You didn’t take your eyes off him, you didn’t notice the tears in Natasha’s eyes, but you could hear the subtlest shift in her breathing, and it was enough for you. “Unless you want me to fry your brain,” you kept your weapon raised as you closed the distance and pushed the table to the side, putting yourself right between Natasha and Banner. He seemed more amused.

“That’s not a good idea,” he told you, but he didn’t move. And it wasn’t for his sake, it was for your own and Natasha’s, because the Other Guy, as he called the Hulk, wouldn’t let you kill him.

“The best I can come up with,” you weren’t stupid. You knew you had nothing that could stop the Hulk, that you had no chance of beating him in a fight. You could still probably stall enough to get Natasha out of here. Even if Banner had all the advantage at this distance. You had no idea how quickly he could transform, but chances were that you and Natasha were both a split second from being blood splatters on the walls, even if you were both alert and ready to react.

“Stand down, L/N,” Natasha warned you, and you wanted to, you really did. You made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t get involved yet here you were.

Before you could answer Banner raised his hands. “I’m sorry, that was mean,” he actually smiled and looked over your shoulder at Natasha. “I just wanted to see what you’d do,” he took a few steps back, giving Natasha and you a slightly bigger window to react. “Why don’t we do this the easy way, where you don’t use that,” he pointed at your weapons of choice and then at himself. “And the Other Guy doesn’t make a mess? Okay? Natasha?”

You dared to look back at Natasha, finally noticing the tears in her eyes. “Stand down. We’re good here,” she spoke to the rest of the agents.

“Just you and me?” Banner seemed almost amused by the situation.

“Does it make a difference?” you asked and he shrugged, as if agreeing that, no, it really didn’t make a difference. He stepped outside, giving most agents slight panic attacks as they tried to stay calm and headed toward the agents, silently accepting to come along.

“That was reckless,” Natasha scolded you and you looked to the side, not quite willing to look her in the eyes. “L/N,” she raised her voice just a tiny bit, just enough to show you that she was actually angry at you for putting yourself in danger. “What if something happened to you?”

You slowly looked back at her, not quite sure you heard her correctly. “You did not just say that,” you laughed, even if your laughter was hollow, almost mocking her. “You know what, I don’t care,” you shook your head and magnetized your glaive to your back before heading back to the quinjet.

A/N: That's the first chapter. So... anyone interested in a taglist?

Masterlist / Next Part

[cuntressgoingdigital]

SUPER RICH KIDS | ufc fighter! abby anderson x model! reader

free palestine! click this link for more info

synopsis: you're a fairly notable model and a big fan of UFC newcomer, abby anderson. by a cruel twist of fate, you're caught liking a tik tok edit of abby on your main account. instead of backing down, you use unconventional methods to capture the attention of the fighter before the most important fight of her career.

notes: i have spent an unfathomable amount of time writing/rewriting this and i can't take it anymore! if i don't give in and post it now it's going to rot in my drafts forever

click here for my series masterlist.

cw: 18+ content MDNI, fem reader (she/her pronouns used), alcohol & drug use, oral (a! receiving), abby is gay & in denial + a huge fucking loser

word count: 10.5k

you had your phone set up against your vanity where you sat perfecting your makeup. you were only running to grab coffee with your friend who was stopping in town for a quick photoshoot. comments on your instagram live scrolled quickly on your phone as your ten thousand viewers all vied for your attention. 

“what have you been watching?” you read a comment aloud. you hummed in thought for a moment. “i honestly haven’t had a lot of time to watch stuff recently. fashion week is coming up and y’all know that’s my favorite time of the year.” one last look in your vanity mirror, and you decided your makeup was officially done. “however,” you begin “my ex got me really into ufc, so i always make time for that.” the comments immediately start with their guesses about the identity of this ex, as per usual. tabloids loved to make every small hangout a dating rumor. you ignored those comments and doubled back to your statement. “really, think about it. hot women beating the shit out of each other. one of television’s greatest gifts.” crying laughing emojis started rolling in. “i’m actually really excited for this next fight card.”

a text from your friend dings on your phone alerting you that she’s on her way to the cafe. your cue to end the live. “okay babes, thank you so much for chatting with me! i have to go, but i love all of you. mwah!” you blew a kiss at the camera before pressing the button to stop the broadcast. 

later that night, you’re laying in bed, staring at your phone. a crucial part of your nightly routine. it was as if your tik tok for you page had heard your earlier declaration and started showing you edits of different ufc fighters. you had no interest in the male fighters, scrolling past those videos with no hesitation. this idea did pique your interest. you tap over to the search tab, and type 

abby anderson edits

she was by far your favorite fighter. tear jerking underdog story and the icing on top of the cake was how hot she was. that long blonde hair that was always shiny and soft looking. her perfectly toned arms that you frequently envisioned wrapped around your waist. her long fingers that always prompted the most embarrassingly sinful thoughts. 

the post was a cinematic, yet concerningly horny, work of art. you double tapped the post and continued on with your idle scroll until you tossed your phone to the other end of the bed and fell asleep. 

the repeated buzzing of your phone pulled you from your slumber. the sun was blocked by your blackout curtains, so you had no real concept of time until you looked down at your phone. only a little after 11AM. the next thing that caught your eye was numerous texts in your groupchat with your friends: charlotte, cassidy, and lynzee. 

charlotte, you’d met at a grammy’s afterparty when she brought home the best new artist award. cassidy was your typical drug abusing miami rich girl skating by on daddy’s money. and lynzee was a model you had worked with so often that you became pretty close. after a few years of forcing everyone into close proximity, you were a merry band of semi-dysfunctional really rich friends. 

lynzee: bitch PLEASE check twitter

char: oml thats fucking embarrassing

cass: girl atp you gotta delete all your accounts and move to mars

you realized very quickly all of these texts were directed at you. your hands were shaking as you opened twitter. what could it be this time? 

your mentions were blowing up with the same screenshot. you had accidentally liked the edit of abby on your main account. the creator immediately noticed and posted the screenshot of the notification on twitter. you screamed into your pillow. there was no way to undo this. it was embarrassing, but not career ending. you thumbed back to the groupchat.

you: man fuck yall!! 

you: idk ig im gna double down lmao

you reopen the twitter app and quote the original tweet. 

uh oh. you guys caught me lmao

there was no real point in trying to claim you got hacked or that it was an accident. you would just ride the wave until everyone found something else to talk about. 

and after a couple days they did. it was left as an inside joke for your friend group in which they sent you every video of abby that they came across, irrevocably altering everyone’s social media algorithms.

thursday night your manager called while you were enjoying a lovely meal of doordashed sushi. her grating high pitched voice would’ve ruined your dinner if you weren’t already so used to it. 

“hey, tiff. what’s up?” you put the phone on speaker so you could pour your soy sauce and prepare your chopsticks.

“okay. hear me out– and listen to my full statement before you sigh, scoff, or say anything! i know how you are.” her words made you scowl, but you kept all reactionary noises to yourself. “okay, so tomorrow you’re hopping on a plane to las vegas. your most recent controversy with a certain ufc fighter was caught by some of the promotional execs at maison margiela.” you could only cringe in silence. did everyone know? “they want you to attend saturday’s fight card, show off some new pieces, maybe act cute and joke around, then you can go home.” tiffany paused. “now you may speak.”

“you just set this up without asking me? what if i had plans?”

“if you did, you didn’t run them by me and thus they don’t exist.”

truthfully, you didn’t have plans. you just didn’t want to relive the last 48 hours. people had finally given up teasing you online. in the past, people have called you every evil name under the sun, all of which you could brush off. this time you were publicly labeled as a horny freak. this time the allegations were true. 

you let out the sigh that tiffany anticipated from the moment you pressed the green answer call button. “what time is my flight?”

“good girl.”

and just like that, the very next day you were touching down in las vegas after your red eye flight. moving through TSA and the gates were a breeze. you slept for a few hours before your usual stylist met you at your hotel room. they took some measurements, showed you a few outfit concepts, and were on their way. you spent most of the day in bed in your hotel room, drumming up the energy to sit through hair and makeup later that night. 

abby’s fight was meant to begin around 10:30PM. while you had spent your time resting in bed, abby had been tirelessly working out, stretching, and psyching herself up. tonight was a big moment for her. she was slated to fight ellie williams, a certified fan favorite. her trainer was a hot shot old timer who retired a good twenty or so years ago. she essentially picked up his mantle, and everyone’s obsession with him trickled down into support for her. abby came from relatively humble beginnings. her trainer, isaac, had always remained rather private. he’d trained a few other fighters, but none of them had any real notoriety or staying power. abby wanted to break that pattern. she needed to prove herself tonight. 

it also didn’t help that ellie had talked so much shit about her and her fighting track record. most of the time it was something you did for cameras and then laugh about behind the scenes. ellie’s demeanor never changed on or off camera. as months went on, during weigh in, press conferences, and a million other events, ellie never failed to make a snide comment. months later, abby’s animosity was festering. every meeting turned into a pissing match complete with swearing and the occasional low blow. there was now a deep seeded rivalry (read: hatred) between the two of them.  

your hair and makeup had taken longer than expected, which pushed your stylist back, and now your driver was waiting and more irritated than usual. this night was already a clusterfuck and you hadn’t even gotten to the venue yet. 

you: are yall coming out with me tn?

you: pls say yes or i’ll die actually

lynzee: ya my plane landed a couple hrs ago lmk when you’re leaving your little event

char: couldnt get a flight for tn but i’ll see u tmrwwww

cass: i’m omw to the hotel rn 

no matter how stressful this night was, rest assured you would be getting trashed with your friends and none of it would matter in the morning. you tuck your phone into your bag and step out of the car. like always, there were a million camera flashes directed at you. dozens of people calling your name, asking some trivial question or another. there was only one question you were told to answer. 

“what are you wearing tonight?” a female reporter shouted over the crowd. 

“maison margiela. head to toe, baby.” you blew a kiss and waved at the cameras. while that exchange only lasted for approximately 120 seconds, the walk from the car to the venue entrance shaved at least ten years off of your lifespan. 

you were escorted to your seat with a perfect vantage point of the octagon (and the numerous cameras set up throughout the stadium). these tickets had to have cost thousands of dollars. the crowd was going wild after the last fight that had apparently ended with a dislocated knee. you made a mental note to look up the replays later. 

you gasped when the woman who had occupied the spot next to you reclaimed her seat. “oh my god! holy shit!” 

it was one of the more popular female rappers in recent history. your glam team always played her music while getting you ready and you had grown to enjoy a few of her songs. the two of you chatted effortlessly, giggling and posing for pictures for passersby. 

“hold on, let me get one for my instagram story!” you take a quick selfie of the two of you making kissy faces at each other, captioning it with:

abby anderson’s #1 and #2 fan (i am NOT #2)

you tag her and she quickly reposts it, causing your notifs to go wild. not even 15 minutes later, one of the stadium cameras zoomed in on your face. you could see the little name card they put under your image. runway model was in bold beneath your name.

a man with a microphone, whom you recognize as one of the in house reporters, waltzes up to you in the stands. “it’s so nice seeing you here tonight. you look gorgeous as always.”

you force out your best exaggerated fake laugh. “thank you, thank you. i’m so happy to be here.”

“the people have one big question on their mind. who are you rooting for tonight?” he pauses before turning the microphone towards you. you watch as the large screen in the center of the stadium flashed to a screenshot of your post that was barely 20 minutes old. their social media interns are really on top of it tonight. “now, some people may say the answer is just a little obvious.” he finally turns the microphone in your direction. 

“you guys are really putting me on blast tonight, huh?” you giggle. “i’m here to watch anderson absolutely wash her competition. its no secret that i’m a really big fan. and,” you pause, trying to gauge how much you would regret uttering these words. management wanted cute, so you’d give it to them. “abby, if you see this and you’re into girls, my DMs are wide open.” 

the stadium roared in laughter and gasps and you had a strong suspicion that nobody was focused on your outfit anymore. 

meanwhile, abby is completely oblivious to the crowd and ruckus as isaac gives her words of encouragement as best as he could. he wasn’t quite an affectionate presence. 

“you get out there, and you beat that girl until she cannot stand up. you hear me?” 

abby nods. she closes her eyes and starts her deep breathing exercises that she always does right before a match. 

her eyes snap open when she hears her friend, nora, gasp. she’s scrolling on her phone with misplaced fervor. 

“what the fuck? don’t do shit like that!” abby shouts. she becomes mean before all of her matches. she’s normally a bit more graceful with her language and delivery. not by much, but the difference is noticeable. 

after a few moments of silence, abby speaks again with a slightly raised voice. “what the fuck is your deal?”

nora was used to abby’s behavior before a fight, given she was always there as ringside moral support. she completely ignored abby’s sour attitude and turned her phone towards the fighter. “this model shouted you out and now you’re trending on twitter. you’ve also gained, like, 10k on instagram in the last couple days.” 

abby was almost completely removed from social media. she didn’t know how to use it and hardly ever opened the app. her management team handled most of her socials, and she didn’t want it any other way. this was the first time she had ever heard your name. 

“wait, wait, you have to see this clip.” 

“nora get out of here if you’re gonna be a distraction!” isaac’s voice is stern and intimidating. she tunes him out and completely ignores his request. 

nora holds her phone in front of abby’s face and immediately her eyes grow wide. 

“abby, if you see this and you’re into girls, my DMs are wide open!” 

her whole face was suddenly hot. you had said it so coolly. the sweet little giggle you had let out. she wanted to watch the video on repeat just to see the way your lips formed each syllable. she had never considered her sexuality. not until right now, in this exact moment, minutes before she was due out in the ring. there was never any need to. her one and only relationship her entire life had been with a man and that had only recently ended.

she had to admit you were pretty. the longer she stared at your perfectly arranged features, maybe she could see herself—

“get that shit outta here, nora. i’m serious!” isaac’s voice cut through abby’s thoughts. nora rushed out of the room and up into the stands, taking her place in abby’s corner. 

the old man’s voice was eventually drowned out by the sound of her own rapidly beating heart. a runway model was interested in her? 

you were insanely out of her league. maybe if she had been more famous, more talented, she would feel like she had a shot. 

what was she even thinking? 

“focus!” isaac yelled a few inches away from her face. 

you were antsy in your seat waiting for the match to start. you had put your phone on do not disturb after your friends started rapidly sending messages in the groupchat. 

cass: girl wtf why would you say that on LIVE television 

lynzee: gay asf in 4k

all of a sudden, the music in the stadium cut and the announcer’s voice came over the loudspeaker. 

“and now, we have one of the most anticipated fights of the night! in one corner, we have ellie ‘stealth killer’ williams!” cheers erupted in the stadium as ellie strutted out towards the octagon, flanked by her trainer, joel miller. her head was held high, and as usual, she looked smug. she was the popular pick as tonight’s winner. 

“in the other corner, tonight’s underdog, abby anderson, the wolf of salt lake!” when abby came out, her furrowed brow and intense facial features immediately had you blushing. her skin tight black shorts that hugged her massive thighs and tiny sports bra left little to the imagination. all you could think about was placing sweet kisses along her biceps and chest, going lower and lower until her legs were slung over your shoulders for you to bury your face in her cunt and eat her out like it was the last meal you would ever be served. 

all abby could think about were all the eyes on her. a few boos came from the crowd, as was expected. sometimes, ufc fans got a little too enthusiastic. the ellie diehards were definitely in the stadium tonight. 

“ladies and gentlemen all across the world, it’s time!” the crowd chanted along with the announcer.

more importantly, you were in the stadium tonight. her self proclaimed number one fan. you had single handedly made her popularity skyrocket in only a few days’ time. she couldn’t disappoint you. even worse, it would be embarrassing for her to get her ass kicked publicly with you several feet away, catching every single second of it. so much was riding on this moment. 

isaac had stationed himself in her corner of the octagon and she could feel his eyes boring holes into the back of her head. before she knew it, she was in the center of the ring, touching gloves with her opponent. 

as soon as the round started, every single thought in her mind melted away. there was only one objective: beat the shit out of ellie williams. 

the first round was painful to watch. ellie was known for her quick jabs and light feet, the exact opposite of abby. she was big, burly, and punched hard. ellie dodged her punches beautifully, landing a few kicks and jabs of her own. a few moments before the round ended, ellie connected a nasty kick with abby’s nose. her blood smeared down her face and dripped onto the mat. luckily, she had one minute to recoup back in her corner with isaac. 

“all you have to do is outlast her. chill out, reserve that energy. she’ll run out of stamina eventually.” isaac’s voice was a lot calmer in comparison to his sharp tone earlier. 

nora busied herself with tenderly wiping blood off of abby’s face and whispering in her ear “you’re good. it doesn’t look broken.”

you had to admit, that was a little hot. 

god, you wished that was you. 

their sixty seconds ended and it was back into the ring. the second round wasn’t much better. abby had avoided a good amount of ellie’s strikes, but the ones she ate were downright ugly. if the fight were to go to judge’s decision right now, abby would certainly lose. she was going to do everything in her power to prevent that. all of abby’s wins came from knockouts or submissions. technicality was never her strong suit. her adrenaline was at an all time high. she needed to get back in there. one solid punch. that was all she needed. 

you were on the edge of your seat, much like everyone else in the stadium. 

judging by her movements, it was clear ellie was exhausted. her punches had less momentum. there was an obvious change in strategy: dodge everything and wait for the final round to end. abby noticed this and planned to capitalize off of it. there was a careful pattern to ellie’s movements. she just needed to exploit it.

the entire arena was captured in anxious silence. abby’s right fist had made an audible connection with ellie’s cheek. she fell straight back onto the mat and abby ran to straddle her and keep punching. while barbaric, it was necessary to establish a knockout. doesn’t mean abby didn’t get off on the feeling. watching your opponent drop to the ground like that was a high that was irreplaceable by any drug in the world. that feeling enveloped her tenfold knowing that this time, it was ellie williams. 

it only took a few seconds for the referees to intervene, declaring a clean, uncontested knockout. they had to peel abby off of ellie. both of their respective teams flooded the octagon, along with several interviewers. 

abby still hadn’t come to. her adrenaline had yet to bottom out. she looked like a deer in headlights as a half dozen people shoved cameras in her face. she couldn’t hear anything. not her team’s congratulations. not the crowd’s uproar.

“you came into this octagon as the sort-of new kid on the block. this is your first time as a headline fighter. is there anything you want to say to everyone after that absolutely beautiful knockout?”

this was the only question abby had thoroughly processed. 

“uh…” her voice was unsteady. “i wanna thank my dad, who always encouraged me to never stop fighting. thank you to my fans out there, whether you’ve been here from the very start of my career or you hopped on board an hour ago.”

was she talking about you and your post? the subtle mention nearly had you kicking your feet in the stands. 

“and thank you to ellie for being such a cunt, because i don’t think i would’ve been able to hit as hard without a burning desire to put your ass back on that mat.” 

the octagon erupts into shouting and swearing as a now conscious ellie started yelling inaudible insults. her trainer joined in on the ruckus creating quite the spectacle. abby geared up to scream back, but is quickly course corrected by isaac and nora leading her out of the ring and off camera. 

you cheered all the way up until the moment abby fluttered out of the public eye, shouting until your throat felt sore. now, it was time for you to make your great escape. no use in sticking around to see a bunch of men get maimed in the title fight. especially, when you can instead hang out with your best friends.

you: ok im leaving the venue. meet @ the club around 12?

lynzee: yesssss

the car was already waiting outside when you rushed away trying to avoid any cameras. “please go as fast as possible.” you instructed your driver.

abby was immediately ushered to the makeshift infirmary in the basement of the venue. three different people were inspecting her for any serious injuries while nora prepped ice packs for her. 

the adrenaline had her thoughts all over the place. above all the commotion, your words played on loop in her head. this was supposed to be a big moment for her. why were you overshadowing that? 

“can everyone get the fuck out? i just need 15 minutes of silence.” 

the medical team seemed hesitant, sharing concerned looks with both isaac and nora. 

“you heard her! file out!” isaac’s shout sent all of them running. 

quiet took over the room while abby tried to clear her mind. god, why couldn’t she rid her thoughts of you? 

she turned to nora “show me how to repost something on my instagram story.” 

nora’s eyebrows raised. “what do you mean?” 

“what do you mean ‘what do i mean’?” abby couldn’t even hold eye contact with her friend. shame and embarrassment had completely taken over. “that model you were talking about…i wanna respond, or whatever.” her attempt at being nonchalant was failing miserably.

“ohhh someone has a crush!” nora teased. “abby you know you can just dm–“

“it’s not like that! she just got me a lot of attention and i wanna thank her.” nora snickered. “can you just do what i’m asking, please? without the commentary.” abby knew regardless of what was said, nora would never let this go. “just tell me or i’ll get someone else to.” this was a lie. she could barely tolerate asking nora. 

“will i be getting paid for my duties as your social media manager?” 

“nora i’m fucking ser–“

“damn, you’d think you’d be in a better mood after this win.” nora pulled out her phone. “alright, what do you wanna say?”

it was nearing 1AM and you were drunker than you intended to be. some pretty brunette with a heavy spanish accent had bought you more than enough drinks at the bar. it wasn’t long until you found yourself in a dark corner of the club, bodies pressed together, tongues down each other’s throat. her hands roamed down your body, eventually resting at the curve of your ass. you couldn’t tell how much time had passed before a group of three girls came to retrieve their friend. she hands you her phone, a gesture you assumed was intended for you to leave her your number. you oblige, even though you doubt you would care enough to text her back in the morning. 

you attempted to sober up just enough to shuffle back to your friends on the dancefloor. every few seconds another person would brush by with an indecipherable “excuse me”, trying not to spill their drink. a few droplets of someone’s cocktails fell onto your bare arms, but you couldn’t be bothered to care. nothing mattered right now. 

lynzee leaned down, her mouth next to your ear, she practically had to shout “we’re going to the bathroom!”

she attempted to hold you up as the group of you shoved your way through the crowd. you took a long look at yourself in the mirror. a mix of lipstick belonging to you and the girl who’s name you don’t remember is smeared along your chin. 

lynzee snorts incredulously “damn girl, i see you were busy.” 

you couldn’t manage the multitasking of a response and redoing your makeup. all you could do was hum in vague affirmation.

cassidy busied herself with crushing a pill on the bathroom counter and lining it up with her metal amex card. 

“bitch, ew you’re gonna do that on the public bathroom counter?” you managed to drunkenly slur out. 

cassidy rolled her eyes and smacked her teeth. “i’ve done worse.” 

“okay well speed it up. we look hot, we need a pic.” lynzee spoke over the sounds of your friend’s deep inhales. 

after a few camera flicks and a slew of different poses, the three of you prepared to brave the dancefloor once again.

“lynz, send them in the groupchat. do it now because you always fucking forget.” it was getting harder by the second for you to string along coherent sentences.

you took a brief look down at your phone screen and a single notification caught your eye.

a.ander.son reposted your story

you stopped dead in your tracks. “hold the fuck on.” your fingers made quick work of unlocking your phone and opening instagram. abby never posted on her story. she barely even made regular posts. text was overlaid on your original picture.

thanks for all your support <3

your drunken delusions were building. of all people she shouted you out. she had to have seen the clip of you attempting to flirt. it was meant to be. she liked you back!

“what the fuck is wrong with you?” cassidy asked between sniffles as she rubbed at her nose. 

all you could do was turn your phone screen towards your friends. your excitement was more than evident.

lynzee rolled her eyes. “are you, like, 13? dude, if you wanna fuck her just dm her right now.” 

“it’s not like that! i mean, i do wanna fuck her, but i don’t wanna just fuck her.” against your better judgement, you go to her profile and click on the messages tab. “what do i even say?” you whine. it took you a few tries to make the message vaguely understandable, but after a while you decided to leave well enough alone. 

confrats on the win!! you look super hot even with blood on yoir face :P

after a match, win or lose, sleep always evaded abby. she had been devotedly researching you for the last couple hours. she had read and watched a multitude of interviews where you talk about your life and your accidental break as a model. she studied your runway walk and every magazine spread you had ever been in like there would be a test the very next day. 

of course she was attracted to you. who wouldn’t be? you’re a model. well, she wasn’t attracted to you. not in that way.

okay sure, she’d thought about kissing girls in the past, but it was always a fleeting concept . there was a time where she thought she had a crush on nora, but that’s just the way girl friends are, right? there was nothing there. they had just always been really close. 

but, she hardly knew you and for the last several hours all she could think about was kissing you. maybe she was just trying to move on from owen? trying to shift her perspective?

it's around 3AM when abby finally built up the courage to open the message. her heart raced as she read the line of text over and over. she tapped over to your instagram story (something nora had taught her to do earlier that day) and she sees a short video of you holding a very expensive bottle of liquor, pouring the liquid directly into the mouth of someone she could only assume to be a friend of yours. 

you’re holding the girl by the chin, looking down into her eyes. the sight makes abby’s throat constrict. she could only imagine being in her position. 

you holding her chin, head tilted back, mouth open, a string of spit exchanging between your mouths. the mere thought had her rubbing her thighs together, desperate for some reprieve. 

what the fuck was she thinking? 

that post was made hours ago, thus explaining the drunk text. there was no way you were anything near sober now. even if you weren’t, abby wasn’t quite sure how to respond to your text. instead, she locked her phone and decided to call nora bright and early the next morning.

well, abby didn’t know that read receipts were a thing. you and your friends were being driven to your hotel and you had been drunkenly babbling for the last half an hour.

“god, what if she’s not even gay?” tears began to well in your eyes as drunken theatrics took over. “i fucking embarrassed myself! i bet she’s laughing about it in a groupchat with her friends! that’s what we always do!” 

lynzee, being the most sober of your trio, pulls out a crumpled napkin from her purse and dabs the tears that are running down your face.

“you two don’t understand how embarrassing it is to flirt with a straight girl! it is so fucking hard to be gay around here!” you attempted to take deep breaths through choked sobs. “what if this is a sign that i should get back with my ex?”

“NO!” lynzee and cassidy practically scream in unison. 

cassidy deeply sighs with her hands over her eyes. “you’re hot. you can pull anyone you want. now, please calm down before you fuck up my high.” 

and for the rest of the ride you quietly sobbed while lynzee rubbed your back and attempted to console you with the occasional “it’ll be fine.”

you don’t remember getting up to your hotel room, so when lynzee shakes you awake you take a few extra seconds to take in your surroundings. 

“it’s 5PM. get up sleeping beauty.” she places a cold bottle of water and two painkillers into your hands. oh, how grateful you were for her right now.

the two of you order room service while lynzee recounts the events of the night to you. 

“there’s actually a video of you cry–“

“don’t fucking show me that! in fact, delete it right fucking now!” 

this reminds you of your drunk text to abby. you rush to pick up your phone from the nightstand, ignoring the low battery pop up. your heart is racing.

“can you see if she dmed me back? i can’t do it myself.” 

lynzee scoffs. “god you’re so dramatic.” you hear her tap the screen of your phone a few times. “oooo–“

“let me see!” you climb off the bed and rush to snatch your phone back.

there was, in fact, a text from abby that was sent around 9AM.

abby’s hands were shaking when she sent the message. nora had groggily listened to a condensed version of abby’s sexuality crisis for the better part of an hour. nora convinced her to just give the situation a try if she felt so strongly about you.

“imagine fumbling a model all because you’re terrified of being gay.” nora was trying her hardest to keep abby in line. deep down, she wanted this for abby so she’d shut the fuck up about owen. “if you think you like her, just go on a date. if it doesn’t work, no harm, no foul.”

that finally convinced abby to just send the message. when she read it back to nora, she could only groan.

a.ander.son: i’ll be in vegas for the next week if you wanted to get dinner?

a.ander.son: or we can do something else?

a.ander.son: this is my first time here so i’m not really sure what people do around here haha

“it sounds like you’re inviting her to a business meeting, not a date. that wasn’t flirty at all!” 

“should i send another–“

“no!” nora quickly exclaimed. “then you’ll look desperate. just wait for her to respond.”

she did just that for a few hours. it was nothing short of agonizing. finally, exhaustion put her out of her misery and she managed to get a few hours of sleep.

sadly, this was your last night in vegas. you had a flight to new york tomorrow afternoon to prepare for your runway appearance for fashion week. there was no way you would have your shit together in the next hour or two to make it to dinner either. 

you: srry i just woke up!! 

you: me & my friends are going to a penthouse party tn if you wanna pull up? we’ll prob be there around 11ish? you can be my +1 :)

the sound of her phone buzzing tore abby from her sleep. she wasted no time unlocking her phone and reading your message. she hadn’t ever been to a real party before. in the one semester of college she had completed she was invited to a frat party alongside owen and lasted about twenty minutes before she became overwhelmed and left. he hadn’t even bothered to walk her home. 

she could tell this party would be drastically different. this wasn’t a bunch of college kids. it was likely a bunch of b-list celebrities and nepo babies. abby wasn’t anywhere near notable enough to hang with that crowd. 

but, she needed to see you. who knows the next time you’ll be free? much less in the same city as her. 

a.ander.son: ok sounds fun. i can meet you there?

you squealed in excitement and flopped back against your bed. ultimately, she would be your fourth plus one which would be pushing it if the guy hosting the party, some wannabe actor who’s dad is a prominent movie producer, hadn’t been begging for attention in your dms for the last several months. apparently, he didn’t believe you were gay. hopefully this would put his advances to rest. 

abby called nora five times before she answered. 

“what is it now? i was in the shower.” 

“i have–“ abby glanced at her phone screen to check the time. “less than six hours to figure out an outfit for a penthouse party.” her thoughts were racing while she thought about every single detail of the night. “i didn’t pack anything fancy. god, and she’s gonna be dressed in designer–” 

“take a deep breath, anderson.” there’s some shuffling on the line and abby hears the shower water turn off. “we’ve got a couple hours before shops close. we’ll find you something.”

it took a few hours and several shops to curate a suitable outfit for abby. a black linen button down that she purposely left unbuttoned halfway down to expose the perfect amount of her chest. a pair of tight fitting khaki slacks gripped her ass in the best way possible. the last, and arguably most important, piece of the outfit was a thin gold chain with a small wolf pendant attached to it that sat along the exposed skin of her chest. nora took the time to gel down and neatly plait abby’s hair. everything about her appearance had to be perfect. 

it was nearing the meet up time and abby was running on max three hours of sleep. nora had abandoned her in favor of getting some sleep back in her hotel room. the feelings of anxiety and sleep deprivation were blending into this miserable haze of unending thought. she checked her phone every time it buzzed. 

you: what’s your addy? i’ll send a car for you

you: gotta ride separately with my besties

you: just tell the dude at the door that youre with me

it didn’t take long for the driver to arrive after she sent the text with her address. the man didn’t bother turning back to look at her before speeding off. the whole ride, abby feverishly texted nora with updates. 

nora: just take a couple shots it’ll make everything better!! have fun babe <3

when the car stopped abby was met with the sight of a twenty story building towering over her. the lobby area was well furnished with couches, a crystal chandelier light fixture, gold framed paintings, and roman-esque pillars. there was a lone man waiting downstairs. he was tall, bald, buff, and staring at her like she was the scum of the earth. if she hadn’t been trained as a professional fighter she would imagine his gaze would spark some semblance of fear.

“uh, i’m here for the party, i guess?”

he didn’t speak a word until she uttered your name and showed off the text thread between both of you. 

“follow me.” the hulking man led her towards a glass elevator and her heart immediately dropped. the elevator was spacious, but all at once she felt claustrophobic. she had to make a concerted effort to steady her breathing. every second felt like an hour as the elevator ascended past all twenty floors. she busied her mind and hands texting you

a.ander.son: i think i’m here? i’m going up in the elevator

when the elevator finally opened she was met with an unfathomable amount of people. this had to be a fire code violation. the music was too loud and there were at least a hundred voices trying to shout over it. the claustrophobic feeling came back and was ten times worse.

there were two separate stories to the penthouse. the second story was a closed in space that overlooked the bottom floor. people had crowded along the stairs and were packed in on the awning. the modified kitchen and lounge area was swimming with people, all seemingly crowded around the bar towards the kitchen area. towards the back of the first floor were huge glass panels from floor to ceiling. she could see the terrace outfitted with a huge pool and a full service bar. 

people were shoving past her with nary an “i’m sorry” or “excuse me”. 

where the hell were you? 

before she could gather her bearings she was approached by a clearly drunk man. 

“holy shit!” he slurred. “you’re that hot ufc girl! ”

all abby could spare was a half-hearted awkward laugh. “yeah, i guess.”

“bro, can i get a pic? my friends won’t believe you’re here!” before she could reply he was already moving in, placing an arm around his shoulder. “dude, you beat the shit out of williams yesterday.” he flagged down his friend who already had a camera ready. she was wholly unprepared when the flash went off. 

she hoped that wouldn’t be posted anywhere. 

“oh my god, will you move?” somehow abby could hear your voice over the deafening music and chatter of the party guests. 

you scoffed, clearly disgusted by the man in your vicinity. “get away from her, travis. she’s not gonna fuck you.” you gave the man a light shove, sending him stumbling backwards. “now fuck off!”

everything around her melted away. abby was completely in awe. your skin was glowing, hair perfectly groomed, dressed to the nines. she felt horribly underdressed next to you. 

your squeal brought her back to reality. “holy shit, you actually came!” overcome with excitement, you threw your arms around her. the smell of your perfume made abby shudder. 

she wanted you so bad.

“i’m such a big fan!” you went on. “i’ve been following your career for, like, forever.” finally you released her from the hug and immediately abby missed your warmth. “wait, is that weird to say?”

“no, no, i dont think its weird.” abby reassures you. it’s not like she hadn’t spent several hours last night researching your entire life. “it's nice to finally meet you. you look really pretty.” she felt like a fucking dork. this was like an eighth grade dance. except everyone was really famous, in their 20s, and people were snorting mysterious powders off the bartop.

“you look overwhelmed. is this your first big party?” 

how was she failing so miserably at fitting in? 

“is it that obvious?” 

you intertwined your fingers and began to drag her through the crowd. “don’t worry, a drink will fix everything.” you plowed through the crowd until the two of you were on the terrace. “i can also probably find you any drug of your choice…pretty much anything.”

“no, no. i’m good. i get drug tested regularly before my matches.”

you nod in acknowledgement. how had you not thought of that?

“honestly, i don’t even really drink. my trainer is pretty strict.” 

you gasp in surprise. “oh shit, you should’ve said something! i wouldn’t have invited you to a function with a bunch of sloppy drunk wannabes and b-listers.”

“no, its okay! i’m glad i got to tag along!” abby would’ve met you anywhere you requested. she would follow you to hell if it meant she could talk to you for a little longer. “i’ll have a couple drinks with you.”

abby smiles when your face brightens. “yay!” 

you shoved your way through the crowd without a care in the world. a few people yelled a greeting at you, but you didn’t spare a passing glance. whilst being dragged, abby noticed a few of them eyeing her up and down. some of the looks had a predatory vibe, like they were waiting for a moment to devour her whole. the rest of them gazed at her in confusion, perhaps trying to place where they would know her from. all of it made her want to crawl into a ball and die on the spot. this was nothing like being in the octagon. it didn’t even compare. 

abby doesn’t notice when you stop moving and runs into you, making you practically topple over. before you can fall too far, she gently pulls you by the hand, her other arm bracing you to prevent any impact. 

abby parts her lips to apologize, but you speak before she can. “that was smooth, anderson. and kinda hot.”

suddenly, her words failed her. 

you lean across the bar and hail over the poor bartender who is clearly up to his neck in drink orders.

you look over your shoulder at abby. “what do you want?”

she didn’t even know the names of cocktails. even if she did, everything had left her brain as soon as you took her hand. “whatever you’re having, i guess?”

“two shots of tequila. salt and lime, pretty please. and none of that bottom shelf shit!”

abby found your mannerisms nothing short of adorable. judging you solely from your interviews, she would’ve never guessed you were this brash in person. you were much softer when faced with the public. it was almost jarring. 

“okay, this is good shit so it shouldn’t be too bad going down. ” you finally released abby’s hand to deliver her shot to her, a salt shaker in your other hand. “lick the back of your hand.”  

abby did as she was instructed and you shook a small line of salt onto the wet trail of spit. the entire time you held eye contact with her. the whole ordeal felt oddly intimate.

“salt first, shot, then lime, ‘kay?” 

she followed your lead and downed the shot. she tried so hard to steady her resolve, but her face gave her away. with the lime in her mouth she watched as your hand raised to thumb off small remnants of salt at the corner of  her mouth. the feeling of your freshly done nails grazing her skin made goosebumps raise. 

immediately after, your phone vibrates in your purse and you peek at the message. 

lynzee: bitch you will never guess whos here…

the next message is a photo that you tap to open. you can’t keep yourself from groaning aloud. it was your ex that you had been crying about the night prior. the last thing you wanted tonight was to see her. she tormented you with the whole on again off again thing for years. anytime you saw each other in a setting like this, she somehow always made it in your pants at the end of the night. you were trying so hard to shut the door on that chapter of life.

“you alright?” abby quickly noticed the change in your demeanor. 

you were doing everything in your power not to scream. “yeah. one of my evil exes is here.” 

“one of? you have a lot of evil exes then?” abby hoped that didn’t come off as rude. she was trying to lighten the mood. 

it does get a laugh out of you. “more than you’d think. we actually just broke up for good.” you let your words sit in the air for a few seconds before you felt the need to clarify. “well, not just, it was like six months ago.” 

you huffed. “it’s hard being in the industry. everyone’s tirelessly trying to dig dirt up on you. friends, family, paparazzi. everyone’s telling a different story about my life and my relationships and she just feeds into it.” here you were talking about your ex with a girl you were trying so hard to fuck. “god, she’s such a fucking bitch.”

“yeah, me and my ex boyfriend broke things off a couple months ago. he told me i was putting my career before him, but i found out he was fucking some other girl while we were dating. i’m pretty sure they’re together now.” abby shrugged. “it didn’t really hurt. i guess i hadn’t had feelings for him for a while.” she was starting to regret getting this personal. 

“so…” finally, you could address the elephant in the room. “ex boyfriend…we never really broached the subject.” the drinks in your system were making this conversation bearable. “i’m sure you saw that really embarrassing situation on tik tok.”

abby had no clue what you were talking about, but she let you go on.

“and the stuff i said right before your match. i didn’t know if this was a date, or if we were just hanging out, or if you even like girls…” you cut yourself off before you could keep rambling on. 

abby was trying so hard not to think about it. she was shit at flirting and hadn’t been on a real date in ages. “if you want it to be a date, then it can be?” she sounded far more unsure of herself than she intended to. how do you tell the girl you’re on a date with that this was her first time being on a date with a girl. even in this moment she was confused about her sexuality.

“can i be really lame for a second?”  you slid the two shot glasses back onto the bar. without waiting for a response you continued speaking. “can i get a picture? i know people have been asking you that all night, but i know my followers will find it funny.” you sighed. “well, its actually mostly for me. kind of cool to meet your idols, ya know?”

idol? abby wasn't sure on whether she should be flattered or embarrassed.

abby was almost thankful you gave her something else trivial to think about. 

but, she was terrified of being photographed next to you. you looked a million times better than she did right now. she didn’t even know how to pose and you were a model. what was meant to be a cute exchange, was turning into a nerve wracking experience. 

while you fiddled with your phone, abby busied herself with brushing a few wispy hairs that had escaped her braid behind her ears. 

“cass!” you hailed over a girl that was the visual definition of ‘lights are on, but no one’s home’. her pupils were wide and she practically skipped over. “jesus christ, cass.” you rolled your eyes. “just take this picture for me.”

you stepped back against the glass balcony railing and waved abby towards you. she took a couple hesitant steps before the dizziness and nausea took over. even from several feet away she could see the busy city street thousands of feet below. all she could think about was the glass shattering and her collapsing over the railing.

“are you scared of heights?” your voice broke abby from her trance.

she couldn’t verbally admit that to you. a girl who beats people into submission for a living is afraid of heights? that’s embarrassing. 

you could tell by the way her face paled that she was terrified. “hey,” you take her hand and pull her close, her chest flush with your back. “just don’t look down, babe.”

abby’s eyes snapped back to cassidy who was lining up the shot. she took at least a dozen photos from different angles and the whole time abby stood like a statue. when she’s finally done, cass practically shoves your phone back in your hands and turns on her heel to prance off once more. 

“have fun…make good choices!” she calls back before disappearing into the crowd. 

“that one of your friends?” abby asked whilst watching the girl skip off.

“yeah, that’s cassidy. she’s not really all there, but we love her anyways. you should meet my friends sometime.”

from there you and abby spent a ridiculous amount of time idly chatting over a couple more drinks and you were all over her. the clarification that this was in fact a date meant you had to turn up the charm. there was no way you were leaving this party without her in tow. 

you were in a horrendous sex drought and all that had to change tonight. 

you never let go of her hand, not even for a second. abby finally gathered the confidence to wrap her free arm around your waist, keeping your chest pressed against her’s. this killed two birds with one stone. you knew your closeness would make its way back to your ex, keeping her at least three yards from you at all times, and you got to be the eye candy of the woman you’d had a schoolgirl crush on for the last year. 

as time went on and the alcohol took over, abby started to get a little more personal with her responses and (thankfully) more charismatic. she told you she ended up pursuing ufc after her father put her in boxing classes when she was younger. there were never any real opponents, just learning form and endurance. even then, her coach told her she had natural talent. with him being a neurologist, he was hesitant to let it escalate to real matches. this was hands down one of the worst professions to get into if you wanted to keep a working brain past age 35. alas, he couldn’t tell his daughter no. especially because he knew she would’ve done it anyway with or without his support. he served as her ring side doctor every match and died shortly before she went pro. 

you knew all of this after being obsessed with her ever since her debut, but hearing the story in person made you want to sob. 

“sorry. i didn't mean to kill the vibe.” 

you shook your head “no, no! it’s okay.”

naturally, you got into your backstory and how you got into modeling. the story was actually almost embarrassing if you thought about it too long. you were really popular on tumblr during your teenage years and accidentally became one of those “aesthetic blog” it girls. a la joanna kuchta and barbie ferreira. you were invited to do a small shoot for a big brand and slowly fought your way to the top. now, you do editorial magazine covers and could walk the runway in your sleep.

despite her research, this was something abby didn’t know. you always told the story slightly differently during interviews. 

before she can get another thought out, your lips were pressed against hers. she shuddered, unsure of what to do with her hands or any part of her body. she could taste the tequila and hint of lime that the two of you had shared together earlier. she wasn’t expecting this to have happened so publicly. there were dozens of people around, at least half of them were likely staring. that wouldn’t ruin this moment for abby. this kiss was all that had been on her mind (and yours quite frankly) from the moment that she saw that clip of you jokingly flirting with her before the match. 

your chest was pressed against her’s and abby slowly moved to wrap her arm around your waist. for a moment you broke the kiss and eyed the crowd to the side of you. “sorry. i saw my ex walking over and didn’t want you to have to sit through that screaming match. but” your facial expression softened, a sheepish smile spreading across your lips. “i also did just want to kiss you, so it was a perfect excuse.” 

“you definitely didn’t need to apologize.” abby was more than happy to serve as an ex deterrent. it was everything she dreamed of and more. 

you take the comment as the go ahead to lean in to kiss her again. you wrap your arms around her neck as she presses her body against yours, the pendant on her necklace pressing into your skin. you needed to be infinitely closer to her. her arm wraps tighten around your waist, abby craving that same closeness. you softly whimpered against her lips before breaking the kiss that lasted long enough for your friends to have taken note and give you a thumbs up from afar. you looked at abby through your lashes and laced your fingers between hers. 

“follow me.” without even giving her a moment to process, you were dragging her behind you and up the stairs through a door.

you shove past some people and hop a couch that was meant to be blocking off the hallway towards the bedrooms. you knew better, though. you round a corner and approach a door, pulling on the knob and feeling no resistance. “dumbass never locks his door.” you slid past the threshold of the room, pulling abby in with you. 

the bedroom was huge, featuring a california king bed, with coats piled atop it, an impossibly large television mounted on the wall, an impossible number of racks of clothing, and a dark wood nightstand next to the bed with an array of pills, both crushed and uncrushed adorning the surface.

“who’s room is this?”

you gave a dismissive wave. “the asshole who's hosting. he’s been trying to get me in his bed for months. kinda ironic, honestly.”

did this mean you were going to–

“can you take my shoes off for me?” you ask as you plop down onto the white duvet covering the bed. like an obedient dog, abby immediately dropped to her knees and began undoing the straps and sliding them off your feet. she also took the time to slide off her shoes and leave them next to yours. 

you lean back against the bed, looking up at her. abby’s heart was beating so fast she worried it would give out altogether. she had never done this before and the lingering fear of disappointing you was weighing down her body. 

“well, dont get shy now.” you whisper. “or are you scared of me?” 

abby bit into her cheek, shaming herself for allowing her face to give her hesitance away. she wanted this so badly, but didn’t know where to start. 

you could tell by the blush on her cheeks and the way she was awkwardly shifting back and forth between both feet that she likely had no clue what she was doing. maybe you were jumping to conclusions. maybe, she was overwhelmed by the idea of fucking a literal model. 

but, you could smell a baby gay from a mile away. 

you beckoned her over. “come here. lay down, let me take care of you first.” once again, abby did exactly as she was told. she was entranced by the soft sounds of your voice. you could tell her to jump off a bridge and she would happily do so. 

abby took your spot, leaned back against the bed, legs hanging off the edge. you pressed tender kisses along her neck and collarbones while you slowly undid the button and zipper on her pants. abby was trying to play it cool, but you certainly knew better. you slid down onto your knees, the carpeted floor sure to leave some marks by the time you were done here. with some help from abby you eased off her pants and her underwear beneath them. 

“i wouldn’t typically skip right to the main event, but…” you held a hand up, showcasing your sharp acrylic nails. abby got the picture. “let me know if you want me to stop, okay?” 

abby nods with a barely audible “okay” before you position her legs over your shoulders. the feeling of the tip of your nose and lips moving along her inner thighs has her barely able to breathe. your teeth graze along her sensitive skin and her body betrays her when she lets out a whimper. 

by the time your tongue makes contact with her clit she’s already wet and aching. the way your tongue circles around the bundle of nerves allows abby’s body to finally release the built up tension, something you can immediately feel. the careful flicks of your tongue makes her a whimpering mess. she knew no one would be able to hear her over the music, but there was still something so weirdly shameful about being this eager. 

you look up at her briefly, your mouth and chin shiny after burying your face in her cunt. “aw, you look so cute like this.” 

abby could’ve came right there. 

after the comment, you went right back to work. you’re being agonizingly slow on purpose. all for her validation. all so she can tell you through breaths of desperation that she needs more. 

“fuck that’s—” she hisses at the feeling of your lips parting to suck on her clit. “you’re…really good.” she’s trying so hard to keep her thoughts straight while she’s being undone by you. 

you pick up the pace a bit and abby instinctively bucks her hips against your tongue. she whines your name and you’re filled with a renewed sense of desire. slowly abby grows louder and has to bite into the heel of her palm just to smother the noise. you’re committed to going as long as she needed you to. even longer if she’d let you. 

but, abby couldn’t last much longer. the feeling in her lower abdomen had her practically begging for release. “i think i’m gonna cum.” she hoped you would hear her strained whisper. she absolutely didn’t have it in her to repeat herself. 

she assumes you get the message when the flicks of your tongue get faster and your grip on her thighs becomes tighter. 

all at once, her orgasm hits her. again, the palm of her hand is flush against her mouth while she rides the intense wave of pleasure. you don’t stop until you’re sure she’s all the way through it. 

she had never felt an orgasm like this before. in fact, she could count on one hand how many times owen had actually made her cum. he was never this attentive or gentle. or maybe you were just ungodly skilled? either way, she was more than happy to leave that wet spot on the duvet of whoever’s room this was.  

when you stood and crawled on top of her, abby was still trying to regain feeling in her lower half. without words, your lips capture her’s and once again she starts to feel a heat pool between her legs. the taste of her on your lips is almost intoxicating. she needed to stay like this forever. 

you let out a sing-songy “my turn.” 

abby felt like she learned enough from you to finally be able to take on this task. it couldn’t be that hard. right?

the doorknob jiggles. both of you swiftly turn to the bedroom door. 

you roll your eyes. “just ignore it. probably some girl who had too much to drink and needs a place to throw up.” 

then, there was a series of loud knocks. you sigh in defeat. the vibe was officially killed.

you both rush to put your clothes back on and look vaguely presentable before you walked back out into the sea of people. when you opened the door there’s a man you only vaguely recognize. he looks the two of you over and it seems to click that he was definitely interrupting something. 

“do you know where luke is?” he could barely stand and it was apparent that the question required all three of his brain cells to be hard at work. 

you scoff. “how the fuck should i know?” without another word you’re hopping back over the couch barrier to make it to the main area of the penthouse. you walk hand in hand with abby, attempting to make your way back to the terrace. 

over the music, you hear someone scream your name. you come face to face with charlotte and she waves you over. 

“we need to get cassidy in the car back to the hotel, like, now. she’s throwing up over the railing of the terrace. can you grab her some water?” there was an urgent tone in her voice so you knew it was time to say your goodbyes. 

“well. duty calls.” you breathed out a deep sigh. the universe seemingly didn’t want to see you orgasm tonight. 

“i have to get home anyways. i haven’t exactly slept since the match.” 

you kiss her one last time. “let me give you my number!” she hands you her phone and lets you type in those ten digits she had completely forgotten to ask for. “text me whenever you're not busy training or whatever. i’ll fly out to you, wherever you are.”

when you handed the phone back and waved goodbye, she looked down at the contact and smiled at the little pink heart you had put next to your name.

the only reason this got posted was bc i realized it would never feel "finished" so i guess this is just an introduction to any nonsense i want to write about them later

kisses to everyone who actually slogged through this <3

[limarkova]

Yandere Batfam x Neglected Reader x Yandere Al Ghuls

Pt 5.

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The library was quiet when you walked in. Since it was still early in the morning many people hadn't shown up yet. Your luck of finding a tutor were slim right now. It was best to start independent so you could tell a tutor what you needed to learn more about anyway.

You wonder the shelves contemplating where to begin. Maybe the computers to look up what fourth grade standards? Didn't those vary though? Okay maybe you should have goaded your 'family' into telling you were the 'boarding school' was supposedly base. Science sounded like a good option. It used a mix of math and reading comprehension.

You had to choose a science fourth grades typically learned, though. Honestly you wished you could just pick any science and say the school had specialized classes. However you didn't know what type of boarding school Bruce claimed you went to. The slightest misstep and your siblings would alert him that something was up.

Being realistic Bruce could send you back at anytime. By playing into his lies, you would appear compliant or like you don't suspect he was involved. That could buy you time. If it seemed like you were truly trying to integrate back into the family and not expose the experiments, he might let you stay for a little longer. Why get rid of someone if their potential as a threat was limited by their ignorance?

For now you need to match the cover story. Whatever books were labeled fourth grade level than. Maybe a few fifth grade books. You had implied that you were doing more advanced work. Maybe you could safely make the claim that you were placed in advance classes. They had been talking about those during your last year at Gotham prep.

The kids section was full of basic cartoon style books. You browsed a few before frowning. Most of the information was the bare bone minimum. Half the books mark 4th grade level only covered surface level knowledge.

You pulled out a book on human anatomy and almost bursted out laughing. The drawings were over simplifications of the organs, nothing compared to how they really looked. Slimy, covered in veins, shades of pink or gray you didn't expect once the blood was removed. That thought brought back a haunting memory. You shoved the book back on the shelf. Medical research would come later.

Grabbing any books that caught your attention, you headed over to a secluded area. Most of the information was basic understand. Yes, you learned some new things and were fairly certain your reading comprehension was ay the appropriate level. But there was nothing involving math. "Maybe a few tutors have shown up or a librarian can help me call one."

Standing back up you wondering over to the librarian desk. No one was there. You yet out a heavy sigh. Oh course they weren't there, that was just your luck.

"Hello, are you looking for something?" You jumped at the sudden voice behind you. Spinning around you saw a woman with long dark brown hair and green eyes. She carried herself confidently but some part of you screamed the she was capable of violence.

"I was looking into what's available in terms of math tutoring. Maybe social studies or history if that's an options." You angled you body away from her.

She laughed slightly more to herself than you. There was a gleam in her eye, like she was impressed by her assessment. "Well you're in luck. I happened to home schooled my own son in math and know a lot of teachers. What do you need to know?"

"Pretty much everything above adding and subtracting." You scowled down at the books in your arms. It they had and hadn't been useful. Maybe you should take advantage of this woman's help. You needed a tutor, it shouldn't matter who it was also long as your family didn't find out. "What’s your name?"

"I'm Talia." She crouched down to your level and held out a hand. You stopped thinking.

Talia.

The woman mentioned in your mother's diary. It couldn't be. Though she mentioned having a son. No Talia might have been an older flame and Damian's mother had a different name. Maybe you had been to quick to get in a fight with him. Now you couldn't ask him about his mother. What if he sent her to spy on you because you had pissed him off? Not good, really not good.

"I'm (Fake Name)." You gave her the wrong name and watched. If Damian had sent her, she would probably already know your name. So by giving her the wrong one you could figure what she already knew about you. It wouldn't be through her words or actions. No the hints would be subtle. Some kind of disappointment or a sign she felt slighted.

Yet her face remain pleasant. That slight hint of being impressed remaining, "It's nice to meet you. Let's do a few tests so I can see where you are first." Just like that you were swept away into a world of learning.

Talia was beyond impressed with the young Wayne girl. First she correctly identified Talia as a threat. It was obvious by the way she angled herself away from the older woman. How her eyes flicked for the nearest exit, probably a subconscious reaction. Without Talia's weapons or reputation, the girl had pick up on danger.

Next was the wrong name. Said so surely like it truly was her name. The girl shifted so fluidly into the new identity too. Talia would have believed it if she hadn't already done research. Never once did she catch the girl not responding to the name. All without proper training.

However, that all paled in comparison to her true shining trait. The girl's intelligence was well beyond average. She caught trick questions and picked up topics quickly. Talia was willing to bet her intellect could rival Bruce's. Obviously not at her current state, she need guidance to reach that level. Still all the material was there.

"Thank you for the help, today." Her voice was quiet. Movements quick to put away the notebook she had written all of her work in. They had moved from mathematics, to English, social studies, sciences, and the one that she seem the most interested in Criminal Investigation. Damian had taken his father's intelligence but was held back his ego. She didn't have that fault.

Talia smiled, "of course. Will you be returning tomorrow? I would love to continue our lessons. There's a chance I might be able to teach you Arabic."

"Arabic, the language?"

"Yes. I taught my son but well he lives with his father now and I don't get to speak it with him anymore." Talia said the information to get the girl to relax but the opposite occurred.

(Name) bit her lip, "I apologize if this is sensitive to you but what's your son's name?"

"Damian." Talia observed the girl's reaction. Her shoulders tense, body angling again, one deep breath. "Too bad his father turned him against me."

"How?" The girl blinked after saying the word. Her face was too blank to be natural. The information was throwing her for a loop as she tried to make it fit her reality. They would need to work on that.

Talia shook her head sadly, "I'm not a hundred percent certain what he told my boy but I think... I think he made Damian believe that he was in love with me and I broke his heart. Even though it was the other way around when he cheated on me."

Talia watched as the words hit home with the girl. Oh she had chosen the right story to turn her against Bruce. The girl gave her an easy smile that was a smidge too tense in the corners, "Yeah. I'll be here tomorrow. Can I ask one last question?"

"Go ahead." Talia gestured with her hand.

"Do you happened to know any self defense teachers?" Determination morphed her features. It made her come alive in a sense. That fire she saw yesterday back in her eyes and brighter. Confidence shifted her stance into one more sure.

"Oh I know several material arts teachers."

Bruce sat in his car, rubbing his brow. In a little over twenty-four hours since his youngest had shown up at manor things had arguably gotten worst. First the information coming out about (Name) never being at school followed by a full blown investigation by his kids. Than there was what the others had officially dub "The shit list". Damian had become so upset he secluded himself in the barn. Last but certainly not less were the changes the other reported in his youngest.

Dick's last phone call said she was at the library researching for 'school'. They had decided to watch her through the cameras believing space was what she actually need. Yet one thing was clear from the little time she had spent in the manor since coming back. Whatever had happened was traumatic and she was not going to tell them directly. Perhaps whoever had her was now stalking her to ensure she wouldn't cooperate.

Bruce would double the manor's security. He wouldn't fail one of his kids a second time. She hadn't arrived home from the library yet, so Bruce had time to prepare. Taking one last deep breath he exited the car. First stop the Batcave to get an update on investigation.

Bruce might as well have entered a war zone. At least there he would know where to start. Dick and Jason were in a screaming match about who should have been checking in on her. Tim was two steps away from drinking coffee straight from the pot, while pouring over financial records. Barbara looked like she was having an aneurysm. Cass was analysising video footage taking notes on presumably her body language. Duke was being interrogate being Steph on how (Name) acted while the two were out and what she could have been writing in "the shit list."

"Status report." His voice shattered the chaos in a matter of seconds. "Oracle you go first."

"I searched through city wide surveillance feeds and found some video footage from a few days ago. It seems like who ever had her did chase after but..." Oracle, Barbara trailed off. The screen flash to show (Name) being chased by an armed pursuer. In two seconds, she had turned thrown a knife of some kind than ran down an another alleyway. Her pursuer fell to the ground weapon lodged in his throat. "Police reports identified him as James Lenon, a low level criminal with a history of violence. He had a scalpel in his trachea and was pronounced dead on arrival of the scene."

Bruce now understood why Barbara looked ready to have an aneurysm. This footage showed (Name) committing murder. Just to get away from whoever was holding her captive. He could only imagine what might have pushed her to that point. That or she didn't know the guy was dead. It would technically count as self defense either way but not a good sign.

Barbara typed something on her laptop before another video appeared. "Than there's this one." It show (Name) running off screen injured. When she reappeared the injuries were gone, not even a speck of blood. The video ended with (Name) throwing a mangled bullet at the camera. An act of defiance, but towards who.

"Has this video been edited?"

"No. This is the orginial video. Do you think she might actually be a meta?" The room filled with anticipation at that.

Bruce nodded once, "we'll need to test her DNA but the odds are good. Red Robin what do you have?"

"She was telling the truth about her card being stolen. It would seem whoever stole it though knew better than to use it to pay for something directly. All of it's cash withdrawals, the ATMs used are in Gotham though so it's all local. Oracle any updates on ATM footage?"

"Na-da. They're smart, covered their faces with sunglasses and sick masks. Generic brand sunglasses and disposable mask so no identifying markers. They wear them on video until they disappear." Barbara brought several still shots onto the screen.

Bruce nodded to the two, taking in the information. It assumable from the ATM footage alone there were multiple people involved in this. They would need to identify which group had the most to gain.

"Nightwing, Red Hood. What did your investigation of the PO box reveal?"

"They scorched the damn place the night she escaped." Jason dropped a picture of a burnt and destroyed PO boxes on the table. One box in the third row was circled "Also destroyed any mail going to all the PO boxes on that wall. Feds are looking into it since the post office was involved, I couldn't get closer than that."

"The person who orginially opened the box, Marcus Antonio, was found dead last night." Dick placed crime scene photos on the table. A man with a singular bullet wound laid in a pool of blood. There were tipped over and rifled through drawers, books, coffee containers. The scene was mess. "Decided to take a look around. It was a clean hit but catch this. The guy had loads of cash stashed all over the place. GCPD thinks it was a robbery gone wrong since they didn't take all of it and left in a hurry. With what we know, I think it was a targeted attack. They mostly just took the cash they could find, figuring they were going to get cut off"

Tim interrupted, "I second that. All cash withdrawals stopped the day after she escaped. They pulled more than they usually did so the bank flagged the card. It's shut off pending investigation."

Bruce nodded. It was likely that most of the people involved were going to leave Gotham. Cash would be necessary for that. "Any sign of the mail?"

"No but he had a burn bucket in the bedroom." Dick shook his head. Leaning against the table he sighed. "They're getting rid of evidence quickly and have a three day head start."

"Orphan."

"She shows signs of hyper vigilance, avoids cameras, and I think she probing us for information." Cassandra looked up from the tablet she was using one.

"Wait, she's probing us for information?" Tim stopped typing on his laptop before throwing his head back and groaning. "She's become one mystery after another."

"At the breakfast table. She was trying to figure out if we read her diary, was gauging how we all reacted to her mentioning school, and was ensuring the debit card got closed out. The roommates she referred to as troublesome were probably the gaurds."

Everyone nodded. Bruce looked to Barbara, "I want a video of breakfast this morning. I need to know exactly what was said. Spoiler, Signal."

"If she doesn't have PTSD I don't know what she has." Steph leaned back in her chair rubbing her eyes. "Though this one wasn't pay any special anytime to her behavior."

"I didn't know I was supposed to. I genuinely thought she was upset because Damian attacked and having to leave 'school' early." Duke ran a hand over his face. "In the hours we spent at the mall, she implied she had to leave school quickly because something really bad happened. That and she's..."

Duke froze, pieces connecting in his head. When he looked at Bruce, horror started to mix with realization. "Was she a Meta two years ago?"

There was a pregnant pause as everyone in the room thought. Bruce shook his, "No. She never showed signs of being a Meta."

"Disappeared for two years, comes back with meta abilities, refers to the thing making her leave as really bad with potentially two triggers for her being needles and the smell of disinfectant." Duke looked at all of them more pieces falling into place. Bruce's eyebrows knitted together. Duke was on to something but for the life of him, Bruce could piece it together? "What was happening two years when she disappeared? Other than that Joker attack."

It finally hit Bruce what Duke was getting at. Two years ago Meta Human traffickers stop looking for ways to find 'product'. Instead they began looking for ways to create new it. There were reports of them doing horrifying things to create new meta humans. It didn’t work because most of them lacked the funding to get the necessary chemicals and equipment.

Yet, with a Wayne kid's debit card that gets weekly deposits. He even gave her a higher amount than the others because she was supposedly aboard. It was possible but there was one missing component for this. "There are no meta humans in my biological family. She wouldn't have the gene to activate."

"And her mother's half of the family?" It was a valid question for Duke to ask. Bruce thought for a second, had her mother had a meta in her family. She mentioned an aunt that was disowned but that was it.

"Spoiler I want you looking into her mother's side of the family." Bruce gave the command before looking across the room again. "Red Hood start looking into Meta Human Traffickers who went off the grid two years ago. Red Robin you're in charge of looking into whoever made those withdrawals. Find out where that cash went. Oracle, look into the two people we've identified as being involved, get contacts, favorite hunts, anything you can. Send that information to Oprhan and Signal. You two are with me in tracking them down."

"What about me B?" Dick gave Bruce a questioning look.

"You're going to talk with (Name) and get her to open up to you." Bruce nodded at Dick, "Go be her older brother."

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Taglist:

@stove-top96 @mysticalhills @00hellohello00 @a-lurking-fae @yhin-gg @twismare @charlenexoxo1 @moondust-clouds @darkumbreon92 @jsprien213 @bellethesleepypotato @time-shardz @randomlyappearingartist

[thee-fangirl-from-hell]

marked (teen wolf, stiles stilinski x reader)

pairing: stiles stilinski/reader, backround! scott/allison summary: scott’s cousin is back in beacon hills after a long absence. stiles thinks he is over his crush on her but boy is he wrong. one look at her and he is back to his fourteen year old awkward pining self. after taking reader to lydia’s party, a game of truth or dare might have dire consequences if stiles doesn't die of embarrassment first. tags: childhood friends to lovers, endless pining, yearning, seemingly unreciprocated feelings, takes place in season 1, but the characters are aged up for clear reasons, canon divergence (everyone lives, malia isn’t a coyote, cora is around) narration is 3rd person but tied to stiles’ perspective, stiles is a simp, playing truth or dare, the dares get raunchy, but no smut yet, canon typical stiles horniness, stiles is touch-starved af warnings: lotta cussing, i delve a bit into stiles’ grief of his mother, mentions of him missing her and wishing she was there to give him advice, themes of stiles having low self-esteem, thinking himself unworthy of reader, stiles makes some jokes about offing himself to escape embarrassment but he doesn't mean them, stiles being self-conscious of being a virgin, some guys tease him about it, blurry consent inherent to truth or dare? (nothing explicit happens, some horny dares but none of the characters are really pressured into doing something they don’t want to) alcohol consumption (remember I’m aging up the characters but I guess in america drinking at 18 is still underage drinking) biting, marking reader is: scott’s cousin (not mentioned if by blood) mentioned to have been kind of a tomboy as a kid, emotionally unavailable, troublemaker (it’s said that her parents sent her away to beacon hills because she kept getting in trouble), hotheaded, hinted at being a werewolf (will be confirmed in part two) word count: 9.4k

The train station was fairly quiet that Sunday morning. Two boys were waiting patiently on a bench for a train that announced to arrive half an hour late.

"Thanks again for helping me pick up my cousin, Stiles."

The boy shrugged as if to say no big deal.

The three of them used to be really close friends as little kids. She used to visit every summer vacation. They did everything together; go to the beach, cycle around the neighborhood, go for ice cream. Y/N and Scott used to make a competition out of everything. Who can make the better sandcastle? Who can finish their ice cream fastest?  Stiles was usually asked to be the referee which stressed him to no end because he didn't want to choose between his two best friends. It always ended in one of them being upset, although they never held a grudge for long.

But then Y/N got older, and Scott's parents got divorced; so change inevitably happened. She stopped visiting and Stiles hasn't really heard from her ever since. Scott would update him every once in a while. She cut her hair, had changed her style. She has a cat now. She picked up photography. She changed her style again.

Stiles wondered if he could pick her up from a crowd now that four years had passed since the last time he'd seen her. They weren't kids anymore. He wondered if she still did that cute thing when she'd smile with just one corner of her mouth like she was trying to hide it but couldn't help it. Or if she still twirled her hair around her index finger when she thought about something really hard.

The sound of an old lady making an announcement over the speakers jolted Stiles awake from his reverie. The train was about to arrive in 5 minutes. Finally.

"I don't want to sound ungrateful, it's just… will you promise me something, Stiles?" he nodded in response. "Promise you won't make it weird with Y/N being back?"

"Dude, it's been forever. I forgot I even used to have a crush on her. Plus I'm loyal to Lydia these days."

"She doesn't even remember your name," Scott pointed exasperated.

"Who? Lydia or Y/N?

Scott laughed. Stiles having a crush on his cousin wasn't gonna make a difference because she'd never like him back anyway. She didn't seem much into romance. One time a boy kissed her cheek at a birthday party and she hit him over the head with a pool noodle until he started crying. She used to chase guys around with bugs or worms in her hand and they would scream and scatter. She'd laugh about it. Stiles tried to compliment her once and she punched him in the arm so hard he fell over.

She used to punch him in the arm a lot actually, now that he thought about it. So much so that his shoulder area was in an almost constant dull pain while she was visiting. Stiles never thought he'd miss the pain until Scott told him she wasn't coming over that summer.

But now she was back. Scott says she's been getting into a lot of trouble lately and that her parents don't know what to do with her anymore. He's overheard phone conversations between his mom and Y/N's and the situation is dire. She says that sending her away is an alarm signal and if she doesn't start behaving now they'll need to take serious measures. Stiles had no idea what "serious measures" meant, but it couldn't be good. Yet another reason why Stiles shouldn't couldn't have a crush on her. She was gonna disappear again.

The train had finally made it to the station and small rivulets of people started pouring out with their suitcases and trolley bags. Stiles spotted Y/N with such ease he surprised himself.

She looked the exact same as he remembered. She looked nothing like she used to. Both statements were true at the same time. There was something about her – her eyes, her smile, that Stiles recognized immediately. Like you recognize the first few notes of your favorite song before it really starts playing. She was the same old girl who left Beacon Hills four years ago, yet she was brand new somehow.

She gave Scott a hug then he grabbed a few of her bags and started helping her carry them to the jeep parked nearby. Stiles debated whether or not to go in for a hug, but halfway through it he chickened out and pretended he was just leaning in for her backpack since it was the last piece of her luggage.

"It's fine," she assured him seeming mildly annoyed. "I got this one."

Of course she'd give Scott a hug, they're related and have kept in touch all this time. To her Stiles was just some kid she used to play with who had a massive and painfully obvious crush on her. He cringed internally thinking about all the times she caught him staring at her and she rolled her eyes or flipped him off. She was probably angry at Scott for bringing him here.

"Scotty?"

"You only call me that when you want something."

"Can I get shotgun? I'll get a better view and I want to take pictures."

She pulled out of her jean jacket's pocket a small digital camera and gave a lopsided smile. Yes, Stiles thought, she still did that.  Scott just pointed towards the front seat with his chin and jumped in the back of the jeep.

Stiles did his best to hide how nervous he was now that he wasn't just sharing a car with his first-ever crush, but she was gonna be in the front of the car with him. He was grateful his mom owned a jeep and not something tiny like a mini Cooper. Because then the half-hour-long drive would turn into pure torture.

They recounted stories on the way and laughed and Y/N took so many pictures. Some of them while hanging half out of the car, almost giving Stiles a heart attack in the process; some of them were artsy shots of the dashboard or the rearview mirror. She even took a picture of Stiles while he was driving, causing him to take one hand off the wheel to cover his face self-consciously. She berated him for putting them in danger but she laughed while doing it so she didn't really mean it.

"If I die in this car cause you wanted to be coy I'll haunt your ass," she says as she snaps another shot of him, this time both his hands were on the steering wheel.

"If we die in this car it'll be because you put a camera in the driver's face."

"The flash isn't even on." She turned around and took a picture of Scott next. Stiles saw him giving an awkward thumbs up in the rearview mirror. "Now that's more like it."

Stiles saw in the corner of his eye the camera turning towards him once again and he flipped her off without thinking. He immediately felt bad for it. Few years ago she would have flipped him off right back and laughed about it but they weren't twelve and best friends anymore. He needed to remind himself of that.

As Y/N went quiet for a second inspecting the picture she just took on the tiny screen of her camera, Stiles chewed on his lips and debated between apologizing sincerely or trying to play it off as a joke.

"Look Y/N, I'm sorry–" he started but got interrupted.

"This is actually really good, can I post this?"

Stiles had no idea Y/N posted her picture somewhere on the internet. She didn't have an instagram or facebook, he knew because he's looked for her. Some people may call it cyberstalking; he'd call it being curious. He even asked Scott when he got desperate and Scott said she doesn't really do social media. Sometimes she'd text Scott a really cool picture she took and if Stiles was there he'd show it to him. He always assumed the pictures were just for herself or maybe a portfolio if she planned on doing this professionally one day.

"Look you can't even see your face– if that's what you're worried about."

She turned the camera around for him to look just as they pulled over in Scott's driveway. The camera focused on Stiles' hand, which was strategically covering his face, and the rest of him was blurred and hardly recognizable. Stiles wouldn't call that a good picture but he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel flattered that Y/N wanted to post a picture of him on her social media.

"Sure, I don't mind."

"Thanks! And thanks for picking me up, too. My cousin is too lazy to get a driver's license."

"Oh, really? Where's yours?"

"I had one but my parents took it because I got caught sneaking out at night. I'll get it back in a few months."

They helped Y/N haul her luggage all the way up into the attic, where Ms. McCall arranged a makeshift bedroom for her. Stiles recognized the bedframe because it was Scott's years ago before he got the one he has in his room now. The mattress looked new and so did the bed sheets. They stood out in an otherwise very old, dusty room. It was clear Scott's mom made an effort to clean up but the attic was beyond salvation at that point. The room looked good but in the corners there were still some boxes of things the family kept stored away. There were cobwebs and water damage to the walls and ceiling.

Stiles thought there was a metaphor in there somewhere for an attic trying to double as a bedroom, trying to be something it's not. An attic being representative of all that is old and out of use but you hold unto it for sentimentality. Like a childhood crush; something familiar and comforting that won't go anywhere but throwing it away feels like a betrayal.

It reminded him that no matter how much you brushed off the dust of something old, it still doesn't make it work as if it's new. The past stays in the past and we have to move forward. Some things can not be brought back.

"Thanks again for the help," Y/N chimed in interrupting his train of thought.

Her hand brushed his as she grabbed her backpack from his hand and gently placed it on her bed. He felt a familiar shiver buzz through him. Starting from the very point her fingertips made contact with his skin and going everywhere at once.

Some things stay in the past and some things stay with you forever.

•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•

Stiles nervously fiddled with the buttons of his jacked before hitting his car’s horn the first time. He’s talked to Y/N and promised he’d pick her up for the party they were all going to since Scott wanted to pick Allison up and spend some one-on-one time with her. How this girl agreed on going to a party with his dorky best friend was beyond him.

The boy found himself checking his own reflection in his rearview mirror multiple times before honking a second time, just to make sure he was heard.

Y/N had moved to Beacon Hills three weeks and five days ago (not that Stiles was counting or anything). He was finally managing to be normal in her presence, at least when Scott or some other person was around them. Still, knowing there was only gonna be the two of them in his car with no buffer made him nervous. Stiles had a penchant for shoving his foot in his mouth every time he found himself alone in this girl’s presence. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so mortifying.

One time they were alone for all of five minutes, he and Scott were helping her unpack and shuffle some furniture around (there wasn’t a lot of it in her room/attic). Scott took a break to go to the bathroom. Stiles was shelving books while on the other end of the room, Y/N was unpacking and sorting out clothes. She pulled a cute sundress out of a box and tried it against her body for a second, looking in the mirror mounted on the wardrobe.

“I don’t know why I brought this with me, it’s gonna get too cold in the fall for this."

She still hung the dress on a clothes hanger with a disappointed look on her face.

“I’m sure it looks good on you. My mom used to wear dresses like that.”

Stiles let his head fall on the steering wheel, feeling embarrassment wash over him like it was happening all over again. He accidentally touched the horn a third time and jumped at the sound. Is he gonna seem impatient now that he’s honked three times? Fuck, he didn’t even get to see her and he already messed up.

At least it’s better than comparing her to his dead mother. Holy shit, does he not think before opening his mouth in front of her? My mom used to wear dresses like that. What a dumbass. Now she’s gonna assume he thinks of her like a mother figure –he doesn’t– or that he’s into her because she reminds him of his mother – she doesn’t. Either option made Stiles want to drive into a lake.

Deep in thought he almost didn’t hear the knocking on his car’s window. It was Y/N and she was wearing a red flannel over a graphic t-shirt with a comic book speech bubble that said ‘I’m fluent in sarcasm’, Melisa McCall was behind her snuggled in a comfy looking house robe.

Stiles leaned towards the car door and cracked it open from the inside as much as he could. If he was smarter he would have come out of the car and opened the door for her from the outside. And Y/N would find it charming and sweet, maybe it would make up for all the time he was less than charming or sweet. He thought about it before getting here but he got taken by surprise by Scott’s mom and then it suddenly felt like he would be trying too hard if he did that. He didn’t want to make it so obvious that he wanted this girl’s approval.

Ultimately that was what Stiles was chasing; approval. It’s not like he was gonna get a date or at least a kiss. Y/N was there temporarily and then she’d be gone and everything would have to go back to normal. Anything serious or permanent, anything they couldn’t go back from was out of the question. And Stiles had the feeling Y/N wasn’t the type of girl you kiss once only to walk away. So he settled for her to at least look at him like she wanted to kiss him and that would have to be enough.

Yeah, for him it would be enough.

Y/N made herself comfortable in the passenger seat, smoothing over her clothes when Melisa grabbed the car door and widened it, peaking her head in slightly.

“Make sure to look after her, ok Stiles? I’m trusting you to keep her safe.”

“Or you can come with us and keep an eye on her yourself, ma’am,” Stiles joked. “You’d blend right in.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

She rolled her eyes in fake annoyance but Stiles noticed a slight smile tugging at her lips.

“I mean it, I want you on your best behavior.”

“Yes ma’am,” Stiles quipped nodding his head towards the woman.

She leaned inside the car and fastened Y/N’s seatbelt on tightly. He expected the girl to protest or at least roll her eyes but she just gave her aunt a kiss on the cheek and a smile.

“And you, remember what your parents told you?”

“Promise I’ll be good, auntie. Besides you asked Stiles to babysit me and you know he’s such an angel.”

Melissa let out a snort and waved her hand goodbye as the two teenagers drove away.

Y/N jokingly called him an angel and he couldn’t help but think that his mother also used to do that. Every time he got himself into trouble, or detention, or he broke a vase; she’d call him her little angel and help clean whatever mess he was in.

He couldn’t say anything about that, though, if he compared her to his mother twice in a row he would simply jump out of the car while it was still in motion. If the friend zone was so dreaded by men everywhere, imagine what being son zoned will do to you.

Another thought crossed his mind and Stiles tried to shove it away before it was too late. He was unsuccessful. The last time Y/N was in Beacon Hills, his mom was still alive. He would give everything to go back to that place in time. Sell his soul to the devil to be twelve again and in love with his friend and have his mom tease him for it like before. He used to hate it. He’d get all red in the face and tell her to mind her own business.

“My son’s love life is my business,” she’d say.

“What love life? I have no love life.”

“Not now, but when you’re older I want you to know that you can talk to me about it.”

And then he’d make a face because the mere thought of talking to his mom about feelings towards girls and boys felt so embarrassing. Now he would kill for a chance to talk to his mom again and ask her something as mundane as what to do about his crush.

He stopped at a red light a bit too suddenly, causing both of them to sway in their seat. Stiles felt the familiar ache of trying to hold back tears, he tried looking up and when that didn’t work he let out a sigh. It would have been just like him to cry for no reason in front of the girl he liked.

“What’s wrong, Stiles?”

Y/N said his name softly, like a secret. He involuntarily held his breath as he felt her hand creep on top of his on the gear stick.

 “Nothing,” he found himself lying in spite of his glistening eyes.

Under any other circumstances, he would have just told Y/N the truth; that he was thinking about his mother. But he promised himself he would not mention her tonight, not so soon after the last time they spoke.

“We don’t have to go to this stupid party if you don’t want to. We can just go to your place and play some scrabble or we could read some comics and when you’re sick of me you can drop me home.”

Her thumb was rubbing the back of his hand and it affected Stiles more than it should for such an insignificant gesture.

“No, it’ll be good for you to go to a party. You know, meet kids outside of school, make some friends that aren’t me and Scott.”

He removed his gaze from the road to look at her, really look for the first time since she got in his car. He searched for a word that described her properly. The only one he could come up with was disarming. The kind of beauty that makes knights throw down their weapons and surrender, the kind that would make him kneel and beg. Except that Stiles was no knight in shining armor and the only weapon he was wielding was his wit. No wonder he forgot how to speak around her, how to be clever. She was disarming him.

 The light changed from red to green and it didn’t make her look sickly– like he expected but ethereal, otherworldly. Disarmingly beautiful, he thought.

“Stiles, go,” she whispered.

It took Stiles an embarrassing amount of seconds to realize what she was talking about. Green light. Go. When he finally managed to shift gears, the girl took her hand off of his and he immediately felt the loss of heat.

“You got lost in your thoughts again. You know, whenever you feel ready to talk about whatever is bothering you, I’m here.”

The words `really, I’m fine` were dancing on his lips once again. After all, how could he ever tell her that more often than not he lost himself in thoughts of her? Instead, he surprised himself by saying something else entirely.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”

•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•☾•

The music at the party was too loud and not really Stiles’ taste. Inside the house it smelled like booze and sweaty teenagers so he grabbed Y/N’s arm and gently dragged her after him all the way to Lydia’s backyard, where her pool was. Normally at parties, Stiles sits in a corner and talks to whoever will listen, mostly other socially awkward nerdy kids, they tended to find each other easily. But this time he found himself swaying to the music alongside Y/N wondering if he could try and pinch himself without making it super obvious.

To be fair, if this was a dream they’d probably be making out by now.

He saw Y/N leaning in closer and closer to the point where he honestly thought she was going in for a kiss, and then he felt her breath to his ear. She smelled like something sweet (berries?) and she was radiating heat. Stiles shivered. He was too dazed to decipher what was being said and, by the time he came back to his senses, she leaned away.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

She leaned in even closer this time propping a hand against his chest, and instead of whispering her words came out more like a shout.

“I’m gonna go grab us some drinks, ok?”

Without checking if Stiles understood what was being said this time she walked away and the boy found himself in the all too familiar position he usually ends up in at parties. He looked around for something to do while waiting for Y/N, wondering if he should’ve just gone with her inside.

Maybe she needed a second away from him. Maybe he was giving her the creeps. He liked to think that he was hiding his crush pretty well – yeah, he was awkward around her but so was he around everybody. He just wasn’t that good at the whole socializing thing.

While looking around for a corner to hide in, Stiles spotted his best friend dancing with Alison. He made a b-line towards them.

“Stiles, where’s Y/N?”

“She’s gone to get a drink. How are you holding up?”

He didn’t know how else to phrase the question without raising suspicion. Hey, Scott, how are you dealing with the first full moon since you’ve been bitten by a werewolf? That would send Allison running. But his friend knew exactly what he meant, he could tell by the look he gave him.

Stiles found it hard to believe that only a few days ago he thought the hardest thing for him to do this year would be hiding his feelings from his crush and his best friend. Now he’s gonna have to help said friend hide his werewolf side from… well, everybody. Spending time alone with Y/N in his car didn’t seem so daunting in retrospect.

“I’m fine,” Scott said, but Stiles didn’t buy it.

He was going to offer to go after Y/N and get a drink for him. Maybe that would drown out the wolf, but then again it might bring it to the surface. Better not to risk it.

Deep in thought, Stiles didn’t realize Y/N had made her way back to his side with two drinks in hand until suddenly her arms wrapped around him and she whispered something in his ear. He must have misheard her or fully hallucinated because there was no way that what she said was real.

“Hold me like you can’t get enough of me.”

Her arms were now holding him tighter and Stiles could feel the can of soda in her hand pressing against the back of his neck. It was cold and probably the only thing keeping him from melting in Y/N’s arms.

He hugged her back, unsure of where to place his hands at first. He decided one in the space between her shoulder blades and one right above her hip. He squeezed her gently, unable to shake the feeling that his hand fit perfectly in the dip of her waist. She leaned once again like she was trying to whisper something in his ear but this time Stiles placed his head on her shoulder, resting his forehead there in order to make it easier for her to tell him things.

“I’m gonna let go now, but leave one arm around me.”

Stiles breathed in her berry scent and let out a sigh. She was letting go too soon. He didn’t remember the last time he got a hug like this, full-bodied, as tight as it can get, feel it in your heart type of hug. When she let go it felt like somebody removed a rib from his chest.

As per her instructions, his hand remained firmly above her hip and although five minutes ago he’d kill to be this close to her, now it wasn’t close enough.

When he looked back from Y/N to Scott and Allison they had matching shocked expressions.

“Did I miss something important?” Scott asked perplexed and Stiles heard the barely contained anger simmering below the surface.

“Just a guy hitting on me at the punch bowl. I figured if he saw me with some other guy he’d give up. Men are like wolves that way, they respect each other’s territories.”

Stiles didn’t miss the irony of Y/N comparing men to wolves to her cousin, an actual wolf. He smirked and hoped she didn’t see it.

“Allison, is the guy in the lime green shirt still looking at me?”

Allison subtly looked towards the doorway over Y/N’s shoulder. She let out a tsk and gave the girl an apologetic smile. He must still be looking.

“Do you want me to talk to him, Y/N?” Scott nearly growled.

Scott was not-so-subtly glaring in the same direction as Allison was a second ago.

“Down boy,” Y/N joked. “Since when are you Mr. Though Guy?”

Stiles caught the yellow flash of Scott’s eyes for a second and felt the dread of the truth being out. He told Scott not to come to this stupid party, not on a full fucking moon. But does he ever listen to his smart and reasonable friend? Nooo.

Scott looked like he was about to transform when Y/N did something brilliant. She downed her drink in one big gulp and pushed her cousin into the pool behind him, falling with him in the process. The water splashed both Stiles and Allison, who let out an undignified squeak.

It worked. Scott seemed back to his normal self if a little peeved for being pushed in the pool. He pulled one arm all the way back, then hit the water at full force, splashing as much as he could directly at Y/N. She retaliated. Allison gave Stiles a nudge and pointed at the two playing in the pool as if to say “Look at these two idiots”. And he didn’t realize it at the moment but they both had a similar love struck expression pasted on their faces.

A couple other brave teenagers jumped in the pool after Y/N inspired them. Stiles tried to shield his face from all the water splashing in all directions. Suddenly he felt a soaking wet hand grab at his ankle.

“Y/N, no! It’s cold as shit tonight!”

She let go and flipped him off. The pool was getting crowded so the girl lifted herself out of it with surprising ease. She took her shirt off and did her best to wrangle out any water in it.

Stiles forgot how to breathe. One moment he was with his friends at the party having fun and the very next it’s just him and Y/N left in the whole world and she is shirtless and he can see her bra and her stomach and that dip where her waist meets her hip. He licks his lips desperately trying to find the strength to look away.

Three seconds. He gives himself three seconds to admire her and then he’s gonna turn around and forget what he’d seen.

One…

Two…

Three– Was that motherfucker who was bothering her earlier still there? Was he also staring at her body with the same hunger in his eyes? And if he was; how was Stiles any better than him?

He turns around to look for him, with no idea what he actually looks like but Y/N mentioned a lime green shirt and that’s hard to miss. All of a sudden he felt something cold and wet hit him in the back. It was Y/N’s shirt that she was brandishing like a whip. He saw her twisting it again and going for a second hit, which he dodged.

“You’re relentless,” he laughs but he’s pretty sure she didn’t hear it since the music was still blaring at full volume.

He took off his own jacket and draped it across her shoulders, surprised by the amount of heat her body was radiating still. As his hands gently brushed against her skin he expected it to be ice cold, but it felt feverish to the touch.

She couldn’t have caught a cold that fast, could she?

“Are you feeling ok?” he asked, the back of his hand brushing the side of her face trying to gauge her temperature.

“Yeah, I just run hot.”

She shook off the excess water in her hair in a dog-like manner. Stiles took a step back. He took the shirt from Y/N’s hand and tried to squeeze a few more drops of water out of it. When he looked back at her, his jacket was buttoned up and fully covering her. The boy decided that he liked this look on her even better.

He wasn’t sure what to feel more guilt over; how much he liked seeing Y/N half naked or the satisfaction he felt seeing her wearing his clothes. He had no right to be possessive over her but the thought popped into his head regardless: Let green shirt guy top this.

“Are you gonna give me your pants, too?” Y/N asked with a grin.

Stiles realized he must have been staring like an idiot this whole time and maybe the filthy things he was thinking were etched on his face. But if they were, Y/N didn’t seem to hate him just yet.

“Please, you’re gonna have to work harder than that to get in my pants.”

The girl laughed. A genuine and lighthearted sound that made Stiles’ heart stop for a beat. He was afraid his joke wasn’t gonna be received well, but Y/N has always been the type of person who can take a joke.

He gave the girl a once over, examining the still very wet state of her with worry.

“What am I gonna tell Melisa?” he wondered out loud.

“That we had fun, nerd.”

She punched his shoulder lightly and Stiles couldn’t stop a small smile from forming on his lips. There was still hope. They could still be friends like before and tease each other and have fun. In spite of his ever growing fondness for her, they could still salvage what remained of their friendship. And maybe Stiles would survive this trial like he survived everything that came before it.

“Let’s get you inside before you catch a cold.”

Stiles looked back at Scott and Alison but they were playing in the pool together and he didn’t want to interrupt their date any more than he already had. He put a hand on Y/N’s back to gently guide her inside the house.

If anybody asks, he did it to make sure she doesn’t run off back into the pool. If anybody pressed him on the matter, it’s because he just loves being so close to her. But if he was wholly honest, his hand just ended up there without him thinking about it, like muscle memory, like he had done it a thousand times before.

Once inside she ran for the kitchen to get another drink and Stiles followed her because he didn’t want to risk green shirt guy appearing again.

He watched her pour straight vodka in her red solo cup and down it like it was nothing. Is that what she had in her cup earlier, too? And if that was the case, how was she still standing up? Two full glasses of vodka would have sent Stiles to the hospital.

The boy remembered what Scott said, that Y/N had some issues and that’s why her parents sent her away. Were her issues alcohol related? And if so then was he enabling her right now?

Stiles took the now empty cup and cleaned it a little in the sink before refilling it with water.

“Thanks me for this tomorrow,” he says while handing her the cup back.

The girl rolled her eyes a little but she took the plastic cup with her to the living room where a bunch of kids were sitting in a circle, playing truth or dare. She elbowed Stiles in the ribs and pointed in their direction with her chin. At first Stiles thought she was pointing at the circle as a whole but then he realized she was pointing at one person in particular. Lydia Martin.

“Wanna play?” she gave him a knowing grin.

How would she know about Lydia? he never said a word. Unless…

“Scott. He told you.”

Scott used to update Stiles on what was new in Y/N’s life semi-regularly. If she was dating somebody, if she made any big changes to her look, if she got in trouble, Stiles knew about it. Not that he was asking, it usually just came about.

“Hey Scott, who are you texting?”

“Just Y/N. She got a new camera, look.”

And he’d show him a picture. It was a selfie in a mirror, but her face was fully obscured by the bulky camera she was holding. He noticed a picture of the three of them when they were kids stuck in the corner of her mirror. He remember when they took that picture, they were at a public pool and Y/N was wearing a Disney princess swimsuit, which made Stiles jealous because he wanted one too but they only made them for girls.

Or.

He remembered one time he came over to Scott’s house to study together for an exam and when he got there his friend was on the phone.

“One second, Stiles is here,” he took a pause like he was listening to something on the other side. “Y/N says hi.”

“Tell her I said hi, too?”

“Stiles says he loves you and can’t stay away from you any longer. He’s moving next door to you this week–”

Then Scott got cut off by the pillow Stiles threw in his face. He laughed as he ran a hand through his hair to put it back in place, phone still glued to his ear.

“Well, your boyfriend can cry about it. I think he’s kind of a dick anyway.”

Stiles had no idea she had a boyfriend until then. And he felt stupid for assuming she’d be as chronically single as he was. With her wit and charm boys were probably standing in line waiting for a chance.

He had never stopped to ponder the idea that Scott was probably telling her things about him, too. Like how he got diagnosed with ADHD and got put on meds, or the fact that he had an unhealthy obsession with Lydia Martin, the most popular girl in school.

What does Y/N know about Stiles that he’s never shared? Scott wasn’t a gossip, he certainly hadn’t shared any gory details, right? Like Stiles knew Y/N had a boyfriend and that Scott didn’t like him, but he didn’t have any idea why. Scott never gave him a reason for why he disliked him and Stiles never asked because he assumed it would be too personal to share.

He probably had only mentioned it off-hand like:

“Oh, yeah, Stiles has a crush on this girl he has no chance with.”

Y/N had said something back like: “Yeah, he does that a lot.”

And they both laughed at him.

Stiles looked back between Lydia and Y/N wondering if he actually has a type after all, and it’s girls who wouldn’t look at him twice.

Y/N was looking at him quizzically and he remembered that she had asked him a question which he hadn’t answered because he’s been trapped by his own self-doubt and anxieties.

“Sure,” he finally murmurs. “But you gotta drink all of this first.”

He pointed at the red cup full of water in her hand, which he presumed she only took to shut him up and wasn’t planning on touching the rest of the night. But she looked at the cup and then at the circle of people that were now cheering on a guy who dropped ice down his pants, then took a few big gulps of her water, finishing it before the ice melted.

“Hey, got room for two more players?” she asked a little louder than she needed because the music wasn’t blaring as loud in the room they were in as it did outside.

Some guy whooped and patted a spot next to him on the floor. The two of them took that as an invitation and sat down. A blonde girl, Stiles was pretty sure her name was Malia, got dared to remove an item of clothing and they all watched in awe as she removed her bra from underneath her shirt, then flung it like a slingshot at the guy who dared her in the first place.

They kept going in a circle, spinning a bottle to determine who was asking or daring who. Every time somebody picked truth there was a girl who determined how honest you were, her name was Cora and everyone in the circle swore up and down that she was psychic. Now that he knew werewolves were a real thing, Stiles couldn’t really scoff at the idea of a psychic girl. And everybody kept insisting “trust me, we played a bunch of times with her and she always knows”.

So when his turn came he picked truth out of curiosity, to see if he could lie to a mind-reader. Also because most of the dares were raunchy or embarrassing and Stiles didn’t think he could take making a fool of himself in front of both Lydia and Y/N.

“What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever had sex in?”

Fuck.

“The…” he took a second like he was remembering something. “Back of my jeep.”

Stiles hoped that telling a very mild lie that made him seem boring was probably his best bet to getting away with it. Anything bolder and even a non-psychic would be able to tell he was full of it. He felt his heart hammer in his chest as Cora’s eyes narrowed as if she were searching for something inside him.

“Bullshit,” she declared.

Double fuck.

“I’ve never…” he felt too embarrassed to finish the sentence. He looked up at the ceiling like he was annoyed at the question and not utterly humiliated.

The only way out is through, he thought.

“I’m a virgin.”

Oohs and aahs were heard from the group of kids. Stiles tried his absolute best not to look at Y/N. He was desperate to know what she thought about him in that moment. Did her opinion of him change at all? Did she think he was a loser? Did she already know? Did Scott tell her?

Lydia looked completely unbothered but that didn’t surprise Stiles. She probably didn’t even know his name until Y/N said it at some point during the night. Jackson was right next to her looking smug as always and Stiles just knew he was gonna give him grief for this later, during lacrosse practice or in the locker room.

He tried to play it cool like it was no big deal, but his face was burning hot. He knew, intellectually, that the average age of losing one’s virginity in America was 18.4, so he wasn’t falling behind by any means. Yet still, he felt like he was missing out on something. Especially since Scott started dating Allison because he knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be the only virgin in his friend group. The more the clock was ticking the harder it will be for him to find someone who didn’t think it was weird. And then before he’d know it he’d be 35 having never felt the touch of a woman because his type was utterly unavailable.

“New girl, truth or dare?”

Y/N spun the bottle and it landed on the same guy who dared Malia to take off her bra. Somebody in the circle murmured ‘careful’ but Stiles couldn’t pinpoint who exactly said it. He knew exactly why they said it though. That guy had creep written all over him. Everything he said to the girls was an innuendo, he was undressing them with his eyes, unashamed of it too, he was so clearly playing this game trying to get some kind of action.

“Dare.”

The shit eating grin on that guy’s face made the hair on Stiles' arm stand up. He finally had the guts to look at Y/N again, considering enough time had passed between Cora’s question and now that it didn’t look like he desperately wanted to see her reaction. She looked fierce and determined as always. As if she wasn’t at the mercy of this guy’s perverted mind.

“Give someone in this circle a hickey.”

Stiles froze in his place. Once again he looked away from Y/N, knowing that his thoughts were written on his face and she knew him well-enough to read them.

He examined her options.

Creep? No way.

Jackson? Too douche-y for her.

Boyd? Some girl’s hand was possessively gripping his thigh as if she was thinking the same thing.

One of the girls? Maybe…

Then Y/N popped on his lap like it meant nothing, straddling him between her thighs. If Stiles' face was pink earlier, it was definitely burning red now.

“This ok?” she asked gently.

Stiles’ heart stopped in his chest. This was real. His crush was straddling his lap and was about to suck on his neck in front of a bunch of strangers, all ogling them like they were at the circus. And Stiles was beginning to feel like a clown.

He almost said no. He was terrified of what this could mean for their friendship. He knew there was no coming back from this. There was no world in which Stiles could have Y/N do this to him and then act normal in her presence ever again. This was bad bad bad. It’d be best to say no.

He opened his mouth but found himself unable to speak. He should say no but he didn’t want to.

And then he thought about Y/N and how she never backs down from a dare. How even when they were kids she and Scott made everything into a competition and she would always try to win, to her own detriment sometimes. They'd try to see who can finish their ice cream faster and she’d get a brain freeze but keep eating anyway.

If Stiles refused she would just hop in someone else’s lap and still do the dare, then he’d be forced to watch her give someone else a hickey knowing it could’ve been him the whole time. He’d die of jealousy. And Stiles was the only person she knew in this circle, the only one she trusted and felt comfortable around. If he said no, she’d have to do this very intimate act with a stranger.

So when he put it this way he was being charitable.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded, afraid of what undignified noise he might make if he opened his mouth.

“Cover the little one’s eyes,” someone shouted and Malia put her hand on top of Cora’s eyes, who just laughed and let it happen. “She’s a minor, she can’t see this.”

Y/N leaned down to reach his neck. He looked up, partially to give her better access and partially to avoid looking at the gawking teenagers around them. The fact that they just found out he was a virgin right before this made things ten times worse for him.

He felt the girl’s hot breath right above the base of his neck, above the vein that leads to his heart. He took in one deep breath, then tried to hold it. She smelled like raspberry flavored vodka, like a fancy cocktail you’d get at a bar. How drunk was she, really? Should he worry? If she’s too drunk to judge what she's doing, was he taking advantage of her? He did want it to happen but not like this. Not with people watching, not when she was drunk, not on a dare.

Holy shit.

And just like that her lips were on him, like he’d dreamed of so many times. She licked the spot at the base of his neck and Stiles would be lying if he said that feeling didn’t go straight to his dick. Another gentle kiss and then– oh.

He had no idea what to expect, he’d never done anything like this, but he definitely didn’t think it was gonna hurt as much as it did. Or that he was gonna enjoy the pain to that extent. He thought she was just gonna suck on his neck but it certainly felt more like a bite, and not a gentle nibble either. Stiles hissed. Those were most certainly her teeth scraping his skin. He found himself gripping her thigh in an attempt to stifle the pain; her jeans were still wet from being in the pool.

She placed a third kiss right before sucking on the very same spot she previously bit. The whimper that escaped Stiles' lips was one of the most unbecoming sounds he could’ve made. He heard Y/N’s lips come off him with a smacking sound that was gonna get stuck in his head forever.

“Still good?” the girl asked looking straight into his eyes.

Stiles wondered what she was looking for. Signs of regret? Pain? Desire? Because in that moment he was flipping through all of them in rapid succession.

“Yeah, are you?”

She kissed her thumb and pressed it against his lips. Before he could ask what that meant she got off him and let herself fall back in her spot on the floor. Stiles' lap was still wet in every spot that had made contact with her, the cool feeling serving as proof that he didn’t hallucinate it all.

“Lydia, I believe it’s your turn.”

The redhead grabbed the bottle from the middle of the circle and spun it lazily, it landed on Y/N.

“Dare,” Lydia announced without giving the other girl the occasion to even ask.

“My first dare, fun.”

She placed a finger on her chin and acted like she was thinking really hard about something, but Stiles knew her too well to fall for it. She had been probably cooking questions and dares since before she decided to join the game. He had no doubt she’d been sitting on something juicy this whole time, waiting for her moment. He was almost scared for Lydia.

“Let someone of my choosing…” she took a pause for dramatic effect and looked at the kitchen island visible from the living room floor. “…take a body shot off of you.”

A chorus of surprised sounds erupted from the group. Lydia eyed the creepy guy who was staring at her like a lion at an antelope.

“Not him,” she declared.

It was just like Lydia to still give orders even when it was her turn to take them.

“Deal.”

Y/N led the ginger to sit on the kitchen island, muttering something about how they don’t have tequila so vodka will have to do. She touched a lemon slice to Lydia’s right thigh and stuck some salt on it, poured a shot of vodka carefully balancing it on her left leg, the lemon slice was left on the counter in between the girl’s legs.

“Stiles?” she turned around to the whole group that was still waiting in the living room. “Will you do the honors?”

The boy choked on air.

“I’m-I’m driving.”

“Scott can drive us home. You can come pick up Roscoe from Lydia tomorrow.”

She gave him a wink and finally, he understood. Not only was she trying to set him up with Lydia tonight, she was giving him an excuse to come see her the next day. Evil fucking genius.

“I guess,” Stiles shrugged.

He walked up to the counter sluggishly, everybody else behind him waiting to see what happens like vultures waiting for a wounded animal to keel over. He stopped for a second, assessing the situation. Even though everybody in the room already knew he was inexperienced he was still too embarrassed to ask what he was supposed to do. He felt Y/N’s hand press down on the back of his head with surprising force and he found himself kneeling in front of Lydia’s spread legs.

“Don’t enjoy this too much, Stilinski.”

Stiles didn’t need to turn around to know that it was Jackson who spoke.

“If you cream your pants doing this doesn’t count as losing your virginity, by the way.”

That voice belonged to Creepy Guy.

Stiles licked the salt line off the girl’s thigh then drank the shot, it tasted like disinfectant and some of it spilled down his chin, then he snatched the lemon slice without touching it with his hands. All of that with the quickness and efficiency of someone taking medicine they hate. One and done. He spat out the lemon after a second making a comically sour face. He heard someone wolf-whistle.

Emboldened by what he had done in the past few minutes, a bit high on a mix of adrenaline, euphoria, and vodka he turned around towards Y/N and grinned.

“Satisfied?”

“Very much so,” she quipped.

He looked straight into her eyes searching for something he was embarrassed to admit to. Jealousy. He had just licked Lydia Martin's thigh, the girl he's been wanting for four years, and all he could think about was did this make Y/N jealous?

If it did, she wasn't showing it. Of course, she was the one who dared him to do this. But a very selfish part of Stiles was hoping she’d regret it.

Scott and Allison stumbled into the kitchen, still laughing about something one of them said, their clothes still wet from the impromptu pool party outside.

“Are we interrupting something?” Allison giggled.

Stiles shot up from in between Lydia’s legs so fast he felt dizzy, his face flushed and he was unable to say something that would justify the situation the two teens walked in on.

“Truth or dare, wanna join?”

Surprisingly it was Lydia who spoke up and invited them.

“We were actually looking for you to tell you we were going home. Y/N?”

He didn’t need to say anything else, which Y/N must have appreciated. Having your cousin tell everybody that you have a strict bedtime because you’ve been a wild child lately is diminishing and Y/N was just starting to make some new friends.

“Yeah, we should go, too. Stiles?”

The boy slid his hand down his neck to carefully conceal the hickey that was still pulsating. Now he had to hide that from his best friend or else he’ll take a bite out of him.

Could he pull off a scarf? No, better not.

Avoiding eye contact with Scott and Y/N as if he worried the werewolf could read his mind he found himself looking around at everyone in the group. Malia and Boyd were smirking as if they knew exactly what kind of trouble Stiles had gotten himself into. Cora was staring daggers at Y/N. She patted the girl on the shoulder and asked if they can speak for a second in private before they left.

Did Stiles miss something?

Lydia got up from the kitchen island and brought a blanket for Allison so that she doesn’t catch a cold. Funny, she didn’t seem to care that Y/N was also soaked when she walked into the living room. But it made sense since Allison and Lydia made really good friends in the short time since Allison moved to Beacon Hills.

As Cora and Y/N had their little chat, which was very heated on Cora’s part, Stiles found himself lingering close to them. Partially because he wanted to be far away from Scott, partially because he just liked Y/N’s presence so much. His behavior reminded him a little too much of a kid holding onto his mother’s skirts everywhere she goes. Stiles did not have mommy issues. And he was not projecting them unto Y/N.

“It’s gonna have consequences,” the boy overheard.

He perked his ears, etching closer to Cora, still staying behind her.

“What are you talking about?”

Cora turned around as if she heard of felt Stiles despite their distance. Cora has always been quite a weird girl, maybe she really was psychic. She looked at Stiles and then back at Y/N.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Good luck.”

》 a.n. This is my first dip in Teen Wolf fic and my first post on this blog. I used to be @the-fangirl-from-hell but I couldn't interact with people due to the main blog of that account having a lot of personal information. So I just remade so I can interact with people, follow, like, reblog without fear of doxxing myself.

This is an old blog that i scrubbed clean and repurposed.

Feel free to ask to be in my tag list and interact in any way, I'm looking for reader and writer friends alike 《

no beta, feel free to point out any mistakes you see, i won't mind

[yumeka-sxf]

Japanese Linguistic Observations in Spy x Family - part 6

Part 6 – Supporting character musings – Eden kids

In the first three parts of this post series, I talked in detail about how each of the Forgers' specific ways of speaking in the Japanese version helps shape their character. Now I want to analyze the supporting SxF characters in terms of their speech and see what traits we can infer. I'll discuss the Eden kids first, and then the supporting adult characters like Yuri, Fiona, etc, in the next post.

I'm going to start with Damian since I feel he has the most complexity in terms of what can be analyzed from his speech. While there's nothing about his speech that really stands out to me, at least compared to the Forgers, there's still little telling nuances based on his choice of words and honorifics. He uses casual speech for fellow kids his age, and polite speech for (most) adults, which is normal…I say "most" adults though because, while he uses keigo (the standard polite form of Japanese speech) for Eden teachers and the adults in his family, he doesn't use it at all during his first encounter with Loid. He even calls Loid おっさん("ossan"), which is basically "mister" but for middle-aged or older men, instead of 兄さん("niisan"), which is the same, but for a younger man akin to Loid's age.

Later, as Loid's goody-goody act gets on his nerves, his speech becomes a bit vulgar. He adamantly shouts that he "won't hang out with that peasant girl," using the "crude" conjugation of "won't be friends with/hang out with", 相手にしねー! ("aitei ni shine!") instead of the casual 相手にしない ("aitei ni shinai"). He even says うるせー ("urusee") which means "shut up" and is even more rude than うるさい ("urusai"). I'm actually surprised he let himself talk like that in front of Donovan. I suppose it shows how passionate he is about his "aversion" to Anya.

Speaking of Anya, he's never addressed her by name in the Japanese version, opting instead to call her, at best, the casual form of "you," "omae" ("お前") and at worst, some rude name like "temee" ("手前"), the derogatory form of "you."

When it comes to his family, he addresses Donovan and Melinda as 父上 ("chichi-ue") and 母上("haha-ue") respectively. These are more formal terms for the standard polite ones typically used to address your father and mother, "o-tou-san" (お父さん) and "o-kaa-san" (お母さん). For Demetris though, he's more casual. Not only does he use plain speech, but he also calls Demetris 兄貴 ("aniki"), which is a term of endearment, like "Big Bro."

He uses casual speech with Jeeves as well, which makes sense since Jeeves is a butler and thus "lower" than anyone in the Desmond household.

To me, all of this implies that Damian is a fairly normal kid in terms of how he addresses those around him, with the exception being his extreme formality with his parents. Terms like "chichi-ue" and "haha-ue" are mostly used in uptight, flatulent families, and obviously families like the Desmonds match that description. But it also shows how this is forcing Damian to rarely get the affection and bonding he craves from his parents.

As a side note, I don't have much to say about Bill and George, since they're such minor characters and nothing about their speech stood out to me in the few chapters they appeared in. But I found it interesting that they both call Damian "Damian-kun," with "-kun" in this case being an honorific to show endearment for a male equal, similar to "-chan" for females. However, Damian doesn't use "-kun" with any of the other male students, which is another indication of his comparatively standoffish personality.

Ewen and Emile speak similarly to Damian, using casual speech for fellow kids and keigo for adults. The exception with them, however, is that they address Damian with keigo as well. Not only that, but they call him "Damian-sama," which is unusual among friends their age. The honorific "-sama" is more humbling than "-san" and is often translated as "Lord" or "Master." I wonder what Damian has done to make them think so highly of him.

Moving onto Becky, she uses feminine speech in most situations. This speech is defined by adding softening interjections at the end of sentences, like "ne" (ね), "no" (の), and especially "wa" (わ). She also uses a variety of honorifics for the other characters. She calls Anya "Anya-chan," with "-chan" being a term that shows affection between female friends. She uses the feminine "I/me" pronoun "atashi" as well.

Because of her infatuation with Loid, she calls him "Loid-sama," with "-sama," as I just discussed, being a very polite honorific used for someone you're subservient to, or at least someone you look up to immensely.   

She's actually never called Yor by her name – at first she calls Yor 奥さま ("oku-sama"), which is a polite way of addressing someone else's wife, typically translated as something like "honorable wife." But after she sees how strong Yor is and "officially" decides to be her mentee (in her mind anyway), she calls Yor 師匠 ("shishou") which means "master" or "teacher" in a trainee to trainer sense.

But despite her high social status as a Blackbell, Becky uses the most childish terms for her mother and father, "papa" (パパ) and "mama" (ママ) respectively.

It's not uncommon for very young kids to address their parents in such a way, but it is ironic that everything else about Becky makes her seem like she wants to be more "grown-up" than she actually is, but she's still just a kid deep down, at least when it comes to her relationship with her parents.

Continue to Part 7 ->

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