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ereawrites · 4 years ago

Text

Dick Grayson x Reader - Mania

this was requested by: anon

word count: 10.5k / rating explicit

a/n: sex pollen so auto dubcon (?), but both reader and dick are affected so idk

taglist: @daddyissuesmademe @idkmanicantenglish

It's your fault, really. You should never have got involved in the first place, but the temptation was just too great to resist. How could you pass up the opportunity to investigate Poison Ivy's pollen? This was the first decent sample any of you had ever managed to get - even Bruce, though you suspect there have been a few times he's managed to get up close and personal with the pollen - and normally Tim would handle it, but he's away on business with Bruce, and Damian's too young to deal with intensive research, and Jason just can't bring himself to care. So, that left Dick, and you could've left it at that. You should have. Then again, Tim did text you to recommend that you helped Dick: actually, you would never have left your room if it hadn't been for his intervention. It's Tim's fault.

The thing is, everything was fine at first; you've, perhaps, been harbouring the slightest crush on Dick for a while now, and it's always nice to spend time with him. He's fun to be around, even if his classic charm sometimes borders on teasing flirtation, and he's got such an incredible mind. You forget that, at times - he has a bad habit of putting himself down as the 'kind one' of the family, the emotional support or the comic relief, and he forgets to let himself be brilliant, too. He doesn't realise you've noticed that. Or maybe he does, but he doesn't say anything, and you've happily spent the past two hours studying Ivy's pollen together.

"It's definitely pheromonal, but I've never seen a chemical composition like this before-", you say, eyes glued to the computer screen. Dick is leaning over the back of your chair, one hand on your shoulder and one hand on the desk beside you, and you shouldn't feel as tense as you do. "-look, this section doesn't occur naturally in any species we've seen. She's synthesising these pheromones somehow, it's not like she's injecting them, but I just - I don't get how."

He pushes off from the desk, grabs the back of your chair, and spins you to face him with a half-smile. "I hate to break your train of thought, but I think we need a biochem specialist.", he says, and you suddenly notice how tired he looks: his eyes are still vibrant, warm, but exhausted. "We've done as much as we can on this, right? No shame in calling in the big guns."

"Tim?", you reply, knowingly, relishing in the way Dick's smile grows into a full grin. He's still gripping the edges of your chair, effectively caging you in: you are not looking at his arms, and you can be certain of this because you are looking very, very intently at his face.

"Having a genius brother has its perks, I know. I'll call him now. It's late in Tokyo - he won't be in a meeting, he'll probably just be awake in his hotel room, tapping away at his laptop.", Dick says, finally moving away to fetch his phone, and his voice trails off into a mumble that he clearly doesn't mean for you to hear. "God, he worries me. He really does."

It's much too warm in here: you sigh, and shrug off your jacket, slinging it over the back of the computer chair before calling out,"You're such a mother hen sometimes, Dick."

"I care. Sue me.", he replies with a faux scowl. "You don't complain when you're ill and I bring you hot soup."

"You're a good cook, what can I say?"

"Husband material!", he chirps. You feel your stomach leap and your cheeks heat up at his words. He's only teasing, but the truth of it is, it has more effect on you than you would like to admit. Thankfully, he's quickly distracted by the crackle of Tim picking up the phone. "Timmy! How's things?"

Tim's voice is dry, as always, but with a noticeable undercurrent of frustration. "Shit. I hate it here."

"Hey, Tim. Bad day?", you say with sympathy. You feel a little bad for bothering him, now; as hard as everyone in the family works, Tim definitely pushes himself the hardest.

"I'm the youngest person here by at least twenty years, and my stomach can't handle sushi. Plus, Bruce gets separation anxiety from the rest of you. The one upside is that I've been able to practice my Japanese.", Tim replies. You feel bad for him, of course, but the image of him having to comfort a homesick Bruce has you suppressing a snicker.

Dick shoots an amused smile at you - he's too beautiful when he smiles, it isn't fair - that starkly contrasts the comforting tone he uses to respond to Tim. "Don't worry, darling brother - I've got something exciting for you! Check your emails - wait, only the most recent one, though, I sent you a link to a Red Hood fanpage-"

You interject with an accusatory wave of your finger. "Why the fuck didn't you send me that? Red Hood is sexy." If Jason were here, he would probably threaten to shoot you, but as it is, Dick's amusement only grows. His smile is so infectious, like it spirals out into the air and right into your chest, and you can't help but smile back at him. You don't know if it's the warmth of the room or simply from Dick himself, but you feel as though you're going to need to step outside for some fresh air soon.

"Because of your raging crush on Nightwing, probably." Tim cuts in, and you could fucking kill him. Dick gives you a pleased wink. "I'm looking at a pheromonal compound, right? Ivy's special formula?"

You muster as much venom into your voice as you can, without pissing Tim off so much that he leaves you to deal with this on your own. "Fuck you, Tim - and yeah. It's a newer version, though - I think she's evolving, if that makes sense? Her physiology is definitely changing." Tim gives a thoughtful hum in response to your words: you imagine it's in agreement.

Dick continues your train of thought. "We think she's working with someone else, or she's been experimenting on herself, maybe. Do you have any ideas about how she's making the new chemicals?"

"I'll need a few hours. Send me all the data over. You're right about it evolving, though - it's definitely airborne. Shit, this is actually really interesting - the molecules are more compact, smaller, so she doesn't need to rely on physical touch through her plants anymore-"

The rest of Tim's words are lost to a wave of horror. Airborne, he said - you'd doubt it if it wasn't for the similar shock that's written over Dick's face - and you have not been treating this sample as airborne. Ivy has always relied on physical, tangible contact to use her chemicals: you couldn't have known, there was no way you could've known, neither of you are experts on this kind of thing - you've fucked up.

"Airborne? How... airborne are we talking? Like, don't-sniff-the-test-tube?", Dick asks, cautiously, maintaining eye contact with you all the while. *Please, God, let it be don't-sniff-the-test-tube and nothing more than that. Please.*

"Shit, you haven't been wearing respirators - have you?". Tim sounds positively horrified. It does nothing to allay your fears, the worries that you've both been infected with Ivy's pollen; in fact, he all but confirms it. Everything is beginning to fall into place now. The tension around Dick - more so than usual, at least -, how warm you're feeling, the mental sluggishness that had you calling Tim in the first place.

You're angry at yourself, for your own stupidity - not Tim, but you're panicked, you're so unbelievably freaked out, and so you can't help but snap at the phone. "How were we meant to know, man? Ivy's never even hinted at having something of this level before!"

"You're working with chemicals, unknown chemicals, I hate-"

Dick cuts in before this can turn into a full-on confrontation. You've got no idea how he's managing to keep a level head. Perhaps the pheromones are already taking a more severe effect, or maybe it's a placebo effect, and you pray that it is, but you can already feel your heart beginning to pound against the confines of your chest. "It's just pheromones, right? We know it's not toxic, at least - Ivy's victims only take a few days to come around, at most. They're just kinda fucked up for a few days."

You admire Dick so, so much. He's right, he's always right, he always manages to keep you calm and make you feel safe: you'll just have to stay with him, and you'll be okay. If you stay here, he can comfort you, and maybe the impacts of the pollen won't even be that bad. And, if they are, well, there's no one else in the manor tonight, and Dick's so handsome and kind and strong, and maybe he'll - fuck.

Tim snickers. "Fucked, indeed. Only when Ivy's in a good mood, though. You guys better get ready for a tough night. I've heard it can get really bad, especially if you're deprived of - oh, fuck, I can't talk about this, this is too funny but it's so weird, oh my god-", and he dissolves into a fit of awkward, stunted laughter. Dick fixes you with an apologetic look, but you swear his golden cheeks are tinged with red.

"How long until it kicks in?", he asks. It's a stupid, stupid question, because you feel like you're close to dying already. You know what he means, though: when will it get bad? You've seen Ivy's victims before. They're entirely without dignity, practically begging to be touched, sobbing from the pain of it all - and you've only heard rumours about the depraved things they let Ivy do to them. What they ask her to do to them.

The huff of Tim's breath crackles through the phone. "Uh - I don't know, maybe an hour? A little less, since Bruce never opens the windows in there. Just seal the sample up, drink plenty of water, and try not to freak out. It'll pass. You won't die."

///

You thought you could do it - stay in your room, deal with this alone, avoid any potential awkwardness with Dick -but you can't. It's barely been an hour. Sixty-seven minutes since you left the cave, to be exact. Sixty-seven minutes since Dick grabbed you by the waist to halt your speedy departure, touch light but insistent, and said if you need anything, come to me. His eyes were dark when he said it. Deep, dark blue, an ocean that you could get lost swimming in; but pupils already dilating, breath already speeding up. He meant it as nothing more than a kindness. Still, though, that hasn't been enough to stop you from coming onto your fingers with the image of those eyes burned onto the backs of your eyelids.

Ivy's pollen is designed to induce lust, yes, but only for the first person you see after you're infected with it. This means two things: firstly, that you need Dick more than anything right now. Your head is pounding, your lungs feel like they're on fire - the sensation between your legs isn't aching, it's agony, and you've spent fifty-two of the past sixty-seven minutes trying, and failing, to fool your body into believing that your fingers are his. The first thing you know, is that you need him, because you saw him right after you were infected. The second thing you know - there was no one else in that room. You were the only person Dick could have seen.

So, stupidly, you seek him out. You go back down to the cave, without even taking the time to wash your hands, because that's what your body is telling you to do, and you're acting more and more on instinct. Potential awkwardness be damned. He'll fix this.

Dick's facing away from you, reclined in the computer chair: his posture seems almost relaxed, just almost, legs sprawled out and left elbow visibly sticking out from around the back of the chair, like he's got one hand close to his head. You'd assume he was still looking at the computer, if you weren't so hyperaware of everything right now, but you are, and you notice more. From what you can see of his body - it's low-blue-lit from the computer screen, enough that you can make out the muscle of his legs through his sweatpants if you squint, but it's not enough, you need to see more - he seems tense. Too tense. Normally, you'd sneak closer, but your head is practically spinning now and Dick will help you. He'll make this better. Your voice is hoarse and dry when you manage to call his name.

He immediately jolts in his seat, spinning to face you, and now that he's backlit by the computer, you can barely see more than the outline of his body. God, he looks so lean, so tall - "Are you okay?", he asks, and he sounds almost as bad as you feel. You swallow thickly before responding - and, through the fog in your head, you realise that your jacket is clutched in his left hand.

You, miraculously, manage a weak smile. "I just - I thought maybe it would, you know, be better to... be together, during this. In case - if one of us needs help, or something. I don't know.". You sound stupid. Dumb. You feel it, too, and you can't even bring yourself to care. The mere sight of him is helping: it doesn't remove the pain, or any of the physical sensations, really, but at least the panic of not being near him is being soothed.

"That's - yeah, okay. How are you feeling?", Dick replies. His voice is barely more than a whisper, but you hear it as clear as if he were right up against you. Chest pressed to your back, lips on the curve of your jaw, that voice going right through you and into the pits of your stomach.

It's wrong, to think of him like this, when all he's doing is trying to check that you're alright. He knows you aren't, but he's trying.

The best thing you can think to do is make a weak attempt at a joke. "I've got a newfound fear of Ivy." Dick even huffs out a laugh, but it's just as half-hearted as your words. "I didn't think it was going to be this bad at first, Jesus - but it keeps getting worse, and, it just-"

"-it hurts. I know.". Dick nods. As you take a step closer to him, you realise that your eyes have finally adjusted to the relative darkness of the cave, and you realise that you can see his cock straining against his sweatpants. He's hard. What's more, there's a distinct wet patch leaking through the material.

When you entered the cave, you couldn't see one of his hands; the chair wasn't moving enough for him to be stroking himself, and you're not sure whether you're glad he wasn't, but now that you think of it, there was definite movement. Like he was palming himself through his sweatpants, maybe. And the hand that was close to his head, it's clutching your jacket, he was holding your jacket close to his face while he-

"Dick - were you...?"

He sighs, halfway between embarrassed and resigned, and sinks back down into the computer chair. He keeps your jacket clenched in a white-knuckle grip. "I had to take the edge off somehow, right? I'm sorry, I didn't think you would be coming back down here, I never meant to make you uncomfortable or anything-"

"I'm not uncomfortable.", you blurt out before you know what you're saying. Dick's expression visibly shifts - you don't have the mental clarity to figure out into what, exactly - but you can feel your own eyes widen as you process the implications of what you just said. "Oh, fuck - I didn't mean it like that, I - sorry."

Dick just shakes his head. He must mean for you not to worry. You stand in silence for a while, not exactly awkward but certainly thick with tension, before he pats a hand onto the desk beside him. "God, this is worse than I thought. Do you wanna come sit down?"

Do you? Although being closer to Dick sounds like the only thing you want in the world right now - god, you can't help but think about how good he would look, if you were close enough to really study him, now that you're beyond giving a fuck about etiquette - you're also acutely aware of how difficult it'll be to control yourself. Undeniably, you want him. You've wanted him for months, really - but the pollen has taken that desire and multiplied it tenfold, made it so that it's all-consuming and painful. In your room, nothing more than imagining him, it was bad enough. Now, now that you can see his fucking cock, now that the image of him rubbing himself with a blissed-out look on his face, it's almost impossible to control.

You move to sit next to him. You can't help yourself. Once you start moving, you feel like it's all in slow-motion: Dick's watching you, dark eyes trained so closely on your form, and you're wearing nothing more than a tight-fitting pair of leggings and a thin t-shirt. After what feels like an age - too long to be apart from him - you reach the desk, and upon clumsily perching yourself on it, you see Dick looking as though he's about to pass out.

"Fuck, did I - did I do something wrong? I'm sorry-", you say hastily, but he instantly shakes his head and trains his eyes on yours. The blue is nearly gone. It's all blown-out pupils now, so much that his eyes are nearly black.

He licks his lips as if to wet them. "-no, no, but - when you were in your room - when you were alone - did you do anything to take the edge off? Did you touch yourself?"

You could say no, if you wanted to. You could lie. He would know, but he wouldn't press it, and you could save yourself the shame. For all that Dick must be struggling just as much as you are, he's exceedingly kind, so much that no amount of fucked-up drugs could change that: he's still your Dick, underneath all of this.

"Yeah.", you admit after a heartbeat, and your stomach lurches when you see his cock twitch through the sweatpants. Still, you're embarrassed, and you feel the need to explain yourself just a little. "It felt like my skin was on fire unless I did. It still feels like that, though - like it just wasn't enough, I guess."

"I can smell it on you.", Dick says lowly. Oh, God. That's hot. That's so, unbelievably hot - especially when you see his cock twitch again - but absolutely mortifying. You're torn between wanting to jump on him, right here and now, and retreating back to your room. You compromise by burying your face in your hands, and letting out a pathetic whine to signal how fucked-up you are right now. Maybe you can calm down, now that you don't feel on the verge of a panic attack from being away from him, if you take a few deep breaths.

Naturally, Dick hardly gives you the chance. You feel his hand come to rest on your knee out of nowhere; it's a gentle touch, but you can feel him trembling, and the touch sends a bolt of electricity through you that's strong enough to make you jolt. "I want to help you. The whole point of these pheromones is to make it so that you need touch - it only hurts because we're not getting that. So, I can-", he says raspily, punctuating the pause with a reassuring squeeze to your lower thigh, "-touch you, just... platonically, if that's what you want. What you need."

His voice drops down an octave with the last sentence - you whine again, involuntarily, but you just about manage to turn the sound into words.

"Dick, you don't have to - we can just push through this, I know it'll be uncomfortable for you - I mean, I know it's not like we haven't hugged and stuff before, but this is different, I don't want you to feel forced because you feel bad for me."

Dick must lean forward, closer to you, because his palm slides further up your thigh. The pain that prickles insistently under your skin is beginning to turn into fiery heat: not unpleasant, but desperate, hot, and you're starting to feel like you're not going to be able to stop if he asks you to touch him. "I don't feel bad for you.", he insists, reaching up with his free hand to peel your hands away from your eyes. He curls his fingers around yours as he continues. "I just want to make you feel better - both of us feel better. See, it's already helping, right? Just relax. This is bad enough as it is."

His thumb starts to trace circles on the inside of your thigh. It's nowhere near high enough to be considered sexual, but the movement has your legs almost trembling. You wonder if he can feel the tension of your muscles. "It's... it doesn't hurt anymore. Thank you.". And, technically, you're not lying: it doesn't hurt, in fact it feels fucking incredible. You spent fifty-two minutes trying to replicate this sensation. He's only touching your thigh, it has no business feeling this good, but each little beat of his thumb has waves of pleasure crashing through you. God, how good would it feel to fuck him like this? You're shaking, and you know it, and it only makes him tug you by the hand to stand up.

Even the loss of his touch on your thigh feels devastating, but Dick's next words are more comfort than you could have imagined possible. "Here. Come sit, if you want.", he says - whispering again, voice so low and so deep, but it's just the effects of the pollen, you tell yourself - and gestures to his thigh. "You can lean back into me, don't worry, it'll be better for your back."

This has to feel as good for him as it does for you. Logically, it has to. You've both breathed in the same pollen, his skin has the same sheen of sweat that you can feel on your own skin, you're both trembling in every part of your body, and he's still rock hard. You can feel yourself leaking, god, enough that it might have dampened your leggings and left a wet spot on the desk. What would Dick do, if he saw that? He's clearly turned on, but maybe he still has the good sense to avoid fucking: maybe his view of you as 'just platonic' is so deeply ingrained, he would never touch you down there to feel how wet he's made you. Or, maybe he wants you like you want him.

"Are - are you sure?", you stammer. You can't stop looking at his lap. His cock, painfully obvious (and he mustn't care, because he blatantly drew your attention to it), and the corded muscle of his thighs, spread out straight to form you a perch.

"Mhmm...", he hums from somewhere deep in his chest, and suddenly you're grateful that he's still holding your hand, because the sound almost makes your knees buckle. He tugs gently. "Only if you want to be close to me, though."

He says that like an afterthought - like he knows exactly what you want, and like he's hungry for your touch and doesn't want to consider the idea that you don't want to give him it. You can't bring yourself to look at him before you move to sit in his lap, because you know he'll see the desire, and for now, you're still pretending that you don't want to push him down in that chair and ride him for hours. He'd like that, you think. He'd like it if you pulled his hair while you did it.

Dick lets go of your hand so he can take your waist in both hands, guiding you down onto his lap and gripping harder when your ass inadvertently brushes over his cock. You don't mean to do it, of course, and you jump like you've been shocked: you shuffle further down his thigh to avoid another mishap, but the movement causes your pussy to just barely drag against the hard muscle - you hardly manage to control your moan, forced to sink your teeth into your lip. Thankfully, Dick doesn't seem to notice, and he helps you lean back so his chest is pressed to your back, before lifting his arms to rest on the armrests. From here, he begins to rub soothing lines up and down your arms, and he tips his cheek down to rest against your shoulder with a relieved sigh.

"Fuck, that... yeah, that feels better.", you practically gasp. Feeling him pressed up against the entire length of your body, as torturous as it is, is the most relief you've gained all evening; his legs are shaking just enough that you can feel it in your core, though, and you're forced to tilt your head back to rest on his shoulder. You'll lose your fucking mind if you don't start to relax, he's right.

With your neck exposed, though, you can feel Dick's hot breath tickling your skin when he speaks. "Good, right? It feels good?". For the first time, you really hear the tension in his voice. So much so that you can't pass it off as your own projections, or a trick of his tone - he's just as desperate as you are, holy shit, he sounds halfway to begging, he sounds like he's dying to know that his touch is making you feel good. Your hips twitch of their own accord.

"Yeah... Dick?", you whisper after a few moments. He nods in response against your shoulder, a slow, dragging movement that feels like honey dripping through your veins from the point of contact. "Are you really warm, too, or like - is that just me? I - I feel like I'm burning up... Do you mind if I..." - you trail off, instead opting to tug cautiously at the hem of your shirt.

He sucks in a deep, rapid breath that you feel press against your back. For a moment, you worry that you've gone too far - it feels so good, but it's too weird, too strange for him even now - but then he slowly curls his fingers around the hem, replacing your own hands, and starts to pull upwards at a torturous pace. His knuckles drag over your lower abdomen for just a second and your hips twitch again, and he definitely felt it this time but he says nothing, and his breathing is warm and fast against the skin of your neck; with the shirt discarded, you're left in nothing more than a thin bra. Although the room feels warm, furnace-hot, you're all too aware of the blatant hardness of your nipples, and you tell yourself it's okay, he won't notice, because you're facing away and he won't - his palm drags against your breast on the way back down and it feels so good, too good, and you can't help but whimper, "Fuck, yes-"

Three things happen in quick succession. Dick freezes, you realise what you've done and move to jump up and run for the hills, and then Dick grabs your hips and pulls you back into him, right over his cock, this time. The friction makes both of you let out a breathy sigh, but where you clap a hand over your mouth, Dick follows it up with a hoarse proposition. "I can touch you properly, if you want. It'll make all this go away, I promise - do you want me to?", he rasps, pressing one, quick kiss to the skin where your neck meets your shoulder. "Do you want me to touch you?"

His grasp on your hips is tight, wanting, but gentle enough that you know he wouldn't stop you if you tried to leave again. When you make no move to do so - you're frozen, you can't believe he's just offered to do what your body is screaming for - Dick pulls at your hips, slowly, dragging your ass over his cock and then pushing you back down. He repeats the motion a few times, rolling his own hips up into you a little more with each motion, and soon your muscles start to work so you can grind down onto him. Dick rewards you with a quiet moan - oh, you want him to do that again, you're going to make him do that again, louder and louder - and then, with a touch so light you could cry, he traces one hand over your hipbones and down to your pussy.

One finger traces your slit through your leggings, and you hear yourself moan, but you're hardly aware of making the noise - just this simple touch feels almost as good as the orgasm you had earlier, even just this feather-light pressure through two layers of fabric, and every nerve ending in your body sets alight at once. This is what you needed, more than anything, for Dick to touch you and drag you down onto his cock, and you're so overwhelmed that every muscle in your body goes lax, leaving you to collapse into his chest.

Dick rubs gently at your pussy a few more times, like he's exploring you, and then suddenly he taps right where your clit is. You cry out, and he sighs against your neck. "God, I can feel how wet you are already. You should have told me, I would've done something sooner, you know that - fuck, you're so wet, let me - let me finger you, huh? Please?"

"Yeah - please, Dick.", you whine, and when you say his name, he moans and shoves his cock up against you again. He mumbles something into your skin that you don't quite make out, and then his hand is fumbling with your waistband, clumsily slipping into your underwear and then he's there, his fingers are brushing right against your clit, you sob out a broken cry - you're so wet that his fingers brush right through your folds, gliding like silk, and by the time he reaches your hole, two fingers easily sink in right to the knuckle.

Your pussy instantly clenches down, hard, and you feel more full than you thought could be possible. Dick moans into the skin of your neck and gives you a moment to calm down, to soothe the desperate jolting of your hips, before he starts to pump his fingers; slowly, at first, but soon picking up into a faster and more urgent pace. With each movement, he scissors his fingers a little, spreading you wider every time, and he starts to mouth at your neck with hot, wet kisses. "Do you like that, yeah? Am I making you feel good? Is this what you need?"

You fling an arm behind you to grasp at his hair, and when you tug after a particularly delicious curl of his fingers, he bites down hard onto your shoulder. "Fuck, yes, yes - please don't stop, please, Dick, don't stop-"

"I'm not going to stop, don't worry, I've got you - I'm here, I'm not gonna stop, you sound too pretty for me to stop, fuck - I knew you would sound pretty, keep making those noises for me."

Your body feels like it's going through the most intense orgasm of your life, especially now that he's given up on pumping his fingers in favour of curling them in rapid beats against your g-spot, but you know that you're not even coming yet: you're close, though, judging by the way the room is spinning around you, and the pressure building in the pit of your stomach - "I think I'm close, Dick, - oh, oh, oh my god, I don't - it's never felt like this before, I don't - fuck-"

"I know, I know, baby-", he croons, and the pet name has you tugging at his hair again, the other hand white-knuckled on the armrest, "-it's okay, it's gonna feel different - it's gonna feel better, I promise, it's going to be so good, I'm going to get you there, baby, come on."

"Fuck - fucking - Jesus, Dick, keep going, just like that-!", you all but shout, and Dick continues the massaging movement right up on your g-spot: the positioning of his hand means the heel of his palm is dragging over your clit, and your hips are frantically grinding up into his hand - god, you're gonna come, the world feels like it's crashing down around you, you feel the contractions start a few seconds before it actually hits you and it's going to be earth-shattering, you know it, every muscle in your body tenses up and through it all you hear Dick whispering, come on, that's it, I've got you, come on, come on, and then you're coming-

Distantly, you can feel his fingers continue their movements inside of you, unrelenting - and the other hand keeps a firm grip on your hips, grounding you onto his lap - but other than that, all you know is the white-flash across your vision and the pleasure slamming into each nerve in your body, one by one and then all at once: this is better than anything you've ever felt, better than every orgasm put together, and it feels feels for a moment like you're actually going to black out from the sheer intensity of the pleasure.

Then, suddenly, you're back in reality. Dick is heaving for breath against your shoulder, but it's nothing compared to the way your own lungs are screaming for air - god, you think you were screaming, given the scratching sensation in your throat - and his fingers are back to a slow, steady pumping, in and out of your swollen pussy. It hurts, a little, but this one orgasm has done nothing to sate your desperate hunger: in fact, it's only made it worse, only increased your desire for him, and you swear his cock is impossibly harder against your ass now.

"You - you're dripping onto my hand, baby, oh my god...", Dick pants, and there's a heartbeat where neither of you move - then, you feel his breath hitch, and suddenly his other hand is shoving unceremoniously under your waistband and going straight for your clit. He picks up the pace with the two fingers still inside you, matching each curl with a flick over your clit, and the motions are all so frenzied, those of a man possessed with some ravenous desire, like his one purpose is to have you writhing in his lap, and you give a wordless cry - too overcome with blinding pleasure to actually make a sound - that allows you to hear his ragged words. "Please, give me another one, one more - I want to make you squirt this time, it's going to be so good, I promise, just give me one more, pretty girl-"

This time, it's not just one wave of pleasure, spreading from your core and emanating outwards; no, it's wave after wave after wave, violently crashing over you and completely overcoming every part of your body, unrelenting and constant - this one lasts at least twice as long as the last, but you're hardly in the right state of mind to keep track of time, and every wave of pleasure that rushes through you is tenfold stronger than the last. You hear yourself shriek his name in the most pathetic, broken tone, and Dick cages you in against his body as best as he can as he keeps both hands working at your pussy, and you realise you're sobbing when he finally, finally stops.

When his fingers slip out of your pussy and exit your leggings, they're dripping wet. Dick audibly gasps, and then he brings his fingers to his mouth and sucks, moaning around the digits, and through hazy eyes you can see the most fucked-out look on his face just at the taste of your cum. He licks his fingers clean - you feel your pussy clench down again at the sight - before opening his eyes, fixing you with an intense stare, and panting, "You taste so fucking good - baby, I'm not going to be able to stop, I'm sorry, I need this, I need to fuck you - please."

He's asking permission, you realise. Neither of you are in control of what you're doing anymore, and he's still asking, as best as he can, if he's allowed to fuck you. There's a terrified look in his eyes, behind the frenzy and the lust - you clumsily crash your lips against his. He tastes of your juices, but it's one of the hottest things you've ever experienced, and he moans openly into your mouth, eagerly meeting your tongue with his own. You're exhausted, but kissing him renews your energy tenfold. You're suddenly overcome with the urge to feel his cock - inside you, yes, but you want to see it first, you want to make him cry out and moan and gasp for you - so you manoeuvre in his lap, keeping your mouth against his, to straddle his narrow hips and face him.

"Ah - ah, god, that feels amazing.", Dick moans, broken up between sloppy kisses, saliva starting to drip down both of your chins - but it's hot, so hot - as you frantically reach down to palm at him. The instant you finally touch his cock, you're gone: there's no stopping now that you can feel how achingly hard he is, now that you feel how he twitches under your hand each time you kiss him, and it takes much longer than you would like to undo the drawstring of his sweatpants, pull them down, and wrap your hand around the exposed length of him. He hisses as his whole body jerks.

Instantly, you set a frenzied pace of stroking him, relishing in each ragged moan that you rip from his throat; he's leaking into your palm, you realise, dripping over your fingers as you pull him back by the hair and attach your lips to his neck. When you suck a bruise into the softest part of his skin - the salty-sweat-tangy hollow beneath his Adam's apple - he shouts out your name, loud, followed by, "-fuck, fu- let me fuck you, baby, please, I - I'm close, you have to stop-"

"Come on my hand, Dickie.", you plead, and you're granted a thick spurt of precum when you lick a stripe up the column of his throat: he tastes so good, his skin so hot under your mouth, you can't stop, and you croon right into his ear, "It's - it's gonna last for hours, still, you're still gonna be hard - I'm still so needy for you, Dickie, look - come on my hand, let me see it, please. You can fuck me after, just come for me where I can watch it, oh - oh, please." His moans start to pick up in volume and frequency, coming from a place deeper in his throat. He's close, you know.

You've started to grind onto his thigh somewhere along the way. It feels amazing, it feels even better because you know he's twitching and aching for you just inches away - once you finally drag yourself out of the crook of his neck, you see that you've left a damp streak on his sweatpants in the wake of your hips, and the steady stream of precum leaking from his cock has soaked the material higher up. "Come on, Dickie, come on, let me see you come, I wanna see it, I - I'll, fuck, I'll lick it clean after, Jesus-", you blurt out, too far gone to be horrified at the ease with which the words spill from your lips.

"Oh, baby, shit-” he cries, and then his voice dissolves into a broken jumble of incoherent mumbles and whines. His cock twitches hard in your palm, once, twice, three times against the rapid pace you maintain on him, and then Dick bucks his hips up into your hand, back arched, perfectly still and tense; he comes hard, almost whimpering, head thrown back and eyes tightly shut, looking so, so perfect as you stroke him through it and grind feverishly onto his thigh. It's the image of his cock that has the breath snatched from your chest, though. Several thick ropes of cum spurt from him as you work him through it, some hitting the skin of your abdomen and some dripping down the length, and it just keeps going, no sign of stopping until Dick completely collapses, after almost a minute of moaning and coming - your hand is drenched with him.

The sight of his cum dripping from your palm makes something in your stomach clench hard, painfully, and suddenly you need to taste him, you have to, it hurts so much and it'll go away as soon as you get your mouth on him. You scramble off the chair, almost falling to your knees in front of him - he rushes to steady you, even with weak and shaky arms - but you don't care about how graceful you look right now. As soon as you manage to nestle yourself between thighs, you lick flat up the underside of his cock. The taste of it makes your eyes roll back in your head. Dick spits, "Holy shit!", and it trails off into a deep gasp as you wrap your lips around him and sink down as far as you can go. You'd take your time, usually, but everything in your body is screaming for you to taste him, let him fill you, and you're in no position for argument.

With each dip of your head - punctuated with a moan from the man above you, each one becoming closer to a growl, animalistic, and you think the pollen is beginning to send your bodies into total overdrive now - you take him as deeply as you can. You're nearly gagging, but that's what you need. His hands tangle into your hair; at first, you can tell he's trying to be as gentle as he can, but that's soon overcome with a tight, guiding grip that pushes you further down onto his cock with each bob of your mouth. The burning heat under your skin is killing you now, too much to ignore, so you manage to shuffle out of your leggings and underwear and kick them away: Dick groans roughly, maybe because he can smell you more clearly now-

"Come here, pretty girl-", Dick says, sliding his hands from your hair to lift you up by the jaw. You mean to whine, perhaps beg him to let you back down, because he feels so good in your mouth - then you see the look on his face. He looks totally gone. Nothing like the Dick you know, warm and gentle and relaxed: his eyes are completely clouded over, lips parted and slick with saliva, brow furrowed with something between pain and carnal desire. You imagine you look much the same, with spit dripping from your chin, the heat you can feel burning your cheeks, and the wetness you feel running down the insides of your thighs. He meets your eyes, and there's a moment of stillness. One thumb slips from your cheek to trace over your lower lip.

Then, both of you move at once - you surge forward to kiss him again, those perfect, pink lips - you fumble with the hem of his shirt, ripping it up and over his head while barely leaving his mouth for a second - Dick's hands slide down your body to your waist. He pulls you into him as he leans forward, half-supporting your weight, and suddenly your back is against the floor and he's on top of you, kissing you hard and bruising, the chair long since kicked away and forgotten about. Every inch of freshly exposed skin feels like molten silk under your touch: you slide greedy hands over his torso as he licks into your mouth, feeling the network of ridged scars and each ridge of muscle. Thankfully, Dick grants you a few precious, savoured moments to feel his skin, while he alternates between rolling his hips against your bare pussy and kicking off his sweatpants.

It's all ungraceful and clumsy - wet kisses stolen between your movements, each of you moaning against the other's lips - and it takes much, much too long for both of you to finally shed yourself of all your clothes. Dick's hands grab greedily at your breasts as he ruts his hips against you a few times, and you can feel how your wetness spreads over his cock. Then, his hands fly down to find your knees, and he drags them to fit around his waist, pulling up until your hips are fully tilted, the stretch of your muscles verging on uncomfortable. "Oh, fuck, that's it, baby. Keep your legs there for me, won't you? Come on, wrap your legs around me - I want to get as deep as I can, it's gonna feel amazing, I promise.", Dick says, bordering on a growl now that his voice is so deep and strained, and you do as he says immediately. You need him inside of you, now; you hook your ankles behind his back, kiss him, and desperately grind your hips into his.

And then, with one deep roll of his hips, he's inside of you. One quick thrust and he's buried to the hilt, and, God, he fits inside you so perfectly: your body all but melts at the feeling of finally being filled, and you keen as you instinctively use your ankles to press his hips further into you. Dick's just large enough to stretch you out, even with how wet and ready you are, without becoming painful, and the pollen means it only takes you a short moment to adjust to his size before your body is pleading to be fucked. He's shaking and panting with restraint above you whimper, "Ho-holy fuck, Dickie, please... please move, oh my god."

"I know, baby, I know.", he says, breathlessly, voice tight with pleasure but still sympathetic. Even with him motionless inside you, it already feels so good, better than anyone you've ever fucked, and you can hardly stop yourself from grabbing him by the shoulders, pushing him down, and riding him. "It just feels so good, you feel so good - I don't want to rush it, I want to make it last. Jesus, my body feels like it's on fire while I'm touching you, I - oh, fuck, I want to take it slow, make you feel so good you cry-"

"-We have all night to be slow, Dick, you can do whatever you want to me, just fuck me-"

Dick's hips roll into yours and a drawled curse falls from his parted lips. He pulls out, almost completely, enough that you panic and squeeze him tighter with your thighs, but then he pushes back into you, slowly, letting you savour the way each nerve ending inside your pussy is set ablaze; he repeats the motion, faster, his curses morphing into sweet mumbles of your name each time he bottoms out. You can hardly breathe - it feels so good, and each thrust of his hips is met with a pollen-driven roll of your own, so it's half-grinding, half-fucking - the slight curve of his cock has him dragging deliciously against your g-spot every time. His movements are picking up in intensity now, and you can tell the pollen is taking him over completely. The same is happening to you: fuck it, you don't want to think about the pollen anymore, you just want him.

"Ah, yes! Yes, right there-right- keep going-", you cry out after a particularly hard slam of his hips. Dick is propped up on one elbow, hair clinging to his forehead with sweat, and the other hand slips down to grab at your ass and pull you up into him. He's deep enough that it hurts, but it's the best pain you've ever experienced. "Fuck, faster, please!"

He obeys, mercifully, and you think you can see sweat starting to bead on his temples. "Is this what you need, pretty girl? Come on, tell me what you want - tell me I'm making you feel good, because you're making me feel so fucking good, I swear, better than I ever even imagined - fuck, you're so wet, are you going to come again? Please, please let me make you come on my cock."

The combination of his cock inside you, and his pelvis bumping against your clit, and the overwhelming sensations coursing through your body: it's all too much to bear, your body is going into total overdrive, and it's so embarrassing that he's got you like this. You never normally beg, you never normally come so fast, but this is different and addictive and incredible - you cry out an affirmation to his words, and suddenly his hand is gripping your chin. He's fully collapsed onto you now, and his movements are more frantic rutting than anything else.

"Look at me-", he pleads, using his hand to guide your face so you're staring right into those glassy eyes. "-look at me while you come, and it'll make me come."

You can feel your muscles beginning to tense up as your orgasm starts to grow. Already, your world is spinning, and you feel halfway to blacking out from the sheer intensity, so you tangle your hands into his hair as a way to ground yourself. "Please come inside me!", you whine - the idea of being filled with his cum, letting it drip out while he fucks another load into you, it's fucking mind-blowing and you can't imagine anything better than feeling him shoot into you while you come on his cock.

Dick's jaw clenches tightly. "Are - are you sure, baby? Is that what you want?"

The next thrust hits you perfectly, and you can't help but pull him tighter into you, so his head drops to the crook of your neck. "I need it, Dickie, you know - you know that - you need me too, right? Fuck, fuck - it's gonna feel so good, I'm so close-". He spends a few moments sucking a bruise into the most tender skin of your neck before moving to press his forehead to yours. Each rough movement of his hips has you jostling against the floor; your nipples are dragging against his chest every time, making you keen, and your swollen clit is being hit so perfectly by his hips, and he's making the most perfect and breathy noises against you - he looks so fucked-out, so gone, so completely absorbed in the feeling of his cock inside you, and your vision is starting to blur at the edges as the spark in your stomach finally bursts into flames-

"That's it, baby, come for me just like that.", Dick gasps, just as your orgasm rips through you. You've got no choice but to clutch at him desperately and ride out each devastating wave as a scream tears itself from your lungs: it feels like your body is tearing itself apart with each ripple of pleasure emanating from your core. Like your body is folding in on itself like a black hole does, when everything becomes too much to bear. You actually feel like you've died, you must have, this is too good and too much and too overwhelming - you hang on to Dick through it all, and your pussy clenches down so hard he can barely move inside you, and he chokes out your name before his own orgasm hits him.

You've come down just enough to process the way he looks and sounds as he comes. Your eyes are still hazy - you kept them on him, you must have - but you nearly come again at the mere sight of him. He's too far gone to even make sounds, and instead he stutters out broken breaths through wet lips, cheeks flushed and eyebrows furrowed hard, and his eyes stay fixed on you the whole time. Even as the rest of his body spasms and rocks into you uncontrollably, even as the hand on your chin slips down to your neck and squeezes, he keeps staring at you with all the lust in the world. The best part of it all, though, is how you feel his cum spilling out into you; even more than he shot onto your hand, somehow, and you realise you're crying from how relieved your body is. Fully, fully, crying, and Dick kisses away your tears as he collapses against you.

Despite how both of you are wincing at the overstimulation, neither of you ever stop moving through it all, and you keep grinding gingerly, carefully but sloppily, against each other even while you gasp for breath against each others' lips. It can't be more than ten seconds from when you come down, before you can't control the urge to whisper, "Give me another one, Dick, please. Keep fucking me." It hurts - it hurts because he's not fucking you, he's not moving enough - you need more.

Dick keeps rolling his hips against yours in shallow movements for a few seconds. His mouth is occupied with sucking more bruises into your neck, up your throat and across your jaw: he's mumbling something incoherent, slurring his words. Each fresh bruise has you gasping his name. You're going to be covered in marks after this - not just your neck, his grip on your ass and hips has been tight enough to leave bruises there, too - and you're entirely certain you've left scratch marks down his back. You nearly come again just at the thought of that; Dick, walking around for days with your marks left on him. Scratch marks under his dress shirts when he's on business, or under the tight material of his Nightwing suit, or blatantly visible through the obscenely sheer shirts he wears out clubbing. He's going to be marked as yours.

"You look so pretty like this, holy shit-", he says, pulling his head from your neck to admire his work. "You're so gorgeous - you always are, you always fucking are - but you look even better when you're mine, fuck-"

“-make me yours, then, please-"

You gasp in shock and disappointment as Dick suddenly pulls out, and his own face crumples at the loss of touch, but his palms are firm and insistent on your waist - he kisses you once, firmly, before he's manoeuvring your body like putty in his hands. You're flipped onto your stomach with another whisper of how pretty you are, and then Dick runs calloused palms down the soaked flesh of your thighs, up over your ass, over the curve of your spine and all the way up to gently, gently, press your cheek flat against the floor. He follows his hand with hot tongue, and when he reaches your ear, he murmurs, "You taste so good, pretty girl. Stay there for me. It's okay, let go. I've got you."

Uncontrollably, your ass jerks up and backwards against where his cock is pressing into you. He chuckles. He fucking laughs with his lips pressed to your cheek - maybe having came inside you has cleared his head enough that he can think straight enough to find your desperation funny - and one of his hands slides back down your body, spreading your pussy open for him to look at. You sense his body tense as he gazes at you. "...My cum is dripping out of you, oh my god."

Fuck it back into me, you think, but you're too far gone to string together a coherent sentence anymore. Your body can do the talking. You keep your cheek pressed to the floor, maybe because your muscles are too exhausted to lift your head, or maybe because it was so fucking hot how Dick pressed your head down, but you manage to meet his eyes. You plead with him as well as you can.

Dick's piercing blue eyes roll right back into his skull when he pushes into you again. From this angle, he feels even deeper than before: with one of his hands running lines up your spine, and his lips wet against the backs of your shoulders, and the steady, strong pace he sets fucking you, you're brought to the verge of tears again within minutes. You can hardly move your body to work with him in this position: he uses the weight of his body to press you into the floor, and each thrust of his hips has you moaning loud against the floor.

He brings a string of kisses and nips up your nape, so he can kiss your cheek again. It's sweet, a gentle gesture, only amplifying the pleasure that each deep snap of his hips brings. "I - I'm not hurting you, am I? I know it must be sensitive, baby, I understand if it's too much, I know - you can tell me if it's too much-"

"-no, please-", you whimper, terrified he's going to stop, "-it's so good, please, Dickie, you're exactly what I need-", and then your voice cuts out into a broken sob as one of his hand snakes between your body and the floor to find your clit. The rough pad of his finger brushes over it a few times, eliciting whimpers from you, before he settles for simply resting his finger on your clit. With each thrust, your hips are jostled against his finger just enough to send sparks of electricity shooting through your veins - every time, it feels like flames licking through each limb, and he's fucking into you so perfectly, claiming you with teeth at your neck, rasping your name against your skin - there's wetness against your cheek, like you're drooling, and you're almost certain you can feel the wetness of your pussy dripping onto his hand.

You're so swollen with desire, you can feel how tightly you're clenching down onto his cock. The mind-blowing pressure Dick's applying to your clit is only making it stronger. "You feel so good, baby. So, so, fucking good - holy shit, you're taking me so well." Then, there's a savage thrust of his hips, one that has both of you crying out in surprise and pleasure: he freezes buried to the hilt inside you. "You're going to make me come again soon, sweetie."

That means more of his cum inside you, more of his delicious moans and groans as he comes, and you say, "God, please-"

"-not yet, I want to make you come for me again. You feel so tight and hot when you do - I need it again, I want nothing more than that, please - you think you can give me another one, huh? One more for me?"

"I - I - yeah.", you stammer. You can, you know you can - your body is practically vibrating from how hard you're trembling on the edge of another orgasm - but you don't know when it's going to stop, you don't know it ever will - maybe this will go on all night, maybe he'll fuck you for hours on end and make you cry and let you lick your mess of his cock. But maybe it won't. Maybe your body will give out, or the pollen will leave his system: this will end and nothing will ever compare. You don't want to come again if it means the end of this pleasure. "...Promise you'll keep going after, Dickie."

Dick starts rubbing rapid circles on your clit with his ring and index finger, and kisses your hairline to soothe you as you sob again. "I'm only going to stop if you ask me to, baby, I promise. You feel too good to stop, I swear - I never thought you would be so fucking perfect, but now I know, I can't stop - I'm right here, I've got you, I'm going to make you come so many times you forget your name if that's what you want."

God, you're going to come again, holy shit-

He hardly gives you the chance to come back around before he's crooning, "-one more, one more for me, right on my cock like that-"

You can't even breathe. Your lungs are on fire, your vision is completely blacked out even once the second orgasm ends, your muscles and bones have turned into mush and you can't feel anything other than the sensation of flying. You're weightless, Dick is the only thing grounding you - he coaxes you down from the aftershocks with soft kisses to your cheek, and his hand tracing circles onto your aching hip, and the muscles of his abdomen are flexing with restraint against your back. "I'm gonna come, baby-", he hisses, and you manage the barest nod and then he sinks his teeth right into your shoulder as he starts pounding into you like a whore, fuck, it's sending you spiralling out of control again-

"Fuck, yes, take my cum like that, that's it, keep coming for me, holy shit-"

You're both boneless and drenched in sweat by the end of it. You're collapsed against the floor, Dick's collapsed against you, and he's still hard inside of you. You can feel his cum - it must have spilled out onto the insides of your thighs, judging by the wetness you feel there. His cock twitches inside of you with every ragged breath he takes. You're so exhausted; this is destroying your body, it's ripping you apart from the inside out, and you're terrified that if you come again it'll split you into pieces. And you want that. You twist your body, wincing against the waves of pleasure that crash over you at even the slightest movement of his cock inside you, and kiss him.

#dick grayson #dick grayson x reader #nightwing #nightwing x reader #dc #dcu #batman #batfam #kinktober #smut #dick grayson smut #sex pollen

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twink-appreciation-posts · 4 years ago

Text

Human Behavior - Spencer Reid x Reader

chapter thirteen of “all bets are off”

feelings are so complicated i think we should just abolish them, everyone feels nothing forever.

warnings: semi-public stuff, teasing, angst, feelings feelings feelings, spencer is lowkey an asshole but it’s okay bc it’s hot

“Hey, if it’s not too much trouble, wear a skirt tomorrow.”

Those were Spencer’s final words to you that night as you walked him out of your apartment. At the time you had barely responded, still feeling quite upset about nothing, but when you awoke in the morning you felt a bit bad about kicking him out, so you opted to at least do something nice and follow his instructions.

You tugged at the skirt a bit as you walked into the lobby of your office building. “You listened.” Spencer grinned as he noticed you walking in, approaching you. You gave him a tired smile, wishing you had had a bit more time to prepare before being thrust right back into the fire that was your interactions with him.

“Yeah, yeah. I didn’t wanna deal with being reprimanded all day for not doing what you asked.” You replied a bit too snappily. Spencer looked at you quizzically.

"Are you okay?” He asked, seeming confused.

You nodded. “Totally fine, Spence. Tired, but fine.” You assured him. It was true. You were fine, your head just kind of… hurt? Like a bit of a physical headache, but also just mental exhaustion. Damn. You hadn’t taken into account the fact that rough sex for a week and a half could cause some fatigue. Oh well, you had dealt with worse in your life.

Spencer hesitated, analyzing you. “Are you sure?”

“100%.” You fiddled with the fabric of your shirt.

He frowned a bit, not quite believing you, but not wanting to push it. “Well, hey, I have something to give you!” He perked up a bit, and you found yourself perking up as well. A present? He ruffled through his bag. “Take the stairs with me?” You tilted your head curiously and nodded, treading behind Spencer as he walked into the stairwell. He pulled a little box out of his bag, and you watched, eyes locked on as he opened it to reveal a dainty little choker. You felt all sorts of emotions, the overwhelming one being confusion, seconded by some form of excitement.

“What’s that?” You asked, a stupid question considering it was obvious.

“A gift.” He grinned, picking it up out of its box and allowing you to take a better look. “I know you said something about one with a little bell, I was considering maybe taking it a step further and adding a tag with my contact information in case you get lost,” He teased, and you felt yourself turn pale. Oh yeah, you had teased him about a collar. But this? You should have been embarrassed, but it was kind of pretty. And it was a gift. From Spencer. Spencer had bought you a gift. You blushed. “But, I thought this would be a bit more suitable for day-to-day life. A bit more subtle.”

You nibbled your bottom lip a bit. “Ah, so this is the notorious collar I’ve been dreading?” You chuckled a bit. “It’s um, it’s kind of pretty. Definitely not as bad as it could have been.” You stuttered.

“Can I put it on you?” He asked, almost excitedly.

You couldn’t help but grin. “Am I allowed to say no?”

He laughed. “You are, of course, but if you do accept this gift, there are some rules that come with it.”

“Oh, hooray. More of your infamous rules!” You exclaimed sarcastically. “Can I ask what they are before I let you trap me in them?” You questioned.

“Of course,” he tucked your hair behind your ear gently. “You should keep the collar on at all times unless you get my permission to take it off. This doesn’t include when you shower, of course, but even when you’re at home alone or at work it should stay on.”

You considered this for a moment. “What about when I sleep?” You asked.

“I think it should be more than comfortable to sleep in, but if not we can talk about it.” He assured you, fingers running over the fabric of the choker.

You shrugged in defeat.“I guess the only way to know is to try it on, yeah?”

That was all it took for him to move towards you, clasping it around your neck. Your hand went up to touch the new jewelry. “Velvet,” you chuckled knowingly, fingers grazing the soft fabric. “Still your favorite, huh?”

His eyes were locked on your neck, “It looks good on you, what can I say?” His breathing became a bit heavier as he took in the sight.

It was almost weird seeing him so openly affected by you. You felt a surge of power. “Mm, I think this whole collar thing was more for you than me, huh?” You teased.

“I like seeing you wear a physical reminder of who owns you.” He admitted, running a hand through his hair.

You had one goal in mind as you watched him grow more flustered by the second. “Of course you do. You like the power you have over me, don’t you daddy?” His eyes snapped up to meet yours, and you felt your knees weaken. “But we should get to work before we’re both late, don’t you think?” You walked past him, shoulder brushing his, as you began walking up the stairs. You didn’t make it far, though, before he grabbed your arm, stopping you in place.

“Where did this confidence come from all of a sudden?” He asked, voice low.

“I can enjoy my power over you just as much as you can enjoy your power over me.” You replied, attempting to gently tug your arm away.

You waited for another snarky comment, but instead were met with a tug. Spencer turned you around, lips slamming onto yours almost painfully, and his other hand moved to your jaw, forcing your lips apart further and granting his tongue access to your mouth. You kissed him back, of course, hands running through his hair. It didn’t take long for his hands to begin to wander, one finding t's way down in between your skirt, caressing the bare skin of your thighs. You whimpered into his mouth, flinching away, scared to make too much noise even in the stairwell. Spencer pulled his lips away from yours, using his knee to push your legs apart, widening your stance, hands wandering higher, rubbing circles on your inner thigh.

“You suck.” You breathed out.

He didn’t reply, only pushed his leg further between your legs. You felt your body began to grind against it automatically, craving the friction. You let out a huff of frustration and pleasure, angry at your body for giving in so easily. “What are you doing, Y/N?” Spencer asked.

You looked away, face red, and stopped. His hand moved back to your jaw, forcing you to look at him as he spoke. “Did I tell you to stop?” You shook your head, or at least tried to considering he was holding your face. “Then why did you?”

Why did you stop? Because you were embarrassed? Because you were going to be late for work? There were plenty of reasons.

"I dunno.” You settled on. That didn’t seem to be the correct answer though.

“I think you do know. I think you’re embarrassed.” He placed a hand on your hip, pushing and pulling your body against his. You didn’t reply, eyes pointed at the floor. “No? Am I wrong?”

You stopped fighting your desire a bit now, allowing yourself to grind down a bit more onto him. You held back your moans as best you could, biting down on your lip to suppress them.

“I guess if you’re not embarrassed,” Spencer leaned down a bit, leaving a single kiss on your neck. “You’d be fine begging me to let you finish right here on my thigh.”

You gulped. No. God no. You were embarrassed. You were totally definitely embarrassed. “N-No-“

But it was too late, he was holding your waist, keeping you perfectly still. You groaned at the lack of stimulation, pushing against his grip to no avail. “Beg.” He repeated.

“P-Please, daddy?” You mumbled, looking up at him with your best and most convincing face of desperation.

“Please what?” He replied, showing no signs of sympathy.

“Please let me, um...” You trailed off. Did he seriously need to hear you say it? “Um... you know.”

He laughed a bit. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that, baby.” He cooed. Fucking hell could he get any more annoying?

You inhaled deeply. Fine. “C-Can I please ride your t-thigh?” You said quietly, staring at the ground.

“Of course you can.” He eased up his grip, allowing you to resume your previous movements, and you were grateful for it. He was kissed your neck, a hand firmly rooted in your hair, but it was short-lived. As you began to inch closer to release you felt him pull away a bit. Oh fuck no. He was not about to pull this again.

Except he was.

He moved his leg away from your body, leaving you without anything. “We’re late.” He said simply, glancing down at his watch, and you stared at him, anger and desire bubbling up inside of you.

“No. Spencer, no. Don’t do this, come on.” You whisper-yelled.

“Do what? You asked if you could ride my thigh, and you did, didn’t you?” You swore you could punch him right in his perfect face. You could shove him down the stairs, perhaps.

“Don’t argue semantics with me. You’re the absolute worst.” You seethed, pouting.

He paid you no mind, walking up the stairs. “We should hurry, we might miss the briefing, don’t you think?” You didn’t move, staring in disbelief, until it dawned on you that he genuinely had no intention of coming back. You groaned in frustration, walking up the stairs behind him in defeat.

You guys were, luckily, on time for the briefing, walking into the meeting room alongside the rest of your colleagues. Spencer took a seat next to you, and you scooted your chair away from his, crossing your arms. He glanced at you and raised a brow, amused. You glared. Who could blame you for feeling mildly angry at him and slightly petty? Especially after what he had just done. JJ began to explain a couple of new cases she was keeping her eye on, and you tried your best to pay attention to her rather than the man next to you who was clearly looking your way. He piped up eventually, citing some statistic that was relevant to the conversation, and used the opportunity to casually adjust his chair and the position he was sitting in, a hand nonchalantly brushing your leg. You knew it had to have been on purpose, right? No way this wasn’t one of his calculated moves. You pulled your leg away, crossing it over your other, and ignored him. The rest of the briefing really only consisted of you trying to control your thoughts, some of them horny and some of them about the violent things you wanted to do to Spencer for fucking you over like that. As soon as the meeting was done you made a beeline to the door, avoiding any chance of giving him time to talk to you.

“Hey, Y/N!” JJ called out, catching up to you.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing! I just noticed that necklace choker thing you’re wearing and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Is it new?” She asked, examining it.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you chuckled. “It is new. You like it?” You smiled, trying to appreciate the comment without thinking about everything else associated with the new gift.

JJ nodded sweetly. “I do. It really suits you.”

“Where’d you get it? You have a special someone in your life?” Emily was approaching you now, teasing, and you scoffed.

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head. “With this job? I barely have time for myself, let alone someone else. Plus, men aren’t worth the stress. I mean, there’s nothing they can do that a good ole’ piece of silicon can’t do better.” You joked.

Emily and JJ burst out with laughter, echoing sentiments of agreement.

“I don’t get it.” You whipped around at the sound of Spencer’s voice behind you. He was staring at you, feigning some sort of innocence, but you knew. You knew he was doing this to mess with you.

“Oh, don’t worry about it Spence.” JJ giggled. “It’s not something you need to get.”

He shrugged in response, locking eyes with you before walking away.

"Can you imagine him in the bedroom?” Emily lowered her voice to be quieter. “I mean, he’s a human super-computer.”

“Before you joined the team he made out with some girl in a pool while he was supposed to be acting as her bodyguard. You’d be surprised.” JJ gossiped back, nudging you. “Remember that?”

You hadn’t actually remembered that event until now. It wasn’t really relevant to you, so you didn’t particularly keep it in mind. You had only heard a few jokes and stories about it, anyway.

“I don’t know what’s more surprising, the kissing or the choosing him as a bodyguard.” Emily chuckled.

You were tuned out of the conversation. How long ago had that been? You couldn’t remember exactly. Was he still in contact with her? He had never mentioned her before, sure, but you guys never really talked about that type of stuff.

“She was some superstar actress too,” JJ elaborated. “Famous from being on some beach bikini babe TV show. Typical upcoming Hollywood starlet. I don’t know how he managed to do it.”

You frowned. Fuck. Yeah. That girl had been gorgeous. And famous. And now he was messing around with you? “Do you think they still talk?” You tried to ask as casually as you could.

JJ thought about it for a moment. “Well, I’ve never heard anything about it, but he’d have been stupid not to keep in touch. I know she gave him her number.”

“We should get Garcia to hack his phone records and check for any California area codes.” Emily laughed.

"Maybe we should.” You half-joked back absentmindedly. You weren’t even sure if you really wanted to know if he still talked to her. It probably would’ve been better if you hadn’t remembered their whole affair altogether.

The three of you went your separate ways, walking to your desks, and you just sat and thought. A hand played at the velvet on your neck, fingers tracing over it. This whole thing with Spencer had made you feel more confused than any case you had ever worked in your life. Your job was to understand human behavior, and yet you were at a loss. You couldn’t understand him, but even worse, you couldn’t understand a thing about your own thoughts and feelings. Why were you so attached to a dude you had fucked a few times? Was it all just that weird post-sex sadness Spencer told you about? Was this normal? Or were you going insane, maybe? You couldn’t tell. Or maybe you could. Maybe you had just been suppressing the answer to all your questions, shrouded in denial. Maybe you weren't bad at understanding your own behavior, maybe you were just bad at accepting it. You needed coffee, you decided, so you got up, walking past Spencer’s desk, avoiding looking at him at all costs. He watched as you walked by and you almost laughed. He was a genius, but he was so unaware. You couldn’t blame him, you had been unaware of it too for a long time. But it seemed, despite your greatest efforts, it seemed you had fucked up. You thought your biggest mistake had been hooking up with him, but your mistakes had gone far beyond that. Oh, no. You had a much larger issue at hand. You had caught feelings for Spencer Reid.

taglist <33

@101donuts @annestine @spideyboix @babybloomer @welcome-to-hoeville @eldahae @brokenanxiety @andiebeaword @spencerwaltergubler @la-vie-en-amour1 @rainsong01 @taekwinkle @dreamer7black @guessthatswhyiliveinhell @creepingfromthecorners @joyousreid @slutforthegubes @cluelessnitwhit @downondilaudid @screeching-student-unknown @gretaamyk @thegingerfairchild @criminal-minds-reider @spencerrreid-cm @collegestudentvevo @pastathighs @midnightsubmissives @spencer-reid-enthusiast @emilyxprentiss @drreidshands

#all bets are off #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader smut #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #matthew gray gubler smut #mgg smut #matthew gray gubler x reader

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cutegirlmayra · 4 years ago

Note

*Slurps on ice coffee* ey yo Mayra what's cracking? I need some good ole fashioned protective Sonic of Amy I̶'̶m̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶i̶c̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶l̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶i̶t̶ . Maybe something like the press or newspaper attack Amy's character which upset her and Sonic defends or tries to comfort her? That'd be great thanks *Puts on shades and skateboards away*

What up, homie? How’s the skate? Don’t get home to late, my man, you know how these streets be at night. OUR TOWN. That’s what’s up! -slaps hand into yours and does a bro-hold-

You can see my response and thinking for this on the Pajama Blogs! (x) Timecode: 28:12

Referencing my fanfiction: Trying to ‘Tap’ into Love

PROMPT REQUESTS ARE ON SHUTDOWN, DO NOT SEND ANY TO ME, please and thank you ;3c

Prompt:

It was a pretty late night. I hadn’t seen Amy so upset before.

Usually, in the past, it wasn’t uncommon for Amy to come rushing to me--arms flung out and moving like a speed train with tears that sprawled into sparkling stars against the sky.

I always, usually, kinda-sorta, caught her and just let her cry it out with an awkward smile to my face.

But this time... Amy wanted to be alone.

That was weird. I first heard about it from Tails, who said that she had been reading some articles about the team and how they’ve said some pretty critiquing things about her... I’ve never really dealt with anything like that.

Joking, completely, I’ve totally had my fair share. But what about Amy? I always figured... well, she came off as pretty independently confident all on her own. I didn’t think she cared that much about what everyone thought of her.

So I was a bit concerned by Tails’s words, but I thought nothing of it. Waved it off as a momentary sadness for her, after all, this was Amy! She could bounce back from anything.

If it was really serious, I figured she would have come charging after me like before.

The stars weren’t here tonight... odd.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah. The second time I heard anything a little more alarming was from Knuckles. Apparently, Amy had come to seek some solace from the unconditionally loving Chao--now this had been a solid day and half since I’ve heard about the incident of her wanting to be alone after reading some bad commentary on her--and she would shake the chao away from clinging to her.

He said he didn’t get it, cause she used to love to cuddle them and they all were really hurt by her wanting to keep her distance and just pat their heads.

Now, if anything were to set me and Knuckles off, it was that.

His face was so strained as he talked to me about it, I’ve never seen Knuckles trying to hold back so much worry and anger before. He said he tried to go over and give her a piece of his mind, but when she turned around, her eyes were vacant of anything but tears.

“It looked like she thought she had done something wrong before she even did it.” He stated, “I didn’t have the heart to continue yelling at her, so I just shooed her away, telling her to pick on someone else if she was feeling that crummy.”

“Harsh, Knuckles. Harsh.” I joked, but there was a low-key truth to what I said. “Tails said something about harsh comments on some articles she likes to read about us.” The old alter of the Master Emerald’s shrine was as stony and gravely as ever. The little pieces of chipped pebbles always grinded and dug themselves under my fur and into my skin every time I sat there, but Knuckles acted like nothing ever phased his tough skin.

I was acting kinda tough, too... to be real honest with you.

Knuckles huffed, grumbling as he picked up some berry juice he had squashed into a half-coconut bowl and passed one over to me. “Doesn’t excuse telling a kid they can’t hold ya.” He was right... but then again...

“Maybe she just didn’t want the sympathy.” It was hard to look at it from a girl’s point of view, I didn’t quite understand what would tip her over the edge like that. Maybe they said she wasn’t pretty enough..? Ehh..?

“Girls really care about how others view them, you know?” I took a sip. It did in fact taste good, and I leaned back to let the slight acidy feel tingle against my throat as its favorable burst went down the ol’pipe. “Ahh~ That’s the spot!”

“...I don’t think you should be acting so carefree about this, Sonic.”

His sudden tone made me stop enjoying the berry sensation and look back to him, a little surprised but not by much. Knuckles always chose the direct route in any conversation, it’s what made him so easy and frustrating to talk to.

I smiled and closed my eyes, putting a foot down a step to stretch it out and sighed.

“...Yeah. I know.”

“If you know, then why don’t you do something about it!?” Knuckles, always ready to pull his voice out and speak up when he sees something he doesn’t like. “The very fact that she’s a girl means you should do somethin’ about it! Girls aren’t meant to mope about, they gotta be treated decently! Ain’t that half your job?!” ...Still, it made me like him like that. He was a good guy, and had the real makings of a hero--at least, to my standards--and a good friend at that!

“Half, huh?” I took another sip. Did everyone think me and Amy were something more..? After all these years, I hadn’t the slightest clue. Seems everyone else held a standard in their mind about it though...

“I’m serious! Aren’t you planning to do something about it?”

“Am I?” I smirked, not liking to be asked direct questions about myself. I took the coconut drink down and set it to the side, getting up and stretching my arm out in a few simple gestures. Spreading it across my chest and pulling it with my other hand, then twisting my torso right and down as I put the other arm back and used the one I’d momentarily stretched to reach sky high with it. “Boy, that feels good!”

“Grr... Sonic... if you’re making fun of this, I’ll-!” Before getting Knuckles too wound up, seeing him lift his fists again, I flicked myself in my usual--Sonic Charm~

I winked and wiggled my pointer finger, turning one leg to be slightly bent as I was about to speed off anyway.

I had heard what I wanted too, now time to do some more digging before investigating it right at it’s source.

“Don’t worry so much, Knuckles! Like I’d ever leave Amy to her own assumptions.” I still wasn’t sure what she was struggling with... but wanting to be alone and not have anyone clinging to her in affection?

Didn’t sound like Amy Rose to me.

While heading to dart off the island, I stopped by the chao and asked them what their story was.

Squatting down, I think I mustered up enough of my expertise in games to figure out their charaded play. It seems the chao could tell something was off from Amy’s usual, cheery nature. To try and help, they tried to swarm her as she usually did with endless hugs, but she delicately plucked each one off at a time and set them back down.

All she wanted was to sit, looking sadly between her arms and legs--I’m guessing the chao were trying to do the fetal upright position but their budgy bodies just can’t do it.--and pat their heads.

It made them uncomfortable to not be able to love on her, I assumed, and they continued to show me great concern as they held my arms in different places and showed me their adorable eyes.

“I get it, don’t worry, Amy’s gonna be just fine.” I smiled the best I could, but hearing... well, seeing their side of the story really... heh, opened my eyes?

Puns. Always a defense mechanism when you don’t intend to use them that way.

Something had me wanting to wait before I saw Amy again, though. Usually, that wasn’t like me, but I wanted a bigger picture.

I sped over to Cream’s and Vanilla’s, where I thought more insight might be had.

Tails had already called them, doing his own work to try and collect the pieces before directly asking Amy. We all knew Amy could be a bit... Nah, I won’t say it. But we wanted a better idea before we approached her about it.

Just safer that way...

I rubbed my head, remembering how easily one could fall into that hammer’s swing if they didn’t word things a bit more carefully, as Cream and Vanilla recounted Amy’s strange melancholy behavior, and how she wanted to seem less-

“Feminine?” That threw me for a loop, and trust me, I’ve had my fair share of running through loops.

“Well, not quite.” Vanilla was sitting on her lovely coach with Cream and Cheese sitting adjacent but slightly on her lap. She looked down at Cream who held her chin up a moment, wanting to be polite as she addressed me.

I did my best to hold a steady and kind eye-contact, but I could tell she was struggling to admit what she heard and saw.

“Miss Amy kept asking me strange questions. Like... Was she too much on something. I didn’t understand and she kept insisting I shouldn’t coddle her or lie to her. I didn’t know how to take that... I would never lie to Miss Amy! I just... didn’t understand what she wanted from me.”

It pained me to see that Amy had hurt someone from her own insecurities.

That was everything Amy stood against, and that’s when I knew this was getting out of hand.

I had let her be for a day just to see if she would either work it out on her own or come crying to me... but she hadn’t done either.

She was now hurting those close to her... and so it was time to intervene.

“Thank you for telling me that, Cream.” I purposefully spoke as tenderly as I could, “I’m sure that was hard for you. I’m very grateful you told me what happened.”

She buried herself into her mother’s chest, still hurt, and that drove a powerful fire through me.

That does it, Amy.

You don’t hurt people when you’re injured.

You come to someone stronger to help heal you if you can’t do it yourself.

At the time, I was really upset. Amy must have been polarized by the media.

They call her too traditional? Is that why she wanted to be more ‘tough’ like? Too protected? Too appeased?

Feminine... did she feel like a damsel in distress instead of our trusted friend?

I was trying to keep my head leveled, but I ended up closing my eyes during my run and letting the night’s air beat against me to try and cool myself off before finding her.

She wasn’t home, I checked the windows. No lights.

Unless she was sitting the dark, Amy always had a reading light on. She only turned every light off in her house when she was going to bed, so she could see the stars and feel like we were watching them together, no matter if we were far apart or not.

I looked to see she hadn’t any dirty dishes in the sink, and while peeking through the window, I noticed her drapes were down as well. That means she hadn’t been cooking or baking, and that she hadn’t opened the windows and pulled the drapes to let the smells carry, hoping I’d catch wind of it and invite myself in for a dinner with her.

I sped over to the city, thinking maybe she went on one of those ‘journey walks’ where she just window shops but ends up buying too many bags and waiting for me to bolt by and help her with them. She liked to think and experience things outside the home too... but I didn’t see her struggling with shopping bags anywhere.

She wasn’t watching Twinkle Park’s lights from her favorite outdoor restaurant, or purposefully losing her hat in hope’s I’d somehow see it and return it to her. She wasn’t sitting on her favorite spot with her favorite outdoor umbrella with her typical strawberry and vanilla shake and pretending she was too cold to finish it, bundling up and hoping I’d make a move and pull her closer or something.

She wasn’t in the fields where she’d pick flowers with Cream, or stare up at the clouds and reminisce about old times and stories we used to tell each other, or have her head on a bed of flowers so butterflies would come and sit on her still face as she dreamed of a future with me in it. Waiting for me to zip by and have the butterflies spread out and fly through my backdraft as the air around where I just blazed through would slowly return to a even, equilibrium.

She wasn’t anywhere I usually found her at.

I came up to my last spot I could think of. Why was this so hard? Amy could find me in a heartbeat... which... I couldn’t quite feel right now because it was fluttering dangerously like my shaky breaths.

I kept a strong look on my face, simply because I was worried my fear at not finding her would leak through and make her feel bad about being too well hidden.

I didn’t want her to feel bad... I didn’t want her to be alone for this long.

It had been the dark of the second day... I just wanted to see her. Make sure she was okay...

That anger that once fueled me was now popping in sparks of concern that made me walk around the rolling hills of Green Hill zone.

If she wasn’t here... looking for me... then I truly didn’t know where she was.

Eggman... would have been my next guess.

That, or Amy was replaced by a robot of his and was terrorizing the living daylights out of her friends!

... It was concerning. I wouldn’t worry. I couldn’t worry... Amy wasn’t a little girl anymore and hateful, spiting comments were to be expected when you live in the spotlight.

But I was just wanting to know where she was... how she was... It was starting to drive me crazy.

“Where are you... Amy?” I looked up to the sky, blank and black, and I didn’t like the omen it sent me. Like chills down my fur, the wind finally got to me. I felt the cold... empty world for the first time... realizing Amy was out in it without me.

Was she without her coat? Was she silently re-reading those awful articles?

‘Amy... Amy... Hear me... You’re not alone.’ My thoughts channeled through to my feet and I kept searching, darting here to there, scouting out east and west, north to south was like zig-zagging till every blade swayed left and right to make sure she wasn’t hiding somewhere in it’s darkened shade...

A crescent moon... not a full one. She liked the full moon.

‘Amy...’

As I ran through a rather flattened terrain of another zone, I watched to the side of me how the treelined slimmed down and the edge of the world rose up on a hill... that soon became a mountain.

Blocking my view... of any light the night could have brought to her.

She only liked the dark when she was about to sleep... it’d be too dark to really see her way home, soon.

I had confidence she knew her way home, that the world wasn’t that dangerous... but I wondered if her mind could be.

‘Amy...’ I bit down my teeth, charging forward in a streak of blue.

“AMMMMYYY!!!!”

----

As though hearing something in the distance, I raised my head and looked back over my shoulder.

Something kept telling me Sonic was looking for me... but I wondered if that was true this time.

I turned my solemn head with a sigh back to the last shred of light from the fading sun... I felt like... if I got any closer, I would feel it’s warmth envelop me completely... and I’d disappear from this world.

All these awful words in my head would cease, all this terrible feeling of not being enough, or too much, or just dull and unwanted... I wanted it all to go away.

I had cried and thought so much, self-reflected to the point of not even knowing where I was or how far I had traveled off too.

Tails said I was acting too sensitive to words that random people that didn’t even know me had said. Knuckles yelled at me when I tried to change my behavior so I wasn’t what those people had written about. Cream even got tongue-tied trying to voice her own thoughts about me... and ended up just saying something to ‘feed my ego’ as they put it.

No... Cream wouldn’t do that. Tails wouldn’t try and be so dismissive of me like they said they all are. Knuckles... Okay, Knuckles is loud and yells a lot, but he meant well..!

She groaned and let herself flop back to lay against the cold grass, still holding her arms around herself as she was getting terribly cold in her heartache.

Knuckles just didn’t like how the chao were reacting to my new behavior... it’s understandable they would have been apprehensive to me trying to love them a little less directly... But practicing my new, refined self on them didn’t seem to have any good effects...

Maybe I’m overthinking... but I just want someone to tell me... I’m alright.

She put her arms over her eyes, refusing to look up at such a dark and ugly sky tonight.

“I just-” she sniffed, feeling the hot tears break through her already stained, sticky cheeks full of her earlier dried tears again. “I just want someone to tell me I’m perfect the way I am..!”

A sound arrowed itself into a bow along the plain of where Amy was, a sound that soared through her like a sonicboom that cracked through to her heart and made her sit up, looking as though with outrageous hope towards the last lowering light of the sun’s touch...

The grassy hill behind her seemed to have made a sound like something was moving quickly across it’s tundra... like something was refusing to let her sit in the quietness to let her thoughts overwhelm and consume her.

Her thoughts could hear someone calling her name...

“Sonic..?”

She lightly whispered his name out.

Then, as though pushing her lips back to not bother him, but wanting more than anything to jump into his arms-!

“SOOONIICCC!!!”

-----

He zoomed back to the sound, his eyes raising as though elated to finally get a trace of her.

And those tears that sparkled and lit up the entire night sky with stars...

And those arms that reached out for him, as though stretching on for eternity... a never-ending yearning he always accepted, granted a little half-heartedly, but never refused.

That scene was forever imprinted on him... and he wasn’t letting Amy leave his sights till she was her usual, teasingly flirty and emotionally unbreakable, spirited and youthful self again!

#The pining..!!!! The yearning..!!! Ahhh!!!#sonamy #sonicxamy #cutegirlmayra #sonic prompt #sonamy prompt #sonamy hurt/comfort #sonic the hedgehog #amy rose

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cogentranting · 3 years ago

Text

Arrow 1x05 Rewatch

. Oliver’s little smirk when Lance is interrogating him. I live for it.

“You can speak to Mr. Queen’s attorney when he gets here.” He? Where’s Jean Loring?

“He also thinks I dress up in a mask and a green hood and shoot people. With arrows.” The audacity of Oliver.

“she knows me better than anyone. She knows I could never be this guy.” OLIVER. I mean. Again. the audacity. Especially because he reveals later that he planned this. That he WANTED to get arrested. And he just has this whole plan revolving around this front of “Laurel knows me so well. She’s the only one who really knows me and she knows I’m not a killer.” When really the crux of the plan is how much Laurel does NOT know him and he plans on exploiting that. Amazing.

“He raised her to do the right thing and that includes representing an innocent man.” Okay. So. My indiscriminate glee with the irony and Oliver’s attitude aside. This whole set up is really interesting. It reminds me actually of the moment in the season 5 flashbacks when he goes to see Galina (Taiana’s mother) and lies to her and manipulates her with this nice persona which is actually at that point more a mask than his Kapiushon identity. And that scene has always been really interesting to me because it’s Oliver pretending to be a good man at a time when he’s not, and while he lies a lot and puts on masks throughout the series, that particular aspect of it is fairly unique because it comes at what is basically Oliver’s lowest point (morally). And this episode (1x05) is similar in it bringing out this very manipulative side of Oliver that we don’t see in this way all that often (and remember that moment in 5x17 and this moment in 1x05, are actually very close together chronologically. Somewhere between 2 and 7 months apart.) The idea that Oliver, knowing full well that he is attacking and killing people, gets Laurel involved on the basis of this very emotionally laden appeal, citing their history and the connection they had, especially considering the role that Laurel believing oliver to be more moral than he really was played in Oliver cheating on her, and using not only her perception of him, but the way that him reaching out to her would be perceived... it’s cunning, and it’s effective, and it’s kinda messed up.

But like.... legally... can Laurel represent her ex-boyfriend who her father arrested?

It’s ALL so calculated to manipulate how people perceive him. Appearing in court without a lawyer until Laurel agrees to do it. Protesting the tracking anklet. Throwing the party. His response to the plea deal.

Speaking of calculated. Oliver knows what that blue sweater is doing to make his eyes pop. He knows.

But Malcolm and Walter acting like they have no idea why Quentin would have a grudge against Oliver. LIke come one guys. You know.

I just. I love the polygraph scene. For so many reasons.

In the same vein about Oliver manipulating people’s perception of him in this episode, what makes this episode great are the places where it’s unclear even to the audience how much of Oliver’s reactions are genuine and how much is purposefully done to affect how Laurel and Quentin see him. Even in the polygraph scene-- did he get pushed into revealing that he was tortured on the island? Or did he see a way around that answer and reveal it anyway to gain sympathy? Did he actually get hung up on his guilt over Sara’s death (which is of course very real) or did he use that guilt as a way of covering up the answer to “have you ever killed anyone” because he knew he couldn’t beat the polygraph on that one? Did reliving his torture and Sara’s death actually overwhelm him to the point that he had to run out, or was he able to keep those reactions in check but put on the act to convince them? The same idea is present in the scene later in the episode where he shows Laurel his scars and talks about how damaged he is. And we know that there is intentional manipulation going on because Diggle and Oliver’s conversation at the very end-- “So you lied. Or maybe you just gave her a version of the truth.” “I told her what she needed to hear.”-- and we know that there is truth (Oliver IS damaged, he IS guilt-ridden over Sara’s death, he IS traumatized by the torture he suffered) but we don’t know exactly where the line is between the two.

I also think that Laurel and Quentin’s different reactions are interesting. When Oliver says that he was tortured, Laurel’s mouth is literally hanging open, she’s so shocked. But Quentin doesn’t react. Unlike Laurel he already knew about the scars so part of it is probably just that he put together that either Oliver was tortured in some capacity or he was horrifically cutting himself. But even if he had forewarning of it, just the idea that at this point he is so broken and angry over Sara’s death that he can look at someone who, even if he never really liked, he’s probably known since Oliver was in jr high. To hear this kid you watched grow up say he was tortured and not even react...

Love how little effort everyone at this party put into the theme

“If you think this is what prison’s like you are in for a rude awakening.” So i think this is mainly a joke because clearly Oliver doesn’t think prison is like his little rave thing. But. I do think that even though Diggle has some sense of what Oliver’s been through, because he still thinks Oliver spent those entire 5 years on the Island, Diggle thinks that Oliver doesn’t have a great sense of the real world. Just the world of the fabulously wealthy and the world of deserted islands. While in reality Oliver actually has spent time in some very different walks of life between Russia and Hong Kong and Hub City.

“I just don’t like being played. Now you might have gotten used to lying to everyone else in your life but I’m the one guy you don’t lie to.” And here we are with that manipulation motif again. Oliver who at this moment actually has no reason to lie to Diggle, can’t trust enough to actually just present his plan to Diggle. He has to pull strings and manipulate to get him to go along with it. At this point trust is so hard for Oliver that it’s easier to just have a different mask for everybody.

“I can’t remember the last time that I was in this room.” “I can. Halloween 2005.” But that’s 2 years before the Gambit sinking. Why was Laurel not in this room for 2 years prior to that? she was dating Oliver? this is presumably his room? and if it’s NOT his room then its... just a random one? And why would she even comment on it?

“There were times that I wanted to die. In the end there was something I wanted more.” The clear implication that Oliver is making is that Laurel was sort of his inspiration to keep going throughout his five years. And I’m not so against the Laurel Oliver ship that I’d deny that that is a factor of Oliver’s motivation during his time there. Particularly during the seasons 1 and 2 flashbacks, and at the very end of season 5 (which, if we understand the story chronologically, is probably the specific moment that Oliver is referring to here-- when he was drugged and in pain and had a gun to his own head and hallucinated Laurel convincing him not to kill himself. Which was only like 2 months prior to this conversation). But Laurel and getting back to her is really only referenced a handful of times throughout the flashbacks. That’s probably in part due to the series moving away from her as the main love interest/female lead. But I think its also a disservice to Oliver as a character to reduced his motivation down to that. Oliver is much more driven by 1. a general will to survive (something that is a dominant trait of his but also often in conflict with his suicidal ideation) 2. a concept in his mind of owing his life to others-- he feels he has to fix his father’s wrongs, he has to protect his mother and sister, he has to come make amends to Laurel etc.-- what he owes to others takes utmost priority (and that’s why often his suicidal thoughts come in this form and also have to be combatted in this form-- he thinks he should die because others would be better off without him, vs he should live because they love/need him) 3. a need to atone for his own sins. Interestingly, I think that even when Laurel is serving as Oliver’s motivation, it’s not as much his love for her driving him as a need to make things right with her (in the flashbacks. In the present in season 1 and somewhat season 2, his love for her is more dominant, and often in conflict with his desire to set things right which is why, especially early on, you get weird back and forth between pushing her away and trying to get close to her).

“Impressive. you have resolve I didn’t credit you for.” Oliver’s iron will is such a central part of his character and contrary to what a lot of people believe, its not something forged into him on the island. It’s something he starts with. And I wonder what that looked like in his youth? Probably a lot more like season 1 Thea (who has that same iron will).

This arms dealer looks like a discount Vince Vaughn.

It hurts my heart to see Quentin and Oliver at odds like this.

“But if any member of my family so much as gets a papercut... I will burn your entire world to ashes.” I love the Queen family so much.

Oliver: “Good heart to heart Diggle. I’m gonna go kill someone now.”

#arrow #arrow rewatch 21 #arrow 1x05 #cogent metas #cogent liveblogs #cw: suicide #oliver queen #this is one of my favorite episodes and it was fun picking up on some aspects I hadn't thought about before. so maybe this one got kinda lon #*long

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gone-series-orchid · 4 years ago

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If there ever does happen to be a Gone TV shows, is there anything that you would want them to do/ change?? I've been thinking about it a lot recently and I think it has the potential to be good but at the same time I feel like (and this is such a rare line of thought from me) if they strictly stick to canon it could be...uncomfortable??

that’s an interesting thought! i think i get what you’re saying. there's a lot of distinctly uncomfortable moments in the series that i think mg didn’t really think through the implications of (like caine’s veiled rape threat to diana that i guess isn’t supposed to affect our feelings toward him to such a degree that we don’t want him to get redeemed, lots of caine being evil for the sake of it, sam being horrible to astrid because she wouldn’t have sex with him, everyone being racist to edilio in the first book and then it...never really comes up again except for the human crew’s cartoonishly evil bigotry which also doesn’t have lasting impact on the fayz after zil and lance die). oof, and that isn’t even touching all the ableism informing little pete and the misogyny you detailed in your post!

if there was anything i’d like the show to do, it’d probably be to streamline the plot a little. like, i love the series, but it gets super messy. the events that happen in individual books seem to rarely carry over aside from major character beats. i love the books’ individual contained subplots, like those that center the perspectives of duck zhang and hunter and zil, and i really hope the tv show maintains them without minimizing them. i think they do a lot to flesh out the fayz’s general population and the scale of morality mg is dealing with. and of course i really hope they adapt orc’s subplot, which is my favorite. but i think some other stuff could be minimized--i liked orsay, but what was the point of giving her a pov? she lessened in importance almost right off the bat once she entered the fayz; she was just a tool for nerezza. and nerezza herself seems like an odd character. i really enjoyed lies for astrid’s arc and the general focus on the fayz’s politics/morality, but honestly i think the tv show should cut back on nerezza and focus on the human villains, meaning zil and the human crew...honestly i think most of my suggestions would be on the structure of the show throughout its seasons (i’m thinking idealistically, of course), because tv shows are so different from books. i guess i worry about the focus being all over the place because there’s so many different povs throughout the books! speaking of...

this may completely contradict my prior point but i literally love the rotating povs of the books and i kind of wish that would be amped up a little in the show? like, instead of being mostly focused on sam with subplots focusing on other characters scattered throughout, i’d love if it was a little more of an ensemble show. in the first season (which i imagine would adapt the first book), i’d really love maybe a few scenes showing off howard and orc’s characters in more detail. we get that scene in gone where orc reveals his father’s abusive nature, and that’s definitely essential if they want to give him some pathos and set up his arc, but i’d love to have little moments where the audience just sees the kids of bully row just vandalizing stuff and messing around. like, establishing that as dumb and bullying as they are, they’re still just kids, and they’re nothing compared to the outright villainy of caine and drake. we get that vibe in the first book, definitely, but i think we’d need more scenes establishing that. i’d love it if we saw that there are certain lines that howard and orc as bullies wouldn’t cross. that would make us feel even more shocked when orc accidentally murders bette. also, i hope we’re shown that scene in the show instead of just being told about it like in the book.

i also hope that the first season gives astrid, like, an actual job/role to fill? there’s like a line in gone where sam calls her his assistant, but i kind of wish she’d be deemed the fayz’s resident researcher or something, preferably before she gets together with sam (which i’ll talk about later) so that the only job description the audience has of her isn’t “sam’s girlfriend.” i also really want the show to give us a couple scenes establishing astrid and edilio as potential leaders of the fayz as well, not just automatically discounting them because they’re not the protagonist. sam can still eventually come out on top, i guess, because it happens in canon, but at least let the characters discuss it in more detail.

also, i want little pete to have an actual relationship with astrid! show how much they care for each other in their own way. astrid can still have her negative feelings toward the responsibility she has in taking care of him, but alongside that should be love. astrid should also keep working with him on his therapy as a means of communicating with him more effectively, which is something i’m super frustrated no one thought to do in canon!

as for character relationships...i sort of wish astrid and sam don’t get together in the first season. focus on building up their friendship first. sam can still have his crush, but there should maybe be some tension whether astrid reciprocates or not. remember that weird plot point where it’s revealed in the later books that astrid was manipulating sam in order to get his protection? even though there’s like...no indication of that in the first book? bring that in from astrid’s pov, with her realizing how dangerous the fayz is (maybe after bette dies). make it ambiguous whether she’s really romantically interested in him. give her sympathy; show her fear for herself and her little brother’s safety. and show sam and her friendship! but also there’s ambiguity there. that maybe could be a cliffhanger for season 1--is astrid tricking sam, or does she really like him? bonus: it’s her that initiates their first kiss, preferably at the very end of the season instead of happening midway through, just before sam goes off to battle. though sam has a crush on astrid, she’s not his reason for not poofing; instead, he thinks of his friends and the innocent kids he’d be leaving behind to the mercy of caine and realizes that he has a responsibility he can’t shirk.

also...flashbacks!! i’d love it if we got flashbacks through each episode (with the focus being on one individual character per episode) of the characters’ family dynamics. would give the characters more depth and pathos right off the bat. maybe leave off on that for antagonists like drake and caine though. speaking of--show diana’s better qualities!!! show her fear of the rapidly escalating events happening at coates, show her tenuous grasp on caine, show the vulnerability behind the mask of glib snark. maybe she reveals this vulnerability when she’s alone. maybe show her trying to persuade caine not to string up andrew in order to observe the proof. show her looking on in horror at the kids’ cemented hands. little things like that can go a long way to humanize her. also, show the casual sexualization she’s subjected to by her peers at coates--maybe that could be part of the reason why she doesn’t leave immediately after caine does evil stuff. maybe she feels like she wants revenge for the things she suffered in the past from her classmates. it’s a misplaced sense for vengeance, but it’s still sympathetic. and diana can realize “oh, this was a huge mistake” the minute things get real. make her desire to be caine’s queen an extension of her trauma over her past powerlessness, subjected to the abuse of her mom’s boyfriends. don’t necessarily make her a wilting flower, keep her pettiness and meanness, but give her a little more humanity!

also--okay this is more of a self-indulgent thing but--i’d like more scenes between orc and astrid! just a few, just to flesh out their relationship a tiny bit in the first season so the coates scene* comes off as powerfully as possible. remember when orc was okay with drake potentially torturing astrid because he didn’t want to lose face in front of sam in the first book? because he was too prideful to admit he cared for her? show astrid reacting to that! show astrid using that to attempt to sway him to her and sam’s side! maybe there’s a moment where, in the scene where the kids see orc’s growing mutation, orc catches a glimpse of the bruise on astrid’s cheek from drake’s slap and feels visible regret. maybe astrid notices that and tries to subtly manipulate him over to the side of good, while still having genuine compassion for what’s happening to him mutation-wise. i just think their dynamic is so good and i’d love for astrid to utilize one of the few personal connections she had pre-fayz.

anyway, this is getting way too long, so i’ll cut it off here. sorry for the length! thank you very much for the ask! :)

*the coates scene in plague is one of those few scenes in the series that comes off as exactly as uncomfortable as mg intended, imo. like the implications probably should have carried over to orc’s arc a little more but still! i want it to be preserved in the tv show. it could be so good! the writers would have to tread lightly, but if they get it right, it could be phenomenal (in my obviously biased opinion lol).

#gone series #michael grant #fayz

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, 13 (Branjie) (and background everyone) - Ortega

a/n:guess who’s realised she never submitted this to AQ? it’s ya boi. if u haven’t been able to read this yet then here it is, and look out for the final chapter coming soon! thank u to everyone who’s ever sent this fic some love, it means the world to me!!

fic summary: Strictly Come Dancing enters its 18th series and its producers, after being goaded by a rival dance show on its inclusivity, commission it to be an all-female cast. Unlike Akeria who’s just here to bone her potential dance partner, dancer Vanessa is ready to act like a professional.

And then TV presenter Brooke Lynn walks into the rehearsal room.

***

6th December 2020

Vanessa’s in the wine aisle of Marks and Spencers when she sees her again.

Her hair’s been dyed- she already knew that, she’s seen pictures of it on her Insta feed- and the demure tones of the honey-brown balayage are a contrast to the blonde ombré she’d had when they’d been together, but it suits her. She’s in sweatpants and a cropped jumper, because of course she is, and Vanessa recognises the matching pink set emblazoned with the Playboy logo from Missguided adverts on bus shelters. She’s wearing some form of chunky white trainers and Vanessa isn’t proud of the fact that she feels a little flame of satisfaction light up in her gut when she sees that they’re splattered with mud, contrasting with her clean outfit and perfect makeup.

Vanessa turns back to the green bottles in front of her, staring at them for so long and with such intensity that she thinks she might rip the fabric of reality in two. She consciously blocks out her peripheral vision so that all she can see is the label of one bottle of white which she reads over and over again. A light, dry white with citrus notes and lively green fruit flavours. Grown in the spectacular setting of the sun ripened vineyards of central Spain. Goes with fish, chicken and salads.

She doesn’t, in any way, shape or form, know how to play this situation, because this is the first time she’s seen Kameron in person since they decided to call it quits. One one hand she could just keep staring at the wine bottle, attempt to blend into the shelves via osmosis and completely avoid her ex, but on the other hand…Vanessa doesn’t really know what the other hand is, because she doesn’t know what a conversation between the two of them would look like. There’s a part of her that wants to find out.

And suddenly, with a cry that Vanessa recognises as hers, the decision is made for her.

“Vanjie?”

Slowly, timidly, Vanessa turns around to meet her eyes. Soft, brown eyes that Vanessa had once looked into and seen her whole world and future.

God, it’s fucking crazy how she used to be so in love with her and now she feels completely apathetic.

“Kam! Hey,” Vanessa smiles tightly, waving awkwardly with the hand she’s not holding her shopping basket with. “How are you?”

“I’m fine! Well, actually, not amazing. I tried to make this really fancy, complex coq au vin for dinner last night but I don’t know what the hell I did wrong because it tasted like fucking ass. So I’m here getting ingredients again because Mama didn’t raise a quitter. It’ll probably still taste like garbage though, you know what I’m like,” Kameron reels off, which makes Vanessa smile in spite of herself. Kam was never the best at cooking and it was usually Vanessa who made the dinners when they were together, but there were still a couple of times when she’d tried at something and had failed spectacularly. Kameron seems to pick up on what she’d said as a little look of discomfort flashes in her eyes before she follows her sentence up with, “How’re you? God, it’s been ages.”

“It has,” Vanessa shrugged a little. So much has changed since they’ve last spoken that Vanessa isn’t really sure where to start. “I’m good. Things are pretty great, really. Obviously had a good run on the show for my first year competing, so hopefully I’ll get a partner next year too an’ win it next time.”

“I know, you did so well! I was really shocked you didn’t make the semis at least,” Kameron frowns, and the flattery does admittedly soften Vanessa up a little. Kameron’s face lights up as she adds, “God, your girl was so amazing though too! Brooke Lynn Hytes, right? She was super talented. Now I know how good a dancer she is I can’t help but feel like she’s sort of wasted as a presenter.”

“Yeah, she’s incredible,” Vanessa nods emphatically, unable to help the heat she feels spreading to her cheeks whenever she gets to talk about Brooke with somebody. Kameron’s expression changes a little as she clocks Vanessa’s blush, and a cheeky glint appears in her eye. Vanessa frowns. “Hey. Behave.”

“I didn’t say a word!” Kameron laughs, and as she trails off there’s a smile on her face that’s affectionate and helps Vanessa warm up to her ex even more. “Listen, what’re your plans? I’d honestly love to catch up. It’s been too long.”

Vanessa tilts her head in thought. The conversation isn’t going too badly, and her only plans are going round to Brooke’s later on to watch the semi-final results and have dinner (hence the reason she’s gone to M&S to get wine and not the Tesco Metro round the corner from her). So Vanessa surprises herself when she shrugs, giving Kameron a little nod. “Okay, yeah. Lemme get this wine and then we can get coffee.”

The way Kameron’s face lights up makes Vanessa think that her decision was the correct one.

They’re sat at a little table at the window of a nondescript coffee shop roughly ten minutes later, Kameron stirring the hell out of a vanilla latte that’s sat in front of her and creating a tiny whirlpool in the coffee that puts Vanessa in mind of a Pirates of the Carribean movie. Kameron’s talking about the flat she’s in just now- she bought it after she rented for a while when she moved out of Vanessa’s place- and how furniture is so expensive.

“I mean I could just go to IKEA and just furnish the entire thing for, like, two grand, but I actually want some really nice stuff, you know? Like it’s a big girl professional flat, not a uni rental,” she screws her face up as she finally takes a sip. Vanessa bristles a little opposite her- she knows Kam doesn’t mean it, but Vanessa wants to remind her that most of her furniture is from IKEA, because they’d gone and bought it all together when they first moved in. Kameron doesn’t seem affected, though, and keeps talking. “What about you? You still living out at Finsbury Park?”

Vanessa nods. “I’m still in the same flat, I never moved.”

A look of shock passes over Kameron’s face and Vanessa can read her like a book- the fact she’s still in that flat where they made so many memories together is obviously surprising. Vanessa can’t help but laugh. “Kameron, chill. You don’t roam the fuckin’ halls like a ghost, I don’t burst into tears whenever I go into a room. It’s a decent flat at a decent price, I wanted to keep it.”

“Right. Sorry. Ego check,” Kameron smiles sheepishly, and Vanessa feels bad for poking fun at her. Kameron perks up after a second, laughs a little. “I like how you said ‘halls’ plural. Like it’s a stately home and not a fucking matchbox with an intercom system.”

Vanessa’s taking a sip of her own hot chocolate and she almost chokes on it in a laugh, Kameron howling and slapping the table in response. Vanessa’s forgotten that Kam used to make her laugh, still can. She always used to see it like some sort of secret privilege she had access to, the quiet girl’s funny side rare and only popping out on special occasions. That hasn’t changed over the years.

“How’s work, anyway?” Vanessa asks her as she composes herself. Kameron shrugs easily.

“Pretty good. I did a Dua Lipa music video the other week, that should be coming out in a month or so.”

“Is she actually as bad a dancer as that video made her out to be?”

Kameron smirks. “She had a shit choreographer; she’s actually alright. Not pop girl standard, but you know. My agent’s trying to get me on the Blackpink tour next, so I should hear back from that soon.”

Vanessa’s glad that work hasn’t dried up for Kameron- the backing dancer industry is treating her well.

“Anyway,” Kameron bats her lashes, looking at Vanessa coyly from behind her glass. “Tell me more about this dance partner of yours, miss.”

Vanessa feels herself blush, a bashful laugh escaping her lips before she can stop it. It’s weird- after they first broke up Vanessa always used to think she’d love the chance to rub her ex’s face in a new relationship, but it feels ever so slightly odd now she’s actually about to talk about Brooke in front of her. “Honestly, we’re just seeing each other and keeping things casual. Y’know, while the series is still goin’. We’re not even official or public.”

“Yet,” Kameron smiles cheekily at her, and Vanessa can’t suppress the smile she returns to her.

“Okay, yet. But it’s going really well. I really like her. She’s sweet, an’ she’s caring, an’ she’s the best listener.”

“And she won’t be a fucking idiot and cheat on you.”

“No, I don’t think she will,” Vanessa shrugs, the fact that Kameron’s brought the situation up casting a small grey cloud over the conversation. It’s clunky and awkward, a puzzle piece jammed in a place it shouldn’t be. It’s been brought up now though, so Vanessa grimaces and adds, “But then I never thought you would, either.”

Kameron’s face screws up in regret, and before Vanessa knows it she’s rested a hand on top of hers and is giving her a tentative smile. “I know I said it about twenty million times when we were together but I’m honestly so sorry, Vanessa. You didn’t deserve that.”

“Kam, you gotta stop beatin’ yourself up about it,” Vanessa cuts in and says swiftly. Her own words shock her; they’ve come from virtually nowhere, and she’s amazed at the raw sympathy she’s just shown her. “You were drunk, it was a kiss. Strictly is…it’s a weird show. You saw him more hours in the day than you saw me. Kisses between partners happen all the time, it just…sucks that it happened between you two.”

Kameron nods quietly, and Vanessa puts her other hand on top of hers. “I forgive you. Give yourself a break.”

Kameron squeezes her hand, shoots her a soft smile. “Thanks, Vanjie.”

They let go of each other’s hands and each take a sip of their own drink, the silence between them somewhat symbolic like someone wiping words off a whiteboard. Vanessa watches as Kameron swallows a gulp of her coffee and grins. “Hey, do me a solid and put in a good word with Asia O’Hara for me, okay? I really want to slide into her DMs but I need some context first.”

“Your face can be the context, fuckin’ look in a mirror,” Vanessa snorts, and the two of them laugh together.

It’s nice. This huge, big, massive event she’s built up in her head for all these months is happening- she’s bumped into Kameron and she’s speaking to her. She doesn’t need to build it up anymore, or wonder about how it would play out because she’s living it, it’s playing out and she never has to see Kameron for the first time since they broke up ever again. A wall crumbles down in her mind without warning and once the dust settles she realises that she feels somewhat lighter.

Vanessa has been carrying this burden around with her for all this time without even having known it.

The pair of them eventually finish up- hug goodbye outside the coffee shop and tell each other how nice this all had been and then go their separate ways. They don’t promise to keep in touch, but Vanessa knows they’ll probably like each others’ Instagram posts or occasionally tweet each other support or that kind of thing now. Little things that remind them they’re still on good terms.

As Vanessa heads to the tube, her mind drifts to Brooke and how excited she is to see her. The week has been long and Brooke’s been busy, but true to her word she’s messaged Vanessa whenever she’s had a spare moment, updating her on her day and asking her about her own. On Tuesday she’d invited Vanessa round to her flat on Sunday night as she has a day off on Monday and they can spend the night together. She’s not just abandoned her or left her hanging, and if there’s about to be a gap between her messages she always pre-warns her. Brooke’s treating her well. Almost like a girlfriend. Exactly like a girlfriend.

Vanessa still doesn’t know what they really are. She’s so far told herself that that’s alright, but now they’re out of the competition that answer isn’t really satisfying her any more. She wants to call Brooke hers, she wants to be with her properly. As Brooke’s apartment building comes into view, Vanessa wonders if she’ll bring it up tonight.

As she buzzes Brooke’s intercom, though, Brooke’s tone throws everything into a tailspin.

“Hello?”

Vanessa frowns. Brooke sounds ever-so-slightly icy and fed up. She wonders if she’s imagined it. “Uh, hey! It’s Vanessa.”

“Hey. Come up.”

As the door buzzes open and Vanessa steps into the building, she waves away the thoughts in her head. She’s probably overthinking things, and as she steps into the elevator and lets herself be carried up to Brooke’s 12th floor apartment Vanessa tries to calm her nerves. It’s the first time she’s been to Brooke’s flat- in fact it’s the first time either of them have been at either of their flats- so she’s a little anxious. It’s another layer of the relationship they’re adding on, and the thought of things getting a little more serious makes Vanessa’s heart flutter.

So her head is thrown into a tailspin when the elevator doors open onto a landing and she’s met with three doors- two closed, and the other (Brooke’s, a little gold 111 set into the smooth grey exterior) is ever so slightly ajar. Vanessa narrows her eyes, tentatively stepping out of the lift, crossing the hall, and pushing the door open a little.

“Brooke Lynn?”

Brooke’s voice replies, still something to it that Vanessa can’t quite work out. “I’m in here.”

Frowning, Vanessa steps through the doorway and into Brooke’s flat. The whole situation is so strange that she can barely take in everything she sees; a long, narrow hallway lined with high heels that leads down to what looks like a sunken living room with a cream sofa and a floor-to-ceiling view of London. There’s a room to the right halfway down the hall, though, and it seems to be where Brooke’s voice came from, so Vanessa closes the front door and hears the click of the lock behind her as she follows it. Maybe she’s in the middle of something. Maybe she’s just busy and she wants Vanessa’s company while she finishes whatever it is she’s doing.

And then, as Vanessa turns into the room, the situation becomes immediately apparent.

Brooke’s bedroom is dark- the blinds are drawn and the only light comes from a few candles that are sitting on the tidy grey dressing-table under the window and the soft pink salt lamp that sits on the bedside table. The large bed pushed up against the wall takes up most of the room, and its sheets are white and perfectly ironed and crease-free.

They serve as a perfect backdrop to the sight that’s currently greeting Vanessa- Brooke, in a matching set of black Calvin Klein underwear, curled up against the pillows and scrolling her phone. The dark material makes Brooke’s pale skin pop, and the sight of her toned thighs and stomach forces Vanessa to squeeze her thighs together in spite of herself. Brooke looks up as she enters the room and smiles smugly, clearly happy to get the reaction Vanessa’s given her.

“Hey, sweetie,” she says, her voice light and sing-song and making the entire situation worse because the fact she’s so perfectly put-together while Vanessa is slowly becoming a melting, gooey mess in front of her is, for some reason, only making her want to rip Brooke’s clothes off even more than she already does. “Come sit.”

She gently pats the space on the bed next to her and Vanessa almost knocks herself out kicking her trainers off and letting her jacket fall to the floor as she scrambles up onto the bed. She feels herself blush as Brooke gives a soft laugh (presumably in response to just how eager she is) then decides she doesn’t really care how she’s coming across as Brooke leans in and closes the gap between them, kisses her with soft Chapstick lips that Vanessa feels as if she’s addicted to. Vanessa expects the kiss to be more than it is- flames of seductive fire that make one thing lead to another all too quickly- but instead it feels as if Brooke is deliberately holding back, teasing her a little. It’s not helping Vanessa’s desperation at all, and just as she brings a hand up to rest on Brooke’s hip, Brooke breaks the kiss.

“So,” Brooke begins cryptically, as she reaches for her phone where she’d discarded it against the sheets. “I was just scrolling Instagram, you know, as you do. And, uh, I felt a little bit confused.”

Vanessa frowns in tandem with Brooke, who finally appears to reach the post she’s been looking for. Brooke’s voice keeps its light tone as she continues. “Because apparently, according to these photos…it looks like you had a cute little reunion date with your ex today?”

Vanessa’s heart drops as Brooke turns her phone to show her the long-lens photograph posted by The Sun’s Instagram account. It’s her and Kameron at the coffee shop window, taken at the exact moment that Kameron had reached out and taken her hand and Vanessa had shot her a forgiving smile and taken hers in return, probably the most affection they’ve shown each other in a whole year.

But Jesus Christ, has it been taken out of context and then some.

She’s panicking, and she can feel her mouth opening and closing rapidly as she attempts to explain herself. The one saving grace about the whole situation is that Brooke appears to be…calm? Relaxed? She’s not flown off the handle, anyway, which Vanessa wouldn’t exactly have expected, and there’s also the fact she’s in a matching underwear set so clearly can’t be that mad at her. So Vanessa finally finds her voice, tells Brooke everything- how she’d only bumped into Kameron in the shop, and how it was just a coffee and nothing more, and how she’d actually finally received closure for everything that had happened between the two of them.

As she speaks, part of Vanessa wants to bring up the fact that she and Brooke aren’t even together together, so why Brooke’s so pressed about all of this Vanessa doesn’t know.

Unless Brooke wants them to be more than what they already are. And Vanessa has fucked it.

Shit.

“It’s just all a massive misunderstandin’, honestly,” Vanessa finishes, and she’s relaxing a little more now that Brooke’s body language is warmer. “I maybe should’ve texted you but I was gonna tell you tonight anyway, I promise. I wouldn’t…I just wouldn’t mess you about like that, Brooke.”

Brooke slowly lets a bashful smile creep across her face as she nods softly. “Okay.”

And, just because she can, Vanessa pulls her in for another kiss. This time there’s a little more heat to it which makes Vanessa’s stomach flutter in anticipation, but she still feels as if Brooke’s holding back. It’s only then that Vanessa remembers how Brooke had told her she liked being in control, how much Brooke got off on hearing her beg for what she wanted the first time they’d slept together, and it all falls into place.

Oh.

Before Vanessa can say anything, Brooke’s trailing her hand from its position cupping Vanessa’s jaw down her body to rest on her waist, and Vanessa’s mouth goes ever-so-slightly dry. Brooke’s face is still close as she speaks again. “See I thought that would be the case, because I know you’d never do anything to hurt me.”

Vanessa responds by mirroring Brooke’s touches, resting her own hand against her exposed thigh and delighting as she watches something darken behind Brooke’s eyes. Her tone changes a little as she continues. “But it did get me thinking…what if you did forget how good you had it one day?”

“Won’t happen,” Vanessa shakes her head, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth as Brooke pushes up the hem of her oversized white t-shirt, rests the palm of her hand against the bare skin at her waist. Vanessa squeezes her legs together again and she watches as Brooke flicks her gaze down, suppresses a smirk badly.

“It won’t?” Brooke pouts mockingly, and Vanessa loves it. “Well, just in case…I thought I’d show you what you’d miss if you ever did think you could do better than me.”

“Fuck,” Vanessa verbalises what she’s thinking in a hiss, as Brooke tugs at the bottom of her top and removes it quickly without Vanessa having to do anything other than raise her hands above her head.

Brooke dips her down so that her head’s resting against the pillows and presses kisses to Vanessa’s jaw, neck, collarbone, right down to the lace of her bra. Vanessa’s pulse is racing and she finds herself already spreading her legs, unable to help the way she needs Brooke to touch her.

“God, you’re so needy,” Brooke tuts disapprovingly into her skin, briefly reaching her hands under Vanessa’s back in an attempt to unhook her bra. Vanessa’s stomach tenses as she lifts herself off the mattress to help her, and soon the bra that she spent entirely too long picking out this morning is thrown halfway across the room onto the dark wood of Brooke’s bedroom floor.

“Says the girl that’s trying to get my boobs out in the first two minutes of foreplay- ah!” Vanessa cuts herself off as Brooke sucks a hickey into her collarbone. If she wanted to get Vanessa to shut up she’s succeeded, and so Vanessa instead focuses her attention on trailing her nails up and down Brooke’s back, delighting in the way the other girl shivers gently at the contact.

Brooke brings her lips up to meet Vanessa’s and she licks gently into her mouth as she strokes her thumb over one of her nipples, the contact making Vanessa flinch against the bed in the best kind of way. Vanessa trails a hand up Brooke’s back and pushes her fingers into her hair, and when Brooke breaks away her stomach flips at the way it’s all messed up and imperfect. Paired with Brooke’s blown pupils and plush lips, it’s a sight that makes Vanessa buck gently into the air almost without realising.

“Jesus. It really doesn’t take much, does it?” Brooke laughs gently as she loops a finger under the waistband of her leggings, and Vanessa shakes her head and pouts self-indulgently.

“Brooke…” she begins, then trails off when she doesn’t actually realise what she wants to say. She’s very happy to let her be in charge if this is what happens as a result, and when Brooke moves to straddle her it renders her twice as speechless as she was before.

“If this is you now, I’m almost scared for how you’re going to react when you see what I’m planning on doing to you,” Brooke says softly, the fake concern to her voice sending shockwaves rippling through Vanessa’s body. Before she can respond Vanessa gasps as Brooke pulls off her leggings, leaving her in the red thong she’d agonised over and the white ankle socks she’d put entirely less thought into. Brooke is left kneeling between Vanessa’s spread legs; dark heavy-lidded eyes, mouth hanging ever-so-slightly open. When she speaks, her voice is ragged.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” she says, and maybe it’s the simplicity of it but Brooke’s words make Vanessa feel completely naked despite what she’s still wearing.

“You’re beautiful,” Vanessa breathes out in an instant reply.

Brooke pouts and trails one of her short acrylics up Vanessa’s inner thigh, ripping a whine from her. “You sure Kameron isn’t more beautiful?”

“Jesus,” Vanessa throws her head back against the pillow and lets out a breathy laugh. “I didn’t have you down as the jealous type at all.”

When she tilts her head up Brooke’s got an unimpressed eyebrow raised at her. “You’re already in trouble, this isn’t helping your case.”

Vanessa can’t resist the urge to tease her and so she sticks her tongue out in response. “Oh what, you gonna punish me? You gonna tie me to the bed an’ spank me?”

Brooke’s gaze darkens. There’s a pause as she crawls up the bed, hovers over Vanessa with her face close. Vanessa keeps her own eyes sparkling as she stays still, challenging her to see if she’ll crack even though she wants to grab her jaw and kiss her with the same intensity they’d shown each other earlier.

“Brooke Lynn’s jeal-ous,” she sing-songs right in her face, and when Brooke pulls back she’s wearing a dark expression. Vanessa brings her hands up to rest on Brooke’s waist, traces the outline of her waistband.

And when Brooke leans over to the top drawer of her bedside table, Vanessa’s eyes widen as she instantly realises what she means.

She produces a wireless pink wand vibrator, and Vanessa’s body hotwires.

“Fuck.”

“Mm-hm,” Brooke murmurs, lips quirking in a smile. “You’re going to get punished for the stunt you decided to pull today.”

“Oh no, I hate orgasms! What a terrible punishment,” Vanessa smiles back at her, sarcastic and indulgent.

“Who says you’re going to be allowed to have any?” Brooke frowns.

Vanessa instantly realises her mistake.

“Wait…but-”

“Yeah. I’d suggest you better start being extra nice to me,” Brooke interrupts her, resting the wand down on the bed beside one of Vanessa’s thighs and hooking her fingers around the waistband of her underwear to tug it off. While this is happening Vanessa shuffles against the sheets in anticipation, something curling tightly in the pit of her stomach and the throbbing between her legs becoming impossible to ignore. She wants so badly to be touched, wants Brooke to feel how wet she is and for her eyes to go all wide when she realises she’s the one that’s got her this worked up, but instead of her fingers or her tongue she’s using that stupid fucking vibrator and she’s not even going to be allowed to come.

Fuck.

“Please, Brooke Lynn,” Vanessa pouts, letting a hand trail up Brooke’s thigh from where she’s positioned herself between her legs.

Brooke gives a short laugh. “You think you’re begging me now, wait until I get started.”

“Promise I’ll be good for you,” Vanessa insists, the end of her sentence almost getting cut off with a gasp as Brooke presses the wand against her. It’s not even switched on yet but it’s something that Vanessa can grind against, and she bucks her hips gently against the head.

“If you want me to turn it on you better keep those hips still,” Brooke says quickly, and Vanessa groans in resignation, lies still like she’s been asked.

She’s rewarded with a soft hum and a gentle buzz against her slit, and she can’t help the moan of satisfaction she gives in response as Brooke holds the wand there for a few moments, letting Vanessa get used to it. After so much build-up it feels like heaven, and the feeling leaves Vanessa wondering how long she’s going to last.

Brooke starts to swipe the wand up and down against her; lazy, slow motions that leave Vanessa squirming against the mattress every time she feels the vibrations brush against her clit. It’s not helping that Vanessa can see Brooke’s own chest rising and falling increasingly quickly, her pink, flushed cheeks, her hair all unkempt from Vanessa running her fingers through it.

“This good, babe?” Brooke asks, her tone ragged and her voice hoarse. When she snaps her gaze up to meet Vanessa’s eyes her pupils are blown and black and it sends an arrow through Vanessa’s heart that instantly shatters it as if it’s a piñata full of confetti.

“Mm,” is all Vanessa can manage, along with a rapid nod against the pillow.

“Not quite hearing a yes or a no there,” Brooke raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I should just turn it off-”

“No, no, no, no! It’s good, it’s good, fuck, yes, please don’t stop,” Vanessa instantly reels off as if it’s a frantic prayer. Brooke’s probably the closest thing to religion she’s experienced in months.

“You sure? You sure Kameron wouldn’t do it better?” Brooke says teasingly, wiggling the vibrator against her clit as if to make a point and sending Vanessa into the stratosphere.

“No, I promise, I promise, babe, please, please, please,” she whines. She can hear herself pleading and she hopes it’ll help Brooke come round to the idea of letting her orgasm because if Brooke ups the setting on her wand then there’s no way she’s going to be able to exercise any form of restraint.

Brooke switches back to slowly sliding the vibrator against her, and Vanessa can feel Brooke’s grip on her thigh tighten.

“Fuck, I can see how wet you are from here.”

Vanessa feels herself throb, her body responding to Brooke’s words before she can. She fists both her her hands into the sheets, can’t see her knuckles but knows they’ve gone white. “You wanna taste me so bad.”

“So much,” Brooke pouts, nodding slowly. “But…you need to lie there and take your punishment.”

“Fuck. I miss when you were too shy to talk during sex,” Vanessa huffs, grumpy, and she’s immediately stopped from saying any more as the wand buzzes that little bit more intensely against her. Brooke brings it back up to her clit, rubs it in slow, small circles that drive Vanessa wild and render her almost incapable of thought.

“Sounds like you’re the one who can’t talk during sex,” Brooke deadpans, squeezing Vanessa’s thigh to punctuate her point.

She can feel how slick the wand is against her, only illustrating how wet she is. The hum of the vibrator and the gasps Vanessa can hear herself making are heightening her senses; it’s too much and not enough all at once. Both Brooke’s teasing and the sensation of the wand vibrating against her is making Vanessa’s inevitable orgasm build inside her, and it’s only a matter of time before she hits boiling point.

“Brooke- ah!- please…don’t know how much longer I’m gonna last…”

“Oh, no way,” Brooke says darkly, and in an instant the vibrator is off and Vanessa’s back is arching off the bed in frustration as she cries out in disappointment. “You don’t get to come yet, babe, not after the sass you just gave me.”

Vanessa instantly regrets opening her stupid mouth and teasing Brooke more than anything she’s ever regretted before in her life. She whines, reaches her hips up into the air as if she’s going to generate friction from nowhere, and Brooke’s pouting in mock-sympathy. Vanessa knows she could just spring up from her position against the bed, grab Brooke’s face and kiss her and pin her down and take the control back, but there’s part of her that knows how unbelievably satisfying it’s going to be when she does get to come if she’s this worked up already.

Brooke’s watching her with heavy-lidded eyes as she traces up her leg then fans her fingers out over her inner thigh and rubs her thumb against her clit. The contact makes Vanessa’s eyes almost roll into the back of her head; the wand has heightened her sensitivity and she’s by now so slick and wet from all of Brooke’s teasing that with every little rub of her thumb Vanessa can feel the fire between her thighs become completely out of control.

“God, you have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this to you every fucking day since Blackpool,” Brooke bites her lip, and Vanessa bucks against her thumb helplessly. “We’d be having to rehearse but all I wanted to do was just to make you beg for it again and again, fuck.”

“Should’ve told me.”

“Mm. I almost texted you about it. One of the nights I was lying in bed fucking myself with my fingers and remembering how good yours felt…remembering how you felt like fucking heaven underneath me…I could’ve sent you so many pictures that night…”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ you need to stop talking or I’m gonna come,” Vanessa squeezes her eyes shut. Brooke’s still teasing her clit and Vanessa knows she’s deliberately applying just not quite enough pressure. She’s so on edge and it feels like the most incredible form of torture.

“You want the wand back, sweetie?”

“Please, fuck, yes,” Vanessa begs, almost wanting to sob. When Brooke’s thumb gets replaced by the vibrating head of the wand she feels lightheaded, lets out a cry that she instantly knows Brooke’s neighbours will hear but she doesn’t care. Brooke’s teasing her badly, holding the wand against her, taking it away for a second, then replacing it, and Vanessa feels so sorry for herself that she starts pleading with her.

“Keep it on me, please,” she gasps out, and when she looks up at Brooke she’s smiling at her wickedly.

“Like this?”

Brooke ups the intensity the moment she makes contact and Vanessa can practically feel herself give a little gush against the wand. Her breath is coming in shallow gasps now, and she’s only just registering the fact that Brooke’s got her hand that isn’t holding the wand down under the waistband of her own underwear, playing with herself. There’s a light sheen of sweat against her chest that’s making her glow like an angel and the way her chest is rising and falling is mirroring Vanessa’s.

Vanessa now realises why people yell out declarations of love right in the middle of their orgasm.

“Why don’t you tell me how much you like it?” Brooke murmurs. Vanessa can see her bucking against her fingers and the sight makes her press herself down against the wand, the way the vibrations roll over her clit in waves making her want to scream.

“So much…so fucking much…”

“Anyone else gonna fuck you like me?”

“No, baby, no-one else, just you, fuck, only you,” Vanessa whimpers. She looks up at Brooke and the sight of her eyes closed in ecstasy, grinding against her fingers and her nipples hard through the fabric of her bra is enough to tip Vanessa on a very gradual decline over the edge. “Fuck, can I come, please?”

“Yes, babe, you can come.”

When Vanessa feels her clit sieze up then pulse frantically against the vibrations of the wand, she shouts out into the bedroom, the pace of her fuck, fuck, fuck in sync with the waves of her orgasm flooding through her body. Brooke holds the wand against her until she’s sure she’s finished and Vanessa can only lie against the mattress, completely worn out and exhausted, as she watches Brooke take the wand and hold it between her own legs, the thin material of her underwear dark between her legs as Vanessa realises just how wet Brooke must be as well.

And even though Vanessa’s too worn out to help her out in the way she wants to, it doesn’t stop her from sliding a lazy hand up her thigh. She takes a couple of shallow breaths before pouting up at Brooke.

“Aww. Did watching me get you too worked up, baby?”

“Mm-hm,” Brooke hums in reply, running her tongue over her bottom lip as she squeezes her eyes shut. It gives her an idea.

“Not used my mouth on you yet. Bet you wish I was doin’ it now.”

“Fuck, Vanessa, keep talking.”

“You don’t get to boss me around any more, princess. Keep talking what?”

Brooke’s face contorts into a frown as she ruts against the wand, eyes still closed. “Keep talking please.”

“Good girl,” Vanessa purrs, and she almost feels as if she could go for round two as she hears the way Brooke gasps in delight at the praise. “You want me to tell you how much I want to put my tongue between your legs and taste you and watch you come apart under me?”

“Ah…”

“Maybe you don’t want that, though. Maybe you want to sit on my face instead. Ride my tongue and shut me up so I can’t talk back to you and drip all over my face all dirty while I just lie there and take it like a good girl.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Brooke hisses out. Vanessa’s surprising herself with what’s coming out of her mouth and how absolutely filthy it all is but she’s going with it because she knows Brooke’s close.

“Tell me how much you want it.”

“Fuck, want it so much.”

“You’re so close, aren’t you?”

“Vanessa…fuck, please…”

Vanessa regains enough strength to sit up and cup Brooke’s face with her hands, meeting her lips with her own and teasing her with a slow, deep kiss. Vanessa flicks her tongue inside her mouth and when she rubs it over Brooke’s she cries out against her lips, her moans almost-but-not-quite swallowed by Vanessa’s kiss as she comes.

Brooke breaks away as she falls against the mattress and Vanessa follows her, lying down beside her and gently switching the wand off. They lay there in silence, Brooke’s gasps and the buzzing in Vanessa’s ears the only things she can still focus on until Brooke reaches out a hand to curl around one of Vanessa’s. Vanessa throws a leg over Brooke, pulls her closer so that Vanessa can rest her head against her chest and feel her frantic heartbeat.

“Fuck me,” Brooke whispers breathlessly, and Vanessa lets out a chuckle.

“What, again? Thought you’d at least want a break first.”

“Shut up,” Brooke giggles. There’s a pause as she presses her lips to Vanessa’s head, mouths something Vanessa can’t hear or see. Then she mutters again, a little louder. “You’re so amazing.”

“You’re amazing,” Vanessa replies childishly, though the way Brooke’s chest judders against her in a laugh Vanessa assumes she doesn’t mind. She flinches a little as Brooke’s stomach gives a loud rumble. “Oh yeah. Forgot you were meant to be making dinner.”

“Hey, I have made dinner thank you very much! It’s in the slow cooker. Cuban beef and rice if that’s okay?” Brooke asks, and Vanessa doesn’t miss the little nervous tone in her voice. It’s adorable.

“Sure it is.”

Brooke lends Vanessa some pyjamas to shove on in lieu of the outfit she’d arrived in, and Vanessa’s heart swells a little at the implication that she’s going to be staying over. She’s not sure if she’ll try and breach the subject of what they are tonight- the evening is already so perfect and Vanessa doesn’t want to ruin anything, especially not when they’re curled up on the sofa with bowls of warm food in their laps and laughing guiltily at the way Jan is sobbing because she and Jackie have become the latest ones to leave the competition after a tense dance-off with Crystal and Gigi.

“It’ll be a close final, though. Like that’s everyone been in the bottom now,” Vanessa contemplates, tilting her head in thought from her position at the other side of the sofa. Brooke nods, then snorts again.

“God. I feel for Jan, but she just has such a memeable crying face. Like Kim K,” Brooke snorts again, as some ridiculous BBC One gameshow that seems to be based around celebrities strapped into a wheel starts in the background.

“Jan’ll be fine. She’ll recover, she’s a big girl. She’s got Jackie anyway,” Vanessa shrugs. Brooke hums in response, and then there’s a palpable silence that fills the room, almost like Brooke is about to say something. Vanessa waits.

“So today got me thinking,” Brooke finally says, reaching out and curling her fingers around Vanessa’s. Her eyes are in her lap and she’s not meeting her gaze. Vanessa is, in every sense, on the edge of her seat.

“Uh-huh?”

“When I saw those pictures of you and Kameron,” Brooke continues, the reminder making Vanessa’s heart drop. “I got so envious…and then I thought, well…what’s the only way I can make sure Vanessa’s just mine?”

Brooke finally looks at her, and every fibre of Vanessa’s being lifts in hope. “So, uh, I was wondering…if you would want to be my girlfriend.”

And when Vanessa blinks, she can see fireworks explode behind her eyes. She’s unable to help the huge, dumb smile that breaks out on her face as she blushes shyly, gives a nod.

“‘Course I would, baby.”

The smile that bursts onto Brooke’s face mirrors her own, and Vanessa can’t help but lean in and pepper Brooke’s face with kisses, wrap her arms around her in a cuddle.

“Officially yours, now,” Vanessa smiles excitedly, as she rests her head against Brooke’s chest. She can’t see Brooke’s face, but she knows she’s smiling too.

And suddenly, a little sentence appears in Vanessa’s head, three very small and simple words that she’s not thought about in a long time but just make sense in that moment. She looks up at Brooke, meets her gaze and feels her heart thump.

Maybe she can save that for another day.

#rpdr fanfiction #ortega #bet you look good on the dancefloor #strictly au #lesbian au #branjie #past kamjie #vanessa vanjie mateo #brooke lynn hytes #kameron michaels #smut

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gothpanda · 4 years ago

Text

A Little Bit of Attitude Ch.29: Goodbye

WORD COUNT: 6.0K

A/N: I hope everyone enjoys this chapter!

WARNINGS: angst at its lowest

TAGS: @madamsixx @emariehorror

Read On Ao3

Previous/Next

May 20th, 1986

Sitting under an outdoor umbrella table in a small corner coffee shop that opened 6 months ago, Sammi stared out into the distance with wrinkles of irritability deepening on her face. She slowly twirled a spoon in her coffee that clanked against the white ceramic mug every so often that would annoy anyone. Her mind wandered as it always did, thinking of the list of tasks needed to be done and other lists of tasks wanting to do. It felt like a never-ending wave of chores Sammi had started, begging why she did this to herself.

"Sammi," Sammi continued to stare out into the distance, pursing her lips out and squinting into nothing. "Sammi!" Emma shouted, shaking Sammi's hand gently to break her out of the daze she was in. Sammi snapped her head to Emma, blinking rapidly, looking like a deer in the headlights. Emma chuckled at Sammi, surprised how fast Sammi was able to daydream when she was alone. "I got you a chocolate chip muffin. They didn't have the coffee cake one that you like," Emma said, catching a tip of whip cream from her iced latte and taking a joyful lick. Sammi shook her head, sipping her coffee that had been spun around multiple times.

"Where's S?" Sammi asked, picking a piece of her muffin.

"Right here, I ran into a guy I had a class with. I forgot how cute he was," Sabrina said, tucking her skirt underneath her legs as she sat down beside Sammi. Sabrina could see the quiet expression on Sammi's cheeks, noticing her pecking at her sweetbread. Sabrina and Emma exchanged a knowing look at one another as they carried out their usual manners. Emma sipping on her iced beverage while Sabrina tore a piece of her croissant. "So what's got you daydreaming?" Emma asked Sammi, Sabrina raising a quizzical eyebrow to her left.

Sammi scrunched her brows together, glancing between the two friends. "I wasn't daydreaming, I was thinking. There's a difference,"

"Okay then what's got you thinking so silently, you forgot where you were for a second? It's amazing how fast you're able to do that," Sabrina teased, smirking at Sammi, drinking cappuccino.

"What I need to do before next week. If I need to finish anything right before I leave. If there's anything I want to do before leaving. If I need to stop thinking at high speed for once in my life," Sammi said, pulling out a pack of Camels from her silver purse and bringing one to her lips. She lit the cigarette, blowing out the smoke away from her friends, Emma stealing one for herself. Sabrina shifted away from any smoke that hit her face. Emma purposely let out a puff of smoke to Sabrina, giggling at the sour expression.

"You wouldn't need to be thinking so much if you just stayed down here," Emma said.

"Why did you have to accept a school all the way in San Francisco? How else am I going to get second-hand smoker lungs?" Sabrina asked with a small pout.

"You can blame Mr. Harrison's connections in convincing me to go to San Fran. Maybe do it on your last day at Elektra next week," Sammi teased. Sammi would be lying to everyone if she said she wasn't grateful for how the opportunity fell in her lap. Mr. Harrison was happy to help Samantha on her journey to a career path, knowing her endless potential.

"She may have also accepted because she needs a fresh new life far away from everyone in this place. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself," Emma said, pouting out in exaggeration.

"You're not wrong. It's good to have a fresh start every once in a while especially for school. You guys are lucky I'm staying in California. I could've gone all the way to Texas if I was that desperate. Or New York City," Sammi said, blowing out another drag of her cigarette.

"Thank god you're so considerate of others, but you still could've stayed here," Sabrina said with a smile that made Sammi's mood shift a bit. The girls stayed silent for a moment, basking in the quality time together before Sammi's final day in Los Angeles. In truth, Emma and Sabrina were happy Sammi was doing something for herself and only herself. Sammi didn't ask anyone if she should go back to school or where she should go. But of course, as all friends are, they would miss knowing Sammi was in the same city as them, and they could pop in. Their Friday night dinners will only consist of Emma and Sabrina from now on, Sammi only joining when she comes for a visit. They were beginning to grow up into full adults. It was scary but needed for everyone.

"If I'm being honest, I don't want to leave but I know it's the right thing. Now more than ever since my shit show," Sammi said, shrugging her shoulders in sadness.

"Hey, may I ask you something, Sam?" Emma asked, biting her lip with the look of worry that made Sammi worry.

"Sure?"

"Has 'you know who' tried calling you after the wedding?" Emma asked with hesitation. Sammi sighed as she shook her head, flicking the small dub to the street, then taking a sip of her coffee. "Is it weird if I say I feel bad for both of you? Just not seeing you two together right now is weird. It feels like my parents got divorced and I should know," Emma said, finishing her cigarette.

"No, it's not. I feel bad for myself so join the petty party. Sabrina? Want to join this party of two and make it three?" Sammi asked, resting her head against the palm of her hand. Sabrina slung an arm around Sammi, bringing her in for a side hug.

"You feel bad because we liked Nikki even if he was an asshole to others, he was nice with Sammi. Now he's doing something that's harming himself which affects people who care. It's different then most relationship dramas," Sabrina analyzed, taking a sip of her cappuccino.

"I wish it was because he's an asshole and move on with my life, but it's more complicated than that," pouted Sammi.

"Of course it is, it's Nikki. It's never easy with those guys," Emma tried to poke fun of, shrugging her shoulders. Sabrina shot Emma a glare like a mother, Emma mouthing a sorry to her.

"Am I dumb for still caring and wanting to work things out?" Sammi asked, looking down at her cup with a low head.

Emma cocked her head to one side, sympathy beginning to show more for her friend. "You're not dumb because you have a heart, Sam. It's natural to still care about an ex at times. I still wonder about Athena randomly at times and it's been months,"

"You'd still worry about Athena if she used hard drugs and got aggressive because of them?" Sammi asked with a hint of sarcasm. Emma shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to say to make it positive. She didn't think this whole situation could be favorable.

"I'd like to think so. I'm not sure about working things out, but I'd like to know if she's being healthy. It's drugs, Sammi. Anyone with a heart would still care about the person. I'm surprised Nikki's able to hide it from people so well,"

"He's not. You just said it yourself. He's not around people with hearts that care, at least not sober people. He's a musician who created a successful band and can make money off of it. It's different," Sabrina explained, turning to see if Sammi was becoming sadder for this conversation. Sammi lifted her head up, squaring her shoulders straight, and smiled with confidence.

"It's whatever now. I'm happy. I really am. I'm getting to live in a new city. I've been here my whole life. Maybe I'll like San Francisco and want to live there permanently after I graduate. Two years is enough time to fall in love with a city," Sammi said in an attempt to lift the spirits of the table. Her friends didn't believe it but tried to join in.

"The selfish part of me says please don't but I know it's good. Hell, I came down here to leave Sacramento. It's only fair you do the same thing, Sammi," Sabrina said with a sad smile.

"So are you gonna have a going away party or disappear randomly one day?" Emma asked.

"No. No party. I don't want a going away party at all where people might start crying. But I do want to tell everyone goodbye alone. That way everyone gets a nice goodbye," said Sammi.

"Even Nikki?" asked Emma, raising an eyebrow. Sammi sighed out and took a sip of her coffee, thinking if she should tell Nikki. Sammi wasn't hiding from anyone about her move, telling almost everyone in their own times, except Nikki. Respectfully, she should speak Nikki about her plans and not cause a bigger mess than she'll ditch. Then again, Sammi wanted to act selfish and petty, focus on herself instead of a man.

"Yes, even Nikki. I still have some little things at his place that I should probably get," Sammi muttered.

"If you need us to go with you, we could. We'll wait outside while you say your goodbyes," Sabrina offered.

"Thanks but I need to be a big girl and do things on my own. Especially if I'm going to be alone in a new city," Sammi said, sighing out into the warm, clear sky.

May 29th, 1986

Sammi had a list of people she wanted to personally say goodbye to with their own time. The first person Sammi had on her list was Vince, to her own surprise thinking Vince would be the last person on the planet to give farewells. Sammi walked up to the white modern beach mansion, the place she called a second home for a few months. The doorbell rang out, Sammi shifting her weight from one foot to another, looking away into the neighborhood as she waited. It was early in the morning; Sammi hoped Vince decided to be an early bird this summer season. When the grand finally opened, Sammi smiled right away, Vince holding Skylar right on his hip. Vince smiled back at Sammi, puzzled for a moment before remembering what day it was.

"Hey, Vin. Hi, Skylar," Sammi said, waving her two fingers to the small child, winning a happy smile from Skylar. Vince stepped aside to let Sammi in with a low head, Skylar moving around in his arms to be set free. Once she was on the ground, Skylar waddled her best to Sammi, hugging her leg. Skylar smiled up at Sammi, two little teeth showing. "Aww she still likes me," Sammi said, picking Skylar up and resting her on her hip. Vince grew a smile at the two girls, folding his arms across his chest. Sammi bounced Skylar on her hip, earning giggles from the young baby, Vince admiring more at the two.

"I couldn't imagine someone not liking you,' Vince said, slowly stepping towards Sammi. "It's the end of the month. I didn't think it would come so fast," Vince fixed a piece of Skylar's hair from her face as she played with the shiny rings Sammi wore. Vince sucked the front of his teeth, stuffing his hands in the back of his jean pockets. "Please don't tell me you came all the way out here to say goodbye,"

Sammi smiled with sadness, shrugging her shoulders. "It was going to happen at some point, Vince. Thought I wasn't gonna say goodbye to you?"

"No. I was kind of hoping you had changed your mind and didn't want to leave this beautiful city," Vince said, walking the girls to the living room. As the three sat down on the white sofa, Sammi let Skylar crawl off to the floor to find a toy to play with. "Maybe you rejected San Francisco and went to school here. Where your family is. And all your friends. Where people who care about you are,"

Sammi sighed out, pushing locks of hair away from her face, looking down at Skylar. "Vince, I need this. I want to get out of here and see other places that aren't from a tour bus. Besides I promised myself I'd go back after a year of working, I need to follow that,"

Vince sighed out, slumping further into the sofa. "I'm going to miss you, you know. It's going to be weird not having you around,"

"I'm not dying, Vin!" Sammi smiled at Vince.

"I know you're not dying! But let's face it I doubt you'll come visit when you have free time. You'll probably only come for the holidays then leave again. San Francisco is pretty far away if you haven't figured it out," Vince teased, poking Sammi on the shoulder. Sammi gazed down at her hands, realization beginning to creep up on her.

"You're right. I probably won't have enough free time to just drop everything and come down," Sammi uttered, fidgeting with her nails unkempt.

"Doesn't mean that we can't though," Vince said with a small smile.

Sammi turned her head to see the smile, raising an eyebrow that matched Vince's expression. "You'd come up to visit me?"

"Yeah just to make sure you're not dead," Vince said, chuckling as Sammi shoved his shoulder playfully.

"I'm going to miss you too. Promise you'll do a good job taking care of this little one?" Sammi asked, picking Skylar to sit her between the two of them. Skylar laid down between the two, slowly closing her eyes for her nap. Vince rubbed Skylar's cheek with the back of his hand, smiling down at his daughter. Vince then gave a similar smile to Sammi.

"I promise. Promise you'll try to visit on your own?"

"I promise," Sammi said, holding out her pinky.

Instead, Vince stood up in front of Sammi with arms open wide, hoping she'd accept the hug. Sammi stood up with warm eyes and a smile and wrapped her arms around Vince's waist, feeling him hold her in a warm embrace. Vince kisses the crown on Sammi's head, reminding himself to respect the girl's boundaries. "I'm proud of you, Sam. And I'm sorry for everything," Vince mumbled into Sammi's hair. Sammi shut her eyes tight, staying in the embrace for what felt like forever. A feeling of tightness beginning to form in the pit of her stomach. Sammi wasn't enjoying this feeling by any means.

Mick was surprised to hear his doorbell ring out in his home, placing his guitar flat down on the sofa. Mick rarely had guests pop in on him, liking his home's secluded area to relax before the chaos of music erupted again. When he opened the door, his firm, confused, an irritating glare that Mick always had melted away as a smiling Sammi stood at his steps. Mick raised an eyebrow, opening the door wider. "What's up, little girl? Here for a visit?" Mick asked.

"More like a goodbye. I'm leaving tomorrow remember?" Sammi said, stepping into the cozy home. Mick groaned out, closing the door shut and led Sammi to the kitchen. Sammi looked around the complete house, getting after herself for not visiting Mick here more often. She felt bad that she came for goodbye and not a regular time to hang out. Sammi promised she'd spend time with Mick when she came down to visit.

"Oh I remember but I was betting you only said it because you were mad at Nikki. I didn't think you'd actually leave," said Mick, grabbing two bottles of cokes from the fridge, sliding one to Sammi on the kitchen island.

"Wow thanks, Mick. Am I really that dramatic to you?" Sammi asked sarcastically, sipping her drink. "It's not like I've wanted to avoid everyone before by disappearing," Sammi smiled at Mick, earning a chuckle from the older man.

"Are you doing your rounds with everybody or just me?" asked Mick.

"Everyone. I thought it would be swifter in one go to say bye and not cause too much of a scene," Sammi uttered, tapping her finger on the glass bottle. "I'm not really in the mood for tears,"

"So are you still mad at Nikki? Is that why you're leaving?," Mick asked.

"No, I'm not leaving because of him. It's entirely because of school and wanting new experiences," Sammi said, glaring at Mick.

"Are you still mad at him though?"

"I guess I am. He hasn't bothered calling me after Santa Barbra, and I haven't bothered calling him. I doubt he cares much about anyone but himself at this point," Sammi said sadly, Mick giving her a sympathetic smile. Mick could read Sammi's face clear as day, Nikki's topic being a sore spot for the young woman.

"Don't worry. I'll look after him while you're gone, it's the least I can do for the both of you," said Mick. Mick felt inclined to worry about Nikki or the others generally, due to being the oldest and least intoxicated from the bunch. With Sammi added to the mix, Mick felt even more inclined to keep an eye on Nikki and Tommy as these were her two boys. "I promise,"

"Thanks, Mick. Can you also promise me one other thing?" Mick nodded. "Please take care of your back. Take your medication and don't mix it with alcohol as much. And please go to your doctor's appointments and schedule them. Ask Doc to get you an assistant maybe to help,"

Mick lips parted in shock, scrunching his eyebrows together. He cleared his throat, tapping his fingers against the island gravel. Mick thought he was either hiding it exceptionally well or nobody who was around cared enough to ask. Clearly, he was proven wrong. "You could tell?"

Sammi nodded. "I don't know what you have exactly, but I know something's up and you need to take care of yourself. It's important to keep up with your health especially when you go out and perform,"

"It's Ankylosing spondylitis with a bit of forming scoliosis. I got diagnosed when I was around your age," Mick said dryly, having a small bit of happiness to know someone could see. "I thought I was doing a good job at acting normal,"

"Mick, I was always able to see something was up. I just didn't know how to bring it up with you," Sammi said.

"Well after you come back, I'll come to you when I need new meds or a new doctor," Mick said, chuckling a small bit.

Sammi smiled at Mick, reaching over to place her hand over his. "I'd be happy to help with that," Sammi said, gently squeezing Mick's hand. Mick didn't want to say it out loud, but he was going to miss the little girl as much as everyone else. It hurt him thinking Sammi wanted to get away from everything, be pushed over the edge by Nikki. Mick wanted to shake some sense into Nikki, hoping the bass player would come back to the light but knew it would never work. Mick only hoped things didn't blow up too much after this.

"I know I don't do a whole lot of talking, but I am going to miss you, little girl," Mick said, looking away from Sammi and sipping his soda.

"I'll miss you too, Mick," Sammi said, smiling sadly at Mick. The two didn't hug, knowing it was a rarity, and Sammi did not like the feeling of hugs today. Instead, they stayed in silence as they finished their sodas in the kitchen, Mick wanting to give Sammi a quiet space to think.

"Please, don't leave me! I beg you!" Tommy yelled in the air, embracing Sammi in a tight hug. Sammi was smothered in Tommy's chest, not hugging him back as the siblings stood in the newlyweds home's living room. As soon as Sammi rang the doorbell, Tommy ran out of the house to hug his sister, dragging Sammi in for Heather to see her. Tommy didn't want to let go of his baby sister, not wanting her to leave ever. She tried to pull away from her brother, only to be hugged tighter. Heather smiled at the two as she sat on the expensive sofa, finding Tommy's desperation of Sammi's departure amusing. Sammi finally had enough strength to push Tommy off her, gasping for air and dropping herself down next to Heather. Tommy pouted down at Sammi, falling right between the two girls.

"Babe, be happy for your sister. You should be proud Sammi's going back to school for pharmacy. It's a big deal," Heather told Tommy, running her fingers through his hair. Tommy still continued to pout, being another who wished to be selfish for a happy occasion. Heather had to be the positive one from the two, reminding of the accompaniment. Sammi poked Tommy's puffy cheeks, giggling when he reacted annoyed, hiding his face in Heather's neck. Heather rolled her eyes, patting Tommy on the head to soothe him.

"Yeah, Tommy, be proud of me. Remember I'm the normal sibling. I need to go to college and get a regular job unlike some people," Sammi said, smiling at Tommy.

"Sammi needs to spread her wings and fly. Experience new places!" Heather said to Tommy.

"I'll pay for your apartment and school if you stay here," Tommy said, lifting his head up. His hair covered his eyes, making Heather and Sammi laugh at Tommy.

"We were going to do that anyway, babe," Heather said, fluttering her lashes to her husband and smiling mischievously at her sister in law. Slowly squaring her shoulder with scrunched eyebrows, Sammi shifted her eyes at the couple in confusion. She couldn't register what Heather just said as if it was a regular thing. Tommy slowly began smiling at his sister, Heather, unable to contain her excitement any longer.

"What? What do you mean you're going to pay for my stuff? I have everything covered," Sammi asked with wide eyes. Tommy sat up straight, grabbing Heather's hand like Mr. and Mrs. Bass when they had to announce something to their children. It was any other circumstance, Sammi would laugh along with the two but not today.

"Heather and I were talking about you going back to school and how you're going to be stressed with studying. San Francisco is way more expensive than L.A is so we wanted to help out," Tommy said.

"It's the least we can do. You shouldn't be stressed about money and only think about your studies. It's going to be hard doing all of that alone and in a new city," Heather said.

"Yeah but I have school covered. I have scholarships and I was going to get a job on campus," said Sammi. "I saved up a lot this past year for my apartment up there,"

"We know that, Sammi. We know you've always been independent with everything since you moved out of Mama and Dad's house. But you deserve a little help for once after always being there for everyone. Consider this as a thank you," said Tommy.

"Plus if we're being honest, we don't have to think about how much stuff costs, so we're fine paying for your expenses. You wouldn't have to worry about paying us back a penny," Heather reassured Tommy, nodding along.

"How exactly would this work?" Sammi asked, still hesitant about the offer.

"Basically like a monthly allowance to cover rent, bills, and your own spending money. And for school, it's by semester so you can just call us with the bill! It's that simple!" Tommy said, clapping his hands together as if this was a typical case in their lives. Sammi scratched the side of her head, contemplating if this was a good idea, looking at Heather and Tommy's convincing faces. The couple didn't feel entitled to do something nice for Sammi; they wanted to do this from their hearts. Tommy wasn't happy about Sammi leaving, feeling this was her new method of running away. In the eyes of the Bass family, this news came out of nowhere, only having three weeks to say goodbye. Heather tried to sway Tommy's worries away with no luck, the stubborn man believing in his theory. "Just say yes, Sam. It's a perfect plan," Tommy begged, turning on his sweet puppy dog eyes.

Sammi sighed out as they twisted her arm to agree. "Alright I accept your guys offered to help. I really appreciate it," Sammi said, smiling at the couple. Tommy and Heather jumped out of their spots to engulf Sammi in another hug, feeling as if this is the most she's ever been hugged in one day. Sammi let out a yell in protest, shimming away from Heather and Tommy but with no luck.

"You're going to be great up there," Heather said to Sammi, pulling away slightly. Sammi only smiled, beginning to feel the knot in her stomach again. It was only 3 in the afternoon.

To Sammi's luck, Athena's apartment wasn't far from Tommy's home, making the drive short west. Sammi gripped tightly on the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white as she tried to calm her breathing. "You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine," Sammi whispered to herself, parking in front of a brand new apartment building. Walking up the front door steps, Sammi pressed the button that read Athena, waiting for her sister to answer the call.

"Hello?" Athena answered.

"It's Sammi. Let me in," Sammi shouted into the speaker. Athena didn't bother to give a response, buzzing Sammi into the building. Sammi walked up to flights of stairs, dragging her feet up at each step. It had been a short time since Sammi spoke to Athena, distracting herself with the excuse of packing. Athena paid no attention to this, knowing that she would go to her if Sammi needed to talk. Sammi gently knocked on the red wooden door, looking down at her feet as she could hear Athena's footsteps. When Athena opened her door, she smiled at Sammi with a reminder to be nice to her baby sister.

"Hey!" Athena said, stepping aside to let Sammi pass. Sammi played with her hands as she walked straight to the sofa, dropping her purse beside her. "Do you want anything to drink? Food?" Athena offered, walking over to the small kitchenette that connected to the living room. Sammi shook her head, eyes following Athena sit down on the accent sofa chair near her. She tucked her legs in, chin resting against her palm, ready to hear anything Sammi has to say. "Is everything going well? You're finished packing?" Athena asked.

Sammi nodded. "I had the last of my boxes shipped this morning. All I have in my apartment is a suitcase and a mattress on the floor. I can't believe I'm leaving,"

"Really? I thought it would be the other way around. Everyone not believing you until you were already gone, thinking you were just lying,"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?!" Sammi snapped, frowning at Athena. "You, Mick, Vince. Why do people think I was bluffing about leaving?"

Athena pressed her lips firmly together, knowing now was not the time for a fight. "It's not that we think you were bluffing. It's just no one wants you to leave so we're in a bit of denial. I'm proud of you for going back to school. I want you to know that,"

Sammi sighed out, leaning back against the sofa in lousy posture, folding her arms against her chest. "Thanks. I didn't think my leaving would make everyone so sad. I didn't think I was that special,"

Athena raised an eyebrow at Sammi. "You don't think you're so special everyone would be bored or sad without you? I know we fight a lot, but I would rather have you around all the time than none at all,"

Sammi smiled at Athena, emotions beginning to erupt, but Sammi knew how to withhold them. "I'm sorry for being a bitch so many times. I shouldn't have been so spitful when you said your opinion,"

"I'm the one who should apologize. I should've never been so harsh on you with Nikki. I should've listened instead of being mean, and I'm sorry you two broke up after the wedding," Athena said, giving Sammi a sympathetic smile.

"It's whatever now. He hasn't bothered with me and I'm not going to bother with him anymore," Sammi said, chipping away nail polish. Athena frowned at Sammi's sad tone, having a bit of doubt to Sammi's statement.

"Careful when you see Mama and Dad. They might ask about Nikki,"

"If they do I'll just lie. I wouldn't want them to worry about him or anything that they don't need to," said Sammi.

"You really did care about him, didn't you? You're still protecting him even now," Athena said.

"Yeah, I guess I did," Sammi mumbled. "It's whatever now. Maybe I'll find a regular guy in San Francisco who's a saint and never even looked at a drug,"

"Don't push yourself to meet someone. Take your time and focus on yourself. You're young and can have years to find someone else," Athena advised, studying Sammi faces to the best of her abilities. Athena was able to see the hesitation on Sammi's face, the small eleven wrinkles between her brows almost becoming permanent from thinking. The older sister didn't know if she should object Sammi from leaving but knew it was the right thing to do. As much as Athena herself hated the idea, she knew Sammi needed a breath of fresh air even if she was afraid of it. Athena didn't want to push to fright Sammi, only wishing to stand by her when needed. She felt guilty for her tantrums, realizing how selfish they all were. Athena walked over to Sammi's side of the sofa, wrapping her arms in a hug around the younger girls' shoulders. Sammi didn't hug back, only leaning her head on Athena's shoulder.

"I'm going to miss you," Sammi muttered under her breath.

"I'm going to miss you too, Sam," Athena whispered. The two staying in silence for a moment longer, Sammi forcing down any emotions.

Pulling up into the driveway of Mr. and Mrs. Bass tugged the heartstrings, Sammi turning off the ignition and shutting her eyes to let out a few calming breaths. She could see the light bleed out from the living room window, Mr. Bass's car parked right next to Sammi's impala. It was with heavy feet that made Sammi walk to the front door, trying to find her original house key. As Sammi pushed open the door, she could hear music playing to her right, seeing her parents dancing all around the living room. She quietly closed the door behind her, smiling happily at the couple as they were in their own little world, not noticing Sammi. It wasn't until Mr. Bass dipped Mrs. Bass that he noticed Sammi standing in the wide doorway, a broad smile growing on his lips. He twirled Mrs. Bass one last time, making her stop right to see Sammi.

"Oh, Lovebug! We've been waiting for you! Your food is ready!" Mrs. Bass exclaimed out, clapping her hands together. Mrs. Bass gave Sammi a warm quick hug before cascading her way down the hall. Mr. Bass smiled at Samm, giving her a kiss on the cheek before following Mrs. Bass to the dining table. Sammi didn't move at first. She stood frozen in the doorframe, folding her arms in front of her chest. Sammi walked at a slow pace, seeing a plate of spaghetti and meatballs waiting for her. Mr. and Mrs. Bass set down forks and glasses, pouring in freshly squeezed lemonade for their daughter. Sammi mustered up a smile as she sat down, noticing how happy her parents seemed to be for her last day. The three ate in relative silence, Sammi switching gazes at her parents every so often. "Are you excited for the drive tomorrow, lovebug?" Mrs. Bass asked, breaking the silence as she wiped her mouth from any food.

"Yeah, hopefully, I don't have to deal with so much traffic in the morning," Sammi said, placing a napkin on a half-empty plate. "I'll be taking off at 8,"

"The morning drives are always the best kind of drives," Mr. Bass said, taking a sip of his lemonade. "The sun is just beginning to rise. Picking up fast food breakfast with a nice hot coffee. It's the best," Mr. Bass smiled at himself at the memories of his youth.

"Actually dad, driving in the middle of the night is way better. It's so peaceful. I loved it when I was up late on the bus with the guys, and I'd look out the window to see the moon. It was always the best," Sammi said, pressing her lips together, leaving a bittersweet memory in her mind. "But not this time! It'll be fun getting to San Francisco on my own and getting to unpack,"

"Remember you have to call us once you get to your apartment so we know you're safe," Mrs. Bass said, grabbing the dirty dishes to leave them in the sink.

"Yes, Mama. I'll remember," Sammi said with a smile. "Do you guys have any last-minute parenting advice before I leave tomorrow?" Sammi asked, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. Mr. and Mrs. Bass looked at each other for a moment, pursing their lips as they thought of something.

"Don't get a ticket when you're parking the car somewhere. And if you, pay it right away or it can pile up," Mr. Bass said, pointing a strong finger at Sammi.

"I think Sammi meant words of wisdom for leaving," Mrs. Bass said, rolling her eyes playfully at her husband. "Lovebug, I know the feeling of moving away from your home. It's going to be scary and you'll question things almost every day, but this is something great for you. I want you to always remember that," Mrs. Bass said to Sammi, holding their hands together gingerly.

"And don't worry about being selfish. If you want to leave, you should leave and find a better way for yourself. The world is big enough to explore," Mr. Bass added to Mrs. Bass's advice, Sammi smiling both at her parents.

"Thanks, mama and dad. I really appreciate it," Sammi said, swallowing away more of the emotions that have been building up.

"We love you," Mrs. Bass said, kissing Sammi on the cheek.

"And don't forget it," Mr. Bass added, kissing Sammi on the crown of her head. "Do you want to watch some tv before you leave? It's still pretty early by the looks of my watch," Mr. Bass asked Sammi, glancing down at the brand new watch Tommy gifted on his wrist. Sammi only nodded to her father, seeing Mrs. Bass began to load the dishwasher as she slowly rose from her seat. Sammi followed her father down the hallway's short distance, Mr. Bass flipping channels on his recliner. She laid on the sofa, relaxing, enjoying the last few moments of this consistent bonding with her parents. Sammi bit on the nail of her thumb for a majority of the time shared, glancing at the clock on the fire mantel before it was time to go. After driving for a few miles in utter silence, Sammi finally let down the tears she withheld from the day. She then remembered one last person she wanted to say goodbye to, making her cry even more. Sammi parked the car off the side of the dark road, clenching onto the steering wheel as she hurled over, letting out a weeping cry. Sammi gasped for air as she continued to weep, hot tears crawling down her face.

"I'm sorry, Nikki," Sammi whispered to herself, breathing in heavily as she squared her shoulders in her seat. Sammi wiped away the stains on her cheeks, turning her car back on as she drove out into the night.

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currentfandomkick · 5 years ago

Text

Bio! Dad Strange part 12 Waiting for Help

Marinette promised herself that this was a nightmare, that she’d wake up and there wouldnt be a kwami or earrings.

She was wrong.

Her dad compliemented the new studs at breakfast, asking if she got them in Gotham.

“Found them laying around is all.”

Maman told her they’re begining self defense lessons tonight, and to bring the other girls. She didnt point out she already knew how to fight, and made a mentsl note to tell the girls to pretend she was just good at gym, not fighting.

She checked her phone. No message from Tim yet.

“What yout doing?” Tikki—no captor—asked.

Marinette forced a smile, “just checking my messages, that’s all!”

—

Tim looked over his messages. He remembered seeing two alerts on his burner from Harley Before the Arkham Prison Break and its destruction. He couslnt remember from who though... was it a heads up about the outbreak or...

He tried to find it on his laptop, cloning the phone to it ages ago. The data from it was... corrupt?

He didnt like the look of this. It was from Pixie. Teo messages, oen short and one cery, very long.

He managed to get one phrase at the end. His french had to be wrong but it said “they won’t find you”

He tried to call Pixie then. The number was disconnected. He swore.

He’d need to find the RKC somehow and findout where Pixie’s family lived. It sounded like somethinf was wrong, and he didnt know if he could get the old number back.

—

Marinette was dragged into the girl’s room on entering school.

“Marinette, I want you to help me out with Adrien—you’re the type his dad should like.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow at Chloe. She loves her but really?

“Becuase I’m smart?”

“Ew, no, well...” Chloe shook her head. “You design, and you’re good at it. He might listen to you on giving him more free time if it was to snag you as a designer.”

“His dad?” Gabriel Agreste, owner of the brand Gabriel. Hasn’t designed since his wife’s disappearance, and has a hermit problem.

“He owns a fashion brand, and they like new talent.”

Easy to exploit, unaware of industry standards, and less aware of the laws protecting them... that didnt sound good.

“And i’m the key becuase...”

“He’s seen your work before, remember last year at the show?”

He was? She didnt remember it, too busy back stage and throwing classmates into outfits while Chloe did touchups on makeup and threw people on the catwalk.

“Come on, Adrien has bars on his window, please? For me?”

That... paranoid millionaire designer or abusive father, definitely toxic tendencies though. Maybe working on this family would be a good distraction?

“I’ll try, but no guarantees. And you know i’ll use a different name, right?”

“We’re minors Mari, I’d be worried if you didn’t. Now, let’s go say hi to my prince!”

Marinette questioned her sanity once more. But magic butterflies and kwami are a thing.

She just wants to toy with Markov’s emotional intelligence and translator programming. But she needs a cover for that...

—

Flash frowned at the images from the satellite imaging. Either something was off in Paris, one picture showed damage but the one before and after showed no issues, or there was a glitch. Occam’s razor.

“Hey Red, can you check our imaging tech? We had a glitch over Paris!”

He needed to work on his proposal for the JL on intervening with the meta situation in France. No one liked it. Someone pointed out there was polarization of us vs them in France, metas fleeing left and right. From french media reports, it sounded like they were running a campaign to remove metas from France unless they were ‘under the state’s control’ and that. No one liked that.

He hopes he can get Jill out before things get bad. He know’s she can hide,’but how long can she hold out? He doesn't want an answer to that.

He’s going to get her and the others out before it gets that bad.

—

Marinette wanted to throw Kim across the school when she remembered that Kim set off the Big Guy yesterday. She would be a normal meta in hiding if he hadn’t.

Sabrina made a slideshow last night for her to lecture him. Alix is down to tear Kim a new one, and Marinette has no sympathy for him.

The class is quiet when Big Guy comes in.

Marinette gets up, smiling at seeing him and Mylene together now.

“Hey guys, so, how’d it go?”

Big guy and Mylene blushed a bit. Interesting but not definite proof of her suspicions...

“So are you to going to sit together or...”

Mylene nodded, tugging Ivan behind her. Marinette smiled back at her classmates, who were... staring?

“Guys, things happen. Now get back to what you were talking about or get ready for class, okay?”

“Says the Gothamite,” Kim smirked.

“Only during the summer, you know the custody deal as well as I do.”

“Don’t remind me, I have to be deprived of my favorite princess every summer,” Chloe pouted, almost launching herself over Marinette and Sabrina’s desk to throw her arms around Marinette. Almost.

“I like seeing my family?” Marinette didn’t get why everyone made a big deal of it--if she was honest, objectively she did prefer Gotham. More science, metas are out and not hunted, and she has a family happy to help her with whatever that listened to her morals and played by her rules... albeit weirdly and a bit murderous at times.

But then she wouldn’t have her friends and she wasn’t going to give them up anytime soon. Especially since Max would build a tesla coil if she didn’t stop him. and a death ray too, to prove he could.

Sabrina rolled her eyes as Kim flung himself over his desk and pulled Marinette into a hug. “My sister, Gotham can fight me.”

“You would lose,” Max state, cleaning his glasses. (for dramatic affect, obviously Marinette, she heard him snark in her mind) “You can’t even cross the street without almost getting run over.”

Kim blushed as the class laughed. “Shut up--I don’t need to cross streets, just fight.”

“Marinette, has he even gotten close to beating you yet?”

“Nope.”

“A ten year old kicks your butt regularly Kim.”

“She beats everyone that challenges her. It is the law. of Marinette in a fight.”

Adrien stared at her then, “Really?”

Max piped up then, “Out of the 230 matches they’ve had, Kim lost each. As have her challengers in each match.”

“That’s awesome! Do you think you could teach me?”

“As long as we’re not at my house, I don’t see why not.” Good, keep him distracted. “Oh that reminds me, Sabrina, Chloe, Alix, Maman demands you come over to practice too. Remember the rule--”

“You’re not that good in science,” Alix began

“You kind of know how to fight, but not really.” Chloe continued

“And you have never, ever done anything remotely reckless,” Sabrina snickered.

that got a number of laughs out of her group. “Oh shut up, shouldn’t you be grilling Adrien on what color and other thing he’s using from now on?”

That caused the group to light up.

“I almost forgot we haven’t introduced Adrikins to that part our little group!”

“Little?” She heard the cure red head whisper. Yes, she memorized his voice already.... its not weird at all...

“Okay, so I’m yellow and stripes, as you can see,” Chloe gestured to her outfit. “Kim and Alix understand the wonder of my choice, as Kim is red and yellow, while Alix is black and stripes, hers are always her gloves or uses her snake sleeves to pass.”

“I’m purple and argyle, the best pattern,” Sabrina beamed.

“Green and collared shirts, the only way to go,” Max stated.

“Uh, pink or red is me, and a floral pattern is always on me,” Marinette gestured to the flower pattern on her shirt and showed off her coin purse.

“Blue and my hat,” Nino tipped his hat at Adrien as he walked over. “Nino.”

“Adrien, and wow, i don’t know... is my jacket okay?”

“White jacket, when off he’s mad at us then. Pro tip, wearing someone else’s colors or patterns means they’re your favorite,” Nino explained, turning to Marinette. “So Alix is your new favorite with the new studs?”

Marinette moved to hide her earrings.

“Marinette, how could you not tell me your rankings changed!” Sabrina mock-pouted.

“Sweet! I get dibs on Mari’s bed tonight!”

“Alix!”

“I, just, someone told me they’d bring good luck and with what happened over the summer...” and yesterday. “I figured it’d be okay to be a little superstitious--it can’t hurt in this case, right?”

Max shook his head, ready to lecture his la partner until Sabrina and Kim glared. He shut his mouth with a small frown.

“Of course not,” Adrein beamed. “Guessing it was pretty rough?”

“It was... more Gotham chaos than usual, that’s all.” New brother that was dead and is now alive and teenage again, Hero Stalker almost dying and somehow having one of her personal heroes deem her a good soundboard for solving cases that stump him? She didn’t know what to make of it, not really. (yet, Uncle Oswald’s voice rang in her head. You will when the dust settles, until then, keep your cards from view, or end up someone’s lunch.)

“That sucks.” Well, he didn’t try to hug her... yet. She could feel him debating it.

Class began then.

Marinette glanced back at Cute Red Head. She really needed to learn his name soon....

They had gym before lunch. During it, Marinette was told to show the class what can happen if someone is flexible and does the exercises right in a fight..

Kim came after her on the mats. She turned him into her vault, sent hi to ground as she jumped off him, and flipped out her landing for fun.

“I said for normal people Miss Cheng.”

Marinette grinned at their gym teacher. “Very well. Given that we seem to have magic infecting our city, its important for you all to learn how to defend and flee to safe places. Now, today we’ll be going over evacuation procedures...”

During lunch Alya and Lila were dominating a few other classes’ groups, talking about something called the “Ladyblog” and how amazing Ladybug was....

It didn’t sit right with Marinette. Chat was a big help, when he wasn’t getting ahead of himself. She was trained, he wasn’t. Could they be a little nicer to her apparent partner? She get’s she’s good, but she and Chat can be good together, can’t they?

Chloe was about to drag her to her table with Adrien, Nino (when did that happen?) and Sabrina, but she knew Max would follow her. which meant Kim would too--and she wasn’t lecturing Kim in front of Adrien and Chloe about him being jealous of them. that was a recipe for disaster--and she needed to do some recon on Big Guy and what triggered the transformation.

the police actually remembered to encrypt their files on the case, so she had to go the other way.

“I’ll catch up with you guys during class, I think those two,” Marinette pointed to Big Guy and Mylene, currently sitting alone and being avoided, “might need a buffer from the rest of school, Example setting and stuff, right Chloe?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I am reserving you in advance for tomorrow.”

She had one day to get Kim’s jealousy under control, great.

“Sure thing! See you later!” Marinette ran off with her lunch and took a seat across from Mylene and Ivan. “Hi, Marinette.”

Big Guy was Ivan apparently. Somehow Marinette managed to ask about how they got together, the poem he wrote yesterday did it. She squealed at that--it was cute, okay?

Kim came over after Marinette. Ivan tensed when he did.

“Hey Marinette--why are you--”

“Why not?”

Kim was silent at that, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh....”

“Sorry about Kim, he’s dense and i may be regular clumsy, but he’s emotionally clumsy.”

Ivan snorted at that. “Like when you almost dropped three trays of macaroons at the talent show last year?”

Marinette pouted at that. “I caught them all!”

Mylene giggled at that. “I think you’d do well in a circus act with reflexes like that.”

Marinette beamed at that. “Thanks! My Uncle Jerry grew up in one so he sometimes teaches me old tricks. Still haven’t mastered taming a certain monkey...” Marinette raised an eyebrow at Kim.

“I---fine. Ivan, I’m sorry about yesterday, i shouldn’t have made fun of the poem.”

“And?”

“...and your feelings.”

“And.”

“And I should talk my feelings out instead of taking them out on others.”

“and?”

“I,..” Kim frowned, thinking for a moment. “I’m glad you managed to confess, and will work on not acting out when I jealous of someone doing what i want to but won’t.”

“Good Kim.” He still wasn’t getting a macaroon. “Sorry about yesterday.”

Ivan stared at her and Kim. “So, dating or...”

“Ew.”

“Never.”

the pointed at each other. “That’s my brother/sister if my parents have it their way.”

Mylene brightened at that. “Really?”

Marinette nodded, “Kim decided he has all big brother rights too, apparently i’m a human arm rest.”

“You steal my hoodies.”

“It was cold, and unguarded. free game Kimmie.”

Kim shook his head. “this is not over Mari.”

“Is it ever?”

Mylene waved at someone... Alix and Max then--too long for one person.

“Hello.”

“yo, sitting here today?”

Marinette hummed as the pair took their seats. Over the course of the conversation, she found out a few things. 1) Ivan did not remember being Stoneheart. 2) the last thing he remembers is being told to knock by Damocles which only made him angrier at the time 3) a voice talking to him.

while inconclusive, her best guess would be some form of possession with rage as a catalyst for said possession to occur. Possibly just negative emotions, but she didn’t have enough data to support that theory.

Classes began again, this time with Adrien sitting by Nino, Sabrina moved back to Chloe’s side, and Marinette given more room than she needed.

Class was boring. She took the girls home with her while Max followed Kim to his house. Nino said something about babysitting and Adrien looked... sad. Some Huge Guy he called Gorilla picked him up without talking.

Maybe Huge Guy Gorilla is mute, otherwise very rude.

Maman had her handle the front while the girls were taught in the back what to do. and probably mined for information on what happened yesterday.

Marinette checked the Ladyblog and felt sick. She was being called a hero. Her family was not one of heroes---they were vigilantes at best and she knew it. She was a vigilante at best. don’t call me a hero--heroes always disappoint.

Marinette handled the front until closing time. she made dinner with the girls and Maman while Papa finished prep for tomorrow’s pastries.

dinner was normal. The girls kept their own anxieties about what was happening mostly quiet, but Marinette could feel it.

Alix stayed the night, Chloe had ballet and Sabrina needed to feed her hamster since Raincomrpix would be home late.

Marinette checked her messages again. nothing from Tim. She tried texting him while Tikki and Alix were asleep. she wasn’t even on read.

Marinette kept the tears in. He was still mad at her then.... did she doom Paris by lecturing Batman?

no, she just had to wait. Gotham wasn’t always calm. she just needed to wait for it to be calm and he’d see it. The Justice League would come. If not from Tim, then she’d work something out into her messages to Flash. a code.. just one letter in each letter needed to be different enough to notice. it would take time, but she knew he’d notice.

he had to.

she just had to wait. Had to be Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the meantime.

Paris and her just had to be patient.

They would’t abandon her Paris, right?

Bruce looked over the mostly cold case, Princess Jill, and sighed. They never found the girl that summer, and Superman wasn’t taking it well.

He looked over at Flash, who was trying to make a proposal the others could support. His french meta, Jill Smith, she was in Paris and they made progress on that front. No idea what her french name was, or her parents, but they knew she was in deep with the Gotham Rogues for Harley Quinn and Joker to claim any familial connection.

Both of these girls went by Jill. Possible body doubling given they both are summer only. There was a slim chance they were the same person, very slim, but that would mean that the Rouges were letting their princess go into fights, and he doubted they would. She’d be kept under lock and key while Mr. J was active, and clearly Pixie was not--possibly rebellious. They could use that to convert her.

Apparently Pixie Jill Smith was connected to a new threat to Gotham, Red Hood, often working in the same areas as Victor Zsasz. He wasn’t sure how the trio were connected, but he didn’t like it.

Flash was insistent that Jill was just scared and well... Batman would admit that much was obvious. He hoped Flash managed something usable in his proposal. The less batman needed to tweak for him, the better.

That’s all this time. Warning, there is an angst train and it will hurt for a while. it takes Years for things to end up where we want it, so this is a longfic in the works.

and reminder, Marinette had multiple romantic crushes and relationships in this. I only ask you tolerate the various ships.

Also the lovesquare from cannon may not be included, or if it is, it will be very different as so far, Marinette has a very different crush.

link to the full story for easy finding from ao3 --> https://archiveofourown.org/works/22342267/chapters/53372962

@mosseaters @dast218 @daminett4life @chaosace @emeraldpuffguide @ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat @mystery-5-5 @weird-pale-blonde-person

#maribat #maribat au #bio!dad #bio! dad au #bio!dad au #bio!dad strange #marinette strange dupain cheng #marinette strange dupain cheng part 12 #my au #ml au #my idea #sorry for the angst #ml fic #mlb x dc

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stevemoffett · 4 years ago

Text

A Hard Nap, The Fall of Math, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Disco Point, and There You Are

In January last year, I noticed a sign in myself of the same cancer my dad had back in 2008. Unlike the usual symptoms that set off my paranoia, it wasn’t some vague feeling, it wasn’t an intermittent pain, and it wasn’t a general ill feeling—it was clear and unambiguous, out of the ordinary and one of those symptoms that, if you google it, is under the list of “call your doctor if you experience any of the following.”

It was also nonspecific: this symptom could mean cancer, but it could also mean about five other cancer-unrelated conditions. I called for an appointment that morning with my general practitioner, who said that the earliest available date was about two weeks later.

I knew that the only way my fear would be effectively relieved was with the one sure-fire diagnostic tool for this type of cancer, one that’s recommended for everyone, but not until about age 50: a colonoscopy.

For the two weeks before my GP appointment, I mentally prepared for death. For the record, I do this every time I interpret my body’s signals as cancerous, but the mental preparation usually stops after a few days when the symptom either goes away or when a clear alternative cause presents itself. This time, I didn’t get that kind of relief and, in fact, the symptom repeated more than once between setting the appointment and going to it. Each time, it was like an intrusive thought come to life: you’re going to die. You’re going to go through surgery and chemotherapy like Dad and you’re either going to die early, or find out like he did that the cure is worse than the disease, or maybe you’ll hang on just long enough to experience both.

Winter mornings in Texas can sometimes be surprisingly cold. While stepping out the door on a midsummer morning is like walking into someone’s hot exhale, as you might expect, a 33-degree morning is more like a slap in the face. When I packed everything I figured I’d need to move here a couple of years ago, I threw away my winter coat, thinking, I won’t be needing this anymore. (The coat was also about ten years old at that point.)

My first winter in Texas, I layered a bunch of shirts underneath a light jacket and wore a scarf on freezing days. The second winter, I decided that I’d had enough of being cold. After all, I rationalized, here in Texas it was monetarily possible to never have to feel cold again if you really don’t want to. So I bought the warmest coat I could find, an unstylish, bulky parka made by Caterpillar, the company that makes construction vehicles. No more layering, no more checking the weather before leaving in the morning. I could just put this coat on and not worry about it.

But now, under the shadow of a cancer scare these January mornings, wearing the big coat made me feel less like I was smarter than the weather and more like I was trying to smuggle a terminal disease wherever I went. Under my coat, tie, button-down shirt, undershirt, skin, fat, and muscle, something was growing silently in the dark. While maybe it had slipped up and showed some of its handiwork to me, it was already too late to do much about it now.

Since it has affected my life several times before, and since it is such an exquisite mixture of dread and uncertainty, cancer is one of my mind’s biggest bogeymen. I feel personally insulted by the idea of it. I treat you so well, body—why would you betray me? Was I not nice enough? Is this poetic justice for my vanity? Is it, as the old anecdotal saying goes, due to my worrying?

Not only did I feel like I was smuggling cancer under the big coat, I was also warming it up by drinking my coffee. I was feeding it directly when I ate something too sugary. And I was probably even giving it an evil sense of satisfaction when I got stressed out about it. If I was able to keep my mind off it by working in the lab, mixing and pipetting, using kits, and doing arithmetic in my head, it would come crashing back into focus when I was pulling my gloves off to wash my hands.

I pulled up incognito mode on my phone’s browser during my breaks, googling “5-year survival rate colon cancer age 35.” “Cancer staging colon prognosis.” “Colon cancer smoking.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack in college.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack 18 years ago.” “Colon cancer smoke one pack after seeing Luke Wilson smoking in The Royal Tenenbaums.”

At home, I suddenly started noticing the expiration dates on my nonperishables. What will last longer, I thought, the freshness of this baking soda, or me.

I knew I wasn’t going to be comforted by the first GP visit. After all, they’re usually the first stop to a specialist, unless you have a PPO insurance plan, which I don’t. The doctor listened to my symptoms and family history. “Well,” he said, “Given your history, it’s a good idea to refer you to a GI. But, you seem like you lead a healthy lifestyle otherwise, with none of the other risk factors, so we’ll see what he says.”

I made the GI appointment and had to wait two more weeks for it, with the same circular worrying and googling. At the GI appointment, I sat in the waiting room, the youngest patient there by a few decades, and I felt a little bit ridiculous. On the other hand, I’d also just read a harrowing story about a woman in her late 20s who had colon cancer and died from it. That was a real person, I thought, who at the first phase of it probably went through all the same feelings I was now, the I’m-being-ridiculous and is-this-worth-the-time-and-vacation-days, all the way up until her diagnosis. Not just because I was scared, I felt a pang of sympathy. A disease of the old picking a victim from the young is terrible luck.

And I figured, if it could be her, it could be anyone. But most of all, it could be me.

That last bit, I think, is one of—one of—my greatest flaws, the vanity of always thinking that the worst things will happen to you, in spite of the odds. It’s a way of making yourself feel special, but it has no upside. You don’t feel confidence with this type of special-feeling. In fact, you’re more likely to be timid and self-centered, and you just come across as weird to the outside observer. They might think, There’s only a few steps between that guy and Howard Hughes. Somewhere, deep in your mind, they think: Wires are crossed.

Shortly before I went in, another patient arrived, a man around my age or maybe younger who, despite a dozen or so free seats, declined to sit down. My name was called, and I passed a sign on the way to the back that said, “If you have recently traveled to China and have a fever you must let our staff know.”

This doctor’s exam rooms had floor-to-ceiling windows, the kind you’d see in a movie, instead of the usual dull and bulby, off-white plastic exam room interior. A Spanish medical student came in to give a pre-appointment questionnaire and to take my vitals. He asked, in much better English than I could have mustered in Spanish, “So. There is some blood in they crep?”

When he came in, the GI repeated what my GP had said, and since he was also the person who would be performing a colonoscopy, he said I should set an appointment for one with him. I managed to get a date three weeks later.

From other people’s stories, I knew two things about colonoscopies: they are no fun, especially the night before, but the general anesthesia on the day of the procedure, on the other hand, is fun. I was nervous enough on the day before that I actually asked someone at the pharmacy for help finding the items I was looking for: Polyethylene Glycol (or PEG, which we use all the time for lab experiments, and which I was going to have to drink 2 liters of), Gatorade, and laxative pills. I had to take about 800% of their recommended dosages, each.

The bodily effect of those chemicals was dramatic, and I will spare the details. The worst parts of it, I found, were the generally exhausting physical toll it took, and the feeling by the end that I had some kind of dangerous sodium imbalance: I was sweating between my fingers, for example, but the rest of me felt as dry as paper. At 10PM, I was too tired to do anything, but too nervous to sleep for more than a few hours.

One smaller worry that I felt the next morning, as I took a selfie in my hospital gown to send to a friend back home, making a backward peace sign to show off the IV sticking into my hand and also how brave I was being, was that I might just die right there on the table from the general anesthesia. Part of my grad school research was on Propofol, the most-used general anesthesia nowadays (which, incidentally, also killed Michael Jackson). This was the same drug I was to be given.

I’d never been fully put under anesthesia before. It was astronomically improbable that I’d have an adverse reaction to it and die (and by the way, Michael Jackson abused it, using it far outside of medical praxis—if you’re afraid to get a colonoscopy yourself, don’t be, it could save your life), but keep in mind what I said about my vanity.

“Hey, I’m really scared,” I told the anesthesiologist. He said something, muffled by his mask, that sounded like, “It’ll be all right.” Then he busied himself with a syringe, connecting it to my IV. He depressed it about a third of the way. “This should help you,” he said.

The last thing I said was, “Whoa…I feel it.”

After what felt like a hard, late-afternoon nap, I said, “Hello?”

My head was wrapped with something. When I touched my face, I could feel that there were cotton pads underneath the wrapping, holding my eyes shut. I guess that at some point either mid-procedure or after, my eyes had opened, unseeing, and they’d done this to keep them from drying out. “Hang on, sir,” I heard a nurse say, and my head was unwrapped.

“It’s over?” I asked.

“You’re all done,” he said.

“Gimme a minute, please,” I said, my South Jersey accent peeking out. “I feel a little weird.”

Eventually, I sat up. Two of the nurses helped me stand, and I pumped my arms like I was lifting light, invisible dumbbells. As I put my glasses on and looked around, I thought that they all seemed like they were fighting to not smirk. What did I say while I was blacked out? I wondered, with a twinge of panic, before deciding that it would be worthless to speculate. It could have been anything. There are literally millions of possibilities. Again—it would be worthless to speculate, I told myself, firmly.

An Uber driver, I had been told by hospital staff during a consultation, was not a legally strong enough party to take responsibility for me at discharge. Someone I knew would have to escort me to my apartment. Also, they said, they really would do that thing where you’re back in your own clothes, and they push you to the exit in a wheelchair when you’re all finished. After my procedure, my co-worker stood waiting in the discharge zone with his car as an orderly wheeled me out of the hospital exit. I stood up from the wheelchair and got into the passenger seat of his car, for some reason more aware than usual of the heat coming from the vent and the smell of the car’s leather upholstery. “I still feel weird from the anesthesia,” I said to my friend.

“I’ll bet you do,” he replied.

It was about lunch time, and I had taken the rest of the day off from work. When I got home, I ordered a pizza and lay on my bed. I ate the pizza and watched Star Wars. I had not felt any euphoria when I woke up, I thought hollowly. And my first solid meal in almost forty hours tasted unremarkable. I was still groggy, but not in a pleasant way. I felt cheated.

The hospital staff had put a manilla envelope into my hands as I left. It contained sheets of images the doctor had taken during the procedure. Once lucid, I leafed through them and compared the thumbnail-sized images on printer paper with googled images of cancerous tumors viewed through a colonoscope, trying to diagnose myself.

A couple of the images on the papers had shapes that looked weird, with what seemed like variations in the texture or color of my colon wall that to me, at least, appeared one hundred percent fatal. It was another two weeks before I had a follow-up appointment to go over them with the surgeon.

“See this?” The GI said, two weeks later, pointing to one of the images that had seemed completely normal to me, unlike other ones I had thought were much more scary and unusual-looking. “That’s a low-risk polyp. Of course, now it’s a no-risk polyp, ‘cause it’s gone.”

This medical episode ended only three or so weeks before the whole world changed, but I was all the more grateful for that. If I’d waited to be checked out, then I would have been weighing whether it was worth getting tested against the possibility of being infected with COVID.

The doctor recommended that I get a colonoscopy every five years from now on, but added, “If you want, you can go earlier than that.” I told him thanks, but once every five years sounded fine.

I wrote about the first seven weeks of the pandemic in my last entry. After that, May and June passed in the same way as March and April had. I went back to work in mid-June for two weeks before the first summer COVID spike closed things back up. I continued to play Quake, and I continued to fret about my family.

I had a job interview for a position in northern Maryland in April. I didn’t get it, but I had a good idea why I’d been turned down: the position wanted people with proven math skills. Which makes sense—for the last few years I’d said repeatedly that I wanted to have a job that involves less lab work and more data analysis. This was one of those jobs.

My graduate program gave me a degree in “Computational and Integrative Biology.” Sometimes I shorten it to “Integrative Biology,” or “Computational Biology,” but I always feel sort of dishonest when I tell people my degree. (Apparently this feeling is common among grad students). My own reason for feeling dishonest was because, in any other college, the work I was doing would probably just fall under normal old “Biology.” While it was true I had done course work that reflected “Computational and Integrative” Biology, they were courses taught in a remedial way.

When I say remedial, I mean that they were courses designed to get biologists up to speed on how to do higher-level data analyses with their experiments. For instance, in my “Biomath” course, we went over ordinary differential equations and graph theory. Those are both intermediate-level math types, ones you’d encounter in the later part of an undergraduate math degree program. Throughout that course, there was a lot of handwaving whenever I asked questions.

“Eh…,” the professor might have responded to something I had asked, “that requires a lot of background explanation we don’t need right now to handle the problem here. Just take it as a given for what we’re working on.”

In grad school, it’s common to be well-versed in only your narrow little research tunnel that leads outward to the edge of “known” biology. But a few times each month, several of us students would head to the bar down at the city’s waterfront after work to talk about our research. It usually began with a complaint—“This is the third time this kit wouldn’t work this week and it takes twelve fucking hours to run it each time,”—but to give us a more context for their problem, whoever was griping would have to go back and start at the beginning, recounting all the steps leading to their experiment’s failure.

This was a useful exercise, since a pair of new eyes on your work meant that at least you could get feedback on how to better relate the subject matter when you talked to a non-science audience, and at most, you might get a real solution for the problem you were bumping up against.

But I would sometimes get privately upset, as I sipped my beer and glanced out the window at the river, when a math-centered Computational and Integrative Biology student would start talking about their research. As someone who feels an unpleasant, TV static-like anxiety in my chest the moment I see letters in italics, or one of those big, orphan sorority sigmas following an equal sign during a math seminar, this upset feeling was directed at myself. Because, as a result of my insecurity, I would start listening to the beginning of the math student’s explanation of their research, trip over the first unfamiliar term I heard, lose the thread of what they were talking about, give up, and zone out. The math students, overall, just seemed light years ahead of me.

A critical vocabulary word that I began to mentally tie to the situation—slumming, these math types were slumming when talking to us biologists—was the grain of sand to my insecurity’s oyster. By the time I got my diploma a few years later, it had developed into a little pearl; now I had the feeling that I was, relative to those who’d come from a math background, a fake computational biologist.

Unhelpfully, the people in charge of hiring for the jobs I want nowadays seemed to agree. All the job listings I was interested in applying for made me feel the same panic that advanced math symbols on powerpoint slides did. The subjects they wanted their applicants to have experience in—machine learning, deep learning, regression analyses—were all frightening, impregnable terms, reminding me either of some kind of giant machine made up of endless tubes and valves, all spitting dangerously hot steam, or of a highly secure, underground bomb shelter that requires fingerprints or eyeball scans to get into. I knew from my previous learning experiences that if I didn’t understand the fundamentals and learned only the higher-level, applied stuff, it was just going to make me feel unworthy, and I’d forget it at once.

But summer had come—it was midsummer now, in fact. The pandemic wasn’t going anywhere, so what was I going to do if I didn’t start learning something? I ended up registering for three classes at a community college back home, which offered their fall semester online. For two thousand dollars, including textbooks, I got a spot in Introductory Statistics, Linear Algebra, and Calculus III.

Calculus III was a risk. I’d taken Calc I and II in undergrad, now about seventeen years ago, and I had earned Bs back then. I didn’t remember much of the material from either class. I’d tried watching Khan Academy videos at various points in the meantime, but could never stick with it. I’d watch several videos in a row, feel like I understood things, try a practice problem, get it wrong, and forget about it after a day or two. But now, I had put actual money into it and, in a few months, a grade would be spit back out, so this time I had real skin in the game.

But I had misgivings that I was too old to learn new stuff, or that I would be one of those students I remember when I was in undergrad, the older students who would grind class to a halt with their endless questions. Or maybe I would get worse grades than I had in undergrad, despite taking things more seriously now.

Two of the classes were taught asynchronously, meaning each lecture was a video that you could pause or replay at your leisure, and all tests were take-home, but the other class, Statistics, was done over Zoom. You might think a Zoom class could be a better way to learn—clarifying questions can be asked immediately, for instance—but for me, at least, it was not. Instead of focusing on the material being taught, the whole time I’d be thinking, “They can see me. Everyone here can see me. I can see me, and I have a dumbass expression on my face. Can they tell that I have a bedsheet instead of a curtain over my window blinds?”

My mind wandered during class just as much as it had while sitting in a lecture hall when I was eighteen, but now, these classes were held later at night, after I’d been working all day and had eaten dinner. As a result of this, and the fact that I find Statistics to be boring when it’s taught as a series of don’t-worry-about-how-we-derived-it formulas to plug numbers into, I did the worst in Statistics.

But Calc and Linear Algebra were more interesting. When I watched the class videos, I got familiar with the disembodied voices of the teachers, who each seemed to be trying to do an impression of Khan Academy videos. My Calc teacher, with his strong Vietnamese accent, would punctuate every few lines of derivation or proof with, “So what does that mean then?” Every time—new topic, new chapter, new problem, exactly the same tone of voice: “So what does that mean then?”

Eventually, in my head, his cadence merged with the tones of Woody Woodpecker’s laugh, and I began saying it to myself as I did chores around my apartment. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d half-sing at my garbage can liner as I cinched it shut. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d say to a wrinkled button-down shirt, enjoying the pepper shaker-y smell of my iron when it’s turned up to its hottest setting. “So what does that mean, then?” I’d say to the window blinds, when considering whether I should replace the bedsheet I’d hung there with an actual curtain, before answering myself that No, this apartment is too temporary for something as tony as curtains.

Sometimes I’d say it three times in a row, like Woody Woodpecker himself:

“So what does that mean, then?”

I kept a Google Sheet of how much time I spent doing work for each class, and found that I averaged about 20 hours a week total. That broke down to approximately an hour and a half each weekday, and on Saturday and Sunday I would go for about six or seven hours each. I’d get up at 7:30 those weekend mornings and brew a pot of coffee, then sit taking notes and working through every part of each assigned homework, not moving on from a problem until I understood everything about it.

I think that those Saturday and Sunday mornings may have been the happiest I felt during the year 2020. In the middle of a difficult Calc problem, not having the answer yet but certain I was on the right track, while also buzzing on caffeine, as a beam of early horizontal sunlight hit my kitchen backsplash and filled the apartment with more brightness than all my lightbulbs put together, I for once did not feel worried. I was unworried about my parents, my sisters, my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece and nephew, and all the pets. Unworried about COVID, or cancer, or the work stresses of the week. Unworried about getting older, about being alone still, or about enjoying being alone too much; unworried about letting all of this time go by and still feeling like real life hasn’t started; unworried about my dad having another stroke, or about my mom just suddenly up and dying out of nowhere, or cancer, or whether my hairline is changing, or the fact that my heart has been skipping a beat sometimes lately, or whether my friends who I speak to on the phone were getting sick of me, or whether I am too graphic when I describe symptoms I am afraid mean I might have cancer, or whether my apartment neighbors will keep me up with their noise again tonight, or whether the tooth sensitivity I feel drinking cold water lately means I need to risk a dentist visit during a pandemic, or whether I will be able to have healthier boundaries with my parents whenever I return to the northeast, or whether I’ll ever feel truly satisfied and content, or whether I’ll ever feel actual joy some day, or whether my hang-ups, and anxieties, and fears, and regrets about my personal and professional choices will end up all ganging up on me at once, or, of course, whether at any given moment, I might have cancer.

My attitude going into the classes was that I would disregard whatever grades I got and simply aim for as much comprehension as possible. But about halfway through the semester, I lost my nerve and began to think of my grades as a direct indicator of my level of understanding. So I started fretting about my grades, and on days of Calc III exams during the second half of the semester, I took vacation time so I could spend the whole day working on them.

It got a little crazy toward the end, but finally, it was over, and I managed to get all As. That made me happy, even if I knew that that kind of satisfaction is a bit immature. But I felt like I was making up for some of the sins I had committed as a college student, my laziness and my previous lack of appreciation for education finally, in a small way, absolved.

I spent Christmas here in Texas. When I think back on Christmases from previous years I find that I can remember the past two years very well because I flew home and packed a lot of family and friend time into a few short days. Before 2018, though, I can’t remember any specific Christmas well enough to recount anything that happened on the day.

But when I was a little kid, I remembered each Christmas perfectly, mainly due to the gifts I got and the room where we put the Christmas tree—where “Christmas happened”: in 1990, it was in the back room and we got a magic set, and also my brother pretended to faint when he saw he’d gotten Reebok Pumps. In 1991, it was in the family room, and my brother and I got the Nintendo game “Base Wars.” In 1992, it was in the living room and we got a Sega Genesis along with the game “Sonic 2.” In 1993, it was in the family room again, and I got a Hot Wheels Key Force car, and my brother got the Genesis game “Hard Ball 3 With Al Michaels.”

In 1994, my grandfather died a few weeks before Christmas, and we got a Sega CD. That was the year I became aware that the Christmas spirit was vulnerable to external forces, one’s first experience with death being the most offensive of those forces, and after a few months I also became aware that a hot new gaming console like the Sega CD could “fail,” slipping into obscurity with a small and unremarkable library of games. As a result, the indestructible-seeming sheen of Christmas fell away, leaving behind a better idea of what Christmas really is: a bare, thin-glassed lightbulb plugged into the middle of the year’s darkest period. After 1994, I can’t really remember what happened each Christmas.

This past Christmas will always be memorable, though, because I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day pretty much doing one of three things: playing Quake (yes, that hobby still refuses to die), watching something Star Wars-related, or video chatting with my family. At any time when I wasn’t speaking to family, I had Christmas music playing in the background, including while Star Wars was on. I turned the heat up in my apartment to 75 degrees and enjoyed how money-wastingly hot it was getting, until my nose started to bleed from the dry air.

I want to take this opportunity to say that I much prefer Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is generally all anticipation and guest arrivals, buoying the mood long into the falling night. From the viewpoint of Christmas Eve, any miracle might happen the following morning. But then after a late, over-buttered breakfast on Christmas Day, there’s nothing much else to do except think about cleaning up and regret how much you’ve eaten. The “anything could happen” feeling is now all gone, collapsed from a dazzling infinity’s worth of possibilities down to one homely outcome.

I hadn’t put up any decorations for my apartment, unless the Christmas music can be considered a decoration. This ended up being a good thing, though, since I didn’t have to take anything down once the holiday was over.

I started taking walks pretty early in the pandemic, my first walk happening after about one week of lockdown. That day there was a surprisingly large amount of people also walking. We all stayed far away from one another, since none of us were wearing masks—the width of even a modest suburban Texas street is still impressively wide, so there was no safety issue. I always took the initiative to be the one who crossed the street if I saw someone, exaggeratedly swinging my arms as I crossed so the person walking toward me could see my intentions even from far away. I did this because I figured it would be harder for the dog-walkers to wrangle their dog across the street and get out of my way, and the people without dogs were either old or were walking in a group.

In the beginning I was walking maybe twice a week, which then became three times, which became five. It held at five times a week during the fall semester because I’d have to be on Zoom from 6:30-8:30 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays, which took up the whole span of time in which I would usually walk. Nowadays, no longer taking classes, I walk every night.

For a while, I tried to get home before sunset, because I’m afraid of being hit by a car in the dark. After the clocks shifted back, I had to choose between walking earlier, during rush hour when everyone was arriving back at their houses from work, or waiting to walk until after the sun has set. I ended up buying one of those reflective construction worker’s vests for $8 on Amazon and waiting for nighttime. I feel like a dork when I wear the vest, but most of the people walking at night who I see are also wearing reflective clothes. Theirs are more chic than my vest, though, looking like they were ordered through an expensive fitness-wear catalogue. I’d buy the same type, but to me, walking is a meditative, solitary act, and I don’t want to feel that I’m catering to externalities like looking stylish while I’m trying to feel solitary. It also acts as a tacit acknowledgement that I’m not a criminal: “I’m making myself as visible as possible! I’m not casing your houses to break into them later on!”

Even though the focus of COVID is on the transmission of disease through shared, respired air, I still pay a lot of attention to contaminated surfaces. When I go out anywhere, I have a routine: first, I put on my going-out clothes (newly clean), then my shoes, which are possibly dirty, since I have to re-tie them sometimes with unwashed hands, so before I touch anything else after tying my shoes, I wash my hands. Then, I put on a mask, turn off all the lights except the one at the front door, pick up my keys with my right hand, slip my phone into my left pocket, and walk to the door. I put my keys in my right pocket (my wallet is already there), open the door with my right hand, turn out the light, step out the door, and take the keys out of my pocket to lock the door with, again, only my right hand.

I use my right hand pretty much everywhere outside—to push or pull open doors, to open my car to retrieve something from it, to open my mailbox and carry my mail in—because I know that if I use my left hand, my phone-operating hand, I’m going to have to put the phone into a little UV light phone-sterilizing box that I bought when I get home. And for some reason, I feel like it’s a small moral failure to have to use that UV box, so I try to keep my left hand from touching anything except for the phone. But I know that if I drive anywhere, all bets are off—both my hands touch the steering wheel, my left hand touches the car door handle while getting out, and I push open doors with both hands whenever I get somewhere. I’m sure that my left hand ends up touching something that may have SARS-CoV-2 on it as I carry out an errand, and therefore into the UV box my phone must go when I get home. But, when I go out to walk, there’s a good chance that I won’t need to touch anything with my left hand between leaving the apartment and coming back. If that’s the case, I can use my phone freely while walking if I want to, but when I get home, I can still just take it from my pocket and place it on my desk, no ultraviolet sterilizing waves needed. But of course then I still have to wash my right hand.

The walk is the same route every night now. It’s a vaguely circular, level 2.7 miles, starting northbound, bearing west, south, then east. It takes about forty minutes for me to walk the whole thing, plus or minus four minutes, depending on how warmed up I get while walking. My heart rate generally goes up to about 115 beats per minute for most of the walk, according to my watch, then spikes to 135 as I climb the stairs to my fourth floor apartment at the end.

Insulated by the sound of music or an audiobook on my headphones, and with my hands stuck in my pockets, actually holding onto the cloth pocket linings themselves, I feel less like a person on a walk and more like someone steering a large, inertia-filled thing—a sailboat that I have to tack against an unfavorable wind, or a bobsled whose blades I have to turn out of deep ruts on the ice. But despite feeling bodily awkward, I find suburbia to be a soothing place to move through. I really don’t understand how some people think of the suburbs as some kind of dystopia, to be honest. My neighborhood has wide streets, as I mentioned, and the houses are almost all ranch-style. The trees, like the houses, are shorter than they are in the northeast. Some of the trees look more like very tall shrubbery. As for the ground, the blades of grass are wider, and the soil is just a bit sandier. Sometimes, I see two-inch-long cockroaches, what people back home would call “water bugs,” creeping across the sidewalks.

I can’t remember the names of the streets on the walk, except for Forrest Street, which I noticed once when I saw the street sign while I was running and it made me think of “Run, Forrest, run!” and Kenilworth Street, which has the same name as a street back at home. Other than those, I only know points along the route by the informal names I’ve assigned to them. There’s a road where it changes direction from heading north to heading east, and it looks over a little park. The lack of houses there gives an unobstructed view of the western horizon. For that reason, I call that part of the route “Sunset Bend.” At another point on the route there is a house where, in the beginning of lockdown last spring, a family was always outside, the parents sitting motionless in Adirondack chairs while their kids all went nuts on the front lawn, playing with the sprinkler, or doing hopscotch, or sitting at one of those tiny plastic picnic tables, playing some board game. That part of the walk I called “Kidville.”

There were other houses that were always so inactive, so abandoned-seeming—the blinds were always closed and there wasn’t a car in the driveway—that I started to wonder if anyone lived there at all, and whether maybe the neighborhood association was mowing its lawn to stave off the shabbiness. But after the switch from walking in daylight to nighttime, I saw that some of those houses, while still shut up and silent, had lights on inside in rooms not facing the street. Looking at those houses is like staring into the vents of a space heater in a dark room.

Eventually I started thinking about how the walk is exactly 2.7 miles. Then, idly, I realized that if you multiply 2.7 by 30, you get 81. That number of years, eighty-one, seems like a decent amount of years to hope to live—it’s not greedy, you’re not asking for a hundred years, for example—but also, maybe when I get closer to 81, there will be better medical treatments and 81 will seem younger. Assuming that doesn’t happen, though, I think of 81 years as more or less “a complete life.” It is very sad, but not exactly a tragedy, to die at 81.

With this in mind, I started translating the distance along my walk to human ages. For instance, 1.0 miles into the walk, times 30, would equal 30 years. And 1.2 miles times 30 would equal 36 years, which is how old I am now. Since by the time I’d discovered this “conversion formula,” the walk was already so familiar to me that I had a very good perspective on how far into the walk any given point felt—the precise moment when I sense that I’m transitioning from the middle to the end phase of the walk, for example. So when I came up with the multiply-by-30 conversion formula, I was interested to see exactly what part of the walk 1.2 miles, or 36 years old, corresponded to.

The answer is that it was later in the walk than I’d hoped. The moment I reach 1.2 miles is long past the most scenic parts of the route; it’s just after a left turn that puts me on a long straightaway of modest houses leading to an arterial road, known to me as the hook-around part of the circuit where in past walks, I had thought, “Now I’m on my way back home.”

Over the next few evenings, I noted other points, ones that had come before the 1.2 mile marker, and compared them to parts of my already-lived life: I graduated high school at 0.6 miles into the walk, which was the beginning of Sunset Bend. I got my master’s degree in a spot where, at nighttime, a streetlight shines through the leaves on a tree, giving the street a dance hall, disco-ball kind of lighting (hence, “Disco Point”). That friendly, lighted patch of street, with a jaunty-looking house standing next to it, makes it my favorite part of the walk. As for points I have not yet reached: still ahead of my current age distance, at around 1.5 miles, is Kidville, but I haven’t seen anyone in the front yard there in months now.

Toward the end, almost back home, there’s a large school property. I’ve never seen anyone on the grounds, except for the occasional person who sneaks onto the running track to jog it. Along one of the fences that borders the school, in springtime last year, someone started zip-tying laminated sheets of paper with jokes written on them to the chain links. The jokes are all clean, and pretty lame—these days it seems like almost all kid-friendly jokes are just puns, like “How did the farmer find his wife? He tractor down!”

One time, I saw a kid about ten years old on his bike, riding along the sidewalk and stopping to read each joke. The fence ends at a small park for toddlers. There’s a big plastic sign at the entrance of the park, faded but still legible, that has a boy’s name displayed on it. Below his name is written a tragically short span of years, and below that, a message: “This park is dedicated to the memory of (the boy’s name), and to all of the little tykes of (the neighborhood).” Whoever it was putting up jokes on the schoolyard fence stopped replacing them with new ones some time during the fall, and I walk too late to ever see anyone playing at the playground. Well, that’s not quite true: very rarely, around 9 PM on warm nights, I might see what appears to be a young mother scrutinizing her phone as her kid swings in the dark.

I haven’t been to the gym to lift any weights since lockdown started. I’ve been able to do cardio in my apartment, but the result of all the cardio and all the walking is that I’ve lost a decent amount of lifting strength, as well as about ten pounds. This is consistent with how life in general has evolved: I have also reduced the list of spaces I travel to, leaving my apartment only to go to work, to pick up groceries, and to walk through my neighborhood. My body, and the edges of my life, have gone through a great miniaturization, but my perspective has adapted with it—each feature within this smaller space seems more detailed, and the day’s moments are of a finer grain. Inside my apartment, I have realized how much the lighting affects the atmosphere, and as a result the mood, so I can change which lights are on when to reflect the mood of each time of day. When I walk at night, sometimes I have the same feeling I did the week before I moved here from New Jersey, a sort of farewell feeling. That feeling started in the fall as a dessert-like flipside to my happy mornings spent doing math homework. Those evenings, I also felt like I was saying goodbye, to a more insecure, more ignorant version of myself, I guess. Nowadays, I get the feeling that I’m saying goodbye to the person who had, until now, always feared that he was missing out on things.

There will be a time, closer to now than now is to the beginning of the pandemic, when I will leave Texas. I will be happy and relieved to return home, whenever that is. But at the same time, there’s a new feeling that is starting to take root, and it’s a weird one: for all the hardship that the pandemic has presented to me, the anxiety for my family and the limitations it’s put on my mobility, social life, and career, for more than ten months now, its most memorable effect, unless I’m affected by the illness itself, will be that it made me love my neighborhood. I have walked more than 500 miles of it over the months, and scores of miles remain to be walked before I move away. I’ve walked during steaming afternoons, during cloudy sunsets, in pre-dawn twilight on cool mornings, and during soft, breezy evenings. It’s always picturesque, pleasant, very green. The houses look inviting, and the dog-walkers wave to me. I listen to music that suits my mood and do the geographical equivalent of palm reading. That’s all, really.

Can a person love a place? Feel gratitude toward landscaping, houses, parked cars, and people viewed only from a distance? Can someone feel affinity to a fox seen in a churchyard and streetlights shining through leaves in the night? Affection for lawn mower exhaust, for the noise of an approaching SUV slowly carving out a bend? Love for landmarks that correspond to moments in one’s past, or to moments that one might encounter in the future?

There will be a time, I hope, when my years in Texas are far in the past. But some day, I will hear a song, or see a house with a certain architecture, or smell a variety of grass, and Texas will return to me. At the same time, I also hope that it isn’t too overwhelming. I’ve found that I can never tell how potent a memory of a particular time or place will be until there’s a lot of distance between me and it. Sometimes, a memory will come gently, settling on me like a haze, ready to be indulged, even laughed at. In such cases I turn up the music that brought the memory, or take a luxuriating whiff of the scent, and I think back on the time, feeling only a little bit sad.

But other memories swoop down like some kind of predatory bird, and in those cases, the nostalgia feels more like the punch of the bird’s talons in the back of my neck. The sense of missing is so strong that it feels less like nostalgia and more like a distilled, portable homesickness. Ridiculously, I’ll even want to return to the memory’s time and place, despite knowing that in reality it had been fraught with pain or unease. Which makes the sneaking feeling growing during this time, at this place, all the more uncanny. I mean, all that this span of time has been, is me, and some terrain, and the wind, and the light of the sun or the moon. No one else. My nostalgia for anything before this was always about times and places with other people. So who will I be missing?

Someone once said, Wherever you go, there you are. But now, I wonder: is that really true?

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nadziejastar · 5 years ago

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OMG, thank you so much for sending this! And thank you to the person who translated it! This story proves to me that Lea and Isa were just too gay for the mainstream Kingdom Hearts series. Seriously.

We thought we could save that girl. I don’t know why we felt that way.

The little story is very nice. It’s about as good as it can possibly be given the shitty source material that is KH3. I thought it was hilarious how Isa has pretty much nothing to say about Subject X. Oh yeah, she sounds so important to him here, doesn’t she? Isa sacrificed everything for her, lol. Maybe you just wanted to help her, Isa, because you had a good heart. Ever think of that?

But for real, what a crock of shit that whole idea is. Skuld was just shoehorned into their story because Axel and Saïx were too gay otherwise. That’s all it its. Just blatant homophobia, and I’m disappointed in Square and Disney for it. It’s okay to shiptease popular same-sex couples, but as soon as there’s an actual same-sex couple, they go out of their way to fuck it up like this. Pathetic.

Yes, I thought that I didn’t need you with me anymore.

So, yeah, Isa doesn’t give a shit about Skuld. They can’t even force him to seem like he cares. On the other hand, Isa sure had TONS to say about Lea in this story. I’m not surprised that there’s all this subtext hinting that Isa really loved Lea. That’s my favorite part about this story. It’s just so gay. Isa said his life had no meaning if Lea didn’t need him. Lea was his purpose.

“Kairi…? Oh, I expect she’s catching up with her friend from the darkness,” he said as if it were nothing of much concern.

“What’s that mean?!” Sora demanded.

“She doesn’t need you anymore.” Saïx smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes.

It just makes me even more pissed off over how badly KH3 ruined Isa. There was so much wasted potential with the LeaIsa relationship. IMO, it’s still the most complicated and interesting relationship in the series. At least before KH3, anyway.

Ultimately, what is a heart?

What are friends?

Is there any meaning to making connections with your heart?

I’m not blaming the writer of this story or anything. They did the best they could with the cruddy source material. But I gotta be honest, this story still sounds like it’s written from Saïx’s point of view, not Isa’s. He just sounds so…robotic? If that makes sense. Like, he still doesn’t sound fully human here, if you ask me.

It was just that if he went back and reported that he couldn’t find anything, he would have to deal with those attempts at “personality”—the sneers, the snide remarks, the only trappings of human emotion that Saïx ever showed. Not that Saïx was even capable of annoyance or disappointment, of course, what with the lack of a heart and all.

Saïx was very, very cold and unfeeling. He couldn’t understand friendship or what it meant to have a heart.

In a way, Saïx put more effort than any of them into pretending he had a heart, Axel thought. And yet, he was more lacking than any of them.

He was the most Nobody-like organization member. There was a distinct lack of humanity with his personality. He didn’t even want to be that way. He desperately wanted a heart so he could feel like a normal human again. He was a tragic character. A victim. But…there was clearly something very, very wrong with him. He was NOT normal. And this never gets addressed. It really bothers me.

“I know I won’t forget you. Believe me, I try all the time,” Isa replied with a bit of humor in his tone.

“See? I’m immortal!”

“You’re obnoxious.”

I gotta say, I don’t like how Isa is now being written like Saïx, as if that was just his natural personality. In BBS, Isa actually seemed VERY sensitive. He simply seemed reticent with his feelings. He seemed like he had very strong affection for Lea, but was too shy to express this outwardly. So he teased Lea all the time.

Lea seemed to understand that Isa’s teasing was simply his way of showing affection, so he enjoyed their banter. A lot. Although Isa was shy, he still gave me the impression that he was a totally normal kid, like Lea. He had a good sense of humor and acted playful. He didn’t seem to be so…stiff or unable to understand emotions like he does in this story.

Talking to Roxas and Xion always brings back memories of my human life, back when I was a kid. It’s a weird sensation. I ought to be able to share all this with Saïx, but I just don’t feel like it anymore. It’s strange, but I’m content with just missing what’s gone. I’m not the one who changed. You did.

Lea was a normal human kid. Axel was a normal Nobody. Isa was a normal kid. Saïx was NOT a normal Nobody. So why would Isa be so different from Lea? IMO, there’s no good explanation for why Isa changed from a normal shy kid in BBS to what he became as a Nobody. This…unfeeling blob of a man. At least a backstory as a human test subject would make his personality understandable.

“Say something. Have you even thought that maybe I can’t erase Roxas?” Axel said, in a playful tone, and Saix finally looked up.

“It’ll be all right. ‘Cause I’m tough.” Axel puffed out his chest.

“How stupid,” said Saix, and for a moment he smiled.

It feels like KH3 had to sugarcoat Saïx a lot, in order to portray him more sympathetically. Saïx had a few moments where he showed genuine emotion and love for Axel (feelings that I don’t even think were his). He acted shy in this scene, for instance. He acted more Like Isa here. But generally, it was very, VERY hard to get anything out of him, no matter how hard Axel tried to connect with him.

After a while I became selfish, and turned into a foolish person.

I cannot say enough how much I loathe how KH3 handled Saïx. He was deprived of all the complexity and sympathy he could have had if he had been an abuse victim and human test subject. And at the same time, they also had to try and whitewash his character in order to redeem him. KH3 writes Saïx as just this normal guy who is a bit bad with expressing his feelings and as a result, acted selfish when he lost his heart. His personality as a Nobody was just an extension of his personality as a human.

Saïx: He won nothing and is nothing. He couldn’t stand the emptiness of being without a heart, and that led to his demise. He was foolish and weak.

But that’s just not true. Saïx wasn’t just a bit brusque. He was a monster. His moniker was “Demoniac Dancing in the Moon”. He was demonic. There’s no need to downplay this. He was not just this tsundere guy who just needed to apologize for being a bit douchey. He was savage and acted downright evil much of the time. Being bad with emotions doesn’t even begin to describe him. Nor does it explain why he acted the way he did, especially with Axel.

Saïx: All I did was find a place to send everyone who was getting in the way.

Axel: Well, it’s nice to know where I stand! Sheesh…

Saïx: Did you come back in one piece or didn’t you?

For instance, it’s never explained WHY Saïx pushed Axel away in the first place. In KH3, they’d have you believe that all the problems started when he became jealous of Axel’s closeness with Roxas and Xion. But that’s obviously not true. Saïx was messed up long before Axel got close to them. And the only reason Axel spent all his time with them was because Saïx had already changed and pushed him away constantly. There’s no explanation given for why Saïx acted so cold with Axel all the time. None.

In canon, Saïx’s personality just makes NO SENSE. Why did he abuse Axel if he felt like Axel gave his life meaning? It wasn’t just because he had no heart, because Axel didn’t have one, other. And if they both loved each other, they should have been able to grow hearts rather easily, anyways. So why did Saïx have such a black hole for a heart? In KH3, they’d have you believe that that’s just how he was. It was just his flawed personality and possibly him being upset that Axel wasn’t as obsessed with finding Subject X as he was. Not because his heart was swallowed by Xehanort’s after he was a human test subject.

Yes, I thought you didn’t need me anymore. If you didn’t need me, then I no longer held meaning. That’s why I sacrificed myself to that man.

He said he sacrificed himself to Xehanort because Axel didn’t need him anymore. But what I wanna know is, why he thought that! Axel never pushed Saïx away. Ever! He tried and tried and tried to get close to him. But Saïx always pushed Axel away. I hate how KH3 almost makes it seem like Saïx was justified to feel abandoned by Axel and hate him. I think that’s totally unfair to Axel. He did everything he could for Saïx. Axel almost killed Roxas and Xion for Saïx’s sake. And Saïx was never grateful to him or anything.

You’re ultimately still a crybaby, but you don’t need the marks anymore.

Saïx’s personality in KH3 just feels so random to me. In canon, there’s just no depth or substance to him as a character. He’s just this weird guy who is really bad with his emotions. I swear, there was so much more going on with him that was left on the cutting room floor. Like, why does he call Lea a crybaby? What is that all about? I have my theories, but still. Nothing about Axel and Saïx’s canon backstory made any sense. It pisses me off so much.

#akusai #leaisa #anti-kh3 #submission

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unlockthelore · 5 years ago

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Uncertain Certainty

After succeeding over the tyranny of a recent test, Yuusuke shows off his achievement to Kurama.

Part 9 of the Guns and Roses series. For more updates, follow the guns and roses tag on this blog.

In all honesty, Yuusuke thought school was a waste of time.

He learned a hell of a lot more about himself and life through chasing down spirits through the streets of his hometown and a few neighboring cities. What book was going to teach him how to save the Ningenkai? Absolutely none. But Keiko, Kurama, Shiori, and even his mom insisted that it would be good for him to at least past junior high. He bitterly pointed out that there were more people against him than rooting for him but seeing those faces, giving it a shot didn’t seem all that bad.

Even Kuwabara was putting his best foot forward although he still kept up his rivalry with Yuusuke — it was more friendly than anything. His little group were doing their best too and it wasn’t unheard of for all of them to meet up in a diner for a quick meal, glaring at anyone who thought it was strange that five delinquents were loudly studying.

To be honest, it was a little fun.

Aside from Keiko, most people were too scared to even look in his direction let alone talk to him. Heading home with those four, Kuwabara’s arm around his shoulder and joking about nothing at all beneath the setting sun, Yuusuke almost felt normal. Belonging, maybe. He tried not to dwell on it too much. Almost afraid that he’d unearth something he wasn’t ready to face.

Like Kurama’s smile when he showed him his exam paper.

Yuusuke almost doubted it was his own when Keiko handed it to him with one of those blinding smiles that made his stomach feel weird. Turning it over in his hands, there were more circles than bold red X’s and he was tempted to tell her to quit messing around. But up in the left corner was his familiar scrawl and indignation turned to surprise then excitement.

After heading out on a quick date with Keiko, and enduring her parents’ teasing, he hurried over to the Minamino household. Shiori greeted him at the door and he almost felt childish showing it to her but she smiled at him all the same.

“You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?” She prompted, looking down at him as he pulled his shoes off in the entryway.

“Dinner?”

Shiori’s smile was soft and warm, her eyes crinkled at the corners as she reached out to ruffle his hair, musing it up from its usual style. He found that he didn’t mind when she looked at him like that. Suddenly bashful, Yuusuke turned his head away and set his shoes aside, feeling the light pat atop his head.

“You did well, so I’ll make you something special for dinner,” she explained, clapping her hands together afterward. “Shuuichi is upstairs, you should show him.”

Yuusuke sputtered. “You don’t have t— Why would I show—“

She laughed, walking away with a knowing smile and a lilting hum that made him feel warm in the face. There wasn’t anything he could say and the sound of running water from the sink as she washed her hands left him with a sense of defeat. Like he’d lost something without even knowing. Glancing down at the paper somewhat crumpled from how tightly he’d been holding it in his hand, he sighed.

Was it really that important?

It was childish showing it off to everyone but he worked hard for this. Picking it up, he hurried past the kitchen doorway and caught Shiori glancing at him with a little wave. If he wasn’t blushing before then he definitely was now as he raced up the steps, making his way to Kurama’s room and throwing open the door.

“Oi!”

Kurama didn’t startle but he slowly turned to look over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. “Yuusuke,” he greeted warmly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “You didn’t tell me you were coming over.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted it to be a surprise,” Yuusuke said, closing the door behind him and holding the paper out in front of him with a wide smile.

Kurama said nothing for a moment. Blinking once, then twice, and as the silence stretched on Yuusuke felt restless. Would he just say something already?

The snap of Kurama’s book closing startled Yuusuke from his thoughts and in an instant, the youko stood before him, gently taking the paper from his hands to look down at it inquisitively.

“This is…”

“The same test that you were helping me study for,” Yuusuke finished, scratching the back of his neck as he looked away. “Guess all that badgering really did pay off, huh?”

It was difficult looking Kurama in the eye now. That creeping feeling of being too much, of being too excited, that this was something anyone should’ve been able to do, that he was just blowing out of proportion was threatening to swallow him up. Yuusuke’s fingers pressed to the back of his neck and he frowned slightly.

“I know that you get these a lot, so it’s not as surprising but —“ Yuusuke grunted, the words cut off as he was tugged into something warm and solid.

He was preparing to fight off the intruder in his personal space til he realized it was Kurama.

That Kurama was hugging him.

Red hair filled his line of sight, his cheek pressed to the youko’s shoulder, Kurama’s arms wound tightly around Yuusuke keeping his arms pinned to his side. It should have been uncomfortable, even a little irritating but Kurama’s energy was warm and comforting much like Shiori’s presence. Yuusuke’s eyelids drooped and he sighed, pressing his cheek against his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” He murmured after awhile of just standing there and being held.

“Showing you that I’m proud of you…” Kurama whispered, his breath warm against the side of Yuusuke’s neck, making him shiver. Carefully, he withdrew enough for them to lock eyes, his gaze flitting over Yuusuke’s face appraisingly.

“What?” Yuusuke muttered as Kurama hugged him tighter, pressing their chests together, dark green meeting brown as he leant closer.

“I’m so proud of you,” Kurama whispered, pressing his lips to Yuusuke’s cheek, whispering the words against his skin. Another kiss pressed to his jaw then another to his temple, several more in a blur Yuusuke was lost in.

“You don’t gotta…” Yuusuke’s lips twitched as Kurama pressed another kiss behind his ear. “Ugh.. Okay, okay…”

Kurama smiled against his skin and Yuusuke rolled his eyes as the youko started nuzzling him. This was so embarrassing but it also felt nice. Although he was fairly affectionate, this almost felt different. Validating. Warming. And he wanted to lean into it. Kurama’s hands swept over his back, finding new places to hold, touch, carress but never allowing him to go far. Not that there was anywhere else he wanted go right now.

“You don’t gotta praise me,” Yuusuke protested weakly. “I’m not a little kid…”

Kurama hummed in answer, brushing his lips against his cheek before leaving another kiss, withdrawing with a smile that made Yuusuke’s heart forget to beat for a second. “I am allowed to be proud of you.”

“Well, yeah… but most people just do the ‘I’m proud of you’ and go,” Yuusuke squinted up at him, trying to ignore the tingling in his skin from where Kurama’s lips touched. “Pretty sure you kissed me a hundred times.”

Kurama looked poised to correct him on just how many times he kissed him but relented. Only hugging him as close as possible and nuzzling against his head, musing his hair up even further.

“You don’t seem to be complaining,” he said, half in jest and half factually.

Yuusuke rolled his eyes and shifted slightly to free his arms, returning the tight hold. “Who would?”

Although he had no intention of becoming a full-blown nerd, it did feel good to get a bit of recognition now and again. Especially if Kurama was going to do this every time.

Gentle rubbing at his side brought his attention back to Kurama, green eyes twinkling with mirth as he looked down at him with a serene smile. As if looking at Yuusuke was all he wanted to do in the world. The urge to duck his head, shy away from the smiles and the looks was there but he refused. Kurama’s eyes softened and he cupped the back of Yuusuke’s neck, carefully dragging his nails across his skin. Yuusuke’s eyes fluttering shut as he melted into the touch, letting Kurama take some of his weight as he leant against him.

Kurama didn’t complain. He never did, if Yuusuke was honest. He simply shifted his hold on him, and out of the corner of his Yuusuke’s eye, he could see the paper marked with red circles lying on the floor.

“I am just proud of you, Yuusuke.”

Kurama’s voice drew his attention back to him and that look. Patient, understanding, sweet and in this moment it was all for him.

“I know… I know… I’m just not.. used to it,” Yuusuke murmured as Kurama leant down to press their foreheads together. Everything felt so warm and close that he should’ve been suffocating but it was nice.

Blanketed in this embrace with Kurama, the whole world and all of Yuusuke’s fears seemed to melt away.

Kurama sighed softly and there was a glimmer of sadness in his eyes. Yuusuke scoured them for pity but there was none. Only sympathy, sadness, understanding and — affection. He quickly averted his gaze but Kurama gently guided him back to meet their eyes.

“I know,” he said, and though the words were simply put, they carried such weight that Yuusuke nearly buckled under them. Kurama pressed a kiss to the top of his head then pressed their foreheads together again. “But you may have to grow used to this if you continue to do this well.”

Yuusuke snorted, tightening his hold around the youko’s shoulders. “Almost sounds like you’re trying to bribe me.”

Although, if Kurama kept this up then he wouldn’t have to.

He seemed to think this over. Likely considering the logistics of bribing Yuusuke to do well in his studies then conceding with a shrug. “You’ve done well on your won without it,” he said with a slight shrug, smiling at him blindingly bright. “I’m merely rewarding you for doing well.”

Yuusuke swallowed thickly. He was never going to get used to this. Kurama’s closeness, his sincerity, his everything and he was strangely alright with that. “… You’re really dangerous, y’know..”

“So you have mentioned,” Kurama answered playfully, dotting his cheeks with light chaste kisses.

“And cheeky as hell,” said Yuusuke, reaching up to pinch his cheek, his heart fluttering as Kurama laughed.

No man had the right to be this beautiful but somehow, Kurama defied nature regardless. With a laugh that captured all of Yuusuke’s senses and refused to let go, Kurama turned them around in a slow arc. It must’ve looked ridiculous to anyone watching them. Like a half-done dance as Yuusuke stumbled and Kurama caught him with enough grace for both of them, turning them so that the youko’s back was to the door while Yuusuke’s was to the interior of his room.

“You’re fond of me,” Kurama said, assured in his words and smile adoring as much as it was smug.

Yuusuke eased his arms around his neck, leaning up to press closer to him. “Who wouldn’t be?”

Kurama hummed softly at that and Yuusuke could see the gears in his mind turning but he said nothing in rebuttal. Seemingly letting him win that small verbal spat as he leant closer, ducking his head to press a kiss to the side of Yuusuke’s neck. It was distracting but so were many of the kisses Kurama gave him when he was avoiding something. Questions of love and worthiness seemed to stump the youko as much as they did Yuusuke himself.

Self-worth was something that they both struggled with but it wasn’t right for Kurama to feel inadequate. He was so many things and many of them were good, and worthy of far more than what he believed. Yuusuke pressed his hand to Kurama’s shoulder, pushing to guide him back, the bewildered look in green eyes almost charming him.

“You’re half right,” Yuusuke said, tilting his head and in those eyes he almost saw a flicker of gold. Kurama intently watching him, studying him, trying to find what he was speaking of in the brief pause. “I love you.”

Kurama’s eyes widened and Yuusuke grinned.

Maybe school wasn’t a waste of time after all.

#yu yu hakusho #yyh #kurameshi #yusuke urameshi #kurama #shiori minamino #fanfiction #my fanfiction #guns and roses

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daybreak-academy-fanfic · 4 years ago

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Daybreak Academy: Chapter 73

I Still Trust You

Summary: In which Brain and Anora are rescued. Word Count: 1,541 First | Previous | Next ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆

Brain very seldom found himself truly scared about certain things. His deduction that no one realized the two of them were not on the bus must have been true. Which didn't seem likely, with Ephemer being the possessive type that he was, but they had all come on three different buses. The probability of not knowing if a student was missing increased by at least two. Exactly two, with full irony aside.

Staying in the same place was honestly their best bet. They were lucky that the moon was so close to full that night. It made it a bit hard to sleep, but it was infinitely better than being stranded in pitch black darkness. Anora was possibly the only one of the two that truly got rest. Brain was constantly on the look out for help, or -Ub Iwerks forbid- dangerous wildlife. He didn't entirely relax until the sun started to rise- even then, it still made him nervous.

Someone must have noticed they were missing by now, right? If only Anora hadn't hurt her ankle. They could have tried to go back on the established trail now. Brain let out an annoyed huff as he looked over to Anora. She was still asleep with her head resting against a tree. How dare she look so peaceful while she slept there. Did she know that, until her foot was better, they were practically at the mercy of the elements?

Brain worked himself up and started to look around the area for something to eat. This nature preserve boasted on its arrangement of wild fruit trees and berry bushes, so it better hold up to that claim. When he came back, Anora had woken up and was lazily looking around the area. It was a very… distinct expression; something that Brain had to laugh at.

“Is that the face you give Ephemer after a fun night? No wonder you've got him eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“We don't...”

Brain didn't let her finish- instead letting out a snort of amusement. “Right.” he even bemused. “With the way that headmasters' pet walks? If you two weren't doing it, then I'll eat my hat.”

Anora looked at him before her eyes trailed upward at his fedora. It didn't look any worse for wear, considering. She wondered how much damage it could take before actually showing any tears.

“How long have you had it?”

“Awhile.” he informed her with a roll of his shoulder. “I think it was a Christmas present from my uncle. Liked it so much, I decided to wear it whenever I could.”

“I bet it would be a good source of fiber.”

Brain raised an eyebrow at her. “So you have jokes in that sleepy brain of yours? How delightful.” Giving a smirk, he handed her one of the two apples he found. Anora didn't think twice on why or how he got it, and quickly bit into it without another guess. The two munched away in silence for awhile.

Despite seeming to be very hungry, Anora had only taken three bites of her apple before simply staring at it.

“I know I don't belong at Daybreak.” she quietly said. Brain almost didn't hear her through his own apple crunching. “I didn't even know it existed until the acceptance letter came.”

The older of the two looked at the young woman. He gave his apple one last bite before tossing the core over his shoulder. Smacking his lips, he questioned, “Then why were you accepted?”

Anora slowly shook her head. “Dunno.” she admitted. “My aunt and cousin looked just as surprised.”

“But that's impossible.” Brain scoffed with a shake of his head. “Everyone in Departure County's heard of...” But the young man trailed off in remembering something Anora mentioned earlier. 'It was always too cold' to go camping, but Departure Country had a pretty moderate climate. Even now, on the last day of September, the air had a faint warmth to it. The sudden revelation hit Brain harder than it should have.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Brain said instead, “So you're telling me you're not even from Departure County? Or… Or anywhere around here?”

Anora shook her head. Brain raised his eyebrows as he absently placed a hand on the back brim of his fedora, making it tilt up a bit more.

“You really do get more mysterious the longer we know you.” he marveled. “How fascinating...”

Anora didn't reply. Instead, she took another nibble or two at the apple before finally tossing it.

“Hey Brain?” she softly mused “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything.” she thoughtfully decided. “I'm happy with Ephemer. And even if the circumstances surrounding it were weird and confusing, I'm still glad they happened.”

“Yeah...” Brain found himself agreeing. He slumped his body against a tree, and folded his arms in thought. “Ephemer seems pretty happy to be with you too. It's just… obnoxious that he lets it cloud what's immediately important. Like with our meetings or his homework. Not that it really affects us, but just watching him dance on tiptoes like he's been high off his rocker for a week… That moron doesn't know anything about love yet. And one day, it's gonna hit him hard that the real world isn't a fairy tale.”

A deep sigh escaped Brain's lips. He looked down at Anora, who was picking at some blades of grass with mild disinterest. Some amount of his sympathy went out to her. As soon as it came, he immediately became disgusted with himself.

“I'm not jealous.” Brain said, automatically, as if he were speaking a thought.

“Never said you were.” came the just as quick answer.

The young man tried to say something, but didn't allow himself to finish. What was with this girl? Just a day ago she was ready to murder him. Now she was thanking him? Maybe that stumble she had scrambled her brain a bit more than anticipated. When Brain opened his mouth to tell her something, he was now interrupted with the sound of leaves rustling near them. Anora jolted in surprise and Brain immediately went onto the defensive.

To their relief, it was their cavalry.

The park ranger for the nature preserve look almost bewildered to see the two of them there. At the same time, they were also relieved. “I assume you're the kids from DBA?” they asked, letting off a sheepish chuckle. “Sorry it took so long to find you guys, the cell towers have been jammed since last night. A tree limb was in the way.”

After that, everything seemed to happen in a blur. Brain and Anora were taken to the ranger station and were given clean clothes, a shower, and a proper meal. After one of the rangers called the school, the duo were given a ride back to campus. Ira was the one who met them at the school entrance. But it was only to make sure they made it back safely, and to give them a good lecture on going off the path. Neither said anything about who got them off course, but at this point it didn't seem to matter either. Trusting the two wouldn't get lost going to their dorms, Ira left, leaving Brain and Anora alone once more.

“Well, I guess you should be heading off to your boyfriend now.” the oldest decided, tipping his fedora to her before starting to leave.

“Brain...” the young woman said, taking one of his hands into her own. She hesitated for a moment, looking from their hands then into his eyes. She took a small breath in before finally admitting, “I still trust you.”

Anora could feel Brain's muscles clench underneath her fingertips. Slowly, carefully, Brain started to move his hand from her grip. He placed a finger under her chin so they could look eye to eye. He moved a few steps closer to Anora, moving his lips to her ear.

“You really shouldn't.” he whispered in a low tone.

Anora's eyes fluttered closed, expecting something else, but Brain moved away from her. The young man looked her over, sighed, then started to make his leave. Confused for a moment, Anora opened her eyes again and almost didn't realize that he left. What an odd moment to have after all of this. It almost felt like…

The young woman shook her head. Nah, she was being ridiculous. Brain had a reputation for getting girls, right? There was no way he truly liked her like that. Not after the things he said during the field trip. She had enough evidence to assume he was jealous of her and Ephemer, if for no other reason than because he could. And that was fine. It wouldn't even effect her either, really. Satisfied with this answer to herself, Anora gave a small nod before heading to her dorm. It didn't surprise her in the slightest to know that Ephemer was waiting for her there.

She didn't give him time to speak; the first kiss she gave him was to prevent him from talking. The second kiss was to guide him -through numerous stumbles- into her bed. After the third kiss, the rest of the world didn't matter anymore.

#daybreak academy #chapter 73 #kingdom hearts fanfiction #Anora #Brain #Season 2

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howterrifying · 5 years ago

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inside the hearts of machines

I've been doing a re-watch of BBC's Sherlock and I am always happy when new little things stand out for me. Back in the day whenever a new series aired I would watch the episodes religiously and continuously because I was basically obsessed with the show. I would watch it to the point where it almost become background music when I was working freelance projects at home or exercising etc.

So since it's been a number of years since the final series aired, I've been excited to re-watch Sherlock because I think I need something familiar and beloved to sort of feel alive and happy again in this very weird and anxiety-ridden work situation I'm in. (I'm grateful to finally have a stable job that pays the bills, especially in the midst of a pandemic, but I hate almost every part of it).

Anyway, I've reached TSoT and I was very intrigued when this line jumped out at me. The funny thing is, when you've watched something enough times, you find yourself reciting certain lines or being able to finish certain dialogues from memory. So when I reached this point of Sherlock finally confronting The Mayfly Man and his murders, I already had a particular line primed in my head. When he did say it the final time, however, I was intrigued by the tone with which he had done so, something I had never noticed before:

You should have driven faster.

I don't know about you but first of all, the line in question is a very interesting one. I had always wondered why Sherlock repeated this line. The first time he says it, it's said in his usual, wry way and more as a casual response to The Mayfly Man remarking that he was almost halfway home.

When Sherlock says it the second time, it is after the entire revelation is made; the identity of The Mayfly Man as Jonathan Small, his connection to Major Sholto and thereby his plot to murder Sholto. The case with Major Sholto is a very complicated one where there is sympathy for everyone on all sides. We feel the searing loss for the families affected by the unfortunate accident. We also feel the horrid burden of Sholto's survivor's guilt as well as the fact that he has now become public enemy number one in the eyes of the victims' families.

This is where, for me, Sherlock's tone in his final line reflects the wonderful irony of how Sherlock's machine-like logic lends to his humanness. A symptom of being ruled by logic is that Sherlock usually remains the most objective person in the room. However, this is precisely why this flaw of his is his most beautiful trait.

Sherlock is a man of analysis and can immediately see both sides of the coin. He listens, without judgement, to Small's rant on how Sholto is the 'killer' and is able to see that the heaviness of this tragedy weighs the same on both sides. Which is why at the end of Small's rant, Sherlock does not judge, does not make any remarks on Small's 'criminal intent', but merely states a fact instead. A fact that, to me, implies Sherlock can see why Small had done what he did. By responding with something so factual, hinting that Small could have succeeded if he wanted, it shows Sherlock understood he was in no position to judge the rightness or wrongness of Small's actions. Rather, Small's actions fell into a grey area and a plausible grey area at that. Meaning anyone would have done the same had they been in Small's shoes. So who was anyone to judge?

I don't know if I'm describing my thought process right, but I suppose this is akin to John confronting Sherlock about 'not caring' in The Great Game. Sherlock's answer is one of the most beautiful lines I will ever come across:

John: There are lives at stake, Sherlock. Actual human lives. Just so I know, do you care about that at all? Sherlock: Will caring about them help save them?

I mean, Sherlock's answer is just so packed that my heart literally bursts when I think about it. In its dryness, its wry rhetoric and clear avoidance of sentiment, it exposes the true height of the floodgate which conceals the real motivation behind Sherlock's work. As Mycroft so eloquently put:

My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?

Sherlock has flaws. And as I've grown up together with this show, I can see how some of his behaviours well and truly are problematic. The way he treats John or the women in his life really have no reason to be excused and once the rose-tinted glasses come off, it's frightfully obvious.

That said, there is so much poetry in this particular portrayal of Sherlock that I can't help but love him. I look forward to future writers of Sherlock Holmes who will rework and refine this character whilst still preserving all that makes him (or her!) such a riveting character. I will never say no to series five (or a second season of Miss Sherlock, yes HBO, I'm looking at you...), so if he (or she!) should ever grace our screens again, I would be most eager to devour it.

The game is always on!

#well this got long #i was planning to write fic but got distracted by that line #this show has so much marvellous writing #lines that will forever do something to my soul #yes it has problems and terrible plot holes and just general ?????#but i luv it #the drama and intensity of it all #hui watches telly #and gets her head all stuck in it #Sherlock: my stuff

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timetoresurface · 6 years ago

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EXCHANGE / JJK (1)

to give something and receive something of the same kind in return

Note: Something I’ve been dreaming about lately. I really took my time to write this and didn’t rush anything. The beginning is more natural than the last thing I started. I’ve already written ahead this time so more is yet to come. Show some love and don’t hesitate to criticize. @erisann is definitely an angel in disguise helping me getting better, so a little shout out to her for being so nice to me, I really appreciate it :)

Pairing: reader x Jungkook

Genre: romance, non idol AU

Warnings: none

Word count: 2250 words

PART 2 / PART 3 / PART 4 / PART 5 / PART 6 / PART 7

Summary: Yes, you are an exchange student. You noticed EF also organized trips to Seoul and you wanted something different than the same five people in your hometown. You came to the beautiful city to learn and relax, most definitely not to fall in live with one of the teachers. Definitely not the young extracurricular teacher who seemed to be good at everything.

*Y/N = your name *Y/C = your city/country

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

“Hi! I’m Y/N and I’m from Y/C.” You said. Introductions were made and you were the last one to go. “I don’t really have any hobby’s except for my love of k-drama’s and feeding my never-ending craving to learn new things.” All eyes were on you so a little blush crept over your face, nevertheless you continued with a confident smile. “I’m someone who loves to try new things but actually never finishes them as my obsessions are usually quite short-lived.” This was yourself in a nutshell. Nothing special, just an ordinary girl with a passion for life and all it has to offer.

“Thank you for charing Y/N. Now allow me to introduce myself.” The teacher spoke in a very strict tone and to be honest, it kind of scared you. You were going to stay here for five weeks and if the classes weren’t going to be fun, half of your trip would feel like a chore. There was nothing you hated more than obligations. Life was supposed to be enjoyable and any burden was too much. The teacher, you learned, was a forty year old man with a happy family. He loved to teach his language and its ways to foreign people as they have the same spark in their eyes as when children are learning something new. His own introduction was cut short due to someone rudely opening the door without knocking.

“I’m sorry for being late.” He loudly closed the door and you expected him to take the last seat in the classroom. Instead you were taken by surprise when he went to shake the hand of your teacher and awkwardly stayed next to him. He couldn’t be a teacher, he was far too young to be one and definitely far too handsome. The last part being demonstrated by half of the girls in your class suddenly sitting up straight with a very excited look. All this commotion because of a pretty boy with pretty brown hair and pretty brown eyes. Your typical boy next door.

“I’m Jungkook and I will be your extracurricular activity guide. I’ll teach you things like dancing, cooking and Korean calligraphy. I’m really excited to get to know all of you better and help improve your Korean along the way.” He concluded his little speech with a crooked smile that seemed to leave some girls without breath. You couldn’t really disagree with the fact that he was extremely good-looking but it was all a little too perfect. A handsome Korean boy with big brown eyes on an all-round pleasing face. His body clothed in all black was equally attractive, but deceptive. He mastered the lethal combination of a friendly face mixed with a bad boy attitude showing through his clothes. It felt like he had jumped out of a cheap romance novel someone would leave behind because of the lack off sex scenes or because of the awkwardness of the virgin writer trying to write an intimate chapter.

“After class you can register for extra courses of your choosing at the information desk. I’ll be there waiting for you.” The girl next to you had troubles keeping her breathing steady and you silently laughed. Women were so easily tricked. You had learned that lesson a long time ago and weren’t really willing to walk that path again.

“If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them.” Jungkook was handing out some papers with extra information about his activities and if there were extra costs involved. When he handed you one of his brochures, his eyes locked with yours. You tried to remain calm and unbothered but deep down your heart wanted to skip a beat. He seemed more affected as the apples of his cheeks turned into the prettiest of pinks.

“There are some interesting activities recommended to get the best experience of Seoul while you’re here.” These were his last words before he bowed and excited the room rather quickly. Nobody said a word as most of us were charmed by the young Korean, even the few men in your class. Luckily your teacher remained unaffected and simply continued introducing hangul.

You hadn’t spend time in a classroom in a very long time and it showed. Everyone knew how to listen and take notes simultaneously while you struggled opening the new pen you had recently bought. You could say you were delighted to hear the last bell that marked the end of the planned day and the start of whatever you wanted it to be. Everyone rushed outside and you could take a guess where they were going. They all went toward the information desk in pairs of two and you couldn’t help but feel a bit left out. It was only day two in Seoul and the fact that you hadn’t made any friends yet didn’t trouble you. It just didn’t feel right. You wanted to apply for every extra trip there was but some of them would be more fun with a friend by your side. You seated yourself in the sunlight while reading the paper Jungkook had given you a few hours ago. Some of these were worth thinking about. A weekend trip to Busan, Lotte world, a cruise on Han river, a trip to Jeju Island, to only name a few. The most difficult decision to make was between Busan and Jeju Island as you could only choose one of the two.

“Have you already decided what extra activities you might be interested in?” His voice interrupted your thoughts but you tried not to show.

“No, how can someone choose between Jeju Island and Busan? How do you expect us to decide?” You easily confided. His eyes glistered in the sunlight all the while his face remained serious.

“Can I sit with you for a while?” He asked you, ignoring your question. You simply nodded your head as annoyance was creeping in your system like a bad virus. Once he was seated next to you on the grass and your legs almost touched he decided to answer your question. “I can not choose for you but I can tell you what I’m more excited about.” An awkward silence was shared between the two of you.

“Please go on.” It felt like he had waited for your spoken permission to continue.

“I am from Busan and I haven’t been back home in over a year. Even after more than a year here in roaring Seoul, I can never forget Busan and the waves crawling gently to the shore. I don’t know if there is a place like that outside Korea, but I can assure you that it will be worth it, you know.” The annoyance you felt before was replaced by sympathy but stirred with a bit of hesitance. Without him realizing, he was already breaking a few walls you had build around yourself. You noticed the wrinkles underneath his eyes and the worry lines on his forehead that made him look a tad bit older. Something inside of you wanted to get to know his motives and reasons for the life he chose.

“Why did you leave?” The question came out as a silent whisper almost blown away by the soft spring breeze. He didn’t look at you and you secretly missed his stare on you.

“I wanted to do something for myself, I guess.” His hand pushed back his brown hair while his eyes squinted trying to look at the sun.

“Most girl here are probably grateful for you choosing this job and Seoul over your beloved hometown.” The remark was made with a giggle and Jungkook laughed too. You would describe his laughter as warm and hearty. People think of laughing as a noise that comes from the mouth, but when Jungkook laughed it was nothing like that. The laugh was in his eyes.

“Most girls? Why not all?” He asked with a huge grin plastered on his face. Or maybe his laugh came from within, maybe it was just the way he was wired that humor was just so easy for him to understand and respond to.

“Some girls think you should do whatever makes you happy, even if they don’t get to see your beautiful face around here anymore.” You quickly stood up as the embarrassment started to settle in after calling him beautiful. “I shall register myself for some activities and I shall keep your advise in mind. Please stay and enjoy the sun.” You quickly excused yourself.

“So Y/N, I heard you had a private conversation with the handsome extra activities teacher.” The girl next to you remarked. Your class decided to bond together and not separately so now you were all having dinner somewhere in Seoul. You were all seated together at a round table and the drinks were flowing.

“He just asked me if I had already registered for any trips.” It was the simple truth but everyone seemed a bit disappointed. “But he is handsome so I might have missed a few of his sentences.” You quickly added and this got their attention back.

“Well, Amalia, it seems like we will lose. His heart has already been captured by this beautiful creature next to me. How unfair, she’s pretty and she gets the pretty boy.” Agate, the girl next to you, definitely had a bit too much to drink but the compliments were heartwarming.

“Oh no, but maybe she doesn’t want the pretty boy.” The girl named Amelia said slurring her words a bit. This conversation was getting a bit too weird for your liking.

“No, you girls can have him. Now please excuse me, I have to go to the restroom.” Right after your words the girls shrieked and took another shot out of pure happiness.

After you had returned from your little break you deliberately seated yourself a bit further away from the shrieking twins. This act didn’t go unnoticed by some of your fellow students.

“I thought American girls were supposed to hold their liquor, or am I wrong?” The person who spoke was a British dude with dyed blonde hair. You took a sip from your drink before speaking.

“I think Americans always like to pretend to be good at everything. Image is everything, I guess.” The boy sure had a nice vibe going on. The blonde hair cupping his face just perfectly and bringing out the blue of his eyes.

“I prefer being good at drinking as it brings people closer. A lot closer than just having a good image.” His words started to slur but the twinkle in his eyes had gotten brighter.

“I prefer being a good drinker. My trade mark, you know, as my image.” The words were coming out slower than your usual quick witted self was so known for. There definitely is something in this Korean liquor that made you go drunk a little bit faster. The conversation with Alfie continued and you weren’t sure if you really got wittier as the evening wore on or if it was just the effect of the liquor making everything seem so much funnier.

You all struggled home together. The shrieking twins were behind telling everyone they loved them, you were clinging onto Alfie’s arm laughing uncontrollably and the others, well, they were also in bad shape. If anyone made it on time to class tomorrow they deserved a medal, and you weren’t going to get one, that was for sure.

“Byebye.” You waived them all goodbye as they struggled getting up the stairs. Luckily for you you didn’t need to struggle with unnecessary steps. No, your room was on the ground floor. But the only problem was to locate the correct room and this task proved to be more difficult than first anticipated. You tried to enter your room code but none of the doors opened. They only gave a red light meaning it was the wrong door or wrong passcode.

After a trillion tries, or that’s how it felt, you seated yourself on the floor. It didn’t take long for your face to touch the cold floor, trying to cool you. You felt the wet hot tears fill up your eyes, your throat closed tight. Finally the tears split over and flowed down your face like a river escaping a dam.

It felt like hours of you sitting there crying all alone in the dark. You barely noticed a door being opened. You barely felt his hands wiping away the tears that were still running down your face. And you definitely didn’t recognize the boy who the brown eyes belonged to due to the tears still streaming out of the corners of your eyes. He lifted you up so you sat up straight with your back against the wall while he squatted before you still wiping away the tears from underneath your eyes.

“Hey, what is wrong? What happened?” His eyes showed the kind of gentle concern your mother used to have when you had fallen from your bike. He rested his hand on your shoulder and you let him.

“Korean drinks are dangerous.” Was the only coherent thing you could think of saying. A smile grew on his face as he finally understood the situation. You weren’t hurt, or maybe a little because you did fall of Alfie’s back while he tried to piggy back ride you out of the bar, but Jungkook didn’t know that of course.

“You can’t find your room?” He whispered softly and you simply nodded your head.

“I’m not even sure if I have a room. I tried them all and none opened.” You said while closing your eyes. You were getting sleepy as the alcohol was starting to wear off, leaving you with a headache and swollen eyes.

“I don’t know where your room is but I don’t think it is on the ground floor as only people who work here have a small studio.” His explanation made so much sense as all your fellow students had taken the stairs. You tried to hide your embarrassed face with your hands but he quickly grabbed your hands.

“I have a very comfy sofa where you can sleep on tonight and tomorrow I’ll discretely find out where your room is. Sounds like a plan?” From deep inside your chest, through every cell of your body, the warmth welcomed you like an old friend. But it was strange, because you never felt that way before. It kinda scared you, you know? Feeling the cold slowly leaving your heart or maybe it was because of the alcohol you saw a halo hovering above his head. Whatever it was, this boy charmed you more than you liked to admit.

Your eyes were getting heavy again and you could feel Jungkook helping you up and guiding you toward his apartment. He apologized for the mess but you didn’t care as long as you could lay your head on something soft. As long you could fall asleep to the sound of his worrying voice and the smell of his fabric softener, you didn’t mind a single thing. A blanked was draped over you and your shoes were taken but you were already gone to the land of dreams. Zzz

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