#where does it turn from oh this stream is background noise to oh i sent a hate anon to someone who criticised my bias

[youaremysunshine-court]

Me before a stream: streaming is a job. You can absolutely form parasocial relationships with streamers. They don't know you exist. Don't fall into this trap.

My monkey brain during a stream: hngh streamer friend shaped

Me after a stream: JAY WHAT THE FUCK

[moved2usagiiboo]

Daydreaming

Def; Daydreaming is the stream of consciousness that detaches from current, external tasks when attention drifts to a more personal and internal direction. 

Synonyms; Trance, fantasy, Hallucination

Chifuyu x fem!reader

Minors DNI, thank you.

You were stunning, enticing, gorgeous. You were a angel sent down from heaven with the job of blessing young men's hearts. You shined bright like the rays on a sunny day.

You were his everything and yet you weren't his. As a matter of fact, he barely knew anything about you but you have him wrapped around your delicate finger. He was whipped.

Chifuyu met you one day, when he had been tasked with a mid-day coffee run for him and his co-worker. He walked into the café, the smell of coffee and pastries engulfed his noise, it was a small cat café not too far from where he worked. Nothing more than a five minute walk, Chifuyu heard cats meow and purred as they rubbed against his pants.

He bent down rubbing the head of the nearest cat to him, he lifted the cat up cradling it as he walked towards the menu.

"Hi! Welcome to Neko-Sama, what can I get for you today." You beamed at him from behind the counter with the softest smile. Your voice rung in his ears like a soft melody, your smile made heat rush to his face in an instant.

You had your hair in pigtails with pink and white cat ears, and a frilly maid costume draped over your body. You shuffled your body feeling Chifuyu's eyes look you up and down eyeing your attire.

You were adorable.

You stared at the man with cat like eyes, you catched your eyes with his before turning away and giving an awkward cough to clear the air.

"Wow, Tuba doesn't really like anybody..." You drifted off, "Much less let people hold her, you must be a great guy!"

"Tuba?" He questioned earning a small meow from the ginger cat that was in his arms nuzzling his head on his arm. "O-Oh! Well, I do work with animals, that's probably why." He chuckles softly petting the cat.

"That's amazing, I got this job here to work with animals. I adore cats, they're just so cute." You practically squealed, "Sorry! M'rambling" You looked down with a slight your ears slightly red from embarrassment.

The only thing that ran through Chifuyu's head was how adorable you were. Would it be weird if he asked for your number? You both just met, but he can't help but want to know more about you.

"N-No, no, not at all. Honestly, I thought it was cute..." He says the last part ever so softly, tightening his grip on the cat due to nervousness. The cat bites Chifuyu's hand in response jumping out of his arms, "Oh.. Guess I pissed him off." You both laughed at the cat as you watched him lick himself in spite.

For a split second you both lock eyes, you turn your head down to the iPad on the counter before beaming a smile at him.

"So! What can I get for you today?"

Ever since then Chifuyu has found reasons to make his way to the café. His co-worker caught onto him leaving work to bring back coffee and various snacks, one day he asked him about it.

"I like the coffee." He plainly replied, he would repeat this phrase over and over not only to those who asked about his constant ventures to the café but to convince himself that it wasn't because he wanted to hear your voice and see your face.

Totally not because he hopes that his constant visits would bring upon something. Something more than small talk as you prepared his drink, he convinced himself that he didn't want to be the reason you smile everyday.

You weren't running through his mind, he couldn't be in love with a girl be barely knows.

But the way you blush when he gives you small compliments, it's just too cute to ignore.

Over the course of a few months you and the man got closer, you learn his name and he yours. You were both around the same age, 23, you still being in college working towards your degree and him owning a animal shop.

One day, on a cold winter evening Chifuyu found himself at the café once again. So far he has been to Neko-Sama almost everyday. Naturally, being the animal person he is, he has created a bond with the cats there. Especially Tuna.

Tuna meows the loudest whenever Chifuyu is in the establishment, that's when you begin to prepare his drink. His order changes with the season, as any good barista does, you remember his orders for each season.

Being that it's winter you prepare his drink, a medium peppermint hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. You found it cute how a grown man would order such a cute drink.

"Good evening Chifuyu-san." You smiled placing his drink at his regular table. He takes off his coat setting it down on the seat next to him.

"I told you to drop the formalities, we're the same age Y/n." He sighs, softly thanking you for preparing his drink. He blows the steam away before taking a sip.

"I can't help it, you just seem so much older " You giggle before sitting next to him on the booth couch.

"Should I call you Fuyu' from now on?" You tapped your chin with a hum pretending to think.

"Do what you want, dummy Y/n." He mutters, hoping you're unaware of the burn on the tip of his ears.

Tuna jumped his way onto the seat laying on Chifuyu's coat, his purrs nothing more than a background sound as you and Chifuyu indulge in a conversation.

"And look at this, the new cat is so playful," Chifuyu chuckles pulling his phone out, "Look, she basically destroyed this toy we gave her." He shows you pictures of the cat along with the aftermath of her playtime. You giggle as he swiped through his phone.

This wasn't your fault. You could barely see the screen because of the glare from the lights, you shift your body closer to him. Chifuyu freezes as he feels your clothed breasts push up against him as you stare at his screen unaware of your actions.

"You okay?" You ask staring at his face, cupping it with your hands. His whole body locked up at your touch, his face was bright red with sweat heading down the side of his temple. "You're burning up!" You half screen putting the back of your hand on his forehead, "Are you sick?" You frantically ask while gripping the man's face.

"M'fine.. Just" He trails off, looking at your glistening lips, "Dizzy...."

"Fuyu, you idiot. You need to go home when you don't feel well..." You sighed, "Come on let me walk you home, my shift is over anyways."

Chifuyu waited outside feeling dizzy off of your touch, his head throbbed and his heart pounded. Maybe he was sick.

"Sorry it took so long, Tuna didn't want to go in his cage..." You sigh locking up, you looked at Chifuyu and worry spread across your face. Chifuyu's chest heaved up and down heavily, he looked out of breath as if he ran a marathon.

You quickly take off your scarf and wrapped it around his neck, he softly gasped at the sudden action.

"Let's get you home, yeah?" You lock arms with him and following him as he walked to his apartment. You missed the way his face got brighter as he smelt your scent on the scarf. You said your goodbyes telling him to take medicine and get a good night's rest.

He kicked off his shoes and stripped down on his way to the shower feeling lightheaded, after his shower he took his medicine like you told him to, he wasted no time getting into his bed not before grabbing your scarf and wrapping it around his neck. He ignored the cries of his cat as he tried to drift off to sleep trying to forget the throbbing pain in his head.

ミ❣️That night he couldn't sleep, maybe it was the throbbing pain in his head or the nauseous feeling he'd get everytime he would shift his body.

ミ❣️Or possible it was the fact that everytime he closed his eyes he saw you, your smile, heard your voice, felt your touch.

ミ❣️Your hands were soft, oh so plush.

ミ❣️And your lips, the way they glistened due to the lip gloss you would constantly put on for worry your lips would dry out.

ミ❣️He couldn't forget your whines and pouts when he would call you, "dummy y/n" a nickname you acquired after spraining your ankle slipping while trying to give Tuna a bath.

ミ❣️The way you would stick out your bottom lip, your eyes would shine as if you were about to cry when he had to leave early...

ミ❣️You were adorable, his perfect little angel.

ミ❣️He drifts off daydreaming about every aspect of you that he loves, its a innocent little crush.

ミ❣️He begins to drift off about the way you dress, those pink cat ears that jingle everytime you move. That slutty maid costume that barely covered your ass. Those adorable stripped thigh highs that covered your thighs, pushing up the fat to the uncovered part of your upper thighs.

ミ❣️He nuzzled his flushed face into the scarf engulfing his nose in your sweet scent. It smelt like the fragrance you would constantly wear...

ミ❣️What was it again?

ミ❣️Fuck, he can't think straight trying to remember the name of your perfume makes his head hurt.

ミ❣️But thinking about how you would bend down he would get a full view of your plush cheeks made his cock hurt.

ミ❣️The way you would shake and sway your hips with each step you took.

ミ❣️He isn't in the right headspace, his mind has drifted away from his body. He's long gone, he lost all control of his actions.

ミ❣️Chifuyu is needy, the thoughts go right to his cock. His length twitched with every memory of you.

ミ❣️When did he pull his pants down to his knees?

ミ❣️When did his breath become broken and eratic?

ミ❣️He doesn't know how he ended feeling his dick through his underwear, how he began to fist his dick, all curled up in a ball, trying to release.

ミ❣️His other hand pulling the scarf closer to his nose to take deep inhales.

ミ❣️Chifuyu's voice becomes audible as soft groans leave his mouth.

ミ❣️Nothing more than pre-cum dripped from the tip of his angry cock as he aggressively jerked his hand up and down the length of his shaft, gripping it harder trying to get friction.

ミ❣️He just needed to cum.

ミ❣️It wasn't working. He spat in his hand, rolling into his back. He pr sses his thumb onto his tip. He hissed in pain as a electric jolt shot through his body.

ミ❣️His proud cock standing tall as he moved his hand up and down while simultaneously slightly thrusting his hips upwards. He clicked his tongue in annoyance when it just.. wasn't working.

It wasnt you

ミ❣️Chifuyu pulled his pillow from his head, shifting his position once more, laying back on his side, putting his cock onto the surface of the pillow. He slowly humped his pillow, grinding his dick into the pillow.

ミ❣️He found himself wondering what you were doing right now, if at night you played with yourself.

ミ❣️No, no, not that. He wondered how well you would take him, if you'd scream his name, begging him to go faster, calling him all sorts of names,

ミ❣️Daddy

ミ❣️Master

ミ❣️ They would sound so pretty coming out of your mouth

ミ❣️As he claimed your pussy as his spraying your insides with his cum.

ミ❣️Nah, you were too innocent for that... You were the type of girl to blush when somebody accidentally touches your hand of gives you a compliment.

ミ❣️If anything you would fail to understand why your core was heating up, desperate to feel something inside you but not understanding the meaning.

ミ❣️That's it, you'd come to him crying asking for him to help you feel better.

ミ❣️He groaned at the thought of him placing his hand around your throat while tongue fucking your mouth. You would struggle to kiss back as he roughly explored your mouth with his tongue. Your knees would buckle from the pleasure. He would pick you up, holding the back of your knees, gently grinding his hard cock against your sex.

ミ❣️He would treat you like a princess.

ミ❣️Laying on your back as you hurried to take your soaking panties off, your slick juices leaving a single string that was attached to your panties, proof that you were wetting your undergarments like a dirty slut.

ミ❣️Your face would be red as you shamelessly tell him in the softest tone.

ミ❣️"Want you so bad Fuyu'"

ミ❣️Fuck, his thrusts became more erratic, his knuckles turning white from his tight grip on his pillow.

ミ❣️Yeah, you'd call him by his nickname as you begged him to claim you, ruin you.

ミ❣️He imagine him sinking his fingers, he'd start with one not wanting to hurt you. Your tight untouched cunt tightly squeezing his finger. You would already be a moaning mess, Fuyu was talking all your firsts.

ミ❣️Your slightly loosened sex would take in another finger. You would try your best to muffle your slutty moans as he fingers your soaking pussy. You'd cover your mouth with your hand as his finger curled inside of you hitting that spot that made your toes curl and eyes widen.

ミ❣️You'd moan his name, begging him to stop. It felt weird, felt too good, something was coming.

ミ❣️He'd give you your first orgasm with his fingers, you had drool dripping from the corner of your mouth, your face was red. You were already so fucked out on his fingers.

ミ❣️He felt his cock twitch with these thoughts. He mindlessly began to fuck his pillow into the mattress, his body now on top of the pillow as he grinded on top of the pillow.

ミ❣️He'd have you suck on his fingers tasting yourself as he began to eat you out. His tongue slipping in and out of your slit, naughty slurping sounds emitted from the room as he throat fucked you with his digits that were once in your pussy. His nose would occasionally hit your lip causing you to arch your back pushing his tongue deeper inside you.

ミ❣️You love being eaten out huh? Love it when daddy fucks you with his tongue. Such a dirty little thing.

ミ❣️All the dirty things he could think of seeps from his mouth, while eating you out. He'd bring you to another orgasm with ease.

ミ❣️"Y/n, fuck, m'gonna cum" Chifuyu grunted out in a out of breath voice, he felt his cock spurt out his cum into his pillow, yet he wasn't satisfied.

ミ❣️He leaned back onto his shins, his knees pressing into the bed as he lifted the pillow up, slipping his cock into the pillow cover.

ミ❣️He wasn't done yet, your pussy would be twitching, eager to take his cock. You eyes would be begging him to fuck you into the mattress.

ミ❣️"Gonna fuck my princess dumb." He muttered out to nobody as he thrusted upwards into the pillow. His thrusts were shameless and aggressive as he pounded his pillow like a dog in heat.

ミ❣️His moans were loud as he muttered filthy things about you.

ミ❣️He would slip his cock into you, kissing away the tears from your eyes.

ミ❣️His cock was just too big, his dumb baby couldn't take it. The stretch hurt. Daddy made it fit though. Daddy will make you feel so good. Pretty girl.

ミ❣️He'd let you adjust waiting for you to give him the okay, he would start of slow, giving you small thrusts to get you used to the size of him. Deep passionate thrusts that said how much he loved you.

ミ❣️You would have the most beautiful moans and whines, he could listen to them all day. He would kiss you and your body till it bruised.

ミ❣️You'd beg him to fuck you, he would do just that. Slamming his hips into yours causing you to scream out his nickname, one of his hands would be on your thigh squeezing it oh so tight getting a good grip for when he pulls his cock out and slams your bodies into each other, fucking you senseless. While the other kept your mouth busy, occasionally taking his fingers out of your mouth to kiss you deeply bruising your lips with his.

He'd watch your every expression.

ミ❣️"Your pussy was made for me, look how well you're taking it. Doing so good"

ミ❣️Your eyes would cross as your tongue rolled out, you'd pants and beg for him to slow down. You didn't really want that, no, not when he was making you feel this good. The way you would arch your back, grind your hips into his, wrap your arms around his neck and grip his hair as you moaned louder with each thrust told him everything he needed to know.

ミ❣️You wanted more, you're greedy aren't you?

ミ❣️"My pretty little cocksleeve"

ミ❣️Chifuyu felt himself getting closer to his high, but he wanted to cum with you.

ミ❣️No, you weren't here.

ミ❣️His hand would make it to your clit giving it a soft slap before his thumb rubbed it in circles. You'd start cursing because of how good it felt. Telling him you wanted more, how you were about to cum, how much you wanted him to cum in you.

ミ❣️You would adore it, he knows it. You'd be such a cum hungry slut for him, no matter when or where you'd want him to cum in your tight pussy.

ミ❣️"Fuck, fuck— so good, Y/n— yer' pussy so good" Chifuyu cursed out as he imagined you creaming his cock the same time as he slammed his dick in you once more before spraying your insides white with his cum. Your body would shake as you had your final orgasm feeling so full.

ミ❣️"Fuck... Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck!" Chifuyu cursed out realizing what he just did, he felt a wave of guilt as he felt his dick go limp after fucking his pillow to the thought of you like a madman.

ミ❣️He rushed into the shower, almost falling off his bed in a panic mode. He tried to wash it off, tried to wash off the sin of moaning your name while he fucked his pillow like some highschool horn dog.

ミ❣️He hoped you'd forgive him, he prayed you would.. You couldn't ever find out what he did, you'd label him as a pervert.

ミ❣️Maybe he was one.

ミ❣️He couldn't look himself in the mirror, too ashamed to face himself.

ミ❣️Chifuyu threw the pillow away before curling back in bed chanting soft apologies to nobody. He'd wrap his body in his blanket nuzzling his face back into your scarf as he drifting off final able to sleep.

ミ❣️The next morning you didn't understand why Chifuyu refused to make eye contact with you...

It was supposed to be a short drabble.... 500 works max 🤧🔫 anywaysssss

@baji-kuns hope you liked it 🙄 #Chifuyu'sAHoe

[joyaphoria]

the five chances you give him (5)

pairing: suna x f!reader

note: this is the last chapter! i hope you all enjoyed :)

summary: suna knew that he was doing something wrong, but he refused to acknowledge it. therefore, you slowly dropped five major hints for him, hoping that he would notice them and take action to fix your broken relationship. suna really did notice them, he just didn’t figure out in time that you were actually going to leave.

series masterlist | directory

© 𝘫𝘰𝘺𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘢

part five: rin became rintaro; then it became suna

"oh baby... nobody said that it was going to be easy." mei cooed, her voice softer than usual. she repeatedly kissed the top of your head as you cried into her lap.

"i k-know but.." you spoke through your sobs, snot along your sleeves. "i-i really hoped t-that he would ch-change.."

it's been just over two months since you've started changing your behaviour around rin, but he didn't seem to react to it—no, he may have changed, but only a bit. it wasn't enough.

you knew that this was unavoidable, and that it had to be done. the longer it takes for you to get this over with, the longer it will take for you to get over it.

so when mei sent you home that night, she reassured you that it will all be worth it in the end, and that you will find someone better.

but the fact that he was waiting for you at the same table that you used to wait at, every single night, didn't help at all.

"where were you?" he asked, his voice laced with concern.

you stood there for a second with your shoes still on, and folded over with laughter.

his heart flutters. whens the last time you laughed in front of him?

"sorry," you sniffled through the laughter, the aftermath from crying earlier doing you no justice. "it's just that i used to sit in that same chair, waiting for you to come home, you know?"

hesitating for a moment, he decided on getting up and walking over to you, although he didn't know what to do.

"y/n." he's looking down at you now, resisting the urge to reach out and take hold of your hands.

"rintarou."

now that caught both of you off guard.

it slipped out without a second thought on your end, and you were visibly shocked.

as was suna, except he was more afraid than anything else. he knew what this meant—he was no longer rin to you, but rintarou.

he should be grateful though, because he knew what eventually might come next. he knew that it wouldn't be rintarou for long, and that as soon as it changes, it would be over; everything would be over.

"were you crying?" he whispers, reaching out to wipe at your tear stained cheeks. except you wouldn't let him, grabbing his wrist in time. God—mei would be so proud; as would that kind lady from the cafe.

"why should you care?" you spat, letting go of his wrist to remove your shoes.

"because im your boyfriend." he said, although you didn't miss the quiver in his voice from that last word, as if he wasn't so sure anymore.

you move past him and head straight for the bathroom; but suna didn't miss it. he heard what you mumbled on your way out—and it had him slumped against the wall (when you were out of sight, that is)

his fists are clenched and his heart is beating a little too fast, but he can't get his mind off of what you said.

"yea, well not for long"

five words, and yet they seemed to foreshadow his future.

-

there were two possible reasons that you could be waking him up at 10 in the morning.

you were either waking him up to tell him that it was over, and that you were leaving, or that it was over, and that he had to leave.

turns out there was a third reason.

"do you have practice today?" you asked, your voice a whisper.

"yeah.. why?" he got up into a sitting position, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. its been a while since you last entered this room, moving all your things to the guest room.

"oh. nevermind." you make a gesture to leave but he panics and grabs your arm. this could be an opportunity, and he wasn't about to lose it.

"i could um.. take the day off." he nods his head.

"are you sure?" when he nods his head yet again, your features soften.

"okay, well get dressed. i feel like going to a theme park."

you leave the room before he has a chance to answer, but he complies anyways.

his mind wanders to the picture that he broke in the heat of the moment awhile back—the one where you were both smiling at an amusement park, kids laughing in the bakground.

-

"let's go on that one!" you exclaim, pointing at the rollercoaster.

a soft grin takes over your face—and while it may not be your typical energetic one, at least it was still there.

now, suna wasn't a big fan of rollercoasters. he prefered to have you go on them, while he took the photos, but today's been the first time in a while that he's actually seen you happy, and he wanted to keep it that way.

you've been here all day, and it was already pretty dark, so they might be closing soon anyways.

when the cart had finally come back around, you and rin got on, with a guy slipping in on your side.

"you guys here together?" he asked, looking over you to make eye contact with suna.

you nodded, and he chuckled.

"im here with my girlfriend, but she doesn't like roller coasters as much as i do."

now you and him are making small talk, and suna is resisting the urge to tell the guy to shut up, and to go back to his own girlfriend.

when the ride finally starts, he feels relieved, even slipping his hand into your own.

your hand tenses, and he looks up to find a look of guilt soaked into your features.

he quickly unravels his hand from yours, settling it into his lap and looking away. he got too carried away to remember that a day of rides and fun wasnt enough to fix his mistakes.

as the ride starts climbing upwards, fear pumps through his veins.

he shuts his eyes, dreading the fall.

when it finally came, he opened his eyes and hugged himself to keep from screaming.

he looks over to you, and his heart does that thing again—it flutters.

with your hands in the air, your screams adorning his ears, he fell in love. all over again.

the moonlight caressed your pretty features as your eyes shut in pure bliss, and suna found tears falling out of his own.

the tears fell but he didn't sob—not once. you didn't look his way either—not once.

instead he looked away, quickly wiping the tears before someone could catch him. he missed this; he missed you.

when you two got off the ride later, he wonders if you would ever go to another theme park with him.

-

when you decide to leave, suna finds an employee walking around the park with a polaroid camera.

he asks him to take a picture of you, and places it in his wallet. he can't break it this time.

suna misses the look of guilt that slips past your face, as if it were never there.

-

when the car pulls into the parking lot, and you both get out, suna realizes that you weren't walking beside him.

he panics and turns around, where he finds you smiling. tears in your eyes.

"thank you for today, suna."

he freezes. he can't move anymore. he can't think.

"don't be silly. let's go inside." he's walking again, but when he doesn't hear a second set of footsteps, the tears wash over him.

"why aren't you coming?" his voice cracks as the tears stream down his face.

"i'm going to mei's. it's-it's over." you smile, wiping continuously at your eyes.

"y/n please, we can talk about this." he's running over to you, taking hold of your shoulders as he bends down to make eye contact. "we're fixable, okay? i promise we are." he doesn't make move to wipe away the tears that are falling.

you wipe away his tears, pulling him into a hug. "i'm so sorry."

he wraps his arms around you and holds you tight, afraid of having you slip out of his grasp. "please, don't leave me. i'll do anything, just give me another chance. i need you."

you wriggle out of his arms, and his fists clench at his sides.

"i gave you chances. i gave you too many. i have to go."

you're running now, and he can't decide if he should run after you or not. has he not caused you enough pain?

instead, he falls to his knees and cries.

that was it. he lost you—he lost everything.

the polaroid picture was burning a hole through his wallet.

-

when he finally musters up the courage to check the guest room a few days later, he sees all your things packed up in boxes.

you had it all planned out, didn't you?

-

when mei comes later that day to pick up your things, she finds suna curled into a ball on the guest room floor.

"suna. wake up."

his eyes open slowly, and she finds them red, his eyebags puffy and cheeks tear-stained.

"is y/n gonna come back?" he asks, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

mei shakes her head, and suna cries again.

she looks away, thanking the heavens that she wasn't in a relationship. she couldn't help but pity him as she collected her best friend's things, suna's sobs as a sort of background noise.

she couldn't be surprised—the lost of your entire world was enough to make any grown man cry.

-

heartbreak isn’t easy, but suna’s heart hurts without you. where he sleeps, where he bathes, it all reeks of your touch.

you’re everywhere here, all memories playing back to him like a movie. he’s reminded of you, and recovering addicts don’t test themselves; they dont stay around said addiction to see if they can restrain themselves.

and so suna moves out, running from the place that you’ve drenched in your presence.

he leaves the polaroid picture on the table.

[ijustwant2write]

A Secret Romantic-Benedict Bridgerton x Reader x Eloise Bridgerton (Platonic) (Part 2)

(GIF credit to @elenawinchstr)

Part 1

Masterlist

Tags: @marvel-ousnesss @myficplace @yelenas-lova @lavxnder @s-unflowxr 

Summary: Benedict and Eloise both anticipate Lady (Y/N)’s social event, as does their mother, causing tensions to rise and panic to ensue. Benedict doesn’t want his mother ruining what he may have with (Y/N), asking Eloise for her help, who gladly plays the role of a good sister.

Characters: Benedict Bridgerton x Reader, Eloise Bridgerton x Reader (platonic), mentions of Anthony Bridgerton and Violet Bridgerton

Meanings: (Y/N)=Your name

(Y/L/N)=Your last name

Warnings: Fluff, fluff, fluff

                                   *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Benedict hastily moved around the house, avoiding his mama at all costs. She called out his name repeatedly, growing frustrated at his childish manner. He was supposed to discuss a plan with her about how he should prepare to court Lady (Y/N), but he knew better; his mama knew nothing of (Y/N) (he admitted, he still had much to learn about her too), and he didn’t want his chance to slip away. Although he was confident at her house when he called upon her, there was a sickening doubt looming in his mind that if he did anything wrong, another suitor could easily take his place.

“You have no where else to hide brother.” Anthony smirked, his eyes skimming over the top of his newspaper.

Benedict sighed, accepting defeat. She would find him in a matter of minutes, especially since Anthony’s office was the last place she would look. 

“Please, just let me stay her for a few moments.” Benedict begged.

Anthony chuckled, putting down the papers as he reclined in his chair.“Oh dear, I see things are turning serious quite quickly.”

“Yes, which wouldn’t be a problem if mama wasn’t making this such a big ordeal.”

“But it is to her.”

Benedict knew this.“I know that, because someone hasn’t found a woman to marry, so it then falls onto my shoulders.”

“I haven’t seen you so anxious before. Sit down, try to relax.”

Benedict took his offer, practically collapsing into the chair on the other side of the desk. Anthony stood, pouring out a drink each and handing one to Benedict. Though not one to drink in the early afternoon, he gladly sipped at it, wishing he would just calm down.

“Besides mama, what is going on in that head of yours?” Anthony asked. 

He genuinely wanted to help. He felt a slight guilt knowing that his mama was more excited about this possible partnership, seeing as he never gave her the satisfaction of even socialising with women. 

“I worry that I may not be enough for (Y/N).” he said.“Of course, I have talked to women, I know the right things to say, but I also know that I will not want to engage in further conversation. Whereas with (Y/N), she intrigues me, so much that even after we danced and talked for hours, I still felt like I hardly spent any time with her. I thought about every word I said, listened intently to everything that poured out of her mouth. There are no other women like her.”

Anthony didn’t speak for a few seconds.“You should write poems alongside your art work.”

Benedict groaned, about to stand when Anthony stopped him.

“I am teasing you brother. Look, it’s extremely obvious that you have fallen for this woman. Putting feelings aside for a moment, she also comes from a well off family with a respectable background, so you’ve done very well in that department. This art exhibition will allow me to also see what Lady (Y/N) and her family are like, as well as keep mama away from you both as much as I can.”

“You would do that for me?”

“You seem shocked. I will pretend not to be offended.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I know that you too do not like to be....bothered by mama at these events. No doubt she’ll talk to you about my potential courtship all night.”

The door opened as he finished speaking, Violet popping her head in. Her smile widened when she saw both her sons in the same room, now able to speak with them both about Lady (Y/N). Anthony and Benedict shared a look, knowing they would be there for some time.

Elsewhere in the house, Eloise was suffering through a conversation with Hyacinth. As Daphne had to endure, Hyacinth was questioning her older sister, wanting to know everything there was to know about the balls they attended. She wanted to make sure she had all the knowledge she needed when it was her turn to debut. They never spoke of these things in front of her or Gregory and she wanted all the answers. However, Eloise was not revealing anything, and making it seems that everything to do with debuting was awful.

“Go away and pester somebody else.” Eloise huffed as she descended the stairs away from her sister.

“Why are you always so mean to me? I’m just asking questions!” Hyacinth protested.

Eloise felt guilty, especially since Hyacinth was still young and didn’t understand many things about the world yet.“I’m sorry, but I’m not the best person to ask these questions.”

“Why don’t you want to get married?”

“If I explain, you won’t understand.”

“Yes I will!”

“You won’t Hyacinth.”

“You’re so mean!”

The young girl stomped off, having a tantrum to herself. Eloise did feel bad for being so snappy with her sister, but she really didn’t like talking about these things, doing all she could to avoid it where possible. It just made her feel miserable. And who wants to dote on a topic that eliminates all happiness from them?

However, Eloise did find that she was excited about the art exhibition. She was curious as to how (Y/N) and her brother’s encounter would go. For a moment, she felt like her mama. It sent shudders down her spine. It was nice to have the pressure and attention off of her, and to see her brothers in the spotlight. She knew too many friends with brothers who had it easier than the women of the family. Of course they had certain expectations, but Eloise did not see any men parading around in uncomfortable, tight dresses, with over the top embellishments and feathers. 

The remaining days leading up to the art exhibition were filled with dress and suit fittings, lessons on the (Y/L/N) family, and making sure everyone knew how important this day could be. Benedict grew more and more nervous as it approached, his mama making him realise that this could be a turning point in his life. Before this was all about him being excited to see (Y/N), to be in her company again, now it was as if he was proposing to her.

Eloise stepped out into the garden, welcoming the warmth that was still lingering at this time of night. She couldn’t sleep, knowing what was on her mind, but not wanting to admit it. She wasn’t surprised to see Benedict already on the swing set, secretly smoking as they had both done before. A small smile appeared on her face as she approached him, making sure to create some sort of noise as to not startle him.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one being kept awake.” she said as she sat down.

“I haven’t even tried to sleep yet.” Benedict said before inhaling through his cigarette again.

“Is someone nervous?” she wasn’t teasing him, she was concerned.

“Yes.” he surprisingly said.“I’m nervous because mother has made me believe everything is depending on this next meeting. Yet she forgets how long Daphne took to decide who she was marrying.”

“You shouldn’t be nervous.”

“And why is that?”

“Because (Y/N) likes you.” 

Benedict chuckled."Ah, I forgot you were the expert on such topics."

"I may not know a lot about...feelings and love, but I am not a fool. I saw the way your eyes lit up when you first saw her. (Y/N) was practically speechless too. But not like the other women who fawn over the Bridgerton name, she actually liked you for your face, for some reason. I don't know, it just seemed that there was something natural between you."

"Eloise Bridgerton, what a doting thing to say."

"I am trying to be nice to you brother."

"I know. And I appreciate it, but...I feel at ease with (Y/N), and I don't like the thought of mother's eyes burning into the back of my head. Anthony has said that he will do what he can to help, but I fear that mother will not be totally distracted by him. She’ll know his sudden interest will be fake.”

Eloise had an idea, and even if she didn’t want to go through with it, she knew it would help Benedict.“I will regret saying this, but I shall help too. I will make sure mama is paying attention to me, I’ll let her drag me around and indulge in hideously, dull conversations.”

Benedict had been shocked for the second time that day. Two of his siblings, both detesting the thought of marriage, had offered to suffer through this social event in order to give him time with (Y/N).

“What has happened to you two today?” Benedict asked.

“We are merely being charitable. Hopefully you return the favour in future. God knows I’ll be in need of saving soon.”

(Y/N) was all a flutter on the morning of the exhibition. Her mother had bought a new dress just for this, wanting to impress the Bridgerton family, prepping their halls and rooms for the exhibition for the last week. (Y/N)’s father was proud of what he had created, and that his daughter may be on her way to marrying a family who were held highly in their society. (Y/N) couldn’t focus at all, relieved that her maids were the ones in charge of getting her dressed and ready for the day; if left to her own devices, she surely would have put her dress on backwards. 

Guests streamed in, but (Y/N) was only on the lookout for one person. She remained polite, trying to stay in the moment as more and more people arrived. However, she still kept an eye out for Benedict, also staying on her toes. She had many things in mind to say to him, and she wanted to keep them in her mind. There was no way she was going to humiliate herself. 

Her heart started beating a thousand times faster when she saw Benedict enter the main hall, the one holding the biggest and most expensive pieces of art. She smiled, and somehow it grew even bigger when he made eye contact with him. His smile was so sweet, it made you fall for his charms even more. Benedict felt his stomach twist in anticipation, desperate to have just a few moments with (Y/N). Alas, that did not come when his mama latched onto his arm, steering him in (Y/N)’s direction. Although he wanted to speak with her, he found it all rather forceful, especially when (Y/N)’s parents suddenly appeared behind her.

Formal introductions were made, each set of parents making small talk about the last time they were in each others company. (Y/N) and Benedict were silent, nodding along with what was being said as they sneaked glances at each other. The conversation was dragging for them, they knew their parents wanted to figure out if this could be a potential arrangement. It didn’t seem that they were going to stop talking at any point, neither child wanting to be rude, until Eloise intruded.

“Pardon me,” she started, sending a subtle smile to Benedict,“mama, I have been looking everywhere for you.”

“Ah, another Bridgerton. The next daughter to find a suitor, I presume?” (Y/N)’s mother beamed.

Eloise hid the urge to frown. Luckily her mother stepped in.“Yes, this is Eloise. I’m sorry darling, I did not mean to leave you stranded.”

“Yes, well, shall we?” Eloise tugged at her mother’s arm.

“Alright dear. It was lovely to see you both again.” 

As Violet eagerly followed Eloise, (Y/N)’s parents also dispersed. Benedict and (Y/N) were now finally together, just as they had wished; so why did it suddenly feel awkward?

“Well, that seemed to easy.” Benedict cleared his throat.

“What was?” (Y/N) asked.

“Getting rid of them.” he grinned, holding out his arm.

(Y/N) smiled back, happy to hold onto him.“I was trying to come up with something to say that would not be rude, but would also mean we could leave. I hope that it wasn’t obvious I wanted to leave.”

“Even if it was, I doubt they would care too much. We both know they are over excited.”

“Oh how right you are. I’m assuming your mother has been acting the same as mine this whole week?”

“Overbearing? Overthinking? Over-”

(Y/N) giggled.“Yes, yes, I do not wish to dote on the memory. I am happy that you are here though Benedict.”

“You are?”

“I am.”

The pair’s arms stayed linked as (Y/N) guided Benedict around the art work. Sometimes they joined other conversations, though liked to keep to themselves. It was easy to bond over artwork, especially since it was a passion both of them had. There were no pauses or silences after a few minutes of talking, conversation flowed naturally between them. Men and women also searching for suitors were jealous; a Bridgerton boy had been swept up all too quickly and (Y/N) had been a popular choice amongst the men. However, people could not deny they made a fitting pair.

"Come, let me show you something." (Y/N) muttered to Benedict, easily slipping away from the crowds and leaving the room.

"We really shouldn't be alone (Y/N)." Benedict said, even though this was all he had been wanting.

(Y/N) had a cheeky smile on her face as she tugged on his arm, her steps gradually getting quicker. Benedict didn't even take in her elaborate house, only looking at her beautiful face every time she glanced up at him. They stopped before two grand doors, which (Y/N) cautiously opened, slipping inside with Benedict close behind her.

In the middle of the room was a huge painting covered by a fine piece of cloth. Benedict was confused why (Y/N) brought him to this, until she let go of his hand (him instantly missing the feeling), and theatrically pulled the piece of fabric down. Benedict's jaw dropped as the piece was revealed. He had never seen a painting like it.

It was a large, landscape painting of a ballroom. It captured dancing pairs in the middle of some sort of waltz, musicians huddled in the corner whilst the other guests stood watching; and it was so intricate, Benedict guessed it must have taken the artist months to complete it. All the colours, the detail, it almost looked real.

"This is amazing." he breathed out.

(Y/N) was happy when she saw Benedict's shock."Isn't it? It's supposed to be revealed later, but I wanted to see your expression properly."

"Who painted it?"

"I don't know. Father said he is going to inform everyone later, but it is a new artist. I just think they're work is dazzling to look at. I become mesmerised."

Benedict's focus changed back to (Y/N)."Yes, that does tend to happen."

She didn't notice that he was referring to her, nodding along in agreement. Her smile faltered slightly, which Benedict was able to see immediately.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he neared her, hating the gap that was created

(Y/N) covered her slip up, as her mother had told her."I'm sorry, it's really nothing..." she started, but found herself relaxed, and wanting to tell Benedict all her problems."It's only that...I used to paint frequently, well, I sketched more, though I enjoyed both. Like all girls, my mother told me to stop that and focus on becoming the most desired lady in society. I shouldn't have even told you about that when we first met."

"That's what made me desire you (Y/N)."

She blushed, realising how intense his gaze was."Oh, Lord Bridgerton-"

"What's with all the formalities all of a sudden?"

"I-I don't know. I don't want to ruin anything and it's only our second meeting. Third if you count when you called upon me."

"And I called upon you for a very good reason."

"I was wishing that everyone else would leave, so I could spend more time with you."

Benedict loved hearing her say that."As did I."

Subconsciously they had moved closer, though they both knew what they were doing. Benedict reached down to tenderly hold her hands, causing her heart to beat erratically. (Y/N) had no idea what to do, she only had experience from the books she read. It seemed simple enough to kiss someone, but also the hardest thing in the world. How much pressure should she apply? How long should they kiss for? Where would she put her hands? Where would he put his hands? She didn't have anytime to think as he was already leaning in towards her.

Eloise and Anthony were finding it extremely hard to keep the fake smiles plastered on their faces. Benedict was really in for it once this was all over. Their mama had kept a tight grip on them both, because as soon as they saw their chance to flee, they would. Both had to suffer through extremely long, boring and repetitive conversations, listening to parents boast about their children's achievements. Everyone knew how this worked, yet they all had to pretend to be happy about it.

"Where is Benedict? He's been away for a long time." their mama pondered as they took a break for refreshments.

"He's probably wooing Lady (Y/N), just as you wanted." Eloise slurped on her drink.

"Do not fret mother, he knows what he's doing. He truly likes her and will be doing all he can to...well, yes, woo her." Anthony said.

"I suppose you are right. It feels strange that one of my children are making an effort for once."

Eloise huffed."Oh, do not chastise us mama. We've been doing this all afternoon, haven't we?"

Violet squinted her eyes at them, suspicious that they were up to something. She was about to question it, but stopped herself. They were doing what she always wanted, finding someone to spend their future with. She wouldn't jeopardise that. Lucky for them, a servant announced that Lord (Y/L/N) requested for everyone's presence inside. The guests were intrigued, following orders and grabbing full glasses of whatever quenched their thirst. Eloise and Anthony had got away with their plan for now, they just hoped Benedict and (Y/N) had had enough time together. 

[morganaspendragonss]

holly's august extravaganza day 4: a friend in me

📍 anon - I don't know but I feel like Carlos and Nancy can have such an awesome best friend dynamic. Maybe something sad/scary regarding Nancy happens where she has to make a report at the precinct and Carlos doesn't tell anyone as she made him promise so he starts to just check on Nancy and they just develop this caring, supportive, beautiful, fun, full of banter friendship to the amusement of TK and the 126.

kept this separate from your original ask because i want to keep those other prompts you sent alongside this one for later 😊

ao3 | 2k | hurt/comfort, brief references to gun violence, mostly just carlos and nancy being besties

Carlos has never seen Nancy look so small.

She’s sitting hunched over in one of the interrogation rooms, shock blanket around her shoulders, hands seemingly moving of their own volition to tear the empty styrofoam cup in front of her to shreds. As soon as Carlos had seen her being escorted into the precinct, shaking like a leaf and clutching her coat like a lifeline, he’d persuaded the officer with her to let him take over the case. His association with the 126 is well known so the officer had been reluctant, but Carlos had managed to wear him down, saying that he doesn’t really know Nancy that well.

And it’s—it’s not exactly a full lie. Through their hangs and TK’s stories, he’s coming to see Nancy as a force of nature, a woman who will let nothing and no-one stand in her way, whether that’s out on the field or during a game of Monopoly. But of her personal life, Carlos knows next to nothing; she mentioned a sister a few weeks ago, and TK delights in teasing her about her growing crush on Marjan, but that’s about it.

He needs to make more of an effort, he decides. When they’re anywhere else but a police station.

Carlos knocks lightly on the door to announce his presence before entering the room, sending her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. Nancy visibly relaxes at the sight of him and she drops the remains of her cup, though Carlos doesn’t miss the continuing tremble to her hands.

“Hey Nancy,” he says, sliding into the seat opposite her. “How are you doing?”

Nancy’s lips twitch, the corners barely curving into the beginnings of a wry smile. She breathes out shakily, meeting Carlos’s eyes for the briefest second before staring back down at the table. “I’m not great,” she answers, and for her to admit to that… Well, Carlos suspects it’s not a regular occurrence.

He nods, reluctantly pulling out his notebook and pen, hesitating before flipping to the next blank page. Nancy tracks his movements, resignation clearly etched all over her features. Carlos glances at the two-way mirror—not that it does him any good—then reaches across the table to take Nancy’s hand.

“We don’t have to do this right now,” he murmurs. “If you need more time, just say the word and I’ll leave. Or if you’d prefer to talk to someone you don’t know, we can do that too. Anything you need.”

The sudden tightness of Nancy’s grip is unexpected, as is the flash of panic in her eyes.

“Please, don’t go,” she whispers. “I don’t—” She cuts herself off, shutting her eyes and breathing slowly for a few seconds. Slowly, her hold on Carlos begins to loosen until her hand is slack in his, then she draws both hands into her lap and straightens in her chair. When her eyes reopen, she seems more like the Nancy Carlos knows—strong, confident, assertive—though there’s still clearly an undercurrent of fear underneath it all.

“I’m fine. Let’s do this.”

Carlos bites back an are you sure and settles for clicking his pen, his smile unwavering. “Can you run me through what happened, exactly?” he asks. “Take your time.”

A second or two passes, then Nancy nods, her voice steady when she speaks. “I was restocking the bus at the end of shift. I was alone; Captain Vega was in her office and TK was with the others in the showers—he did try to help but he’d had to go into a fire on our last call to help a patient and the smell of smoke was giving me a headache, so I told him to go.”

Carlos pauses in his note-taking, mentally filing that last piece of information away for follow-up as soon as he sees his boyfriend again. Judging by the amused quirk to Nancy’s eyebrow, she’s fully aware of where his mind has gone, so Carlos clears his throat and motions for her to continue, forcing his thoughts back to the present.

“Like I said, I was alone. I didn’t mind it; it was kind of relaxing, you know? Then this guy appeared from nowhere and pointed a gun at me, saying if I called out or turned on the siren or anything, he’d shoot. I thought—” She inhales sharply, her knuckles going white on the tabletop and her jaw clenching tightly. Her voice sounds different when she next speaks, more controlled, as though forcing each word out. “I thought it was happening again. I thought he was going to take me somewhere, make me his personal pet paramedic, something like that.

“Turns out, he just wanted drugs. I gave him what we had on the rig and he seemed satisfied, so I figured he’d shoot me anyway ‘cause I’d seen his face, right? He didn’t—obviously—but it looked like he was considering it.” Nancy pauses and flicks her gaze up at Carlos, biting her lip. “I think he might have done it,” she admits quietly, “but he got spooked by one of the guys making noise so he just bolted. I’m not sure how long it was between that and TK coming back and finding me. I’m sorry.”

Carlos shakes his head. “It’s okay. We can check the cameras at the station. With luck, that should get us an ID, maybe a license plate if he drove. I think that’s almost everything; just one more question, if that’s okay. Can you tell me what you gave him exactly?”

Nancy nods. “Morphine, Ativan, tramadol… I’d have to check stocks for the exact amounts.”

“We’ll do that, don’t worry about it.” Carlos taps his pen on the pages before flipping his notebook shut and leaning across the table again. “Are you okay?” he asks softly. “Speaking as a friend and not a cop, if there’s anything you need, anything I can help with, let me know.”

She smiles wanly. “I’m okay. I just want to go home and forget all this ever happened.”

“Fair enough. I’ll walk you out to your car.”

Carlos half-expects her to brush him off, but she just nods and allows him to escort her back through the precinct and out to her car. He dithers awkwardly, shuffling his feet as Nancy turns to him, one hand on the door handle.

“Thank you, Carlos. For real. I have the feeling it wasn't a coincidence that you were the one in that room with me.”

The tips of Carlos’s ears go pink as he finds himself caught out. “That, uh… That would not be inaccurate.”

“Well, thanks.” She pulls open the car door and Carlos takes a step back, wanting to wait until she’s safely away to go back inside. Nancy ducks as if to get in, then pauses and straightens again, biting her lip as she looks back at him.

“Hey, Carlos?” she says. “Can you do me a favour and not tell the others? Not even TK. They— They know vaguely what happened, but I’d prefer it if the details and, uh, some of the other stuff I told you could be kept between us.”

He agrees immediately, just grateful that she trusts him enough to handle this for her. “No-one will know any more than they need to,” he promises, which seems to relieve her. She thanks him again, then gets in the car and drives away, Carlos watching after her with one hand raised in farewell.

*

It grows from there.

It’s not intentional exactly, but one text to check up on her soon turns into a steady stream of messages, stories and jokes and even the occasional meme passing back and forth between them. Carlos especially appreciated Nancy's carefully curated collection of dirt on TK, which, as a concerned boyfriend, it is his duty to know. Many a conversation has been spent griping about TK's accident prone ways or sighing over his latest mishap.

Lovingly, of course.

Nancy, 15.48: you’ll never guess what happened this time

Carlos, 16.22: ?

In answer, he receives a picture of a dejected-looking TK sprawled on the floor with Buttercup’s front paws squarely resting on his chest. Buttercup’s tongue is lolling out, a wide grin on his face, and in the background stand the rest of the crew. All of them also seem to have their phones pointed towards TK—probably the reason TK looks so down, as Carlos knows his boyfriend couldn’t be upset with Buttercup to save his life.

Nancy, 16.26: he thought he’d try to teach buttercup some tricks. turns out, dog trainers exist for a reason

Carlos has to stifle a laugh—technically, he is supposed to be working—but his attempt at being subtle is thwarted when his phone repeatedly pings with similar texts and photos from Paul, Marjan, and Mateo. He screenshots the sudden influx of notifications and sends it to Nancy before saving every single photo.

Nancy responds with a laughing emoji and a promise to keep him updated.

*

Not all of their conversations are about TK, naturally.

Carlos, 19.10: I don’t understand why you don’t just talk to her

Nancy, 19.12: i do talk to her. every shift, actually

Carlos, 19.13: Nancy

Nancy, 19.13: carlos

Nancy, 19.14: i don’t even know if she’s into women, alright? it’s not like i can just march up and ask, that’s like waving a banner saying ‘hey, i’m in love with you’ in her face

Carlos, 19.16: Oh, we’re talking about love now, are we?

Nancy, 19.17: can it, reyes

Carlos, 19.20: Noted. Look, take it from someone who’s been navigating gay relationships in Texas his whole life. Sometimes you just have to go for it. Ask her for coffee, test the waters, see where it leads. You never know, it might work out. I mean, look at me

Nancy, 19.24: wow, way to rub your happiness in my face 😑

(Carlos doesn’t find out if she follows his advice, but he does notice her and Marjan showing up to their hangs together)

(Nancy does not appreciate his smugness)

*

Without even realising, they become a formidable team. This fact is highlighted one game night about three months after the incident, when Nancy and Marjan blow into his and TK’s house, a determined glint in both their eyes.

“We’re switching up the teams,” Marjan declares, much to TK’s outrage.

“What? Why?”

“Because,” Nancy continues, “we’re tired of losing to you guys. You’re like, freakishly good at board games and it’s not fair. Plus, we have to watch you both being all lovey all the time when you’re on the same team and it’s exhausting. We want to see you being competitive for once.”

TK pouts, but Carlos just shrugs when he looks to him for backup. “It’ll be fun,” he says, smiling at Nancy and Marjan. TK still looks put out, so he leans in close and half-murmurs, “C’mon babe. How about a prize for the winner?”

TK perks up considerably at the suggestion, and, going by the twin looks of despair on Nancy and Marjan’s faces, they caught both the comment and the innuendo. Marjan groans and Nancy raises her eyes skyward, as if pleading for divine intervention.

“This was a great idea, actually,” TK says, grinning. He quirks an eyebrow at Nancy. “You and me, Nance?”

That seems to shake Nancy out of her silent prayers for strength. “Uh, no. I’m with Carlos.” To emphasise the point, she strides forward and grabs Carlos’s arm, dragging him to the couch. He nudges her gently when they sit, smirking at the disgruntled way she digs into the snack bowl.

“You did say you wanted to see us being competitive.”

“Shut up.”

*

In the end, TK ends up paired with Mateo, and Marjan with Paul. It’s clear from the outset who’s going to win—Nancy and Carlos dominate the board, and not even Paul’s master strategy is enough to catch up with them.

They win by a comfortable margin, fist-bumping in celebration. There’s a general air of bemusement in the room, and when Carlos looks round at the others, he finds four pairs of eyes fixed on them.

“What?”

“Since when have you two been such a good team?” Paul asks, leaning back in his chair and raising an eyebrow.

Carlos shrugs, sharing a smile with Nancy. “Guess we just are.”

[firefly464]

The Real World - Chapter 2

Apparently people liked the last one so Imma continue it :D

Again, the original idea was from @i-have-this-now​

Master Post 

First - Previous - Next

~~~

Tommy sat on top of the destroyed van, staring at a sword in his lap. His head was spinning violently, and it took all his energy to keep from falling onto the ground below. 

Several days had passed since he had initially woken up from his injury. Several boring, uneventful days. Sure, people had come to visit him, but they were all busy trying to rebuild from the war. He had felt so useless just laying there, unable to get up and help. He wanted to go and figure out what was going on, not lay in bed. 

 And so he had done the one thing he could think of. He had raided the van for every health potion he could find and drank them all. After all, Wilbur had told him to drink a potion every day to help heal his wound. Apparently there was a good reason for the slow process. As it turned out, even drinking a single health potion was enough to make one feel slightly woozy. Drinking 5 was enough to make him incredibly nauseous. Sure, it had healed his wound from the arrow, but it had also made him feel miserable. 

He shook his head, trying to clear the fog from his brain. Honestly, what was the point of being able to walk around if he couldn’t even think straight? God, Wilbur was going to kill him. 

He watched as his friends went around, trying to rebuild L’manberg. It wasn’t very big, but the damage caused by the war was immense. The entrance was nothing more than a pile of rubble. Surrounding it were massive craters, as if it were blown to bits. He shook his head again, remembering exactly what had happened for it to become like that. The way that Dream had blown up a single piece of TNT, setting off a massive chain in the process. At least, thats how it had happened in game. He had no idea how it had happened here. There was no way the Dream would have been able to pull of the same stunt here without months of preparation. After all, he would have had to place all of the explosives by hand, and there was no way Wilbur would have let him do that... 

Unless Eret had helped him. He scowls. Of course Eret had helped him, it only made sense. He wondered how Eret’s betrayal had played out in this world. After all, in-game they had all died. But here, everyone was clearly still alive. And based on how scared they were for him, death was permanent. 

A voice cuts through his thoughts “Tommy? What are you doing up there?” Tubbo stands on the ground, staring up at his friend “Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” 

Tommy looked down at his friend, not very far below him. In an act of recklessness, he sheathed his sword and jumped down to the ground. The impact sent a slight shock running up his legs and spine, causing the scar from his wound to throb slightly, but other then that he felt no pain from it. 

“I got bored,” he told Tubbo, shrugging it off and trying to look casual. Unfortunately, the side effects of the health potions still hadn’t worn off, causing him to stumble slightly. 

Tubbo looked at him in shock and disbelief “did you just... are you ok?!” he quickly reached his arms out to catch his friend “Tommy?!” 

Tommy brushed off the concern, straightening and brushing himself off “I’m alright. Like I said, I got bored” His words were slurred ever so slightly, likely another side effect of the potion. He prayed that Tubbo wouldn’t notice

Tubbo noticed. “Tommy, you didn’t do what I think you did, right?”

“Depends on what you think I did”

“So if I went and checked on the potions drawer in the van, they would all still be there?” Tubbo knew exactly what was going on. His friend had pulled this stunt before, when he had broken his arm trying to help construct the L’manberg wall. 

Tommy’s eyes widened “Uhhh, why would you do that? There’s nothing wrong with them I swear!” 

Tubbo rolled his eyes “Uh huh. You’re so lucky I made spares. Wilbur would kill you if he found out you drank the entire supply,” he said, pulling a handful of vials from one of the pouches around his waist. Tommy figured it was the equivalent of everyone's inventory, considering how nearly everyone had them. “Here I thought you had sworn never to do it again, especially after what happened last time” 

“Last time...?” 

His friend looked at him with confusion and worry. It was a look that Tommy was quickly getting used to, and quickly growing to hate. “Yeah, when we were building the wall? Remember?”

A fake smile formed on Tommy’s face “O-oh yeah! Yeah, I totally remember that. Psh, I was just testing you!” he chuckled nervously.

Tubbo’s brow furrowed. He wasn’t buying and of the crap Tommy was saying, but he also didn’t know how much he should press for an answer. His friend was clearly having a hard time, and he didn’t want to make it worse. But he also hated just sitting back and watching. 

“Tommy, you know you can trust me, right? I won’t tell any of the others, I promise.” 

“Yeah... I know. I just, I’ve got a lot on my mind and I don’t want to worry anyone” 

“Well now I’m concerned” he said with a chuckle “Whats up?” 

Tommy leaned against the wall of the broken van and slowly slid down to the ground. “I... I think something happened to my memory...” he says. It was the easiest explanation as to what was happening to him. He highly doubted that Tubbo was going to believe that he came from a world where all this was just a video game, nothing more. Better to tell a concerning lie than a panic inducing truth. 

“You... What? What do you mean?” His best friend sat on the scorched dirt next to him. “Like, you don’t remember anything?”

“No... It's more like...” he was silent for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to describe it without causing his friend to freak out “I remember the general information, but none of the specifics. Does that make sense?” 

Tubbo nodded “Unfortunately, yeah it does. That's really worrying. When did it start?” 

“When I woke up after my injury”

“So then it must have been caused during the duel. Maybe Dream had an enchanted arrow or something? But I’ve never heard of any enchantment that could affect memory like that...” his voice trailed off, a look of deep thought and calculation on his face

“What? N-no I’m sure its not like that!” Tommy said hastily. The last thing he needed was Tubbo to go and demand answers from Dream, when he knew perfectly well that the arrow dream had used had nothing to do with it. “I don’t really care how it happened. I just need you to tell me things I may not remember”

“Are you sure? If Dream caused this then he might know how to fix it.”

Tommy was shaking his head vigorously “I’m sure, I swear. Just please help me out here, ok?” 

Tubbo still looked extremely concerned, but he chose to put his worries aside. The thing he needed to do right then was help his friend. “Alright, I can do that. What do you need to know?”

~~~

It had been nearly a week since Dream and Tommy had gone missing, and everyone was getting more scared by the second. Wilbur sat at his desk, watching the clip where he was counting down for what felt like the thousandth time. He had narrowed down exactly when the two of them had gone dark. 

As soon as he had said “fire!”, their minecraft characters had stopped moving. They had both gone completely silent. It took roughly a minute before viewers started pouring in from both streams, reporting that both Dream’s and Tommy’s streams had gone offline. Wilbur had initially thought it was just a stupid prank. Nothing more than a harmless joke. That was before everyone reported radio silence from both of them. Neither were answering their phones, but they were both still in the discord call. They hadn’t gone on mute, so Will could still hear background noises coming from Tommy’s house. Everyone else had quickly ended their streams, telling the viewers that it was just a prank. In reality, they wanted to find their friends without the eyes of the world on them.

A week had passed, and the police had still found nothing. No sign of either of them. No sign of either of them even leaving their rooms. None of it made sense. All that Wilbur knew was that his friends were out there, and they needed to be found. 

~~~

Master Post 

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[moonlightjeno]

the chemistry of water | l.j

𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 :: swimmer!jeno x reader

𝕨𝕔 :: 7k

𝕒/𝕟 :: this was inspired by @smoljh swimmer!jeno timestamp. which you can read here. this is literally just pure fluff. fluff, fluff, fluff with like a couple cups of angst because i’m whipped for jeno... so enjoy.  

masterlist 

water, like most chemical compounds, was made up of hydrogen bonds, these weak bonds that formed between the hydrogen atoms and the oxygen gave a sense of magic that even though weak when working together managed to create something beautiful, elegant, fluid and strong incapable of being crushed. 

Chemicals, and bonds were much like relationships. Formed slowly by a weak attempt to make conversation, the awkward silence that filled the library hall as you, well you both attempted to start a conversation on how the tutoring of chemistry would go. The first reach and attempt of a forming bond between the two people that are alway initiated by someone else, a push of pull in the right direction all to lead you to the collision that would alter one’s life track.

It’s been halfway through freshman year when your professor had asked, well more like demanded you tutor the university top swimmer. The idea of tutoring had always been fascinating to you, well not fascinating more like something that seemed to be out of your comfort zone, one that you’d promised yourself you’d finally leave once college started. That had been 4 months ago, and you remained inside that bubble, talking to your roommate and her friends at most. So when the idea of tutoring someone had been brought up to you, the initial push that would cause the collision of two very different particles to bind together, you agreed with a small smile. 

“y/n, you’d have to work with him at least three times a week if he wants to get his grades up. He’s a promising student, just has a lot on his plate” your professor told you, voice calm and direct at what you would have to do. You nod, happy to be able to help, that is until you ask who you’re supposed to tutor and your professors look at you with a smile, “lee jeno”.

You're almost sure, you can feel the bonds that kept you together on that long day of classes, the single cup of coffee in your system doing little to keep you up, as the name of the school's most popular boy leaves the old man’s lips. 

Well not the most popular boy, if you’re being honest, more like the boy that your roommate wouldn’t shut up about. The boy that everyone in your class, more like your whole year and the year above, seemed to be infatuated by because of his eye smile and dark hair. The boy who, in your opinion, managed to break the hydrogen bonds that held the water molecules together, as he swam beating record after record after record. 

Bonds. A new sort of bond would be formed between the infamous lee jeno and you as you texted him that afternoon, a simple “hey” that had taken you at least ten minutes to actually send. 

A day. It took a day for a response to come to your phone, which meant a day of you being slightly stressed about the boy you had texted out of the blue with no actual context. Though you had debated if you should have messaged him something along the lines of “it’s y/n, i was asked to tutor you” but by the time you’d had thought of actually texting him that, it had been hours since you’d first texted and decided that it would just be awkward if another message was sent hours later the first one. It was stressful, waiting for a random boy who you knew of, who you’d see pass you in the hallway, smile always bright as he waved to those around him. Tending to be accompanied by a boy who’s hair changed color like the year’s seasons. It was almost winter, and Jeno's best friend now had blue hair, and you wondered more often that not good looking people would automatically be attracted to each other, and stick together. 

The bell rings, a shrill in your ears, masking the silent vibrations of your phone as it buzzes. You don’t hear the noise of it’s vibration, paying attention to the shrieking noise of the bell while attempting to listen to your professors instructions on the lab work that would have to be completed by next week. The paper’s scattered around your desk, take a while to pick up and you’re almost sure you’re the last person to leave the room, the professor had rushed off to the next class once he’d finished with the instructions, and it’s not until you hear a buzzing noise again that you check your phone. 

“Hey?” is the first thing you read, the caller i.d. ‘Unknown’ because you had totally forgotten to label it as jeno, with the nerves of actually getting an answer. Unlocking your phone, you send the small question marks before realizing that it indeed was jeno, and introducing yourself. 

The messages were a mess, and though your professor had initiated the initial push towards the bonds that would be formed, the world couldn’t help it seemed to make you two struggle a little more. For bonds to form, they have to reach an activation energy, crashing with enough energy, in specific positions. Slowly were the particles of you and jeno beginning to move towards each other, if it hadn’t been for the stream of awkwards texts you sent a failed attempt to explain what was going on. 

You hear a faint chuckle from somewhere in the room and look up. It was weird to have someone still in the class after hours, the only reason you were still in class was because you couldn’t find your notebook, that had today’s notes and didn’t really have anyone to get the notes from. 

The phone in your hand vibrates again,  the little “jeno has laughed at your message” icon appearing on your phone, and you looked around again as the small giggle was heard. The room was huge, fitting around 200 students a lecture so the soft giggles, which you found adorable to say the least, could have been coming from anywhere that is until you spotted a dark head, back towards you, the hoodie the boy wore had “lee jeno” written on it, while varsity swim team wrapped around the bottom of the hoodie and if it weren’t for the desk that you leaned against you could have sworn that you might have just hidden underneath your chair. 

The sound that came from your phone, a small “ring ring ring” startled you making you hit yourself against the desk, a small curse leaving your lips which caused jeno to turn around a smile present as always on his face. And it feels too soon that he is right in front of you asking you something, but you can’t fully process it because ‘what does one do when they just awkwardly text another person only to have them right in front of you in the next five minutes?’ you really aren’t sure but think they should make a guide about it. 

There’s a quiet silence that settles around the two of you, and you decide that you might as well tell him about the tutoring but jeno decides that he should say something too as he was the one that walked towards you, ending up in the two of you talking at the same time. Heat fills your cheeks, and if you weren’t so busy looking at the floor or anything except the boy's face you would have seen the light pink that adorned his cheeks. 

“You first” jeno says, hsi voice is softer than you imagined it. Not that you had never heard him speak, you had on the rare occasion that you went to a swim meet in order to support your best friend and roommate who loved going, cheering on the team with all her might. But at the swim meets, the jeno you’d seen was loud, almost center of attention but not quiet, loud but not overwhelming, but with an energy that was contagious to everyone else. The boy that stood before you seemed to be shy, and awkward and you could feel yourself relax just a little. 

“Oh… okay” the words come out small, and you force yourself to look up at the boy, who’s smile is more enchanting than before “well, I have to tutor you, for chem?”. Jeno nods, hair falling slightly in front of his eyes, but it doesn't seem to bother him as he waits for you to continue, “so we should meet up sometime this week, and what exactly are you struggling with, so I could look over that” 

Jeno’s is left slightly in awe, by the way you offer him help, your voice is soothing he thinks, and the way you bite your lip from nerves he finds to be endearing. He was used to girls chasing him, one way or the other, not leaving him much space to say what he wanted. Though if he listened to Jaemin, he should just enjoy the supposed ‘fame’ he had, but it just wasn’t his thing. Jeno could see you checking the time on your phone, a little past 4, and his brain panicked. 

“Shit” the boy muttered, and now you were really confused, “shit? No, oh i need help with this?” you asked him, baffled at the boy’s reaction, and the boy looked at his phone. 

“Oh no, sorry I didn’t mean it towards you. It’s just that we have a swim team meeting, and it started 5 minutes ago, and if I’m late to another one I might get kicked out” jeno says in a rush, it seems he can’t get out of the room fast enough, as he turns around and you follow him, determined to at least get some date or time that the two of you could meet up. 

“Wait! We still need to figure out a time schedule?” you questions makes the dark haired boy stop for a split second, his brows slightly furrowed, eyes closed as he takes a deep breath, “I’ll text you, I really am sorry y/n, but I have to go” and with that he’s rushing off to the athletics department, leaving you slightly baffled and for some reason with a fluttering feeling in your stomach. Texting, that’s what I’m gonna have to depend this whole thing on. You sigh, walking towards your dorm ready to sit down on your bed, and work on the chemistry project, while playing music in the background. 

 It is said that molecules are attracted to each other, polar opposites, where non-polar molecules will collide with polar molecules in order to form in perfect harmony a compound that will be of use and wonder to the world around us. Those bonds might be the key to relationships, or maybe it’s just the technological black box that people hold in their hands waiting for a sign. 

much to your surprise jeno, did text you a couple hours after the two of you had bumped into each other. The message was brief, a string of “im sorry, again” which you couldn’t help but slightly smile at the boy’s shyness, and another of “can we meet up tomorrow, right after classes are over by the library?”. The last message is what had you now waiting, by the library doors, chemistry notebook in hand as you waited for the black haired boy to appear. 

It’s been five minutes, and there is still no sight of the boy that promised you he’d be at the library and you can feel the fluttering excitement leave. Futters of wings no longer flapping rapidly, but they have seemed to fall asleep. Deciding that you might as well continue on your project, you sit down, pen in hand as you're about to look over the redox equation on balancing carbon dioxide with water in order to form acidic rain. Music is lightly playing through your headphones, the constant tunes a soothing background noise, as the project expands, you're about to flip the paper when you feel a drop of cold water on your shoulder. Checking the time, your phone reads 4:15, it’s been fifteen minutes, and he still hasn’t shown up, he could have texted, you think bitterly. 

Drip, drip, drip. The water droplets land on you again, and this time you swivel around in your chair, almost causing whiplash, before being met with dark eyes, that could convey everything and nothing at all. It takes you a second to register before you breathe out “you’re late” to which he only smiles, the sides of his eyes disappearing appearing to be crescent moons. 

“Yeah” he breathes, sitting down next you as he tries to regain his composure, for a second, a very brief one, you want to push back his slightly wet hair and not be annoyed but seconds only last seconds and in the next moment your scowling again, waiting for an explanation as you furrow your brows.

“Well? What happened? I mean, I don't mind you being late, as long as you tell me why that is.”

“Ummm… yeah about that, i really am sorry. Especially because i’m the one that needs help, and i should have told you but coach doesn’t let us use our phones in practice, which i mean makes sense right because water and technology don’t exactly mix well… and i’m rambling” his face is tainted with pink, as the boy looks down, playing with the ends of the papers to his notebook, and you can’t help but smile at him. It was kind of cute, not that you’d ever tell him that. “But either way, I’m here and if you need to leave early that’s totally cool too, i mean i don’t expect you to stay longer than we said, but if you can stay that’d be nice to because i really have no idea what the hell is going on in class, and i'm trying”

“Jeno” you say his name, and it’s almost a whisper, but he doesn’t look up, too busy folding and unfolding the papers that are beneath his hands, so you try again this time a little louder and stronger “jeno”. He looks up, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips, and you smile at him, “it’s okay, i’m not mad about it” a laugh escapes your lips as the boy’s mouth slightly falters, “now” you prepare the worksheets you’d prepared based off the material he had texted you he needed help with, “let’s get started with these redox equations”

The following hours are a constant of you talking about how redox reactions occur, when one of the compounds gives an electron only for the other compounds to gain electrons. A series of giving and taking, as bonds are formed to create a harmony between the compounds and elements to form a balanced equation. 

For the most part jeno is quiet, trying to understand and digest the information you give him, and the more he asks you questions about how come water can be both amphoteric and amphiprotic the more the both of you relax and begin to enjoy each other's company. You aren’t quite sure when, but all too soon do you hear the librarian telling you two, the last living inhabitants in the library that library hours are closed. It wasn’t that the two of you were doing chemistry anymore,  that had ended a couple of hours ago, when neither you nor jeno deemed to be in the mood to continue with school work. Jeno nodded as the librarian told you it was time to leave, while you told her to give the two of you a couple of more minutes in order to pack up. The lady that tended to scold everyone in the library, or at least she’d always scold you for bringing in your loud roommate and spending more time with your textbooks than actual beings, simply smiled at the two of you nodded, a “close when you’re done” was heard as she walked away. 

“You really have never swam before?” jeno asks you again, for what seems to be the tenth million time, and you nod your head. 

“It’s not that i’ve never been in water, i just have never you know swam laps around a pool,” you can feel heat rush to your face and look away, fiddling with your pen that, and jeno grabs your hand, which you are confused by that is until he pulls you up. 

“It’s settled” he says, a dork-like smile plastered across his face, which varies differently from your confused one, “im teaching you how to swim”. The noise you make is a mix between a sigh and an ugh, but you let yourself be dragged out of the library. 

“It’s not that I don't know how to swim” you protest, jeno’s hand still resting on your wrist. 

“But have you swam at our pool?” the question is teasing and a smile begins to grow, at the banter the two of you are having, shaking your head. 

“I’m taking you to the pool, and i’m going to teach you how to swim” the smile that spreads across jeno’s face is impossible to say no to. Eyes gleaming with joy, and hope, the hand on your wrist closing in a little, and as he’s about to drag you to the swimming pool, which you’re almost sure is closed at this hour you stop. 

“As much as I would love to go swimming at 10 at night, we have classes tomorrow” the tone is your voice isn’t as strong as you wanted it to be, because spending more time with the dork in front of you would honestly help with the stress that was college but the stress would only amount if you didn’t complete the assignments you had due tomorrow. 

Jeno turns to face you, the smile replaced by a pout, as he tries to convince you that it would be fun, but you wouldn’t budge. Well you were about to change your mind as say fuck it to the papers you had due tomorrow, until your phone almost at 0% buzzed, and you saw the lost calls and messages that flooded your phone. Though they mostly consisted of your roommate yelling at you asking where you are and then changing to her telling you she was going out for the night, to your parents asking how the exams had gone. 

Buzz. buzz. Buzz. it was almost as if you couldn’t shake the feeling of the plastic box in your hand, reminders of everything you had to, wanted to achieve. Jeno waited patiently for your reply, eyes soft, the pout slowly turning into a smile. 

Your phone buzzes again, and dies out. I guess that means something. You turn towards jeno, phone shoved in your back pocket, “fuck it” you smile, “let’s go swimming”

“Fuck yes” is what you hear before the two of you are rushing towards the athletic department.

Flickering. The bonds between two people, flicker as they try to work their way toward each other. In which one movement, one decision or thought might push them farther apart or closer together. 

The sign in front of you reads CLOSED but Jeno doesn’t seem to mind it as he grabs keys from his pocket, and opens the door holding it open for you as you pass into the pool, a look of confusion flickers through your face, and jeno smiles. 

“Captain privileges. I get the keys, because I close up most nights either way” he says, and though it’s almost pitch black he walks without hesitation knowing exactly where the light switch is. The lights inside the room flicker, the bright white that comes from the led lights blinds your eyes slightly before they adjust. And you are left in awe at the university's pool. 

It’s not that you’d never been to the pool, but everytime you did go, it had always been filled with too many yelling bodies that would raise up and chant the school’s name over and over again. The room always felt too hot, too sticky as your clothes clung to your body from the humidity created by the pool water. What was supposed to be an olympic sized pool, would feel like a kiddy pool when meets would occur, from the packed beings that were there to watch the races, to the teams that would come to race, always felt like too much. So when the lights flickered on, creating a small halo on jeno’s black hair, you were in awe at the size and beauty of the pool’s structure. 

The glass windows that aligned one of the pools walls, gace view to the twinkle stars that would dim in and out every second. Spots that were reflected on the pool, that you were almost sure stretched for miles, but was promised by jeno it was just a regular 50 meter pool. The two of you walked closer to the edge of the pool, shoes discarded by the entrance as you dipped your feet into the water, the cold feeling of water on skin shocked you for a second before the sensation became a more soothing feeling. It seemed impossible to wipe the smile that grew more as you looked around the swimming pool, the silver bleachers that tended to be stretched out onto the marble floor were put away, creating an illusion of a much larger floor than there really was. 

In all the time that you looked around, awe and fascination written over your face as you looked around the swimming pool, Jeno wondered if you’d never seen the pool, but then realized he had. Not often but he would see your face, every once in a while, a sign with the school's name as you cheered for the swim team, your roommate next to you. It was a shame, he thought that you had never seen the pool how he saw it. At night when no one could nag him about how his arms should be more stretched out, and his hands shouldn’t be as tense but be shaped into a more cupped form so that he cut off some time of his 200 IM. It was moments like this, where he could just admire the water, and see other people fall in love with the water that he remembered why he loved to swim so much, and it helped that you looked cute with your feet only slightly in the water, mouth slightly agape as you took in everything around you. 

Splash. And droplets of water are all over you, making pieces of your shirt stick to your skin. The water beneath you ripples and before you can take your feet off, you can feel a tug by your hand, breaking the trail of thoughts as you look down. The action happens too fast, but one moment you’re sitting by the edge of the pool, and the next you’re underwater. Cold water settles around you, the initial shock of water against your warm skin wearing off as you pull yourself up, breaking the surface of the pool. The curse is on the tip of your tongue, but your eyes can’t seem to find the boy who pulled you in. Turning from one side to the other, twisting a frail attempt you guess to find jeno, who has dived deep into the bottom of the pool. 

It’s been a minute, and you're about to leave the pool slightly in panic until you feel arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you against a warm body. Laughter fills your ears, as jeno spins you around, pulling you both to the shallow area. You can feel your body heat up, cheeks overly warm by the feeling of jeno’s arms around you. 

“What the fuck?” you whisper yell, as you turn around to find the black haired boy, whose hair is almost long enough to fall in front of his eyes, laugh. His eyes, turning into beautiful small moons, that make your heart slightly flip, the cold shock of water no longer there. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice is slightly puzzled but joyous, and he can’t seem to stop himself from looking at your smile, your eyes, the way that even though your tone suggests your mad at him he finds you adorable. No, she’s not adorable. She’s just a girl, a girl that is really smart and doesn’t throw herself at you. No, no, no. 

“Earth to jeno !” you snap your fingers in front of him, and it seems to do the trick as his eyes seem to focus back on you, a small “huh” escapes his lips and you can’t help but laugh, as you splash water towards him. The smile on his face, springs back up, drops of water adorning his nose, and eyes as gravity pulls them back to their resting place, in the midst of other bonds between hydrogen and oxygen. 

The way you tilt your head to the side, eyes gleaming with delight as jeno laughs, splashing water towards you, the start of a small water fight between a swimmer and chemistry lover. 

Chemical bonds work in mysterious ways. A collision between one particle and another has to be precise, exact and the particles must be able to fit each other, and shaping itself to make the other a suitable compound. Bonds that form between compounds can become radiant, strong and vibrant but dangerous to those around it. Hydrogen and oxygen when bonded together, though different slowly build each other up. The splash of water against one’s skin, the way a drop fall’s down slowly on the other’s eye. Successions of bonds that form with each other, creating a picture of carefree ness. Or at least that’s what it seems to be at the beginning. 

 Winter rolls around and the study sessions continue. They become a routine, a part of your day that much as you hate to admit, is the favorite part of your day. Meeting with Jeno in the midst of the library, books and notes of scribbled drawings and letters filling up at least one table, as jeno listens to you ramble about chemistry. In return, for tutoring Jeno always brings you hot chocolate, a drink that never fails to bring you comfort especially when the wind is picking up speed and the first flakes of snow drift towards the ground. 

You can’t exactly recall how many times you tell the raven haired boy that payment isn’t necessary, that you truly are just tutoring in order to help him, but the boy refuses. He loves to see the way you wrap your hands around the mug, as you relax from the burdensome day you’ve had. 

The swim meets that you used to, though not detest, not love either begin to be more frequent in your life. Louds cheers and shrieks fill the pool deck, as the school's swimmers race against the opposing team. Chlorine fills your nose, humidity makes your skin sticky and heavy but you are part of the screaming students that yell and cheer for the school's team. The poster you created in the spare time between homework and lectures, has “go jeno '' written on it, and even though you two don’t talk after the meets jeno smiles everytime he sees you in the crowd cheering for the team and him. His smile as his best friend describes it, is that of a lovestruck one, which Jeno refuses to acknowledge or believe, because there was no way he could be in love with you. The two of you were friends. Friends that laughed together, and talked about anything that was on your minds late into the night, and would have late night swims after hours when the pool was closed down. 

Jaemin knows the power love has on people, and he’s sure that jeno is in love with the girl who’s been tutoring him since the beginning of the year. He knew, because jeno’s face would light up everytime he saw you in the bleachers. He knew like the rest of his friend group knew, that he would mention you in conversations when something they were talking about would remind him of you. Jaeming knew the bond that had formed between the two of you was something he thought jeno wouldn’t be able to have, but managed to get from you. The only thing Jaemin wished, was for his best friend to realize the luck he had gotten from meeting you. 

It’s spring and you’re almost sure at this point that Jeno doesn’t need any more tutoring, as he comes into the cafe you decided to meet up, the smile that seems to brighten your day no matter how windy and rainy it is outside. Jeno almost runs to you, the paper in his hand flailing slightly behind him, as he tells you how he’s passed. Proudly does he show you the graded exam paper on organic chemistry, the perfectly drawn bonds to each other, earning him the highest grade in the class. You can’t help but jump up from your seat, the chocolate on your mug almost tipping over as you wrap your arms around jeno, congratulating him over and over again. 

Jeno’s smile widens, as he wraps his arms around you, lightly you slightly off the ground until you are slightly dizzy and are asking him to bring you down. The joy from your face never leaves, as the words of congratulations and happiness left your mouth. It’s only when your smile falters slightly, that jeno’s does too, the giddiness and butterflies he continues to refuse to acknowledge leaving as you sit down again. 

“So…” 

“So…” jeno mocks, trying to lighten the mood just lightly, and he manages to make the ends of you lips curve up slightly. 

“So, i guess you don’t need my help anymore” the words leave your mouth like lead, heavy on your tongue, as you look down at your hot chocolate willing the coming dread to go away. 

“Well, no, I still need help” the look you give him makes him move slightly his back hitting the back of the chair, “okay… maybe i don’t need help on how bonds form and break, but…” Jeno fumbles over his words, nit really sure what he wants to say. That he wants to keep seeing you? That he honestly had stopped needing tutoring sessions a while ago, but he kept asking for them because he loves spending time with you. Loved to see you smile and his dumb jokes, as your eyes would light up with vague amusement, lips curling upwards as your laugh drifted through the library. Wanted to tell you that he had never felt this way for someone else, had never let them see the vulnerable side of him, his insecurities as the two of you held onto each other lightly through a link between your hands as you floated in the school's pool. 

“But… i guess this is goodbye” you can feel the word, slip through your tongue, the world goodbye piercing through your heart, bricks dropping on you. You’re not quite sure why you say goodbye, why you want to hug the boy in front of you, and kiss him and hold him and tell him how much you love him. But oh shit that’s exactly why you’re pushing him away. Why as much as your heart aches, to hold onto the good memories scared of the ones that could leave the bonds to break between you two. 

Jeno can almost swear he can feel his heart drop down to his stomach. The words that escape your lips, as you play with the sizzling hot beverage in front of you, not daring to look up at him. His throat feels clogged, and he wants to yell, scream, hold you for reasons he can’t quite understand, and finally tell you what jaemin has been telling him this whole time. How very much head over heels for you he is, the bonds clicking into place every time he’s held your hand, as he taught you how to swim lightly in the pool. 

The black haired boy, whose eyes are usually warm and open, are now dark. The brown almost becomes dark enough to blend with the pupils, as he takes a breath. 

“Um… yeah i guess it’s goodbye” the words drop heavy between the two of you. Gazes not met, and hearts left cold as Jeno gets up, the paper he’d been so happy and excited to tell you about forgotten as it drifts towards the floor. Falling quietly and softly, wrinkled between the hands of jeno as he hugged you what seems to be hours ago. 

Hydrogen bonds break the easiest. The strength between the two oxygen and the single hydrogen can only take so much pressure between them before something tips it off scale, breaking the bond. A relationship that has been built, slowly, through awkwards laughs, and shared notes. A bond, built on chaotic swims at 12 o’clock at night when neither of you could sleep, and just wanted to spend more time with each other. 

Relationships,  you are almost sure at this point work much like chemical bonds. Yet unlike chemistry, the bond that you had built with jeno, doesn’t warn you of the heartache and void you feel when you don’t get the weird jokes the boy sends you everyday, it doesn’t tell you of the loss of heat that would come from the steaming cup of chocolate always there for you wherever you had a bad day. Chemistry doesn't warn you about the way your heart craves the missing piece that you pushed away, thinking it would hurt more when the day would come that he didn’t want you anymore. Lectures and notes on notes about covalent bonds, don’t want you how jeno made you feel, as his black hair tickled your neck when he rested his head on your shoulder when he didn’t want to study anymore, or the way he snuggled closer to you as you played with his hair. 

Bonds. Weak and strong, beautiful and dangerous, destructive and hopeful. 

The next month passes in a blur of lectures and night spent overworking yourself into the essays and labs given to you by professors. All-nighters became more frequent than normal sleep nights, to the point where your roommate would have to force you to go to sleep, even as she came in late at night smelling slightly of booze or cigarettes from the campus party. 

It wasn’t a secret that you had tutored the top boy at your college to anyone. Most if not all students that desperately wanted to grab at any gossip that might be thrown their ways, would snatch up the news of the school's swimmer and top bachelor as fast as they could. Whispers of a relationship that never happened, and would only happen in your dreams, could be heard at almost every lecture. Murmurs that would make you walk straighter, chin held high at the comments of a story they didn’t truly know. 

Buzz. buzz. Metal and plastic vibrates against your desks, shaking the scatter of papers that are clumped around your workspace. You flip it around, only to see crescent moons, and a mop of black hair on your phone, as jeno’s phone number flashes in and out of the screen. Instinctively, you reach for the phone, hand ready to push the “answer” button and it’s too late when you realize that you’ve answered the phone, and a silence of crackling noises is heard from the opposite end. Silence seems to fill the room, the air you breathe and you're about to hang up until you hear the bickering between two boys. A stream of curses flow from what you can almost swear is jeno’s mouth, as the other boy speaks into the microphone, “is this y/n” 

“Uh… yeah, and you are?” the second part of your sentence, your almost sure goes unheard as the squeal that comes from the boy’s mouth. The next words that you hear seem to be all mushed up together, as the boy who you have come to assume is jaemin tells you something along the lines of “go. pool. tomorrow. Jeno” before something that sounds like it hurts, is heard from the line and it goes silent. If you were confused about jeno before, you can’t help but wonder now if this is a push towards the bonds to be repaired. 

“y/n !!” disrupts your confused train of thought as your roommate barges into your room, the smirk that is plastered on her face would have made you slightly concerned if it were for her normal happy go personality, that never fails to give you energy. 

“Let me tell you the story of you and a boy named jeno” as the words leave her lips, you start your protests, not wanting to hear about the boy who had become your best friend in the year that you tutored him. 

“Girl, shut up and listen to me” she snaps, almost pinning you down on your chair, and so she does tell you. Tell’s you things that you already know, like the fact that you’re almost sure jeno’s smile could heal anything on this planet, or how he’s shy and sweet, always wanting to be enough for the team. She tells you about the month that has passed, where though you didn’t wallow, jeno had begun to slightly let his grades slip. A small attempt to get you as a tutor yet again. The plan hadn’t worked and he’d gotten renjun ashis tutor instead. 

Stories she shares with you, stories about jeno that you knew, but had pushed away because everytime his name would be brought up your cheeks would flush slightly, and your smile would brighten even just a little bit, butterflies swarming in your stomach. 

Best friends. The sharing between two people, that trust and count on each other. The bond formed between the two is different than that formed between lovers, or siblings. But like everything regarding the formation and breaking of something, these bonds can change into something more. Something that lights up your world if you let, and break down your walls. 

The pool’s doors were open by the time you reached the athletic department. You had thought you’d seen everything, the pool had to offer after your late night swims with jeno. But you’d never seen the full moon at its peak, the light reflected upon the shimmering water. 

Small ripples caused the moon's reflection to waver slightly, a cause of the dipping of your feet into the water, testing the temperature, before you felt a light tap on your shoulder. You could feel the shiver that runs down your back, as jeno’s hands make contact with your skin. The ghost of a smile begins to present itself on your face, as you turn around to find yourself with jeno, whose face is a reflection of yours. Cheeks dusted with a red tint, eyes almost becoming the moon phase that you’d first seen in the pool. 

“hey”

“hey”  

“you first” jeno says, his eyes are warm and are slightly reflected by the moon. The small laugh that escapes your lips, makes his smile broaden, as you turn around and stretch your hand towards jeno. It takes only a second, before you can feel jeno’s hand wrapped around yours, the light calluses on his palms from playing guitar every so often, that warmth a comfort. The ghost of a smile has fully bloomed on your face, as you tug jeno towards you before jumping into the pool. 

Time seems to slow down, the second you two break the surface of water. You know time and movements feel slower when you’re underwater, the smell of chlorine and burning sensation makes your eyes water only slightly. But the bubbles that rise to the surface as you look at jeno, laughing at the ridiculousness of everything that’s happened between you two. 

The faltering bonds begin to form again, stronger than before. Bonds that can't be broken as easily and are ready to create compounds filled with a variation of emotions that work together. The way that you hold onto each other, hand in hand as you break the surface, time coming back at normal speed, as jeno pulls you towards him. Hands still intertwined, as the other holds your waist, a tender touch. The way you look at each other, is enough for the words that have yet to be said and have not been exchanged. 

Smiles exchanged, hands held, foreheads almost touching under the moonlight. It seems to be magic, the way the light bounces off the water and reflects upon the two of you, lovesick smiles placed on both your faces. The warmth of each other, a comforting presence that surrounds the two of you as you take a break, and breathe the words you’ve been dying to say since the day, jeno walked into a late tutoring session, hair dripping wet from a late practice. His words a rush of sorrys and cute shy glances as he gives you a mug, with the words “chemistry of water” written around it. The way his smile made you heart flutter, and just one look would make your day.

 “I love you”

The words hang in the air, said at the same time by jeno and you, and the both of you erupt into laughter, as jeno pulls you closer the, head buried in your shoulder as the strands tickle your neck, the words “i love you” being repeated over and over again.

The way you two fit into each other, in the midst of night, water lapping at your sides, as you laugh at a joke one or the other says, you realize that chemistry and relationships truly are the same. If all it takes is a small push, to help a boy with too much to do, and a student who can’t help but want to expand their knowledge. The bonds between two people change and strengthen, the more they interact with each other. It’s the things like laughing at each other's jokes, or holding onto each other late into the night, when no one else is judging no one can disrupt the bonds formed between them. In those moments, the bonds are strengthened, as you hold each other close, stars and moon aligned in the night sky lighting up the pool, leaving the world at peace.

[romnff-blog]

suncity

warnings: kinda angsty (with a bit of fluff), tw for anyone who’s triggered by talk of drowning, a couple of swear words &&&& I think that’s it.

pairings: bucky x reader

a/n: the title of this has almost nothing to do w the story unless you wanna be deep about it and whatever I just couldn’t think of a name for it and this was the song I listened to while writing so djdjsj

-

“You have got to be kidding me!” You complained, somewhat to yourself but loud enough for anyone at a five mile radius to hear you as you attempted to sort out the equipment Stark had set you up with earlier that morning as the enemies continued their attack on you. You’d thrown a few kicks and punches with your able hand and feet as you tried figuring out how to work this hell of a device with the other.

“What is it this time?” Urged an annoyed Bucky through the tiny ear piece, “what’s got your panties in such a twist?” He mumbled in complete annoyance, sounds of throats being slashed and heads being banged into one another echoing through the coms in the background.

“Shut it, Manchurian candidate,” remembering Tony’s nickname for the old guy that made you chuckle, you retorted, “don’t you have some ass to be kicking?”

“Don’t you have some nails to be polishing?�� He shot back. That little shit. It’s as if you could literally hear the smirk forming on his face as he knew exactly what it took to set you off. With a huff, you stormed off to the end of the deserted island, holding your weapons in very close proximity as you continue to keep a close eye for any enemy attack.

You could hear the Captain and Nat scoff and exchange a few words before hearing Steve’s demanding voice, “stop arguing, you two, keep an eye out. We may tolerate your annoyance but these guys won’t. They’ll have your heads chopped off within the blink of an eye, Ill assure you of that.” All was silent for a moment as the team had split up, each taking their own personal rage out on the enemy before Natasha’s smug voice shot up with a, “cap’s right, it’s like you guys are like, I don’t know, in love or something. I’ve only ever seen couples fight the way you two do—“ her words were cut off with loud, annoyed groans from both you and Barnes, emitting a low chuckle from her. Asshat.

Here’s the thing with you and Bucky. How does one put this? Well, you didn’t really get along. Like, at all. When you first met, there was an instant click between you two. Everyone had noticed from the beginning. You weren’t ever even really sure what it was but you just seemed to get along so well and it made you more than happy seeing as how it took you almost weeks –with some, even months– to befriend half of the people on the team, so everything just seemed so easy with him. Next thing you knew, you were doing everything together. Almost like best friends, you could say.

Almost.

You weren’t really sure what happened or what it was that you did to him but he just -all of a sudden-stopped talking to you. You questioned the action, even tried confronting him about it a couple of times but only ever got really short, angry and sassy remarks. It broke you heart. To think that the one person you found easiest to open up to, the person you looked forward to waking up in the morning just to see, the one you’d always find rummaging around in the kitchen at 3am knowing damn well you’d be up, unable to sleep, wanting someone to talk to. Knowing that one person who made you happiest all of a sudden just..hated you? And for no reason, you thought.

It’s made you think a lot. What could it have possibly been that you’d done to upset him so much? He’s never been one to hold a grudge, I mean, come on. The guy fell off a freight train, almost died, (not before being “brought back to life” by a couple of evil men) been experimented on and used as a killing machine. If he really was one to hold a grudge, it would most definitely not be towards you. So what was it?

It took some time but slowly you started pulling away as well. Why was it fair for him to treat you this way, yet you’d still come running into his arms the second he’s in need? Fuck that. From that day onward it was like a competition between the two. Always arguing, calling each other names, refusing to work together. The team had most definitely taken a notice on this as well. Always having to deal with the endless bickering between the two.

Little had y/n known, Bucky most definitely did not hate her. Probably the exact opposite. He didn’t know he’d ever feel this..feeling ever again. Especially not after ‘dying.’ He didn’t think he was worthy of such a thing after what he’s done for decades. Steve still has to remind him everyday that that wasn’t him, that he’s innocent and that he’s had no choice. It’s like Steve had put some spell on y/n because soon after she had befriended bucky, that’s all she would tell him. Steve teased his dearest friend about his newly found friend crush on y/n. Bucky loves steve, he really does, but there are times that all he wants to do is crane kick him in the neck.

Ever since then, that’s all Bucky could think about. Did he actually like you? Could there have been a hint of truth in what Steve had said? No, it couldn’t be. You would hate him forever and never talk to him again. Maybe even laugh in his face before storming off and out of his life forever. It’s odd because after all the man has literally gone through years of brainwash, physical abuse, almost dying (if not everyday then every other day) and having murdered innocent people with his own bare hands. A little rejection shouldn’t be a worry. It shouldn’t. But it is. Or, was, you could say. There is no way you’d ever talk to him (well, in a friendly manner, at least) again. Not after how he has treated you all these years. That’s why he’s been so cold with you. But you could never know that. No, he would rather die (trust me, he knows exactly what he’s talking about and yes, he would much rather die, again.)

Looking around herself, y/n took a look at the pile of bodies stacked up on-top of one another, taking in an exhausted breath. It’s been hours since you arrived on this little island and hours since you’ve seen the rest of the team. The mission you were sent on consisted of you, Bucky, Natasha and Steve. Steve and Natasha were off somewhere in the forest where some of the hydra agents hid, the piezoelectric sensor -a device that uses the piezoelectric effect,- that nat had tony set up earlier during one of his machine test-outs had set itself off at their presence, measuring not only the change in pressure, acceleration, temperature, strain, or force and converting them to an electrical charge. That had those agents off their feet in no time (literally.)

You and Bucky had been set up to work together, but due to your, as Steve would say, ‘pointless, ongoing and sadly never ending bickering,’ you were unable to do so as Steve worried the two would be the ones to kill each other before any hydra agent could. Having had your ear piece on for quite some time your ear started to get a bit irritated, so you did as anyone would with an irritating ear piece and went to remove it. But upon doing so, you hear a strange noise. Hesitant, you perk an ear to listen closely, com hanging loosely on your chest. The noise, it’s almost like a muffled scream. But where’s it coming from?

With wide eyes you reach for the com and, surely enough, said noise is coming from the other end of the piece. The muffled screamed..is that..? Oh no.

“You vant him,” you hear a thick German accent speak softly but demandingly, allowing you to hear the screams of terror, “come get him!” And with that you hear a loud splash and your heart stops.

“BUCKY,” you scream before running off into the secluded area. You didn’t even know where your feet were taking you anymore as you weeped at the thought of having lost him. A stream of tears descended your face like a broken necklace of pearls, clutching and beating at your chest as you sobbed violently.

After trudging in the sand for what seemed like hours -in reality having only been no more than twenty minutes- and sobbing like a madman, something had caught your eyesight, turning your full attention towards the calm waves you noticed a shiny, what seemed to be metal object waving in the water. Had your eyes been deceiving you? Your doubts were answered by another wave and this time you knew that your eyes had not been playing any sort of tricks on you.

In shock and utter disbelief, you gasped, running towards the water and jumping in, not at all caring about getting wet. You swam and swam until it felt like the water was burning your lungs. Had only you learned how to swim, this would have been a piece of cake. Keeping your eyes wide open, even through the salty ocean water, you had caught sight of him. It’s like someone had lit a fire because your heart was starting to get all warm and fuzzy again. Or was that just the water slowly making its way into your body, slowly killing you due to your lack of swimming skills, Lord knows.

Was it the salt from the water or the fact that you had been crying for so long that your eyes felt like they were burning, you would never know.

Finally getting a hold of the unconscious metal-armed man you once called friend it’s as if all that worry and doubt you had about his safety was all gone. Well, almost. It would really help a lot if he wasn’t unconscious right now. Using all of the strength you didn’t even know you were capable of handling, you fumbled around your belt to attach yourself to the man with the help of a hook and rope you always carried around the belt of your suit in case of emergency. The weight of his bionic arm and the density of the water making it all even tougher to get the job done and it worried you if whether or not you could make it out in time and alive. The thought of that weighed down on you even more, almost triggering an anxiety attack.

It took everything in you not to start panicking in this situation right now and breathing in wasn’t necessarily an option right now. The only possible way of making it out alive, you thought, was abandoning Bucky and swimming to your own safety and there was no way in hell you were gonna let either of those happen. It’s either you both live or you both die. Something in y/n had sparked motivation, thinking about bucky more than herself, pushing herself to the limit and carrying all of bucky on her back and swimming as much as she possibly could to the top. Each move seemed to make the surface look so much further away than it actually was, and it should have made you feel like giving up like it would in most situations but it only motivated you to continue swimming and even harder and faster than the last.

After what seemed like hours of terror and anxiety, both yourself and Bucky had reached the surface. With heavy breaths you threw yourself to the left side of bucky, looking over at him and smiling tiredly, letting out the biggest breath of relief. It seems as though the evil man had duck taped bucky’s mouth. In panic, you quickly removed the tape and, without a second thought, began performing cpr. Continuing for what seemed like forever, it seemed to be of no use. His pulse was now going (as it wasn’t before) so that was a relief but he was still unconscious and that was enough to set you off on another sob-fit. Burying your face in his chest, you began to weep.

It’s as if the heavens were answering your every prayer because in came Steve and Natasha rushing in on the scene.

“What happened, we heard your screams and then both your coms went off, is everything alri—oh my god..” Steve came running before he could even attempt to finish his sentence as he took notice of the mans unconscious state. “Romanoff, call up Stark. Tell him to get the jet and hurry. We’re going back early.” He ordered, earning a quick, “On it.”

Less than twenty minutes later and the jet was here. Bucky’s body was being carried in the back. You took the seat right next to him, praying everything was alright.

You had made it to the hospital as you prayed he was in good hands you couldn’t help but think back to all the good times with him. Sure, a lot of it was mostly just the usual arguments and nonessential bickering but you still cherished it. No matter how much he may have hated you, he’s still the man you fell in love with the first day you met. You hated having to admit it but it’s true. You were head over heels in love with this man (who, let’s not forget, hates your guts!) and if you were having doubts about it before, today most definitely clarified those doubts.

You didn’t realize you were lost in thought until the nurse was waving a hand in your face. Shaking yourself out of the trans, you looked up at the woman.

“Are you y/n?”

“Yes? Who’s asking?”

“The patent is awake. James barnes, says he wants to see you.” Said the woman before turning on her heel, leading me to the room.

‘He wants to see me?’ You thought ‘I don’t know whether I should be scared or happy. Is this a good thing? Should I be excited? I’m thinking too much.”

Your breath hitched in your throat as you looked at the man in the hospital bed eyeing you wearily with a tired smile. “Come ‘ere.” He motions for you to sit beside him. So you do.

“Hi.” You whisper shyly, ghosting your fingers along where the scars appeared -between the shoulder and metal meet- hesitantly.

“Hi,” He replies, smiling tiredly before replacing it with a tiny frown “you saved me.”

Confused, you reply, “yeah, I did. What’s wrong?”

“Why?”

Why? What does he mean why?

“Why? Why not? Did you think I was gonna let you drown to death? Is that what you were expecting or me?”

“No, no,” He replies defensively, “it’s just,” He sighs before mumbling “I don’t deserve to be here, especially after how I treated you and after all I’ve done all these years. I don’t deserve to live, you should have just left me to die.”

That was all it took to set you off.

“Are you kidding me buck? Of course you deserve to live! You have never done anything to me or to anyone else to make yourself think you aren’t worthy of walking the face of this earth like everyone else. What you “did” all those years? That wasn’t you! You had no control of yourself. They took advantage of you in a vulnerable state and made you do some very unspeakable things. But it wasn’t you. You have zero reason to believe that you aren’t worthy because you are! You’re the most amazing person I have ever met in my entire life! When we stopped talking and you turned away from me and our friendship I was beyond hurt, wanna know why? Because I care about you buck! so so much. Everyone on the team does. You are loved, Bucky. You’re wanted and you’re so worth it.”

Bucky blinked a couple of times, taking in the sudden rant you just went on as he thought. You really did care about him, huh. If it weren’t for the funny tasting medicine they gave him he would probably know what to say, instead going for,

“Would you totally hate me if I kissed you right now?”

And that was it. This was bucky’s shot. No more fear of rejection. No regrets. It was chilling but thrilling and he definitely was not expecting for you to say what you were about to.

“No.”

It was in a hushed tone. So quiet you might have missed it if you had not been listening closely but lucky enough for bucky, the silence filling the hospital room made it so that whatever hushed whisper either one of them had spoken to the other could be heard loud and clear to them but no one else.

So what was he waiting for? He did as he promised and leaned -well, not in because he’s the one in the bed and he’s actually looking up at her so- up to capture your lips in his and -as cliche as it is, because what’s a first kiss without a cliche, overused reference?- it’s like Independence Day came early because you’d never think you’d feel this many sparks in your entire life (see, what’d I tell you about the cliche, you were warned, folks.)

You put your everything into this kiss, reminding yourself to be as gentle as possible, almost as if he were brittle glass you were afraid you’d break if you kissed any harder. The kiss was everything. Passionate, slow and tender but reassuring and it was not rushed but quick enough to assure there would be more in the future.

Breaking the kiss, you’d rest your forehead against bucky’s, enjoying each others presence. Neither of you spoke, but you were definitely thinking the same thing. This was going to be the start of something new -and you liked the thought of that- but for now you both really need the rest, so best assured you do.

-

a/n: hi it’s 11pm and my head hurts like a lot lol so I’m gonna sleep but hey! my very first ever one shot! and it’s pretty long, I’d say? idk that’s probably just a matter of opinion (idk what you would consider long) but. hopefully there’s more in the future, just hope you enjoyed this one. please show this some love, ur girl would really love that. pls feedback is very very much appreciated! also literally not kidding I haven’t proofread this so let’s just pray there are very minimal, tolerable mistakes ok im djdjsj ok bye now ilysm hope you’re having the greatest day/night

hugs, k 💌

[twogyus]

Time Spent Alone; [Johnny Seo]

Prompt: Being away from Johnny is hard, and you find it difficult to voice that thought. 

Word Count: 4220

Genre: ANGST, hurt/comfort

Warning(s): SMUT, generally unstable behavior/ relationship dynamics

Sometimes you think he can't possibly love you. No, not as deeply as you love him. Because sometimes during his long absences, he forgets to call. He doesn't answer your messages, doesn't comment on the selfies you hate to take but take to send him anyways. The goofy ones are the most embarrassing, but one once elicited a response. Now you frequently crack silly faces and snap a picture to share with him.

Lately, you are lucky if he sees it within 4 hours of you sending it.

You bottle your feelings up inside. Every unanswered call or text is a shake to your system. You try your best to not resent him when you forage your brain for reasons he might be ignoring you. You settle for resenting his line of work. Being an idol had great benefits like worldwide popularity and wealth, unfortunately, it often called for sacrificing your private life.

Blaming work calms your restless behavior for a while. You remind yourself it’s what he wants to do and he is doing it well. It would be impossible to fault him for immersing himself to the point everything else fades into background noise. Except you find it’s not impossible. When you see the group has returned via photos on the internet, three days after their arrival, that the cap on your carefully bottled anger pops off.

You send Johnny a picture of you pouting and follow it up with an ‘I wish you were here </3.’

It takes two hours for him to see it. Two hours and fifteen minutes more for him to answer back.

The adult way to handle your situation would be for you to tell him you knew he had returned, for you to ask when you could see him. However, Johnny’s caring personality often reduced you to a childish mess. It was easy for you to give way to your anxieties when you knew he would be around to comfort you, but this time he isn’t and he hasn’t been for a while.

You tug your shirt down some and put your free hand to your cheek, squishing it for maximum cuteness. Your cleavage is enhanced by your arms pressing your breasts together. You take what you decide is your final picture of the day and caption it something sappy about half of your heart missing. You post it to all of your private social media accounts. You doze off half an hour later and consequently miss his call.

You have two missed calls when you wake. Both are from Johnny and both you willfully ignore due to sheer pettiness. Wanting him to match you call for call, however irrational that would be, you prepare yourself dinner instead of worrying.

Someone knocks just after your first bite.

You sit still until there is a second set of knocks, heavier this time. When you hear the door handle rattle your suspicions are confirmed. Sprinting to the door and throwing it open, you are greeted by Johnny. He grins down at you, moving in for a hug. You back out of his reach, motioning for him to come in. He promptly removes his hat and unhooks his mask from under his chin, leaving them on the stand to his right.

You tap your fingers on the door as you lean your weight into it. He is waiting for you to remark on him being here, in your house. He believes the last thing you had known was that he was still out of the country. Except it’s not and you have known for a few hours as of now. You aren’t happy, you are pissed.

“Come on, aren’t you surprised to see me?” He gestures to himself. You clearly aren’t.

“Not really. The internet alerted me of your arrival.”

“Oh, it was one of those days?”

Those days were the ones where you could find nothing better to do. Not working or hanging out with friends or colleagues, the internet drew you in before the options on an online streaming service could. He knew you occasionally dabbled in checking on the group’s whereabouts or dispatch releases.

“I’ve had about ten of those days since you’ve been gone. That’s seven days short of the three days you’ve been back in Korea.”

Johnny visibly deflates at your revelation.

“I can’t comprehend why you didn’t tell me sooner, Johnny. You know if you wanted time to yourself you could have just told me.””

He huffs in annoyance. “Really, you can’t just be happy to see me? I’m happy to see you.”

“Cool, thanks.” You’re not sure where he gets off acting like this isn’t a big deal. It had been over a month since you’ve seen each other. He’s drawn it out longer than necessary, you would have preferred his honesty.

“__, what do you want me to do, apologize? I’m sorry. Can we just enjoy being together now? You told me you missed me earlier, though now I realize you were teasing me for not telling you I was back…This isn’t really anything to be mad over since I’m right here, right now.”

You allow yourself to be pulled into his arms. Aggravation aside it feels nice. Face turned so your cheek is plush against his chest, he drops kisses along the top of your head. “Ew, my hair hasn’t been washed in forever, stop that.” When you try to slip away he holds you tighter.

“That’s gross but you should be delighted to know you smell as fresh as daisies.”

“God, you are the corniest stalk in the field. I hope you don’t rub off on me.” You appreciate it despite your jests. He laughs loudly. “Alright, I’m not any better after that. I’m still mad at you though. I wish you would have told me. I would have prepared something special.”

“You knew and you still didn’t wash your hair.”

You grimace, this time successfully removing yourself from his grasp. “I just assumed after three days back and not a word said, you wouldn’t be coming to see me any time soon.”

“So that picture you sent wasn’t supposed to entice me in the least?” He raises his brows, “You looked great by the way. I missed your face. A lot.”

“No, it totally was.” You walk over to the dish of food left on the table. “ I was aiming to give you blue balls since you wanted to be an ass.” You begin to pack up your leftovers. “Just think, we could have been having sex for three days straight.”

“Why can’t we still do that,” He comes up behind you to turn on the sink. You hand him your bowl to wash. “Let’s take that idea and run with it.” He does a poor job at scrubbing, eager to get his hands on you. Your back is to him while you shuffle things around in the fridge. “You ignoring me?”

You snort. Not answering his one question and he’s asking if you’re ignoring him. You find it ironic and so you keep your mouth shut. You hear the water shut off.

He grabs you around the waist, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Baby, what’s wrong? You said so yourself that you need alone time occasionally. That can’t be what all this is about.”

“And why can’t it?” It’s easier to explain away. If you say that then you can maintain your dignity.

He’s turning to nuzzle his nose into your neck despite you attempting to escape his reach. He tugs you closer each time until you’re flush against him. He drags you away from the fridge and down the hall to your bedroom. “I don’t want you to be mad at me,” he makes you sit, ”but if you’re gonna be will you at least tell me why?”

You shake your head because he deserves an answer that you aren’t willing to give. Johnny is an easy read and you can see his patience dwindling with every quiet second. You chance it that he’ll understand your neuroticism even the slightest bit. “Did you really not come to see me because you wanted to be alone? Just a yes or no question.”

“Yes.” He’s silenced by a wave of your hand prior to his elaboration.

“Well, I don’t care if you want alone time, Johnny.” He looks utterly confused at your short tone now. “I want alone time sometimes too, and I get it whenever you have practice or need to shoot in a foreign country.” You are picking at the skin around your nails, “Except it's not three days of alone time when you go away, it’s weeks. So I’m a little mad that we’ve gone an entire month without seeing each other and you chose to prolong it.”

Johnny is used to you being open about when you want to be left alone. It’s a rarity, however, when you say that you want him around.  When he’s absent you never ask for him to see you, you offer to come see him. Throughout the course of your relationship, you’ve never once said you missed him. Until today that is. It’s why he came over instead of waiting until the next day as planned. “__, I. I hope you don’t think I did this because I didn’t want to see you. That’s not the case at all.”

You pinch at the bridge of your nose. It would be best for you to forget about the whole thing now that you’re together again.  “You’re off either performing and having the time of your life and my quote-unquote alone time is spent waiting for you to message me back or to pick up when I call.“ Sadly, everything that’s been bothering you is on the tip of your tongue, pushing at the backs of your teeth, begging to be let out. “Both of which are rare occurrences as of late. Honestly, John, it’s getting tiring being placed on the backburner.”

Johnny would never say that you were crazy, but he thinks about it sometimes. “Don’t be ...I’m not out there having fun all of the time. My work might be different than your desk job but it’s still work to me. I don’t always like doing it, not every day is a walk in the park.” He feels terrible about it, but it’s a fleeting thought he has when you’re angry with him..“I wanted time alone because I’ve been cooped up with the group since July.”

“God, I know that, I get that part!” You could scratch your eyes out and it would be less painful than having this conversation. You only continue because you don’t want him to leave and he will the second you clam up. “But it’s not about this singular occurrence, it’s a built-up mass of obsessive, negative concerns about our relationship.”

Johnny is starting to develop a massive headache. He’s reminded of why he wanted to be alone. He’s a fixer by heart, he sees someone needing help and he goes to them no questions asked. It’s nice for him to have time to himself, to not worry about the problems of others or the image he has to maintain in public. “What can I do?” But ultimately he loves you and hates to see you disgruntled more than usual.

As much as you want to hold on to your grudge, to keep the burning under your skin alive, you know if you don’t stop now you won’t forgive him in the near future. “Nothing.” You shake your head, “You can’t go back and answer my calls, reply to my messages. Take away the agitation I had,.. that would be nice but it’s altogether impossible.”

“There has to be something,” That’s code for he isn’t leaving until he feels you’ve let go of your resentment. He places a hand on top of yours. When you don’t pull away after a few seconds he trails it up to your elbow for leverage to tug you into his arms.

Johnny’s warmth does nothing to comfort you now, in fact, it makes you uneasy. Typically you will let yourself wallow until a numbness sets in and your tears dry. You’ll lay back in bed and stare at your ceiling fan, letting yourself go cross-eyed as you watch the fast rotation. If that doesn’t work, you’ll turn over onto your stomach and shove your hand down your pants and scream into your pillows. You hum at the idea.

“What is it?”

You hesitate to answer him, opening and closing your mouth a few times. “You could make me forget for a while if you’re up for it.”

He catches on immediately but wants to hear you say the words. He can practically feel you vibrating with anticipation in his hold.

“I want you to touch me.”

“You do?” He leans back to look at you. “Are you sure, because I was honestly afraid to even attempt hand holding a second ago.”

“It would be good stress relief, wouldn’t it? You know about this stuff better than I do.”

You mean he knows about calming people down, but Johnny’s had his fair share orgasms in a dirty stall mid-practice to get lessen his frustration. That’s where his mind wanders and he remembers it’s more of a band-aid than a long-term solution. Although, he half expected you to throw him out by now, so when you suggest this he nods. He gives you a kiss on the forehead, locking eyes before moving down to your lips, waiting to be turned away.

You meet in the middle, opening your mouth to him a second later. Tilting your head so the angle isn’t putting a strain on your neck, you grasp onto his shoulders. He licks into you and you become pliant under his guidance despite your fierce desperation. Johnny finds it weird how it’s easy for you to let go of control when it comes to sex, but difficult with anything else. He moves his hands to the back of your head to keep you close as he pushes you down onto the mattress.

A silence falls over the room when you part from each other. You shift further up the bed and he follows you, lying between your spread legs, mouth attaching to your neck. You arch your back and reach underneath yourself to undo your bra, throwing it to the side, then fumbling with your shirt until Johnny discards of it for you.

You instinctively cover your face when Johnny stops to stare at your bare chest. He runs his hands up and down your sides a few times before squeezing each of your mounds of flesh. You squirm against his cold touch and gasp when he tugs on your nipples. He keeps them pinched tight, listening to how your breaths turn shallow. His grip becomes tighter and tiny electric shocks run through you, causing you to cry out.

You are panting and your eyes have glossed over. Despite your pained noise, you haven’t asked for him to stop.  He sets out to replace his fingers with his teeth. You shudder under the wet heat, pushing yourself closer, yanking on his hair when his jaw goes slack. He eventually let’s go, choosing to trail his mouth down your stomach.

You busy yourself with trying to toe your pants down your legs, eager for whatever Johnny has planned. He pushes them past your knees and off one leg for to you to fling them to the ground. He further parts your thighs for his body to better fit when he shuffles lower. Face level with your pussy, he looks up to see you still hiding. “Is this okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay with this?” You want to kick him but you wouldn’t actually dare. You wish he would just take what he wanted and get on with it. That’s what you did for yourself. You never drag it out, managing to work yourself to an orgasm in less than ten minutes when infuriated. “Just make me cum, please.”

He draws his brows together. You were too shy to look at him but okay with telling him to make you fall apart?  He separates your folds and proceeds to groan at the sight. Though surprised at how visibly wet you are, he finally comes to the conclusion of why you don’t want him to touch you after you’ve argued. You cannot fathom wanting him to touch you when all you need is for him to leave you alone.

You tremble as he leaves gentle kisses along your inner thighs. His fingers prodding at your entrance nearly driving you insane. He strokes a finger through your wetness a couple more times before pressing it into you. Your walls suction him in deeper and you ask for another. Johnny tentatively smiles at you, relieved to see your eyes uncovered and nervous to displease you at the same time. When he brings his mouth to your bundle of nerves your eyes roll back and you clutch at the pillow under your head.

The pleasure you are feeling quickly replaces any overpoweringly negative emotions. You realize you shouldn’t be changing your mind because of sexual gratification, but you can’t help it when he’s got his lips suctioned around your clit. As the flat of his tongue rubs against it you gasp, drawing the sound out as his fingers pick up their pace.

Johnny uses his free hand to hold you flat when he starts working in a third finger. He can hear you cursing his name at the stretch, though your soft pets to his hair are your way of rushing him. He glances up just to see you’ve hidden your face from his view again. “Are you good?”

The tone in which you call his name has his mind spinning. Half of him wants to stop all of this in order to fuck you senseless. The other half knows it’s better to give you what you want before asking for something in return. At the slide of his thumb against your clit, your hips buck despite his hold on you. He can sense your impatience and replaces his thumb with his tongue.

Your walls clench down on his digits and you will yourself to let go, ultimately finding it impossible. You bite at your lip and adjust the angle of your hips to change the trajectory of his pistoning fingers. You huff not knowing what more to ask for.

Johnny’s lips are sealed over your bundle of nerves and his tongue is pressing quick circles around it. You can usually come from that stimulation alone, but something is stopping you from falling. Even his speedy thrusts deep into your pussy aren’t helping you over the edge.

It’s after he takes one of your hands for you to squeeze instead of yanking on his hair that you realize what’s wrong. You have to call his name a few times before he dislodges himself, . His mouth is glistening as he questions you. “I want you to choke me.” At once he appears skeptical of your request.

“Baby I don’t think…”

“But I want you to. I need you to. Please?” Face typically shoved into your pillow as you ground your hips down onto the heel of your palm, the lack of oxygen got you off more than any well-placed friction. That desperate gasp of air and the sensation that comes with it is cathartic. If he wasn’t planning to wrap his hand around your neck in the next minute you were tempted to ask if you could at least choke on his dick.

He nods slowly, reaching forward cautiously. Just the weight of his hand has you arching into him. You tell him to squeeze harder while you begin to move against the other hand in between your legs. He pumps his fingers roughly, seeing no point in being soft when he can feel you pulsing around him, instantaneously letting out strangled moans.

“Is this what you’ve been waiting for?” The idea of you not being able to answer him has his cock aching. And the mere sight of you has his breath faltering. “You don’t want an apology, just wanted me to make you feel good, is that it?” He hated to admit that having you pinned down after facing your verbal lashing makes all of it feel righted.

You make an affirmative sound and grab onto his wrist, trying to anchor him to you. As he crooks his fingers upwards and switches his main focus back to your clit, your eyes are closing in ecstasy. The build-up of pressure in your core and knowing that Johnny has control over your breathing has you wound tightly in minutes.

A few more rough swipes of Johnny’s thumb has you throwing yourself back into the mattress, ripping his hand from your neck to fully breathe in. He continues to shower attention on your clit, enjoying the feeling of your walls clamping down on the fingers inside of your pussy.

He stares down at you, amazed that restricting your breathing made you cum undone in such a short amount of time. He withdraws his fingers and wipes them on your comforter while you turn on your side to curl in on yourself.

When he sees you clutch your arms to your chest, Johnny snaps out of his trance. Draping himself around you, he moves away the pieces of hair stuck to your forehead. He’s sure you can’t ignore his erection poking against your ass but decides to cast his libido aside for the time being.

You can feel the words he speaks against your shoulder. “What’s wrong, __? Didn’t that make you feel better?”

“Yes,” you mumble, shying away from his view once more. “I just.. That’s not weird is it?”

“Lots of people are into breathplay, babe, you aren’t alone.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” You give a long sigh before twisting around to face him. “I just got done reading you the riot act and then I ask for you to choke me and make me cum. You can cause me so much anguish,  yet I always want you around. I don’t want you to think I can’t live without you, Johnny, but that’s what it feels like sometimes.”

“Is that why you were mad I didn’t respond to you every time? You didn’t want to be the only codependent one?.” He takes your silence for as a yes. “__, you aren’t crazy because you wanted me to pin you down, that’s something to discuss another day. But as for you assuming, I don’t think about you while I’m away, that’s insulting. I’m constantly wondering what you’re up to, or seeing things stupid matching couple crap I want to buy for us, or something you’d find funny.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t pick up every once in a while and tell me that though.” Your previous actions have taken away your will to fight. At this point, you’re willing to take whatever he has to say into consideration.

“You’re so independent. You don’t bother me when I’m busy with practice or promoting. I assumed when you were contacting me while I’m away you were just…” he shakes his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Obviously, you care more than you let on, and I’m happy to know that.”

“Looks like both of us assuming things just made an ass out of you and me.”

Johnny cracks a smile. “Who was the corniest stalk in the field again?”

You push him away to just follow as he rolls onto his back. You lean over him. “I’ll admit I got a little carried away,” you clear your throat. “Maybe a little more than a little. Anyway, I’m sorry, I know I could stand to be more clear about stuff. I’ll work on it, just as long as it’s clear that I love you.”

The expression he makes has you blushing, wanting nothing more than to clam up. He coos and pulls you down to meet him for a sweet kiss. “I love you too, and If you’re up to hearing me whine about how much I miss you, then I can make an effort as well.”  

You feel...content. Normally, after an argument, you avoid each other until it became unbearable. You rarely apologized, that was more Johnny’s thing. He long ago came to understand that you even admitting a wrongdoing was difficult. This is new to you, and you feel as if your apology is somewhat insubstantial. “Is there anything else I can do to make it up?”

Johnny fakes a yawn, folding his arms under his head. “Don’t worry, you’ve done enough. This has all been super draining, I think I might need a nap.”

You raise your brows. “I was imagining the many ways I could repay you,” you trail a hand across his stomach, “ but I could most certainly use a nap.” Before you can turn around he tugs you closer so you’re chest to chest. He hauls one of your thighs over his lap. You sit up to straddle his waist.

“Forget what I said, please, enlighten me with your ideas.”

[crowkingwrites]

Battle of the Bands (Ch.7)

fPairing: Robb Stark x Reader, Jon Snow x Reader, Viserys Targaryen x Reader, Ramsay Bolton X Reader

Summary: You just moved into the city for the first tie all by yourself. After you get your dream summer job working for a small magazine, you find yourself in the middle of the city’s rock festival: Battle of the Bands. Local rock bands throughout the city compete to win a record deal that could change their lives. Your job? Get close to them and write about them online.A single girl in the city surrounded by rocker boys during the summertime. What could possibly go wrong?

Words: 2394 // AO3 Link

Chapter One // Chapter Two // Chapter Three // Chapter Four // Chapter Five // Chapter Six

The next day you didn’t go to work. You didn’t even bother with the fest. You woke up at a crisp 7am sun peeking through your room. A hot cup of coffee warmed your hand, but you greeted the day with some sobriety. You turned your phone off on purpose. You wouldn’t spend today flirting with boys and getting news stories.

Before you left Margaery, she instructed you to not visit her.

She remembered a time where she was hospitalized before, and all you did was check up on her every five minutes. Sure, this was still during your internet friendship, but it still annoyed Margie. If anything, Margaery has a great excuse to relax and enjoy her injury. Well, as much as anyone can enjoy themselves while they are in the hospital.

Margie’s pet bird sang when you went to go greet her. She sang sweet songs to you. Every sip of hot coffee tasted just as wonderful as the last.

You decided to do your own writing on your computer. Your toes curled up and relaxed as you opened a new word document. Words flowed out of you as unusual as it was. You wrote about Viserys and how his hips moved. How good it felt when he kissed you. Then you wrote about Ramsay. How much of an asshole he truly was, but he loved to flirt.

Then you wrote about Robb. Angry words broke away from the soft thoughts. He treated you like you were his. You belonged to no one. You didn’t have to answer to him or for him. Nastier thoughts started to unfold. What if he did hire you just because you were cute? What if he just hired you so you would date him? All of it left a bad taste in your mouth.

But, Robb wouldn’t do that. No, he proved how good of a person he was. Right? Sure, he was adorable to look at, and he worked hard for the music store and magazine he ran. Still, the darker thoughts clouded your mind. You wanted to hit him. You wanted to call him. You weren’t sure exactly what to do.

You texted Loras. Surely, your gay-pseudo-brother knew what to do.

You to Loras: [ Hey, I still can’t wrap my head around last night. ]

Loras to You: [Oh thank God! I was waiting for you to say SOMETHING. Margie couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Sorry sis.]

You: [I fucking knew it. She told you everything?]

Loras: [Everything. Did you quit or what?]

You: [No, but it hurts. Do you think he hired me so I would date him?]

Loras: [Hunny no. You are a talented and a hardworking writer. Anyone can see that.] You pushed away the computer and sat on the sectional couch. Gray clouds started to block the sun. Your fingers made busy work to Loras.

You: [Why does this all feel so weird then? Why do I wanna talk to him? I’m so mad at him! What if I lose my job?]

A panic started to rumble its way into your head. The questions came soaring afterwards. What if you did lose your job? What if you never got a chance to write again? This was your only chance, and you fucked it up and—

You had to stop. You hated panic attacks. As sociable and popular as you were, panic attacks left you defenseless. Your heart pounded against your chest. Things around you started to be louder and brasher. Margie’s bird singing became a screech in your head. The air you breathed tasted like sharp chalk. It hurt so bad.

You called Loras.

“Loras!” you shouted.

“Hey, hey now. You’re alright,” Loras reassured you. You felt a tear go down your face. Another one fell after it.

“I’m gonna get fired! I can’t get fired!” you told him.

“No, no, no. You are not going to get fired,” Loras told you in a calm, but firm voice. “And even if you did, no one will hate you for it.”

“I’m a failure!” your voice let out. Insecurities bubbled up to the surface. “Robb gave me my one chance at writing for a career! And I fucked it up, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t—

“I’m so stupid! Oh my god, I’m so stupid!”

“Y/N, you’re alright. It’s okay! Just—

You heard other noises and a shaking before you heard Loras’ voice again.

“Y/N, it’s gonna be okay. I can’t help you right now, but there’s someone who is on their way who can. I’m sorry. I can’t leave work. But someone’s on their way, ok? Hang in there for sis.” As Loras hung up the phone, you felt yourself collapse onto the ground. Your cries expelled out of your body as if you were having a fit. You felt your shoulders shake and your teeth chatter.

As the wood in your apartment creaked, you could’ve sworn you felt the room grow smaller. You heard your silly sobs and you wanted to punish yourself further. How stupid were you to think that you could do this? You wanted to find something. You had to punish yourself. This was your fault. It was your fault. It was you—

You heard someone knocking on the door frantically. A voice matched it.

“Y/N! Are you in there?” Jon said. “It’s me! Jon! Loras and Renly sent me here. Are you okay?” You picked yourself off from the floor and walked towards your door with a bewildered expression. After opening two of the three locks, your door creaked open to a worried Jon Snow.

His dark curls were the same, but you swore you’ve never seen his eyes this close. The sky was darkening and so were his eyes. No sunlight touched the brown color in them. Instead, a darkness colored them darker as if he had his own demons too. They were there in his eyes, just lurking in the background.

“Jon?” your voice creaked out.

“Oh, Y/N. Let me in, okay?” Jon nodded to the door. You stepped back and let him in. You quickly noted his backpack and a few grocery bags he had with him. Confusion replaced most of the tension, but you could still feel the tears come down your face.

“Jon, what are you—

“I heard you over the phone. Loras asked me to come, so here I am,” Jon explained. He set his things down and walked over to you. “What happened?”

You opened your mouth to tell him, but then conveniently remembered who Jon’s brother was. Your mouth closed so fast that you almost hurt yourself.

“I don’t know if I can tell you,” you quietly said.

“You can,” Jon nodded. You shook your head violently.

“I can’t,” your voice broke. Tears streamed down your face again. Without any prompting, Jon pulled you to him. His arms wrapped around you firmly. You felt him breathe calmly. Your nose caught his scent of cologne. He smelled much sweeter than you expected, but it calmed you. You found yourself breathing with him as your sobs were laid to rest. Jon let you out of his warming and reassuring hug while both of you sat on the sofa.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Jon said. He grabbed his bag. “But, I did bring something that could really help the problem.” You watched Jon pull out a small leather bag, a lighter, and a glass bong.

“You smoke?” you said, surprised.

“Yeah,” Jon nodded. “Nearly everyone in the family does.”

“Including Cat? Your mom?”

“She advocates for it, but she’s quiet about it, yeah,” Jon smiled. You watched him pack the weed gently and firmly into the bowl. Then, you watched Jon hit it. The smoke swirled up into his chest. He held it for a moment, and released it. Smoke left his mouth in a singular, long stream. As if he was one of those 1940’s mobsters who cut a good deal with the police.

Jon passed it to you. “It will calm you down. It helps.” You took the bong from him and hit it harder than you wanted. The burn in the back of your throat betrayed you. You ended up coughing much more than you expected.

“Sorry, it’s been a while,” you said. Jon shook his head and smiled, unpacking the grocery bags filled with all kinds of snacks. Cookies, salty chips and dip, and you spied a king-sized chocolate bar. Your eyes went wide.

“Oh, yeah, this one’s for you,” Jon offered it to you. You held the king-sized bar to your face, comparing the size. A genuine, hearty laugh left Jon as his eyes squinted. “Feeling better already?”

You took a big bite of the chocolate. “Well, you know what they say, eat this, you’ll feel better.”

Jon relaxed on the sofa and dug into the chips. He squinted at the window. “Oh, well I guess it’s going to rain after all.” The gray clouds outside had blocked out the sun completely. A bit of rain started to drip onto the city streets. Luckily, you decided to not go into the fest today.

“You said Loras sent you here?” you said taking another hit from the bong.

“He did,” Jon nodded.

“Why aren’t you at the pub? You could be playing for another crowd of people who want to get away from the rain,” you pointed out.

Jon shrugged. “Didn’t want to. I didn’t have the energy. Besides, it was never about the crowds for me. I’m happy playing music for just one person.” You smiled to yourself knowing that you were in good company.

“Did you want to watch something?” you gestured with the remote in your hand.

“Yeah, anything you want. I’m here to hang with you,” Jon’s smile gave you a sigh of relief. You never knew what to think when someone helped you through a panic attack. Sometimes, your mind went to the absolute worst thoughts. Jon didn’t seem to mind. You clicked on another nature documentary and took another hit from the bong.

“So,” you began another conversation. The rain started to hit the window as thunder rolled. “How long have you been smoking?”

“High school,” Jon said. “On my sixteenth birthday, Uncle Benjen pulled me aside and introduced me to it. You seem really surprised?”

“I don’t know. You don’t seem like the type to—

“Straight edge. Like Robb, right?” Jon chuckled, and you almost did. You bit your lip and became very quiet. Jon moved closer to you. His fingers reached out to you. “You alright?”

Your continued silence gave Jon the hint.

“What happened with Robb?” Jon’s tone became very dark all of a sudden.

“Last night, I was with someone and Robb was really upset with me.”

“Is this about Margaery going to the hospital?” Jon asked. You nodded and continued.

“He called me over and over and over again. When he found me with someone, he got really angry with me and said some mean things to me and—

Jon held his hand up to stop you. “He told me his side this morning. I know what he said. I know who you were with and everything.”

You felt the tears come back to your eyes, but before you could cry too hard Jon hugged you again.

“I don’t like what Robb said to you. I especially don’t like what he was going to do about it.”

“He was gonna do something?”

“He was going to fire you,” Jon said. “Until I convinced him how horrible of an idea that was.” Jon sighed and rolled his eyes. He took a long hit for himself. The smoke still came out in a single stream. You weren’t going to lie. You were starting to like this Stark brother much more than the other.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because you’re my friend. And you’re a great writer,” Jon sat back. You joined him. “Robb wants to work with people he likes. That’s why he hires his friends, his family, and sometimes his girlfriends. When he’s mad with people, he holds their job over their head to get them to do what he wants. Robb’s my brother. I love him, but he’s fucked in that regard.”

“Ramsay told me about a girl named Robyn.”

Jon groaned. His hands slid down his face as more frustrated noises came out of him. “

“Robyn. Robyn was a mess. You’re different than her. Very different. Is that why you had a panic attack? You think you’re going to lose your job?” When you nodded, Jon hugged you even more. “That’s not going to happen. I promise you that won’t happen.”

“Do you think I’m a whore?”

“No,” Jon laughed, letting you go. “I think you are a very pretty single girl who just wants to make friends in a new city she just moved to. Anyone who tells you different can fuck off.” You hugged Jon. Letting your arms wrap around his middle and taking in every scent of him. Jon was so nice to you. From the moment you met him till now, he was always so sweet to you.

Which was why you kissed him on the cheek and then backed away very quickly.

Jon sat there, almost stunned. His smile didn’t disappear.

“So, you’re a little high, huh?” he laughed it off. You felt the relaxing notion of the THC take over a few minute ago, but it didn’t hit you until now.

“I guess,” you giggled. Your laugh faded into a big smile. “Thanks for coming over. It means a lot to me.”

“Believe me, I understand more than you think,” Jon gave you a half-smile. You jumped up and grabbed one of your homemade blankets from your room and brought it out to the living room. You tossed it over Jon and smiled. Jon fixated the blanket to give you both room under the quilt warmth.

“Do you wanna stay here all day and get high with me while we watch funny stuff?” you asked, hoping for a yes.

“I would absolutely love that,” Jon patted the seat next to him where you sat. Both cuddled up in a happy bundle while the storm went on.

Note to Self: Panic attacks are not ok. Getting help from good friends makes it all okay.

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[sugarless-suki-writes]

Stupid with Love

Fandom: Inuyasha Rating: M Word Count: 2,975 Chapters: 2 of ?

Read on FF||Ao3

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Chapter Two

Kouga closed the door and let out a huff. He felt bad for the girl, and he hoped he would be able to do more for her. For now, they needed to get started on a meal for her, and make a comfortable environment for her. He made his way further into the house, making a beeline for the kitchen. He quickly started pulling down pots and pans, trying to be as quiet as possible. However, it seemed as if the small amount of noise he was making alerted at least one other wolf in the house.

“How’s she doing, boss?” Kouga looked up and saw a worried looking Ginta peeking around the corner of the kitchen. Kouga waved him in, and the beta gingerly stepped onto the tile, still looking and acting meek.

“Not good.. but we expected that. How’s he doing?” Kouga asked, not hiding the venom that invaded his tone when he mentioned the werewolf they had captive in the basement.

Ginta stiffened, his instincts telling him to turn tail and hide at his alpha’s tone, but he stayed put, knowing it wasn’t directed at him. “He’s uh... not.... happy...” He really didn’t know how else to put it.

“Good.” Kouga glared down at the food he was prepping. Ginta was nervous of the fact his alpha was wielding a very sharp knife.

“Uh.. is there anything you’d um.. need help with?” he offered.

A smile started to work its way on his face. Ginta immediately started to relax as his mood started to shift into a more pleasant one. Kouga set about instructing Ginta what to do. It was small tasks, mostly chopping things, grating ginger and garlic, and adding sesame oil and rice vinegar to the pan.

Kouga took over the cooking, which was likely for the best; he was the best cook out of the entire pack. Ginta watched him carefully, hoping to pick up some of Kouga’s skill.

It didn’t take long for him to finish and Ginta watched as he plated the dish. He set everything on a tray, picked it up, and then started to walk out of the kitchen. Ginta was quick to move out of the way. Kouga had to hold back a chuckle; it always made him laugh at how eager the pack was to please him at times.

He made his way to the room Kagome was in and lightly knocked on the door. He waited for her to give him the go, and when she did, he opened the door and stepped in. Her eyes were still red and puffy, but not as bad as they had been before. There was a small pile of tissues next to her and Kouga gave her a soft smile, hoping to give her any sense of ease. He closed the door behind him with his foot and approached her slowly and cautiously. “Hey, I made you some food.” he said, keeping his voice soft.

“Thanks...” she replied, giving him a weak smile. Her voice was still hoarse, and it broke his heart. He soon reached the side of her bed and placed the tray on the bedside table next to her.

As he moved to pull up a chair, she looked over at what he had made for her. It was quite the spread, and she felt like she could cry. It was baked salmon with some veggies and a bowl of brown rice on the side. It looked delicious and she couldn’t wait to dig in.

Once Kouga was all settled, he moved the tray closer and held it out so she could grab it. She reached for it and pulled it onto her lap. She picked up the chopsticks and started to dig in. She was right, it was delicious. The skin on the salmon was crispy, and the filet itself was cooked to perfection. The seasoning was great, and the spread of vegetables and brown rice was nice as well. After her first bite, she had to resist the urge to devour the entire plate in one go. She did her best to take her time, savor it, but she was still eating a little faster than usual.

She took a piece of salmon and set it on top of her brown rice. She then scooped it up, being careful not to drop any rice, and ate it. She could feel tears well in her eyes. “How’d you make the brown rice?” she asked once she finished what she had in her mouth.

Kouga was grinning from ear to ear. “I cooked it in some chicken stock I had left over.”

“Homemade or store bought?”

“Homemade.”

“Tell me your secret?” she asked, returning his grin with one of her own and batting her eyelashes at him. Kouga simply laughed and shook his head.

“You’d have to pry it out of me.”

“I’m sure I could find a way.” she teased. Once she realized what she was doing, she had to fight back her sudden embarrassment. Was she flirting? With a guy she barely knew? She shoved another bite of food into her mouth. Yeah, he was super cute, and charming, and a phenomenal cook, but was that really all it took?

Her eyes shifted as she glanced up at him, and at seeing the large, excited grin he wore, she realized that yes, yes that was all it really took. Who knew the way to her heart would be through food? She couldn’t kid herself, she always knew that. Still...

The mix of food and the minor flirting with Kouga helped to cheer her up and temporarily forget her problems. She continued to ask him questions about the food between mouthfuls. His voice was deep, husky, soothing.. it sent chills down her spine. She could feel something stirring in her, and she willed it to not. She couldn’t handle a crush right now. Sure, maybe it had already developed, but she could ignore it and everything would be fine and dandy.

At least she hoped it would...

It wasn’t long before she finished her food and Kouga was standing up, taking her tray and getting ready to leave. She felt this pull on her heart. She needed him to stay. Just a little longer... “So.. umm...” He stopped in his tracks and turned around to look at her, quirking an eyebrow. Gods he was cute.... “Ummm... how long do you think it’ll take for me to heal? Can I.. get up and walk around at all?”

Kouga pondered this for a moment, his eyes shifting up towards the ceiling as if the answer was written up there. She had to resist the urge to look up herself, though it wasn’t that hard to fight, seeing as Kouga was standing in front of her. And she was attracted to him. Very, very attracted to him.

The blush was much harder to fight.

“Well, even with the full moon waning, it shouldn’t take that long to heal.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked, cutting off Kouga’s train of thought. Right.. she was new...

“Y’see... wolves tend to get stronger with the full moon. That means more strength, heightened senses, and improved healing abilities.” She nodded along, trying to wrap her head around this. He smiled, holding back a chuckle. He appreciated her effort. “As the moon starts to wane, so does all the improvements it brought you as it was waxing. At the new moon, we’re at our weakest, though we’re still stronger than most humans.”

“I... think I understand.” She pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she tried to process the information. Kouga grinned, finding it cute how her eyebrows furrowed together and her canines dug into the skin of her lip. His smile faltered for a second; better to not think about that too much.

“You don’t have to try and learn it all right away. There’s a lot to go over and teach you.. It’s probably gonna take a couple weeks.”

Her eyes widened at that and she looked up at him in shock. “A couple weeks? Is that how long I’m going to have to be here and heal? What.. what about my friends and family? They don’t know where I went.. well, except Sango. What.. wait.. where’s my phone?” The sudden barrage of questions and panic sent Kouga’s head spinning. It took him a couple seconds to process the information before he was able to answer her properly.

“Well.. it shouldn’t take you that long to heal. You don’t have to stay the entire few weeks it’ll take to teach you, but I do recommend that you do, as it would make things easier for all of us. As for your phone.. well....” He looked away sheepishly and she narrowed her eyes at him.

Under her intense gaze, he sighed and walked back towards her. He set the tray back down on the bedside table, then reached for the drawer. He opened it, and then pulled her phone out. Her mouth fell open as she took in its state. The screen was completely shattered; several chunks of glass were missing from the spiderwebbed screen. She could feel tears welling in her eyes. “Wha....”

“It must’ve fallen out of your pocket when you tripped... We found it close to where you had fallen, and we think it might’ve landed against a rock or something.” He carefully passed the phone off to her and she took it from his hands gingerly. She looked it over the best she could, trying not to cut herself on the cracked screen. She pressed the home button but nothing happened.

“It’s dead...” she breathed, unable to believe it.

“Sorry... If you need to contact someone you can use mine..” he offered, hoping to soothe the hurt that was starting to take over her.

Kagome sniffled. “Yeah.. if.. if you wouldn’t mind.”

Kouga nodded and reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone and unlocking it before handing it to her. Kagome set her broken phone down and took his. He gave her a soft smile before picking the tray back up and leaving the room. A part of Kagome wished he hadn’t left, but the other was grateful for the privacy he was so ready to provide her. She really appreciated it.

Now alone, she looked down at the phone in her hand. The background was a picture of a waterfall, somewhat amateurly taken. She was certain he had been the one to take it. A weak smile curled her lips as she pressed the icon for making calls. It took her a second to recall Sango’s number, but once she did, she typed it in immediately and pressed the call button. It was a couple rings before she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Sango..”

“Kagome!! Oh my god, are you okay? What happened last night?” she asked, worry clear in her voice.

Tears streamed down her face once more. Would she ever stop crying today? “Oh Sango, so much happened, you wouldn’t believe it...”

Sango began cooing and shushing Kagome, doing her best to console her over the phone. “Where are you? Can I come get you or something?” she asked after a while.

“I umm... I don’t know-”

“YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?!” Sango screeched. Kagome had to pull the phone away from her ear, wincing at the intensity of Sango’s yell. Her best friend then proceeded to go into hysterics, asking how badly she must be hurt to not know where she is, or worse, if she had been kidnapped and, oh gods what had they done to her?

“SANGO!” Kagome’s yell was able to stop Sango and the line was completely dead, save for Sango’s breathing on the other end. “I’m safe, I promise. I just tripped in the woods and got injured pretty bad. I passed out, but this guy Kouga found me and he’s helping me. He’s very sweet and nice and charm-” Kagome pressed her lips into a tight line. She prayed, prayed, that Sango hadn’t caught her slip of the tongue.

“Kagome...” Oh gods... “Were you just about to say charming?” Kagome could practically see the look on Sango’s face, she could hear the smirk in her tone of voice. She was going to hear about it now.....

-S/L-

Kouga sighed as he set the dishes in the sink. He’d come to wash them later.. for now, he had a more important matter to attend to. While Kagome was making her phone calls, he was going to go down into the basement and interrogate the wolf they captured. He could feel his blood begin to boil just thinking of the mutt downstairs. He couldn’t stomach thinking of the bastard as a fellow wolf; he was more like a mangy dog than a wolf.

The alpha made his way to the door that led to the basement and soon began his descent. As soon as he had opened the door he could hear the bastard screaming and cussing. Kouga rolled his eyes. This was going to be fun... Kouga cracked his neck and knuckles as he went down the small flight of stairs. It was only a couple seconds before he touched the floor of the basement and came face to face with the captured mutt.

As soon as their eyes locked, the mutt’s protests and curses increased in both number and volume. “Let me out of this fucking cage, you goddamn bastard! What the fuck did I even do to get into this shithole of a room?!” he screamed, rattling the door of the cage he was trapped in.

“Shut up, you know why you’re here.”

“Uh, no I don’t, idiot. Otherwise I wouldn’t be fuckin’ askin’!”

“Don’t play dumb with me, you mangy mutt!” Kouga strode closer, pointing an accusing finger at him and pinning the dog down with a glare that would’ve made him drop dead on the spot if looks could kill. “You didn’t take the necessary precautions that you’re supposed to do, and you turned an innocent girl!”

The mutt’s eyebrows furrowed together, and Kouga could see the gears turning in his head. Suddenly, his golden eyes widened as it all came back to him. “Kagome....”

This was news to Kouga. “So you know her, then?”

“Yeah... I.. oh fuck...”

Somehow this made things even worse in Kouga’s mind. The fact that this asshole knew who he turned made things so much worse. How could he do this to someone who was, he assumed, a friend?

“Why didn’t you tether yourself? You know you’re supposed to tie yourself down before the full moon takes effect on you.” he snapped.

“Th-the woods have been safe for years! No one goes in there anymore. How was I supposed to know she was followin’ me around?” he fired back.

“It doesn’t matter if they’ve been safe or not, you still need to abide by the rules! And you honestly expect me to believe you couldn’t tell she was around with your heightened sense?”

The mutt snarled. “What does it matter to a lycan like you, anyway?”

“It matters because us lycans always have to clean up after you! We’re the only reason the humans don’t know about us. If you just followed the proper procedures, then we wouldn’t be in this mess, and there’d be one less cursed one in the world!” Kouga slammed his hands against the bars of the cage, but the stupid mutt didn’t back down. He continued to challenge him. Cheeky fuck.... “If you don’t have a safe spot in your home, then you go out into the wilderness and tie yourself down in such a way that you won’t be able to escape and-”

“I know the fucking rules, alright?!”

“Clearly you don’t!” Kouga knew it was unfair to use his alpha voice, but from what he could tell, this was going to be the only way to get through to the bastard. It worked, as he began to cower slightly.

Kouga straightened himself out, puffing out his chest and glaring at the mutt in front of him. “Give me your name.”

The mutt did his best to resist Kouga’s power, screwing his eyes shut and looking away. He was still submitting, but he was doing some things of his own power, like refusing to answer. Kouga snarled at the insolence.

“Give. Me. Your. Name.”

“Inuyasha...” he growled out; it sounded pained. Good.

“You’re going to have to go to the council, Inuyasha, you know this, right?”

Inuyasha’s eyes widened. He had forgotten the penalties of breaking the rules and turning innocent bystanders. However, something struck him and he had to force back his smirk. “But what about Kagome? Aren’t I supposed to train her?” he asked.

Kouga could hear the gloating in his voice and it only added fuel to his fire. The wolf smirked at the mutt and it pleased him to see that Inuyasha’s confidence and gloating reduced immensely at seeing the look on his face. “I’ll be taking care of her training. You’ve proven yourself to be irresponsible, and you’ll be punished for it.”

He watched as Inuyasha took this information in and let it process. Once it looked like it had all clicked in the mutt’s mind, Kouga was turning on his heel and leaving the room. A snarl sounded behind him.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going? We’re not through here! Hey! Hey, you fuck! I’m talking to you! Don’t ignore me!” But that’s exactly what Kouga did as Inuyasha threw obscenities his way. It didn’t matter to him; the mutt could say whatever he wanted, but the end result would still be the same. He was going to pay dearly for what he had done, and Kouga couldn’t wait.

[victoria-astor-fiction]

The Past Lives of Amy Jones

Prompt: Someone who has been dead before comes to terms with their rebirth/new life.

                 Amy had done this before. She’d been through this – the trauma of leaving the womb, the shock provoking tears and screams that had people in white coats and blue gowns alike cooing in delight. She’d been here before, and she wasn’t altogether pleased to be back here now. They had told her at HQ that all of her cycles had been used up. She’d learned all of her lessons. Her soul had reached completion. She shouldn’t have been sent back to Earth again.  Oh well. There wasn’t anything to be done for it. She was here. She might as well make the most of it.

                 This was the last coherent thought that Amy had for years. It was so difficult to hold on to one’s soul essence when one was in the body of a newborn infant. You had no way to communicate, and all you could really do was be uncomfortable, sleep or cry. There was very little variety. It would be a relief to be able to take care of herself again, but Amy wouldn’t know that until she was much older.

Her new parents, Siobhan and Howard, gave her some ridiculous name. Amy didn’t care for it. As luck would have it, or maybe it was the Fates intervening, as they seemed to do, they gave her the middle name Amy. “I don’t want to be called Jacqueline,” Amy said when her new body turned six. “I want to be called Amy.” A chagrined glance was shared between Siobhan and Howard, but they agreed. It had only taken them nearly a year to settle on Jacqueline. How were they to know that their new daughter would hate the name that they had lovingly chosen?

                 Amy’s awareness of her past life came on in flashes.

                 At first, it was just the general sense of déjà vu. Her old body had lived in the same town that her new one lived in. They had even gone to the same public school – Lord Beaverbrook Elementary. “There’s a stain on the floor behind that door, Mommy,” Amy said when her parents took her with them on parent-teacher conference night. She had pointed behind the staff room door. “A big brown one. It’s shaped like a puppy!”

                 Siobhan had just smiled at that. Clearly the child had seen it when a teacher had opened the door. She hadn’t been involved in making it or anything. That would be absurd.

                 The next flash happened when the family had decided to move house. Amy’s new parents were expecting another baby, and the little bungalow that they had lived in since Amy’s rebirth would be too small for them all to have their own rooms. That’s what they told her, anyway, when they pulled up to it in their wood-paneled station wagon. “When your new little baby brother or sister comes, don’t you want to be able to have your own room? Babies can cry all night! You don’t want to have to sleep with that, do you?” Howard had asked her as he unbuckled her car seat.

               “Well, no,” Amy had grumbled. Her new father set her down on the pavement outside of the little stone farmhouse. “But does it have to be this house?”

                 “Let’s just go and take a look, okay, Amy?” her new mother said, taking her by the hand and leading her up the front steps. Howard looked like he wanted to take his wife’s other hand, but he kept his hands in his pockets. House hunting had not been going well, and Siobhan thought that he was too soft on their eldest child.

                 The realtor was inside the house already. She pasted on a smile as the little family opened the door. Amy didn’t trust her immediately. The realtor was hiding something, or maybe that was just the way that Amy felt. Amy let go of her new mother’s hand, wandering up the creaky wooden stairs to what she knew would be a playroom.

                 “Be careful, honey!” Amy’s new mother called up after her.  “These old houses can have lots of surprises in them. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

                 “Yes, Mommy,” Amy called back automatically.

                 The play room had a sloped roof with a window seat set into it and buttery coloured hardwood floors. They were right under the gables of the house, and the room was stuffy with the mid-afternoon sunshine streaming in through the window. The wallpaper was bright and cheerful, with a pattern of toy boats. Styrofoam puzzle pieces lined the floor in garish multicoloured blocks. Someone had overturned a bucket of Legos on the mats.

                 Amy walked past all of this, sending a stray brick skittering across the hardwood. There was a door set discreetly into the back wall of the playroom. It wasn’t covered in wallpaper, but it was painted in a similar pale blue to the background. Most children wouldn’t have noticed. They would have sat right down on the foam mats and begun building a Lego city. Amy stretched up to turn the knob.

                 “Oh, and here’s your beautiful daughter,” came the sickly-sweet voice of the realtor. “She’s found this little bonus room, which could be converted into a nursery until baby is old enough to need a little more space. Then you could use it as either a playroom or an office. It gets plenty of light, as you can see, and it even has its own closet. Such a difficulty to find storage in these century homes, but you can’t find character anywhere else.”

                 “Where is she?” Amy said, turning away from the open closet door.

                 The realtor gave her a funny look, but turned on her heel and began clomping down the hall in her heels, Howard trailing after her.

                 “What do you mean, Amy?” her mother asked, anxious to get on with the rest of the showing.

                 “There was a girl here,” Amy said, pointing into the closet but keeping her eyes fixed on her new mother’s. “She was hiding in the closet, and her face went blue. My daddy found her and started screaming.”

                 Siobhan raised her eyebrows. “There’s no girl here,” she said slowly. “And your Daddy has never been here, so he couldn’t have found anyone in that closet.”

                 “No, not this daddy,” Amy said impatiently. “My first daddy. The one who used to milk cows and ride horses.”

                 “You only have one father, Amy,” Siobhan said. The hairs on her arms were standing up straight, despite the heat. “Now let’s finish looking around at this house so that we can go and get some ice cream, okay?”

                 “Okay!” Amy said happily. She ran out of the room, little pink sneakers thumping down the uneven hallway towards the master bedroom, where the realtor was explaining how the lack of an en suite and upstairs laundry room was really what they had asked for when they had given her their budget. Amy ran up to her new father, grabbing his wrist from where it was still shoved into the pocket of his khakis. He glanced down at her and smiled slightly.

                 “Howard, it’s time to leave,” Siobhan said from the doorway.

                 “But… Shea…?” Howard said slowly. Amy could hear the questions in his voice.

                 “Amy, why don’t you go and wait for us at the front door. We’ll meet you there in a second,” Siobhan said, stepping back a little to let her daughter pass through. “Don’t go out to the car yet. Just wait for me at the front door.”

                 Amy skipped down the hallway to the staircase, but she didn’t go down just yet. She wanted to hear what they were talking about. It sounded important.

                 “Is there a problem, Mrs. Jones?” the realtor asked.

                 “Yes, Sandra, I think so,” Siobhan hissed. “You failed to mention in your quote that someone had died in this house.”

                 “It’s over a hundred years old! Of course, someone has died in this house! I didn’t think it was relevant to list every single death that there’s been!” the realtor said peevishly.

                 “It’s relevant when my daughter goes up to the playroom and asks me about the girl that hung herself in the closet!” Siobhan yelled.

                 Amy heard a sharp intake of breath from both her new father and the realtor. “That – that – I mean, yes, that definitely happened, but it was around the time that the house was built. How could she possibly know that? There isn’t – how could – I mean…” The realtor’s voice trailed off.

                 Siobhan made a harrumphing noise then clicked her tongue in disgust. “Howard, we’re leaving,” she said flatly. Amy could hear her new parents’ heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, and she scrambled down the stairs to wait at the front door. Amy looked down at the scuffed toes of her sneakers. There was a big black mark on the left one. Her new mom would be mad about that if she saw. Amy tucked her left foot around her ankle as her new parents made their way down the stairs.

                 “Come, Amy,” her new mother said, grabbing her hand. She didn’t look down at Amy’s foot. Her new father followed after them silently, pausing only to open the door for his heavily pregnant wife. Amy settled herself onto her booster seat (she had the sneaking suspicion that she ought to have been taller, but didn’t have the words to articulate this thought at the time) and waited for Howard to buckle her in. He did, and they drove home in silence.

                 They didn’t end up getting ice cream, but Amy wasn’t going to bring that up right now. Her new parents were too grumpy right now. She didn’t want to get yelled at the way that her mother had yelled at the lady in the red pantsuit that had shown them her old house.

                 Maybe if they had stopped for ice cream that day, Amy would have been able to reassure her new parents that there wasn’t actually anything wrong with her. She had known that a woman had been found in the closet of the playroom in the little stone farmhouse because she had seen it a long time ago. Maybe she would have been able to say that it had come to her in a dream.

                 Instead, Amy’s new parents had packed her off to every psychologist and psychiatrist that they could find. Even though none of them could give Amy a diagnosis as anything other than a normal little girl of eight. Amy didn’t mind really. They let her colour and draw pictures. Sometimes they asked her if she had scary dreams and if she could please draw them on the paper. Amy tried, but she didn’t really remember her dreams. The scariest one that she could remember was a nightmare that she’d had about her new baby brother being born with two heads like something she’d seen on the news the night before. It didn’t occur to Amy until years later that they were asking her about her previous lives.

                 The final time that Amy became aware of the fact that she had died before, was in fact just before her next death.

                 She had grown up by this point, gone on to university and finished her degree. She was just about to start her new job as a social worker for inner city schools when she was struck by a falling air conditioner.

                 Amy had woken up that morning with a sense of unease. “Something bad is going to happen today,” she told her boyfriend when she got out of bed that morning.

                 “You’re just nervous for your first day, babe,” he’d said, rolling over and going back to sleep. He worked a two weeks on, two weeks off shift at an offshore drilling rig.

                 Amy had privately disagreed, because she knew that she had felt this way before. She’d had this feeling the day that she had died as a teacher in Lord Beaverbrook Elementary, and she’d had this feeling when her father had driven her to kill herself at the farmhouse. It was comforting, in a way. This was going to be her last day.

                 Of course, she didn’t think this until she was lying on the dirty sidewalk in front of her new office.

                 She lived in an apartment that was close enough to her new office that she was able to walk to work. It was a great cost-saving choice, especially in the summer when it was halfway pleasant in the mornings. Amy had packed a lunch using the good containers that her parents had gotten her as a house-warming gift.

               Amy made sure to check both ways before crossing every street. She even pulled a teenager back from the edge when a bus rounded the corner unexpectedly. “You need to be more careful!” she’d scolded her. “Turn your music down a little bit so that you can hear the traffic coming, even if you can’t see it!”

                 Bolstered by her good deed, Amy didn’t think to look up when she was walking underneath a row of apartments. A couple had been arguing about the air conditioner, at one point hitting it with their palms, and the rotten board that they used to block off the rest of the window gave way and toppled to the ground. Amy looked up at the noise, only to see the air conditioner falling on her.

                 “Not again,” was all she had time to think before being whisked away to a now-familiar white room.

                 “Sorry about that,” a harried young man said from across the glass desk. “We didn’t realize that you’d been sent out again until just now. You wouldn’t believe the backlog of paperwork here.  As soon as I noticed the error, I rectified it. Hopefully it wasn’t too painful.”

                 Amy froze in her chair. She’d just been crushed by a falling air conditioner, and this guy had the audacity to be complaining about paperwork? She opened her mouth to cuss him out, but he cut her off with a gesture.

                 “Oh, right,” he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. The brown strands lay back down almost immediately, falling perfectly into place. “You probably won’t remember all of this right away.” He sighed, shuffling papers around and pulling out a manila folder. “I’m Dashaniel, but everyone just calls me Dash. Well, you used to anyway.”

                  “Wait, how did I – do we – ?” Amy started. She looked down at the hands in her lap, which had taken on a golden, luminescent quality. Oh. Oh. She hadn’t been a human girl for a very long time. She was Amaniel and she had been sent back to Earth several times to guide people back to their own paths. With varying degrees of success, evidently, as she kept being killed in brutal ways.

                 Dash waited patiently behind the desk. “How could you possibly think that it wasn’t going to be painful to drop an air conditioner on my head?” Amy said, crossing her arms and leaning back into the white chair. “Those things are heavy, Dash.”

                 He froze. “Did I not pull you out in time?” He looked scandalized, genuinely concerned that she had suffered until she snorted.

                 “I’m fine, Dash,” she said. “But what I don’t understand is why I was ever sent back in the first place. None of the people that I had interactions with in this life needed any kind of intervention. They were all good people with good intentions.” Well, maybe not the realtor that she’d met when she was 8, but they didn’t have a significant enough relationship to really be able to influence her life.

                 Dash sighed, running his hand through his perfect hair again. “Like I said, it was a clerical error. You were never meant to go back in the first place. It was my fault really, and I’ve put in an organizational system that’s been approved by the big man himself but – ” Dash shook his head when he noticed Amy’s raised eyebrow. “Right, not important. There was a mass send-off, trying to prevent some sort of catastrophic event in the northern hemisphere. It seems to have failed. People just aren’t listening to children the way that they used to.” Dash sighed heavily again. “I’ve been informed that you’re not to be sent out again. At least, not for some time and only at your request. The big man is saving you for his next big plan for humanity.”

                 “Right,” Amy said, uncrossing her arms. “I guess I’d better go and see the big man then.”

                 Dash smiled, his grin splitting his face and lighting up the room. “He told me that you’d say that.”

[lykaonimagines]

Positive (Part 5) - Loki x Reader

Next part of Positive! This one is a bit longer than the others but I felt it was an important one and didn’t want to edit it down too much. This one is also a bit violent, but I tried to tone it down a little without losing the meaning. Thank you everyone for continuing to follow this crazy ride ❤️

Anyways, enjoy! And let me know if you want to be tagged :)

Paring: Loki x Reader

Part #: 5

Word Count: 3,154

Description: A mutant member of the Avengers finds out she’s pregnant with her boyfriend Loki’s baby, are they ready for this?

Warnings: Pregnancy, angst, and violence

Part 1     Part 2      Part 3      Part 4

Part 6     Part 7

(Gif doesn’t belong to me) 

Loki stands frozen at the scene before him, as his skin rapidly begins to change color, and his eyes close for a moment before reopening blood red, a glare fixated on the man in front of him.

The man’s eyes widen, and he swings his sword frantically at the approaching frost giant form, only to have Loki easily smack it out of his grasp.

“You DARE attack the mother of my child mortal? You DARE to sneak up on a GOD and stab his lover?” An evil grin spreads across his face, “Oh you will know pain.”

“What the hell are you?!” He yells, backing up further, navigating the trees behind him.

“Your worst nightmare,” Loki responds stalking in closer.

In his hurry to escape, he crashes into a tree behind him, when Loki lunges forward to grab his throat, immediately eliciting a scream from the man.

Smoke begins to rise from his neck,  the skin turning black as he struggles to breathe. Loki lifts him in the air, and proceeds to slam him against the tree several times, still with a firm grip on his throat.

“I… yield!” The man manages to struggle out in the little air he has left.

Loki’s eyes narrow at his words, “Did you give my love a chance to yield?”

The man stares back at him wordlessly, his eyes pleading.

“I thought not,” he states before pressing an open palm to the man’s face, a bloodcurdling scream reaching the ears of the other Avengers.

As they reach the scene, the scent of burnt flesh and hair lingers in the air as they watch Loki snap the neck of the man and toss him to the side. He then reaches down for the man’s sword before nailing him into the forest floor through his chest cavity.

“Loki ENOUGH!” Steve yells, “He’s dead!”

Loki’s head snaps toward the other Avengers, eyes still red, “He will suffer!”

“He’s DEAD Reindeer Games!” Tony yells, from a crouched position next to Y/N. “Now fucking snap out of it before she is too. There’s still a pulse.”

A look of horror crosses Loki’s face as his skin rapidly pales back to normal, seemingly forgetting the situation in his revenge. He races to her side, trying to pull her into his arms.

“We need to get her back, and now,” Tony states looking up at Loki, “You’re going to have to let her go.”

“I’m coming with her Stark,” he snarls clutching her to his body.

“I need to get her back faster than we can get everyone, and that’s a one person trip,” Tony states pulling out a small square. “Let go of her.”

Loki reluctantly lets go of Y/N’s form, instead stroking her paled face. The glowing one that stared at him on the battlefield long gone. “She looks empty.” HIs thoughts tell him, but he pushes them away. “She’ll be fine, she promised she would be. It will be fine.”

Tony tosses the small square chip onto Y/N, the nanotech rapidly covering her body as Loki falls back surprised. “What are you doing Stark?”

“Getting her home safely,” he responds to Loki before checking over the suit. “Friday activate stabilizing protocol,  and monitor her vitals on suit 12, I want them sent back to me every five minutes. Set course for home, least resistance possible. Start up the jet, and get ready for take off on Steve Roger’s password command, course set to home base. Quickest route possible.” Tony stands up quickly as the suit holding Y/N lifts up reading to take off.

“All of you get back on the jet, I’m flying with Y/N just in case and I’ll call in help to the tower to meet us there,” he states as his own mask covers his face again. “And Loki, just listen for once.”

Loki glares at him but doesn’t say anything, as he watches the two take off into the sky. His heart beating rapidly as he races back to the jet.

He puts himself in the corner as he stares at nothing, the sound of the other Avengers rambling as background noise. He tries to calm his mind and think positive, but he can feel the darkness in his mind choking him. Squeezing his eyes shut to hold the tears in, all he can see is her wide eyes, the sword through her body, and the sound of her body hitting the forest floor playing over and over in his mind.

Black Widow glances over to see the struggle happening in the man. Eyes closed, fists and jaw clenched, and a slight shake to his body, almost unnoticeable. She cautiously approaches him, putting one hand on his shoulder, “They’re going to be ok Loki.”

His eyes slowly open, red once again but watery and betraying his inner thoughts. He nods briskly but refuses to talk.

“She’s strong,” Natasha continues. “And you’ve almost died how many times? That baby is a fighter too.”

“It shouldn’t have happened,” Loki says, his voice cracking. “I was right there. And this happened to her. I was right there, and I couldn’t protect her.” He hangs his head silently, crossing his arms across his body as he allows her to pat his back.

-

Finally reaching the tower, the team from the mission race up to the medical floor, Loki slamming open the towers as he ran, “Where is she?” He demands upon seeing Tony.

“In surgery,” he responds. “Doesn’t look like it hit anything vital, but there’s severe internal bleeding.”

Loki’s head snaps up to look at the door in front of him, and walks slowly over the window. The sight of her face with an oxygen mask, eye closed, and hair matted in blood and dirt sears in his mind as he puts his hands on either side of the door frame. Blood. A lot of blood. The sinking feeling in his gut is making him nauseous as he struggles to catch his breath.

Once again he can hear the rest of the team talking behind him, but he can’t make out a word of it. “This is your fault. Your fault. You let her go on the mission, You didn’t protect her. You were holding her hand when it happened. You’re going to lose the two best things to happen to you.” He mindlessly walks to a seat, and plops himself into it, his eyes still trained on the door.

“Loki!” Steve yells again, finally getting the Asgardian’s attention, the steely blue-green gaze on him, but somehow staring through him still. “I said you should go get cleaned up.

“What?” Loki asks looking at him confused.

“He’s saying you’re sitting in a medical wing in shredded clothes, covered in baddies and Y/N’s blood,” Bucky interrupts. “Go take a shower before they’re done.”

“I’m not leaving!” Loki snarls standing and squaring up to Bucky.

“Guys!” Bruce interjects putting a hand on both of their chests, pushing them apart. “Loki you should just get cleaned up so when she’s out of surgery you can see her. You don’t want to carry anything in there that could make her sick, or give her some sort of infection.”

Loki finally looks down to see that they’re right, his armor has various burn marks, slashes, and a dried coating of who knows who’s blood. He nods unhappily, but doesn’t move.”

“There’s a shower in the room down the hall,” Tony suggests from his own seat.

“I’ll retrieve you fresh clothing,” Vision states as Loki walks toward the bathroom.

Once he’s under the stream of water, his willpower fades, and tears start running down his cheeks mixing with the water. HIs eyes burn, but he can’t keep them closed. If he does… he sees it again. And again.

He slams his fists against the wall before he knows what he’s doing, leaving a crack in the tiles. He does it again, and again, until the tiles start to crumble and fall to the shower floor. His eyes closing again, he’s reminded of all the showers they shared together. Stolen kisses in the steamy air, flirty comments, and sensual touches. Her hands running down his back as they talked about the past, the future, and nothing at all. Now all of it teeters on the edge along with his sanity.

Exiting the shower he quick pulls on the t-shirt and sweatpants left for him by the door, and readies himself to walk back out to the medical wing. As he enters the hall, he sees Doctor Strange talking with the other Avengers, and briskly walks over, “Is she going to be ok?” He demands interrupting their conversation.

“Still don’t like me after the whole falling thing I see?” Strange asks with a smirk.

Loki glares at him, crossing his arms across his chest, “Is. She. Going. To be. Ok?”

“And why exactly do you care-“ Strange starts to ask before being cut off by Tony.

“He’s the baby’s father, I thought you were all knowing,” he says lifting an eyebrow.

“Him?” Strange asks looking back at Loki who scowls at him. “Alright then. Always such a wonderful woman, obviously not sound judgement.”

“I beg your fucking pardon?” Loki yells, stepping toward the doctor.

“STOP!” Steve yells at them both. “Stephen that’s his girlfriend and child, he’s irritable as it is. Just give us the news.”

“She’s alive,” Strange finally states, “And she should make a full recovery. Luckily the blade missed anything important. Another inch to the left and it would have severed her spine.”

Loki suddenly exhales loudly, and puts his hands on his knees, not realizing he’d been holding his breath the whole time. “And our child?”

“Also alive,” he responds. “Miraculously. Though I suppose that’s your DNA to thank for that.”

Loki’s eye snap up to his, “What do you mean?”

“With the trauma her body has just gone through, at the stage of the pregnancy she is in, she should have lost the child,” he explains. “I was assuming luck, as with the fact that sword didn’t permanently paralyze or immediately kill her. But it wouldn’t be a stretch to say being half god helped in it’s preservation.”

Loki stares down at the ground trying to comprehend everything that’s happened, before softly asking, “Can I go see her now?”

Strange’s harsh expression drops at the tone in his voice, “Yes, but she will probably still be out awhile. And when she wakes up I would avoid saying or doing anything that might stress or exert her in anyway. The body needs time to heal.”

He nods quietly before heading towards the door.

“And Loki?” Strange calls out, causing the god to turn to him. “Her powers are still working in the state she’s in.”

Loki furrows his brow at the doctor obviously confused.

“I’m just saying, she could probably use some happy thoughts,” he finishes, turning back to the other Avengers.

Processing this, Loki carefully steps into the room to see Y/N still asleep on the bed. She still looks a mess, and he’s struck with fear before forcing himself to remember she’s fine.

“Hello my love,” he says softly as he approaches the bed and lays a hand across her belly. “You and our little one are going to be just fine.”

He continues to watch her, looking for any sort of response before walking to the door to yell out for Natasha. “Could you bring me a brush?”

She looks surprised for a moment, but goes to retrieve him one. Once he has it, he reenters the room, drawing up warm water in a pan, and begins to carefully wash her face, neck, and hair. He then carefully brushes her hair absentmindedly, then twists it up into a bun on the top of her head. “I’m all ready for a little girl aren’t I?” He asks jokingly as he presses a kiss to her head.

Finally cleaned up, she doesn’t look so much like death. But how eerily pale she is from blood loss still tugs at his heart. “I’m sorry darling… I’m so sorry,” he reaches out to hold her hand.

Instantly he’s hit with the familiar memory jog, as he forces himself to avoid the afternoon’s events. He manages to direct their connection to last Sunday, a lazy day in bed for the two of them. He can feel her hand squeeze his slightly as the memory plays, as he watches their interaction with her. “I love you,” he thinks as loudly as he can. “I love thee… I love thee… is all that I can say*…” he repeats the words of the poem he read her that day again. One of her favorites, that she always insisted sounded the best coming from his lips.

After a few minutes of their connection, Loki’s dropped back into his seat in the medical wing room. Somehow, in those few minutes a bit of color had returned to her cheeks, and a slightly smile on her lips. He smiles at her catching his breath, and pulls his chair closer to rest his head against her arm on the bed. He continues to hold her hand, rubbing small circles on it until he finally slips into sleep from exhaustion.

-

Opening her eyes feels like a feat as Y/N starts to regain consciousness. Everything aches. Every damn place on her body feels as if she was run over by a semi-truck. However, her midsection is screaming far louder than the rest of her body. As her eyes start to adjust, the blurry room comes into focus as she sees the walls of one of the medical rooms, and all the machines attached to her.

Something soft against her arm gets her attention, and she looks down to see Loki’s head against it, still asleep and clutching the sheets.

She smiles at the sight, her heart swelling in her chest. She quietly looks him over as he sleeps, noticing he’s not in his typical house clothing. Today he’s in a simple t-shirt, sweat pants, and barefoot. His face looks exhausted, bags under his eyes.

Y/N carefully moves her arm so she can run her fingers through his long hair, gently playing with it.

“Mmm,” he groans slowly beginning to awaken. His eyes blink open to see the medical wing wall, and sits up with a start.

She smiles at him as his comprehends that she’s awake, “Hello darling.”

“Oh thank Odin you’re awake!” He grips her hand tightly, his eyes watering. “You’re alive, and awake.”

“What happened?” She asks trying to shift in the bed, causing herself to gasp in pain.

“Don’t move!” He warns laying an arm across her. “You nearly died Y/N, you can’t just try to hop out of bed the morning after surgery.”

“Surgery?” She questions. “I feel like a truck hit me, but what happened?”

“I… you…” Loki looks at her, his thoughts conflicted. “I don’t think we should talk about it right now.”

She sighs before looking at their touching hands and opens up the connection. Immediately she’s taken back to the forest in Loki’s point of view. Their kiss after the battle. Heading towards the cabin. Humming, then silence. Turning to see herself, a sword sticking out of her with a crazy looking man behind her. Looking down, his skin turning blue, stalking toward the man. Fear. Anger. Revenge. Rage.

“That’s ENOUGH,” Loki yells breaking the connection just as she sees him grab the man’s throat, the smoke rising from his skin. “You- you don’t need to see that. You shouldn’t have saw any of it.”

“Did you… did you just burn that man by the throat?” She asks, her eyes wide.

“He tried to kill you and our child, he had to suffer,” he snaps back, instantly regretting his tone. “I… I reacted in the way I know how…”

“Can you come closer?” She asks him suddenly.

He looks confused but pulls his seat closer to her bed.

“No, closer,” she repeats, carefully pushing her body to one side of the bed.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Y/N,” he mumbles. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I need you,” she whispers, staring up into his eyes.

He sighs heavily and gently crawls into the bed, trying not to touch her. She rolls her eyes and pulls herself closer to him, laying her head on his chest to listen to his heartbeat.

“I need to ask you something, but I’m scared,” she says softly.

He traces his thumb along her jaw, and kisses the top of her head, “You can ask me Y/N.”

“Is…did… is our,” she keeps starting but stopping herself. “Is our baby ok?” She finally manages to get out.

She can feel him nod against her head, and she releases the breath she’d been holding, now grabbing onto the fabric on Loki’s shirt. “Thank god.”

“Strong like their mother,” he mumbles now tracing a finger along her ear. “We still have each other, and our child Y/N.”

“Was it that close?” She asks after a few moments, his heart starting to pound in his chest at her question.

“Y/N, I went four hours not thinking I’d lost the love of my life and our child. I spent that time believing I watched you both die in front of me, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I swore to protect you and I failed.”

Clutching his shirt harder she replies, “But we’re fine now. And you’re here for me now.”

He’s about to speak again when Doctor Strange and a nurse enter the room.

“Y/N! Good to see you awake,” he replies before shooting a look at Loki, “And being cramped in a small bed with a god that knows better than to be moving you.”

“Stephen,” she replies with a smile. “I take it stitching me back together was your handy work? And I pressured him into it, I’m quite persuasive when I want to be.”

Strange smirks and rolls his eyes, “Oh I know you are. And yes, you came to me in quite the state yesterday. It’s good to see your personality remain unaffected.”

“Of course,” she says flashing him a toothy smile. “Can’t take me down that easy.”

“Sword through the abdomen less than 24 hours ago and we’re back to normal mentally, better than I expected Y/N,” he says swiping through a screen showing her vitals. “So you two, in our tests afterwards checking on the baby we discovered something.”

“What’s wrong with our child?” Loki immediately asks, stiffening against Y/N.

“Nothing, nothing like that,” Strange dismisses him with a wave. “My nurse here just wanted to know if the two soon-to-be parents wanted to know whether they’re having a boy or a girl?”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 1      Part 2      Part 3       Part 4

Part 6    Part 7        Part 8

*Disclaimer from above, poem is by Thomas Hood, and read by Tom Hiddleston if you’re interested.

Tag List: Sorry if some didn’t tag properly, some were giving me issues :$ And hopefully I didn’t forget anyone. Thank you all of you for following this ❤️

@ihavenofilter @zombiefied-gay-ghost @talinalani @chloe-skywalker@shanetoo @shitty-imagines-95 @roryomxlley @afangirlamongotherthings@servamp-addict @moonfaery @thefallenbibliophilequote@arielletheavenger @lucacangettathisass @draconicyeet @i-love-loki-its-unhealthy @tokoyamisstuff @whennoonethinksyoucanyoumust @ximi27 @throughartistseyes  @islaylivesinshire  @starfox-92 @ink-and-starlight   @markusstraya @peacefulfall @maximofos @hiddlestoner3059 @theartsypoetess @heart-shaped-hell @twiling-lady @beaisahuntress  

[wolfboywarmachine]

shawn and i had a rly good conversation today about tommy livestreaming that turned into a mess set in our Self Indulgent Headcanon Verse

wixkaplan: y is tommy definitely one of those people who livestreams everything they do

mutantxagenda: He severely overestimates how interesting he/his commentary is like everyone who livestreams things

wixkaplan: tommy posts hours of footage of just him fuckig. sitting around eating cereal he's like "people LOVE ME" but half the audience is there bc he keeps accidentally getting family drama in the background

mutantxagenda: In that house I wager it’s more than half the time

wixkaplan: rictor makes an (unintentional) appearance and people lose their shit

mutantxagenda: Pietro would hate everything about that Not that he isn’t used to people having opinions about him, but stull Still*

wixkaplan: the suspicion is not helped when tommy's looking at the chat stream like "yes i know im very beautiful. 'who is-' oh, thats-" and billy goes TOMMYNO

mutantxagenda: There’s a sudden loud noise as billy knocks him out of his chair. The camera shows the ceiling for 45 solid seconds as they whisperfight just off screen

wixkaplan: the chat is going fucking batshit

mutantxagenda: Someone pay us to direct a marvel show

wixkaplan: tommy pops back up like "why are you guys freaking out he does this every day" @marvel: pls

mutantxagenda: Someone sees Rictor in the background walking into what they know is Pietro’s Room bc tommy has constantly pointed it out and said “we don’t go there, simba”

wixkaplan: FCK someones like THAT GUY WAS IN XFACTOR HES GAY and ppl are arguing over if they could possibly be right

mutantxagenda: Billy is literally sweating

wixkaplan: billy's like THIS IS FINE, IT'S NOTHING,  IT'S FINE chat: WHY HE LOOK LIKE THAT billy: 😨

mutantxagenda: Tommy is just like “THIS ISNT ABOUT PETE’S B-“ the screen goes black

wixkaplan: tommy doesn't stream again for three days

mutantxagenda: three seconds later tommy has sent a flurry of tweets @billy calling him 950 different names for hexing his camera

wixkaplan: hey guys. petey broke my phone so i had to get a new one. here i am"

mutantxagenda: LOL

wixkaplan: everyone's like coming up with conspiracy theories as to Why They Are Being So Shady billy's like "guys!!! really it's fine!!! nothing is going on it's fine!!!!"

mutantxagenda: Buzzfeed has an article the next day: Quicksilver, To Twink or not to Twink?

wixkaplan: @wiccan: i don't know why people are so obsessed with this we aren't hiding anything!!! everything is normal and good and fine they have a poll asking if ppl think pietro tops or not

mutantxagenda: The article is just a list of shady things from Tommy’s livestreams and one of Rictor’s regulars at the club who says he saw Pietro there several times LOL I feel like the poll would be 80/20 leaning hard toward no

wixkaplan: pietro would be so mad about that WHAT. why would they POSSIBLY - NO, I WON'T CALM DOWN

mutantxagenda: Billy tries frantically to tell him it doesn’t matter. “THEN WHY IS IT A QUESTION”

wixkaplan: billy has never been so stressed in his life not even when the world was getting fucking eaten by parasites rictor just thinks it's kinda funny but he tries to avoid saying so bc he knows how pissy pietro is already

mutantxagenda: Rictor is a fast learner

wixkaplan: he's like "clearly they don't know what they're talking about" but he has to do the hand over his face thing so he looks marginally less amused

mutantxagenda: Wanda is just like “I really don’t understand why this is so upsetting” and Pietro can’t explain but that makes him more mad Erik suddenly turns around from the armchair no one knew he was sitting in and says “Pietro believes it’s emasculating” then goes back to his book

wixkaplan: tommy posts a two minute video of pietro spluttering angrily while everyone stares at him

mutantxagenda: Erik is like hermione when she had the time turner and everyone was always like WHEN DID YOU GET HERE freaking out

wixkaplan: he gets like two million views in the first twenty minutes

mutantxagenda: tommy is just “I’M ACCEPTING SPONSORS” off to the side He keeps trying to get converse to send him free shoes

wixkaplan: billy's just sitting in the corner like 😨 buzzfeed article posted 15 minutes later: QUICKSILVER BOTTOMING CONFIRMED????

mutantxagenda: Pietro starts demanding to know where the buzzfeed offices are tommy is like “what’re you gonna do, fuck Rictor for proof?”

wixkaplan: rictor's like "please don't"

mutantxagenda: “You could release a sex tape everyone does that now”

wixkaplan: he's come to the realization that pietro's family knows WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT THEIR SEX LIFE and he's just sitting there like :|

mutantxagenda: Billy is like TOMMYSHUTUPIMBEGGINGYOU For a canonically distant and repressed family the headcanon Maximoffs are VERY close

wixkaplan: listen none of them can do middle ground

mutantxagenda: Very valid

wixkaplan: they record a video of pietro talking directly to the camera/buzzfeed but keep having to restart bc he starts making threats and billy's like PLEASE YOU CAN'T SAY THAT THEY WILL CALL THE POLICE "YOU THINK I'M AFRAID OF THE POLICE?"

mutantxagenda: Erik just chuckles in the background and billy gets a chill up his spine “The police won’t come here, William.”

wixkaplan: rictor's like 'what the fuck did i get myself into. what have i done.'

mutantxagenda: Someone has def asked him multiple times if the dick is rly that good To put up with all the rest of it

wixkaplan: "..." "..............................." "......................i'm not answering that" 

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Secret Santa, Ch. 1 of 4

Len really isn't the "Secret Santa" type. Hell, he's not really the Christmas type. But when Sara challenges him...well. Maybe this could be fun, after all...

I know I have other things to write, but I couldn't resist this. Original Team Legends (set in an extended season 1) and slow-burn CaptainCanary. Should be four chapters, done before Christmas! 

Many thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta! Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

It's Raymond who starts it, predictably.

And Leonard who, just as predictably, turns him down flat. He doesn't laugh in the inventor's face, not quite, but his distaste is clear, as is Ray's disappointment.

Leonard semi-expects Kendra or Jax to try and change his mind, or even Stein, in the name of team unity. He doesn't expect the person who finally does broach the subject.

"Playing Scrooge, huh?"

He lifts his eyes from the book in his hands—"A Tale of Two Cities," an old favorite found in the Waverider's library—and snorts. "Wrong Dickens," he tells Sara drily, turning a page. "But, no, I'm not really one for the whole 'Christmas cheer' sort of thing. Bad memories."

It's only a sign of the friendship that's grown up between the crook and the assassin that he even alludes to his background; god knows he wouldn't have mentioned it with any other member of the crew. (Even Mick, who knows anyway.) That friendship has only grown since the team dragged him out of the time stream following the Oculus explosion, since the defeat of Vandal Savage and the team-wide decision to stay with the Waverider, to protect history and try to save Rip's family.

And if they both still feel the possibility of "me and you" hanging over them, well, Len's not going to be the one to bring it up.

He's not quite sure how he'd had the nerve to do it in the first place.

Sara raises an eyebrow at him as she perches on the corner of his bed, completely at ease. They've been in and out of each other's quarters frequently over the past six months, and it's not like she hasn't been there before, after all, even if not quite in the way he'd like.

"A Waverider 'Secret Santa' is pretty harmless, I think," she tells him.

He blinks at her, then sits the book down, leans back against the wall and shakes his head. "Really? I didn't think he'd send you."

"No one sent me." Sara rolls her eyes and leans back next to him, her nearness raising the hairs on his arms, though not in an unpleasant way. "I just thought it might be fun."

"Fun?" Sara laughs at the distaste in his voice. "Trying to find little…tchotchkes…geared to someone like Raymond or the professor, to celebrate a holiday on a ship that's traveling through time and isn't even on the same timeline as…"

"Ray figured out how many days we've lived since Rip picked us up and that it'd be Christmas for us…"

"I know. He explained. At length." He snorts again at the memory of the other man's earnestness, almost smiling at Sara's chuckle at his words, turning his head to do one of his favorite things and watch her.

But Sara's looking at him through her lashes again, smiling a little, and it's the expression that very nearly stops his…OK, yeah, he does have a heart…in his chest. He loves that expression. He's loved it for a long time.

"If you don't do it, we don't have an even number," she says in a coaxing tone. "It won't work."

Leonard eyes her, wondering what she's thinking. "Mick won't do it anyway."

"But he is." She smiles at his expression. "Ray pointed out that booze is a common Secret Santa gift."

Yeah, that would do it. "Stein doesn't even celebrate Christmas."

"He says a gift exchange is a 'charming secular notion.' He's in."

"Rip…"

"Decided it was easier to play along than deal with Ray's puppy eyes and moping." Sara casually reaches out and threads her fingers through his, and the easy gesture makes him freeze, then draw a deep breath that he hopes Sara doesn't hear. (Even as he knows she does.) "Please?"

Please.

His head says no. His heart…

"OK."

Raymond is altogether too happy with that change of heart. Mick barks out a laugh, smirks at him, and then pointedly looks at Sara. Len ignores him, strolling over to lean against the counter in the galley, where they've agreed to meet. Sara walks over to lean next to him, shoulder brushing his again. Well, there's that.

"OK. I'm really glad you all uh, decided to take part!" Raymond claps his hands together and grins at them. Len meets Rip's eyes across the room—the captain is standing by the door—and the two men share a rare look of weary agreement. He feels Sara's shoulders shake in silent laughter next to him.

"I have all the names right here," Raymond continues, brandishing a bowl full of folded strips of paper. "So I guess we all just pick one. We have an even number after all…" He beams at Leonard, who rolls his eyes. "…so it works. If you pick your own name, put it back. Honor system!"

Sara elbows Leonard, who elbows her back. Kendra, standing by Mick, covers her mouth with a hand, stifling a laugh, but Len ignores her too, focusing on the bowl as Raymond hands it to Jax.

The kid shakes his head, but accepts it, taking a piece of paper and sitting the bowl down before unfolding it. He grins, but carefully doesn't look at any of them, nodding and passing the bowl to Stein, who takes a paper and checks it—his face briefly going blank—before passing the bowl on to Leonard.

The crook eyes the papers as if they're snakes, but finally takes one, hoping that he's drawn his own name. No honor among thieves, after all.

But no such luck. "Rip Hunter" is written neatly on the slip in Raymond's precise handwriting.

Peachy.

Still, he'd promised. Stifling a sigh, Len pockets the paper and passes the bowl to Sara, who stares at it intensely, hand hovering over it a moment before decisively selecting a paper.

There's a flash of a smile on her face before she carefully conceals it, the paper disappearing up a sleeve or to wherever assassins hide such things before she nods and hands the bowl to Kendra with a flourish.

He misses the next few selections, watching Sara, whose gaze has now turned inward. That means she's not watching him in return, and he can study her features to his heart's content, wondering whose name had caused that flash of happiness, what she's thinking about, what plans she has. He's only jarred out of those musings by Raymond, who takes the last paper, makes a pleased noise (his eyes flicking quickly to Stein and away, Len notices), and sets the bowl down.

"So, we have two weeks to Christmas," he starts to say.

"Dr. Palmer," Rip butts in, looking long-suffering as only the captain can, "I've told you, that's not really how it…"

Raymond ignores him. Well, Leonard can agree with that. "…you should give your Secret Santa two small gifts at some point leading up to Christmas Day," he continues. "And then a bigger one on the day itself. Well, that's how we did it at Palmer Industries, back in the day."

"Haircut," Mick rumbles, turning his paper around in his big hands and looking bemused, "how're we supposed to get gifts, in the time stream? Without just gettin' Gideon to make 'em, which seems to defeat the purpose."

Raymond blinks at him. Stein, of all people, nods. "I was wondering the same, Mr. Rory," the professor says, eyeing Raymond. "Are we supposed to barter? Steal?"

"I can do that," Mick offers, looking up. Sara elbows Len again. He elbows her back. Ignoring Kendra.

"No!" Raymond looks aghast. "Um. Well, we're bound to be out of the time stream soon, right? Fixing something?" He turns to give Rip a beseeching look, an expression the captain meets with resignation.

"I'm sure we will be, Dr. Palmer," he says drily. "But trust me when I tell you that people managed to find small gifts for their loved ones for years before the advent of the enormous online retailers so beloved of your native time. Or even of the so-calling 'shopping malls.'" His eyes grow distant a moment. "Yes, even in the poorest of times."

Hmm. Len files that away in what he's gleaned of the Time Master's background, but allows not a flicker of reaction to show on his own face. Instead he straightens out of his slouch with a theatrical roll of his eyes (he has an image to maintain, after all) and shakes his head.

"Well, this is fun and all," he drawls, taking a step toward the door (aware that he's ruining the effect somewhat by stopping to see if Sara is going to follow), "but I've done as much for…" A wave of his hand. "…team unity as I plan to do for the moment."

"But you have to…"

"I know, Raymond." OK, now Sara's moved away from the counter too. He continues for the door, ignoring the faint huff of laughter that tells him Mick's noticed that, too. (When did Mick start noticing these things? He's going to blame the other man's friendship with Kendra.)

Len's sauntering down the hallway (not too fast, mind you) when Sara catches up to him. They fall into step with each other with an ease born partly of fighting at each other's backs for nearly a year now, partly born of…of…

"Going to tell me who you picked?" she asks him teasingly while he's still trying to figure out where his thoughts were going.

"Thought they called this secret for a reason." He turns his head a little to smirk at her, pleased with the way her eyes are glinting at him. "I'm not just going to sing to the first pretty face that asks."

Sara chuckles, a low, amused sound. "Even if I ask…nicely?"

"Nice has nothing to do with it, Birdie," he retorts, making the…oh, call it what it is…pet name a purr and stopping to put his back against the wall of the hallway, folding his arms and facing her. "Why so curious?"

Sara looks innocent. Or tries. Badly. "Wondered what you thought of a wager."

Len narrows his eyes at her. He's really quite sure his poker face is better than anyone else's on the team—with the possible exception of Sara herself—but he also knows that he tends to give away more that he plans on around her. "What sort?"

She studies him a moment, face growing a little more serious, until he's shifting a little under her intent gaze, then smiles again. "Guess who picked who. Including your own Secret Santa."

The name makes him snort. "I already know a few." He eyes her. "And so do you."

Sara doesn't deny it. "But not all."

"But not all."

She tilts her head at him, nodding. "Well, whichever one of us guesses them all—correctly—first wins. It'll make things a little more…interesting." A grin. "Since otherwise both of us might just have enough with the whole thing and spoil all that 'holiday' spirit."

"That's a risk," he acknowledges, watching her closely. "But…if I win, what do I get?"

He's been trying to be good…in a manner of speaking…lately, trying to curtail the flirtation it seems neither of them can help. Still, the innuendo sneaks into the tone, into the words, and Sara certainly doesn't seem to mind. Instead, her smile grows a little and she takes a step toward him, then another, putting herself truly into his personal space again and even then leaning forward a little.

"I haven't decided yet," she tells him in that low, husky tone again. "Any ideas?"

Oh…

Len shifts a bit and thinks determinedly of ice.

… a few.

"Loser has to share all their gifts?" he comes up with after a moment. "Now, I don't know how good a prize that will be, given this lot, but…"

"That works." In a blink, Sara's stepped back, leaving him missing her warmth. "It's a deal, Crook. How will we know?"

"Hmm. Before the actual 'Christmas' shindig Raymond's planning, we both write the answers down and exchange them?" It definitely feels like she's got more up her sleeve than her knives, but what?

"Perfect." Sara nods decisively, turning down the hallway toward her room. "And may the best Legend win." With a wink, she disappears around the corner…

Leaving Leonard wondering what the hell he's just missed.

And just how much he's going to regret this.

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/applying-ai-to-bring-a-better-you-to-video-meetings-tech-buzz/

Applying AI to Bring a 'Better You' to Video Meetings | Tech Buzz

Last week had presentations from three of the significant processor companies, each planning to revolutionize the PC market. This revolution was an immense change from just a couple of years ago when everyone and their brother seemed to think that PCs were dead.

One of the few positive impacts from this pandemic is that PCs have nearly sold out everywhere, resulting in unprecedented demand for a class of products that had gone into decline as a result of insufficient marketing.

Let’s talk about improvements in how we appear on videoconferences this week, and we’ll close with my product of the week — the updated Ooler water-cooled mattress pad that’s been helping me sleep during this pandemic.

The Cause of the PC Decline

There is a common segment that I understand is in most college marketing programs and was undoubtedly in mine, which talks about the problem with marketing. That problem is that operational executives don’t understand it and will cut marketing costs to save money, not realizing that the lagging impact will be sharply reduced sales.

My lesson happened far earlier than in college, when I was a child speaking with my grandfather who was a CEO in the petrochemical industry. He told me the story of a train trip where William Wrigley Jr., the founder and CEO of the Wrigley Company (of chewing gum and candy fame), was riding with a young intern.

The Intern asked why Wrigley spent so much on marketing, given that his company was the segment leader, and sales were impressively high. Wrigley replied by asking “since the train was already traveling at 60 mph, why don’t they stop shoveling in coal because the train is going fast enough?” The answer is that the train will eventually run out of steam and stop, and that is exactly what happens in business.

Ironically, Wrigley, which was dominant when I was a child, is almost unknown today because the company stopped marketing. That’s what happened to the PC market.

In the 1990s, we had tech TV shows. The companies had commercials and were marketing heavily, ergo buyers were far more likely to prioritize buying a new PC. When the PC companies cut back on marketing to focus on price competition, the shows died, demand dwindled, and the result was a declining market which now has been revitalized by the pandemic.

However, without demand generation, this good news will turn bad because we’ve now saturated the market with new laptops — meaning it could be 5 to 8 years before the majority of folks want to replace them — unless the PC firms go back to creating and marketing compelling offers.

This problem isn’t an easy fix because, thanks to streaming, folks aren’t watching TV commercials as much as they used to, and Google and Facebook have made marketing and advertising far more difficult in terms of large-scale awareness. Although they have made it a ton easier to target, so done right this problem could be mitigated.

Last week, Qualcomm, Intel, and Nvidia may have showcased the way to do this by focusing much of their new offerings on making you look better; and looking better, because it’s connected to status, could be an excellent foundation for driving demand.

Qualcomm, Intel and Nvidia: Making You Feel Pretty

There is a song from the musical West Side Story called I Feel Pretty that’s running through my head right now. The fact is that people tend to judge us by our appearance, and for a lot of folks on calls, that appearance has degraded sharply this year. Wrinkled clothing, no makeup, partial beards, the hair on men down to their shoulders, and work locations that are sloppy, dingy, dark and unattractive are all everyday experiences in large Microsoft Teams and Zoom events (these two offerings are trending to become new standards).

Also, because of where the camera is situated on monitors and laptops, we never seem to be looking at the people to whom we are speaking. (In-screen cameras are on the way and will arrive on smartphones shortly, but haven’t been announced yet for PCs yet.)

These appearance degradations subtly or overtly devalue what colleagues think of us — from vendors, to co-workers, to managers and executives. This is undoubtedly changing our promotion and raise opportunities for the worse, and making us look unprofessional. While we don’t necessarily need to feel as pretty as Julie Andrews did in that linked song, our appearance does reflect on our confidence; and knowing we look our best should improve not only how others perceive our competence, but our own confidence as well.

All three vendors showcased technology that would improve how people see you. Nvidia seemed to go the farthest but has not yet focused all of their technology on the problem.

The 8cx platform from Qualcomm has a unique AI feature that adjusts your eyes in real time, so to the remote participant it appears that you are looking directly at them. It’s critically important to look people in the eye. I trained in negotiation, and one of the rules is that you want to look people in the eye to be taken as sincere; if you aren’t doing that, you appear untrustworthy. Our current camera placement makes it almost impossible to look someone in the eye, and athat subtly makes people mistrust you as a result.

Qualcomm also had sound improvements that should make it easier for the parties to understand each other. It’s interesting to note that Qualcomm’s approach is focused on helping you hear better, while the others are focused on helping others better hear you.

Intel, with its Tiger Lake and Evo platforms, is integrating artificial backgrounds into their solution, along with vastly improved noise cancellation which eliminates the annoying sounds that tend to drift into meetings from home offices. This combination should make you appear more professional during these meetings; and as the technology advances, may convince buyers to cycle their PCs faster and thus help prevent another sharp decline in future sales.

Nvidia had a similar approach to Intel with its powerful GeForce RTX 30 launch. The company packaged its solution under a Broadcast app designed to not only help with video calls, but to assist podcasts, and capabilities that allow your camera to track you better so that your head stays in the center of the frame — which should help manifest professionalism during video conference calls.

But where Nvidia potentially took it to the next level is Omniverse Machinima, where you can use game assets to create a movie and automatically animate digital avatars. If this technology were applied, which I expect it eventually will be, you could create 3D scans of yourself dressed for business, and then use your camera to sync them with your body. Then you’d never again have to dress, put on makeup, or even get out of bed for a meeting — while still appearing well dressed and groomed.

Personal Presentation the New Battleground

I do not doubt that Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm will not only continue to advance their technologies to make you look better on video calls, but they will emulate each other’s tech features to create parity.

For now, on paper, Nvidia is out in front. But this is anyone’s race, and since appearance is essential to all of us, this could be a race that returns faster churn to the PC market to create an arms race on virtual physical improvements. It also suggests that, once this matures, there will be a ton of folks who you’ll be unable to talk into coming back to the office because their actual appearance will have significantly drifted from what you’ve seen on the screen.

Lastly, a related aside: Video dating will increasingly lead to in-person disappointment. Though, I think it would be fun to create a 3D avatar of my 23-pound Maine Coon cat and have him virtually attend meetings with my voice. At my age, I’m more interested in having fun than getting that next promotion.

I’ve made the chiliPAD and its follow-on the Ooler (around US$699 for one person, $1,399 to 1,499 for two) my product of the week a few times now. But one of the problems has been the pad, which tends to stain and is hard to clean. It also didn’t breathe well, resulting in it being hot when the Ooler wasn’t on.

Well, the folks at Chili Technology just did a partial refresh and sent me the new pad. It is incredible in that while it still has one side similar to the old pad, if you flip it, the other side resists stains and breaths far better. So if you, like me, tend to be hot at night, it’s more effective at lowering how warm you feel.

OOLER Sleep System

One of the things I like about the Ooler (costs about $200 more than the chiliPAD) over the chiliPAD is that you can set a script where it’s cool at night but toasty in the morning, so you wake up to being warm rather than an alarm.

I like to sleep with the window open at night, and, even on a warm night, the Ooler makes this possible. It uses water as the heat transfer mechanism, similar to how race drivers and astronauts cool their suits. I should point out that you need to use distilled water, or the minerals in the water will build up in the system and cause it to fail.

The new pad is an excellent improvement to the Ooler, so I thought I’d refresh it as my product of the week. Oh, and as a side note, it is kind of cool that my gaming systems and my bed are both water-cooled.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.

Rob Enderle has been an ECT News Network columnist since 2003. His areas of interest include AI, autonomous driving, drones, personal technology, emerging technology, regulation, litigation, M&E, and technology in politics. He has an MBA in human resources, marketing and computer science. He is also a certified management accountant. Enderle currently is president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, a consultancy that serves the technology industry. He formerly served as a senior research fellow at Giga Information Group and Forrester. Email Rob.

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